#max is objectively the more bold one when it comes to touch or talking or shit like that

[maxthesillyy]

[theblekromantik]

somewhere new

Erik Stevens x Black Reader

a/n: hello lovelies, i hope you’re well and i hope that you enjoy this! i’ve been experimenting with writing lately, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated!!!

summary: you and Erik go decide to go grocery shopping, but you switch things up a little

warnings: fluff-ish with some sexual tension and implied smut

word count: 3189

A booming,

“Yo, ma!”

Accompanied by a knock at the door rattles you, causing you to drop your eyelash into the sink. Your good, very expensive eyelash that requires much focus in order to be applied to your upper lash line.

Grunting and twinging your face in disgust of the sight before you, you fish it out of the sink, blowing on it to determine if the glue is still salvageable.

“Come on, E! Five minutes!” You respond with your mouth slightly parted, a strange requirement for impeccable eyelash placement.

“Princess, we gotta hurry up before the store closes,” Erik protests, pulling up his sleeve to check his diamond-encrusted AP watch. It’s almost seven o’clock, and Erik hated shopping minutes before a store closed. It made him feel like he was being rushed to gather his items and head to the register.

You and Erik frequently ran errands together, only this time you were grocery shopping. Staying in was nice and all – really quite enjoyable – but an end had to come to the endless Netflix bingeing and takeout from your favorite spots. You both, mainly Erik, decided that it was time for a nutritious, home-cooked meal, one that wouldn’t lead you down a road of clogged arteries and hypertension. But Erik was a phenomenal chef, so you could hardly complain that your ongoing DoorDash expenditure had been interrupted.

“Damn! One second!” You holler. “One second…there.”

You step back and look into the mirror, admiring yourself. Thirty minutes of hard work and determination had really paid off! You grab your phone from the sink’s surface and proceed to snap some photos of yourself.

SHUTTER! SHUTTER! SHUTTER! SHUTTER!

Beauty must always be captured, no matter what the time restraint.

“Princess! You taking pictures in there?” The dreaded man pounds on the door, harder this time. Banging, nearly shaking the hinges out of the door until you swing it open.

And there you are, dolled up and all, from the 26-inch deep wave hair to the Adidas tracksuit, the top zipped down nearly to the level of exposing the full extent of your breasts. Just the way you liked it.

Erik can hardly contain himself as he looks further down at you, ogling how your recently-manicured toes fit perfectly between each slot of your sandals. Man, he knew you were one for dressing up, but to the grocery store? Maybe he needs to step his game up.

“Well?” You jest. “You were so loud banging on the door, you got nothing to say now?”

Catching his lip underneath his teeth, he smugly looks you over once more, trying to gather words to say, for you’ve left him speechless.

He inches closer to you, “My babygirl likes to talk back, huh?”

“Yup, she do,” Boldness courses through you, nearly shattered as you maintain eye contact with your boyfriend.

His eyes were boulders, but you were just as unyielding. This game the two of you liked to play – this perpetual exchange of power – rarely ever ended with you emerging victorious. And you knew this, but you wanted to have your fun.

Finally, though smirkingly, you divert your gaze to your phone, shuffling through your gallery to decide which photos to keep, which photos to delete, and which photos to post.

“You look beautiful, Princess,” Erik chuckles after pressing a kiss onto your lips. “Now let’s go.”

While you knew you had lost the battle in the bathroom, you couldn’t wait to enjoy the war you and Erik would have in the bedroom later.

–

“Shotgun!” Erik shouted as you were fumbling in your purse for your keys, making a sprint for the car through your apartment complex’s parking lot.

The sun was setting beneath the horizon, and it illuminated the sky a burnt orange, a hue that began to embellish the surfaces of each object it touched – buildings, vehicles, windows, trees, the reflective skin of Erik’s custom-designed Air Max 97s as he raced further away from you.

After some time, your nimble fingers reach the item of your search, which results in a chime. You pull the keys out, contemplating whether to unlock the car doors for dreaded man in order to relieve him from the heat of the California sun, or let him suffer. Though it was setting, this sun still could extract a cup of sweat from one’s body. But hey, Erik was grown, he could wait.

You strut up to the car to see your boyfriend leaning on the door, panting, condensation forming on his forehead.

You release a sound of triumph, “I was gonna drive anyway.”

The car unlocks with a chirp, and you open the door and sit down. Dumbfounded, Erik was clutching the hood of the car still, trying to catch his breath.

“You getting in, or…”

He opens the car door and slumps down into the seat.

“You didn’t have to have a nigga looking dumb, baby.”

“I don’t think you need me for that, E.”

Erik snickers, “So it’s like that?”

“Yeah, it’s like that,” you tease, pressing the car to start and reversing out of the lot.

The two of you were buckling in for a long evening, and quite frankly, you couldn’t wait to see how it would progress.

–

As you drive on the road, the city and all its structures – both new and old – vanish behind you as a multitude of cool currents of air whip into the car through the windows, blowing your hair in all sorts of directions.

The vehicle vibrates as you blast a playlist full of new releases through your aux, and Erik grips your thigh as he sings to you, gold canines flashing and all.

You gently place your foot on the break, easing the car to a stop before the upcoming red light.

Erik, nearly louder than the music, starts to grind on the seat à la Magic Mike, and you couldn’t help but to laugh at the dreaded man and his silliness, a behaviour that is a pleasant break from his usual brooding nature.

But your laughter is cut short by a car honking behind you, indicating that the light had just turned green. You roll your eyes, because it had literally just turned green, and you press on the gas, revving your vehicle to the speed limit.

You pass another number of buildings a before making a sharp left turn.

“Shit!” You mumble to yourself.

You had almost missed the turn.

“Babygirl, that wasn’t the turn. Where we going?” Erik questions, for the route you’re taking was not your usual one.

“A little change of plans. I wanted to go somewhere else this time.”

“’Somewhere else’?” Erik probes. “What’s wrong with Ralph’s?!”

Now this took Erik by surprise. He’s genuinely concerned about your decision. To him, Ralph’s is King.

“Nothing, just wanna try something different.”

Your boyfriend clutches his heart, feigning a heart attack. You snort and turn into the parking lot. Both the wind and the car’s engine settle as you drive into a spot and press the vehicle off.

“Trader Joe’s?!” Erik cries. “What they got up in there?”

You exit the car, grabbing your purse from the backseat. “Stop complaining. Let’s go.”

–

If boredom could be personified, it’s spitting image would be Erik, for he rests his forearms on the bar of the shopping cart, eyes drooping as he observes the eccentric packaging of Trader Joe’s products.

Picking up a container of salsa he says, “Why all this shit organic?”

But you just suck your teeth and let him sulk behind the cart, ignoring him and all his grumbling.

“And this,” His gaze sets upon another display, “Who the fuck needs all these types of dried fruit? Probably taste like tumbleweed anyway.”

“Yo, stop moaning and groaning over there,” You shoot back at him, grabbing two packages of dried mangoes and placing them into the cart.

But Erik persists, dragging his feet across the smooth, concrete floor.

Minding the grocery list you and Erik had created earlier on your phone, you head deeper into the produce section, searching for some leafy greens and other ingredients that would contribute toward Erik’s signature salad. He walks off with the cart, gathering some tomatoes and bell peppers before making his way into another section of the store.

You, on the other hand, stand in front of the illuminated display with every type of green you could think of: arugula, kale, spinach, and lettuce, just to name a few. Reaching in, you squish some of the bags in order to determine their freshness. And you grab some kale and return to your shopping partner, who was waiting patiently for you, his previous protesting done with.

Looking down at the list on your phone, there wasn’t that much left for you all to grab, just some seasonings that were essential for the completion of any dish. There’re so many to choose from, and quite frankly, you’d just grab them all if you weren’t on a budget. So, you place a couple in the cart. And when you look up again, there Erik is, a pouty look on his face.

“Birthday cake popcorn?” Erik suggests, holding up the multicoloured item.

“Put it in the cart,” You giggle, maneuvering to a checkout line with the least amount of people.

The line becomes shorter and shorter, with customers paying and leaving with their large brown bags. And before you know it, the cashier shouts, “Next!” and moves to take your cart.

“Find everything okay?” The cashier asks, briefly glancing up at the two of you before moving to scan the items in your cart.

“Yes, thank you,” you respond, blankly staring as more items appeared on the customer screen and the worker transferred your groceries into the bags adjacent to the register.

Erik, standing beside you, wraps his right pinky finger against your left one, linking the two of you before you adjust to hold his entire hand. He grips your waist and pulls you in to kiss your lips and lingers there for a short while, eyes boring into yours while also relishing the traces of your chocolate-flavoured lip gloss that had found its way to onto his tongue.

You’re flustered, of course, but not because he hadn’t kissed you this intensely before, but because you were reminded that you were still at the grocery store, for the cashier cleared their throat awkwardly, repeating the total cost you had missed in your fleeting moment of passion.

Scratching your neck, hoping to relieve the embarrassment that that crept up your spine, you ask, “I’m sorry, how much is it?”

To which the cashier responds, “That’s $43.96.”

“I got it, bae,” Erik interjects, pulling out his wallet and handing a crisp yet folded fifty-dollar bill to the worker.

And while the cashier hands Erik the change, you grab the red cart and head toward the exit but not before thanking them. A few steps behind, Erik acknowledges another cashier – the only Black cashier – with a head nod and a knowing smile, to which the cashier nods, shrugs, and returns the grin: the shared feeling of being the only Black person in the room. The automatic doors open, reintroducing the cool evening air upon your face and hair, and the rubber wheels of the cart greet the smooth pavement.

When you reach the cart return, Erik grabs all of the bags while you fit the cart among the lines of carts already present. The two of you begin to walk to your parked vehicle but instead accidentally stumble upon on one with a similar make and model to your own but was not yours.

“I swore I parked right here,” you huff, standing on the balls of your feet, searching the sea of identical cars in the well-lit parking lot. And the fact that there were so many other last-minute shoppers did not help your plight either.

“Lemme see the keys,” Erik says, intrigue in his voice. “I wanna see something.”

You hand him the keys to the car, and he places them under his chin, pressing the unlock button repeatedly.

“That doesn’t actually work, does it?” You quiz, doubt heavy on your words.

“We have to see.”

Supposedly, this little trick should increase the bandwidth of the key’s signal, using one’s head as a sort of antenna. But after a couple clicks, you hear nothing besides traffic on the neighbouring streets.

Pointless, you think, just wanting to hurry up and head home.

But then, you hear a series of chirps in the distance and Erik yipping about the fact.

“Over there,” Erik says, nodding his head toward the source of the noise.

He picks up the bags, and you both head to the vehicle.

–

Shutting the door to your car, you release a sigh. Finally, the bags are all placed on the floor of your car, and you can finally head home.

With your foot on the break, you reach to push the car to start but then Erik yelps, “Wait! I wanna try those mango joints.”

“Oh, now you wanna try them,” You jest, “Because if I can remember, you were just–”

“–Man,” Erik interrupts, reaching to the backseat and rummaging through the bags. “Found it.”

He surveys the clear package titled “Soft & Juicy Mango” with his eyebrows furrowed and his lips curled, a slight repugnance that he couldn’t even help hide. But ripping the bag open, his expression softens as the aroma fills his nostrils, the sweet, tropical scent soothing him.

You watch, rolling your eyes, as Erik cautiously lowers his fingers into the package. One would think that the former Navy Seal wouldn’t be so dramatic over something like trying a new food, but Erik never ceases to amaze you.

Mango slice in hand, Erik purses his lips as he brings it to his mouth, slowly. Tortuously. And chews, his head cocked to the side.

“Wait,” he says as he swallows the last bit. “These bitches smack!”

You release a sound of disbelief, start the vehicle, and pull into the street, heading home. Of course the mangoes were delicious.

–

The sound of the car door closing can be heard as you and Erik finish grabbing all the groceries and head to the entrance of your apartment building. Your boyfriend opens the door for you, his veiny forearm braced on it and towering above you as you enter.

“Damn, ma! You getting thick!” He hollers as he watches the sway of your hips in your fitted bottoms.

You feel your cheeks warm up as you push some hair behind your air. You had been getting thick.

The lobby as you pass through is empty except for the security guard looking down at a glow coming from their lap and a couple of young people with white wires cascading down from their ears, bopping their heads to music that you can hear but not quite make out specific lyrics.

You and Erik find your way inside the elevator, the flickering fluorescents easing you back home, a stark difference from the glaringly bright ones at Trader Joe’s. Erik presses the round “4”, and the aluminum doors begin to close before you, you staring ahead while Erik sneaks a glance at you, smirking before redirecting his gaze toward the sliding metal.

Watching the line of numbers flash as the lift ascends from the ground floor, you turn to Erik, kissing him softly on the lips, closing your eyes and feeling a tingling sensation coursing into him through you. An electrical current that ceases to meet its end, ravishing you both entirely.

And with a ding, the elevator doors open and there you and Erik are, standing chest to chest in the moment, biting your lips like a couple of anxious teenagers on a first date. You pull away from him, keys in hand, heading for the apartment while Erik watches you.

God, how did he get so lucky? You were a treasure to him, and not only because you were so extraordinary but the little things: how you treated him so tenderly and with love yet wouldn’t hesitate to call him out when he was acting like a fool, and how you were so receptive to him as he was to you. These were all things that he scarcely experienced, if he ever experienced them at all. You helped him learn how to love and to receive love, which is an astonishing feat that many cannot confess that they’ve accomplished for themselves. And as you look back at him and smile while you unlock the door, he feels a bit weak in the knees, your electricity overwhelming him once more. You’ve got him hooked, and he loves it. He’s entirely entranced by you, and he doesn’t mind.

You open the door and are welcomed by your apartment, which is completely shrouded in darkness, save for the streetlights, the headlights of passing cars, and the last sliver of the orange evening sky before it is overcome by those distant stars in the night sky.

“Whew,” you exhale, flipping on the light switch and opening the door wider.

Erik sets the bags down on the countertops and approaches you.

“What are you–” you begin, but Erik is sliding his arms around your midsection and turning you to him. He presses his forehead against yours, twirling the ends of your hair and breathes you in and attaches his lips to yours, gently, truly wanting to savour this moment and you in this moment.

He pulls away, slowly, and confesses for the first time aloud, “I love you,” in a voice no louder than a whisper in a public library, to which you respond, “I love you, too.”

And the two of you remain like this for a few moments, staring into each other’s eyes, not even letting the ever-busy late-night traffic rattle you.

“So,” he starts, “About earlier in the bathroom…”

“Yeah, what about it?” You respond, seduction laced in your words.

“I’m thinking we need to address that.”

“Oh, do you?”

“Yup,” Erik answers, popping the “p”.

“And what about the groceries?”

“They’ll be a’ight.”

“Hm,” You sound, lacing your hand with his and walking the both of you to your shared bedroom.

Erik walks towards you, making you both fall on the bed. And the dreaded man begins pecking at your neck, travelling up to the bone of your jaw and landing once again on your plump lips. He swipes his finger down them, and repeats, “I love you.”

You stand up to close the door, while Erik sits up, waiting on you to return to him. You cradle his head in your hands while you kiss him, deeper, all that former tenderness left at the door. And stripping him of his shirt, his impatient fingers also dance to the zipper of your top, lowering it. He slides the jacket over your shoulders as you kneel on the bed to straddle him. But before you could grind down on his crotch, Erik grips your hips and flips you onto your back, the sudden movement bouncing your body on the bed after it meets the comforter.

“Not so fast, babygirl.”

[misiwrites]

Beyblade Week Day 4

i'm sorry i'm out here still posting things so late but here's my fourth and final 4kingdoms-verse oneshot for @beybladeweek2021, mostly this is late because i was out of town last week but these prompts were also the hardest to make a oneshot about, somehow i managed to make a quirky little story about max anyway.

this takes place probably somewhere right before the beginning of the main fic, or close to it anyways. and i feel like this needs the small explanation that 4kingdoms max looks a bit different because the north has no sunlight (don’t ask me how that works. it’s fantasy)

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

Fears / Animals / Winter

“Aaugh!”

As patient as Max is, the strange sound of Giancarlo’s sudden scream followed by a soft, barely audible thump of something hitting the floor in the walk-in closet is enough to snap his attention from the game console in his hands. He casts a curious look across his bedroom to witness the striped leg of a plush toy sticking out through the narrow crack of the closet door.

Now he can already tell what has happened. Regardless, he drops the game on the couch and jumps to his feet to see what his knight has gotten himself into in the closet.

“You opened the forbidden door!” Max gloats at Giancarlo, now standing ankle-deep in a sea of plush toys. “I told you the games are in the second from left, not from right.”

“Is this why you call that door ‘forbidden’?” Giancarlo asks, one hand still on the handle of the closet door that the avalanche of toys descended on him from. “I expected something more... I don’t know... scandalous... or personal.”

“This is personal. They’re all mine.” Max crouches over to pick one of the plush toys up, the yellow mascot character of a popular Eastern children’s game franchise. “Oh man, these take me back. I haven’t really seen them since Mama ordered them to be put away. She said I was too old to keep them in my bed. But I refused to have them taken out, so I got this closet for them instead.”

“Aha. I don’t mean to judge your decisions, but I think there’s a few too many for a closet of this size.”

“Well, they fit in just fine before you opened the door like an idiot.”

Max lets his eyes scan the colourful blast on the floor, admiring the chaos of all the scattered shapes of different stuffed creatures, some more nostalgic than others but each and every one so familiar to him; some expensive and store-bought, some hand-made by his father or someone else, he hardly even remembers at this point; it’s been so long since he was gifted these toys, and at least a couple of years since Judy wanted them sealed away.

And then one of them catches his eye over the rest, one that makes his heart skip a beat of bittersweet joy and longing. He tramples and kicks his way past other toys to get to the middle.

It’s a plush dog, one whose tattered, worn-out shape isn’t particularly distinguishable as a dog. It has an elongated body and small stubs for legs, folded ears – well, one ear, as the other has come off and been lost to time – and a small, thin tail that’s also on its way to come off its stitches but is barely hanging on, miserably drooping down from the back of the caramel brown animal that’s so thoroughly covered in dirt and dust that it looks grey. The dog’s black button eyes are intact, at least, and it still has a red little tongue sticking out of its mouth.

Max is momentarily frozen in place staring at the dog. This toy brings back so many memories, some of which threaten to turn his stomach as the long-forgotten anxiety rushes back in one tidal wave, it climbs up the ladder of his spine like an unwelcome visitor from the past; but at the same time, he loves this little dog so very dearly, his childhood favourite.

“Look at these, Your Highness!” Giancarlo suddenly yells, snapping Max out of his thoughts. “Really fitting, aren’t they? Doesn’t it make you think of something?”

Max turns to see his knight holding three plush animals on his arms: a snake, a fox, and a miniature horse. Max does remember all of them, but none were his favourites. They must have been gifts from his earlier childhood, he has no memory of actually getting them or ever feeling particularly attached to them.

“Umm,” he says, “no, not really.”

“Don’t you remember? The fairytale? A guy talks to a fox, a serpent, and a horse...”

“No, can’t say that rings any bells.”

“Really?” An idiotic grin spreads on Giancarlo’s face, the same one he flashes every time he gets to feel smarter than his young king. “It’s a traditional Northern folktale! Each animal represents one fear that the dude has, and he has to face them one by one. Well, I don’t really remember the details, but it was something like that.” He lifts the tiny horse closer to his face, as if to study it more closely – or to face it, to stay true to his own words, Max assumes. “Was the third one really a horse? I think it was. I guess horses can be scary to some people. They’re big animals and all.”

Max rolls his eyes, truly wishing that Giancarlo would shut up for once and clean up the mess he’s caused in the walk-in closet – or just do anything else and leave Max be, to sort out the sudden, fairly uncomfortable onslaught of memories caused by the discovery of his old stuffed dog toy.

Instead, Giancarlo keeps talking, as he always does.

“If there was a story about my fears, it would probably be... hmm... never eating cannoli ever again... and never going on another date...”

“Some incredible fears you have,” Max comments. “Tells a lot about your psyche.”

“And what are you scared of, Your Highness? What would you face if you met this guy? Nei-i-i-igh.” Giancarlo waves the tiny horse at Max, truthfully not the embodiment of terror by any stretch.

“Me? Well, nothing, really.”

“Come on, now, no need to be shy. You can tell the good old Gianni.”

“I mean it – I have my magic, so there’s no reason for me to be scared of anything.” There’s nothing that Max can think of that he wouldn’t be able to shield himself from with his magic powers, especially his ability to turn invisible. If nothing can catch him or do as much as touch him, what reason would he have to be afraid? If anything, he loves the thrill of almost being caught but disappearing out of sight on the last second. Max prides himself in being bold and resourceful, the master of stealth, and the youngest Genbu-ou with the ability to summon the holy beast of Genbu in the known history of his kingdom.

As long as he has his magic and the golden locket of Genbu around his neck, he cannot think of anything that could cause him fear; and as the king, he can have all the materia he could ever want, so he never needs to worry about running out of cannoli pastries or whatever else.

“Okay then, tough guy,” Giancarlo snorts. “And what’s that you got there?”

Max’s gaze returns to the dog on his arms. It stares back at him with its pitiful button eyes, black and lifeless.

“This used to be my favourite,” he replies, finding the words coming out of his mouth with slight hesitation. “Papa made it for me...”

“Oh? Prince Tarou knows how to sew stuffed animals? Well, I guess that makes sense, since he’s such a talented craftsman – but still... It’s hard to imagine a burly man like him making something like... that thing.” Giancarlo forces down an obvious cackle, raising a hand to his mouth to hide his amusement. “I mean...”

Max knows what he means, the puppy with a hot dog-like physique is a pathetic sight, but he cannot help feeling just a little insulted by Giancarlo laughing at it. This puppy brought him so much comfort during a time of turmoil, and it was specifically made by his father for that very purpose. Tarou most likely stitched it together over a single night all those years ago.

“You mean what?” he challenges the royal knight, his tone arrogant.

“Uh... Well, you know... Oh, never mind.”

* * * * * *

When he was younger, Max had no objections over his sheltered life in the Snow Glory Palace, as it never even occurred to his child’s mind that it could be anything but; and the thought only came to him as he entered the rebellious years of puberty and by the questionable ideas that his whimsical knight planted in his head, the thought that it would be exciting to sneak out of the palace every once in a while and wander around the royal capital out of sight.

Max has always been adored by commoners, as the only son of their beloved (by now former) king, the strong yet beautiful and hauntingly intelligent Mizuhara Judy, the only female Genbu-ou of their lifetime; and as much as Max loves the attention and savours the constant awareness of his status of importance that doesn’t escape anybody in his kingdom, he’s equally entertained by the idea of walking among all these people on a lower social ladder without their knowledge, freely entering spaces where his appearance would normally cause a considerable brouhaha. The complete control over whether he’s perceived or not gives him a great amount of satisfaction.

And, most importantly, his ever-so-predominant mother has no idea about it happening right under her nose. As much as Max loves his parents, like any teenager, he has an innate need to break free and seek independence from them, do as he pleases without their scrutiny, without any adult paying attention to him...

at least sometimes.

How many times has he traversed the narrow streets of the ancient royal capital, heard the snow crunch under his shoes without anyone seeing it’s the young king leaving a trail of footprints on the ground covered in white? And when the snow is quietly falling from the sky, the shield of magic around him reflects his surroundings, camouflaging him from other people’s line of sight, he blends perfectly into the arbitrary dance of the snowflakes in the dark.

Then, sometimes, when he finds a suitable corner or shade or hideout for himself, he plans a delicious little display of seemingly appearing out of nowhere into the spotlight. And all the attention is once again drawn to him.

It’s borderline addicting, that calculated spectacle, the thrill of a surprise and act of rebellion that Max is perfectly aware he’s not allowed to do. That his ice queen of a mother would be absolutely furious if she knew.

Now he’s again walking down a cobblestone street, the stone fence of a cemetery on his right-hand side. There’s a layer of powdery snow on the stone, like the icing of a sugar cake.

A cake, oh, a cake sounds excellent to him; and he’s now across a bridge, and the familiar sight of a cosy little coffee shop greets him some feet away. It has a sign outside, a metallic one, shaped like a kettle that’s hanging above the entrance, the shop’s name written on it in cursive.

Max walks over to one of the shop windows and takes a peek inside, bathes in the golden light coming from the other side of the glass. As expected, nobody pays him any attention, none of the people sitting around the lovely little tables inside see him.

He’s ready to be seen, however, and decides to step inside, greeted by the ring of a bell attached to the coffee shop’s door.

“Good evening!” he says cheerfully upon his entrance, flashing a wide grin to everyone in the shop.

People turn to stare at him. Nobody is smiling back at him.

“Er, good evening,” replies the person working behind the counter. Their voice is polite but wary, they stare at Max like everyone else in the shop, with an expression of wide-eyed confusion.

This is not what Max expected. Where are all the delightful gasps, all the “Oh, Your Highness!” and “It’s the young king!” and “This is such an honour!” – all the surprised smiles and the rush to be the first to shake hands with him? He darts some quizzical glances around the shop, eyebrows raised, but his grin remains.

Maybe he’s come here a few too many times. He should have gone somewhere new instead, not the closest place he could think of.

A bristly feeling that he’s very much not used to suddenly spreads all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes: embarrassment. He’s embarrassed that his magic trick failed, the trick he was so confident in, so proud of.

He needs to get out of here.

And the next moment, he’s walking down a different street, this time in the heart of the city of Resting Palace. The lights here are so bright that they illuminate the black sky and give it a hue of light purple instead, almost a dirty tone, it looks dusty and devours the stars and even the Moon.

He’s walking past numerous people, but nobody turns to look at him. Nobody does as much as grant him a smile of acknowledgment, no faces light up with recognition when he passes by.

He stops to stand in the middle of the street. Someone immediately bumps into him from behind.

“Oh, sorry,” the stranger says and hurries away without looking at him. He doesn’t even have the time to say it was his fault for stopping so abruptly.

Max turns on his heels, lets his eyes wander aimlessly in the scenery. There’s a hotel to his left. There are people everywhere, but none of them are looking his way.

Now another person bumps into him. This is an older man, staggering on his feet and visibly losing his balance for a moment, and he turns to stare at Max with a sullen face.

“Hey, kiddo,” the man groans, “stop blocking the walkway, will ya?”

Max only stares back, not knowing what to say or think. Kiddo? What is this? Why is this person talking to him like this? He’s so dumbfounded by this behaviour that he simply hangs his mouth open without making a sound. Nobody in his entire life has acted this way towards him, and it’s making his blood run cold under his heavy cloak.

On a bewildered whim, he suddenly turns to whoever is passing by his left-hand side on that very moment. “Did you hear how that person talked to me just now?” he asks the passer-by. “How dare he?”

The person he’s talking to casts him a look of utter confusion. He can immediately tell this person doesn’t recognise him, either.

“No, I’m sorry,” the person mumbles hastily and hurries away. Max stares after their disappearing back.

What is happening? What is happening? How could this possibly be happening to him? Now panic is seeping into his heart, he arbitrarily grabs the sleeve of whoever happens to pass by him next.

“Excuse me,” he says breathlessly, “you know who I am, right? Right?”

Another astonished stare, but at least this passer-by is polite. “No, I’m afraid I don’t. Are you perhaps lost?”

“No!” Max’s words now escape as a desperate eruption of discomfort, “I’m the king! The Genbu-ou! Don’t you recognise your king?!”

The stranger’s expression changes slightly – to that of pity, to Max’s horror.

“I’m sorry, boy, I don’t have time to play around with you,” the person says, and the next moment he’s gone.

Max spins around, glancing wildly in every direction, looking for anybody who recognises him. This is the royal capital, isn’t it? It definitely is, he knows the exact street he’s on, but for some reason nobody knows him, he’s only a mile away from the Snow Glory Palace and nobody knows that he’s the king, how could such a bizarre thing ever happen?

“I look like the Genbu-ou, don’t I?” he asks yet another stranger, this time a younger person, a teenager just like him.

The person stops to stare at him, evaluates him with her eyes for a moment, as if she has to think about it first.

“I guess you do,” she finally says, “a little. But Genbu-ousama has spots of black in his hair and skin as clear as snow.”

What? What?

Max drops down to his knees into the snow and now he’s on the riverbank; he hauls his shaking self closer to the aquamarine glow of the water, and he crouches over to look down at his own reflection on the surface.

His hair is yellow like the Sun, bare, the splashes of black brush strokes gone. But his face – his face is covered in something – small dots everywhere, his skin is infested with them, they spread from the centre, the bridge of his nose, in every direction on his skin, he lifts his hands to his face and—

* * *

He opens his eyes. The ceiling of his bedroom is covered in cotton candy clouds of pink and purple, they rotate ever so slowly around the axel of the chandelier in the middle, with stars blinking in and out through the veil.

He rolls over in the four-poster bed that feels like an entire ocean to him. The pillow under his head is wet, it feels gross and he grabs it with two tiny hands, tosses it away as hard as he can and it lands on the edge of the bed. It knocks a couple of his plush toys to the floor.

He can hear voices from behind the bedroom door. It’s Mama and Papa, they are yelling at each other again.

Max rubs his tear-stained eyes and crawls out of bed, wrapping his enormous blanket around him like a cape, he drags it along across the carpet as he makes his way to the door. He stands on tiptoes and opens the door as softly as he can.

He makes his way to the hallway’s railing just in time to see his parents walk into his view downstairs. They’re not yelling anymore but still arguing, in quiet voices now, Max can tell they are spewing arrows of poison at each other even if he can’t make out the words.

He’s staring through the narrow hole in the railing as Papa spots him, it’s probably a subtle sniffle that gives him away up there.

Seconds later, Papa has climbed the stairs and has knelt down to talk to Max in a voice that’s meant to be soothing but is seeping with recently suffocated agitation, and it makes him uneasy.

“Are you having trouble sleeping again, buddy?”

“I don’t want Papa to go away,” Max says, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his orange sleeping gown.

Papa gives him a lopsided smile, pats the top of his head. “I’ll come visit you often, I promise. And – this is only temporary, okay? I will keep talking to Mama, and maybe I’ll be back home in a couple of moons. Papa will bring you lots of presents then, but for starters...”

Now something appears from behind Papa’s back, he’s holding a plush toy dog that has a silly face with a tongue drooping out, its body so long that it nearly matches Max’s height. Papa hands it over to him.

“I made this for you, to help you sleep better. I call it Sleepy, but you can call it whatever you want.”

Max stares down at the dog’s face. It has plain black buttons for eyes, and a third one for a nose.

He presses his own little nose against the button, immediately smearing the dog in the snot and tears of a six-year-old.

“Take me with you, Papa,” he says, the words muffled against the dog’s snout. “Don’t leave me alone.”

“You won’t be alone, Max, Mama will be here.”

“She’s always working, she never pays attention to me.”

“That’s not true...”

“I don’t want to be alone, Papa.”

* * *

He opens his eyes. The ceiling of his bedroom is velvet blue, with the silver sickle of a crescent Moon glowing faintly in the night’s silence.

His heart is beating in an anxious rhythm inside his chest. He quickly sits up in the bed, driven by the panic of the lingering terror of his nightmare that makes his fingertips tingle and his stomach turn, and he gasps for air.

It was just a dream. Just a dream.

The momentary urge to rush to his feet, to check that he actually is who he’s supposed to be in the mirror, recedes quickly upon the realisation that he’s in his own bed, in the royal palace, exactly where he should be. He’s covered in sweat, the blankets feel uncomfortably sticky against his skin, he tosses them aside.

Then he notices three shapes in the darkness, sitting at the end of his bed. A row of three plush animals is staring at him from a distance.

A fox, a serpent, and a horse.

[saadiestuff]

of rings and things (Malex ficlet)

SUMMARY: Michael thinks he's out of time. But it turns out their new story is just beginning. TAGS: post season 2, fluff, mentions of past Alex/Forrest. 900ish words. AO3 LINK.

------

“I know why you asked to meet me here,” Michael says dejectedly as he settles into the booth across from Alex.

“You do?” Alex questions, an eyebrow rising in doubt.

“Yes. And I know you’re doing it as a courtesy, and I don't have any right to--”

“I don’t think you kn--”

“Fuck,” Michael says to himself, but it still cuts Alex off. Michael rubs his hands over his face and grunts. Then he looks at Alex, and blurts out his next words. “Alex, you can’t marry Forrest.”

“Michael--”

“I mean you can, obviously, but I don’t want you to. I’m asking you not to. I’m sorry I’m taking so long, I just-- I wanted us to be ready so we’d have a real shot. And I thought I had more time. You’ve only been dating a few months and I didn’t think it was that serious--”

“Guerin--” Alex says louder.

“Not that I’m judging! If he makes you happy-- I just--”

Alex interrupts this time, though he is loath to stop Michael’s speech when for once he’s actually communicating. But Alex can’t let him continue. “I’m not marrying Forrest. What made you think I was?”

Michael sputters, “Isobel saw you two ring shopping!”

“Ooh,” Alex says softly, realization dawning, but Michael has already launched into further explanation.

“The store hired her to help with their display and social media.”

“They liked what she did for the Crashdown,” Alex correctly speculates.

“When she saw you come in with Forrest she hid behind one of the displays. She said she couldn’t really hear you from where she was.” (It then occurs to Michael that may have been a lie to get him to go spill his guts to Alex, as he is now doing.) Michael sucks in a much needed breath. “But she said you were over by the rings, and you left with ring boxes, and--”

“Hah,” Alex chuckles, “So that’s why I smelled rain.” But he turns serious. “I, uh, broke up with Forrest because of it.”

“What?” Michael says, horrified that Isobel’s spying would have caused the breakup, and sad for Alex, even though he also feels a huge sense of relief, and a surge of hope, the strongest yet.

“Uh huh. Should tell me something that, standing next to a display of wedding rings with my boyfriend, I get a smell-o-vision of you.”

Michael sighs. “But you didn’t, really. It was Isobel.” He scrunches up his nose. “I didn’t know you could smell her.”

Alex shrugs. “I think once you know what it is… after that I could smell Isobel and Max too.”

Michael makes a mildly disturbed, pouty face.

Alex snorts, “Don’t worry, your smell is still very unique to-- uh, to me…” He clears his throat. “And I probably would have realized it wasn’t actually you if I hadn’t also been thinking of you anyways…”

“...While looking at a case of wedding rings,” Michael quietly finishes for him.

“Even though Forrest was always game to just-- and he knew all along that I-- well,” Alex stops short and huffs out a breath. “Sorry, this is a lot. We’re practically talking about--”

“Getting married.”

“Getting married. Yeah,” Alex says, half synced with Michael.

Michael inhales sharply. It is a lot.

“Uh, anyways, the reason I wanted to meet...” Alex continues, rubbing the back of his neck briefly, “I was at the store because I was picking up a ring of Tripp’s I got resized to fit me.” He holds up his right hand; the ring sits on his fourth finger. “It seems Tripp wore it on his thumb, so it was too big.”

“You find it on his corpse?” Michael asks, eyes wide.

“Greg noticed it, yeah. He told me I should have it. I finally got around to dropping it off at the jewelry place a few weeks ago, and yesterday I had to go pick it up. Forrest really likes rings, so he tagged along. I hadn’t considered how awkward it would end up being as a couple activity for us.”

Michael smiles sympathetically.

“So the ring…” Alex wiggles it off his finger and holds it up above the middle of the table, “The jeweler who worked on it said it contains a weird material she’s never seen before.”

Alex moves the ring towards Michael, who resists the urge to put his finger through it as Alex holds it out. Instead, Michael takes it in his fingers, turning it over, rolling the smooth object in his palm. But eventually, he slips it on.

“Alien tech,” Michael says, though he'd known the answer before he’d even touched it.

“Yeah,” Alex confirms, “I mean, it must be. That’s why it feels…”

“Like home.”

Alex gulps and nods. “You can keep it. If-- if you want it. The tech-- it should be with you.”

“Nah,” Michael says, trying to sound casual, but the longing in his voice betrays him, “I think I’d prefer it be on you… with me.”

Alex grins shyly, looking down, then back up, his smile gaining ground. “Okay.”

“Yeah?” Michael says hopefully, beaming back.

“Yeah.”

Michael smirks as he takes off the well-fitting ring and hands it back to Alex -- all the while hardly believing that he now dares let such bold words escape his lips, but it feels right. “Handy to know we have the same ring size, huh? You know, future reference...”

“Handy,” Alex says brightly, matching Michael’s confidence.

The future is bright indeed.

[hournites]

Maxed Out

Hournite semi-smut fic? Yeah. Okay.

Summary: Beth asks Rick to turn over his hourglass in bed. Calamity ensues.

~.~

Beth trailed her fingers over Rick’s chest, unbuttoning his breezy summer shirt. His muscles were more defined than the last time she did this. She didn’t need Chuck to notice the build he’d put on over the last few weeks during training. Beth wasn’t complaining.

He tilted his head back, watching her as he settled against her yellow decorative pillows. “You act as if you’ve never undressed me before.” 

Beth met his gaze with a shy smile. “Every time is still exciting,” she admitted.

Beth had no reason to be embarrassed. She loved the slow stripping tease of removing all his layers to get to her boyfriend’s skin. Besides, if it didn’t feel that way, should she even be doing it?  

Rick chuckled and kissed her, chaste for their compromised position. The dark hum of the dim lamp in the corner, the way the bed creaked under their weight when she leaned down to continue making out. They were sounds Beth grew familiar with, in bed with her boyfriend. Rick lifted his head to remove the hourglass around his neck. Beth stopped him abruptly, her hand over his. 

 “Have you ever wondered…” she trailed off. He frowned. 

“Have I ever wondered what?” 

Beth flushed, looking aside to stare at her old wallpaper. There used to be butterfly decals, but she decided she outgrew them suddenly last summer and peeled them all off. She sort of missed them now. One was never too old for butterflies. 

“Beth?” He brushed her thigh, breaking her out that thought bubble. 

“Hmm?” 

She bit her thumb, eyes darkening when she took him in again, loose, pliant, ready to have her whichever way she wanted. Oh right. 

Perhaps any way, really. 

She let it out all in one breath.  “Do you ever think about flipping this over when you're with me?” 

His silence was terrible. Beth withdrew her hand. She was still straddled over his lap but this was awkward now, she should get off him. 

“...Yes.” 

Beth sucked in a whole lot of air and just sort of kept it in until her lungs were on fire. Sure, she asked but she wasn’t prepared for his answer. 

His hands went to her hips. “I’ve thought of it a lot.” 

Beth shifted a bit. “You’ve never brought it up.” 

He gave her a knowing look. “Because it’s a terrible idea? A really really terrible idea.” Though by how torn he looked and sounded,  it didn’t seem like he meant that at all. 

“We haven’t trained since Saturday,” she reminded him. She kissed him again, slow, teasingly, breaking away right when he wanted more. “We don’t have anything JSA to do until next week.”

“I know,” Rick groaned, tightening his grip. “God, I know. I want to.” 

A slow smile spread over Beth’s face. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he said. He started to laugh softly when she played with the chain around his neck, like he couldn’t believe they were seriously entertaining the thought. “Beth. Beth, sweetheart. We really shouldn’t.” 

Beth knew that. Every logical part of her brain knew that. It didn’t stop her from wanting to.

She flexed, placing her soft hands on his chest to hover over him as his eyes went wide and dark, taking her in. She was still in her shorts and shirt, but really those should come off soon too. Beth was in a really interesting type of mood. A Rick Tyler mood. Only with him did she ever feel this way. 

“I say we should.” 

The sentence came out breathlessly. She’s already feeling the zing of anticipation.

God, she wanted it. She wanted the hour of his unlimited strength. She wanted to see him pick her up effortlessly, she wanted him to pin her somewhere, hold her up without breaking a sweat. She wanted the way his ego boosted when he was powered up. She loved Rick with all her heart, but right now she was dying for the touch of Hourman. 

The kiss she gave to enunciate her bold claim had Rick gripping onto the back of her neck, groaning. Beth leaned back again before they got too involved, toying with the hem of her shirt as Rick, weak and dishevelled, cursed under his breath. She liked it when he did that. Not the swear words exactly but the fact she made him utter them.

“What would you want me to do?”

“So that’s a yes?!” 

“I didn’t say that,” he warned, chuckling at her eager impatience. She grabbed his hourglass again. Rick covered her hand over it. Beth wasn’t going to turn it without his permission, it wasn’t her object and it wasn’t her decision. But she couldn’t seem to put her hand anywhere else at the moment. And she desperately hoped she could get him to join her on the dark side. 

“I’m just curious. What do you want, Beth?" 

Beth’s eyes slid over to the wall again. 

Rick followed her gaze. His jaw dropped. “You want— there?” 

Beth nodded, flushing. 

Rick flipped the glass over without hesitation. “You should’ve said that before.” 

 ~.~ 

Rick pulled Beth flush against his chest. He cocked an eyebrow, hiking her higher up so she could wrap her legs around his hip. “You like this?” he teased, nipping at her ear. “You’re fucking beautiful, Beth.” 

She whimpered, arching her back against her missing butterfly decals, aching for Rick to stop running his mouth and just do what she’d been pleading him for. 

“You’re so light,” he whispered, picking her up again to carry her around the room just because he can. 

“You’re so strong,” she marvelled. “Don’t break any of my furniture!” It would be impossible to explain to her father. He’d been away on a business trip for a few days now, but no matter how long he was on the road, she knew there’d be no way she could hide a broken chair or bed from him. 

Rick huffed, rolling his eyes before slamming her back against the wall just to prove that he won’t. Her pictures of Courtney and Yolanda on her wall shook in their frames, but she could tell he was using only a fraction of his strength, or else they would’ve shattered. 

“We’ve got fifty-five minutes.” His voice was low and sexy, a rumble deep in his throat that she could feel the vibrations of as he mouthed at her jaw and neck. She whimpered again, mind racing, trying to catalogue his every word, every touch, every move for, well—scientific research—intellectual curiosity—a very important personal project for Beth. He slipped his other hand behind her back and under her shirt to unclasp her bra. “I’m not wasting a second of it.”

“Then don’t.” She wanted Rick so badly she could hardly breathe. “I want you in me.”

Rick paused to look at her, taken aback. Her eyes widened and her pulse skyrocketed, worried she went too far. She never was one to talk like that but neither was he. What if he didn’t want to do this anymore? What if he was having second thoughts? But Rick didn’t give her the opportunity to panic any further, pulling her leg back up when it slipped from his waist. His grip was unshakable, steady, relaxed even like he knew exactly what he was doing, and that unreadable expression morphed into a smirk.

“How much do you like this top?”

“I— What?”

“Let me rephrase that,” he murmured. His fingers wandered up the black buttons of her simple floral shirt, unbuttoning one to access the dark valley hiding underneath. “How much would you mind if this is the last time you could wear this?”

Oh. He wanted to rip it off her. Everything Beth could ever feel for Rick liquified southward in slow, syrupy pulses. She squirmed against him, suffering. Her boyfriend destroying her inventory from Forever 21 really shouldn’t be so hot. 

“Not very much,” she managed out and the sound of the fabric tearing echoed in the quiet room immediately after, the cool exposure and Rick’s warm palms handling the new expansion of skin drove Beth insane. “Not my bra! Bras are expensive.” 

The kiss he gave in reply was filthy, but he listened and he raised her up again so she could shimmy out of it, letting it drop to the floor. 

Another hard press that made her bookshelf shake beside them had Beth reeling, begging for more. She clung to his shoulders and buried her face in his neck, already overheated. And this was just the beginning. Beth knocked her head back against the wall when his hand snaked up past her thigh, tugging at the waistband of her shorts, knowing she was doomed. She was wet and shaking and so ready.

“Rick,” she begged with a gasping breath, unable to wait any longer. “Please .”

“I got you…” he promised, voice deep and rasped. He kissed her again. “I love you.”

This was Beth’s smartest idea yet. 

 ~.~

Courtney leaned against her staff, taking in the damage. Trees upon trees upon trees fallen over themselves. It would take forever to climb through it. 

Yolanda jumped over the first dead trunk on all fours. “It looks like Grundy had a temper tantrum.” 

Beth listened, folding her arms over her chest. This mission took them all by surprise. It had been days, weeks even since they had to suit up. ISA went quiet. There hadn’t been any danger in quite some time. This was worrying. She leaned into Rick’s side. Her mind flitted away from the forest or the potential lair hidden behind all the forestial destruction. Last night took up every spare thought.

They were good together. They were always good together. But last night was something out of her locked up compartment of fantasies. The way he held her, the way he looked at her. Rick was gentle and sweet and considerate with his touch on her when they made love, and Beth adored him for it. But making love was not what happened yesterday during that hour.

Rick fucked her.

They fucked until the sand timed out, her legs wobbled, knees buckling after he put her down and every lucid thought in her brain fizzled out like smoke. He carried her to bed, and brushed the sweat from her forehead, whispering praises in her ear, telling her how much he loved her. Making sure he never hurt her, letting her curl against him until the world stopped spinning and she could gain her breath again. Even now, she could only think of Rick. The way he made her feel. The way he moaned out her name. He was strong and exuberantly confident with himself in a weird way Beth could never grow tired of. That hourglass was magical. 

She shook her head, tilting her head to tune into the debate in front of her. JSA was important. This was important, Beth knew that. She tried to tell herself this.

It was kind of hopeless. Really, she wanted to drag Rick by the hand right out of this forest and go back home to bed. 

“Beth?” Pat asked. “Why don’t you ask Chuck if this is worth the effort. Maybe there was just a wind storm and we missed it.” 

“But that cryptic note,” Courtney said. “There’s no way that’s not something.” 

Rick was awfully silent. Beth tugged on his sleeve and looked up to check if he was alright. He met her gaze and his eyes went soft with a hint of heat.

I want to get out of here too, he didn’t have to say.

It was especially bad with that hourglass around his neck right now. Just sitting there. Taunting her. A teasing visual memory of last night. Rick looked down at what she was staring at. A red blotch crept up behind the mask on his face. 

She relished not being the only one of the two of them disastrously turned on. 

“Beth? Beth???”

She snapped her eyes to the team and mumbled a quick apology. Right. They wanted her to use Chuck to see if there was anything worthwhile behind those trees. She tapped on her goggles, picking the right setting. Not X-Ray or Night Vision. Maybe infrared. 

She squinted at the looming box figure in her magnified sight. “What do you think that is Chuck? A hideout? There’s only one story. It looks like it’s centred by an underground basement.” 

“Gee. An underground hideaway. Never heard that before.” Pat shared an annoyed look with the JSA.

"You’re quite right, Beth. It seems there are several heat signatures underneath the roots of the decayed birch trees and foliage. My guess is an underground hanger, an off branch location perhaps for the regrouping of the ISA."

They all groaned. 

“Thanks, Chuck.” 

“So we have to get there.”

“That’s gonna take all day,” Courtney groaned. Her staff complained too, lifting her off the ground to survey the distance from the start of the forest to the nearest clearing. “Yeah, it goes on for miles. Maybe we could fly over with the Staff and STRIPE.”

“A big robot and you in the sky? Pretty sure they’ll see that, Court.”

“Yeah, we need to do recon from the ground.”

They all turned to Rick. 

“What?” he snapped at their stares.

“How do you feel about being a lumberjack?” Yolanda asked. “Throwing away all the trees?”

Rick tensed, and so did Beth. 

“That’s stupid,” he said. “I don’t want to do that.”

“Why not?” Courtney frowned.

“Uh.” He shared a panicky look with Beth, who stared at him back, stumped. “I pulled a muscle. Don’t want to.” 

That’s what he came up with!? 

“You know what,” Beth said hastily, putting a hand on his arm, “Rick’s not feeling well.” She flashed a grin at her friends. “Let’s do this another day, I’ll take him home—Bye!” 

Courtney flew over on her staff, blocking their way when they turned around to leave. She crossed her arms over her crop top. 

“Rick always said he doesn’t feel that kind of stuff when the hourglass is turned over because of his adrenaline rush.” 

“Um. Well, now I do.” He continued to walk away. 

Chuck went silent in her ear. Like he knew exactly what was going on but didn’t want to comment. And thank god, for that. Beth’s palms broke out into a sweat under her gloves. This was so embarrassing, she thought she might pass out.

What was she going to say? Heyyyyy guys! Actually, we can’t do any type of heavy lifting today, nope! Oh? Why, you ask? No big deal really, my boyfriend just decided to use his superpower to do dirty, dirty things to me while I screamed into his shoulder ha ha ha funny, right!?

Heat flared up to her face, Beth couldn’t make eye contact with anyone. She put one of her gloved hands over her cheek and kept her gaze on the weird twigs on the ground. She needed water. She needed a bath of ice. Where was Icicle Jr when she needed him? Getting blasted with frost would be better than this. 

“Rick,” Pat snapped. “Stop fooling around. Turn the hourglass. Now.” 

“No,” he said stubbornly, batting away Yolanda’s swat at his glass. 

“Why are you being so weird?” Yolanda hissed. “You think you’re the only one with things to do? My brother has a piano recital in a few hours. We all want to go back home.”

She glared at Beth like she was mad at her for not talking sense into Rick herself. Like it was a chore to be the one that had to do it. “Beth, c’mon, what’s wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with us!” Beth said, hearing the way her voice pitched an octave higher than it was supposed to. 

“Rick. Turn the glass over!” Pat said, increasing the volume of his voice modifier for extra emphasis—not really extra menace, he couldn’t scare them anymore. Not that he didn’t try. 

“I can’t,” Rick gritted out through his teeth. He ran a hand through his hair, even more flustered than before.

Beth covered her ears, starting to hyperventilate as they all began to argue. This was her fault. This was her fault! 

She pestered Rick into using his strength and now they couldn’t do their jobs and they were going to end up revealing their sex lives in explicit detail in front of Courtney’s dad. She whined, hiding her face into Rick’s suit, unable to bear her mortification. 

His hands wrapped around her tight, which was her briefest solace of this embarrassing nightmare. 

Yolanda stared at them, narrowing her eyes. She jumped off one of the trees and circled the couple to Rick’s chagrin, who was now staring up at the sky, looking extremely uncomfortable. Beth closed her eyes and nuzzled her head further against his chest. She wasn’t even horny anymore.

“What do you mean you can’t?” Courtney echoed, tilting her head to the side. “We haven’t had a JSA mission in like, forever so—“

“I can’t!” Rick nudged Beth to the side so he could flip over his hourglass to show them. Beth watched as it did nothing. The sand just stayed there in the top half like a fixed, broken toy. “I told you, I can’t!”

Yolanda gasped, finally putting two and two together. “Beth Chapel, you didn’t!” 

“We did!” Beth admitted miserably against Rick. 

“What?” Courtney was unable to follow along. She whipped her head at Yolanda. “What did they do??”

Yolanda began to laugh. She covered her mouth and turned around, walking away to lean against a spared tree. “Don’t make me tell them, because I won’t.”

The hiss and metallic clanging of the STRIPE head unlocking echoed through the forest. Pat’s seat raised. He looked between the two with his brows furrowed. Suddenly, understanding dawned in his eyes. He swore under his breath as his face twisted in a complicated combination of shock, horror and disgust. “You’ve gotta be kidding me, Rick!” 

Rick stiffened his jaw. “If we were kidding do you really think we’d be having this conversation?”

“What conversation!?” Courtney shrieked. 

“We’re sorry!”  

“Sorry about what!?!” Courtney tugged at her hair, stressed out, looking at the JSA for answers. “Pat?!! They’re sorry about what?”

“Not now, Court—” Pat warned. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it."

“Ugh!” Courtney landed on the cracked ground and stomped off to sulk with her staff. "This is now how teamwork works!" 

Yolanda lifted an eyebrow, shrugging as she cleaned some leaves from her claws. She sat at the base of a standing trunk, knees pulled up to her chest as though she knew they weren't going anywhere for a while. “I mean, was it at least good?” she asked with a tiny wicked smirk after a stretch of awkward silence. 

“Yes,” Beth mumbled hotly. Her cheeks burned.

Pat glared down at them from his towering height in STRIPE, the ultimate patented look of parental disappointment etched upon his face. 

“Are you two out of your minds?!” he yelled, trying to guilt-trip them further into the valley of shame Beth decided she now permanently lived in. “You could’ve risked your lives—What if we were ambushed right now? You’re a man with no hour—You could've died!”

Yolanda snorted from off to the side and even Beth had to bit her lip to keep in a smile at how silly that sounded.

“—What on earth did you think you were doing?”

“Uh,” Rick looked down at Beth. She looked up. They shared a funny look, an almost laugh. His eyes lit up when their eyes met and she let out a giggle. “....Having really good sex?”

Pat grimaced, regretting that he asked. 

Courtney’s head shot up. “You used the hourglass to have sex?”

Beth smacked his shoulder. “Rick!”

Rick smirked, far too pleased with himself for their situation right now. “Look, we learned our lesson. We’re not doing it again.”

 “You’re damn right, you aren’t!” 

Courtney couldn’t stop staring at Beth, utterly baffled. “How would you even—Why would you want to do that?”

Beth opened her mouth to reply, but Pat held up a robot hand, stopping them from continuing.

“Nevermind that,” he said pointedly. “Court, let’s go home. We’ll reconvene tomorrow.”

Yolanda dusted the dirt and soil from her suit silently to follow Court and the stomping robot back down the trail. 

“I have nothing to say to you Richard,” she sniffed, then gave Beth a fist bump, leaning to say something in her ear. “We’ll talk later.” 

Beth looked at Wildcat, wide-eyed and gulped. “...Okay."

And then they were alone.

“So…” Beth said after a moment of them standing there in the bushes like two idiotic teens who just screwed up a very important superhero mission because of their screwing. She looked at one of the silver maple trunks that looked securely fixed upon the others and hopped on top of it, sitting down. She took her gloves off and stuffed them in one of her many Dr. Mid-Nite pockets. “That was the most embarrassing moment of my life.” 

“Yep.” Rick put his hands on the back of his head, elbows out as he began to pace, walking the distance between the only two trees left standing. His cape rustled against the dead leaves. A black squirrel stared at them from a foot away. Beth didn’t blame him, they looked like quite a sight. 

Her goggles came back to life.

"Lack of judgment happens to the best of enhanced and metahumans in their first few years in the field, Beth. Do not beat yourselves up so hard. Rick is young and impulsive, and you have a curious mind. Perhaps this learning experience served to put your wonderings at ease."

“Thanks, Chuck,” she said softly, but somehow his words were not as comforting as they usually were. “But it wasn’t Rick's impulse. It was my fault. I knew we shouldn’t have. Rick was the one that told me not to.” 

“You make it sound like it wasn’t me who turned it over.” 

Beth shrugged. “You wouldn’t have if I hadn’t brought it up.” 

Rick threw his head back and laughed. The squirrel startled, scurrying away. 

“What?” 

He walked over and held her chin, stroking her cheek with his covered thumb. “You underestimate how much I think about having my way with you.” 

Beth’s heart stuttered in her chest. She blinked up at him from beneath her eyelashes. “Do I?”

Rick’s boyish smirk shined through the Hourman mask. “You really liked it, huh?” 

She nodded. “I really did.” 

 He pressed his lips against hers and she wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing back hungrily, knocking his hood off his head so she could reach up and fist his hair. She’d been wanting to do this ever since he put his stupid glass back around his neck after school. She leaned back against the logs, and Rick climbed over her, pulling off her mask so he could kiss the skin of her neck. 

"While this is all well and good, Beth, need I remind you there is an unconfirmed ISA base, not even an acre away, and you have removed integral pieces of your costumes crucial to conceal your identities?"

Beth pushed Rick away to yank off her goggles from their perch on her head, blushing madly. “Chuck!” 

Rick ran a hand over his face and groaned, stepping away. “He’s right,” he said and pulled up his hood. “The damn computer’s right.” He reached onto the ground where Beth’s mask fell and tugged it over her hair and face. “We can’t afford two JSA screw-ups in one day. Pat would kill us.”

It was true. They had to stop now before things spiralled and they ended up captured by new ISA members in the middle of Samuel McKelvie, Nebraska.

“No more hourglass in bed,” Rick told her sternly, giving her a hand to haul her up from the trees. 

Beth let out a sad sigh. “No more hourglass in bed.” 

She grabbed Chuck and repositioned him over her eyes, then reached back to hold Rick’s hand again. They walked through the forest back where they came, listening to Chuck’s directions when they got lost a few times. The walk back was nice, relaxing. Beth felt the tension leak from her shoulders, content to simply chat and walk around with Rick. 

So they’d had their moment of wild times and reckless behaviour, and as much as she enjoyed it, Beth loved soft, quiet moments with her boyfriend too. Cuddling together after missions, going out for movies and drives, being gentle and sweet when they’re intimate without worrying about breaking anything...

Now she knew, both were possible, whenever they wanted it. Just without the help of magical strength-inducing hourglasses to boost stamina along the way. 

She still kind of wanted it, though. She peeked up at him with a new idea. 

“Rick…?” 

“Yeah?” 

“If a mission ever ends early with time still left over…” 

Rick stopped in his tracks. 

Beth continued walking, only turning her head over her shoulder to pull Chuck off her face and wink at her dumbstruck boyfriend. 

“...Then I wouldn’t say no to that.” 

[malecsecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @golden-queen-writes!

Read on AO3

*****

Flower Buds

Alec stared at the flower buds on his arm. They had been there since he was born, waiting for the day that he kissed his soulmate so they bloom. His reached up the length of his right arm, up his shoulder and crawling up part of his neck. His compared to his siblings was large, not uncommon, but most people he knew had smaller fields of flowers.

Isabelle’s flower buds spread along her left side, Max’s was only a couple on his ankle and Jace had a patch on the back of his shoulder. All small, all easily hidden.

“Thinking about your soulmate again?”

Alec jumped, not realizing anyone had walked into his office. He pulled down the sleeve of his robe and looked up to see Maia had walked in. “Kind of hard not to when a good chunk of you is covered. Did you need something?”

“I can’t find your boyfriend and I need my wolfsbane potion,” Maia replied, sitting across from him. “I thought you might know where he was.”

Alec’s cheeks turned red and he looked down at the multiple essays he was supposed to be grading. He had only gotten through three before he got distracted by his mark. “One, he’s not my boyfriend,” He said, and Maia snorted out a laugh. He looked back up at her. “He’s not.”

“I’ve caught students gossiping about you and Magnus in my class when they’re supposed to be focused on fire crabs.”

Alec sighed. “I haven’t seen him since lunch, but I’m sure he has your potion ready in his office.” He stood up and gestured towards the door. “I know his latest password.”

“And you say he’s not your boyfriend,” Maia teased.

They walked down towards Magnus’ office, which was located near the Ravenclaw tower, while Alec’s was closer to the Hufflepuff common room. As they walked together, they both spoke of their different classes. Neither of them had been teaching very long, Alec starting as the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher the previous year and Maia having become the new Care of Magical Creatures teacher at the beginning of the current school year.

“I don’t think I ever congratulated you on the promotion to head of our house. Maybe you’ll even make it to headmaster.”

Alec sighed. “My parents were dark wizards at one point, I don’t think they’ll hand it over to me.”

“They gave me a job despite me being a werewolf, Alec,” Maia said. “And I think you would make an amazing headmaster.”

Alec smiled at her. “We’ll see.” They stopped in front of Magnus’ office and he tapped his wand on the brick under Magnus’ nameplate. The brick fizzled away, revealing a piece of parchment and a quill. Alec quickly scribbled ‘defender of men’ on it before parchment burned up and the door opened.

“Interesting password.”

Alec’s cheeks flushed and he walked into the office, saying nothing. There was a cauldron on the desk and some goblets. He also spotted a folded note with ‘Alexander’ written on it. He pocketed it before Maia could see it.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Maia said, filling one of the goblets with the wolfsbane potion. “But ‘defender of men’ is the meaning of Alexander, yes?”

Alec sighed. “Yes.” He turned towards her. “I thought you didn’t care about the soulmate thing?”

“I don’t,” Maia replied, grimacing as she took a sip of her potion. “But he’s constantly talking about you and it gets annoying sometimes.”

“I doubt he would stop if we started dating,” Alec said. He sighed again and sat behind Magnus’ desk. “It’s complicated Maia.”

She sat down on the opposite side. “Try me.”

Alec was silent for a long moment before confessing, “What if he turns out to not be the one?”

“And what if he is?” Maia smiled softly at him. “Even if he’s not. He’s a really great guy, Alec, don’t let this whole soulmate thing be your deciding factor.” She then reached out and placed a hand over Alec’s giving it a squeeze. “Just because I gave up looking doesn’t mean I don’t want to see my friends happy, and you deserve to be happy.”

Alec looked at her for a long moment before nodding. “Thanks, Maia.”

“Alright, I need to get back to my own office. I have about a million assignments to grade. You have a good night and thanks for letting me in.”

“No problem. Good night, Maia.”

Maia left the office and once the door closed Alec pulled the letter left to him out of his pocket. He smiled to himself as he looked at Magnus’ cursive writing, tracing his finger along where Magnus had written out his name. The letter was a simple apology, he had gone out to dinner with an old friend off grounds. Magnus had also sprinkled in plenty of endearments and flirtations that made Alec smile more.

He was sure more werewolves would show up for the potion and waved his wand, making the papers he had been grading from his desk appear on Magnus’. He could wait for the other wizard to come back.

A few hours later, a hand shaking his shoulder woke him and he blinked his eyes open to see Magnus standing above him. He groaned and sat up. “I’m sorry.”

Magnus just smiled at him. “Don’t be. I’m just surprised that you waited for me.”

“Someone had to hand out the potion.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Alec yawned. “What time is it?”

“Past curfew, so if you didn’t want to get caught I could make the bed a little bigger,” Magnus said with a wink, making Alec chuckle. “Would you like me to walk you back?”

“I am tired, but I don’t really want to walk all the way back.”

“You’re the head of your house, you need to be close to it.”

“I have my own system to be reached if I’m not there,” Alec said. “Unless you don’t want me to stay.”

Magnus was silent for a moment before smiling softly at Alec. “What will the students think if they see you coming out of here in the morning?”

“According to Maia, they already talk about us.”

“You’re very bold tonight, Alexander,” Magnus said before turning away to tap a couple times on a brick, causing the wall to disappear and reveal his bed. “Apologies for the mess, I wasn’t expecting company.”

Alec just smiled and sat down as Magnus went to the dresser and pulled out two sets of pajamas. Magnus set a black pair next to Alec, keeping the blue one for himself. “It might be a little short on you.”

Alec smiled and slipped off his robe, folding it and setting it next to him. “That’s what magic’s for right?”

Magnus smiled and turned away from Alec, giving him some privacy as they changed. Alec did his best to not look, but as Magnus removed his shirt, Alec couldn’t help but to notice the buds on Magnus’ arm reaching up towards his neck. He had seen glimpses of Magnus’ soulmark poking out from his robes before, but never once seen how far it extended. It looked identical to Alec’s own. The only difference being it looked scarred.

Magnus seemed to sense Alec’s eyes on him and turned around, pulling on his shirt which dipped almost down to his belly, leaving much of his chest exposed. “See something you like, Alexander?”

Alec blushed and quickly looked away. “I was just looking at your mark.”

Magnus was quiet for a moment before sitting down next to Alec. “It’s not pretty, I know.”

Alec looked up at him. “I didn’t say that. It’s just..it looks a lot like mine.”

Magnus raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” Alec nodded and pulled off his shirt to show Magnus his whole mark. Magnus looked at his arm in awe and reached out, tracing one of the buds. “They do look the same, don’t they?”

Alec’s heart raced as Magnus continued to touch, fingers moving up to trail along the buds on his neck. Alec dared to reach up and push part of Magnus’ shirt off his shoulder to reveal part of his mark again.

He ignored the scarring, instead focusing on the buds, his mind wondering what they would bloom into and if those flowers would match his own. He looked up at Magnus again, sucking in a breath when he realized how close they had gotten.

Magnus reached up and caressed Alec’s cheek. “Alexander,” he whispered, and Alec’s heart pounded impossibly faster. He wanted to close the distance between them. Just a few more inches and-

An incessant knocking broke them apart and Magnus frowned, dropping his hand away from Alec. He started to get up, but Alec wrapped his hand around Magnus’ wrist stopping him for a moment.

“We’ll talk when I get back, Alexander,” Magnus said and Alec reluctantly let go of him, watching him walk towards the door. There was a Ravenclaw prefect on the other side of the door, talking in a hurried voice and Magnus left the office with an apologetic glance towards Alec.

Alec sighed and threw on his shirt before lying down on the bed. It was a poor choice as he fell asleep before Magnus got back, only waking up briefly when the bed dipped and an arm wrapped around his waist.

“Go back to sleep,” a voice whispered in his ear and he had no urge to object.

The next time he awoke, he could feel someone’s fingers carding through his hair and could hear a soft humming. He let out a yawned and slowly turned over to face Magnus was was sitting on the edge of the bed, already dressed. “What time is it?” He mumbled, feeling Magnus’ fingers move along his shoulder and down his arm. Even with all his conflicting feelings, he felt comfortable in Magnus’ bed and had no desire to move.

“Halfway through breakfast,” Magnus answered.

Alec groaned. “Now people will definitely be talking.”

“They already do, Alexander.”

Alec sighed and was quiet for a long moment before saying, “We should talk.”

“And we will,” Magnus said. “But right now, we need to eat and get ready for our classes.”

Alec nodded. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.” He sighed again and sat up, looking at his clothes that were folded in a pile near the bed. “Think I can borrow something to wear again?”

Magnus smiled. “Of course.” The Ravenclaw stood up and pulled out a dark blue button up and a pair of pants, waving his wand to make them Alec’s size. “Here, these should look good on you.”

“Thanks, Magnus.”

Once Alec was dressed, they walked down to the great hall together. “So what happened last night when you got called away?” Alec asked.

“I had to give out detention to two students who decided to wake up the whole house by having a duel because of a small disagreement,” Magnus sighed, shaking his head. “And I nearly got hit with a jelly leg curse when I walked into the common room!”

“Is everyone alright?”

Magnus nodded. “Those two will be spending their weekend cleaning out the potions room with me.” They stopped at the bottom of the stairs and Magnus turned to face Alec, placing a hand on the Hufflepuff’s arm. “Alec, about last night-“

“I thought we were going to talk about this later?”

“And we will,” Magnus answered. “But I just wanted to say one thing.”

“And what’s that?”

Magnus took a step closer and smiled at Alec. “I enjoyed being able to wake up with you next to me, Alexander, and I hope that perhaps it doesn’t have to be a one time thing.”

Alec felt himself smile as well and leaned down to press a soft kiss to Magnus’ cheek. His lips lingered for a moment before he pulled away. “I do like you Magnus.”

“And I haven’t exactly been shy about how I feel about you.”

Alec opened his mouth to say something but at that moment his stomach chose to growl making both of them laugh. “Let’s get some breakfast, Magnus, and we’ll talk later.”

Hours later, Alec was in the middle of teaching a class when the door opened. Alec paused momentarily, confused when no one came in until he spotted Chairman Meow walking down one of the aisles towards his desk, with a rolled up piece of parchment in his mouth.

The students started whispering as the cat jumped up, set down the letter and curled up on his desk. Alec sighed and tapped the board bringing their attention back to him. “Yes, that is Chairman but right now you should be focusing on the lesson. This will be on your next test.”

The students grumbled and Alec continued his lesson. Once he was done and had given them all homework to work on, then he sat down at his desk and pet Chairman. “Let’s see what your owner has sent me today.”

He opened the letter and continued to pet the cat, ignoring the students that were whispering. He dropped the letter when they became too loud, giving a stern look two two Slytherins and a Hufflepuff in the back row.

Alec looked back down at the letter and grabbed his quill. Magnus had asked if they could meet by the lake after dinner, and Alec wrote that he can’t wait to see him before rolling the letter back up and tucking it into Chairman Meow’s collar once more. He gently lifted the cat and set him back down on the ground, the cat immediately scampering out of the room and back to Magnus.

“Professor Lightwood?”

Alec looked up at the Hufflepuff boy that had spoken, his hand held in the air. “Yes?”

“Are you and Professor Bane a couple?”

The whole room went silent and Alec sat there for a moment, watching the surprised looks on everyone’s faces at the student’s question. Alec sighed and looked at the clock which told him there was only a few more minutes of class left.

“I think you should focus more on your classwork and less on the private lives of your professors,” Alec replied. “Class dismissed. Have a good weekend and don’t forget that your assignment is due Monday.”

At dinner, Alec couldn’t help but to keep glancing down the table at where Magnus sat between Raphael and Catarina. He was both nervous and excited about their meeting later. Perhaps tonight was the night that they finally found out if they were soulmates or not.

Dinner wasn’t quite over yet when he excused himself. He decided to make his way to the lake early, needing a few minutes of fresh air before he spoke with Magnus. His thoughts were racing inside of his head. There was part of him dreading the meeting, a voice whispering that Magnus wasn’t his soulmate, but he shoved those thoughts down. He liked Magnus, and he kept telling himself over and over again that he didn’t need a mark to decide who was meant to be with.

He heard the soft crunching of leaves as someone approached and he stopped his pacing. He looked up to see Magnus holding out his illuminated wand in front of him making Alec realize how dark it had grown since he left dinner.

Magnus stopped in front of him. “You look nervous, Alexander.”

“I am nervous.”

Magnus smiled, taking a step closer. “Don’t be. It’s just me.”

“I know, but that’s also why I’m so nervous,” Alec said. “I really, really like you, Magnus.”

“Are you worried about the possibility of not being soulmates?”

“Kinda, but mostly because I have never been in a relationship,” Alec replied. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, looking towards the lake. After a moment he turned towards Magnus again. “I do like you, Magnus. I’ve liked you ever since the day you helped me find the Charms classroom during my first year.”

Magnus smiled. “I ended up late for Care of Magical Creatures.”

Alec let out a surprised laugh. “You never told me that.”

“I didn’t want you to feel bad,” Magnus replied. “Plus I had the highest marks in the class, so I had a little leeway.” He stepped even closer to Alec and Alec could feel his heart beat even faster. “I have always like you too, Alexander.” He placed his free hand on Alec’s arm, his fingers gently curling around it. “Alexander, I want to kiss you.”

Alec let out a shaky breath, letting an arm snake around Magnus’ waist, pulling the Ravenclaw flush against him. “I don’t care if you don’t end up being my soulmate, Magnus.” His other hand gently cupped Magnus’ cheek. “I want to kiss you too.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, Alec feeling like his heart was going to beat out of his chest. He didn’t know who moved first, but suddenly Magnus’ lips were on his and they were kissing.

His head felt like it was spinning and he could vaguely feel a tingling on his right arm. He briefly wondered if it was his soulmark blooming, but pushed the thought of his mind when Magnus slightly parted his lips to deepen their kiss. It felt too good to kiss Magnus and he didn’t want to stop anytime soon.

Later they would discover that their soulmarks had turned into roses.

[charminglyantiquated]

a short unpolished elsewhere fic

Students who sought out contact with the Fae at Elsewhere University where normally rejected by other students, I was no exception to this rule. The faeries at Elsewhere where the trickster type who liked to steal people, make wagers, and steal people. My first year at elsewhere had been hard for a different reason- people didn’t accept who I was. I very much looked like a typical boy and talked like a typical boy so they all thought I was a boy, this lasted about a week. When I thought people where starting to like me I became more comfortable expressing the fact that I wasn’t a boy, not always at least. You see they had trouble understanding that my gender was so fluid that one day I could be a boy, the next a girl, and one some days both or neither. At least thats what I thought. The real reason why everyone was uncomfortable when I would express this fluidity is because students like me where more likely to be taken by the faeries here, or make deals with them and no one wanted to be friends with someone who would be stolen away, possibly to not return until. During midterms in my second semester people started opening up to me and I made a few friends, this however was an especially hard time for me and I began to want to seek out a faerie that would help me. I began taking my mood ring on walks around the school glancing through it to see the truth and when I would find a faerie I would simply put the ring on and talk to them. I must have talked to a dozen faeries posing as students before I got the answer I was looking for, that if I were able to win a contest with the faerie they would give me the ability to control my voice and then at least I would sound the way I wanted whenever I wanted. This “parlor trick” as the faerie called it wasn’t very costly. I had to wager my second favorite dress (one that I had bought for less than twenty dollars) so I thought the risk would be well worth the reward, the ability to change my voice. This contest was a game of quarters, I became very good at quarters in high school when I would drink my dysphoria away at parties with all the “cool” kids. This was the first of three contests I won with the Fae in two years. The second contest won back a student who had been taken, and the third wager won me a potion that would grant happiness and inspiration for a day (I used this potion to finish my first novel and the short story that secured my A in my creative writing course.) Each wager became more dangerous than the last. For the student me and two others had to put up something with extreme emotional attachment- the teddy bear my grandmother gave me, Hannah’s bracelet their dad gave them before going off to a war they would never return from and Johnny’s blanket (he wouldn’t explain why it was so important to him but the faerie we were dealing with seemed surprised at how much it meant to him.) The potion, well I nearly lost that wager and my voice along with it. But this is nothing compared to the last wager I made at Elsewhere University.

I was on a mission to find the most powerful faerie who would be willing to gamble with me, I knew that was the only way. Even my closest friends told me that they wouldn’t support this endeavor as the risk would be too high. “They’ll take you forever” they warned. I didn’t care anymore, I was tired of the body I was living in and I was going to find a faerie powerful enough to grant me the power to change it. I had seen one student win a wager with a faerie that changed their body once, her name was Ellie and she graduated much happier than I ever imagined she would be, but still not as happy as she deserved to be as her fear of what her parents would think gnawed at her from time to time. But what Ellie had done wasn’t what I wanted, I wanted to be able to change my body, to be the way I felt like I should be on any given day, and that was no parlor trick. That feat was no small task of magic and no complex potion could grant my request. This was strong magic, magic that the faeries only ever used on themselves, I wasn’t even sure it was possible for any Fae to grant my request.

One day though in class room 231- the classroom that time moves the slowest in- I met a faerie who gave off an imposing energy, I knew instantly that if anyone could grant my request it would be them.

“Oh great and powerful one of the fairfolke what might I call you, if you do not mind my inquiry?”I knelt as I said this in sign of respect and recognition of their strength.

“My name is too long and complex, it would get lost on your tongue.” It spoke at me “Humans always did have a way of butchering our words, if they even bothered to learn.” I remained still and silent, eyes fixed on the ground. “You might call me prince, young one.”

I took the offering of the name as an invitation to conversation and stood slowly. Humble in posture and meek in tone I began my request.

“Prince” I started, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I entreat you, I have a desire that I fear only you may make reality.”

“Interesting. And what is this desire, and how would you pay for it?”

“Prince, I would like the ability to change my form, as a faerie would but only between different human forms so that I may have a body to match the way I feel.”

“Phhhuh” the prince scoffed “there is nothing that you possess that could be worth such magic. No human could possess such an item. So you are either offering me your life in servitude or you are seeking to win what you seek in a game. No?”

“Yes, prince” I bowed my head again “I seek to make a wager with you if you win you earn my life, and if I win I earn the power to change my form in any way I wish, when I wish it. I would not be bold enough to choose the nature of this wager, that sir shall be allowed to you.”

He pondered the idea for a moment. He scratched his head and stopped himself from speaking many times before he made his response.

“Human, I will accept this wager if you will accept the game I propose.”

“I will play any game, try anything, I need this.”

“I see your pain, your maturity, your wisdom. This isn’t a childs wager so we will not be playing childs game. This wager is of magic and faeries so we will be playing a game that reflects that. We shall play a game that my people have been playing a long time, you should learn it very quickly as it is much like your human chess or checkers. You will be given a copy of the rules today and in three nights, when the moon is full, you shall come here and we will play, if you win you will have your request. If I win I will own you you will exist in servitude for the rest of your life. Does it sound like a deal?” he held his hand out and smiled at me, he was leaning forward in his chair in anticipation. Hesitantly I reached out to grasp hands with him, realizing I had never touched a fae before. He threw back his head in laughter.

“I haven’t had a good challenge in ages, please do entertain me.” And then prince disappeared. Leaving nothing behind but a packet of papers, the rule book. The game was simply called “kingdom” and it involved several different pieces that both players were allowed to place on their side of the board in any way they wished to start the game, after this players were only allowed to move one piece a turn then they could make an action with one of their pieces and that would be the end of the turn. The object of the game was to capture or defeat all the pieces that an enemy controlled some pieces could capture and others could attack making an infinite variety of strategies that players could make. Prince had left a note for me saying that this was a copy of the abridged rules and that we would not be playing with the more complex set. I thought to myself that the game was already so complex that he had done me a kindness omitting the more challenging rules for our showdown. I didn’t go to class for the days that followed, I stayed in one area or another that would give me more time to study the rules and become any kind of proficient at this game. I left the areas that time moved slowly in only to sleep. And when the day came, I prayed I was ready. I picked out my favorite dress, and put on my most comfortable shoes.

The walk to the room seemed to go on forever, none of the fae in the halls even looked at me as I passed. When I arrived prince was standing next to the chair he had been sitting in when we first met.

“Greetings” he said “I hope you’ve had a productive few days it would be a shame if you made this easy on me.”

“I plan to win tonight, prince”

“Lets commence then” he waved his hand over the table and the game board appeared, he sat in his chair and motioned for me to sit opposite him. “Just remember this is a game, so have fun with it.”

I simply nodded as I laid my pieces. The pattern I had chosen was very daring. I sat my king in the middle of my side of the board with all my other pieces around him. It appeared that he was exposed but the placement of my other pieces just meant that this was a big trap and if he tried to move on my king I could take a large lead in the game. This however isn’t what happened. In actuality he knew what I was doing and instead set about demolishing the defenses I had made for the king taking an offensive strategy that started to widdle down my pieces with minimal gain on my end. I tried to counter his moves by counter engaging with my pieces which proved effective for a few turns until I fell into his trap. The game lasted for hours going forth and back and my knowledge of the game was stretched to its absolute max as I tried to find out what his real end strategy was, and how much of this he had known I would do from the start. Eventually I had nothing but my king as his last few pieces circled around.

“You seem to have lost” he said “now what is it that we agreed upon?”

“That you would have me, own me, for the rest of my days.”

“Yes I see, that was a truly desperate wager you made wasn’t it?”

I only nodded.

The moments that followed are a blur to me now, the next thing I remember clearly happens in faerie castle that prince called home. More accurately in his bed chamber. He showed me his true face. He was a tall, very human looking creature with antlers growing from his head, he was attractive. I found myself shocked at his allure.

“Now you see, human” his voice was like silk as he almost whispered to me “there a few things I didn’t tell you, a few things that you have to do.” I became fearful that my servitude would become more physical than imagined. “In my eyes you won our wager as you won me over, and asking you to do the things I want to ask of you would be very wrong. So instead I brought you here because in this room there is an artifact thats magic I can use to grant your wish and after I grant it I have a request for you but since I will not hold you in a bond of servitude you have no obligation to humor my request. While I was recovering from the revelation that I would be getting what I wanted and that I would not have to commit my life to a faerie, he rummaged through the chest at the foot of his bed and pulled out an amulet. “Take this. Touch it and absorb the power in it and you will have your request granted. But be warned, once you do this, you are one of us, stuck here in our world. You may only leave in limited amounts. My request, if you choose to accept the magic of the amulet, is that you stay here with me, get to know me and perhaps one day, learn to love me as I have come to love you in the years I watched you in that school perform tasks both for yourself and others.”

Without hesitation I touched the jewel of the amulet and started to absorb its power, but soon after I started I stopped, and tested my gut theory. Without absorbing all the power of the amulet I was still able to change shape, but I had to remain humanoid, which was my only intention to begin with.

“The rest of the power in this amulet isn’t needed, I only asked for the power It has already given me, I don’t need the animal shapes. Am I still bound here?”

“No” he hung his head “you are not bound here. You are merely half faerie now, and half faeries break the rules when it comes to traversing worlds. But be warned the point of your ears will not be changeable. That will be the only thing that cannot be changed by the power you have gained here.”

I touched his face gently, drawn to him as if by magic and found myself wanting to kiss him. “If you dont stop with the desire magic I’m never going to visit you again. Then what poor human will you rope into playing kingdom?”

“You mean?”

“Yeah. We can be friends. As long as you don’t keep using that magic on me. Humans find it invasive.”

x

[colasins]

1.Masculinity, masquerade and display: Some thoughts on Rick Owens’s Sphinx collection and men in fashionA Bancroft - Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, 2016

 This is a must-read for anyone who has ever doubted that fashion is more than just a visual pleasure." Before I opened the book, I was most impressed by this recommendation from Nilgin Yusuf, creative director of the school of media and communication at the London institute of fashion. After reading the book, I agree with this sentence even more. Fashion, as the most preamble of popular culture, not only pursues fashion and style, but also expresses designers' opinions on the world, which is related to the whole social and cultural environment, and actively absorbs philosophical aesthetics and other viewpoints. By understanding the cultural code behind fashion and putting down your books, you may gain a new understanding of the creative behavior of famous designers and the subversive avant-garde works of art. Clothing design is very personal style, but also let a lot of people confused and misunderstood. From the perspective of fashion criticism, this book summarizes the work of a fashion design master with a key word, and then interprets this professional vocabulary from various cultural perspectives, so that it and the designer and his works it summarizes can be understood by the general reader. For example, "deconstruction". Starting from derrida's theory of deconstruction, the author elaborates on the connection and difference between deconstruction in architecture and that in fashion design.

 2.Joseph Beuys: Pioneer of a radical ecologyD Adams - Art Journal, 1992 - caa

Shaman and mysticism really have no love, but they always get a lot of intellectuals. The early boyce works are full of vitality, with only admiration for the oil chairs and mummies. I don't know whether it is the translation or the author's unwillingness to explain clearly. Social sculpture says a lot, but feels little. However, social revolution as an artwork and revolutionary organism as an artwork are still valuable legacies. Allan Antliff's introduction is a bit shallow and fan-friendly, but does touch on the criticism of Beuys's work. I think Beuys is so controversial, it would be totally abnormal not to raise any objection at all. Nor, of course, was there a proper rebuttal or response to Benjamin Bloch's criticism, which was simply labelled "slander" and "biased attack". In addition, when describing the irony of aboriginal artist James Luna's visit to Beuys' "I like America and America likes me" -- Hong Kong, I think Luna's performance of "Petroglyphs in Motion" criticizing Beuys was better than Beuys' performance criticizing Duchamp -- he was also quick to exonerate Beuys。

 3.New York! Banks is coming! Banksy Does New York (2014) director: Chris Moukarbel type: documentaryRelease date: October 11, 2014 running time: 75 mins

Banksy was fine, but like all artists, once it became a subject of capital, everything went sour. Throughout the film, people "protect" a wall on the basis of "do you know how much this is worth?" while Banksy's autographed paintings sold for 60 yuan were not sought after. The whole thing is a bureau, with the streets as a stage for people to perform. And the pictures on the wall, like the plays on the stage, are ephemeral. As for the origin of the name banksy, some say it was the painter's surname, while others say it was just his alias. But banksy's low profile does not hide his boldness. Banksy is known for his art pranks. He often swaps world famous works for his own modified imitations in art galleries around the UK, causing a media sensation from time to time. He has scrawled graffiti all over Britain's streets and Bridges. In London's Trafalgar Square he has written bold slogans such as "designated riot zones" and "beware of litter" on the steps outside the Tate Gallery. For more than a decade, banksy has produced a large number of works with real life and anti-war content as the subject matter, the style is famous for black humor. ", he created a different art in this era, can be remembered enough, will disappear in the long river of history, really so important?

 4. Westwood  R, Jesse; C, Ronald;  Book on Demand Ltd.pages:134

Lost legends and living legends, self-destructive genius and reconciliation genius. In particular, the way to avoid a biographical account of her life is to capture the character's sense of rebellion, identity and independence, and how she used her influence to get involved in the environmental movement. After watching it, I still don't understand fashion, but I am closer to this person, although I can neither reveal the inner world of the character nor tell the true legend of her life. But it also offers a glimmer of an independent soul that moves with sex, free of men, circles and politics. But just as she said, behind the logic of seemingly rebelling against the mainstream value, there is nothing more than more mainstream commercial marketing. It is a ridiculous thing that punk woman finally becomes a refined woman. Whether she is on the cutting edge of fashion, or whether capital has kept the so-called "independent" queen under her wing, is another question.

 5. Chanel’s Secret Love History Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2009) Director: Jan Gaoneng Screenwriter: Chris Greenhalgh / Carlo De Boutiny / Jan High Energy Starring: Anna Muglalis / Max Micholson / Jelena Morozova / Natasha Landinger Genre: Drama / Love Production Country / Region: French Language: English / French / Russian Release Date: 2009-12-30 Runtime: 118 minutes

At the beginning of the 20th century, it took more than ordinary courage to ignore the pressures of public opinion and moral constraints. Even now, when a hundred flowers bloom, my view of life that does not conform to the mainstream often wavered like a pendulum, and at that time, she was already beautiful, independent and strong, focus on design, the pursuit of love, without any hesitation. I want to travel through time to talk to her. What is morality? If you knew what an irreplaceable passion is, you wouldn't be using the bottom line to measure infidelity. So, to his wife's question, "don't you feel ashamed?" There was a twinkle in her eye, but she soon regained her usual confidence. She knew exactly what she was doing. She always knew what she wanted. Why should such people feel guilty? Guilt for two of a kind is cruel. But as a result, some people are bound to become more and more like sleepy beasts. After all, the desire to be recognized is an unspeakable thirst in everyone's blood. So there will be stubborn. Dispute. In the dead of night, the temptation to tangle with each other. The weak always give in first. He didn't know the result, and he couldn't find the exit. She was awake, awake, awake. Invite the theater owner to dinner, sponsor the show, and do everything for him. Silence unconditionally. No one knows. Too sober person can be particularly lonely, but this loneliness also shaped chanel as always independent.

 6. The Love of Van Gogh Starry Night Mystery Loving Vincent (2017) Director: Dolota Kobela / Hugh Welshman Screenplay: Dolota Kobela / Hugh Welshman / Giaco Dan Nal Genre: Drama / Animation / BiographyOfficial Website: www.lovingvincent.com Country / Region: UK / Polish Language: English ) Duration: 95 minutes

The film USES an undeliverable letter to connect the secrets of van gogh's last six weeks with three of the most important people in his life, taking the viewer back to Europe at the end of the 19th century and accompanying van gogh through his final days. The film USES the characters in van gogh's original paintings to restore van gogh's artistic life, allowing the audience to enjoy the breathtaking visual feast, to discover the secret hidden for a century and a half. Fanatical love van gogh's brushwork, and all lived together, that feeling is so wonderful, like entering a parallel world, and van gogh's dialogue across time and space, when he turned to leave in a special way, I already was in tears, in the darkness that brief encounter, to say goodbye, the tragedy of his life, he's famous legend. It's amazing to see the painter's strokes flowing through the frames, and maybe a little distracted. The story itself is a detective story. If you want a more detailed description of van gogh himself, both pialla and altmann are better; But of course the animation has its own beauty, and it's amazing to find those familiar characters in every scene.

 7. Analyze the creative concept of artistic works with Hegel’s “Aesthetics” perspective-Taking Alexander McQueen’s costume works as an example L Yang -Light Textile Industry and Technology, 2012

Darkness, skulls, romance and imagination are the words that spring to mind when you think of the famous British fashion designer Alexander McQueen. The world's most famous and controversial fashion baddie, who hanged himself in 2010 on the eve of his mother's funeral at the age of 40, has left a world of speculation and speculation. From ordinary working families in the east end of London to the top runways of Paris and London, rebel's stunning talent has made him the star of an era reinventing popular culture. Under the aura and fame, the long oppression of depression and the death of relatives, also let him in the world's most crowded center, enjoy the roller coaster dive like a high-speed fall of loneliness. Genius doesn't have to be discovered, because it's already there. Legend can't last, because legend is always one in a million. Skulls and butterflies are about death and dreams. Flowers and birds, let color and emotion overlap. Before you, all the designers will be pale, compared to you, the whole fashion industry looks ordinary. You can feel life in death and find beauty in ugliness. Like you: Alexander McQueen.

 8. Globalization: Incorporating the museum MW Rectanus - A companion to museum studies, 2006 - Wiley Online Library

If you want to design a product, you have to figure out how to make it."-- terence conran, founder of the design museum in LondonWe may ask ourselves: what is important about design? Why should I care about design? The answer is simple: because we live in a world of design, we live in a world of design. Just as we try to understand nature, we need to understand the world that man has shaped for himself. The concept of design goes back to the industrial revolution. At that time, factories introduced machines that could produce large quantities of identical products in a short time. For thousands of years the direct link between the craftsman, the customer, the producer and the user was suddenly broken down. When the workshop was replaced by the factory, "designer" came into being. They act as a bridge between producers and users, taking into account both the needs of millions of users and what products are more likely to be sold. Beginners who are interested in design can use this book as an introduction.

 9. Dior by Dior C Dior - 2007 - Victoria & Albert Museum

It is the reflection and record of Mr. Dior's life on fashion, as well as the summary of his own fashion views. He elaborated his views on fashion with simple and interesting short essays. For example, his ideas and Suggestions on dress, lipstick, earrings, lace, embroidery and other fashion items or elements. This book is a must-read classic on fashion culture, as well as dior's fashion point of view. 1. Age -- there are only two ages in fashion -- girlhood and womanhood. Dress for your age. 2. Luxury -- the opposite of elegance. Elegance can be bold, but can never be extravagant. Better to err in simplicity than to be extravagant in dress. Elegance must be the right combination of individuality, naturalness, carefulness, and simplicity.

 10. Picassos äventyr (1978) Director: Taj Danielson Screenwriter: Hans Elferson / Taiji Danielson Starring: Josta Eckerman / Hans Elferson / Margarita Crocker / Lena Olin / Bernard Kribins

It is said that girls are willing to find a partner who is similar to their father. What happens if a girl comments on their father like this? "If my husband treated me the way my father treated my mother, I would kill him." This is what Picasso's daughter said in the documentary. After watching the documentary, I really want to say that Picasso is really the father of cheating and playing with women's feelings, how can there be such a big man "charm"? Into the 50s and 60s can also hook up with teenage girls in their teens and 20s, simply cattle. He grew up among women, whom he loved and hated. To be precise, it was partly women who made him what he was, and it was relationships that made great painters. Every big change in his painting style is due to a certain woman, blue stage, pink stage, cubism, surrealism and so on. He was a man of great conceit; he despised the weaker, and hated the stronger.

[bern33chaser]

11 Writing Exercises to Inspire You and Strengthen Your Writing

Whether you’re writing just for fun, for school, or with professional goals in mind, these exercises can all help you to improve your writing. Some will give you inspiration, others will help you avoid editing as you write, and many of them will help you pay closer attention to your word choices.

I hope you’ll enjoy giving them a go!

#1: Cover Your Screen While You Write

If you find yourself doing more editing than actual writing, then try covering up (or, on a laptop, turning down) your screen while you draft.

If, like me, you can touch-type – try closing your eyes instead. I find it surprisingly relaxing! (Though I tend to stop every sentence or two to make sure I’ve hit the keys I thought I was hitting…)

At first, it might seem odd not to be able to see the words that you’re typing – but you might well find that you write faster and express your thoughts more freely this way.

#2: Set a Daily Writing Goal and Track Your Progress

Writing, as most other crafts, only gets better with practice. If you want to improve, therefore, you will need to write pretty much every single day.

The best strategy to achieve this objective is to set a goal of how many words you want to write per day, and then to track your progress over time. A simple notebook or spreadsheet should be enough for you to record your daily statistics.

The Prolifiko blog has a great piece with more tips to set writing goals and resolutions and to make sure you achieve them.

#3: Use a Writing Prompt to Get You Going

If you want to write, but you don’t know what you want to write, try using a writing prompt. This could be anything from a story scenario (“write about someone who gets caught in a lie”) to a blog post title (“Ten Things I Wish I Could Tell My 15-Year-Old Self”).

Here are a couple of sources of prompts to keep you busy for a while:

25 creative writing prompts, a list of prompts you can use to start writing a simple story or even a novel.

365 Creative Writing Prompts, from Think Written – a mixed bag of prompts, with some for stories and some for poems; many would also work for blogging.

Even if you’re working on a longer piece, like a novel, prompts can be helpful. A line of dialogue, for instance, might give you just the inspiration you need for your next scene.

#4: Don’t Start at the Beginning … Start at the End

There’s no writing rule that says you need to begin at the beginning. In fact, many writers find it more effective to start at the end.

You can do this in a couple of different ways:

Start your story (or blog post, etc) close to the chronological end – e.g. you might begin with “As I stared down the mountain, I couldn’t believe I was actually here…” You can then jump back in time and narrate the events that led up to that point.

Write the end of your blog post (or story, etc) first. Once you’ve written your concluding paragraphs or final scenes, you’ll know what you’re leading up to. If you prefer not to write it out in full, you could make notes.

#5: Rewrite a Masterpiece or a Famous Story

Choose a famous masterpiece or classic novel (like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet) and write your own version.

This is a great exercise because you can do it at almost any level: you could write a short story for children, or you could write a whole novel or screenplay. (Bridget Jones’s Diary, for instance, borrowed heavily from Pride and Prejudice; the children’s movie Gnomeo and Juliet is based, as you might guess, on Romeo and Juliet.)

You can do this with fairytales, too, like the story of Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood. You might decide to bring the stories into the modern world – or you might switch to a completely different genre, like a Western version of Little Red Riding Hood or a sci-fi version of Cinderella.

Hopefully, you’ll think of some interesting ways to present an old story in a new way – great practice for avoiding clichés and stereotypes in your own writing.

#6: Create a Found Poem from Your Spam Folder

A “found poem” is one created from text that already exists – and some writers enjoy repurposing spam emails for this!

Check your spam folder. I’m sure that, like mine, it’s full of emails with some strange wording and dubious promises like:

I did not need to find a winning product. he gave it to me…

Just drinking 1 cup of this delicious hot beverage in the morning sets you up to burn more fat than 45 exhausting minutes on the treadmill.

Hello %E-mail_address%, I know your very love Engineer Jobs and want have T-Shirt for Engineer Jobs.

It is vital to have a telephone system that has all the specific functions

(All of these are taken verbatim from my own spam folder…)

Could you pick out a few lines (they don’t have to be consecutive ones) to create your own found poem? Feel free to add some words if needed. There are some wonderfully odd examples here.

#7: Write Something Inspired By a Piece of Writing, Music or Art

Inspiration can come in all sorts of ways – but if you’re struggling to find an idea, try turning to other people’s creative works. In my blogging, I’ve often been inspired by other people’s post structures, by an idea of theirs that I want to take further – or even by something they’ve written that I disagree with.

You can use music and art in a similar way: they can be particularly potent sources of ideas for stories. If you have a favourite song or artist, what in their work speaks to you? How could you craft a story using some of those themes or thoughts? Alternatively, look through some photos of artworks, and choose one or more to use as the basis for a story.

#8: Interview Your Novel’s Characters

This is a fun exercise that a lot of writers use to dig into who their characters are: the character interview. You can work through a pre-set list of questions, or you can come up with your own in advance, or you can just start typing and go with the flow!

You might do this essentially like a character questionnaire or checklist, or you might want to write it more like a mini-story, with you as the author inviting your character to sit down and talk.

Depending on the sort of fiction you write, the setting for your interview could be almost anything – perhaps you’re enjoying a casual chat over coffee and cake with your character, or maybe you’re interviewing them as a journalist, or even in court. Or, if you’re into rather darker fiction, you might be conducting an interrogation…

However you do this, it’s a great exercise to have fun with, and you might discover a whole backstory to your character that you’d never thought about before.

#9: Use the Alphabet

This is a fun exercise that can work for almost any type of writing: craft a piece where each sentence starts with the next letter of the alphabet. Here’s the start of one to show you what I mean:

At six o’clock, Josie woke up. Before she’d even opened her eyes, she knew what had woken her: she could hear it, just like she’d heard it every Friday morning for months. Cliff, her neighbour, was out in his garden. Despite all the times she’d gone round and asked him, through gritted teeth, to please wait until at least seven, he was mowing the blasted lawn again.

“Excuse me!” she called, over the fence. For a moment, she thought he hadn’t heard her over the sound of the mower.

(Yes, it’s tricky once you get to X! You might find this list helpful, or you might choose to use a sentence-starting word that merely contains an X.)

#10: Write with a Sentence Length Limit in Place

Can you limit every sentence you write to ten words? (Or fewer!) This might be tricky. It’s a great exercise for bloggers and online marketers, though. Short snappy sentences and paragraphs work well online.

You might want to draft as normal, then edit ruthlessly. Or you could count the words as you type. Whatever works for you!

(Yes, the sentences in this section are ten words max…)

#11: Write Without Using Any Adverbs

This is a common exercise advised for fiction writers: write a whole scene without using a single adverb.

Adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives and adverbs. They often (though not always) end with –ly.

Here are a few sentences with the adverbs indicated in bold:

The girl walked quickly to school. (“Quickly” is modifying the verb “walked”.)

Slowly, the fairly tall man stood.  (“Slowly” is modifying the verb “stood”, and “fairly” is modifying the adjective “tall”)

On the bus, the baby cried dismayingly loudly. (“Dismayingly” is modifying the adverb “loudly”, and “loudly” is modifying the verb “cried”.)

Writing without adverbs forces you to write crisper, clearer (and shorter!) sentences, which often have more impact. In particular, you’ll find yourself choosing stronger verbs.

All of these sentences could replace “The girl walked quickly to school” – and each has a slightly different nuance:

The girl strode to school.

The girl hurried to school.

The girl power-walked to school.

Of course, adverbs aren’t bad in themselves – so I don’t recommend avoiding them in all your writing! This exercise can help you, though, to be more aware of when you’re using adverbs unnecessarily.

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Pick one of the above exercises to try out during your writing time this week. (If you’re feeling up for it, pick two and combine them – how about rewriting a classic without using any adverbs?) Have fun!

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Original post: 11 Writing Exercises to Inspire You and Strengthen Your Writing from Daily Writing Tips https://www.dailywritingtips.com/11-writing-exercises/