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samuel-de-champagne-problems · 3 years

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Band-Aids Don’t Fix Bullet Holes, But Your Kisses Do

summary: in a standoff with an unsub, reader makes a choice: her life or spencer’s.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader

category: angst/fluff at the end

warnings/includes: canon typical case violence, based off of episode “haunted” so spoilers, guns/gun violence, hospitals, kissing, mentions of hotch’s stabbing

word count: 3437

author’s note: i wrote this one a while ago and thought i’d share it. if anyone wants to be tagged, i’m going to figure it out and i’ll add you to a tag list!!

Band-Aids Don’t Fix Bullet Holes, But Your Kisses Do

The two agents that sat on swivel chairs facing each other fake arguing about an episode of Dr. Who. Spencer had his legs straight out, resting on Y/N’s lap comfortably. She leaned forward and placed her chin on her hand as she explained to Spencer her thoughts on the episode.

“Spencer, you cannot tell me that you don't think David Tennant is hot! I watched the episode with you and I can tell you are-"

“I’m not going to argue against that, Y/N. David Tennant is,” Spencer started as he fiddled with the lollipop that Garcia handed him when he and Y/N walked into the bullpen.

“Is what, Spence?” A teasing look graced her face as Spencer’s blush grew down his exposed neck and collarbone.

“He’s hot, okay Y/N is that what you want me to say!” Spencer’s voice rose a couple octaves from his admission over his not-so-subtle-crush on The Doctor.

“That’s exactly what I wanted you to say, Spencer. Least I know we have the same type” She said with a wink.

“You got a type, Y/N?” Derek called from the doorway of the conference room.

“Yeah, hot doctors with brown hair” Emily said without missing a beat. She had walked in behind Derek, the pair of them discussing her annual Sin-to-Win Weekend in Atlantic City.

“But they, you know, have to be like Time Lords, or whatever” She said in efforts to cover up her growing discomfort.

She turned her attention back to Reid, who was in the process of trying to remove his leg from her warm lap. He did not want to give Derek anymore ammunition to make sly jokes at his not-so-subtle-crush on his best friend/co-worker. Secretly, he wanted to keep his leg there, against her soft thigh and maybe she’d drop her hands on his leg in a comforting gesture of….friendship.

Garcia placed a tin decorated with white and orange cats dressed in bonnets on the table just within reach of Hotch’s usual spot near the monitor. Reid reached forward to open the tin, which he deduced was filled with Penelope’s infamous snickerdoodle cookies. Unfortunately, before the genius profiler could reach the gaudy tin, Penelope swatted his hand away from grasping the cookies.

“Hey! Those are for Hotch” Penelope shouted as she grabbed the tin and moved them closer to Hotch’s chair.

“What? You know I love cookies, Garcia. Come on, Hotch hates attention”

“I just made some cookies, it’s not like I made him a cake.” Penelope argued as Derek and Emily both quietly eyed the cookies.

“Spence, we’ll make cookies tonight. It looks like it’s just a paperwork day” Y/N said with a slight smile, that, in turn, elicited a big grin from an unsuspecting Spencer.

“Anyway,” Derek started as he chose to ignore the interaction that unfolded before him “we all know he’s going to act like nothing happened” he remarked as he fingered through the dozen case files spread out before him on the table.

“Doesn’t mean we have to,” Penelope said sadly as she looked down at the cat cookie tin.

“Maybe we should,” Reid said quietly to his co-workers.

“But, I’m not built like that!” said Penelope.

“Hotch is though, Penny,” Y/N noted as she snuck a cookie while Penelope’s back was turned. She broke it in half and handed it to Spencer under the table. He winked at her as she shushed him.

“Yeah, Y/N,” Spencer said with a mouthful of cookie, “Hotch never blinks” he finished with a large swig of lukewarm, sugared coffee.

“Classic Alpha Male” Spencer said, looking towards Derek.

“Do you think he stared down Foyet...you know while it happened?” Emily questioned. She was usually the one who could stomach all these, but when it came to the team, she was as nervous as the lot of them.

“It’s probably what saved his life,” Derek said somberly.

“He can’t be okay,” Penelope said with a whisper.

“I wouldn’t be,” Spencer said with an air of uncertainty, “I’m a blinker”

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There was an uncomfortable silence during the ride to Louisville. Hotch was more sullen than usual, but, thankfully, Garcia broke the tension with her reports via computer screen.

“Our point in Louisville is Lieutenant Kevin Mitchell, my contacts don’t report any more attacks related to this unsub” JJ relayed. She sat next to Derek, who was across from Hotch and Rossi. Emily sat criss cross on the table across from the foursome. On the small jet couch, Spencer and Y/N played a game of chess as they listened to the initial reports JJ received from the local PD.

“Call’s proving hard to track. He never had a driver’s license, so he’s probably still on foot,” Spencer mumbled without removing his eyes from the chessboard.

“Or public transportation,” Y/N added as she cringed when Spencer announced “check”.

“Well, he’s not going to get anywhere too far with his face all over the news,” Emily continued.

“So, what do we think the stressor is,” Rossi nodded.

“He just lost his job. Worked in a factory since 1990. He made appliances forever. Not a single promotion” Garcia’s voice came across a little staticky.

“That’s a long time to be bitter,” Derek posed.

“Or he just doesn’t care,” Reid countered.

“According, to what you sent over Garcia, he kind of seems like a hermit. Far as I can tell he’s got no one. No wife, no children, no parents.” Y/N added with a sad tone in her voice.

With a sharp tone, Hotch added “then why didn’t he kill himself?”

“He’s not finished killing yet,” Reid continued the thought, “check mate!”

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It was at times like these that it seemed like the case drags on forever. Call had kidnapped a little boy, who, Spencer had figured out was Call’s biological son. The local PD was getting them nowhere. Those overly macho cops seemed to be having a difficult time taking orders from JJ. Y/N watched as she marched over to Mitchell and demanded that he give a press conference.

Y/N chuckled quietly to herself as she watched the interaction. JJ was a force to be reckoned with, especially when the life of an innocent child was at stake. That cop had no idea who he was challenging.

“Hey, Y/N,” Spencer called from his spot in front of the whiteboard. It was decorated with a combination of their messy, rushed handwriting. Spencer grasped his blue marker and looked at Y/N with a painful expression.

“I’m not getting anywhere with this geographical profile,” Spencer’s somber tone flooded Y/N’s emotions with an overwhelming sense to comfort him.

“Spencer, put the marker down and look at me, please, for a second.” He obliged as he turned to face her.

Y/N reached up on her tiptoes to gently rub her hands along the base of Spencer’s neck. He could feel the tension melt away. Spencer was not one for physical affection, but he realized that he, in fact, craved the soft touches of people he trusted. Whether it was a brotherly pat on the back from Morgan, a playful high five from Garcia, a proud fist bump from Hotch, Spencer had grown to seek out affection.

“Y/N,” he said. His voice but a whisper in the loud, hectic bullpen.

“Shh,” She could sooth his worries just with a graze of her hands across his neck. It was magic to a scientist. Her magical presence set him on fire.

“Hey, we can do this, Spence, all of us, but we need you,” Y/N voice mirrored his own. A hushed whisper that fueled the flames of his love.

Instead of kissing her forehead or even hugging her, all Spencer could make out was a small thank you, before, like the wind, she was gone to see if Garica had any updates on the missing boy.

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In a frantic hour, Garcia had discovered a possible location of Tommy and his father, Darrin. Like most the unsubs, they were children of tragedy. Children of abusive homes and of deep rooted violence. It was up to the team, as they raced down the street in their crowded SUVs, to stop the cycle of violence for claiming another innocent child.

“Hotch, you are on speaker,” Emily called from the passenger seat of the car as Derek sped down the warehouse where they suspected Tommy to be held.

“Do not go in there without SWAT, do you all here me?” Hotch said sternly.

“That means you, Derek, don’t go in there till backup gets there,” JJ added from the phone that Emily held.

“You got it, boss man,” Derek made a sharp turn that led Y/N to nearly fall into Spencer, who sat next to her.

“Spencer! Where is your vest!?” Y/N asked him impatiently, with a tinge of nervousness and fear laced in her tone.

“Y/N, Call doesn’t have a gun, he’s been using weapons of opportunity. The profile points to him not even being armed right now. If anything-”

“Screw the profile, Spencer!” Y/N’s voice was hysterical now. “You need to where a damn vest, you are an FBI agent, if you get-”

Y/N’s rant to Spencer was stopped short by the disturbing sight before her. From the SUV the four of them could see an even more distraught Call standing out in the middle of the warehouse parking lot. He held Tommy by the neck, with a gun pointed at his temple. Derek stopped the car and jumped out, his gun wielded as he began to try to talk the man down.

“Call, drop the weapon and release Tommy, right now!” Derek’s voice loomed large and powerful as Emily, Reid, and Y/N each got out of the vehicle and turned their spots with Morgan.

“You don’t want to hurt Tommy,” Spencer started. “we know who he is to you, we know that he’s your son, and that you weren’t there for him.” He put his gun away in an attempt to show Call that he was not a threat. Y/N could read the desperation in Spencer’s voice from a mile away. Call, like Spencer’s mom lives with schizophrenia. Spencer and Hotch nearly had it out in the middle of the bullpen after Spencer insinuated that Hotch was implying that Call was only going on this murder spree because of his condition.

“Just let the boy go, Call.” Y/N continued the track that Derek and Spencer started. “Just let your son go. We will make sure that you can get medicine, that’s why you went to the pharmacy, right? You need meds to help yourself and then,-”

Out of the corner of her eye, Y/N could see Spencer inching closer and closer to Tommy. As if it was a chain reaction, Call drew his weapon and fired towards Spencer. Before she even could realize the consequences of her actions, Y/N tackled Spencer to the ground. The bullet lodged itself into the Kevlar vest she wore. Her side burned as she came to understand what had transpired in the last couple of seconds.

Spencer scrambled onto his knees and clutched Y/N’s cold hands in his.

“Spence, I’m okay,” Y/N said as she struggled to sit up straight with Spencer practically laying on top of her.

“No, Y/N! Don’t do that,” Spencer started with tears flooding the corners of his eyes. The little droplets made his sometimes brown and sometimes green eyes sparkle with sadness.

Spencer moved his hands from the place where the bullet lodged itself in her Kevlar to grasp her face tenderly. But his movement caused her cheek to be painted with a deep red handprint in the shape of the crying man crouching before her hand.

“Spencer,” she let out a small whimper when she saw the look of horror on his face. Before he could even ask her why she did what she did, Y/N passed out, her limp, cold hand finding its home in the comfort of soft, warm ones.

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The rest of the case passed in a numbing hum for Spencer. Once Y/N got shot by Call he let go of Tommy and Derek shot him the leg. Spencer did not even stay for when Emily and Derek apprehended the unsub. It was like his legs acted of their own accord when the EMT showed up for Y/N and he walked with them never letting go of her hand.

The ride to the hospital in the back of the ambulance was hectic. The EMTs had to monitor her heart rate, her blood pressure, and her oxygen. Even the temptation of numbers could not capture Spencer’s attention as he mulled over the possible conclusions to why Y/N would take a bullet for him. There was no logical reason for it. Not one. Spencer let the steady rocking of the ambulance to soothe him as he gently rubbed his thumb over Y/N’s hand. Even though he longed to hold her against himself, this would have to do, for now at least. Till then, Spencer forced his mind to focus on the pattern that her beating heart created.

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Hospitals terrified Spencer. The smell, the sick people, the people who were unsavable. Part of him wonders what his life would be like if he became a medical doctor. As a kid, he had a future where he could do anything he could dream of. Cure schizophrenia on Monday, operate on an inoperable tumor on Tuesday- that’s what his life could have been like.

But sitting there, in the sterile hospital with the white walls and constant beeping, Spencer’s mind was only thinking of another life he could be out living. In the minutes that he sat with Y/N as she lay in pain in his arm, false memories of a life together painted in his mind. Laughing children, family picnics, couple’s Halloween costumes. He stroked her hair and saw a life so familiar that he could almost taste it. He tasted cookies that they baked together as they danced without a care in the world. He tasted Halloween and Forth of July and all the holidays in between. He tasted butterfly kisses with his children that had her hair and her eyes and her smile.

He was stripped away from those memories that he didn’t even own. Now all he could taste was the bitterness of regret, the sourness of what if, and the tartness of the nightmares masquerading as reality.

“Family of Y/L/N,” a surgeon dressed in light blue scrubs walked into the waiting area with an unreadable expression on her face.

JJ and Derek stood up immediately as the doctor went to continue to deliver the news.

“She’s awake and doing okay,” the doctor said with a relieved expression.

“Oh that goodness,” JJ said as she hugged Emily in a moment of happiness.

“She’s a fighter,” Derek quipped, “I’m going to call Garcia, she’s probably a nervous wreck”

“She’ll make a full recovery, but should avoid air travel because her internal bleeding,” the doctor reported, “also, which one of you is Spencer? Even since she’d been lucid, she’s been asking for you,” she said looking around at the remaining group, with her eyes landing on the man in question.

“She is?” Spencer questioned carefully. He was worried that maybe she regretted jumping in front of him.

“Yes, why don’t you come with me. It may make her more comfortable having someone she wants with her”

Y/N wants him.

Him.

Spencer was not sure how he even walked himself down the corridor to where Y/N’s room was located. But sure enough, he was met with her ashen face beaming up at his.

“Y/N! Oh my goodness, are you okay, I mean, obviously you’re injured so you’re not okay. I don’t mean to invalidate your pain, I just...why, Y/N, why on Earth would you do that?” Spencer finished. His voice was more tender towards the end. He looked down at his friend before him and tried to read the expression that graced her face.

“Spencer, I did what I had to do. You….you would have died,” Spencer noticed the tears that puddled in her eyes and had to suppress the sudden urge to kiss them away.

“I’d rather die than live my life in a world without you, Spencer.”

Spencer closed his eyes and sat down on the bed with her.

“Why?” he asked in a voice that was hardly audible. It can’t be, he thought. Maybe this is just something that a teammate does for another teammate. Comrades in arms or something like that, he thought. Trying to make sense of senselessness.

“Why do you value my life more than yours? Why-how can you do that” there was not stopping tears in his eyes now. She reached out and held his face, like he held her as she bled out in the warehouse only a couple of hours ago.

“Spence, my life would be dull and gray without you in it. You’re my best-” She stared as he tensed up at what he knew was coming. She only jumped in front of him because it’s what a teammate does.

“Please, I can't bear to hear that. I-maybe you only can think of me as a teammate or worse a brother, but part of me. A hopeful and romantic part of me that I can't let go of the thought of you thinking about in a different way,” he was so embarrassed, so raw in the moment that he could not bear to even look her in the eyes.

“Spencer?” he could only watch the way that their fingers laced together. He focused on the patterns between the itchy hospital blanket.

“Y/N,” he started and took a deep breath. Spencer had never intended to tell her this. Maybe in moments of drunken bravery he thought about it, but he’d always sober up before his dreams could come to fruition.

“I’m a logical man, I solve problems for a living but sometimes. Sometimes, I can’t use logic to solve some problems, and there’s no logical reason for you to jump in front of a bullet for me. Unless you love me? And I hope with every fiber of being that you do, because I am so desperately in love with you”

Spencer allowed himself, for the first in his life, to have once of hope and faith.

Y/N’s eyes met Spencer’s in an uncharacteristically shy moment.

“I do, Spence. Of course I love you”

Spencer let out a nervous laugh as he, once again, gently placed his hands on her jaw. He placed a kiss on her forehead. The small, tender affection elicited a whimper from Y/N. Spencer jumped back in horror.

“Oh, honey did I hurt you? You gotta tell me where it hurts” he murmured in a comforting voice.

“Hmm, no I’ve just been waiting five years for you to kiss me and you settle on my forehead?” Y/N beamed up at him expectantly.

“Nowhere do you want me to kiss you, my dear?” Spencer questioned playfully.

“How about in between everywhere and anywhere you want, Doctor Reid,” Y/N, despite the pain, managed a smile for the man that held her hand so lovingly.

“How about here?” Spencer leaned forward and kissed the left corner of her mouth.

“Or here?” The right corner.

“What about here, I’ve dreamed of kissing you here.” He moved his mouth to meet the place on her neck that met her collarbone. Y/N looked up at Spencer dreamily. One day she might chalk it up to the painkillers flooding through her system, but the pure adoration that melted from Spencer’s lips to her skin was something that never knew she’d crave.

“And here”

His lips parted slightly as he moved in to meet hers. The feeling was more divine and earth shattering than when Prometheus gave humans fire. Together, intertwined in bedsheets, IVs, and fingers laced with hair, they lit a fire of their own. Kissing Spencer stopped time.

It was Y/N who broke first.

“Spencer,” she said with a new reverence that would only be reserved for him.

“Yes, sweet girl?”

“You gotta promise me something,” she said as she raked her hands across his arms, feeling him shudder under her touch.

“Anything and everything for you” he said, mirroring her earlier words to him.

“Wear a vest next time”

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fic #spencer reid x reader angst #spencer reid x reader happy endings #dr spencer reid #spencer reid x fem!reader #dr spencer reid imagine #criminal minds fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fluff

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strangerthings4theories · 3 years

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The Demogorgon Is Billy’s Dark Reflection

At first glance, the Demogorgon seems irrelevant to the question of whether or not Billy’s coming back. But as I aim to prove, it has everything to do with it.

Stranger Things deals heavily in the theme of reflections and opposites. Characters are designed to mirror each other, embody the opposite of each other, and sometimes both at once. Hell, the Upside Down is presented as a reflection of the real world. Literally.

(Damn. They ain’t subtle.)

By the term “dark reflection,” I mean a relationship like that between the Upside Down and the real world. The two are almost exact copies; the Upside Down has all the same landmarks, down to Will’s fort in the woods. But the Upside Down has been corrupted by the Mind Flayer, its inhabitants turned into unthinking monsters.

It’s like us. But it’s everything we hate about ourselves, everything we’re afraid of becoming.

When we probe relationships between characters, we find that pattern replicated across the board. I don’t have room to explore it in full here. However, Billy and the Demogorgon are one of the most obvious examples.

With the exception of El, the main character of the show, no one else has been compared to the Demogorgon like Billy has.

>>Billy fills the “monster” role in S3 that the Demogorgon filled in S1.

In S1, the Demogorgon stalks the inhabitants of Hawkins, kidnapping and killing them. In S2, we find out Demogorgons do not act alone, but are the puppets of a greater monster: the Mind Flayer.

In S3, the Mind Flayer possesses Billy, turning him into His puppet. Billy then stalks the inhabitants of Hawkins, kidnapping and taking them to his master, which ultimately results in their deaths.

In S3, the Demogorgon wears a human face.

>>Like the Demogorgon, Billy is the puppet of a greater monster... even before he’s possessed.

Max tells us as much in Runaway Max when she’s watching Billy beat the life out of Steve:

I remembered how it had felt the first time I’d watched the Hargroves in action. Neil standing over Billy with the belt in his hand. Neil calling me a stupid little girl for having the guts to try to stop him. Making it so clear that he thought I was small and weak and pointless. And knowing Neil believed that still wasn’t as bad as the way Billy had hated me for trying to help him. He was damaged. Broken, maybe. And even if he’d been coherent enough to argue with, it wouldn’t make a difference. I understood now that Neil was in his head, and that meant he was just as dangerous as his father. (p 218)

This implies not only that Billy is the Demogorgon, but also that Neil is the Mind Flayer. The ramifications of that idea are... oof. Just oof.

Remember the definition of “dark reflection” that I gave you. A dark reflection is something that’s like us, but represents what we hate or fear most about ourselves.

The Demogorgon is Billy’s dark reflection because it represents his fear of losing his humanity to an abuser.

>>Runaway Max draws on the grossest scene in S2 to give us a Billy/Demogorgon parallel.

In S2, Dustin finds a baby Demogorgon and names it D’Artagnan. At first Dart seems harmless. Then he molts and, in a scene I hate to watch, eats Dustin’s cat.

Keep in mind that Dustin’s cat is orange.

In Runaway Max, Billy seems harmless at first. Then, in a flashback to California, we’re told of the day Billy “molts.”

One afternoon, he’s hanging out with Max and his buddies Wayne and Sid on the scrubby hill behind the Hargrove house. He’s bored and pissed at Sid for besting him on a history paper. Pulling out his lighter, he starts playing with it.

We learn there’s a corpse of a cat nearby:

There was a dead cat that had been lying under one of the sweet pea bushes for a while. A mangy orange tom with one white foot. (p 63)

Billy stalks over to it with his lighter. In a “hard, bright” voice, he talks about giving the cat a “Viking funeral.” Then, over Max and Sid’s protests, he drenches the corpse in butane and lights it on fire. The flames race down the hill, and the others have to stomp them out before they spiral out of control.

Max notes Billy’s reaction:

Billy just watched, standing over the burning cat, smiling that small, tight smile he got when something seemed funny to him....

After that, I knew.

Not that Billy was crazy or out of control, exactly - it wasn’t like the cat had been alive. But the fact that he’d done it meant something. (p 67)

Yeah, this scene means something, alright. Symbolically, Billy - a baby Demogorgon - has just eaten a cat. And, like Dustin with Dart, Max realizes he’s a monster in the making.

>>The show’s plot and cinematography choices emphasize the Billy/Demogorgon connection.

1) El first meets them in the Void. They’re both crouching, and literally or symbolically feasting, as she approaches from the right.

2) They stalk after the kids, shoulders hunched. In the Demogorgon’s case, the kids are trapped. In Billy’s case, he thinks he’s trapping the kids, but they turn the tables on him.

3) When the Demogorgon is activated, a crack rips through the tile wall of the lab. When Billy is activated, we see cracked tiles on the wall behind him.

4) El pins them against the wall with her powers. Then she screams in their faces before she deals the “death blow.” In the climactic shot, she’s on the left, they’re on the right. Mike and/or her friends are behind her.

All of that ^ is the equivalent of the Duffers banging pots and pans. “Hey guys! Billy is like the Demogorgon! The Demogorgon is like Billy!” When I first noticed it, it told me to look for other examples of “mirroring.” Do we get any other shots that juxtapose the two?

Turns out we do. Oh my god, we do.

Study this pair of shots very, very carefully.

In the first, the Demogorgon is approaching the Byers' house. It's in the center of the frame, moving straight toward us. We see woods in the background; a lamp post is on the left side.

In the second, Billy is running away from the sauna. He's in the center of the frame, moving directly away from us. We see woods in the background; a lamp post is on the right side.

I’ve already talked about how the Upside Down is the deep sea. However, it is ALSO the woods. In fairytales, the woods are a place of mystery and monsters. Some of the most famous tales happen there, such as Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel. (If you want to read more about this topic, here’s a Wikipedia article to get you started. Also a cool article on Medium)

With that in mind, we can describe this pair of shots as follows:

In the first, the Demogorgon is emerging from the Upside Down.

In the second, Billy is going to the Upside Down.

Interesting, right? Ah, but that’s only half of the story.

Study this pair now and tell me what you see.

Yep... they’re related.

In the second shot, Billy is swimming into the ocean. It’s the last glimpse we have of his young, happy self before the Mind Flayer kills him. He’s in the center of the frame, moving directly away from us, just like the first shot.

With that in mind, we could say...

In the first, he’s going to the Upside Down in its ‘woods’ manifestation.

In the second - OUR LAST GLIMPSE OF YOUNG BILLY BEFORE HE DIES - he’s going to the Upside Down in its ‘ocean’ manifestation.

Interesting how we've only seen him leave. Yet we have this iconic image of the Demogorgon, his “dark reflection,” emerging from the Upside Down and coming to us.

I have a spooky vibe, y'all, that we're missing a final shot.

And we're going to see Billy...

coming to us...

from the water.

I have so much more to unpack here, but this post has gone on long enough! In future posts, I’ll lay out more evidence suggesting Billy will return from the water. I’ll also explore the mythological implications. They’re mind-blowing :3

»»————-　✼　————-««

P.S. I mentioned El has a unique relationship to the Demogorgon too. I’ll try to explain that eventually~~

»»————-　✼　————-««

The “Billy Is Alive” Meta Series (So Far)

Billy Is Not a ‘B’ Character In Stranger Things

The First Rule of Analyzing Stranger Things: The Upside Down Is Symbolized By Water

The Lifeguard And The Rip Current: Our First Big Hint That Billy Is Alive

Why Haven’t We Seen Dacre On Set?

Frequently Asked Questions

For updates, follow the hashtag #billy is alive meta

#billy hargrove #the demogorgon #stranger things #billy hargrove is alive #stranger things theory #stranger things 2 #stranger things 3 #stranger things 4 #stranger things meta #stranger things analysis #billy hargrove meta #billy is alive meta #ohbillyboy #the upside down #el hopper #eleven hopper #dark reflections

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idiotic-genius · 3 years

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How to write an immersive scene

requested by @noa-i - check out their blog, they have amazing lists of helpful links to writing guides!

As a writer, it is mostly inevitable to get to the point in writing where you are questioning whether anyone will actually want to read what they have created. A question greatly important to writing something the reader gets hooked up with is: How do I lure them in and make them feel like they are part of something? Sometimes, writing immersive makes THE difference between a scene quick to skip over and a scene you can't take your eyes off. But how do you create immersion?

In this post: 1. Worldbuilding 2. Narrators 3. Writing visually 4. Setting the scene 5. Example to summarize

Step 1: Learn your own facts

It might be banal, since you are the author, to re-read your own notes and think about what you have written so far. However, to get the reader hooked up, make them INTERESTED. This is easily accomplished by creating a detailed fictional world that doesn't seem flat. It might be a tiring process, but it always pays off! Knowing exactly what kind of world your character finds themself in makes it a lot easier to fill in details that subconsciously make the reader believe they are dealing with an actual real-world instead of "just" a fictional one. But even though it may seem harsh, cutting out some details and facts might make the reader feel much more comfortable. Their mind wants to insert them into the universe they're reading about, so overloading them with too many unnecessary details can be just as defeating as giving them too little info. Here is a link to a great beginners-guide on worldbuilding.

Step 2: Know your narrator

As we all know, there are a bunch of different narrator types to pick from when starting a new story, and each of them is good for a different thing- reaching from the typical first-person narrator (The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson) over personal third-person (Warrior Cats, Harry Potter) to omniscient third-person (Anne of Green Gables) and biased third-person (A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). If you are writing an unbiased third-person narrator in your WIP, you can just skip this step. However, if you have any indication at all in your story as to who the narrator is, you might want to think about this more closely. The narrator is the bridge that connects the reader to the fictional world. To immerse the reader in a book, it's usually easiest to use the first-person narrator or the personal third-person narrator, because that way the reader will either imagine themself as the narrator or as a friend of the main character, which keeps them interested. If your narrator is an actual character in the story, it is necessary to keep their speech and description patterns consistent with themselves and the events of the story. For example, a character narrating that has never visited a school or similar should not use highly scientific words to describe what's going on, etc, because it will interrupt the reader's reading flow and disturb the immersion just as much as time skips do.

Step 3: Writing visually

After making sure you have the narrator and the world they're in all set, it's time to choose a writing style, more specifically, to decide the visuality of it. What I mean by that is that having a fictional world so flat it's boring is just as bad as not describing it in a way that delivers it in the way it deserves to be delivered. Picture it like this: Every scene starts in a white room, with neither windows nor doors. If you as the writer don't describe what is going on in that room and what it looks like, at best while keeping the narrator's character in mind while doing so (to make it "3D"), the reader will never know what is actually happening. This also includes adapting the length and complexity of sentences to the scene: In a combat scene, you will usually find short and cut-throat sentences to represent the intensity and living-in-the-moment mindset of a fight, however, in a meaningful conversation between two characters about a heavy subject, it's more likely that longer and more complex sentences are of use to mirror the narrator's deep thinking of the subject and their concentration on the conversation.

Step 4: Setting the scene

By setting the scene, you fill in this white room in the reader's mind, adding characters, sounds, furniture, windows, and scenery in general, while still leaving space for the reader to fill in the blanks. To find a middle between these two extremes is up to every individual writer and depends on the writing style. If you over-describe the room, the reader will know every detail about it, but it will take away their focus from what is actually happening in the scene. However, if you don't set the scene at all, the reader automatically makes up what the room might look like based on what they imagine, and then breaks out of the immersion as soon as you mention something, later on, to be in the room that they did not picture. For example, if you just say that A enters B's bedroom, the reader might quite as well imagine there to be small windows, some bookshelves, a standard bed, etc. If you don't set that up right in the beginning and later on mention that B has small windows, the books stacked on the floor, a bunch of plants, an aquarium, and a bunk bed, the reader will get confused because it doesn't fit what they had pictured before. So ask yourself: What is so important that the reader should know it before the scene actually starts? Context also matters in that case.

5. Example

In the following, I will write the same scene multiple times in different styles to illustrate what makes a difference in writing immersion. The scene goes as following: Jae falls into a dark room underground with a hooded, mysterious person waiting for him. The hooded person greets him and lights a candle, and in the emitting light, Jae realizes who he is talking to. Remember: These are more caricatures of the different writing styles than actual representation and are very overexaggerated, but you get the idea.

1. first-person narrator (Jae), scene not set properly, no visual writing, no consistency in speech pattern

After three seconds, I landed on something soft and realized I had landed in a chamber underground, slightly lit by the moonlight above me. I walked through the only doorway and found myself in a second room. A hooded figure in the middle of the dark lifted their arm. From the table beside them, they picked up a candle and lit it using a lighter. "Hello, Jae", they said, and in the newly emitting light, I recognized them in front of the fireplace.

-> feels flat and jumpy, gives no significance to the change of scenery

2. biased third-person narrator, scene set properly, overly descriptive visual writing, consistency in speech pattern

After falling for what felt like an hour, even though it was probably just a few seconds, Jae finally landed on something soft. Before even attempting to get up, he shivered at the fresh memory of what slimy, earthy, suddenly appearing tunnels felt like. He stared up through the hole at the moon and the stars, and immediately recognized the constellation of Cassiopeia, high up above him. Cassiopeia is said to have angered the Gods, so they gave her the gift of divination, but made it so that nobody would ever believe her prophecies, finally banning her into the sky as this constellation. Weirdly enough, the stars' pattern doesn't look like a woman, or a human, at all. Jae slowly stood up from where he landed and realized he had fallen onto a rather big cushion with a print of primroses in yellow, pink, red, and blue. He looked around in my new location and found himself stuck in a small portico with no windows at all and only one doorway. The walls seemed just as dirty and muddy as the tunnel he had fallen through, and as he looked closer, he spotted about a dozen small, pink worms slithering through the soil. The floor on the other hand was made out of dark wooden panels- if you wanted to call it a "floor". The pieces were just loosely stuck onto the earth underneath, and mud squeezed out from the gaps in between. Jae slowly walked over them and reached the doorway after just four steps. He saw a hooded figure standing in the center of the next room. The room had two sources of lighting: One, the moonlight shining through the disgusting tunnel, and two, a crackling fireplace. It looked like it belonged in a small cottage, being made out of red bricks and looking a little old with the small black-and-white pictures put on top of it. The flickering orange glim of the fire met the silvery-white shine of the moon in the middle of the room. On the right side, Jae saw a big old round table made out of similar wood as the floorboards outside. There were obvious scratches on it, some made by smaller knives, others bigger and maybe made by swords, with splinters on their edges. Apart from two, the fours chairs around it seemed just as maltreated, but the two others were polished and reflected the two light sources, with no scratch marks at all. On top of the table rested a metal candlestick with one slightly burned-down candle stuck inside it. The candlestick had a few scratches as well, on the side and at the bottom. "Hello, Jae", the figure said snarkily, with a voice deep and rough like sandpaper. They wore a black cape, smooth on what Jae could see of the inside and rough on the outside, with a big hood covering their hair and most of their face. A few of the blue buttons with a golden pentagram engraved on them were missing from the coat, and it was slightly ripped in a few places. One strand of dark hair fell into the person's eyes as they reached out for the candlestick, lighting the candle inside with a silver zippo-lighter. The lighter had small scratches as well as a few symbols on it. Slowly, the flame grew bigger and bigger, until the shine from below reached the figure's face. Jae's eyes went big as he realized who he was talking to.

-> little place for the reader's fantasy, but details make scenery deeper and less flat. This kind of description does make sense if the narrator/the character the narrator fixates on (Jae in this case) is very observant and/or intelligent because they will notice details that others don't. The question is whether those details are important enough to keep in the story.

3. first-person narrator (Jae), scene set properly, visual writing, consistent speech pattern

After what felt like an eternity of falling and silently begging not to die from the impact, I finally landed with my eyes squeezed shut. Okay, legs, arms, and head still in place... I slowly opened my eyes again, realizing I had landed on a soft pillow with a flower print. Cautiously, I got up, gazing up at the tunnel through which I had fallen. The view of the slimy earth made me shiver involuntarily as I blinked against the bright moonlight far above me. The sky was clear enough to see stars, which could have been far more enjoyable if it hadn't been for my miserable situation. I had landed in a small chamber underground, with a single doorway leading into a bigger room. The walls were just pure earth and seemed to swallow all noise, but when I took the first step, the sounds of my shoes on the dark wooden floorboards and of the mud squishing out from beneath them was louder than I had anticipated. I could hear the crackling of fire from the next room and see the orange glow as I made my way over to the doorway and took a glimpse into it. The room was not very big, but also not as small as the one I had landed in. There wasn't much space because of a wooden round table and four chairs, which all seemed very old and maltreated, judging from the scratches on them. I could make out a few pictures on the fireplace, and in front of that- "Hello, Jae." I had to suppress a gasp as I realized that I was not alone. In the middle of the room, right where the silvery moonlight and the orange glow of the fire met, stood a hooded figure. Their coat looked as old as the few pieces of furniture, with missing buttons and rips. I couldn't make out much of their face, even though I squinted my eyes, but the flickering light made it hard to see anything, let alone recognize. But that voice... Before I could come to a conclusion, the figure reached for a metal candlestick standing on the table and lit the candle inside with a silver lighter. As the flame grew bigger, they dispelled the shadows below the hood that had disguised the person's features before. I could feel my eyes get big as I finally realized who was standing before me.

-> Gives enough information to "fill the white room" without dwelling on details too much, shows the context of the story, gives Jae a consistent personality

So that's it for this post! I hope I managed to pass on a thing or two that I learned while researching and that this post will help you with your writing. Please acknowledge, I am not trying to attack anyone's style of writing!! If you write the way I wrote a "non-immersive" scene, it does NOT mean that your writing style is bad, let alone wrong, because the existence of many different writing styles is what keeps it individual and interesting! Find your own way and let nobody get you down :)

#writing #writing prompts #writing tips #writing advice #story prompt #fanfiction #writers on tumblr #writing inspiration #immersion #writing immersion #immersive writing #story tips #how to write #tutorial #tips #request

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jadethest0ne · 2 years

Text

In need of Refueling, Chapter 22 - You don’t belong here.

Summary: “You?! Why would I trust you? You have brought me nothing but failure. Time and time again; nothing but disappointment!”

His father’s words might have been a result of his possession by the White Bone Spirit, but whether or not they were his true thoughts, Red Son vows to prove them wrong. To do so he seeks to attain a power strong enough to destroy his father’s immortal enemy. After all, he’d much rather throw fire at his problems.

Word Count: 1603

Ratings/Warnings: Teen and up; injury, burns, angst and hurt/comfort, toxic thoughts caused by toxic parents, panic attacks, abuse. FOR THIS CHAPTER: brief suicidal ideation

Notes: Finally a chapter from MK’s POV

Credits: Big thanks to @painted-arachnid and @simplyfornardo for helping me bounce ideas off of them. And also thanks to @lemonsqueazie for providing me with “Journey to the West” lore. I don’t know much about the original novel or other iterations, but I still tried to keep some things compliant with the lore. You should check all of them out, since they’re really great content creators with neat ideas!

Read on AO3

———-

MK slinks up to his room, but has no intention of staying there. The Monkey King is taking a nap, and he doesn’t want to wake him, nor notify anyone of what he is planning on doing. Truth be told, MK doesn’t really know what he is going to do, either. But he knows where he will go. He quietly slips out of his window, hopping along some rooftops to take himself towards the pier. He waits near Sandy’s boat until he sees Red Son. Sandy isn’t with him, since he stayed behind to help Pigsy clean up the mess. This means Red Son is alone.

MK still doesn’t understand why Sandy can trust him like that. Why anyone could. This is the guy who attacked both him and the Monkey King! He must be planning something. He had to have attacked Mei in the kitchen, even if she said otherwise. There’s got to be a trick somewhere, and he’s not going to be fooled again. So MK follows Red Son into the boat.

The demon doesn’t notice him at first. He calls lazily to someone once inside the house portion - perhaps to one of Sandy’s cats?

“Orange Claw?” he calls. “Today didn't go quite so well, unfortunately. I don’t think I’m ever gonna get them to trust me…”

MK’s shadow from the door passes over Red Son alerting him to his presence. The demon turns around and looks at MK with surprise and apprehension. His eyes travel from his face down to the staff he is holding. MK didn’t even realize he had summoned it. He grips it tightly and gives Red Son a hard glare.

“Noodle Boy,” Red Son says with a tired voice. “What are you doing here?”

“N-no, what are you doing here, Red Son?” MK demands, hesitant stance shifting to a more assured one.

“What do you mean?” Red Son, eyes narrowing.

“What are you doing with my friends? With Sandy? Did you trick him so he’d help you? Are you planning something?!”

Red Son eyes MK cautiously. “No,” he says flatly, as if he’s already done with this conversation. But MK is not.

“Then why are you here?” MK prods.

“I--” Red Son’s eyes shift away nervously, then back again. “Sandy brought me here. He said I could stay...”

“I don’t believe you! You- you did something! You’re just trying to trick us again! No way would you who- who attacked us, who did- did that to the Monkey King would just be all calm, nice, and trying to make peace! You gotta be up to something! You obviously attacked Mei, too!” MK’s voice shakes with fear and anger. He just wants Red Son to leave! “You- you don’t belong here!” MK finishes sternly.

Red Son’s eyes widen, almost imperceptibly and he sucks in a nearly inaudible breath. There is a long pause, and MK isn’t sure if Red Son is even breathing. He remains on guard.

Then the demon’s body shifts to a more stiff and offensive stance. He purses his lips and glares at MK challengingly. “Then what are you going to do about it, Noodle Boy?” he says in a low voice. “Kick me out?”

“If-if I have to!” MK attempts to keep the shaking out of his voice.

“Do it then!” Red Son’s face morphs into a grimace-like smile. “After all, as you say, I could be planning on finishing the Monkey King off. It would be easy. Just like it was to trick you into bringing me to him. You know it’s partially because of you that he’s like that right now--”

MK saw red.

Suddenly he found himself pinning Red Son up to the wall with his staff. One end of it pinning an arm down just below the shoulder and the other tucked under the demon’s chin.

MK yells at Red Son, angrily, desperately, “It’s NOT my fault! YOU were the one who attacked him. It’s YOU’RE fault he’s hurt! It’s because of YOU that he almost--” MK bites back his words, but maintains his grip on the staff, pushing Red Son harder against the wall.

“That he almost died?” Red Son finishes for him. “You’re right, you know! It was all me! All my idea! And you know what?” Red Son cackles in a choppy, uneven manner. “I actually don't even have my powers right now! It's true! It's funny that you're so scared when I can't even hurt any of you! But if I did have my powers back, I’d finish the Monkey King off! I would destroy all of you! We’re enemies, right?” Red Son’s smile turns into more of a wry sneer. “What is wrong with all of you? Sandy helped me, healed me. The Dragon Girl took mercy on me. Even the Monkey King himself, even he doesn’t seem to be bothered with me here. You seem to be the only one who gets it!” Any trace of mirth completely slides off of Red Son’s face. “You hate me! I know it! I saw it when you came to fight my father! And I see it now! If it were me in your place, I’d finish me off!” Red Son’s voice hitches upward into something hysterical. “So what are you waiting for, Noodle Boy?! I’m weak and defenseless. This is your best chance to protect your stupid little friends! Why don’t you just-”

Mrow?

A questioning mewl from below stops Red Son’s rant. They look down to see a calico kitten rubbing up against Red Son’s leg, and staring, wide-eyed, up at the two curiously. Red Son sucks in a shaky breath, and shifts his stance as best he can in his position. MK loosens the pressure on the staff that holds Red Son to the wall, allowing the demon to slowly crouch down to the small cat. He pets it gently and pointedly keeps his eyes on the cat and away from MK’s gaze.

MK is confused by this gesture. He feels the fear and anger in his heart slip away. The tension of the moment is gone. What was Red Son trying to do there? Was he trying to get me to attack…? The thought scares MK. And what’s even scarier is the small notion that he might have actually done it. But he looks at Red Son now, looking so small, weak, and ashamed, and showing so much care to an even smaller creature. MK feels sick to his stomach.

Suddenly everything starts shaking. At first it is small, and MK thinks it is just him shaking from the stress. But then there is a rumbling from outside, and by the way Red Son and the cat he is still hovering over reacts to it, MK can tell it’s not just him. The houseboat rocks heavily. They cry out and a few cats in the house hiss angrily.

The silence that had fallen between the two of them is then broken by a large explosion of sound as a hole is smashed through the ceiling. Red Son and MK cough at the dust kicked up by the violent action. Red Son crouches protectively over the cat that he was kneeling beside, preventing any debris from falling on it. MK is as confused by this action as he is by the sudden hole in the ceiling. Red Son protecting another was just not something that happened. All the cats scatter away, except for the cat Red Son is protecting which stands there and hisses at the incoming threat. Red Son has to shoo it away to get it out of danger. MK tears his gaze away from the display to see what the threat is.

A shiver runs up and down his spine when he is met with the several eyes of an impossibly giant spider. As his worst fear stares at him with headlamp-like eyes, MK does all he can to keep himself from screaming and running away. Unfortunately, this means that he doesn't react at all to the looming, big, and hairy spider leg that lifts up and then stabs straight at him. His legs lock up and he stares in silent panic.

Immediately, he is jolted from the spot where he is standing as Red Son crashes into him, pushing him out of the way of the spider leg. It cuts into the house, destroying a good portion of the floor, and causing the whole thing to lurch. MK blinks, confusedly, mind torn between the panic of the close proximity to that which he fears most, and the fact that it seems like Red Son just saved him.

Apparently the lack of action caused by his momentary confusion is too long for Red Son's liking, and he yells at MK, "What are you doing, Noodle Boy! You're the Monkie Kid, DO SOMETHING!"

MK's mouth flaps up and down brilliantly as he attempts to slowly wobble back into a standing position. Again, it takes too long, and Red Son yells again, this time pointing above them. "Look out, Noodle Boy, MOVE!"

MK is much too slow, and right as he sees what is coming for him, he is hit by the webbing of the giant spider. It sticks around his entire body, preventing any movement. Then there is a tug and he is being pulled up and out of the houseboat. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Red Son is being dragged away by webbing, too. MK can do nothing but scream as they both are pulled into the dark and cavernous mouth of the giant spider.

start || <– previous // next –>

#lmk #lego monkie kid #in need of refueling #red son #mk #lmk fanfiction #fanfiction #my art #my writing #jadethest0ne #suicidal ideation mention #suicidal ideation

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taggedmemes · 3 years

Text

TEXTING MEME ⟶ WELCOME TO NIGHTVALE TWEETS ( 2020 ) always feel free to tweak the sentence to fit your muse.

[ text ] –– within the house, a creature sleeps.

[ text ] –– new idea: life, but with more flattering angles.

[ text ] –– parting is such sweet sorrow. it really rules, so great.

[ text ] –– space tip: bring a sweater.

[ text ] –– a ghost story: one day a family moved into a house. the family was haunted by the sublimated hurt between them and the still fresh bruises of their country’s history. none of them talked to each other about it. time passed, and then it didn’t.

[ text ] –– kids birthday ideas: fire theme, yell at ponies, theft and vandalism, who can sink, which one is lying.

[ text ] –– float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, caw like my neighbor’s awful pet parrot.

[ text ] –– may all your dreams come true. all of them. ALL of them.

[ text ] –– fake it until you pretend to make it.

[ text ] –– we like birds. we think you should too.

[ text ] –– birds! they’re our friends who fly.

[ text ] –– all of your potential has been inside of you all along. it’s a little black pellet near your heart. doctors are afraid to touch it.

[ text ] –– don’t hide your feelings, frame them. display them ostentatiously on the wall. mount them on plinths, behind velvet-roped stanchions. curate an exhibit of your feelings. charge admission.

[ text ] –– *to a tree* hate to see you grow but love to watch your leaves.

[ text ] –– listening to some lesser known bob dylan singles. ‘the trample at bone creek’ and ‘oh, to be a farseer’ and ‘writhing creatures under my skin forming strange words blues’.

[ text ] –– we fear birds. we think you should too.

[ text ] –– birds! they’re cameras in the sky.

[ text ] –– lips! the toes of the face.

[ text ] –– new idea: hands, but more so.

[ text ] –– don’t worry.

[ text ] –– lift with your knees, and only your knees.

[ text ] –– guitar lessons. all ages and talent levels. in the walls of your basement. area of expertise: jazz, modern rock, scuttling, squirming.

[ text ] –– drink more water. drink entire lakes. guzzle the ocean. suck dry the universe. your skin looks great.

[ text ] –– one day at a time, one foot in front of the other. one mouse inside another mouse. one cloud made out of mud. one dream about a 6-eyed puppy.

[ text ] –– tide pods. remember when they seemed like a big problem?

[ text ] –– when shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he was really scared every single day and had trouble sleeping.

[ text ] –– i’m a little teapot, short and stout.

[ text ] –– why did you pour boiling water in me oh god.

[ text ] –– first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes napkin, and here’s offal, and finally principate.

[ text ] –– podcasting: it’s like movies for your ears.

[ text ] –– fingernails.. weird, right? like, what even are those things?

[ text ] –– during these difficult times, i’m here for you. i’m very close, inches away.

[ text ] –– you told me to keep my eyes peeled, i did what you said.

[ text ] –– the road to hell is paved with cobblestone. it’s super bumpy, not at all comfortable, and really bad for your car’s suspension.

[ text ] –– you should always chant when you wash your hands.

[ text ] –– life is what you make it. i made this. it’s an ashtray, i think? or a small plate. or just a little decorative disc.

[ text ] –– was there always that vast, completely smooth and featureless planet between jupiter and saturn?

[ text ] –– the trick is just to run faster than death can run, and he’s pretty fast.

[ text ] –– generational wealth, crime, or sheer luck are the only ways to get rich.

[ text ] –– in this house we: hug often, laugh always, offer up to the eyeless god, hide from witches, and eat a handful of dirt every sunday.

[ text ] –– how am i supposed to explain this to my children? talk to them?

[ text ] –– lost cat, orange with white stripe on tail. do not listen to its answers, they’re all lies.

[ text ] –– it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. averaged out, the times were basically mediocre.

[ text ] –– it’s like uber, but for trees.

[ text ] –– it’s like google, but for dreams.

[ text ] –– it’s like twitter, but for secrets never shared.

[ text ] –– a bird in the hand is worth two in my ribcage.

[ text ] –– the moon will be closed for renovations this week.

[ text ] –– please do not look at or think about the moon.

[ text ] –– types of dogs: good, very good, who’s the best, weird, imposter, imaginary, blue whale ( big ocean dog ).

[ text ] –– still bummed about the universe breaking up.

[ text ] –– aim for the stars. we hate those things.

[ text ] –– that’s an adorable dog. should we get a dog?

[ text ] –– anything can rhyme with ‘orange’ if you pronounce it right.

[ text ] –– the known universe, the unknown universe, the decoy universe, the forgotten universe.

[ text ] –– some people are cat people, some people are dog people.

[ text ] –– please stop yelling about whales and give me a call.

[ text ] –– quoth the raven, ‘nah’.

[ text ] –– for all of his contributions to science, schrödinger was a terrible pet-sitter.

[ text ] –– it takes fewer muscles to smile than it takes to scream obscenities at the moon.

[ text ] –– the universe continues to expand, yet still no mass transit system.

[ text ] –– current mood: mad at the sun. it knows what it did.

[ text ] –– try transcending the physical concept of the body. become pure aura and light.

[ text ] –– revenge is a dish best served cold, but only if it’s something that’s better hot. like chicken soup. the best revenge is to serve them cold chicken soup.

[ text ] –– don’t bite the hand that feeds you. go for the legs, it’ll throw them off-balance.

[ text ] –– new hobbies: imaginary pottery, long distance cat seeing, count every cloud.

[ text ] –– my interests include music, movies, walks on the beach, and transcending the human form using durational meditation for 23 hours a day.

[ text ] –– this restaurant had no name or employees or food. it was just a small section of rocky beach that i pretended was a restaurant.

[ text ] –– do you dare try to escape? where could you run, insignificant mortal?

[ text ] –– top gift ideas for demanding gods: animal/human sacrifice, nude group dance ritual, scented candle/bath bomb, handmade coupon book of chores, festive pentagram cookies.

[ text ] –– looking for a strange glimmer i once saw between the stars on a cold autumn night in the woods when i was 12.

[ text ] –– if you hear movement in your chimney, please do not panic.

[ text ] –– it’s only a secretive intruder who is here to judge your moral worth.

#memes #roleplay meme #texting meme #sentence starters #rpg #KIND / IN CHARACTER.#KIND / TEXTING.#BASED ON / MISC.

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twistedlymad · 4 years

Note

Hi!! I really love your Twisted Wonderland stories!! They make so happy!! I love the way you write the characters! If you’re still taking requests could I plz have a story of MC and the gang playing truth or dare where Grimm asks MC if she has a crush on anyone to get at the boys? And MC won’t tell so the boys try everything they can to see who she likes? I leave the ending in your hands! I understand if you won’t accept this request but if you do then I’ll be so happy!! Ok thanks YOUREAWESOME!!

Okay, let’s settle something first. And that is: I am NOT awesome.

You guys are the true awesome ones! You guys have so many ideas! My inbox is filled with requests of which I never knew could happen! Thank you all <3

Also, I have never fully immersed myself into a game of truth and dare :’) And now I’m writing a story on something I’ve played but not full heartedly. The irony is strong :’)

Thank you for requesting this story! I do hope it lives up to your expectations! Thank you again and have a lovely day!!

What if you played Truth or Dare? (Ft. Grim, Ace, Deuce, Sebek, Jack and Epel) (Riddle, Vil, Lilia and Ruggie are mentioned)

“Fgnaaaaa (Y/N), I’m bored.” Grim said while laying on your lap. You and him were doing your homework in your dorm.

“I know, but, when we finish, we can go out and meet up with the others. I’ll even throw in a can of tuna or two. How does that sound?” You said, trying to coax the furball into doing his homework.

“When you put it that way!! Fgnaaaa!” And the furball was more excited to do his work. You gave him a head pat and continued on your own work.

After about an hour or two, you two had finished your homework. You sighed and closed your book, you turned to see Grim dozing off to dreamland. You shook your head, giggling and gently nudged him awake.

“Come on you furball, it’s almost time to get dinner, we don’t want the others to worry about us right?” You said, picking Grim up and placing him on your head. Grim yawned a little before going to sleep on your head.

You had a nice little walk to the crowded cafeteria, when you arrived, you saw your friends sitting at a table not far from you. They were chatting with smiles on their faces while you went and grabbed yours and Grim’s food. After doing so, you went over to the table where your friends were sitting and sat yourself down.

“(Y/N)!!” The others called for you and you just shushed them. They were puzzled until you pointed to the sleeping furball on top of your head. They looked at each other before nodding and snickering. You smiled and slowly set the sleeping furball down on your lap and took a bite out of your dinner.

“So, how is everyone doing?” You asked your friends and multiple groans were heard.

“Riddle made me feed the flamingos wearing pink again today!!” Ace said with a sigh.

“I had to change the color of roses in the garden to white for the whole day.” Deuce said, taking a sip out of his drink.

“Ruggie-senpai dragged me around the whole school looking for Leona-senpai… Turns out he was sleeping in a tree at Main Street. I wasted a whole afternoon doing that.” Jack said.

“Hah! You guys don’t even know what is true hardship. Vil and Rook taught me on ‘fine dinning’ and ‘proper table manners’ the whole day! I don’t get it! IT’S FOOD SO YOU SHOULD JUST EAT IT.” Epel said, the last part in anger. You patted him gently as a gesture to calm him down.

“Malleus-sama was nowhere to be found when school ended, so me and that stupid Silver spent the entire day searching for him. We could’ve been done earlier if that human wasn’t so slow. I can’t believe he can let Malleus-sama out of his sight!” Sebek said.

“Ehh? Didn’t you also let Malleus-senpai out of your sight?” Epel asked the Diasomnia first year. The latter froze a little.

“N-No. Malleus-sama’s class wasn’t near mine at all today. It’s clearly that human’s fault.” Sebek said.

“Sebek, I’m sure Silver-senpai didn’t mean it. It’s just that Tsu- I mean, Malleus-sama likes taking walks around the school without anyone knowing, right?” You said, in hopes of calming down your friend.

“Hmm… Maybe you’re right, but still-” Sebek tried to argue but you cut him off.

“Sebek, it’s alright, mistakes happen all the time, let it go.” You said and sent a smile to him.

“A-Alright.” Sebek said, going back to his meal.

“You know what? Since you all had such a terrible day, let’s do something after dinner to clear your minds of it!” You suggested to your friends, their eyes lit up after you’ve said so.

“Yea!! But, what should we do?” Ace asked.

“How about a game?” Deuce said.

“What game?” Jack immediately asked. The 6 of you were brainstorming until Epel decided to speak up.

“How about Truth or Dare?” The Pomefiore first year piped up. You all took looks at each other before nodding.

“Sounds fun!” Ace said with a smirk.

“I’m in.” Deuce said, taking a bite out of his dinner.

“W-Well, it is just a game… I guess I’ll join since I have nothing better to do.” Jack said, his ears drooping slightly.

Alas, the only one who didn’t give a response was Sebek. So, you, Ace and Epel looked at him with the most adorable puppy eyes the 3 of you could muster. Jack was slightly confused but he has a gist of what you all were trying to do. Sebek looked at the 3 of you, his face slightly paling.

“W-Wha-“ Poor Sebek couldn’t even finish asking before you cut him off.

“Join our game Sebek!” You pleaded.

“It’ll be fun! We promise!” Ace continued after you. After the two of you had said this, you, Ace and Epel bombarded Sebek with the word ‘please’ over and over again.

“F-FINE! STOP YOUR PLEADING!” Sebek said, finally caving in to you, Ace and Epel’s chants of ‘please’. The three of you high fived each other and did a little cheer. Your cheering just so happened to wake Grim up from his nap.

“Fgnaaaaa…. What’s wrong with you people? Can’t you let a monster like me take a good nap for once?” Grim said as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. You giggled and petted Grim.

“Sorry Grim, but we were just excited! We’re playing truth or dare later.” You said, running your fingers through the creature as if you were to groom him.

“Truth or Dare? What’s that?” Grim asked you. You let out a small gasp.

“Grim… You… You don’t know what’s Truth or Dare?” You asked back the creature. He looked at you tiredly and shook his head.

“It’s like, the most common game ever to play with friends! You must’ve heard of it before!” Ace said to the furball.

“No, I have never heard of such game.” Grim replied the orange-haired student with a yawn.

“Well, you can see us play around before joining in later.” You said, handing him a can of tuna. “I remember owing you this.” The furball’s eyes lit up with sparkles.

“Fgnaaaaaaa!! Yes!!!!” Grim did a little happy dance and started to work his way into the can.

“So, where are we going to play later?” Sebek asked you all.

“Not Heartslabyul.” Ace said. “I cannot imagine enjoying the game with Riddle there.”

“Not Savanaclaw either. We can’t have a peaceful moment to ourselves there.” Jack said, shaking his head.

“Definitely not Pomefiore, unless you want our game session to turn into a makeover session.” Epel added on.

“Diasomnia isn’t the best option either. I’m pretty sure Lilia-senpai would interrupt us constantly.” Said Sebek.

“Well, I guess that just leaves my dorm right?” You said, laughing a little. “Then it’s settled then! We’ll have a small game session at Ramshackle Dorm. Now, hurry up and finish your dinner guys.” You ordered the boys as you finished your own dinner.

When they did, you all walked back to your dorm together, along the way, you guys had a nice little chat about what Professor Trein’s homework and how Lucius has a big influence on the class. The cat couldn’t help but meow at the end of each of the professor’s sentence. Ace even made fun of Deuce who meowed along once because he was half asleep then. When Deuce tried to defend himself by saying it was actually Lucius who made the sound and not him, Ace fired back at him saying that he was literally looking at him while he made the sound. Poor Deuce immediately turned red as the rest of you laughed. It’s okay, you comforted him after laughing for almost a minute.

Soon after, you arrived at your humble Ramshackle Dorm. You let everyone into the lounge and you guys started to discuss about the game that you were going to play. You guys decided to draw sticks to see who will go first. In the end, you had drawn the longest stick therefore you would start the game first.

“Alright then, let’s begin! Epel, truth or dare?” You asked your first victim and so the madness had begun.

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

After a few rounds of Truth or Dare, you had ended up with Epel being punished to wear a pink dress and his hair was in an up-do. Ace and Deuce had been punished to switch places, their personalities, the marks on their eyes and even their clothes had been switched. Jack was dared to have makeup on his face, from mascara to lipstick, you name it, beauty products littered everywhere on his face, his tail was in a big braid as a dare. Sebek’s whole body was covered in glitter, everytime he moved, glitter would flutter off from his body, he was also punished to speak in hushed tones.

Yeah, let that sink in.

And for you, you just had to be in an uncomfortable pose. You were feeling pretty sore too, who would’ve thought you would have to do the game standing up with only one leg supporting you while one of your hands were stuck to your waist and the other on top of your head. This was a dare made by Sebek out of all people, and you can only leave the pose when someone else calls out your name. So, yeah, you were ABSOLUTELY SORE.

“I think I know how to play this game now!!” Grim suddenly yelled out.

“Final- I mean, good for you Grim! I have to be nice to everyone if I want to be an honor student!” Ace said to Grim, mocking Deuce who was clearly irked by this.

“Fgnaaaaaa! Why wouldn’t I know how to play? I am The Great Grim after all!!” Grim laughed out.

“Well, I guess you should get a turn, go on then, pick a student and ask them Truth or Dare.” Epel said.

“Hmmm… (Y/N) then!” Grim looked at you and you finally collapsed onto the ground.

“Thank you Gri-“ You were cut off by the furball.

“Truth, or Dare?” You looked at him with widen eyes.

“Hmm… I’m never doing dare again… So, truth!” You said, not moving from your position at all because you were too tired.

“Alright, Truth eh?” Grim said, putting a paw underneath his chin to make it look like he’s thinking of something. After a few seconds of ‘thinking’ the furball had come up with the question.

“I got it!!” Grim yelled. “Who do you have a crush on in this school?” Everybody froze.

Grim, no, you just… You just started a war.

“Hey! How about I switch okay? I choose Dare instead!!” You frantically yelled out.

But Grim already made up his mind.

“Alright then, I dare you to tell us your crush.” Grim said to you and your eye twitched. You got to hand it to the furball, that was one smart move.

“Argh! NO! I won’t say anything!” You said, crossing your arms and turning away from your friends.

“Hey! You didn’t let me do anything else than wear this stupid dress!” Epel argued with you.

“Guys, guys, no. If (Y/N) is acting so defensive, it must mean she has a crush.” Ace said. The boys looked at you while you slowly shrunk yourself.

“(Y/N), it is a dare.” Jack barely said for his face was too heavy with the amount of makeup on.

“Yeah (Y/N) come on, tell us! I as the troublemaker need to know because I’m dumb!” Deuce said, mocking Ace.

Truth be told, the boys treated each other like enemies when Grim asked the question as they each wanted to be your ‘crush’, they knew that everyone had spent their fair share of time with you and you must have a favorite, right?

So, with what Deuce had said, it seemed like a direct attack to Ace. And let me tell you, Ace was not happy at all.

“HEY! I HAVE BETTER GRADES THAN YOU!” Ace fired back to his dorm mate.

“SO?! IT’S NOT LIKE YOU’RE SMART IN YOUR EVERYDAY CHOICES!” Deuce yelled back.

“GUYS STOP.” Sebek said, getting in between them.

“Fine! Just because I don’t want to be covered in glitter as well.” Ace said.

“Hmph! Me neither!” Deuce said.

“Wait… Where’s (Y/N)?” Epel asked out. Everyone turned to where you sat only to find air there.

You see, while everyone was busy watching/stopping the fight between Ace and Deuce, you had sneakily taken off and ran straight for your dorm’s front door.

“(Y/N)!!! YOU CAN’T ESCAPE!!” Epel yelled as he and the others started to run after you.

“NO! FREEDOM IS NEAR!” You yelled and opened the door and ran out of it. As you just left your dorm’s front yard, you saw the boys were already on their way chasing after you. Grim was also with them but he had a spot on Deuce’s shoulder.

So, you ran, with a bunch of ridiculously looking boys on your tail.

“Guys, we should circle her instead, so, split up!” Sebek told his friends. The others nodded and branched off. You turned your head to see only Sebek running at you at full speed. You gulped slightly before picking up your pace.

“(Y/N)! This could’ve been easier if you’ve just did the dare!” Sebek yelled at you.

“Over my dead body!!” You shouted back and took a sharp left at the end of a hallway, leading you to Main Street.

But when you arrived, you saw something pink slowly walking towards you. You widen your eyes as you realized that it was Epel in front of you. You turned your head to the left to find Jack slowly approaching you from that side. Your right was being approached by the two Heartslabyul boys so escaping from there isn’t an option. You also felt a presence behind you and you already knew who it was.

And with that, you were trapped. Escape was impossible then.

Or so you thought.

“Now, (Y/N), be a good little student who accepted a dare and tell us…” Ace said smugly.

“Yeah, no backing out (Y/N).” Deuce continued. You were overwhelmed.

“F-Fine! I’ll talk, I’ll talk!” You said, covering your blushing. The boys all thought you looked adorable in that state. Could you blame them? You were looking all flustered and red and adorable while hiding her blushing face. Nothing could stop them from blushing slightly as well.

“Okay…” You said, taking a deep breath. The boys leaned in to you, wanting to hear more of your slightly trembling voice.

“My crush is-“

Ah, you were cut off. By a few voices actually.

“ACE! DEUCE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IS IT?!”

“EPEL! IS THAT YOU?! WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE EVIL QUEEN ARE YOU WEARING?!”

“Jack!! I need your help back at Savanaclaw!! Leona isn’t helping me!!”

“My oh my, if it isn’t Sebek, you know, Malleus would be disappointed.”

Yes, two dorm leaders and two vice dorm leaders were slowly walking to your group.

“Dorm Leader Rosehearts!” Ace and Deuce yelled to a red-looking Riddle.

“You two! It’s already curfew! If you don’t get back to your dorm in the next five minutes… IT’S OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!!” Ace and Deuce’s eyes widen and ran at full speed to their dorm.

“Bye (Y/N)!! We’ll see you tomorrow!!” Ace and Deuce said as they ran back to Heartslabyul with Riddle following behind them, but of course Riddle walked slowly instead.

“EPEL!!!” Vil had yelled for his first-year. Epel let out a small groan before turning to look at Vil.

“What?” Your friend responded to his dorm leader.

“What in tarnation are you wearing?!” Vil questioned.

“Are you blind? It’s a dress.” Epel said with a straight face.

“Don’t make me slap you again. Come, we must go back to Pomefiore and get you out of this horrible outfit.” Vil said and dragged Epel away.

“I’ll see you tomorrow (Y/N).” Epel managed to say while being dragged back to his dorm by Vil.

“Jack! Didn’t you hear what I said?!” Ruggie was approaching Jack. “I told you that- HAHAHAHAHAHA WHAT’S GOING ON WITH YOUR FACE?!?!” Ruggie couldn’t help himself as he turned Jack around only to be greeted with a makeup filled face.

“Yeah, yeah, you need my help right? Let’s just go now.” Jack said, dragging a laughing hyena upperclassman with him. “Bye (Y/N).” Said the wolf to you.

“My… Sebek… What a sight to see you like this.” Sebek froze for a good few seconds before turning around.

“Lilia-sama…” Sebek muttered in a low tone.

“I wonder how Malleus would react to this.” Lilia said and Sebek’s eyes widen.

“N-NO, MALLEUS-SAMA MUSN’T KNOW!” Sebek yelled.

“Then, I suggest you better hurry back to your dorm before he catches you.” Said Lilia with a small smirk on his face.

“We will meet again tomorrow (Y/N)!” Sebek said before rushing back to his dorm.

“Bye (Y/N)~” Lilia said to you before going back to his dorm himself.

After everyone were gone, you let out a breath you didn’t even knew you were holding.

“Fgnaaaaa… I only played one round though.” Grim said, as he plomped himself on your shoulder.

“I think one round is enough for you.” You said and started to walk back to Ramshackle Dorm.

“But seriously (Y/N), who is your crush?” Grim asked with curiosity.

“I don’t need a crush, I have you after all.” You said to Grim, patting his head.

“But but!” Grim asked further.

“No buts, either you stop asking about my crush or you don’t get to have tuna for the next few days.” You said with a stern tone.

“Fine…” Grim said and the two of you slowly made your way back to Ramshackle Dorm.

#twisted wonderland fic #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #ace trappola #deuce spade #grim #mc/yuu #epel felmier #jack howl #sebek zigvolt #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #twst x reader #twisted wonderland imagines #riddle rosehearts #vil schoenheit #ruggie bucchi #lilia vanrouge

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dallonm-archive · 3 years

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[image description: a cropped image of a pink sky. on the right hand side is a bunch of darker pink clouds. Just left of the centre is a full moon. In the centre, in a white serif font reads "writing update" /end id]

july writing update

Hi friends! This writing update is me pretending I did Camp Nano and didn't kinda give up a week in! I had a proper goal and everything, but a lot of things got in the way that I'm not gonna talk about here because I already ranted about it in another update I'm drafting rn. Lets just say it's Disability Pride Month and being not neurotypical or able bodied in writing communities and their inherent focus on productivity is Hard.

But I did get some writing done and wanted to do a little Camp wrap up post regardless. And I'm doing it now because I'm cancelling the last week of July for some rest/self care and I do not want to think about writing for that time and if I write a tumblr post about July Nano being over my brain will think it's actually over <3 I will probably do updates like these for most months tho! Depends on how much I write lol! This one is not too long (by my standards) and has some Revelations, Revelations, Life Cycle of Massive Stars, Nocturne for the Holy and a new wip idea 👁️

excerpts under the cut!

general taglist ; ask to be + or - ; i only have one! ; @childhoodlovers @svpphicwrites @abiandwriting @kowlazovdi @avi-why @ryns-ramblings @kitblogsthings @bijouxs @bookphobe @moonhungers @alicewestwater @bookpacking @shaelinwrites @onlyganymede @theelectricfactory @write-like-babs @oceancold @sidhewrites @wolf-oak @oasis-of-you @coffeeandcalligraphy @cecilsstorycorner @howdywrites @keira-is-writing @flip-phones @piyawrites @avakrahn @goose-books @finch-goes-write @ziyin @aphaimaniis @isherwoodj @laughtracksonata

I'm also editing this in to say I only just realised that July is my writeblr birthday month and that is very weird to me! A year and a couple days ago I impulsively turned an old blog into a place to document writing for me and ended up meeting people who now mean the world to me and my writing blossoming in a way I never thought it would. And the funny part is it doesn't feel like it's been a year, ever since I joined it's just felt like life has Always been this way and I cannot fathom that it hasn't. I'm sappy bc it's 4am lol but ultimately the friends I made (you know who you are) and the community I found is what retaught me the value of writing and helped me unlearn toxic ideas and whilst the last year was tough I wish I could tell July 2020 Dallon (who did not realise he was Dallon yet </3) what July 2021 would look like.

revelations, revelations ;

Oh the absolute state of affairs with this book rn. Nothing bad but I don't know when I'm gonna update y'all because sometimes I do not know where to start when talking about this wip lol! Currently on a break with it (but also my thesis work is on late 20th century queer lit/history rn so am ever really free of RR? <3) but had a lot of fun with it at the end of June/start of July. Anyway here's Dorothy finally revealing more of herself to me after a year. Dorothy as a character is like, I truly believe she is capable of killing a man but the story she is in just does not allow that so I am trying to grow her unhinged side a little bit in other ways bc I know she has it in her but I also really cannot deal with the plot repercussions of her actually killing a man! I'm sorry Dotty but this'll have to do!

(cw for groping/a man being creepy as hell, death/funeral mention, drug mention, drowning imagery kinda)

There’s too much to tell Felix. That his sister lives on the fringe of Castro and has attended three funerals since September; that it’s January 11th and she’s already attended one this year. That his sister drives through sunsets and imagines parties: the amber dusk, warm mosaic tiles, platters of Greek salad skewers and shrimp tostadas, and sometimes Jolie joins her and they share a blunt on the hill. That his sister bought an aquamarine body-length dress for six bucks in a thrift store sale bin, so when her and Jolie broke up for the second time, she waltzed into a sunset party, locked arms with a CEO’s son and gave him a fake number and plucked strawberries out of champagne and blended so well nobody noticed when she left. That during the summer of ’83, his sister walked a neighbour’s Golden Retriever on Wednesdays, and on the sixth Wednesday he gave her a wad of tens with one hand and palmed the back of her neck with the other, so she walked his dog to the beach and stole another hundred from his wallet. That his sister bombed an interview for a Nursing school and didn’t get home until night and missed their monthly call, and Jolie heard the phone ring and didn’t take a message, so his sister snuck into the CEO’s son’s villa and floated in the centre of their heated pool like a cloud. A pause, a breath, an Opheliean threat.

life cycle of massive stars ;

Switched to LCOMS this month because I was burnt out with RR and it made such the difference! I really love working on two novels at once because it keeps me consistently creative but also both of these books are so different so its always refreshing to bounce back into one from another. I have a whole update in the drafts rn for this so keeping this part brief but still love this book, still the best thing that has ever happened to me, me and this book will have a glorious summer wedding etc etc. These excerpts are from chapters that summarise the first semester of each character's first year and have to say it. has been Very Fun to get into the mindset of Freshers Melodrama. Here's Junie having a crisis and an unhealthy relationship with her hetero flatmate :( (alcohol cw for both excerpts)

In October you are drinking double espresso and trying to breathe normally in lectures and you are trying to figure out your favourite colour because Fleur asked and you stumbled out an answer (Purple, I think. Violet? Lavender? Indigo?) and it didn’t match hers (I like yellow. I like sunlight). You buy mugs from IKEA to paint you paint cats and fireworks and constellations and moon phases and daisies. You try to scratch paint stains off your desk. You do laundry at 2am. In October you colour code your notes with pastel highlighters. You go to the library at 3am. You paint your nails sunlight and hate it. You finish an essay that’s due in December. You knock on Fleur’s door at 8am so she makes her 9am. You wear off the shoulder tops and you let a girl dab glitter on your collarbones and you are watching Fleur kiss a boy from the neighbouring hall. You bite your sunlight nails. You break the handle off your IKEA constellation mug. You leave your keys in a lecture hall and stand at the reception for forty minutes waiting for them to realise that the keys on the desk have the moon chain you mentioned - or, you are waiting to say it yourself. You are watching the rain trail down your window. In October you get a halo headband tangled in your hair you are sipping a vampire themed cocktail that tastes like acetone you rip your heels off and you go home early and do laundry at 2am and you are waiting for the courage to tell Fleur you don’t like clubbing - or, you are waiting for her to ask where you are. In October you are many things / a good student a dancer a painter an angel a big sister an alarm clock you are nocturnal and a lucid dreamer and confused about your sexuality / and it’s still October but it’s not because it’s November now and you are still Junie but not because you don’t know who Junie is. It’s November, it’s September October November December. It’s 2016 2017 2018 2019. You are fragments and you don’t know if you are a kaleidoscope or shattered glass.

And here's first year Tomas being like I Moved Countries For University And All I Got Was Homesickness And A Crush On My Flatmate And Resurging Autistic Symptoms And This Lousy T Shirt (cw: vomit mention, injection mention, parental death mention)

Kristen is seven months younger and five inches taller than you. He’s the last flatmate you met and the only one you talk to beyond kitchen greetings and passive aggressive texts about dirty dishes. He is too quiet and too loud and not the type of person you befriend. The first night, he lost Ring of Fire and downed the concoction of Echo Falls, Dark Fruits, Jack Daniels and coke, vodka and lemonade alongside a cigarette and said he’d let God figure out the rest. He held your hair back when you threw up amaretto and held onto your knee when you first self-injected testosterone. He taught you Yorkshire dialect and you pretended to understand the Yorkshire dialect. He told you he got diagnosed at four and you told him you didn’t get past the first assessment but sometimes you flick the bathroom light on and it’s fire: the orange on the orange towel is louder, the white on the white tiles are louder, the colours and light and sink and showerhead are prickly and all you can do is blink and breathe until it fizzles out. You reminded him to take his meds and asked if you were weak for wanting to drop out and hop on the first Eurostar to Rotterdam. He reminded you to take off your binder and asked if he was robotic for not grieving his mother. You spent inky nights on the kitchen floor, counting the dead flies in the lights and scooping crumbly coconut ice cream out of a maker you got for half price in TK Maxx. You spent dusk-dusted afternoons at the global street food markets, at the vegan markets. Spent student loans on raspberry lemonade in recycled cups, veggie burgers in beetroot buns, got him hooked on poffertjes and advocaat and could’ve cried when the vendor spoke to you in Dutch. Sometimes you didn’t buy anything. Just liked hovering at stalls ambered with fairy lights, writing down Etsy stores on your notes app; just liked Kristen’s impulse to trek forty minutes into the city for a market he didn’t know existed until five minutes before; just liked how he always invited only you, cancelling your other plans last minute, the feeling of being ambushed; just liked how he stopped to take photos of dogs and the sunset; just liked how he looked haloed under lampposts waiting for Ubers, golden on golden.

This is also nearing creative nonfiction because Sheffield truly is a haven for just. vegan markets and cafes lol! I experimented with veganism there and never struggled to find something and at this point I call myself a fake vegan because it's too easy to be vegan in Sheffield and too difficult to be vegan in my actual hometown. And the global street food markets!!! SO GOOD! I miss pre pandemic days

nocturne for the holy ;

Giving her a little shout out because she does exist actually! I've figured out a really good system for working on two novels at a time, so my plan is maybe to start properly on this after I finish either RR or LCOMS. Idk I got 3 novels to pick from haha oops! I did do some free drafting back in April though and found it recently and I Like It! And I edited it so it counts as Something I Did This Month :) Also have decided that I loathe this working title <3 Okay see you with an update for this novel in like a year, sorry for the absolute zero context for this excerpt hehe

The morning I was due back, I hadn’t yet decided that this would be my last visit. I wandered between rooms like an overstayed guest, like I didn’t know which crockery lived in which cabinet and which bedroom had the best view of the overlapped hills. Dad would wake for his run in an hour, plastered to his twenty-year-old routine. Mum would pretend to be asleep until breakfast. Until then, it was myself and the house, hazed by sleepy sunrise. Downstairs. The peeling paisley wallpaper in the lounge, the lilies in the middle of the kitchen table, the vases of candy floss pink peonies wilting on every windowsill, the desolate double swing-set in the garden. The mist-clogged mornings. I stood outside in my dressing-gown until my fingertips felt numb. Upstairs. The sage coloured bathroom. The bathtub I’d laze in with my clothes on and no water because it was the quietest room in the house. The dusty dance trophies on the top of my wardrobe. Wine-flushed Jeanette in my teenage bedroom. The stale grey mum painted my teenage bedroom after I moved out. Minus their room, I stalked the layout of the house three times before settling back into bed - teenage Nora’s bed. Nora who cared for peonies and pushed her brother on the swing set and flung her ceramic ballerina at the wall and jogged with her father and collected wine bottles and acorns and kisses from girls who were supposed to visit for dance practice. Before I left, I’d have cycled each room another three times. And in every room he was there, hovered in the corner like black mould.

love this update bc it's like i've got my third person, my second person, my first person! collecting all the POVs like chaos emeralds :)

eulogy for our burnings ;

-looks away-

girl help I did it AGAIN!!!! Apparently Camp Nano is just the perfect time for me to get novel ideas. I made this post specifically to talk a bit about this because I have no idea when I'll draft it but it's certainly not soon. This is not me trying to doubt my own skill but I feel like I am not in the place I'd like to be as a writer to tackle this project with the zest it needs, however I am v excited by the prospect of it! Don't know how I feel about the working title bc I'm like "that doesn't sound right but I don't know enough about this wip to dispute it" but the only purpose my working titles serve is to sound pretty lol! But here's the tea:

1991, UK.

2nd person present + past. Very flexible form. I can't decipher how yet but I'm feeling interviews, newspaper articles, receipts, grocery store lists weaved with actual narrative, that kinda vibe.

Best summary is we follow our nameless narrator, a stealth trans man, as he becomes unhealthily obsessed with a man who "hires" him to photograph the buildings he burns

Very,,, isolated? Minimal settings, minimal characters, minimal prose etc. Almost claustrophobic

There's basically only two characters and they are probably the most morally deplorable, indefensible characters I've created which just means most of you are gonna LOVE this /lh I do too I do too

Only comp title I can give is it has the vibes/tone of Boy Parts by Eliza Clark (just with none of the nsfw content lol if you've read the book you know what I'm talking about) (also that book is great for morally deplorable women protagonists but omg look up the content warnings because it caught me off guard! enjoyed it tho gave it 4 stars)

The pinterest board is the best visualisation of the Vibes also follow me on pinterest lol

And that's all I've got today! A bigger Life Cycle of Massive Stars update coming in the next few weeks. Might do a proper intro post for Eulogy For Our Burnings but idk!!! It's a surprise :) Thank you for reading this far!

#also i have LOTS to catch up on so if u tagged me in anything im gonna do a big queue of rb's soon!#promise im not ignoring anybody!#just barely functioning <3 #atlastracking #writing update #revelations revelations #life cycle of massive stars #nocturne for the holy #eulogy for our burnings

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purplesauris · 4 years

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A World In Monochrome

My brain is firing on like, almost all cylinders to pump out all of the sweet sweet ideas I obsess over. This one stemmed from playing the game and realizing that Cat causes total loss of color from Geralt’s sight until the potion wears off

Enjoy it on AO3 here!

Geralt hated fiends. Well, he can’t say that with any honesty- for as brutal and base as they appeared, there was an elegance to them. They left people alone for the most part, content to wander their forests, caves or swamps, and only attacked if necessary. They were huge yet moved with incredible speed, and if necessary, their third eye opened, stunning and allowing them a chance to escape. To be compared to a fiend among friends was almost a compliment.

What he hated most about them was how often they took him into caves; the dank, musty smell of old corpses and fiend dung clung to him for days after he’d finished the hunt, and he couldn’t carry a torch with him to light the cave. Not that he hadn’t tried when he was young and just set out on the Path. After too many times plunging into darkness without anything to light, Geralt prepared himself more carefully. Relict oil for his blade, Thunderbolt and Swallow on his belt, and Cat, choked down at the last minute to give himself all the time he needed.

He hasn’t fought anything cave dwelling in a while, and isn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary when he takes his latest contract. Jaskier had wanted to bargain for a higher price, since this was Skellige and the fare back to Velen was expensive, but Geralt couldn’t. Mutation’s took all Witcher’s feelings people claimed, but his heart had gone out to Ohden, worried over his son, and he gave Jaskier a glance to keep him quiet. Jaskier hadn’t pushed, just hummed thoughtfully and thanked the man for his account of where to start.

That was another thing that Geralt hadn’t expected. When Geralt told Jaskier he was headed to Skellige for the summer he fully expected Jaskier to disappear wherever he goes for the winter. Instead, he was met by Jaskier waiting on the docks, bag slung over his shoulder and lute clutched against his front. He’d only complained of seasickness in the first two days, and spent the rest of their trek across the sea singing bawdy sea shanties and learning new ones from the crew to delight whatever crowd he could find in Skellige. Geralt had spent his time making potions and sharpening his blade, sat atop a barrel to keep a sharp eye on the bard under his care. He tried to look casual, but half the crew gave him a wide berth and the others stared in open hostility. The only thing keeping them somewhat friendly was Jaskier and that magnetic charisma he seemed to exude.

“Stay here.” Jaskier perked up at the sound of Geralt’s voice, then rolled his eyes.

“Geralt, how am I supposed to tell of your exploits if I never get to go?”

“How are you going to if you follow me and die?” Geralt’s throat tightens at the thought, and his voice sounds particularly grating when he talks through it. “You’re staying here.”

“At least let me see you track. I’ve never seen that even!”

“No.” Jaskier gave him a look, blue eyes glancing up just so through his lashes, and Geralt’s heart gives a wild leap at that. He sighs wearily, rolling out his shoulders. “Fine.”

“Yes!”

“But-” Geralt silences him, eyes narrowing a bit. He hears Jaskier breathe in sharply, but finds him staring with that same eager intensity. “If I let you come, you have to promise you’ll run if I tell you.”

Jaskier grins, eyes sparkling, and bows low at the waist. “As you command, White Wolf.”

Geralt finds someone to care for Roach while they’re away, and only has to narrow his eyes to ensure she’ll be taken care of and their stuff won’t be plundered. Skelligers are hardy, but even they know not to mess with a witcher, let alone Geralt. Geralt heads southeast, toward where Ohden had gestured to, and it isn’t long until he finds footprints. They’re from a male, that much he can tell, and that puts him on the right track.

They hike in relative silence for a while, Geralt occasionally pointing out a footprint that Jaskier would be able to see and explaining when Jaskier seems lost on how Geralt is leading them. The dirt road becomes pebbly a couple of miles later, and it’s then that Geralt spots the crumbling castle ahead of them and smells blood.

“Quiet.” Geralt hisses, Jaskier trying his best to stay as quiet as he can. Geralt’s silver sword slides free from his sheathe with nary a whisper, and he rolls his wrist, careful not to hit the bard behind him. He can hear breathing, heavy and bovine, and he creeps forward, Jaskier at his back. Geralt slips through a gap in a broken wall, nostrils flaring as the scent of decay and musk hits him. He holds out a hand, telling Jaskier to stop, and moves a bit further into the clearing of what used to be a courtyard. The ground near the south wall is saturated in blood, and flies buzz around it, grating to his ears.

He straightens up a bit, casting a glance around; whatever caused the gore doesn’t seem to be here, and this is the best lead he’s gotten so far. Gravel crunches behind him and he whips around, Jaskier freezing as the sight of Geralt, pupils mere slits and nostrils flared. “Nothing then?”

“I told you to wait.”

“Right, except I couldn’t see anything and I-” Jaskier’s eyes are pinned on the background behind him, and the hairs on the back of Geralt’s neck raise. His medallion hums angrily against his chest, and the sharp, eye watering scent of a fiend hits him hard.

“GO!” Is all he can say before throwing up Quen, grunting as the barrier around him crystallizes and shatters, having effectively warded off the fiend’s first charge. He won’t have time for a second, and all he can hope is that Jaskier heeded his command as he dives out of the way of a second charge. It’s a narrow window at best, and Geralt rolls to his knees, throwing a plume of fire in front of him. He almost chokes on the scent of burnt fur, the fiend roaring and hopping back a couple of steps. Geralt downs a dose of thunderbolt while he has a chance, throwing the glass away. He can come back and hope it isn’t broken later.

He falls into the fighting as easily as breathing, spinning on his toes and grunting at the twinge that goes through his knee and up his thigh. So it’s going to be like that. He can ignore it for now, and a dose of Blizzard has his blood singing and muscles working double time as he whirls and dodges the blows that the fiend throws. The fiend seems slow as Geralt hacks at the black and white patterned hide, tiring with the effort of trying to hit a target that won’t stop moving. This fiend is old, Geralt can tell just by the scarred hide and brutal efficiency in which he goes after his target.

Geralt can tell that the fiend is almost done for, blood oozing out of multiple cuts that regenerate before his eyes. He finds his opening when a well placed shot of Igni has the monster stumbling back, Geralt lunging to drive his sword through the beast’s skull. A flash of red catches Geralt’s attention, and he watches with a helpless kind of fury as the fiends third eye flares open, stopping his blow in its tracks. The fiend swings a meaty paw and sends him flying back into the wall of the abandoned keep, Geralt wheezing as the air is knocked out of him. His scabbards dig roughly into his back, sure to leave bruises later, but they might have just saved his spine.

In the time it takes Geralt to stumble to his feet, gasping for air, the fiend has fled the field, out of the ruins. He’s off like a shot, following the scent of blood and decay and singed fur through the rest of the ruins and down the bank of the river. It’s there he finds a cave, reeking of gore and pitch black.

“Fuck.” Of course he’s going to have to use Cat. He downs the potion as quickly as he can, not wanting to give the fiend more time to recover than is necessary. He skids down the rocky entrance as color leeches from his sight, every inch of the cave lit up in a murky haze. The fiend is crouched in the corner, tearing away at the entrails of some poor soul. This time the fiend won’t surprise him, and Geralt leaps onto the offensive, slashing a gaping wound through the beast’s left flank. It should slow the beast down enough, and Geralt is already leaping away when the beast roars and swings wildly behind itself.

Geralt dispatches it with another quick blow to the throat, silver blade digging in so deep that he lodges against bone for a moment. Geralt isn’t a fan of denting his blades, but the fiend has fought long enough, and Geralt just wants a quick end to the fight. He pants as the fiend twitches, crashing to the ground and eyes rolling sightlessly. One last blow ends the fiends suffering and severs the rest of the head- he’ll need it if he’s going to prove he killed the beast. A quick glance around the cave shows that this was definitely what was killing all of the travelers on the road, and though he can’t see it, he highly suspects that the lighter tone of the tunic he spies has to be yellow. He cuts a swatch to bring back with him, and drags the beast’s head up and out of the cave.

-*-

Jaskier had scrambled to climb the ladder when Geralt had yelled for him to run. He’d noticed it earlier when they first came in, and figured height would be a good advantage against whatever had charged at Geralt. Watching the fight was better than anything Geralt could have described, and Jaskier takes it in with reckless abandon. The way that Geralt’s hair had flown about him as he spun, the sun glinting off his blade. The way that his shield, brilliant orange in the light had shattered after the first charge.

He’s going to have the best ballad to write when they get back to town, and already a melody builds in his throat. He hums it while he watches, nervous to see Geralt go up against such an impossibly large foe. He trusts that the witcher knows what he’s doing, and he winces, gripping the craggy wall as Geralt crashes into it just below his hiding place. A normal man would have snapped his spine from the impact alone, but Geralt struggles to his feet and runs off, following the fiend wherever it fled to.

Well, he can’t miss this, can he? Jaskier creeps down the ladder, stooping to pick up the vial Geralt had tossed aside earlier before plodding after where the two disappeared. He isn’t able to leap off ledges like Geralt can, so he has to pick his way down the side of the ruin and hope he doesn’t trip and fall. By the time he makes it down to the bank and follows Geralt’s footprints he can hear the dying bray and gurgle of a large animal. It comes from a cave in the hillside, and Jaskier is loath to go inside. Especially if it smells as bad as he thinks it will.

“Right, uh, I guess I should get a bit closer…” The bard says, not moving an inch from where he’s standing, staring down into the pitch black of the cave.

“No, you shouldn’t.” The voice has no owner for a moment, ragged and deep, and it takes Jaskier longer than he’d like to admit to recognize it.

“Geralt? Are you alright? I’m coming in, let me just-”

“No.” Geralt’s voice is sharp enough to stop Jaskier in his tracks, and he wrings his hands together in a nervous habit. “Go back to town.”

“I can’t just leave you here, what if a-a bandit or something were to come?” There’s a rough chuckle, and Jaskier thinks he spies a lock of white hair, dyed pink at the ends by blood. “Geralt, come out? Please?”

-*-

Of course the bard had followed. Geralt had asked one thing, one thing of him, and wasn’t even granted that. He had hidden at least, because Geralt had no clue where he’d gone in the rush of the fight. He doesn’t want to step out into the sun, not while everything is too much, too bright, but the longer he stays down here the worse it’ll be to adjust. And the more likely it will be that Jaskier comes in anyway, despite the stench he knows keeps the man away for now.

“Move.” Is all the warning the bard gets before Geralt tosses the head out of the cave, listening to the dull thud of its landing and the sharp yelp Jaskier lets out at the sight. He limps from the cave as his knee gives another sharp twinge of discomfort, hissing at the brightness of the sun filling his eyes. It blinds him- leaves everything in washed out shades of white and grey and he hates it. The wildflowers bunched around the rocky ground sway in the wind, but Geralt can’t see their true colors. He knows the stems should be green, the flowers a pale blue or white, given the local flora, but all he sees is three different shades of black and white.

He hears a sharp intake of breath near where he tossed the head, and his body goes taut, attention snapping to the source of the noise. Jaskier stares at him, eyes wide and pupils blown wide within what Geralt knows should be blue irises. But they aren’t. They’re so pale they almost blend with the whites of his eyes, and Geralt’s heart drops into his stomach. Jaskier’s heart pounds a frantic, steady rhythm in Geralt’s ears, and his scent, usually so dominated by lavender, has taken on an edge of what Geralt can only describe as cloying spice. He isn’t sure what it means, at least for Jaskier, and he draws in another breath, trying to sniff discreetly, or as discreetly as a witcher hopped up on potions can.

Jaskier reaches out for him then, to lend him a hand or- he doesn't know what- and Geralt flinches. He can see the hurt in Jaskier’s eyes, can smell the scent of dying roses on him, and he struggles to push words from a throat more ready to strangle him than talk.

“Potions.” He looks at Jaskier again, eyes searching every inch of him for any sign of blood or injury, and grinds his teeth in frustration when he can’t differentiate the difference between what’s the stitching of his doublet and what’s the silky chemise underneath. They’re all the same color.

“Oh.” Jaskier sighs out, breathy and soft, and that confuses Geralt more than his lack of color or his racing heart. “Do you need anything right now? Water, stitches?”

“Stitches?” He manages to mumble, taking a step back into the cave where it isn’t so damn bright.

Jaskier’s lips quirk in a soft smile, and he shrugs. “I can’t see if you’re hurt. So, stitches?”

“No. White honey?” Jaskier winces, shooting Geralt a sympathetic look.

“Back in the packs, I think. Should I go fetch it?”

The offer is tempting; Geralt’s heart is still racing and every nerve in him screams that Jaskier is an enemy and he can’t fucking see color, but he doesn’t want Jaskier to leave. Not with his humanity still crumbling within him as he tries desperately to hold himself together enough to talk. He closes his eyes, hoping that taking away one sense will help with the noise in his head, but he’s not sure anything will help right now.

“No. Gotta meditate.”

“Well, come out of the cave then, I’m sure you’d rather not smell whatever it is that’s in there.”

“Bright.” He hears Jaskier chuckle, and the soft shuffle of fabric and leather creaking as Jaskier moves toward him. The thought makes him want to run deeper into the cave, where he can’t do anything that might scare the bard off, but something warm and reeking of lavender is being draped over his head. The light burning through his eyelids lessens immediately, and he gasps as Jaskier gently takes his hands. His grip is iron on Jaskier’s poor hands, but the bard doesn’t protest or pull away, just talks soft and low.

“Do you trust me?”

Does he? He tries to think of all the reasons he shouldn’t trust the bard, but fails to come up with anything meaningful. “Yes.”

“How long till this wears off?”

“Couple hours, maybe more.”

“Okay. Let’s head back for the keep, it’s a bit safer I think. Can you carry the uh, head?”

Geralt nods, and Jaskier leads him over. Geralt can navigate by the scent alone, but he doesn’t want to let go of Jaskier if he can help it, and uses one hand to lug the head along by the horns. Jaskier leads him up the path he must have taken to get down, and settles him in the shade underneath a small ledge. He only lets go of Jaskier’s hand once he knows they aren’t going to move again for a while.

“Okay, go ahead and meditate, I’ll keep watch and let you know if I see or hear something.” Jaskier goes to move a few steps away, but Geralt’s hand shoots out, gripping his wrist.

“Stay here.” Jaskier’s heart gives a little stutter, but he laughs softly and settles down next to Geralt. It’s nice, Geralt decides, and though he doesn’t actually feel it much, he figures he has a right to complain. Blizzard has an apt name, both for making everything seem to go in slow motion, and for shooting ice through his veins. “S’cold.”

“Fire?”

“Too noisy.” Jaskier hums for a second more before suddenly leaning against Geralt’s side. It’s near impossible to notice through the leather armor he wears, and must be wildly uncomfortable, but he can feel the heat seeping into him and his heart beats just a bit faster at their closeness. Jaskier being so close also drowns out any other scents around him, and slipping into his meditation is easier when he has one thing to focus on. It's also the closest that Jaskier has gotten to him in days, and he finds he misses the contact. He tries to shut out the noises around him, bouncing through his skull, but where Jaskier has settled them has created some kind of echo around him, and he grits his teeth. It might not be so easy after all.

Jaskier reaches for something, dragging it across the ground before the distinct sound of two metal clasps pops close by. A note is hummed, a string strummed, before Jaskier begins picking away in earnest. The song is new, one he's never heard before- or maybe he has? The melody picks at the edges of his brain, and he finds himself slipping into that trancelike state he was looking for.

When he comes to a couple of hours later, dusk has fallen behind his lids, and he cracks an eye open experimentally. His heart and brain have calmed, and he doesn't feel nearly as cold as he did before. The potions have mostly worn off, except for the Cat, which should be gone in another half hour or so. He hopes.

For now, he'll just have to be content with the watery color bleeding slowly across his vision. Jaskier has stopped playing, lute tucked away, and has his jacket back on to ward himself from the cold. Now he scribbles in his notebook, tongue peeking out from between his lips as he concentrates on whatever he's writing.

"A new one?" His voice is rusty, and he clears his throat while Jaskier jumps, sitting up and clutching his book, cheeks red.

"You should warn a man you know, I could have done something drastic."

"Like what?" Geralt's lips quirk in a small smile, and he's glad he can somewhat recognize the teal of Jaskier's doublet again. Jaskier doesn't seem as amused, and pins him with a withering glance. "New song?"

He tries it again, hoping that showing interest will soften Jaskier's apparent anger. Jaskier regards him with suspicion for a moment more before sighing, nodding while also shrugging.

"I have a lovely new ballad coming, yes, but I was… drawing." Geralt hums low in his throat, nudging his companion and dipping his head toward the journal still clutched to Jaskier's chest. A silent question of can I see it? Jaskier hesitates, holding on a bit tighter before he sighs, holding it out for Geralt to take. "Don't laugh. Poetry was more my strong suit."

Geralt says nothing as he pulls off his gauntlets- they're covered in dried blood, and he doesn't want to ruin the page. Upon taking the journal and seeing what Jaskier has drawn, he almost wishes he had. It's a sketch of him, he can tell by the line of his jaw and the straightness of his nose, but he hates what else he sees. His eyes have been filled in with black, a spiderweb of inky veins creeping over his face and down his neck. His hands shake as he stares at himself immortalized in a state he never wanted Jaskier to see. He was too hopped up on potions to care at the time, but looking now, he feels his heart constrict. How could Jaskier touch him, sit beside him while he looked like this?

"Do you like it?"

"No." Shit, that's not what he meant to say. He glances up, can smell and see the hurt on Jaskier's face, and his throat tightens, strangling his words.

"Give it then, so you don't have to see it." Jaskier takes the book back quickly, closing it with a snap and standing up. He grabs his lute case, slinging it across his back and pacing a few steps away. Ready to go back to town. Geralt struggles to his feet, his damn knee cracking painfully as he rises from his kneeling position. He has to take a second for it to settle before he can bear any weight.

"Jaskier-"

"Let's go, Geralt. I'm tired of being outside." He finds that hard to believe, seeing as they've only been out half the day, but Geralt doesn't know what to say and Jaskier doesn't want to hear it. Geralt follows him in stony silence, hoisting the fiends head away from the ground and wincing at the congealed blood that saturates the ground under it. It reeks. He's not sure how Jaskier could tolerate the smell, let alone sit by it for hours.

Geralt collects his reward from the grieving father and hands over the scrap of what he can now see is mostly yellow fabric. The man laments his son's fate, and Geralt can't do more than stand there and promise he was avenged. The man waves them off, wanting to be alone, and Jaskier heads off with a brisk comment about finding an inn for the night. Geralt goes to check on Roach and gather their things, wanting to give the bard time to cool off. He's brushing Roach down, sneaking her a couple sugar cubes when Jaskier comes to fetch him, leaning with his arms crossed against the doorframe. Geralt follows without complaint, refusing to let Jaskier carry his own pack despite the hand held out for it.

The room in the inn is sparsely decorated, and there's only one bed, but a steaming tub of water waits for him, and his heart gives a strange leap. Jaskier’s doublet is off, tossed carelessly on a chair with his boots sitting nearby, and Geralt has to force himself not to stare at the dip of Jaskier’s chemise. "Bathe."

The command is rough, but Geralt complies easily, stripping himself out of his armor and the soggy clothes beneath before sinking into the water. Heat prickles uncomfortably at his skin, but he lets out a small groan and sinks a bit deeper. Jaskier perches wordlessly behind him, tugging the tie from his hair and working any blood out with whatever soap he'd managed to get from the innkeeper. It smells a bit stronger than Geralt would like, but he doesn't say anything. Maybe now he can try again, while he's relatively safe.

"It was nice." Well, that's a start at least. Jaskier's hands pause in his hair, nails digging in a bit too hard, but Geralt groans and leans up into the touch. Jaskier scratches along his scalp, nails digging in, and Geralt relishes the sensation. His vision is almost back to full color, and he stares at Jaskier's doublet, discarded on the chair. "The drawing."

Jaskier scoffs. "You don't have to lie."

"M'not. Just don't like seeing it. The monster." Geralt adds on the end, not wanting to fuck things up twice. Just saying what he feels makes his skin crawl, but Jaskier gives a soft oh, continuing to scratch at Geralt's scalp.

"So you weren't insulting me then?" Geralt shakes his head, going still when Jaskier clicks his tongue. He begins scrubbing at the blood under his nails while Jaskier talks, needing something to pay attention to. "I thought you looked… Gorgeous, ethereal, effervescent- I could wax poetry about it endlessly.”

Geralt snorts, shaking his head, causing Jaskier to press his fingers in harder to keep him from moving. “Don’t. Don’t pretend.”

Jaskier scoffs this time, fingers tightening in Geralt’s hair and pulling until Geralt is straining to look back at him or risk his scalp. A hot wave of arousal washes over Geralt at the sensation, but all he does is grunt, looking back at the bard with a mixture of annoyance and hopefully- suppressed lust. Geralt notices, faintly, that his color is back completely as the two of them lock eyes, glaring at one another.

“I’m tired of you telling me what to do and how to feel, Witcher.”

“What am I telling you to feel?” Heat creeps along Geralt’s spine, and oh he’s playing a dangerous game. Maybe those potions aren’t as worn off as he might have thought.

Jaskier looks at him, brow furrowed, and Geralt feels Jaskier’s grip in his hair loosen. He misses the sensation for an instant before Jaskier leans forward, pressing his lips to Geralt’s in an awkward, upside down kiss. It’s almost painful- Jaskier’s chin and nose dig into him at an odd angle, but his hands come up and out of the water instinctively to grip Jaskier’s hair, keeping him from moving away. Jaskier takes that as a good sign it seems, because he nips at Geralt’s lower lip before pulling back. Geralt doesn’t want to hurt him, ever, and he lets Jaskier go, breathing hard and pupils contracting to mere slits. He tracks Jaskier’s every moment, listens to the way his heart is hammering, that same cloying lavender scent oozing through the room.

Geralt leans forward as Jaskier moves around the side of the tub, a pale hand smoothing over his shoulder. He wants to know what’s going on, wants to ask Jaskier what he thinks he’s doing, but nothing escapes him other than a low growl. Jaskier laughs softly, almost mockingly, and leans forward to kiss the corner of Geralt’s mouth. The witcher moves faster than might be necessary, but just barely catches Jaskier before he leans back again.

“Bard.” Geralt warns, voice vibrating with the steady growl that’s built up. Jaskier glances at him, eyes darting down to Geralt’s lips for an instant as a smug, self satisfied smile lights up his face.

“Witcher.”

“Say you want this.” Geralt’s mind moves slow, so slow that for a moment he fears he’s drunk off of the scent of Jaskier, so incredibly close yet just out of reach. He can’t think with Jaskier so close, grinning at him like he’s a cat who’s just gotten a delightfully fat mouse, and his fingers twitch on the edge of the tub.

“I’ve never wanted anything more.” That’s all that Geralt needs, and he reaches out, snagging Jaskier by the hips and bodily hoisting him forward. Jaskier laughs as he slips against the edge of the tub, a hand splaying against Geralt’s chest.

“You’ll ruin my clothes and the floor.” Geralt grunts, not caring, but Jaskier is undeterred. “Out.”

Oh, this is dangerous indeed. He groans, impatient, but Jaskier is already stepping away and tugging at the ties on his chemise. A moment of hesitation slices through the haze in Geralt’s mind, and he pauses in the water. Jaskier has seen him naked more times than he can count, but it’s different this time. This time, he’s allowed to look, and Geralt isn’t sure what to do with that thought. He’s waking up slowly from the raging of his heart, but Jaskier reaches out, fingers brushing under his chin and tipping his head up. He kisses Geralt slowly, luxuriating in the action and nipping gently at his lower lip. The small bit of pressure from Jaskier's teeth has Geralt gasping, and he stands up blindly, stumbling out of the tub as Jaskier continues kissing him.

That one point of contact, their lips sliding against each other, is the anchor that Geralt clings to. His hands come up, fingers shaking before finding purchase on Jaskier’s shirt and gripping it tight enough that he can hear the fibers straining not to rip. Jaskier hums against his lips, hands sliding over Geralt’s chest and pushing him back and away from the tub. Geralt walks blindly, and every time he breathes, opens his eyes, the world is skewed with vibrant contrasts of color. Geralt’s calves hit the edge of the bed, and he tips back, dragging Jaskier with him and wheezing out a laugh as the bard lands on top of him. It feels good to have Jaskier’s weight on top of him, and he hardly lets him get far. He can feel Jaskier’s cock pressing against his hip, and he groans, glad it isn’t just him affected. Jaskier kisses him harder for that, and Geralt whines against his lips.

“The potions.” Geralt hums, glancing up at Jaskier with half lidded eyes. His hair is a mess, lips red and cheeks redder, and the sight steals his breath. He props himself up on his arms, sighing when Jaskier settles astride his hips. “Are they still affecting you?”

“I don’t know.” He admits softly, humming when Jaskier leans to lay kisses along his jaw. He arches his neck, giving the man atop him more room to work and huffing when Jaskier drags his teeth lightly down his neck. “Why?”

“I don’t want to do anything if you aren’t in full control of yourself. Not unless we’d agreed upon it before, of course.”

“It’s not like being drugged.”

“No, but how do I know this is because of sober thought?” Jaskier grinds down suddenly, and the friction of cloth against his bare skin has him hissing, hips snapping up of their own accord. Geralt chokes on a breath before glaring at the very smug bard atop him.

“Don’t-” Jaskier laughs, kissing him in apology and lifting himself up a bit. Geralt is both grateful and infuriated, hands clenching into fists. He’s definitely more affected than he thought. “What did you mean, agreed upon?”

Jaskier looks at him, humming softly and shifting to sit back on Geralt’s thighs. It sends a shimmer of pain through his knee, but the sensation grounds him further, and he sits up fully. “Geralt, if I can be frank-”

“When aren’t you?” the bard pins him with a look and Geralt raises his hands, gesturing for him to continue.

“I find you in all your witchery, black eyed glory incredibly attractive. I’m surprised you haven’t smelled it on me by now.”

“I don’t like to pry.” He can’t help himself now though, leaning a bit closer and taking a deep breath. He smells sweat, the lavender oil Jaskier uses, and most powerful, the sickly sweet, almost spicy scent of Jaskier’s arousal. “Really?”

“Really.” Jaskier shifts off his lap now, padding over to their packs and digging out clothes for Geralt. “So, get dressed before I decide to ravage you fully.”

Geralt catches the clothes as they’re tossed at him, flexing his thighs and steadying his breathing to calm himself down. He dresses slowly, skin hypersensitive and every sense trained on where Jaskier tidies up across the room. Now that the other man isn’t kissing him senseless Geralt takes a moment to think, and to admire him in full color. Jaskier catches him looking, but merely smiles and nods toward the bed. Geralt crawls under the covers at the silent request, and lays back, watching as Jaskier strips down to his small clothes and blows out the candles, leaving just the hearth for faint light and warmth. He crawls into bed and into the waiting arms of his witcher, pressing their legs together and grinning when Geralt loops an arm over his hips.

“Have I told you why I hate fiends?” Jaskier shakes his head before tucking under Geralt’s chin, cheek pressed to Geralt’s collarbone to feel the vibrations.

“Does it have to do with caves?” Geralt grunts, squeezing a bit tighter and reveling in the pleasant squeeze Jaskier gives back.

“Yes.”

#geraskier #the witcher #geralt of rivia #jaskier #minor sluttiness #high toxicity geralt

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catharrington · 3 years

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I surrender, I surrender to you. (T, 2.9k words)

@harringroveweekoflove day 4: TEACHER AU, SCHOOL DANCE. Featuring aged up, and friends in love seriously pining. Lame flirting and lame dancing. Please listen to the song Surrender by Suicide on repeat 🖤thanks.

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The door to the roof was emergency access only. If you opened it, a silent alarm would go off in half a minute if you didn’t have the code to disarm it. This kept all the students from wandering. But the code that sat readily available on a bulletin board in the teachers lounge, didn’t stop them from wandering.

It was the best place to come for a smoke break. Hands down. Sure beat sneaking around the bushes in the back of school, and way more space than the janitors closet. Didn’t feel haunted like the basement did with all its rustling, moaning furnaces.

Billy pushed the door open and punched in the alarm code with his middle finger. Using the rest to clutch a reliable zippo lighter to his palm.

As soon as the door closed with a metallic hiss, and the light above the flat plastic box on the handle flicked to green, Billy was reaching into his suit’s inner pockets. Felt along the silk inside until he found the crinkled pack of smokes he kept.

Inside, the school’s prom was raging just fine. Billy had spent all night watching over it from the edge of the dance floor. Looking the other way as some dancers let their hands wander, as scared lips searched out for a romantic first kiss.

He had been to all his own back in sunny California, spent them doing a lot more than cute kisses pressed to shoulders.

The night brought back lots of memories of bruised wrists hidden by satin shirts, fast cars with wide back seats.

Billy lit his cigarette quickly, pulling until his lungs were filled to the brim with ash. With burning and black and red things that messed him up inside.

He exhaled the day from his lungs, but kept the ash. Let his eyes drift closed as he savored it.

From the other side of the roof he didn’t notice he wasn’t alone until it was far too apparently late. As his eyes fluttered back open, Billy followed the heated gaze on his skin. Turned until he found the farthest corner of the roof and the brick half-wall edge.

Firstly, he noticed the black suit jacket thrown over the brick. As if it weren’t expensive and the texture could ruin it. As if he didn’t care if it were to tumble off the edge to the ground.

Then Billy’s eyes drifted up along a smoke trail that wafted just above the suit jacket. A thin line of white smoke that lead back from over the edge towards a pair of pretty lips.

“Mr. Harrington,” Billy greeted.

The man just smiled. His lips holding that damn smoke curled around it like some blue-collared Cheshire Cat.

Steve, Steve Harrington, was the resident music teacher. His class room was underfunded and made of things he mostly brought in on donation. The children loved him, even if he was hardly over their own age, self-taught, and said crazy things like he didn’t believe in homework.

A large grand piano sat in the middle of his classroom. And Steve usually sat at it. At least, he did when Billy would find some excuse to come in and steal a glance.

Billy couldn’t get over those long legs kicked out, his dress slacks lifting up to show off his ankles. The sweater he wore that day, because he always complained about the old building being too drafty, pushed up to his elbows. And his moles. All the moles dotting up and down the back of his arms. Over his skinny, vein covered hands as they danced across the ivory keys of his grand piano.

Billy wasn’t blind. He knew he lingered too long and too obviously at Steve’s door for his own liking, but he couldn’t help it.

Between his melted chocolate colored sexy mess of a hairstyle and his vintage movie star good looks, Steve was something else. Effortlessly funny, and gentle with the firm understanding of a father. He was amazing to watch or simply be around.

And that smile, that wide real smile that reached up all the way to create crows feet next to his pretty brown eyes.

It took Billy’s breath away. It was, something else.

“Didn’t think you of all people would be skippin’ out on that shindig down there?” Billy kept his voice low. As quiet as the fading night around them. But his throat couldn’t help the gravel laughter that joined his words.

Steve shrugged. Lifting his arms to around his elbows so his whole body moved.

Steve turned and Billy noticed then that he must had been worrying at his long, coffee brown hair all night long. It had gone oily under his fingers. There were some strands coming free of how he had it pushed back. Mostly on the sides, right behind his ear, some were springing free. Reaching out for those mole covered cheeks like vines wanting to kiss. Curls of feather soft hair just out on display, and tempting billy to his edge.

The view off the side of the school roof was pretty, long lines of Indiana forests stretching below them. And the colors of the nights was a water color swirl of navy blue and royal purple twinkling with stars as they turned on one by one.

But, Billy was looking at the curly pieces of hair behind Steve’s ears.

“Just needed a break,” Steve spoke softly. “Headache. I don’t do well with lights and loud, loud music. I’ve had one too many concussions as a teenager.” And as he explained he chuckled. Like it was simply life and didn’t make Billy’s blood boil in his veins at the idea of Steve getting hurt.

But Steve just shrugged again. Flicking the butt of his spent smoke off the edge before he lit up another one. Trying to chain smoke away a headache.

“What about you, Hargrove? Thought you were enjoying enabling all those troublemakers down there?”

Billy whistled low. His shoes kicked up the tiny pieces of gravel across the roof as he walked closer to the edge. “That obvious?” He asked.

“Might of well have spiked the punch yourself,” Steve smiled, wonderfully wide and real, it made Billy’s heart swell up into his throat.

“Damn, I might get in trouble then,” Billy said in a laugh and an exhale of smoke. Mostly about the comment. Mostly about that damn smile.

He pressed his hip to the edge of the brick wall. Steve was standing a bit back away from it. His body turned to look out over the view. Billy didn’t want all that. Leaned back casually on the wall facing inwards as if they best view was Steve’s pretty face itself.

A minute of comfortable relaxation ticked by. Their senses going dark and black and burnt as they created a designs of clouds around their heads. Watching them gather and fade as the smoke cloud was too weak to carry rain. So it drifted up into the night sky to join the hidden mass of starlight under all the polluting lights of the school building.

Billy was stealing glances at Steve. Trying to make it not obvious.

Finally, Billy thinks he’s supposed to be the one to talk. He wipes his cigarette across the brick to make a line of black. Watches it for a second as he mutters, “What is he going to do? Fire me? Who else is going to teach these pipsqueaks how to understand poetry?”

“Good point, no one in their right mind actually enjoys poetry,” Steve shoots back.

Billy’s laugher from that is from deep in his chest. Rolling out through his ribs in a way he hasn’t felt tonight. In a way he wants to bottle and keep forever.

“Ya'know,” he starts slowly. Thinking about his words carefully. “I’ve got a bottle of aspirin in my desk. If that headache is still bothering you, Harrington?”

And Steve’s eyes flick towards him quickly. Searching the space between for any meaning to those words other than kindness. There’s a worry etched into Steve’s brows. And again, Billy’s griped with a certain anger for whoever put it there.

He gives himself a moment to think about it. Looking from between Billy’s face to the ground below them. Kicking his fancy brown dress shoe into the dirt.

“We’ve been away for a while. Really should be getting back?” Steve’s whisper is so quiet. Even he must know that ain’t an option.

Reaching forward, across the little space left between them, Billy brushes his hand across the slumped fabric of Steve’s jacket. He pets it once, twice, his fingers lingering on the well-loved softness that’s been put into the expensive suit, before he gathers it up in his fist. Lifting it from the brick so he can drape it over his arm.

He’s watching Steve the whole time. Wondering what the pretty boy is going to do about it.

“Mr. Hargrove,” Steve talks around the last puff of his cigarette. It’s tobacco burning bright orange to the filter before he flicks that one too over the side of the building.

Turning then to level a playful glare towards Billy.

“What’s another minute?” Billy scoffs. “Well, another 30 minutes?”

“We’ve got to get back!” Steve hisses. “If the principal notices they are down two chaperones then he will crucify us!”

“That’s a pretty poetic way of saying we’re dead if we get caught.” Billy laid his hand over Steve’s jacket. Pulling it so that it was on the other side of his body from Steve. So that if he had to leave, if he really didn’t want to take Billy up on his so generous offer of aspirin, he’d have to brush up along Billy’s side to fetch his jacket.

Crossing his arms back over his chest, Steve worried his bottom lip. Thinking, gears turning, under that head of perfectly disheveled hair.

Billy couldn’t help but follow the motion of his worrying. Swiping his tongue over his own bottom lip as he thought about how Steve’s teeth worked. How they brought the blood to the top layer of skin. How it looked cherry red and wet, as if it were stained from the punch bowl at the prom still dancing below their feet.

“20 minutes,” Steve haggled. His eyebrow quirking up in a challenge.

Billy shook his head. “Says right on the bottle takes 30 minutes to kick in. Wouldn’t want to take you back to the party still hurting, pretty boy.”

And he let that slip. That wasn’t supposed to come out. Billy’s eyes widened in reflex at his old behavior. If he could reach out and pluck those words out of the air he would. It wasn’t poetic, it wasn’t romantic, it wasn’t the best way to flirt with the music teacher he has been silently crushing on for the past year.

But then, he noticed that Steve didn’t pull back. Or sneer, or draw his sword in a one on one combat for the disgrace of his honor.

He kept standing on the roof of their school. Kept his arms crossed over his chest to combat the cold. His button up shirt pulled tightly across his broad shoulders.

Kept smiling under the glow of the moon and the artificial yellow lights dotting around them. And just like his Cupid bow shaped lips, his cheeks were flushed a brilliant red blush.

“Okay, yeah. Sure, Hargrove,” he stuttered out. Lifting one hand to wave towards the door.

Billy’s smirk was wide and wolffish, brilliant and happy.

He followed where Steve was gesturing. Opening the heavy metal door with a creaking groan of the hinges. Stepping aside to let him pass. Steve’s shoulder brushed along the fatty part of Billy’s bicep as he went

Down the steps they start picking up the quiet notes of the prom music still going on. Now that it was later on into the night, starting to become too late to be out, the music has mellowed out to softer love songs.

The staircase to the roof wasn’t decorated like the rest of the school. None of the red steamers or sweetheart pink balloons.

But as the gentle rhythm trickled up the steps, it sure felt like Billy was right back on that floor. And he had never felt it before the way he had now. When he was a kid he was a rebel without a cause. Driving fast cars and leaving hearts broken behind him.

Valentine’s days were always something to get done. To get to the end of so he could jump in bed with his prize.

Now, as the melody of the song so slowly so softly floated by, he finally was felling those butterflies.

Was thinking this is how it felt being a kid and timidly kissing the shoulder of your dance partner. Your heart so swollen and raw just wishing they feel the same way. That they will smile at your lame attempt to get their attention, and bend down to give you a real kiss.

Billy felt his feet stop at a halfway platform. A shiny metal thing that groaned dangerously under them. It wasn’t a dance floor. Wasn’t painted wood of a basket ball court either, but it felt like it. Gods, did it feel like it.

The song echoes all around them. Distorting the voices and pianos and making it ethereal in a way he didn’t want to ever end. A spell he never wanted broken.

Then, so gently it was almost startling. Almost made him jump from his vibrating skin. Steve sipped his hand into the one Billy was using to hold his coat.

Billy jerked to watch him. Thinking this was it, Steve had changed his mind and was going back to play babysitter for the rest of night like a responsible teacher.

But, he instead wrapped those gorgeous piano player fingers around Billy’s own and claimed them. Moved them so they were wrapped up too busy to hold the jacket anymore.

It tumbled down to the metal floor below them.

“Tell me if I’m reading the room wrong,” Steve whispered. Trying not to be louder than the song. Trying to stay in the moment of the reverberating chorus. “I’m not good with poetry, but I know a romantic moment when it plays on the radio.”

And he lead Billy’s hand to his waist. Leaving his hand touching ever so softly on the sensitive skin of the back of Billy’s hand.

And he used his other hand to cradle the back of Billy’s neck. Those fingers playing over the shaved short hairs there like ivory. As skilled as he is in every instrument he touches.

Making Billy completely breathless. Making him an audience to the way Steve begins to sway to the song. Following along as their teacher’s dress shoes click against the floor.

“I think you’re better at reading than you let on, Harrington,” he breaths. So low, so gentle, just like his hands as he wills up the courage to rest them on Steve’s hips.

His thumbs find the brown leather belt Steve wears all the time. And he worries circles into the leather. Round and round.

The same circle that Steve’s leading them in. Swaying back and forth to the music so damn easily it’s mesmerizing. It’s easy to follow right along where he’s lead.

Steve’s hands come up to wrap around Billy’s shoulders. Takes a step even closer.

His face is handsome in the low light of the staircase to the rooftop. His whole face, from his hair to the tip of his thin nose, is sparkling more than even the sky they just left behind. His eyes are intoxicating to watch. Half lidded and dark.

Billy feels his fingers grip harder on Steve’s belt as he dips close to his face to talk right into the blushing parts of his cheek.

“You’ve cured my headache,” his breath is warm across Billy’s skin. It makes him shiver.

Steve leans back to watch for a reaction. A playful quirk that makes his nose scrunch up.

Billy swoops forward the inches between them to catch those perfect lips in a kiss.

It’s slow, and soft, and it takes every damn thing Billy’s got in his whole body not to melt into the floor right there. Not to give into the way Steve’s lips are so warm pressed to his own. How he tastes like a more expensive brand of cigarettes. And how Billy can feel the way Steve’s smiling still into his kiss.

It makes him whimper low, a pleading thing that sounds much more broken than he feels.

Billy actually feels a lot more whole than he has in a long time. Like a piece of him he’s been ignoring has finally come to dance. Feels like a side of him he wants to look in the mirror and see. Not the rebel, or the self assured ass who’s got so many walls up he can’t see what’s in front of him.

No, this was a kid who’s gotten his first kiss at a school dance. And, to make it perfect, from the guy he’s been crushing on all year long. From the prom king himself.

They part with a smile and a low laugh. Listen as the song switches to something just as slow and perfect for another cheek to cheek dance.

Billy lays his head down on Steve’s shoulder. Pulls him in even closer. But leaving enough space for their feet to keep swaying back and forth to the music.

#harringrove #billy hargrove #steve harrington #harringrove fic #my fic #steve/billy #harringrove fanfic #harringroveweekoflove #harringrove week of love

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harryswatermelonsegment · 4 years

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Fire For You

Pairing: Reader/Harry Styles,Harry Styles/Omc x2

Rating : Strong R 100% porn w/o plot tbh

Warnings: *cracks knuckles* orgies,sex parties, anal sex, male oral sex, female oral sex, anal play, sub!dom play, drug use, vaginal penetration, squirting

A/N: Look, never posted fic. And I haven't checked anything 😳 Due to the heavily noted anon prompt fluttering around my dash that read: "My friend went to some weirdo eyes wide shut kind of party in the Hollywood Hills last year and overheard 'yeah you can't use that room, Harry Styles is high as fuck and getting railed by some dudes in there" plus that damn 🍉 video... well, I am at peak feral in quarantine and 3k of smut just popped right out. Title actually the Cannons song cos it's such a sex song innit? I'm doing this at 4.20am after starting this at 11pm my time so..good fucking night. ✌🏻🍉

—--------------------------------------------

You were petrified.

You'd moved halfway across the world with your best friend after a shitty person broke your heart and your spirits.

A circumstantial opportunity had arisen to become her PA,after her chance audition for a series had turned into cult viewing overnight.

She was everything you weren't. Confident, effortlessly cool and entirely comfortable in her own skin and sexuality. That's why, as she sauntered away with a tuxedo clad tall stranger, you stood frozen on the spot trying to remember it was okay to watch.

It had been her idea for you to submit an application after you'd said you needed to take risks and feel good in your skin again. Your best friend had told you you were wasting your youth, after years wasted on the ex you were in this country trying to forget. That you should embrace you were young, hot, single and getting older by the second. So you'd rolled your eyes and submitted your video application. You wouldn't get a reply for such an elite thing.

And yet, here you now were, in a millionaires mansion watching two men fuck a bunny masked stranger infront of you. She looks up at you through the velveteen eye holes and offers you to join with her finger come hithering you over. Your eyes widen.

You immediately remember your stiff upper lip and bound up the right hand staircase as fast as your heels will allow. Hoping to find a cool place to catch your breath.

Maybe you weren't as free spirited as you were in your head. Open to trying things theoretically, but now, as you see a flurry of naked bodies out of your peripheral vision and hear sounds you'd only heard in more private settings, you felt quite overwhelmed.

You were no virgin but not to say you could count on two hands your conquests past kissing either.

You came to the one shut door at the end of the long hallway, assuming it was a bathroom. Heels clicking against the pristine marble floor below as you approached. You put your hand to the cold metal handle, if you weren't prepared to see strangers fuck, you certainly weren't prepared for this.

There were five people in the room.

Three men on the bed and two women. The first woman sat open thighed across a low backed plush chair. Another on all fours on the floor licking into the others cunt as one guy stuck his fingers into her own folds from behind. He was then, with the rest of his olive skinned built body, sharply thrusting into the man on the bed at such a pace you could hear his balls slap against the sweat glistening flesh. He held his hip nearest to you so tightly, you could see the red marks appear from under his large hands.

The slender man receiving all this action was being silenced in his pleasure by the guy kneeling up in front of him. He hummed loudly through his nose as his mouth was busy bobbing up and down the guys length. Eyes closed in the orange low light as he was thrust into still, with such force he deep throated the guy he was swallowing down. He suddenly gagged and the man moaned then pulled his head away and nodded to signal if he was okay to continue, he agreed then he got right back down to business.

It was probably one of the more explicit scenes she'd seen. Making her feel hot and cold all at once. Not because of what was happening, no, it was who it was.

His face was disguised by a navy blue, high winged, theatrical mask. As were those involved, or some variation at least.

You heard a voice beside you at the door frame. A deep voice talking to a white bunny beside him

"Nah, that rooms got enough going on, Harry Styles is high as fuck getting railed by two dudes"

And that's all the confirmation you damn well needed. You'd been in L.A three weeks. Three weeks was all it had taken for you to be stood watching Harry fucking Styles getting Eiffel towered by two guys in the Hollywood Hills whilst you watched, mouth agape in barely any underwear.

No one had seemed to notice your intrusion, if the screaming of the red head in the chair reaching her climax was anything to go by. She rode out her high on the blondes face before getting up, lighting a joint and pulling the blonde up by roots. No real concern that she hadn't climaxed from Mr. Powerthrusts fingers yet. Dragging the young white cat back towards the door with a glistening mouth and chin, you were still entranced at the boy on the bed pooling your sheer briefs and the sight before you.

The redhead looked at you, to where your focus was on, then back to you. Giving one condescending chuckle. Still with the small blonde girls hair in a vice hold she spoke roughly into your ear as she passed.

"He's soft and ready to go sugar, strike whilst he's still loose" with that, she kisses your cheek and her Loboutins clicked away from you.

You stood there. Tits up to your chin from the force of the practically sheer black bra you were spilling out of, the suspender belt grasped your hourglass shape perfectly too. There was delicate, black designer underwear framed by the belt and thigh high stockings. You'd felt beyond confident at the beginning of the party. New eyes dragging over you in a way they didn't when you were in your regular get up of jeans and a t shirt. But behind the Japanese type kitsune half mask, you had felt invincible.

Right up until the point people actually started fucking.

But this, this was different.

You'd never been into guy on guy action, not even in porn. It didn't ignite any fire inside the pit of your stomach like it should. But seeing someone you'd casually ogled through the media like the other few million in the world had, well the chances of being in this position again were rare. Suddenly, the thrill of being able to possibly turn dream into reality spurred you on. He'd never know it was ever you if you met again right?

The three of them were still going at it. Powerthruster behind, contorting his face as he placed smack after smack across the pale flesh of Harry's ass. Grabbing a fistful in each hand as he sped up even more to reach his climax, he cried out when he did pulling Harry's hips flush against his own, it was only now, amongst all the activity that you notice Harry's cock for the first time.

The rumours online highly underestimate it.

He's long and thick and his drippy head is causing a string of pre cum to trail from its opening onto the white silk sheets below.

You clamp a hand between your thighs, the first time you feel your inhibitions falter that night. You had to relieve some of the friction your body needs. Watching the man remove himself, and toss the condom in the bin by the door frame you were still fixed to.

Harry scrambles to the other muscular guy infront of him, kneeling back on his calves, hissing a little as his legs under each cheek spread his already tender hole a bit. He doesn't miss a beat though, the already close to orgasming guy looking down at green doe eyes as he pushes Harry's mouth from him. Harry knows where this is leading and opens his mouth for him spill his seed onto his waiting tongue.

By this point you'd moved quietly from the door and across the wall so you were in prime position to watch Harry swallow all this man's cum whilst you just stood watching.

Feeling like a pervert, feeling turned on, feeling fucking everything to be frank. You'd question it later. Right now you needed Harry to touch you.

One leg kicked up behind you so you could slightly part your thighs and rub your middle finger down your folds beneath your knickers. You began to put on a show. The other hand is inside your bra cupping and squeezing your nipple between your index and forefinger sharply. Panting quietly as you see Harry's eye clock you in his peripheral vision. You're terrified of his reaction for a second before remembering the setting of the evening, but he smirks the best he can do with an open mouth and looks you up and down slowly. His dick twitches in his lap and that's all it takes for you to start rubbing two soaked fingers fast against your clit, your ego inflated that you could be the cause of his heightened arousal. You're going at such a pace on yourself that you almost don't catch the ropes of cum descending into Harry's mouth as he watches you trying to get the release his actions have caused. The guy stills, spent. Harry is still watching you pant faster as you take the hand on your breast away to steady a palm against the wall. He holds the guys cum in his mouth before tearing his eyes away from yours to kneel up and place an opened mouthed kiss onto the guys lips, transferring him back into his own mouth, forcefully. Switching the dominant role back in his favour to show you who was really in control in the room despite how it may have looked. He breaks the kiss, both men chuckle at each other before Harry taps the other guys cheek with his palm playfully. Like his just scored a goal at the Sunday football league, but definitely not like they'd both shared a mouthful of semen.

Your pace has slowed down slightly but you see him whisper something into the man's ear before he hops off the bed, grabbing only his black briefs and closing the door behind him. But not before saying "have fun" to you with a knowing wink.

It suddenly feels very intimate. When there were a few more people in the room it felt easier to blend into the festivities, but now you were essentially alone with a stranger who was watching the slow movements of your hands in your underwear. You decided to carry on, to keep up the pretence that this is the sort of thing you do all the time of course.

It wasn't.

So when he stands straight up off the bed, taking the few steps towards you, slightly pouting into the air as he keeps his eyes locked on yours and gently grabs your wrist that leads to the hand on your pussy bringing the two digits that had been furiously rubbing your clit, up to his mouth. He never breaks his gaze as he sucks them fully, with the same technique you'd just seen on that man's dick minutes previous. Closing his eyes and humming approvingly at your sweet taste.

Your insides are screaming but your present body moans and he drops the hand to grab your waist and pull you tight to his torso. He kisses you hungrily and you taste mostly of yourself and try not to think about the other taste from the strangers cum on your tongue.

He kisses you like he's getting to know you through this alone, grazing his palms from your waist to your shoulder blades then back down slowly to your ass, gripping it tightly to his body as he hooks a thigh over his hip. His cock is sandwiched between you, droplets of pre cum on both your bellies. The crotch of your underwear is rubbing his length slightly as you rock your hips down onto his.

His tongue is lapping and swirling languidly against yours, it's unexpected given the setting but, it's fucking glorious. You grab fistfuls of curls at the back of his head between your fingers and once you get to the nape and give a sharp tug on the baby hair there, his breathing hitches.

"You're quite good at this" he says casually,taking a breath. You pant in response and chuckle slightly. Mostly at the contrast of moods he appears to have.

"Not s'bad yourself" you smile.

There's a heartbeat whilst he takes in your accent similar to his own he pulls back, brows furrowed causing his forehead to wrinkle down slightly at the top of the blue mask. This isn't the time to get to know one another though, you get that, and despite your reservations on this place you suddenly don't give a shit. You push your mouth into his neck suckling lightly and finding a sweet spot at his pulse that has him shaking. His nimble pianist fingers undo the flimsy material of your bra as he goes back to the weirdly passionate make out session, you let it fall off your shoulders, shaking it down your arms to the ground.

He walks you both back to the bed and sits down pulling you to straddle his thighs. You both moan at the reconnection and don't miss a beat rolling your hips over his slowly. Giving him a taste of what's to come. He grunts through his teeth out of frustration, pulling away from you both once more to reach blindly for the fishbowl of condoms, provided by the host, on the nightstand.

"Fucked anyone else tonight?" he asks matter of factly.

Your eyes looked shocked, even though they probably shouldn't be. You furiously shake your head.

"Hm" he chuckles as you lay your hands in your lap submissively, he clearly notices and you see an eyebrow raise over the mask. "that mean you're a good girl?"

Cottoning on to the game he's starting, and that you're more than willing to take part in, you take one side of your bottom lip between your teeth and nod quickly.

This is an absolute fantasy. But you're aware you could get interrupted at any moment so you'll take what you can get before being pushed out, and no doubt off, this absolute wet dream of a man.

He tears the packet open with his fingers, sitting back, a little hunched over to roll the rubber down his length. He hisses at the brief contact after being edged so much the last hour or so. You start to wonder how he's keeping up his stamina before he sits back up, taking your chin between his thumb and forefinger and interrupts.

"Gonna be a good girl f'me then love?" he leans forward places wet opened mouth kisses at each of your breasts in between his words, looking you straight in the eye. "Gonna slip those pants to the side and get on me then?"

No sooner had he spoke, you were grabbing his cock in your palm with one hand, and pulling the crotch of your soaked fabric to one side with the other. You hadn't done this in a fair few months and definitely never taken a cock as big as his, but your arousal was so high that you were desperate for the sweet pain of being stretched around him. You pumped him barely as to not roll up the condom, just grazing him and feeling him twitch in your fist as he watched you briefly stick two fingers into your cunt. The wetness being heard as you opened your mouth and gasped at the sensation. You didn't want to waste anymore time checking you were prepared so you scooted forwards on his lap. Brushing his swollen head against your clit, before tapping it a few time as you sunk down onto his length. It burned so good as you got to about halfway before lifting yourself up and sinking down again further. It took three times of doing that to be completely seated and drowning his cock in your juices as your pelvises locked together. You both took a second to pant out curses against each others necks.

"Jesusfuck. You're so fuckin' tight. Can you move? Fuck! Please move" he strained into your throat.

You sat back a bit so you were facing one another and with fingers pulling at those nape hairs you reconnected your mouths before rolling your hips experimentally against his.

"Oh fuuuuck" you shot out, the feeling of him so deep inside you and him pressing against your clit was other worldly. The friction of the underwear you still had on, gathered between your folds and caused the sweetest friction. He grunted once as your jaw lay slack at the contact, before getting impatient and guiding your hips to slam into him harder as he thrust up at the same time.

Your head was spinning.

His strong hands pulled you close to him he smeared your lips together as he flipped you so he was on top, manoeuvring you up the bed and slightly diagonal so his feet didn't dangle off the edge.

It became a power battle then. You knew he was on the edge and holding back. He pulled a leg to hitch around his waist and thrust into you at speed. Enough to leave you sore tomorrow. You smirked into his mouth, pulling both up further to lock behind his neck, knowing the angle would make it so much tighter and so much easier to reach that sweet spot inside you. With your head thrown back at the new angle he began leaving marks around your neck and breasts, trying so hard not to cum before you.

Then you had a brilliant, foolproof idea of how to win this game. As he was preoccupied leaving a red mark against your clavicle, you sucked your middle finger into your mouth for your planned attack. Before you could do anymore though, he moved two of his digits against your soaked clit at speed, tapping every now and then and making you writhe and grip the sheets with overstimulation. You held off best you can but he was hitting that spot that few had taken much longer to find before. You knew what was coming but it was too late to warn him.

Your orgasm took over your body from the middle down to your toes and up until your eyes practically rolled back in your head. You heard the lewd, wet sounds his thrusts were still making and wanting to even things up you made a quick recovery enough to part your mouth and make your middle finger drip with saliva as you gripped his ass to guide him into you. You could tell by his speed he was almost there so you went between his cheeks with your slick finger and suddenly buried it inside him to the hilt. He was still stretched from the previous guy so you sink to the knuckle easily. It only took two movements to feel him spill inside you. Long drawn out moans left his lips like a dirty drawl from his throat. You took out your finger and went slack onto the mattress.

He was spent but he wasn't done.

As he pulled out of you carefully, gushes of your cum cascaded down onto the expensive sheets. If he didn't know you were a squirter, he did now. He stared watching it fall from your weepy hole blind removing the condom and tossing it into the bin behind.

"Holy fuck. I.. I've never managed that before. You're a fucking dream….so fucking sexy. Fuck" he looked at you like a feast. Your saturated underwear stretched out beyond repair now. Laying against your thigh and the material dripping. He pulled the stockings from their clips quickly, not taking them off but so he could peel the knickers from your sticky thighs. You noticed he threw them down near what you assumed to be his tux.

And that was it, he pushed your thighs up and back to your body so your knees were flush against your chest. You felt some of your cum still seeping out if you and he growled watching the last few drops drip down your bum and onto the bed.

He dove into you like he'd not eaten in weeks. Lapping every bit of fluid from your pussy, clit, thighs and ass. He licked around your puckered hole as he sink two fingers into your cunt at pace.

"You got one more in there for me hmm?"

He said huskily, keeping one arm across your thighs as he sat up on his haunches to look down on you falling apart. You nodded frantically, feeling the bubbles in your stomach growing again. You felt the pressure build between your thighs. Completely living in this moment with this beautiful man you got to see so desperate for you to cum. He dived back in to trace figure eights across your clit with the tip of his tongue before laying it flat and going up over it again and again. He alternating the two before you were ready to burst. He felt it on his fingers so he stilled them inside you still lapping at clit but using his whole arm to move at speed up and down to keep pushing at that one ridge inside you. When he felt the first wave of your climax hit he quickly put his face infront of your cunt and let the force of your squirt hit him the face. He caught a good amount in his mouth before repeating the signature move of crawling back up to your face and getting your soft, limp body to open up so he could spit your cum back into your mouth. It was tart but sweet probably due to the pina coladas you'd sipped downstairs to get you loosened up a bit.

"Good girl. Swallow, show me y've swallowed it all up" he panted kneeling at your side.

You gulp and meekly open your mouth to prove it was all gone and he smirks and gives you a slow, lazy Sunday kind of kiss that sends its shivers down your spine. You stare at each other as he sweeps your sweet drenched hair from the front of your face. You're not sure what suddenly changed in the room but you've created your own bubble. Your own bubble where a millionaire pop star a Jenner has shagged, whispers praises against the shell of your ear in some sort of awe and kisses your neck and face tenderly. What even is life?

It's stupid but you don't want to go. Well, it's not stupid as this boy is a hurricane in the sheets and why would you not want more!

But you know the deal. This isn't a date. This is an elite fuck party. A. Fuck. Party.

The realisation dawns on you like a thorn to the side. You can't just lay here in a post orgasmic comatose state. There's people waiting, people he's waiting on too. He sees your eyes widen and watches in confusion as you take a white robe from the hook behind the door, still in your heels you pick up your bra. You smile briefly before closing the door behind you and practically sprinting to your car.

Not before seeing the guy Harry had been deepthoating earlier, now standing fully clothed with a headset at the door you'd just come out of with a suit and headset on. Like nothing had ever happened. Of course you weren't interrupted. Of course he had security. You rush back down the staircase before you have a panic attack in plain sight. Your thoughts scrambled beyond what you thought was capable. Did that really just happen? With him? Is this who you are now?

It's only when you get to the end of the street after texting a quick "sorry wasn't my scene, call me when you need picking up" to your mate before leaving that you're suddenly aware you're missing your underwear...

#harry styles smut #Solo 1d fic #harry styles fanfiction

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writing-the-end · 3 years

Text

LoL Chapter 51- Fallen Angel

(Sorry this is late! i got my vaccine and it mcfucking knocked me out lol)

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU, designs, ideas belongs to @theguardiansofredland)

The hermits return to Eremita from a restocking trip, to discover they have been raided. And one hermit has been taken.

Warning: Capture, slight torture scene

_________________________________

Eremita has become their safe haven, the last bastion for the guild. Even when the arcane guard chased them all the way to the water’s edge, no sane person would dare follow the hermits into the Ashioll sea. Which is exactly why they lived in its mysterious, misty embrace.

They could no longer simply fly off upon the backs of sky turtles, or even teleport into the towns they frequented. Now, when the hermits absolutely had to go into public for supplies they couldn’t make or grow themselves, they sailed in on Cleo’s pirate ship. And when they had to leave, they made sure that if anyone was following them, they took a roundabout direction back to their home. It adds time, weaving between the islands and through the mists, but ensures no one can guess where they live.

Cleo’s pirate ship beaches up onto the sand, nestling back into place as a wrecked vessel once more. The dream magic fades, revealing broken oak boards, seagrass growing through seams, and splintered masts of the ghost ship Cleo commands. Hypno blinks free from his sleep, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “Already? Man, my dream was just starting to get interesting.”

With the help of rattling skeletons, their bones held together by magical muscle and sinew, the hermits unload food, meats, fabrics, and more. Enough for months, as if they were preparing to be snowed in after a massive blizzard. Almost all the hermits were a part of the flow of supplies.

Almost. Only three hermits stayed behind. Zedaph had an accident with his two explosive friends, and while it wasn’t the first time, Grian wanted to keep an eye on the burns in case the magic lingered. Mumbo stayed behind as well, but for very different reasons. One, he was easily recognizable. Everyone knows the multimage that Dolios wants captured alive. Him and Grian are the only two who Dolios demands be captured alive. He also was in the middle of inventing some new contraption, and was not about to leave it behind and lose all his progress. Last Cleo saw of him, he was extinguishing burning locks of hair. She wonders if he’s made any progress, or if he’s burned all his hair away at this point.

Once Impulse and Tango have unloaded their share of the shipment, they go in search of their friend. Both still feel bad for burning Zed, even if it was by accident. And they’ve all been burned at this point in all their years together. But it doesn’t mean they don’t feel bad, especially leaving Zed behind. At least they brought back a caramel apple from his favorite stall in the market, as well as fresh hay for his barn and animal friends.

“Zed? We have a surprise for you!” Tango calls, his voice twinged with mischief, as if they plan to prank their friend rather than give him a gift. No response comes from the flat roofed barn, except the distant bleat of a sheep. Tango looks at Impulse, fiery hair remaining vertical even as his head tips to the side. “Could he be taking a nap?”

“You know Zed and his sleep schedule, he wouldn’t interrupt it, even when he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.” Impulse waves it off. “He probably just isn’t listening, or maybe pulling a prank of his own. Let’s go in.”

Impulse waves Tango through the gate, careful to keep the sheep, goats, and other farm animals from getting between Tango’s feet and causing his hair to ignite the dry hay in his arms. A horse nips at the bale, but Tango keeps it well away from catching fire. He’s relieved to lighten the load he’s carrying as soon as they're inside the barn. Both mages look to the bed tucked in the corner, but no Zedaph. Tango tosses the haybale aside. “He should be resting.”

They clamber over the piles of hay, searching every nook and cranny for Zedaph. Even his cookie stash, which they let him believe is still a secret. But Zed is nowhere within the barn he chooses to live in.

Concern pales both Impulse and Tango’s face, and Tango’s hair reacts in kind to the revelation. “Perhaps he’s being treated by Grian?”

Tango doesn’t answer, already following the path across the width of the island, from one shore to another. Grian’s floating cloud, the quartz tower with large archways and a glass domed roof. Perfectly built for a sky angel, his wings and speed. Not so perfect for his roommate, and all of Mumbo’s redstone machinery, his own lanky body climbing up onto the solid cloud and stairs to sleeping quarters.

The redstone workshop at the base of the building has been cleaned up, though a few vials seem to have rolled away, as if they were grabbed then subsequently dropped. But, just like the barn, no sign of Mumbo.

But there is a sound. Echoing from the glass dome, a sniffling, stifling cry escapes from above, followed by a gasping, shuddering breath. Impulse runs up the steps as fast as possible, each bounce from stair to stair accentuated with a tiny explosion to give him more speed. Tango blazes behind, fire burning bright as the sun as energy courses through him. He notices on the way up grey streaks against the pure white quartz.

“Zedaph?” Impulse breathes, screeching to a full stop. In the center of the room, Mumbo and Zed are huddled close, holding on tight. Their eyes wild with fear, and in Zed’s eyes he can see a shared memory. A shared trauma him, Impulse, and Tango all share. Two hermits, holding onto each other like its their last hope.

Only two. “Where’s Grian?”

Mumbo opens his mouth, but a strangled cry only escapes. Tears fall from both their faces, shaking like leaves. Something bad has happened to their friend. Tango slides across the floor, grabbing Zedaph and Mumbo. “What happened? Where’s Grian? Are you hurt?”

They both shake their heads, but finally Mumbo gathers enough of his voice to speak. It’s weak, broken apart like glass shattering. “He took him.”

__________________________________________________

A cold, wet air fills Grian’s lungs, biting into his skin like ice on a cold morning. When he tries to open his eyes, the dull ache of his skull becomes sharp, forcing the angel to screw them closed again. Grian grimaces, trying to figure out why he has such a terrible headache. Did he hit his head in training? No, he wouldn’t have been allowed to sleep with the hermits hovering over him. Perhaps he drank too much. Once again, impossible. Grian knows what his hangover is like, and it’s not this.

He realizes he’s definitely hanging, but not from drinking. Cold, hard metal presses flat against his wrists, suspended over his head. The iron bites into his skin, all his weight rubbing his wrists raw.

“Good, you’re awake. I was starting to get bored waiting, though I do quite enjoy relishing in finally having my prize thirty years in the making.” The snide, even tempo of Magistrate Dolios’s voice hurts worse than any headache or wrist, and Grian finally manages to open his eyes. The cavern he finds himself in is foreign, not even remotely similar to the brick and iron dungeons where he last woke up in Dolios’s clutches. So long ago, it feels like. The Championship. At the time, he felt like he was at the top of the world. Now? Now he feels like the world was crushing him.

Grian resists his bindings, but even when he kicks outward, his feet don’t even scrape the dank floor. He tips his head back, until the crown of his head collides with a smooth, hard material. Just at the touch, he can feel the oppressive energy of the crystal. In his vision, he sees the sharp tip of the massive gem. Each wrist is locked tight against the crystal, the nails buried deep in the crystal lattice.

He looks around, searching for other hermits. For Mumbo, the last face he remembers before…

The memories flood in, cascading alongside the fear and panic. He remembers everything, every terrifying second. Leaving Zedaph to meet with Mumbo, he remembers the scent of marigolds on his hands, just after crushing the petals to make a paste for Zedaph’s burns. The quiet island, most of the other hermits gone. He remembers patting his pocket, the note from his best friend telling him to meet at Iskall’s place.

But when he arrived, Mumbo was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t unusual, Mumbo tended to get distracted and be late. So he waited, plucking orange petals from his clothes, hair, and hands. He should’ve noticed the way the wind shifted, becoming cold and stale, before disappearing completely.

He should’ve realized something was very wrong when the grey stormcloud appeared. But he didn’t. He was so focused on waiting for Mumbo, then on getting rid of the flowers in his feathers, that he didn’t see the husks crawl their way free of the ocean. At least, not until the husk of a soldier came barreling for him, empty glowing white eyes and ashen, flaky form charging with halberd drawn.

Grian squeaked, dodging the attack. Stumbled over the writhing form of a cactus cat, the fading spines still quite sharp, he was saved by a pair of not-grey arms.

Not grey arms draped in wine red fabric, the hems decorated in gold thread. He realized who it was immediately, and scrambled to try and get away. But Dolios’s magic kept a strong grip, vines of black twisting and tying Grian’s wings to his back, while a hazy fog had grown around them.

He remembers the feeling of Dolios’s hands in his hair, pulling him to his feet as he struggled and fought against the vines and the fog that filled his mind. Hands clawing at his binds, even biting the magistrate at one point. He remembers the taste of blood, iron on his tongue and Dolios swearing, blasting Grian with magic.

And the last thing he remembers, before being knocked out and torn away from his home, was Mumbo’s face. Rounding the corner, completely oblivious to the fight occurring. It was at that moment that Grian realized, when his eyes locked with Mumbo’s that it wasn’t him that sent the letter. The confusion, of seeing Grian, the surprise on his face. He was walking towards the infirmary, dropping the box in his hand upon seeing the sight before him.

The fear on Mumbo’s face matched Grian’s own, as he was dragged into the sea. A second later, a swift burst of sonic energy knocked him out.

And now he’s here. Dolios saunters across the room, gathering ingredients and writing down notes. Grian swings his legs, and summons his wings to try and be free. But as soon as the blue and white feathers appear, they crumble into ash. Crushing weight sets in on his head, his shoulders, his lungs, and his magic, and the crystal he’s trapped against hums with power. “You’re quite different from the last angel I hunted. At least you fought back, but in the end they left me without the gift of their magic. This time, I’m not letting anything go to chance.”

The magistrate sets his bowl of guts aside, approaching the crystal and Grian. His hands are clasped behind his back, shoulders straight and head held high. The weight of the oppressive dark magic doesn’t bother him. Grian’s not ready to give up just yet. He attempts to kick Dolios, but the dark mage stands mere centimeters out of reach. So Grian decides to use his words. “You’re kind of an asshole, you know that?”

“I’ve been told that once or twice before, yes. But the rest of Lairyon loves me. And why wouldn’t they? I’ve brought prosperity to this kingdom, done more than that stupid rainbow king could ever do, and all of this because of my power.” Dolios sweeps his hands, vapors of dark magic swirling from his fingers as his fingers clench to fists

“Stolen magic. If the citizens knew, they’d hate you just as much as I do.” Grian reels back his head, and does the best he can to annoy Dolios. He spits on him. The glob of spit lands on Dolios’s cheek, the magistrate flinching, then reaching up and wiping it away. A fresh anger in his eyes.

“And who would believe you? An outcast mercenary orphan? The last of your kind?” Dolios stoops low, plucking a husked feather from the floor. He walks back to the table, mixing the components and ingredients from his jars of death with Grian’s feather. “Your power is rare. Angelic mages are always powerful, a power I crave. You will be a wonderful addition to my collection of magic. The last of the angels to complete my set!”

A fearful shiver ricochets down Grian’s spine. “You’re going to turn me into a husk?”

“Oh, gods no!” Dolios laughs, so loud that it echoes off the cavern walls as he throws his head back, brown curls dancing across rich fabric. “I wouldn’t dare waste such magic to become simple energy for me and my beast. No, no. Do not fret, little bird, you will become so much more. I don’t plan to drain your energy. I plan to steal it.”

The hunger in Dolios’s eyes as he turns, the concoction in his hand, Grian realizes what he's seen all this time in Dolios’s eyes. Hunger. A madman hellbent on taking what he sees as rightfully his.. A predator stalking his prey. And Grian was cornered, pinned. Unable to fight back, unable to fly away. Fear is replaced by terror, a sensation Grian struggles to fight back. He needs to think clearly if he hopes to survive.

“The last angel died before my powers were…” Grian pauses, seeing the coy smile on Dolios’s face.

“I always had a-” Dolios pauses, waving his hand nonchalantly before marking the ground around the crystal spires with dark seal. “-fascination with angelic wizards. A dear friend of mine in my youth was one. Ever since then, I knew I had to have that kind of magic in my collection. So strong, each and every one of you. With magic even the ancient ones revered. And now?”

Dolios steps back, casting his magic circle. Rather than emitting color and light, it absorbs all color to make the pattern of his magic. He raises his hands, and two satellite crystals awaken. Darkness swirls in the lattice of the gems, mist eeking out through pores and filling the cavern with darkness. When the mist reaches the seal surrounding the crystal Grian’s chained to, the spire behind him, pressed against his back, activates. The pressure on his body, his magic becomes unbearable, breaking into pain. Like a harpoon through his chest, the dark magic takes hold. Biting down, biting in.

And slowly, agonizingly stealing his magic. So intrinsically tied to his soul, hsi lifeforce, it feels as if his very being is being dragged from every inch of his body in contact with the crystal. He writhes to escape the painful magic, but the bonds hold firm and he struggles to catch his breath. Dolios steps back, basking with ravished delight at the scene before him. Enjoying the pain that tears at Grian’s skin, soul, and spell. “Now the magic will soon be mine.”

#hermitcraft #hermitcraft au #hermitcraft fanfic #light of lairyon #wizard au #wizard hermits #lol #wizard grian #wizard cleo #wizard zedaph #wizard mumbo #grianmc #grian #zombiecleo #zedaph #mumbo jumbo

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sleepdeprivedheretic · 4 years

Text

Lilium

Summary: Although a witch, you weren’t the one to really summon demons, but your friends had insisted that you could use an extra pair of helping hands to help you with your run-down hut. After fixing the mess of a first attempt fail, you were expecting to summon a lower gremlin. What or who you didn’t expect, was to summon the demon king of hell, keeper of souls, in searching for something that only you could do perfectly.

In explanation of the fic: Each powerful demon has his/her own hell, and in each hell has layers, like onions. So although reader didn’t summon Lucifer, she summoned a pretty powerful Japanese demon who’s element of hell follows close to that of Greek mythology because Rita liked the Persephone vibes. As for the soul thing, those are the souls who just...wind up at his place.

Title name: Lilies are a flower that represent not only unity, love, and devotion, but also the flowers are most often associated with funerals, they symbolize that the soul of the departed has received restored innocence after death. Persephone held lilies in her hands/arms as she was take away by Hades, the flowers turning white as they fell to the ground. Ancient(?) Romans would stuff pillows full of the flowers, the fragrance perfect for love-making ;)

Notes: @youtubequeens, or Rita, requested the beautiful idea of Tai-chan being a demon king in need of something that only the reader can do, and we brainstormed together on the setting and the plot, so the credit goes to her, go ahead and check her on Tumblr <3

Warnings not in order: Cursing, hand cutting for rituals (so blood), being void of a soul (cause, demons), summoning demons, minions, souls of the damned, smut, deals with the devil, having your soul taken and turning into a demon, and hellish stuff.

Tag: @youtubequeens

“I mean, look at this place, Sister! It’s a dump! C’mon, pleeeease!” Your friend begged. She, along a few others belonged to a nearby coven. Although good friends, they delved into the darker aspects of witchcraft, such as demon summoning, as you stuck to herbal remedies, readings, and a little bit of scrying. Although not against the art, you weren’t well acquainted, and a little nervous.

“You don’t even need a contract! Just bind whatever poor little goblin or gremlin to you, and...you know, have it help you collect your herbs! I know, binding seems a little much, and it’s difficult to get out of one, but they can’t hurt you when bound to you.” Another friend piped up, trying further to convince you. Your gaze fell onto the chalked-up pentagram within your home, surrounded by salt and melting red candles, looking innocently out of place, almost.

“Alright, fine.” You huffed, causing squeals of victorious joy from the gaggle of girls. It wouldn’t hurt, you thought. You lived in the outskirts of the village, within a rugged hut that you called a “store”. Although it was a popular little town, you weren’t doing to well. Your place was falling apart, herbs were harder to find, and although tolerated, your witchy status had alerted and unnerved everyone, except your little coven of friends, who had hidden themselves away deeper into the forest.

Your life sucked, and with your pet familiar, the two of you kept to yourselves as you brewed supper more than potions and remedies, your Sisters popping in from time to time, checking up on you.

Your little orange rabbit snuggled into your lap as you repeated the words in Latin, trying to spark hellfire into the pentagram. No such luck.

“Aw! Is it not working? I’m suuuure my aunt gave me the right spell!” Your main friend huffed into a pout, the two other girls following her example of disappointment.

“Perhaps another time? It’s getting late, girls.” You admitted. Truthfully, you didn’t want to have to deal with more pressure, and your familiar was getting unnerved by the whole thing.

“You’re right. It was fun hanging out with you, Sis! Wish we could do this more, but you know, coven stuff.” The sweet friend smiled softly as she hugged you tightly.

“We’ll be busy, you know, coven stuff. Auntie wants us to clean out the nasty pots, restock the potions, and go on a wild, exciting adventure of grabbing rare herbs, so we don’t know when that’s going to take. Ugh, I’m not leaving, yet, and I miss you, already!” The leader of the girls whined, dramatically throwing her arm over her eyes. You couldn’t help but giggle.

“Stay safe, okay? We’ll visit to check up on you. Give Lottie some extra treats for us!” The third one grinned, petting the rabbit. With further words, they left, leaving you warm, yet saddened and alone.

Many times, the fellow women of the coven had offered a place for you, so that you wouldn’t be so alone, and you appreciated that, but you knew that the coven wasn’t one for you. Although not evil, you didn’t want to join for a multitude of reasons. They had strict rules and regulations, following their leader without question as they sacrificed time and energy for reasons that the girls, although close, didn’t tell you what for.

You couldn’t help but feel that it was rather sketchy. Your eyes laid upon the pentagram as the thought crossed your mind. You weren’t fully against summoning things from the underworld, it was an aged old practice that was held with reverence from generation to generation. You held Charlotte close to you, the rabbit sniffing at the air, scenting out scents that your human nose could not deter.

“I smell nothing out of the ordinary. The salt is too strong.” Her voice echoed in your head, and you nodded your thanks. You were curious, you admitted. You didn’t really have much things to do, other than clean your stew pot, tend to the moon water, and pluck the petals off of the dried out roses.

“Something has to give, in order for you to receive.” You said aloud, the wheels turning in your head. A certain flower could help, you thought suddenly, looking at the container of dried out white lilies. You opened the jar spreading out the white funeral flowers among the edges of the Celtic symbol. The scent was almost too pure for such a deed, you couldn’t help but think.

Carving a fool-proof plan to mind, you placed Charlotte down, and grabbed a small blade used for cutting fruits from your kitchen. The little rabbit opted to say nothing, trusting you as her witch to do what you think was best.

You winced as you sliced a small cut into your palm, letting the little blood droplets to drip onto each flower, avoiding the salt as best as you could. Picking up a slip of paper in which had the summoning spell, you began reading the Latin out loud as you channeled your energy at the edge of the pentagram, instead of in between it.

Your breath hitched as bright orange hellfire sparked, not going past the salt as it crackled at the precious crystals and parts of the flowers. You continued speaking the verses, watching in awe as the odd underworldly flames refused to consume, instead it burned brighter at each verse.

As you finished the last sentence with a final quip, you jumped in surprise as the flames reached almost as high as the ceiling, whirling dangerously as it let out smoke and sparks, fizzling as a tall figure behind the flames seemed to crawl from the little circle, you couldn’t see who or what it was, but you were coughing as the unnatural smoke outweighed the dying fire, floating heavily away as you looked up to see your first summon.

You were choked up, not knowing what to say as your eyes beheld the sight when the smoke finally cleared from the deadened flames.

A demon, and not just anything in the ordinary of what you knew about them. He was tall, as tall as the men in your village, and almost resembled a human. His pointed ears were adorned with little ringlets of gold, matching the glittering bracelets and bands that were worn upon his ankles, horns, wrists, arms, and a swishing pointed tail. His attire was something you’d never really seen within your village, but you knew what it was due to your books.

He wore dark orange attire that almost resembled a Doric chiton, except the one he wore, hardly left anything to the imagination, but you weren’t focused on that, right now. What you were focused on, was the demon’s scowl of frustration and annoyance, aimed at you as his tail swished and thumped angrily at the ground, reminding you of an angry cat.

“This fuckin’ circle’s too small! And the hell do you want? I’m a very busy man, ya know!” He growled out, taking in your smaller frame with displeasure. You were surprised by his accent, it was gruff, yes, but it was new, something that you’ve never heard, before.

“I was trying to summon something else.” You stammered, and he faltered in an angry shock, before narrowing his eyes at you.

“Tch! Who do you think you are, summonin’ a king of hell, tellin’ me that you were tryin’ to summon somethin’ else?” He bared his teeth, and you could see little tusks peeking out from underneath his bottom lip. You gave him your name as you found yourself blurting out who knows what.

“I need a um...helper. I needed somebody to look after my hut while I collected herbs...make sure that the villagers don’t torch down my shop.” The excuse slipped out as you stood your ground. It was partially true. His stance relaxed a bit at your words.

“A magic user, huh?” He asked slowly, behavior sharply and swiftly contrasting from his angry tone, as he rested his chin onto his hand in processing the thought. Then his eyes moved onto yours. He unnerved you.

“What about it?” You asked, and he indulged you.

“Normally, mortals such yerself can summon us with ease, only because ya need a contract. You, lil’ witch, were trying to find a binding partner, which uses magic. I may have use for you, yet.” His attitude shifted, and you couldn’t help but relax a little at the honeyed tone. What was with this demon?

“What are you talking about?” You bit out. He let out a victorious grin.

“Yer magic was so strong, it summoned me. A king of hell, a keeper of souls, n’ lord of demons. Bindin’ magic can only get ya so far, it’s pretty much unheard of a mortal summoning somethin’ greater than an ogre, or an oni.” Rolled off of his tongue, eyes now glinting with something that you couldn’t pinpoint. You were surprised. A king of hell? It did explain his jewelry and finery, you silently pinpointed. Despite the shock, you still needed to ask more questions while he was in the mood to be generous with his answers.

“So...you’re needing me to summon demons up for you from the surface?” You offered, and he looked at you with surprise.

“No….I need you to give up your soul, and live with me in hell.” He grinned at the tight atmosphere that he was causing, you froze.

“Tell me, why would I ever want to do that? What do you even want?” You grounded out the last bit, still confused, and getting weary. Your summon had taken a toll on your body, and now you were feeling the lull of sleep due to sapped magic.

“I have two main underlings who are like sons to me, but the three of us can only do so much in carin’ for the undead. Ya see, hell’s a very powerful place, in which it can supply a witch’s magic with ease. Ya know where I’m getting’ at?” He drawled out, and you nodded a little.

“I think somebody of yer stature could really hold the forte down. All you have to do, is just be there, n’ yer magic can calm down n’ soothe the restless dead, making this job a lot easier. Since yer magic is powerful, it’ll be extra helpful n’ dosing the souls an’ lesser devils, down. You give me what I need, an’ I can give you what you need.” He purred at the end.

The thought of being useful did appeal to you, it’s what you ever wanted. Yes, it was a terrible decision and you’ll probably end up being burned, anyway, but you remembered that a bound demon or devil cannot hurt you, no matter how powerful they were. If they hurt you, they hurt themselves.

“I’m not going to give up my soul to burn forever, to live with a demon that I’m not bound to.” You countered, and his eye twitched

“First of all, Sweetheart, my realm is in layers. Where you, I, an’ my boys live, is an environment that resembles your realm, but better. Secondly, you will be bound to me, but not as a servant or master, but as an equal. Somethin’ akin to…” He let the sentence hang as he smiled smugly at you, brows furrowed with cockiness, leering at you from his height.

“Akin to?” You egged him, and he let the rest rolled off of his tongue without hesitation.

“My queen.”

Your brain screeched to a halt.

He laughed at your stunned expression.

“What? Ya expected me to make ya my lil’ minion? No, no, Honey, somebody with yer power, and the sheer gall to stare into my face while arguin’ with me, has already earned my respect. Yeah, you’ll have to turn into a demon, but you’ll be immortal, n’ you can visit yer friends n’ family as long as you like, if you’re powerful as me. Which, you will be.” He threw in his own bait, trying to lure you in.

Understandably, you were stunned. You just summoned a devil. Who wanted you to rule hell with him. And to become an immortal mistress of the night who can help rule over the undead while living forever with him in his realm.

It was tempting, yes, but you were not one who really chased power. You told him, and his eyebrows furrowed, as if thinking further ways to lure you in, and to be honest? You found that you didn’t mind being swayed by a literal handsome devil.

“Well, think about it this way, Princess, I don’t know you well, but you live in a run-down hut, the peasants fear you to the point of possible violence, and you’ve turned your attention to demon summoning. We’re both desperate for somethin’.” He looked at you thoughtfully, tail swishing as you processed it. Hell.

“What about my familiar?” You were caving in, and his gazing expression broke out into a victorious grin as his eyes slide to your rabbit.

“Sure, the lil thing can come, too. Familiars exist in hell, too, but not the cute lil’ rabbit ones. Might be a nice change to have one. Wipe away the salt, n’ we can get started.” He acted as if he had already won, and to be honest, he did.

It was too good of an opportunity to really pass up, and you didn’t really have anybody, and good decisions in your tired state were lacking. You wiped away the salt, and he sighed with relief as he stepped out.

“Man, that tiny circle was exhaustin’ to be in. Now, let’s take you home.” He tucked a fray hair behind your ear. Smiling a devil’s smile, he held you against him, and you tried to keep your cheeks from flushing as he began a mantra of a spell in his native tongue, leaving you awed that it wasn’t the usual Latin. You couldn’t keep your eyes open as a wave of exhaustion and tiredness wafted over you, and your eyes slid shut, darkness over-taking you, but not before hearing a dark chuckle.

…………..

Warm. You were so warm. You opened your eyes, only to be greeted by a bare chest. Your eyes widened as now you were fully conscious, furiously wondering on what the hell was going on.

“So, yer finally awake.” He hummed, and you jolted slightly, looking up at his face with pure surprise, he smiled at you as he held you close to his chest. It didn’t take you long to realize that this was his bedroom, and your mind whirled, vaguely remembering prior events. Sitting up, he whined at the loss of contact, but you paid no mind.

The room was lit up by the flickering familiar orange flames emitting from the white candles slowly melting on top of his dresser, creating a safe, sleepy, and an almost romantic atmosphere. The bed was huge, and took up a good portion of his room, but there was still enough space for some furniture such as the dresser, and a large cage. You sighed with relief, seeing the familiarity of Charlotte within, the little rabbit’s eyes now glowed with luminescence, as if she were something else. It would make sense, your familiar was no longer a normal familiar, since she was in hell, with you.

You looked down, feeling warmed metal against your skin, and that’s when you’ve noticed your new attire. It was a chiton, like his, although a little looser, and you wore the same amount of matching golden jewelry. Your ears stung a little at the newer piercings, but you didn’t pay that much mind as you couldn’t help but think that he went out of his way to undress you and doll you up to match him. You gave him a dirty look, and he grinned in retaliation, enjoying the flushed and guffawed expression that marred your face.

“If ya’re gonna be the part, might as well look like it. I didn’t undress you fully or touch you too inappropriately, if that makes ya feel better.” He shrugged. Although you admit that he sort of have a point, still!

“What happened to me?” You opted to say instead, and he sat up along with you, you jumping slightly as his tail curled around your waist, acting as a small comfort.

“You’re a demon. I took yer soul, and bound it to me. Wish ya could’ve seen it, ‘s so pretty an’ pure, an’ it fizzled nicely within me. Was the only way for ya to come down here, sorry.” He hummed, rubbing his cheek against yours in seemingly affection, eyes glittering as he let you process the words and his bizarre behavior.

Demon. Were you dead? You had no heartbeat, did you? You let your hand rest against your pulse point, surprised by the soft fluttering. You looked at him with question.

“Demon, not fully dead, but not fully alive, either, an’ yeah, you’ll look forever like a human, since ya weren’t born like us. I took yer soul, and gave you one of the multiple that belongs to me. ‘S how we tie our lives together fer eternity, as if exchangin’ rings. You’re mine, and I’m yours. Romantic, isn’t it?”

“I have so many questions.” You murmured, instead. He smiled.

“We have an eternity together, I’ll answer all of ‘em. For now, c’mon. Lemme show ya what yer magic is doing right now at this moment.” He stood up from the bed, offering you his hand, pulling you up to him as you accepted it. He opened the drapes to his balcony’s windowed doors, revealing an ashen gray sunlight that paled in comparison to the candles. Letting you take Charlotte out of her cage, he opened the doors as the two of you stepped outside.

You looked on in awe.

The balcony to your new home, an ashen gray-stoned castle, had a short amount of steps that led into a gigantic garden. You stared in amazement and joy at the flowering plants and trees that grew in your former realm. There were so many plants, you couldn’t name all of them, but you didn’t mind as you looked on in the neatly organized forage of a garden, enjoying the array of greens and different colors of flowering foliage. Your familiar squirmed, wanting to enjoy the plants and be free, and so you let her, knowing that she’ll be smart enough to stay within eyesight.

“Beautiful, ain’t it? It didn’t look like this ‘fore you were here. Sure, some plants such as pomegranates n’ ferns grew, but since it’s such a deadened place, nothin’ really grew. I tried for centuries, n’ no such luck. It’s so beautiful ‘cause of yer magic.” His voice broke out of your thoughts, and you listened carefully as a hint of sorrow passed over his features.

“Pomegranates…?” Your mind raced to the odd familiarity of the setting. Greek clothing, the underworld, and now pomegranates? He leaned down and smirked at you, bringing your hand to his lips.

“Heh, because, ya know…” He grinned, enjoying the way you stared up at him in disbelief.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Can’t say that I don’t have a sense of humor.” He chuckled, and you felt yourself relax, thinking of ways to steer the conversation into another turn.

“You really like this place, don’t you...um?” You wanted to curse yourself. You went through a psychological loop in becoming a queenly wife to a stranger, no less a king of demons, and you didn’t even know his name. How forgetful were you?

Ignoring your inner dread, he grinned as he held your hand within his, rubbing his thumb over your palm.

“Taishiro. Yeah, I rarely visit earth ‘cause all the shit I have to do, n’ so this is my favorite place to relax. Thanks to you, it’s blossoming quite well.” He admitted, pecking your cheek, tail flicking with delight at the prospect of your face pink with the affection. Oh, you were so cute, he crooned.

“What about the dead, Taishiro?” You wondered as you tried out, the foreign language rolling off of your tongue. He looked at you with interest, liking the way his name melded to your own dialect.

“I’ll take ya on a little tour, how about that? Show ya what’s happenin’ and yer new home. N’ later, we can relax in our garden, take a lil’ break to enjoy our Honeymoon.” He purred, and you felt butterflies flutter nicely within your stomach and chest as you nodded.

“Yer familiar can stay outside. It never rains here, an’ she’s not really...alive, anymore. She’ll be fine.” He looked at the little rabbit that was chewing on a blade of grass, absentmindedly paying attention as you agreed, knowing that she’ll be safe.

Without further ado, he took you back inside of the castle, beginning the day.

……...

It was obvious that you were still in shock, and that this wasn’t a dream. He opted to say nothing about your state, as he introduced you to the castle, and the many rooms within. Of course the first thing he had offered to show you, was the dining room, stating that you were probably hungry, and a nice breakfast had been made for you. You blushed furiously, not acquainted with such treatment, and he grinned, pinching your cheek and you huffed at him.

“C’mon, Sweetcheeks, the staff’s all here, n’ they’ve been waitin’ to see what’s been in my bedroom fer about two days.” The sentence had surprised you.

“Two days?” You looked at him owlishly, and he shrugged.

“Turnin’ a human into somethin’ else, takes a toll on the receiver. I’m surprised that it was that short, to be honest.”

You walked along side him as the interior looked unique and odd, nothing of it that you’ve seen before. Colors of orange, gold, and red melded into a comfortable, royal setting as the hallways twisted. Each one sported different types of framed pictures and paintings of animals, spirits, and demons of which were new to your eyes.

Taishiro smiled at your awed and innocent wondering as he began talking, introducing you further into his world, entrancing and entrapping you into the Greek and Japanese themes that he so loved, and you couldn’t help but feel fitted in comfortably within your new home as the two of you continued on-wards towards the dining room, your stomach feeling empty.

You talked along with him, trying to learn and get used to the idea that yes, this was your husband. Your demon husband who was oddly being affectionate with you, despite his earlier, snappish attitude. Although, you were not minding it, preferring the brushing of hands, eyes meeting yours, and little touches, rather than the first thoughts of possibly burning in hell for eternity. He intrigued you, leaving you to wonder on how were you this lucky and yet foolish. All too soon, however, he had guided you into his favorite place that was second to the garden.

The room was beautiful and spacious, with multiple dining ware, vases of freshly cut flowers, and cloths laid neatly upon the long table. The staff were well dressed in their own lesser version of Ionic chitons, small bands of gold littered their collars and wrists, but nothing too extravagant like you and your husband’s. He sat you down, the smell of bacon, eggs, and biscuits wafted deliciously to you from the silver plate sitting in front of you. You could feel your mouth all but water as your stomach grumbled with an awakening realization. Taishiro sat next to you, chuckling at your eagerness.

“I know that yer not human, anymore, but we demons can live on an’ indulge on such human foods. Thank our chefs fer goin’ out onto the earthen realm, n’ huntin’ down the stuff.”

“Thank you.” Came out, and who you guessed were the chefs, bowed with gratitude. You tried not to shovel the food greedily into your mouth, paying mind to try to eat with grace. You blanched, feeling a bit of the egg yolk dribble down your chin, and you jumped as Taishiro didn’t miss a beat in taking the opportunity to swipe it from your face with his forefinger, eyeing you with a dark look mixed in with a cocky smirk as he began suckling on said finger, rolling his tongue around it, and pulling it out of his mouth with a wet pop.

You felt as if your face, chest, and ears were burning as he then groaned.

“Delicious.”

You weren’t burning in hell with actual fire, so you guessed he had to come up with other ways, you guessed.

The two of you finished in silence, him grinning with knowing want at your expressions, liking the way how easy and fun it was to just tease you. After saying your formal thanks to the staff, the two of you continued onward.

Most of the rooms, other than the main bedroom, that he had led you, were guest rooms, and the others were sleeping headquarters for the staff and his underling sons. Speaking of which, it did not take you too long to be introduced to them. Cue in bright laughter, oddly mixed in with a rather gloomy aurora caught your attention, and lo and behold, down the hall is where they stood.

“Oooh! Is this her, Tai-chan?!” Noticing your presences, a red-haired young man turned his attention towards you. He nor the other young man were dressed as glamorous as the two of you, but they were unique. The red haired boy, along with the black haired one, both had pointed ears, but that’s where the line was drawn. Red had scaled, burgundy wings, furled neatly behind his back as his reptilian tail wagged slowly, he sported a sharp-toothed grin and radiated sunlight.

The gloomy man had a crystal ball within his clawed hands, cape and hood cloaking his figure as he stared at you.

“Who else would it be?” He muttered slowly, sarcasm lost on the other.

“Eijirou’s the dragon, an’ Tamaki’s the sorcerer. Boys, this is yer Queen.” Taishiro made a short introduction.

“Nice to meet you!” As well as “Hello.” Greeted you, and you mimicked their greetings, surprised by the welcome. You replied your own greetings, feeling a bit nervous.

“Tamaki, would ya show ‘er the souls? I’d like for her to know what’s on the lower layer.”

“Sure.” Without further question, the scryer demon began murmuring his own spell as you stared into the crystal ball, watching with amazement at the sheer focus that was being put into it as it began to reveal answers to your questioning mind.

“See what yer magic’s been doin? Told ya, Nightingale, yer magic’s one of a kind, an’ yer not focusing on it, right now, but see what it’s doin’?” Taishiro gestured towards the mass of ghostly shadows within the ball. They seemed still, as if time had stopped them.

“Rather than deafening screams, wailing, and clattering of chains, we have this. They’re calm, awaiting to be reincarnated. It’s the most quiet that we’ve heard in centuries. None of us has yet the need to intervene and waste our time.” Tamaki opted to explain for you, a small hint of a smile graced his features, while Eijirou smiled warmly.

“It eases their suffering, too! Your magic to them is like a lullaby! You can’t hear it, but others can! It’s why Tai-chan’s been so calm-

“Anyway! Let’s go to the garden, yer not too tired, right? We can continue this later.” Taishiro interrupted swiftly, ruffling each boy’s heads as he gripped your hand rather gently, tugging you along back towards the familiarity of the garden, as you swore you heard two chuckles behind you.

……..

“There is a teeny, tiny detail that I need to explain.” Taishiro dragged you further into the depths of the green foliage, slowly but surely darkening out the sunlight as you couldn’t help but shiver a little due to the anticipation. Where was he leading you? You guessed that he could see in the dark, but you couldn’t, feeling yourself stumble a little.

“Taishiro, I can’t see.” You offered, and you heard a chuckled huff.

“Guess I gotta carry you, hm?” The sentence was your only warning. You let out a shrill yelp, feeling him lift you up with little to no effort into his arms. You liked the way how he gripped you, and seeped into his warmth as he continued walking to who knows where, and oddly enough, you trusted him.

“In order to fully complete the bond,” He startled you, as he finally broke the silence in what had seemed minutes. Setting you down, he snapped his fingers. Orange floating, flickering lights that resembled candles appeared right after, dimly illuminating the area around them. Your eyes adjusted, taking in the scenery that the lights were willing to show. It was a spacious area of smoothed down grass, white lilies and red roses crowned around it, giving it a magical, romantic feeling.

“you need to finally receive part of my power. Sure there’s multiple ways of sharing a mate’s essence, I just thought that this would be more fun.” He gave you a wink, and you felt your heartbeat quicken with a little nervousness. Yet, you found yourself not really surprised. He was your husband, after all. The thoughts of you becoming a demon, him being your mate, and that you ruled souls along with your new family, had been whirling around your head silently. It was only natural to continue, right?

“Only if you take the lead.” You offered, and he smiled, leaning down to finally mesh his lips upon yours in a secured kiss, tail swishing wildly as if joyed. Although a little snappy, he was also sweet and devilish in a teasing, fun way. You guessed that he was probably stressed from working and worrying too hard, thus you didn’t really hold it against him.

“Alright.” He led you to the clearing, laying down as he pulled you down on top, you basically straddling him, heat creeping up to your neck and ears as his clothed hardness poked at your equally clothed entrance. Not bothering to take any clothes off, he rocked his hips, groaning with guttural want as you let out a whimper, feeling the silk cloth of your clothing stimulate your clit as he rutted lazily up against it. His eyes focused up at you as he held your waist tightly, helping you rock your hips in sync with his as his tail rubbed itself against your sensitive, itching to feel you.

“Can ya smell yer own arousal? Mixin’ in nicely with our flowers? Ya can cum anytime ya want too, okay?” He brought you down to kiss your clavicle and neck, your hands gripped his hair as your fingers threaded though the soft tresses and horns, keening as his own teeth latched onto the juncture of your throat as he suckled, minding his bottom tusks as he bit harshly, kissing the bruising skin with tenderness. You choked out a whimper as your hips bucked a little more roughly at his actions, causing him to groan.

You could feel yourself clench with want as his precum and your wetness soaked through your undergarments, creating a slicking friction as the wet squelching noises echo through the dimly lit darkness. You looked down at him through lidded eyes, eyebrows furrowing as you bit your bottom lip, noticing that he mimicked your expression, if it wasn’t for the gritting teeth, You liked this side of him, too, you thought through your itching need to cum.

He could tell that you were getting desperate, hell, he was, too. Yet, he wanted you to come before he did. Taking both hands away from your waist, he placed one underneath your ridden up clothing, and another cupped one of your bouncing breasts, thumb rubbing roughly over a nipple. Taking pleasure in the way that you were staring down at him, swallowing thickly, he let his hand slip into your soiled undergarments, making sure that every time your hips bucked forwards, you could feel his fingers brush against your clit.

“T-Taishiro~!” You gasped, and he moaned, slipping two fingers in as he continued bucking, envying the digits as they stretched your tight and wet heat. Your juices were now dribbling down, creating more of a mess as his now four fingers pumped in and out of you, crooking them and stretching your walls with a gentle fervor as his dick slid between the folds of your labia, continuing to rub against your clothed clit. He ate up your desperate expression, knowing that he was no better as the both of you were about to cum. He picked up his pace as your face was buried in his shoulder, panting loudly and letting out breaths of need.

“Y-ya know, I haven’t done this in centuries. ‘M gunna fuck you so good. Would ya like that?” He nipped at your ear, and you whined wantonly as you felt yourself tighten around his fingers, gripping them like a lifeline and he hissed as you came, cum soaking and dripping everywhere as you stilled, fingers grasped in his hair tightly, and damn if he loved that feeling. He stilled, awaiting for you to recover as you panted, lying against his chest as tears and a little bit of drool temporarily stained your flushed face. He kissed you softly, removing his soaked fingers from your fluttering heat, lust boiling within him as he imagined his cock in there.

“How do ya want this? Missionary and doggy are pretty good positions for first timers, either way, I’m going to claim you, Sweetheart.”

You looked at him through your wet lashes, as if contemplating on what you want.

“What do you want?” You asked instead, and the question caught him off guard, but he grinned.

“You.” He didn’t hesitate.

“Then have me.” You felt a blush at your own statement, but you really wanted to continue.

“Ya sure?”

“Anyway you can, Taishiro. I trust you, you’re not going to hurt me.” At this, his expression softened as he then kissed you with such a tenderness.

“I won’t, but my instincts are screamin’ at me to take ya right here on the ground.”

“Then do so. We have an eternity together, right?” You pondered, and he frowned a little.

“For your-

“I trust you.” You interrupted, looking at him dead in the eyes, as if challenging him. He couldn’t help but smile at your spitfire attitude.

“As my Queen commands.” He kissed your cheek.

It was the only warning you really had, but your blood was on fire with heat and want, and truthfully, if he wanted to hurt you, he had every opportunity to after you wiped away the salt from the pentagram.

Shedding off the both your clothing, the both of you stared unabashed at each other, a red flush tinted his face, and you were blushing furiously. You weren’t really acquainted with seeing an angry-looking cock, veins visible as a drool of precum leaked onto the ground, but here it was, twitching slightly at your intense gaze. The golden glints caught your eye, and your eyes widened with surprise.

“Y-you have piercings-!” You guffawed as he laughed.

“Oh! You’re so cute! Easy to reach’n stimulate, Babe.” He winked and you swallowed thickly as he then decided that enough time was spent staring, and now he wanted to touch you, more.

He placed both garbs neatly on the ground as he gently maneuvered you onto them, your stomach and breasts were cushioned as you gripped the clothing, knees on the cool grass as you basically laid out bare for him.

You jolted as you felt his hot, fat tongue lick a long stripe along your leaking sex and clit, his hands gripped your thighs, squeezing them gently as he decided to make a meal out of you, first. You could only lay there, whining and panting, trying to move your hips in his tight grasp as he licked you with fervor, taking extra time to suckle at your clit, chuckling as he also sopped up the extra slick running down your thighs, kissing them gently and you moaned.

“Taishiro!” You whined at him, silently pleading for him to get to the main event.

“Oh? Ya wanna be fully tainted by the devil?” He purred, and you nodded. You knew that he had to take care of his need, too, and he didn’t admit it, but he was getting a little impatient.

“Easy there, Hon. If anythin’ bothers you, say somethin’, and we’ll stop, m’kay?” He finished, getting an affirmative from you, as he then grabbed his dick, leading it to your sopping entrance, and pushing a little bit in. He was amazed on how the muscles to your opening were loose, letting the head of his dick catch the rim, slipping a little inside.

He froze when you froze at the sudden prodding, opting instead to move his hips rather gently, not going further as you got use to the feeling of what’s already inside you. He decided that rubbing your clit was a good idea, and was rewarded as he felt you loosen up a bit, knees spreading out further as you bit your lip, feeling the gentle rubbing of calloused fingers.

“C-continue.” You murmured, feeling the other piercings now slide past the muscle. It was a delicious feeling of being stretched and stimulated, feeling yourself loosen as you took more of him in.

“Almost in, Sweetheart.” He murmured gently, his other hand rubbing soothing circles between your shoulder blades. Finally, he moved the last couple of inches inside of your burning heat as he refused to move, letting the both of you take in the feeling of being joined together.

“Ya alright?” He grunted, silently pleading for you to give your affirmative for him to move. He was relieved when you nodded, amazed at himself for gently rocking his hips as you were basically sucking him in. You were in a daze, feeling every inch, vein, and piercing churn your inside walls as your breasts rubbed against the silken clothing, clit still being stimulated as he took care of you.

“Y-you can mo-ve fa-faster, T-Taishiro.” It sounded more needy than you liked to admit, but he didn’t seem to mind. He leaned down, resting his chin against your shoulder as he basically enveloped you from above, one hand rubbing your clit, and the other holding himself from fully crushing you as he let his hips buck with more fervor, both of you seeing each other’s needy expressions.

“Takin’ me in-oh! So well, Darlin’. Ya’re s-suckin’ me in so-damn! Nicely. Don’t know ya that well, but ‘m so fond an’ proud of ya.” He kissed your cheek tenderly, contrast to his hips positioning themselves in a new angle in a snapping motion. Your head spun with stars as you felt the piercing on his tip, hit something inside you, letting out a “do that again!”. He would chuckle, if that statement didn’t turn him on so much.

“Y-you’re doing such a g-good job, too! Ah! Like y-you a lo-ot!” You admitted, trying your best to return such actions of affections. He rested his cheek against your cheek, taking his free hand to interlace his fingers with yours as he felt you tighten when he rolled his hips, aiming for the spot that kept making you clench.

“’C’mon, cum fer me, Baby. Lemme feel ya milk a century’s worth dry.” He growled into your ear, eager at the prospect as much as you were as you suddenly stiffened, your walls tightening around him desperately as you let out a whine, chasing the fleeting feeling as you reached down and gripped his fingers onto your clit.

“T-Taishiro! O-overstim-ula-t-ed!” You cried out, tears pooling around your eyes in frustration as your body kept clenching around him and the electricity of your high was going haywire, consuming you into a mess.

“J-just a lil! More!” He tore his hand away, sitting up as he gripped one hand on your waist tightly, and the other pressed down on your back, snapping his hips, churning your sensitive walls with an animalisitc frenzy. You could only whine, laying there and taking it as your mind was in a blank state as you felt him get bigger, suddenly. To your relief, he gave one final thrust.

A hot warmth coated your raw insides, mixing in with your own cum as you felt him still. You whined softly as you felt full. Moments passed as the two of you huffed and panted, letting the cool air chill the two of your sweaty bodies down. He pulled out of you gingerly, you whimpered at the loss as you felt cum and slick leak out. He paid no mind, plopping down to the side of you, and pulling you back onto his stomach as the two of you took each other in, cooling down from intense highs.

He cupped your face, and began trailing soft kisses wherever he could reach, and you couldn’t help but rasp out giggles, the fog clearing from your head as you descended back towards your normal mental state of closure.

“Beautiful. Mmm, ya took me so well, an’ ya looked so pretty n’ debauched. Don’t care, I’m gunna say it, Princess. I love ya.” He admitted so softly, hands smoothing down your back as you felt your heart softened as you gazed down at him.

“I love you, too. I know for sure that I will love you more when time passes.” You kissed him tenderly, letting your own growing affections seep into the kiss, and he let out an odd guttural of purring, enjoying the fulfilling feeling of a partner doting on him. The lights flickered, as if trying to lull you to sleep, but you weren’t sleepy, yet.

“I want to talk. What’s your favorite color? Why do you purr? How did you meet your sons? I want to know every bit about you.” You murmured into his chest, peeking at him through lashes, enjoying the surprised and pleased look that you were receiving. You didn’t care about the time, letting him ramble at each question you had, enjoying the way his heartbeat quickened as his breathing chest fell up and down, him talking excitedly as he threw in his own questions, pleased to know about you, more.

“Ah~! I don’t think ya can’t get any cuter~.” He rubbed his nose against yours in affection, and you were surprised to hear the familiar purr echo through his chest.

“What about your purring?”

“Yeah, happens now an’ then when I’m truly happy.”

“That’s wholesome and cute.” You admitted truthfully, liking the way his eyes danced with light at your confession.

“I wanna go again.” He said suddenly, and you flushed, realizing that he was stirring to life, again. You didn’t mind. You told him, and he smiled, kissing you.

“We’ll take it a lil’ more slow, this time. Face to face. Preferably ya kissin’ me, more.” He smiled, pinching your cheek playfully. You kissed him in false retaliation.

“Yer still a lil’ wet, so ya wouldn’t mind if I just-?” He asked, and you nodded, feeling his member catch onto the rim of your used entrance, the both of you moaning as he slid in easier, this time. You were wet and loosened, and instead of focusing on chasing your highs, the two of you paid attention to each other.

Not many words were said as you did what you pleased, kissing, touching, and enjoying his softened expression at your inquisitive hands as he held onto you, returning your affectionate gestures as the atmosphere resonated with the flickering candles: soft and romantic as the two of your hips met in a slow, sensual pace, not racing against time as you felt him continue to purr, much to your satisfaction.

You were still satisfied from earlier, but he still managed to make you cum again, this time it wasn’t as intense, but it didn’t matter, for your head cleared a little more quicker, getting to enjoy his desperate look as he quickened his pace. He looked debauched and desperate, eyebrows furrowed downward, pools of wetness gathering at his eyes as he bit his lip, only to open his mouth and call out your name as once again, he came inside of you.

“Damn, I think that I can forever make love to ya.” He panted out, sweaty chest rising and falling as one of your hands soothed circles around his waist, the other bringing his own to your lips as you kissed the back tenderly.

“I feel the same.” You admitted truthfully, and he let out another set of purrs.

……….

“Oh my goooooood! Oh my god! Sister! Where have you beeeeeen?! It’s been like, a year since we’ve last seen you!” Your friend hugged you tightly, relieved tears threatened to spill. Taishiro and you had decided to take a visit on the earthen realm to collect the rest of your things, if the villagers hadn’t destroyed your hut, that is. Luckily, your place was left untouched, and you came across the wondering group of girls, fretting over you, your state of dress, and looking at Taishiro with concern.

“Sis, did you finally summon a hireling? He doesn’t look like a gremlin?” One asked. You had to keep in your laughter as your husband’s eye twitched with annoyance.

“Um, I used a different method on the summoning spell. This is my husband, Taishiro.”

“Whaaaaa-?”

“King of hell, keeper of souls, blah blah. Look, me an’ my Queen are going to go, now. Yer all annoyin’.” He griped, snapping his fingers as the portal to your home had opened, not giving your friends time to wave their goodbyes as he dragged you home, and oddly enough, you didn’t mind.

……..

Your eyes glinted in the moonlight as the juice from the pomegranate seeds stained your lips red as you eyed the stunned man. Centuries had passed, and you and your husband had lost track of time, not aging as your magic grew in power, melding perfectly with his. Your adopted sons had moved on, finding their own mates, bringing them to your realm to visit regularly, and your love for Taishiro grew immeasurably.

Unfortunately, since he was an ancient demon, he had to reincarnate once every one thousand years, letting his soul reset into a body although resembled his own, his memories were long gone, leading you onto a twenty-nine year old man-hunt for your reincarnated lover.

“I may have a use for you, yet.” You let the words soothe over the young magic user, his eyes widened in something akin to recognition, although confused.

“Alright, Dumplin, What’dya need?” His accent was the same, except it belonged to a young man, this time, and not a demon.

“I’m Queen of hell, lady of the lost souls, and I’m in need of a king.”

“So familiar…” He gripped his head, eyeing you with confusion, yet there was a hint of your husband’s glint within those eyes.

“It’s because you know me. Very well.” You hummed at his confused expression.

“Alright, I’m curious. Lead me.” He gave in.

You smiled. It wouldn’t take long for the two of you to be reunited, after all.

………..

End! Give Thanks and Credit to Rita, or youtubequeens on tumblr for the idea and us brainstorming! I tried to fix any plot holes, I fell in love with the setting and mythology and other things, so I’m pretty proud of this fic :3

#Taishiro Toyomitsu #Fatgum #fatgum x reader #mythology #demons #witchcraft #A lot of things really #I don't know why I added the familiar #I just like bunnies #Hades and Persephone vibes #This is for you Rita #I hope you like it #I tried #Plotholes but imagination #Ig #Sorry #Will I stop being a simp?#No

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halothenthehorns · 3 years

Text

TLTNL- THE ADVANCE GUARD

Remus gave a bleary look at the start of his chapter, he had no doubts that not a one of their questions was going to be answered, honestly he wouldn't be surprised if even more piled up, though at this point that didn't feel possible.

Harry at once wrote down three copies of the same note, telling he'd been attacked by Dementors, about to be expelled from school, and when he was getting out of here.

"I'm fairly confident you know about as much as what's going on as any of us," Sirius pointed out, "but the leaving part is relevant yes."

"I know someone knows more than they're telling me," Harry grumbled, "they always do."

He addressed them to Ron, Hermione, and Sirius.

"I thought Ron and Hermione had implied they were in the same place," Lily asked.

"Just in case," Harry shrugged, some biting words trying to creep across him about how even Sirius was in the same place as them, Harry was the only one left out.

Hedwig was not home right now, and Harry was left to pace furiously in front of the window awaiting her return. His mind still pounding as was his physical body from the night's events.

James twitched violently at all the blows Harry had gained in just one day from that place, but it was honestly of some small comfort that what Vernon had explicitly done to him wasn't a lingering pain in this moment.

Thinking was only making it worse, frustration still pouring from his every move as he kept glaring daggers at everything he passed.

Lily sighed softly as she watched that agitation reliving in her son now, he was being more twitchy from these remembered frustrations than he had when he was even in a life or death situation before. She'd wished countless times to be there for him in this future, his past, but now she wished it yet again for a new reason, to calm him and promise it would get better.

As if sensing her, their eyes met and his face smoothed for just a moment as he smiled at her, he knew.

His mind kept thinking of all the strange happenings from this one evening, and always coming back to his expulsion, and still no one was talking to him!

"Honestly though," Sirius shook his head at himself, "that really is just insulting, seeing as someone should have said something long before now anyways." Sirius couldn't shake that nasty little thought of where he was, if he was so busy still out looking for that traitor he was starting to slip on taking care of Harry. What that rat had done to his godson last year to help bring Voldemort back could have easily rekindled that fire to see him punished, but Sirius wouldn't really make the same mistake twice and drop everything to go after him, right?

His own burning question of what had just happened in that kitchen, who had that howler been from, was just as pressing to him.

Harry grumbled and rubbed at his forehead for his own mind throwing questions that hurt like the dickens now just to be asked, a name should be on the tip of his tongue.

Why was he still here, being treated like a naughty child?

James groaned on his son's behalf, he could only imagine how frustrating that would be, and told Harry, "do you know how impressive it is to me you haven't broken yet and gone there in person? You've far more restraint than I do by just pacing and grumbling."

Harry was well aware that everyone in here had tried to leave at least once by now from a snap of frustration, but Harry knew he wasn't too far off from doing the same in that moment.

He kicked his school trunk on his next pass by, but all that achieved was a sharp pain in his toe as he kept limping now.

"I think Harry's going for the Snitch and trying to receive an injury on every part of himself before the night's up," Remus grumbled.

"We should count ourselves lucky if he doesn't deck the person who arrives for him at this point," Sirius agreed.

Finally, on his next pass of the window, his snowy owl returned like a small ghost in the night.

Harry felt a sharp thwap against his mind for that description which he refused to linger on.

He snapped at once she'd taken her time, he had work for her!

"Haven't you learned by now not to take your anger out on your owl," Lily rolled her eyes at Harry, trying to remind him of Hedwig's deserved attitude last year.

"I hardly think that in the moment," Harry said sheepishly, though he hoped he wouldn't get too cross with her.

Hedwig gazed at him reproachfully over the dead frog clamped in her beak.

Harry's eyes did light with just a touch of warmth for a single moment, his owl always seemed to be more prone to bringing him back her dead catches whenever he'd had a fight with Vernon, she could just sense things about him like that.

He at once began tying the letters to her, saying she was to take these to them and peck their fingers until they started writing him good long replies.

Sirius flexed his hand in concern as he watched his pup with wide eyes, but there was pure understanding in his voice as he told, "guess I can't even blame you."

That hurt Harry worse than if he had been angry at him. He'd wanted all summer for someone to understand how upset he was, and now his godfather really seemed to, but still Harry never would have wanted him to see him like this.

Remus was honestly just confused at the Sirius in the book as well for not having done something long before now. What had happened to their Sirius who sent long, but disjointed letters like he'd been forced to stop and start it several times, the ink varying shades of dry and also full of random anythings he could cobble together to send for good news for them coupled with endless complaints of what his parents had done to annoy him this week. If Padfoot had sent him a letter like he'd been sending Harry, he'd think something was extremely wrong with his old friend. He'd tried to force himself not to linger on these changes to their friend as much as James clearly did, but some things he had problems pretending to overlook, and this was one.

Hedwig gave a muffled hooting noise, her beak still full of frog.

"Snack for the road," Sirius forced out with chipper.

The moment she was back out of sight, Harry felt guilty for being sharp with her, she was his only friend here.

Harry watched the orange owl in the corner for a moment cleaning its feathers and ruffling up its tail to the brown cat slinking along its post at the bottom. The image suddenly double layered with his own snowy white doing the same thing with Crookshanks around, and it left a soft pain in his heart he couldn't see this again in the foreseeable future. Hopefully whenever he'd come from, someone was taking care of his owl now.

but he knew he'd make it up to her when she returned the next morning with three long letters from them all. They couldn't ignore a dementor attack.

"I like to think they aren't ignoring you now," Lily still tried, her eyes still a little wider than should be as she kept trying to think of some way to get rid of this lingering anger she could still feel coming off of Harry. "It must be Ron's parents, and Dumbledore, stopping them telling you everything, which you must know would be a bad idea in letter form anyway." It didn't even make herself feel better for a moment, as letters should have ended ages ago and he should be with his friends rather than a place he detested so much.

"Right," Harry agreed without emphasis.

He'd probably wake up tomorrow to three fat letters full of sympathy and plans for his immediate removal to The Burrow.

If anything that seemed to make Harry feel worse though as he sunk deeper into his cushion, a part of him already forewarning him not to get his hopes up about that.

With some final comfort, his body sank into the bed and he finally passed out.

His owl did not return the next day though, and Harry spent the whole of it in his room only leaving for the loo. Food was supplied through the catflap by Petunia's hand.

"They didn't lock me in there again," Harry promised at once before the book could imply worse, "I just couldn't put up a farce of dealing with them when I was already in such a bad mood. With my luck I'd do more magic accidentally and blow Vernon over to Scotland."

"Honestly, at some point it'd be worth it," James grumbled, still infuriated Harry could be in a house full of people and not one of them were concerned Harry was keeping himself so isolated. It was a miracle Petunia noticed at all to feed him! How he could keep hearing this over and over and still feel that anger fresh every time couldn't be normal.

Every time Harry heard her approaching he tried to question her about the Howler, but he might as well have interrogated the doorknob for all the answers he got.

Lily still had the urge to curse the answer out of that stranger, frustrated beyond belief that they honestly might not get an answer for that as Petunia seemed to hate giving Harry a piece of bread, let alone information.

This went on for three days.

The room collectively groaned in frustration, they'd always hated hearing of time at the Dursleys, and it still somehow got worse every time. Now it was starting to feel like he wasn't getting any other options. The Burrow better have had a house fire or something for Harry not to have been invited there long ago. Even if they didn't know the extent of the problems at the Dursleys, it had been made clear they at least had suspicions, so there wasn't any excuse in their opinion for this continuing!

Harry was alternately restless, leaving him in manic pacing of his room while furiously doing nothing, and in long states of lethargy where he'd lay absently on his bed and think of nothing but that Ministry hearing with aching dread.

"You're not going to be expelled," Lily said at once with absolute confidence. "They just can't, the law's on your side, you've done nothing wrong."

Harry gave her a grateful smile as he envisioned her in that old courtroom, throwing the book at Fudge rather than himself for instigating all of this, then he blinked the vision away and wondered why that place still felt so foreboding to him. It helped that he truly did feel comforted by her words, so he let it go.

What if he was expelled and his wand was snapped? Where would he go next? He could not go back to living here all the time.

"I'd never let that happen," Sirius snarled at once. "You'd live in a cave with me and Buckbeak first." Sirius didn't exactly sound enthused at the idea, it hurt him he couldn't actually provide anything of use for his godson but company, but that didn't change his point.

Could he live with Sirius, as his godfather had once offered before he'd gone on the run from the Ministry himself.

Sirius relaxed back at once, nodding eagerly and saying, "don't know why you'd bother asking, Merlin I'm still ticked it hasn't happened already."

Harry just smiled at him, but it still felt more forced than he'd ever like. He still longed for something, anything in him to confirm this could happen one day, not this nasty ache inside.

Would Harry be allowed to live there alone, given that he was still underage?

"The Ministry does not rightly care where you live once you're no longer in school," James snorted in disgust. "You could live anywhere you wanted, even in an 'empty' house." He knew Harry wouldn't really be alone, Sirius would be there with him of course, not that anyone in the Ministry would know that.

Or would the matter be settled for him? Was his breech so bad he might be reallocated to Azkaban?

They all grumbled in furious dispute of that, but for once Remus shivered harder than Sirius at the thought. It was more because of self loathing though. Even at his lowest, Remus still never crossed Harry's mind as anything? His life kept feeling more useless the more pages that were turned, wondering what the point of his even living past James and Lily if he couldn't be of any help to anyone.

On the fourth night after Hedwig had left, Harry was in one of his apathetic phases slumped on his bed when Vernon opened the door in his best suit with a purely smug expression.

"Thank you Harry, I needed something to envision to punch," James scowled.

He informed Harry they were going out.

"And they are telling you, because?" Lily demanded.

"To rub in I wasn't going I suppose," he shrugged without care.

Harry was not to leave this room, or touch any of their possessions,

All of them still felt their lips curling in disgust as Vernon continued to treat Harry like that while he'd lived there, in the loosest term of the way.

or steal from the fridge,

"I wouldn't even want to eat that food," Sirius stated, "I'd put it in the bin for the local strays."

and Harry was going to be locked inside.

Harry emotionlessly complied with all.

James buried his face in his hands in pure frustration, both at Vernon actually doing that, and Harry's complete lack of care it being done. He had felt lethargic before, emotionally drained even, but never so much he would not kick down any door that he was locked in. He'd tried it now, even without success. What state did you have to be in to not care about this?

Vernon glared at Harry, clearly suspicious of this lack of argument,

"I really don't get that," Lily sneered, "you've honestly never been that much of a problem to them, and yet they treat you like you're constantly on the verge of burning down that house."

Harry just shrugged without comment, he always knew Vernon saw exactly what he expected to see in Harry no matter how he acted.

then stomped out and did as promised. Harry heard the key turning without care.

"He hadn't locked me in there until that point," Harry amended, making James laugh at least as Harry truly seemed to be striving not to let himself be caught in a lie to him again.

The faint noise of the house creaking around him barely penetrated Harry's stupor of misery.

"I'm fine," Harry insisted to those around him who had grown increasingly pale the longer Harry was left like this. "Sure I don't enjoy remembering how upset I was, but I promise I'm fine now."

They smiled grimly at him, but still that worry lingered of where his friends and more importantly Sirius were, why was Harry being left like this for so long?

Then, quite distinctly, he heard a crash in the kitchen below.

Harry watched those around him tense at once with concern, that fear from the first chapter of some Death Eater ambush was clearly still on their mind, but Harry had an indulgent smile in place. He couldn't think why right now, but there was absolutely no ill will towards that noise even as the ghost of adrenaline pumped through him for his reaction at the time. He didn't think he did a good job of soothing the others, as everyone still had one hand near their pocket while Remus forced himself to keep going.

Harry bolted out of his bed at once as he processed this, knowing it couldn't be the Dursley's as he'd never heard their car arrive back. Then he heard voices, and Harry thought burglars.

"While normally I'd actually enjoy the fun of that," Sirius gave a forced smile as he imagined some Muggle laughing while Sirius pulled his wand on them and then cursing whatever idiot thought he could steal their stuff, "now isn't a good time for anything to be in that place that shouldn't be."

"Anything?" Harry persisted innocently, causing all of them to take a step back and really asses that Harry was almost smiling for the first time since they'd started this book. If truly he felt no fear for this moment even as he rubbed at his temple to understand why, than that must mean that someone really had finally come for him to get him out of there.

They didn't get to bask long in their happy moment as baby Harry began crying upstairs, and Lily hopped out of James' lap to go fetch him. She came back down the stairs wiping angry tears out of his little eyes, clearly he did not appreciate having been put up so early. James quickly moved with her when he saw she was going to sit back in the other couch, an arm's reach from Harry, and the three settled comfortably there while Remus kept going.

Harry at once dismissed the idea though, as burglars would be more quiet, and those below were making plenty of noise.

"You really are quick on the uptake," Remus complemented Harry's logic.

His wand was in hand as he glared at the bedroom door thinking it over.

James still felt a spot of agitation Harry was locked in there, with no way to escape other than a two story drop, unless those bars had been put back up in his absence in which case his son was truly pinned down with no way out. Even if he wasn't in danger, that was still terrible for many different reasons.

Next moment, he jumped as the lock gave a loud click and his door swung open.*

"Did you do that?" Remus yelped, thinking Dumbledore might not be able to stop the Ministry a second time if Harry was doing more magic, even by accident.

"No," Harry said at once, he really hadn't quite gotten up to accidental magical levels.

"Then what on earth did unlock that?" James demanded with his eyes narrowed.

Harry felt something nagging at the edge of his consciousness, like he might have worked that out for himself later, but for now he just shrugged and crossed his fingers like everyone else another Ministry owl wouldn't be arriving.

Harry stood motionless, staring through the open doorway at the dark upstairs landing, straining his ears for further sounds, but none came.

That only made them start to feel edgy all over again. For a moment James had wondered if it had been the Weasley twins picking the lock on Harry's door again, but then it would have swung open to reveal them. This was blatant magic and someone hiding, not a good combination for his boy. If Harry wasn't all at ease he knew he'd be crawling out of his skin right now.

He hesitated for a moment, then moved swiftly and silently out of his room to the head of the stairs.

"More space to move," Sirius nodded absently while Harry gave him a nudge, trying to get them all to stop giving him tactical advice already.

His heart climbed into his throat with fright as he spotted at the bottom of the stairs a whole group of people staring at up at him, none recognizable in the dark.

"That's always a pleasant thing to see in the dark," Lily shivered as she pulled her baby closer into her lap. Even if every one of the Weasley's had arrived to get Harry out, which was rather odd in itself, she had no idea what was up with the surprise. Ron or someone should have thought to turn on a light by now.

A low, faintly familiar growling voice called up to Harry to lower his wand.

Harry's eyes flipped wide in surprise as he finally identified someone, "that's Professor Moody."

"I can't say that made me feel better," James jumped in surprise even as he smiled, "considering your last encounter with him."

"I guess they sent members of the Order rather than Weasley's," Sirius suddenly bounced with excitement, wondering what was taking him so long to run up the stairs and tackle his godson with a hug.

Harry's heart was thumping uncontrollably, even knowing that voice he did not lower his wand.

"You're getting more encouraging by the minute," Lily said approvingly this time, she hoped someone really was regularly taking Moody's hip flask away from him now for more than an hour. She didn't care if it sounded paranoid, she honestly wasn't sure if she could ever trust him fully again after his face had nearly murdered her son.

He called out the only title he knew Professor Moody by, but the man grumbled back he wasn't so sure of it considering he'd never gotten around to the teaching bit.

"Well he's got a point," Sirius shrugged, feeling all at ease now and still forcing himself not to take the book away from Moony to get to his reappearance already.

Remus would have honestly let him if Sirius asked, considering he was already ticked at himself for not being there, again.

Harry lowered his wand slightly but did not relax his grip on it, nor did he move.

"Something Moody would honestly be proud of," James chuckled.

He had no reason to trust Moody considering the last time he'd met him it was in fact an imposter for a whole year who'd tried to murder Harry.

"Just think for a moment if you had no idea what that meant," Lily shook her head in exasperation, "can you imagine how confusing that would be."

"Well then it's a good thing we got backstory," James rolled his eyes at her.

Before he'd come to a decision though, an even older voice from his past but far more welcome one called up to Harry it really was okay, they'd come to get him out of here.

This voice was even easier to recognize than the other as Harry yelped, "Remus!"

Remus jumped at first in confusion, then surprise as he eyed Harry, then the book like he was sure someone was lying. Then his face cracked into the widest smile in days as he demanded, "really?"

"Yep," Harry beamed.

Remus still sat there looking dumbstruck for a second before Sirius smacked him on the back, still bouncing around like he was sitting on a spring, "well I'm not surprised. Bout time Moony's made his reappearance, I'm sure you've been busy and you're dying to tell Harry what you've been up to." He seemed utterly confident of this, that Sirius himself had dragged Remus along so that the three of them could have a chat while the rest of the Order did whatever to get Harry out of there.

Harry's heart leapt even if he hadn't heard from Professor Lupin in a year, calling back to him in disbelief.

Remus was in such a good mood it was almost passable as he hid a wince. 'It's your own fault,' he mentally scolded himself, 'you haven't given him a reason to call you anything else.' Yet the contrast to Harry sitting next to him leisurely and Harry still at fifteen only calling him a title stung like he wouldn't have believed.

Next spoke up an unfamiliar woman's voice demanding why they were all still in the dark, answering her own question by lighting her wand tip.

"Is she mad!" Lily balked. "He's in trouble because he's done magic, now she's being utterly blatant."

Harry still managed an indifferent shrug as his smile kept widening at this new voice, there was something in the tone promising he liked this person.

Harry blinked in the sudden brightness to find the crowd of people below him all craning around to get a look.

Harry was in such a good mood, he hardly even rolled his eyes at being on display like this.

Remus Lupin stood nearest to him, and though still young in age, he looked even more ill and haggard since Harry had last seen him with more grey than ever in his hair and robes falling right off of him with patched shabbiness.

Remus kept reading loudly past anyone who was trying to make a comment about that.

He still managed an easy smile as he spotted Harry, while the witch holding her lit wand said Harry looked just as Remus had promised. She was clearly the youngest there,

"Explains the idiocy," Lily rolled her eyes at the idea of the Order sending some child to fetch her son.

with a heart shaped face, dark twinkling eyes, and spiky violet hair.

"Well I like her," Sirius said at once with a chuckle at that description, "any girl who can get away with that hair shade gets points with me."

Another man, black with a bald head and one golden hoop earring, agreed as well Harry did look just like James.

Sirius' face suddenly fell though as he realized he hadn't been mentioned next to Harry or Remus, which clearly meant he wasn't there at all.

Remus too realized this and turned curious eyes on him, but Sirius managed to wave the moment off, his eyes only just a bit tighter but his smile hadn't even dimmed. "Nah, probably had to do something just before this got started," he broke off without coming up with a good reason why he wouldn't come see his godson the second he could with this group, but still waved Remus on to get to that part already.

Except the eyes, those were his mother's eyes, a wheezy voiced man said in the back.

James and Lily still managed to exchange a proud smile for how their boy had turned out.

Mad-Eye Moody kept them on track by demanding of Lupin if he was sure this was Harry? Didn't want to bring an imposter back.

"Can't even blame him for that one," James frowned sadly at the thought of what his idol had been through.

Lupin asked what Harry's Patronus was, and he said a stag at once.

"That really is one of the easiest tells," James agreed fondly, a smile lighting right back up as he always enjoyed being reminded of that.

Lupin confirmed this was him, while Harry tried to tuck his wand away in his back pocket finally.

Moody at once barked not to go doing any such thing, be could blow a buttocks off.

Everyone full blown cracked up laughing at the imagery, even if they would have given the same warning.

The violet-haired girl asked who he knew had lost one?

Causing further giggles to erupt the girl had asked!

Mad-Eye snapped at her never mind that, elementary wand safety should still be followed. He began making his way towards the kitchen, but clearly his magical eye was on her as he snapped he saw her eye roll.

"Now I definitely like her," Remus chuckled in agreement with Sirius. "She's got some spunk doing that to him."

Lupin reached out and shook Harry's hand, asking how he was.

Remus rolled his eyes at himself, it had been long enough since he'd seen him.

Harry managed a stuttered fine in surprise, still unable to get over his surprise so many people were in this room as if it were a long standing arrangement.

"Maybe it was," James grumped, "and you just weren't in on it."

"That didn't make me feel better," Harry pointed out with a sigh.

He glanced at all these strangers and away, suddenly feeling self conscious he hadn't combed his hair in days.

"Not like that actually makes a difference," Lily pointed out.

He instead pointed out they were all lucky the Dursleys were out.

"Oh are they though?" Sirius leered, thinking of the timing of this.

The violet-haired woman just laughed, saying that was no luck, but her doing. She'd sent them the fake Lawn Competition invitation.

Everyone burst out laughing again, even Lily let her original ire melt a bit at the girl doing this to the Dursley's. She was already made clear she was good for a laugh, and they were all eager to find out who she was already.

Harry pictured Vernon's face when he found out he'd been duped, and prompted they were leaving soon?

"Afraid of his reaction when he comes home?" James demanded, smile dropping at once.

"It certainly wouldn't be fun to be around," Harry shrugged with indifference. He'd always been yelled at for anything going wrong, and some prank would most certainly fall under that. Still he was quick to reassure their worries he wouldn't have done much, just shouted at him to get his frustrations out. For some reason that didn't make them feel entirely better.

Lupin agreed almost at once, and Harry eagerly asked if they were going to The Burrow? He was denied, while being moved towards the kitchen and the gaggle all still followed watching him like a show.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," Lily sneered, she'd always hated people eyeballing her son, and these were supposed to be adults!

Lupin explained that the Burrow was too risky, and they'd set up Headquarters somewhere else. It had taken them awhile to get it all together.

"Is that why I haven't been out of there before now?" Harry asked, thinking that really could have been put in a letter to at least appease him.

"Don't know," Sirius shrugged, "we move our headquarters all the time to stay undetected, but those places are usually flimsy at best and even more a meeting place than an outright Headquarters."

"Sounds like the Order got an upgrade," James agreed, a funny feeling buzzing in him he wasn't, would never be again, apart of it.

Mad-Eye was already at the table sipping from his hip flask,

Lily had to fight the urge to demand someone take that away from him.

his magical eye keeping track of everything in his surroundings.

"I wonder how far away that thing can see," James asked as he pictured the sky above him and all the stars.

"I never asked," Harry answered.

"I'd imagine not too great a distance," Lily shrugged, "but who knows, maybe he can see all the way to Australia."

Lupin introduced Harry to him as Alastor Moody.

"Do I not know you've met?" Remus demanded, already feeling a rising sense of anger at every little thing he did.

"Don't know," Harry shrugged as he didn't seem too concerned with it.

Sirius had to work hard for a moment before saying, "I'm sure I've kept you up to speed, with everything I know at least. You're probably just going to introduce everyone, just for clarification to him." Then for a split second, Sirius wasn't even sure if that was true. He'd claimed to have forgiven Remus in the Shrieking Shack, but not once afterwards had Sirius made mention of his oldest, and now only friend. Had he really forgiven Remus? He viciously kicked the thought away to not be lingered on. Didn't matter, he was still his Moony now.

Harry uneasily said he was aware, it was strange to be introduced to someone you'd thought you'd known for a year.

"That is fair," James agreed absently as he watched the two, clearly something was bubbling between them, and while James got Remus' problem, he wasn't sure what was suddenly bothering Sirius.

Then he turned to introduce Nymphadora

Sirius was instantly distracted by something snatching at his mind before he yelped, "oh," in surprise.

"You know her?" Lily demanded.

"I think my cousin Andromeda has a daughter she named Nymphadora. We keep in loose contact since she's the only living member of my family I can stand." Sirius offered with a look of concentration. "Hold on, what's her surname?" He directed at Remus in hopes he'd finish. True it wasn't exactly a common name, but he'd still rather be sure.

but the violet-haired girl corrected at once it was just Tonks!

While Remus finished with a smile that she preferred to go by her surname only.

"Yeah, Tonks, that's right, that's the Muggle-born she married named Ted's surname. She sent me a letter about it when the little bloom was born, but that was already what, two, almost three years ago now. Kept meaning to go around and visit her, you keep saying you want Harry to meet more kids his age." He finished with a triumphant little smile that wavered just a bit as he added, "glory, she's as grown up as Harry and I never even meet her."

Remus' frown turned sharp as he turned on Sirius, fixing to tell him off that wasn't happening and he could go see her whenever he wanted, but James cut in with a lighter joke instead. "Well Remus is clearly still some fun, he could have introduced her the way she wanted, but oh no, he just went for the full name, clearly to annoy her."

Remus chuckled but didn't deny he could see himself picking on her already if she'd return in kind which seemed obvious.

Harry had an odd smile in place as he watched Remus for a moment, one that Lily thought she'd seen when he heard of Ron and Hermione's argument back during the Yule Ball. Harry could feel it in his mind, like two bits of metal being struck together and waiting for something to spark, but the memory refused to solidify any further and he mostly ignored it for now.

Tonks grumbled back so would he if he'd been named Nymphadora.

Sirius started snickering at the idea of this girl, it was clear she'd inherited her mother's spirit already, he knew he was going to like her.

Lupin moved onto the black wizard named Kingsley Shacklebolt, then the wheezy-voiced man Elphias Doge.

Harry blinked curiously at the name, sure for just a moment he might know him more than just a passing person like his mind was telling him. Something about Dumbledore...

Dedalus Diggle, who eagerly interrupted they'd met before while dropping his hat in excitement.

"Squealing every time you meet him isn't technically meeting him," Lily rolled her eyes even as she did smile a bit, she'd always liked him and he always asked to hold her son at least once every time they met.

Then Emmeline Vance,

Lily actually whooped with excitement to hear she'd lived long enough to see her niece be born, a topic she wouldn't stop discussing when they met up.

Sturgis Podmore,

James felt himself sitting back in relief as well, Sturgis had been in an undercover mission for the past two weeks and hadn't been at his last check in, they were already starting to wonder if he was another lost soul. Clearly he would make it back though.

and Hestia Jones.

Harry nodded awkwardly to every person who'd been introduced.

They were equal amounts as surprised as they were pleased that they only didn't know three names, Kingsley, Hestia, and Tonks. It was a good thing they supposed, that Dumbledore still had so many trustworthy people, but something about it seemed blackened as they heard these names. That Lily and James couldn't be a part of this, nor so many others. They'd heard of so many deaths and disturbing things happening to the ranks, and now they knew the source of who was behind it for those dwindling numbers, and it hurt.

Harry wished they'd look away from him, he was starting to feel like he was on stage.

Remus quietly told him that a surprising number of people had volunteered to come here and get him, his mouth twitching slightly.

"You already have that look written all over your face," Remus had that same twitching mouth now, Harry noticed, giving him the odd impression of seeing double again at the man in the room double layered with him fourteen years older and much more weathered. Still, it was honestly fun for him to see the Professor he knew acting like someone he had been seeing as an Uncle lately act the same.

Moody said the more the merrier, they needed this large guard for Potter.

Lupin told Harry they were just waiting for an all clear signal before they took off.

"Honestly, I think I prefer him calling you that," James said conversationally, as Remus still twitched uneasily every time he realized Harry was going to keep calling him by his last name only. "Makes it a tad less confusing than you referring to yourself."

"Sirius gets through it just fine," he muttered petulantly while reading even louder over Harry trying to say something. Either apologize or something else, Remus found it his own fault Harry was doing it so his problem to deal with.

Tonks interrupted by pointing out how clean these Muggles were. Her dad was Muggle-born, and he was a slob. Then she decided herself it must vary per Muggle just like wizards.

"She clearly hasn't met many Muggles then to not have realized that," Lily said a bit grimly as she still hated the idea of that house. To shake that off she directed at Sirius, "you should bring Andromeda around Sirius, if you like her so much."

"I keep meaning to bridge the gap," Sirius shrugged, "but I just keep forgetting and then getting busy. I know you want Harry to be around more kids though, so I promise I'll get on it," 'if we ever get out of here,' he finished mentally but it went unsaid.

Harry half heartedly agreed, then turned back to Lupin to keep asking him what had been going on and why he hadn't heard anything from anyone,

Lily snorted in surprise even as her maternal voice didn't quite kick into the scolding, "bit rude to dismiss her?" She couldn't even blame him though, she'd be a bit short with someone gaping at her as well, but at least this Tonks was trying to make conversation.

"He's kind of the only one I trust at the moment, and finally someone to talk to," Harry shrugged, at least seeming to make Remus better for just a second.

what was Vold- but several people hissed at him to such up and Moody outright said it.

"They all hate hearing the name that much huh?" Harry chuckled at what he saw as an overreaction.

"I think they're just being a little paranoid," Remus shrugged, "we don't usually discuss those types of things in places we consider unsafe, it's not out of the range of possibilities we could be watched."

Harry demanded what the problem was and Moody snapped it was too risky to be discussing that here. His eye even stayed trained on the ceiling.

"Are you going to get that smirk every time you say something that turns out to be true," Sirius rolled his eyes at Remus who kept flipping back and forth so much lately he was giving them a coronary. Moony was known to be moody even a few days after a full moon but this was getting ridiculous.

"Have I ever not?" Remus asked innocently enough.

Then it turned out the eye was just stuck in that position, it had been doing so ever since that scum wore it.

"Thank you for the reminder," Lily squished up her face in disgust at the idea.

With a popping noise like removing a plunger, he popped the eye right out of the socket.

Which turned into a full blown grimace of disgust while the boys honestly looked intrigued at the idea.

Tonks told him conversationally how disgusting that was.

"My sentiments," Lily shook her head while Remus snickered at someone saying that to Moody's face.

Moody ignored her and asked Harry to fetch him a glass of water, which he did with all eyes still on him, which was starting to annoy him.

"Past that," the others muttered, not even blaming Harry if he snapped and told them to knock it off soon.

Harry handed over the glass and Moody plopped the eye right into it.

"Can he see out of that when it's not in his head?" Sirius requested.

"Never asked," Harry shrugged, again. He was always far too afraid of Moody to ask him for anything, and that detail had hardly changed after the near murder experience.

"I'd imagine no," Lily pointed out, "the magic would have to be attached to something for him to be able to see out of it, not strictly attached to the nerve."

"More importantly," James' grin had turned scary, "please tell me you don't bother putting that up before you leave, I want to hear that one of the Dursleys took a drink out of it."

"I don't stick around to find out," Harry chuckled, having no clear memory of doing anything with it after this, so maybe James got his wish.

Harry asked how they were getting wherever they were going, and Lupin told they were going to fly, couldn't use any other magical means or the Ministry would know about it.

Harry got a bad feeling at the idea, of a group of Wizards traveling with him from the Dursley's house including Remus, Tonks, Moody- his brain suddenly fizzled out and he just settled for reassuring his mum that everything would be fine even if he didn't feel it at the moment.

Kingsley told that Lupin mentioned Harry was a good flier.

"Well someone's been bragging," James chuckled.

"I'm sure I'd never exaggerate," Remus grinned.

Lupin agreed with himself that Harry was excellent, then asked if Harry's trunk was all packed? They needed to leave as soon as they saw the signal.

"Then someone should have sent him a letter for warning," Sirius rolled his eyes at himself, thinking he definitely could have phrased that to give Harry some forewarning, and still annoyed at himself for not being there.

Tonks quickly offered to help him, following him out and still chatting about how this place was just too clean, it felt unnatural.

"It's not a home unless it's lived in," Lily smiled in agreement, eyeing some of the baby things she had scattered around and a few heavy treads in the carpet that had honestly been there before these readings, the boys had just made them more obvious.

Then they entered Harry's room and she proclaimed this was much more normal.

Harry didn't agree, as he'd been confined to it for days in a foul mood, so most of his stuff was scattered everywhere.

Tonks wasn't really paying the clothes much mind though, she'd spotted the mirror in Harry's room and was examining her violet hair, asking if it made her look peaky?

"There is no correct answer for that," Sirius said at once while James rolled his eyes and corrected, "you tell her she looks nice and then take the fallout even if she disagrees."

Lily pouted at him, fixing to protest she never told him off when he did that for her, but Remus was ignoring the lot of them.

Harry just erred in response, while Tonks agreed with herself it did indeed.

"Ha!" Sirius barked while James rolled his eyes.

She closed her eyes, screwed up her face like she was trying to remember something, and before Harry's eyes her hair turned bright pink.

"Wow," all five of them uttered in surprise, though for two different reason.

"How did she do that?" Harry yelped in surprise at the same time Remus said, "you didn't say she was a metamorphmagus."

"I didn't know," Sirius had a full blown smirk in place, "guess Andromeda was saving it as a surprise till I came to see the little nymph in person. Guess that got spoiled."

"What is it?" Harry persisted curiously.

"A born magical ability, to change your appearance at will," James explained. "Very, very rare, only passed down through magical bloodlines and often skips a few of those."

"I bet Cygnus and Druella are pissed," Sirius had a nasty smile in place as he imagined their faces. "They disowned Dromeda when she married Ted the muggle-born, now their granddaughter's got this rare gift they can't even claim credit for."

Harry was fascinated by the idea, though there was something trying to snatch up his attention in the back of his mind as his eyes casually flickered to Remus, then his own infant self in a redhead's arms- his brain felt like it had been sucker punched already and was thankful Remus was moving on.

Harry gaped in shock how she'd done that!

Tonks explained she was a Metamorphmagus, a person who could change their appearance at will. She'd made top marks in her Concealment and Disguise training becoming an Auror, hadn't even needed to study.

"I think I'm falling in love with this one," Remus said dramatically as he outright laughed now. "Glory Sirius, she's reminding me of a female version of you."

"Keep dreaming Moony," Sirius rolled his eyes even while he smiled proudly at that little toddler growing up to do something so spectacular.

His parents and Harry snickered at the pair, Harry hardest of all.

Harry was even more impressed now, an Auror was the only career he'd ever considered.

Tonks agreed with chipper, pointing out Kingsley was one as well, but more high ranked than her, she'd only just made her final qualifications a year ago. She'd nearly failed because of the Stealth and Tracking part, she was dead clumsy. Had he heard her break that plate when they'd first come in?

"Adds to her personality," James grinned, he'd applaud the girl in person for wrecking anything of the Dursleys.

Harry asked if being a Metamorphmagus could be learned? He'd picked up a shoe to throw in his trunk which had been dangling in his hand this whole time, he'd already forgotten about packing.

"This is certainly distracting enough," Lily smiled sadly for her boy, "but no, it's not something you learn, everybody else still has to use potions and magic to change their appearance."

Tonks chuckled at the question, asking if he'd use it to hide that scar? Her eyes found the fringe of Harry's hair, and the mark beneath it.

"Least she took longer than most," Harry sighed as he flattened his bangs.

Harry mumbled an agreement as he turned away.

Tonks explained he'd have to conceal himself the hard way, Metamorphmagus are born, not made. Then she seemed to realize she'd distracted him and that they had to get going, gazing around at the still messy room.

"Look at you distracting her," Sirius grinned at his little pup already swooning the ladies.

Harry rolled his eyes at the tone.

Harry tried to go back to it at once, but Tonks waved him off, saying it would be faster if she did. She waved her wand, and everything began soaring into the air at once.

Lily couldn't help frowning again though, there she was again using magic at her discretion with no regards to being in that Muggle house and Harry being in a heap of trouble. She hoped he offered a really good explanation when he remembered it.

Books, clothes, telescope and scales all soared pell-mell into the trunk.

Harry raised an impressed brow as he said, "now why hasn't that spell been taught already?" He may not have ever been allowed to use it at his house, but it would have made packing at the Weasley's better.

"Some spells they actually don't teach you during school," Lily shrugged, "that's a widely used charm that just passed from word of mouth. Molly's probably never done it for you because she's clearly the kind who thinks it's good of you not to get spoiled."

Tonks frowned at the jumble now inside, stating it wasn't that neat. Her mother could do it in a way that folded the socks.

"I think that's just a mother's gift," James grinned in agreement, "Lily's always been nifty at Charms so it didn't surprise me she does that, but my mum's the same way."

She gave her wand another hopeful flick, but a sock on top merely flopped over.

Causing more giggles and Lily an affectionate, "oh well, I'm sure she'll get there."

Tonks shrugged without caring as she closed the lid, then looked up astounded as Harry had pulled out his broom and she exclaimed that was a Firebolt!

Sirius' grin turned pompous at once. The treasured object hadn't even been used in Harry's last year except for one time Sirius would have rather done without hearing. At least now it was earning some more proper attention.

Her eyes fell on Harry's pride a joy, a gift from Sirius, an international broomstick.

"I'm going to take a pin to your head," Lily threatened Sirius, more for James's benefit than anything as she caught him rolling his eyes over something he'd normally be squealing and agreeing with.

Sirius just stuck his tongue out at her without further comment.

She groaned with envy her own model was only a Comet Two Sixty. She forced herself to derail though, saying if they were all done and he still had both buttocks?

Harry theatrically wiggled his butt in his seat while the others around him giggled at the reminder of that.

She then magicked the trunk into the air and floated it down the stairs for them.

Back in the kitchen, Moody had popped his eye back in which was whizzing in socket sickeningly, and most of the others were going through the drawers curiously and pulling out random appliances, like a potato peeler, in confusion.

The potato peeler at least James recognized as his wife owned one, she was prone to cook like a muggle even still and he found it fascinating to watch. He had no clue as to a microwave though, and was more than interested at Lily's quick whispered response.

Lupin was sealing a letter addressed to the Dursleys.

"That had better explode in someone's face with lasting damage, or I am officially taking away your Marauders card," Sirius declared.

Remus contemplated pushing his friend off his seat in hopes he'd hit his head and knock some sense into him, but this had never worked in the past, so he elected to ignore him instead.

He caught sight of them reentering and explained they'd be leaving any minute now, and that he'd written a letter to Harry's relatives telling them not to worry,

"They won't," Harry rolled his eyes at the same time Remus finished sadly.

while Harry inserted they wouldn't.

Remus wished he could laugh like Harry did, he just couldn't bring himself to find that funny because it was true.

Lupin ignored the insert and continued that he was safe,

which Harry still interrupted to say that would depress them,

"No, I mean it, ask about this," Lily huffed under her breath, long since giving up the hope anyone would, but unable to stop the words coming.

Remus winced in annoyance because he agreed with her, he wished he didn't think this was a joke.

and that Harry would see them next summer, to which Harry demanded if he had to?

Lupin smiled but made no answer.

"I think I had a Padfoot flashback," Remus told those around him as he gazed down at his depressing response. "Sirius made that comment all the time before he got off the train."

"Yeah, I suppose," James grumbled, still wanting to whack Remus over the head for taking it as a joke instead of really asking what Harry meant. Sirius had never meant it as a joke either though, and they'd never badgered him for details until far too late either.

Moody interrupted by pulling Harry aside to Disillusion him. Lupin had told that Harry had an Invisibility Cloak.

"Wouldn't he know about that anyways?" James asked in surprise. "If I left it to Dumbledore, surely the whole Order will be using it here soon."

"Maybe Dumbledore never told where he got it from," Lily shrugged.

but that wouldn't stay on while they were in flight.

He cracked his wand over Harry's head, and then there was the odd sensation of an egg trickling from his crown. When he looked at himself again, he'd turned into a chameleon.

"That's so cool," Harry's eyes lit up childishly pleased at the idea of this.

"Not as cool as the cloak," James swiftly reminded, "it wears off, and it's still easy enough to detect someone under that if you're looking."

"Quit being all paranoid over there dad," Sirius pouted at him, "let the kid enjoy the moment."

Then they stepped out into the night, pulling brooms that had been hidden away as Moody explained that Harry was to be tailing Tonks, Lupin would cover his rear, and everyone else would be circling him the whole time. If someone was killed-

Harry suddenly flashed concerned eyes to Remus, who just chuckled as he kept going while Sirius told Harry Moody was just exaggerating, if Death Eaters hadn't attacked yet it should be fine.

Harry interrupted to ask if that was likely?

Moody ignored him,

"Well he's just a right comfort," James snorted even as he did watch Remus just a little more closely.

continuing with his instructions that everyone was to keep flying and not to break ranks. If his whole guard is taken out, then Harry should keep flying east and there was a standby to meet up with him.

Harry opened and closed his mouth a few times as he had no clue how he was supposed to respond to that, let alone point out he had no clue which direction was east.

Tonks told him to stop being so cheerful, he'd think they weren't taking this seriously.

"But I sure hope they're taking you to see me," Sirius cackled while everyone else was still giggling over Tonks' comment, so Sirius got to delude himself for a moment everyone was laughing at his wit.

Moody growled back he was just telling the boy the whole plan, it was their job to deliver him to Headquarters safely and if they died,

"I really wish he'd stop mentioning that though," Harry murmured, not particularly comforted that Mad-Eye saying this put him ill at ease for this plan, but he was having a problem looking around the room and not meeting anyone's eye. He was being ridiculous of course though.

Kingsley cut in this time to say no one was going to die.

Lupin ignored all of them and told to start mounting brooms as red sparks could be seen far off in the distance.

"Moody wasn't kidding about that second group," James raised a curious brow at the complexity of this plan, though he was still convinced it wasn't all necessary, there would be no attack, Harry and Remus and everyone was going to be fine. Voldemort wouldn't be stupid enough to attack Harry up in the air like that surrounded by so many people, he clearly preferred sneak attacks and getting Harry alone so his son and friend would be safe.

Harry recognized wand sparks when he saw them as he swung his leg over. His broom began vibrating slightly, as if just as keen to be in the air as him.

"Brooms have been known to develop a bit of a personality as well as any magical object," Lily agreed with a small smile for Harry's suddenly beaming face he was finally being free of that place.

At the second signal, green sparks, they all took off, and Harry could feel every problem he'd had flying away as surely as he was.

Harry could finally feel some of the tension leaving his body as he relaxed back into his seat since this book had started. The memory of flying left him aching to go try it now, and he clearly wasn't the only one both finally grinning in relief from the release of that place and a want of their own.

The air in his face, the steady feel of the broom beneath him, Harry was finally living his fantasy as Privet Drive shrunk beneath him and he flew to the stars.

Remus had never been much of a flier, but even he was starting to feel restless and wanting to go have some fun out in the air now. He'd had to learn while he'd stayed a few times at the Potters, James would have nothing less, and he was suddenly more grateful than he ever had been before for those lessons.

Moody broke Harry's bliss by barking to make a hard left, someone was looking!

Harry quickly followed Tonks, and his creaking trunk beneath her, as they passed over a motorway. Cars were passing below them, and the Dursleys were likely to be in one of those, still angry over their failed win of a lawn, and Harry laughed at the thought.

Everyone else was already doing the same, all of their fears even temporarily being lifted felt like a haven at the thought of Harry finally enjoying himself.

He had not felt this alive in a month, or this happy.

Lily smiled warmly as she wrapped a blanket around her little Hare Bare for just a moment, more than happy he was away from that place that caused him so much misery, but wishing he'd put a jacket on first.

Moody continued giving instructions of directions they should be heading, and at one point even told them to start climbing to pass through a cloud for better cover.

"He really wants to pass through a cloud at that altitude?" Remus arched a brow and shivered at the thought.

"Here's hoping Tonks isn't the only one who'll tell him what she thinks," Sirius agreed.

Tonks bellowed for all to hear how mad Mad-Eye was.

"Or she can still do it," James chuckled.

Harry was starting to agree as he shivered on his broom, his hands were going numb. He wished he'd thought to put on a jacket.

Harry saw his mum twitch at the thought, so he gave an exaggerated stretch and nestled into his cushion with content, causing her to smile again.

Conditions only got worse the longer they flew, Harry hadn't been this cold since his Quidditch match in third year against Hufflepuff during a storm.

"Thanks, I really wanted to be reminded of that," James shivered, he hadn't thought he could feel lower than that time had caused him.

His guard around him weren't letting the weather be a distraction, always keeping in a circle around him as they kept going, at least for over an hour.

"How far away is this headquarters?" Sirius muttered, trying to map out in his head how fast Harry could go on a broom and the directions they'd been given.

Harry was beginning to wish longingly for Floo travel.

"Thought that was one of your least favorite ones," James kept things light by giving his glasses a nudge in reminder.

"You'll want the thing you don't have at the time when you're dealing with the bad," Remus reminded without looking up, causing James to roll his eyes at him.

It wasn't always comfortable shooting through magical chimneys, but at least the flames kept him warm.

Circling around Harry like giant birds, Kingsley, then Emmeline, then Sturgis were all randomly at Harry's right every time he glanced over with wands raised.

Lily still couldn't help an uneasy twitch as she realized how on guard they all were, a good thing for sure, but still worried at the necessity of so many coming to get Harry. Was there really a danger, or had Remus really just been playing off the moment?

Moody suggested they should double back for a bit before landing, but Tonks hollered at him for being mad! Everyone was frozen to their brooms!

"I really hope you get to know her quite well while you're hanging around the Order," Sirius' grin kept widening when he heard this. "I can already tell she's going to be fun to have around."

"Anyone who can holler at Moody like that will be of high entertainment," Remus agreed.

Lupin called from behind for Harry to keep on Tonks' tail as they descended.

Harry followed her down into a large patchwork of lights which quickly grew into neighborhoods, while Harry wondered if someone would have to unfreeze him from his broom.

"Don't worry, there's a charm for that," but Lily grinned in a way Harry honestly wasn't sure if she was kidding that time.

When they finally did land, Harry found himself in a dilapidated neighborhood that was all grimy bricks with trash heaped on the walkways and the streetlamps burnt out.

Sirius may have been trying to follow Moody's directions, but he still wasn't sure if he was picking the right area Harry was in, as Moody could have been going some roundabout way and Harry may not have even caught it all. The curiosity was high all around of where this new headquarters was, wondering if it was so good they could suggest it to the Order now with one glaring exception.

Harry asked where they were, but Lupin promised they'd explain in a minute.

Moody was fumbling around in his cloak with numb fingers before finally pulling out a silver cigarette lighter and clicking it, where one of the few remaining lights went out.

"Look, Dumbledore's thing is back," James beamed.

"Here's hoping we'll get a better explanation of it," Sirius agreed, he still wanted to know how to get his hands on one.

Moody continued clicking it until they were in total darkness, and all Harry could smell was the pungent odor of trash and some far off base thumping.

"This place sounds like a dump," Sirius smirked as James finished for him, "perfect cover."

Then Moody thrust a piece of paper into Harry's hands and lit his wand tip, telling Harry to memorize this, quickly.

"Err," they all muttered in confusion at something so random happening just as Harry got there.

Harry looked down at the piece of paper. The narrow handwriting was vaguely familiar.

"Familiar from where?" Remus asked.

Harry had to think hard for a moment, he'd recognized it at the time but hadn't thought much of it, but now his eyes blinked as he grasped, "it was the same writing that had first given me my cloak. That's Dumbledore's handwriting."

Lily frowned in confusion of why Harry was being passed a message from him now right as they were about to enter and more likely see the man.

It said, ′ The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.′

Sirius at first laughed. Then he did a double take as he realized Remus wasn't joining in, then he turned popping eyes to James who held the same look of shock confirming he had heard that right! Then a million things toppled through him so fast he hadn't a second to process a thing as Harry asked, "what?"

"My brother's dead," Sirius answered simply, gazing at nothing.

HPHPHPHP

* All the moments where magic was blatantly used always bothered me, it's just never explained and it annoys me. I'll explain it in the next chapter and say how that plot hole could have been fixed, just thought I'd let you guys know now.

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #The Life That Never Lived #HP #Ootp #Marauders #jilly #James Potter #Remus Lupin #Sirius black #Lily Potter

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calumbringbackthewatermelonshirt · 4 years

Text

Hiraeth (C.H.)

Hiraeth: a homesickness for a home you can never return to, a home which maybe never was.

a/n: welcome back. please enjoy this entirely too long calum hood boarding school au. I did my best, but if there are any discrepancies PLEASE send me an ask and tell me!!! I included the women of 5sos for more character diversity and I low-key kind of love it! this is about the first 10 pages and theres dozens more to come that are already written! come hell or high-water, I am committing to finishing this wip, please feel free to send me thoughts and questions!!!

“Crap.” Sierra muttered under her breath when she noticed the sign on the old RA’s door. Even though she wouldn’t have considered them friends, Sierra was at least comfortable enough with the old RA to go to her when Sierra needed to get into her room. She really had to start keeping track of her keys better.

Stalking back down the hallway, she went to go find Kaykay, knowing her roommate would definitely have her keys.

….

“A new RA?” Calum sounded skeptical over dinner the next day. “It’s kind of late in the school year for that.”

“What do you care, Hood?” Michael rested his weight on his elbows on the table and smirked at Hood over his sandwich. “Afraid of a little competition?”

“What competition?” Luke looked up from his latest novel, some clunky old thing he was reading in french.

“Competition for the best RA, duh.” Kaykay kicked her feet up onto the table, only to have Hood shove them back onto the ground. Hood never let her have her feet on the table when they were eating but that didn't stop her from putting them up there. One day, one day she would be able to keep them up there for the entirety of the lunch. It was like her white whale. “Maybe this one will let us play poker on her floor.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not off to a great start. I got locked out earlier and had to find Kaykay to let me into our room.” Sierra was still a little bothered by that. Even though rationally she knew she should cut the new RA some slack, her blisters were making it kinda hard to forget her trek.

“Come on now, Si. A little walking never killed anybody.” Michael gave Sierra a grin that stretched wide across his face, but if there was anyone who could resist it, it was Sierra.

“You’re not the one who had to walk all the way across campus.” Sierra was grumbling into her food, but it was still audible to Kaykay, who smothered a snicker.

“Give her a chance, Sierra. The new RA was probably still moving in. Be nice.” Crystal was palming orange slices into Luke’s hands as he read, who was robotically eating them. Kaykay, on the other hand, was blowing her straw wrapper at Luke’s face, cheering when she hit him. Luke didn’t seem to register either one of them.

“Coach says we’re getting someone new on the soccer team. Maybe it’s also the new RA?” Kaykay picked at her food absentmindedly, as if contemplating the odds of it being the same person. Kaykay was pretty good friends with everyone on the team, but she was on JV and the coach said the new girl would be on varsity.

“Maybe. Everyone finish up. Curfew’s in 15 minutes, and you all need to be back in the dorms by then.” Hood didn’t seem like he put much thought into the conversation that had gone down at the table, more concerned with corralling his bunch into following the rules. It almost never happened, but Hood still tried.

“It’s not like it’ll matter much. Sierra and I don’t have anyone there to tell us we're late.” Kaykay was still playing the cat and mouse game with Hood, her doc martens gracing the table with their presence once more. Hood, to his credit, pushed them off not even a minute later.

Crystal stood up, dragging Luke with her. “Yeah, but we do.”

….

“Do you think she’ll be nice? Or like super strict? God, I hope she’s not super strict. Maybe we’ll get super lucky and get someone like Hood. Michael and Luke are so lucky.” Sierra was kind of nervous. She always got like this when she was gearing up to meet new people. Yet, her rambling subsided when she heard voices echoing down the mahogany hallways.

“No, you cannot set their rooms on fire. I don't care that they replaced your lip gloss with jelly, arson is not the answer. Please just shave their eyebrows like normal students. And go late at night so you don’t get caught. If you get caught, I’ll have to play dumb and that’s kinda hard for the valedictorian.” Kaykay and Sierra watched as two sophomores ran giggling down the hallway, armed with freshly acquired shaving cream and devious new plans.

Sierra and Kaykay locked eyes then spoke in unison. “Definitely cool.”

They took the short walk down to your doorway, where you were leaning and watching the two girls run off. You wore casual clothes, white school t-shirt, blue plaid men’s boxers, and mix-matched socks, one short with an avocado on it and one tall with mini corgis. You were chugging iced coffee through straw like your life depended on it. Sierra took it all in, deciding she liked you by the time her eyes made it up to your metal straw.

You took one look at Sierra and Kaykay, almost studying them. “You heard nothing.”

Sierra was quick to reply, already wanting your approval. “Not a peep. I’m Sierra, and this is Kaykay. We’re on your floor.”

“Ah. Cool beans.” You introduced yourself, looking at Kaykay a second longer than Sierra. “You’re on the soccer team, right?”

“Yeah.” Unlike Sierra, Kaykay clammed up around people she didn’t know, and she was still quiet around the ones she did. “Are you the new girl the coach told us about?”

“I am indeed. I start practicing with you guys tomorrow.” You glanced at a notification that popped up on your phone, scrunching up your eyes a bit to read it. “It’s kinda late. Shouldn’t you two youngsters be asleep? You’ll need it if you wanna grow up big and strong.”

“Yeah, yes, of course. We promise we won't set anyone’s room on fire either.” After a withering glance from you, Sierra grinned. “Not that we would ever do that. Where would someone even get an idea like that?”

You smirked right back at them. “You know where I am if you ever need anything. But be warned, I’m not a morning person.”

With that you turned and shut your door, leaving Sierra and Kaykay standing in the hallway right outside your door.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Sierra’s smile was as wide as her face allowed. She had a devious look on her face, one that only a person who had illegally downloaded thousands of shows on her laptop could have.

“I never am. I’m pretty sure no one ever is.” Kaykay was skeptical, knowing that whatever was going on in that genius brain of Sierra’s could not be good. Sierra had a nose for sticking her nose in other people’s business.

“Her, plus Hood, equals literally the most perfect couple in the world. Maybe to ever exist.” Oh, she could already see them together, holding hands, you making Hood laugh for once in his life. Him cheering you on at your soccer games. You cheering him on at his if the gang could force him to have fun. Oh, this was perfect. Beyond perfect.

“Are you sure? We probably shouldn’t meddle in other people’s love lives. It might be kinda rude.” Kaykay scrunched up her nose, allowing Sierra to drag her by the wrist back to their room. Kaykay wasn’t a particularly nosy person.She was a big fan of giving herself rules to not get attached, such as ‘hey, don't insert yourself into other people’s love lives.’

“Oh, hush, I’m literally the best cupid. I even have the wings for it.” Sierra was jogging a little now, so many plans already rushing through her head. Sierra had always considered herself a bit of genius, but she had outdone herself this time.

…

“Hello, my darlings!” Sierra was buzzing with excitement. This was a big moment for her. Her scheme was about to be set into motion, and god, was she excited. Hood was stuck in a floor meeting for Lincoln house, which meant you were, too. She took the timing of the meeting as a sign from the gods that this was meant to be. “Listen up please. I have news.”

Sierra remained standing as the others gathered round and took their seats. She waited until everyone sat down and was too busy with their food to interrupt her.

“So. Kaykay and I have met the new RA, and let me tell you, she is amazing.” Sierra grinned leaning forward on the table. Her words all came out a teensy bit rushed, as they were prone to do when she was excited.

“Weren’t you just hating on that chick yesterday? What changed your mind?” Michael was halfway through his eggs, and three-quarters of the way awake. Sierra could be loud when she got excited, and he wasn’t looking to be all the way awake yet.

“Hush, your leader is speaking. Anywho, she is not a chick, she is a queen. She is also perfect for one pseudo dad floor advisor we know.” Sierra was swatting at Kaykay, who was barely awake, trying to get her to pay attention to her all-knowing speech. Kaykay to her credit, hummed in agreement, albeit with her eyes closed.

“Wait, perfect as in like dating?” Luke looked almost disgusted at the idea of two people in a relationship. Crystal almost let Luke catch her smiling, but hid it at the last second. Crystal guessed he was still in the ‘girls have cooties’ phase, and it amused her to no end.

“She’s pretty cool.” Kaykay's words were soft with sleep, but there was enough of a lull in the conversation from everyone to hear her. “She’s on the soccer team with me.”

“As the most responsible person here, I cannot condone this and will not partake in any scheme you may or may not dream up. However, I also know I can’t stop you. Please just don’t do anything too stupid.” Crystal was sipping a glass of tea, trying not to look bemused by the idea of Hood in a relationship. Even though he was only a year younger than her, she reminisced on her own young love. It would be good for him, Crystal thought to herself. Plus, she had seen you around the library quite a bit. The two of you had chatted, and Crystal already liked you. Maybe she wouldn't have an active role in the forging of the relationship, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t support it.

“I dunno. I’d have to meet her before I could make a judgment on whether she’s good enough for Hood.” Even though Micahel didn’t care to admit it, Hood was the dad to their little group of misfits. Michael didn't want him to get hurt, especially if it would be their fault.

Sierra was grinning her ‘I’m a genius and this is genius’ grin again. “Oh, trust me. She is.”

…

You were lying on a couch in the commons when their gaggle found you, chewing forbidden gum and texting on a forbidden phone. You had seen them approaching, but still didn’t care enough to put your phone away. You hadn’t taken either of the girls you met last night as a snitch, and from the looks of the girl in the against dress code denim jacket, you were probably right to assume the same about all of them.

“Sup kiddies.” You didn’t even glance up at them. If they weren’t screaming, it wasn’t an emergency. And if it wasn’t an emergency, it wasn’t worth looking up from your intense game of 8-ball for.

“We require assistance.” Sierra was acting as the pseudo leader of the group, speaking up before the others got the chance.

“In what form? We talking ‘hide a body’ or ‘I got locked out’ kind of assistance?” This time you looked up, taking in seven sets of eyes upon you, including Crystal and a different senior you didn’t know. Immediately, you were suspicious. Why would two seniors be needing your help?

“More of the second one, but also not.” You sighed and stood up, stretching as you did so. Nothing like a second-day, midafternoon crisis to get your blood flowing.

“What’s up?” You introduced yourself to the rest of the bunch and gave a quick nod to Crystal. “You’ve got me for 20 minutes and then I have a soccer practice. Actually, you do too, Kaykay.”

“This won’t take long. You have extra library privileges since you're a RA, right?” Sierra took off as soon as you stood up, the rest of the group following, clearly already knowing whatever plan they had formed. You stayed silent, waiting for them to explain more before you promised to be able to help. It was a bit confusing why they needed your help since Crystal actually worked in the library.

“Moving on. We wanna rent out a study room for a little bit this evening and...,” there was a pregnant pause as they all made eye contact between Sierra’s words, “study.”

“Yeah, I’m still not seeing how any of this involves me.” You were near the back next to Crystal, noting Sierra’s wild hairstyle and purple lip gloss, and Kaykay’s various piercings. The group didn’t exactly seem like the rule following type, which made you even more perplexed for their need for you. What could they be getting at?

“We need you to persuade the librarian to bump one of the study room spots open. They’re all filled.�� Ah, finally, the truth came out. Luckily for them, you had made good with the librarian after spending most of your free time with her. Being the new kid, plus the pressure from your parents to keep your grades up, equaled having you living in the library. But none of them knew that except for Crystal.

The need for your help in the library made you pause for a second. Crystal worked in the library. She could definitely be of more help than you, and you were pretty sure everyone in the group knew it.

“They like you. They just don’t know how to ask to hangout with you in a normal way.” Crystal lowered her voice, almost whispering. She loved her little band of misfits, but their methods were...unique sometimes. Crystal still tried to support them as much as she could, even if she had to spoil their dramatics sometimes.

“Ah. I see.” You nodded thoughtfully. Crystal was a level headed person. But you could tell she definitely had a fun side, too. “Follow my lead?”

After a smirk and a quick nod, you tried to act thoughtful for a second.

“I dunno. Ms. Robins is a real rule follower. It’s gonna be a hard sell to get her to bend the rules our way. I might need some incentive to help me want to risk getting caught.” And just like that you had a scheme of your own.

“What are you saying?” Michael, he said his name was, was eyeing you. It was pretty clear he didn’t trust you. It wasn’t your problem, but you figured you should try and look approachable as a new RA. After all, it was kind of your job.

“Just that. Like, if someone was to offer to buy me a coffee as a thank you, I would be much more willing to take part in your little scheme.” Luke, the young one, opened his mouth as if to deny your calling what they were doing a scheme. “Don’t even deny it, boyo. This is most definitely a scheme.”

The younger kid huffed out a ‘fine,’ easily defeated.

“Back to the matter at hand. What’s in it for me?” You smirked back at them, adrenaline buzzing through your veins.

You could have sworn you heard Kaykay mutter ‘a boyfriend.’

Sierra covered, not that you were sure anything was actually said. “Ashton has a car. He can take you to town and stuff.”

You made eye contact with Ashton, the one who allegedly had a car. It was a bit tempting. Really tempting. There was a coffee shop on campus, and you had a keurig in your room, but it was nothing compared to the taste of mass-manufactured Dunkin Doughnuts coffee. Plus, off campus meant no uniform. That was a win enough.

“Well, then. I think we have ourselves a deal.” You could already taste the coffee.

…

God, these kids were not slick. You were chatting with Ms. Robins about nothing in particular, not even broaching the subject of the study rooms. You knew Ms. Robins would bump one if you asked, but it was way more fun to do it the hard way. It was kind of funny to watch the little group you were with try to be slick and spy on the conversation without getting spotted, but not one of them was successful.

“Hey, is the room for RAs empty?” There was a study room set aside for RAs when they needed a break from the typical chaos on the floors of the dorms. You wouldn’t call it secret, per say, but you could agree that not well-known was a fitting term.

“Of course dear. It’s all yours if you want it. Do you need the key?”

You said no and thanked the kinder older lady. It was like you said, sometimes it was more fun to do it the hard way.

Everyone gathered around as you walked back to where Crystal and Ashton had been sitting and chatting.

“Bad news. Robins wouldn’t budge.” You sighed and leaned on the table suppressing a smirk. You had to draw them in first to have a big reveal.

“Damn.” Ashton swore under his breath.

“But…” You raised your finger and cocked your head, finally allowing a grin to cross your face. “I know a secret room.”

“A what?” You finally had Kaykay’s attention, at least. Probably the secret part of your sentence.

“A secret room. Follow.” The floor advisor study room was at the very end of the hallway and had the overhead light above the door flickering, which only added to the “secret room” illusion.

Michael reached the door first, shaking the older knob, which did not open. It was locked, after all. “What now?”

They all looked at you expectantly, but you had come prepared.

“Step aside, peasants.” You whipped out your student I.D., sliding it into the gap between the door and the frame. With a quick swipe and twist of your wrist, the door opened with a click.

Sierra looked like she could hug you, Luke was already in the room, and Michael nodded his head approvingly. Ashton and Kaykay both gave you a high five, though.

“You gotta teach me how to do that!” Kaykay was practically beaming at you, as if you were the coolest person she knew.

“Uh, no. There’s no telling what you would do with that knowledge.” Crystal crossed her arms, but she winked at you as she crossed the threshold into the room.

“Alrighty. Kaykay and I have to get a move on lest we want to run laps til we puke. Enjoy don’t destroy kiddos.” You shut the door behind you and Kaykay, grinning at your little rhyme.

…

“So?” Sierra was excited, and for good reason. She was right. You were perfect, both in general and for Hood.

“Alright, Si, you got me. She’s pretty cool.” Michael was letting his features transform to a smile, ready to hear out the rest of Sierra’s plan. It was official. He was now an accomplice.

“I like her. She’s...fun.” Ashton was studying the corners of the room, finding it up to his posh standards. There was no way this was just a “secret hidden” room, but he didn’t particularly care to give up their new friend’s ruse. “But I’m with Crystal. I’m not going to be a willing participant.”

Sierra gave him her best puppy dog eyes. She had already planned up to step twelve of your and Hood’s relationship, and they would need Ashton’s help if they wanted to get past step five.

“Fine. I will not be an active participant.” They were relentless. Ashton knew that if he didn’t agree now, he’d end up caving later. Might as well agree now on his own terms.

“I think she’s cool. You don’t meet very many people who know how to pick locks any more. Hey, did you guys know that that specific type of lock is actually-” Luke was starting to spiral into obscure facts, as he did sometimes.

“Good, so we're all in agreement.” Sierra was ready. It was time to tell everyone the first few steps of operation “lovebirds.”

The name was a work in progress.

….

You had been adopted. Well, in a way you were. The group from the library had adopted you as one of their own, but you had already adopted all of them as your children. Minus Crystal and Ashton, of course. They had also adopted the younger kids, Crystal in a maternal way and Ashton in an uncle sort of way. But a fun uncle.

You had been eating with them at meals, walking to and from the various buildings with each other, even turning the lounge you had broken them into into your own little hangout. It was kind of nice to be a part of their own little family.

That’s exactly what it was. A family. There was just one piece missing. The “dad”.

“Hood”.

Pretty much all the younger kids did was talk about him, making it clear that he was basically their dad. And that he was a “super cool person if you didn’t count the stick up his ass,” according to Kaykay. You had yet to find out his name. Well, his real name. Apparently, he was the RA to your own brother dorm in Lincoln house and you had still yet to meet him. He was clearly a huge part of this group, though. That just kind of added to your puzzling view of him.

He most definitely was a mystery.

Whenever you brought him up to the group, all they did was look at each other and do a poor job at hiding their smiles. You ignored it for the most part, though. If you were destined to meet Hood, you would. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t.

Still you couldn’t help but wonder about him. Who he was, what he watched on Netflix, what he looked like.

You were in fact thinking about these very things in your morning elevator ride up to your first class of the day. You were still kind of out of it, only on your second cup of coffee and still in your zombie mode.

But, you were awake enough to hear a voice calling out to stop the elevator. And lucid enough to stick your hand in the doors a second before the closed.

Into the elevator rushed a guy about your age, taller and definitely cute. His dark hair was kind of shaggy, but that only added to his appeal for you.

“Thanks.” His voice was deep, but still soft. If you were any more awake, you’d ask for his number.

“No problem.” Instead of laying on the moves, you resigned yourself to taking another long slurp of your coffee, relaxing back against the railing of the elevator.

“You, um, you have something in your hair.” You looked up at him, cocking your eyebrow. Of course you had something in your hair. With the cutest guy you've met at this school thus far staring at you. Yet again, the stranger burst into your thoughts. “Can I get it for you?”

“That’d be great. I’d hate to walk around looking like an idiot all day.” You gave him your most witty, charming smile as you turned to face elevator guy.

“Got it.” You gave him a smile in lieu of a thanks, trying not to embarrass yourself any further. It was unlikely, but hey, worth a shot. It was then elevator guy chose to mutter something under his breath.

“I’m sorry?” With all the muttering that was happening lately you were starting to contemplate getting your hearing checked. It’d be a worthy investment. You were under the impression that private school kids would be a bit more poised and able to speak a touch more clear. You were wrong yet again.

“Um, your hair smells nice.” Elevator guy was now a bright shade of red. Like a cute tomato. You looked down at your shoes, rolling your lips into your mouth but smiling. Yeah, definitely still smiling.

“Thanks.” You were smirking at him now. You kinda liked having all the power in the elevator, considering elevator guy looked like he was ready to die at any second now. “I’d repay the compliment but I’ve yet to catch a whiff of your shampoo.”

“I’m Cal.” He stuck out his hand, as if suddenly remembering he went to private school. A handshake, like you two were CEOs of companies or something. It was endearing. You took another sip of your coffee, maintaining eye contact, before you reached your hand out and joined it with his.

You had just finished the last syllable of your name when the elevator pinged, announcing your arrival on your floor. You walked out of the elevator without another word, knowing that Cal’s eyes were following you the whole time.

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