#i realize the follower and like count is way unrealistically low now that i checked but shhh

[its-tortle]

barbershop quartet instagram profiles

[izabellq]

DREAMS -> Akaashi Keiji

summary: a soulmate au where you see each other in your dreams.

pairing: akaashi keiji x gn!reader

word count: 3k

contains: angst, fluff, open-ended (also, if you guys spot instances where i specify gender, let me know and i’ll try to fix it asap! i edited this but sometimes, things just slip by)

akaashi keiji thinks the world is cruel.

he swipes the dust off the leather bound book before carefully sliding it back into it’s alphabetized slot. he carefully maneuvers himself around the oak wooden shelves, letting his feet track footprints into the burgundy rug below him. with a sigh, he realizes he is yet again desolated. a library reverie dedicated solely to himself and his predestined soulmate. yet, it seemed the universe had yet chosen one quintessential for him. akaashi didn’t need perfect, but on some days, he just wanted to have someone.

the macrocosm was seemingly convinced he was unfit to wield one. strung on the idea that he was intolerable and unmatchable. akaashi’s pessimistic attitude had betrayed his hopeful one, and soon, he was unable to shield himself from the knowledge that perhaps-- there was no one in the world meant for him.

(he still desires one, because he’d love nothing more than to connect with the person who he was bound to meet. he wants to depict their love in unrealistic fairytales.)

nights go by where he falls asleep and lounges in his fantastical library. he decides he could write a book with all the time he has to himself. but then again, he knows better than anyone that most of his projects remain unfinished. he’s lost inspiration, captured by the nasty talons of writer’s block. he thinks he’s at the end of his rope, and for a second he believes it’s about time he goes down a different career path. but he doesn’t do that. mostly because he’s unsure, and partially because he’s still filled with hope.

(but when his soulmate never shows, he comes to realize that hope is a fickle thing.)

it's one random day of the week where akaashi’s schedule isn’t as rigid as it habitually is. after a long afternoon of practice (which doesn’t stray from the norm) he’s desperate for sleep, and despite knowing that taking a nap would complicate his circadian rhythm, he was rather desperate.

drifting towards the soulmate reality became a feat he was more than used too. the vertigo he commonly experienced was quick to depart as he molded into his surroundings, the familiar scent of paper musk and printed ink leaves much to be desired.

though, if there was one thing that was slightly unsettling— it was the disruption of books laid despotic on the floor. akaashi, though only sometimes forgetful, had never once committed such a polluted act. he was always careful to restore books to their proper position once concluded, so he wondered what possible entity could have disrupted the neat nature of his lonesome library.

(it’s when you round the corner that all his presumptions were answered.)

oh dear, he thinks, you’re a winsome mess. books pulled into your chest, pajama pants folded past your ankle, a tank top only doing so much as to cover your chest and stomach. your mouth is shaped into an ‘o’ as if his presence was the most stupefying thing around— when really, it was you. 

(a book slips from your grasp, a reverberation follows shortly. he tries not to wince as it lands on its pages, folding the corner of the paper.)

the moment of shock is lost and your look of astonishment is replaced with mild skepticism. “who are you?” you ask, almost defiantly. 

“akaashi,” he replies honestly, though the look on your face seems to morph in some sort of revelation that he can’t understand. 

“say it again,” the stern tone of your voice lets him know that it wasn’t a mere request but a demand. he isn’t quite sure why you’re so on edge but because he already seems like the most rational one between the two of you, he doesn’t argue.

“my name is akaashi keiji,” he repeats himself, his concern only multiplied by the sting of comprehension creased into the sight wrinkles of your face. a part of him truly understands the circumstance before him, though a portion of him doesn’t want to give into the naïveté— because for so long, he was cursed with the belief that he didn’t deserve a soulmate. 

“your words keep getting… blurred,” you tried your best to explain, though no matter how detailed your explanation, the experience couldn’t be put into perfect words. “you know what that means… don’t you?”

of course he knows. on days where he thought his life was the one exception— he researched every story about soulmates as he possibly could. some were undoubtedly fake, others were heartwarming, but the one common piece of information he stumbled upon was that soulmates couldn’t hear personal information about the other whilst in their dream world. perhaps to prevent early encounters or just to make the process seemingly endless; either way, akaashi was well aware.

“i didn’t think i had a soulmate,” he lets his guard down decently low, though the flutter in his heart alerts him that it’s all going to come crashing down eventually. 

“neither did i,” you admit, placing down the books wrapped in your arms onto the floor. he wants to question what you could possibly be doing, but there’s more alarming inquiries he needs answers too.

good thing you seem just as eager to figure out why today was any different. “did you do anything today that might’ve been different from your usual routine? i went to bed at eleven… which isn’t any different from any other day.”

that’s when it hit akaashi— the answer was so obvious. “we live in different time zones. that’s the only reason i can think of…”

he trailed off, having been caught in the most frustrating loop of incredulity. all this time… you were right there… so close yet so far. the only thing that had separated his years of getting to know you was a different sleep schedule. in due time, he may look back at this incident and laugh— but right now, he felt cheated out of the most basic human experience ever.

(like a story, this was only the rising action— or perhaps the exposition, because this was truly the start of something new.)

he wants to speak, to reach out and connect with you in all the ways he’s only wished to do, but your harmonious laugh distracts him from his thoughts. “i never understood why my soulmate reality was a library. i guess that’s because of you, right?”

he doesn’t understand your change in personality in the same way he can’t tell when bokuto’s in a bad mood until it’s happening right before his eyes (though others would beg to differ). he’s desperate to learn everything there was to know about you— most importantly, your name. It’s the only thing he wants to know.

instead, he settles on, “what are you doing with those books?” 

it’s obvious you weren’t expecting that question, but then again, how was akaashi supposed to ignore the books you're defiling by simply letting them scatter on the floor? 

with a shy giggle, you respond, “well… since i thought i was alone, i was going to make a huge fort with them… ya know, cause i'm not much of a reader.”

from the red tint of your cheeks to the way your head was slightly tilted to the left was surefire proof of your discombobulation. and to akaashi, it seemed to hold such a power over him that he was unable to keep check his usual deportments. screw etiquette! this wasn’t even reality! 

“i’ll help you build one,” he offers, picking up a book from the ground. he runs his thumb over the edges, smoothly out the wrinkles that had surfaced. 

your head perks up, an opulent grin painting the once grimace. “really?!”

(for a smile like yours, he’d do just about anything to safeguard it’s fluoresce.)

back in the real world, all day his thoughts are occupied with you. you exist, your real, somewhere out in the world, your waiting for him. it’s a condolement he’s not willing to gamble with. he finds himself wanting to take more naps, just for the chance to indulge in another conversation with you. of course, it meant the eye bags under his eyes had sunken into a deeper shade— not noticeable to anyone that wasn’t him, and considering the effect it had on his everyday appearance, he’s come to the conclusion that it’d be nearly impossible to visit you every day of the week. it wouldn’t stop him from trying though.

from the side of the volleyball court, kuroo nudges bokuto skeptically. “what’s with that look on akaashi’s face… it’s starting to freak me out.”

bokuto hums— in approval? in contempt? who knows, but he’s happy. “he told me he finally met his soulmate. he’s just excited!”

“ah,” kuroo clicks his tongue knowingly, “i thought he didn’t have one?”

“turns out, they just go to sleep and wake up at different times. konoha thought it was pretty funny,” bokuto relayed, a chuckle bubbling under his throat. for so long, he had witnessed akaashi’s self-doubt and insecurity, and while parts of them still existed, it seemed to be slowly resolving itself. he couldn’t be more happier for his best friend.

“well, tell him to start focusing, i want to beat you guys when you’re at your best,” kuroo smirked, narrowing his gaze onto bokuto.

“you’re so on!”

(for the rest of practice, they had to endure akaashi’s love-sick gaze. fukurōdani still won.)

a month had passed since your very first interaction together. getting to know each other was more laborious than first intended. some words remained blurred, preventing the other from learning anything that might accelerate the rate of introduction in the real world. akaashi just wanted to know your name. it’s how he came to learn that while the universe was giving, it was also relentless.

“hey! i've been waiting for you, you know! i want to show you something!” you call from under the makeshift book fort. having just arrived, he knows from this point on, he has around thirty minutes before he’s awoken for dinner. 

thirty minutes, four times a week— the only times he’s ever been able to talk to you, due to the tight schedule you both live in. it’s too little, too small, and he feels selfish for wanting more. 

crawling under the fort, he pushed himself up to the side, wanting to give you as much room as possible in the cramped spot. in your hands, you have a book— it’s thin, meant for children, pages that combine to tell a moral. when you hand it over, it takes him less than a second to deduce the story and it’s plot. not because he’s some genius who had read every book on the face of the earth but because this story was rather popular in other parts of the world.

“sleeping beauty,” he reads aloud. his fingers run over the cover, trying to mentally depict what could be so important about this story that had you desperately trying to show him.

“it’s one of my favorite stories,” you sigh, propping your elbow on top of your thigh, leaning the weight of your face on your dominant hand. “my grandma used to read it to me all the time.”

oh. oh. you’re not asking what he thinks you're asking? right?

“can you read it to me, please?”

you are asking. his heart beats against the tightness of his chest, his ribs feel a tad out of place. and he knows— soulmates or not, he was utterly and completely yours. his cheeks flame and he attempts to hide it under his shirt.

“are you blushing?” you ask, and he can practically feel the teasing grin on your lips.

“no,” he mutters. 

you shuffle from your spot and coincidentally; tower over him. your hands and legs trap his body under your presence. you’d practically be touching him if the soulmate reality allowed you too. akaashi finds that to be the greatest travesty of them all. even though it’s practically impossible, he can feel your warmth radiate around him as if you were actually there. 

“does that mean you’ll read to me?” you ask, the battering of your eyelashes ever so visible. he doesn’t understand how you came to that conclusion, but it only tells him you knew exactly how’d he’d answer before he did.

“i’ll read it to you… just don’t laugh, okay?” akaashi opened the book, flipping the white picture-pages until he had reached the first chapter. you giggle, obeying his request with much hypocritism. you moved to sit beside him, leaning just a bit aways over his shoulder to follow along.

(akaashi isn’t a prince, but he’s more than willing to be yours if you asked.)

“i’m moving… so who knows? maybe we might meet in person one of these days,” you declare. It’s been an entire year now since he’s met you and it’s safe to say he’s utterly whipped. now in his second year of high school, he thinks he’s gotten to know you well enough to the point where the only thing left to learn is your name. 

(what’s your name??)

“you’re moving? above or below the equator?” he jokes.

luckily, you laugh-- knowing that there really isn’t much you can say without your words becoming a blurred mess. “i’m still above the equator, loser. actually, if we’re going to get really specific— i’d say the northern hemisphere.”

you guys laugh at your puny attempt of a joke. really, you know it meant no difference, and the fact that you can only rely on fate to carry you through is pitying to say the least.

“i can’t wait to meet you,” akaashi declares honestly, pulling on his fingers in habit. he wants to say more, anything that remotely rhymes with i love you, but he wants to save that special moment for the day he meets you. he knows more than anything that you’re waiting for the same.

“i can’t wait either— honestly, i think my mom might be more excited than i am. i talk about you all the time, you know?” you softly lean against your book fort, your eyes as happy looking as your smile.

(yeah, it’s safe to say he can’t wait.)

akaashi and writer’s block do not coexist peacefully. 

struggling to find words to replace the repetition created on pages, desperately searching for a means of inspiration-- he’s awfully close to giving up.

with a huge essay due tomorrow and a huge game he can’t afford to lose on the same day, he stresses over the fact that he may not be able to put his one-hundred-percent effort into both. even in the middle of a library (he should note: in the real world), a place where solitude was absolute, it provided no peace of mind.

it’s only when a small child, no older than five, wobbles out of the kid’s section with a copy of sleeping beauty, that akaashi’s reminded of you. with a small smile, he calms himself down. after all, you are his greatest muse.

(you’d probably laugh in his face if he told you that.)

after moving away from your hometown, which wasn’t quite as jarring as you expected it to be, you were quick to make friends. you wouldn’t call yourself a social butterfly— but contrary to most teen dramas, new students weren’t ‘fresh meat’ ready for the picking. finding a comfortable group of people you could associate yourself with, you found that most of them were volleyball fanatics (not because they actually played the sport, but because there were a lot of cute boys on the teams around the area, or so they say). either way, going to one of the games was inevitable. like a sort of inauguration you had to go through if you truly wanted to be considered part of the group.

you wouldn’t have it any other way.

after all, akaashi plays volleyball— that much you knew. the team name couldn’t be said, but at least you knew the sport he associated himself with. although he wouldn’t admit it, he was good, his team was good; after all, they made it to nationals and that was more than enough substantial proof. and while you didn’t want to get your hopes up, you were going to watch the national matches. you wondered… could this be the day?

walking up to the main arena, there was a certain ponderosity in the air that you couldn’t describe. it was as if a crushing truth was about to fall on your shoulders, and not knowing where it was about to fall from— you felt a crawling chill.

at the same time, akaashi had just finished the first game of the nationals match, split between wanting to rest or attend to bokuto’s high spirits. he’s attempting to walk into the main arena to watch the karasuno vs inarizaki match, but with his team basically surrounding him in their own attempts to make their way through— he deems the effort fruitless. 

just as he approaches the door, so do you.

but you're too busy keeping up with your friends.

and he’s too busy trying to squeeze past a ranting bokuto.

your hands graze each other’s, and simultaneously, you both receive a shock that runs down the basis of your spines. something prompted him to search for the cause of the odd feeling, and in that moment, he finds you. your back is faced towards him, your hair made no difference in the immediate recognition process-- but he’s sure that he’s met you before. he just knows it. the answer is on the tip of his tongue, a fraction of a second away from being revealed. 

he watches as your friends wait up for you, before your social circle turns around the corner and disappears from his sight (he gets hit with a strong sense of nostalgia from that). his heart stings, for reasons he can’t quite place. he’s never been too good at distinguishing his feelings anyways. bokuto is ushering him towards the stadium seating area, and the answer once on akaashi’s mind had dissipated into the air.

once he turns the corner, the moment is forgotten.

it’s only when he falls asleep later that night, not having dreamed of you, that it dawns on him.

akaashi keiji thinks the world is cruel.

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[nitannichionne]

If He Was YOUR Fan Chapter 19: The Cavill Challenge (Henry Cavill Fan Fic)

CHAPTER 19: The Cavill Challenge

                                          You are waiting. You didn’t go to the Durrell challenge, even though Henry asked you to over and over. You hadn’t trained for it, and you just weren’t ready for a 13K run. And then, in a public social setting for the first time was something you weren’t ready for. You couldn’t tell him that for some reason. People had seen you around town, but not necessarily together. You went shopped with Stella, even hit the pub once with her:

“Who’s your friend?” a man asked Stella one weeknight. When Stella shook her head, he turned to you. “What’s your name?”

“Piss off, Lars,” Stuart warns.

“Ah, come on, a name, if only to say hello?”

You glance at the good looking man, noting his size and good looks, but say, “Taken.” You turn back to your drink.

“Ah, like your friend, Hannah?” he asks, looking at you both. “Mentally dating Henry Cavill or something?” He laughs. “Hey, Archer! This one says her name is Taken.”

“She truly is,” Archer nods, his arm curling around Hannah. Her eyes harden at you, but you are grateful that neither tell more than they should.

“If Archer can’t be a nice consolation, why can’t I, love?”

You sigh. You pull out your phone and start paying attention to it. You check messages. You expect none from Henry; he was probably fast asleep. You feel like this is a mistake now. You went out with two couples and even though Stuart and Stella assured you wouldn’t, you feel like fifth wheel.

You look around Henry’s home: You bought a mat to go in front of the fireplace. You have lavender lotion at the ready. You bought Egyptian cotton sheets for his bed, determined to make up for your disappointing him for not coming to the Durrell Challenge run. Your phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?”

You recognize Stella’s voice. “Stella?”

“Everyone knows that Henry’s going to a pub at the end of his race,” Stella whispers. “It looks like every girl in the town is here!”

Your breath hitches. “There can’t be many—”

“Does there have to be?”

The line clicks off, and you feel a panic. You trust Henry right now, but is it too early in the relationship to when he has so many options? He went out with an actress for twelve days once. You more than beat that record, but…?

You tense...right now, you shake your head at your own thoughts. You should be there to show support of what he believes in. You realize your needing more time to adjust to a public eye, even a small one like a town near the movie set, might be unrealistic and selfish. There will be more eyes from here on out, you deduce. This is as good as a springboard as any. This could mark the sunrise of your time as Henry’s lady friend, and let’s face it, you wanted to stay private so that when he tired of you, your heartbreak could be the same as it set.

What if it doesn’t? What if it does because of this decision?

You take a breath. If he was any other guy, you knew you’d meet him at the finish. Chastising yourself for your mistake, you run to the mirror. Ugh, not like this!

You look into your backpack and the athletic bag left at Henry’s, biting your lip as you pull together an outfit: A teal sports bra top, black leggings and a black form-fitting jacket that accents your curves. You do your facial treatment, determined not to wear makeup, looking fresh faced, and then apply mascara and lip gloss for good measure. Eyes and lips matter on stage, and everywhere else for that matter. After pulling your ponytail through the back of your baseball cap, you walk outside and grab your mountain bike, looking at Henry’s. He bought one, saying he would ride with you one day, but not as of yet.

You load your leg pack, fill and put on a Camelback pack and take off. This is an ten mile ride. He’s running and then stopping at the pub miles from there. You have to move it! You put your earpiece in. “Call Stella.”

“Calling Stella.”

You wait as the line rings.

“Hey!”

“Where is he?”

“I hear he is less than halfway,” she says in a low voice. She listens to your breathing. “Where are you?”

“On my way,” you pant softly.

“You’re biking, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“You brought your headlights, right?”

“It’s broad daylight, but yes, Stella, I did.” You steer to the right, letting cars go by. “Don’t tell him I’m coming, alright?”

“Alright.”

You click off, and increase speed.

An small SUV goes by and you swerve, going off the road and purposely falling into the bushes to avoid rolling and falling into trees below at the bottom of a small ravine. You have cycled in snow and rain and wind and it pays off, only feeling a little bumped, maybe bruised. You try to see the license plate as you walk your bike back on the road but it is gone by the time you think to even do it, a bit unsettled by the near accident. Time passes and you see the town square opening up to you. It’s not very big, but big enough. You see quite a few SUVs parked, and they all look the same. It dawns on you that these are rentals and probably from the movie set. Could someone have tried to hit you?

You see Henry’s truck parked and go to it. You hitch your bike to a sign post and walk to the pub door. You take a deep breath and try to smooth yourself over. You can’t look all that together after a ten to twelve mile ride, but you made it. You nod respectfully to the man at the door who opens it and step inside.

You scan the place. He’s not there! You hear your name called and see Stella waving you over frantically. You speed over to her.

“He’s running at a park near here,” Stella says softly. “Cindy says his finish line is not in town, but four miles away.” She holds her phone and shows you where it is. “He met others here and they all drove to the start. You might not make it—”

You aren’t listening. You’re gone.

You hop on your bike, put the name of the place in your phone and hit the road again, this time putting the rubber drinking tube in your mouth to get water from your pack since you didn’t drink anything at the bar. You are solidly counting on Cindy’s information and the Google Map God. You take a cleansing breath and push on. You put on music as you listen to the English Siri tell you what to do.

You bike a trail in the natural park as you reach it, and your memory sparks at what you see before you in Instagram photos. You are in the right place, and this fuels you. Now that you know, the posts and the trail map are your best friends. Deductive reasoning tells you which paths to take, as there are a few turns, but you are making it.

Finally you reach a clearing, and you see Henry and security as well as a few people from work all laughing and smiling, drinking water in the distance. You stop short, watching him. You said you weren’t going and now you’re here?! How will he take that?! You use your time to catch your breath, unsure what to do, and insanely contemplating turning around as he takes a selfie of himself and Kal.

Henry calls your name. You stand still, gripping your handlebars and smile, but your stomach is doing flip flops while your heart is in your throat. What a time to reconsider—

“You came?!” He is grinning. “Oh my God, you came!” He starts toward you with Kal trailing behind and you walk your bicycle to meet him. “You biked here?”

“Knee injury, don’t run anymore, I told you,” you pant, tapping your knee which is in a brace. “but I wanted to be here to support you, being by yourself, but you’re not by yourself—” He smiles and you feel heat creep up your cheeks, taking a deep breath as your mouth goes dry. “I just wanted to be there for you.” That sounds stupid, all of a sudden. The man is fully confident and able to do whatever he wants whenever he pleases. “That sounds crazy, doesn’t—” He shuts you up with a kiss and you feel his arms encircle you as yours settle on his shoulders.

“Thanks for wanting to support me,” he says softly, his voice taking on that purr that just makes your knees go weak. His hand cradles your face as his thumb caresses your cheekbone. He looks down again  rocking your body with his hips, which seem to be naturally aligning with yours. “You biked here?!”

“Yeah!” you laugh happily. “I used to bike all the time back home, good way to integrate exercise into the day.

“On these roads?!” He frowns. “That’s not easy.”

“It’s not that hard,” You retort, knowing you’d do it again for the warmth you’re feeling from him now.

He takes your bike and steers it with one hand, holding yours with the other and guides you toward his running party.

“So did you do this on purpose?” he asks. “Surprise me, I mean.”

“Actually, no,” you shrug. “I was setting up a nice spa night at your place—”

“Spa?!” he repeats with a raise of his eyebrow. “Spa? Like massage and bath?”

“I was about to make you something to eat when I changed my mind,“ You say apologetically. “but it can wait, I can make—”

“We’ll have a drink and some supper,” he says quickly. “then head back.”

“I thought—”

“Now I’m the one who can’t wait,” his says softly, his blue eyes changing to a shade that takes your breath away. He makes introductions to people you have seen and were never introduced to, his arm going around you as a warming symbol of his affection and protection. Everyone seems friendly enough and you wonder what you were worrying about.

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Looking forward to hearing from you! Enjoy and feel free to check out my master lists for my other Cavill fan fic stories!

[romansleftshoulderpad]

A Curse is a Dream Your Heart Makes

HUUUUGE Huge thank you to @max-is-tired for being my wonderful beta and also for them and @justcallmepancake for listening to my constant rambling about this!

Ships: Prinxiety, and just about every combination of Logan and Patton being fathers.

Tags: @fandermom @my-analogical-romance @patchworkofstars @jynxlovesluck @notveryglittery

Warnings: Swearing, curses, Deceit (character) both sympathetic and as a villain, Temporary major character death, caps lock. OP might have missed cleaning up a few of /these guys/

Word count: 19,226

----

Roman wasn’t exactly in his room when he woke up. In fact, he didn’t know if he was anywhere, exactly. He wasn’t even sure he woke up. The walls around him looked flat, but outside the window were plenty of layers and dimensions. He was surely dreaming, wasn’t he? He pinched his arm, slightly alarmed to actually feel pain. He looked down at his arm. It was smooth. Too smooth. Unrealistically smooth. Hold on...

If there was one thing Roman excelled at, it was being the resident Disney Trivia master. So if theoretically, he were to wake up inside of a Disney movie, he’d know. And he knew. The only question was: Why?

Okay ‘why’ didn’t matter. He was in a Disney movie, for heaven’s sake! He was going to have some fun with it. He explored his castle to find the nearest stable and set off the follow through with this adventure.

It was a bright and sunny day as Roman rode along. He could have spent hours just enjoying the views, but he had to be The Prince, and when he saw the familiar cobblestone of an old grey castle he knew he was searching in the right direction.

The echo of a soft voice singing to oneself confirmed that Roman was headed in the right direction. He drew closer to a cobblestone wall and leapt off of his high horse. There were enough cracks and gaps between the stone to be able to climb it. Oh, the voice he heard was so lovely and enchanting as it echoed from the old wishing well that Roman knew so well- he had seen this movie a thousand times after all.

He pulled himself to the top of the wall and nearly fell off when he saw the man singing into it. His old black pants were torn and dusty, with an old white blouse tucked into them. He was gorgeous, but that wasn’t the problem. Gorgeous with the voice of an angel, yes, but he was-

“Virgil?!” Roman yelled, promptly falling off of the fucking wall and landing on his chest like an aloof moron.

Virgil jumped away from the wishing well, frozen for a moment as Roman scrambled off of the ground. “How do you know my name?!” Virgil asked.

“Hmm?” Roman asked, totally blanking. Virgil didn’t recognize him? How could he not? Roman had checked the mirror before leaving, and he definitely still looked like himself. Maybe Virgil was just playing the part! That was likely! At least, Roman thought it was likely until he met the other boy’s eyes. Virgil was shaking, terrified even! He definitely had no idea who Roman was.

“Why you’re Prince Virgil, of course!” Roman said, trying to hold his bluff as best as he could. It was then that he realized that not everything was perfectly scripted, was it?

“Oh,” Virgil said, “right.” The silence hurt in a way that could rival any fight they’ve had in the past. 

Assuming this was the same Virgil, at least.

“I suppose proper introductions are in order,” Roman said. He bowed dramatically, extending his hands so that his blue cape shook around him. The real Virgil always claimed to hate when he did this. “Prince Roman, at your service.”

Virgil hesitantly bowed in response. “Well, Prince Roman, I really must go. Chores and such.”

“Wait, Vir- Prince Virgil-!” he called out, but his attempts proved fruitless. Virgil was already rushing inside of the castle.

So what was a confused Roman to do to both follow the script and force the villain here to unveil themselves? Sing, of course. “One song,” he started softly. “I have but one song.”

He could see Virgil pause in front of a glass window. “One song, only for you.” Virgil disappeared again, presumably rushing off to the balcony with its iconic red curtains.

“One heart,” Roman projected, “tenderly beating! Ever entreating; constant and true.” His eyes shifted to where the evil queen should appear any second now. Virgil peaked through a curtain. Right. That’s what he was doing. “One love that has possessed me. One love thrilling me through.”

Virgil looked down from the balcony at the ridiculous prince in a ridiculously flowery cape with ridiculous boots that didn’t even look practical. This ridiculous prince that he couldn’t take his eyes off of, almost as if he were under a spell. “One song,” the prince continued, “my heart keeps singing of one love only for you.” Virgil smiled at the prince before disappearing back into the castle. His stepmother would never approve of him, but what she didn’t know couldn’t kill anyone.

Roman spent the next few hours making up for what he considered lost time. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was an animated miracle in 1937, Roman could never give up the chance to explore everything he could. Besides, The Prince hardly played a role in this movie anyway, he’d have days to just unwind and explore.

It was when he saw Patton covered in blood that he decided to make a quick stop. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Patton looked to him, fear, terror, and regret filled his eyes. “The prince,” he mumbled. “The- the prince.”

“What about the prince?” Roman asked, looking down at Patton. He had never seen him this scared before, and the blood splashed across his dull, brown clothing was truly a horrific sight to behold.

“He- he- he,” Patton’s breath was shaky as he tried to stabilize it.

Roman dismounted from his horse yet again and put a hand on Patton’s shoulder. “You look like you need a drink, sir, would you care to join me for one?”

Patton looked around, his eyes darting all across the forest that seemed to be growing dimmer, deeper, and creepier by the second. “I’m not sure that anywhere would be safe.”

“Come to my castle,” Roman said, “we’ll both be safe there and you can tell me anything you must get off your chest. I won’t tell a soul.”

Patton sighed and nodded his head pleadingly, allowing the prince to lift him onto the horse. They both knew it’d be a long- but needed- conversation.

Upon arriving at the castle, Roman ordered a servant to fetch Patton some clean clothes as he poured two chalices of wine. Chalices? Okay maybe being stuck in a film had some benefits after all.

“Now, tell me what’s troubling you, Patton,” Roman said, pushing a cup towards the hunter.

“How do you know my name?” Patton asked. Roman really needed to fucking learn to stop saying people’s names when they didn’t have a clue who he was.

“Lucky guess,” Roman said, and apparently that was enough of an explanation for Patton. “What’s wrong?”

“The Queen,” he said softly, still rather paranoid that she might overhear, “gave me special orders to kill her stepson- Prince Virgil.”

“The prince is dead?”

“No,” Patton said, shaking his head, “but I had to kill something in his place to keep the queen satiated, at least for a little while.” The breath he realized was frail and shaky, as he concentrated on his bloodstained hands and the chalice that he held. “I fear what might become of me when the queen finds out.”

“You’ll be alright,” Roman said, reassuringly putting a hand on Patton’s arm. “I assure you, I swear on my life, I shall not let her harm you.”

“I couldn’t possibly ask you to risk your life for me.”

“Your story will have a happy ending,” Roman said, “trust me.”

As days and nights passed, Roman would soon learn that being stuck in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is rather boring for anyone who isn’t Snow White. Although, knowing Virgil, he was sure that being chased through the woods by a knife-wielding Patton wasn’t exactly a picnic either. Still, it’d be nice to know where the story was headed, and he had seen the movie enough times to know where the cottage was. Surely it couldn’t hurt to keep the timeline in order a little bit.

He approached the cottage slowly, peeking in through an old glass window (like a fucking stalker but go off I guess) and watched as a familiar scene came to life. Virgil, dressed now in bolder colors and cleaner clothes, dancing and laughing with seven dwarfs. Roman couldn’t even fathom a time that he had ever seen Virgil this carefree before. True, it wasn’t actually the Virgil that he knew, but it was nice to pretend that it was.  

When he saw Dopey glance his way, the prince ducked below the window, hoping to not flip the script more than he already had. He stayed behind the window a bit longer, hoping to make an escape plan, but something held him back. Something, a deep, desperate longing to hear what comes next weighed in his chest until it was too heavy to remove himself from where he sat by the window.

A hushed conversation as the dwarfs’ music ended, but the familiar instrumental started up in Roman’s head as if he were imagining it. It was Virgil’s voice, soft and low, as he began to sing, “Someday my prince will come...”

Oh, he really did sing like an angel. Perhaps this was a dream, a very weird dream, after falling asleep during Snow White, but at this point, Roman didn’t want to wake up. He wanted to listen to the wondrous sound of Virgil’s voice as the sky grew darker and dimmer. His eyelids grew heavy until he fell sound asleep.

Falling asleep was a bad idea, especially when you have an impatient horse to take care of. Oh, it’s also a bad idea to fall asleep while offscreen in a film where your character spends quite a long time being unneeded to the plot as side effects may include being asleep for several days. Yes, this dumbass prince actually fell asleep outside against a house for two days.

He stretched out his sore back, glancing towards the window once more to find the cottage completely empty. “I’m sorry, Destiny,” he said, petting the horse gently, “let’s get you back home and I’ll feed you extra carrots, alright?” He mounted Destiny and began riding off towards the castle, but strangely, slowed down, headed towards a trail of fallen apples. Roman tried to steer the horse away, knowing damn well those apples were poisoned. “Let’s go, Destiny, we need to make a stop before heading back home.”

Destiny listened to Roman, trotting in a path that seemed almost pre-determined, slowing down towards a gathering of animals that stood still with their heads bowed. Roman dismounted from Destiny, spotting the dwarfs and the famous glass coffin.

He gestured at Destiny to stay still as he walked slowly to the glass coffin. “Do you mind if I say my own farewell?” he asked, the dwarfs looking up to him, some with faces of awe, others with sorrow.

“Go ahead,” one of them, presumably Doc, said.

Roman stood over Virgil’s still body. He was a breathtaking sight as he laid there peacefully. His black hair was pushed out of his face and every freckle and eyelash seemed to be perfectly placed and sun-kissed. Roman brushed a hand against Virgil’s cheek- it was ice cold- and tried not to flinch. He placed his lips gently on the other’s in hopes to wake him up.

He held his breath and stepped silently aside. “You have no problem with kissing sleeping princes I see,” Virgil’s voice teased. Roman’s head shot up, followed by each of the dwarfs and the forest animals around them. Virgil was sitting on the coffin with his legs crossed like a child. “You found me.”

Roman let out a sigh of relief. “I broke the spell,” he said with a smile.

“Spell?” Virgil asked.

“With true love’s kiss of course,” Roman said, smirking as he saw Virgil’s face go crimson. The fake Virgil’s face was crimson; the real Virgil would never have woken up to Roman, and if not for simply playing a part, Roman would never have been able to wake up the real Virgil.

“What a wonderful observation,” a voice coed from behind Roman and in seconds flat he was out like a light. He wasn’t sure how much time had past when he woke up in the foliage of a very different forest with a very different horse staring down at him.

He sat up, looking upon his own clothing and at the world order. The world far behind him was flat and two-dimensional, colored only with dull cool tones. His own clothes were black and brown and he bit back a smile.

Though, the smile wasn’t hard to fight when he came to the troubling realization of not knowing why he was here. Surely breaking the spell on “Snow White” should have brought him back, right? Perhaps he would have to “awaken” all of the other sides.

He followed the hum of a familiar tune, mostly expecting to find Patton, though he could see how Logan would also fit the narrative of young Briar Rose. He walked alongside his horse, following it deeper into the forest where his next prince awaited.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Roman sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

There was a deep laugh from the trees behind him.

“I hope you’re happy with yourself, you wicked fiend.”

“Oh thank you for the compliment, Roman,” the Dragon Witch laughed. Roman turned around to face her in her human form. Her long black hair made her look ominous in the shadows. Her green eyes sparked with wickedness and- all in all- she kind of looked like Angelina Jolie.

“Care to explain what I’m doing here?” Roman asked. “And why is he here?”

“Oh, silly boy, don’t you remember?” the Dragon Witch cooed with a menacing laugh.

“I will cut out your spleen again,” Roman threatened, pointing his sword towards the witch.  

“You’re no fun,” she pouted in response. “But worry not little prince, it’ll come back to you. In time...” Her words faded away as she sunk back into the shadows and seemed to vanish from existence, leaving Roman completely alone. He heard singing. Almost alone.

He peered behind the trees to see where Virgil was dancing, planning the exact moment when he could butt into the dance. He ran in while Virgil’s back was turned, pushing multiple birds out of the way and gently clasping his hands around the unknowing prince’s, following the dance he had secretly rehearsed with Patton time and time again back in the mindscape.

“You’ll love me at once,” Virgil sang in a quiet, muttered tone. His eyes were closed and he seemed totally separate from the world around him, but totally not connected all at once.

“The way you did once,” Roman continued, his voice deep and rich, “upon a dream.” Virgil pulled away from the dance with ease- something Roman accounted for with his loose grip- and stared at the stranger with shock and horror. “I’m awfully sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Oh, no, it’s just that- I really shouldn’t be- you’re-”

“A stranger?” Roman asked with a smirk. “Oh, but we’ve met before,” he continued. Even if Virgil didn’t remember the mindscape, surely he must remember being Snow White, right? Right?  

“We- we have?” Virgil asked, his brow knitted and Roman couldn’t help but notice his lack of makeup.

“Why of course,” Roman flirted, taking Virgil’s hand and pressing a kiss to his knuckles. “You said it yourself; we met once upon a dream.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, taking his hands from Roman. “That was just a silly song.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Roman purred, a soft grin appearing on his face. He extended a hand for Virgil to take, feeling somewhat more hopeful and optimistic at the prospect of spending time with the other side than usual. Virgil hesitated for a moment before visibly relaxing and placing one hand in Roman’s and another on the prince’s shoulders. He was letting Roman lead. The two began to fall into a gentle rhythm as they circled around each other through a clearing in the woods. “My name is Roman.”

“Angel,” Virgil said. “My name is Angel Storm.”

“Angel?” Roman asked, his mind trying to think back to the last time he had seen this movie. The details were foggy and broken in his mind.

“It’s stupid, I know,” Virgil- Angel, said.

“No!” Roman spit out. “I think it’s... nice. Yeah, it’s nice.”

Angel’s face softened, blushing almost. “Well, thank you,” he said. “That really means something.”  

Their dance slowed until they pulled apart by an old tree atop a cliff overlooking the nearby kingdoms. “Can you imagine what it would be like to rule?” he asked quietly; even he could not tell if he were merely reciting a line or expressing a deep thought.  

“It’d be horrifying,” Angel said through a forced laugh. “I couldn’t imagine the stress that would put on someone. All those people judging you? Being unable to please everyone? That’s horrific, Roman.”

“I’m sure it couldn’t be all that bad,” he said quietly, slipping into the thought as he subconsciously brushed his hand against Angel’s. “If you had someone to rule with.”

“Yeah,” Angel sighed, taking Roman’s hand and falling against the prince’s side, “I suppose you’re right.”

They stayed against each other’s sides for what felt like hours as the sun began to set. A flood of pinks, oranged, and lilacs blanketed the buildings below. “I should get going,” Angel said. “It’s getting dark.”

“Will I get to see you again?”

“Swing by here tomorrow,” Angel said. “My uncles are throwing me a birthday party at our cottage just past where you found me. You should be there.”

Roman smiled, pressing kisses to each of Angel’s fingers. “Then there I shall be.” Angel blushed, smiling up at Roman, their breaths catching for a split second. They both parted their separate ways with a smile, blissfully unaware of the series of rather unfortunate events that would fall before them in the next couple of hours.

Roman mounted his horse, letting the animal take him home to his own kingdom, racing fast enough to feel the wind in his hair and the adrenaline in his system. Whenever he got to his own realm, he surely would like to enjoy more scenery and adventure. Hell, he’d even invite Logan to make sure everything was accurate.

“Speak of the devil,” Roman muttered with a small smile, the rush of the night still overtaking him.

“Roman!” Logan yelled; the prince pulled back on the reigns of his horse as he approached the other man. Logan looked different, older, creeping into his sixties but with the same strict posture he always had. “Roman, come down from there- you look absolutely preposterous.”

“Says who?” Roman teased, leaping from the saddle.

“Says anyone who can see you now,” Logan retorted. “You cannot meet your future spouse looking like- like- like some sort of stable boy!”

“Oh but I’ve already met him,” Roman said.

“You- You have?”

“Of course I have!” Roman announced. “Once upon a dream!” He grabbed Logan’s hands, twirling him around the castle grounds.

“Roman, stop this instant!” Logan demanded, pulling himself away from his son’s nonsense. “When did you meet Prince Virgil? Oh, we must be telling Patton-“

“I didn’t,” Roman said with a smirk.

“But you said-“

“I met the man I’m going to marry.” Even if his words were contradictory- and untrue towards the real Virgil- he couldn’t help but feel giddy as he said them. It was an iconic scene, truly, and he was just happy to take part.

“Roman, you must give up on this dream nonsense!” Logan snapped. “Wake up and face the facts, Roman. You are a prince you must marry someone royal!”

“You’re living in the past, Father! This is the 14th century! Nowadays-” Roman smirked to himself, biting down on his lip as he tried to fight back a giggle. He always wanted to say that.

“Nowadays, I am still king,” Logan said, “and I command you to be sensible!”

“Be sensible and marry the man I fell in love with!” Roman quickly mounted on his horse, starting away before Logan could run after him.

“Yes! Marry the- wait no! Damnit, Roman, get back here! Roman! ROMAAAAAN!”

Roman laughed as he rode, Logan’s yells being drowned out by distance and hooves galloping against a cobblestone road. He had that same feeling of wind in his hair as his cape flowed behind him and adrenaline coursed through his veins as he ventured deeper and deeper into the woods.

Roman, on his horse, trotted up to the familiar old cottage, finding it dark and empty in appearance. Maybe it was a surprise party and Angel hadn’t arrived yet. He dismounted his horse, knocking on the old wooden door. No answer. He turned the handle quietly, listening to the creak of the hinges as he entered the dark room. It was empty- and far too late for him to leave.

“Get him,” a cold voice ordered. Before he could properly adjust to the darkness, tens of hundreds of minions and monsters attacked him from all angles, constricting his limbs to his body with ropes tight like boa constrictors until he found himself completely tied up and hardly able to breathe.

“You are such a bitch,” he growled.

“I set a trap for a prince, and yet I catch a peasant,” the dragon witch said, sunlight seeming to fall towards her as she looked up at Roman with her lips parted in a sultry smirk.

“Can you tell me why I’m here now?”

“Impatient as always, Roman, you really must improve your temper.”

“Oh my GOSH, I will KILL YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS!" Roman yelled. “And this sword.”

“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.” The dragon witch shook her head disapprovingly. “When will you learn some manners, Roman? Why else do you think you’re here in the first place?”

“You foul heathen, what have you done?!”

The dragon witch rolled her eyes, flicking a nail against Roman’s forehead. The prince recoiled in pain against her sharp nail. “I cursed you, you absolute buffoon.”

“Ah.”

“All right, boys,” she said, gesturing to the minions. “Let’s take him away.”

Roman fell to his back, being hoisted into the air by small goblin-like dragon-ish... things. He sighed, this would be a long existence.

+++

Angel- no, Virgil?!- was absolutely distraught. It was a nightmare come true, being here. He had cried himself into absolute fatigue. Maybe the panic attacks were partially to blame for the tiredness as well. So, his uncles were not, in fact, his uncles, but three strange... fairies? They had adopted him and now they were supposed to just.. Give him back?

He sighed, looking towards his disastrous reflection in the mirror, dark tear tracks had stained his cheeks and his eyes were redder than he had ever seen them before. If only Roman could see him now...

Oh no.

Oh fuck.

Oh shit.

Roman would think he stood him up. Roman would think he did this on purpose. Virgil’s chest grew tight again as he tried to count his breaths and counteract the possibility of another panic attack. It was so unbearable overwhelming. He couldn’t deal with this. Not right now, not ever. Counting his breaths was nearly rendered pointless when a soft presence entered the room. It was a glowing green... thing. He relaxed into a trance, almost as if he had been put under a spell.

He stood up from his vanity, all of the fatigue falling from his body and being replaced by calming sleepiness. He walked towards the presence, following it as it crept up towards a staircase he hadn’t bothered to notice before. Almost as if it hadn’t previously existed.

It hadn’t taken long before Virgil’s uncles, Emile, Remy, and Toby, and arrived at the castle tower where Roman had been held as prisoner. They told him everything they had gone through in the past sixteen years and warned him of the Dragon Witch’s evil power. Ah, so that’s the fake reputation she’s given herself around here. Armed with the legendary Sword of Truth and Shield of Virtue, Roman and the three fairies began to escape. Said escape didn’t go long without being caught. Diablo, the old raven famously owned by Maleficent (and temporarily borrowed by the Dragon Witch), squaked and cawed upon seeing them, alerting hundreds of minions, goblins, and monsters of their presence.

“Worry not, Prince Roman, you can handle them,” Emile whispered in his ear, hardly any bigger than a butterfly. The other two fairies shot him a disapproving glare. “With our help of course,” he amended.

The four races their way out of the castle, cutting through hordes and blocking attacks with Roman’s sword. Emile used his wand to turn a flock of incoming arrows and spears into falling daisies and daffodils. He giggled to himself at the sight, getting grabbed by the wing by Remy who insisted on no distractions.

They kept running, Emile and Toby turning any weapons or hazards into lovely things like flowers and leaves. They kept running, Remy flying ahead of the group to free Roman’s horse from its chains. Roman jumped on the saddle, pressing his legs into the creature’s sides and running off as Diablo continued to caw overhead. Remy happily shut him up with a spell.

That was when they found her, the Dragon Witch, in all of her monstrous glory. A great black beast (with a tiny little witch hat) towered over them. “I’m sorry, Prince Roman, I don’t think our magic can assist with-“

“Fuck this,” Remy said, countering over Emile, “good fuckin’ luck, Babe.”

“Don’t worry,” Roman said to the fairies, “I got this. Just try to take care of those thorns further up the path.” The fairies all nodded, too eager to fly away from the battle to question Roman’s foresight.

“What a silly little prince,” the Dragon Witch cooed, her voice deeper and menacing. “Still can’t remember why you’re here can you?”

“Can we just fight and get this over with? I’m getting real sick of your mind games reeeeally quickly.”

“In a rush to deliver true love’s kiss, are we?” The Dragon Witch laughed, spitting fire towards Roman and knocking him off of his horse. The prince hid behind his shield, feeling the heat of the fire around him. “I knew you were oblivious but I didn’t know you were desperate.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The Dragon Witch rolled her eyes. “This, Roman, is why I fucking cursed you.”

Roman held his sword, ready to strike, catching himself in a sword fight against a single one of her claws. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean.”

“Just admit that you’re in love with Virgil, holy shit,” she said. “Literally none of this would have happened if you did that in the first place, but nooo I have to teach Sir Sing-a-lot here a lesson.”

Roman dropped to the ground as she swung a claw close to him. “This is hardly the groundbreaking fight this universe promised me!” he yelled, jumping from where she spit down fire by his feet.

“Well life isn’t fair, is it?” she laughed and cackled.

“Sword of Truth,” he muttered under his breath, backing away from the monster, “fly swift and sure that evil die and good endure.” With careful precision, he drove the sword into the dragon’s heart, watching her fall to the side and shrivel to her human form with the last of her remaining energy.

She reached up, grabbing Roman’s shirt and pulling him down towards her. “Don’t break the script. You won’t get rid of me that easily,” she hissed as the color drained from her face and the light vanished from her eyes. She released her grip and fell to the ground. Dead.

Roman took a deep breath, pulling the sword from out of her chest. He regrouped with his horse and, eventually, the three fairies as they quickly rushed him to King Patton’s Castle.

Roman ran up the staircase to where Virgil was laying. Not as lifeless as he had been in that glass coffin, but eerily lost beyond hope. Though, perhaps, not entirely hopeless. Roman sheathed his sword, steadying his breaths as he watched Virgil’s chest- he had to be sure he was breathing. The rise and fall of his chest was slow and small, but a rise and fall nonetheless. Roman stood over the prince, brushing the hair away from his face. He cupped his hand around Virgil’s cheek, leaning in slowly and carefully. He had the eerie feeling something was about to go wrong- and perhaps it was.

He connected their lips softly and fearfully. He felt energy shoot through his chest, infecting his body with its own cure. The power of true love’s kiss. Why hadn’t this happened last time? It wasn’t like he was in love now. Roman shook off the feeling, assuming the energy as a side effect of the curse.

Virgil’s eyes fluttered open, his face falling to a relieved smile. Roman blinked back at him in shock, opening his mouth to say something when suddenly his vision left him. Not for long, only a moment or two, but when it returned, he was somewhere else entirely.

“Okay,” Roman said with a sigh through gritted teeth, only a little salty that he didn’t get to finish Sleeping Beauty. He had to go through Cinderella now. “Let’s get this over with.”

He went through the story, waiting for the ball, rolling his eyes at every woman who tried to court him until he saw Virgil in the ballroom. He got up from his throne, tracking down the carmel-haired boy in the blue suit. They danced until the clock struck midnight, following the script line by line, making everything absolutely perfect. Roman had to head the dragon witch’s warning.

The clock struck midnight, Virgil’s face completely paling. “I have to go,” he said quietly.

“Can’t you stay just a bit longer?” Roman asked, hating the feeling in his chest.

“I- I really can’t-“ Virgil said. “My stepmother- she would- well, she’d-“

“Then, just, one last thing before you leave?” Roman asked.

Virgil took a deep breath, his eyes far away from Roman and right at the ticking clock tower. Roman grabbed the collar of Virgil’s jacket and pulled him forward, locking their lips in a quick moment of impulse and passion. Roman wanted Virgil to kiss back- oh God he was desperate for it- but the moment never came.

“I have to go,” Virgil said as Roman pulled away. The prince released his grasp on the commoner and watched him flee the castle. Roman knee the story of Cinderella like he knew the back of his hand; Virgil was running to escape the possibility of being caught when the spell wore off, so why did Roman feel like he had scared him off?

When the ball had ended, Roman stayed out on the balcony, cold air sobering him up from the intoxication that Virgil had poisoned him with. “I broke the script,” he muttered quietly to himself. “I broke the script, oh goodness gracious, what have I done?”

The wind continued to howl through the kingdom, freezing Roman’s cheeks and ears. His breath was carried through clouds against the wind, dissipating just as quickly as they were created. Roman didn’t get any sleep that night.

They carried on through the story- they always did. Assemble a search party, spend too many hours going door to fucking door, find Virgil, try on the glass slipper, happy ending, voilà! If only it were that easy.

Roman took it upon himself to fit the shoe to everyone at the ball that night. He was knelt on the ground, looking up at Virgil as he held the shoe in his hand. He requested a moment alone, and everyone (including prying Stepsisters) were removed from the room.

“My... deepest apologies if I ever made you uncomfortable,” Roman said quietly. “You were in a rush. It was very un-princely of me to hold you back.”

“It’s all forgiven, your highness.”

Roman let out a deep sigh. “But it doesn’t have to be,” he muttered, “I don’t want you to forgive me only for my status.”

“Your highness, I-“

“Roman,” the prince said with a smile. “You can call me Roman.”

“Roman,” Virgil said with a smile, “I forgive you.”

Roman let out a sigh of relief, holding up the glass slipper to slide onto Virgil’s foot. A sudden crash from the next room over (followed by yelling from Virgil’s stepmother and stepsisters) scared Roman, causing him to fumble with the shoe and drop it, sending shards of glass across the floor. Roman’s eyes widened in horror, believing that he had ruined the script completely and that he’d be trapped here forever. (Not that being trapped with this Virgil would have been a bad thing.)

Virgil reached over to gently pet Roman’s hair, letting him know that he was here and that he could comfort him. “It’s okay,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his apron, “I have another.”

He handed the relived prince the shoe of glass and gave him reassurance as Roman slid the shoe into place. “Virgil,” Roman said, just before fully fitting the glass against skin, “it’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

With a flash of light, Virgil was gone, and all the remained was the sparkling ocean and salty sea air. The ship’s crew hummed and sang in their own quiet siren’s song. It was almost enough to make Roman forget about dragons, curses, and poisoned apples. Almost. “Such a lovely day, isn’t it?” Roman pondered aloud.

“Yes, the weather is quite satisfactory today,” the man standing beside him noted in response. Unlike the rest of the crew, he was dressed in pristine clothing and a perfectly ironed coat. He kept a pipe in his breast pocket and wore silver circular lenses.

“Of course you’d say that, Logan,” Roman muttered with a chuckle.

“I can only hope that your birthday celebration this evening will be rendered adequate,” the man continued.

Roman took another breath full of salty air and sunshine. “I’m sure it will be wonderful, Lo.”

Wonderful is a broad expectation, but one that many would agree that such a celebration did not meet. There was a storm. A horrible, loud, crashing storm, rocking the boat across hostile waves as sailors struggled to hold on and stay still. Men were already scrambling onto emergency boats when a strike of lightning hit the sail, quickly setting it aflame. Roman had to choose between the boats and his dog. He chose the dog.

“ROMAN! BE CAREFUL!” Logan yelled as he and the crew began to float away aimlessly.

“Just get everyone to safety!” Roman yelled back, dodging a fallen post. “I’ll be alright!”

Max’s barks grew louder and more frantic. The heat was growing closer and closer, hotter and hotter, towards Roman as sparks gave love bites to his arms and ankles. He ran up a set of old stairs that cracked with every step and completely shattered once he made his way to the top. Max looked frantically up at the prince who now held him in his arms. From the side of his eye, Roman could see where the flames were heading. He tossed Max into the water, making the drop as short as he possibly could. He let out a deep breath of relief as Max swam towards the crew until he was close enough for Logan to pull him into the boat. Perfect. Now Roman just had to find an escape route for himself before-

                                              BOOM!

Ashes fell from the sky like deadly snowfall as waves carried the crew away and they were faced with the choice of finding their prince or saving their lives. They began to row, knowing there would be a lot to explain in the morning.

Roman was completely unconscious by the time he hit the water, and he wouldn’t wake up until hours later at dawn on an old beach shore. He felt a hand brushing against his cheek and playing with his hair as a voice hummed a quiet yet comforting tune. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know that it was Virgil who had saved him.

“What would I give to live where you are?” Virgil mumbled along to the melody he had been humming. “What would I pay to stay here beside you? What would I do to see you smiling at me?”

“Prince Roman!” A voice yelled. Roman shot up, opening his eyes quickly as a shiny purple tail disappeared into the water. “Oh, Roman, thank God that you’re alright. We should be getting you back to the castle.”

Roman kept his eyes on the water as he stood (with worried assistance from Logan) and began to walk towards the castle. With a sigh, he gave up on trying to spot Virgil one last time ignoring the way his heart sank with an old shipwreck. He’d see Virgil again, but waiting for that moment seemed daunting and impossible.

With a deep inhale of sea air, Roman pushed down his feelings. He didn’t need to deal with pesky, complicated emotions. He just needed to go on with the story. As well as ignore how much he was turning into Logan.

It was during one all too familiar scene that he swore he was going to crack. Crickets, frogs, and even the wind seemed to be harmonizing together in a tune that Roman would often sing at 3am much to the dismay of his fellow sides. He was just drifting along the lagoon sitting across from Virgil as lightning bugs and stars danced together in a beautiful waltz. Looking at him, Roman could have sworn that Virgil was getting prettier each time he went through this vicious cycle. It was maddening.

“So... you don’t talk much, huh?” Roman asked. Virgil shook his head with a shrug of his shoulders. Roman almost caught himself staring at how prominent Virgil’s exposed collarbones were with the flowy blouse he was wearing. Roman knew the real Virgil would have hated being exposed and holding his hair back with a fancy purple bow, but, he looked rather nice in it. Roman had to stay focused. He couldn’t let something as simple as shoulders distract him- What was he? A high school boy? Absolutely not! “Alright, maybe I can guess your name,” he said, fighting back a smirk.

“Hmm...Thomas? No. Patton? Logan?” Virgil shook his head so much Roman thought it might fall. “Angel? Hmmm... Virgin?”

Virgil shook his head with his face scrunched up in disapproval. Roman couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Definitely not then,” he said. “Virgil?” The boy in front of him nodded with a soft smile and Roman wondered if it would be easy to cut a few corners and get out of this story early.

Simply to break the curse. Not because he wanted to kiss Virgil. Definitely not. Not like it was rather unfair that their only kisses had been while Virgil was unconscious or in a hurry and therefore Roman had no idea what it felt like to properly kiss this boy. Definitely not.

He leaned in, shifting his entire body closer to Virgil, who subtly did the same. He laid a hand against Virgil’s cheek, feeling the softness of his skin beneath his own and feeling a tug at his chest that longed to feel Virgil’s lips against his own. He leaned in closer, his heart rate increasing more and more. The two bumped noses and broke into affectionate giggles, but never strayed from the moment ahead of them. Roman’s eyes began to close as the focused on Virgil’s slightly agape mouth. Virgil wanted this as badly as Roman did.

Virgil wanted this for different reasons, Roman had to remind himself. Virgil was breaking his own curse. This wasn’t the Virgil that Roman had always known nor was it any Virgil he had actually met before. This was a clone. A carbon copy. A creature of the sea simply trying to fulfill his own end of a poorly written contract.

Yet something within Roman didn’t care. Some stupid, minuscule, impulsive aspect of himself didn’t care about curses or contracts or plot lines. Some stupid, minuscule, impulsive aspect of Roman just wanted to kiss the mute boy in front of him and never do anything else ever again. His eyes stayed closed as he felt Virgil’s breath against his skin and felt his own breath hitch as his skin shivered in the best way possible. There was an infinitesimal amount of space between them but it felt like an infinite void. Just a little closer...

Roman’s heart jumped and his eyes snapped open as the boat suddenly fell sideways, dropping them both into the water. Roman couldn’t seem to swim upwards. He felt something tug at his shirt only to open his eyes and see a sea serpent- A merman? Definitely a merman- staring down at him with green scales across half of his face. “Don’t break the script,” he hissed before releasing Roman’s shirt and swimming away in nearly an instant. Roman quickly swam upwards as his lungs burned from the lack of oxygen.

“Are you okay?” he asked Virgil when he came up to the surface. The other nodded slowly. “Good. We should get back to the castle. It’s... better to get some rest.”

Roman didn’t sleep that night. He couldn’t. Every time he closed his eyes he was met with the same memories on loop. He saw himself almost kissing Virgil. He saw Deceit. He saw the Dragon Witch dying by his sword. He opened his eyes for a moment before closing them again. He saw himself almost kissing Virgil again. He tried not to focus on that. He opened his eyes once more. He saw the first time he kissed Virgil. And the second. And the third. He climbed out of bed, deciding that maybe it was just better not to try to sleep tonight. He was terrified of what he might see if he did.

So, he did the only thing he knew how. He snuck out of the castle and found himself a place to sit on a group of rocks by his window and began to fidget with the flute famously played by Prince Eric. He brought the cold metal to his lips with a deep inhale as he tried to let some sense of musicality take over him as he unleashed his thoughts into the wind. It wasn’t a tune he was very familiar with, and at first, it was hardly in tune, but it felt semi-natural to him.

Until his harmony had a melody to go with it. A man, walking along the beach, humming a tune that fits perfectly with Roman’s but yet... one he had never heard before. He stopped playing, slowly lowering the instrument from his mouth and holding it in his fist before following the man whose voice seemed so seductively calming. Roman’s memories grew fuzzier and fuzzier as he focused only on following the man in front of him; the closer he got, the worse his memory grew until even the present was nothing but a fuzzy blur in a fading stream of consciousness.

Everything from that moment on seemed to fast forward with Roman seeing to have little to no control over his actions but complete apathy towards doing so. It wasn’t until his own crashed wedding- Wedding?!- that his temporary curse was broken and that he was even aware that it had been cast. Needless to say, it wasn’t long before he was impaling the front end of a ship into the stomach of a massive sea-serpent Deceit.

He found himself in a familiar scene, shipwrecked on the shore as the sun shines down on his face. He pulled himself up and saw Virgil nervously waving at him as he rose from the water. As he walked out of the water. Roman stood watching as the water seemed to cling to and from around Virgil as he walked onto the shore in a sparkling blue dress. Roman couldn’t help but run to Virgil and pull him into a tight hug. “I thought I lost you,” he said. “I’m so sorry. Whatever I did while I was cursed- however I hurt you- I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Roman,” Virgil said with a smile.

Roman gasped, pulling away just enough to see Virgil’s face. “You can talk!” he said excitedly.

“I can talk,” Virgil repeated with a smile. He had his happy ending, and somehow that pulling feeling was back in Roman’s chest.

“Can I kiss you?” Roman asked, his voice as quiet as the tiniest of mice and spoken with the carefulness of dancing through broken glass.

“You may,” Virgil said, smiling and happily leaning in as Roman wrapped one hand around his waist and the other around his neck as he pulled him into the sweetest and deepest of kisses. For the first time it felt... real. Roman felt like he was acting with his heart and not a script. He felt warm and loved and he wanted Virgil to feel the same thing. He pulled him as close as he could and nothing else mattered. He was bound to a curse that made it easier and easier to fall in love and he feared that when he opened his eyes all of it would be gone. He’d wake up and never get to fall in love with Virgil again.

“I love you so much,” Roman mumbled as they pulled apart, his lips brushing against the other’s with every word and his eyes squeezed tightly shut to block out every bad thing in the world around them. “And I’m so scared of losing you.”

“You won’t lose me, Roman. I’ll always be here. Waiting to find you over and over and over again.”

Roman felt a single tear fall down his cheek as he traced his thumb along Virgil’s jaw. “And I’ll love you every single time.” With a deep breath, he opened his eyes. The feeling of Virgil’s warmth against his fingertips was the last to go as he found himself alone in an old castle.

It was cold there. He heard a knock on the door in front of him. It echoed through the long hallways of the castle. There was a second knock, harsher and more demanding; whoever was out there was growing impatient. Roman glanced over to a mirror hanging along the wall before reaching towards the door handle. He was 19 again, and, unfortunately, he knew exactly who he was.

He opened the door and saw more cloak than woman, but it was too painfully obvious who this “stranger” was. She was back from the dead and madder than ever. “A night of safety in exchange for a rose, your highness?”

“Of course,” Roman said. He was too tired to fight. He was too tired to keep going through with this.

“What?” The woman asked.

“You can come in,” Roman said. “Surely it’s freezing out there. And keep the rose, you need not to pay for your own health and safety.”

“Thank you, your majesty,” the woman said slowly. She followed the prince through the castle, casting a slow spell as she entered.

Roman invited her to sit in a plush chair in front of a lit fireplace. He ordered Emile to fetch a fresh pot of tea for their guest. He sat on the floor.

“Surely, Roman, you aren’t as stupid as you look,” the woman said from beneath her cloak. He didn’t need to see her face to see her confusion towards her behavior; it was written all over her body.

“Perhaps I’m not,” Roman said. “I really am sorry about, you know, stabbing you.”

“You’re not being mean. Why aren’t you being mean? You’re going to ruin this story,” the witch warned.

Roman shrugged. “Don’t feel like it, I suppose. It’s so easy to be mean, but so exhausting.” He looked to the roaring fire and felt the warmth on his skin as he tried to suppress the longing for the summer sun that had kissed his skin only moments ago. He tried to suppress his longing for the boy who had kissed his lips during those same moments. “I do have... a question, though.”

“Ask away.”

“Why do the staff get cursed? They are all innocent in every variation of this story. Innocent in every version of this movie. They’ve done nothing wrong. Why curse them?”

“Because life isn’t fair,” the witch seethed, subconsciously pressing a hand to the scar over her chest.

The prince looked up at her with a child’s pleading eyes. “But... why?”

“To teach the prince that his actions have consequences,” she said. Around them, the walls started the grow older and darker as bits and pieces began to crumble off. “Just like right now.”

Roman eyes shut right as he curled in on himself in pain. He groaned and yelled, feeling himself be torn apart and mutilated in unfathomable ways. “I’m sorry!” he shouted out to the witch. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” When he tilted his head towards the sky, the witch was long gone leaving a silver mirror and on ordinary rose in her place. Roman cringed at the sound of claws against metal as he tried to hold the mirror in his hands. The sight ahead of him was unrecognizable beyond belief save for the same pair of brown eyes.

He apologized to each of his staff members individually, holding onto the hope that Virgil would come and rescue him soon. ‘Soon’ was an underestimation. Days blended into weeks which fell into months until he was no longer Prince Roman. Neither appearance nor heart was the same as they had been five years ago. Six years ago. Seven years ago. He could hardly stand to see himself in the mirror. He had torn apart every picture of him that surrounded the castle halls.

His 27th birthday has come and gone but he had hardly cared. In fact, he doubted he would have even noticed if not for the tiny card he had received from Emile. It was crudely made and nearly illegible, but it was the best a clock could do.

He spent countless hours in the castle library. Deep down he supposed that, back home, Logan would have scoffed and teased at the idea of Roman studying so much literature. As he cracked open the spine of another old book, Logan vanished away into nothing more than a distant memory. He studied languages, history, science, and most importantly of all, he studied fairytales. Old fairytales and new fairytales; he had to cling on to the last bit of hope in his heart.

Another month and one more year passed. Still no sign of ever getting away from this curse. He was nearing 29 and the rose was starting to wilt. His patience was wearing thin. He had heard the whispers down the halls. Echoes of doubt from his staff and from his own subconscious. He was growing hopeless.

It was a cold winter night. There was a knock on the door. Roman didn’t answer. He decided that whoever was out there could freeze to death. He didn’t care. He wanted to be alone.

“Hello?” Logan called out as he knocked on the stone castle doors. It creaked open slowly, and he carefully stepped in. “I don’t wish to intrude!” His voice echoed down the endlessly empty hall, bouncing back at him tauntingly. “Hello?!”

He stepped completely into the hall jumping when the door slammed shut behind him. “Is anyone home? I- I really don’t want to be a bother but there’s a terrible storm! My- My horse ran off! Please, I just need somewhere to stay for the night.” He took a candelabra from a nearby table and used it as a torch to light his way down the endless hall.

“Perhaps we can be of some assistance,” a voice said with a chuckle.

Logan spun around, but couldn’t see a single living being in sight. “Hello? Who are you?” He felt something tap his shoulder but when he turned he saw only the candle in his hand.

“Right here, Monsieur!”

“G’ah!” Logan yelled, dropping the candelabra and falling backwards, cringing at the sound of metal hitting the ground.

“Ow,” the candle moaned picking himself up and dusting himself off.

“Now you’ve done it!” a clock yelled- wait WHAT?!- as it sauntered towards the candelabra. “You’ve scared the poor man half to death!”

“Dot, ma amie, look at him!” the candle said, gesturing to Logan’s greeting hair and wrinkled eyes. “He’s halfway there anyway!”

“Apollo! That’s rude!” the clock- Dot?- scolded.

“What kind of machinery is this?” Logan asked, sitting up and holding Dot in his hands. “Extraordinary! The level of fine detail in this thing- it’s practically alive!”

“Alive and has boundaries!” Dot yelled, wiggling her way out of Logan’s arms.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Logan apologized, gently placing Dot down on the ground.

“Oh you must be cold, Monsieur,” the candle said.

“Remy, no,” Emile said under his breath. “What about the master-“

“Follow me, Monsieur!” Remy said, hopping along the floor as Logan gently followed, mesmerized by such complex machinery. He was led to an old chair in front of an unlit fireplace; Remy quickly fixed that.

“Oh, Mr. Potts!” Remy called. “Won’t you please fetch some tea for our guest?”

“Keep your voice down!” Dot cried out.

“Oh, don’t worry so much, Dot.” On a rolling cart, a teapot appeared surrounded by a chipped teacup, a sugar bowl, and a dish full of cream with a twin full of honey. “Oh, you look so tired,” Emile commented with a soft sigh, “you must have had a troubling journey to get here. Do you like chamomile?”

“I do find it to be a rather satisfying beverage, thank you,” he said, mixing in a single lump of sugar to his cup of tea. “My horse ran off shortly before I got here. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get home before the night is over.”

“Oh, dear, you’ll be safe here with us,” Emile said. Logan began to relax as he sipped his tea from the sleeping cup. With a hush of wind, the objects grew deathly still. Sensing their tension, Logan carefully put the teacup next to Emile.

“Why are you here?!” a voice growled, echoing across the room. A shadow of a man leapt toward the ground, staring in between Logan and the fireplace as he towered over the aging man. “Have you come to gawk at the beast who lives in this castle?!”

“No! Never!” Logan said, his voice getting higher by the syllable.

“I think you ought to be taught how rude it is to intrude,” Roman growled, orange light lining his darkened silhouette. “Remy, I’ll deal with you later.”

“Master, he was just cold and-“

“Later!” Roman yelled.

“Y- Yes, Master,” Remy said, silently crossing himself in a silent prayer to save his life and his ass.

Roman took Logan by the arms taking him up to the dungeon and not even realizing what he had down until Logan was staring back at him with pleading eyes. His remorse was short lived. He could barely remember what it felt like the human anymore, let alone even fathom being a side. All remorse was gone as he retired for the night.

That night alone felt like a curse in and of itself. He was back home. Back to normal. Almost normal. Almost home. It all felt so real and lovely, yet too real and absolutely terrible. He was nothing more than a ghost.

“It’s been three days already,” Patton said, choking on his own tears as Logan rubbed circles on his back from where they sat in the living room. Virgil was sitting on the staircase, hiding behind the stairwell as he chewed desperately on his thumb.

“Is he just... gone?” Thomas asked from where he sat on the floor.

“What’s going on?” Roman asked. “What are you all upset about?” No one could hear him and that’s when the terrible realization had set in. He was gone. It had been three days and he had been gone for all of them.

“No, no, he can’t be gone,” Logan said.

“What if he... ducked out?” Virgil asked.

“The problem isn’t that he’s gone, it’s... he’s...” Logan was wiping away his own tears before anyone other than Roman could see. “He’ll be back.”

“How can you be so sure?” Virgil asked. For a moment he looked up and almost made eye contact with Roman. He went back to biting his thumb but the look in his eyes killed Roman. He woke up in a cold sweat with a horrid reminder of what- of who- he was. He didn’t go back to sleep.

So, the next day, when he heard voices echoing around prison cells, he didn’t remember loving kisses under warm sunshine. He remembered that terrible nightmare. He remembered nearly ten years of pain and agonizing loneliness.

“An intruder just like him,” Roman growled from the shadows.

Virgil looked up towards him, gripping at the metal bars. His soft brown hair and hazel eyes looked marvelous among the sunlight, but in them, Roman saw his own pain. “Let him go,” Virgil pleaded, his voice shaky and weak, nothing like the Virgil that Roman had known long ago. “Can’t you see that he’s sick? He’ll die here!”

Roman ignored the pain in his chest- a new pain, a guilty pain- and kept his gaze forward. “He should have thought about that before breaking and entering!”

“I’ll give you anything you want for his freedom!” Virgil yelled. “We don’t have much, but surely you have some compassion!”

“You wish to bargain for human life?” he scoffed.

“What about a trade?” Virgil asked, his shaking hands contrasting his stiff bravado. “Take me in his place. A life... for a life.”

“Virgil, no! Don’t do this!” Logan yelled, coughing as he did so. “You’re young! You have your life ahead of you!”

“I can’t let you die here,” Virgil said, tears welling in his eyes.

“If I let him go, you’ll... take his place?”

“Yes!” Virgil cried. “Just... please. Please let me save my father.”

“You’ll be here forever,” Roman warned.

Virgil pressed a hand against Logan’s cold arm. “Step into the light,” he said softly.

The monster stood like a giant as he towered over Virgil. He had sharp fangs and sharper claws. Curled horns protruded from his forehead and he was covered in thick brown fur. There was no sign of humanity left in him. Virgil gasped, scaring the monster back into the shadows.

“I’ll take his place,” Virgil said surely.

“I see,” Roman said. He held something in a clenched fist as he walked past Virgil and directly to the gate of Logan’s cell. He took the key from his paw and let the gate swing open. “I’ll give you a minute to say your goodbyes.” He made his way down the stairs leaving them completely alone, ignoring the confused glances that bounced between Remy, Emile, and Dot.

“He’s gone,” Logan said quietly. “Quick, we can both escape!”

“No, Papa,” Virgil said, holding Logan’s arms and keeping the older man up.

“Virgil, I- I can’t let you do this.”

“Yes you can, Papa,” Virgil said, smiling despite the tears falling from his eyes. “Let me do this for you.” He pulled Logan into a warm hug, rubbing his father’s arms to fight off any hypothermia he may have suffered. “I love you.”

“Virgil-“

Virgil stepped into the cell, closing it so harshly that the key fell to the ground. “I love you, Papa. Now go home, you’re sick.”

When Logan fell to his knees from coughing, he couldn’t fight back the servants leading him down the stairs. Virgil watched his father disappear from sight as he watched with a melancholic smile. He knew his father would be safe, even if he never saw him again.

Roman had sent out his finest carriage to take Logan as close to the village as was safe without getting caught. He climbed the stairs back up towards the old cell to put the key back on its holder. He blinked back in surprise seeing Virgil standing patiently by the window- already locked into the cell.

“You’re... still here?”

“I made a promise, didn’t I?” Virgil asked, turning to face his captor.

“I, uh,” Roman picked up the key off of the ground, “let me show you to your room.”

“My... room?”

Roman took a deep breath, feeling his heart nervously pounding in his chest. “Unless you’d rather stay here in the cold tower.” Virgil shook his head slowly as Roman unlocked the cell. The gate swung open with an ugly noise as Roman lead Virgil down the hall. “I reacted... poorly, earlier,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to spend your life here, I only suggest that you stay the night until the storm lets up.”

“I... I don’t understand.”

“You’re free as soon as the weather allows you to travel safely,” Roman explained.

Virgil looked past a window and saw the snow growing heavier and harder. It didn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. He continued to follow.

“You may travel anywhere in the castle that you wish- except for the west wing.”

“What’s in the west wing?” Virgil asked, curiosity bypassing fear and getting the better of him.

Roman took a deep breath, not sure what to say. “It’s...it’s just off limits, okay? If there’s anything you need, my staff will be happy to attend to you.”

“I- well- Thank you,” Virgil said. Roman had left him alone at the open doorway of a guest bedroom that was nearly the size of Virgil’s house and looked as if it hadn’t been used in 30 years. Sentient brooms and dustpans quickly cleared from the room as they laid eyes on Virgil.

“Is it possible to have a change of heart overnight?” Remy asked.

“It’s certainly... unusual,” Dot agreed.

“Aww, don’t be so suspicious of him,” Emile pleaded.

Remy and Dot exchanged a glance. “We’re not gonna stop being suspicious of him.”

“Don’t you miss being human, Emile? Aren’t you a little bitter at him for taking that away from us?”

Emile sighed. “Do you think he isn’t? He felt- feels- terrible about all of this. About us. You think he wanted us to suffer?”

There was a moment of silence broken only by the crackle of the fire. From the hall, they could hear the sound of claws clicking against wood as Roman paced back and forth. Emile couldn’t help but wander into the hall, with Remy and Dot following behind.

“Master?” Emile asked quietly.

“I... I didn’t think this far ahead,” Roman said as he continued pacing.

“Didn’t think... for what, exactly?” Remy asked.

Roman continued pacing back and forth and back and forth; the three observers may have begun to think of him as growing mad. His mind was racing. It had been almost ten years since that day on the beach. It had been almost ten years since he had even /seen/ a movie! He couldn’t remember what to do next and he certainly wasn’t sure what would happen if he failed.

“Emile, could you please go keep our guest company? Remy, Dot, I’ll need you two to come with me. I have... an idea.”

With a small knock at the door, Emile and Kai slowly entered the guest bedroom and found Virgil curled up on the floor talking to Madame Armoire. His eyes were red but he was laughing and smiling. “I don’t mean to intrude, but I thought you might like a cup of tea after such a long night.”

“That would be lovely, thank you,” Virgil said, picking up the teacup that had maneuvered itself in front of him.

“Wanna see a trick?” Kai asked ecstatically. He made a big show of inhaling and scrunched up his face as the tea bubbled up and spilled over.

“Kai!” Emile scolded.

“Sorry, Papa!” Kai giggled as Virgil carefully placed him on the ground.

A loud crash sounded from the hallway as many smaller crashes grew closer and closer to the guest room. The door swung open as Remy and Dot both fell to the ground.

“The master would like to invite you to-”

“GET READY FOR DINNER!” Remy yelled with a smile.

“A-HEM!” Dot stood up, brushing herself off, and shooting Remy a glare. “The master would like to formally invite you to a private feast in the dining hall.”

“What?”

“We’d like to ask you to be our guest,” Remy said with a grin and something mischievous behind his eyes.

It had taken a lot of preparation, yes, but Roman was happy with the end result as he watching the dining hall from behind a cracked door. He couldn’t see Virgil’s face, but a quick thumbs-up from Remy told him everything he needed to know.

“Now, Monsieur, is there anything else we can assist you with?” Remy asked.

“No, no, we really must be retiring for the night,” Dot scolded as Remy rolled his eyes.

“Don’t be such a buzzkill, ma amie. Surely there’s something that would interest the guest?”

“Well, I,” Virgil said, thinking carefully, “I wouldn’t mind a tour of the castle.”

Roman took a deep breath hearing those words. He’d keep his guard up in the west wing. He watched from the shadows as Virgil crept into the room slowly. Roman stayed still as Virgil pieced together an old torn painting that Roman had destroyed long ago. “Go!” Roman yelled. “Get out!”

Virgil ran from the castle as fast as his legs would carry him. He wasn’t a prisoner and he sure as hell wouldn’t be held like one.

Roman watched him run from the window. He knew exactly where Virgil was heading. He picked up the silver mirror gazing for a moment at the monster staring back at him. “Show me the boy,” he said. He saw Virgil running and, just out of the younger’s view, he saw wolves. Hungry wolves.

Roman quickly ran from the castle. When he found Virgil, he was being surrounded and attacked by wolves, beating at them with a rotted tree branch. Roman growled and roared at the beasts, drawing their attention away from Virgil. They ran after him, jumping on him, and biting his arms and legs. “Go!” he yelled at Virgil. “Get out! Save yourself!” He saw Virgil hesitating, still gripping onto the old branch. That was when his head hit the ice and he began to black out.

He woke up sitting in the old chair in front of a roaring fire. He was back at the castle. Back at home. He sucked in air through his teeth as he felt his arm burn and sting. “Hold still,” Virgil ordered. “This might sting a little.”

“No kidding,” Roman bit back. “You never should have run out there.”

Virgil pressed a hot rag against Roman’s wounds, causing the beast to roar and squirm. “I wouldn’t have run away if you hadn’t shouted at me!”

“I wouldn’t have shouted if you had learned not to trespass!”

“Well, you need to learn to control your temper!” Virgil yelled, taking the rag and angrily tossing it in the bucket of hot water. Droplets splashed against the floor as the two found themselves at a stalemate. Remy, Emile, Dot, And Kai all glanced to one another silently.

“Kai, I think you should be heading to bed,” Emile said softly.

“But, Papa!” Kai whined earning a warning glare from Emile.

“Kai.”

The teacup rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yes, Papa.”

Everything remained silent save for the roaring fire and defeated clinking of a teacup hopping away. Roman tore away his stare and mumbled towards the floor, “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

Virgil carefully rung out the cloth and held Roman’s hand tightly. “Hold still,” he said, gently placing the warm fabric on Roman’s wound. The beast winced but tried to keep himself still. The blood had finally stopped running; Virgil held out his hand as Dot gave him a roll of bandages. He began winding the gauze around Roman’s arm. “I should thank you,” he said quietly, “for saving my life.”

Roman saw the vulnerability in Virgil’s eyes and felt his heart race a little bit faster and a little bit more prominently. “It was my honor,” he said with a smile.

Virgil looked towards him and smiled back. Remy, Emile, and Dot all let out a sigh of relief, grinning with mischievous grins as if they knew something the others were blind to. And in some ways, they did.

The snowstorms were starting the letup, at least for a while. They only seemed to grow worse when either of them mentioned the possibility of Virgil going back home. Virgil didn’t seem to mind the storms.

Dot, Remy, and Emile couldn’t help but watch from the windows as the two fought a vicious snowball war which Virgil seemed to be winning. His face was red from the cold but the smile on his face made it apparent that he wouldn’t be giving up the snow anytime soon at all.

Roman was pacing in front of the fireplace that evening. He was deep in thought, but a small part of him was smiling nonetheless. “I... I want to do something special. For him.”

“Well, there’s the usuals,” Dot said, “flowers, chocolates, promises you don’t intend to keep.”

Roman rolled his eyes but laughed. “There’s the library,” he joked, but let his memory return to him. Any Virgil is still Virgil, right? A few days had passed before he unveiled the surprise. He had spent days planning, decorating, and making Remy, Dot, and Emile stall for time. Finally, at long last, it was time.

“No peeking,” he laughed, holding his paws over Virgil’s eyes.

“I’m not I swear!” Virgil said with a laugh.

“Okay, okay,” Roman said, slowly removing his paws, “keep them shut.” He opened the library door, leading Virgil into the large room letting the door fall mostly shut from behind them. He took a deep breath. “Okay, you can open them now.”

The library was painted purple and black with silk threads intricately knitted and hanging in corners. It was a gothic nightmare and Virgil instantly fell in love with it all. “This is... incredible! All of it!”

“You like it?” Roman asked with a smile.

“Like it?! This is incredible!”

“It’s yours,” Roman said.

“What? You couldn’t possibly mean that.”

“And why can’t I?”

“I- well,” Virgil swallowed the lump in his throat. “Thank you,” he said with a blush, “thank you very much.”

After a little time and a whole lot of courage, Roman was finally about to live through one of his favorite Disney dances. His heart was racing in his chest.

“A dress?” Virgil whispered as the two glided across the ballroom. “Really?”

Roman chuckled from his throat, feeling more human than he had in years. “I think it suits you.”

“A suit would suit me,” Virgil mumbled.

“Is that a pun?”

“...maybe.”

Roman laughed, feeling Virgil lay his head onto his chest. Roman had to restrain himself from mumbling a quick “I love you.” This was a different Virgil- who didn’t love him back. This Virgil wasn’t his Snow White, his Sleeping Beauty, his Cinderella, or his Little Mermaid. He couldn’t risk scaring him off. He had to charm this Virgil just enough to save his life.

He had to get back to the real Virgil. To the Real Patton and the Real Logan too. He took a deep breath, silently cursing that damn dragon witch for cursing him to fall more in more in love but to never be able to explain why.

“I need to show you something,” Roman said, thinking back to the magic mirror. This story needed an ending- even if it killed him.

He lead Virgil to the West Wing, watching the boy visibly tense. He didn’t know how to apologize. He pretended not to notice. “This,” he said, picking up the handle of a silver mirror, “is a magic mirror. Ask it anything you wish; it will show you your heart’s desire.”

“Anything?” Virgil asked. He took a deep breath and held the mirror with a shaking hand. “Show me, my father... please.”

Virgil watched his reflection melt away and the vision of Logan took his place. The old man was deathly pale and tired as he coughed up a lung. “He’s dying,” Virgil whispered, “my father is dying.”

“Then you must go to him,” Roman said. He pressed the mirror in Virgil's hands against his chest. “Take this with you,” he added, “and let it remind you of me.”

“Thank you,” Virgil said. “For everything.”

“Of course,” Roman said, “oh, but, Virgil?”

“Yes?”

“You might want to put on a pair of pants first,” he joked but felt his heart sank as Virgil ran off. He watched as Virgil ran far from the castle, flying quickly beyond his reach and taking Roman’s heart with him.

Roman hadn’t expected this to hurt so much. He always knew he’d have to watch Virgil leave him. He knew this story like the back of his hand, but, if there was one thing he’d learned from his past, it was that knowledge couldn’t prevent heartbreak.

He tried not to think about what would happen next...

The entire castle staff was horribly aware of the mob approaching the castle. Many of them said their final prayers, while others looked back on their every regret. They all stay still in the dark as the doors creak open. A stout man leading the group wrapped his sweaty fingers around Remy’s base. He stuck a match, lighting the candle, and moving him back and forth as the mob moved inwards. In a swift movement, Remy bent his arms downwards, burning the skin of the man holding him and causing the man to drop the candle towards the ground. “NOW!” Remy yelled, and everyone attacked.

Roman was sitting alone, watching as the invaders marched into the castle. He couldn’t imagine the fight going on downstairs. His deep pondering was interrupted by a crack at the door as Deceit entered the room with a drawn bow and arrow. With a sigh, Roman turned back towards the window.

In a quick second, he felt the arrow pierce his skin and he growled in agony. To add insult to injury, he felt Deceit push against him as he fell through the window. “Get up, Beast!” he yelled, pushing him down to the next part of the roof. “Or are you too ‘kind’ and ‘gentle’ to fight back?!” His words were harsh and he spit them out like venom. He broke off a hunk of cement from the side of the castle.

That’s when Virgil appeared. He and Logan on the horse had ridden up to the castle entrance. “Roman! Look out!” he cried out.

He was so worried and sincere and that’s when the memories poured in. They had danced together in a tale as old as time. Virgil was part of his world. They had found each other after the ball. They had danced once upon a dream and they were there at the old wishing well.

More importantly, this was Virgil. Virgil had been there since the beginning. They were both sides of Thomas. They fought and argued and bickered but deep down they both cared for each other. Roman cared for Virgil. He might even dare to say that he loved him.

He caught the stone club as it swung down towards him and picked himself up, watching the fear in Deceit’s eyes as he finally fought back. They both pushed and shoved, racing towards and against each other in the pouring rains and thunder. With one misstep, Deceit had started to fall, but he caught himself on the next ledge.

He brought his club down on the beast’s head, destroying it under his power. With a flash of lightning, he saw the rows of gargoyles and the chipped cement he had destroyed. “Stop hiding, Beast!” He yelled. “Did you really think,” Deceit asked, “that someone like him could love a monster like you?”

“No,” Roman answered and time seemed to stop. Deceit lowered his weapons noticeably but not completely. “I don’t. I don’t expect him to love me. Not now, not ever; not here nor anywhere else. I can’t expect that from him. I can hope and dream and pray that he’ll love me back but I can never expect that. To do so would be unfathomably cruel.”

Deceit rolled his eyes. “You think that you’re poetic, huh? Words can save you? Don’t be a coward, Beast!”

Roman reached out, grasping his claws against Deceit’s throat and watching him squirm as he held him in the open air out above the cliffs below. Deceit gasped for air, hands on Roman’s paw, trying to free himself. “Please,” he choked out, “don’t hurt me. I’ll- I’ll do anything! Please!”

Roman’s glare dropped when he saw genuine fear in the other’s eyes. He was still a side. No matter who, or what, he was, he was part of Thomas. Roman couldn’t bring himself to kill him, no matter what part he had to play.

He brought Deceit to the castle’s ledge and held him down to the ground. “Get out.”

“Roman!” Virgil yelled from the castle balcony.

“Virgil,” Roman said softly, climbing the old shingles up the balcony ledge. He took Virgil’s outstretched hand and laid a paw against Virgil’s face. “You came back.”

He smiled, happy to be reunited and happy knowing that the fighting would be over. He, unfortunately, couldn’t remember the next chain of events until he felt a cold blade pierce into his side and pull out just as quickly. He growled in pain, losing his grip on the balcony, and knocking into Deceit who stood close behind him. Virgil grabbed onto this cape and pulled him forward.

Deceit slipped from the roof, falling into the deep abyss below. He was gone and as good as dead. Roman seemed to be rather close to meeting the same fate. His breath was leaving him as his vision started to grow blurry and dim.

“I got here too late,” Virgil said, tears falling from his eyes. “I- This is all my fault.”

“Shhh,” Roman said. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

“But, I- I didn’t know they’d come after you, I-”

“You had to save your father. I know.” He brought his paw up to the side of Virgil’s face, the latter of the two holding it in place. “At least... I got to see you... one last time.”

“No,” Virgil said softly, tears falling from his eyes. “Don’t leave me. You- You can’t leave me.” Roman’s hand went limp as the light drained from his eyes. Virgil screamed out in agony, shaking the still air around him. His throat was sore and hot tears poured down his face as he buried himself against Roman’s chest. “I love you.”

There was nothing but still silence, but warmth seemed to travel through the cold air. Hope broke through the atmosphere of despair. Virgil felt something push against him as Roman rose from the ground. He fell backwards watching the prince as a golden halo surrounded him entirely. His hind legs transformed into human flesh and bone as the transformation spread throughout his body.

Roman woke up back on the cold ground. “Virgil?” His voice was hoarse but there was something loving behind it. He looked to his hands and smiled widely, bringing them to his face and head. His hair was a bit longer, laying just above his shoulders, and he was human again. “Virgil, it’s me!”

“Roman?”

Roman nodded and Virgil happily threw himself into the prince’s arms. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“I never thought I’d be happy to hear those familiar words.”

Virgil wrapped his arms around Roman’s neck and held himself as close to the other as he could. He was so happy and relieved and his heart was beating out of his chest. “I love you,” he murmured into the other’s neck.

“I know, mon amour. I love you too, Virgil, always and forever.”

The music swelled as they danced across the ballroom. Virgil was once again in the ballgown he claimed the hate, as friends, family, and (once again human) staff danced alongside them.

“I could dance with you forever,” Roman said with a smile. He wasn’t acting anymore. He wanted this to be his happy ending.

“That seems illogical,” Virgil said. “You’d have to get tired eventually.”

Roman laughed, he really was Logan’s son. He twirled Virgil, feeling the fabric of the ballgown drift against his legs. “With you? Never.”

“You’re such a sap,” Virgil teased, leaning teasingly but noticeably. He didn’t pull back.

“That may be true,” Roman agreed, feeling the soft skin of Virgil’s cheek under his own calloused fingertips. “But I’m only a sap for you.” He leaned in, smiling as he held the other in a sweet embrace and an even sweeter kiss.

He pulled back slightly when he heard the music fade away. He opened his eyes to find himself in the desert- with only Virgil left in his arms. He stared into his eyes and whispered, “I love you, so much,” before watching the ghost smile in return and fade away. He was left in rags and grasping onto memories as he prepared to fight one more time.

Okay, he wasn’t prepared to fight just yet. “Where are you, you coward?!” he yelled against the sands. He was completely alone out there. Alone entirely except for one parrot in the distance. “Making Deceit do your bidding?! Can’t handle me on your own, can you?”

The parrot stared at Roman as he kicked at the sand. “You win! Okay?! Is that enough for you?!” He let out a groan against the dark, uncaring night sky. “I love him.”

“Don’t give up now,” the Dragon Witch cooed. “It’s only getting interesting.”

“You are cruel and heartless.”

“Ugh, you’re being a buzzkill today, aren’t you?”

Roman let out a sigh, letting himself fall back into the sand. The parrot flew down to him, sitting on his chest. “Is... he cursed too?”

“I suppose that depends on who you’re asking about.”

“Deceit,” Roman said. “Does he... is he going to remember any of this?”

The Dragon Witch stayed silent.

“Please,” Roman said, tears welling in his eyes. “I don’t want to wake up from all of this and know that all I did was hurt someone for my own good. No matter who it is, I don’t want to hurt anyone real.”

“His fate is up for you to decide.” The Dragon Witch began to fly away but Roman was quick enough to catch her wing as he sat upwards. Even she couldn’t say ‘no’ to his sad, puppy dog eyes. “Face your fears, Roman, and no harm will come to those you love.”

The parrot flew away against the dark night sky as Roman fell back against the Arabian sands and fell asleep. He couldn’t tell if the dream he dreamt was a blessing or a curse.

He found himself in Anxiety’s room. Fitting, he decided, as the agony bubbled and rose in his gut. He looked up to find Virgil taking deep breaths as he adjusted his headphones and clicked play on his laptop. Roman couldn’t leave his corner of the room; an invisible wall held him captive, but he could turn his head just to see Virgil’s computer screen. A Whole New World began to play through his headphones as he slowly let go of his inhibitions.

The movements were clumsy and sloppy at first, but Virgil was gliding across the floor on his socks, dancing slowly to the music. He was doing some formless version of a waltz and twirling himself as silent words stay mumbled against his lips.

Roman was never a lip-reading genius, but he knew a princess song when he heard- or saw- it. He was murmuring Jasmine’s part to himself and fuck, Roman was so in love. Whenever this curse was finally over, Roman knew he wanted to take Virgil’s hands and dance with him for hours. Really, truly dance with him. No more carbon copies.

Maybe he’d throw in a real kiss for good measure too.

No, he had to tell himself softly, he couldn’t do that. This Virgil- the real Virgil didn’t love him back. He wouldn’t love him back. He couldn’t love him back.

Regardless, that would never stop Roman from loving him.

The empty feeling settled in the pit of his stomach as Virgil continued to dance- completely unfazed by Roman’s presence. “I want to go back,” Roman whispered before fading quickly out of Anxiety’s room.

“Hello?” Virgil asked quietly, pulling off his headphones and hitting pause on his computer. He looked to the corner of his room- Roman’s corner- and couldn’t help but feel a chill cascading down his skin. It was as if a ghost had past thorough him. Something was horribly, inexplicably wrong.

“LOGAN!” he yelled, dashing out of his room and out towards the commons.

Roman did what he had to. He found the cave of wonders, grabbed the lamp, and had all of it fucked up by a circus monkey. He took a deep breath and rubbed the lamp. There was a moment of silence, a beat of hesitation, and a lifetime’s worth of fear and worry.

Then, the lamp began to shake and tremble. Roman dropped it as it warmed more and more until the metal was red and burning to the touch. Smoke began to pour out more and more filling the cave until a blue mist began to follow suit. “GAAAAH!” a loud, thunderous voice yelled, that would have been terrifying if not so familiar. “Ten thousand years will give you such a crick in the neck! OH- Hello there!”

“Patton,” Roman said with a smile.

“Oh it is good to be out,” Patton announced. He summoned up a microphone and held it to Roman’s face. “What’cha name, Kiddo, where ya from?”

“Roman.”

“Roman! Welcome to the show! Should we call ya Ro or Man? Or maybe just Oma because Oma-gosh is it great to meet you!” Patton chuckled loudly at his own joke before adjusting his glasses and moving his head down to look at Roman. “You know, you’re a lot smaller than my old master.”

“Master?”

“Yep!” Patton said. “I’ll grant you anything your heart desires! Three wishes- but no wishing for more wishes. That’s a big no-no. So, what’ll it be, Master?”

A million thoughts ran through Roman’s head in only seconds. “Maybe, uh, maybe don’t call me that. Roman- Roman’s good. Anything is better than- uh- than that.”

“Gotcha, Ro!”

Roman let out a sigh of relief. “Well,” he said, “I’d like to get out of this cave.”

Patton smiled, placing himself, Roman, and the circus monkey onto a magic carpet. “Please keep your hands, arms, feet, and legs inside the carpet at all times.” He turned his hand into a cannon and blasted a hole through the top of three cave, dodging debris as he steered the carpet (and the passengers) to safety.

Now all Roman had to do was:

1) Become a prince

2) Storm into Agrabah

3) Win Virgil’s affections

4) Release the Genie

Easy, right? Easy until step three. Virgil was very persistent about “I’m not a prize to be won” which was, completely understandable, but at least let a guy try, right?

So here he was, standing on a magic carpet, holding onto the railing of Virgil’s balcony. “I hope you know how creepy you’re being right now,” the prince said with a glare, “I could easily have my guards arrest you.”

“I know, I know, but- I just wanted to talk to you. Get to know you. Actually know you.”

“I’ll cave,” Virgil said, still holding a bit of a glare. “What do you have in mind?”

With the tap of his foot as the cue, Roman rose higher towards the balcony, revealing the magic carpet. “Care for a ride?” He held his hand out, but Virgil was clearly hesitant to take it. “Do you trust me?”

Virgil smiled softly, taking Roman’s hand and settling into the carpet. Roman kept an arm tightly around Virgil’s waist, for safety reasons of course. He obviously had no other motivation to embrace the feeling of his hand against Virgil’s exposed skin while the other snuggled up close to him.

“I can show you the world,” Roman sang softly, “shining, shimmering, splendid. Tell me, Princess-“ He winked as Virgil rolled his eyes. “-when did you last let your heart decide?”

He subtly pulled Virgil closer and waited a moment to see if there other were to protest this. He never did. “I can open your eyes. Take you wonder by wonder. Over, sideways, and under on a magic carpet ride.”

They flew over the marketplace but Virgil’s gaze was caught on the stars as the cool wind blew his hair away from his face. Roman’s heart melted at how lovely he was. “A whole new world,” he sang, “a new fantastic point of view. No one to tell us ‘no’ or where to go, or say we’re only dreaming.”

“A whole new world,” Virgil started, his voice was small and nervous but melodious nonetheless. “A dazzling place I never knew.” He took a shaky breath and pulled Roman’s arm tighter around his waist, leaving a blush on the faux prince’s face. “But now that I’m way up here, it’s crystal clear, that now I’m in a whole new world with you.”

“Now I'm in a whole new world with you!”

“Unbelievable sights,” Virgil sang, smiling and looking so carefree as if the fear of falling hadn’t occurred to him at all. He looked so happy and genuine that Roman almost had to wonder if Virgil were cursed too. “Indescribable feelings.” The prince smiled back at Roman with a look with too much wonder and adoration to be real. “Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling, through an endless diamond sky.” If Virgil were truly cursed, he’d be a lot more terrified and way too confused about all of this to be singing.

Roman let out a deep breath and smiled at his fake love. A side could certainly dream, couldn't he?

“A whole new world.”

Roman reached out to grab Virgil’s hand. “Don’t you dare close your eyes.”

“A hundred thousand things to see.”

“Hold your breath it gets better.”

Virgil gripped onto Roman’s hands, holding eye contact with him as best he could. “I’m like a shooting star, I’ve come so far.” He leaned in closer, his voice getting quieter as he pressed his forehead against Roman’s. “I can’t go back to where I used to be.”

“A whole new world.”

“Every turn a surprise.”

“With new horizons to pursue.”

“Every moment; Red-letter.”

They held onto each other as if nothing else mattered, moving in closer and closer as they sang. “I’ll chase them anywhere; there’s time to spare.” They pressed their foreheads together, noses brushing, as Roman let his hand rest against Virgil’s neck. “Let me share this whole new world with you.”

“A whole new world,” Roman sang, his voice dying down to a spoken whisper.

“A whole new world,” Virgil echoed, exhaling the words against Roman’s skin as they grew closer and closer.

“That’s where we’ll be.”

“That’s where we’ll be.”

“A thrilling chase.”

“A wondrous place.” They had flown back to the castle balcony already, letting time pass them by. Roman helped Virgil down onto the safe ground as he stayed floating on the magic carpet.

They stood on opposite sides of the railing- Virgil in his rich, wealthy castle; Roman hovering above the poor and the ruin- both so close and so far as Roman kept his hands against Virgil’s neck and both of their foreheads stay resting against the other’s. “For you and me.” Their lips brushed together as Roman moved in closer, and closer, just about to finalize the moment.

“Virgil! Virgil, are you out there?”

Virgil pulled away quickly, panic in his eyes. “My father,” he said with a gasp. “You need to leave!”

“I’ll see you soon, My Prince,” said Roman, pressing a kiss to Virgil’s hand. “I’ll see you soon.” With a wink and a smile, he was gone into the night.

Now for step 4: Release the Genie.

Yeah getting there proved to have a bunch of mini steps along the way. Maybe make freeing the Genie step 5.

Okay, okay, Roman’s Full To-Do List was:

1) Become a prince

2) Storm into Agrabah

3) Win Virgil’s affections

4) Get caught by goons

   a) Almost drown at the bottom of the ocean.

   b) Get saved by Patton

   c) Have Patton stolen by “Jafar”

   d) Get banished from Agrabah 

   e) Get back to Agrabah

    f) Fight Jafar

5) Release the Genie

6) Happy Ending to get the hell out of Aladdin

Now just to get past step 4F.

Roman wouldn’t admit it in his moment of horror, but having Deceit turn into a giant cobra was actually pretty funny on the Dragon Witch’s part. He’d have to compliment her after ripping out her spleen. That was a problem for another day, he decided as he trapped Deceit in the lamp.

“Ten thousand years in the cave of wonders ought to chill him out,” Patton teased, listening to the yelling coming from the lamp. He pulled his arm back and pitched the lamp as far away as possible. If he never saw it again, it would be too soon.

Roman tightened his grip on Virgil’s hands as they watched the lamp fly by. “I’m sorry for lying to you about being a prince.”

“It’s okay,” Virgil said, “I know why you did it. If it weren’t for that stupid law-”

“Hate to intrude, Kiddos, but... you do still have one last wish left.”

“Patton, what about your freedom?”

The genie sighed, forcing on a semi-genuine smile. “It’s only an eternity of servitude, but this... this is love, Ro. You’re not gonna find another guy like him in a million years.” He leaned in towards Roman’s ear and whispered, “Believe me, I’ve looked.”

“But-”

“Just say the words and you can be a prince again.”

Roman moved closer to Virgil, cupping the side of his face and planting a kiss to his forehead. “Virgil, I do love you, but I have to stop pretending to be what... I’m not. I have to do this.” He took the lamp in both hands. “Patton, I wish for your freedom.”

“One prince coming right up-” Patton froze, his voice softening and his eyes falling on Roman. “What?”

It wasn’t grand or filled with fireworks, but magically the genie’s cuffs fell off and he was finally free from his own lamp. He was... human. “I’m free,” Patton said. “I’m free! I’m free! I’m gonna see the world! I’m gonna- Thank you, Roman,” Patton said, pulling him into a big, weepy hug. “You’ll always be a prince to me.”

“Well, I think that’s certainly evidence enough.” The group turned to face Logan who stood in clothing that had more value than Roman’s entire net worth. “The only thing in the way is that law, after all.”

“Father?”

“Am I the sultan or am I the sultan?” Logan wore a smirk on his face as his gaze drifted from Virgil to Roman and vice versa. “From this moment forward, the heir may marry whomever he deems worthy.”

“Him,” Virgil declared, taking a running start into Roman’s arms. “I chose him.”

Roman smiled, cupping Virgil’s face and pulling him in towards a kiss. Their lips were centimeters apart when Patton pulled them- and Logan- into his arms and yelled, “GROUP HUG!”

“Perhaps we should give them a moment of privacy,” Logan suggested as the breath was squeezed from his lungs.

“Oh! Right!” Patton let go of the hug, letting Logan lead him back into the castle, but glancing over his shoulder to give Roman one last thumbs up.

Roman traced his fingers along Virgil’s jaw one last time, admiring his tanned skin. “Now, where were we?” he asked, separating Virgil’s lips as he leaned in for a kiss.

He happily woke up to the sound of jazz in New Orleans. One quick look in the mirror, he saw his skin had turned darker than it had been in Agrabah and he let out a sigh of relief. Well, at least he and the Dragon Witch had the same view on animated diversity!

Speaking of the Dragon Witch, she offered him a hand when she found him sitting on a street corner- Logan not far behind. “Enchante,” she said, pulling him up, “a tip of the hat from Dr. Facilier.”

“Finally owning up to your villainous nature, my wicked fiend?”

She laughed from her chest and just before they went into the alley, Roman got the first good look at her new form. She had red hair that hung just past her shoulders in waves and her eyes were unmistakably violet, but she still kept the same sharp facial features and broad shoulders that she always had. She handed Roman a business card as she whispered in his ear in as menacing a tone as she could muster, “Are you ready?”

He was not ready whatsoever and spent about 93 minutes screaming internally. His only wish was that he could have seen the witch perish. Virgil would have gladly let him have the experience in his place.

“Please- I! I just need a little more time!” The woman yelled. Demons grabbed at her shadow and she fell completely to the ground. Voodoo dolls and demons chanted angrily and hit drums around them as the woman pleaded for her life upon deaf ears. As she got pulled in her skin turned to scales and then stone until her physical body melded with the gravestone she was being pulled into leaving a stone dragon behind.

After turning human again, and getting their happy ending, Roman had to prepare for the worst. The Dragon Witch has spent a lot of time planning without him in Tangled. He’d have to think fast.

“Flower, gleam, and glow,” young Virgil sang as his mother brushed through his golden hair, “let your power shine. Make the clock reverse.” The witch’s scaly skin reverted back into human flesh. She’d have to be stealthy to stay human now. One backfired curse against Roman had taken that choice away from her. One stolen baby would give that choice back. “Bring back what once was mine. What once was mine.”

“I could get used to a view like this,” Roman said, looking over the kingdom. Everything was 3D now, computer animated and way more realistic. He loved all of it. “All right. I’m used to it.” He whipped around dramatically to face his confidants- a set of twins named Apollo and Jericho. “Boys, I want a castle.”

“You can get your castle, after we get the crown,” Apollo said, his voice deep and threatening. Apollo pulled Roman back by the collar. All right, let’s do this one last time...

It didn’t take long to get to the tower once he had to outrun the twins, the guards, and the horse. Damn the horse. Inside of the tower, however, was something eerily familiar about it all. He definitely knew who built this place.

That’s when it hit him. Literally.

He woke up strapped to a chair, tied down with blond hair. Which was a slight shock, actually... this was Virgil, wasn’t it?

“I don’t know who you are, or how you found me, or what you want to do with my hair!” a voice- Virgil’s voice- yelled from the shadows. Roman suddenly understood how Virgil had felt back in that prisoner tower in France.

“Why don’t we make a deal?” Roman said. “You let me out of your... hair... and I help you with whatever adventure your little heart desires.”

“I-” Virgil stood frozen, caught off guard for a moment as he glanced at Pascal. “...Deal.”

This Virgil was odd, definitely, but more familiar than all of the others. Roman began to think himself mad until they found themselves in a boat, floating in the middle of the sea beneath a sky of floating lights.

“All at once, everything is different-” Roman cupped a hand against Virgil’s cheek, seeing all of the love and vulnerability in his eyes. It was a lovely sight. “-now that I see you.”

They were so close to kissing until he saw them. Apollo and Jericho on a nearby shore. He shouldn’t have looked. He should have just let himself kiss Virgil. He shouldn’t be pulling away right now. He inhaled with a sharp breath, loathing the feeling of his own free will being taken from him as he began to row towards the shore.

“Ro...man?” Virgil asked. “Is everything alright?”

Roman shook his head, pulling himself back into reality. Back into... fiction. This was all fiction, and he had to remember that. “Yeah, yeah I just... Yeah. I just need to deal with something for a moment. I’ll be quick.”

He pulled up to the shore, hoping to deal with things amicably, grabbed the satchel, and headed to where the twins were. “Ah! Good to see you two!” Roman lied, watching carefully as Apollo sharpened a makeshift knife.

“Hear you’ve been holding out on us, Sanders,” Jericho said.

“What?” Roman said. “No, the- the crown is right here!” he said, holding the satchel up. “You can have it!”

“What’s more valuable, Sanders?” Apollo asked, rising as he and Jericho began to corner the prince. “The crown? Or the boy with the magical hair?”

“How- How do you?” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see moonlight reflecting against familiar green scales. She was between phases, but why? Roman didn’t have time to question any of the problems before him when suddenly a force hit his head and everything went black.

The most horrific dream he had was this one. It was one thing to know that your friends are mourning for you. It’s another to see the body they’re mourning over.

He wasn’t dead, exactly, but the overall sight looked more like a coma than a nap. The room was completely empty except for the ghost of Roman... and her. “Why are you here?” Roman asked, his voice deep and almost at a growl. “Haven’t you given me enough pain showing me this?”

The Dragon Witch said nothing, only carefully touching the scales on her arms and watching them with confusion. She poked and prodded higher up her arm, wincing with pain as she did so but never acknowledging Roman.

“Answer me!” Roman yelled, tears welling up in his eyes.

The Witch’s head snapped up and she met the trembling Prince’s eyes. He looked as pained and confused as the first time she had cursed him. Funny, how nostalgia always hits at the most inconvenient times. “Roman, don’t you get it? I can’t change the curse once it’s cast,” she said. “I can only alter... minuscule details.”

Almost on cue, Deceit shuffled into the room, fidgeting with his gloves and keeping his eyes glued to Roman’s sleeping face. “It was just a dream,” he muttered to himself. “It was just a dream.”

“Will he be alright?” Roman asked.

The Dragon Witch flicked her wrist towards Deceit and instantly he fell into a tired trance. The Dragon Witch mumbled something to him in a language that Roman had never heard before. Wordlessly, Deceit turned around and walked away. He was almost robotic. “Of course he’ll be alright,” the witch said, “there’s no reason for him not to be.”

“He won’t remember any of it?”

“Not one second.”

Roman let out a deep breath and slowly nodded. “As for the others...?”

The Dragon Witch shook her head, walking out of the room and seeming to pull Roman along with her. He passed through Logan like air and watched the Logical Side freeze where he stood and began to look around cautiously. “They weren’t there. God, Roman, how vicious must you think me to be in order to curse all of Thomas?”

“I have no idea if anything you just said was even remotely grammatically correct.”

“Fuck grammar,” said the Dragon Witch.

“Fair enough.” Roman saw Virgil come down the stairs from his bedroom, quickly diving into the kitchen and then running away. He looked like he had been crying. Or having a panic attack. Roman swallowed the lump in his throat. It was probably both. “How has Thomas been without me?”

“At a bit of a creative block, at first,” the Dragon Witch told him, glancing towards the two traits still quietly talking to (and comforting) each other in the corner, “you aren’t gone, Roman, just napping. The others, though? Mr. Morality over here has been a wreck.” A small cackle left her lips as Roman’s attention fell on the tired Patton.

“Don’t insult him,” Roman snapped. “Hurt me, torture me, rip all of my happiness away from me, but never insult them or I swear by Odin’s eyepatch I will make sure your death is one you cannot revive from.”

“Pinched a nerve, huh?” she asked, completely apathetic to Roman’s glare. “Fine, geez, whatever.” She snapped her fingers and Roman woke up back in Corona.

“It’s him!” a guard yelled.

Roman’s vision was blurry but he could see that he had been tied to a sailboat with the crown in hand. Guards were climbing onto the boat, untying Roman but making sure he didn’t escape. He had to follow the script.

He had to follow the script.

He had to...

He picked his head up in a moment of realization and they untied his hands. He didn’t have to do jackshit. Roman cracked his neck and shoulders, nudging guards away from him as he drew his arm back, holding the crown. “You want it?” he yelled, throwing the crown onto the land. “Go get it!”

He punched one the guards, knocking him off of his horse, and rode away towards the forest as quickly as possible. Halfway into the woods, he turned on a separate course away from the tower and dismounted the horse. He hid behind a boulder and watched palace guards follow a riderless horse. The horseless rider then ran as fast as his legs would take him until his pulse was pounding against his head and his throat was burning as he tried to take in air. He found the tower and stopped for a moment, letting his breathing even out as adrenaline coursed through his veins. He began to scale the tower.

“Let him go!” Roman announced, letting himself in through the tower window.

“Ah, our guest is here early, isn’t that nice, Sunflower?” the Dragon Witch cooed. Scales were running up the side of her neck and across her arms. “You shouldn’t have broken character,” she hissed, running her blade into his side. She ripped the blade out as quickly as she had inserted it and let Roman fall to the ground in pain. “I warned you,” she hummed, dropping the knife and leaving him there as she grabbed the chain that Virgil had been tied up against and tried to actually him away.

“Hmmph!” Virgil struggled against the pull, managing to remove the cloth from around his mouth. “Let me heal him!” he yelled.

The witch glanced to Roman with a raised eyebrow. “He’s not worth it, Darling. Just leave him to the rats.”

“No!” Virgil yelled. “If you take me now, I will spend the rest of my life struggling and fighting, but... if you let me heal him, I’ll go willingly and never go against anything you ask of me.”

“No,” the witch seethed.

Roman’s head was pounding and his breath began to leave him. He didn’t have the energy to get up.

“Then,” Virgil said quietly, Roman could see him slowly untying his hands, “you leave me no choice.” He grabbed the bloody dagger that lay next to Roman and brought it against the witch’s thigh. The witch screamed out in pain but clicked her fingers, “sinking down” back into the imagination. Roman knew exactly why she left; this was the end. There was nowhere else to go after here, and he was about to die. Again. Motherfucker.

The blade fell to the ground and Virgil stared in shock. He glanced over towards Roman and quickly rushed to the dying man’s side, freeing himself from his chains as he did so. “Roman, I... I’m so sorry,” he said, tears welling up in his eyes. “You never should have come here.”

“I can’t believe you stabbed that bitch,” Roman said through weak breaths. “That was... kinda hot.”

“Roman, you’re dying.”

Roman took in a sharp inhale, his muscles tensing around his lungs. “Perhaps... I am, but... without you, there’s no life worth living.”

“Roman,” Virgil breathed out, gently pressing his hand against Roman’s face.

“Just kiss me, Virgil. Please.”

“Roman...”

“Virgil,” Roman said hoarsely, placing his hand on Virgil’s. “Please.”

When their lips met it wasn’t warm or loving. It was sad and melancholic. It was an ending, but who was to say if it were happy? Roman took some relief in knowing that any of his suffering would fade away along with the man in front of him.

“Virgil,” Roman mumbled one more time, but he wasn’t in the tower anymore. He sat up, several roses falling from his chest. His skin was no longer perfect but uneven in tone and with brown freckles across his arms and hands. He looked more human than art and, for the first time, he was happy to admit that.

“I see that you’re awake,” Logan said, looking up from his Nook. He held a disinterested facade, but there was a softness to his tone and a smile that he couldn’t hide.

“How long was I out?”

Logan set down his Nook and let out a deep sigh. “About two weeks,” he said quietly. “I- We... We were all very concerned.”

“Two weeks?” A beat settled throughout the room. “Oh.”

“Is that...” Patton stood in the doorway hesitating only for a moment before running towards the bed and throwing himself onto Roman in a tearful hug. “You’re okay! You’re... ALIVE!”

“That I am,” Roman said reciprocating the hug. “I most certainly am.”

“L, what’s all the com-” Virgil’s jaw dropped and his eyes were already filling with tears. “-motion.”

“Virgil!” Roman said. He slowly maneuvered his way over to the other. “I... I’m so happy to see you.”

“I...I...” Tears fell from Virgil’s eyes and suddenly the two of them were in a tight embrace. Logan would have told you that Virgil had initiated the hug; Patton would have informed you that Roman had been ready to take Virgil into his arms from the moment he had stood up.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Roman mumbled into Virgil’s neck.

“I don’t care,” Virgil said. “Not right now. I need to know that this is real first.”

Roman tried to listen for Virgil’s heartbeat but his own was beating in his ears even louder. “Me too,” Roman said, pulling Virgil closer and inhaling the scent of lavender on his jacket. “Me too.”

“Let’s give them some privacy,” Patton whispered quietly, taking Logan’s arm and leaving the two behind.

“What happened to you?”

“I highly doubt you’d believe me.”

Virgil moved away from Roman to stare into his eyes. He had to make sure this wasn’t just a dream. “Try me.”

Roman let out a deep breath. “I was cursed by a Dragon Witch.”

“That sounds ridiculous.”

“I know, but-“

“I believe you.” Virgil took a seat in the bed and patted next to him. “Tell me about it. How’d you wake up? It’s not like anyone kissed you.” He was teasing but Roman couldn’t help the blush that came to his face.

“She... said that I needed to confess my feelings to someone. And then... made me do that a lot.”

“Pretty sure I’d end up resenting that person if I had to face him that much,” Virgil teased.

“Yeah,” Roman said with a forced laugh, relaxing against the mattress. “But I don’t. I just... fell harder only for him to not recognize me again.” He watched Virgil’s face but his own face was burning, giving away his bravado. “I still need to make sure this is real.”

“Roman, what are you talking about?”

Roman held Virgil’s hands tightly in one of his own, letting the other brush against Virgil’s cheek. “I was... blind before. Virgil, you’re... my anchor. I always thought you held me back, but you held keep my stable, grounded. You’re wonderful.” He leaned infinitesimally closer but left the Grand Canyon between their lips. “But I need to make sure this isn’t just another one of her tricks.”

“What are you asking?” Virgil asked in so hushed a whisper it barely left his throat.

Roman’s eyes went from Virgil’s lips to his eyes. “Can I kiss you, Virgil?”

Virgil tried to swallow but found that his mouth was horrifically dry. He gave a small nod and soon felt Roman’s lips on his own.

It wasn’t like the kisses before. It wasn’t smooth or warm. Virgil’s lips were chapped and neither of them moved out of fear or maybe something else. It was only a couple of seconds before Roman pulled away.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “If you don’t feel the same, then I’d hope we can pretend this didn’t happen.” He stood from the bed and began to walk away but felt a tug at the fabric of his shirt at the last minute.

“Roman, wait,” Virgil said. He quickly stood but with his terrible posture, he was a few inches shorter than the prince. He pulled Roman down by the neck and kissed him. It was messy and rough but it was human and genuine as he kissed back Roman savored every single moment of it.

When they pulled apart they were at a loss for air with their foreheads pressed together.  “I may not be cursed, but,” Roman spoke softly, not bothering to open his eyes for fear that it may all wash away, “this certainly feels like a dream.”

“You’re such a sap,” Virgil said pulling him into another kiss. And then another. And a future with more and more kisses after that. It wasn’t an ending, but it was certainly happy, and that’s all Roman could have ever asked for.

[taetaespeaches]

“I can’t eat my cup of noodles because the microwave is an asshole”

Yoongi x Reader (or oc)

Word count: 2,342

“Babe, we said we’d get dinner Thursday night, as in tomorrow night,” your boyfriend told you over the phone. He was wrong, you were sure of it. There is no way you were the one who mixed up the days. “I have my meeting with the producers tonight, remember?” You definitely remembered Yoongi’s meeting, but you could have sworn he told you it was on a different night.  

“No, we said Wednesday night, as in tonight, because I start working the late shift tomorrow. This is my only free night for a week, Yoon.” You held the phone to your ear using your shoulder as you began shoving things into your bag as quickly as you could, trying to get out the door so you wouldn’t be late for work.   

“I’m not an idiot, y/n. I wouldn’t double book you with my meeting.” You could hear the aggravation in his tone. You stopped throwing things into your bag momentarily as you responded to him bitterly.

“Oh, so I’m the idiot then? Nice, Yoongi, thanks.”

“Jesus.” A sigh sounded through your eardrum, a clear sign of your boyfriend’s annoyance with you and the situation.  “I didn’t say that. I’m just saying that I’m not the one who messed up the days.”

You scoffed in response as you grabbed your bag and headed out the door. “Whatever, I have to go. I’ll see you, well, who knows the fuck when,” you snipped into the phone as you stepped into the elevator of your apartment building, pushing the button to take you to the ground floor. “I just wanted to see you, you know.” Your tone softened, showing a moment of vulnerability.

Yoongi immediately picked up on the dejection in your voice. “Y/n…”

“I can’t talk, I’m gonna be late,” you cut him off. After a few seconds of silence, he responded.

“Fine,” his tone expressed exactly what he was feeling- frustration and defeat. He wanted to make you feel better, but he was also irritated with you. “Talk to you later I guess.”  

You gave a short laugh, void of any humor before mumbling a “mhmm” and pulling the phone from your ear, pressing on the screen to end the call. You rolled your eyes as you stepped out of the elevator. He fucked up, not me.

. . . . . . . . . .

Your fight with your boyfriend was just the first shitty thing to happen in a series of shitty events throughout a shitty day. 

In a rush to get to work, you were driving faster than the law permitted, resulting in a speeding ticket. You were berated by your boss the second you walked through the door for a number of stupid things. The customers at work were especially rude and impatient, as if they knew you were having a bad day and just wanted to rub salt in the wound. After your shift ended, you rushed to class in which you had a pop quiz that you were completely unprepared for. Then, you got roped into working the late shift on your only night off for the next week because your coworker called in sick. You wanted to say fuck you, no, but you could use the extra money. Plus, you obviously didn’t have any plans tonight.

All you wanted to do was call Yoongi and just hear his voice, let him melt away your frustrations, but you were too stubborn to do that. You both were too stubborn for your own good.

. . . . . . . . . . .

It was midnight and you were finally home, dressed in Yoongi’s shirt and a pair of sweatpants. You were still mad at him, but his shirt was just too comfy. Plus, it made you feel better and more relaxed.

You were waiting for your cup of noodles to finish cooking in the microwave as your mind wandered to Yoongi, more specifically your fight with Yoongi. 

Maybe it was you that messed up the days. You’ve been stressed, so it wouldn’t be unrealistic for you to have switched the days in your head. It also wasn’t unrealistic for Yoongi to have made that mistake as well. And as you thought about it in that moment, you were realizing it didn’t matter who messed up.

Your thoughts were interrupted by three beeps signaling your food was done. You excitedly pulled the door open and grabbed the Styrofoam cup. 

“What the fuck?” The cup was still cold. You dipped your finger into the watery broth, feeling the cool liquid. You put the cup back into the microwave as your face scrunched in confusion. You added more time to the microwave as you craned your head to peer through the door of the appliance, inspecting it but not knowing what you were looking for. Then you saw it. 

“What the hell?” The plate wasn’t turning and that, for some reason, was causing the whole microwave to not work, leaving your food cold and uncooked. You opened the door and pushed the plate around a little, trying to jiggle it into submission. 

You closed the door again, pressed start, and… still nothing.

You repeated your actions a few times before groaning in frustration. You smacked the side of the microwave in anger. 

“Why are you beating the microwave?” Yoongi’s low timbre startled you, causing you to jump. 

“Shit.” You took a deep breath, placing your hand over your racing heart. “When did you get here?”

“Just now. You left the door unlocked… again.” You looked at him for a moment before quickly averting your eyes back to the microwave.

“M’sorry.”

“You can’t keep leaving it unlocked, y/n, it’s not safe…” 

“I know, I’m sorry,” you cut him off, making eye contact with him briefly before turning your attention back to the microwave. He sighed as he observed you, noticing how tense you looked. Your shoulders were tight and far from relaxed. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked genuinely concerned. 

“The fucking microwave won’t work.”

“What do you mean it won’t work?”

“I mean it won’t work,” you glared at him. He raised his eyebrows, silently prodding you for further explanation. You huffed. “I had a long, shitty day, we’re fighting, and now I can’t eat my cup of noodles because the microwave is an asshole.”

It took every fiber of Yoongi’s being not to laugh at your whiny voice calling the microwave an asshole. 

“Whats wrong with it?” He asked as he made his way to the appliance. 

“It’s broken,” you dramatically shrugged your shoulders. “The stupid plate won’t turn and for some reason that’s causing the whole thing to not work.”

He inspected it as he started messing with it, resembling you from a few minutes ago. He stepped away after a few attempts.

“Hmm,” he looked at you. “It’s broken.”

“No shit.” You deadpanned. He just slowly blinked at you, pushing his tongue into the side of his cheek. “You know, I wouldn’t be hungry and pissed off over a cup of noodles if you wouldn’t have mixed your days up.”

“Excuse me?” His aggravation was growing once again. 

“We could’ve already had a nice meal tonight if you hadn’t…”

“I already told you I didn’t double book my days,” he cut you off, irritation bubbling. “We planned dinner for tomorrow night.”

“Why would I plan for tomorrow night when I know I have to work late tomorrow?” Out of frustration, you rolled your eyes.

“I don’t know, why did you?” His smartass remark had you fuming.

“Oh, fuck off. Why are you even here? Why didn’t you just stay at the dorm tonight?” Your eyes immediately grew bigger, shocked at your own words. You didn’t mean to say that. No matter how mad you were at Yoongi, you never wanted him to feel like he had to leave.

“Do you want me to stay at the dorm?” He sounded surprised, and slightly heartbroken.

“No,” you immediately blurted out. “Yes,” you recovered, stubbornly holding onto your anger. “I don’t know,” you sighed. “Just, do what you want. I’m going to sleep.”

Yoongi watched you with his arms crossed over his chest as you made your way to your bedroom and slammed the door shut behind you. He groaned out of frustration, mentally asking himself why you had to be so fucking stubborn.

After a few minutes, you were settled into bed trying to fall asleep, but found yourself too curious as to what Yoongi was doing to give into slumber. You heard a bang and a clank every now and then, followed by a string of curses leaving his mouth, but you refused to check on him.

. . . . . . . . . .

You were drifting in and out of sleep when you heard the front door slam shut, making your eyes shoot open.

Did he just leave? At… you checked the clock… 2 am? You quickly sat up and crawled out of bed to go into the kitchen.

“Yoongi?”

“Hi, yeah it’s me,” he rushed gently. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m sorry, go back to sleep.”

“Yoon, what are you doing? I thought you left.”

“I did leave. Just for a bit. I went to the dorm.” He rubbed his neck as he looked towards your deconstructed microwave.

Your eyes followed his gaze, falling upon the parts of the appliance that were scattered around your counter. “Is that my microwave?”  

“Yeah. I was trying to fix the asshole.” He sighed. 

“At 2 in the morning?” 

“It was bothering me,” he paused, deliberating over whether he should say his next words. He wanted to talk to you, vent his frustrations, but he was unsure of whether you wanted to listen. “I just wanted to do one thing right today.” 

“Darling, what are you talking about?” You asked as you stepped towards him. You stopped when you were close enough to touch him, though you didn’t yet, as you looked up at his face, eyes searching for an answer. 

“It was just a long day.”

“Yoongi,” You pressed. 

“Aren’t we fighting?” He asked softly, voice expressing hope that maybe you had gotten past your anger. 

“We can pause it. Now talk to me.” A small smile made its way to his face before he sighed. 

“I kept fucking up a piece of the choreography, the producers didn’t like my material, and worst of all, I let you down.”

“Honey, no, you didn’t let me down.” You hand brushed his dark fringe out of his eyes so you could look into them. “I was just upset at the whole situation and I took it out on you. I could have messed the days up just as easily as you could have.”

“Yeah, but I should never have let our argument go on like this. I should have stopped it this morning. It was stupid.”

“It was incredibly stupid, but that’s not just on you. I’m an equally guilty party.” He just looked at you with soft chocolate eyes. 

“As for the choreography, you’ll get it. You always do. And the producers can screw off. I heard those beats and they sounded great.” Yoongi let out a mixture of a scoff and a chuckle. “But, if you want, we can run through them later and try to find what might be going wrong with’em.”

“You’re amazing” he stared into your eyes fondly. His hands found yours as he pulled you into his chest, immediately letting a deep breath out when you fell into him. “Thank you.” His arms wrapped around your shoulders as yours found their way around his waist.

You melted into his body, loving the way he felt against you. 

“You still owe me a dinner” you whispered into his chest. 

“Yeah?” He quipped, laughing slightly. 

You nodded as your forehead rest against his chest. His shoulders shook in silent laughter as you smiled. It didn’t matter who messed up the plans. You were both just happy to be in each other’s arms. 

You pulled away slightly preparing to drag him to bed so you both could get some rest when you caught something in the corner of your eye. 

“Is that a new microwave?” Your features scrunched in confused. 

“Well, not really new. It’s the one from the dorm.” His gums slipped out from behind a shy smile and you could feel your heart flutter.

“You took the dorm microwave?” You asked in surprise. 

“I was frustrated with your piece of shit, and I was thinking about you and your noodles and the next thing I knew I was at the dorm grabbing that,” he gestured at the newer microwave.

“You stole the dorm microwave for me?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so.” He chuckled as you pulled his face to yours, pressing a soft kiss to his lips.

A smile stretched across your features. “You’re something else.”

He flashed a soft, toothless smile at you. “How ‘bout I make that dinner up to you right now? Want some noodles?” He asked you with a smile. 

At your eager nodding, he began preparing two cups of noodles. You grabbed some chopsticks out of the drawer before hopping up onto the counter as you waited for your boyfriend to finish heating the food.

When they finished cooking, he handed you both Styrofoam cups. “Scoot over,” he patted your thigh to nudge you over as he jumped up, joining you on the kitchen counter. You handed him his cup of noodles and you both dug in.

“Oh!” you started with a mouthful of noodles. Anticipating your next words, his chopsticks stalled in his cup as he watched you as you chewed and swallowed as quickly as you could. With a big gulp, you continued, “I got a speeding ticket today.”

His eyes widened in response, a small smirk playing on his lips. He placed a hand at the back of your head and leaned in to kiss your temple. “Aw Baby,” he chuckled into your hairline. “Tell me all about it.”

[zeitgeistghoul]

“First Day”

Axel Cluney x Reader 

Warnings: Mentions of gore and violence 

(hello!! sry if this fic is total garbage and if Axel is OOC, i haven’t tried writing fics like this for a long time. just wanted to show my fav barf boy some love hehe)

Your first day as an honorary X-Force member was far from normal. Wade was beyond thrilled to have a new face on the team, even going as far to ensure you received the best training you could ask for. Your mutant ability made an interesting addition to the team. You had been born with abnormally sharp and long canine teeth, making dentist visits as a kid beyond horrifying Your dentist had put an unsuspecting finger in your mouth and you had nearly bit it clean off. He was fine after a multitude of stitches, but your mother was sure he stopped being a dentist after that. Wade had referred to you as “Toothy” and “Dracula” more times than you could count, Domino finally suggesting “Saber” as your superhero name. It had stuck, finally making you feel apart of the team.

Everyone was extremely kind and helpful, the other members frequently offering to train with you and assist you on missions. The only member you hadn’t worked with yet was “Zeitgeist” or Axel Cluney as you had come to know. He was definitely an intriguing individual, not to mention extremely intimidating. He was tall; his arms and shoulders decorated with...odd tattoos. The first day you met him was when Wade had first recruited you and brought you back to the X-Mansion and introduced you to the rest of the team. All the other X-Force members were making a fuss over you, excited to have a new face around and to act as your mentors. However, Axel was the only one who stood to the side and leaned against the door frame, observing you with a odd look on his face. You wanted to introduce yourself then, but the ‘eat shit and die’ tattoo peeking out from the front of his mesh tank top told you otherwise.

That had been a few months ago and you were officially done with your training today. You and him were acquainted, but never been on a mission together. Wade quickly noticed this and worked to immediately change that.

“(Your name), as an official member of the X-Force, today will be your first official mission.” he said, excitedly tugging your arm to get you to follow him into one of the many rooms in the house. An assortment of papers and folders were strewn across the table. Wade motioned for you to sit down with him as he began to explain your first mission.

“Nothing too crazy, just some asshole who’s disguising his corporate business as an underground human trafficking ring.” Wade said, sliding you a manilla folder. Upon opening the cover, you were met with a photo of the supposed man you were being sent after.

“He looks like he was born to do this.” you commented, noticing just how abnormally creepy this man was. Wade laughed at this and pointed to the address scrawled onto a post-it note on top of the picture.

“That’s your place.” he said. “It’s his warehouse about an two hours outside of the city. He should be there all day.” You nodded in understanding and stood up to go gather what you would need for the mission. Your weapons were kept mostly in the room they had assigned you, so you grabbed the dagger you kept under your bed. It probably wouldn’t be needed with your ability and all, but always a nice plan B. You went back downstairs and stopped halfway down when you saw who was standing with Wade. Axel was suited up for a mission, his bright green vomit-guard mask held in one hand. You hesitantly climbed down the rest of the stairs, already feeling apprehensive.

“As fuckin’ dandy as it would be to send you on this mission by yourself, I thought otherwise.” Wade said. “Barf boy here will be your babysitter-I mean partner.” Wade pushed the both of you towards the door to where your jet would be waiting. “Have fun, you crazy kids!” he called after the two of you. “And don’t even think about getting fresh with my student, ya fuckin’ clown!” The door slammed behind you guys. You awkwardly glanced at Axel, feeling embarrassment already beginning to bubble to the surface. He practically towered over you, his green eyes piercing into your own.

“Let’s go, then.” he said, making his way towards the jet. You stammered out in agreement, quickly following behind. You took a seat across from him and the jet’s door closed automatically as you sat down. It rumbled and shook as it shot into take-off, causing you to jerk backward as it did. Axel began to adjust his suit and pulled his mask over his mouth and eyes. You occasionally stole glances at him and watched his movements curiously. You felt awkward and wanted to discuss the mission, but you were afraid of being an annoying rookie who asked too many questions. He peered at you over his mask.

“Excited?” he called to you over the whir of the jet engine. You flashed him a small smile, your pointy teeth poking out as you did. He jokingly grinned back, his mask lifting with the movement of his smile. The two of you sat in silence until Axel stood up, the ramp of the jet lowering again, signalling it was time to go. Axel tossed you a parachute backpack and you attached it to yourself, adrenaline beginning to course through your veins as you approached the ramp.

“See you at the bottom!” Axel shouted, adjusting his parachute one last time and jumping off the ramp. You had made this jump numerous times on other missions, but you had never quite gotten used to it. You pulled goggles over your eyes and blinked furiously as if to snap yourself out of your fear. Your heart was practically forcing itself out of your chest as you took a deep breath and dove off the ramp. Wind whipped through your hair as you hurtled towards the open field coming into view below you. Axel was further down from you, simply a green spec from where you were in comparison. You saw his parachute burst from the pack attached to him and he began to float towards the field. You soon did the same thing, however not having much luck. The force of deploying your parachute jerked you to the right, sending you floating straight towards the woods near the field. You braced yourself for what was to come, half expecting you collide head first with it. To your dismay and embarrassment, your parachute became entangled with tree branches, leaving you dangling there like an idiot. Bright green leaves floated down from the impact you made, one sticking to your hair. You wracked your brain from how to get yourself out of this situation. Your mind instantly went to the dagger you brought, but it was in your belt, which was unreachable to how you were positioned. You also tried to unclip the pack from your chest, but it was ironically jammed.

“Axel..?” you pathetically called out, turning your head to see him walking towards you with his parachute trailing behind him. He unclipped it from himself, the parachute crumpling to the ground.

“How’s the weather up there?” he mocked, putting a hand to his brow to shield his eyes from the sun as he looked up at you. You scowled at his comment, desperately trying to reach for your dagger again.

“Don’t just stand there!” you yelled, squirming around. “My dagger is in my belt pocket.” Axel chuckled. You were beyond embarrassed. This was your first mission with Axel and you had already made a huge scene. The tree wasn’t tall enough for him to have to climb up that far up and cut you down, so he was able to reach inside your belt pocket and grab your dagger. Luckily, he was tall enough to do so. He struggled to cut the rope that held you captive, the dagger barely making a dent. What kind of parachute was this damn durable? It seemed unrealistic. It also didn’t help that you didn’t sharpen your dagger enough this morning.

“Hold on,” Axel said, slipping the dagger back into your belt and stepping back. “Don’t move.” He moved behind you and the tree shake, then you heard him cough. You immediately realized what he was about to do.

“Wait, what the fu-”, You barely got out the rest of your sentence before you crashed to the ground. You turned around to see the ropes and part of the tree’s branches were eroded away. Axel approached you, turning on his head to spit on the ground.

“You absolute, fucking asshole!” you shouted, checking your body for burns. “You could have killed me!” Axel grinned and held out a hand to help you up.

“I know what I’m doing,” he responded. “I just spit on it a little.” You begrudgingly took his hand and dusted yourself off. The noise the two of you had made had caught some attention, four men were sprinting towards you, most likely henchmen. The warehouse was at least a mile away from where you guys had landed, meaning they had seen you come in. This mission was already a disaster.

“We got company.” Axel yelled, immediately running towards the group of men approaching the two of you. He projectile vomited on the first guy that got too close and the man screeched in agony, stumbling backwards and colliding with the others. You kicked into fighting mode and launched yourself at a guy who now had Axel in a headlock. You sunk your fangs into his neck, ripping out his jugular and sending a geyser of blood shooting into the air. You and Axel picked off the men fairly quickly, your fighting styles syncing up faster than you anticipated. It wasn’t long before you were surrounding by the corpses of the henchmen, the two of you spattered with blood. Your mouth had a dribble of blood dripping from it, which you promptly wiped away. The two of you began making your way towards the warehouse, keeping your eyes peeled for any more surprise visitors. The warehouse was huge, guards placed at every entrance. You and Axel crept along the border, keeping low and close to the woods. You spotted an entrance towards the back that could be a way in and nudged Axel to show him.

“That’ll draw too much attention,” he said. “We should try to get to the roof.” He pointed to a ladder that was close to the entrance your pointed out earlier. “There.” he whispered. He sprinted towards the ladder, climbing up it quickly and throwing himself onto the roof as quietly as he could. He laid low and waved frantically for you to follow. You made a mad dash for the ladder but a guard spotted you and tried to cut you off. You bowled him over, not wasting any time to bite down on his cheek. You forced yourself to get up and scrambled up the ladder. Breathing heavily, you watched Axel pull open a hatch door towards the center of the roof. You crawled over to him and peered down the hatch. It led straight into the warehouse and gave you  a clear shot into saving the women most likely being held captive there. You watched a man in a suit inspect a frail, underfed woman. She was being forced to stand up by a guard pointing a gun to her back. Other women cowered in fear as they watched the man inspect all of them. You assumed the man in the suit was your guy. You needed to take him and the rest of his men out, then get the women to safety. You couldn’t help but notice just how many henchmen this guy had, they were literally everywhere. It was going to be tough, especially it just being the two of you. You needed to be strategic. Axel must have seen the worried look on your face because surprisingly, he placed his hand over yours.

“Everything ok?” he questioned, looking concerned. He quickly retracted his hand looking sheepish, as if he had done that without meaning to. You nodded.

“There’s a lot of enemies.” you observed. “I’m just anxious that’s all.” Axel cracked his knuckles.

“We’ll be just fine.” he responded. “Just follow my lead and try to think of it as another training session.” You couldn’t help but smile. Your anxiety began to loosen its grip on you, giving you the confidence you needed to focus.

“Let’s fucking go.” you said. You jumped down into the warehouse, the man in the suit yelling out in surprise and the captured women screamed. You tackled him to the ground, your jaw snapping towards his face as he tried to push your face away. Bullets began to rain down as the henchmen tried to take you out, forcing you to duck for safety. Axel followed just after you did, spilling vomit from his mouth as he landed directly onto a guard running below him. He dove for safety as well, the crates placed sporadically around the warehouse providing minimal cover. The women were being forced outside by the man in the suit as he frantically looked over his shoulder. Axel began throwing punches and unleashing streams of vomit onto enemy after enemy. You quickly joined his side and you two began taking out enemies twice as fast. He would spew acid onto the floor, forcing henchmen to slip and fall. They would either get horribly burned from the vomit or stunned enough to give you time to land a swift bite to the neck. The two of you moved unpredictably fast, the bullets being shot at you almost unnoticeable. The henchmen were taken out in minutes, leaving only the man in the suit trying to force the women he had been keeping hostage into a large truck outside. Axel dashed ahead of you, grabbing the man from the front seat and throwing him to the ground. He cowered in fear, holding his shaking hands over his face. Axel stepped back to let you do the honors.

“Please,” he begged. “I have a family.” You approached him slowly, rage building up inside of you. “Plea-,” the man wasn’t able to get another word out because you had already wrapped your jaw around his neck.

“Rot in hell.” you said, spitting his own blood back at him as he sputtered and clasped his hands over the open wound on his neck.

The ride home had a different feel to it than when the mission had first started, for obvious reasons of course. You were mentally and physically exhausted. You and Axel sat next to each other this time, you being so tired, you hardly noticed that your knee was touching his. He became tense when you rested your head against his, but eventually relaxed. The two of you sat like that until you arrived back at the mansion. The women rescued from the warehouse were brought to the local police station, successfully marking the end of the mission. Wade threw open the door and pulled you and Axel into a group hug, chattering excitedly about how proud of you he was. The rest of X-Force congratulated you and asked you two questions about the mission. You later excused yourself to the bathroom to clean up. You stared at your reflection in the mirror. The person staring back at you was someone you didn’t recognize.You were an X-Force member now. You were supposed to kill, but it never got any easier. You turned on the sink faucet and splashed water onto your face, the water tinged pink as the blood swirled down the drain. You dried off and opened the door to rejoin the rest of the team. You nearly jumped when you saw Axel waiting for you outside the door.

“Hey.” he said, giving you a small smile. “How are you?” You ran your hand through your hair, feeling some dried blood near the ends. You needed a shower. You suddenly were very aware of your physical appearance.

“I’m alright,” you said, giving him a shrug. “Just not entirely used to the gore..and the vomit.” You instantly regretted that last part. Axel chuckled.

“Trust me, it takes some getting used to.” he said. “But you’re tough.” You smiled, suddenly a swelling feeling rising from your chest. Axel was standing closer than usual to you. You both stood in silence for a moment before you broke it.

“Thanks for being my babysitter today,” you said. “You’re quite the partner.” Axel laughed.

“Any time, I’m open to doing it again.” he said. You walked past him before he called after you. “(Your name),” You turned to look back at him. “We should grab a drink sometime.”

“This weekend,” you said. “You can pick me up.” Axel did his best to hide his smile as he watched you go join the others.

“You got it.”

[fairytail-whathesays]

Why Levi Ackerman is Literally the Worst Character in Attack on Titan, Bar None

You don’t need context because there isn’t any, I’ve always thought this and now I get to tell you why.

01. He should be dead.

That’s not a random complaint about a fight scene gone wrong or some blatant flame-bait to piss people off. It’s a remark about Levi’s place in the story. When you have a character who is more skilled in the story than the main character, wiser than the main character, overall more capable than the main character and just as driven, and overall deserves the spotlight of “humanity’s hope” or whatnot more than the main character (and to an extent Levi actually does carry more of that title in-story than Eren), they tend to die off. There exist two separate tropes for getting rid of characters exactly like this (and although Levi isn’t a Mentor as such, he does get seen as a father figure later in the story by Eren). There’s a reason for that.

And that reason is, why have the main character(s) at all if you have this one? In order for your main character to shine, they can’t constantly be overshadowed. If you let the Advanced Elder (for the fact that we can’t use the Mentor here) stick around, they quickly start to overshadow those main chara--

--cters...

(That’s all official art, by the way. Pictured above: Levi being billed as part of the main cast despite supposedly being an ensemble character. Pictured below: Levi just straight-up replacing Armin and Mikasa as the third member of the main trio.)

That’s already a problem by itself, but is it a dealbreaking problem? Well, what I actually think is the dealbreaking problem is...

02. The author knows he should be dead and deliberately avoids it.

Isayama isn’t a dumbass. When I compare him to other authors I dislike, I make note of the fact that he at least can plan. Sort of. He is well aware of the fact that characters like Levi are typically killed off and took every route he could to avoid it. Once you realize this was happening, it becomes obvious and you wonder why you fell for it.

What purpose, ultimately, did Squad Levi (Petra, Auruo, Eld, Gunther) serve?

The answer is nothing. They exist to become friends with Eren for a little while, being his cool superiors and elders who can slay Titans better than he can, and teaching him cool things before being killed off to tug heartstrings: a very condensed form of the Mentor trope. They exist, in essentials, to die against the Female Titan in place of Levi. The author knew full well that this would ordinarily be the point where the character of Levi died, so he created an entire team of elites under him merely to divert attention from him and do it for him. 

Now with that in mind, what purpose, ultimately, did Squad Zakarius serve? What purpose does Mike Zakarius serve himself? None. They, just like Squad Levi, are there to die off when the story “really starts” to create the impression that a great and capable hero has fallen and now it’s up to the rookies to take up the mantle.

Except it isn’t, because Levi’s still around.

All that those characters were, were distractions. Isayama created them to die, and more specifically when it was time for someone to die to avoid having to do it to his favorites. When it finally did come time for the “stakes” to get super high in the Shiganshina War, his seeming match and ultimate opponent is built up, hyped up...before Isayama totally backpedaled and cheesed the fight because Levi dying was unacceptable.

I am not cool with entire characters and groups of characters being created merely to die in Levi’s place. That’s all those characters were--pointlessly sacrificed to spare him.

03. He’s a Sue.

Yeah. I said it. I actually took a mary sue test as Levi once, and you’d be shocked at the score I got.

I have two types of Sue that I can make a case for him being: Invincible Hero and Jerk Sue. I could also make a case for Sympathetic Sue which I’ll mention afterwards. Invincible Hero, as you’ll notice, isn’t a Sue trope on its own, but I don’t find that it needs to be: it leads into two Sue tropes, God Mode Sue and Boring Invincible Hero, both of which Levi is leaning on the border of.

Yeah, that sounds like Levi. 

Has Never Lost a Fight? Check.

The One Injury He Got? Check. It was the fault of interference in the fight.

He’s Just That Good? Check. I know you’ve heard at least two in-story descriptions of how Levi is just so damn good he can do anything. 

I remember when the Female Titan arc was just starting and Armin thought that Levi or Mikasa would definitely be able to take her out, before even seeing her abilities. And that’s exactly what happened.

Overshadowing the local Determinator? Check. Not only is Eren never going to match up to Mikasa, Mikasa herself is never going to match up to Levi.

We Don’t Buy the Dude Being In Mortal Danger? Check. 

No one bought Levi dying against the Beast Titan and Isayama proved them right.

And that?

Is bad.

Let’s be honest, after the Beast Titan fight, it was pretty clear Levi is immortal and nothing in-story is ever going to be able to threaten him. He took on the proclaimed “strongest Titan” and utterly trashed him in a completely one-sided match, then when exhausted and low on gas, had a horde of Titans sent after him to kill him, and he killed every single one without any injuries and still managed to chase after Zeke.

Face it, the only way Levi’s going to die or get seriously hurt (which I doubt happening in the first place) is if Isayama has a missile launched at him and he’s killed by it offscreen. Which at this point is unfortunately possible.

Jerk Sue?

That is also Levi in a nutshell. First thing’s first, Levi’s an ass. He routinely gets away with bullying the other characters in the story, and is allowed to get away with it and rarely if ever gets called out. And when it is, it’s ineffectual.

After he absolutely beats the shit out of Eren in that immortal trial scene, not only is it hand-waved by the author as unfortunate but necessary, but the one person to call him out on it is the person he regularly knocks unconscious and forcibly gives baths to. Levi routinely continues talking down to his associates and even his boss in a manner that would get him kicked out in any real-life military, no matter how good he was, and continues to bully the people under him, and is never made to change this behavior. He’s an asshole. 

Remember when he abused Historia into following his plan? Eren said that after she became queen, she should hit him and dare him to hit her back. And that happened. Except it’s not framed as Levi getting any comeuppance (because obviously, it doesn’t hurt). It’s “aha, look guys! She got away with hitting Levi!” not “Levi failed to get away with hitting her”.

I can’t stand a character that’s played up as an asshole that everyone just has to tolerate. It’s unrealistic in the extreme.

I said that I would make a case for Sympathetic Sue as well, and here goes. See that bit up there from Jerk Sue?

A Sympathetic Sue on TVTropes is, in essentials, a Sue that wallows in angst in far too unreal and overloaded a manner, no matter how otherwise justified it’d be. But rather, I think this variant is more what Levi is: an asshole that’s just so cool and invincible, and his Tragic Backstory™ is supposed to count as a counterbalance. “You can’t say he’s a perfect character! Look how tough he had it in his youth!”

Yeah, I’m not moved. Levi’s backstory with Farlan and Magnolia, and his hilariously abusive childhood under a murderer before that, aren’t there to make Levi a deep character or affect his thought processes in present day (beyond jokes about his height and cleanliness). They’re there to make you feel sorry for them and then they are promptly forgotten about. Once Kenny dies, Levi’s backstory stops mattering. It’s superficial.

Mikasa’s tragic backstory has present-day effects on her thoughts and actions: namely, her homicidal protectiveness towards Eren. Eren’s tragic backstory has present-day effects on his own thoughts and actions, namely his homicidal attitude towards any and all Titans and his drive to murder Reiner and Bertholdt. Levi’s is there for flavor and to offer a mild justification for why he’s Just That Good and that’s it.

So on top of being invincible to the point of boring and having other characters chopped so he can live, he’s also faux-deep.

I don’t understand how people ever liked this character, and I never will.

[dentalinfotoday]

Disclosure:

Ask the Dentist is supported by readers. If you use one of the links below and buy something, Ask the Dentist makes a little bit of money at no additional cost to you. I rigorously research, test, and use thousands of products every year, but recommend only a small fraction of these. I only promote products that I truly feel will be valuable to you in improving your oral health.

Whether it’s the work commute, driving back and forth to see a loved one in the hospital, or just a vacation drive, finding healthy snacks on the go can be a challenge. A few weeks of cavity-causing snacks could result in a lot of havoc for your teeth—including newly sensitive teeth.

Fortunately, there are more tooth-friendly options for on-the-go snacking than you might think. And if a new snacking habit has resulted in some tooth sensitivity, this article can help you locate the possible culprit.

Let’s look at the best way to keep your teeth strong and cavity-free, even on the road. But first, I’d like to share with you the moment I realized how important this was in my own life.

Krista’s Story

During many dental visits in the past, my dentist kindly warned me I was eating too much sugar and foods that weren’t good for my dental and overall health. (Basically, I was wrecking my oral microbiome…more on why that matters here.)

It wasn’t until 2009 when the doctor explained to me what was going on that I began to take my health seriously.

“Krista, you have maybe three months to live—the cancer is growing rapidly and if you don’t do something, you may be out of time.”

In that moment, I knew I needed to put up a fight and make some serious changes. I began seeing a nutritionist to expand my knowledge on plant-based nutrition and how to change my diet and support my fight against cancer.

But with a life full of hospital trips, I struggled to find healthy snacks on the go readily available. Many times, I found myself circling gas stations and convenience stores and walking out empty handed. Besides a bottle of water or an over-salted pack of almonds, I would go hungry instead of opting for something unhealthy.

The lack of access to healthy foods began to eat at me. As someone fighting a life-threatening disease at the time, it seemed impossible to stay healthy while on the go. I was forced to pack food with me, and many months I found my pantry bare because of the overwhelming hospital bills eating at my savings account.

Suffice it to say that this was an impossible situation to be in while fighting for my life.

I couldn’t help but think of all of the other people in the U.S. struggling with the same problem.

After winning my battle with cancer, I decided to do something about it. I launched a company called ESSTAR and “Krista’s Healthy On The Go” kiosks that sell healthy snack foods. I now focus on making food available in gas stations, convenience stores, hospitals, colleges and cafeterias across the U.S—some of the places where good nutrition is most needed and most ignored. (Read more about this “food desert” dilemma here and my cancer recovery story here.)

Fighting cancer or not, most of us are on-the-go all the time. But you don’t have to sacrifice healthy teeth for being busy! From cancer recovery to entrepreneurship, I’ve been busy the last several years. These experiences have led me to these four tips for preventing cavities—and staying healthy in general.

4 Tips for Healthy Snacks on the Go

Snacking on the road is problematic when it comes to dental health because teeth need a chance to remineralize. If you’re munching on sweets, sipping soda, and foregoing good brushing habits (because who hasn’t done that on vacation?), cavities can quickly form.

Find yourself struggling to find healthy snacks on the go? Here are some tips:

1. Plan Ahead

Take a few minutes to prepare before you leave the house. When you’ve got baggies full of healthy snacks, you can cut down on the temptation to satiate your hunger with processed, sugar-rich foods.

When thinking of snacks on the road, consider things that won’t get mushy or that need to stay fresh or refrigerated.

Some of my favorite healthy snacks to pack that are great for your teeth include:

Fresh fruit: Try blueberries, strawberries, bananas, and raspberries. The water in fresh fruit makes them a tooth-friendly choice. But watch out for dried fruit—sugars in dry fruit are really concentrated and can stick to teeth just like candy.

Veggie slices: Some of the best are carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, or cherry tomatoes. Many grocery stores offer pre-sliced veggies or packs of cherry tomatoes or sugar snap peas that are simple and portable.

Nuts: My favorites are almonds, cashews, or pecans. Nuts make a great buffer for sugar sticking to your teeth, so if you’re going to splurge a little with a candy bar, for instance, make sure to eat nuts, too.

Healthy trail mix: Avoid the dried fruit; it’s full of sugar!

Homemade kale chips: These are one of my favorite healthy snacks on the go. They’ve got everything you need for great nutrition—a super food, healthy fat, and portability!

Pro tip: To make a really great trail mix that your teeth will love, use the following ingredients:

Almonds

Cashews

Chocolate chips (I love this brand because they don’t use processed sugar to sweeten)

Pumpkin seeds

Dried coconut

If you’ve never tried this trail mix, you should. It’ll make you forget you’re eating healthy!

2. Check Yelp

The Yelp app has saved the day for me many times while looking for healthy snacks on the go. While traveling, I use it to locate a local juice or smoothie bar, health food store, or similar establishment. It’s fascinating to discover the creations of local artisans, and I’m often pleasantly surprised with the healthy options available in even smaller towns.

Here’s an easy way to find great, tooth-friendly food nearby. Just open the Yelp app and search for “healthy food” and then click the “Open Now” option. Voila! You’ll be able to see open restaurants advertised as healthy fare.

3. Hack Convenience Store Eating

Look for the cooler! This is where you’ll find things like:

Yogurt (watch for the sugar count here, but many yogurts are good probiotic foods)

Salads

Hard-boiled eggs (bonus points for vitamin K2-rich, grass-fed eggs)

String cheese

Fruit cups

Vegetable trays

Seaweed packs (yes, this sounds weird, but they’re actually delicious!)

Not everything in the coolers will be healthy, but many of the healthy options are found there.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in a gas station with a “healthy” section, that can be a great place to check out, too. Some of the better gas station snacks outside the cooler are:

Beef jerky (without soy and added sugar)

Protein bars low in sugar content

Sugar-free gum (the xylitol here is actually great for remineralizing teeth)

4. Choose Better Drinks

Instead of soda or sugar-packed juices or sweet teas, try to find something less acidic and sugar-filled. I generally advise avoiding diet drinks, although these are technically sugar-free.

Some of my favorite healthy drinks from gas stations include:

Bottled water

Unsweetened tea

Sparkling/mineral water (like La Croix, Deer Park Sparkling Water, and Topo Chico)

Kombucha (I like GT’s, which has the lowest sugar content per serving)

Sugar-free or low sugar drinks sweetened with honey, monk fruit, or stevia

Ingredients to Avoid in Snack Food

Many snack foods available today are high in refined carbohydrates and sugar, which are not only bad for teeth but can make you feel sluggish, unsatisfied, and hungrier faster. Between extending the time you’re exposing your teeth to these cavity-causing ingredients and increasing your craving for more of those foods, bad snacking can create a fast spiral.

Flavor enhancers, preservatives, sweeteners, synthetic colors, and man-made fats and chemicals often hide out in the processed foods we eat. Many of these ingredients are inflammatory and interfere with your body’s pH balance (more on how that works here).

Don’t forget—tooth decay and gum disease are both diseases. It’s easy to think of them as different than an illness elsewhere in the body, but they fall into the same category.

By eating inflammatory, acidic ingredients in food, you’re setting the stage for a body that’s less able to fight disease (in your mouth or anywhere else).

But which ingredients are actually harmful? What should you look for on a snack label on your next road trip?

The Food Babe has a great list of additives in processed foods that I (mostly) agree are great to avoid. Check out her full list here.

Best High-Protein Foods On-the-Go

The key is to make sure your healthy snacks on the go are nutritious and contain protein. Protein promotes fullness because it signals the release of appetite-suppressing hormones, slows digestion, and stabilizes blood sugar levels.

Plus, many high-protein snacks are low in ingredients that bad oral bacteria love to feed on.

Here are some high-protein snacks that are healthy and portable:

Beef jerky

Trail mix

Nut mixes

Greek yogurt

Nut butters

Hard-boiled eggs

Tuna

Protein bars

Protein shakes

When You Have a “Flex” Day on the Road

It’s unrealistic for most of us to eat “perfectly” 100% of the time—not just because there are so many different versions of “perfect” when it comes to food.

To protect your teeth from decay, here are a few ways you can offset the impact of sugary or processed sweets on your next trip:

Drink a lot of water. Water creates a buffer between your teeth and bacteria-friendly foods, so make the extra bathroom stops and opt for more water.

Try dry brushing. Toothpaste isn’t actually as big a deal as you might think. You can disorganize your biofilm just as efficiently by dry brushing—just using a toothbrush without paste. It’s a great idea to keep a travel brush in your glove box or purse for times when you need an extra brush away from your sink.

Eat “flex” foods in small spurts. The amount of time sugar and other acidic ingredients are exposed to your teeth is an important element in cavity formation. If you’re going to treat yourself with a less healthy snack option, don’t snack for hours; eat or drink your treat quickly and then buffer with water.

Plan when to “flex” and stick to your plan. Just because the occasional sugary snack probably won’t kill you isn’t a reason to toss your healthy diet altogether. Plan ahead when you’ll have a “flex” snack or meal, and stick to what you decide.

Key Takeaways: Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks On the Go

It’s easy to go for the convenient, less-healthy option when you’re looking for snacks on the go. However, there are options for eating healthy snacks on the go that won’t contribute to cavities.

My top tips for eating healthy while traveling are:

Plan ahead

Check Yelp for healthy options in the area

Hack convenience store eating

Choose better drinks

After my experience with the inaccessibility of healthy food on the go, I set out to make a change. That’s why I created ESSTAR, which supplies convenience stores with kiosks called “Krista’s Healthy On-the-Go.” I carefully choose products for those shelves that have recognizable, limited ingredient lists and that promote better health for your teeth and body.

Want to know if a gas station on your route has a Krista’s Healthy-on-the-Go station? Go to esstar.us, where you can find our locations with organic, gluten-free, vegan, paleo and allergen-free snacks.

If you would like to see healthy snack options in a store near you, please feel free to go to ESSTAR’s website and suggest a location.

read next: Vitamin K2 Foods: Top Choices for Healthy Teeth

The post Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks on the Go (4 Tips) appeared first on Ask the Dentist.

from Ask the Dentist https://askthedentist.com/healthy-snacks-on-the-go/

[kristinsimmons]

Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks on the Go (4 Tips)

Disclosure:

Ask the Dentist is supported by readers. If you use one of the links below and buy something, Ask the Dentist makes a little bit of money at no additional cost to you. I rigorously research, test, and use thousands of products every year, but recommend only a small fraction of these. I only promote products that I truly feel will be valuable to you in improving your oral health.

Whether it’s the work commute, driving back and forth to see a loved one in the hospital, or just a vacation drive, finding healthy snacks on the go can be a challenge. A few weeks of cavity-causing snacks could result in a lot of havoc for your teeth—including newly sensitive teeth.

Fortunately, there are more tooth-friendly options for on-the-go snacking than you might think. And if a new snacking habit has resulted in some tooth sensitivity, this article can help you locate the possible culprit.

Let’s look at the best way to keep your teeth strong and cavity-free, even on the road. But first, I’d like to share with you the moment I realized how important this was in my own life.

Krista’s Story

During many dental visits in the past, my dentist kindly warned me I was eating too much sugar and foods that weren’t good for my dental and overall health. (Basically, I was wrecking my oral microbiome…more on why that matters here.)

It wasn’t until 2009 when the doctor explained to me what was going on that I began to take my health seriously.

“Krista, you have maybe three months to live—the cancer is growing rapidly and if you don’t do something, you may be out of time.”

In that moment, I knew I needed to put up a fight and make some serious changes. I began seeing a nutritionist to expand my knowledge on plant-based nutrition and how to change my diet and support my fight against cancer.

But with a life full of hospital trips, I struggled to find healthy snacks on the go readily available. Many times, I found myself circling gas stations and convenience stores and walking out empty handed. Besides a bottle of water or an over-salted pack of almonds, I would go hungry instead of opting for something unhealthy.

The lack of access to healthy foods began to eat at me. As someone fighting a life-threatening disease at the time, it seemed impossible to stay healthy while on the go. I was forced to pack food with me, and many months I found my pantry bare because of the overwhelming hospital bills eating at my savings account.

Suffice it to say that this was an impossible situation to be in while fighting for my life.

I couldn’t help but think of all of the other people in the U.S. struggling with the same problem.

After winning my battle with cancer, I decided to do something about it. I launched a company called ESSTAR and “Krista’s Healthy On The Go” kiosks that sell healthy snack foods. I now focus on making food available in gas stations, convenience stores, hospitals, colleges and cafeterias across the U.S—some of the places where good nutrition is most needed and most ignored. (Read more about this “food desert” dilemma here and my cancer recovery story here.)

Fighting cancer or not, most of us are on-the-go all the time. But you don’t have to sacrifice healthy teeth for being busy! From cancer recovery to entrepreneurship, I’ve been busy the last several years. These experiences have led me to these four tips for preventing cavities—and staying healthy in general.

4 Tips for Healthy Snacks on the Go

Snacking on the road is problematic when it comes to dental health because teeth need a chance to remineralize. If you’re munching on sweets, sipping soda, and foregoing good brushing habits (because who hasn’t done that on vacation?), cavities can quickly form.

Find yourself struggling to find healthy snacks on the go? Here are some tips:

1. Plan Ahead

Take a few minutes to prepare before you leave the house. When you’ve got baggies full of healthy snacks, you can cut down on the temptation to satiate your hunger with processed, sugar-rich foods.

When thinking of snacks on the road, consider things that won’t get mushy or that need to stay fresh or refrigerated.

Some of my favorite healthy snacks to pack that are great for your teeth include:

Fresh fruit: Try blueberries, strawberries, bananas, and raspberries. The water in fresh fruit makes them a tooth-friendly choice. But watch out for dried fruit—sugars in dry fruit are really concentrated and can stick to teeth just like candy.

Veggie slices: Some of the best are carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, or cherry tomatoes. Many grocery stores offer pre-sliced veggies or packs of cherry tomatoes or sugar snap peas that are simple and portable.

Nuts: My favorites are almonds, cashews, or pecans. Nuts make a great buffer for sugar sticking to your teeth, so if you’re going to splurge a little with a candy bar, for instance, make sure to eat nuts, too.

Healthy trail mix: Avoid the dried fruit; it’s full of sugar!

Homemade kale chips: These are one of my favorite healthy snacks on the go. They’ve got everything you need for great nutrition—a super food, healthy fat, and portability!

Pro tip: To make a really great trail mix that your teeth will love, use the following ingredients:

Almonds

Cashews

Chocolate chips (I love this brand because they don’t use processed sugar to sweeten)

Pumpkin seeds

Dried coconut

If you’ve never tried this trail mix, you should. It’ll make you forget you’re eating healthy!

2. Check Yelp

The Yelp app has saved the day for me many times while looking for healthy snacks on the go. While traveling, I use it to locate a local juice or smoothie bar, health food store, or similar establishment. It’s fascinating to discover the creations of local artisans, and I’m often pleasantly surprised with the healthy options available in even smaller towns.

Here’s an easy way to find great, tooth-friendly food nearby. Just open the Yelp app and search for “healthy food” and then click the “Open Now” option. Voila! You’ll be able to see open restaurants advertised as healthy fare.

3. Hack Convenience Store Eating

Look for the cooler! This is where you’ll find things like:

Yogurt (watch for the sugar count here, but many yogurts are good probiotic foods)

Salads

Hard-boiled eggs (bonus points for vitamin K2-rich, grass-fed eggs)

String cheese

Fruit cups

Vegetable trays

Seaweed packs (yes, this sounds weird, but they’re actually delicious!)

Not everything in the coolers will be healthy, but many of the healthy options are found there.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in a gas station with a “healthy” section, that can be a great place to check out, too. Some of the better gas station snacks outside the cooler are:

Beef jerky (without soy and added sugar)

Protein bars low in sugar content

Sugar-free gum (the xylitol here is actually great for remineralizing teeth)

4. Choose Better Drinks

Instead of soda or sugar-packed juices or sweet teas, try to find something less acidic and sugar-filled. I generally advise avoiding diet drinks, although these are technically sugar-free.

Some of my favorite healthy drinks from gas stations include:

Bottled water

Unsweetened tea

Sparkling/mineral water (like La Croix, Deer Park Sparkling Water, and Topo Chico)

Kombucha (I like GT’s, which has the lowest sugar content per serving)

Sugar-free or low sugar drinks sweetened with honey, monk fruit, or stevia

Ingredients to Avoid in Snack Food

Many snack foods available today are high in refined carbohydrates and sugar, which are not only bad for teeth but can make you feel sluggish, unsatisfied, and hungrier faster. Between extending the time you’re exposing your teeth to these cavity-causing ingredients and increasing your craving for more of those foods, bad snacking can create a fast spiral.

Flavor enhancers, preservatives, sweeteners, synthetic colors, and man-made fats and chemicals often hide out in the processed foods we eat. Many of these ingredients are inflammatory and interfere with your body’s pH balance (more on how that works here).

Don’t forget—tooth decay and gum disease are both diseases. It’s easy to think of them as different than an illness elsewhere in the body, but they fall into the same category.

By eating inflammatory, acidic ingredients in food, you’re setting the stage for a body that’s less able to fight disease (in your mouth or anywhere else).

But which ingredients are actually harmful? What should you look for on a snack label on your next road trip?

The Food Babe has a great list of additives in processed foods that I (mostly) agree are great to avoid. Check out her full list here.

Best High-Protein Foods On-the-Go

The key is to make sure your healthy snacks on the go are nutritious and contain protein. Protein promotes fullness because it signals the release of appetite-suppressing hormones, slows digestion, and stabilizes blood sugar levels.

Plus, many high-protein snacks are low in ingredients that bad oral bacteria love to feed on.

Here are some high-protein snacks that are healthy and portable:

Beef jerky

Trail mix

Nut mixes

Greek yogurt

Nut butters

Hard-boiled eggs

Tuna

Protein bars

Protein shakes

When You Have a “Flex” Day on the Road

It’s unrealistic for most of us to eat “perfectly” 100% of the time—not just because there are so many different versions of “perfect” when it comes to food.

To protect your teeth from decay, here are a few ways you can offset the impact of sugary or processed sweets on your next trip:

Drink a lot of water. Water creates a buffer between your teeth and bacteria-friendly foods, so make the extra bathroom stops and opt for more water.

Try dry brushing. Toothpaste isn’t actually as big a deal as you might think. You can disorganize your biofilm just as efficiently by dry brushing—just using a toothbrush without paste. It’s a great idea to keep a travel brush in your glove box or purse for times when you need an extra brush away from your sink.

Eat “flex” foods in small spurts. The amount of time sugar and other acidic ingredients are exposed to your teeth is an important element in cavity formation. If you’re going to treat yourself with a less healthy snack option, don’t snack for hours; eat or drink your treat quickly and then buffer with water.

Plan when to “flex” and stick to your plan. Just because the occasional sugary snack probably won’t kill you isn’t a reason to toss your healthy diet altogether. Plan ahead when you’ll have a “flex” snack or meal, and stick to what you decide.

Key Takeaways: Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks On the Go

It’s easy to go for the convenient, less-healthy option when you’re looking for snacks on the go. However, there are options for eating healthy snacks on the go that won’t contribute to cavities.

My top tips for eating healthy while traveling are:

Plan ahead

Check Yelp for healthy options in the area

Hack convenience store eating

Choose better drinks

After my experience with the inaccessibility of healthy food on the go, I set out to make a change. That’s why I created ESSTAR, which supplies convenience stores with kiosks called “Krista’s Healthy On-the-Go.” I carefully choose products for those shelves that have recognizable, limited ingredient lists and that promote better health for your teeth and body.

Want to know if a gas station on your route has a Krista’s Healthy-on-the-Go station? Go to esstar.us, where you can find our locations with organic, gluten-free, vegan, paleo and allergen-free snacks.

If you would like to see healthy snack options in a store near you, please feel free to go to ESSTAR’s website and suggest a location.

read next: Vitamin K2 Foods: Top Choices for Healthy Teeth

The post Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks on the Go (4 Tips) appeared first on Ask the Dentist.

Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks on the Go (4 Tips) published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/

[mubal4]

Race Wrap Up – Naked Bavarian 40 Miler

To start, thank you to Stephan Weiss, Race Director, all the folks at uberendurancesports.com, all the volunteers at the race, and to the participants.  You are an amazing group of people.  Each year since I began ultramarathon’s the beginning of my race season keeps getting earlier and earlier. This year’s start was to be the last weekend of March.  However, that is spring break week, and with our upcoming move to Phoenix, the family is using that time to head out there to do some house hunting, have meetings, and visit friends/family.  The race director, Stephan Weiss, was very accommodating in letting me switch my reservation to this past Saturday’s race.  When I did that, I become immediately aware that it was two weeks away.  Not a big deal but a very early start to my season, however, I trusted my training.  I was viewing this race as a test for my body.  For six weeks in November and December I didn’t run because of injuries sustained during my 100-miler in September.  I started training in late December and January/February were very good months to get me back to where I was back in September.  I felt good, healthy, and injury free leading up to last week. 

As I write, I am having many thoughts about the lead in to this race. I mentioned my perspective above, this was simply to see where my body was at and how I might be able to plan my race schedule for this year.  Another caveat, my mother-in-law was visiting to see her granddaughters compete in their gymnastics event on Sunday, the day after the race. What barring does that have? Well, my wife & daughter’s, who typically crew me for these local races were going to have other commitments and I was going to be running it solo. No worries, as my wife said, “it is only 40 miles, you got this.” For those in the Philly area reading this, you know that Friday, day before race day, we got hit with heavy winds, rain, and about 4-5 inches of snow. It took me 2.5 hours to drive home from work (typically 35 mins) Friday night and got home to no power in the house.  Again, no worries, got some take out to fuel up, lite some candles, started a fire, and we all played Monopoly.  Actually, it was a pretty awesome night.  Like everyone out there, we run and run, not usually taking the time to have a night where we just sit, in candle & headlamp light 😊 and play a board game.  It was a night that I will remember.  Around 930pm the power came back on and my thoughts of how I was going to get all my gear together in the morning before I left, in the dark, left my mind.  So, I went to bed with only thoughts of how the course conditions were going to be!!!

Those thoughts were put to rest when I woke up at 4am and read an email from the race director that the course was spared by the storm, no snow, 80% dry with just a few mud patches and down branches.  I packed up my gear, fueled up, kissed my girls, and got a last second pep talk from Robin.  I was ready to toe the line. 

This race consisted of two, 20-mile loops around Blue Marsh lake, near Reading, PA; about an hour drive from our house.  A lollipop trail around the lake with rolling hills and some flats; 90% runnable and 80% or so single-track.  A really nice course that provides a good test.  The first loop went well the first 10 miles.  I felt like I was running my pace, meeting some folks and having conversations with some people along the way.  I hit the 10-mile aid station about 30 minutes faster than what I typically expect.  This was right before about an 800-900-foot vertical incline where you are almost on all fours.  It was a grind and as I reached the top, I felt a twinge in both calves.  My calves were one of the areas that I injured in the fall.  This got into my head the next 10 miles leading into the halfway point.  Around mile 17 I was convinced that I wasn’t going out for the second loop. I was concerned that I was going to hurt my calves more and not be able to race for a while. I thought about not being able to run for another 2 months.  I thought about my first ever DNF and how that would suck.  I thought about having to tell my wife and kids, and my partner in crime in this crazy sport, Bryan, that I didn’t want to finish and all the bullshit excuses that would accompany it.  I didn’t want to go another 20 miles and potentially have it take me the rest of the day. 

Robin had hinted about bringing her mom and my oldest up to check in on me at the halfway point (our youngest was at play practice – likely another blog entry in the coming weeks 😊).  However, I wasn’t counting on it, except as I was coming into the 20-mile check point.  But went I didn’t see them immediately I got more defeated.  I then saw Isabella (daughter), then my mother-in-law, then Robin.  And for about 5 minutes I told her how much I dreaded the thought of going out there again and spent another minute feeling sorry for myself.  Then I took a little walk, breathed deep, downed some coke & pickle juice, changed into dry clothes & made the decision to head back out.  With the help of Robin.  She knows what to say, and MORE importantly, what not to say to me in these moments.  I had set some, what I believe, unrealistic expectations for myself leading up to this race as it relates to time, place, blah blah blah…….OUTCOME.  The last few races last year I was completely focused on gratitude, the moment, & what lead me to this point.  For some reason, the first 20 miles I lost that perspective.  Robin helped me realize that if it took me the rest of the day, that was fine, just keep moving.  Left foot right foot.

I gave my family kisses and left for my second loop thinking about them for about a mile.  The downhill I was on was pounding my quads and my legs were burning.  I thought, “these 20 miles will take me 5 hours to finish!!!”  Then I started talking to myself, rather than listening to my thoughts.  I spoke to me as if I was speaking with someone I was supporting in this race.  “Focus on what is around you, that you are actually capable of being out here, be grateful for the people putting on this race, volunteering, and participating.” I started thanking those volunteers, and talking to those I was running near and with.  I was running and I felt good.  Then I hit mile 10; right before the incline.  Fortunately, I met this great dude from NYC, named Ryan.  He and I talked for about 7 more miles and I didn’t have any trouble up that vert.  We ran, talked about life, his girlfriend, my family, and move to Phoenix.  It changed my whole perspective on the race.  I felt that it was the best 2nd half of a race that I experienced.  I felt fulfilled. 

The feelings I experienced throughout this entire race are typical.  No matter the length really!  You will have high points and low points.  There are no tricks.  Most likely, there will be spots that are not ideal and some that might truly suck.  It is a metaphor for life.  The easy thing for me to do after mile 20 was to pack up my shit, get in the car, and head home.  The hard thing, the really, uncomfortable thing for me to do was to keep running.  I didn’t want to but something, some reason compelled me to give it a shot.  Within 15 minutes of feeling like crap I was running fluidly with a clear mind and gratitude.

Over the weekend I took some time to rest and recover.  Now I am easing back into training, still a bit sore and tight but feel good.  There are no apparent injuries and my body seems to be adapting well.  That gives me confidence in my training to this point and in my healing from the fall.  It is a good thing because in less than 7 weeks Bryan and I have a the 24-hour Palmer Lake Death Race in CO.  This will be our 1st 24-hour ultra that we are both “officially” participating. 

I’ve followed this crazy, nutty, wonderful sport for the last 3 years. I’ve met some amazing people along the way and the culture is so welcoming. Gratitude is something you hear a lot on the trails.  I think that is what attracts me to it so much.  God is giving me the ability to train and participate in this sport.  Many times, the circumstances that we encounter in the sport are not ideal.  There are fears, low points, you will hurt, you will want to quit. But everyone out there is doing it for some specific purpose.  That purpose is what keeps people moving forward.  That mission is what keeps them coming back.  That feeling of fulfillment and joy they know they will find keeps them shuffling!!  Left foot, right foot.  Relentless Forward Progress.

“Hard decisions, easy life. Easy decisions, hard life.” - Jerzy Gregorek

[topicprinter]

Hey everyone! I am Rich Clominson, co-founder of Failory, a website where we weekly interview failed startups. Today is a great day as we have just published an interview with Shaked Klein Orbach and Gilad Peled, the founders of Botnim, a web application that provided near dishes and their nutritional values. The product was not practical and they didn't validate the market. After a few months they decided to shut it down. If you have any questions, I will happily answer them below ;)Hi Shaked & Gilad! Who are you?SHAKED:Hola! I`m Shaked, a 29-year-old digital nomad software engineer. Other than nomading around the world (🇳🇱 🇩🇪 🇲🇽 🇺🇸 🇦🇷 🇮🇱), I've been doing calisthenics & MMA for the last 1.5 years.GILAD:Hi, I'm Gilad, and I'm 33. I used to work as an analyst in a consulting firm in Tel Aviv, but now I'm on a new path to make stuff on my own. I'm also an investor and a market speculator.As an economics student in the Hebrew U, I rented an apartment in Jerusalem and Shaked's brother was my flatmate. Later I spent one summer in Berlin and Shaked was also there visiting. We became friends and talked a lot about starting a business together, but we waited until the time was right. What was Botnim about? What motivated you to start it?SHAKED:Botnim was all about finding dishes around you by their nutritional values and location.I started getting into calisthenics, MMA and generally into fit in mid-2016. While and before doing that I used to eat outside - which is probably not the best thing do especially if you do that 3 times a day. So, after few months into the fitness world, my nutritionist friend built a menu for me and I started to cook at home.For most people, it's a hassle to cook at home, but even when they do that, sometimes they just can't get back home nor carry food & have to eat outside.This all thing happened exactly when I came back to Tel Aviv after a year in Berlin. Tel Aviv is very much into fitness & good food, so it looked like this would be a great service to have for people who care about their diets, including myself of course!Once I got to this point, I called Gilad and told him about the idea. He loved it and we started working on it. How did you build it? Which was your business model?SHAKED:Botnim started as a Messenger chatbot. The main reason behind it was that chatbots are very easy to develop. I have already been working enough time with chatbots in order to know that it would take less time to be ready for production in comparison to a website that looks good on all devices. I think that the main difference is that developing chatbots means you don't deal with UI at all, and coming from a more backend background that was a great solution, so I developed it using PHP on a nginx server.Unfortunately, there are also tradeoffs. Using chat in real time - e.g walking in the street and looking for a restaurant, seemed like an issue. Messenger's bots sometimes have slowness issues which were unacceptable. The worst thing happened when we showed the chatbot to business owners and we had to apologize for its slowness.At that point, we took some time to rethink about Botnim’s concept. After few days, maybe a week, Gilad came up with the idea of creating a map that will show all the dishes we have and allow users to filter them by different nutritional values and food preferences such as vegan/vegetarian/all.Few days after I sent Gilad a link and the map was there integrated with all of our data. This was a huge breakthrough because this time business owners loved it. I built botnim.co using PHP, jQuery, Bootstrap (even though I'm sure I could have skipped it) & MapBox - as it works much better than Google Maps.GILAD:I remember the day when I first went door to door after changing from the slow ugly bot to the map. Every single restaurant was interested and thought it was cool.Once the website was available, we spoke to our friend Naama which is a graphic designer, asked for some design improvements and she volunteered to help. At the end, we got a very nice result!As to the business model, in hindsight, it was quite a complicated model. We were counting on getting paid from 3 different sources:Restaurants - paying for showing their dishes and promoting them on the app.Users - while it was meant to be a free service, we did think some users with special desires or needs will be willing to pay for unique searches, like allergens and stuff like that.The Laboratory - we figured that since we’re supplying the laboratory food to analyze, we could charge commission from the laboratory, based on volume.Funny enough, the lab was the only source that right from the beginning stated their willingness to pay. The lab people knew that they will get their fair share either way. Coordinating 3 sources of income on the first attempt for a startup was a bit unrealistic I think for two people. As a B2B2C business, how did you validated both sides?SHAKED:The main issue starts when you do B2B2C & you only validate 1 side but not the other. We started to talk to people, either by face to face (at the gym for example) or online using FB groups & some old school forums. Most of the things we noticed were quite obvious in retrospective.GILAD:So for instance, we also started posting what’s happening with the business in a blog which was supposed to be targeted for our customers. We called it “Blasting Floodlights” - a paraphrase from a synopsis of a book we both liked, aiming at “lighting every corner” of the process of the business with radical transparency. It is hard to write, but for me emotionally what was even harder - is writing only to one side, knowing that the restaurants would want to read or hear about a totally different thing. I remember it was frustrating. It’s like there couldn’t be a focused effort to bring both sides together. Every hassle was on its own for one side only. Overall, healthy restaurants showed more interest, and eventually I planned a bicycle route with 6-8 healthy restaurants along its path, and just spent few hours going from one to another, talking to a manager or whoever was there, asking for the owner’s phone number, coming again later to talk to him, calling and nagging. You have to get used to looking to a person in the eyes and talk to him with confidence, trying to persuade him to join, and some did join or at least thought about it, but not a lot. Which were the causes of Botnim's failure?SHAKED:The main cause of Botnim’s failure is that we didn’t validate the market and most likely took the wrong direction. It is actually very simple: people who eat outside usually DO NOT care enough about what they eat & people who care enough usually DO NOT eat outside. Those who care enough, like my self-tend to cook at home & if they eat outside it’s likely a cheat day. What were the biggest challenges you faced and obstacles you overcame?GILAD:So for me, it was the dependencies. Driving 45 minutes to the lab every time was exhausting and time-consuming. And It took much time and energy talking to restaurants, persuade them to join, persuade them to pay for the food-check, going like that door-to-door, and realizing that we can’t make a progress at one front without a progress in the other. Restaurants wanted to see users, but they wouldn’t come without restaurants, and restaurants asked how many users do we have before paying for the food-check. I figured that this is not how I want the business to come about. It’s like we were a low-tech business, with just an app to support it. Of course, if we had money then a guy would have delivered the dishes to the lab for us, or we would have paid for ALL the food checks just as a proof of concept instead of asking restaurants to pay, etc. But we just couldn’t go on like this.SHAKED:I think that what disturbed me the most and always felt like a problem, was the fact that I want to keep on traveling and live abroad. As Gilad mentioned that would have been quite complicated thinking about the way things worked. Which were your investments? Did you achieve some revenue? Did you lose any money?GILAD:We had no “investments”. We used only our own money.For every dish a restaurant paid to be checked in the lab we also paid for one. Dish check cost ~$80. We later tried to reduce it to only paying for 1 dish for every 2 dishes paid by the restaurant. Then there was the gas for the car. If you had to start over, what would you do differently?SHAKED:It’s easy to say now, but market validation is definitely one of the 1st things I’d do. Specifically, in Botnim’s case, I would have checked with people what they want before assuming it, then execute accordingly. What did you learn?SHAKED:As a maker & software engineer, the most important part is not to be attached to your code. Going from a chatbot to a web application meant throwing all of the chatbot’s code and not looking back. Thinking about this decision retrospective, it was one of our best decisions.Having said that, I think that it is a good practice to have something first and then improve/change it. Which entrepreneur resource would you recommend?SHAKED:Personally, I recommend following makers on Twitter.I like hearing interesting stories and Sarah Ball is definitely someone who got them. Also Ernst Mulders - This guy was too young to open a company so he asked permission from a judge. If that's not a reason to follow him, what is?GILAD:I agree. Also, I’ve never read entrepreneurial books. I feel it’s more of a try, try again thing. Do successful people did what they did because of other guy’s entrepreneur books? Maybe, but I doubt it.I follow Andrey Azimov. He's not famous (but he will be). He's a great maker, and he's doing stuff right. Good energy & good "try, try again" modus operandi. Also Pawel from VanSecrets. He works hard and has an ultra-fantastic product which makes me jealous. Where can we go to learn more?SHAKED:Definitely active on Twitter where I also tweeted about Botnim. Other than that I have a blog and I'm active in a Telegram group called WIP.GILAD:You can find me on Twitter @giladmp and on WIP.We have decided to travel to Mexico and work from there for a couple of months.Being able to start a business with no ties to a specific location is important to us, so traveling will definitely force us to stay flexible in that regard. We have some ideas for new projects. If you’re around, say hello :) Original interview posted at https://failory.com/interview/botnim

[whosoeverwill]

Fear of Man.

My freshman year of college a few of my friends decided to become certified in life guarding to make some extra money that summer. I had a good job as a manager working 40 hours a week, but I figured I could replace a few days with life guarding and make a ton more money. Plus all my friends were doing it so why not- life guarding is easy you just sit there. 

I paid the 150$ application fee, never practiced once, had no clue what to expect and showed up to my first day with a two piece under my clothes thinking we’d probably not swim the first day. There’s always an orientation day. Mistake number 1- so I had to wear a shirt in the water. What ever I can do this I thought until I was told we had to swim 16 laps- 4 laps of each stroke- there and back counted as 1 in an olympic sized pool. WHAT THE HECK. No one else seemed alarmed by this, but I was standing there in fear...trembling... wondering how to leave...but I rode with my friends there and I already paid the money with no refunds given... so I was trapped. I figured if I just went first I could get it out of the way- so I volunteered to be in the first group and strategically placed myself next to people who I felt I could out swim. About lap two my body was DONE. 

Seriously I was dying and had no clue what all those other strokes even looked like that I was supposed to be switching to. I don’t even remember the other 14 laps...I think I somewhat blacked out... but I do remember thinking the whole time this is it God...this is how I die from exhaustion...or I quit...but I can’t because it’ll be so embarrassing...but I want to SO BAD. I resorted in the always faithful back stroke to finish the 10 of 16 laps and finished last...behind the second group who went after our group. 

I got out of the water and it was so awkward. It was clear I’d never swam any type of stroke before and didn’t practice, so I’m sure they were thinking we can’t pass this girl. But I finished..and they said there was no time limit so I had an argument ready just in case. 

I thought that was it for the day until we were told to move onto phase two. A 10 pound weight was dropped into the deep end. We had to swim across- dive down- grab the weight and swim on our back to the others side with it on our chest. I think I shed a tear when I heard that and chose to go last. I breathed more water then I did breath air just trying to get to the other side. 

The training was two weeks straight- 9am-5 and I ended up completing the whole thing in which the trainer said she was very proud of me, and I quit my first week. I hated life guarding- it was so boring. I actually think I didn’t even set up my payment because I knew I wasn’t into it- I worked 1 shift and said don’t worry about paying me I’m done and never came back. 

I was sitting at the park the other day after feeling so overwhelmed for the past week and this story came to mind. I really didn’t understand why and started laughing at how dumb I was. Why in the world did I think I could do this and what kept me doing it when I knew the first day this was nothing I wanted to do. 

And so I asked- God why did you bring this to mind...nothing...so I started just looking through my journal I had with me and came to this page.

2/25/2016- I think I was going through Galations and writing some thoughts down. It started with Ch 1: There are some people whose purpose is to cloud and distort the gospel. There is no other gospel.  Galations 1:10- For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If i were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” 

Then I wrote God is above Man...in order to know you must know what pleases the Lord.

 1 Cor- “being filled w/ the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom & understanding > bearing fruit in every good work.”

The weird thing was this day was 2/25 too- 1 year later. 

 I heard the Lord remind me of weight I felt on my chest as I was struggling to swim after I was so tired from the other laps and the thoughts I had of why in the heck am I doing this the whole time just to prove I could and not look weak and like a failure.

 And I heard the Lord say Kayla this desire is so deeply rooted in you- you’re swimming on a path right now that feels like that because it always runs up current- you are trying to please man and fear disappointing people and you will always feel this overwhelmed and weighed down unless you die to that fear and desire. There are times you do please people and succeed but it wasn’t without so much time and effort because essentially you do disappoint people- man will never be pleased. They demand more... they expect more... and command more, like the pharaoh in Egypt...but I am pleased in you as those baby ducks over there that are following their mother I want you to follow me and rest in my power and provision. 

How many times do we make decisions based on fear that we do not even realize it anymore? It has been so engraved into our identity that we do it habitually- thinking we are making a sound decision, but not realizing the fear driving it. 

It could be in an attempt to keep self preservation- not wanting people or circumstances to affect or hurt you. It could be for control- not wanting any surprises or things to pop up that could leave you helpless or appear weak. It could be not wanting to disappoint people. It could be not wanting people to see the real you and so you work so hard to maintain this Christian facade. It could even be fear of getting your hopes up or believing things can change, so you wallow in your struggles and feelings and don’t fight or ask Christ to free you from them. 

Living in fear is like quicksand. Restricting and painful. 

I realized lately how much I operate in fear. Living to please man will crush you and you will constantly feel crushed by the weight because you are not made to bare it. 

When I took a step back these last few weeks it’s been really hard but eye opening. Fear of people leads me to do a lot of things I “Should” but never things I really want to do. It is restricting me from expressing my feelings sometimes, my ideas, my thoughts and essentially myself. 

A few areas I found in my life are I fear my relationship with God will suffer so I should spend time with him at this time. I don’t want people at church to ask me whats wrong and fear they think I’m always a mess, so I’ll smile more this Sunday and stay silent until I’m passed the mess and can explain it logically and not emotionally. I’m fearful to admit I’m incapable or doing everything asked of me, so I’ll pile more on my plate and schedule to show I can do it. My friends and I don’t get to talk or hang out much as we used to, so I send texts out of fear to check in and still feel connected and make sure we’re “okay.”  I’m fearful of failing so I’ll set the bar really low inside so I know I’ll surpass it. I’m fearful of failing so i set the bar super high knowing I’ll never reach it anyways and it was unrealistic. I fear my inlaws or parents are upset if too much time passes between me seeing them, so I should send a text or schedule a dinner- to keep the peace. I fear I’m spending too much. I fear I’m too stingy. I fear I’m out of balance and can’t maintain everything and every relationship I have. 

So I believe a lot of times this fear is rooted in lies we are believing about God and ourself which flows out to others. A few I’ve spotted personally are:

You are not the most special, complex person in the world. God made you and He loves you and understands you. You can not figure out yourself so stop self analyzing everything you do and why you do it and comparing yourself to other women all in an attempt to control yourself and your environment more. Fear is a lot of times a very selfish way to live. We expect everyone else to tip toe and be aware of your fears and insecurities. You put expectations on people and yourself that aren’t meant to be there or you numb yourself have no expectations so no one can disappoint or affect you. You get your feelings hurt so easily at the thought of perceived failure or disappointment. Constant Anxiety, depression- worry- anger- blaming all in an attempt to establish yourself higher and stronger then you were created to be. You are not God. You do not have the weight on your shoulders to save mankind. You are not people’s savior. You do not have to spend hours filtering your coffee instagram photo or documenting every second of your life on snap chat. You do not have to smile always or laugh always or cry always. What pressure are you putting on yourself to be perfect or fit some cultural mold? 

You do not have to conform to the world and I fear that we are blurring the lines between being a Christian and creating some sort of edgy Christian that contains SO MUCH PRESSURE. The world will never love us. We are not meant to appear all put together. 

You’re messy..breathe it’s okay. 

[kristinsimmons]

Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks on the Go (4 Tips)

Disclosure:

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Whether it’s the work commute, driving back and forth to see a loved one in the hospital, or just a vacation drive, finding healthy snacks on the go can be a challenge. A few weeks of cavity-causing snacks could result in a lot of havoc for your teeth—including newly sensitive teeth.

Fortunately, there are more tooth-friendly options for on-the-go snacking than you might think. And if a new snacking habit has resulted in some tooth sensitivity, this article can help you locate the possible culprit.

Let’s look at the best way to keep your teeth strong and cavity-free, even on the road. But first, I’d like to share with you the moment I realized how important this was in my own life.

Krista’s Story

During many dental visits in the past, my dentist kindly warned me I was eating too much sugar and foods that weren’t good for my dental and overall health. (Basically, I was wrecking my oral microbiome…more on why that matters here.)

It wasn’t until 2009 when the doctor explained to me what was going on that I began to take my health seriously.

“Krista, you have maybe three months to live—the cancer is growing rapidly and if you don’t do something, you may be out of time.”

In that moment, I knew I needed to put up a fight and make some serious changes. I began seeing a nutritionist to expand my knowledge on plant-based nutrition and how to change my diet and support my fight against cancer.

But with a life full of hospital trips, I struggled to find healthy snacks on the go readily available. Many times, I found myself circling gas stations and convenience stores and walking out empty handed. Besides a bottle of water or an over-salted pack of almonds, I would go hungry instead of opting for something unhealthy.

The lack of access to healthy foods began to eat at me. As someone fighting a life-threatening disease at the time, it seemed impossible to stay healthy while on the go. I was forced to pack food with me, and many months I found my pantry bare because of the overwhelming hospital bills eating at my savings account.

Suffice it to say that this was an impossible situation to be in while fighting for my life.

I couldn’t help but think of all of the other people in the U.S. struggling with the same problem.

After winning my battle with cancer, I decided to do something about it. I launched a company called ESSTAR and “Krista’s Healthy On The Go” kiosks that sell healthy snack foods. I now focus on making food available in gas stations, convenience stores, hospitals, colleges and cafeterias across the U.S—some of the places where good nutrition is most needed and most ignored. (Read more about this “food desert” dilemma here and my cancer recovery story here.)

Fighting cancer or not, most of us are on-the-go all the time. But you don’t have to sacrifice healthy teeth for being busy! From cancer recovery to entrepreneurship, I’ve been busy the last several years. These experiences have led me to these four tips for preventing cavities—and staying healthy in general.

4 Tips for Healthy Snacks on the Go

Snacking on the road is problematic when it comes to dental health because teeth need a chance to remineralize. If you’re munching on sweets, sipping soda, and foregoing good brushing habits (because who hasn’t done that on vacation?), cavities can quickly form.

Find yourself struggling to find healthy snacks on the go? Here are some tips:

1. Plan Ahead

Take a few minutes to prepare before you leave the house. When you’ve got baggies full of healthy snacks, you can cut down on the temptation to satiate your hunger with processed, sugar-rich foods.

When thinking of snacks on the road, consider things that won’t get mushy or that need to stay fresh or refrigerated.

Some of my favorite healthy snacks to pack that are great for your teeth include:

Fresh fruit: Try blueberries, strawberries, bananas, and raspberries. The water in fresh fruit makes them a tooth-friendly choice. But watch out for dried fruit—sugars in dry fruit are really concentrated and can stick to teeth just like candy.

Veggie slices: Some of the best are carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, or cherry tomatoes. Many grocery stores offer pre-sliced veggies or packs of cherry tomatoes or sugar snap peas that are simple and portable.

Nuts: My favorites are almonds, cashews, or pecans. Nuts make a great buffer for sugar sticking to your teeth, so if you’re going to splurge a little with a candy bar, for instance, make sure to eat nuts, too.

Healthy trail mix: Avoid the dried fruit; it’s full of sugar!

Homemade kale chips: These are one of my favorite healthy snacks on the go. They’ve got everything you need for great nutrition—a super food, healthy fat, and portability!

Pro tip: To make a really great trail mix that your teeth will love, use the following ingredients:

Almonds

Cashews

Chocolate chips (I love this brand because they don’t use processed sugar to sweeten)

Pumpkin seeds

Dried coconut

If you’ve never tried this trail mix, you should. It’ll make you forget you’re eating healthy!

2. Check Yelp

The Yelp app has saved the day for me many times while looking for healthy snacks on the go. While traveling, I use it to locate a local juice or smoothie bar, health food store, or similar establishment. It’s fascinating to discover the creations of local artisans, and I’m often pleasantly surprised with the healthy options available in even smaller towns.

Here’s an easy way to find great, tooth-friendly food nearby. Just open the Yelp app and search for “healthy food” and then click the “Open Now” option. Voila! You’ll be able to see open restaurants advertised as healthy fare.

3. Hack Convenience Store Eating

Look for the cooler! This is where you’ll find things like:

Yogurt (watch for the sugar count here, but many yogurts are good probiotic foods)

Salads

Hard-boiled eggs (bonus points for vitamin K2-rich, grass-fed eggs)

String cheese

Fruit cups

Vegetable trays

Seaweed packs (yes, this sounds weird, but they’re actually delicious!)

Not everything in the coolers will be healthy, but many of the healthy options are found there.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in a gas station with a “healthy” section, that can be a great place to check out, too. Some of the better gas station snacks outside the cooler are:

Beef jerky (without soy and added sugar)

Protein bars low in sugar content

Sugar-free gum (the xylitol here is actually great for remineralizing teeth)

4. Choose Better Drinks

Instead of soda or sugar-packed juices or sweet teas, try to find something less acidic and sugar-filled. I generally advise avoiding diet drinks, although these are technically sugar-free.

Some of my favorite healthy drinks from gas stations include:

Bottled water

Unsweetened tea

Sparkling/mineral water (like La Croix, Deer Park Sparkling Water, and Topo Chico)

Kombucha (I like GT’s, which has the lowest sugar content per serving)

Sugar-free or low sugar drinks sweetened with honey, monk fruit, or stevia

Ingredients to Avoid in Snack Food

Many snack foods available today are high in refined carbohydrates and sugar, which are not only bad for teeth but can make you feel sluggish, unsatisfied, and hungrier faster. Between extending the time you’re exposing your teeth to these cavity-causing ingredients and increasing your craving for more of those foods, bad snacking can create a fast spiral.

Flavor enhancers, preservatives, sweeteners, synthetic colors, and man-made fats and chemicals often hide out in the processed foods we eat. Many of these ingredients are inflammatory and interfere with your body’s pH balance (more on how that works here).

Don’t forget—tooth decay and gum disease are both diseases. It’s easy to think of them as different than an illness elsewhere in the body, but they fall into the same category.

By eating inflammatory, acidic ingredients in food, you’re setting the stage for a body that’s less able to fight disease (in your mouth or anywhere else).

But which ingredients are actually harmful? What should you look for on a snack label on your next road trip?

The Food Babe has a great list of additives in processed foods that I (mostly) agree are great to avoid. Check out her full list here.

Best High-Protein Foods On-the-Go

The key is to make sure your healthy snacks on the go are nutritious and contain protein. Protein promotes fullness because it signals the release of appetite-suppressing hormones, slows digestion, and stabilizes blood sugar levels.

Plus, many high-protein snacks are low in ingredients that bad oral bacteria love to feed on.

Here are some high-protein snacks that are healthy and portable:

Beef jerky

Trail mix

Nut mixes

Greek yogurt

Nut butters

Hard-boiled eggs

Tuna

Protein bars

Protein shakes

When You Have a “Flex” Day on the Road

It’s unrealistic for most of us to eat “perfectly” 100% of the time—not just because there are so many different versions of “perfect” when it comes to food.

To protect your teeth from decay, here are a few ways you can offset the impact of sugary or processed sweets on your next trip:

Drink a lot of water. Water creates a buffer between your teeth and bacteria-friendly foods, so make the extra bathroom stops and opt for more water.

Try dry brushing. Toothpaste isn’t actually as big a deal as you might think. You can disorganize your biofilm just as efficiently by dry brushing—just using a toothbrush without paste. It’s a great idea to keep a travel brush in your glove box or purse for times when you need an extra brush away from your sink.

Eat “flex” foods in small spurts. The amount of time sugar and other acidic ingredients are exposed to your teeth is an important element in cavity formation. If you’re going to treat yourself with a less healthy snack option, don’t snack for hours; eat or drink your treat quickly and then buffer with water.

Plan when to “flex” and stick to your plan. Just because the occasional sugary snack probably won’t kill you isn’t a reason to toss your healthy diet altogether. Plan ahead when you’ll have a “flex” snack or meal, and stick to what you decide.

Key Takeaways: Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks On the Go

It’s easy to go for the convenient, less-healthy option when you’re looking for snacks on the go. However, there are options for eating healthy snacks on the go that won’t contribute to cavities.

My top tips for eating healthy while traveling are:

Plan ahead

Check Yelp for healthy options in the area

Hack convenience store eating

Choose better drinks

After my experience with the inaccessibility of healthy food on the go, I set out to make a change. That’s why I created ESSTAR, which supplies convenience stores with kiosks called “Krista’s Healthy On-the-Go.” I carefully choose products for those shelves that have recognizable, limited ingredient lists and that promote better health for your teeth and body.

Want to know if a gas station on your route has a Krista’s Healthy-on-the-Go station? Go to esstar.us, where you can find our locations with organic, gluten-free, vegan, paleo and allergen-free snacks.

If you would like to see healthy snack options in a store near you, please feel free to go to ESSTAR’s website and suggest a location.

read next: Vitamin K2 Foods: Top Choices for Healthy Teeth

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