#like genuinely busier than i have ever been in my life

[scoopsgf]

.

[everythingmp3]

𝕀´𝕧𝕖 𝕄𝕚𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝕐𝕠𝕦 .⋅♡ 

adult!Van x fem!reader (smut)

working for Van had just been a temporary thing, but it lead to an intense crush, a painful goodbye, and the inability to move on. a few months later, you run into her at night. she didn’t forget about you either.

minors dni. warnings: slight intoxication, oral, fingering

(disclaimer: kind of long, I just felt like doing something a little more elaborate and fleshed out, hope u enjoy💌)

it had been about four months since you´d last seen Van, but it felt like an eternity. you had worked for her during the summer, just a temporary job to help her out during the busier season, but by the end of August when you had to say goodbye it hurt much worse than you ever expected; the night after your last shift you cried on your way home, unsure how to cope with letting go of her, how to move on from what she´d made you feel.

you two got along immediately, from the very first day you worked for her it was easy and light and lovely, but that connection turned into something deeper very quickly, about two weeks in you realized how screwed you were, how attracted to her you were, how much you missed her during weekends, how she made you forget about all the things going wrong in your life. but you couldn´t do anything about it before it was already fall and you were forced to move on from that brief period of knowing her.

it was a winter night, you´d gone out to a bar with friends, who had just left in an Uber because it had gotten late and they didn´t live around the corner, unlike you. you were just about to leave as well, when you walked by someone and did a double take to see if it was really her, but it was. there she was: Van, leaning against the wall, looking at her phone, her hair glowing beautifully in the light of the neon sign. you´d had a few drinks, so it was easy to just walk up to her and tap her on the shoulder, watching her face break into that familiar smile once she turned to look at you, "oh my god?? hi!" she seemed genuinely glad to see you, offering a tight hug immediately, which made your body heat up, that effect she had on you, bubbling right back up.

she realized you were pretty tipsy, it was endearing to her, seeing you with your guard down like that, all smiley, face glowing, "what are you doing here?" you asked her, which made her laugh, "believe it or not, i do have a few friends", "no, of course, i know, i was just wondering.. maybe you were on a date or something" grinning at her as you said this, she cocked her head, fixing you with a gaze that gave away how charmed she still was by you, "no, i wasn´t on a date. were you?" she asked, teasing a little. you shook your head, "friends. they just left, they took a car, i´ll walk", she raised her eyebrows "what, all on your own? like that?" gesturing towards you "like what?", "drunk, at risk of stumbling into traffic or something" she joked, you nudged her, "shut up, i am not that drunk" she smiled, leaning closer, "listen, how about i walk you home? you live around here, right?" you were surprised by the offer but really happy about it, any time you could spend with her was an unexpected gift, "okay, yes, you can tell me what you´ve been up to" you said in a playful tone, she pushed you towards the door, shaking her head "nice try, i am not spilling any secrets, you have more exciting stories to tell anyway, I bet".

the walk to your place was only about ten minutes, just enough time to link arms with her, under the guise of steading yourself. each passing second you felt giddier and more excited about unexpectedly being close to her again, after having pushed down all the unresolved feelings for her. you didn´t know this but she was going through the same exact thing, feeling that old pull towards you, that intense, almost obsessive affection, that had haunted her since you´d stepped out of her store for the last time.

once you stood at the front door of your house, you both looked at each other, a moment of silence, you couldn´t bear letting go of her so quickly, so you tried to sound casual asking "hey, you know what? i saw your apartment like a hundred times when i worked for you, now that you´re already here, i could show you my room in return?" you somehow succeeded in not making it sound suggestive, she was not registering it as a move on her, not really. she hesitated for a second, knowing it wasn´t a good idea at all, seeing your space, because it would only deepen the ache of not truly being part of your life, but she just couldn´t leave you, so she nodded, "yes, sure, it´s not like i have anywhere else to be", also trying to make it sound casual, when it felt anything but that.

the apartment was dark, you lead her to your room, explaining that your roommates were gone, walking over to you nightstand to grab a lighter, quickly lighting a few candles, telling Van to come in make herself comfortable, she was smiling to herself watching you, because it looked like you were setting the mood, but she could tell you did that every night. once you were done and looked at her taking in the details of your room, you realized how intimate it was, to have her see all of it up close, but she was very complimentary "this is such a nice space, it suits you", you blushed a little, "thanks. you don´t have to stand there by the way, come, sit" still a little bolder than usual from the drinks in your system, sitting down on your bed, patting the space next to you, before laying down flat on your back, legs dangling off the edge. she joined you, realizing that sitting upright would look awkward, so she laid back too, enjoying the softness of the sheets "god this is nice" she sighed, closing her eyes for a second.you two laid there like that for a moment, you could feel her body heat, it was a lot, suddenly having her there, in your bed, where you´d dreamed of her many times.

you didn´t face her yet, instead staring at the ceiling while saying "i missed you, you know", confessing it. she turned her head, studying your side profile, smiling, surprised "you had my number, why didn´t you text me?", "what would i have said?", she laughed, "jesus i don´t know, have you ever heard of small talk? it usually goes something like: hi, how are you?", you turned to look at her then, her face barely inches from yours, pretty as always, your heart beating faster, "very funny, you know what i mean, it would´ve been odd, just out of nowhere" she nodded, "sure, i get it. i missed you too but never reached out either so.." that got you, "you did??" you asked, making sure she was being serious, she looked confused "of course, why wouldn´t I?" you thought about it, "i don´t know. i guess i never considered i was important to you like that" she shook her head "oh come on, of course you knew that i cared about you, it was pretty obvious" you saw her hand resting on her chest and put yours on top of it, your fingers between hers, feeling her react,"I guess I did know in a way, you were always so sweet to me. i was pretty fucking devastated when our time was over. it´s kind of pathetic but i actually cried on that last day" you admitted, squeezing her hand, she was stunned, waiting for you to face her again, which you did, your eyes full of unexpressed love all of a sudden, hers barely containing how hard that image of you in tears over her hit her, her hand moving away from under yours to caress your face.

"i had no idea. i wish you´d have told me, we could´ve stayed in touch, i could´ve been there for you" your breath was uneven now, feeling her hand on your cheek, looking at her with pleading eyes, whispering, "Van, you don´t know how much i missed you these past few months. that time we spent together, I was going through a lot but you were so good to me, you were the only thing making me happy. letting go of you was horrible", you were almost choked up, she could have cried then, it was more than she ever imagined possible, your feelings for her being so intense, her voice low and quiet then,"I don´t act like that with just anyone, please know that. it was special, you made me feel alive again. i still think about you all the time".

you were overcome with everything you´d felt for her for so long, instinctively closing any distance that was left between your bodies, your face close enough to hers to feel her hot breath on your lips, her hand wandering to your waist, watching your lips part in anticipation, finally giving in, finally; she leaned in to kiss you.

gently at first, but it took only a second for you to press yourself against her as hard as possible, trying to deepen the kiss, mouth open, your hand grabbing her face, hips moving against hers, fingers tangled in her long hair, kissing her back, sloppier by the second, an urgency to both of your movements, her hands firm and strong on your body, laying there, making out in a way that looked like you were trying to devour each other. you pulled away after a while, staring at each other out of breath, a smile on her face, watching your expression give away how deeply turned on you were, "please..." a whisper from you, begging her to do more, her hand under your shirt then, grabbing your chest, eliciting a gasp, leaning in to kiss your neck, hearing you moan, she could feel your growing desperation, your hands moving to your pants to get them off, so she helped, moving down to your legs, tearing the clothing off while you pulled your shirt up and tossed it aside too, she did the same, pulling off everything but her underwear, "you´re so fucking beautiful" she marveled, grabbing your thighs, feeling the soft skin, taking in the sight of your exposed body, you doing the same to her, she kissed your knee, "i´m dying to taste you" you nodded eagerly, "please, yes" moving your legs apart, giving her access, watching her pull off your underwear, immediately kissing your inner thigh all the way up, seeing you lean back and close your eyes, a "fuck" escaping your lips, she reached for both of your hands to help you hold onto something, feeling you fingers tightening around her own.

the second she ran her tongue over your cunt she moaned louder than you did, finally doing what she´d imagined many times before, those hot days when you sat next to her in shorts, your body almost completely visible, finally hers, so she took her time, slow deep movements up and down the extreme wetness, getting aroused from the taste, the feeling of it coating her lips, before adding some force to it, entering deeper into you, faster movements, hearing you cry out, basically crushing her hands then form how hard you were gripping them, she stopped at your clit, switching between sucking and licking, feeling you move your hips upwards to add to the pressure, she let go of your hands, holding you in place by your thighs, she could tell your body was aching for more, so eventually she moved her hand to where her mouth was still on you.

you were a mess by then, you could feel her fingers running over your throbbing core but before she could continue you pleaded, "please, come here, i want to look at you", she smiled, turned on by your demand, climbing up to hover over you, her chin glistening in the dim light, her lips a little swollen, the tips of her hair brushing your skin, looking down at you, staring into your eyes, her gaze giving away that she was taken over completely by her hunger for you.

she moved her hand back to where it was before, teasing for a second, savoring how warm and absolutely soaked you were, watching you struggle to keep your eyes fixed on her, your mouth open; the feeling of being pinned beneath her, the sight of her being possessive, the sensation of her fingers, it was all driving you fucking insane. "please Van..." you begged, she complied, two of her fingers pushing into you, slowly at first, taking in every little reaction of your body, the sounds you were making different then, more whining than moaning, "this okay?" she made sure, applying some pressure, finding the rhythm that would make you unravel, listening for cues, "god yes" you sighed, "you feel so fucking good", she was encouraged by that, fucking you not the way she´d fuck a hookup but with more feeling, more intensity, telling you how pretty you looked, how perfect, meaning all of it, your hands grabbing her shoulders for support, she was hitting the right spot, your legs were trembling more each passing moment, she could feel you come undone under her, both of your bodies hot all over from being skin to skin,"you´re close, hm?" she cooed, watching you nod, unable to form a word, "show me, sweetie, let me see you cum" her fingers more forceful then, adding the final bit of pressure you needed to be pushed over the edge, her unflinching gaze forcing you into that vulnerable state of being witnessed up close, at your most open, most uninhibited.

Van could feel and see a violent shudder go through your whole body, but she didn´t stop just yet, too enthralled by your sounds and movements, her fingers lingering on your clit, not letting up until you were truly finished, your chest slowly rising and falling in a steadier rhythm again. the second you regained some of your strength you pulled her in for a deep kiss, before pushing her over to the empty space next to you, so you could straddle her, your hands resting on her freckled chest, her fingers wrapping around your wrists, smiling up at you, a sweet moment of looking at each other out of breath, enthralled and still high on endorphins.

breaking the silence, you asked her "so, what side of the bed do you like to sleep on?" she grinned, her eyes lowered,"is that your subtle way of asking me to stay over?" you just looked at her as she shook her head, laughing to herself, "funny, how you think you need to talk me into these things, because there´s hardly anything i would say no to, ever, if it´s you who´s asking" you smiled then, feeling her thumbs move over your skin in a soothing motion, "careful, you´ll regret saying that, you´ll get so sick of me, just wait" she grinned, shaking her head, "never, never in my life", a satisfied look on your exhausted but happy face.

she pulled you down to have you lay on her chest, her fingers running through your hair, feeling you relax into it, "my sweet girl" she whispered, placing a tender kiss on your head, breathing in the scent of your shampoo. both of you were glowing with love, feeling it all over, radiating off your bodies; how glad you were to have each other back.

[lovedrunkheadcanons]

Chapter Contents

(Arranged Marriage Fic) Read on AO3

RATED M

Photo via Rangmang's website

One could equate the ambiance and feel of a Japanese shokudō between a New York street bar and an izakaya. Family friendly and cheap, these quaint-looking nooks and crannies tended to be independently run, smaller, and prioritized their menu on fully prepared entrees, rather than finger food and saké.  

With its retro red and white signage, Rangmang was a cozy little shokudō, located an easy three minute walk from Ebisu station in Roppongi. The establishment was best known for their lightly breaded fried chicken (karaage) and Lemon Sours, where exclusively on Fridays and Saturdays you, and your party, could enjoy a 90 minute all-you-can-eat special, alongside rounds of bottomless beer. 

The air was warm and thick for October. Looking out, Satoru thought this Wednesday night felt a tad busier than most, then again, this part of Roppongi was almost always busy; Tokyoites partaking in a few hours of freedom before work the next day (and the flood of tourists). Jujutsu sorcerers weren’t given such luxuries. There was no such thing as “time off,” evident by the quarter-Dane’s insistence they get together for another debrief. As usual, Utahime and Shoko were invited. Judging from Nanami’s stalwart expression, his intel was not encouraging. 

“The streets are starting to talk,” he began, once they were settled at their table and placed their orders. “They know about Hannah.”

“Not surprising,” Satoru said with a shrug. “We knew they’d catch on eventually.”

“Doesn’t negate the fact she could be at greater risk, doofus,” Utahime bristled. “You should be taking this seriously.”

Satoru turned to issue her a cold stare. “Who said I wasn’t?” 

Uh oh. Best to knock on a stone bridge before crossing it. 

While they were friends, that didn’t make Utahime untouchable in any way, and it was no wonder as to why. She wasn’t blind. Any person with a pair of eyes and an average-sized brain could see he and Hannah had gotten physical. Afterall, no couple made “bedroom” eyes like that unless they were fucking the ever-loving tartersauce out of each other. There was also the fact he genuinely cared for her, and talked about her nonstop. Utahime found Satoru boorish and immature and too powerful for his own good, but Hannah was undoubtedly a central figure in his life. Accost her, cross that stone bridge before knocking, and there’d be hell to pay.

Speaking of which, she should ask Hannah to get tested.

A waitress shortly came with their fried chicken and beer (Satoru substituted for Pepsi). Shoko quietly sipped her IPA, watching her blue-eyed friend with shrewd prudence. She wasn’t much for joining the conversation, merely reading the room, guessing what card he had played. Despite knowing him longer than most, Shoko always found it tricky to gauge which Satoru they were dealing with; the Joker or the Ace. He switched hands on a dime. Made her nervous. 

Kento hadn’t finished.

“That’s not all,” he added. “There’s been some development in the Time Vessel Association’s reemergence. We’ve finally confirmed its new leader. My hunch was correct.” He paused. “It’s him.”

They didn’t say a word. They didn’t have to. At this point, the evidence could drown an entire village; The manipulated curse that attacked Hannah back in April; The two armed thugs Nanami detained at the opera (and brutally interrogated); The weird disappearances and murders. 

Obscure religious groups were not strange to Japan. The country was plagued by NRMs (New Religious Movements). Most were quirky and innocuous. Others were downright dangerous and at times posed a sizable threat to the public. Happy Science, a more modern group, had its own political party and proclaimed fervently, without evidence, that China and North Korea were plotting Japan’s nuclear demise and the country should prepare for invasion. Kaeda Juku did not believe in modern medicine and taught that only special prayers recited by their leader could heal an ailing person. This came asunder when two mummified children were found in their headquarters, having died of medical negligence. Then there was Aum Shinri Kyo, a terrorist organization most infamous for the Subway Sarin Attacks, killing fourteen people and injuring over a  thousand. 

Like deadly viruses, these movements preyed on the vulnerable and oftentimes disbanded, before circumventing and reforming into something far worse. The Toki no Utsuwa no Kai, or Time Vessel Association, had slipped off the police’s radar for years, only to rise back from the grave like a dark twisted phoenix, this time with a new Messianic figurehead, a new “vision.”

For months now, jujutsu’s leading investigators had worked around the clock to uncover the new leader’s name. The residuals, disappearances, and suspicious murders pointed to just one.

“So, the rumors are true,” Shoko drawled, setting her beer on the table. “The crazy dude got himself a cult. What’s the prize for joining, I wonder, a lollipop?”

“Shoko,” The Six Eyes wielder sighed, uninterested in her sarcasm. “Stop.”

Damn it all.

Though he’d been craving some decent fried chicken, Satoru found he wasn’t hungry anymore. He knew he was supposed to do his job, that a number of people were counting on him. He was the Six Eyes wielder, the strongest sorcerer on earth, however the truth of the whole prospect made him sick to his stomach, and there was nothing he could do. The higher-ups had made their choice.

It wasn’t an accident he’d chosen Suguru’s favorite restaurant tonight. Rangmang used to be their hang out. They had stumbled upon it one evening after a grueling mission. It was just the two of them then, laughing at something stupid a curse user had said, ordering karaage, talking the proverbial shit. Teenage boys were good at that sort of thing; causing a ruckus. A lot of fond memories here.

There are few friends you make in life, even fewer worthy enough to be your equal; The whole “he’s got your back, you’ve got his” dynamic. Someone who knows you better than you dare know yourself, someone you might open up to. The first person who made you feel like you weren’t alone in the universe, like you weren’t the only one born different. Born crazy. 

A best friend. A partner. A soulmate.

And then they leave you, crush your heart into a million shattered pieces until it’s only a fragment of what it once was, knowing it’ll never be made whole again, that it’ll never trust.  

You’ll just get left behind.

Satoru stifled down a breath. Suguru’s memory was like an oil stain he couldn’t wash out. Fate seemed insistent on stringing them together - and damn - did it piss him off. He just wanted this pernicious cycle to end. His heart had endured enough beatings, his upbringing notwithstanding. How much more would it take? How many more times must he go through this long, tortured dance? He hadn’t told Hannah the full story yet either. He perished the thought.

“You could do it, Satoru…The impossible…”

“Satoru,” Kento said emphatically, as though reading his brooding mind. “You can’t take any - and I mean any chances now. If you see him, he’s to be killed on sight. No more fooling around. That goes for the rest of you.”

“Got it,” Utahime chimed.

“Mmhm,” grunted Shoko.

Satoru remained silent, peering down at his Pepsi. 

“And another thing, Satoru.”

The Six Eyes wielder looked up at his blond colleague.

Nanami’s steel grey eyes were piercing. “When in public, Hannah is to stay with you at all times. Given what we know, we already suspect there’s a bounty on her head.” He gave his friend a rare, pitying look. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you twice.”

Satoru closed his fists. He could still feel his wife’s blood bleeding on his fingers, her horrid screams, scenes of the last time he’d failed to keep her safe.

“No,” he answered stoically. “You don’t.”

His eyes returned to his half-empty can. A part of him wished his old man hadn’t abused alcohol. Maybe then he could go home and muster the wherewithal to drink away his sorrows. 

What an absolute, shit-tastic day.

Hannah was home at her library desk, lost in the sentences of a thickly paged book, writing carefully curated notes as she left stickered tabs on the page numbers. The more she read, the more aggravated she became. She hadn’t known what secrets she’d discover upon opening the book, but this? This was unforgivable, a crime to all things sacred. How had it gone on like this without anyone knowing?

The Gojo library was no Wiblingen Monastery. It was no bigger than her bedroom and the architecture was far more quaint in design, walled with elegantly painted shoji and illuminated solely by sun or lamplight. It conserved a few manuscripts believed to be early writings of Lady Murasaki (though this couldn’t be verified), as well as Buddhist sutras, poems, and diary entries written by Gojo ancestors long before. There also existed ancient incantations handed down from progeny to progeny, but those were kept under strict spell and key. However, none of those fascinations mattered to Hannan. The part she loved most about the Gojo library was its serene solitude, a place one could think alone in peace and quiet. 

“What-cha got there?”

Or not.

Hannah peered up to see the most vivid pair of turquoise blue beaming down at her, the look of complete adoration. She recently noticed he had dimples the other day - but nevermind that. She could admire them later, preferably when they were tangled in his (their) bed with no clothes on.

“You said you tested out of high school English, correct?” she asked candidly.

“Sure did.” Satoru quirked a snowy brow. “Why do you ask?”

Hannah closed her notebook and flipped the bigger book to an earlier page, holding it up to him.

“Read this for me; the first paragraph. Anything look off to you?”

Satoru was reticent in taking the book, but  nonetheless followed her instructions. He found her reasoning almost immediately. The book was laden with spelling and grammar mistakes. “Suzie was exciting to go to the parke.”…“Thomas wants to glow up to be a polizman.”…“English is like a magic.” He couldn’t help laughing. There were so many. But that wasn’t all. 

“What the heck?! Even the Japanese segments have errors.” He was outright cackling.

“This,” Hannah pointed to the book, forcing herself not to smile, “is the English textbook Jujutsu High gives their first years. Shoko found me hers. I guess it explains why the school’s English scores have stayed below average for so long.”

“Unreal.” Satoru flipped another page in total bemusement. “Nobody said anything, so I never thought to... “ He gave the subject more thought and felt his grin widen. “This is kinda sad.” The sheer irony. 

Although, he had to correct himself. Satoru quickly recalled the many times he stood listening to Shoko complain about her English classes. “Adachi-sensei can go jump off a bridge,” she would whine. The future physician wasn’t the greatest at explaining things. Looking back, he simply assumed she was being dramatic - that “time of the month” and what not - but nope. Turns out he’d been wrong.  

“Seems Mr. Adachi was rather inept,” Hannah went on. “Must’ve been exaggerating when he said he graduated from Brown.”

Hannah was still sitting in the chair. Satoru came awfully close, bending low to her ear, “Soooooo, does this mean you’re taking his place? Cause if yes, that would make me very,” and looped his arms around her, “very happy.”

She warmly accepted his embrace, resting her head along his chest. “Oh, would it now?”

Having changed from her dress earlier, she felt his hands snake behind and tug on her obi, loosening the ornate drum knot; a pretty burgundy and pomegranate combination. The kimono parted to unveil milk smooth skin, allowing him the satisfaction of trailing butter-soft kisses down her neck.

“Definitely,” he lavished between kisses. “You’d be…a great…teacher.”

Hannah wished she shared even a fraction of his confidence.

“There’s still a lot I don’t know.”

Satoru halted his kisses, voice tender. “You can’t know everything, sweetheart.” He squeezed her tight. “No one does.”

Hannah closed her eyes as he continued peppering her neck, slightly moving her head a fraction to give him access of the other side. “How was Rangmang?”

Satoru went still, a subtle yet prevalent tension in his hold. 

“It was…okay,” he said, breath tickling her skin. “We talked about work.” 

“Just work?” she prompted, hearing a somber tone to his voice. 

Satoru hummed in affirmation. “Yeah. I won’t bore you on the subject. It’s nothing you have to deal with.” He inhaled her scent and sighed deeply, relaxing his shoulders. “Mmm, feels good to be home.”

That seemed to be the only answer she’d get. Hannah too gave a sigh as he held her close. It had been a productive yet tiring evening. 

“Suppose I’ll have to find a proper textbook now, won’t I?” she said.

Satoru hummed his agreement again, burying his nose in the crook of her neck. He glanced back down at the page she had opened.

“Polizzzzzman.”

They both laughed.

Chapter Contents

[thatfreshi]

Radio Silent (Uni AU P. 10)

tw - mentions of abuse, themes of anxiety, general insecurity

The night fizzles out the way you expect it to, disappearing without a word to your friends in the diner, letting your new, yet reluctant friend, drive you home. You'd simply deal with Shadowheart when she got back to the dorm.

Just as Astarion said, he's gone the next morning, but the two of you text quite often. He finds it easier to talk to you through pixels on a screen, where he can pretend like you're not this very real person who knows far too much about him. On the plane ride to LA, he doesn't sleep, which isn't odd for him. Instead, he thinks about the past couple of days and how you've wriggled your way into his life, into his head. Instead of trying to put his feelings into tangible sentences, he makes a playlist while waiting the hours away and catches up on some much-needed reading.

Thursday comes around, and the group is pissed at him, as you expected them to be.

"Damnit, he's the reason we picked my lunch break to do this during anyways! You think he'd at least stick to plans like a reasonable individual."

"Gale, it's not like he chose to go on a spur-of-the-moment trip to California. It's a work thing, not in his control."

You almost sound a little angry when the words come out, knowing that he's probably going through some hell that all your friends don't know about. Gale picks up on this sentiment, and leaves the conversation at that, mumbling something about how they'll all just update him on the project details later. Indeed, you all talk in the group chat with him about plans for the upcoming assignment, which he sporadically responds to. Although, he always responds to your texts, even if he ignores the group chat. Astarion argues with himself about it in his head, trying to reason with himself, saying things like 'it's just because the group chat is overwhelming.' For how good of a liar he is, he's not good at lying to himself.

Friday morning, he goes radio silent, which you're not concerned by at first. He's busy, probably busier than you've ever been in your life. Yet, he had made time to text you since Monday night. It starts to worry you when Saturday and Sunday both pass with nothing new. You hold yourself back from asking if everything's alright, knowing if something is stressing him out it's probably better to just let him deal with it and get back to you. And yet, you don't talk to him until he's back, and you're not even the first one to hear that he's back on campus.

"Oh yeah, I saw him in the elevator earlier. Tried being nice like you said, I even waved! You should be proud. Doesn't seem like he appreciated it though."

Shadow rolls her eyes, almost covered by her bangs that she desperately needs to trim. You're not sure exactly why, but you rush to his dorm room, knocking frantically. It's Monday night, which is surprising. You could've sworn he said he'd be back Tuesday morning, but maybe you misremembered. The door creaks open.

"Oh, hello Tav."

Astarion's eyes are weary, which you chalk up to not being able to sleep on the plane.

"Hello? You haven't texted me since Thursday, what the hell? I thought you like died or something."

"Nope, not dead, very much alive. Got wrapped up in some work affairs over the weekend, fashion people can be quite dramatic. Either way, I apologize. I'm still quite new to the 'having a genuine friend' thing."

"Well, how's your arm?"

He scoffs.

"It's... it's fine. Weird to have someone ask."

At this point, he's opened the door and let you in. You're welcomed to a sight of half un-packed luggage and a stack of leather binded books on the coffee table.

"Holy shit Astarion, did you rob a bookstore while you were in California?"

"Nope, all from the library. Missing out on a week of school when you're a senior here comes with its disadvantages. For example, I have had no time to work on my thesis essay, and I've barely even unpacked from the trip itself. Although, I did snag this."

He takes out a garment bag that has been carefully finessed to fit in his suitcase without wrinkling whatever is hidden inside. His fingers nimbly move to unzip the bag, revealing a white faux fur coat.

"Now, do I wear too much white? Absolutely, but passing up on this? I could never."

You almost feel bad, not knowing anything about clothes or what makes them cool, but to your credit, you know it's a nice coat. He slips it on, happy with his latest thievery.

"Well, what do you think? Is it stunning, or is it stunning?"

In that moment, while you're about to make some quip like 'go look for yourself, you realize he has no mirrors in the dorm, not even in the bathroom that you've only ever caught a glance of.

"I would say look for yourself, but you don't have any mirrors. That's shocking."

"Well, I had the one in the bathroom removed. Guess I'm just not particularly a fan of reflections."

"How come?"

He stares at a detail on the sleeve of the coat.

"You get tired of seeing your face after a while."

"Well, I think it looks fabulous, and so do you."

"Wish I felt just as fabulous."

He lets out a small laugh, shrugging his way out of the blinding fabric. There's something left unsaid in the air, you can feel it as he goes to hang up his new treasure.

"What really happened this weekend?"

Astarion tenses, almost dropping the hanger he so delicately placed the jacket on.

"I... I'd rather not say. I know I told you a lot the other night, but there are truly some things best left as skeletons in the closet. Maybe in time, but not today. I can't today."

"That's okay. I was just worried, that's all."

"Funny, I'm so used to people prying all the time. It's pleasant, getting to have secrets when I talk to you."

He comes back out into the living room.

"Would you like to stay for a while? You don't have to help unpack or anything, just be here."

"Sure, as long as you don't mind. And I would gladly help you unpack. Besides, you have a master thesis to get back to."

"I suppose I do. Thanks, I won't forget this."

"What, like you need to trade some favor back or something? Because that's not necessary."

"You're too nice for your own good."

The pale man puts some soft R&B on, and the two of you go ahead and start putting all his things away. Although, he doesn't let you handle any of his nice clothes. You learn that the hard way when he bats your hand away from a pair of very expensive jeans.

"They're just jeans, I promise I won't taint them!"

"Yes, they are just jeans, but they're also 800-dollar jeans, and I am not risking it."

You continue to ask him about various articles of clothing, what shoots he took them from. He remembers every single one. Although, he does skip out on some details, brushing past parts of his tales without a second thought. You don't mind though, knowing it's probably just things he isn't ready to talk about. At some point you become distracted by the stack of books on the nearby table, and start looking at all the titles. They're all related to ethics, morality, or philosophy in some way, but particularly focused on the psychology of abusers and the abused.

"I thought you weren't a philosophy person?"

Astarion's voice almost makes you jump, taking you out of reading the back of one of the books.

"Is this what you're doing your thesis on?"

"I mean I'd like to, but I'm still not sure. Feel as though the head of the department will be surprised when I present it to him."

"How come?"

"Because I've always made my projects, lifeless, I guess. I've always written and studied by the book, never touched on emotional topics. Just don't want people asking questions."

"So, what specifically are you going to look into?"

"The philosophy of abusers, how power imbalances change our moral codes, that kind of thing."

You lightly place the book back in the stack.

"I think you should do it. If anyone asks, just say you were curious about it."

"That's true, I am known to be quite curious. Now, are you going to help me with the rest of this, or have you given up?"

The night passes by too fast for his liking, as the two of you talk while he prepares for the week ahead. It's past midnight when you finally check your phone, seeing that you've received a couple of cheeky messages about your absence from Shadow.

"Is it late already?"

Astarion checks him phone as well.

"Perhaps it's time for you to go get some sleep darling. After all, not everyone is as extreme of an insomniac as I am."

"Yeah, I guess I should probably get back. Happy you're back though, and that you're okay."

Without really thinking about it, you go for a side hug, and make your way to the door.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Sure. See you tomorrow Tav."

And his smile is warmer than normal, knowing there's something to look forward to after a torturous night of barely any sleep. Maybe opening up to a single soul isn't so bad after all.

[egittae]

[ feed ]

"damn! this thing is delicious!"

morion, ever the fan of watching students get wildly excited about little things, strolls the market with lambert in tow. he'd practically kicked the guy's door down when coming to invite him out, and now the two peruse the stalls while morion tries to figure out what the hell is so great about a weird hair clip. ah, kids.

however, morion's initial reason for coming was derailed as soon as he caught the scent of interesting local treats. pastries he's never seen before, flavors he couldn't conceive of---such items stretched out further than he could see. it piqued his curiosity! what can he say?

he swiftly fell victim to a pastry apparently called a "saghert and cream". it's teeming with sweetstuff. morion never sought out things like this normally, but maybe the market atmosphere was infecting him. after taking a bite, however, he's nearly knocked off his feet---what the hell?! this is good!

and why not share good things with a friend? after swallowing his bite, he turns to lambert. "man, have you tried this before?!" he asks, gathering up a hearty chunk on his fork before bringing it up to lambert's lips. "c'mon, try it! it'll knock your socks off!"

Lambert hadn’t been doing anything too special that day, but it didn’t change the fact that thank the Goddess there was nothing on his hands the moment Morion came blasting through the door- or the poor item would’ve been vaporized as Lambert jolted, startled. But it was nothing…well, nothing bad at least. An invitation to hang out at the local market rather, which the professor happily agreed to after shaking off the spook. While Lambert didn’t possess many riches to spend at a market, he did enjoy basking in its atmosphere. A mix of nervousness in his system due to feeling detached from that world, but excitement as the energy and cheerfulness was contagious.

Most students seemed busier checking out trinkets and clothes, weapons and accessories- but soon he found himself and his friend within the food section of the market. It was honestly a tad overwhelming at first as multiple scents filled the air alongside noise and so much to look at, but Morion’s guidance was more than enough to keep him grounded.

“Saghert and Cream? It does look go-” He couldn’t really finish the sentence before Morion held a forkful in front of his mouth, which Lambert promptly accepted. As the dessert melted inside his mouth and the flavor flourished he let out a pleased hum, it was fruity and sweet- but not too much, and the pastry was just the right amount of soft. 

As he continued to chew however, it was as if the friction of his bones caused the flavor to root itself deeper into his brain, or rather revitalize roots that had been there already, withered but still bravely holding on to life in hopes that they’d see the sun again one day. That simple little pastry had been in his garden as a tale for all this time, only now actually revealing itself to be true.

-often enjoyed as a dessert at family gatherings

A round table made of rich wood. On his right the back of a long teal cape belonging to a head of dark blue waves- his voice gibberish yet joyful as he spoke to a red-haired warrior with a stern gaze followed by a blond gentleman with the poise of a proper equestrian.  On his left, a small child, only the blond top of his hair visible. Then two boys with dark blue hair, one older than the other, followed by a boy with the same red hair as the warrior’s, and finally a blond girl with braids decorated in small green ribbons. His own hand- gloved in white silk - held on to a silver spoon- genuine, rich -intricately engraved, a piece of the dessert sitting in it, though it was for a mouth other than his. It was for the little blond child next to him. “Careful so it will not fall on your shirt, D______”

Lambert graciously pretended he did not choke on the dessert, his mind violently dragging him back to reality at once. “Ahaha, my bad! I nearly swallowed it wrongly for a moment. It…truly is good! I wonder if I have eaten this dessert before though…it feels familiar.”

“ ‘tis a dessert better enjoyed in the good company of your family!” The stand’s owner, a kind looking lady, added. Though still slightly stunned, Lambert smiled, nodding as he looked over to Morion.

“Yes, it surely is. You have kids, correct Morion? Why not get some for them so you may enjoy them together?"

-New memory unlocked! (?)

[yxkhei]

I'm gonna gush for a moment because..I can!

So, I've been here what feels like..forever, joining in 2018, leaving for a bit and then coming back, I can't seem to stay away! Especially not after meeting some special people and creating some genuine connections that I'll be treasuring for forever because they mean so much to me. This group and the people in it truly brought back my love for writing and creating in a point in my life where I felt as if I'd lost it and didn't enjoy it anymore. I know I've gotten much busier lately (adulting..iykyk) but I still love spending my time here, writing with you all and creating some amazing memories I'll truly treasure. But I wanna give a special shoutout to the one person who really does mean the absolute most to me, and that's M. I gushed to you last night, but you genuinely do mean the world to me. You've been there for me through some of my darkest moments and toughest trials in life, especially this year more than most because you know all the things I'd gone through and you were by my side through all of it. I cannot begin to tell you how much that and all your support truly means to me. You've seen me through a lot of shit that I don't know if I would've been able to make it through without you. You always know how to put a smile on my face and bring me out of my moods and make me basically feel like a person again when I don't ever think I can. You also amaze me with how strong you are, just like you said to me! You're also able to really see the good in everything and everyone and that's so special because you never see that much anymore in people. Writing with you is the highlight of my rp-ing career just because of so much fun we have with all of our babies. You really made me enjoy and love writing again when I never thought I'd be able to. You inspire me to want to try harder, to create more and be as creative as I can be and I can't tell you how amazing that feels. Like you said, thank you for always putting up with me all these years and I've found someone amazing in you, babe. Thank you for everything else you do with and for me, it never goes unnoticed. I love you, bb! 💕 @tcemint

I wanna give another shoutout to some others who are always so welcoming and make me happy writing with too! I love all the friendships and connections I've formed with all of you on my fcs and I always look forward to writing and doing things with each and every one of you. You're all so amazing and thank you for being there and being so welcoming to all of my fcs even if you may not know much about them or who they are. None of it goes unnoticed! @tcmhcll @tthompscn @kvmnamjoons @westcoastsaweetie @margseliserobbie @scrchdrew @janggyul @ninqningie @thatnattyice @m-mount Ilyyyyy all. 🫶🏼

[writingmaneskin]

Home is Where the Heart is - A Damiano David Story || Chapter Thirty One

Description: Learning how to love again, how to heal and that it’s okay to move on and rebuild yourself after dealing with so much pain.

Words: 2.6k

A/N: I missed my silly children. 🙁💕 This chapter takes place not long after the last trip that they had and is still set before the beginning of Handwritten.

THE HIWTHI MASTERLIST

THE MAIN MASTERLIST

kofi || taglist || come chat ||

Damiano was a homebody. He thrived being back in Rome and there was a sense of peace that came from the fact that his loved ones were all within reach and not a couple of hours away travelling by plane.

Being home also meant that he had the chance to get into some sort of a routine with Dante and figure out how to maintain it which would be easier now with the band taking a bit of a longer break - they all needed it. 

Eli’s life wasn’t slowing down by any means - in fact, they were busier than ever but Damiano was more than happy to be there and make sure that they have everything they needed, make sure that their family is taken care of.

“When can we meet up?” Vic texted Damiano one afternoon.

“I’m home, would you like to come over? I miss you.” 

“I miss you too. Are you alone?”

“I am. Eli is working late and my mom took Dante for the evening, so it’s just me.” 

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll see you soon, sorella.” 

And true to her word, Victoria showed up at his doorstep twenty minutes later. Damiano hugged her tight and the two of them held each other for a little bit, each treasuring the comfort and the familial love between them.

“What’s up, kiddo? Do you want some tea?” 

“Tea as in gossip, or tea as in the drink?” Vic chuckled and made her way into the apartment.

“As in the drink.”

“You are such a grandpa, don’t you have something fizzy in that fridge of yours?” 

“No, best I can offer is orange juice.”

“Orange juice it is.” Vic took off her shoes and plopped herself on the sofa.

Damiano lit a cigarette and carried two glasses of orange juice to the coffee table, then sat opposite Vic so he could look at her.

“I’ve been thinking a lot with all this time that we’ve had on our hands…” Vic started.

“Is this going to turn into a lecture?”

“No, listen. We haven’t had a break in a very long time. Our lives were completely different the last time we slowed down. We were kids and now you have a kid.”

Damiano smiled.

“True.”

“I am scared.” Victoria admitted.

“Of what?”

“Of who I am without all the shows, without the constant moving around. I think I might have lost parts of myself in all the work and I am now unsure of what and who is left.”

“You have time to figure it out now.” 

“And if I spiral?”

“If you spiral,we’ll take care of you as we always have. Just because we are not together 24/7 and not constantly running ourselves into the ground working, doesn’t mean that we’ve abandoned you or that we won’t hang out, or show up if you need us.” Damiano went to give Vic a hug when he saw that her eyes were full of tears.

“I worry that I’ll lose all of you.”

“No, we are not going anywhere.” He comforted her.

“Do you want to call over the others?” 

“Yes, I miss them.” Damiano admitted. They had been texting but it just wasn’t the same.

“I miss them, all of you so much.” Vic grabbed her phone and texted Ethan and Thomas.

The boys showed up not long after the invitation and both Damiano and Victoria felt relief when they did. This was home too, these three people were part of the foundations of his home. 

“The band is all over at our place. I will likely cook for them, maybe with Ethan helping me. Did you eat today? I can maybe sneak away and bring you some food?” Damiano texted Eli before leaving his phone on the coffee table.

“Is everything okay between you and Eli?” Thomas asked, going to grab himself something cold to drink from the fridge.

“Yes. We are in a good place.” 

“I am happy to hear that. You deserve all the happiness.” The look on Thomas’ face was genuine, yet Damiano could see the sadness in his friends’ eyes.

“What about you and Tom?” 

“It’s complicated.” Thomas said, opening the bottle of sparkling water.   

“Are you trying to figure it out between each other or just avoiding the feelings altogether?” 

“I am trying to untangle the feelings and make sense of them and make sense of everything without saying anything stupid and pushing Tom away.” 

“How is that working out for you?”

“Not great. Whenever we do talk, we try to talk about feelings and when it gets awkward we just change the topic and pretend nothing ever happened.” 

“Do you want him in your life?” 

“I do.” Thomas nodded.

“Then don’t give up. I made a lot of mistakes before I got with Eli and I almost made the biggest mistake getting back together with Y/N and disregarding what I feel for Eli in favour of what I thought would be best.”

“Do you regret anything?” Thomas asked.

“I think we all have regrets but right now I try not to think about them too much.”

“When did you get so wise?” Thomas nudged his friend playfully, making him smile.

“I had some growing up to do recently and I think that might have sped up the process.” 

“Dante is very lucky to have you.” 

“I am the lucky one. And Thom, I am sure you and Tom will figure it out. I am sure there will be a happy end for us all.” 

“A happy end?” Thomas looked confused.

“Yes.”

“But I don’t want it to end. I want it to go on. I want a happy continuation. I don’t want the story to end.”

“When did you turn into a poet?” Damiano smiled and at that moment his phone lit up with a text from Eli.

“I ate and I’ll spend some time with Tom after work. Are you okay? Do you need anything?” 

“I miss you and I can’t wait to hug you.” Damiano typed back.

“I miss you too. Send my love to everyone and I’ll see you soon.”

“Say hi to Tom and text me if you need anything.”

“I will, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

He looked away from the phone and saw that Thomas had joined the others in the kitchen, Vic trying to re-braid Ethan’s hair, Thomas trying (and failing) to give directions. It felt cosy. He took a picture of them before starting to get out the ingredients for dinner.

“You don’t have to be a dad tonight.” Victoria told him from the sofa, her fingers still tangled in Ethan’s hair.

“I am a dad always, Vic.” Damiano chuckled.

“Yes, but you don’t have to make our dinner and then tuck us in bed.” Thomas added.

“Can we have a sleepover,  though?” Vic added.

“Of course, my house is your house.” Damiano immediately replied.

“Let’s go out for dinner before Vic gives me a bald spot.” 

“I will not.” She insisted and focused on fixing the braid.

“We’ll go out for dinner and we can come back and have the sleepover.” Damiano smiled.

“What about Eli?” Ethan asked.

“They said they’ll spend time with Tom after work. I will probably see them tomorrow if they don’t come home in the middle of the night.” Damiano smiled.

Thomas didn’t say anything.

“No sulking for Tom tonight, please.” Vic called him out immediately. 

“I am not sulking.”

“No one is sulking tonight.” Vic looked at the three men.

“Of course, of course.” 

**

Damiano texted Eli about the change of plans and after a quick wardrobe change, made it outside with his friends. Ethan called their favourite restaurant to book a table and Damiano called Leo to invite him to dinner too. 

The atmosphere at the restaurant was cosy and familiar, giving the four of them a feeling of grounding.

“Did you miss us all so much, Vic?” Leo teased.

“Of course I did. We have been together non-stop for months.”

“It’s weird to not be constantly on the road.” Ethan added.

“It’s a nice change of pace.” Damiano said while looking at the menu.

“Of course, you love it, you homebody.” Vic chuckled.

“I missed it. I missed the stillness and I already have ideas for the new album, whenever that comes.”

“Have you written anything?” Leo looked at him.

“No, just some ideas in the notes app. Nothing more. I need to recharge, to give Dante some sense of normalcy, to spend some time with Eli. I am sure the writing will come naturally.”

“Is everything okay with you two?” Leo asked.

“Yes, Eli is just very busy.”

“You should plan a staycation for you two.”

“I am already on it.” 

“Do any of you have solid plans for anything during this time off?” Leo asked after they had ordered their dinner.

“Lots and lots of family time for me.” Damiano spoke first.

“Maybe some travelling, lots of reading for me.” Ethan added.

“I don’t know.” Thomas said quietly. 

“I just want to figure things out. Figure me out.” Vic shrugged. Thomas threw his arm around her shoulder and pressed a kiss to her hair.

“We’ll be there for you.”

“You better, I love you all too much.” Vic admitted.

“Count on us.” Ethan smiled at Vic but his smile quickly died on his lips as he looked to the person behind Vic. Damiano turned around and froze when he saw who was standing there. 

“Can we speak?” Y/N’s mother stood there.

“I have nothing to say.” Damiano stood up. 

“I have some things to say, please.” The older woman pleaded.

“If you’ve come to make some excuse or other for the way you and your daughter ghosted, please don’t.” Damiano looked at her.

“I have not. I bring something for you to give to Dante when he grows up. Something from her and me.”

“Why?” He looked at her again, his attention finally catching on the detail that she was wearing all black.

“I made a lot of mistakes in the past years, starting with the fact that I allowed her to take him away from you. That I stood by her and wronged both you and Dante. But she was my daughter.”

No one spoke a word and Damiano noted the tremble in her hands.

“What happened? Is Y/N okay?” Vic finally broke the silence.

The woman did not respond but handed Damiano a sealed envelope.

“I am sorry for everything, Damiano. I am sorry for all the harm I’ve caused. The time I had with Dante was some of the best in my life and I will always regret the harm that was caused.” 

Damiano did not know what to say. He held the envelope, recognizing the handwriting.

The woman didn’t say anything else as she left the restaurant and he sat back down at the table.

“Do you think she might be dead?” Leo asked.

“Are you going to open the envelope?” Thomas added.

“Maybe and yes.” Damiano managed after a little while.

“Do you want us to call Eli?” Ethan offered.

“No. Eli has enough on their plate, I will tell them when they come home, when I’ve had some time to process whatever curveball Y/N is throwing at me.” 

“Please drink some water.” Leo passed him the glass which Damiano gratefully took.

Damiano did. The waiter brought over the food.

“Do you want to open it?” Thomas asked quietly, referring to the envelope.

“No, not right now. I want to have dinner and sleepover with you.”

“That’s what we are doing then.” Leo smiled.

“You’re not alone and neither is Dante, it will be okay.” Ethan reassured him.

“Thank you.”

**

Eli needed twin time. The chaos of everyday life, the new dynamics and routines that they were putting themselves in were all great but one thing was non-negotiable and that was time with Tom.

They wrapped their arms around Tom, needing the heartbeat of calm before being engulfed in chaos again.

“Hey you.” Tom held them and smiled.

“Hi.” Eli said as some of the tiredness left their body instantly.

“I missed you too.” Tom pressed a kiss to Eli’s temple, making them smile.

“So much.” Eli affirmed, clinging to Tom.

“Is Damiano upset that I am stealing you from him tonight?”

“No, he has plans with the band and he knows I miss you.”

Tom didn’t say anything, instead kissed Eli’s temple again and opened the passenger door for them.

“I’m driving only because you look exhausted.”

“Fine, this time only.” Eli took out their phone and sat in the car, checking the notifications.

“I know you are out with Tom tonight but please come home later and don’t go to your apartment. I need you.” 

“Are you okay?” Eli was already worried.

“Yes, I just don’t want to sleep without holding you.”

“I’ll be there.” 

“Everything alright?” Tom started the car.

“Yes, Dami asked me to go home and not to my apartment.” Eli half-smiled.

“I am really happy that you two are figuring it out. It’s nice to see you this happy.” 

“It feels a bit surreal at times.” Eli admitted.

“You pined for a very long time, of course it feels surreal.” Tom joked.

“It was never the right time and we are trying to make sure that the right time is now because it’s definitely the right person.” 

“I can relate.” Tom nodded vaguely.

“What’s going on between you and Thomas?”

“Just some very long conversations that lead nowhere and we both get frustrated and that’s about it.” 

“How can I help?”

“I just need some time with you. Some time spent without thinking about how much my heart hurts, without the longing about a person who is right there and who i am not sure can ever love me the way I need him to love me.” 

Eli squeezed Tom’s hand.

“Even if it’s not with him, you’ll find happiness. I am sure of it.”

“The only thing I am sure of is that I am sick of feeling like this.” 

**

Everyone was fast asleep earlier than Damiano thought they would be. Vic snuggled up between Ethan and Thomas in the guest bedroom, Leo choosing to go home but promising to bring breakfast in the morning, leaving Damiano alone with his thoughts and the envelope left on the table.

He lit a cigarette. 

Then another.

Eventually the lock clicked and he heard Eli’s soft footsteps.

“Hi.” Eli wrapped their arms around him, noticing the ashtray full of cigs and his stiff posture.

“Hi.” He kissed their hand. 

“What’s this?” Eli pointed at the envelope. 

“I am not sure, but I didn’t want to open it without you here.” 

Eli put down their bag, washed their hands and then took a seat on Damiano’s lap.

“What happened? Why didn’t you text me about it?” 

“We were out for dinner and we saw Y/N’s mom. I didn’t text you about it because I compartmentalised the information and tried to have a good dinner with the gang and just ignored the fact that Y/N sent Gods know what.” 

Eli felt frustrated, but they also understood why he acted the way he had.

“Do you want to open it?”

“Yes, but I am also afraid.”

“You’re not alone. I won’t leave you.”  Eli promised.

--

taglist: @queendorkula @oro-e-diamanti @maneskings @iosonoarina @hiraetheral @vita-thrasher @katyldamusic @ethaneskin @theimpossiblehologramtree @dubist-immerinmeinengedanken @butkutee @8iunie @ventvnni @dpaccione @elvirabelle @cuzimitaliano @daddydamiano @shehaddreamstoo @soficide @iamtashaquinn @alexxavicry @inloveppp @tnu-ree @bigsimpsimp @ccweasley

[aohendo]

Happy Blorbsday! (to be answered anytime on any day because every day is blorbsday)

How have you been? I have been missing you and dear Kiris on my dash.

What kind of horrors has he been facing lately? Please feel free to go off about any OC thoughts that have been plaguing you or any trauma you have been inflicting on our favorite sad boy.

Happy Blorbsday!!

Life is certainly life 😅 Good and busy and nothing bad, just a lot. Expecting to get even busier over the next few months, too, so that's gonna be.... fun.

(It will be it's just I also like sleep).

Kiris, oh Kiris. This poor guy.

About two weeks ago, went back and blocked out all my ideas on how to fix Prince's plot: there's a few scenes to add, a few to rearrange, and a handful to cut, but Disney princess necromancy has solved all the issues! Into the fourth draft of it, now, which after a SPAG pass will be the version I send out to a first round of beta readers. My guesstimate is I'll be searching for people for that starting mid-late July!

The current horror Kiris facing today is *gasp* tea with 'L Tuola the empress. Doesn't sound terrible on the surface, but there's casually another prince being eaten by a hawk in the background, Ta Ritasa the advisor is being generally creepy, and 'L Tuola makes it very clear what she'll do to find the Prophet (who may or may not be trying to casually sip his tea (which also isn't really tea and Kiris hates it) across from her) and that she knows about Kiris' magic. Also some more set up stuff for the 'L Tuola/necromancy plot line, which Kiris is beginning to steadily really not appreciate even though he's pretty sure said necromancy is the only way to save his mentor from... one of his own prophecies.

In the span of the next two chapters after this, poor guy's gonna have two separate murder attempts on him and he's going to fail to save his mentor--the only person who's ever really cared about him. Shortly thereafter, Ta Ritasa begins finding ways to force magic from Kiris (guy's about to get wrung like a sponge 😬), a principality gets destroyed (and it's mostly Kiris' fault), and we begin the 'there's a fraud among us!' plotline. Not to mention the Turre getting even creepier, or Duvutriok coming around with various princes' heads, or all Batar's blackmail, or Iiriok trying to be friendly and compassionate (but clearly, obviously, he must have some further angle to it...)

Kiris just wants to hide under his bed. I'm really just hitting him with a baseball bat at this point, poor dude. Does not deserve this treatment.

I promise, these are all necessary steps in getting him his hug, though!

The goal for this draft is no more than 110k. That should be a fairly easy 10k to shave off during line edits, and 100k is a really nice spot for fantasy right about now. If I really had to in those future line edits I could probably get it even shorter (looking at Reverberate, which I somehow knocked from 123k down to 111k, but I genuinely don't know how), but I don't want to. Once I get to the halfway mark in about 2.5 chapters, I'm gonna go ahead and rewrite the tentative query letter for this thing--I've learned my lesson from Reverberate: it's much easier to do the query letter before the final draft, so that'll be a nice pause to get my thoughts in order.

How's everything with you? Haven't been around much lately (which is a shame, because I do miss popping in and seeing where everyone else is at with their projects and OCs. Gotta get back on that...)

[witchybiitchy]

c’est ça l’amour | l.n

fic masterlist

chapter 6

Sydney was sitting on a plane, her frame positioned awkwardly in the first class seat. She never knew whether it was classier to act as if it was a completely normal place for her to be, or if she should soak up the luxury. In between Monaco and Baku she was being flown to London to do an interview and photoshoot for a French magazine. Looking over at Daisy, she felt a rush of gratitude for the woman, madly typing away at her laptop like she usually did. Sydney had on a pair of fleece shorts and couldn't stop herself from picking at the drawstring, hardly focusing on the movie playing in front of her. This would be the first photoshoot she'd ever done out of her racing overalls, and she was, quite frankly, shitting herself. 

Despite what some people had told her over the years, those people including her mother, she'd never thought of herself as overly pretty. Sure, she could clean up nice, and she typically had much better things to worry about than insecurities over her looks, but at the end of the day she was an athlete, not a model, and she didn't really have one of those effortlessly nice-to-look-at faces that, being French, she'd always craved in the back of her mind. Daisy had assured her that it would be lowkey and casual, but it didn't stop her stomach from churning or her eyes from catching herself in every semi-reflective surface and twisting a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“Wait, Syd.” Daisy had developed a bad habit of starting sentences with wait, hold on, or okay due to having to placate Sydney into doing whatever she said next. “Don’t look so worried, Jesus. I’m not about to sacrifice you.”

“Are you seriously sure about that? Because I am not.” Sydney said, half laughing.

“You just looked very picturesque, sitting there. See, how's this? I’m improving, right?” Daisy was never the best at taking photos, but she'd been getting better under the support of the AlphaTauri photographer. Sydney liked the photo Daisy had taken; she had one knee pulled up to her chest and one dangling off the seat. She wasn't looking out the window, rather her head was tilted back on the chair and her eyes were half closed. There was just something about it that she really liked, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it. That, and her legs looked really, really nice, which was always a good thing.

“I love it, you should post it.” Sydney said earnestly.

“Caption?” Daisy said, looking at her phone.

“Euh, I don't know, I am bad at these things. You could just do the little plane emoji.” Sydney said, resuming her earlier position. She felt her phone buzz and saw a message from Pierre, maybe she would ask him. Bless plane wifi.

“I like it, or, wait, no that's dumb, maybe, oh wait, cute, how's this instead?” Daisy turned the screen around to show her the photo, with the caption ‘busy 🐝’. She liked spending time with Daisy for this exact reason, she could be her abrupt, kind yet real self.

“What?” Daisy just laughed.

“Busy bee, you know cos you're on a plane and you look tired and it's cute.” Daisy continued, and Sydney saw her press the post button anyway.

“I have never, not in my whole life, heard someone use busy and bee together. Why are bees busy?” Sydney said, her confusion less out of genuine curiosity and more just something to fill the time.

“I don't know, they're buzzing around making honey, they're busy.”

“I think I am a bit busier than a bee, no?”

“Just a bit.” Daisy smiled. Sydney felt her phone buzz again and saw that she had another text from Pierre.

“Busy 🐝 huh”

“ what about it”

“nothing nothing”

“no tell me”

“just a bit corny”

“it's Cute pierre”

“not as cute as you 🥰😍😘”

“🤢🤮🤢”

“idk how daisy made u look that good when ur usually so ugly tho”

“😐”

“r u still nervous”

Her stomach twisted slightly at his reminder.

“a bit, i dont know how to model”

“u wont need to, they tell u what to do”

“oh from all ur modelling experience”

“stfu it's more than u”

“bet u looked gross tho so it doesnt count”

She watched the three dots appear, but received another buzz before Pierre could finish typing. It was Lando. Unlike Pierre's contact, which had a photo of him incredibly drunk holding a beer bottle, eyes wide and crazy with the name pepé le pierre 👃🥖🇫🇷, Lando's was just Lando. It wasn't like she needed a last name or any emojis to recognise him. Just that name alone stirred something within her. It was distinctly different from the current turbulence in her guts, and she wrote it off as the nerves of trying to maintain another friendship, if you could even call their two drunken encounters and a few glances across the paddock friendship.

“heard ur gonna be in london, wanna hang out or smth” She had her read receipts on, and was conscious of taking too long to reply, so she chose to ask Daisy her question instead of googling it.

“Daisy, what does ‘smth’ mean when you are texting someone?”

“It means something, why, who are you texting in English?” Daisy asked suspiciously yet with a knowing look.

“No one, hey!” Sydney squealed, grabbing her phone that she’d left open and face up, giving Daisy plenty of time to see who it was.

“That would've been so much less suspicious if you hadn't tried to hide it.” Daisy giggled.

“I have no idea what you mean.” Sydney said, trying to think of a reply.

“I mean that you’re literally texting one of your colleagues, but you're acting like a schoolgirl with a crush.” Sydney chose not to respond, and Daisy gasped excitedly. “You are a schoolgirl with a crush! I won’t tell anyone, don't worry. Does Pierre know?” Sydney was confused as to why she would be asking about Pierre, but she chose to focus on the bigger issue.

“No, because I do not have a crush on Lando.” Sydney still hadn't replied.

“It's perfectly fine, he’s cute. A bit young for me, but I can see why you’d like him.” Daisy giggled, yelling playfully when Sydney pinched her.

“I do not have a crush on him, we are friends only. Anyway, do I have any free time in London?” She said semi-sheepishly. Thankfully Daisy chose to drop the subject, although she kept a self-satisfied smile on her face as she opened her calendar app.

“Well, we get in at 11, your photoshoot’s at 12:30 and that will take a few hours, they’ve said ‘till 4 but it'll probably be more like 6, and then you're free for the whole night with the interview tomorrow at 10. Sooo-” She sung, but Sydney cut her off with a glare.

“I will tell him that we can hang out tonight then. And maybe he will bring Alex and George, and I will not care because I do not have a crush on him.” Sydney said defiantly, about to begin drafting her text.

“sure, i am free tonight from 6:30, we can have dinner?” She backspaced that. It sounded too intense.

“sure, r u free after 6:30?” Pierre was trying to help her with her English texting, but so far u and r was all that had stuck. She sent the message and hoped that she sounded chill yet enthusiastic yet cool enough. Almost straight away she saw the three dots, and then they disappeared again. Then the message:

“yep, it's random but u wanna go see a quiet place 2? we can get some food after too if u want”

The three bubbles appeared then disappeared again, Lando clearly not wanting to become a double texter this early on.

“i am excited, i am staying at the hilton so u can pick me up? 😄😄” She was trying to channel some of their more playful drunken banter, but immediately regretted it after pressing the little blue arrow, thinking that she was coming off as needy.

“ugh fine 😐 see u at 6:30 🤪” It's okay, it worked. She flicked over to the safari tab and typed in ‘a quiet place 2’. Horror/thriller. Those kind of movies didn't freak her out too much and plus, she would be with Lando, and she couldn't imagine him taking anything that seriously. Although, they hadn't really spent that much time together, so she didn't know why she was coming to these conclusions.

“Done organising your date?” Daisy asked, and it awoke Sydney out of her trance.

“Yes.” She said with faux annoyance, not bothering to correct her on ‘date’.

“Good, cos we've landed.” Sydney hadn't even registered the plane descending at all, let alone the bumps from landing nor the people now waiting to leave the plane. Daisy just chuckled and shook her head. Sydney thought she heard her mutter something about Charlotte, the name of Lando’s PR manager, but she was probably just hearing things now.

-----

The clock had just ticked over to 10:30pm, and instead of sitting in some overpriced Italian restaurant with Lando like she'd been daydreaming about for the past 2 hours, she was standing in the bathroom of the hotel room taking off her makeup with some wipes she stole from the set, her feet aching so much they felt as if they were sinking into the tiles. The whole day had been a colossal shitshow.

Her and Daisy had arrived a comfortable 10 minutes before 12:30, showered and fresh, ready to pose with her helmet and then maybe without it for a few hours. Instead, after ringing the buzzer to the studio and getting no response, they got a call from an assistant of an assistant and told to come to a different studio on the other side of London. So they hailed a taxi, stressed themselves silly until they got there, only to be told that the photographer was running late and wouldn't be able to begin shooting until 2. Sydney texted Pierre in a huff and was uncomforted by his reply that it happens all the time, and what was she expecting? At 2 she was heralded in to be prettied up, and even when the makeup artist admitted that they were 'unusually disorganised that day,’ Sydney just put on her well rehearsed smile, said it was fine and still didn't think to text Lando and cancel their plans. Something inside her wouldn't allow it. But, after several more outfit, lighting and backdrop changes, with the photographer seemingly having no plan and moving with the wind, she caved and let Daisy text Lando through her phone and say that she wouldn't be able to make it. He was kind and understanding, because of course he was, but Sydney still felt a sense of sad defeat where her nerves for the photoshoot once were. Finally, at 10:03pm the photographer had seemed satisfied and now here she was, disappointed and exhausted.

She had texted Lando as soon as they had finished, just to make sure he knew she hadn't forgotten about him, but he was yet to reply. She felt silly for thinking that he would keep his evening free after she cancelled, and yet she couldn't fight the small pang of something at the thought of being replaced so easily.

She was brushing out her hair, fluffy from just blow drying it so it wouldn't be wet while she was sleeping, when she heard her phone buzz. Thinking it was either Pierre or Daisy, she tapped the notification without looking, and didn't realise who it actually was until she picked up the phone to type her reply.

“still down if ur not too tired, in london anyway so can pick u up in 10”

Sydney felt her mouth go dry and her heart start beating loudly in her chest.

“sure, text me when u r here”

She stood still for a moment, just looking at herself in the mirror, before she realised that Lando would be there in 10 minutes and she was in her pyjamas, bra off and hair frizzy. She quickly tied her hair in two plaits, not the French braids she did for races, just relaxed ones, and shoveled clothes out of her suitcase to try and find something suitable. She figured it wasn't going to be overly intense given they were going to watch a movie at 10:30pm on a Friday night when most other people their age would be half blackout in a club by now. She pulled out a pair of wide leg jeans and a green turtleneck. It wasn't what she would usually wear, but then again this isn't what she would usually do. She hadn't been on a date since she'd tried out tinder once during her break between F3 and F2, and that had ended in her saying she had diarrhoea then calling her mum to pick her up.

‘ This isn't a date .’ She reminded herself, but she barely had time to unpack that thought before Lando had texted that he was there and she hadn't even put her shoes on.

“one sec” She replied. She grabbed her wallet and room key and sped walk down the hall, not before texting Daisy where she was going. She didn't need to, she was a grown woman after all, but it felt appropriate. Daisy responded “have fun 😉” and Sydney felt an unknown weight lift off her shoulders. She left out through the hotel's sliding doors and spotted Lando's outrageous car stopped right in front of her. She was trying not to walk towards it too fast, scared of looking too eager, and he got out of the driver’s side before she reached the car.

“That is a very nice car.” She said, half laughing as she looked at her situation objectively. Lando was standing in front of her, grinning sheepishly as he opened her door.

“What, AlphaTauri don't give you cars?” He asked.

“Comparing a Honda to a McLaren is like comparing me to Lewis Hamilton.” Sydney replied, trying not to look at Lando’s hands as he drove them out of the driveway. Something about how calm he looked, how at home he seemed in the car, it made her feel safe and warm in the unfamiliar vehicle.

“Yeah, one's much better looking than the other.” He said cheekily, pretending to look hurt when she flicked his shoulder.

“Is this movie we are seeing good?” She asked, and Lando laughed. “What?” She replied incredulously.

“Nothing, I don't know, it was just how you said it.” He said, smiling. “The first one was pretty good, so I’m sure this one will be good too.”

“Wow, so detailed, I cannot wait.” Sydney said sarcastically. “In a range of 1 to 10, how scary is it?”

“Maybe like a 4, it's mainly jumpscares. Don't worry, you can hold my hand.” He grinned.

“Oh wow, thank you so much. What exactly is a, euh,” She trailed off.

“Jumpscare?” Sydney nodded. “It's just like, AH!”

“Ah!” Sydney yelped, although considerably less loud than Lando. “What the fuck?” Lando just laughed.

“That's a jumpscare.”

“Fuck, I think I need to sleep after that.” Sydney noticed that they’d pulled into a car park and assumed that they were at the cinema.

“By the way, it's ‘on a scale of 1 to 10,’ not ‘in a range.’” Lando said, and this time Sydney thought he might actually be blushing.

“Merci, Lando. On a scale of 1 to 10, how common is the expression, ‘busy bee’?” She didn't know why that was what she thought of, but he seemed to find it amusing.

“I don't know, maybe a 4?”

“I am beginning to think that 4 is your favourite number.” Sydney said, and poked the logo on the hoodie he was wearing, because of course it was his own merch. He smiled and said nothing, now focusing on getting them into the actual theatre. Something about his whole demeanor made her feel so protected, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it. He wasn't that much taller than her, only a few centimetres, and although he was broader it wasn't his physicalness that made her feel so safe in his presence. Maybe it was the way he drove, or how he led them around the cinema like he'd been there many times before, or how he found their seats and, without hesitating, put his arm around the back of her chair, but she felt more at ease than she had since the night after the Monaco grand prix, and she was beginning to think he might be some kind of lucky charm for her. Less lucky, though, and more just...right.

“If you get bored or tired we can leave, I know you've had a long day.” Lando whispered under the movie trailers. He didn't need to, they were the only ones there, but his hot breath on her ear made her wish he spoke like that all the time. She turned her face towards his so that she could whisper back, and brushed her nose along his cheek in the process.

“I won't get bored, don't worry. And if I start falling asleep you can do a jumpscare and I will wake up.” They both laughed softly, then turned their attention to the screen in front of them as the movie began. His arm was still around the back of her chair, and she was resisting the impulse to lift up the armrest separating them and lean into him. She didn't know why though. If it was Pierre, her only friend she really spent time with alone, she wouldn't’ve hesitated, mainly because he probably would've initiated whatever it was and she would just be reciprocating. Maybe that was why she had this pit in her stomach when it came to Lando. It wasn't a crush, she just didn't really know how to act around him yet. The thought eased her mind, she didn't need to stress over the nuisance of having feelings for another driver, despite how carefree Daisy seemed to think it was.

Realistically, even if she did have a crush on another driver, it would be the most nightmarish situation imaginable, whether it was Lando or not. There would be the conflict of wanting them to do well but wanting to do your best. Needing to focus on your race but constantly thinking of how they were going. Feeling like you were sharing them with millions of other people with only a tiny portion to call your own. The questions and the rumours. Never feeling good enough as a driver or a girlfriend. Oh, and not to mention the complete and all encompassing lack of privacy. She must have drifted off into this world of unreal scenarios when a loud noise from the movie startled her and she let out a squeal. In her defence, it was a very, very quiet movie. Lando laughed and shuffled in his seat, almost seeming to get closer to her but still not touching.

Now she was paying attention. And the more invested she became, the more stressed she was for these characters. Also, her weirdly intense focus meant that the next loud noise, which was just some birds flying out of a train car, had her squeezing the armrest out of anxiety for what would come next. She looked over at Lando to see if he was just as freaked out as she was, when she saw that he was already looking at her. Of course, he looked forward once they’d made eye contact, but she knew what she saw. Over the course of the movie, Sydney found herself making her body smaller and smaller until she was sitting with one knee up and one crossed under it, both feet off the ground, her arms wrapped around her raised knee and her head leaning on Lando’s shoulder. The armrest was now digging into her side though, and in a moment of calm she sat up slightly to lift it out of the way.

“Watcha doin’?” Lando asked quietly, above a whisper but not talking volume. She noticed that his fingertips had followed her left shoulder around and were just grazing her jumper as she adjusted the seat.

“This thing is becoming seriously annoying, and I need full focus for the end of this movie.” Lando laughed and seemed to welcome her back into his shoulder where she now settled, much more comfortable and much, much closer. She had a brief moment of wondering if she was being annoying, but she soothed herself by saying that he wouldn't be running his fingers up and down her upper arm if he was finding her annoying. Which, by the way, felt incredibly nice.

The climax was building and, despite telling herself it was just a movie, Sydney couldn't stop the stress that was pumping through her and, without an armrest to clutch, she reached over and grabbed Lando’s hand, wrapping both of hers around it and squeezing. Later, she would realise that this definitely wasn't how she'd behaved with Pierre after a week of friendship, and certainly not how she behaved with any of her other friends, but in that moment all she cared about was the little deaf girl escaping the weird skeleton spider maze-runner things and Lando's warm, callused yet soft hand was a lovely way to express that.

“ Shit, shit, shit, fuck off, run bitch run! Oh my fucking god, why would you do that?” Sydney started yelling quietly, not even realising that she had started speaking French. She briefly thought that she felt Lando squeeze one of her hands back, but she couldn't tell through how hard she was gripping his. After what seemed like the most tense minutes of her life, the credits began to roll and she felt like she could breathe again. She patted the back of Lando's hand before releasing it, and then she reached up her arms to stretch. Lando's hand fell to rest on her waist, now unobstructed by her arms, and his thumb smoothed over the green fabric of her jumper. She lent to rest her head on his shoulder once more, and they sat watching the credits, neither making a move to leave.

That was, until, Sydney’s stomach grumbled the loudest she'd ever heard and Lando let out a laugh. “We probably should’ve eaten before.” Sydney smiled and reluctantly stood up out of his embrace, wanting nothing more than to stay in the warm, low lit room. It was the calmest she'd felt all day.

“Mm, maybe. Where are we going to eat though? It is,” She unlocked her phone “20 past midnight.”

“We're in London, Syd. On a Friday night.”

“Well, lead the way.” She said, gesturing for him to walk past her in the aisle. He swung an arm back around her shoulders and they left the cinema, thanking the teenage cashier on the way out. Instead of getting the lift back down to the carpark, Lando steered her through the front doors, and they were met with London’s cold midnight air. Sydney pulled her sleeves over her hands and tilted her chin further down into her jumper, Lando's arm just the tiniest bit tighter around her shoulders.

“You wanna get a kebab?” Lando asked, and Sydney wondered why he sounded half joking.

“Yeah, that sounds nice. Why are you laughing?” She asked incredulously.

“I dunno, I never picked you as a kebab girl.” He said, coming to a halt in front of the brightly coloured menus and food encased behind glass. “I’ll have a chicken kebab thanks.” He asked the man behind the counter, who nodded but was still eyeing them with vague recognition.

“Uh, yes, me too.” Sydney smiled, and pinched Lando in the side when she heard him snicker. “What, it must be good if that's what you're getting.” Lando just smiled in response.

“You two’re in formula one, aren't you?” The man said, assembling their food on the bench.

“Yep.” Lando replied, the two of them not really knowing how to act now.

“Would you sign something for my daughter? She started watching ever since you started driving, won’t shut up about it now.” Sydney looked up and expected him to be speaking to Lando, but found him looking straight at her.

“Of course, euh,” She picked up a napkin and took a pen from the ‘customer feedback’ jar, signing her name. She waited until he was done with their food to give it to him, and he gave her a big toothy grin in return.

“Thanks, it means a lot.”

“You're welcome, oh and thank you as well.” Sydney replied, lifting her kebab in acknowledgment. He just nodded, still smiling, and they left the store. She noticed that Lando still hadn't said anything, so she looked up at him, only to see him stuffing his face full of kebab.

“Woh?” He said through chewed kebab, and she gently pushed his shoulder.

“Nothing, is it good?” She said, taking a bite out of the corner of hers after he nodded.

“Bhe besht.” He mumbled.

“That is disgusting.” Sydney laughed. They were very slowly walking back to the car, feet moving sluggishly on the pavement. “Why did you not pick me as a kebab girl? This is delicious.” Lando seemed bashful, which only made her want to know more.

“I dunno, I would've thought you were a bit more...upmarket than kebabs.”

“Why do you say that huh?” Sydney giggled, trying to look annoyed.

“I dunno, you just uh, seem like the, you know, type.” Lando said awkwardly.

“Lando, I am missing what you are trying to say here. I will not be offensive, if that is what you are scared of.” Sydney smiled.

“Offended, you won't be offended.” Lando chuckled.

“Stop avoiding the question.” Sydney prodded.

“I dunno, you're just, really quiet around the other drivers, and, I mean I don't think this, of course, but you kind of have a, uh, reputation, of being, you know?”

“A snob?” She asked, not smiling anymore. “People still think that? From one interview, are you fucking joking me?” She knew she'd said something weird because of the way it sounded, but she didn't really mind.

“Well, some people, but like George and Carlos and them don't think that. Daniel doesn’t.” Lando said. Sydney didn't feel too angry at him specifically, because how could she when he was standing there, hoodie bunched around his wrists, hair curly and soft, walking her back to his nice car to drive her back to her hotel after taking her to a movie.

“It just makes me fucking pissed off. I do one thing and instead of it becoming a little joke that gets brought up from time to time, I am now a snob. Fuck me.” They had reached the car park, but Sydney didn't want to go home yet.

“Maybe you’ll just have to keep spending time with me, and when your accent gets weaker you'll lose your French snob reputation and all will be well in the world.” Lando smiled, clearly trying to ease the tension.

“Mm, maybe I will.” Sydney said, letting out a yawn. They were both standing by the boot of Lando's car, neither one heading towards the doors.

“I should take you back.” Lando said, and she thought she heard a note of disappointment in his voice.

“Do you have to drive home tonight?” Sydney said, remembering that he didn't actually live in London.

“Ah, no. I’m staying at a friend's place.” He looked down at his shoes, scuffing one against the concrete.

“Ooh, a lady friend?” Sydney said, a joking tone in her voice, despite a small hole that seemed to open up in her stomach.

“Uh, no, not really.” Lando said, and by his tone of voice she couldn't tell what it was he was trying to hide, but before she could continue quizzing him she yawned once more and remembered that she had an interview the next day.

“Oh well, maybe I should be going home anyway, I have an interview tomorrow.” She said, scrunching up her nose.

“Busy bee.” Lando said, smiling as he got into the driver's seat.

“Shut up.” She laughed.

“I really like that photo of you, by the way.” Lando said, choosing to focus on the road to avoid eye contact.

“Really, why?” She didn't mean to be so frank, but her sleepiness was hitting her now and she was losing her filter.

“I dunno. You look very relaxed. You don't seem relaxed very often.” He said quietly.

“I’m always relaxed with you.” Sydney murmured without thinking, the hum of his car below her filling up the space after her words.

“Mm, me too.” Lando looked over at her and smiled softly. She felt that hole in her stomach fill up with something warm and gooey, and it made her feel a bit sick in a nice way. She definitely didn't feel this way around Pierre, or Charles, or Daisy, or her parents. She'd never felt this way in her whole life. Then again, she'd never had that many friends. Maybe this was just how people felt about their best, best friends.

[clubwnderland]

⤷⋆⋆ 𝑺𝒂𝒏 𝑼𝒑𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆 ♡

I had been watching a lot of action movies lately and playing Street Fighter on my arcade machine so I thought... why not be one? Meet Jace! Why Jace? I don't know, I just thought the name was badass and made me look hot haha he kicks ass first and takes names later!

Wiping his brow, San lets out a sigh of relief when everything is done and Irene tells the workers to get ready. "I'll help get this stuff away," he says, helping Chan and Juyeon with leftover supplies and putting them in the storeroom for now. There's a chuckle coming from the others as he stops by to grab a drink of water and San rolls his eyes. It's honestly hard work trying to keep up with demons and werewolves who were all barely breaking a sweat while San needs to have a shower before getting ready.

It's not like he's complaining. He loves his job, he loves what he does and those that he gets to work with but... sometimes he does wish that they knew what it was like. San only wishes that Chan understood how hard it can be to carry heavy crates of drinks back and forth all night. He wishes that Juyeon understood how easy a heart can break when not treated with care. He wishes his co-workers knew how to appreciate the small things that they so easily scoff at.

It takes him a while to get ready, the detail that takes the longest for him to work out is the make-up over his face and torso, making it look like he's all grubby and been in a fight but luckily Jangmi is more than happy to help when she had finished getting ready. "Nice outfit," San says, smiling when she makes him sit down.

She gets her make-up palette open and even grabs the Halloween kit that she had bought earlier that day. "It's not an outfit! I drank a potion, I'm a bunny for the night!" Jangmi smiles brightly, bringing the brush to his skin and starts what she would call a masterpiece. San's eyes widen; he isn't surprised by the fact that she had changed her entire being but what does surprise him is that she risked some kind of mishap happening to her again. He's still haunted by what happened, being the Devil for that period of time had really given him a new appreciation for Irene and... he never ever wants to have to deal with that again.

Jangmi can play with fire like that - he's fine the way he is.

"There we go~." She taps the brush to his nose. Giggling as she does so before skipping off to go and deal with the big, scary looking God who has been watching from one of the booths, San thanks her and grabs his phone and sends Yura a message with a selfie of himself attached. 'I'll be able to finish early tonight! Come to the club for a little bit, what do you say?' He sends her some kisses and hearts, totally trying to make her giggle before he hears Irene call for everyone to get into position. Walking over to the switches, San looks around as bodies move quickly and flicks the main lights off and turns all the other lights on.

It's go time.

The night feels like its dragging on, the hours slowly ticking by while the club starts getting busier. A good turn out, as always, but San is just wanting to be out there and having fun like everyone else his age.

But this is the life he chose when he started working there.

His whole expression changes, his smile grows more genuine when San sees Yura and her friends making their way through the crowd. All he can think about as he sees her walking towards him is that he is seriously the luckiest man in here; anyone can disagree with him but he will still say it.

He's not really needed tonight which makes him feel like he's being given a chance to get out there and do whatever he wanted. Irene had hired a few extra hands for the night so when the women arrive, he rushes over to Chan and taps his shoulder. "I'm gonna go dance with my girl," San beams, running around the bar to give Yura a hello kiss.

"She's not your girl yet," Chan calls out but he doesn't acknowledge it, waving dismissively while they head to the dance floor.

"I still have an hour," he says, speaking into Yura's ear so she can hear him over the music, "and then I'm all yours!" He grins as they dance, bodies moving as one to the beat of the music and he's loving it. His hands are on her hips, gripping her tightly to keep her close, he closes his eyes for a moment to revel in this. When was the last time they were able to do something like this? He hopes that when his shift is over that they can continue the good, fun vibes and head out to go somewhere else. Somewhere that isn't a club run by the Devil and other supernatural creatures. He has an idea, something that he wants to do since it's been a while but it needs to be a group consensus, right? He can't just...

"Do you want to stay here when you finish?" Yura asks, arms around his neck and lips tickling the shell of his ear as she speaks.

Shaking his head, he knows exactly where he wants to go once his shift is over. "A friend of mine is having a house party," he suggests, "it's not as pack as this but it'll be a nice, regular house party." San hopes that she picks up what he means by that, that they can go and do something normal. Something human.

As much as San loves working at the club, being the only human does have its obvious downsides and part of it is always feeling a little left out when it comes to... well, everything.

Yura turns away, San still holding onto her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder, as she speaks to her friends to see if they are wanting to head over to this house party he had mentioned or stay here and possibly go club hopping. His hips are still moving with the music, the heat from the packed club has sweat sliding down the back of his neck and potentially causing his make-up to smudge but it doesn't matter, nothing really matters because the night will be spent with Yura and that's all he cares about right now.

That's what he's thinking about, how much he loves her, how much he's enjoying this time with her, before she turns flawlessly in his arms and gives him a wide smile. "It's a plan."

He feels so human. Being out, in costume, a little tipsy and singing along with whatever song is playing on the radio, he feels so human.

When they had reached the party, some of San's friends were already waiting for him to arrive and as soon as they get out of the car and rush over to say their hellos the party really got started. Everyone is dressed up, some as werewolves, some as characters from games, a few witches, vampires, the works but everyone there, as far as San knows, are human and it makes the night seem that much more special.

They got to drink, play beer pong and kiss under the strobe light while everyone cheers them on and laughs as San dips Yura low, nearly causing them to fall over by how quickly he does it. They got to sing at the top of their lungs and eat lukewarm slices of pizza that tastes like the best thing that they've ever eaten. They got to call a cab and stumble into Yura's place, hushing each other as they giggle and try to take off their shoes.

They were able to do things that San hasn't done in a while. He hasn't gone out drinking with friends because he's always so aware of everything and everyone due to work. He hasn't been able to eat terrible fast food because he's too busy trying to stay healthy and keep up with those around him. He certainly hasn't been able to spend this time with Yura in a while, something he deeply regrets but tries to make up for as he kisses her every chance that he gets.

They got to be normal. A normal couple. Something that seems like a rarity in his life these days.

"You really wanted to get out of there, didn't you?" Yura says as she wraps her arms around his neck, his hands instantly moving to her waist and holding her close.

Chuckling, San's hands slowly help her undress, removing the tight fitting costume from her body as they move towards the bedroom. "I just wanted to be normal for once." Kissing her before pulling the shirt over her head and dropping it to the ground.

They slowly help each other settle for the night, San helping Yura into her night clothes while Yura cleans off the make-up that had managed to survive the night. They wind down, talking about the night and settling into each other's embrace before soft, sleepy goodnights are whispered and Yura falls asleep. San lays there, eyes heavy with sleep as he looks at the woman in his arms for a moment and smiles softly. "I love you." He whispers before finally laying down to rest, falling asleep with her which is something he loves doing.

Man, he's so lucky to be human.

💙 @blogger-yura

[fugos-lil-fork]

are you okay? you’ve been mia for a while!

Hello there! No need to worry! I'm alive lmao-

My apologies for disappearing on y'all all of the sudden. I simply ended up getting busy with life and not only that but another hyperfixation kicked in (Marvel's Moon Knight lmao) so I did kinda leave JJBA for a bit there. I still love it (my ass fr spent 80-something dollars on a Weather Report figure a few weeks ago-) but definitely not hyperfixated as I was before. But honestly, I currently can't really hyperdfixate on things as I used to before. Not only because I'm even busier than ever before but because I was also put on Adderall. It's definitely helpful but of course everyone sees that differently. It's even changed me a bit personality wise, which some people see as a negative but considering how much it helps me, I personally don't see it as a negative.

Anyways- That aside- I honestly still hope to keep writing though. Both these small hcs and my actual Part 5 x Reader book. But, unfortunately, I can't really say when I'm going to get back into it right now. I genuinely want to make the time though since I have been told by professionals, if you will, that I need to learn how to destress and self care because... Apparently I just don't do a good job at doing that (⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠；⁠)

And I need to stop turning things that are supposed to be for me to destress and self care, into things that stress me out and overwhelm me. Especially since it's starting to physically affect me negatively.

So, once again, I'm so sorry I left y'all so suddenly. I'm okay. I'm simply still trying to help myself both physically and mentally. Obviously, it's not a short quick journey. But I also don't want y'all thinking that just because of that it means I'm not going to come back (Like, I don't want y'all thinking this is a "goodbye" post or something like that). I'll come back, don't worry. My brain rots with JJBA content ideas still lmao. I'm just struggling a bit rn with finding the time to actually get them down and publish them. I do have hope though, that'll find that time soon enough though! So, don't think I'm done here just yet!>:)👍

[nikkxb]

Y'all, it's been a year.

I have some absolutely wonderful asks in my inbox. They've been bright moments over the last few months. I will get to them, but please know I see them.

I've written absolutely nothing since the Inu-spiration reverse bang in June. Not a single word. I'm not stressing about it, though I've received some lovely comments since then on a few of my fics. I've been slowly working my way through responding to those comments and I'll be taking each day as it comes. I have no promises. I know what I want to finish. I know what's important to me to work on. I cannot make any guarantees.

Work has been good. Stressful recently -- I switched over to an online booking system and have a small handful of clients who are fighting tooth and nail against the change. I knew this was coming and prepared for it, but it's still exhausting and frustrating to deal with. (On the flip side, it's been a fucking dream of an asset with a great majority of my clients.) And I'm getting busier, so there's that.

Personal life is...a handful:

Me and the husband are great. We're dealing with a few things in our relationship, but we're working through them and he's still my lobster.

My relationship with my family is great; their relationship, not so much. One sister has been having massive problems with her husband, to the point that we genuinely don't know if we'll see him next year for Christmas. It's been very stressful and very hard to talk about.

Two very close friends of mine are going through a divorce. It wouldn't be messy if he (my closer friend of the two) would accept the consequences of his actions and let her fucking go. But it seems like he's having to learn a lot of things the hard way and I'm not sure what will be left of our friendship when all's said and done.

Husband and I are in the process of buying the townhome we live in. It was sprung on us a little over a week ago and while I'm trying to keep everything organized, it's been a mess. And so incredibly stressful. It would be one thing if we were buying because we were ready to; another thing entirely to be buying because the alternative is to find another place to rent in the worst renting market I've ever seen.

I went to a book convention that was an amazing experience, spent a lot of money, bought a lot of books, met a ton of wonderful people. Started reading said books -- and I absolutely hated the first four I picked up. Definitely worried that I'll hate most of the books I bought, which has done wonderful things whenever I remember how much money I spent. /s (Silver lining is that those four books were only from two authors. Much easier to accept I don't like an author than a ton of unconnected books.)

My house is a mess. It's an absolute mess. The only clean room is our bedroom and I refuse to do anything but sleep and read in there. Everywhere else is cluttered and messy and disorganized and such a visual stress, I haven't been able to do anything. I'm sure once it's cleaned, I'll be able to decompress, but the house has been like this since the beginning of June and I don't know how to fix it.

That's the cut and dry of it. I tried to keep it condensed. I'm sure there's more.

A lot of good happened this year, too, but I'm mostly just letting y'all know I'm alive, I'm okay, and why I've been so silent. Hoping to see more of you in the new year.

Oh, did I miss anything? Is there really porn back on tumblr?

[stopdrunkdriving]

Podcast: Parents, Your Kids Will Love What You Love—So Love the Bible (William Osborne)

New Post has been published on https://drunkdriving.co.za/podcast-parents-your-kids-will-love-what-you-love-so-love-the-bible-william-osborne/

Podcast: Parents, Your Kids Will Love What You Love—So Love the Bible (William Osborne)

Podcast: Parents, Your Kids Will Love What You Love—So Love the Bible (William Osborne)

June 19, 2023

by:

Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Helping Our Kids Love the Bible

In today’s episode, Rusty Osborne explains how he has sought to model a genuine love for God in front of his kids, shares stories of hard moments he’s faced as a parent, and offers advice on how to answer your kids when they say things like “the Bible is boring.”

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | RSS

Topics Addressed in This Interview:

The Role of a Parent

What If My Kid Says That the Bible Is Boring?

What If My Kid Says That the Bible Is Confusing?

What If My Kid Says That the Bible Seems Unbelievable?

00:55 – The Role of a Parent

Matt Tully Rusty, thank you so much for joining me today on The Crossway Podcast.

Rusty Osborne Yeah, Matt, it’s great to be here. I appreciate you taking the time and getting a chance to talk about some important things.

Matt Tully As Christian parents—you’re a parent, and I’m a parent—we all want to help our kids come to a saving faith in Christ. We want to help them grow in their love for God, and we want to help them grow in their understanding of God’s word. And yet I think sometimes as parents, especially with young kids but I’m sure this continues as the kids get older, too, we might not always know what that’s going to look like and what that should look like. This can be true especially as our kids are growing and changing all the time and our family lives are getting more full and more busy and maybe even chaotic sometimes. It just seems like sometimes we’re at a loss as parents for how do I actually serve my kids in helping them to understand God’s truth and come to love God for who he is? To start us off, have you ever felt that way as a parent? Is that an experience that you can resonate with?

Rusty Osborne Absolutely. I think anyone who is raising children in the 21st century has felt the pressure of time and busyness weigh down on your family. As kids get older, they tend to get busier. We currently have four children: sixteen, fifteen, twelve, and eight. And so we’ve kind of walked through a lot. We’re not out of the parenting process yet. We’re still kind of in the throes of it right now.

Matt Tully In the middle of it.

Rusty Osborne But with our sixteen-year-old, we remember what it was like to have one child, and looking back on that, things seemed so slow and so peaceful. As our girls have gotten older and have gotten involved in high school events and extracurriculars and sports, and then the boys come along and they have their things, it’s very easy to go from Monday to Friday in today’s family without seeing your children, without engaging with them in any meaningful way, and certainly without talking to them about the importance of the Bible or even thinking about how the Bible impacts their day-to-day life. So, we have definitely felt that, we have wrestled with that, and continue to do so. So, I’m happy to talk about this. It is a topic that’s near and dear to me as a Christian parent, but certainly my comments don’t come from a place of having arrived or figured it all out. We are still evaluating week by week saying, That seemed to work. That was a failure. We’re trying new things as we go along.

Matt Tully It’s kind of sobering, to be honest, to hear you talk about how busy your kids’ lives get as they get older and into those teen years. I’m a parent of young kids—younger than yours—and sometimes for us it can feel like our whole lives revolve around our kids, conversations with our kids, and helping them get their breakfast and get dressed and get out the door. It can be easy to take for granted all that face-to-face time that we have with them where we are talking to them about all kinds of things. Is that something that you’ve noticed? Is there a sense that you wish you could go back to those earlier years when you had more of their attention?

Rusty Osborne I think that as I reflect on how I parented my oldest child versus how we’re engaging with our youngest child, there are some significant differences. But I told somebody one time that if I parented my first child the way that I now think about my fourth child, I probably would’ve just been a bad parent, because there’s a process that you go through as a parent. You’re learning how to engage kids, learning how they develop in different ways, and you yourself are developing through that process. And so I look back at the first years that we had kids and I just remember, as I reflect, I feel like I was in a very neurotic space, if that makes any sense. I was very super concerned about messing things up. That was in a way that I think is absolutely natural and in a way that follows what good parents do. Good parents love their kids. They want to do everything right. They don’t want to mess them up. So I think that’s a natural developmental space for young parents to have a little bit of that anxiety built around the thought of I don’t want to mess this kid up. I’ve got this huge role to play. All of that’s true. But as time goes on and you see that kid grow and you see those developmental changes happen, you start to see perhaps I had less and less to do with those developmental changes, and you start to get a little bit better idea of what your actual role is in this relationship in a way that now, four kids later, I feel like we’re much calmer as parents. I don’t feel like that’s attributed to laxity. I don’t think we’ve become lazy. I think we’ve just become more aware of when we need to engage and when we don’t need to engage, and just having different perspectives as those days go on. But there’s a little bit of a mourning process as you see your kids get older. My second daughter is fifteen, and thirteen through fifteen I’ve been a little sad at times. I’m like My buddy’s gone! We’re off to high school and we’re doing volleyball and basketball. She loves sports, and I love that she loves it, but it means I get less time with her, and there’s part of me that’s sad about that. But then also trying to think how do I push into this new stage of life and be a meaningful father? I don’t need to do the same things that I did when she was six. That’s not what she needs. So how do I transition with her into these years in helping her love God, love God’s word, holding her accountable in important ways, but walking with her through the good times and the bad times, and helping both of us grow as she gets older? A lot of those different perspectives I think develop over time as you see your kids grow and you have to think about what role do I have? Do I miss those days? Yes, but you love what they become in the process as well.

Matt Tully You mentioned the word “role” a couple times and the challenge that we can feel as parents in discerning what our role should be in our kids’ lives and in their development on all kinds of fronts. I want to ask that question in regards to when it comes to helping them develop a love for the Bible. Big picture speaking, how do you view our role as parents when it comes to teaching them to love God’s word and to then actually want to develop habits related to God’s word?

Rusty Osborne The one thing that has been true in our family, with regard to everything, is that our kids, by and large, love what my wife and I love. I grew up in North Carolina. I’m a Duke basketball fan. My kids love Duke basketball. We did not go through a discipleship program in how to teach them to love Duke basketball. I have been a fly fisherman my whole life. All four of my kids fly fish. I love working with and training pointing dogs. My boys are walking right beside me in the field, and they love the dogs as much as I do. There are so many things about our family that my kids love, and we never made them do it. It was never a regimented exercise, but they went, Mom and dad love this, and I want to know why they love it, and I want to explore this more fully, and I want to get to the bottom of this. But all that to say is that I think there’s an element of that that ties into how we introduce them to the Bible and introduce them to the Lord. First and foremost, our role as parents, I think, is to love God and to love God’s word. Eugene Peterson says, in talking about teenagers, he says they’re hypocrite alarms. They can smell a hypocrite a mile away, and the alarm goes off. And so there’s a part of parenting that just ups the ante on us as Christians that says Are you in love with the Lord? Do you love Scripture? That’s the big part. And I think that when I think about the parents that I witness and the friends and the relationships I have where I see parents who have parented well—not perfectly, but parented well—I think these are people who love the Lord deeply, and they love his word. And that, I think, is the first place that we begin as parents is we have to say, This starts with me. What are the deep desires of my heart? My kids are going to see that and they’re going to love those things. But I think as parents, we have to always begin to say, Are we leading by loving, or are we leading by instructing? It’s not that they’re either/or, but both have to be present, I think, for our kids to genuinely follow us in a real encounter with the living God.

Matt Tully When it comes to this topic of discipling our kids and helping them read the Bible and all of this, so often our mind does go to I need the didactic program. I need the materials, the training resources, the books. All of these can be so helpful and good, but we think in terms of teaching them rather than modeling it. Would you say it’s fair to say that what you’re getting at is that maybe a love for the Bible is more often caught than it’s taught? Is that a way to think about this?

Rusty Osborne Yeah, I think so. I am a college professor by trade, so I think about pedagogy, I think about learning strategies, and I think about teaching strategies a lot. Over the last few years I’ve been highly influenced by works like James K. A. Smith and others’ thinking about how we learn and how we process and how we’re formed spiritually and intellectually. And that’s impacted the way that I parent. I think about things like liturgy and structure, not just what’s the content that I’m giving my kids, but what are the inherent rhythms and liturgies of our home that are also communicating values to my children? What are the things that we repeat over and over again, and what is that telling them? I think that moves us more toward the language of caught, not taught. Now, again, I don’t think it’s an either/or. In thinking about the program and the method, the 20th century was the century of method. Everyone wanted the strategy and method: Give me the program. But programs exercised without wisdom can do just as much damage as not even having a program. When you develop a strategy or a program and you’re not being observant as to Is it working? Does it need to be tweaked? When do we stop? When do we start?—a program doesn’t substitute wisdom. I think sometimes that can happen if we go, Well, if I just get the right strategy from the right person, then I can put this parenting thing on autopilot, and my kid’s going to turn out great. And that’s just not how human beings work. Developing a human being is a very inefficient process. We’re not making widgets when we are raising kids; we’re engaging with complex image bearers with all kinds of capacities, with different skills, different abilities, different responses; and thank the Lord that God has equipped us with the ability to react and observe and respond to those things. So, I think a lot of parenting for me has moved away from trying to find just the right tool or the right method or the right strategy, but to start saying How do I engage in this moment? How do we respond in this situation? How do we steer toward wisdom and righteousness in this situation?*

Matt Tully You’ve painted a big picture about the heart disposition of us as parents and how that is going to then influence how we lead our children to love God’s word as well. Maybe answer the opposite side of that question: What should we not do in an effort to try to teach our kids to love the Bible?

Rusty Osborne That’s a great question, and I’m still learning answers to this question. I think some things that we have to be careful about are, like I said, I think we need to first off be careful about comparing our parental strategy and game plan to the people around us. Hopefully, if you’re a Christian then you’re living in Christian community and there are other parents doing things. I think there’s a real temptation for young parents to look around and try to go, Okay, well they’re doing this and they’re doing this and they’re doing this . . . and to begin to evaluate whether my parenting is doing the right thing or the wrong thing based on what I see from other people. I think that can be very problematic and very discouraging and unhelpful. Comparison is always going to be a problem, but also comparison can lead you to start being unkind to your own children, because it encourages you to stop seeing your child as a unique individual, as someone who’s going to have different ways of learning, different modes of responding, and different experiences that, frankly, other children may not have. We’ve seen that with our four kids. We only have four children, but within those four children we have a very broad range of learning ability, of reading ability, of emotional responses. I think we’ve had to adjust as parents to go, Okay, what was effective in helping our oldest child grow in understanding the knowledge of the Bible is highly ineffective in helping our third child grow in understanding and knowing God through the Bible. So, I think the first thing we have to be careful of is to not short circuit parenting by just looking around and comparing to what everybody else is doing. I think another thing we need to be careful about doing with the Bible is I think we need to be careful how we incorporate the Bible into discipline scenarios. I know that there are a lot of people who would encourage that if a child does something wrong, then we sit them down and then we point them to the the Bible verse where it explains what they’ve done wrong and walk them through that. And I think there certainly can be a place for that, but I think we also need to be really careful not to create this very negative association with a young child who thinks, Every time I get in trouble, I get sat down, then here comes the Bible. The end. It doesn’t take long for a young mind and heart to begin to associate this book with a heavy-handed punishment. And I’m not saying that we don’t talk about it, but maybe we just try to evaluate Am I allowing distance between addressing a behavior or a problem, and then talking about it from a biblical framework? Maybe it’s a five year old who has colored on the wall or something. It’s addressing the behavior, and then maybe a few hours later after the tears have been shed, after the hard work of parenting has been done, maybe it’s coming back and talking about Is that the way that God wants us to live? When we were doing that, do you think that’s the desire? Maybe allowing some distance between that, because it is easy for kids to begin to make that association, to start to see God as the one who’s the justification for my punishments in a way that perhaps we just need to be careful about how we incorporate the Bible into discipline. Not that judgment is not a reality, but I also would hate to think that I’ve taught my children to see the Bible and go Oh, that’s the book that comes with the gavel. That’s the book that comes with the punishment. I would say No, this is the book that comes with the remedy. This is the book that comes with the solution and the healing. And so trying to think about how to engage in those ways. And likewise, I think also being careful with how we force the Bible into the lives of our children. I think there are places where we want to encourage accountability. We can build structure into a kid’s life, but I think this is where we have to, as parents, start to read Am I beginning to push so hard that I’m starting to see a negative response to the Bible and no longer a positive one? And that can come with saying Well, we have these Bible verses and we’re going to memorize them and if you don’t get it done, then you’re not going to summer camp. Or If you don’t get these Bible verses memorized, no basketball practice. I think that can start to backfire in cultivating a love for the Bible. At the end of the day, we want our children to love God’s word. We don’t want them to read a Bible verse and make a face like they were just given a cup full of medicine. We want them to cherish it because the day is quickly coming when you’re not be there to spoonfeed for them what’s good for them. As one who is already looking at colleges for my oldest, it’s mind blowing. I’m going In a year and a half, she’s going to read her Bible because she wants to, not because of me. How, oh God, can I help cultivate that desire that when she’s nineteen and life’s falling apart in her first semester of college, she goes, ’I want to turn to my Bible’ instead of a podcast, instead of a friend, instead of all of these other voices in the culture that will tell her what to do? How can I encourage her to say, ’This is a word that’s good for you’—so that she spends the rest of her life pursuing it?

20:03 – What If My Kid Says That the Bible Is Boring?

Matt Tully That’s so good and so helpful. I’m just struck by how, as we’ve said before, there’s not a program here. There’s not a “five tips to success” kind of dynamic to this. This is years of cultivating a way of thinking, a way of living—hopefully primarily through seeing it in us as parents that has this effect. I wonder if now you could respond to a few more specific kinds of statements that we would hear from our kids. I kind of view this as a bunch of what if statements that parents might sometimes worry about. They’re waiting for their kid to come back to them with something like this related to the Bible, and they just feel like I don’t know how I would respond to these things. The first one would be What if my kid says that the Bible is boring? How would you counsel parents, briefly, to respond to that?

Rusty Osborne That’s a great point, and it’s certainly something I have heard in my life as a dad. I get that about church. It’s not uncommon for us to have a conversation about how church is just boring. One of the things that we have tried to encourage with our kids—first off, let me make a statement about that word “boring.” I think that in many ways, the missing ingredient of childhood today is boredom. We frequently tell our kids, if they say they’re bored, we’ll say That’s completely fine. Your life—

Matt Tully I’m sure they love to hear that!

Rusty Osborne Your life is going to be just fine. You have a good mind. You have lots of resources in this house. Go not be bored. You’re going to be just fine. Boredom leads to creativity. Figure it out. and so they’ve heard us multiple times say Boredom’s not that big of a deal. And so when they come to me and they go, Oh, reading the Bible’s boring or church is boring, I’ll come back to them and say, Well, that’s okay. There are a lot of important things that we do in life that we don’t do for the sake of entertainment. We are in this community and we’re in this room gathered with these people because something very important is happening. It’s okay that you don’t register the importance of that now. That’s perfectly fine, and if you’re a little bored, I’m okay with that and you’re going to be okay with that. And I think what we try to do is point them to the transcendent importance of what they’re doing in that moment. That helps them begin to cultivate a spirit that goes I’m not a Christian because it’s meeting my immediate need right now. I’m building a sense of the Christian faith that flows out of ideas that are more like loyalty and allegiance and faithfulness than immediate satisfaction. I don’t just read my Bible because it makes me feel better. I read my Bible because it’s good for me, and that’s the way that I respond to the God of the universe who has spoken. And so I think in those moments, and again, that’s not a heavy-handed discussion. We’re just trying to gently guide them into saying, Hey, it’s okay if you’re bored. I think we need to try to create a positive environment around the Bible. If a kid comes to me in a family worship context or a Bible-reading context like that in my house, I’m going Okay, am I maybe pushing too hard? Am I asking them to perhaps do more than they’re ready to do? So if I tell my eight year old that over summer vacation you can’t go play outside until you’ve read your Bible for twenty minutes, and he comes in and goes It’s so boring! I hate that! Part of me might step back and go Okay. Am I pushing that too hard? Do I need to reevaluate? How can I navigate that? So I think depending on the context we can think about how we might want to adjust or shepherd them through that feeling. But at the end of the day, it’s completely fine if they’re bored, and it’s completely fine if they don’t see the importance of what’s going on, as long as they know that we know why it’s important and what’s going on.

24:10 – What If My Kid Says That the Bible Is Confusing?

Matt Tully Here’s another what if statement that we might receive: What if my kid says the Bible is confusing?

Rusty Osborne Well, I think as a parent I would say You’re right. At times it is difficult. I don’t think there’s anything to hide as a parent. We don’t have to go to our kids assuming that we have all of the answers, and I think they’ll see through us pretty quickly if we try to have all of the answers. I would immediately follow up and go, Well, help me understand: What are you talking about? What part are you struggling with? I would try to steer that from just an overarching kind of emotional dismissal. To say Help me understand. What are you talking about? Is there a passage that you read that you were struggling with? What do you mean? And then that way you begin having a conversation about a specific issue that you might be able to address. But a kid who just goes The Bible’s confusing is just emotionally saying I don’t know what to do. I don’t like this. It’s not fun. So as a parent, I’m asking how do we push through that to identify a real problem? I remember one conversation with my youngest. One time I was tucking him in, he was pretty young at the time, and he said I want my brother to sleep in the room with me. I don’t want to be alone! And classic pastor-Bible professor that I am, I’m like Buddy, you’re never alone. You’re never alone. God is always with you. And then just on the mark he just goes But I want someone with a body! I need somebody with a body. And in this kind of moment of just truth-telling and honesty of a kid, he’s like Yeah, God’s here, but I want a body! I want a person that I can see! In that moment of honesty, I walked over to him, I gave him a hug, and I said I’ve got a body. Let’s talk about that. What does it mean that God has a body? The Bible tells us that God actually took on a body. And so in that moment of him being really frustrated that God was not in the room with him and he couldn’t see him, we were able to think about what does it mean that God came and dwelled among us and took on a body that we might know who he is more fully? So I think in those moments where kids are confused or frustrated, start to ask specific questions: What is it that you’re talking about? Is there a specific issue here that we can get at?

26:50 – What If My Kid Says That the Bible Seems Unbelievable?

Matt Tully Here’s one more what if statement that maybe is more relevant for slightly older kids who are thinking on a deeper level about God’s word and what it says. That’s the question What if my kid says that the Bible seems unbelievable? They’re reading through it themselves (maybe for the first time) or they’re reading some of the miracles or they’re reading about Christ’s resurrection, and they’re kind of wondering how do I know this actually happened? How would you respond to something like that?

Rusty Osborne That’s a great question, and I think it’s a great question to ask in this venue because I think that’s a question that’s every Christian parent’s nightmare—the moment that this cloud breaks over your head and you go, Oh my gosh! What if my kid isn’t a Christian? What I think immediately follows is this theological panic. There’s this real disorientation, and I think in that disorientation there’s a lot of temptation for us to react in rash ways. So, all of a sudden I’ve never thought that my kid couldn’t be a believer, and they’re asking questions about the faith, so we give a We don’t ask that question kind of response. Like We’re not going there. We shut it down. I think there’s a lot of temptation to go there out of this fear that goes Oh my gosh! What if my kid doesn’t believe like I’ve wanted them to and I’ve prayed for them to and like I do? I think the best response to that is to remember your own theology as a parent and to go I did not make this kid. I am not going to save this kid. This kid is a creation by God, who is going to be saved by God, and I have a role to shepherd and to steer and to instruct, but I can’t make them love the Lord and believe in the resurrection and believe in the virgin birth. I cannot produce that in my child. And I think once we remind ourselves what we already believe, it helps us respond in a much more loving, peaceful way to that person and say The Bible does call us to faith. It calls us to receive by faith things that we cannot explain. I have embraced those. Your mother has embraced those. This is part of what we believe life is centered around. I’ve told my children I can’t make you believe the things that I believe. That’s not God’s design for me as a father. My role as a father is not to force you to believe things and force you to love things. My role is to point you toward them, to steer you toward them, to shepherd you toward them, to show you the glories of the gospel. But you have to believe and receive this message of hope that comes in Scripture. And as a parent, I think that interaction, obviously, should drive us to prayer. It should be a wake up call. We immediately feel the limitations of what it means to be a parent—I can’t save my own kid. Oh God, have mercy! But also, I would say take a step back and think about your own spiritual journey. I think as a parent we’re so often tempted to hold our kids to a higher spiritual standard than we held for ourselves as we were being sanctified and growing in the gospel. I guarantee every person listening to this has had a moment where you have wrestled with the reality of God, with life after death, with is the gospel real? That is the stuff of Christianity. That’s the stuff of being an apostle, looking at Jesus with your own eyes. And so let’s be careful not to apply a spiritual pressure to our children that we have not even held ourselves to, and let them wrestle—that’s an important part of the Christian life—and know that our job as a parent is to walk with them through the wrestling and not try to give them answers to have them go around it or to sidestep it, but to look at them and go Sometimes this is tough. I will pray for you. Can I pray for you right now? Are there other things I can pray for you about? As your kids get older, you really do have to take more of a pastoral role that looks at that teenage daughter or that teenage son and goes I’m not here to fix you. I’m here to love you, I’m here to pray for you, and I’m here to walk with you through the hard things that life is going to bring. But I’m also here to point you to the hope that is in the gospel. And just trying to be proactive and pushing into that relationship when there’s a lot of life stage issues that are wanting the door shut, wanting the parent to stay out. But be willing to engage and go It’s okay if you’re wrestling. I’ve told my children I don’t want them to ever feel like they can’t talk to me about their theological questions. My heart would be broken if I felt like my teenagers couldn’t come to me and say, I’m having a hard time believing this. I would feel like I’ve done the wrong thing. I want them to feel Dad cares about me, and that if there’s any place I can go and talk about the struggles of my faith, it’s with him.

Matt Tully How do you balance giving your kid’s space to wrestle and encouraging that even to some extent, because we do want their faith to be their own? We don’t want them to believe just because we believe, but how do you balance that space with, on the other hand, being proactive as a parent, with pointing them towards the truth, pointing them towards the answers that we have come to and that we embrace as true? How do you that?

Rusty Osborne That’s a great question. The question throws you into the question of what method do we do. I’m a big proponent of classical education pedagogy. I think that there is a real reality to how children learn—moving from grammar to logic to rhetoric stages in development. I think that in the early years catechism is huge. I guess somebody could hear me and be like Man, this guy’s just like anything goes. That’s actually not true. In the early stages, we were very much intentional. We’ve read cover to cover as many children’s Bibles as we can get our hands on, our kids are doing catechism at school and at home, and they’re memorizing Scripture. So I think all of those things are extremely important. But it’s also much easier when they’re younger. Again, it’s just not as hard to get a six-year-old kid and say, Let’s do this! Let’s have fun! And they’re like Yeah! Time with dad! Time with mom! Let’s do it! And it’s fun then, but eventually that relationship does begin to change. And so that’s where I’m talking about that as they get older, forcing a thirteen-year-old to do catechism is now entering into a different parental space where we have to go Is that beneficial? Are we now still accomplishing the same thing with Suzanne sitting on the couch just shooting daggers with her eyes at dad the whole time while reciting ’To glorify God and enjoy him forever’? There’s some disconnect there that I think can be detrimental. But I think in those early stages, it’s definitely where we try to lay the foundation of Scripture memory, of just filling their life with the Bible in multiple ways. One of the things that I’ve come to love is our house is filled with animals. We have dogs, we have cats, we have chickens, we have pigeons. We’re regularly engaged with the animal world, and one of the things that I love talking with my boys about is I love to pray with them as we’re working with animals and to say things like, Hey guys, let’s just stop and let’s just thank God for puppies. Aren’t they just so fun? And they’re like, Yes! I think I’ve just helped them see that God is not the God of adults, that God is not the God of big, fancy things, but God loves puppies just like they do, that God loves their chickens just like they do, that God cares. I’m not getting into theological discourse here. There’s obviously a distinction in the way that God relates to the created world, but I think it helps my children come to know God as Creator, as God, as one who gives life, who gives good gifts. I want my children to grow up going, All of the good things that we have in life are from my heavenly Father, and I know how to stop periodically and just go, ’Thank you, God, for these good things that we had today.’ And so I think trying to build the Bible and build prayer into everyday activities becomes so important in those early days and in those early years. As life changes and kids grow into teenagers and they become more aware of everybody else around them, you now have laid a foundation that you can look at your twelve-year-old or your fourteen-year-old and stop and say, Hey, you know what? Let’s pray. Let’s pray about this. Let’s get our focus. I know there’s a lot of pressure. I know it’s a hard day. I know you’re getting ready to go into a tough situation. Let’s ask God to be with us here. And there’s context for that. There’s context for that, and that’s meaningful to them. That isn’t just an Okay, here’s a dad praying thing. They’ve grown in their ability to bring God into—and see God at work—in the everyday life that they’re living.

Matt Tully Rusty, thank you so much for helping us as parents and maybe as those who aren’t parents but nevertheless have young people in their life that they have an influence on—that they’re mentoring or working with in some way—helping us see how we can think about what it looks like to help kids come to love God and love his word in a deeper way. We appreciate it.

Rusty Osborne Absolutely. It’s been a joy.

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[happytroopers]

Origin Day // platonic 501st! Reader

Tw: alcohol use

It’s my 21st birthday and I want to go clubbing with the 501st

“Wait, isn’t twenty-one like a big deal for civvies?” Fives asked, watching you wrench a bolt tighter on the sliding door of a gunship in the large hangar of the Coruscant GAR barracks. Most clone troopers genuinely didn’t understand the sensationalized idea of birthdays (or as most people in the galaxy called them: Origin Days). The closest they had was when they were let out of the growth chambers. You shrugged, giving the wrench one last pull before wiping the sweat off your forehead.

“On some planets.” You hummed, “For some species. Depends on when the government deems your species old enough to drink alcohol.”

“So you can enlist in the military, but can’t go for a drink.” Echo asked, eye brows furrowing while Fives muttered something about that being bullshit.

You gave the gunship one last appraisal before deciding you had done all you could do. If they wanted those dents out, high command would have to sanction heavy equipment. Finally, you looked back to the Arc trooper duo.

“Which is why you’ve never seen me in 79’s.”

“Civie laws make no sense.” Fives stated bluntly, kicking himself off the crate he’d be lounging on. “So are you doing anything?”

“Well, my childhood friends live on a different planet, and my academy friends are all deployed at the moment.” You voice was strained as you stretched your arms over your head, “Aside from getting those AT-RT’s back in working order? Not unless you two have any brilliant ideas.”

Over your head, the two Arc troopers shared a look. They did in fact have an idea-though ‘brilliant’ was a little bit generous.

_______

“Don’t you two have an early call time tomorrow?” You yelled over the thumping music, subconsciously tugging at your outfit (you had forgotten how exposing civvie clothes felt compared to your military uniforms).

79’s was busier than usual according to Echo who was walking in front of you to part the crowd. Fives was behind you, guiding you with a warm hand on the small of your back.

“Yeah, but you don’t.” Fives answered with a smile in his voice. In front of you Echo nodded.

“We’ll manage.” He paused, pulling you in front of him and pointing to a back corner, “Besides, I doubt it’ll be that much of a problem.”

You eyes followed his finger to find an unexpected sight. Half of the 501st was gathered around a corner booth, even Captain Rex who rarely ever ventured to the club scene.

Fives and Echo watched your expression carefully, relieved when you broke into a laugh and your hands flew to your mouth.

“It’s not much but-“ Echo started in with something cheesy, but you cut him off, taking both his and Fives hands as you pulled them towards the corner.

“It’s perfect.” You promised. And it was. For some the party had already started: Hardcase and Jesse were clutching long necked bottles while they teased Tup. Kix and Rex were chatting over swirling low ball glasses of whiskey. And to your surprise, Dogma even come, even if he was just clutching a glass of water like a life preserver.

When they finally caught sight of you, you could hear their whoops and hollers over the music.

“Hey!” “There she is!” “Wooooo, (Y/N)!”

Amongst other greetings were chorused as you were pulled into the fold. Echo passed you off to Jesse who through an arm around your shoulders, easily pulling you to his side while Hardcase clapped a hand onto your back. Tup simply offered you a kind smile. They were all laughing and it was contagious.

Rex didn’t get up, but he did raise his glass to you with a nod and a smile. Dogma, who looked like he didn’t truly want to be there, at least managed a smile, even if it was a bit forced. You appreciated his presence, nonetheless. Kix slid out of the booth, fingers dipping into a pocket on his belt and producing a medium sized, clear gel capped pill before planing it in your hand. You took it, a little hesitantly, but looked up at him in confusion.

“It’s a hydration supplement. You’re gonna wanna take that if you want to function tomorrow.” He promised with a wink, offering the untouched glass of water. You followed his instructions and then the party really started.

While Kix had been being the responsible one, Hardcase had snuck off and had returning with a tray of nine shots that glowed a not-so-subtle neon blue. Because that’s what you should do- drink things that glow.

After placing them on the table, everyone took one of the tiny glasses (or in Dogma’s case was bullied into taking one), and looked to Rex expectantly.

“Well, Captain, aren’t you going to give a toast?” Fives chided, holding his shot up. Rex rose an eye brow, but mirrored the action.

“Alright. We’re very lucky to celebrate together tonight and even luckier to call (Y/N) our friend. Let’s drink to the 501st, to the Republic, and to many more years for (Y/N).” He announced very seriously and sincerely, locking eyes with you. It was almost enough to make you misty eyed- had Hardcase not immediately yelled.

“Hell yeah, I’ll drink to that! To (Y/N)!!” He shouted, and before you could changed your mind to raised the glass to your friends and threw it back. Surprisingly, the glowing liquor was sweet, a flavor you couldn’t quite place, but it did leave a burning trail down your throat. You coughed, at first, before shivering when the alcohol settled into your belly. The boys laughed at your expression.

“Well, if you’re not gonna drink it,” Hardcase shrugged, plucking the tiny glass out of Dogma’s hand and putting it in yours, “the birthday girl should.”

It was going to be a night.

And it was.

There were a couple of shots thrust into your hands periodically through the night that sustained the bubbly warmth moving through you blood. Between the shots, Fives and Echo did a good job of convincing random soldiers to buy you drinks. There was dancing and laughter, enough to last a lifetime.

Rex was the first to leave, handing you a glass of water and reminding you to pace yourself before looking sternly at Fives and Echo, “You two makes sure she gets home safe, that’s an order.”

Dogma was next, slipping out shortly after Rex. But not before you convinced to dance with you. It was stiff and awkward, but you managed to get him to laugh before the song was up. After Hardcase loudly boo-ed him for ‘wussing’ out, he wished you a happy Origin Day and reminded you of the call time for the next day.

That was when Jesse delivered you a fruity little umbrella drink, and coincidentally that was when night became a little fuzzy.

Fives, Echo, Jesse, Hardcase, Tup, and Kix took turns dancing with you, trading you around. Jesse even scared some shiny off when they tried to ease into your dance, getting a little too handsy for his taste. At one point, Jesse and Hardcase had you hoisted onto their shoulders as Tup waited ready to catch you if they dropped you. Before you knew it, the bartender was calling last call.

Then there were flashes of the journey home. Stumbling out of 79’s with the rest of the late night crowd, not being able to flag a taxi big enough for seven, deciding to walk, getting distracted by greasy street food, tripping over your own feet bad enough that Kix had to patch up your scraped up knees, and winding up at the Clone barracks being carried on Echo’s back, fast asleep. The only thing you remembered from the barracks was passing a group of clones in black and red armor, and one of them muttering, ‘regs...’ in disdain. By the time they realized they forgot to take you home, they were too tired to remedy it.

And that’s how you woke up in Hardcase’s bunk, with the said solider crashing on top of Tup in the bunk below you. Fives and Echo were slumped against each other, sitting on the floor. Kix was the only one where he was supposed to be and he was sleeping very soundly. Jesse was nowhere to be found.

None of you made it to call on time.

[mrkcore]

𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐘𝐎𝐔 - 𝐥.𝐦𝐤

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: mark lee x gn!reader

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: idol!mark, established relationship

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: angst + fluff (comfort)

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠(𝐬): insecure reader, depiction of a panic attack

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 0.8k

𝐚/𝐧: this was a request from an anon from a very long time ago, and i finally got around to finish it (if you're reading this, tysm for the kind words <3). hope you all enjoy :D (it’s been a while since ive written for mark eheh)

you don’t know what got into you today.

maybe it was because you’re looking in the mirror too hard. maybe it’s because mark is getting busier and busier. maybe it’s because you’re thinking too much.

but your head and heart can’t stop throbbing.

you know it’s not mark’s fault. it’s his job and he gave you a fair warning about this when you confessed to him and started dating. but you can’t help it, he’s too perfect.

there are so many other girls and guys that are prettier, more handsome, stronger, skinnier, more talented, overall just perfect. and mark is collaborating with all of them, seeing them at music shows, having schedules with them, spending time with them.

and that makes your head pound even harder.

can you even compete? does mark even like you anymore? will he leave you for someone better? maybe you should leave first before it hurts too much when he leaves.

you look outside and it’s already really late, and the time on your clock tells you you’re right.

2:33 AM.

mark’s schedule should have ended 50 minutes ago, he’s usually never this late without telling you.

is today the day? where mark tells you that he doesn’t love you anymore?

you can’t breathe.

your body crashes to the floor but you’re too numb to feel any pain in your legs. your lungs feel like they’re filled with thick air and you’re gasping for air as tears are flooding your eyes. your ears are ringing and you can’t make it stop.

“yn?”

and suddenly the ringing is gone.

your tears falling down your face and your eyes are red as you turn to see mark crouching beside you, his practice bag forgotten at the front door.

“it’s so late, why aren’t you in bed?” the worry on his face makes the tears fall again. “hey, hey. what happened? did you fall? are you okay?”

he’s wiping the tears off your face as they keep coming, and pulls you into his chest.

“why are you home so late?” your breathing is still laboured and you’re still sniffling.

“i was going to let you know but my phone died.” he’s stroking your hair, but it’s making your heart clench even more. “got a new schedule. i’ll be mcing for music core with mina from gugudan and we were just discussing some stuff.”

your heart stops.

see, you called it.

“baby, why are you crying again?” the genuine concern in mark’s voice makes you feel guilty but your emotions are overflowing your mind.

“you’re going to leave me, aren’t you?” you cry into his chest.

“what? baby,” mark caresses your face while you look up at him, eyes still misty. “did it happen again?”

“she’s probably so much prettier and more talented than me.” you sob as you try to hide yourself into his chest again.

“hey, look at me.” mark grabs your chin with his fingers so you face him. “i’m dating you for a reason. i love you, you, you’re all i need. i chose you because you’re beautiful, talented, loving, caring, and you’re just the kindest soul ever. who cares if there are people who are better than you, because the only person i want is you. you’re the one i want to spend my life with. so have a bit of faith in me, alright?”

you feel so guilty. 

“i’m sorry.” your head hangs.

“no, no, don’t be. it’s alright.” his chest is so comfortable. “just remember that i love you so much and you’re the only person ever in my life that i’ve ever thought of a future with, spending my days with you while we get old, and i’m too much of a grandpa to show up on stage dancing.”

you fight back a laugh.

“are you laughing at me?” mark glares at you.

“no…” but your laughter can’t be contained.

“alright, how about i wash up and get changed and we can go to bed?” mark kisses your forehead as he stands up. “how does that sound?”

you nod your head as his arm wraps around you as you guys make your way to the bathroom.

as he’s washing up, he’s talking about his day, practicing, and how the latest comeback is going. he’s very excited to promote with the dreamies again, but you can tell he’s more tired, even though he’s always insisting he’s fine.

“i know i’ve said this, but i’m really sorry about today.” you’re burying yourself into his chest again when you guys are in bed.

“you know i’ve said this, never apologize, it’s okay, don’t worry, it could happen to everyone. sometimes i worry about losing you, so don’t be sorry. you can always come and talk to me about anything that’s bothering you.” his hand strokes your hair and he’s looking at you lovingly as you look up at him. “and always remember that i love you so, so, so, so, so much. it’s only you, you’re the one i want, forever and ever, until the day i die.”

he kisses your forehead as you fall asleep cozily in his arms.

i’d really like some feedback so feel free to reblog or comment anything  :D

send in an ask or comment here to be added to the oneshots taglist!

© mrkcore. 2021 — reposts of my work is not permitted.

[saturnsstufff]

The Empress (pt.IV)

Mmm. Blood for blood god, yes?

Warnings: mentions of abuse, poison, death, swearing

   The palace was a bit busier after the evening you announced your new employment. After the servants herd there would be a trip, they were mostly preparing for Techno’s, and Phil’s leave. Two days weren't much to you, but to Techno and Phil? They were busy days. Techno ended up stealing Phil from your side during those days, so instead you spent your time with Wilbur. 

   Wilbur was a brilliant child. For being twelve he already had a large understanding of how their kingdom worked. Not only that, but when questioned he could also tell you about other countries and nations. He didn't play up his intelligent, but he also didn't dismiss what he knew.

   Tomorrow was the day that Techno, Phil and you had planned to leave on. Phil did walk you to breakfast that morning, but Techno and Phil didn't waist time eating. They mostly hurried through, leaving little room for conversation, then left to Techno’s study. Leaving you and Wil alone for the day again. You didn't mind that though, yesterday you spent your time lingering over his shoulder well he did his studies. The studies, though sounding boring at first were actually pretty interesting. You had a education, however, the one you received was very basic. You were taught to read, write, and even shown basic math, but beyond that you weren't pressured to learn more. No one in your village was. This wasn't because your village viewed education less to survival. But mostly because your village was tiny, there were no great scholars. Most children were taught by there parents, like you, your mother taught you everything. Where Wilbur, at twelve was learning about different potion ingredients and there properties. You at the same age had just finished basic fractions. But that was ok, education wasn't something to compare, everyone learns differently and at different speeds.

   Well you maneuvered around the casual tables, bookshelves and sofas, he responded. “Oh! well, you see, Phil wants all of his kids to be respectful, especially to women” you nodded, ’most parents prefer that.’ you mused to yourself. The two of you walked through the library to a room in the back. This is where Wil did his studies. It was just a private room, mostly made so no one could disturb the individual reading inside. “Our mother, she was really kind- you would have liked her- and her most defiantly would have liked you” He was just loosely rambling off, but it was adorable, he had a bright smile. Well you listened, something told you, not many people sat and talked with him. “When Phil met our mother he always told us of how poor her home life was, she wasn't treated very nicely, you see.” Wil took the door to the study and opened it for you two. Both of you moseying inside, side by side. When you two found the sofa you sat down easy, mostly having to readjust after. Unlike you Wil half threw himself onto it with a little squeak of the cushion. “When Dad found out mother was carrying me, he quickly took her away from her home. Anytime he mentioned her parents you could have sworn he wanted to kill them. Dadza doesn't get mad, but when he does... it’s not exactly pleasant.” Wil had swallowed a bit thickly at that last comment. Letting it linger in the air.

   You walked with Wil towards the Library, the hall’s were a tad chillier due to the fact the sun wasn't out today. In its place was just grey clouds, offering more snow to the already maxed out ice cube you stood on. When you took the handle to open the door for Wil, he took it from your hand quickly. After grabbing it, he stumbled into profusely apologizing for his spur of the moment behavior.

“So sorry (y/n), it’s just, if Dadza caught me slacking on my manners... He wouldn't be too pleased.” You tilted your head slightly as he opened the door fully. Exposing the Ancient Book lined walls. The stale smell of paper, parchment, and the occasional ink hit you. The library was rather large, but then again, most things within this palace tended to be. The library did have a warmth to it, and a welcoming feeling. The type where if your not careful, you could get lost inside for hours at a time. In the corner rested a larger than normal fireplace, The attached Chimney ran to the celling, lined With thick Rocks and stones. The crackling and popping of the wood burning within was a very comforting white noise.

   “this might seem off, but, what manners?” they way you said it may have sounded wrong, but you meant it in the best way you could. Or more the less for him to expand on the manners he was talking about.

   “I'm not sure if I can ask, but, Techno looks older than you, did... He live with your mother when she was with her parents?” Wil shifted to face you a bit more. Putting his heel up on his knee. well he rested his elbow on the arm of the couch, he moved his head to rest in his hand. 

    “No, Techno was adopted. When dad was in the Nether he raided a lost fortress. from what he explained, there was just a toddler roaming around.” Your heart clenched slightly, you couldn't imagine leaving a toddler alone, none the less in a place like the nether. you have never been there, but the stories you’ve herd were enough to tell you the danger. “Since he’s a hybrid of a Piglin Brute and human, none of the other Piglins would touch him. So Dadza did, as Dadza does. he took him home.”

   You thought back on this a moment. Techno had a godlike amount of strength, not to mention how tall he was. Of course he was a Hybrid. You felt a bit stupid now for not picking it up. “Just, don't tell Techno I told you, he doesn't like his name being discussed behind his back” You nodded. Wilbur’s face grew into a smile. “This can be our secret” you nodded and smiled back.

   “our secret” The more you talked to Wil, you discovered he was a lot like Philza. The two had the most contagious smile you’d ever seen. The only difference you assumed was he had his mother's features. Phil had bright keen blue eyes, well Wilbur had deep beautiful brown eyes. Another difference was there facial structure. You two were quiet a moment before you spoke up. You had been curious of where their mother was, there were paintings of her. But she was no where around. The way Wil talked about her made you assume she had passed. “what happened to your mother?”

   Wilbur’s eyes saddened briefly before he- what you assumed- forced himself to contain. “Oh, well... Phil and Mom had a dinner one night with some other world leaders.” he paused a bit rubbing his neck. “It was supposed to be peaceful. but someone from the German Empire didn't want us to be allies. so he poisoned our mother’s food.” He started slowing down with the story as he went on. “Like you said with your father (y/n), you were too young to understand? That's how it was for me. I was only four. I didn't understand why Techno and Dad were so angry.” he wiped his eyes as they welled up, one eye let a tear fall. “They didn't keep me in the room long. As soon as mom started choking, they started yelling. One of our allies’, his wife, had taken me out of the room before it had escalated any further.”

   Your heart fell heavy, a pit forming in your stomach. you couldn't empathize with loosing a parent. especially at such a young age like that. You could easily tell Wil wasn't over his mothers death. The way he looked at the ground with such hurt, it genuinely pained you so see the happy boy like this. You moved yourself closer to his side and hugged him tightly, showing him the reassurance he needed. You didn't respond for a little bit. letting Wil express what emotions he had possibly bottled up. After a bit when you felt him pull back, you just kept your arm around his shoulder. You weren't his family. but you hoped that for what company you offered, it made him feel at least a bit better. “I'm sorry Wilbur…” was all you could muster. The atmosphere weighed heavier now. With the sadness of pressed memories lingering, the two of you didn't talk. instead you simply sat in silence.

   “So what’s France like?” you asked curiously, taking a bite of your mashed potatoes.

   By dinner that evening Wilbur and you had already promised each other that you wouldn't speak of what happened in the studies. He didn't want Techno on his back for opening up, or that he also cried a bit. You were ok with keeping it between you two, Wilbur had confided in you something very personal, the least you could do was respect his wishes.

   Dinner had gone by smoothly, the chatter between Wilbur and you had picked up quite a lot. You could tell this made Phil happy to see the two of you getting along. Especially since you now technically live with them. When you first arrived to the palace, dinner’s were kind of awkward, since only Phil and you really talked. But now it seemed that Techno was the only one that wouldn't partake in the conversations. He would put a word or two in. But mostly dinners were spent with Wil and you talking about whatever came to mind.

   Wil was hurrying to swallow to try and respond. “Oh! you’d love it there (y/n)!” Phil slightly chuckled at Wil. “Its really scenic!” Before Wil could ramble off about France and it’s perks, Phil had chimed in.

   “It is a beautiful place, but were not going to any specific places. were only going to the countryside's. We know that much” Wil and you cocked your head’s slightly. ‘what’s out in the country side?’ You mentally questioned, but Wil instead asked it aloud.

   “Not that the countryside isn't beautiful- why not stop by the towns?” Wil questioned, his brow furrowed. waving his fork between Techno and Phil for his answer.

   “The cities don't have what I need” Techno said plainly, at that Wilbur shot back with a remark.

   “mmn, like a girlfriend?” you couldn't help but laugh at the way Techno turned to face Wilbur. Since he still eats with his mask. you could only see his lips, to which Techno made a ‘heh?’ before he compiled his answer fully.

   “Keep it up I’ll take you to France and punt you out of my plane.” Phil laughed with you on that one. Although Techno was pretty stoic and monotone, over the last couple of days lately he’s been showing more of his ‘Brotherly love’ as Phil call’s it. you had a feeling that Techno and Phil were going to miss Wilbur during there trip. or, at least you would for sure. After Wilbur laughed a bit he got serious again.

   “But really, what are you looking for. there’s not many things in the countryside besides the occasional mansion or farm. Kind of boring if you ask me” Techno hummed in response. Appearing like he was aware of what was in the country already. Since Wil couldn't work a answer out of Techno he simply dropped the subject, viewing it no longer worth the push. Instead he started back on his steak, Phil picking up the conversation.

   “Those new clothes should be in your room tonight, (y/n)” you looked up and swallowed your mouthful. nodding before you answered.

“mhn! oh! right, thank you again for them. Are you sure my old pair wouldn't cut it? I’d hate to ruin a new pair of clothes on a side trip” Phil waved his hand in response, as if waving away your worry.

   “awh, I wouldn't worry to much on it. Besides, now that you work for us, you have to be official n’ shit” He grinned at you. “Besides, your clothes were nice for your village, but France and Russia have a bit different climates.” You nodded casually. The idea of visiting new places had you a bit giddy. Yes, you missed your home, but being with the royal family so far has been utterly pleasant.

   “do you have a certain time you would like to leave?” you questioned, your eyes dancing between Techno and Phil for your answer. Techno didn't look up from his food, expecting Phil to answer for him.

   “we’ll probably just end up sending a servant to wake you up. We don't have a specific time yet, but we know it will probably be early. Mostly so we can reach land on time. Techno has the map’s ready for tomorrow with the stops marked. fuel n’ stuff will probably draw us back time wise.” Phil poked at his food well he talked, moving a bit of the food to a nice size bite. “We don't have a designated time we have to return. But we also don't want to be gone from the palace long.” you tilted your head a bit, looking to Phil.

   “why don't you want to be gone long?” You assumed it was because they liked being in the comfort of their own home, but you also had a feeling it was something beyond that. Phil’s brow had came together in a bit of... frustration? 

   “we cant be gone long because the Governor's get antsy..." this was the first time you herd Phil's voice drop. It wasn't his casual light hearted tone, instead it was replaced with a deep, meaningful, yet precise tone. He knew what he wanted to say, and he knew exactly what he had to say. "We can't take Wilbur with us since he’s too young. It's also best to have someone to look over the palace in our absence."

   You set your fork down as you finished your plate. Mimicking how techno piled his plates. "Why do they get antsy?" You couldn't help your curiosity on this matter. ‘Did the Governor's not like them gone?’

   "Because they feel Wilbur is more fit to Rule. It's utter bullshit" Phil had a lot of pressed emotion on that topic. You could tell just from how he now handled and moved his fork. Usually he had a easy grip, loose moving it about his plate. But now his knuckles were a tad white, and his grip was much more secure. "Don't mistake my words, Wilbur could rule. He'd be a bloody brilliant king too. But Techno is my oldest son. The crown falls to him. Plain and simple. But They think, that because Techno isn't my blood, that it doesn't count." His words started becoming sharper and more hateful. He dropped his fork on his plate at this point out of anger. Even Techno who never moves his head much, Or talk for that matter, had moved his head to face Phil. Techno addressed his father.

   "Dadza..." you were a bit shocked, his tone wasn't as monotone. His voice showed his concern, or maybe his understanding. Phil only looked at his plate before he looked up with a breath.

   "I cant leave Wil because they pressure him. They pressure him into the thought of marriage with his best friend, into dethroning techno, last time the fucker's brought up killin’ tech and I" Phil leaned back in his chair a bit.

   Phil sighed again. Looking up at Wilbur with kind eyes, the hate from his previous thoughts wiped free. "I hate leaving him with that much pressure. He's only twelve".

   After the dinner everyone slowly retired to their rooms. Techno had stolen Phil again for some last minute run by plans, so in his stead Wilbur walked you to your room. You both didn't Talk long however, you both were aware that you would be up early the next day. Oh yeah, you were definitely up early. The sun hadn't rose yet and you were already being shaken awake by one of the maids. Telling you that Techno and Phil were patiently waiting. you hurried to change not wanting to leave them waiting any longer. 

   When you saw them in the hall you had just thrown your cloak and cape over your shoulders. The new attire Phil had made for you was just mostly more layers. This way if you got warm you could shed a few, or vise versa when you were cold.

   “I'm so sorry I kept you waiting-” you stopped mid sentence you couldn't believe what you saw. If anyone could have seen your face, they may have assumed you had witnessed a murder for the way your jaw hung open.

   There stood Techno in front of you, Phil by his side. But that's not what had your mouth open. Techno’s mask was long discarded, and by the gods was he good looking. Maybe not in the typical sense of beauty standards, but to you he was ethereal. He had scars, yes, but that only added to him. Maybe if he didn't have the scars he would have blown the beauty standard of Handsome, but speaking for yourself you prefer him with the scars. You definitely prefer the scars. There was a small scar over his lip. Then one larger one across his brow bone that dragged down to his cheek. From how the larger one appeared, you could only assume how long it took for it to heal. His eyes were delicate, but they danced ablaze. they were brown, but almost borderline red tinted. Without his mask you could see that he had a rather soft, natural appearance. He was young, younger than you assumed. He looked only about seventeen. The way he was dressed made him look like a casual, young gentleman you would have found on the street. you almost couldn't believe he was the feared Emperor. He must have noticed your lingering eyes, because his lips moved into the ever slightest bemused smirk. When you saw his expression you couldn't help the heat that flushed your cheeks. Worst of all is you could feel your heated cheeks, and that just made you redder from embarrassment. If this was how the trip was going to start, you were in for a long bumpy ride.

   “Hello, princess” was all he said. He was purposefully poking at you now. He just learned he had a big effect on you, and oh boy was he ready to torment you with it. You could only avert your eyes, you had nothing to say against that. You didn't even know where to begin with it all. it took you a moment to process. Phil still stood beside Techno, his hand rubbed at his mouth a bit to muffle the chuckle he had.

   “w...where’s your skull?... a-aren’t you traveling with it?” oh great, yeah your voice definitely, wasn't taking your side on trying to compose yourself. Techno hummed, he was really amused now.

   “Hm? Here I thought you would have preferred this... what a shame, I even shaved.” techno ran his large but delicate hand over his jaw and neck, the rings on his fingers stuck out against his skin. Phil laughed vocally now. The little shit was enjoying this. techno adjusted his stance and crossed his arms. He just held a bemused smirk, oh you so wished nothing more than to rub it off. You didn't care if he was a royal, if you thought you could take him, you would have.

   “Ok techno, that's enough, don't want her too red now. she might try and off ya’” Oh don't worry Phil you already thought about it. “don't worry about making us wait either kiddo, we had to get a few things ready anyway” you looked up at Phil as your cheeks finally started to return to normal.

   “What were you getting?” you inquired, your brows slightly furrowed.

   “This” Techno said, offering a sheath to you. You looked up to him and back down to it. It was a sword, not the one you made, but a different one. “We cant have you defenseless on your trip with us” You hesitated. you knew this was the wrong time to admit that you didn't know how to fight with a sword. You gently took it, parting the blade from its sheath to look it over. It was well made that's for sure, basic Iron, but still strong.

   “Your Imperial Majesty...” you were thankful for the sword but, again. you didn't know how to use it. you made them, but you were never taught on how to use one. Your mother forbid it, saying that you already took a man’s trade, there was no need for you to dirty yourself further down the path. “I... I cant...” Techno’s brow lifted in question. “I... d-don't know how to use it...” You felt shame take over you. Fully prepared for them to laugh at you. Instead Phil offered you a slightly surprised look. Techno only made a ‘Heh?’.

   “You don't know how to use a sword?” you could only shake your head, looking down slowly. Phil placed his hand on your shoulder reassuringly, moving his head down so he could face you. “Hey... Hey, your ok... Tell ya’ what. Well were out on the trip, we’ll show you ok? It’s still good to carry a sword, just incase things go side-ways. But I promise we’ll make sure you don't have to use it then, ok?” you nodded slowly.

   “O-ok, I'm still sorry...” Phil only shook his head, explaining you had nothing to be sorry for. He gently took the sword from you and put it back in it’s case. He told you to lift your arm’s, so that's what you did. He easily maneuvered the belt around your waist and secured the sword your hip. Almost like he would have done to his own kids. The weight of it would have to be something to get used to, but you were thankful that they were not mad or disappointed in you.

   The three of you walked to where all the planes were kept. this is where Phil offered you a choice. “Would you like to ride with Techno or I?” Oh, so you had to pick. You gave them a brief blank look. 

   “I figured I would be riding with you, Phil” You did assume you were just going to ride with him, but you also didnt want to be with techno if he was strickly in a teasing mood. Phil only smiled and nodded. 

   “Alright’ lets get going then” was all he said. Techno walked passed you and Phil. Making his way over to his plane, there was a heavier cloak waiting on the wing. Techno’s plane was different from the other ones, not physically. His had a crown on the side along with the signa, probably to shownit was the Rulers. He effortlessly threw the heavy cloak over his shoulder and stepped up on the wing. His arm reaching out to pull himself up. jumping into the cockpit easily.

   Phil handed you a similar cloak. “it’s colder right now due to the sun being down. you will definitely want this.” you nodded and took it with a ‘thank you’. well you put it on Phil had stepped up onto the wing. pulling his cloak on. He offered his hand down again like he did the last time you flew. His wings were spread out behind him, enjoying the freedom they had before they would be confined. when you took his hand he pulled you up effortlessly. letting you steady yourself before he lifted you up to the cockpit, assisting you in. when you were all situated the planes roared to life. Techno faced Phil and sent a nod. A wordless que. Phil sent a nod back before they both started moving together. Soon before you knew it, you were back in the air heading home.

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