#like I love her but y’all come get Giselle | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

neocrush · 3 years

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— the girl groups enhypen’s gfs are in !

genre: fluff (angst on jungwon’s part) + established relationship (eventually lol)

pairings: idol!enhypen x fem!idol!reader

note: idk how to title this pls i thought of it while showering

tagging: @jeminiepabo @strwberrydinosaur

you just finished performing and your members were in need of water bottles

but fucking mnet didn’t provide any inside of your dressing room??

so yves told you to ask for some from the artist in the dressing room next to yours

you knocked on the door without looking at the sign that showed who was in there

you asked for some water bottles and heeseung went “i’ll go get it!” and ran off to go get get them

jungwon just chuckled and went “hyung’s a really huge fan of your group, he kept on singing star on the way here”

you nodded at the younger one, impressed at the fact that you were popular among idols

the tall boy came back with a whole box full of water bottles

“there’s 12 of you here right now so i figured why not get a whole box” he chuckled nervously

you giggled and smiled at the nervous boy

“thank you heeseung-ssi, i’ll take this to my members” you took the box in your hands but was taken aback on how heavy it was

“don’t worry i’ll carry it for you”

long after that you started hanging out and boom you became his gf

you couldn’t resist the charms of lee heeseung

once it was revealed that you were a couple, orbits and engenes went INSANE (in a good way ofc)

“wait so y/n DOESNT hate men????”

★ jay - aespa

OMG OMG LEMME TELL YOU ABOUT THIS BBY

you both met at school after you both debuted

everyone was gossiping around about how you were in the same class with the enhas

so like... monster rookies class

usually idols aren’t seated together but the teacher seated you and jay next to each other

causing a bunch of “oooohhhs” from your classmates

there were times were you and the enhas would leave school early due to practice or schedules

and on the way to the school gate, jay would always spark up a conversation with you

you assumed he was just very friendly

long story short he had a massive crush on you

so a few months into your friendship (which the both of you were very open about with your fans), he confesses

you were like “WAIT SO IT WASNT ONE SIDED THE WHOLE TIME”

y’all were just really blind lol pls read between the lines

anyways on to ur lovely bf !!

he’s so bold and brave around you but so shy around your members and seniors

we all know how he really respects nct (along with other sm artists) bc he covered the 7th sense with sunghoon on iland

so one day you were like “oh btw i showed taeyong sunbae you and hoon’s t7s cover”

he was like 😟 to 😧 to 😯

got all shy and was like “oh what did he say..”

you don’t know why he was acting as if he didn’t body that whole performance ????

anyway you told him that taeyong said that he and hoon did really well and that he liked how jay did his part

hid his face on the crook of your neck

“baby we should come say hi to them next time you go to sm”

“NO i will make a fool out of myself”

speaks english and japanese with giselle a lot when he isn’t occupied with you

sometimes you’d even have to ask nct’s shotaro to translate

your seniors (especially exo’s kai) adore him so so much pls protect the boy at all costs

★ jake - everglow

he was an active viewer of produce 48 and (like me) was really attached to the yuehua trainees

especially you

so when you got eliminated just before the last episode, he was devastated to say the least

he awaited your debut and when the time came he supported everglow !!!!

LOVED BON BON CHOCOLAT SO MUCH

does the killing part choreo in his room when no one’s watching lol

dies everytime you do the little “everglow” in songs

right so when he debuted in enha, he looked forward to meeting you as an idol and not a fan

when you shared a dressing room at kcontact, he couldn’t help but introduce himself to you

he mentioned he was a big fan and your heart warmed

cute boy is a fan of you? omg heart go brr brr

your members tease you and you just shake it off

that day when you got back to the dorms, you watched a bunch of enhypen videos bc you were interested in jake

you weren’t aware of how popular you were among people - let alone idols so you were surprised

you fell in love with his personality and started saying hi to him whenever you meet backstage at music shows

not long after, you develop feelings for him

you thought it was just a puppy crush but as you saw him even more, it got serious

you never actually confessed but aisha accidentally spilled the beans when he was passing by

“cmon y/n just tell him you like him because he clearly feels the same !!”

“you like me?”

“AISHA”

“that’s my queue to leave”

so she leaves you two to pour your hearts out to each other

you two become a couple and forevergenes (such a cute name omg) LOVE you two

you’re both the puppies of your group so that makes your relationship 103892x cuter

you met his parents and they adore you and even asked for your autograph

“jake used to talk about how great you are after every produce 48 episode”

“okayyyy i think that’s enough embarassing me mom”

his parents love you like their own daughter but does layla love you?

you were so nervous to meet her and was actually scared she might not like you - knowing how important layla is to jake

at first layla ignored you and jake was like “she’ll come around”

you were convinced she just doesn’t like you, until this one time you were cuddling with jake on the couch and layla comes in

you expected her to snuggle up with jake but she came to you :D

now layla is super fond of you and mrs sim would even send you pictures and videos of layla getting excited whenever you were on tv 🥺

★ sunghoon - itzy

you and the girls were at isac

the six of you were just waving at your fans and making heart signs with your hearts

on your left you saw yeji making hearts with ryujin so you wanted to do that with another member too

you felt a presence next to you and assumed it was someone from your group

spoiler alert: it wasn’t

sunghoon and sunoo were waving at engenes who just happened to be seated next to midzys

so you turned to who you thought was an itzy member, making half a heart with your hand

until you realized it wasn’t 💀

you bowed and apologized when you both looked at each other, you were scared you crossed a boundary

you bowed and apologized to the engenes who were there too

sunghoon and sunoo reassured you it was all good

after that, sunghoon couldn’t help but keep his eyes on you the entire event

when the day was coming to an end, he pulled some strings and ended up having some alone time with you ...in stray kids’ dressing room

don’t ask

ofc skz already left so it was just you two there

fast forward, you both hit it off and he became your bf <3

midzys and engenes love you both sm and love bragging about you two to other fandoms

you two were even named the king and queen of 4th gen kpop

oh also

you already know where this is going

“SUNGHOON HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW NOT SHY’S PROPER TITLE IT’S YOUR GIRLFRIEND’S SONG” - jay

brags about how he can do the shoulder dance in wannabe

ofc it’s bc you personally taught him

sends you pics of jyp as reaction pics

so you send pics of bang pdnim to him

every once in a while he reminds you of that video of jay why pee trying to hit a high note

“lmao that’s your boss”

PLS you always get super embarrassed so ofc you bring up that vid of hitman bang

“rAp dAncE-“

★ sunoo - stayc

you were his seatmate at school predebut

you came from the same town, same school, same neighborhood, etc

the two of you were extremely close and both shared the same dream

when highup entertainment accepted you, the both of you were over the moon

he was so happy for you

but sad too bc that meant you had to move to seoul :(

you promised him to do your best and that you hoped to see him again but as an idol

and hopefully when he’s an idol too

well what you hoped for came true !!

although you couldn’t see him much as a trainee - which made you quite sad - you got to follow his journey on i-land

you even asked your fellow trainees to vote for him

anyways now that you both debuted, you became close again and became really open with your fans on how close you were

you recommended his songs to swiths and he did the same to engenes

he even memorized the choreo to so bad and asap and lemme tell you this

he BEGGED you to teach him those choreos

“sunoo you can watch the practice on youtube”

“but i want to learn it from you”

he never really realized his feelings until he saw you getting shipped with his other members

you were both on weekly idol and the hosts really seemed to like how you and jake looked next to each other and they just teased you both the whole episode

that made sunoo feel uneasy and he thought it was only bc he was an overprotective best friend

turns out he had feelings for you (wow shocker)

so one day he asks you to come to hybe

after slightly getting lost, you meet up with him in a practice room

he confesses bc he felt like not telling you about his feelings would put a wall between you two

you appreciate his honesty and tell him you’ve felt the same way every since you were classmates

he scolds himself for not seeing it all those years but you just laugh it off bc you were pretty good at hiding your crush

you both agree to secretly date, until you both announce it on your five month anniversary

fans were really shocked at first... but they support you !!!!

engenes will not hesitate to come at anyone who talks bad about you and swiths feels the same way about jungwon

he gushes about you every single time you’re brought up

and you can’t help but love your adorable boyfriend

★ jungwon - iz*one

okay so

he was just an average high schooler when you were introduced on produce 48

his deskmate was watching your audition video and it was the part where you were doing this freestyle

he was SO amazed and he secretly followed your journey on produce 48

always made sure to vote on time and watch the episodes live

once the debut evaluation came around, he asked everyone he knew to vote for you and even bought tickets to see the show live

almost cried when he saw that you were center

ACTUALLY CRIED when you got into the top 13 😭

fast forward to him debuting in enha

he wasn’t able to catch up on you since he was busy with trainee life, then i-land, then debut preparations

but somehow in the middle of promotions he ran into you and BOOM love at first sight

fast forward to you finally dating, he couldn’t believe he was dating the y/n of iz*one

wizones make those “ladies and gentlemen, y/n’s man” edits and engenes make those “ladies and gentlemen, jungwon’s woman” edits

both fandoms love you two so dearly that the only hate you two got were from the delusional ones (who clearly aren’t actual fans)

when your last concert came around, he couldn’t bare seeing you cry when you said “this has been iz*one’s y/n, thank you everyone!”

he got flashbacks from when you cried during the final episode of produce 48 and he’s just.. sobbing bc he couldn’t be there to hold you

so the next day he rushed to your dorms with snacks and emotional support bc you were emotionally exhausted from accepting the fact that your journey with iz*one is finally ending

you felt extremely lucky to be in his arms and he felt extremely lucky too that he’s able to make you feel a little better

★ riki - weeekly

you were both on weekly weeekly idol together

and both you and riki being main dancers, you were asked to do random dance together

a few popular songs played and the both of you did the choreos

until after school started playing and the boy did the chorus’ choreo and you were like “woah???”

bc he was so INTO ITTTT

the song was basically made for him to cover it

and the mcs saw your reaction so they asked him to do it once again but this time with the whole group

after filming, he came up to you and was like “i’m a huge fan of yours” and you’re just like ):&/£]>\**_£]

“woah really???? i rooted for you on i-land”

and his face just lights up bc his huge crush on you developed even more

you became besties since then but he didn’t ask you out until your birthday

he took you out to a puppy café, knowing you were obsessed with dogs

you’d ask him to show you pictures and videos of bisco

“i better meet bisco once we go to japan together”

melted at the thought of traveling to his hometown with you

anyways

once you left the café, he kissed you in front of your dorms

and somehow he became your boyfriend <3

riki as a bf isn’t really a very public person

he’s the “this is our relationship, not the public’s” type of person

he doesn’t wanna risk companies wanting to exploit your relationship

although he doesn’t talk about you two much, he loves to brag about you when given the chance

whenever variety show hosts would fawn over you he’d just look them in the eyes dead and go “she’s mine”

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montrealmadison · 3 years

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t'étais réel parce qu'il t'aimait

or, “you were real because he loved you”

i work at a place that accepts children’s book donations, so when “the velveteen rabbit” came across my desk the other day, the beginnings of this popped into my head. then the lovely lau at @weneedtotalkaboutfic posted this and also this about ftm!bitty and my brain just took off! enjoy <3

“Has her fever gone down?”

Bitty blows out a long breath and twists around to look at the clock, on the off chance that it’ll give him a better answer than the truth—but all it tells him is that it’s 8:07, and he’s exhausted.

“No.” He pins the phone between his cheek and his shoulder so he can dry his hands. “Hasn’t budged all day.”

On the other end, his mama hums sympathetically. “It will, baby. Y’all are doin’ everything right.”

“Thanks,” he sighs, folding the dishtowel over the oven handle. “It’s just—I hate that she’s so uncomfortable.”

Bitty used to think that he’d made his peace with chaos. He’s moved schools, changed sports, reinvented himself half a hundred times. He’s come out on national television and transitioned publicly on the Internet. He’s written a book, is in the process of drafting another. He’s married to one of the most prominent NHL players in the league, for crying out loud.

But sick toddlers, Bitty is learning, are a whole other hockey game.

read more below or on ao3

Thankfully, at least the kitchen routine is muscle memory at this point: pots dried, dishwasher started, dog fed and watered for the night. The mess in here isn’t too bad, all things considered. He checks the lock on the back door and then lets himself sag against the counter, just a little. It’s been a day. A week, really. He's barely slept for the stress of it all.

“Dicky, honey, you sound like you need a break.” He can picture the frown on his mama’s face when she says it. Funny how her voice still feels like a hug from seven states away. “How’s Jack? Is he alright?”

“Mhm,” he says. “Upstairs puttin’ Ellie to bed, bless him.”

“Good. Well, listen, y’all call anytime if you need us, alright? Your daddy and I will be up, we’re goin’ to the Callahans’.”

“Ooh. Save the good gossip for me?”

“You know I will,” Mama promises with a laugh. “Now go on and sit down for me. I love you.”

“Yes, ma’am. Love you too,” Bitty says, almost absently, and flops onto the couch as the line clicks into silence.

He tries to relax—promise, he really does—but he only makes it about five minutes before the worry wins out and he has to get up again. He just can’t sit still today, especially when he hasn’t heard anything from upstairs in so long. He climbs the stairs and starts down the hall towards Giselle’s room, but pauses and peeks around the doorframe at the soft sound of Jack’s voice.

In the dim light, he can just make out Jack’s giant form carefully folded to fit into Ellie’s bed, one foot planted firmly on the floor to keep him balanced. Bitty presses a hand over his mouth, trying to resist the sudden urge to laugh at the sight of his husband trying to fit in a bed made for a toddler. Thankfully, it works, because neither Jack nor Giselle notice him—their daughter’s curled up next to her papa, tired and sleep-soft, with her flushed little face on Jack’s chest and her slow-blinking eyes fixed on the book in his hands.

The dog’s on the floor in here, too, tail thumping away against the carpet. He huffs, looks up at Bitty with big, understanding eyes as if to say: We got it in here.

Which is clearly the case—they’re already in the middle of a story. Jack is reading in soft, measured tones: “And when the Boy dropped off to sleep, the Rabbit would snuggle down close under his little warm chin and dream, with the Boy's hands clasped close round him all night long.”

It's the French translation, but Bitty feels himself melt almost immediately. He’d recognize The Velveteen Rabbit anywhere. It’d been his favorite as a baby, part of the reason his mama had come home one day with Señor Bun, and—well, the rest is Bittle family history. He leans in the doorway, closes his eyes and drifts while Jack reads.

He’s had a lot of time, now, to learn the differences between French Jack and English Jack, and why each language is important to him—especially where teaching his children is concerned. In French, his voice is softer, lilting, expressive in a way that transfixes Giselle and Bitty alike. Bitty himself has fallen asleep to the sound of that voice many times, and is mostly impressed that Ellie can still fight her own exhaustion just to listen a little longer.

Jack turns the page, and Bitty watches as his face and his voice soften with emotion at the next line: “And then, one day, the Boy was ill.”

Oh. Bitty remembers this part well, too—remembers the feeling of his own mama curled around him when he was sick as a kid. Remembers Coach’s shadow in the doorway, his quieter concern, his gentle hand on Bitty’s shoulder. Jack goes on: “But the Rabbit snuggled down patiently, and looked forward to the time when the Boy should be well again, and they would go out in the garden amongst the flowers and the butterflies and play splendid games in the raspberry thicket like they used to.”

Bitty remembers Señor Bun, equally patient, snuggled up under his chin, and has an idea. He backs quietly out of the room and retreats down the hall to their bedroom, where the bunny himself is propped on the pillows, waiting for them to come to bed. Bittly inhales the familiar scent of the fabric, looks into his bright embroidered eyes. He swears they look understanding somehow.

“You ready to work your magic, buddy?” he asks. “Let’s go.”

Jack does notice him this time, eyes crinkling in acknowledgment when he sees Bitty in the doorway. His voice is getting softer now, the words slowing in time with Giselle’s blinks, and Bitty crosses the room to lay Señor Bun in their daughter’s arms.

Neither of them move until they’re sure that Giselle is asleep at last; even then, Jack extracts himself from the bed as quietly as possible, smoothes the covers over her with a feather-light touch. When they meet in the hallway, Jack presses his face into Bitty’s neck. They stand there in the quiet, breathing together, for a long time.

“How is she?” Bitty finally asks.

“Hot,” Jack says, frowning. “I gave her another Tylenol.”

Bitty sighs deep, presses his forehead into Jack’s chest. “Mm, okay. Let’s hope she kicks this soon.”

“She will,” says Jack. “She’s our kid, that’s gotta count for something, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Despite himself, Bitty finds that a smile comes easily enough. It always does with Jack’s reassurance. “Gotta be tough in this family.”

Jack laughs lightly. “Yeah.”

They retreat to their bedroom, turning off lights as they go. Their nighttime routine, too, is as comfortable as breathing now. When Bitty comes back from brushing his teeth, he finds Jack in bed, reading glasses on, still flipping through The Velveteen Rabbit.

“I’m glad you picked that one for her,” says Bitty slowly. “That was my favorite book as a kid.”

Jack turns it over in his hands, looks up at Bitty with warmth in his eyes. “This one?” he asks, smiling. “That explains Señor Bun, eh?”

“Yeah.” Bitty has to swallow around a sudden lump in his throat, and almost immediately finds himself blinking back hot tears. He bites his lip. “Well, and I, um—no, it’s stupid.”

“Bits?” says Jack, concerned. He closes the book and sits up. “Hey, no it’s not. Why else was it important?”

Bitty looks down. “I used to want to be Real,” he says, all in a rush. “Just like the Rabbit. Used to wish there’d be a fairy that would see how unhappy I was, and come and—oh, Lord—”

It’s like a switch flips in his brain; all of a sudden he’s crying in earnest, days of pent-up stress and fear rushing past the floodgates at once. Jack makes a soft sound and holds Bitty close, letting him cry it out, rocking him just a little. His hands are big and warm on Bitty’s back.

“Shh, bud, hey,” he says. “That’s not stupid at all.”

Bitty sniffles and scrubs at his eyes, lets out a burst of slightly hysterical laughter. “I—God. I don’t know what it is, I was looking at you and Ellie and—I don't know, I just wish the person I was when I first read it could see me now. I wish that little kid hadn’t had to go through all the shit I did to get here.”

Jack doesn’t say anything at first, just pulls back a little. Bitty looks up, confused—but Jack’s just reaching behind him to grab the book off his nightstand, flipping through it until he finds the page he wants. Then he puts an arm back around Bitty’s shoulders and pulls him close, kisses his temple.

“Generally,” he reads, in English this time, “by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”

He fixes Bitty with those bottomless blue eyes. "I hope you'll let me keep telling you," he says slowly, "that it all meant something, bud. You made yourself real. You gave us our daughter."

Bitty laughs, watery. "I did."

"You did." Jack kisses him again, soft and full of meaning. "And I promise I'll never stop trying to understand."

#eric bittle #jack zimmermann #zimbits #omgcp #check please #my writing #thank you lau for the inspiration I literally RAN to my computer lmao

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jq37 · 3 years

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The Report Card – Fantasy High: The Seven Ep 6

Bitches Be Shopping

What is up y’all. A little late but let’s jump in with episode six of The Seven where our girls have just received a LOT of information, Sam most of all who got put into a little vision coma that she’s just now waking up from.

She explains the vision to her friends (as she interprets it, the other Eidolons didn’t die, just became part of the natural forces of the world) and then the bear that Penny made on a whim last episode (who is Russian, named Koda, and somehow a trained circus bear) gets into a fight with Katja with their friends buffing the two to make things more interesting because these are still idiot teens, life or death situation or no. Yelle decides to be the adult and tells them to knock it off and get back on mission.

That means Katja needs to call her dad since he’s knows the guy who’s the best lead to getting to TK ( Talcidimir Tallbreeze who I’ll call Tal). She actually manages to get her dad this time who is inside a giant snake on his hell mission. Katja asks what he knows about TK and he says she’s a sorcerer but also has a spell book so maybe she’s multiclassed. Sam and Ant desperately want to know if they boned and Katja absolutely is not interested in that knowledge. Yelle decides to just ask which makes her dad a little annoyed since he’s kind of in the middle of something (literally) and that annoys Ant, Ost, and Sam who--respectively, accuse him of gaslighting Kat, cast Command on him, and cast Bane on him to aid the Command spell.

Mr. Cleaver fails the save and Ost commands him to tell Katja the truth. He admits that he did hook up with TK and he regrets it (note: it wasn’t like he cheated. It was just a casual hookup that wasn’t fulfilling it seems). Ost demands he apologize for not being there for Kat and Sam berates him for being at the top of the world and not lifting up his daughter too. For his part, Kat’s dad seems genuinely apologetic and promises to do better.

“You don’t need to be the best father, you just need to be there,” Katja says, making her dad break down crying.

Yelle, who has no daddy issues, is a bit less aggro and says that everyone makes mistakes and he can start making it up right now by helping with the Tal situation. She also gives them the tip that a cold spell will probably get them out of the snake lickety split. She is on the money with the snake tip and Mr. Cleaver gets them all invites to a masquerade ball Tal is hosting. It’s being held on the Rumbosa which is this city-sized leisure ship. Mr. Cleaver says he’ll be back as soon as he can and, in the meantime, she should take care of her friends, “even the first 2 that were terrifying to me.”

The girls give Katja the axe they took as a birthday present (it was apparently her birthday the day before which Rekha just decided and Ost/Izzy refuses to accept without a fight because she *knows* Kat’s bday) which is identified as the Axe of Sundering (it can shatter objects, people, and sometimes concepts like halving movement). The two unnamed potions Yelle found are also ID’d as a Potion of Fly and a Potion of Gaseous Form. She distributes the Heath Potions to people without heals. Ant’s new arrows bypass some resistances and let her treat whatever she hits with the first one like it’s her favored enemy.

According to their invites, the ship they need is docking in the city of Gravalvia soon (a very old city in the Baronies) so they need to figure out a plan. They have some downtime, during which:

Zelda tries to hype up the team.

Zelda tries to see if Ost is OK wrt dad stuff and Ost has a Full Breakdown after badly pretending she’s fine.

While Zelda, Ost, and Penny are being Emotional and Sam is trying to literally cool them down with her powers, Ant and Yelle keep watch and experience emotional stability as the Adults Of The Party

Anyway, after a night of rest, they head to the golden city of Gravalvia which is this very cool, very pretty city with mosaics and fountains and I assume columns. They get there and there’s a dramatic fight happening in the square which is halted when one of the fighters realizes that the country he’s fighting for doesn’t exist anymore. And now, it’s time for what we’ve all been waiting for. Shopping Montage! Let’s go girl by girl.

Katja and Ost

Kat asks for help from Ost with getting fancy for this gala since she’s never really done anything dressy before (and she had no mom to help--Kaaaat) and Ost is happy to oblige, dressing them both like “Jersey trash”. Kat, of course, still wears her Khakis underneath.

Antiope

Ant decides to get a vibe for what people here wear and picks something that will blend in but be forgettable so she can be stealthy. Classy blue dress and mask.

Penny

Penny...OK, I absolutely cannot describe what happens here in any way that will do justice to the scene. I am going to tell you what matters to the plot. You have to watch this yourself if you want to see the entire table have a collective breakdown.

While looking for a costume, Penny runs into a halfling who is a member of the Society of Shadows--Laertes. He wants to know why she hasn’t responded to their invitation yet. She says she’s really eager to join, she just wasn’t sure how to respond (and also, she’s kind of in the middle of something). He says she can join by just messaging back and then her loved ones just have to sign waivers to have their memories wiped of her and she’s good to go. Say what now? asks Penny. She didn’t realize this was like a full Men in Black situation.

He says it’s ultimately her decision and leaves.

Of course, I left out the parts where he ate a handful of Candy Heart’s remains, became violently ill, almost projectile vomited into Penny’s mouth, and she tried to kiss him despite him being a full adult. It’s A Lot, ok?

Also, we don’t find out until later but Penny picks a sexy duck costume for reasons that make more sense if you watch the scene but not *much* more sense. She also burns one of the healing potions on this dude as he is bar

Danielle

Danielle tries to get some info on the guests at the party and gets the names Lawrence LaDuc, Princess Autumn, and Duston who is the playboy cousin of Tal. She also hears some dude saying some colonize and plunder the earth BS and casts Heat Metal on him, fully mercing the dude. Ice cold.

She tries to play it off like it’s the Curse of the Forest and when that doesn’t work and people start coming for her, she wildshapes into a dragon wyrmling and starts roasting people, killing 1 and dropping 2 to zero.

Unfortunately, one of her party members is a known dragon hater and uses her new arrows to snipe her right out of the sky. Ant is horrified once she realizes what she’s done but Yelle says it’s all good. It’s NOT all good, says Ant, I STABBED YOU. You’re allowed to be mad! Yelle says she’s just really good at compartmentalizing but what Ant’s getting here is that Yelle doesn’t really believe that her feelings matter which echo the fears of her moms.

Sam

Sam uses a combination of Mantle of Inspiration, glamour magic, performance, and good old flirting to get herself some killer clothes and also start a spontaneous musical number Giselle style.

Brennan says she looks resplendent and, honestly, when does she not?

They reconvene, Zelda in a classic hoop skirt. Yelle realizes she never got a costume and just whips out a Met Gala level, autumn themed, Queen Mab-esque costume with Druidcraft which she could have done this whole time so I guess that’s why she was cool spending her shopping time getting gossip and playing Poison Ivy.

They get to the ship and the way this works, everyone has to make an entrance and the really rich people (including Tal) are on a dais up top watching everyone come in. They all have to give fake names for the night since it’s a masquerade and they have to do Performance or Persuasion checks to see how impressive they look going in.

Before they go in, they plan a little. Penny wants to look for TK. Sam wants to find Dunston. Ost wants to talk to the bouncers. Yelle wants to see if there are plants she can manipulate (there are btw) and for any exits.

A quick rundown of how these all go:

Katja aka Mere (which means both mom and horse): 16

Ant aka Midnight Huntress: 18

Penny aka Penny Duckstone: 13

Zelda aka Madame Goodparty: 2 (Poor Zelda)

Sam aka Songbird: 22 (but she takes a hit to entrance save Zelda from totally flaming out)

Ost aka Stanley Gucci: 13

And Danielle, who never hogs the spotlight and is embarrassed to admit that maybe she does want to be the center of attention for once in her life with a Natural 20, gets a 29, absolutely bringing down the house as Empress Anima. As she walks forward she feels a voice say to her, “You got this. I love the name. You wear it well.”

Tal seems very impressed by her and a lady in a rabbit mask (Coeliabranca who I’ll call Coel if she comes up more) comes down to bring her up to the top with the high rollers. As she leaves, Sam casts Fly on her, just in case and holds the Concentration.

Ost and Kat go talk to the bouncers and Kat decides to pretend to be her mom to get access to the area Yelle is. She rolls low and is told, “Hey, aren’t you already up there?” Kat is like, fuck and Ost saves her by using her charm earrings to get an entourage of guards who will let them through and do what she says. Once up there, Kat doesn’t see her mom which I can imagine she has mixed feelings about.

Sam finds Dunston who is talking about Fantasy Bitcoin and seems like a real “Step on me mommy” type you know? Like, I feel like he’s into findom. Anyway, Sam charms him and his hangers on and learns about a procedure called a Phlebectomy that involves something going into their nose and then they feel better. Sam is rightfully horrified because, as I said, she is Most Likely To Survive A Horror Movie and can sense BS when she sees is. It’s apparently all the rage with the rich people here which is, como de dice, concerning seeing as they’re surrounded by them but we’ll get to that. Sam takes advantage of Dunston’s proclivities and gets him alone, knocks him out, steals him clothes, and pretends to be him (a *very* good scene by Sephie).

Penny sees a gnome gnome boy (Lysander Higgins) shining shoes and finds out from him that there is a copper earth genasi woman here. In a very Cinderella move, she asks what shoes she was wearing. Then, she makes out with him which like, sure. At least it’s not a grown adult man this time. Before she gets her kisses in, she does tell the group what she learned.

Up with the rich people, Yelle is introduced to Tal’s friend who is into Eidolons because of the name she chose. Between the shoes and her knowledge, they confirm that it’s TK! Yelle asks what she knows about Eidolons and she says that 7 is a very powerful number.

We cut to Ant who is patrolling the room as the sun sets and she suddenly hears a little beeping. It’s coming from a small crystal that was in Preston’s shirt (which she still has on her because???). Guests start dripping goo from their noses and transforming into monsters. Ant realizes that some kind of spell is happening triggered by midnight and this beeping. Hope these costumes are battle ready cause it’s fight time baybee!

Superlatives

Danielle: Most Likely to Be on The News for Murdering Fantasy Jeff Bezos

I cannot imagine what was running through Yelle’s head when she decided that, having just rolled into a foreign country, her next move was to start using lethal force on anti-environmentalist colonizing capitalists. Like, she’s not *wrong* per se but she is wild--in all senses of the word.

Random Thoughts

Kat keeps saying yesterday was her birthday which Ost/Izzy (and the rest of the group to a less vocal degree) are simply not having because maybe her dad would forget her birthday but her girls absolutely would not.

“You’re great because you stayed,” is the other killshot Kat line to her dad.

At a certain point Sam says, “This is so unhealthy,” to I think Yelle and like, if SAM is telling you your coping mechanisms are unhealthy, get thee to therapy.

OK, so someone, presumably Anima’s spirit, talks to Yelle as she makes her grand entrance which seems like info they should get to Talura ASAP, right? Cause that’s evidence they’re not dead-dead, just changed in form. But also Anima, girl. Don’t talk to Yelle. Talk to your rampaging sister!

"That's my secret, I stay in initiative."

Just a process note, notes are taken for the next ep and I am working on getting that recap up ASAP. As a battle ep, it will be in the abbreviated style that I did for last battle ep.

In this episode, Penny rolls a Nat 1 (which she rerolls) and one of Brennan’s NPCs rolls a Nat 1. Ant rolls 2 Nat 20s, Yelle rolls 1, and Brennan says that one of his NPCs gets a 20 which sweeps him entirely into Sam’s dance number.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #the seven #the seven spoilers

20 notes · View notes

basicallywhiterice · 3 years

Text

across the world (lucas wong, dong sicheng/winwin)

pairing: lucas x reader, sicheng/winwin x reader

genre: angst, fluff, flangst. friends to lovers, college!au, dancer!sicheng, relationships and heartbreak

summary: You always thought a piece of your heart would belong to Sicheng, your first love, who ended things when he moved overseas. In the end, though, there’s nothing across the world except for a boy you used to know.

word count: 4.6k

warnings: cussing

a/n: see y’all next month for the last part, feel free to yell at me so i finish writing it sooner (p.s. peep the hamilton reference)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

this can be read as a standalone, but is part 2 in the on top of the world series. crossposted on ao3 here!

CHARLOTTE, NC

Charlotte Douglas International Airport, 1:42 p.m.

“Is this goodbye?” Sicheng murmurs, hugging you tighter. You strain to hear him amidst the hustle and bustle of the airport.

“I guess it is.” He’s leaving for Korea, pursuing his ambitious dance dreams. You’re staying in the states and starting college soon. There’s no time for an international relationship in either of your lives.

It’s cruel, you think, that the heartbreak from your first love will have been so worth it, that you’d have to live through the “right person, wrong time” so soon.

You nod, once. “Ah. Well. Bye.”

“We’re really over? We’re—officially breaking up?”

The words cut like a knife, but you try to stay strong for Sicheng’s sake. “Yeah,” is all you can manage without breaking down. “I guess we are.”

“Okay.”

So this is how it ends, you think. “Go and conquer the dance world.”

“I will. I—I really love you. I’m gonna miss you.”

“I love you too, Sicheng. You should go.”

“Ok.” He hoists up his backpack and raises his suitcase handle. “I—goodbye.”

“Bye.”

He starts toward the security line after some initial hesitation, flanked by his parents on either side. Trailing behind right before stopping, he turns back one last time, waving a final farewell.

After he’s gone, Lucas pats you on the back, Giselle hugs you tighter, and Ningning lets you cry into her shoulder. It helps, and it just barely holds you together as your world falls apart.

Home, 11:49 a.m.

You feel hollow.

Exactly six weeks before you leave for college, Sicheng does a routine call in the sliver of free time he has, sandwiched between his classes for the day. You’re still struggling through your acceptance of the change that was bound to happen, spending your days with your friends while you still have time. Though you’ve thrown yourself into living without him, seeing his face feels like a punch in the gut.

Even though he’s across the world, you let yourself forget for a moment, but you can’t pretend any longer when he hangs up.

Today was supposed to be your three month anniversary.

You turn down Yangyang’s invitation to skateboard and cry into your pillow.

Today was supposed to be your three month anniversary, but all you’re left with is a broken heart that Sicheng still holds.

ATLANTA, GA, FRESHMAN YEAR

Turman Hall, 11 a.m.

“Hey. How’d you like your first week?”

You spit out your toothpaste, holding up a finger and motioning for him to wait as you rinse.

“It was okay,” you say. “I haven’t really made new friends yet. I’ve, uh, hung out with a few people though, and Lucas and Giselle are in some of my classes.” Some water droplets spray out from a splash of water, and you wince a little at how low the dorm’s sinks are.

“Have you talked to the people on your floor?”

“Yeah, they’re cool. I’m pretty happy here, I think I just need more time to get to know people better,” you shrug. “Anyways. How are you?”

“It’s going pretty well. Someone from New York joined earlier this week, so she’s kind of in the same boat as me, except she’s Korean.” He’s about to continue when he yawns, words growing incomprehensible.

“You should sleep soon. When are you getting up tomorrow?”

“Late enough. I probably should, though.”

“Then why’d you call? Go to sleep, Sicheng.”

“I wanted to see you, is that really a crime?” He yawns again. “Well then. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

You know you’ll only get hurt in the long run, but that doesn’t stop you from texting him to set up another time to call once you know he’s asleep.

Turman Hall, 12:15 p.m.

Sicheng cancels a Facetime he scheduled earlier in the week, too tired to call after a grueling practice. It’s the first time he’s done so, and you knew he was going to get too busy for you eventually, but it still breaks your heart.

You’re staring at your laptop when a tidal wave of loneliness pulls you under. You miss Sicheng, but you also miss the rest of your high school friends, your parents, and the simplicity of life before college.

Just as you’re about to text him, Lucas calls you.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Yooo,” he greets. “Are you still coming to the student center?”

“Yeah, I was about to head out. Why’d you call?”

“You weren’t responding.”

You pause, a wave of tears suddenly welling up. “Thank you, Lucas,” you say, voice steady enough to avoid suspicion. “I’ll be there in 10.”

“Yeah, see you then.”

The loneliness doesn’t fade, but it doesn’t weigh as heavily anymore.

Turman Hall, 7:14 p.m.

You’re pulling on your shoes, about to head out to meet with Winter at a nearby restaurant, when Sicheng calls you. After a bit of hesitation, you reason it won’t take long and pick up.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Sicheng says, hair sweaty and face shining. “I’m on break right now. How are you?”

“I’m doing alright. Why’d you call?” you ask. He almost never calls during his breaks. “Isn’t it busy there?”

“I felt lonely,” he says, and you’re not sure why it hurts to hear that was the only reason. “Is anything interesting happening?”

“Uh.” It’s been a while since he last called, and you forget what you’ve told him already. “Well, Karina’s been encouraging me to rush next semester. I’m not sure if I want to do it, though.”

“That sounds really fun. You could meet some new people there.”

“Yeah, but it seems really time consuming, and I’ve made friends already. I just—”

“If you want to try it, I don’t see why not.”

“Yes, I just don’t know if I can handle it on top of my classes.”

“You need to decide what you want,” he says, and you blink, startled by his sudden outburst. Your first instinct is to apologize, but you have nothing to be sorry for, and you wonder if something major or stressful happened recently.

“I have been,” you mumble, trying not to sound defensive. “I declared my major last week, the joint bachelor’s and master’s thing here. I talked to my advisor about it and I’m trying to graduate in four years. I have a plan.”

“Oh.” He pauses, head tilting. “You didn’t tell me.”

“I wanted to tell you over call.”

“Ah. You should’ve said something.”

You just shrug, wanting to move on. “I’m excited. How are you, though? Why are you feeling lonely?” You know it’s pointless to ask when he only has a few minutes of free time, but you still want to give him an option to answer.

“I’m alright, getting busier now but—”

The door opens behind him, a dancer clad in black clothing walking on screen. They speak a string of Korean to which Sicheng nods, standing up and stretching his legs.

“Sorry, break’s up,” he says, face coming back into the frame as he bends down to pick up his phone. “Text you later?”

You’ve gotten used to it by now. “Okay. Good luck. Bye.”

His face is replaced first with your text history, and next with a black screen. You stare at it, wondering if he even loved you in the first place.

You don’t decide on an answer during the 15 minute walk to dinner, but when you meet Winter there, you find that there are better ways to fill your time.

Turman Hall, 11:15 p.m.

Your hands shake as you press the FaceTime button under Sicheng’s contact. As your phone rings, you set it down to wipe your palms on your pants.

After tonight, you’ve decided to cut Sicheng out of your life. The timing is less than ideal, but with exams just completed and an abundance of time to reflect, it’s the best you can do. All you want is one final call with him, and you’ll rip off the bandaid.

Sicheng answers quickly. He’s sitting at his desk, a pillow propped up between him and his chair. “Hey,” he says, waving. An easy smile hangs from his face, and he looks the most relaxed he’s been in months.

“Hey,” you breathe. “How are you?”

He eats lunch as you talk, almost making you regret your decision to distance yourself. Your resolve never crumbles like you thought it would, though, and you think your conviction signals the point of no return.

Tonight, you hang up first. It feels like you can breathe again when you press the ‘end call’ button, but your heart crushes under the weight of your lungs.

Turman Hall, 11:57 p.m.

“I’m moving on,” you say, resting your elbows on the windowsill and looking up toward the looming night sky. The moon hangs high above, its gentle glow drawing out everything you’ve been bottling up.

“I can’t wait for him to come back when he’s happy without me,” you tell the moon. “I need to live my life without him. Otherwise, it’s not fair to me, or him, or anyone who cares about me.”

A tear traces its way down your face, plopping down onto the ledge. “I used to love him. I don’t know if it’ll ever go away, but I know that someday, I’ll be able to look back at it as something in the past.”

The stars wink back at you, silently, and you wonder if the moon ever gets tired of orbiting the Earth.

CHARLOTTE, NC

Home, 7:09 p.m.

Sicheng texts you every day during the first week of winter break. Each time, you ignore him for hours before responding, and it feels horrible, but there’s no other way around it.

Today’s texts come when you’re sitting in your room with Giselle and Kun, waiting for the sugar cookie dough to chill in the fridge. He asks how you are, if you want to call in the pocket of free time he has right now and tell him more about your future plans. You stare at the messages on your lockscreen, waiting for your phone to turn off before limply tossing it on your bed.

“What’s going on?” Giselle asks eventually, pulling you out of your reverie.

“What?”

“Y/n,” she says, scooting closer. You look up from the miniature Christmas tree nestled in your lap, having fiddled with its flimsy branches to distract yourself from replying. “What’s wrong? Talk to us, we’re here for you.”

You glance over at Kun. “I can tell the rest of them not to come because Giselle and I got food poisoning or something, if you need to vent to us.” He pulls his phone out, ready to text Yangyang, Lucas, and Ningning at a moment’s notice.

You wonder how long they’ve known, even when you kept quiet and tried to shoulder your pain alone. Your phone’s ringing saves you from answering immediately, lighting up with an incoming Facetime from Sicheng, and it hurts not to pick up, but it would hurt even more if you did.

“He said he has 20 minutes to call,” you relay to Kun and Giselle dully, your cover blown. They share a sideways glance, but neither of them say anything. “Should I? I don’t even know if I want to talk to him, but y’all probably haven’t called him in a while.”

“Don’t think of us, think of what you want,” Giselle urges.

You nod, reaching for the phone again. It’s still ringing when you silence it, throwing it back on the bed.

“Yeah. That’s what I want.” And then you fall over onto Giselle’s lap, desperately wishing for the pain to end, and she holds you as you sob for the first time in a week. “He’s—it’s—different now, and—s’okay, b-but it’s…” you choke out before you start hiccuping.

The room is quiet as you cry, only the sounds of sniffling and gentle consoling present, as you shed a semester’s worth of tears. You start talking once you’re coherent enough, putting your heart on full display, and it’s cathartic. It’s cathartic to ugly cry, to retell your love story to two friends who love you deeply, to release of all the hurt and longing you’ve been holding onto just to remember how you and Sicheng were.

And when you’re done, letting go gives more room for hope to come in.

ATLANTA, GA

Waffle House, 1:01 a.m.

“What do you mean, of course you were gonna get a bid, you idiot,” you exclaim around a bite of waffles. “I can’t believe you’re a frat boy now.”

“I was worried! I thought that one dude hated me, remember?” Lucas grins. “And don’t worry, I’m not an official frat boy yet.”

“Don’t fucking get hazed when you pledge.”

He raises his hands, still holding a syrup-covered pancake piece speared onto his fork. “I won’t. Don’t fall into the whole ‘frat boys are dumb’ thing on me, now, I know how to look after myself.”

“I’m not, I’m just worried,” you sigh. “Just—stay safe, y’know?”

“Aw, you do care after all.”

“Shut up before I make you pay for your pancakes.”

He doesn’t shut up. “Anyways, enough about me. You don’t have to, uh, say anything, but are you—are you doing okay?”

You can’t tell if he’s talking about Sicheng or life in general, but you offer an honest answer to both. You’ll find out which one he’s referring to soon enough. “I’m doing better.”

“I can tell.”

You stare at him for a second too long, the harsh fluorescent lights glaring down, and you think that maybe Sicheng came into your life at exactly the right time.

Three truths arise at the exact same time: You don’t love Sicheng anymore. You’re happier without him. And you see the light at the end of the tunnel, the day quickly approaching when you are perfectly satisfied with what was, and have no grieving for what could have been.

Clairmont Road, 6:08 p.m.

When it arrives, it’s any other spring day. You’re sitting at a bus stop, scrolling through social media, helping Winter finalize the Airbnb booking for your upcoming spring break trip, and discussing your summer internship applications with Ten at the same time, when Giselle scrolls back up your feed.

“Isn’t that… Sicheng? He went viral?”

“Hm?” You glance down at a dance trend, the dancer vibing onscreen alongside a popular filter. Then your eyes land on the several hundred thousand likes beneath the video. “That’s him?” you finally realize. You haven’t kept up with his dance account in a few months, and it seems like you’ve missed out on a lot.

“Oh my god, he made it, didn’t he?”

“Holy shit. All because of a TikTok dance? That’s insane.”

You call Lucas over, and the three of you rewatch the video.

As you watch, you wait for your expression to fall again, for your heart to drop and your stomach to twist when you think about him, but nothing happens. And as you feel nothing but happiness for his success, the last scratch on your heart heals itself, and you smile.

Then the epiphany hits you: you and Sicheng may never talk, meet, or be okay with each other again, but it doesn’t matter. It hasn’t mattered for a while, not when your heart is bursting with love for your own life and stays silent for a boy who was once in it.

He’s in his own world—leaving you happier now that you’re done learning what you needed to from him, wiser and more content—and you’re in your own, taking over the world with only those you choose to share it with.

It’s solitary on top of the world, but it will never be lonely, not when you fight for everything you want and hold the people you love close to your heart.

You let go of Sicheng a long time ago.

ATLANTA, GA, SOPHOMORE YEAR

The Quad, 7:30 p.m.

The day Lucas asks you out is the day the flowers outside your window start to bloom.

“I really like you,” he says, his beaming expression matching yours, “and I was wondering if you’d like to go out? On a date with me?”

He’s awkward, but carries himself with confidence. His fidgeting hands give away the nervousness he tries to hide, but his grin catches your attention. There’s a lot of things you like about him, but you think his smile might be one of your favorites.

“I would love to.”

Main Street, 8:15 p.m.

By the time your three month anniversary with Lucas rolls around, you’ve started bringing down your heart’s defenses already. There’s no reason to keep them up: he doesn’t make you cry when you worry about the future, is never gone for long enough to make your heart ache. He’s safe, and you want to stop keeping him at arm’s distance.

And you’ll be okay. You’ve lived through one heartbreak already and emerged stronger than ever. And if your vulnerability with Lucas means it will heighten your next heartbreak, then it’ll be worth it a million times over.

You hand parts of your heart for him to hold, dropping your defenses day by day. This is the point of no return, and you choose to walk past it with Lucas by your side.

ATLANTA, GA, JUNIOR YEAR

The Quad, 10:22 p.m.

“I’m in love with you,” Lucas confesses. Grinning from ear to ear, he swings your clasped hands together, practically restraining himself from skipping down the park path. Your hand slips an inch before he catches it, oblivious to the sweat coating your palms inside your gloves.

The right words never come, and slowly, the smile melts off his face. “Baby?”

Your throat constricts as you swallow hard around your dry tongue.

“Baby, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it before you were comfortable, I…”

“Lucas.” Pausing, you bring a shaky fist up to your mouth, covering the lower half of your face as you stall for time. “I… don’t know.”

Your hand slips out of his. “Oh.”

“Lucas, I love you very much. But there’s a difference. I… don’t know if I’m in love with you.” He stares at you, expression tight, and your stomach turns. “This doesn’t mean no. I really don’t know, but I do know that you make me happy. I wasn’t expecting this.”

“I thought I had been clear in how I felt.”

You wince, slightly. “I’m—”

“Don’t. Don’t apologize.” He swallows. “Can we please go back to the dorms? I’m not mad, and I don’t want you to feel bad, but I really need to be alone right now.”

“Can we work this out first?” you ask, panic settling into your voice.

“I don’t know if we can do that right now.” “Have—have you been open with me? About how you feel these past few months?”

“Can we at least try? I—” Your voice breaks, and you clench your jaw to ground yourself before continuing. “Of course I’ve been open. I made the choice to communicate everything I felt, I overcame my fear of heartbreak. Just because I’m not sure if I’m in love with you yet doesn’t mean I haven’t tried and cared.”

“I don’t—can we please go back? I need some time alone.”

“You can’t just walk away like that,” you say, voice shaking. “You—you’re not trying to solve this together.”

“I don’t know,” he says, and it hurts to hear when it’s all he says, but not as much as it hurt you to say.

“Lucas,” you say, and it feels horrible pleading for him to listen. “Please work this out with me. Show me that you’re choosing me, too.”

He stares at you, motionless. Your worry compounds when he stays there, heart ripping apart at the seams as you resign yourself to the fact that this is the beginning of the end. Jaw clenching, you let your tears trickle down your face, the frigid wind sending pricks of coldness down your face.

Then he steps closer, blurry silhouette growing bigger. You furiously wipe away your tears, wool gloves scratching at your cheeks, to get a good look at his expression, when he hesitantly reaches up for your hands.

“I’m sorry,” he says, slowly lowering your joined hands. “I know you’re hurt. I need you to trust me when I need some time to process this, and I know you want to work on this together, but I need to be alone first. Would you be okay with going back to your dorm, but staying in different rooms for a while so that I can still be close to you?”

It’s not okay—not if he’s giving up on solving it together. “You get the bathroom.”

“Deal.”

You don’t get the chance to tell him that night, for you fall asleep before he talks to you again.

His absence speaks for itself, and you think this might be the point of no return.

Woodruff Hall, 12:12 a.m.

Lucas gives up over winter break, and you want to blame him, but you’re too busy blaming yourself for breaking up with him to be angry.

“Why?” he demands, gaze cold. You look away.

“You knew this was coming,”

“You were the one who talked about choosing each other and working on our relationship.”

And you were the one who gave up first, you think, but you’re too tired to be bitter. “Lucas, I don’t think you can change my mind at this point.”

“Are you—is it because I’m in love with you?”

“Lucas, please, just go.”

“Did you ever love me?” You hate that you can’t comfort him the first time he cries in front of you.

“We can talk about this later, but please, I need to be alone right now.”

You start sobbing the moment he walks out the door.

The Quad, 11:32 p.m.

Were you in love with him?

Woodruff Hall, 1:57 a.m.

You were not in love with him.

Woodruff Hall, 11:29 a.m.

When Sicheng Facetimes you for the second time this year, you’re not expecting it. You certainly aren’t expecting the news he drops.

“You’re dating someone?” you ask as he blushes.

For a horrible moment, all you can think is what if what if what if before you blink, and then your guilt over your past evaporates.

“That’s awesome. What are they like?”

“She’s really cool. She joined the studio a year after I did and we started talking recently. It’s going really well.”

“I’m glad you’re happy.”

“Me too,” he grins. “How are you, though? Anything interesting happen?”

“Nah, I’m just pretty stressed,” you half-fib. “Just—life, you know?”

“I see. How are you and Lucas?”

A cross between a laugh and a sob rips out of your throat unexpectedly. “We—we broke up earlier this month.”

Sicheng goes still. “Oh, shit, I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

“He—it’s—I’ll be okay. I trust myself enough to end up okay,” you babble. “It’s chill. It’ll be chill eventually.”

“Things will get better,” he agrees, “but you shouldn’t ignore how you feel right now. Are you alright? Wanna talk about it?”

You tell him an abridged version, one that’s probably still too personal for him, and he consoles you the best he can.

You still feel the finality when he hangs up, though, the sense of obligation he felt to inform you of his girlfriend obvious from the start. It’s an unspoken agreement that neither one of you will contact the other so as not to intrude on his new relationship, and you imagine it’ll be the last time he calls you this year.

And you’re okay with that—have been okay with it for years by now. Sicheng’s gone, not the one that got away, and you feel a deep peace settle in your bones.

One day, you’ll feel the same about Lucas, too, and that victory carries you through the week.

ATLANTA, GA, SENIOR YEAR

Oxford Road, 4:28 p.m.

“Hi, Lucas.”

He looks up from his laptop, pulling his textbook from the cafe table to make more room for you. “Hey, it’s good to see you again.”

The awkwardness you’ve been preparing for in your meeting never comes. “You too,” you say, pulling out a chair and sitting across from him. “How have you been?”

“I’m doing really well. How ‘bout you?”

“Me too. I’m glad you’re doing good. How’d that internship go, by the way?”

“Oh my god, it went great,” he recounts. “Ten told you how he was interning under a different department, right? And that he worked on the floor above mine?”

“He did. Did y’all see each other often? He didn’t really mention a lot other than how he got wasted with you.”

“Yeah. He’s less of a lightweight now, did you know? Anyways, I shared an apartment with a few guys, and one of them was from his hometown, and he was doing analytics as well and he mentioned that he had interned with you last summer. Do you remember a Hendery?”

“I remember him! Does he still have a bunch of questionable ties?”

“So many. We got him a Shrek tie that Ten ended up picking, and he wore it on the last day, it was great.”

You and Lucas are okay again.

You only realize that you never ordered a drink by the time you head out.

Executive Park, 10:42 p.m.

Sicheng calls for the first time in a year right when Winter leaves your college apartment for the last time. It’s not the last time you’ll see her before you move out, but it brings about a sense of finality.

“Hello?” you ask after a moment of silence.

“You’re still going to school in LA next year, right?”

“Hello?” Winter glances over, one hand on your doorknob, and you shake her head. Covering your phone, you mouth “I’m fine.” She doesn’t look convinced, but closes the door behind her anyways.

“Please,” he says, and his sense of urgency grabs your attention. “I’ll explain, but I need to know.”

“Yeah, I am. Why? What’s happening?”

“So. I might be moving there to teach at a dance studio.”

“You’re moving back?” you press. “Why? When? Which studio?”

“Millennium, sometime in the fall,” he says, loud chatter on his end briefly drowning out his words. “Shit—I don’t have a lot of time right now, but I got confirmation that I’ll be teaching there just now, and I—I remembered you were gonna be there, and, you know? Can we talk about this sometime later? I’m at the studio right now, I just—”

“Sicheng, that’s fine,” you say when you hear the talking in the background pick up again, worried that he’s missing out on a class or practice. “I’m proud of you for making it there. We’ll talk later?”

“Thank you, yeah, we should.”

You nod, not knowing what to do. “Bye.”

“Bye,” he says, and you hang up as soon as the syllable has left his mouth.

Sicheng’s moving back. He’s moving back, a stranger behind his familiar smile, and it’s difficult to think about meeting him when you’d assumed you’d never see him again.

Against the backdrop of surprise, your curiosity stands out the most. You wonder what kind of person he grew into—wonder if he ever found something besides dance to chase, what his most recent catchphrase is, how his girlfriend is doing, if he still listens to the SoundCloud rapper after he went into pop, how often he calls his parents—and you miss the ease of being able to ask him, no sour memories to impede even the simplest of conversations.

This is the price you have to pay, you suppose, for knowing you were meant to outgrow each other.

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cloverrover · 3 years

Text

Surprises

Summary: Y’all be road tripping and they didn’t know you could rap like crazy.

Warnings: PG-13 cuz I mean it is a Macklemore song so

A/N: This, other than Bonfire, is my first writing of any sort so be kind? Lol and yes, it’s Tom Holland because yeah. But like it, reblog it, please just spread this out lol

“Are you sure you have everything packed?”

“For the ever-living hell Tommie, I have done this trip so many times I know what to pack. So yes, I’m sure I have everything packed.”

“Really? Because you’re travel charger isn’t in here. It’s on the counter dumbass.” Blushing like crazy after snapping at him for the millionth time that day alone, you get out of the car to get your charger.

Ever since you could remember your parents took you on a road trip at least once a year. When you got older, between soccer games and your parents both getting sick, they started to happen less and less. Eventually they both died, leaving you alone to sort out everything by your lonesome and leaving you grieving a lone. The only memory left being the old ratty map they liked to use instead of a GPS.

It took a while for you to get used to life without your parents. Being an only child with no other living family, it was a lot and it took you to a dark place for a while until you realized that your parents wouldn’t want to see you like this.

So, you started over. Packed up everything and moved to the mountains in North Carolina where you knew no one and no one knew you. You couldn’t bear to leave the state you were born in, but you couldn’t live on the coast anymore. Too much pain and too many memories but you couldn’t leave home still. You always did your road trip, granted it was backwards now with you driving east instead of west, but you loved the stops on the way.

Getting back into the truck, you started the engine, began your drive, and tried to ignore the boys bickering over what to listen to.

“Ahem. Harrison, Tommie, I’m the driver. Driver picks, not that passenger bullshit y’all like to try and play.”

“Fine Al.” Harrison grins cheekily at you, knowing your hatred of that nickname.

“Harold, call me Al again, and I’ll leave you at a back-hick gas station with no money and no phone.” Glaring at him through the mirror, you see a paled Harrison sitting and knowing you would actually do it, despite the fact he was famous.

“Hah she got you good Harrison.”

“Oh, I’d do that to you too Tom don’t you worry. I can’t separate the two of you.”

“I thought you loved me Ally.”

“I do Tom ha-ha don’t worry. But I’m still hella serious.”

Ignoring the boys further, you plug your phone in, pull up Spotify, and blast Macklemore. You don’t know what it was about him, but he always calmed you down; and with the memories this trip would undoubtedly bring up, you’d need some calm.

“Ok Harrison, I’ll allow you to choose the song, that’s it.” Grabbing the phone before you can even finish speaking, the boys unknowingly chooses your favorite song.

Granted you were still getting to know the boys even after 2 years of knowing them, but they’d never managed to figure out what your favorite song much less artist. They knew you liked Macklemore but that was about it for rap music. Soon Downtown was filling the old truck and you were casually singing along.

For some reason, you were always nervous about singing around the boys. You met them briefly before they started filming for Spider-Man: Homecoming and were fine singing around them until then. When you really thought about it, you realized that it was because of Zendaya. You didn’t hate her. God no if anything you loved her, you just knew you couldn’t really sing like her though. Who can? The only thing you were semi-good at was rapping.

“I’m headed downtown, cruising through the alley

Tip-toeing in the street like Daily

Pulled up, moped to the valley

Whitewalls on the wheels like mayonnaise

Dope, my crew is ill, and all we need is two good wheels

Got gas in the tank, cash in the bank

And a bad little mama with her ass in my face

Imma lick that, stick that, break her off Kit-Kat

Snuck her in backstage, you don’t need a wristband

Dope.”

Without realizing you had the undivided attention of two very handsome British boys, you kept on going until you neared the end and saw they were staring at you. In what emotion, you couldn’t tell, you were too freaked out and immediate shut up.

After some very awkward glances at each other, Tom was the first to break the silence.

“Ally, what the actual hell was that?”

“It’s nothi-“

“Don’t even say that was nothing Ellie that was amazing!” You were in such a state of embarrassment you didn’t even realize Harrison used a nickname only he and Tom seemed to use.

“Harrison, it really wasn’t anything. I can’t even rap well enough anyways.”

“Why didn’t we know about this before??”

You didn’t want to tell them that because they knew Zendaya, that they could always hear her sing and not worry about dying cat sounds coming to their ears.

“Guys it really isn’t anyt-“

“Alexandria Giselle Smith. You tell us why we didn’t know you could rap and you tell us right now. Or no more head massages.” Turning to look Tom in the eye, not really believing him, because everyone knew he loved giving you those, you saw he was just as serious as you were about leaving them at a gas station.

“I didn’t want to tell you guys because y’all knew Zendaya.” Not wanting to look at either of them because you know it’s a stupid as fuck reason.

“I know it’s a shitty reason but there it is.” Blushing slightly, you focus on the road, no longer rapping, only wanting to get to get to the Outer Banks as soon as possible. A few minutes and more songs go by before either boy says something.

“You know just because we know someone who sings professionally doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate a dying cat sound every now and then. And no, we aren’t saying you sound like a dying cat when you sing. You sound very average and honestly, it’s nothing but refreshing.”

By this point your face feels like a hot tamale and you have to look everywhere else except at Tom, who’s just said the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard. Knowing that your little crush definitely wasn’t going to go anywhere, you look back in the mirror only to see Harrison sporting a shit-eating grin on his face, and Tom blushing like mad.

“Well then boys, if you like it so much, turn it back up.”

From that on, you spent the rest of the drive blasting music, singing, eating really crappy food, and just generally having a nice road trip for the first time in a very long time.

#tom holland #spiderman #marvel #marvel mcu #one shot #tom holland fluff

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ctrlsznwrites · 3 years

Text

SAVE ROOM FOR US

CHAPTER FIVE — I NEED ANSWERS NOW! [ DRABBLE ]

about — it’s the second days of the trip, and after a few hours of searching twitter sam and giselle have a conversation. and steve finally has enough of gamoras shit and asks sam what’s her problem.

pairings — sam wilson x giselle browning [ oc ], sam x gamora

| PREVIOUS |

SERIES MASTERLIST | MASTERLIST

Giselle put her phone down quickly slipping on her shoes, completing her outfit for the night. She made her way around the room getting her purse together before making her way downstairs.

“Well, look who we have here! Who you trying to look good for?” She rolled her eyes at Thor playfully pushing his chest.

“My damn self, don’t play me like that!” She jokes making her way over to the girls to talk to them before they left.

“Okay, sis! I see you, do a quick spin for me.” Val hyped her up, Giselle stuck her tongue out spinning around playfully.

“Alright, were gonna head out now, so if y’all could stop drowning over giselle that’d be lovely.”

“Pietro, you’re just mad that you could never look this good on your worst day. And it’s okay just accept it and be jealous from afar.” The two laughed making their way to the cars outside and continued the banter while getting into the car with Erik, Manti, and Bucky.

The ride to the restaurant went fast as the group of five, listened to music and caught up a bit more. Finding out the Manti had a new job opportunity in a different country for a few months and wasn’t sure if she should take it. And the group encouraged her to try new things and that she might regret that she never did it. The whole time they were having that conversing Giselle kept checking her phone hoping that Peter would respond to her.

When the five of them made it to the restaurant everyone else soon pulled in after them and they all went inside to eat. Giselle and Erik were talking walking in when Mila broke away from Steve, grabbing Giselle’s attention.

“Hey, I don’t want to keep you for too long. But did he respond yet?”

“No, not yet I hope he does soon because I want to have this settled before the end of the week, ya know so we can have the send half of the trip to really just relax.”

Mila understood where Giselle was coming from and just as she was about to ask another question Giselle’s phone went off signaling she had a notification. The two looked at each other before Giselle opened her phone to see a message from Peter.

| NEXT |

#social media au #sam wilson #sam wilson fic #sam wilson x oc #sam wilson x black!reader #sam wilson series #black!fem!reader #black!fem!oc #black!reader #sznwrites #sznwrites:series #sznwrites:srfu #giselle browning:sznocs

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recurring-polynya · 4 years

Note

What are your thoughts on Bazz-B? He and Renji seemed to have developed a good rapport and I feel that they would’ve been good frenemies had be survived. I can imagine them exchanging fashion tips which would have interesting results!

I imagine that in another universe, they could have been friends, but I feel like the fact that Bazz grievously injured/ambiguously killed one of Renji’s best friends would put a big damper on that.

I really, really, really do not like the Sternritters. I don’t even like them as villains. Out of them, Bazz is probably the least objectionable, but I still don’t like him.

Here are a few thoughts on why, but I’m gonna put them under a cut, because that’s my policy when I say critical things about characters. If you like the Sternritters, I’m glad for you and please feel free to skip the rest of this post!

One of the major themes of Bleach has always been about moral ambiguity, that people are rarely pure heroes or villains. In the earliest episodes, Rukia warns Ichigo to kill Hollows from behind, to never try to glimpse the person they once were, advice that Ichigo roundly rejects as he’s constant turns enemies into friends/allies. This works really well at the beginning of the series and... less well each time we got through this.

My understanding is that Kubo’s original plan for Bleach ended after the Soul Society Arc, and that makes sense to me, because it seems so well plotted out to me, and then the subsequent arcs just seems to try to be recapturing the magic. The thing that is coolest to me about this arc is that the shinigami characters have real depth, and that our initial impressions of them are insufficient. The Gotei is going through an existential crisis, where an injustice (Rukia’s execution) is being prosecuted, and in addition, Aizen has laid a groundwork of mistrust and misinformation. You have characters like Renji, Kira, and Hinamori, who are torn between their orders and deep personal feelings. You have bystanders like Hisagi and Komamura, who don’t really have skin in the game, but feel a sense of unease about the way things are going. You have characters who seem sympathetic-- when Aizen comforts Hinamori that Renji won’t be fired, and the fact that Tousen seems to be someone who would be on the side of justice if only he had the full story, that turn out to be disingenuous. Then you have characters like Kenpachi, who, at least in the second half of the arc, is on Ichigo’s side, but not really for any noble reason, just because he likes Ichigo and also he wants an excuse to fight other captains. There’s Kurotsuchi, who is nominally on the side of the good guys, but is not, in fact, a good person. By the end of the arc, I feel like Kubo has done a really good job of presenting a diverse group of people who live in a flawed system and who were played by someone who took advantage of that. I have no objection at all to the idea that Ichigo considers many of the shinigami his friends afterward, including a very strong friendship with Renji, who is presented as a villain initially.

The Arrancar arc, is more of a mixed bag for me. I still think it mostly works. Arrancar are not humans. They follow Aizen, but in some ways, they are also his victims-- post-Arc, I don’t find myself begrudging any of the surviving Espada for having gone along with him. They are Hollows, and they come from a life of violence and anger and brutality. They have risen above that, which means different things to the various Espada. Harribel, Starkk and Nel are all sympathetic, even tragic characters. Nnoitra and Szyalapollo are monstrous, but in the way that terrible humans are monstrous. Grimmjow is an interesting character, because he falls somewhere in the middle.

I read a fair amount of GrimmIchi fic, because a) it often features Renruki as a side ship and b) there are a lot of really, really talented GrimmIchi writers, but I do not love the ship for it’s own sake, and it’s mainly for one reason: Grimmjow purposely hurt Ichigo’s friends in front of him, and I do not think that’s a thing Ichigo would take lightly. Now, one of the things that make GrimmIchi writers so good is that they are often willing to do the heavy lifting of examining Grimmjow’s brutality, and way Ichigo views the Hollow within himself (for some people, this is even one of the attractions of the pairing). We get a lot of canon scenes with Grimmjow in various situations-- when he backtalks Aizen, when he “rescues” Orihime from Loly and Menoly, when he tries to get her to heal Ichigo just so he can fight him again, when we see him willing to fight his fellow Espada. He’s a meaty character and there’s a lot to dig into. I would still, someday, like to see Ichigo say, “Hey Grimmjow, y’know, you badly hurt my friend Rukia and it messed me up a bunch and I am having trouble getting over it,” and for Grimmjow to have to deal with that. (Polynya, you say, didn’t Rukia kill one of Grimmjow’s Fraccion like 5 minutes earlier? Yes, she did, and whether Grimmjow would respond with “yeah, well, Rukia killed my friend and it hurt my feelings too!” vs. “yeah, well, Rukia killed my friend and you don’t see me crying about it!” are both really interesting ways you could take this)

ANYWAY, getting back to the Quincy. From our earliest introduction to Uryuu in the series, we know that Quincy ought to have a legitimate beef with Soul Society. For starters, there is their underlying philosophical difference: Quincy don’t think that the shinigami do enough to protect the Living World, and they have taken matters into their own hands. They want to see Hollows annihilated, rather than purified. Then, on top of that, the shinigami eradicated their people, and treated them like lab rats. You could spin a lot of gold out of this, but instead, we got the Thousand Year Blood War Arc.

The Quincy are, basically humans with powers, and yet they are extremely bloodthirsty and cruel. We see Bambietta killing people to blow off steam, they take glee in killing lesser opponents (both Hollow and shinigami), As Nodt tortures Byakuya rather than just killing him cleanly, Giselle takes over Bambietta’s body in a horrifying way. Yhwach chastises Yamamoto for having “gone soft”, and says “you used to be cooler when you were a murderer.” The Vandenreich isn’t about justice or improving the system, it’s just about revenge and power and proving racial superiority. Are y’all ready for the hottest take I have ever had? Here it is: The Bount Arc, which is bad and should feel bad, provided a more well-characterized and relatable set of villains than the Thousand Year Blood War Arc.

I mentioned earlier that out of all the Sternritter, Bazz is the best of a bad lot. He gets some good flashbacks and his story evokes both Renji and Rukia’s childhood relationship as well as Gin and Rangiku’s. He's shown hating Yhwach in his youth, but then it’s never really followed up on. Nothing about this works to make me like Bazz, though, it just makes me feel like Yhwach is terrible, a person who ruins lives in both big and small ways.

I honestly hate the scenes where Bazz and Renji banter. Up until this point of the story arc, we have been slammed over and over with how much worse the Quincy are than previous villains. They cause massive destruction, they maim and kill beloved characters. Then, halfway through the arc, Kubo suddenly tries to start walking this back. Byakuya and Kenpachi were supposed to never fight again, but, uhhhh, Byakuya got healed in the Royal Realm and Kenpachi... got better? Look, we fixed Kira! Mayuri brings everyone back as zombies, that’s cool? Let’s have some banter, ha ha, the Quincy are fun! I don’t want to blame Kubo on this because he wasn’t feeling well and also, all of this smacks of editorial pressure, but it doesn’t sit well with me. It seems out of character to me for Renji to joke with someone who has hurt his friends and destroyed his home, and I sometimes justify it in my mind by saying that Renji probably doesn’t know that Bazz was the one who hurt Kira, but in some ways that makes things worse.

To be honest, a much better way to humanize the Quincy would have been to do so through Uryuu. One of the huge flaws of this arc is that there is so little focus on him, the character who ought to tie all this together. Uryuu has been harping for years that shinigami are his enemy and that he’s proud of his heritage. This is literally exactly what he has always says he wanted, and the fact that I, the reader, never believed for a microsecond that his loyalties were divided speaks to how awful the Quincy must be. How did Yhwach first approach Uryuu? It would have been cool to be introduced to the Vandenreich via the narrative device of Uryuu’s introduction. Was anyone nice to him? Do the Quincy have any redeeming value? What if there had been a scene where Bazz-B is goofing around, maybe training with someone, and Uryuu says to himself, “He reminds me of Renji and I hate all of the feelings that are currently in my body”? That would make a cool fanfic, actually, and anyone who wants can have that idea because I will never, ever write fanfic about the Sternritter.

Finally, on a note about fashion, the Sternritter uniforms (along with all their other symbolism) skirts way too close to “Nazi” for my tastes, and one more thing I hate about them is that they have retroactively ruined Uryuu’s aesthetic for me.

#tybwa #sorry i am sure this is not the answer you wanted

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airis-paris14 · 4 years

Text

Human Nature Part 5

Summary: T’Challa has a secret but he’s tired of loving her in secret.

Warnings: None

A/N: Only one more part to go. Let me know if you would like to be added to the tag list. I’m also working on a complete master list of all of my works so be on the lookout for that soon. Hope you enjoy this chapter!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Looking out, across the morning

The city's heart begins to beat

Reaching out, I touch her shoulder

I'm dreaming of the street

-Michael Jackson “Human Nature”

T’Challa Udaku was madly and blissfully in love. He’d never felt anything like this and he knew that if Naomi were to leave him, he would never find anything like it again. Which is why he was staring at his reflection in a mirror, his fingers running over the fabric of his button-up. M’baku and the other groomsmen had left to check on the venue a few minutes ago. He knew they had gone because he probably looked like a nervous wreck pacing the floor of the hotel penthouse, but he didn’t care. He was grateful for the peace. He shouldn’t have been nervous. He and Naomi were already married. They had done the hard part. They’d already said their ‘I dos”. The church was just for show, but it seemed like his stomach had missed that piece of information. A block away from this room he knew that Naomi was in her room, probably pulling on her wedding dress as he spoke.

Of course, he hadn’t seen it yet. She had made sure to hide any and all information about her attire from her husband. She and Shuri went as far as to encrypt her purchase information in the palace’s internet server so that he couldn’t find out where she bought the dress from or who made it. T’Challa laughed at the memory. He’d spent hours trying to guess her password. He and Shuri knew that he could have hacked the information if he really tried, but he knew that the dress was something Naomi wanted to surprise him with so he left the information password protected. The king stared at the midday sun over the Mississippi River. He glanced at his watch and noticed that it was almost time to leave. He took another glance at himself in the mirror and smiled. Today was the day that Naomi would no longer be a secret, she would be made his wife in the eyes of the world.

“T’Challa, it is time my friend,” M’baku’s voice boomed through the door. With a final look in the mirror, he grabbed his suit jacket and headed out of the room.

A block away at the Roosevelt hotel, Naomi Udaku was losing her breakfast and it was not because she was nervous. Not that nerves weren’t contributing to this bout of sickness, they definitely were. Hunched over the toilet, she knew that one of the best decisions she had ever made was having her hair pulled back into a sleek bun for her wedding. She reminded herself to thank Beyonce for the suggestion. “That’s it, let it all out” Gabrielle rubbed her friends back as Naomi sat back away from the toilet. Tasha stood at the door with some ginger ale and nausea medicine. “I can’t believe I’m pregnant on my wedding day,” the blushing bride grumbled as her oldest friend handed her the medicine and soda.

“Well, technically you weren’t pregnant on your wedding day,” Tasha shrugged from the doorway. ”Shut up” Gabrielle and Naomi answered simultaneously. “Don’t shoot the messenger,” Tasha grinned while Naomi finally pulled herself off of the bathroom floor. “Hardy har har,” Naomi deadpanned, “Seriously though, I can’t even drink at my own toast.”

“First off, stop whining,” Gabrielle smiled, pulling her friend in for a hug, “We are in one of the most expensive hotels in New Orleans, about to live out your dream wedding. Thousands of people are lining the streets to catch a glimpse of you in your dress. You should be on top of the world right now baby girl.”

“Exactly you’re marrying the love of your life and he’s a king.” Tasha grinned at her friend. “You have pulled together one of the best weddings anyone could ask for! You look drop-dead gorgeous and you aren’t even in your wedding dress yet.”

“ So finish that bottle of ginger ale so we can get you dressed and ready to go.” Gabrielle reassured her friend. “And know that we bought you some of that sparkling cider you like. Red grape, white grape, and white grape with peach. That way it looks like you are enjoying all of the delicacies of a non-pregnant bride.” Tasha added, “We got you.”

Naomi smiled, her hormones swirling up and out as tears. “I love you guys,” she cried. “This is why we saved the mascara for last,” Tasha mumbled. Gabrielle elbowed her before hugging Naomi, “You know we love you too. Now let’s get you in this dress before we’re late.”

Naomi laughed and quickly finished the drink. She brushed her teeth and her friends double checked to make sure everything was put away. She and T’Challa would stay together in the Ritz-Carlton while the bridesmaids enjoyed another night in this penthouse at the Roosevelt.

While the bride waited for the medicine to kick in she smiled hearing the squeals and pitter-patter of little feet running around outside of the bedroom in the living room. She assumed that her niece and friend’s daughter were wreaking havoc on the rest of the bridal party awaiting her entry. A few minutes ago everyone had finished getting ready and was lounging around until it was time for Naomi to get dressed, until Naomi had run out of the room sick for the second time that morning. She knew that everyone in the room would eventually wonder why she was so sick today, but Naomi chose to focus on the little girls. The two flower girls Carter-Giselle and Rumi had bonded instantly when they meet yesterday morning at the airport. When Naomi had originally called and asked Beyonce’ and Rumi to be in the wedding, the singer had joked that Rumi and Carter would be the best of friends before the whole weekend was over, it seemed that she hadn’t lied. The two had become thick as thieves and she knew they would have a hard time being separated tomorrow afternoon. Watching the two had made her start to imagine what she and T’Challa’s child would look like. What would they like? Would they be as friendly and rambunctious at the two little girls rampaging through the living room?

The sound of Beyonce’ and her sister in law, Porche, calling both of their daughter’s names at the same time snapped Naomi out of her daydream. She drank down the rest of the ginger ale and went to grab her gown out of its bag. “You can’t get dressed without your bridesmaids,” Tasha teased as she and Gabrielle walked out of the bathroom with their makeup touched up. “I’ll get Bey and Porche.” Gabrielle peeked her head outside of the door and waved the other two women into the bedroom. “It feels so surreal,” Naomi smiled, her fingers running over the beading. “It’s definitely real,” Tasha squeezed her friend in a hug.”

“Not too tight, we don’t need a repeat of earlier,” Gabrielle teased as she walked in with Porche and Beyonce.”

“Definitely not, we’ve got a schedule to keep, chop chop!” Porche clapped at the bride. The small friend group chuckled. “So can you step into the dress or do we gotta go over your head?” Beyonce asked as she lifted the gown off of the bed. “We gotta go over my head, it laces up in the back. Naomi slipped off her robe while her friends lifted the gown up and over. “Dang girl, you couldn’t get a normal dress with a zipper?” Tasha grunted as the group maneuvered the dress over Naomi’s shoulders. “Corset backs are better for curvier bodies, they give more support,” was Naomi’s muffled reply as the tulle and flounce at the bottom of the dress enveloped her. “And they make your body look good from any angle,” Porche added in. Bey cosigned an “Amen” as the dress finally slipped into place over the bride’s head. The room went silent as Proche deftly laced the back of the gown and tightened it. Her best friends cheesed at Naomi as a tear slipped down her face when she turned to look at herself in the mirror. The bridesmaids wiped a few tears of their own before fawning over the gown. “Fawn Giselle Elizabeth Udaku you look stunning,” Gabrielle smiled pulling her friend in for a hug. “I remember the first day on campus, when I was moving in and we met at the sign-in table and found out we were roommates. Now look at where we are, my name’s gonna go down in history as one of the luckiest bridesmaids on the planet.”Gabrielle teared up as Naomi laughed a little and dabbed her tears away.

“Okay, no crying on the dress y’all” Tasha fanned her eyes to keep her tears at bay. Beyonce laughed and pulled Naomi in for a quick hug as well. Porche and Tasha followed suit. A knock on the door interrupted the hug-fest. “Everything alright? Y’all left these two old ladies and poor Shuri out here with these children, and we wanna see the bride.” Naomi’s mama called through the door. The woman erupted into laughter, “Coming mama,” Naomi yelled back dabbing at her eyes again. Gabrielle helped Tasha to clip the veil into place and after a few more tears, hugs, and dabbing of makeup the group entered back into the living room of the penthouse.

Ramonda and Naomi’s mother smiled at each other locking hands as they stared at the young queen in all her glory. Shuri’s grin stretched for a smile across her face, “He’s not gonna be able to keep his hands off of you in that dress.” The fitted silk gown hugged Naomi’s curves perfectly. The silk was covered in beading that created roses and swirls all down the gown until it flowed out in a soft wave along the bottom of the dress. A train spilled out for ten feet behind the bride as she walked into the living room. Carter-Giselle, Naomi’s four year old niece, and Rumi Carter gazed at her in awe. “You look really pretty auntie,” Carter-Giselle giggled running to hug her. Rumi followed suit hugging Naomi’s other leg. Watching the bride receive hugs from the flower girls had the entirety of the wedding party on the verge of tears. The bridal party packed everything up and headed down into the lobby of the hotel. Beyonce and Gabrielle helped to carry Naomi’s train and veil while the other three women watched and helped the flower girls down the hall.

Naomi could hear the roar of the crowd outside of the hotel before she even stepped out of the elevator. “Holy-” Tasha started as the mass of cheering people became visible outside of the Roosevelt’s glass doors. Naomi waved at the crowds as her friends, the videographer, and the photographer fussed with her wedding gown. After taking a few photos together in the lobby, the all-white vintage Rolls Royce limos arrived outside of the hotel. Tasha and Gabrielle made sure to gather Naomi’s train, with Shuri and Porche helped hold her train up as the party headed out of the doors. Smiles erupted on the entire party’s faces as they climbed into the large limo. No one was immune to the infectious energy that surrounded them in the crowds. After watching her mother and mother in law climb into the Rolls Royce in front of them with the flower girls Naomi’s nerves hit full force. Her smile grew by the second as the cars pulled away from the curb and headed up to the church. Progress was slow because the streets were choked with people hoping to catch a glance of the new royal. Naomi waved back through the untinted windows. This was more than she could have dreamed. Seven months ago she had married T’Challa at a last-minute courthouse wedding. Only the women present in the car with her even knew it had happened. She knew that one day she wanted a ceremony, but she could never have guessed that the ceremony would look like this.

“I can’t figure out who they’re cheering more for, Bey or you Naomi,” Tasha teased as everyone chuckled. “I’m pretty sure this crowd is for Naomi. No one knew I was gonna be here,” Beyonce laughed. “But how is the bride feeling?” the singer smiled as she reached for Naomi’s hand. “A little nauseous, overwhelmed, but excited too,” Naomi laughed back. “Just breathe, that’s what you told me remember?” The singer smiled. Naomi nodded thinking back to that day, “Just don’t breathe too hard or you’ll pass out,“ Naomi smiled back. The limo slowed to a stop and everyone sucked in their breath. “Welp, back out into the fray,” Tasha pretended to pull up her gown as the driver got out and headed around to open the doors of the limo.

The crowd’s roar crescendoed as each bridesmaid stepped out of the car. Porche first, followed by Shuri, Beyonce, Tasha, then Gabrielle. The women all waved to the crowds lining the street and the square. Naomi took a deep breath, then allowed Gabrielle to help her out of the car. The cheers grew to deafening. Naomi smiled and waved as her close friends helped to lay out her train and long veil. Once everything was in order, security opened the doors of the cathedral Naomi’s father walked out to stand next to his daughter. The bridesmaids were going to walk down the aisle unescorted, with Porche walking Carter Giselle, and Beyonce walking her daughter Rumi. With everyone stationed and in order, the organ began to play and the procession began. With each bridesmaid disappearing into the cathedral Naomi’s stomach began to twist. While awaiting their turn to tackle the aisle Naomi’s father squeezed her hand. “You look, beautiful baby girl, you’re gonna knock his socks off.” Naomi’s father kissed her cheek. “Thank you daddy,” Naomi kissed his cheek back and the doors opened for them to walk in.

Two hours later, with many giggles, tears, kisses, and laughter, Naomi Udaku walked out of St. Louis Cathedral a twice-married woman. Before exiting the cathedral Naomi and T’Challa stopped in the foyer grabbed their custom second line umbrellas from a footman at the door. The roar of the crowd sent energy through them. Naomi fingered the feather and beads lining her umbrella. As T’Challa smiled at her. “Did I tell you that you look breathtaking in that dress, T’Challa murmured kissing her forehead then her lips. “Only a million times your highness,” Naomi giggled. “And I’ll tell you a million more times,” he promised. “I have a surprise for you,” Naomi smiled up at him, his hand finding a way into her own. “Can I guess what it is?” The king asked. “No, you wouldn’t be able to anyway.”

“Can I know now?” The king whispered leaning in to kiss his wife. “No,” Naomi murmured back into the kiss. “How about now? T’Challa leaned in this kiss lingering for a little while longer. The looby of the cathedral filled with “Ooohs” and whistles as the bridal party and groomsmen filled in around them. Each of them now holding customized handkerchiefs embroidered with T’Challa and Naomi’s names and wedding date. “Aye, y’all save all that nasty stuff for later, we got kids in here now,” Kimbe, one of T’Challa’s friends from college teased, gesturing towards his son, the ring bearer, and the flower girls. Everyone broke out laughing as Naomi hid in T’Challa’s chest. T’Challa pulled his bride in for another kiss as some guests began to file into the lobby as well.

The sound of the brass band began to float into the cathedral and everyone started to get excited. T’Challa nodded and a footman opened up the doors to the street and the bride and groom stepped out to the roaring crowd once again. After sharing another quick kiss for more pictures, they raised their umbrellas and the party began. The crowd pushed up against the barriers as the bridal party danced past. Everywhere around them, people started dancing and waving handkerchiefs to join in the couple’s celebration. Naomi looked behind to find her bridesmaids and groomsmen laughing, singing, dancing, chanting, and smiling contagiously. Jay, Sir, and Blue Ivy had joined Beyonce and the Rumi. She carried Rumi on her hip as Bey and the toddler waved their handkerchiefs. Her niece was dancing with her father on his hip. Shuri looked up and waved as she danced along with Tasha, Porche, and Gabrielle. Queen Ramonda was dancing with Naomi’s parents, and the people of New Orleans joined in from behind the security and barriers. Naomi let out a loud laugh as she gripped t”Chala’s free hand in her own. “I love you, he smiled.

“I love and adore you,” Naomi grinned. The paused to share another kiss Confetti and rice began raining down from behind them. The couple stopped kissing and watched as their bridal party laughed and showered the newlyweds. “I couldn’t have imagined a better wedding,” T’Challa grinned. “Me neither. It’s beyond perfect, but wait until the after-party. If you liked this dress, you’ll love that one.” Naomi grinned as they continued to dance towards the Ritz-Carlton. “Can I have my surprise then?” T’Challa smiled. Naomi paused and smiled up at him, she glanced at the hotel about a block in front of them. She knew that once they entered the doors, they’d be pulled away for wedding pictures along the river bank and the city. They’d be in a limo with the rest of the wedding party, and then they’d be separated again to change for the reception. Now was the last time they’d be alone until later tonight. She smiled to herself and pulled the king in for a kiss. Cheers erupted from the crowd and the wedding party. She pulled back and whispered against his lips, “I’m pregnant.”

T’Challa’s mouth dropped open and Naomi let her head fall back in a loud laugh, her arms now wrapped around his neck. Before she knew it she was up in the air being spun around. No this wasn’t the wedding she had imagined. Her and T’Challa’s love playing out on a world stage was not something she could have guessed. But with her husband spinning her around, the crowd around them screaming and dancing, and her friends and family dancing through the streets with them, she could not have imagined anything better than this.

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#tchalla fanfiction #tchalla x reader #tchalla fanfic #tchalla black panther #tchalla #t'challa imagine #t'challa x reader #t'challa x oc #T'Challa x black reader #T'Challa #tchalla imagine #bpapfics #humannaturefic

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therookieking412 · 4 years

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Friday Spin Class

This was meant to be written and posted last Friday!

Hello, Welcome and buckle up because we’re going for a ride!

Princess Tutu is chock full of allegories and allusions of ballets, operas, classical music and literature, and fairy-tales, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Midsummer’s Dream, Giselle, and Romeo and Juliet.

So I have talked about Romeo and Juliet before in relation to the characters of the show, to Mytho and Rue as well as Fakir and Ahiru.

Y’all remember this, too?

And this? The staircase that are actually based on a prop from the ballet, and specifically they’re Juliet's balcony.

And who could forget this?

The dance they perform in the lake of despair derived from the Balcony Scene and Farewell Before Parting.

There was another post about this dance on my blog and you can read more in depth about it there. We’re not here to talk about their dance, maybe I’ll bring it in a little bit, but the specifics of the dance isn’t the topic of discussion.

I read a post a while ago about how Ahiru fills the role of Romeo twice - once when she threw rocks at Mytho’s (and Fakir’s) window, aaaaand I don’t remember what the other one was, but there’s definitely two and someone made a post about that.

However, I want to take it one step further and say that Ahiru takes the role of Romeo fully, not just in some situations.

But What about Fakir?

He takes the role of Juliet.

So, listen.

I’ve been reading Romeo and Juliet, and the more I read it the more I agree with this dissertation.

Let’s go over the first, what, five minutes of the first episode?

Ahiru tells us, the audience, that she is in love with Mytho, before Pique and Lillie break the fact (rub it in her face) that Mytho already has Rue! Leaving her heartbroken.

How does Romeo’s story start?

He’s heartbroken that his love for Rosalind is unrequited.

Interesting.

Also, I want to point out that Benvolio is described as a friend of and cousin to Romeo, with Mercutio being described as “...a show-off who likes to entertain others” (Romeo and Juliet, A word to the Reader, pg 8). Benevolio doesn’t get much description outside of his relationship with Romeo, but Benevolio, I’ve found, is a pretty constant character who generally cares about Romeo.

And in case you haven’t already guessed, Pique and Lillie fit into the role of Benvolio and Mercutio, and they fit it pretty well. Lillie being super overdramatic (and bloodthirsty) providing a lot of humor to the scenes she’s in, and Pique is a genuine friend to Ahiru who is looking out for her, e.g. all the excuses she gives Mr. Cat so Ahiru won’t be forced to marry him.

Another character I want to point out is Autor and Tybalt.

Autor’s main theme is also Dance of the Knights, which (I haven’t seen the ballet) I believe is the first dance of the Capulet’s ball. A dance that Tybalt partakes in, and while I’m not familiar with music theory, I do believe that you can hear parts of the Dance of the Knights in other scenes with Tybalt. Tybalt is Juliet’s cousin, and based on Autor’s findings, he is Fakir’s cousin (twice removed or whatever).

Princess Tutu is not an adaption of Romeo and Juliet, but a lot of the elements of the story are present here, especially where Ahiru and Fakir reside.

Firstly, I want to talk about how Fakir is Juliet. We already have the two examples of Ahiru acting as Romeo, but what does Fakir have besides stabbing himself?

From Juliet’s first scene, you can see she’s smart, strong, and clever; the balcony scene, Romeo oh Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo (asking why is your name Romeo, not where is he) Juliet’s speech is her excusing the fact that his name doesn’t define him, and that it’s only for his name that they can’t be together.

Juliet finds out Romeo is a Montague, but does that turn her away from him? Does that make her love him any less? Does she turn on him? Become like her family and hate him just because of his family ties?

No.

Juliet is still upset, but she overcomes it.

When Fakir finds out Ahiru is really a duck he doesn’t treat her any differently or love her any less.

Ahiru likewise is Romeo, she starts out with an unrequited love, and while she doesn’t fall in love with Fakir as instantly as Romeo does, as I said last week, she still loved him first.

Ahiru is framed as Romeo, however in their dances and the promotional art, she takes over the role of Juliet.

Romeo runs on impulse, and is considered hot-tempered, very clearly, I can think of two situations where Ahiru gets angry and impulsive, the first when Fakir locks Mytho in the library, and the second when she first meets Autor.

Ahiru races into the scene and tries to open the locked door and almost gives herself away to Fakir. Well, she definitely does, she tells Fakir she knows what’s going on, just not who she is. But the point being is that she comes in and starts scolding Fakir before trying to open a locked door by pulling on the handle.

The second is when Autor offers Fakir his help in drawing out and obtaining his story spinning abilities, he demands that Fakir follow his every order and then Ahiru brusts in, ready to fight on Fakir’s behalf.

Sounds impulsive and hot-tempered to me.

Ahiru is also our symbol of peace, especially as Princess Tutu, she doesn’t fight anyone she only asks them to dance and defends herself. But Romeo kills Tybalt.

Ahiru never really settles around Autor, her first meeting with him isn’t great, when she goes to find Fakir, she watches him stumble and fall, and without any context accuses Autor of doing something to him, when they go to the Oak Tree grave Ahiru is concerned for Fakir and tries to go to him, but Autor grabs her and holds her back, which isn’t going to make anything better.

Ahiru doesn’t kill Autor, but the relationship they have is still hostile and far from peaceful.

Ahiru and Fakir have a very unique story that stems from many places, but their roles as Romeo and Juliet fit them perfectly, where Drosselmeyer intended them to or not.

Now I’ve said that I don’t think Drosselmeyer was a smart man, I think he was a fool, he abused his powers and thought of this as more of a game rather than something serious, a form of entertainment. While I’m sure Drosselmeyer has seen Romeo and Juliet, I doubt he would engrain their love story in his, especially since Ahiru was supposed to proclaim her love to Mytho and disappear into a speck of light.

Personally, I don’t think Drosselmeyer doesn’t have a role in Romeo and Juliet, he doesn’t fit in as nicely as some of the other characters do, I would hardly call him Shakespeare, but perhaps a member of the audience, standing and watching the tale.

Fakir and Ahiru were never intended to be Romeo and juliet, and even when Drosselmeyer saw what was happening and used that to his advantage - trying to make Ahiru drown herself - Fakir and Ahiru still resisted their fates, and while their story doesn’t end in death, it still ends in something bittersweet, something far from a happy ending.

#romeo and juliet #fakiru #fakir #ahiru #princess tutu #Friday Spin Class

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babygirlofwakanda · 5 years

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A Time To Give Thanks | Chapter 1

CHARACTERS — Giselle X Chris Hemsworth

CONTENT — Pre-Thanksgiving Shenanigans, Family Ties, Soul Food, Tradition and Southern Hospitality

PLOT — The Hollywood couple and their children fly out to Giselle’s hometown for Thanksgiving this year.

NARRATIVE — The unstable rhythm of the sprinter van speeding over the pavement of the highway greeted Giselle on her journey back to her hometown; Austin.

With splotches of autumn’s color palette speeding past her window, Giselle struggled to capture the essence of the South knowing that she couldn’t come down here as much as she would like.

While the actress fought to inhale the raw scent of Texas in the compacted van, Giselle abruptly felt a rough texture brush against her acrylics before it’s rugged surface touched her smooth palm. Already knowing who’s hand it was the brown beauty let a smirk slowly settle into her face before flicking her chocolate orbs over to stare at the baby blue ones.

Watching the Aussie lift her palm up and ghost his damp lips over the pigmented surface, Giselle gazed up at Chris before she felt his lips press into her skin.

“—I love you.” She saw her husband mouth, before lowering his eyes and breaking their hands to adjust the position of their baby boy sleeping in Chris’s lap.

Slowly gushing at the precious scene, the actress brought her gaze back to the window and pressed her forehead to the glass before dozing off to the sight of the rural scenery and slow rocking.

With an hour and a half passing Giselle’s nap was interrupted by a few soft shakes from Chris, “Wake up baby, we’re here!” She heard the Aussie say, with excitement inflected in his voice. Annoyed at his lack of jet-lag Giselle envied his amount of energy while she sat up and stretched her body as she yawned.

Immediately recognizing the familiarity of her parent’s property she stepped down from the van and helped Chris retrieve their bags while their kids ran off to the front door and pressed on the doorbell; which was guaranteed to gain her parent’s attention.

—and within a couple of seconds, Giselle caught the visual of her mama and papa opening the door with wide arms and matching smiles in her peripheral.

“Wassup boy!” She heard her father greet Julian while scooping him into his arms. Grinning at their interaction, the actress turned around and grabbed her purse to tip the Lyft driver before she heard her parents walk down from the house. Smiling at both of her parents, the couple were welcomed inside of the warm embrace by Mama Janice and Papa Alex.

“—ah, welcome back honey.” Mama Janice whispered, into her oldest daughter’s ear while swaying her slowly before trading places with her husband; moving her to Chris. Closing her eyes at her father’s poignant scent of sandalwood, Giselle held onto her dad as they caught up and trailed to the house with the rest of the family following.

After parting from the family for a moment, the couple ascended up the stairs to drop their bags off into Giselle’s room while the kids stayed downstairs and played a notorious game of ‘what’s this and that’ with their grandparents. Flopping on the bed Giselle smothered her face with a pillow before letting out a long groan sending the Aussie into a fit of giggles.

“We’re not doing this, babe. Wake up!” The Aussie chuckled, before whipping his hand in the air to slap his wife’s ass while he walked by; putting his clothes into the dresser. “Nooo! Just come lay with me for a quick second.” Giselle whined, as she twisted to her side and stuck her hand out in a ‘grabby’ motion.

Throwing his head back in laughter Chris strolled over to the edge of the bed; flashing his renowned grin, “Just a sec.” before accepting his wife’s hand and plopping beside her. Grinning as she danced in her spot Giselle waited for Chris to get comfortable before getting closer to throw her leg over his torso.

Snuggling her head underneath his neck attempting to enthrall in her husband’s warmth Giselle kissed his skin, but within seconds she became more persistent and ignited a fire deep within her core. Catching his restricted moans trapped beneath his throat made Giselle upset as she frustratedly grunted before climbing ontop of her stern husband.

“Oh, c’mon Chris. You’re killin’ me.” The brown beauty whined, as Chris quit puckering his thin lips.

Slamming his hands ontop of her ass before gripping it, Chris abruptly flipped them and pinned her hands above her head. “Hey! We’re not playing this game.”

Quickly dimensioning his wife’s antics Chris continued, “Our family is downstairs and you’re trying to work me up— but that isn’t happening.”

“However, if you behave the rest of the day, I’ll see about it.” The Aussie recounted, once he saw a pout tugging on Giselle’s lips. “You better keep your word Christopher.” The actress sighed, making the actor briefly side eye her before releasing his grip to get back up and finish putting away his clothes.

Still trying to suppress her emotions Giselle started to close her eyes only for her mother to start yelling, “—GiGi and Chris!” instantly making the actress slam a pillow back over her face and roll over. Chuckling at her actions once more Chris tried to speak through his laugh but was quickly cut off by a loud engine.

Rumbling through the house from it’s extreme horsepower, Chris peeked through the blinds and spotted the 2019 white Jaguar outside. Smirking at the vehicle the actor looked at his wife dramatically laying face down before he spoke up. “—and look at you trying to start something when your brother just pulled up— come down and say hello GiGi.” Chris teased, using her childhood nickname before he dodged a flying pillow as he exited the room.

Dragging herself out of bed Giselle planted her feet on the plush carpet and walked towards her suitcase before opening it and digging for some fresh panties.

After replacing her underwear and splashing some cold water on her face she slumped downstairs and followed the obnoxiously loud voices. Rounding the corner into the kitchen Giselle immediately noticed the crisp fade and dimples imprinted into her baby brother’s skin as he laughed at their mom’s words.

“Quinton!” She yelled, before picking up her pace to embrace the six-foot man. “Aye! Wassup G.” Giselle heard her brother say before tossing his arm around her shoulders and leaning down to kiss her temple.

“What’s y’all in here talking bout’ huh?” The actress asked, pulling away as Quinton smacked his lips and shook his head. “Mama in here tryna talk to me bout’ grandkids as if you and Chris aren’t creating the bulk of them.” He shrugged, making his older sister pinch his ear while laughing before he smacked her hand.

“Besides, I’m out here tryna to enjoy everything swinging my way. What other way could I have it?”

Scoffing while she rolled her chocolate orbs, Giselle began to rebuttal, but was cut off by her dad entering the kitchen with Chris strolling right behind him.

“—boy, what did I tell your monkey ass bout’ speaking that way?” Papa Alex warned, before slapping Quinton upside his head. “Shoot, don’t worry Janice by the way this boy is talking you’ll be getting more grandkids.” Papa Alex assured, with a firm headnod before rubbing on his wife’s shoulders.

With a collective laugh echoing through the kitchen, the ringing of the doorbell calmed the family before they all walked towards the door with Giselle leading the way. After clicking the locks and stepping back the actress squealed as she saw her baby brother and sister-in-law, baby sister and niece; smiling.

Ushering them in Giselle exclaimed, “Ah! I’ve missed y’all!” while rocking her brother, Niel side to side before embracing her sister-in-law, Elianna.

“—and look at this belly!” The actress gasped, while she rubbed on Elianna’s nine month belly. “You look like you’re bout’ to pop any second. Oo, you need to get in the house and rest those feet!” She directed, with a wave as they walked into the living room.

After getting her sister-in-law settled, Giselle pivoted around to face her baby sister, Iris who was keeping an eye on her daughter, Mia who was trailing drops of drool on the carpet while she struggled to crawl towards her cousins playing with their toys.

“Aw, look at you baby sis! You’re growing up on us.” She cooed, as they both moved forward to embrace.

“Oh, I can’t lie. I’ve missed you, G.” The brown beauty heard her sister mumble before pulling back. Putting a gentle hand on her shoulder, Giselle flashed her a warm smile before moving to pick up her niece.

“—and look at this cutie getting bigger and bigger everytime I see her.” Giselle gushed, as she tickled her niece immediately making her laugh. Caught up playing with her niece while she chatted with her sister, it wasn’t long before Iris got pulled away.

However, while she stood to the side playing with Mia, Giselle felt her husband’s presence before she felt his hand clutch onto her waist before he joined her in entertaining their niece. While they tried their best to keep a gummy smile on Mia’s face, it wasn’t long before a blinding flash captured their attention.

“Alright, alright! Y’all get together real quick and act like you love eachother,” Mama Janice instructed, as she rounded a couch and swatted her hand around.

While Papa Alex crouched down into a stance with his iPhone between both of his hands, Mama Janice stood next to him and wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist. Watching everyone move in unison she beamed brightly as her children lined up from oldest to youngest; Giselle, Niel, Quinton and Iris.

As tears lined her eyes, Mama Janice sniffled and pulled away from her husband before echoing a clap through the living room; breaking up the sentimental moment and gaining everyone’s attention before she spoke, “Alright now, it time for us to get to cooking!”

——————————

The sound of the green beans bubbling from the deep pot over the stove followed by the provoking smell of the glazed ham escaping the oven filled the house. With the women preparing the food, the men cracked opened a couple of beers and bonded over a game of pool while Elliana relaxed in the living room and chaperoned the children who stared wide-eyed at the tv showing the Live-Action Lion King.

Located in the nucleus of it all, stood Giselle over a cutting board as faint sounds echoed around her.

Flexing the knife in her hand, the actress sliced the skin from the sweet potato and placed the vegetable into a bowl before repeating the action. While Giselle worked on the sweet potato pies, Mama Janice tried to focus on crafting the Brown’s special family mac & cheese but was constantly stopped by Iris’s whining.

“—c’mon mama! Just lemme help out Giselle with the pies or start on the dressing.” Iris complained, instantly making Giselle and Janice both exclaim, “No!” causing Iris drop a fork back into the sink.

Hearing her youngest sister smack her lips and frown, Giselle joined her mother in laughter. “Girl, now you know you can’t cook— shit you can’t even make koolaid for God’s sake!” The actress struggled to say, before she let her laugh interrupt her speech.

“Aye! Stop all that cussin’ in my house.” Mama Janice scolded, with a grin across her face as she walked over and pinched Giselle’s side. “Now, your sister does have a point Iris. Do you remember last year when I let you cook the dressing? Sweetheart..”

“—it had no flavor! Had the dressing tasting like Chris made it.” Giselle cackled, making her hunch over and hold her belly. “Which is why I thought dishes and stirring the pot sufficed this year.”

“Aw, honey. Cooking just isn’t in your favor and that’s okay, but I tell you what— you can always bring the styrofoam plates and drinks like your brothers.”

Caressing Iris’s face while she talked, Mama Janice flashed Iris a comforting look before returning to her dish. Leaving Giselle giggling to herself, she saw Iris mugging her before slowly pivoting back to the sink.

As time elapsed and the majority of the main dishes were either marinating or sizzling in the oven; the three women took the time to chat and unwind.

“—she’s starting say little words here and there and it’s just the cutest thing— here lemme show y’all.” Iris cooed, as she pulled out her phone and gushed over short clips of baby Mia.

After watching a couple of videos of Mia babbling, Giselle slowly dropped her smile and exhaled as she sat back and raised the large glass of wine to her lips.

“Now, what’s the matter with you? Y’know I thought you would be waddling around here just like Elianna.”

Turning her attention towards her mother Giselle lightly shrugged before speaking up, “I don’t know, I’ve been in such a weird space lately— I mean y’all know how I am about wanting to space my kids out, but I guess not being pregnant is effecting me.”

Interrupting her speech with a sip of Chardonnay, Giselle twisted her mouth around before dropping her eyes to the quartz countertop. “I thought I was ready to continue my life and career without having another baby, but I guess not y’know? This is the one time where I have everything lined up— the children are happy and thriving, my film schedule is booked and very much busy until 2022, and Chris is home and understanding of my decision, but I just feel stagnant; almost like I’m missing something.”

“I just ugh— I don’t know if this is really what I want. I thought I wanted to be in control of my life but God sure knows how to laugh at my plans.” The actress weakly joked, before finishing off her white wine.

“Well— um, maybe Mia and I can come visit you soon, I’m sure she’ll cure your baby fever right up.” Giselle heard her baby sister suggest, bringing the lighthearted air back into the conversation making Giselle bring her eyes up and send her a smirk while nodding her head. Watching her daughters discuss plans for Iris’s next trip to Giselle’s, Mama Janice kept her squinted eyes on her oldest daughter.

Taking notice of the fullness of her chin, slight swelling of her nose, but overall newfound radiant complexion made Mama Janice abruptly quirk her eyebrow before laughing to herself at her daughter’s oblivion. Entertaining her kids conversation for a hot minute, she waited until the clock reached ten before she interrupted her daughters. “—well ladies it’s time for mama to go on and get her rest for the morning, make sure y’all turn off the stove and oven before y’all go to bed tonight.” Mama Janice instructed.

Nodding their heads they both said their ‘goodbyes’, “Don’t stay up to late y’all,” Mama Janice advised as rounded the table and kissed their foreheads, “—and I’ll take this.” She said, snatching Giselle’s glass and bottle of wine before waltzing out of the kitchen.

“Mama took my Chardonnay.” Giselle whined, with a pout on her lips leaving Iris giggling and slightly tipsy.

“—well, cheers.” Iris announced, with her glass raised high into the air before chugging the rest of her wine.

——————————

While Giselle and Iris continued to catch up as they supervised the green beans, time elapsed to eleven o’clock which sent Papa Alex to join his wife upstairs; immediately causing the men to disperse throughout the house. With Neil, Quinton and Chris barging into the kitchen it wasn’t long before the Aussie started yawning and headed upstairs after relieving a tired Elliana; leaving the kids following behind him and Neil and Quinton at the table with their sisters.

“—we’ll your the one who almost gave daddy a heart attack when you brought Chris home, remember?”

Smacking Iris’s arm the brown beauty scoffed, “GiGi had mama hoopin’ and dad hollerin’.” She heard Niel added, making Quinton topple over in laughter.

“—and now they can’t get enough of eachother,” Giselle included, “plus my babies helped ease their relationship. Now, dad talks to Chris more than me!”

“Oo, don’t even talk about babies around me!” Niel rasped, before throwing back his shot of tequila and slamming down the glass. “Elliana has had me on my toes for the last three weeks and I can’t take this shit anymore; can she hurry and have the baby already?!”

Twisting their lips around, Giselle and Iris flashed their brother a look a sympathy while Quinton licked his fingers and smacked on the leftover buffalo wings from dinner. Cutting her eyes at Quinton, Giselle tried to help ease Niel’s mind. “Trust me I know all too well what Elianna is going through, but all you gotta do is continue to support her. There’s are drastic changes happening to her body and mind as the due date approaches, you just gotta keep being patient.”

“—Elianna needs your support as much as possible right now and despite her protests just knowing that your around will do more than any of your words will; you’re going to be fine.” Giselle reassured, while she leaned over and pulled her brother into a side hug.

“Now, did you ask daddy or Chris for advice?”, “Yea, and you already know dad said what he could from twenty-something years ago— from Iris’s age.” He snapped out, as he remembered his little sister’s name quickly making her drop her grin and mug.

“—but Chris actually told me something similar from what’chu said.” He admitted, as he bumped into her making Giselle beam before dropping her eyes.

“Aw, y’all look at GiGi tryna blush. Now y’know we too black for allat!” Quinton taunted, “Look, don’t start with me, Q. You needa find somebody to make your dumbass smile.” Giselle rebutted. “Right! What happened to what’s-her-face from last year? Ion’ see her running behind you no more.” Iris asked, with a smile pulling her lips as she poorly hid her urge to laugh. “Man, ain’t nobody studyin’ Mya ol’ ass.”

Switching the conversation from Quinton’s love life to his bubbling career in Hollywood, he excitedly told his family the amount scripts emailed to his manager as the series finale of How To Get Away With Murder approached. With congratulations following his news the celebration continued as Iris admitted to starting the process to her second hair salon and boutique in Houston after the relaunching of her online website.

While congratulatory shots and food were shared amongst the siblings, sleep began to call Giselle’s name after she turned off the stove and oven.

After departing from her brothers and sisters with a ‘goodbye’ Giselle went upstairs and turned to go into her bedroom before pivoting around as the faint, but familiar New Orleans styled theme music resounded from the children’s room. Approaching the bedroom Giselle paused at the adorable sight of her husband slumped in a chair cradling Mia as they both slept.

Noticing her three little ones knocked out in the bunk beds as she walked deeper into the bedroom, Giselle grabbed the remote and turned off The Princess and the Frog before she went to grab Mia only for Chris to wake up and clutch tightly onto her small frame.

Laughing at his reflexes, “—hey, relax Chris. I’m taking baby Mia back to her mama. Now go to the bedroom and get in the bed; you’re tired babe.” She advised, while sliding her niece out of his arms and into her own before she returned Mia back to Iris.

Stopping back at the kid’s room Giselle climbed up the bunk beds to adjust their wild positions and give them their goodnight kiss before she returned to her bedroom. Instantly hearing the rush of water coming from the bathroom caused an immediate grin to play on the lips of the brown beauty as she stripped out of her clothing and sauntered to the shower. Seeing the silhouette of her husband’s body behind the frosted glass, Giselle licked her lips and cursed, “Damn.” before she pulled on the handle to step inside.

With an abrupt thrust of cool air filling the shower, Giselle’s arrival quickly caught the attention of her husband. Watching Chris turn around, the actress held a flustered expression as she timidly dragged her gaze from her husband’s dangling manhood.

“—y’know something told me that you’d be joining me.” The Aussie smirked, while strolling away from the shower head and towards his wife; backing her into the wall. With his eyelids lowered from lust and organ spasming upward in need, Chris rushed up on Giselle and cradled the side of her face before his lips met hers. Refusing to gain access to her tongue, the actor started to lower his wet kisses. While he licked his way across her clavicle, Chris began to hear his wife’s moans increase before she rasped, “Fuck!”

Leaning down until he was eyelevel to her breasts, Chris caressed her solid tits and sucked on her dark brown nipples before he dropped down to his knees.

Kissing past her belly button, the Aussie nipped his way down until he reached the bottom of her pelvis.

Clutching onto her hip with his left hand, Chris rested his other around her left ankle before he slowly draped it over his shoulder. Witnessing the intimate spread of her sticky folds caused the actor to lick his lips and flick his eyes up to meet his wife’s lowered ones before he gave her a smile and dived in.

Instantly sending her head back with a soft thump, the Aussie continued to bring his wife to the brim of the sweetest joy until the wee hours of the morning.

AUTHOR’S NOTE — Giselle and Chris are back, again! I just wanted to show Giselle’s family dynamic and do a little somethin’ somethin’ for Thanksgiving 😌 anyways, part two is coming in a couple of days!

TAGLIST — @wakandas-vibranium @oceanscorazon @melaninmarvel @wakandamama @storibambino @wakanda-inspired @blowmymbackout @theblulife @kreolemami @amethyst-dreams-and-candy-canes @lewatigress @lildashofmelanin @blowmymbackout @ororowrites @brittyevans @kumkaniudaku @s0eul @chaneajoyyy @504queen @theunsweetenedtruth @ashanti-notthesinger @blackreaders-assemble

#brwnsugababe #Chris Hemsworth #Giselle Hemsworth #Chris Hemsworth Fanfiction #Chris Hemsworth X Giselle Hemsworth #Chris Hemsworth X Reader #Chris Hemsworth X Black Reader #Chris Hemsworth X Black!Reader #Chris Hemsworth X Black Oc #Chris Hemsworth X Black!Oc #BabygirlOfWakanda

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snarkwriteswrasslin · 4 years

Text

FFT: dancing around an open fire; adam page

Notes:

This is the second part to second one to know and this was originally sent to me by @kyleoreillysknee on my writing blog, snarkandsarcasmwrites. Just moving it to it’s own post on here so that it’s easier to access.

Summary:

Adam and Giselle are at her parents house and things are finally starting to come out. Fluuuuuuf, holy wow the fluff. part 2 of 2.

Pairing:

Adam Hangman Page x OFC, Giselle

Warning:

Uhm... None?

Her parent’s cabin came into view and Giselle took a deep breath in desperate attempt to center herself and prepare herself for what lie ahead. If she knew anything about her mother it was that her mother was most likely going to have a thousand questions -and judgements, that she dumped on her before Giselle even got the word hey out of her mouth.

Adam sensed her tension and he placed his hand over the top of hers. “It’s okay. If I see it’s gettin to be too much, we can go for a drive or somethin.”

“Y-yeah.” Giselle stared intently at the cabin and swallowed hard. “ Thank you.. Again.. For coming with me.”

It was only the fourth or fifth time she’d thanked him in the past hour. He smiled and shrugged it off as if it were nothing. As they pulled to a stop behind a beat up old Bronco next to a grand old oak with a tire swing strung from it, Adam checked his phone.

Naturally, Kenny took it upon himself to check in. He chuckled and read his friends text.

Adam bit his lip and fired off a text back.

– > I’m probably gonna be scarce a few days.

– > I kinda went back to her family’s place with her for the holidays.

–> I know, okay? And yeah.. Maybe me goin back with her is doing that.

– > wish me luck?

He shoved the phone into his pocket, killing the engine just as the door to the cabin was thrust open and an older woman stood in it, pointing a wooden spoon towards the trees.

“Get out there. All of ya. I swear I can’t get a damn thing done without you lot stickin your little hands in all my cookin.” the woman laughed and smiled, waving excitedly as she caught sight of the car sitting behind her late husband’s Bronco.

“Giselle? That you girl?”

Giselle swallowed hard and glanced over at Adam. “ Did I mention they were… a little crazy?” she bit her lip as she met his intent gaze. Adam chuckled and reminded her calmly, “Hey. It’s gonna be fine. I promise. You don’t have to keep doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Apologizing for every little thing. I’m..” he almost said that he wasn’t the asshole she’d just broken up with, but he went with “I’m perfectly fine with you exactly the way you are.” instead. The smile on her face was more than worth it when he did.

It clicked for him a little. She may not hear that a whole lot, she definitely hadn’t from Sean, if any of the stories she told him and the rest of their friends were anything to go by.

Just the thought of why she probably did that so much had him gripping the wheel. Giselle took a deep breath and opened her door, Adam doing the same, making his way around the car to fall into step beside her.

Her mother, to her surprise, didn’t do what she’d been thinking she’d do. She just pulled her into a hug before nodding to Adam as the hug broke with one of those knowing grins. “He’s the one you’re always hanging around with. The one you talk about a lot.” her mother turned to Adam and pulled the man into a hug.

“Adam, right?”

Adam chuckled and smiled as he nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

Giselle almost reached out to feel her mother for a temperature, because honestly, she’d been expecting a thousand questions and even more hints at ‘potential blind dates’ during the incoming week.

She found herself pressing against Adam as they followed her mother into the cabin. “Well that was weird.”

“What, darlin?”“Figured she’d start off by tellin me all about how she knew Sean was no good, then segue that into her, tryin to pawn me off on the pastor’s grandson or somethin like she did at Thanksgiving when Sean stood me up.. That was awkward, by the way, when she did it.”

Adam chuckled and yeah, maybe in the spirit of just being around her and feeling happier because of it, he leaned in and whispered against her ear, “Maybe I’m kind of a lucky charm then, darlin.”

Giselle’s breath caught in her throat at the way he leaned in - and more importantly, the way it made her feel when he did, and for a second, her mouth opened and closed because it had been… Flirtier than he tended to be.

… I have to be imagining it…

“Maybe you are.” she finally managed to get the words out, leaning into him a little as she did so. She toyed with the front of his tee shirt and stared up at him and he swallowed hard, staring right back down at her.

They sprang apart when Giselle’s mother called out to her from the kitchen.

“And here we go. I knew I spoke too soon. If I’m not back in ten minutes, Adam… Please.. Come drag me away.”

“Gladly.” he promised, chuckling to himself as she skipped down the hallway.

The second she was in the kitchen, her mother turned to her and smiled.

“Okay, who are you and what have you done with my mama?” Giselle teased gently. Her mother sighed and then told her quietly, “ I like that one a lot better than Sean. Sean wasn’t..”

Giselle braced herself, tensing. Rather than hold back, she gave a sad sigh and shook her head, meeting her mother’s gaze as she let it all pour out.

“Are you sure you don’t mean I wasn’t good enough for him? Because sometimes that’s how it feels. I mean you stay on my ass. If it’s not about my job, it’s about having a little fun now and then, or about when I’m going to make you a grandma… I just… I don’t know I can do anything to make you happy with me or proud of me.”

Her mother was staring at her, a confused look on her face. And then what Giselle was saying hit her and she sighed and shook her head, pulling her into a hug.

“It ain’t that at all. I just worry about you. If anything, Giselle, Sean wasn’t even close to good enough for you. When I said you were gonna mess up what you had with him last month it was because I thought that was what you wanted. I can’t even begin to tell ya how happy I was when you told me what happened last night. Everything else is just because I worry. You know your daddy died chasin his own dream.. I know what you do is dangerous. Just scares me.”

“Oh, mama..” Giselle hugged her mother back and then reminded her quietly, “Daddy died because he was drinkin and got behind the wheel. Not because of bull riding.”

“But he was on the way to a rodeo.”

Giselle nodded. “His own bad choice is what caused it though. Is that why you got so upset when I left to go audition with AEW?”

“A little, yeah.. Then you not ever bein home. It’s already enough that Madison lives all the way over in Georgia and I only get to see her and the kids at holidays.”

“Speaking of.. I didn’t see Brody and Maddi’s camper?”

“She’s been stayin here since Thanksgiving. After y’all had that fight and you put him on his ass, he took off. Hasn’t bothered callin or anything.”

Giselle sighed and shook her head, grabbing some dough, kneading it into a ball. “I’m sorry. I just thought… I mean you and Maddi have always been closer and I’ve just never really said anything but it bothered me.”

“I know, baby. I just let you be because you were always my big girl. Smarter and more able to fend for yourself when you got to that age.. I realized what you thought and I went overboard tryin to make up.”

“Yeah, you kinda did.” Giselle laughed, holding out the baking sheet lined with biscuits to her mother. “It’s okay though. As much as I whined about it, it kinda felt good.. Except that whole disaster with the pastor’s grandson.”

Her mother laughed and then nodded to the doorway. “ This one.. I have a feelin about him.”

“Mama, no.. He doesn’t see me that way. I.. believe me. That man knows the walking cluster of chaos I am.”

“You didn’t see what I did when he was standin by you on our porch just now, either. Just.. Open your eyes, yeah? Because sometimes, what you really want is standin right in front of you.”

Giselle laughed and shook her head as she raised the lid on the pot simmering on the stove. She groaned as the smell of chicken and dumplings hit her nose and she fanned the lid, calling out to Adam, “Hey! Hangman! C’mere a minute.”

Adam tore his eyes off all the old photos of her lining the hallway, appearing in the doorway of the kitchen. “I didn’t know you rode, darlin?”

“This one had two loves growin up.. Well three if you count fightin and givin me gray hairs.. Rodeo and wrestling. Her daddy used to call her the son he never had.”

Giselle blushed, shuffling her feet. “I actually have horses out in the barn.. And a bull but I don’t think you’d wanna try him. Son of a bitch is the whole reason I spent a good chunk of my summer senior year in a cast.” she grimaced and Adam chuckled, sniffing the air as he stepped over to the stove. Giselle held a spoon up to his mouth, laughing when he took a bite and flinched because it was too hot.

“You have to blow it first, ya crazy! Good lord.” she took the spoon back, blowing on it until the steam wasn’t rising into the air visibly and then she raised it to his mouth again.

Adam groaned and swallowed, staring at the pot. “ Don’t let me go crazy.”

“ It’s every person for themselves.. This is if there is any left after my sister’s little hellions get done, of course. Those kids are like walkin bottomless pits.”

Adam chuckled. She turned and swallowed hard as her eyes fixed on him and she realized just how close they stood. Giselle saw her mom wink as she hurried out of the kitchen, calling out, “Going outside. Those hellions are bein entirely too quiet.”

Neither one of them were backing away. Adam reached out and grabbed the spoon from where it sat on the counter and he pressed into her a little as he reached for the pot, raising the lid. He chuckled as he looked at Giselle and told her through a mouth full, “Might not be the kids you have to worry about eating all of this.”

Giselle nodded and bit her lip, eyes locked on the spoon.

This urge to just grab him by the jaw and kiss him popped up and took her completely by surprise.

“Everything went okay, right?”

“Surprisingly, yeah. I think my mama and I got a lot straight just then.”

“That’s great. I told you maybe if you tried talking to her..” Adam leaned in, dragging his thumb over her lower lip, some of the gravy from the chicken and dumplings was right in the center and he tried to resist wiping it away, but he couldn’t.

He raised his thumb to his mouth, passing it slowly between his lips, giving another groan as he did so.

The way there seemed to be a double meaning in the action had Giselle blushing and wondering where all these sudden little thoughts and urges were coming from. She took a shaky breath and nodded to the pot, making a joke to take the edge off on her end.

“Do I need to leave you alone with that pot, Adam?”

“Not at all, darlin.” Adam was still holding her gaze. He swallowed hard when she moved in just a little closer, raising to her tiptoes to wipe her own thumb across his lip, giggling as she told him, “Yeah, I still say you’re the only other person I know who is as messy as I am when it comes to eating.”

Adam’s lip quivered at the touch and he gripped her hip. He was just about to lean down and brush hair out of her eyes, but the screen door banged shut and three little boys rushed in, a little girl hot on their tail, arguing.

The two sprang apart and Giselle took a few deep breaths. Because despite knowing that what she wanted to do was probably not a good idea, especially not right now, she’d been about to just do it.

She’d been about to pull him down and kiss him until neither of them could breathe.

“Well? You two gonna just stand there all day or are you gonna go wash up for supper?” Giselle’s mother cut through the lingering heavy tension with her question and the two of them hurried out of the kitchen and up the stairs to Giselle’s old room.

Adam leaned in the doorway, eyes darting around as he chuckled. “I knew it!”

“Knew what?” Giselle peeked in from the door that connected the bathroom to her bedroom.

“You like pink. You’re always sayin you don’t, but I knew.. Somehow, I knew. You liked pink.” he picked up a stuffed cow, turning it over in his hands as he snickered and added, “And stuffed animals.”

“Oh kiss my ass, Page.”

… oh… that’s not the part I wanna kiss at all… he had the thought but he tried to shove it out of his head. He walked over to the door she’d peeked out of and right as he was about to grab the handle, she opened it from the other side. He joked with a laugh, “We have got to stop meetin in doorways like this, darlin.. People are gonna start talkin.”

“And?” almost as soon as she said it, she felt her cheeks get hot all over again.

Had she seriously just tried flirting with her best friend?

And why did it seem to feel so very right?

She walked her fingers up the front of his tee shirt and nodded to the bathroom. “You need to wash those hands. My mama checks, trust me.”

“Oh she does, huh?” Adam found himself reaching out and toying with one of her curls, despite his best efforts not to. She stepped closer, nodding. Adam stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

He took a few deep breaths. He’d severely underestimated himself here. The more he learned about her, the more he wanted to know about her. The more hard it became to stop himself from just going for it; despite how bad an idea that might seem.

She’d just broken up with her ex. She didn’t need him putting his own wants first, especially not right now. He washed his hands and splashed some water on his face, stepping out of the bathroom and into her bedroom to find her sitting on her bed, staring at a photo in her hands, deep in thought.

Adam nodded to the photo and after jumping in surprise, Giselle explained quietly, “My dad.” as she held it out to show him.

… you kind of remind me of him… just… a whole lot more confident in yourself and settled and down to earth… maybe that’s why I’ve always kind of been afraid of this unknown way you make me feel. Maybe my mama is right. Maybe all this time I’ve been picking all the wrong ones because I was too scared to try picking the right one..

“Oh.” - the thought that Sean might have actually been right in his outright jealousy towards Adam in the past had her floored.

“Oh?” Adam echoed, staring at her intently, trying to gauge her mood at present but having a hard time because she seemed to be deep in her own mind. Her head snapped up and she bit her lip, taking back the photo that he held out to her, placing it on her nightstand by the bed. He sank down to sit next to her. “Is everything alright, Ele? You know if you’re feelin bad about..” he trailed off at the shaking of her head.

“It’s not that at all. This.. It’s a good thing? I just.. I have to think first.”

Adam nodded. It was literally all he could do. Beyond his next question to her, “Any chance you’re gonna tell me what’s goin on?”

Her answer only made that little sliver of hope he felt start to grow in leaps and bounds as she stood on her tiptoes, fluffed his hair and stared up at him, nodding her head. “As soon as I figure out how..”

“Y’all gonna come down and eat?”

“We better go down or my sister and her kiddos are gonna eat all the food.”

Adam zipped past her and down the stairs, Giselle hot on his heels, both of them sinking into the only two seats left at the table. They made faces at each other to crack each other up quietly through the whole blessing and as it finished, they started grabbing food from all the pots, plates and dishes piled in front of them on the middle of the table.

At one point, she kind of… Leaned into his side when she was talking to her sister about a fight that she’d apparently had with her sister’s ex and Adam chuckled in amusement, listening to a recount of the whole thing with one of the nephews tapping at his arm.

“My aunt really likes you a lot. She acts like my girlfriend at school when she’s around me.”

“Oh yeah, kid?”

“Mhm. She’s always touchin ya or leanin real close.”

“I’ll have to keep that in mind.” Adam chuckled as he took a sip of the tea beside his plate.

XXX

“ Yikes. Mama really hasn’t been burning off any of the limbs that fell during that big storm, has she?” Giselle peered through the window and out into the backyard. Her sister leaned in and giggling, she nodded towards the living room across the hall, where Adam was being swarmed with kids, holding the little girl of the group on his knee.

“Angel don’t take well to strangers. But then again, you didn’t ever. And Adam seems to know you like the back of his hand..” her sister was quick to point out. “And you’re always around him on the road, always talking about him when you call to talk to me or Mama.”

Giselle had to say something. She couldn’t just keep what she was starting to think in relation to what her sister said, to herself. It was too big, now that she was really starting to realize just how she felt.

She shut the door and leaned against it so none of the kids could barge in and overhear then go back and repeat before she got the chance to tell Adam for herself.

Something she planned to do soon.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing, I just.. I need you to listen.”

“Okay?”

“I think… Oh hell, forget think.. Pretty sure that I’ve been in love with Adam for a while now and like… I’m kind of starting to realize exactly why Sean was always such a dick about the amount of time I spent with Adam before… I just… What if it’s only me? What if I tell him and he laughs his ass off?”

“Oh, I don’t think you’re gonna have to worry about that.. Are you planning on telling him?”

“Duh. Life’s too short to just like… Bury it or whatever.”

Not to mention, Giselle thought to herself, even if I wanted to forget.. I just have this feeling that it wouldn’t be easily done.

“You know… you could start a fire.”

“What the…” Giselle trailed off as her eyes lit on the growing pile of limbs and leaves out back of her mom’s house. She bit her lip and took a deep breath. “But then the kids..”

“Hon, I can wrangle them. You just take the matches and that jug of gas on the back porch and go.. I’ll even make hot cocoa for you two.”

Giselle eyed her sister and her sister gave a wink. “You’re happy. I’m gonna do everything in my power to make this work. Besides, he’s so much better for you than that colossal pain in the dick Sean.”

She mulled it over a few seconds and took a deep breath. “Okay, yeah. Why not?”

“ Tonight’s perfect for it, I mean.. It’s all chilly out, that means you two can get all cozy.”

“The worst that can happen is that he tells me he’s just interested in being my friend. If I do it now, instead of waiting, I won’t have the risk of making the rest of the week really awkward too, so there’s that…” Giselle nodded and she stepped out into the hallway, leaning in the doorway of the living room.

“Hey, Adam… Feel like helping me build a bonfire out back?”

Adam looked up from what he’d been watching on tv and when he saw that look in her eyes again, it felt like the breath got knocked right out of him. He smiled and stood, nodding. “Yeah.”

He followed her out the door and on their way out, Giselle’s sister held out a bottle of Jameson. “That oughta keep y’all warm and cozy until I make the cocoa.”

Giselle swallowed hard as her gaze met Adam’s and she took the bottle, twisting off the top and taking a sip, almost instantly recoiling. “Holy shit, I forgot about the kick behind that stuff.”

Adam took the bottle, taking a few sips. “Hey, I can pull the car around, right? So we can use the headlights for light.”

Giselle nodded and found her keys in the pocket of her jacket, holding them out to him. Adam took the keys, going out to where they’d parked the car earlier and pulling it over near where they wanted to build the fire. Giselle was already dragging limbs and sticks and leaves, shimmying her hips at the song playing on an old radio she’d apparently plugged in on their back porch. Adam sat on the hood, watching her and chuckling.

He stood and made his way over to her, grabbing the end of a particularly heavy limb. Giselle looked back and smiled.

One of her real smiles. Not one of the ones he’d seen far too many of lately.

She turned to him and held out the match after she’d poured gas over the pile. “Thought maybe you’d wanna… Light it up?”

His hand curled around the hand she clutched the matches in and when he realized that she was migrating closer, he nodded, staring down at her lips a few seconds.

Giselle licked her lips, stepping even closer. “The fire..”

“Yeah, I’ll light it.” Adam chuckled, stepping away. When he glanced back up at her, she was pouting a little. He wandered back over and she leaned against his side. He was staring at the fire, but he could feel her staring, so he looked down at her.

“This is nice.”

“It really is.” Giselle held out the bottle to Adam and he declined. She raised it to her lips again, trying to will herself to just go for it already.

She’d said it best earlier when she said life was too short not to go for what she actually wanted for a change, stop settling for whatever random thing or person caught her eye.

But being right and going for it were… Two totally different things.

They started to play an older song on the country station the radio was tuned into and before Adam stopped himself, he asked quietly, “Wanna dance?”

“Yeah.”

Adam pulled her close and put his arms around her, humming the lyrics to the song quietly. Giselle tilted her face up and stared at him, biting her lip. The hand on his shoulder dug in just a little as she tried to work up her nerve. She pressed completely against him and Adam barely stopped himself from gasping quietly, nose pressed into her hair.

“Ele?”

“Yeah?” her voice came out in a quiet whisper as her mouth brushed right against his once she looked up at him again. Adam gripped hold of her hips, mumbling “I gotta do something, I can’t just..” into her mouth as his own crashed against it hungrily. She gripped his tee shirt and the hand at his shoulders ventured up, fingers tangling in the ends of his hair, making him groan quietly. When her tongue slipped between his lips, he opened up a little more, allowing her tongue complete access as he slid his hands down lower, squeezing her ass and sliding her up his body.

“Me either, I…” Giselle’s words were a breathless whisper as her eyes fluttered open when the kiss broke for a few seconds, just to stare at him. “I realized earlier that I’m kind of an idiot.”

“No, no.. Shh.”

“I am though. I mean it’s been you, this entire time and I was just too afraid to do something.” Giselle admitted, waiting on him to say something. Adam grinned, pulling her mouth back against his as his fingers tangled in the ends of her hair after he sat back against the hood of the car, her legs wrapped around him.

The crackle of the fire behind them had him chuckling, pressing his forehead to hers. “Was that why you wanted to come out and burn a bonfire?”

“It was. I was… trying to figure out a way to tell you that wasn’t me just awkwardly blurting it out.. Why, did you like the idea?”

“I did. I was gonna ask if you wanted to go for a ride or somethin, I just.. Hell, I’d try but I couldn’t ever do it. Didn’t wanna push or anything, considering last night….”

“Truthfully? I was actually relieved when all that played out. And it really made me stop and think..”

“Oh yeah?”

“I want you.”

“Oh you do, hm?” Adam pulled her closer, hands raking through her hair as he told her quietly, “That can be arranged, darlin.. I think you’ve had me for a while now, honestly.”

#adam hangman page fanfiction #adam hangman page fanfic #adam hangman page fic #adam hangman page oneshot #adam hangman page imagine #// part 2 of 2.

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