#my turn to curse humanity today so be sure you remember milk while youre out checking the po box for life sustaining statements xoxo

[samamakhalid]

I'm genuinely happy for your happiness if your brain's perfect scritch is Jon taking care of Martin from Lonely symptoms in a safehouse au, but those fics premises are always so funny to me like

You're telling me we looked at the same s4 Jon, held upright by a conveniently aimed gust of wind, and went yeah! that's the stabilizing element Martin's recovery was missing! Jon's a little banged up after being abandoned to supernatural torture, but he owes it to Martin for being snarky three years ago! Martin got spooky depression over jon's poorly timed coma, Jon got off easy with his boring clinical depression! Jon can be the load barring pillar in this relationship by simply opting out of a breakdown!

[parkersroses]

mother’s day. | harry styles.

summary: it’s mother’s day and harry makes you breakfast in bed, no thanks to your little baby’s help.

pairing: harry styles x fem!reader

wc: 2.4k words

warning(s): all fluffy like cotton candy <3

a/n: (disclaimer: gif belongs to @harrysimpact​) happy mother’s day everyone! enjoy this fic about husband/dad!harry !! make sure to reblog and comment if you like it, consider donating to my ko-fi too if you like this or any of my other writings. all the love <3

The sun is just rising when Harry wakes up; even for him it’s very early and he’s usually a morning person. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes and stretches, feeling a pop between the muscles as he does so. He makes sure to switch off any alarms to ensure his wife doesn’t wake up soon. He even switches off the baby monitor next to her bedside table too, hoping their baby doesn't wake up so soon either, though it would be inevitable knowing she’ll cry for milk. 

It’s mother’s day. What’s more exciting is that it is your first mother’s day as a mother. 

Over the last year, you have found motherhood to be as challenging as you expected. It started off with the morning sickness and strange feeling of not bearing a certain smell. At that point, both you and Harry had already discussed having children. It’s something the both of you always wanted and you knew yourself that Harry would be an amazing father to your children. The thought of having a little human that was half of you and half of the person you love and adore, running and playing around the house as your husband playfully chases after them in your backyard while you watch with awe. It was a cute little dream in your heads that soon became a reality.

You both cried when you found out about your pregnancy. It was a momentous and exciting moment for you. Over the several months during your pregnancy, Harry had grown a bit overprotective about you and your little bub, yet you don’t really blame him for it and assumed it’s just his pre-fatherly instincts kicking in. Harry had always made sure to accommodate to your (weird and odd) needs and cravings. He’d happily wake up in the middle of the night and get you both some snacks, despite being tired himself. 

Your favourite part though, is whenever Harry would talk to little bub. Even when you weren’t showing yet, he’d always talk to the baby girl in your belly, occasionally singing to her, telling her how much daddy and mommy loves her and that he’ll always be around to look after her. That makes you cry sometimes, because you knew already that he is the best dad to your baby. 

Little Amy was soon born before you both know it. You still remember holding the little human of your own in your arms, all swaddled up in a fluffy blanket, her eyes wide open as she was introduced into this whole new world. She had captured both of your hearts and you both knew it. She was the most precious person you’ve laid your eyes on and you both love her immensely. 

Harry for one could not believe that he was finally a father, considering he’s always dreamt of having a little family of his own. It was up until the delivery that he remembers how much you’ve given to carry Amy and how amazing you are to have carried and nurtured her for so long. He’s never loved anyone even more than he loves you and now with Amy. 

Harry intentionally wakes up earlier than you today, despite his schedule begging for him to sleep again. He looks over you next to him, seeing that you’re still huddled up under your thick blankets and your face pressed against your pillow. He takes notice of your chest rising and falling from every breath you take and how pretty you look on this morning. 

He leans over and plants a small kiss on your head, careful to not wake you as he gets out of bed. He pulls on a pair of sweatpants and walks out of your room, gently closing the door behind him. 

He makes his way across the hall to where little Amy is sleeping in her nursery. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’s already up at this hour, probably so she could cry out for some food or comfort from her parents. Harry slowly opens the door, he can already hear the soft sounds of Amy moving around in her crib. 

It’s almost as if she’s been waiting for him to come because her head perks as he leans over her crib. “Good morning, my little bub,” he says gently to her, already smiling so bright at the adorable little human looking up at him. Amy looks up at him with the same bright smile, her limbs flailing around in excitement as she sees her father. 

“Da,” she says, giggling as he caresses her head lovingly. Her arms reach up, signalling that she wants to be carried like the little princess Harry says she is. He gladly picks her up, letting their noses nuzzle against each other before he kisses her head. 

“Y’know what today is, bub?” Harry asks Amy. Amy merely stares at him, not understanding a single word, with the same green eyes she inherited from him. It still makes him choke up just thinking about it. Amy coos as her little hands trace over the swallow tattoos. “Today’s Mother’s Day,” he says in an excited voice, and he chuckles at the way her head perks up. 

“Mama?” She asks, her green eyes staring innocently and adorably at him. He nods, bouncing her lightly in his arms as he carries her out from the room. 

“That’s right, bubba. It’s mama’s day, and you’re gonna help me make her breakfast. Except you won’t really be doing anything but watching me and keeping me company. Let’s be honest, your cooking skills aren’t the most helpful yet, bubs,” he tells her as they enter the kitchen, setting Amy down in her high chair. 

Amy giggles, seemingly finding whatever Harry said funny. He grins at his adorable little baby, sometimes all he wants to do is cuddle with her and smother her with all the love he has for her. “Yeah bubs? Gonna help me or sit here lookin’ cute and adorable while daddy cooks?” He asks as he leans down so his face is levelled with hers. Amy simply giggles and nods at his father, even though she tends to nod at nearly everything they both say to her. 

Harry laughs and kisses her chubby cheeks. “Love you, my little bub,” he tells her. She babbles at him as her hands reach for his face. “Yeah, love me too? I think you do,” he says, kissing her little nose which makes her giggle again. 

Harry begins to make breakfast as Amy sits and watches him, babbling and cooing at him as he does. He nods and talks back to her like they are having a simple conversation, him simply agreeing with whatever she says. 

“Want a bite, bub?” He holds up a piece of strawberry in front of Amy and he grins widely as she tries to reach out for the red fruit. “Taking that as a ‘yes, please’,” he jokes as he bites off a tiny piece of the fruit for her to take. Amy hums in delight as she munches. He watches in awe of the little baby as he eats the rest of the fruit. 

At one point, he heats up some milk as Amy starts to get fussy. 

Harry doesn’t make much for breakfast, simply making some half boiled eggs, french toasts, some cut up fruits and coffee. He hums in the tune of one of his songs, Amy bobbing her head as she drinks her milk, enjoying this quality time with her father as he hums and sings to her. It is no doubt that she has grown familiar with the songs he sings to her. Harry’s convinced that she must’ve heard him even when she was still in your belly. 

As he watches the oil sizzling around the bread, he feels two arms wrapped around his waist and a head on his shoulder. He grins at the familiar touch of his wife. It’s amazing how the both of you have grown familiar to each other’s touch through all the years. 

He turns around, keeping a hand on the handle of the pan and the other arm wrapped around you, kissing your head. “Morning, my love,” he says, laying his head on hers. “Morning, baby,” you mumble out in a tired voice. “Bed was cold,” you pout as you stifle a yawn from your mouth. 

He chuckles at your tired state, knowing how much you enjoy waking up next to him instead of an empty bed space. “Happy Mother’s day, lovie,” he tells you, smiling as he sees how your face lights up at his words. You couldn’t believe it yourself that you’re able to spend this special with your little family. “Thank you, bubs,” you beam at him, leaning up to kiss him. Harry hums into the kiss, his lips moving slowly against yours. 

A baby’s babbling snaps you both from the kiss you shared, you could see your baby girl whining as she reaches out for you. You both laugh at this, breaking away as you walk over to her. “Hello, my little baby love,” you say as you kisses all over her face, eliciting giggles from Amy. “Mama,” she says, nuzzling her face into your neck. 

“Have you been helping daddy cook?” You ask her as you brush through her soft curls. You hear Harry scoff behind you as you say this. “She hasn’t been helping at all, just bossing around in her little high chair,” he says jokingly, Amy laughs at his fake pouty expression directed at her. 

“And you,” he says as he turns off the stove, walking over to you. “Should be in bed. Was gonna bring ya breakfast in bed as a surprise. All romantic and shit.” You slap a hand on his shoulder as he curses. Harry laughs at this as he wraps his arms around you. “Don’t swear around her,” you tell him with a fake angry tone. 

Amy pays no attention to them, busying herself by finishing her little bottle of milk. You turn around to face him, hanging her arms around his shoulders. “Now, I feel bad. I could just run back up, pretend to be asleep until you come in,” you suggest, running your fingers through his curls. He sighs at the comforting feeling. 

“Mmm. The surprise is kind of ruined now, so,” he shrugs as he says in a matter of fact. You roll your eyes at him. “Well, I still would love to have breakfast in bed with my baby and my handsome and loving, made by said husband,” you say cheekily at him. 

Harry grins at you, resting his forehead on yours. “Handsome and loving husband, huh? Gotta be one lucky bloke to have married an amazing woman,” he teases, making you throw your head back laughing. “Alright then,” he says, patting your bum. “Go on then. Pretend you’re sleeping, give me an award-winning performance when I come up.”

You hum as you give him a quick peck on the lips. “See you in bed, my handsome husband!” You call out behind you as you make your way out of the kitchen. Amy puts down her finished bottle and frowns as her mother goes off. “Mama?” She pouts at her father. 

Harry comforts her as he kisses her head. “We’ll join her in a bit, Amy. Gotta get breakfast ready.” She coos in response as she traces over the butterfly tattoo on his stomach. 

Harry puts Amy in the baby sling they bought for her as he prepares the food on a tray. He coos at her as she cuddles up on his chest, loving the warmth he radiates. He slowly balances the food tray as they ascend up the stairs to your bedroom. 

When he pushes the door open, he sees you in bed, seemingly asleep, although the hint of smile on your face would say otherwise. He gently sets the tray down on your bed. Amy is already reaching out for you as he sits next to you. 

He shakes you gently. “Wake up, lovie.” Your eyes flutter open, smiling sweetly at your two loves. “Hello, my loves,” you say to them. You both laugh at the silliness as you lean up to kiss his lips. You take Amy out of the sling and set her on your lap. 

“So, was my performance worthy of an award?” You tease him as you kiss all over Amy’s face, making her giggle.

“Oh yeah, definitely. Couldn’t tell you were acting,” he plays along. 

You sniff in the delicious scent of food laid out in front of you. You moan in delight as you lay your head on his shoulder. “I love you. Thank you.” 

“I love you too, honey.” He kisses your head. He kisses you again, long enough for the feel of his lips to linger on yours. “Happy Mother’s day,” he says lovingly, taking a piece of the french toast he made. 

You beam at him as he entertains with Amy’s babbling. And you think to yourself, you would much rather just stay at home, order in food and watch movies in bed with them today. Perhaps Harry might be up to take a nice bubble bath when Amy has her usual afternoon naps.

Truthfully, you couldn’t wait to spend more Mother’s Days, as long as you are with your two loves. And hopefully, with more little ones in the future. 

[strawberri-blonde]

Amortentia - Fred Weasley

Summary: Your classic enemies to lovers.

Warning: Curse words.

Feeling the piece of paper hit your face for what felt like the Millionth time; your tolerance was long worn down. You went to grab your wand but Hermione stopped you by resting her hands into your wrist but it didn’t stop the anger that was filling your soul as you looked over at the Weasley twins. “Y/n, no.” The twins laughed as they saw the glare upon your face.

“Merlin, I’ll gulge your eyes out with my wand, Fred!” The older twin chuckled making George share a laugh as well. Heat filled your face and reached your ears making it feel as if steam was coming out. Hermione saw the anger that resisted in your expression and slowly took your wand from your grip worried for the Weasleys.

“I’d like to see you try sweetheart.” An aggravated  squeal left your lips causing the whole class to turn in the direction of the two tables earning the attention of a certain Professor. The twins kept laughing while Hermione nudge you to the front of the class where Professor McGonagall resigned with a stern look.

“If the two of you are done flirting, then it’s time to get back to the lesson.” You instantly felt your cheeks overflow in a deep red while Fred tried to cover his embarrassment with a light smirk but George didn’t fall for his tricks. He bump his shoulder against Fred’s making the boy blush before shoving his brother back somewhat harder. “Boys.”

“Sorry, Professor.” After the Weasleys apologied McGonagall stared them down for one last time before continuing.

Shaking away your insecurities, you grabbed onto the your quill and began to concentrate on today’s lesson while mumbling out, “idiots.”

-

You clenched your books in your hand as you glided down the halls with ease, your mind was so concentrated on the fact that lunch was going to be served soon that you didn’t notice the human being that you bumped into. “Oh, I’m sorr-”

“Watch it mugblood.”

Your breath got caught in your throat as the insult spewed from the blondes lips. Tears started to form but you wouldn’t dare let that snake see you cry. Before you could respond someone grabbed your shoulders and moved you to stand behind them. “Why don’t you shut your mouth Malfoy before I make sure you can’t speak again.”

Draco let out a laugh making his minions do the same while you looked up at Fred in confusion. Why was he helping you? “What a Weasley, trying to shield a mugblood. Makes sense.” You tensed at the harsh word again, causing the red head to fume. “Your whole family should be qualified as mugblood yourselves I mean-” Draco’s word were literally caught in his throat as Fred stepped forward with his long legs and wrapped his lanky but strong hands around the pure bloods throat.

Your eyes increased in size and worry filled your soul but not for Draco, who was getting his windpipe crushed, but surprisingly for Fred. He could get in so much trouble. When the minions saw the scary expression on his face they ran away too scared to turn up like Draco. “Fred.” You clasped his robes into your hands and tried to yank onto the fabric as hard as you could but the boy was like a rock. “Fred let him go.” What sounded like whimpers left Draco’s mouth as Fred seemed to ignore you completely. “Please.” Hearing your plea, the Weasley turned towards you and looked at your defeated expression and softened his gaze. Letting out a sigh, he dropped the boy to the floor with no hesitation.

“If you ever,” he continued as he bent down to Draco’s level. “Speak to Y/n again. I won’t stop.” Your heart raced at his words and you stood perfectly still as Fred straightened his posture and put a hand behind your back to motion you away from the mess he made. His touch was so gentle that if you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t feel it.

As you both turned the corner, you clenched your books towards your chest. “Thank you for that, but I had it covered.” Fred let out a laugh and bumped into you slightly to joke around.

“Oh, I bet, but I really wanted to strangle that swamp arse.” Rolling your eyes you stepped onto the staircase and before you could grab the hand rail, the motion of it moving caused you to fall into his arms. “Darn, Y/n I didn’t figure you the type of girl to fall in a boys arms.” Hearing the cockiness, you pushed off him and took a step up and gripped the rail into your hand. Once the stair was set, you walked up the top and greet the portrait of the singing fat lady. Her silk pink dress flowed as she turned to look at the two of you and her eyes widen. “Pass- bloody, you two are standing beside one another and aren’t arguing?” You blushed whiled Fred laughed out the password.

“Caput Draconis.” With confusion in her painted eyes, she opened the door to the Gryffindor common room. Comfort washed over as you took in the cinnamon scent and saw the warm fire. “Maybe I’ll save you a seat in the dining hall.” You blushed as you looked down at your feet before looking at at the handsome man. “Can’t have anyone ruffling your feathers but me.”

You smirked and nodded your head, “but you huh.”

“Yeah.” Fred stuffed his hands in his pockets to stand a little taller. “But me.”

-

Ever since that day you and Fred and been a little more civil with one another... Okay, a lot more civil. At first so many people thought you both were joking; that it was some big prank because after all the years of straight arguing all of a sudden you like each other?

You let the huff escape from your lips as you went over the potion you were going to do in Professor Snape’s class but Fred wasn’t doing much help as he stuffed his face with countless of chocolate frogs. Giving the boy a sharp look, Fred laughed at your expression. “What?”

“You’re making a mess.” You closed the spell book while Fred bit off the head of the chocolate figure. “You’re going to get chocolate everywhere.”

A mischievous smirk made its way to the Weasleys face as he turned to you. “Oh you mean like this.” You gasped at he wiped some milk chocolate onto your noise without thinking of the consequences. “Or this.” You mouth closed its gap and instead an ‘are you serious,’ expression took its place as he wiped a line of chocolate on your right cheek. “What about this?” You sighed as he now spread the dark sweetness to your left cheek.

“You done yet.” Fred tilted his head and squinted his eyes and clicked his tongue against his cheek. He lifted his thumb and slowly pressed it on your bottom lip, teasingly sliding it across making your breath get caught in your throat. You both seemed to be in a trance as your eyes never left his and all of his attention was on your lips.

The room grew hot as your hearts race from the need of each other. Slowly you slipped the tip of your tongue out and licked away the sweetness and took his thumb into your warm and wet mouth. Fred had to clench the couch cushions to surpress himself from pouncing on you. The way you swirled your tongue around his thumb sent him in a frenzy. Seeing his eyes darkened from hunger you let him go with a pop. “How should I get the rest off?” Fred went to reach for your waist but the door to the common room opened with Harry, Ron and George coming in. You pushed Fred away from you sending him to the floor and your cheeks were flooded red from embarrassed that you let your hormones take over your mind like that.

The three boys looked at you two in confusion and Ron was the first to speak. “Y/n, why do you have chocolate all over your face and Fred, bloody hell mate. Get off the floor.” Fred sat up with a huff and George started to laugh quickly understand his frustration and you became a blubbering mess.

“Um, I-I um...” you got chocked up and gestured towards your spell book. “We, um... I-I.” And just like that you took off disguarding your supplies and ran up to your room hoping to hide away from embarrassment.

-

“So Ron told me about last night.” You rolled your eyes as you added ingredients to the spell.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You whispered back checking to make sure Professor Snape wasn’t looking because you really didn’t feel like getting yelled at by him today.

“Um, huh.” Hermione squinted her eyes and let a smirk take over as you pulled away from the spell and reached for your book but then you remembered how you left your book in the common room.

“Past.” Like as if he could read your mind Fred held your book in the air and waved it around making you giggle. You reached out to snatch it but the Weasley lifted it higher making you stick your tongue out to him.

“Freddie, give it.” This was the first time you’ve given him the nickname and it made him almost cave in.

“Come and get it.” You rolled your eyes at his words and looked to make sure Snape wasn’t looking before ever so slowly getting up from your seat to grab your book but right as you were about to snatch it, you stepped on a weak board having it squeak. In a flash Severus Snape turned in your direction having you look like a deer caught in head lights.

“What are you doing Ms. Y/l/n?”

“Um.” You mumbled not liking having everyone’s eyes on you.

“It’s my fault, Professor.” Fred stood up and gestured towards her book. “I took her book and Y/n was just trying to get it back.”

“Why is it?” He questioned stepping closer to the pair. “Every time there’s a noise or argument it’s from you two. Granger.” Hermione snapped her head up giving her attention to the older man. “Switch seats with Mr. Weasley.”

“Um which one sir?” Snape snapped a glare in Fred’s direction.

“Mr. Weasley you will sit in Ms. Granger’s seat and partner with Y/n and you two will learn to exist together and not argue.” Confusion went around the room because everyone took notice as to how great Y/n and Fred have gotten along. I guess Snape didn’t get the memo.

You shyly say back down and waved Hermione bye and internal screamed when Fred took a seat to your right. “Alright, everyone get back to the potion.”

Fred bumped you shoulder and handed you your book to which you took with a smile and opened it to the page you needed. “What are we making anyway?”

Shaking your head, you mumbled out. “Poor Hermione.” You added the last ingredient and began to stir. “It’s Amortentia it spells like whatever you’re attracted to.” You pushed Fred’s chest and laughed. “But with all of your cologne I can’t smell anything.” Fred rolled his eyes playfully and pulled you into him.

“First of all I could say the same Y/n, I mean did you broke the whole bottle on yourself and second, I was in a rush so I couldn’t put my cologne on only my deodorant.”

You two laughed at each other saying how the other is lying when Snape raisies his voice at the two. “You’re smelling each other from the Amortentia you idiots.” And just like that your smiles dropped and you both stared intimately at one another.

“If we weren’t in class right now I’d so kiss you.” Fred widen his eyes then signaled to George. Hermione looked worried as George pulled out some random vile from his robes and poured it into the potion. Green mist sprung loose and this horrible smell filled everyone’s noses. Fred grabbed you’re books along with his with one hand and grabbed your wrist with the other to pull you out the class. You couldn’t stop laughing at Fred pulled you down the halls and he dropped your books to grab your cheeks into his large hands.

As your eyes met, and heavy breathes collided you both smiled widely at one another. You were the first to make your move as you stood on your tippy toes and wrapped your arms around his neck to bring him down for the kiss. Fred caresses your skin as he felt your soft plump lips move heavenly against his thin ones. Heat pooled between the two as the kiss deepened. Fred licked the bottom of your lip for entrance and instead of accepting you pulled back with a giggle and grabbed his hands and pulled him behind you guiding him through the halls laughter filling wherever y’all went. Once when two reach the Gryffindor commons rooms laughter did appear once or twice but it was mostly filled with your sounds of passionate love.

[itgetsdarksometimes35]

Revenge is Best Served out of the Ice

Warnings: Non con, dub con, death, cursing, blood, rough vaginal sex, other things, Bucky isn’t okay. 18+

Word Count: 2,529

Prompt: I’m as mad as Hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore

Pairings: Dark ex-Hydra Bucky / Ex-Hydra Reader

Summary: Reader is in hiding after the fall of Hydra.

~ Indicates a time change

--- Indicates a POV change

A/N: This is my very late submission to @kellyn1604 challenge hope you guys like it. I’ll be in the woods for about a week, but I’ll upload an equally late submission to a challenge when I get back. 

XXX

It was never meant to go down like this. You had answered a silly job as an assistant with a company; never did you think you’d be helping a man who leads a terrorist movement looking to take over the world. 

You wanted out the minute you saw the asset. The way Alexander treated him wasn’t human. Even though he insisted he wasn’t, he was an experiment of sorts, it still didn’t sit well with you. His icy cold eyes held life, even if they did make you queasy every time you looked into them. 

Very rarely did you go into where the assassin was kept with Pierce, but when you did he always stared at you until his attention was drawn back to his abusers. The instruments made you feel awful, so you avoided invitations inside as much as possible. The machines that tortured him when he did wrong, the ice he was put in to keep him alive, the electricity that would go through his brain to make him forget. You wondered how old he truly was and who he was. Did he have a family? What did he do to get here?

~

You gasped as you woke up with a jolt from your nightmare. The same blue eyes that had met yours for 5 years refused to go, even in your dreams. You saw him everywhere; the Winter Soldier. After he was ordered to kill Captain America, Hydra was found out. Many were arrested and tried, some people had to go into hiding, including yourself, and others were ordered to rebuild under a new name. After Alexander was killed you had faked your death and ran away to Vienna. Nobody knows where the Winter Soldier went. 

That all had been nearly two years ago. You had moved on in every sense. You had gotten a new job, and this one you loved. Sure, it wasn’t anything you dreamed of doing as a little girl, but it awarded you the privacy you sought. You weren’t ready to reconnect with the world yet. Plus the hours were flexible and no job beats the one where you can be at work in your home in your PJ’s. 

You went out once a week for groceries. You didn’t have a tv, a computer, and the only time you used your burner phone was for work. You kept yourself entertained with the old books left in your old apartment. It was a life different from the one you were used to, but that’s what you liked about it. 

Today was the day you go shopping for food. You sat up in your bed, noticing the little bit of sunlight that passed through the black blankets you’d hung on the windows as makeshift curtains. 

You got up and started your routine before heading out the door. The small market was filled with buyers bargaining for better prices and sellers yelling their final price. You make your way from the seafood to the fruit; the seafood was always the first thing to go in the market. Vienna seemed to have too much fruit. 

As you’re checking out the apples you start feeling watched. You look around but see nobody. Weird. You get enough fruit to keep you satiated for the week so you leave the market as soon as you can. The less human contact and time outside as possible the better, and you were starting to feel off. Someone was watching you, you could feel it, but no matter how many times you turn you see nobody looking. Thank God the walk home is short. 

When you get near your apartment you run up the brick stairs and shove the key into the door, pulling it open and slamming it closed then locking it. You didn’t realize you had been running until you tried to catch your breath and calm your crazy heart. 

You look outside through the peephole before concluding nobody followed you. And if they did they at least left you alone for now. You walked to the kitchen to set down the mesh grocery bag before unloading everything. 

That’s when you heard it. 

The only way into this apartment other than the front door was the fire escape that was connected to the window in your bedroom. The sound of the window opening, no matter how faint it was, has been trained by you to be heard. Your irrational fears of being robbed or found while you're sleeping has finally helped you as you quietly reach for the knife on the counter. 

You continue unpacking and pretend like you didn’t hear a thing in order to trick the intruder. You keep the knife in front of you on the counter, hidden by your body, as your ear strains to listen to what’s happening behind you. 

“You don’t live where I expected.”

Your eyes widened at the voice. The amount of times you heard that voice is less than the amount you saw the face connected to it, but you could recognize it in a concert of sounds. 

You spin around with the knife in your hand to see the man who plagued your nightmares. The Winter Soldier.

He looked down at the puny weapon in your hand. It would do little to protect yourself against the super soldier, but it helped your confidence a bit. He smiled at your shaking grasp on the knife.

“Do you think that’ll work?”

“What are you doing here?”

The man narrowed his eyes at you a bit before ignoring your question. He made a move and you stuck out the knife in a threatening manner. It did nothing to the assassin as he reached for the milk you had just bought, and popped the cap off before taking a few sips. He wiped his mouth before continuing. 

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. You’re hard to trace, you know.” Your breathing is getting more erratic and your heart is beating so loud you can hear it. But even if you couldn’t you know the superhuman before you could. “Do you remember me?” His eyes seem searching, like he’s not sure he’s got the right person. Or if he’s confused as to why you’re scared to see him. 

“Yes.” The man nods at your response. 

“After my last mission I was on the run from Hydra. I wasn’t sure what would become of it, but after figuring out I started a plan. I started tracking down the people who the government failed to bring into custody and killing them one by one.” Fuck. “At first I wasn’t looking for you, you hadn’t hurt me after all. I could see your hesitation every time you saw me.” Then why are you here? “But then I remembered the way you looked at me. How disgusted you were. You saw me for the monster that I was.” The man paused, waiting to see if you’d argue. You didn’t. You couldn’t. He was right, even if you felt bad for him, you saw him as a war machine, murderous monster.

“So, I tracked you down. I found you on a car camera at the market, but you never leave. I thought I had the wrong place for the longest time, but today I finally saw you. моя маленькая сука.” The blue eyes that haunted you weren’t dead anymore, they held a flame now that terrified you. 

“Listen, I’m sorry. I am. If I had any idea what was going on I would’ve never accepted the job. I was just trying to work, I’m sorry. Please, just go.”

The man just scoffed at your words. “You would’ve never taken the job, but you wouldn’t have helped me. You wouldn’t have helped innocent people. You think I wanted to kill all those people? I still see their faces, no matter how many times they fried my brains, I can’t fucking forget! I don’t have the option to just run away. Unlike you, you fucking bitch!”

You jumped as he was starting to get angrier, the container of milk crushed in his metal fist, leaking down to the floor. Tears started to sting your eyes and you were shaking even worse. “Please, I get why you’re angry, but you don’t have to do this.”

“And you didn’t have to keep quiet for all those years, but you did. Didn't you?” You shook your head. He didn’t get it, you could’ve died. You had no choice but to stay silent. “My name’s James Buchanan Barnes by the way. Everyone called me Bucky. I had a life, a family, friends. A career that I loved. Hydra took all that from me and turned me into the thing you see today. I should’ve died a long time ago; but now I’m as mad as Hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

The soldier suddenly lunged at you, twisting your wrist causing you to scream out. You dropped the knife to the floor with a clang, and you were shoved against the counter with your back to the man who had broken back into your life. 

“I could easily kill you, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t always have a thing for you. The way your ass would look in your pencil skirts, it made me feel normal again, the feelings I’d get when I’d see you. Well, that is until Hydra just fucked me up again.” He whispered low in your ear as you felt him unbuckling his pants. Your struggles were kept to a minimum due to the metal arm holding your body uncomfortably close to the wooden counter. 

“I used to even daydream about a life with you. White picket fence, big house, two kids, the whole nine yards. The normal shit I had as a kid.” the man dryly chuckled, “How stupid of me.”

Without warning he slaps your ass. Hard. He gripped your panties before shoving them down your legs, riding your dress up your thigh to reveal yourself to him. You squeezed your eyes shut as you felt your face get hot with embarrassment. 

The soldier suddenly drops to his knees and grabs your ass cheeks in his hands, spreading yourself more for him to see. He moaned before diving right in, licking at you slit. You moaned out before you could catch it with your hand causing the man to groan into your core. 

“You like that don’t you?” Slap. “Fucking slut.” 

The man continued to eat you out as you reached hopelessly for an escape. He held you steady and firm up to his face, and you had no control over the vulgar sounds that were leaving your mouth. 

You let out a high pitched scream as the soldier started sucking on your pearl of nerves, driving you over the edge into ecstasy. He continued to suck up all that you had to offer him before standing up.

“You’re slutty cunt has me hard as a fucking rock, you know that?” Another slap to your backside has you jolting forward just a bit and groaning out at the pain that blurred the line of pleasure.

You heard more clothes shuffling before you felt something hot poke at your entrance. “Ready Babygirl?” The man chuckled as you shook your head. 

“Please, you can still stop! I won’t tell anyone, just let me go!”

“Aw, imagine it being your choice.” With that he shoved himself to his limit within you. You both moaned out at the feeling of your walls stretching around the thick member inside you, pulling at him as he moved deeper.

“You’re tighter than I always imagined, Doll.” the soldier moaned into your ear, starting to find a rhythm inside you. He wasted no time using your body as his toy. He deserved this after all that Hydra put him through. After all that you allowed him to be put through.

“Y-you’re hurting me!” 

“Good.”

You’re closing your eyes so hard you can see stars. You feel hot tears escape from your eyes as you’re trying to wait out the torture your body was being subject to. Pretty soon the pain is too much and you’re sobbing.

“What are you crying for, bitch?” the man grabs a handful of your hair and yanks it back, your scalp burning from his roughness, “You don’t get to cry, not after what you let happen to so many people. You don’t know true pain.” He shoved your head forward and you barely miss hitting your head on the counter. Your neck still hurt from his force, though. 

The Winter Soldier’s movements start to get harder and he starts hitting a spot within you that makes you clench around him, your orgasm creeping up in your lower stomach.

“That’s right, clench my cock, cunt. Just like that and I’ll cum for you. You’ll like that won’t you?” Bucky slapped your ass three times before grabbing your left cheek, making you squeeze him again. “Answer!”

“Yes! Please cum inside me, Bucky!”

That was a mistake.

Bucky shoved your hips into the counter for sure causing bruises to rise. You cry out, more tears escaping down your hot and inflamed cheeks. “Don’t call me that. It’s sergeant to you,” The man growls out at you, “You know that? I was a fucking sargeant before this shit. Respected. Now look at me,” he chuckles humorlessly. 

You can feel blood trickle down your leg as the sergeant continues to abuse your pussy, any orgasm you might’ve had is gone now, replaced with a painful yet numb ach. 

“God, fuck-” You feel warmth spill into your channel as the soldier stills inside you. He pulls out of you, letting your weak and overused body fall to the tile floor painfully. You draw your legs up to your chest as you examine the blood on the floor, some of it gushing out from under your inflamed core. You have no idea what he fractured, he had to have done something, but it sure as Hell hurt. 

You hear a click and look up just as a loud bang is heard. Then everything went black.

---

Bucky looked down at the woman he just fucked, saw how the blood trickled from the bullet wound in her head down to the floor to mix with the blood from her pussy. 

He looked around at the dump she called an apartment. It is a place where nobody can trace easily, he thought. She was the last person he had to kill on his path of revenge, and now he needed somewhere to lay low. Maybe he’ll stay, nobody will realize a difference. The bitch never talked to anyone or interacted with people, and those who did know she existed would probably assume she left or that he was her boyfriend or something. They wouldn’t ask questions. They didn’t care.

Bucky finished putting the food she had gotten away before working on disposing of the body. He smiled to himself, content with the job he had done. It wouldn’t right all his wrongs, but it certainly helped. Besides, revenge is best served out of the ice. 

XXX

Tags: @coconutqueen21 @kellyn1604 @jtargaryen18 @collette04 @nsfwsebbie @what-just-happened-bro @gigistorm @avengerimscreaming @venusavengers @saharzek @navybrat817 @bucksgoat @xoxabs88xox

[konglindorm]

Growing Up Beastly

As you probably know by now, I’m kind of obsessed with Beauty and the Beast. And I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the nature of the Beast, and especially on his origins and on the idea of the Beast as a victim. (Like this post in my Sexual Abuse in the Folk Tradition series, and this post and this one about why we don’t curse children.)

Today we’re going to talk about a slightly different Beast, from a different variant of this story type. This is, of course, Prince Lindworm.

Like our usual beloved Beast, it’s not the lindworm’s fault that he’s a lindworm, although for slightly different reasons—his mom screwed up, and he was born a lindworm. This enchanted bridegroom has literally never been unenchanted; there’s no natural state for him to return to. He’s always been a beast. (Sort of like Hans My Hedgehog, actually; maybe I’ll come back to that in another post.)

Before the lindworm gets transformed into a man, he eats two princesses. Which is…not great. However. He is a lindworm. Which is a kind of dragon. Which is, you know—I mean presumably they have dietary needs that differ from a human’s?

I have so, so many questions about this story that are not addressed in the original text. But the main one is what on earth did the lindworm think was going on here? So. Several points.

Firstly. There is a distinct possibility that he’s sort of a baby lindworm. (At least in the early Danish version. In the later version incorrectly attributed to Asbjorsen and Moe, we have a clearer timeline.) The queen gives birth while the king is at war. The lindworm slithers away, and reappears as the king is coming home from war.

Is this a war that’s lasted fifteen to twenty years? Did the king come home from the first war, stay home for several years, then go fight in another war that he’s returning from when the lindworm approaches him? Did the queen give birth to a fully grown lindworm that met the king a few months later? Did the queen give birth to a baby lindworm that was an adult by the time the king got home, either because lindworms grow faster than humans or because magic? Did she give birth to a baby lindworm that’s still a baby? How old is this lindworm?

Secondly. How did the lindworm know the king was his dad? Because he clearly did. He just slithered up one day and said “Hey, I’m your son. I wanna get married.”

Who raised this lindworm? Who told him who his real parents were? The text says he burrows under the bedchamber as soon as he’s born, and doesn’t mention him having any further contact with the queen or with anyone else.

Thirdly. Did the lindworm even know he was under a spell? Dude’s been a lindworm for his entire life. He knows his parents are human, but, like, do lindworms have access to comprehensive sex education? For all he knows, all lindworms might have human parents. Is he aware that he’s not supposed to be a lindworm? Even if he is, does that necessarily mean he wants to stop being a lindworm?

Fourthly. What was his ultimate goal here? He demands brides. He eats them. He demands more. Why?

Personally, I know nothing about lindworm culture and tradition. Maybe they’re, like, reverse black widows or praying mantises, and eating their wives is just, like, what they do. Or maybe he was just really hungry—though surely there would be people other than his new wives available to eat.

Why did he want to get married? Did he ever intend for a wife to survive past the wedding night?

Fifthly. The transformation. Did he see this coming? Again, did he even realize it was a possibility? When this chick starts demanding that he molt out of season and then whips him and bathes him in milk, what does he think is happening? Does he realize it’s a transformation spell? Was he expecting it or hoping for it? Does he think it’s just a bizarre human wedding tradition? Did the other two girls try to break the spell too, and do it wrong?

Shedding ten layers of skin in a row is gonna be pretty incapacitating for any sort of reptile. Once he’s done that, there’s no defending himself from things like the whipping. If the other girls tried to break the spell too, but skipped the shedding step and went right to whipping, he might have eaten them in self-defense.

Sixthly. The aftermath. So our lindworm is now a handsome prince. Okay, now what? What does that even mean? He’s literally always been a lindworm, with, as far as we can tell, lindworm behaviors and a lindworm palate. You aren’t turning him back into a prince—you’re turning him into a prince. Even if he always knew he was under a spell and it would someday be broken, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s like, inherently, fundamentally, a lindworm. He grew up as a lindworm, doing lindworm things.

He has no idea how to be a person, much less a prince. Walking, gesturing, chewing food—all exciting new experiences.

I mean, on the bright side, the king and queen didn’t actually miss out on their only child’s babyhood, after all—they still get to have all those fun experiences, just with an adult man who’s on his third wife and ate the first two.

I just, like, I don’t get how this whole thing is going to work. I have questions. I have concerns. I have many, many concerns.

Th circumstances are wildly different, but ultimately I think he’s a victim, too. Brides for lunch and all.

It’s not his fault he’s a lindworm, and while he was a lindworm, he did, presumably, what lindworms do. And now he’s a man, whether he wants to be or not. So he’s lost everything he’s ever known and been, and now he has to learn how to be a different kind of creature, from scratch, twenty years too late. (And depending on that whole king-at-war timeline, he may have just transitioned over night from a baby dragon to an adult man, which….yikes.)

What is the learning curve going to be like here? Let’s assume he’s not going to try to eat any more people, because of the sizing issue if nothing else—lindworms are probably a lot bigger than men. (How does he feel about the bride eating, looking back? Does he feel guilty? Does he shrug it off as a lindworm thing that he did when he was a lindworm? Is it all just kind of awkward?) Is he going to eat—or try to eat—a few cats or rats or lap dogs? How many months or years will it take him to remember he has to step out of bed in the mornings, instead of trying to slither and falling in a heap on the floor? When molting season comes around, is he going to try it and sprain something? (Or will molting forever be associated with terrible, terrible trauma after that bizarro transformation sequence?)

This guy has been totally screwed over since literally the moment of his conception. And for the stupidest reason. He didn’t insult someone, didn’t turn down their advances or refuse to share or help. His mom ate too many flowers. That’s it. That’s the whole reason he’s a monster, the whole reason two innocent girls are dead.

(Also, on the subject of those flowers, he should have been a girl. The queen ate the girl flower first, then the boy flower; she should have had a girl. I think I’ve done everything I’m going to with this story, but if you want to write a retelling where the lindworm is a girl, hit me up in like five years when my publishing company has expanded a little and I’ll publish it for you.)

(I wrote a book about the crazy aftermath, and you can get it here.)

[jjpmoans]

birthday morning | ijb

happy birthdayyy to my beloved, most favourite, neve letting your down person, VALENTINAAAA @defgyus​. I hope you like this, I made this in like 30 mins while I was talking to you. I wish you all the nicest things in the world. I’ll write your birthday wish laterr. but now, have your gift first!

You’re spent. Really you are not joking. You don’t feel your legs and your back screams when you turn in your bed, tossing around to find that specific human bolster that causes all numbness and depletion of your energy early in the morning. However with your eyes closed, you couldn’t find him. 

Has he fallen off the bed?

You peek an eye and find his side of the bed empty, the coldness of the sheet tells you that he’s been out of the bed for quite a long time, at least for more than five minutes. Jaebeom is not really a morning person, on weekend you mean. He’s more the type to sleep in because it's the weekend. Not to mention he spent almost five hours last night giving you a birthday gift-- he said that and you’re not complaining, but as he’s an old man, you doubt he still has energy to wake up early and do something after five hours of intense love making and only three hours of sleep.

You catch the first sizzling sound and your ears perks in attention, listening to more sounds from outside. There’s a sound of your electric boiler going off, signalling the water being boiled. There’s also a sound of clanking, perhaps something is being cooked.

Oh, you muse.

You carefully remove the blanket off your body, shivering as the cool air hits your naked body. You search around and spot Jaebeom’s shirt hanging off the table’s edge, courtesy of his indecent act last night, throwing his shirt mindlessly because he’s distracted with you. 

The first step on the cold floor had you wincing, the feeling of your bones coming together after being wrecked last night had you promising yourself not to let Jaebeom have his way with you again. After a few winces and curses, you made it to the door, turning the knob and peek curiously at what your husband had been up to.

You spot him behind the kitchen counter, shirtless and his shorts hungs dangerously below his navel, back facing you. He’s beating the egg, which you figured he would make it scrambled. Jaebeom has survival cooking skills like yours and you like it. You’re dumb together and none of you will have guts to criticise one’s meal because it’s very decent and common, enough to pass a cooking evaluation.

You walk slowly past the sofa, to the countertop where Jaebeom is busy cooking, sitting on the high chair. As he turns around, ready to pour the beaten egg into the sizzling pan, he spots you, sitting and admiring the breakfast he made.

“Good morning baby.” he smiles, pouring the egg into the pan. The sizzling sound makes you calm, you don’t know why, it just has effects on you. “How are you feeling?”

You wince at his ask, grimacing as you feel the numbness of your legs and your soreness lining up. “Awful.”

At your answer his laugh echoes, loud and clear. You don’t know what is funny to him but oh, his laugh. You loved his laugh. You love when he laughs, it’s genuine and you feel so proud whenever you can make him laugh. Jaebeom, as he shows others, is not really a person who laughs freely. True he laughs with his friends but he came home with sad shoulders and has a very fragile mind. So when you make him laugh, you feel as proud as winning the best award.

“Why are you laughing? It’s not funny.” 

Jaebeom snorts, scrambling the eggs expertly. He leaves you for a moment, putting two slices of bread in the toaster and coming back, still grinning. “I am well aware that you’ll regret your decision letting me have my way in the morning. But you can’t say you didn’t enjoy last night.”

“I don’t.” your quick reply had him laughing again, turning off the stove and placing the scrambled egg on two plates. Jaebeom then turns again to get the baked beans and opens the can to scoop a generous amount of beans into yours and a normal amount for him.

“Yeah you don’t. Someone else was screaming ‘oh god, Jaebeom’ over and over again last night. I see.” he moves towards the microwave, taking out two freshly heated croissants and and to the fridge, taking out a plate of sliced fruits. 

When he comes back to you, you’re scowling at him, embarrassed how he points out the obvious. “Wait, these all for me?”

Jaebeom nods, starting to arrange the food into two plates, his and yours. “Oh and it’s supposed to be breakfast in bed. Why don’t you run quickly to the bed and act like you just woke up and you’re surprised?”

His suggestion had you laughing, nonetheless you did make a quick return trip to your room -- no you can’t run, you’re still sore -- and hiding yourself under the blanket, feeling excited even though you literally had seen everything he cooked.

Jaebeom takes awfully long time to set up the plates because by the time he knocks the door out of courtesy, your stomach has been growling for at least two minutes. To your surprise-- yes you’re still surprised -- he enters with two tables, setting it down on the floor. 

“I know you’ll kill me if I stain the bed sheet with food so we’re eating on the floor.” Jaebeom says, placing the table down to set up his plates.

“Jaebeom, it’s not breakfast in bed anymore, it’s breakfast on the floor.” 

He rolls his eyes, saying, “Whatever. I just don’t want to be killed after this. You did a lot of nagging when you regret something and I don’t want to spoil the mood.”

“Coward.” you mutter under your breath. You’re sure Jaebeom heard it but he let it slide, still in the mood to serve you breakfast. After all, he still has a lot to surprise you with, breakfast is just the beginning.

Jaebeom starts bringing in foods he had prepared and when you said it’s a lot, it’s really a lot. He first brings in a plate of croissants with freshly sliced apples and grapes, a plate of toasts with scrambled eggs and baked beans, and a bowl of cereal. Approximately he did about three trips of going back and forth to bring all of them into the room and just as you thought it’s over, he brought a jar of milk, two cups of coffee, an orange juice and a cup of yogurt.

“Jaebeom.” your jaw hangs open at the sight of the breakfast in front of you, looking at him in disbelief. “These are a lot, Jaebeom! How am I supposed to eat all of them?”

“Well,” he sits down, giving you your utensils. “You have your husband right here to finish it.”

“Thank you.” you tell him, smiling as you reach for your croissant, munching on it happily. Jaebeom is amazing, you had that thought countless times. No matter how tired he is, if it makes you happy, then he’s all in for it.

You remember how selfless he is and how he has been by your side whenever you need him and it dawns on you, he’s the best gift you ever had.

“Happy birthday, baby.” he smiles, watching you eat his home cooked breakfast. It’s satisfying for him, to see you happy. And today is the most important day to make you smile, because today is the day he has been blessed with your existence. “And I should call your mom later.”

“Why?” you ask, your mouth full of the croissant. “Do you need anything?” 

Jaebeom only calls your mom when he needs something and amazingly, your mom seems to have everything he wants. 

“I need to thank her for bringing you to this world.”

writings by jjpmoans

[famouskittychild]

Dragon’s Whiskers

Summary: A little fluff piece about Fennec and Boba and their friendship. Fennec is going through a rough patch and Boba tries to help. Contains candy and some spice.

Warnings: some angst, mentions of trauma, mentions of injury; gentle prank; one instance of a non-romantic kiss.

Rating: PG

Word count: 2340

Ao3 link

 Author’s note: This is the very first fanfic I published here. Hope you like it!

When Fett had barged into her office in the middle of the night, and told her to either go to sleep or else tell him what to do to make her feel a little better, Fennec’s first thought was to drag his armoured butt up to the top of the communications tower and throw him off of it. Pretzel had padded in on soft paws behind Fett, following him through the door he had left open. She joined the other two grumpy felines on their pillows staring at the two humans for still being up instead of letting them sleep. All Fennec had wanted to do was to go back to burying herself in account books and ship logs and other details of the job and take her mind off everything else. 

“You are the last person I need help from” she had told him, ready for their next round of arguments, knowing it was usually him who lost his patience first. She must have been really tired because this time he had kept up with her.

“Great, you have a list of more usable people. Name some.” He had plopped down onto her reading chair, his lap promptly claimed by one of the ‘cats, than stared at her like she was on a list too; one for problems to be solved. “Nothing? Than how about, just going away from this all? Take a few days off. Visit a spa, or a forest, or a racecourse.”

She had sighed and hoped he'd still go away if she was just abrasive enough, but he had stood his ground. He had argued, he had asked; he had showed her planets to visit and speeder advertisements and had offered contacts for weapons upgrade specialists. It had seemed like he had tried to think of anything that might interest her and would cheer her up a little. Even the karking ‘cats had been on his side, taking turns at rubbing up to her legs and begging to be allowed onto her lap and be petted.

“Or I can just get you a blaster bolt on stun setting. That’d make sure you sleep a couple hours” he threw his hands up in the end, frustrated. Even that wouldn’t have helped. Knocked out cold wasn’t the same as a good night’s rest, and that was the thing Fennec needed the most. Her old problems with sleep were slowly creeping up on her in the past few months. Then last week happened, and she broke down in a way she hadn’t had in a long time. No wonder Fett had been somewhat worried about her. In the end, more embarrassed for making him worry over her and for keeping him from resting than actually believing it would help much, she had given up and gave him the name of a planet.

 All in all it turned out to be a great day. It was high time Fennec visited her home planet, and with all of the mess that went down a week prior and made her heart clench with grief at random times, it proved Fett right in being a welcome break from it all. Seeing the people who were so similar to her own family, hearing the familiar dialect and words particular to her homeworld - it made her remember where she came from. Being reminded of her roots helped to anchor herself again, something she needed in the storm that was her life lately. She hoped it will help her sleep better too.

She didn’t wanted to go as herself though. She didn’t wanted for anyone to recognize her, or know her as she was now, so they had put on hooded cloaks over their usual attires, Fett even leaving behind his helmet on the ship. They had arrived early morning and visited a few places: the Memorial of Ancestors, one of the schools she went to and another she would’ve loved to attend but never got to. Then they went over to the theatre district, watched a street performance, and even seen some dancers and musician at a park there. 

They finished the day off by walking around the Old Market. They started there with a late lunch and than spent a few hours wandering around at a leisurely pace, looking at all the different goods on offer and the people milling about. She stopped to buy a few things here and there: a comb, a scarf, some tea, and then some more tea. They debated about getting some treats for the furballs than decided they were spoilt enough already. They had made a wide circle around the rows of stalls with their rainbow of canopies and were on their way back towards the area set aside for spaceships, as the town lacked a proper spaceport. The last things she picked up were a stack of flat boxes at the handmade-candy stall named The Dragon’s Beard. She had put in her order earlier, knowing the crafters needed time to make the wide selection she wanted. And selection they had. Sweet candies of all kind, with syrups and berries and milks; savoury ones with cashews and nuts, spicy with peppers and roots and pickles. She ordered enough to bring back to let everyone have at least a taste of all the different types. Fett looked at the pile of boxes with uncertainty. 

“There should be enough sweets there to give a sugar rush to everyone back home” he commented as she tucked the colourful boxes under the arm that didn’t already had a satchel on it with the rest of her finds. “Including even the droids. And the four-legged beasts.”

“Mmm, don’t worry.” It took her a bit to balance all her stuff, then they started to walk down the row towards their ship. “And not all of them are sweet. Want a taste now? Because I do.” 

She let him take the topmost, red box from under her arm, one with non-sweets. He fumbled with the knot on the string that held the lid on, and she almost asked if they should stop walking when he managed to undo it. He offered them to her first, and she took a green one - her favourite. He got himself a red one that she knew had ginger in it. 

“It’s nice” he said, and she felt that doesn't really sums up the truth. Although, he didn’t have the nostalgia that she had for the candies, nor did he pick a particularly strong flavour. She just nodded, enjoying the numbing spiciness in her mouth. 

Fennec kept an eye on him, knowing he will pick out the spiciest one of the box sooner or later. It was the one she had started with, the green one; a colour he tended to gravitate towards, though not today as it seemed. They were on their third round of the colourful savoury treats and almost back to the ship. She knew he had found it when he abruptly stopped and grunted, then twisted away, trying to hide his face from her. She felt laughter building in her chest, something she haven’t felt in a long time. 

Soon he gave up and coughed, and probably would’ve cursed if he could. Her laughter was still far from reaching the surface but her smile was wider than it had been in a good while. 

“I see you found the Dragon’s Whisker.” He coughed again as an answer and covered his face, eyes watering, willing the pain to go away. Dragon’s Whisker pepper was strong even for someone who was used to very spicy food like her, and he was way less so. “It will pass soon, it’s not the lingering-in-your-throat type.” 

After a few moments he could open his eyes again, and he stared darts at her. It just made her smile even wider. Then he stepped closer to her, head tilted to the side, and she only had a fraction of a second to think “is he going to kiss me?!” before he did just that, pulling her close with a hand behind her head and pressing his lips firmly on hers. 

“Spicy, eh?” he asked as he withdrew. A giggle had bubbled up and burst out of her while they stepped apart. Her lips tingled slightly where they were touched by his, and for a few moments the tingling sharpened almost into pain before fading again. It was worth it. All of it. 

 Fennec left the boxes and her satchel on the lower deck before climbing through to the cockpit behind him. Fett took the co-pilot's chair that was usually hers, and looked at her like a loth-cat that had stepped into water, accusing and indignant at their misfortune at the same time. She was almost sorry for him, but it was just all too funny. 

She piloted the ship out of the atmosphere and he supplied the data for the hyperspace jump. As soon as the automation took over, he got up to go to the lower level. She had planned on staying where she was and giving him some room after her prank, but he turned back from the top of the ladder. 

“Do you have something for this?” He asked, and her face must have showed her momentary confusion because he elaborated. “For the pepper. I still feel like my mouth is burning.” 

Maybe his avoidance of spicy food that she observed wasn’t just a personal preference. With his injuries, he might have been less tolerant to pain caused by chemicals affecting surfaces of his body. Not to mention it might have brought up bad memories. Feeling a bit guilty, she nodded quickly and got out of her seat. 

 Once on the lower level, she rummaged around in the container for emergency rations. She always kept a box of powdered milk around especially for occasions like this. She dissolved a portion in a glass with less water than normal to make the milk thicker and made him start to sip it slowly before apologizing. He waved her concern away. 

“I’m fine, Fenn, really. I’m just not used to living on your volume of spiciness.” He smirked at her, and she knew him well enough to know they were all right. The smile came easier now, and to show she wasn’t sorry that much, she punched him lightly on the shoulder in a fist-bumpy way. It made him pretend to be hurt there too. 

“Thanks for the day off. I needed it” She meant it, even if just right then she suddenly couldn’t look at him. In the darkness of the ship and away from the lively crowds, back on their way to the everydays, the grief had came back for a moment and tried to sink it’s claws back into her. But it was easier to resist it and the heavy cloud passed as fast as it had come. She leaned back in her chair with a sigh and saw from the corner of her eye as Fett nodded and sipped his milk. It made her laugh again.

He sighed dramatically. 

“Yes, yes, mighty Boba Fett drinking his milk like a good boy. That’s another notch on your victory belt, isn’t it Shand?” He pretended to be grumpy about it, and she shamelessly grinned. Than he pointed at the pile of unopened boxes. 

“Are you planning on feeding me those too, or will you just keep them all for yourself now that I proved I can’t handle them?” 

She shook her head. 

“No, I got those for the staff.” 

“You’re evil” he commented fondly. She shot him a look of mock offence. 

“Only the red boxes are spicy, the others are sweets.” 

Now it was his turn to look indignantly. “You’re telling this to me now?!” He got up and picked out one of the pastel boxes. She started to object. 

“Those are not for you!” 

He was already fumbling with the knot on the string tied around the box. He looked up at her, face as innocent as he could manage. 

“I’m just collecting the import taxes.” 

She gave up and laughed. “Two pieces only! Or there wont be enough for everyone.” 

“You calculated that, right?” 

She didn’t, but he could think that; she just wanted to be contrarian to him. He finished undoing the knot and took a moment to survey the contents. Than he looked at her, eyes drawn into slits, suddenly suspicious. “Are these really sweets, or are you pulling my leg again?” 

“They are sweet. Promise. Can you smell the powdered sugar? The others had starch on them.” 

“You know my nose is mostly useless.” She did know, but these had so much sugar on them, she could smell them from where she was sitting. He took out a reddish piece and sniffed it. “Yes, sugar. I should’ve sniffed the others too, the lack of it might’ve given them away.” 

He popped the sweet into his mouth and closed his eyes as it was dissolving on his tongue. She let him enjoy the flavour for a moment before answering. 

“It would have, but it wouldn’t have mattered. I have mentioned that not all of them were sweet, remember? I thought you would disregard that and you did. Because I also told you they were candy and you took my word on that. Then you picked the ones with ginger and almonds, and those were kind of sweet, so nothing prepared you for the Dragon’s Whiskers. The thing is,” she waited for him to turn his face towards her again before explaining with a smirk, “as long as they are bite sized and considered a snack, we use the word candy. Local quirk. Sweet ones, savoury ones, spicy ones, the mix of those - here, they are all called candy.” 

“You” he jabbed a finger towards her “are an evil woman.” 

He took his second candy and closed the lid, watching her smile and shrug at him. It’s been a good day to be evil like that.

[elizabeethan]

Ladies Night

And the feelings right! this song was stuck in my head and thus was born a night of postpartum normalcy for our dear Emma. takes place in the It’s About Bloody Time universe (and no, this is not one of the one shots I actually plan on writing.) This is... pure crack. 

Also on Ao3

Rated M

~2200 words

When Mary Margaret Blanchard insists on a Storybrooke Ladies Night, one complies, lest one desires to be berated for the remainder of the calendar year.

“Oh yes, it’s ladies night, and the feeling’s right!”

“Ruby, stop.”

“Oh, what a night!”

“Please, Ruby. Please stop.”

“What, you're not a fan of Kool & The Gang?”

“Not particularly.”

“Get down on it, c’mon get down on it,” she says, closing her eyes and soulfully swaying her shoulders from side to side while she snaps her fingers.

“That’s not even the same song!” Emma groans as Ruby reaches into her center console for what she knows must be the AUX cord. “If you play Kool & The Gang right now…”

“Oh yes it’s ladies night!”

She wants so badly to stop the car, open Ruby’s door, and shove her out into the road. She wants to slam her own head against the steering wheel and maybe she won’t be able to hear any disco. She wants to go home and spend the evening with her baby, who’s just starting to babble adorably incoherent nonsense. But when Mary Margaret Blanchard insists on a Storybrooke Ladies Night, one complies, lest one desires to be berated for the remainder of the calendar year.

Mary Margaret got the idea to celebrate National Best Friend Day with her girlfriends and hasn’t let it go since. The sad thing is, National Best Friend Day was three months ago, but something got in the way.

(Emma had a baby the day before.)

She’s neurotically decorated her loft in pink and purple hearts, baked all kinds of weird heart shaped desserts, and insisted that each guest wears purple to match. Emma Swan does not own purple.

“You’ll have fun, darling. You should go,” Killian had told her, and what the hell does he know? Just because they’ve been together for a year and have a child together, that means he knows her?

She’s feeling a bit belligerent today.

But could she truly be blamed? Her sweet baby is home with her sweet baby daddy, and she’s been dragged out to ladies night with her mother and all of her mother’s friends.

Okay, fine. They're her friends, too. But her baby is so, so cute. Come on.

“Come on, Emma, this can’t be that bad for you. Tell me you're at least a little excited to see your friends. You’ve been holed up in your house since Corrine was born!”

“That was only three months ago! I’m on maternity leave!”

“You need a drink!”

“I’m breastfeeding.”

Ruby shrugs. “What’s it called? Pump and dump?”

She groans, rolling her eyes before focusing back on the road. “I’m your designated driver, and I don’t want a drunk infant.”

“Well, Killian is her father. Doesn’t he have, like, 200 barrels of rum on his ship?”

“I only saw a few.”

“You were in the storage place? What’s it called? Stowage?”

Emma blushes, because there was only one reason that she ever found herself among Killian’s rum barrels, and she was not about to share that story during ladies night.

Once they mercifully arrive at the loft, Emma and Ruby make their way up and are immediately bombarded with hugs from her mother. “Hi sweetie,” she says, planting a kiss on Emma’s cheek, and oh god, is she drunk?

“Hi mom…” Emma says timidly.

“Sangria? It’s made with fresh peaches and strawberries. Also, wine.”

She laughs tautly and thinks hard. Killian did his research, of course. They have a stock of breast milk in the freezer, and she can pump and dump, as Ruby so helpfully suggested. Killian even insisted that she should relax tonight and to not worry about him and Corrine, to just have fun. It took her a while to accept that having a drink or two tonight does not make her a bad mom. She even talked it over with Archie yesterday.

So, she nods, takes a clear plastic cup, and fills it with the fruity concoction.

And damn, it’s good. And it goes down easy.

It’s been over a year since she’s had a sip of alcohol in her, and it shows. One drink in and she’s feeling a warm buzz over her skin and a smile toying at her lips that she can’t seem to get rid of.

“Let’s see them, then,” Regina says with an air of irritation in her voice.

“See what?” Ashley asks.

“The pictures. We all know Emma is dying to show us all pictures of the baby.”

“Hey, Ashley has a baby, too,” Emma argues in an attempt to defend herself,

“Yes, but you still have that sickening new-mother glow. I know you have at least a hundred new photos since I dropped Henry off on Tuesday.”

She’s right, dammit.

Emma whips out her phone and shows off countless images of little Corrine. She’s gained close to eight pounds since birth, and she’s a chunky little girl. Her hair still hasn’t come in, either, so she’s cursed with a fuzzy bald head. Emma is convinced that she’ll be a blonde, but for now, she’s a cue ball. Her favorite feature of her daughter’s, though, is her ocean blue eyes.

“I miss her,” Mary Margaret says sadly, and Emma nods.

“Me too. Look at these cheeks!”

“She’s so chunky. And look at Hook holding her!” Tinkerbell cries, reaching for the phone and giving Emma a sweet smile once she’s zoomed in. “This is so cute. You have to frame this.”  

“I did.”

The evening goes on with games and lots more sangria, but Emma takes it easy after her second glass. At this rate, Ruby might end up being her designated driver.

After a few too many rounds of Cards Against Humanity, the game started to become too raunchy. When they first started, the answers were relatively tame, but when Ruby put down a card about a man on the brink of… something that made everyone in the room start hollering and blushing and nudging each other’s shoulders, it was clear where the night was headed.  

“Let’s play Never Have I Ever.” Emma would have never assumed Ashley would be the one to suggest it, but here they are.

“Yay!” Ruby agrees, clapping enthusiastically. “Everyone, raise three fingers!” Emma catches Regina’s eye roll and Mary Margaret’s nervous hesitation before they all put three fingers into the air. “Who wants to go first?” Silence. “Alright, me! Never have I ever… been a parent.”

Emma rolls her eyes now. “Ruby, come on! You’re knocking out, like, everyone here!”

“Right, everyone but me and Tink. That’s the point of the game, Emma.”  

“Alright,” Regina says brazenly. “Never have I ever changed into a different species.”

“Ooh, Regina, that’s fierce!” Mary Margaret says drunkenly as Ruby puts down a finger, now matching almost everyone else in the room, and then she asks, “Does Tink count?”

“Yes.”

“What!?”

“Emma’s next.”

“Never have I ever… um… shit. Um…”

“Yes, you have!” Ashley shouts with a giggle, and Emma blushes as the room bursts into laughter.

“Stop! Never have I ever… um… punched my true love in the face with a rock?”

Mary Margaret scoffs. “What? A compass doesn’t count?” she asks sarcastically.

“Huh?”

“Hook. During your sword fight in the Enchanted Forest. You punched him in the face with the compass, remember?”

“Why would you… Hook isn’t…”

Everyone stares at her. “Yes, he is, come on,” Tink says.

“Yeah, seriously. He’s due to propose soon.”

“What?!”

“Isn’t it almost a year now? How are you celebrating your anniversary?”

Emma’s tipsy self isn’t as emotionally mature as sober Emma. So, she bites her lips, widens her eyes, and changes the subject to something easier to talk about.

“Never have I ever been to a ball.”

Four fingers go down. Five sets of eyes roll dramatically.

“Never have I ever had sex while pregnant,” Ruby says, and seriously? How can she ask this many questions? It’s not even her turn.  

“Never have I ever had sex with a pirate,” Tink says, and not only is that surprising because Emma thought for sure that they had a history, but also because, apparently, Emma is now under personal attack.

“Oh, come on! You really haven’t?”

“Are you asking if I’ve had sex with your lover and the father of your newborn child? Because I’m not sure I’d answer you if I had.”

“I wouldn’t answer,” Ashley pipes up.

“I wouldn’t either, but I would do him.”

“Ruby!”

“Look at him!”

“I do, quite frequently!”

“How frequently?”

“I have one,” Mary Margaret interrupts, practically drilling a hole into Emma’s head with how hard she’s smirking at her. “Never have I ever had sex in my mother’s home.”

Emma’s jaw drops. “Mom!”

“I just wanted to know! It’s my house, and your sex life seems to be… very healthy.”

“What the hell makes you say that?!”

“Well, you weren’t as quiet as you thought you were every time you were sneaking out.” While she started speaking slowly, her pace picks up. “Honestly, it’s a miracle it took you as long as it did to get pregnant with how often you and Killian were—”

“Ooooh!” Ruby howls.

“No! Of course I haven’t had sex here!” Emma does note, however, that both Ruby and Regina put their fingers down at that question, so Ruby is out. Thank god.

“Never have I ever done it on a rum barrel,” Ruby says, as if she didn’t just lose the damn game.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Well, I’m out,” Mary Margaret says.

~~~~

“Fun time, love?” Killian asks into the darkness of the living room when Emma starts to slink onto the couch, much later than she anticipated. She’s already too-loudly busted into the bedroom room before even acknowledging Killian, checking to make sure Corrine was sleeping, brushing a finger gently over her fat cheek but stopping herself from picking her up.

“Mhmm,” she hums happily, flopping towards him and resting her head on his lap. “I played games. And I drank sangria.”

He laughs lightly, rubbing a hand, his left hand, up and down her arm once she lies down. He bends and kisses her forehead before saying, “I’m glad. You needed a night out.”

“I dumped.”

“…hmm?”

“I pumped. And then I dumped. When I went to check on her.”

“Ah,” he chortles. “Very good, darling,” he says as he squeezes her shoulder and laughs. “Who drove you home?”

“Ruby, the damn scoundrel. She wouldn’t stop trying to get me out!”

“Of the car?!”

“No, of the game. She kept saying stuff that she knows I’ve done, like had sex with a pirate, or had sex while pregnant, or had sex on a barrel of rum.”

She thinks that if he had been drinking, he would have done a spit take. That would’ve been funny. She would’ve made him clean the couch. “How does she know about the rum barrel, pray tell?”

She shrugs, looking up at him and smirking. “I’ll never tell.”

“You told someone,” he says pointedly and laughs, planting a soft kiss to her nose. “Did you have water, Swan?”

She nods against his lap, sighing. “I thought I was gonna have sex tonight, but I think I’m too tired.”

“Who were you planning on having sex with?”

Emma gasps, sitting up quickly and straddling his lap, placing both hands on either side of Killian’s shoulders. “You!” she says a bit too loud, and he winces softly before grinning and leaning up to kiss her again.

“I was only teasing, my love. I know you meant that.”

“Am I your true love?” she asks, and someone should tape her mouth shut now, right?

He stills, looking her in the eye and wrapping both arms around her waist. “What makes you ask that?”

“I said, ‘never have I ever punched my true love in the face,’ but mom said that one wasn’t true.”

He laughs at her again, and she’s glad that she could serve as such reliable entertainment for him this evening. “I’d almost forgotten about that, you know.”

“I know you threw that fight.”

He smiles, nodding at her as she rests her head against his neck. “Aye, I did. But it was only because I was smitten with the fiery blonde lass who trapped me at the top of a beanstalk.” She giggles and nuzzles her nose against his skin because Emma Swan is disgustingly in love, and you heard it here first. “I don’t know if I’m your true love, Emma, the only ways of finding out that I know of are rather sordid, but I do know that I truly love you.”

Dammit, she thinks. When has Emma Swan ever swooned before? The sangria certainly plays a role, right? “I truly love you, too, you big fuzzy idiot.”

“Did you just call me fuzzy?”

“Yeah,” she nods, reaching around him to pinch his ass with great effort. “Your big fuzzy butt.”

He laughs too loudly for a baby to be sleeping in the next room, and rolls her over onto her back, pinning her arms above her head and rubbing his chin against her neck. “Fuzzy butt? I’ll show you fuzzy.”

“No!” she squeals, laughing as he starts to nibble at her neck, and if she said that she was too tired for sex on ladies night, she must’ve been lying.

~~~~

~~~~

Tagging: (also here is my anxiety driven reminder to let me know if you want to be removed or added from my tag list)

@courtorderedcake @kmomof4 @stahlop @klynn-stormz @emelizabeth88  @kday426 @elisethewritingbeast @timeless-love-story @captain-emmajones @gingerpolyglot @ebcaver @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook @superchocovian @shireness-says @gingerchangeling @itsfabianadocarmo 

[peppusae]

[kth] lavender honey ch. 8

note: this fanfic has multiple chapters, so please look forward to more!

lavender honey: kim taehyung x reader

genre: crack, fluff, college au, smut

word count: 3.6k words

>

lavender honey

ch 8: in which taehyung makes minji choose voilence, while jungkook makes her strip for him.

“My… my chances are rare, hyung. I might want to hold tight, the person I like, but... I can’t. Not when things are going well for her with the person she likes. I don’t want to be the person that ruins things for the one person I have the hardest time staying away from, you know?”

The person Taehyung likes?

You suddenly think about the time when you had come home and Namjoon was doing some revisions on a song Taehyung had written, about a girl. Back then, you thought he might have had too much strawberry milk and gotten emo enough to write some good shit for his assignment.

But hearing his words, you realize that he was genuine about what he was saying back then, and it makes your heart hurt a bit.

Who did Taehyung like?

Your heart hurts more as you listen to your brother’s sad little ‘oh’ in response.

Clearly, Namjoon isn’t the one you should be going to for advice.

Taehyung, for one, doesn’t seem to care.

“Like, what if Jin-hyung started dating a friend of yours? You would be sad, right, Hyung?”

“Well…. Yes, I would.”

“And if you find out that it’s someone close to you, that’s going to be even sadder, right?”

There is a moment of silence and you start to feel guilty about eavesdropping, so you decide to go downstairs to create some kind of ruckus so the two would know you were home and close the door, at the very least.

Before you’re able to go downstairs, you can hear Namjoon asking the very question bubbling in your head.

“The person you like is dating someone close to you?”

You’re not sure why, but you’re glad you didn’t wait to hear what he had to say.

---

“So. I need to survive another day with you, huh?”

Taehyung greets you the next day, and his words and actions don’t match at all, because he's holding out a cup of iced coffee for you as he takes his seat behind the library counter.

“I’m trying to finish the assignment we have due on Friday.”

“Oh? You still have a whole week for it, though.”

You open up a new tab on Google, trying to find more sites for citing purposes. “If it’s okay with you, I want to go collect the books on Friday after classes. We finish early on Fridays, remember?”

Taehyung raises an eyebrow, and it’s probably the gray shirt he has on that makes him look really, really attractively confused.

What in heckles is that even.

How does someone look attractive while they’re confused?

Library duty is kinda scary, it makes you find out more stuff about the male that you need to make points for the essay you’ll be collaborating with Seokjin; about all the other-worldly features of Kim Taehyung.

It’s either the shirt, or Minji is just extra horny today.

You decide that the former is a better option, so you go back to your laptop.

“We can go on Friday. We have to go to Daegu, Gwangju, and Busan too, right? We obviously can’t finish the entire trip in a day, so we have to stay the night-”

“Daegu.”

“Huh?”

“We’ll stay at Daegu. At my house.”

That’s kinda weird of him to say that out of nowhere, but you decide that he might just want the excuse to hang out with his family.

You give him an ok sign, and you find yourself smiling a little when you find him pulling out the same assignment sheet you’re working on, from his backpack, and then starting his own work as well.

A little before the borrowing time ends, students line up to take the books they are interested in, so you and Taehyung get a little busy. When the announcement for the end of the borrowing time is announced (in Taehyung’s ridiculously deep voice), you two decide to stay back at the library to finish your assignment before going home.

In fact, you are actually so immersed in finishing your task, that you don’t notice the time until someone taps your shoulder and you find Namjoon, a smiling Jungkook standing beside him.

“Hi, Noonim!”

Jungkook actually does try hard not to call you that when the others are around, but habits are habits, and you’re glad Namjoon and Taehyung don’t make a big deal out of it anymore.

“We’re all going out to eat, Hoseokie-hyung is giving a treat because it’s his birthday! We gotta eat as much meat as we can!” Jungkook announces happily, looking at you with a big grin. You give him a smile, glancing at Taehyung who has closed the lid of his laptop as soon as the two arrived.

“I think we’ve done a lot of work for one day, right? Let’s go?”

“What do you mean, for one day? I’ve finished my assignment.”

You stare at Taehyung in disbelief.

“The fuck?”

“Oh shit.” Namjoon says, making you glare at him. Only when you see Jungkook’s slightly bewildered face, do you realise you’ve probably cursed for the first time in front of the younger boy, and it makes your face heat up while you turn back to face Taehyung.

“How did you finish it so fast? And why are you staying here if you’re already done?”

“I’m an amazing guy, [Name]-ah. You need to give me a fuckton more of credit.” He has to say, cooly picking up his belongings and throwing them all into one big salad bowl (aka his hugeass backpack). “You weren’t done, so I was waiting for you.”

What?

While Namjoon and Jungkook head outside and Taehyung follows you after you pack your belongings, you ask him how long it has been since he’s finished his work.

“I think, 2 hours, maybe?”

“Why the fuck,” you hiss, “Did you not go home?!”

Taehyung looks a bit annoyed right about now, and you want to yell because how dare he have the audacity to look annoyed?!!!

“Like I said, I was waiting for you!” He yells, this time making Namjoon and Jungkook who are walking ahead of you also, to turn around to look at Taehyung. When he sees the two looking at him, Taehyung takes a deep breath and glances at you.

“Leave me alone and go with your little boyfriend.”

Then, he storms off, and Jungkook looks as blank as you feel like, and you don’t know how long you’d have stayed, watching Taehyung walk through the length of the hallway and disappear if Namjoon did not snap you out of your trance and asked you to hurry up.

Who pulled Kim Taehyung’s panties into a wad today?

---

Taehyung colors his hair black for the next day.

It’s so out of the blue, and the incessant way everyone makes a big deal out of it seems a bit understandable.

It really isn’t fair, how good the guy looks.

Yoongi hasn’t even finished that song he says he’s writing about a really stupidly attractive man, yet, and it isn’t fair because you really could use a listen to that song right about now.

Even while Jungkook - a really hot kid - sits right beside you, you can’t help but just stare in awe because honestly, there is nothing - human or extra-terrestrial creature included - that could beat the beauty and attractiveness that is Kim Taehyung.

Minji is shaking her head because a) How dare you say two words like  ‘hot kid’ that should never be even put together in the first place, b) Because Jungkook and you are dating, right? Or is it pre-dating? Does that exist? Wait a second-

“Noonim, I’m going with Jimin-hyung and Taetae-hyung to the arcade after classes are over,” he says, “Can we go on that date I mentioned tomorrow, instead?”

“What date?” Seokjin butts in out of nowhere, in the middle of taking a bite out of his grapefruit tart. “Is this why you asked me to stay out of the house until late at night tomorrow?!”

Seokjin, obviously, is a meathead, and a really dumb one, at that.

Multiple things happen at once.

The first one is Jungkook standing up from his seat so fast that he almost spills the bean sprout broth bowl on his tray.

The second one is all eyes turning to Seokjin, which in turn, makes the elder male’s ears turn bright red and him starting to mumble nonsense to himself like a lunatic.

The third one is Jungkook getting off from the bench and dragging Seokjin away from the lunch table, all while Hoseok, Hani, and Hyojin seem to be enjoying the entire ruckus.

Only when you glance at Namjoon do you remember that Jungkook had mentioned he has a roommate… and that roommate was Seokjin, himself.

“You’ve started doing what with Jungkookie now?”

“Shut up! He just asked me to go see his animations and paintings, what are you talking about, Namjoonie?!” You protest, eyes turning to Taehyung, who runs a hand through his hair, takes a final sip of his cola, and then heads out of the cafeteria - a pastel pink-haired Jimin running after him.

Namjoon blinks, and then continues to eat his food, much like Yoongi who sees and hears nothing because of the radio show he’s busily listening to while he gobbles up his lunch.

If only everyone was like Min Yoongi.

It’s ten minutes later when both Seokjin and Jungkook return, the younger one apologizing to you like crazy, even when Jimin comes back a while later, saying Taehyung had some assignment to complete beforehand.

“I don’t know about you guys, but didn’t I bet these two will get it on within a month?”

Apparently, Seokjin doesn’t know when to shut up, and you’re very glad Namjoon has already left by then and that Hoseok does the honor of punching the elder male in the back for spewing nonsense - which he claims is the truth.

This is going to be a long day.

---

You’re driving to college the next day with Namjoon only, for the first time in what feels like ages.

You’d been dreading questions about Jungkook that he might have, but it isn’t about the date you’ll be going on after classes today that worries Namjoon, but something else, entirely.

“My precious sister. We did promise that we would share our secrets with each other, did we not?”

“We did, my precious brother.” You play along, watching the little koala keychain hanging from the mirror inside the car.

“I am not going to question you about why or what you’re going to do with Jungkookie, that’s none of my business,” he starts. You shake your head, mouthing ‘It is, Namjoonie’, which makes your brother smile a little.

“Thank you. I’m not going to question it, because I know my sister well and I trust my little sister. What I’m only going to question is one thing. Are you sure of the choices you’ve made, till now?”

“What do you mean, Joonie?”

You watch as he scratches his head a little, not saying anything for a while as he steers along a few curves and stops at a red light.

“I’ve noticed that your thoughts have been wandering a lot recently.” He points out.

“I don’t get what you mean.”

“What I mean is, your mind seems like it’s always somewhere else, and that has not been the case when you first started going out with Jungkook.”

Has Namjoon been watching over you enough to notice that your mind always wanders all around the place, eventually landing on some stupid thought of Taehyung, in the end?

“It seems to me like you’re not really in love with Jungkookie, but someone else.”

You could swear you felt chills run down your spine because of the absolute bingo he had managed to make; Namjoon had a high IQ for a reason, that you realize then.

You manage to chuckle, shaking your head and waving it off. “That’s ridiculous, Joon-ah, I had a crush on Jungkook ever since we got introduced to each other by Jiminie.”

Namjoon doesn’t say anything, as if he doesn’t believe you - but this was the truth, even if your fraying thoughts only began much much later after that.

Perhaps it’s because you’ve arrived at the parking lot at college, that Namjoon decides to drop the subject, giving you a nod in response.

“Well. It turns out Kookie also liked you since back then. You’re my sister and I just want you to be happy, with whoever.”

It moves you, hearing that. You know that it must have been hard on Namjoon who not only finds out things easily, but over analyzes things he finds as well. It makes you smile, going around to Namjoon’s side of the car when he gets out after parking, and then giving him a big hug, right in the middle of the parking lot.

“Yah, Kim [Name]-ah, what are you doing?!”

“You don’t have to worry about Jinnie wondering if there’s something between us, he knows we’re siblings now!” You say, giving him a wave and running inside the campus before he can say anything else.

---

“And that’s the project I’m working on right now, Noonim!”

You can’t help but to give a big grin to the boy who looks very pleased with your positive reaction after he showed his animation work. Jungkook really wasn’t called the Golden Maknae for no reason, his animations were realistic and flawless, at least from your - a complete amateur’s - point of view. After you say this, Jungkook laughs, thanking you and saying that that is a very lovely compliment to receive considering most of the people who would consume whatever he produces would also be amateurs too, in the end.

His literal statement makes you laugh, and you enjoy the time with the male, your mind definitely not wandering as much as it did on your previous date. You’re glad it doesn’t, and you enjoy eating chocolate pudding and having the banana milk Jungkook prepared for you, while you go through all the lovely paintings and digital art the male had created.

“By the way, Noonim, can you take a seat over there?” He asks, pointing at the center of his bed. Minji has started to strip out of nowhere, and when you glance at Jungkook with wide eyes, you’re very surprised to see that he has taken a digital camera.

So he wants to take a picture of me sitting on the bed, not to start-

Okay, Minji, you need to get a toy or something because you’re being way too horny and there’s no other way we can calm you down.

You find yourself awkwardly waddling and taking a seat at the center of Jungkook’s bed - and gosh does it smell like a very boyish citrus over here - allowing the male to take a few pictures of you which he wanted.

“Okay, I got them. I can’t wait to start drawing you!!” He says, much like a little kid, and it makes your heart swell, holding your hand out towards him and watching him raise a surprised eyebrow, doe eyes wide while he slowly walks up to you. You can tell he is nervous by the way his ears have become a little red, and the fact that he had dimmed the lights and turned on a warm light for your picture does not help.

“Y-Yes?”

You give a smile, watching him place his camera on the side table carefully before he walks back, slowly intertwining your fingers. His nervousness shows in the way he looks down at your hands every three seconds, unable to keep eye contact for long. It’s so adorable that your heart becomes warm, mumbling a little ‘Jungoo?’ barely enough for him to hear.

“Yes, N-Noona?”

“Why did you ask Seokjinnie to not come for a while?”

Now, Jungkook refuses to look you in the eyes even for a second, his cheeks turning beet red.

“Jungoo?”

“I… I never get to hold your hand like this unless we’re on a date…”

You can’t help but to smile up at him, tugging at his hand so that he bends down a little, coming to face-level with you. Even before you put a hand on his face, you could tell that his cheeks were burning, and it makes your heart race because you simply can’t get over how adorable he is.

Jungkook closes his eyes and you kiss him on the nose, gently, and that makes him open his eyes a little startled.

When you end up bursting into a smile, despite the serious look on Jungkook’s face, it seems to make the boy less nervous, chuckling a little before he sits down beside you on the bed.

“What did you expect, Jungoo?”

“You enjoy teasing me a lot, don’t you, Noonim?”

“That’s what you get for calling me Noona.”

Jungkook bursts out laughing, shaking his head. “I shall not make that kind of mistake again.”

You find yourself smiling, and your heart has stopped racing, now feeling more comfortable around Jungkook. Even when he smiles and leans in to kiss you, you close your eyes, kissing him back, so, so comfortable that you don’t even notice until Jungkook leans away, that one of your legs have gone over his thigh and he is looking at you with wide eyes.

Holy shit . You’d always know Jungkook was a muscle-y kid because his jeans always fit him in all the right places, but it’s a different thing when you can actually physically feel that under your own thigh-

“You did lock the door, right?”

Jungkook looks baffled at your question, his jaw dropping open, but he still nods in response.

“No one else will come, right?”

The male closes his mouth, still very startled but nods again.

“Then we could do this a bit more, right?” You ask, and his response is faster this time, nodding once again, a hand going behind your neck and pulling your face to his. You can feel his tongue on your lips, and you part and let him in, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable sitting with one leg over his. It felt like Jungkook felt the same way - and this is where you learn about the mighty strength he has - when he wraps an arm around your waist, completely pulling you onto his lap.

Not only has Minji finished stripping by now, but she has also put on her finest lingerie now.

You’re actually very, VERY startled by this action, so much that you break away from the kiss, looking at Jungkook with wide eyes.

Suddenly feeling embarrassed, you look away from his eyes, a down at his neck. There is a sheen of sweat forming on his neck, and his white shirt has stuck to his skin a little by now.

Oh God save me.

“Noonim…”

“Mmm?”

“Should I let you go?”

The way he says that, the way he words it, sounds so, so sad and you wonder how you can tell him that you were simply embarrassed, nothing else.

And you can’t think of anything to say, so you close your eyes, grabbing his face and kissing him on the lips, heart racing at how brave you were feeling out of nowhere. Was it because this was Jungkook’s room, because you knew no one else would be around?

Or is it because it was Jungkook, both his hands hugging your back, pulling your body so close to his that it’s almost too embarrassing to bear, kissing you like this might be his last chance to do so?

Whatever it is, you find yourself opening your eyes, slowly pushing him back and watching the way his eyes go wide when he falls back down on his bed, pulling you along with him.

For a minute, neither of you do anything, and it looks like Jungkook took a minute to get over his initial surprise, because he wraps his arms - which are already around you - much tightly, rolling over so that he’s the one looking down at you while you look up at him.

And this is so much more embarrassing, because now you don’t even have anywhere else to look, because Jungkook is just so, so, so damn close, and you find yourself closing your eyes, not knowing what else to do.

“Noonim.”

“Mmhmm?”

“Look at me for a bit.” Jungkook whispers softly,  and you open your eyes, to see his face a little further away, eyes closed while he takes in deep breaths.

“Noonim. I like you so, so much.”

[justaghostingon]

Steel Hooks in a Trusting Heart

In which Cyrus finds himself once again aiding Hugo in his schemes, this time to the purpose of helping Hugo win over his boyfriend’s family. There’s just one problem. Cyrus isn’t so certain he approves of this Varian guy Hugo’s dating.

Read on ao3 here https://archiveofourown.org/works/25996633

Or below the cut

Cyrus had not known what to expect when Hugo had roped him into a security job at the eternal library. For the most part, it had been an improvement. Sure, the job was pretty boring, not many people had been exactly eager to go into the formerly cursed library after its last human patron had been trapped inside. But it was getting better, thanks in large part to its two alchemists and Corona’s very friendly Queen. Seriously, that woman didn’t act like a noble at all. Cyrus half believed the rumors that she was some kind of sun goddess that had fallen from the sky. She was kind enough for it, and the sun never cared much for rich or poor. He did wish she’d stop jumping out of nowhere to say hello though, it was a bit unsettling.

And speaking of jump scares, Cyrus had grown to discover that this library was in fact inhabited by some sort of fae. She was a beautiful creature, if incredibly shy, always hiding when Cyrus moved to close, but Cyrus would catch her watching him out of the corner of his eye. He and Mona weren’t sure what kind of fae she was, but Mona had helped him recreate a few of the offerings from his grandpa’s stories, just in case.

Today’s offering was a plate of honey cookies and milk, but it was facing a serious challenge in the face of one of the most unexpected parts of his new job: Hugo.

“It’s just so frustrating!” Hugo sighed as he swiped a cookie from the plate of fresh honey cookies and sank into a chair. Cyrus scowled across at him.

It's not that Cyrus wasn’t expecting to see Hugo in his new job. But the library was vast, full of ancient scrolls to study and reluctant patrons to convince that this place wasn’t going to kill them. Cyrus, with his position at the entrance hall, had expected to see the alchemist maybe a handful of times as he welcomed the patrons for tours, and that would be it. For the most part, he was correct.

So no one was more surprised than Cyrus when Hugo had come down the first day, thrown himself dramatically in one of the chairs at the entrance hall, and started ranting about some annoying thing someone called Flynn Rider had done. At first he’d thought it was a one time thing, but no, Hugo continued to seek out his company every few days or so, to rant about all the people he was inevitably forced to work with in this new city.

It was nice, Cyrus supposed, to have someone from his own country here to talk to. If Hugo could behave. Cyrus pulled the plate of cookies away from Hugo as he went for another one. “Those aren’t for you,” he grunted.

Hugo rolled his eyes  “Are you still going on about that magic library fairy or whatever?” He licked the crumbs off his fingers as he continued. “She’s not real Cyrus, grow up and give the cookies to me.”

Cyrus grunted, pulling the honey cookies closer to himself. Behind Hugo, Cyrus could see a silver head peak over the edge of the bookshelf. “Still not yours,” he grumbled. “If you want cookies, come by the house and ask Mona.”

“Fine, be that way,” Hugo pouted, and behind him Cyrus saw the silver haired fae stick her tongue at Hugo’s back. “Just add to my burden, why don’t you?” Hugo sighed dramatically.

He wants me to ask doesn’t he? Cyrus thought as he held back a sigh of his own. “What happened this time?” he said.

“Oh it's terrible!” Hugo perked up, placing his feet back on the ground as he leaned forward to whisper theatrically at Cyrus. “Varian’s dad invited me on a fishing trip!”

Cyrus raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see the problem,” he said.

“Uh, Varian's Dad, remember?” Hugo crossed his arms. “Hates me? Thinks I’m not good enough for his son? I told you about him last week!” Hugo adds with a note of hurt in his voice.

Cyrus traded a look with the silver haired fae. She shrugged, and Cyrus figured she’d not be any help with this human affair. He pressed his fists together. “He invited you out fishing though, isn’t that a sign of progress? He’s giving you a chance.” Which was a pretty impressive turn around, considering the first impressions Hugo usually made.

“No, no, no!” Hugo shook his head, and Cyrus realized he must have missed something. “This is obviously a trap! He invited me fishing, so he can get me alone and make me look like a fool in front of Varian!”

If looking like a fool is enough to get Varian to stop dating you, you really shouldn’t be dating him, Cyrus didn’t say. Hugo seemed to sense it anyways, and he stretched out on the table, face burying in his arms.

“I just, really want him to think well of me,” he murmured, “especially after I messed up so badly.”

“You traitor!” Hugo flinched as Varian stalked towards him, teeth bared like a wild animal and eyes blazing with blue fire.

Cyrus’s gut twists at the memory, an old dread seeping over him. He didn’t think that was what Hugo meant exactly, but still. “I’ll go with you,” he stated. If Hugo had even the slightest fear of the dark side of his boyfriend appearing, then there was no way Cyrus was letting him go alone.

“Really?” Hugo beamed, all traces of earlier melancholy gone. “Excellent! I’ll meet you and Mona by the city gates at 9 am!” He bounced away, passing directly under the silver haired fan’s bookshelf. She ducked out of sight, but she needn’t have bothered. Hugo was too caught up in his own little world to notice.

Cyrus sat still at the table for a little while longer, dark thoughts swirling as he contemplated the trip and the dangerous opponents they'd have to face. The silver haired fae appeared beside the bookshelf, a frown on her face.

“He’s manipulating you,” her voice was flat as she crossed her arms.

“Not really,” Cyrus suppressed a smile, something about her posture reminded him of a jealous child tattling on a sibling. “But he probably thinks he is.” He held out one of the honey cookies. “Cookie?”

The silver fae hesitated for a second, before vanishing back behind the bookshelf. But that was fine, Cyrus shrugged as he pushed the cookies and milk into the middle of the table and pretended very hard to ignore it. Trust took time. She’d spoken today, and he would enjoy that victory for now.

--------------

“Do you think we’ll need more food?” Mona asked anxiously, hauling a truly enormous picnic basket into the air.

Cyrus grunted as he picked it up from where she was struggling. Mona gave a visible sigh of relief as the weight was lifted. Cyrus raised an eyebrow at her, and she blushed.

“Ok, ok, so it might be a bit much,” she gave Cyrus a sheepish smile as she straightened her good handkerchief on her head once more. “But you know how much you men eat!”

Cyrus shrugged, conceding the point. Men did eat a lot, especially growing boys. Speaking of which...

“There you two are!” Hugo appeared between them, seemingly materializing out of thin air. Both Mona and Cyrus jumped. And Cyrus allowed a slight scowl to cross his lips. Hugo had gotten sneakier and Cyrus did not appreciate it.

Hugo ignored Cyrus’s obvious annoyance in favor of slapping him heartily on the back, a wide, performative grin on his face. “Quirin! Varcakes! I invited my Aunt and Uncle along, since this is supposed to be a family outing. I hope you don’t mind!”

Cyrus followed his line of sight to see Varian walking with the man Cyrus presumed was Quirin. Cyrus straightened, rolling his shoulders back as he sized up this new opponent. Quirin was a large man, with tough, sun weathered skin that spoke to years of hard labor, like the farmer Hugo had described should have. But Cyrus wasn’t fooled. He saw the way the man held himself, back straight and feet planted firm, the way his eyes moved, both sizing up Mona and Cyrus and flickering to everything else that passed in the market. This was a warrior, and no amount of years in the farm and field could change that.

If it came to a fight, this man would be a difficult opponent, Cyrus reluctantly admitted. He could even give Cyrus a run for his money. But he was hardly the most dangerous one here. His eyes turned to Varian, and narrowed.

Varian winced, and Quirin frowned, rolling his shoulders and moving like he was going to step forward, but Mona got there first.

“How nice to meet you!” She flashed her most winning smile, the one she reserved for new neighbors and particularly grumpy children. Quirin’s attention snapped to her, clearly started, and Cyrus surpassed a grin. No one could stand up to her charms. She was Team Hugo’s secret weapon.

Quirin recovered quickly, and gave a slight bow. “A pleasure to meet you my lady,” he said, and Mona gave a nervous giggle from behind a hand, unsure of how to react to a term like “lady.” Cyrus privately wondered what Quirin’s problem with Hugo was, they should be able to bond over their shared love of theatrics.

“Dad!” Varian gave a squeak. He shot Cyrus and Hugo an apologetic smile as he rubbed his neck awkwardly. Cyrus drew his brows together and Varian turned away. “It’s nice to see you again Mona,” he offered.

“Oh darling I told you to call me Auntie!” Mona waved her hand, having recovered from Quirin’s theatrical attack to counterattack by reminding him of her acquaintanceship with Varian. Quirin turned his attention to Mona, but it was too late. Mona went in for the killing blow, “It’s been so long since you came over for dinner!”

Ha! Cyrus wanted to laugh, that was his wife! Winning the battle before it had even had a chance to begin. Now Quirin knew his son was close to Hugo’s family, and would have to be on good behavior so as not to embarrass Varian. Pride welled in his stomach as he fought back a smile. Mona had such a way with words.

But not everyone was as gifted as his wife. “Well, now we’re all acquainted,” Hugo said, linking his arm with Varian’s and Cyrus could see Quirin’s temper rise as all of Mona’s hard work began to lose its hold. “Let’s get going, we’ve fish to catch!” He pulled Varian up ahead, leaving the three adults to hurry after them.

“After you!” Mona smiled at Quirin, attempting to soften Hugo’s rudeness.

“Oh no, after you, my lady,” Quirin waved a hand like a butler welcoming a noble to her palace. Mona shot Cyrus a wink as she slipped her arm in his, and led him down the path.

-------------

The walk itself was mainly uneventful. Mona did her best to keep Quirin distracted, asking about the farm, the weather, whatever normal topics she could think of to get him talking and keep his attention off of Hugo. Cyrus tried to help, but he wasn’t nearly as good at small talk as his wife. His topics of conversation that seemed “normal” usually amounted to talking work, and given his primary work was with Hugo, he had to scramble to try and find something else. Eventually he landed on grunting in agreement with whatever Mona said.

Hugo was not helping at all, practically strolling along with his arm linked with Varian’s and occasionally stopping to point out some plant or animal and remark its proper latin name, which he thought made him look cool. But to Cyrus, who knew Hugo hadn’t known anything about wildlife until he’d spent the first three days reading through books on the subject to learn the context of Varian’s ‘simple peasant life,’ it just looked over done. Like he was trying too hard.

Cyrus knew Hugo was in love with Varian, a man doesn’t turn on a steady wage and a roof over his head for anything less than true love, romantic or otherwise. But he privately wished Hugo would relax a bit more, instead of trying to impress all the time.

Case and point, A leaf fell in Varian’s hair, and Hugo gave a gasp, pointing out how something with a big fancy sounding name was stuck in Varian’s hair. Varian freaked out, raising both hands to brush it off, only to see a leaf tumble down. Hugo gave a laugh and Varian’s eyes narrowed. Cyrus’s blood ran cold.

“I trusted you!” Varian snarls, spit flying into Hugo’s face. But Hugo is ashen and shaking, and doesn’t respond.

Varian reached a hand up, and Cyrus tensed, ready to run to Hugo’s aid. This time he would not freeze. But Varian gave Hugo a light shove. Hugo dipped away, laughing, while Varian glanced back at the three adults behind them. Their eyes met and Varian flinched, ducking close to Hugo to whisper in his ear.

“What?” Hugo said loudly, eyebrows rising in comical surprise. “No no! Of course Cyrus likes you.” He waved a hand back at Cyrus. “That’s just his face. He always looks like that.”

Mona and Quirin both sent Cyrus sharp looks, but Cyrus ignored them in favor of Hugo’s expectant face. He couldn’t let him down now. “I have a very scary face,” he admitted through gritted teeth, and Hugo beamed.

“There you go then,” he pulled Varian closer and gave a stage whisper into his ear. “It’s actually a problem, he’s lucky we took him in, or it would have been forced to work at the circus.”

“I’m pretty sure the circus would have been more exciting,” Varian rolled his eyes, and Quirin’s attention turned back to his son, seemingly appeased.

But Mona’s gaze lingered, biting her lip as she followed Cyrus’s gaze to Varian. She glanced up at Cyrus with a look that clearly says, “we’re going to talk about this,” and Cyrus felt the upcoming dread that only married couples know.

Sure enough, when they reached the lake, Mona gave a theatrical gasp and threw a hand over her mouth. “Oh no!”

Cyrus snapped to attention, senses overstimulating as he searched for the threat. He glanced quickly around to see what had set her off, but there was nothing dangerous in the immediate vicinity with the exception of Varian, and he was clearly as confused as Cyrus.

“I forgot desert!” Mona cried, and Cyrus felt himself marginally relax. Okay, nothing to fight. Unless she wanted him to hunt down a fairy and wish for desert. He shot the trees a glance, wondering if there were any a fairy might like to hide in. He wished he’d brought the honey cookies for bait. Then again, if they had honey cookies, they wouldn’t need a fairy.

“Don’t worry about it,” Quirin smiled. “We’ll be fine without it.”

“No! No!” Mona shook her head. “I saw some blackberries back there, I’ll just go and pick some while you boys get the boats out.” She extended a hand to Cyrus with a smile that made Cyrus break out in a cold sweat. “Cyrus dear?”

She used “dear” he was definitely in trouble.

“I could help too,” Varian offered, and in that minute Cyrus would almost have appreciated the rescue even if it came from him, but Mona waved Varian away. “We’ll be fine. Besides,” she shot Varian a wink. “You know how to set up a boat, and don’t you want to show Hugo how its done?” Varian and Hugo’s cheeks both flamed red, and Cyrus would have found it amusing if he didn’t know his doom was upon him.

Mona linked their arms and dragged him back towards the path and out of ear shot. She stopped in front of a blackberry bush and began to pick them. For one, glorious moment Cyrus thought they really were just here to get the desert, when Mona said, “You don’t approve of Varian.” It was not a question.

“It’s not my place,” Cyrus shifted uncomfortably. Because it really wasn’t. He wasn’t like Quirin. Hugo wasn’t his son. He could listen to his complaints sure, but he could hardly comment, or risk losing whatever fragile bond they had developed.

Mona snorted. “So you’re just going to glare at Varian all day?” she said, clearly seeing the issue and not at all agreeing with Cyrus’s method of disapproval.

Cyrus turned his head away, pulling a few more berries from the bush as he stayed stubbornly silent, not wanting to admit that yes, glaring was very childish.

Mona let out a sigh. “Could you tell me why you don’t approve?” Her voice was tired as she placed the blackberries she’d pulled free in an open jar.

Cyrus bit his lip. Why didn’t he approve? He hadn’t always, he’d helped Hugo leave to go with Varian and his friends after all. He’d seen how much these people meant to Hugo, and that they had been willing to fight Cyrus for him, and that had been enough. But then Donella had dragged him to the library, and it all went south.

“The library.” Cyrus struggled to put it into words. “When Donella revealed Hugo used to work for her, Varian got angry.” Angry didn’t even begin to describe it. The others had been angry, but Varian? He’d been so much worse.  “Really angry,” he added.

“I take it Hugo forgot to mention that detail earlier?” Mona asked dryly.

Cyrus shrugged. Because he knew that their anger was justified. It was Hugo after all. He was terrible at expressing his emotions, and although Cyrus knew how much it had taken him to leave, he was also absolutely certain Hugo did not explain this to Varian or the others. But then again...

“It's not just the anger, it was something more. The look in his eyes..” Cyrus shook his head, unable to put it into words.

Cyrus took half a step towards Hugo’s trembling form, but a single look from Varian froze him in his tracks. It wasn’t a look of heartbreak or a caged animal like he’d expected. No. It was a look that Cyrus had only seen a few times, in men so unhinged even the guild refused to lend them thugs. The look of a man who would burn the whole world to the ground to kill a single man.

In the second their eyes were locked, Cyrus felt all the air in the room sucked out as the agonizing aura of fear overpowered him. Then Varian turned his head and stomped into the library, ending the moment.

Cyrus gasped with relief as the portal shut behind Varian’s retreating back. Donella was swearing, but Cyrus only felt gratitude to whatever being out there watched over thugs. He knew if Varian had chosen to attack all three of them would have died, alchemic genius and brute strength be damned.  

Mona placed a gentle hand on Cyrus’s cheek, grounding him back to reality. Her face creased with concern as she asked, “Did he do anything to you or Hugo?”

Cyrus shook his head. “He just left.” Mona breathed a sigh of relief.

“Okay,” she said. “So he scared you, and that’s no easy feat. But Cyrus,” she bit her lip, “he didn’t actually do anything. Right?” Cyrus grimaced, but Mona stopped him with a look. “No Cyrus, that’s important. When it comes down to it. He didn’t hurt Hugo, and he didn’t hurt you.”

She was right, Cyrus begrudgingly admitted to himself. But somehow the thought didn’t make him feel any better.

Mona sighed, leaning forward until her weight shifted half onto Cyrus in a slight hug. “He reminded me a bit of myself you know,” she mumbled into Cyrus’s shoulder.

“Impossible,” Cyrus said, Mona was nowhere near as terrifying as Varian had been. Except for when he walked muddy boots onto her nice clean floors one to many times, or when she saw those bruises on the neighbor kid, or... He shook his head to stop that train of thought.

“He was so eager to please,” Mona continued, “and afraid to be a burden. He helped me in the kitchen, when even Hugo didn’t think to.” And Cyrus remembered she’d mentioned that before.

Mona tilted her head up to look him in the eye. “You’ve only seen him at his worst Cyrus, but today? It's an opportunity! We can both watch how he interacts with Hugo, and see how he behaves day to day. And besides,” she gave him a wry grin, “if all he did at his worst was lock himself away, I’d say Hugo’s in pretty good hands.”

Cyrus’s shoulders sagged as he realized he’d been beaten once again. “Fine,” he grunted. “I’ll try to keep an open mind.”

“Thank you darling!” Mona stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the nose. Cyrus blushed, and pulled her close.

“What is taking you so long?!” Hugo shouted down the path and they hastily broke apart.

------------

Two seconds on the boat led Cyrus to realize two things that were very important. The first was that he knew absolutely nothing about fishing. He gazed over the strange rods with wires and hooks and vaguely horrid smell of canned sardines with complete confusion.

“Here,” Quirin pushed a fishing rod into Cyrus’ hands. “Can you string your own line?”

Cyrus’ hand automatically closed over the rod, and Quirin took this to mean he knew what he was doing and turned to offer a rod to Mona and Hugo. Cyrus blinked blankly down at the pole in his hands, wondering what he was supposed to do now. He glanced at Hugo and Mona, but they seemed equally lost.

Quirin completed handing out the rods and turned his attention to his own, hands moving in quick, easy motions as he wove the line through the hoops. Cyrus couldn’t catch all the details, but it seemed simple enough. He turned his attention to his own rod.

Carefully, he put the string through the first little ring. There. He stopped to admire his work. That wasn’t so hard. The string promptly slipped out of the little ring, and Cyrus realized this was going to take a while.

He threaded the little ring again, then the next and the next. He glanced at Quirin’s but found it still didn’t look right. Perhaps he was supposed to loop it? Yeah, so it could catch fish. He was pretty sure that was right. He tried looping the next ring, but it only succeeded in making it harder for the string to move. He tried to undo it, but found it had knotted. Oh no. He gave the string a sharp tug, but that only seemed to make a larger knot.

“Do you need a hand?” Varian offered and Cyrus nearly jumped out of his skin as he found the boy leaning over him, blue eyes wide. He looked the picture of innocence, but Cyrus could barely suppress the shutter that seemed to fill him as Varian blocked out the warmth of the sun. Beside him Mona leaned close, either as a comfort or a warning to behave.

“Yeah Cyrus, do you need a hand?” Hugo gave a mocking call, highlighting the second thing Cyrus had realized: that Hugo set him up to fail. Hugo didn’t know anything about fishing, so he’d invited Cyrus and Mona along to make even bigger fools of themselves and in turn make Hugo look like less of an idiot in front of Varian and his father. It was actually quite clever. Cyrus just wished he’d been up front about it so Cyrus would have had a better game plan.

“I’ll be fine,” Cyrus grunted, and Varian’s face fell. Cyrus braced for the worst, but nothing happened except for the biggest puppy dog eyes Cyrus had ever seen on a grown man. Mona frowned at him, and Cyrus held back a sigh. He had promised he would try.

“Why don’t you help Hugo instead,” he said as a sort of peace offering, pointing to Hugo’s own unstrung rod. Hugo scowled at him, clearly not happy at Cyrus for redirecting everyone’s attention to his own failings. Cyrus raised an eyebrow in response as Varian hurried to Hugo’s side. Hugo was getting the attention he clearly craved, so who was he to complain? And besides, it served him right for not being upfront about the whole thing.

Quirin’s eyebrows knit together as he watched Varian calmly instruct Hugo in how to thread the fishing rod. No doubt he was wondering if Hugo was really as clueless as his uncle, or just pretending to have Varian’s full attention.

Cyrus used the time to quietly cut his line out of its knots and castaway the smaller bits. He glanced back up to see if anyone had noticed, to find Mona watching him with an amused grin.

Cyrus blushed and turned his attention hurriedly to Varian and Hugo. Varian really was being very patient with him. He was snarking Hugo sure, but Cyrus could see his hands moving gently against Hugo’s as he directed him to the proper movements. Hugo’s lips quirked up, and Cyrus knew he was enjoying himself.

Mona gave Cyrus a slight nudge to say, see what I mean? And Cyrus hunched his shoulders. Because yes, he could see what she meant. A point to Varian. But one point wasn’t enough to stand against the thousand points he’d lost at the Library.

“Would you like some help Auntie?” Varian offered as he finished up with Hugo, a warm smile on his lips.

“I would love some help,” Mona smiled, and nudged Cyrus again to signal he should ask. Cyrus very deliberately did not ask, and she shot him a pout over Varian’s shoulder before turning her attention fully to the rod beneath her fingertips.

Varian began to speak, explaining in simple words what each of the rings were and the loopy thing, and how the rod was supposed to be strung like it was a needle. Mona listened attentively, and carefully moved to do as he asked.

Varian seemed to be speaking a bit louder than he was technically needed to, but Cyrus didn’t say anything. Instead he carefully moved his hands to follow the instructions without bringing any attention to it at all.

That’s two more points, he begrudgingly admitted to himself as he held up the finished rod. Three if he counted the way Varian had tried to shield his ego.

Maybe there was hope for him after all.

--------------

Fishing, it turned out, involved a lot of sitting around in the boat, waiting for a fish to catch on their lines. Which also led to a lot of room for conversation. Cyrus was beginning to see why Hugo had wanted him and Mona here, and not just to make him look like less of a fool. He’d also wanted two human shields to help prevent the one-sided interrogation that Quirin kept trying to start.

Mona and Cyrus did their best, but Quirin had the determination of a man who wants to stop his son from doing something very stupid. He kept pushing, and there was only so much about Hugo’s personal life they could believably answer.

“So Hugo,” Quirin smiled as he began his 45th question, “how are you adjusting to working at the eternal library?” As far as his questions went, this one was actually quite simple, clearly meant to ease the annoyed looks that Varian was shooting him. But the simple mention of the library in such a tense situation made the hairs on Cyrus’ neck stand on edge.

“Lovely,” Hugo waved a hand. “I have more knowledge than I could ever dream and the perfect partner to discover it all with.” He shot Varian a dopey smile, and the other boy blushed.

“Cyrus works there too!” Mona happily reminded them all, no doubt hoping to redirect the growing frown on Quirin’s face as Hugo leaned closer into Varian’s personal space. Help! her expression said.

Quirin turned to look at Cyrus with interest. “You do?” Cyrus gave a sharp nod. “Tell me,” Quirin leaned forward on his hands, and too late Cyrus realized this must be what he was going for from the beginning. “How is the library doing? It would be nice to hear about how the front is managing itself, and not just the research my son tells me of.”

Cyrus wondered if perhaps Quirin didn’t fully approve of Varian’s new job just as much as he didn’t approve of Hugo. Or if he’d just heard the rumors about the place and was worried. Either way, Cyrus felt he owed the man an answer.

“Business is slow,” he said bluntly, and Varian winced. “But it's steady, and growing every day.” Quirin didn’t look fully convinced, so Cyrus decided to elaborate. “No one’s been cursed yet,” he offered. “And our little fae has mostly stopped stealing back the books now she’s seen they get returned.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hugo glare. Why would you mention your imaginary friend? His expression said.

Quirin however, looked intrigued. “A fae you say?” he said, rubbing his chin. “Those are rare nowadays.” Cyrus saw Hugo’s mouth fall open in shock. “Tell me,” Quirin continued. “Have you tried giving her offerings?”

“Quite a few,” Cyrus’ lips quirked up, feeling a slight spark of smug pleasure in another acknowledging the silver-haired fae’s existence. “Just yesterday I offered Mona’s special honey cookies and milk.”

“Did it work?” Quirin asked. Cyrus shook his head. “Hmmm,” Quirin mused. “Honey and milk usually does it. It worked on the lake sprites that were giving the village some trouble a few years back.”

“Lake sprites did what now?” Varian gaped, but both men ignored him.

“Perhaps our library fae is just more stubborn than the lake sprites,” Cyrus shrugged, and instantly regretted it. What had Grandpa always said? Never insult a fae while in their domain?

He glanced around, but nothing seemed to change. Cyrus had just enough time to breathe a sigh of relief when Mona’s line gave a sharp tug. She startled, having been more engaged in the conversation than the rod, and pulled with all her might. But whatever was on the other side pulled with the strength no normal fish could have, and sent Mona flying over the side of the boat.

Cyrus reached out for her foot as it flew by his head, but his fist closed over empty air. No. Cyrus grabbed the edge of the boat, and with one mighty leap, hurled himself across the lake to where his wife had disappeared beneath the water.

It was not until after his head had fully submerged that the panic of “Mona can’t swim!” Became “I can’t swim!” He struggled in the water. waving his arms and legs about in a desperate hope that it might keep him afloat. The water flooded his open mouth, stealing his air away. He kicked harder, struggling against the current of water pulling him down.

Something hard collided with his back, tugging him forcefully to the surface. His head broke the water and he gasped, gulping down as much air as he could. Whatever it held him in place, strangely buoyant. He craned his neck around, to see something bright and pink was stuck to his back and arms.

“You absolute imbecile,” a very familiar voice said. Cyrus looked up to see Hugo standing above him, balanced on the buoyant pink that kept them both afloat.

“Hugo!” Cyrus cried. “Mona! Save Mona!” But Hugo ignored him, instead using a rope to pull them closer to the line. Strong arms pulled him upwards into the boat, and without the mobility of his arms, there really wasn’t much he could do.

“Mona!” he cried again, only to hear an answering,

“Cyrus!” he turned, a difficult feat with the strange pink substance still stuck to his back, to see Mona, soaking wet and covered in the same pink substance but breathing and alive. “Oh Cyrus!” Mona sobbed, and threw herself towards him. Cyrus tried to catch her, but found he still could not move his arms. Instead they lay against each other, drinking in each other’s presence.

“Now everyone is saved,” Hugo patted Cyrus’ shoulder and gave a tight smile. “What the hell were you thinking?” His hand closed into a fist.

Cyrus blinked. “Mona can’t swim.” He pointed out.

“Neither can you, you absolute idiot!” Hugo was shaking with fury. If Cyrus didn’t know better, he’d say he was afraid. “You never use your head! If you’d thought for even one moment, you’d have known there were better people to go after her!”

“You jumped in too,” Cyrus pointed out, feeling this whole tirade was somewhat hypocritical. “You can’t swim either.”

“Actually I can,” Hugo sniffed. “Varian taught me.” Cyrus looked over at Varian, who was standing awkwardly to the side, water dripping from his hair to his goggles. Teaching Hugo a life saving skill? That was worth at least fifty points. Varian ducked his head.

“He swam me to the boat!” Mona added, voice muffled as she spoke against Cyrus’ chest. And okay, saving Mona from near drowning was another fifty points. Still far from the thousand points he’d lost, but an impressive enough improvement to drive home how he really should take Mona’s advice.

“Gonna get us out of here?” He grunted at Varian, who’s head snapped up.

“I don’t know,” Hugo crossed his arms. “I think we should just leave you in there, so you don’t go jumping back in the lake.” Quirin frowned, and Hugo added hastily, “But Mona we can get out.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Varian rolled his eyes. “Here,” he said to Cyrus with a shy smile. “Let me help.” He uncorked a small vial, and poured the strange green liquid over Cyrus’s shoulders. Cyrus could feel the pink substance crackle and break as he drew his arms forward to cradle Mona, who was still stuck. Varian leaned over her, and Cyrus watched the pink slowly crumble off her shoulders.

“Thank you,” Mona gave a slight smile, and Cyrus felt her pull closer against him, body shivering.

“I think that’s enough fishing for today,” Quirin said, and Cyrus and Mona were quick to nod along. It was time to go back home.

-------------

“Can I talk to you son?” Quirin said casually as he and Hugo pulled in the boat. “Man to man?”

Cyrus stiffened. A sneak attack when everyone was beginning to relax. How hadn’t he seen this coming? He looked at Hugo, trying to convey the message, do you need me to follow in case of ambush?

Hugo’s shoulders slumped as he let out a long sigh. “Sure Quirin,” he said. He shot Cyrus a look that clearly said, come get me if I scream. Then he took a deep breath and followed Quirin, looking for all the world like a man going to his own execution.

As they moved around the bend and out of view, Cyrus realized he and Mona had been left alone with Varian. Great. Now what?

Varian shifted, tugging at his sleeve. “So I guess this is the time when you tell me not to break Hugo’s heart?” he asked, voice an octave higher.

Mona and Cyrus looked at each other. Cyrus sighed. “It’s not my place to tell Hugo what he can or can’t do. I’m not his father.” He said, getting really tired of people expecting him to have some kind of authority over Hugo. Mona raised an eyebrow and he shook his head. Really he didn’t. The last person to tell Hugo not to do something was Donella, and look how well that worked out. Mona looked down, seeming to understand.

“Oh,” Varian looked down, and Mona bit her lip.

“You know he’s not actually related to us right?” she offered. “That day he brought you over, I’d never seen him in person before.”

“I’m just a guy who worked for Donella,” Cyrus added, because Varian needed to understand that Hugo didn’t have anyone else, he’d given up his closest connection for Varian.

“Yeah, but,-” Varian’s brow wrinkled, “-you still helped him. And when my Dad suggested a family fishing trip, he insisted you guys come. You guys might not be related, but you’re important to him. And,-” His eyes met Cyrus’ blazing with a determined fire, “-I want Hugo’s family to approve of me.”

Cyrus starred back, feeling frozen one again under that familiar glare. For the first time, he wondered if maybe Varian was as intimidated of Cyrus as he was of him. The thought was almost laughable, he’d read up on Varian, he knew what he was really capable of. There was no way he’d be able to beat him if the boy decided to go all out. But then again, there were other ways to hurt someone.

What had it been Mona had said to him when they’d been on their way to introduce her to the thug guild?

“I just really want them to like me,” she’d confided when he’d asked why she was so nervous. “I want to be with you forever, and I don’t want to make that forever miserable for you.

Cyrus sighed. “I’m still not going to threaten you,” he said, and then because Varian looked far too happy to hear that he added, “I wouldn’t want you to see it coming.”

Varian’s face fell as Mona let out a peal of laughter. “Cyrus!” she giggled. “Hugo’s an adult now! You can’t go killing off his problems anymore!”

“He what now?” Varian’s eyes widened in alarm as he looked between Cyrus and Mona.

“There was only one,” Cyrus grunted, and Varian paled.

“He deserved it,” Mona waved a hand. “Don’t worry darling, you’d have to kill a few animals in front of their owners before you even came close.”

“I-” Varian started, looking hopelessly lost. “I think I’m missing something.”

“Welcome to the family kid,” Cyrus smiled as he saw Quirin and Hugo heading back around the bend. “You’ll get used to it.”

[panic-and-procrastinate-writing]

Chapter 12: A Consequential Discovery

Warnings: Murder, Kidnapping, Blood, Gore, Pain and Horror

Today was the day.

Today was the day that someone was going to die.

You could feel it.

You could feel it in the air, the way the static stuck to your arms and made your hairs stand on end. The way the air was no longer humid and exhausting, but cold and dreadful, with a chilling breeze cutting through to your core, and reminding you of the unease you felt when you passed a grave yard.

And there was the buzzing. The constant buzzing and crackling of electricity around your head and filling your ears with non-existent noise. Electric shock jarring you every time you touched something.

It was there from the moment you woke up, and it was going to be there until he died.

It was really starting to piss you off.

But you were trying to ignore it and stay calm, in favour of making a hot tea to chase away the grave feeling settling in your stomach.

You would call the Red Hood later and let him know, but for now, you really just needed a relaxing bath and some incense.

Leaving the tea bag to sit in the cup of hot water, you left the kitchen to start running a bath. Grabbing the incense on the way, you placed it in your bathroom and lit it, filling the room with a sweet vanilla scent.

It had been a couple days since you spoke to the vigilante and Oracle about what to do on your situation with Nevaeh, and you hadn’t spoken to anyone since.

Three days. Three days of utter and complete depressing silence. Three days of not talking to a single goddamn soul.

It was draining, and tiring, and you found yourself struggling even more to get yourself out of bed, the only thing keeping you alive was the thought of actually dying.

Because even though life felt worthless and you didn’t have the energy to do anything at all, you didn’t fight for your life with everything you had just to kill yourself.

You opened your bathroom cupboard and pulled out a new bath bomb. It was nothing special, all it did was turn the water milky and had a sweet scent, but it did look pretty with rose petals in the water, which is what you placed in shortly after the bomb dissolved.

The bombs and petals had no healing qualities and did nothing for your senses, but it looked charming, and after adding candles on the shelves and turning the lights down low, you felt that it was going to relax you pretty well.

Turning off the hot water, you went back into the kitchen to take the tea bag out and place in your preferred amount of milk and sugar. You brought the tea with you into the bathroom, along with a speaker hooked up to your phone, and placed them on the windowsill, away from the water.

You turned on your meditation playlist, and started to strip, getting ready to completely chill out.

Climbing into the tub, you hissed as the hot water lapped at your ankles, but continued to sink in, preferring the scalding water over the bone chilling air.

Once submerged, you closed your eyes, and let your thoughts wander.

He was going to die today. Malcolm Valetta. Today was the day that the murderer decided he should die.

But why? Why today? What was so special about today? Did it have something to do with Valetta himself? Was it a personal thing about Valetta, or a personal thing about the murderer?

Or was it just because the murderer felt like killing someone every couple of weeks, and that he chose a Monday night because the body would be discovered on a Tuesday, the second day of the week, which matched up with his body drop of 2 in the morning?

Wow. That was a really specific idea.

And…it made sense…

Maybe bath bombs and rose petals did have special qualities.

Nah, it was probably because your tense muscles were melting off in the almost lava like water, which in turn caused your psychic filters to destress too.

Surrounding yourself with beauty and natural wonders tended to heal the mind pretty well.  

But if the first murder was on a Wednesday, the third day of the week, and the body was dropped at three in the morning, then that meant that the number of bouquets weren’t only the hour of the body drop, but the week day on which the victim would be found.

Goddamn. What a break through.

But if the murderer got away, which you doubted he would, his next murder would be on a Saturday, and at either 6 in the morning or 6 at night.

It still seemed pretty early though. Too many people would be out at that point, why would he place a body then?

Was it somewhere rural and unpopulated, where nobody really went and therefore the body wouldn’t be found for a while?

Hmmm. It seemed a little too far in the future for you, your senses too clouded to tell what was truth and what wasn’t.

Oh well. You were supremely chilled out, sticking your leg up and out of the water, and watching hot steam float off.

Heh. You were as red as a lobster, and boiling like one too.

The best way to bathe.

Sighing, you continued to think, but let your thoughts drift away from the case and to more current events.

Like wondering what was the vigilante was up to.

Heh. Sleeping most likely. You imagined that late nights patrolling would wear anyone down, and therefore this cold morning would have him tucked in bed all cosy.

You hoped he was. You wanted to him to be comfortable, and resting in some fun batman pyjamas. You giggled at the image that came to mind, but quickly chased it away when you realised it wasn’t right.

If he wasn’t wearing pyjamas then what was he wearing?

Your giggles quickly transformed into squeals of embarrassment when you guessed that he only slept in underwear, and realised you had hit the nail right on the head and felt the truth more than you wanted.

Goddamn it why did you have to be right all the time!?

Now you couldn’t get the image out of your head!

You hunched your shoulders and tried to disappear further into the bath, the hot water doing nothing to soothe your flushed face.

You didn’t want to think about how pretty the Red Hood was, and you didn’t want to think about how gorgeous his muscles were! But how could you not? You literally saw them a couple days ago, all tied up in a way too tight t-shirt that looked like it wanted to rip at the seams, and glistening with summer sweat.

Argh!! Curse your filthy mind! Calling him up later would be even more difficult now.

This wasn’t like you! Why were you thinking about him like that? He was your friend, not some supermodel or idol, just a person, a friend who cared about you and definitely didn’t want you lusting after him like some desperate bitch.

God you really needed to get a life.

And a significant other.

*

“Hello?” The vigilante answered after the 4th ring, and you stuttered back a reply as you sat at the kitchen table, playing with the hem of your shirt nervously.

“Is everything okay? Did you have another vison?” He asked worriedly, with a new robotic voice. A voice filter on the phone maybe?

“Uh, not exactly. Um, It’s more my sixth sense actually, I uh… I think it’s going to happen today.” You bounced your leg anxiously, biting at your nails, afraid of how he would take the news.

“What’s going to happen today? The murder?”

“Mmhhmm.” You hummed in agreement, unsure of what to do and how to stop it.

“Are you sure? Valetta’s under house arrest until the trail, and he has a police detail outside his house for protection.”

You breathed in and out to calm yourself, unsure of what to do or what to feel.

You wanted to believe that it was going to be okay. That with the police protecting him the murderer wasn’t going to try anything. But the truth was, you just couldn’t.

You knew the truth. And even if things didn’t turn out exactly the way you dreamt it, the murderer was still going to try and kill him today.

“Yeah, I’m sure. It doesn’t matter that he has protection, the murderer isn’t scared. He’s going to try anyway, so, if you could speak to someone or something about increasing protection, maybe?...” You bit your lip, still so nervous about the whole situation.

This was the first time you were actively trying to stop a murder from happening.

You could not screw up.

“Okay, yeah, I’ll see what I can do. Do you have any idea what time it’s going to happen?”

“Uh, no, sorry, I don’t. I only know it’s going to happen tonight.”

“Alright, thanks. Is that all you called for?” He asked as you fumbled again, and you found yourself unable to reply.

Hnng. Goddamn it just say ‘Yes, good bye!’ what the hell was all the hold up?!

“I, uh, yeah, um, but, ah.” Apparently forming coherent sentences was a skill you did not possess.

“Is everything okay?”

“Um, uh, Yeah, I just, uh, you’re probably busy so I should let you go-”

“I have time.” He interrupted. “What’s wrong?”

You opened and closed your mouth repeatedly, having no memory of how to actually hold conversations. How were you supposed to reply to that when nothing was actually wrong?

Okay, that was a bold-faced lie. Everything was wrong but talking about your feelings was gross and that was not the reason you were struggling to remember how to be a human being.

“Nothing’s wrong! Everything’s fine, great, amazing, I’m just- I- fuck I’m bored.” You barked out a laugh as the truth barrelled its way out of your mouth, and you put your head in your hands, trying to hide away in shame.

Of course you couldn’t say goodbye, you didn’t want to.

“I’m sorry, I’m sure you have much better things to do than to-”

“I can talk.” He interrupted again, and you found yourself blubbering again.

“But, shouldn’t you get on with the case? You know, stop the bad guy and all.” You floundered desperately, unsure of what you really wanted.

You really should have let him go so he could protect the target, but god you really needed company. And you really wanted to talk to someone.

“Yeah, but you said it’s going to happen tonight, right? It’s midday, we got a couple hours.” He reasoned, and you bit your bottom lip in anticipation.

“I guess.”

“Do you want me to send a message to Oracle, just to be sure? She can let other people know so I won’t be the only one working to stop him.” He asked, and you felt a little more relieved at the idea of other people being there to stop the murderer.

“Yes please.”

“Alright, Give me a minute.”

“Thankyou.” You deflated and slouched in your dining chair, listening to him rummaging around a room, searching for a laptop. When he found it, you heard the sound of it powering up and then the clacking of keys as he sent the message.

“Alright, there we go. I can stay and talk for a bit.”

“Um, okay, sweet.” You said as you scrapped your nail at a stain on your dining table. Alright, okay, cool, he could talk.

But now what?

“Um, how have you been?” You asked, starting off the conversation. You wanted this. You shouldn’t have been so nervous.

“I’ve been alright, you?”

“Um, I’ve… been.” You sunk into your seat, hunching your shoulders and trying to hide even though he couldn’t see you. You didn’t want every conversation you had to be a depressing one.

“What’s been going on?” He asked with concern, and your heart did stupid little flips at the implication that he cared.

God you were a dumbass.

“Literally nothing.” You laughed cynically, but quickly quieted down as you realised it wasn’t really funny, and it just kinda hurt instead.  “But I guess that’s kinda the problem.”

“What do you mean?” He asked again.

“I’m lonely and bored. There’s a lot of problems with that when you can’t leave the house.” You replied with snark, even though you weren’t really angry. You were just feeling too much, and you didn’t want to.

“I take it you haven’t spoken to Nevaeh then. Are you still upset about it?”

“I think I’m always going to be upset about it, if I’m honest.” You answered, but it was difficult with the lump growing in your throat.

“Is there really no one else you can talk to?” He asked, and then you felt truly pathetic.

“Not really.” You sighed. “I mean, there’s you and Oracle. But I can only call you in emergencies, and I don’t want to burden Oracle.”

“Hmm.” He pondered your answer, and you waited patiently for him to tell you to just grow up. He had better things to do then make you feel better every time you spoke to him.

“I guess we’ll have to see about getting you a more permanent phone then.” He finally said, and you felt your heart burst in your chest.

A more permanent phone?

“You mean, a phone that I can call on more than once?” You said with barely hidden excitement, your previous depressed demeanour disappearing almost instantly.

“Yeah, I think it would be more useful if you had a more secure line of contact.” He said, and you sat up in your chair, excitement at the thought of having something more permanent lifting your spirits completely.

“So, if I got this phone, would I be able to call about things other than the case?” You asked hopefully. You had been dying for weeks to call him and just talk.

He chuffed at your question and then said “Sure, why not.”

You smiled to yourself in your kitchen, happy at the thought of more conversations with him.

“So, um, what were you doing before I called?” You asked, trying to hold onto the conversation.

“I was reading.” He answered, and then asked, “What about you?”

“Uh, Nothing much. What were you reading?” You questioned, trying not to sound to pathetic.

“Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. Do you know it?”

“Oh, yeah, kinda. We studied it in school, but I can’t remember much, is this your first time reading it?” You asked.

“No, I read it in school too, but I saw an old copy in a bookstore, and I thought it would be nice to reread it.”

“Hmm.” You hummed in reply. “Do you like it?”

“I like the message behind it, but sometimes I just want to smack the kids in the face.”

You burst out laughing at his reply, and he chuckled along with you. When your giggles died down, you asked “Is it because of how bratty everyone is?”

“Of course it is, all the boys are so goddamn arrogant I wanna throw them into the ocean.”

You laughed out loud again, putting your head in your hands to try and keep yourself together, heat burning at your cheeks as you could hear him breathing on the other side of the phone.

He was smiling. You could tell, and that just made the heat in your cheeks burn worse.

“They are really fucking annoying, aren’t they?” You mused out loud, a smile gracing your features with a halo of pink surrounding them.

“Yes. Jack can get fucked.”

You burst out laughing for the third time, and briefly wondered, what the fuck are you doing?

Ignoring your own self-loathing in favour of the wonderful conversation, you replied “I’m guessing you’re not gonna read this book again when you finish it, are you?

“Absolutely not. But I will finish it, I hate leaving a book unfinished.”

You hummed in reply, smiling as you saved away that little titbit about him in the back of your mind, a comforting warmth resting on your cheeks.

“How much of the book do you have left?”

“I’ve still got a few pages left; I should be able to finish soon.”

“Ah, well that’s good. You won’t have to deal with those little shits much longer then.” He laughed loudly at your answer, and you grinned brightly, your heart swelling with joy at being able to make him laugh.

“Yeah, thank God for that, this entire book has been dragging on.”

“I thought you like tragedies?” You asked quizzically, resting your chin on hand, still smiling.

“I do, but this isn’t so much a tragedy as it is just pure torture for the characters. I know it’s supposed to show that the entitlement and pride of young upper-class boys hinders any sort of progress and construction of a society, but they are kids, and it just feels unfair that they have to go through this. Even if they do need a wakeup call.”

You sat there in shock as you listened to his detailed and structed analysis, chuckling as his pure inner nerd wormed its way through the phone.

“What? What are you giggling at? What’s funny?” He questioned rapidly.

“Nothing! Nothing! I just didn’t realise you were such a nerd is all.” You continued to laugh into your hand, still so shocked at the nerd side of him.

“Oh, for fucks sake.”

“No! No! I don’t mean it in a mean way! I promise! I liked it; it was cute. You sound like you’re in a book club.” You hummed with a smile.

“Augh.” You heard him groan on the other side of the phone, and you imagined him dragging his hands down his face in embarrassment. “I’m not in a book club. I’ve never been in a book club. I- wait. No, I have been in a book club. I think. Does collecting first editions of books count as a book club?”

You giggled at the confession and then said “I think so. It’s definitely a hobby. Did you read and discuss the books after you collected them?”

“Of course. What would be the point of collecting them if I didn’t read them?”

“Then you were officially in a book club.” You giggled a little harder at that. “Who would have thought. The infamous Red Hood, in a book club.”

“Don’t tell anyone, you’ll ruin my reputation.” He said with a sigh, and you imagined him pushing his hair back and out of his face as he smiled.

You briefly thought his smile would be gorgeous, before you chased the thought away.

“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

“Thanks.” He replied, and you could feel the soft tone of his voice through the filter, and your chest swelled with something indescribable.  

You continued to talk with him for a couple more hours, talking about all random kinds of things, like what genres you liked to read, and when you told him that you hadn’t read since high school, he gasped and promised you that he would make you love reading again. You had giggled at that, but ultimately looked forward to that future.

You had suggested fantasy as a genre, since you loved magic and fiction, and he began listing a few books that would intrigue you, but kept coming back to Shakespeare.

When you pointed this out, he ended up rambling about how amazing Shakespeare was and how important he was to the English language.

Wanting to understand why he loved it so much, you suggested he bring you a book or two of Shakespeare, and he promised he would, given they included magic.

You ended up discovering that he wanted to join the theatre club, and you really lost it at that. You were laughing uncontrollably, and you could tell he was pouting on the other side. When you asked why he didn’t, you discovered that he didn’t have enough time, because he was Robin.

You couldn’t believe it! He worked that closely with Batman! And when you began to gush about it, you quickly realised that it was a sensitive topic. He was quiet and you almost thought that he felt sad.

Understanding that it was a difficult topic, you quickly changed it into something more heartfelt, and you could tell he appreciated it.

The few hours you spoke to him felt almost unreal, having so much fun and smiling the most you had in years. It was impossible to pull away from the phone, unable to stop talking and leave the conversation, enjoying his company far too much.

And then the first crack of thunder broke the small heaven you had made, and you suddenly realised what time it was.

It was time for him to die.

“Red, you have to go.” You interrupted suddenly, staring out the window as another thunderclap roared in the sky, and the downpour began.

“What? Why? Is everything okay?” He questioned, the sudden change in tone throwing him off.

“No, no nothing’s okay. It’s happening. He’s going to kill him.” There was a beat of silence. Then;

“Okay, stay calm, I’m getting up and getting ready okay? We’ll catch him.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m calm. You’ll get him. Just hurry?”

“I’m already leaving Doll.” And then he hung up, and you were left alone with the screaming sky, unsure if he was right, and if you were telling truth.

*

Your head was screaming.

At the first sign of lightning you had ran to your room and immediately huddled underneath the covers, the thunder roaring overhead terrifying your soul out of your body.

You were crying, but it wasn’t because of the fear.

You were never that afraid of thunderstorms. Sure, you hid in your room because the loud noise brought up all sorts of horrible memories, but you never cried because of them.

No, you were crying because of the pain.

The beating, bashing, bludgeoning pain inside your skull that made you think your head was going to explode.

You were fairly certain your nose was bleeding, but you couldn’t be sure because your eyes were screwed so tightly shut from the pounding.

Were you screaming? You couldn’t tell over the noise of the wind howling outside and the rain thundering against the window.

There were images flashing across your eyelids.

There was too much colour, too much light, and closing your eyes didn’t help, because they were in your eyes.

They were in your brain.

Was this a trance? Was this what happened every other night? Was this why you could never remember, because it was always this painful?

The images were slowing down, sort of like a movie reel, and you gasped as you could finally see what was happening.

Blindly crawling out of your covers, stumbling into your living room with your eyes closed, you relied on your sixth sense to guide you to your sketch book.

You had to draw this.

You had to get this down, this pain couldn’t be for nothing.

This was too important to ignore.

You stumbled as you walked into an end table, knocking over your lamp and books, groaning as a new wave of pain pulsed inside your head and the lamp smashed on the floor. You walked on, reaching out blindly for your bookcase.

It was his face.

The murderer.

You could see him. Crouching behind some bushes, in the Malcolm Valetta’s back garden.

The rain was pouring down, and he did nothing to protect his face, his hair plastered to his forehead and his thick jacket soaking up all the water.

You had no idea who he was, but he was there, in your brain, and he was about to be in your book too.

He had to be caught, and you had to make sure that he was identifiable.

Finally reaching your bookcase, you desperately pawed away at the shelves, trying to feel for the rough texture of your sketchbook. When you found it, you pulled it off the shelf, and it hit the floor with a thud. You frantically searched for your pencil case, and you could hear all the contents of your bookshelf falling and hitting the floor.

No wonder you always made a mess when you were in a trance. You could never see anything, the pain too much to open your eyes.

The tears were still coming, streaming down your face as you got increasingly frustrated unable to find your pencil case and oh no, he was moving closer to the house.

“NO! No! Please stop!” You begged your empty apartment as you held your head, your nose a steady stream of blood, the other nostril becoming bloody too, and you could the hear it dripping and splashing on the floor.

Where was your goddamn pencil case?

Finally, your hand hit the soft texture of your pencil case, and you grabbed it, desperate to open it and get this monster out of your head.

Grabbing your 2B pencil, you shuffled along the floor, looking for your sketchbook that was buried underneath all the clutter, and when you found it, you flipped it open, and began scribbling, hoping that whatever guided you to see his face, would guide your hands to get it on the page.

Lightning irradiated the sky, but it was too late. He was in the house now. The murderer was in Malcom Valetta’s kitchen, and he was waiting behind the door, waiting for him to come get his next beer.

He had chloroform this time. A rag in his gloved hands, soaked with the liquid, and he was ready to kill him now.

You continue to cry on the floor, fairly certain there was blood getting in your sketch book, but you had to keep sketching. You had to get his face.

And then Malcolm Valetta walked into the kitchen, and you sobbed even harder. You didn’t want to see this. Why did you have to see this?

He struggled; he really did. You saw the way anger flashed in his eyes, and how quickly it was replaced by fear, and then empty nothingness as he lost consciousness.

His eyes would remain empty for eternity now.

You persevered. You continued to draw, flipping the page, sketching out the new scene that rolled in your mind, despite the pain that it caused you. You persisted.

Thunder rolled over head as he was carried him out of the house, Malcolm Valetta slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He got out the same way he got in, and climbed through a hole in the fence of the back garden, hidden by the shrubbery and trees.

Where was the Red Hood? He was supposed to be there! Why couldn’t you see him? Why wasn’t he stopping him?

The murderers van was parked a few streets away, but he made sure to take the alley ways and back roads to get to it, so he could carry the body in peace, and you hated how you had to draw every scene of this kidnapping, soon to become murder.

You were still crying, but your nose was clogging up, and you could feel the blood drying on your lips and chin.

Did this mean the trance was going to end soon?

Did this mean you wouldn’t have to watch him kill him?

You prayed it did.

But until the scene in your head stopped, you wouldn’t stop drawing, so you flipped to another page.

You heard the back-door squeak as he pushed it shut again, and you heard the exhaust back firing as he drove away, again.

You tried to watch where he was going, but you had no idea where he even was. You had never left your apartment, you didn’t know what the street names were called, and you didn’t recognise them because you had never been to them. He was driving too fast for you to see the street names.

You couldn’t take this. He was speeding by, and the storm was still going insane outside.

The trance wasn’t stopping either.

In fact, it felt like it was getting worse.

You screamed in agony as another wave of pain hit your head, a burst of light behind your eyelids, and then you were seeing through the murderer’s eyes. There was a fresh stream of blood coming from your nostrils, and you began to feel something wet in your eyes too.

Were your ears bleeding too?

How much blood were you losing right now?

What was happening?

You cried harder when the murderer got to his hideout, and you knew what was going to happen next.

You dropped your pencil in favour of gripping your hair and screaming in pain.

You didn’t want to see this!

You didn’t want to feel this!

You didn’t want to do this!

You cried harder as he began his plan, and he re-enacted your nightmare perfectly, slicing and tearing open the body exactly as you had dreamt.

You couldn’t draw this. It was too much. You didn’t want to watch, but you didn’t have a choice.

“Please, please stop.” You begged aloud again, but nobody heard you.

Nobody would save him. Malcom Valetta was dying in front of you, and you were the one who was doing it.  

All you could do was cry and hold yourself, your arms wrapped around your middle, your forehead pressed to the cold ground and your lungs squeezing tighter and tighter until there was no breath left.

The trance wasn’t stopping, even when you felt dizzy, even when you felt sick, the images were still going, still reeling in your mind, the horror movie not over until the body was hanging on the tree.

And when the body was placed, along with all the handcrafted messages, you finally felt peace. The images stopped flashing, the movie slowed down, and you finally stopped seeing his dead body.

When you stopped seeing him, you breathed, and then you collapsed, his face finally locked between the pages of your sketchbook, waiting to be put away.

You could open your eyes now.

*

The first thing you noticed when you came to, was the smell of blood. There was a pungent, heavy scent of iron in your nose, and you had an awful time figuring out why.

Groaning as you sat up, your head was pounding, and your eyes hurt, almost like you had been squeezing them shut for hours. There was also a faint feeling of crispiness to your eyes, like tears had dried in your sleep.

When you looked around to figure out what had happened, you suddenly felt very annoyed with yourself.

That stupid fucking trance thing had happened again.

Groaning out loud again, you dragged your hands downs your face, and jumped in shock when you felt something wet. Looking down at your hands, horror covered your face as your realised they were covered in blood.

That wasn’t right.

Hurriedly getting up, you tried to walk to your bathroom, but dizziness knocked into you suddenly, and the room swayed with you.

You managed to get through the lightheaded daze that had settled into you, and you staggered into the bathroom, leaning heavily on the sink and stared at your reflection.

What the fuck?

There was blood all over the bottom half of your face, from your nose all the way to your chin, and when you turned your face, you heart dropped.

There was a long line of blood, all the way from your ears to your jaw.

You had never bled from your ears before.

What the fuck had happened during that trance?

Taking deep breathes to calm yourself, you gripped the edge of the sink, you had to keep calm.

Okay, so, you apparently bled from almost every part of your face last night, no big deal.

It was okay, it would be okay, you were be gonna fine. You had nose bleeds before, maybe not this intense, but you had them before. It was always okay.

Just a sign of too high blood pressure.

God, how high was your blood pressure for your ears to bleed too?

Sighing, you turned on the hot water and began to wash your face, scrubbing behind your jaw and ears too, not able to stand the idea of being covered in blood any longer than you had to.

When your face was clear of the blood and dried tears, you brushed your teeth too, seeing as some of the blood had gotten in your mouth, and you didn’t want to taste that.

When you were done, you stretched and clicked your back, your back aching horridly, as if you had been hunched over all night. Groggily walking out of the bathroom, you groaned loudly when you saw the mess you had made.

You swore the next time it happened you were handcuffing yourself to the bed.

Deciding to clean up the mess later, you sluggishly walked to the kitchen, needing something to drink. Whether it was tea or coffee didn’t matter, you just needed something warm to fill the new cold and empty hole inside you.

Whilst walking to the kitchen, you stopped to check the time, and saw it 3:26. You were surprised when you felt nothing. No dread or surprise or joy, no indication at all as to how the night went, or if Malcolm Valetta was still alive.

Instead you just felt… tired. Tired and empty. Nothing else.

Had the trance really taken that much out of you?

If your blood pressure got high enough for your ears to bleed, it must have been a pretty fucked up trance.

Shrugging, you continued into the kitchen, and flicked the kettle on. Deciding that tea was the best option, you pulled out a mug and placed a chamomile teabag in it.

You needed something to help you sleep, not keep you awake.

When the kettle flicked off, you poured the hot water, but stopped halfway.

You were tired, yeah, too tired to tell if someone halfway across Gotham was alive or not, but not that tired that couldn’t sense if someone else was in your apartment.

“(Y/n)?”

You sighed with relief. It was just Red. You continued to pour the water.

“I’m in the kitchen.” You croaked out, and paused in surprise with how sore your throat was. Were you screaming?

Putting the kettle back down, you took your mug and sat down at the dining table, waiting for the vigilante to sit with you.

When he walked into the kitchen, he stood in the doorway, watching as you sipped your tea.

You didn’t look up, didn’t want to. Instead, you continued to sip your tea instead, favouring the warmth over the dark and grungy aura the vigilante had decided to bring with him.

His aura being that dark was a bad sign.

You weren’t sure you had the energy to deal with it.

“Did the storm get inside the apartment?” He joked, but it was tense. He was trying to make things seem better, but he was worried.

And… guilty.

That was a really bad sign.

“No storm, just a trance.”

“Oh.” He wasn’t sure what to say to that. He just kind of, stood there. Not sure what to do. “Are you… okay?”

You sighed as you put the tea down, not sure how you felt. At first you felt fucking pissed. Trances were always annoying and inconvenient, meaning you had to clean up afterwards, but at the same time, none of them had ever taken this much out of you before.

It was kind of worrying.

“I don’t know.” You answered honestly, rubbing your temples with a sigh. Your head was still aching. “Do you want to sit?” You asked, finally looking up at him, and shit your senses really couldn’t tell you anything.

Whatever dark and grungy aura you thought he had couldn’t hold a candle to his state. His jacket and shirt were completely covered in blood, there were a few gashes along his arms and legs, something that looked like a burn mark on his torso, and his helmet had a pretty defining crack in it.

He looked like he walked through hell and back.

He sighed as he slumped over and nodded yes, finally stepping fully into the kitchen and pulling out a chair to sit with you.

You watched as he flopped over and put his head on the table, clearly having had a terrible night.

You didn’t like the way it felt relatable.

“Are you okay?” You asked tensely, unsure if you were allowed to be this kind of close with him. Instead of answering, he just groaned loudly and put his head in his arms.

Sighing, you got up and walked to your bathroom, getting out your medical kit. Those gashes on his arm looked nasty, and his shirt and pants were definitely going to need a patch up with all those rips.

When you found your kit, you walked back into the kitchen and pulled your chair closer to him, spreading out the supplies on the table. When he looked up and realised what you were doing, he said “You don’t have to do this.”

You replied with “I know. But I want to.”

You thought you felt him smile at that, but you were much too tired to tell.

He began to sit up straight, and took his jacket off, his shirt soon following, and you reminded yourself it was definitely not the time to ogle.

He laid out his arm, and you began with the disinfectant, being as gentle as you could. He watched you intently the entire time, no words being said, just a comfortable, caring silence, only filled by the ticking of the clock.

When you moved onto his next arm, he broke it.

“You have blood on your shirt.”

“That will happen when you’re stitching open wounds.”

“That blood isn’t mine.”

You finally looked up from his arm and to his face, and when you saw where he was looking, you looked down at your chest and gasped.

You had about as much blood on your shirt as he did.

“Uh, I had a nose bleed?” You said dubiously, even though it was the truth, it seemed a little hard to believe you had bled that much.

“That’s a lot of blood for a nose bleed.”

“Yeah.” You said with a sigh. “That’s probably why I feel so dizzy.”

He hummed in reply, and you stopped talking after that. You resumed cleaning and bandaging his wounds, a tender silence remaining until 4 in the morning.

When you were done, he pulled his clothes back on, and you put all the bloody tissues and supplies in the bin. But he didn’t leave.

He sat back down, his aura still heavy and uncomfortable, and you knew the next conversation was going to be a bad one.

“What are your senses saying right now?”

“Right now?” You question, and then sighed. “They’re saying this isn’t going to be a fun conversation.”

He nodded when you told him this, and then said “Yeah. I’m sorry, but we didn’t catch him.”

You stared at the Red Hood as he stared back, watching to see what you would do next, but your brain was still processing.

“What do you mean you didn’t catch him?” You whispered. You didn’t mean for it to sound accusatory, but the words were out of your mouth before you had a chance to think, still unable to come to terms with what the Red Hood was trying to tell you.

“I’m sorry, I really am, but he got away, and Malcolm Valetta is dead.”

He got away, and Malcolm Valetta is dead.

You took a deep breath, and then gulped, your throat suddenly feeling much too dry to speak.

The vigilante continued to watch you, but you couldn’t look back at him.

You got up, and flicked the kettle back on. You needed coffee this time. You needed to stay awake.

You needed to keep your eyes open. 

[weeklyfangirl]

Frat Boy Pt. 16

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7 (1), part 7 (2), part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13 , part 14, part 15

*adele voice* hello, it’s meeeee i was wondering if after all this time you’d like to reeeaaad. AHEM, in other words, thank you for reading, you lot mean a lot to me :’)

“I saw the cops on campus this morning.” Strands of hair escaped her haphazard ponytail, and she blew it out of her face. “You should really do this once a week so it doesn’t get so nasty,” she muttered, tone completely changing. She missed my shrug as she bent on her knees, foraging under the sink. 

 All signs of Harry had been removed since the night before, besides the faint clean scent lingering on the pillow. But even that was fading from my mom’s trigger happy Febreezing. Harry had snuck out earlier than me, just sending a text saying he had an early before-game practice.

 “Mom, you really don’t have to clean this up.” 

 She ignored me for the upteenth time, pulling out Clorox wipes and focusing all her strength on the built-up gunk on the counter. “At least take turns or something. You do one week, Renny does the other.”

 Tap Ramen must have been made by people who knew most college kids couldn’t afford more than a coffee and dehydrated noodles - on a good day. I slurped up the artificial chicken flavor and winced as the scalding water dribbled on my chin, some falling on the carpet. We cleaned whenever we could. But recently I’d been swamped and had zero motivation for any extra obligations, much less for cleaning. Renny just… didn’t. I think Renny saw a broom once, and hid it further out of reach. 

 More Clorox wipes were drawn and she moved to the sink. 

 “What were you going to say about the cops?” I asked. 

 “Oh, right.” She pushed back her hair with the back of her hand. “It was kind of weird. Do you know if anything’s happened?” 

 I offered her a bite of my ramen. She shook her head, sweat beads lining her forehead. 

 “Okay” - I tried to explain between chunks of noodle what was happening, but she made me swallow and start over. “Supposedly there’s some kind of gang that’s been tagging the walls around school. We woke up to an e-mail today and I guess they tagged the courtyard last night. There’s a game later though.”

 “That’s frightening...” 

 “I think that’s why the cops are here. Extra security to make sure everyone feels safe.” 

 “Freaky.” She waited for me to say I agreed with her, that this was random and unexpected, but I didn’t. Fear lingered in her eyes, and I knew a couple of cops didn’t make her feel any better. In a second, she pulled me into a hug, holding me tight. “I just want my angel to be safe.” 

 My eyes closed, wishing it could be as simple as it was when I was a kid. When she could hold me tight, and tell me good guys always won - and I believed her. “Thanks momma.”

 She gripped both my arms when she pulled back. “You don’t have any plans for next weekend right?”

 I knew that tone. Some mandatory event was coming up and the thought of another something to do hurt my head. Midterms were over, but with sorority meetings, soccer games, and Zayn’s art project, I still needed to get caught up grading papers for Dr. Rhinecuff and write my own. There were only so many descriptions of the Krebs cycle I could read before the red pen sounded more appealing lodged in my eye. I rubbed my temple. “Mooooom.” 

 “What?” Her hand cradled my own that gripped my head, scared something was wrong.

 How could I tell her I didn’t want to do whatever she was going to tell me? “I feel like I’m always doing something.” Another scalding bite of soup burned my mouth and I cringed. 

 “I know, but-”

 “I just haven’t been given a second to myself to breathe!” 

 She flinched, retracting her hands. “Your brother’s coming into town.” 

 I faltered as she handed me her phone, bypassing her screensaver of Harry and I at the gala to pull up the text. 

 She wasn’t joking. 

 “Did he say why…?” I managed to mumble, half-fanning my mouth, trying to salvage whatever taste buds had survived my voluntary attack. 

 “He has a conference in Irvine. But he’s also family. He doesn’t always need a reason to come and visit us.”  

 I almost snorted but covered it with a cough for her sake. “Doesn’t he though?” 

 “Y/N!” she scolded. 

 “Sorry, sorry, you’re right.” 

 A sort of sadness filled her voice. “I know we barely see him, but he’s still my son.” 

 The words hung in the air. The fact that she needed to state something like that startled me more than I thought it would. She had two children, but one of them was more a stranger. We saw him maybe once or twice a year for a conference, Christmas if we were lucky. While her son was a stranger, her daughter was turning more unrecognizable every day. I softened. It wasn’t her fault she pushed out a numbers-chasing robot of a human. 

 “So you’re coming to dinner,” she said. The slight sheen in her eyes disappeared as she bat her lashes, a determined gleam taking its place. 

 I guess sometimes you couldn’t choose your family. 

 ------

 You also couldn’t replace the comfort of mom with a chai almond milk latte, but a girl could try. 

 My phone buzzed and I tried to ignore the way I deflated when it was Renny. 

 Can you bring me a lowfat latte I’m dyyyyinnnggg 

 Somehow, using her ridiculous charms and guiles, Renny had gotten the professor to allow her to turn in her essay a week late after spewing some story about how she was so overwhelmed from the stress of school and tonsillitis. 

 My phone buzzed again and I couldn’t help but snort at the dark moon emoji Renny added. The tall basketball player in front of me turned around, and I ducked my head down, clearing my throat. Shady moon emoji = the funniest emoji EVER, as verified by Renny and yours truly. Also worked as our code for beyond the world of the living. Running off two hours of sleep? Shady moon emoji. Just ran into your ex? Shady moon emoji. Well, I didn’t have any exes. But Renny definitely got some use out of that scenario. 

 I picked up our lattes, heading out the door. Renny was probably sitting with her head on her laptop cursing the extended deadline which only meant extended procrastination. 

 “Excuse me, miss!”

 I stalled at the sound of authority. I could turn around, or keep walking. Unfortunately, I chose the former. 

 Rogue Cop from the frat house walked towards me, stalling a few feet away. “Do you have a moment.” 

 But it wasn’t a question. I nodded, and he pulled me aside to the grassy courtyard where kids rushed from one class to another. From the Starbucks patio, I felt eyes peering over laptops watching as he crossed his arms, his eyes unreadable behind black sunglasses. This was very… public. 

 “I was just on my way to your room, actually, so I’m glad I caught you. I have a few more questions.” 

 His name badge reflected in the sun, blinding me for a moment. Officer Ramirez. I’d shoved his card deep in my dresser drawer, but I hadn’t thrown it away. 

 “How do you know the Styles family?”

 I shrugged. “I have a class with Harry. We were studying for our midterm together the other day.”

 “Did you attend their family’s charity gala?” 

 Something told me he already knew the answer. I nodded. 

 “What happened that night?”

 “I don’t know the full details of it, but when everyone was inside the auction room, the- I guess… I saw their family portrait was stolen.” 

 “How did you come to see that?” 

 “Mrs. Styles screamed. Everyone saw it, I just rushed to the sound like everyone else.” 

 “Did you see the image that was on the wall.” 

 Obviously.

 “Yes?” I swallowed, hating how nerves warped it into a question as the conversation twisted.

 “Can you remember anything else about the time you saw the symbol at Kean’s? Where was it, when was it…? Anything you can remember could help us in a big way.” 

 My eyes flitted to passerbys, each one turning to look at us once. Some had their phones out, probably zooming in for Snapchat or to message concerned parents. I hid further behind Officer Ramirez’s frame. 

 “It was a tattoo. On the back of the wrist.” My voice wavered, unwanted adrenaline making my body tremble from the inside-out. “Sometime in September.” 

 “Would you be able to recognize this person if we showed you him?” 

 “No. It was dark, and they were wearing a hoodie. I couldn’t see their face.” 

 “How many were there?” 

 “Excuse me?” 

 “You said they. How many did you see with the tattoo?”

 “Only one. Outside the shop. But he was with a friend. He was shorter.” A shaky hand raised to tuck some hair behind my ear. He noticed. 

 “Did you speak to them?” 

 “They didn’t hurt me!” 

 My outburst caught him off-guard. He inhaled slowly, exhaled slowly. Even his breath was calculated. “I see.” He rubbed the stubble beneath his chin, looking at the two drinks in my hand. “If there was anything that happened, it’s okay to tell me. It would only help us.” 

 “I just saw one tattoo.” 

 But even I could tell my voice was weak. He nodded, unconvinced, but I knew that he knew he wasn’t going to be able to prove his suspicion right. 

 “Thank you for your time.” 

 I nodded, taking this as an opportunity to walk away. 

 “As you know,” he called out, waiting for me to stop before continuing. “The gang tagged the school grounds this morning. Their tags are moving towards the coast, outside of their normal range, so just be aware of your surroundings. Notice the people around you.” He spoke like a father, but beyond the sunglasses was still a cop, and I knew he was dissecting my poker face for any sign of a flinch.  

 “Always.” And even I was impressed with how confident how I sounded. 

 I turned around, closing my eyes, and pretended for a second I was sinking into the earth, the cool dirt covering my body and hiding me from the world instead of my alternative. That when I opened my eyes, the world would be too close, looking at me, gossiping about me, wondering about me. 

 The random girl who talks to Harry now turned into the random girl who talks to the cops. That had a spicy ring to it, but I wondered how much the two went hand in hand. 

 I tossed the cooled lattes in the nearest trash can, shooting Renny a text. 

  Sorry. Line was too long. 

 ------

I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. But I think I was used to that now. Later in the art studio, Zayn put down his brushes. He cleared his throat, and I stirred on the chair, ripped from my reverie.

 “Something wrong?” he asked. 

 I shook my head. 

 “It’s all over your face. So it’s all over the canvas.” 

 “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, cringing at how the words flew out of my mouth so easily. I shouldn’t apologize so much. 

 He mulled something over in his mind until the annoyingly familiar look of pity appeared. I looked away from his soft eyes, out towards the window, trying to escape the sadness he reflected back to me.

 Harry was right. 

 I didn’t like the way he saw things. 

 --------

 “Well you never, ever, EVER have to do that again.” 

 I looked to Renny, one brow arched as she shoved a fry in my mouth. “One, because it was your last session. But TWO, and most important… because I will model for Zayn next time.” She made a silly face and raised her eyebrows. From the field, the band started to play at that exact moment and she burst out laughing. I smiled, glad she was enjoying herself.

 We stood by the locker rooms, waiting for the boys to get a spare moment to give us their extra jerseys. 

 “Would you ever think that we’d both be dating guys on the soccer team?” she mused. 

 I gave her a look. 

 “Or whatever it is you and Harry are doing. It’s crazy, right?” 

 If you told me two months ago that the guy who’d walked into class with a black eye would be the guy I was waiting on now, I’d laugh. If you then proceeded to tell me this man was Harry Styles, I’d stop laughing and say you should never be a comedian because your jokes were too far from reality. 

 “Crazy,” I agreed, eyes bulging out of my head for emphasis.

 “W’as so crazy girls?” Niall strolled out, arms spread open with the jersey tossed over his shoulder. Renny jumped on him, legs wrapping around his waist as if there was some kind of magnetic pull attached to their hips. Harry wasn’t too far behind and gave me a head nod. I felt my own pull. 

 I came up to him, suddenly feeling a little dumb for having asked for this in the first place. This was normal, though, right? Totally normal? He beckoned me a little further away around the corner from Niall and Renny who were already pressed up against the wall. Neither of us wanted to see the wordless pep talk she was giving him.  

 “Right. Arms up,” he ordered.

 I scoffed at his smug smile, but didn’t argue, putting up my arms. I looked him dead in the eye as he aligned the jersey with my hands. The places his skin brushed mine made my hair stand on end, aware of each goosebump that was now so delicately close to him. 

 “Aren’t you going to ask me to take off what I’m wearing first?” I mocked.

 He paused, looking at me as he tugged the jersey down a little more aggressively than necessary. 

 With the jersey on, he watched while I fixed my hair. “M’not into public showings.” 

 “I was kidding,” I mumbled. 

 “I don’t think you were.” 

 “I was!” 

 Scrutinous eyes appraised my flustered state, and he fought a smirk. His voice was velvet, suddenly Mr. Seduction. “You don’t have to deny yourself with me.” His fingers looped through my jeans’ belt loops, tugging me closer. Our hips touched, but when I thought he was going in for a kiss, he bit the tip of my nose instead. 

 “Who are you???” I flinched, but before I could say anything more he gently pushed me back so he could get a good look at me. The whiplash from being close to him had me reeling. I hesitated before doing a spin. 

 His lips pursed before breaking into a smile. “Waited a while to see this.”

 “Worth the wait?” My confidence faltered as he scanned over my body, up the curve in my legs and the rise of my chest, until he searched my face, finding some hidden meaning in my words again. 

 “I’d bet on it.”

 I couldn’t meet the intensity of his gaze, so I looked to his own jersey. “We’re matching.”

 “I’m a little offended.” 

 “Why?” 

 “I think you wear it better than me.” 

 He winced as I hit him on the shoulder. “Who turned you so cheesy.” 

 “Oi! Offense!” 

 From around the corner, Niall peaked his head around. “We got two minutes, mate.” 

 I hid my frown from Harry as he turned to Niall, the sharp edge of his jawline made more prominent from the fluorescent lights above us. Parts of him were shadowed, and when he yelled fuck off to Niall (big smile, just banter), I noticed even his neck was attractive. 

 I laughed, absolutely ridiculous, and he turned to me. 

 “W’as so funny?” 

 I didn’t say anything as his hands snuck around my waist to pull me in again. But I don’t think I needed to say anything. Slowly, I leant up to his perfectly tousled curls instead, resting my forehead against his, hoping to keep this feeling locked in forever. The softest sigh escaped him. 

 “Did you hear about what happened last night?” he asked, softly. 

 “Yeah.” I opened my eyes, but his were still closed.

 He hummed, tugging gently on my jersey. “You don’t have to wear this if you don’t want to.”

 “Heyyy, you said you wanted to make me happy.” I nudged my nose against his, and he smiled. There it was. That’s what I wanted.

 “I want you to be safe.” His brows stitched and the smile fell again. Just like that. 

 I pulled back, but his hands stayed firm, keeping me tight against him. The gang had been on campus. Kean’s wasn’t too far away, but a marking here was a clear breach of territory. If I was worried, that was one thing. But if Harry was worried, I was terrified. 

 “Stop that.” He saw my spiralling thoughts and snapped me back to the present, gently lifting my chin. “Nothing’s going to happen.” 

 “I just don’t know what they want. You can’t promise me that it’s going to be okay.”  

 “Fair... but I’m a strong boy, Y/N.”

 “Yeah well I don’t necessarily have as many muscles as you.” 

 There were dark circles under his eyes and a sleepy smile on his lips. Somehow, he was going to be strong enough to go out on the field and give it his all. It took all the energy in the world for me to get out of bed this morning, let alone run a field fifty times over. “I’m going to make sure you don’t have to use any of them,” he promised, looking over his shoulder. He backed me up against the wall, back blocking us to any invasive eyes. 

 “How do you do it?” I asked. 

 “Do what?”

 “How can you be so confident… and just ready, all the time?” 

 The roar of the crowd picked up as the announcer spoke. He’d have to leave soon. He’d go out there with the strength and infallibility he proved each game. He’d use all of the world’s bullshit as fuel to win. 

 But right now, he was outside the public eye. 

 Right now, his stubble tickled my jaw as he ran his mouth to my ear. 

 “Cos I’m a damn good liar.” He dipped his mouth lower, placing a kiss on that sensitive spot that made my breath hitch. His lips were light, but a hard knick of his teeth tugged on the smooth skin. The softest breath escaped me, but he heard it. I knew he did. He’d started gentle, but as soon as the breath was out he pulled harder on my skin, nibbling, sucking, the stubble scratching deliciously against my neck, desperate to hear the sound again. And again. My back arched from the pressure, pressing my body closer as he turned me to a panting mess. He was enjoying this as much as I was, I could feel him grow against my thigh, and I wanted nothing more than to drag him into the locker room and see every inch of him.  

 He pulled away too soon, hair disheveled, and a satisfied smirk on his face. 

 “I thought you weren’t into public displays?” I asked, breathlessly.

 “That wasn't a display.” His fingers traced my bottom lip, mesmerizing himself with how his thumb slid down, my lip running with it until it slid back up. “That was a warning.” He smirked, turning on his cleats, looking back just as my hand covered the tingling patch on my neck. 

 “If they fuck with you, they fuck with me.” He shrugged, walking backwards, naughty schoolboy grin lasting but a moment before he disappeared around the corner. 

 I scoffed, wanting to pound my fists against the wall for having been left by him again!! Being sucked and dumped… again!!!

 At least Renny was high on cloud 10000. All she could talk about was how good Niall was at kissing, and in the sheets, and UGH she just wanted to rip off his jersey and DO HIM RIGHT NOW. She shook me vigorously to get her point across. At least that was one frustration we could agree on. 

 Once in the soccer stadium, we struggled to find a free space in the stands. The Panthers had basically secured their rankings, and now the stands were full twice a week to see how long this winning streak could go. We looked like deer in the headlights scanning the sea of faces until we saw a platinum bob bouncing up and down. “Y/N!!” Gemma shouted, but we could only read her lips.  

 We pushed our way through the crowd, almost impossible to get down the aisle as everyone stood up in a cheer. I tossed a look back - the team had rushed onto the field. Harry was in the front, repeatedly lifting up his hands to the crowd. Scream louder. And they did. 

 Renny nudged me further up the stands, and I followed her gaze to the DGS - Viv, Karli, Shelby and others faces of their clan. I couldn’t see Lynn. I squinted harder. She was probably there somewhereeeee- WELP. Viv caught me staring. I ducked lower behind the stranger I was trying to pass. She shouldn’t be able to see me, but I could still feel her eyes burning a hole in the back of my jersey with Harry’s giant #13 impossible to miss. 

 Frickity. Frickity. Frack.

 “Should we sit with them?” Renny asked, barely dodging the slosh of beer from someone raising their arm a little too vigorously. 

 “HA! I’m good. You can though.” 

 I finally smooshed my way past everyone, practically falling in Gemma’s lap with Renny not too far behind. 

 Gemma looked at the hickey briefly, but was polite enough to not mention anything. I didn’t have a mirror with me, but if how it was stinging was any judge of size, it was way bigger than a quarter. When the halftime show was on and the band was playing, Renny left for the DGs. She squeezed my hand. “I’m only going to say hi. I’ll come back.” I smiled, nodded, but I knew she wouldn’t. 

 The thing was, I didn’t mind Gemma’s company. At all actually. If we hadn’t seen her, I would’ve been forced to mingle, and I didn’t want to think about forcing conversation right now. I didn’t want to think about much of anything. Compared to Harry’s dark enigma, Gemma was a breath of cool light. A little reserved, sure, but not shy. And she wouldn’t press me into talking when I didn’t want to. 

 “Where’s Charlie?” I asked.

 “Left. He had work in England. Life across the pond,” she mused. “His was a roundtrip, mine was a one-way, but I’ll be back by Christmas hopefully.” 

 Disappointment washed over me. I hadn’t realized I’d gotten attached to the friendly man. How funny the one person who reminded me of my brother leaves the same week my ghost of a brother returns. Could I trade them?

 “He didn’t want me to come,” Gemma sighed suddenly. Her hair was drawn back in a fishtail braid, and she picked at the ends. 

 “Charlie?” 

 “No. Harry.”

 She sat straighter, tossing the braid over her shoulder. “But I think a part of him would’ve been sad if I didn’t. He does that sometimes. Says things he doesn’t mean.” Her eyes were glued to the field.

 “Why wouldn’t he want you to come?” My tone was sympathetic. At our sleepover, Harry had said they’d fought, but he hadn’t wanted to discuss it. There wasn’t any way I was going to drag the truth out of him, but maybe Gemma...

 She rolled her eyes, irritated. ““Well…” she sighed, clearly not quite sure where to start. Or if she should start at all.

 “I won’t tell Harry,” I said, “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

 “Oh, pfft.” She waved her hand, dismissing my comment. “I know it’d come out sooner or later.” 

 It wasn’t a diss towards me though. I thought of Harry’s invasive eyes and my fiery tongue… and she was right. It probably would have come out. At least the thought had been there. 

 “I’m just a little worried about him,” she confessed. “I mentioned it’d be nice to have our mother come down and stay a while. There’s plenty of room in that house of theirs, but he’s-”

 The roar of the crowd drowned out her words. Harry had scored. I clapped instantly, but it was brief, distracted by Gemma’s words. 

 “Are his parents cool with...your mom?” It was weird phrasing, and knowing absolutely zero history about their relationship didn’t exactly help. Gemma seemed forgiving, unphased at least. 

 “Lionel’s...open to it. And Mary-” Gemma looked away, not sure how to describe her. “She’s been gone recently.” She did a sweeping motion above her head. She clearly didn’t mean physical absence. “They’ve been generous to let me and Charlie stay, so I can’t imagine they’d rob Harry of that right to decide for himself.” 

 “Why doesn’t he want to see her?” I ask, avoiding the Mary topic for now. The flash in her eyes says I’ve asked a little too much. I should feel embarrassed, but she shrugs, hiding it well. 

 “He hasn’t seen her since he was a child… it’s been a long time.” I remembered Viv telling me Harry was adopted when he was seven the same time Gemma moves a strand of hair from my face like a mother would. She glanced at the exposed hickey. “How’s he been though? S’he seem fine? You probably see him more than me.”

 I wasn’t sure if it was a deflection away from revealing anything more about her brother, or blatant curiosity. Perhaps it was a bit of both. I shied away from her touch, not sure how much she knew about Harry and I. Did he tell her anything about me I wonder? Or was I still the “friend” from English class? No matter what kind of tacit understanding we’d shared ever since the cops arrived at the frat house, I didn’t know how far that understanding went in public. 

 “I see him sometimes,” I admitted. “Between school and the sorority, and Harry having soccer practice all day every day, we study sometimes… I guess-” I shrugged “-I guess I see him enough.” But it wasn’t enough. Not really. Because every minute without him, he lingered stubbornly in the recesses of my mind, and the smallest unrelated thing could remind me of him. Sometimes that reminder was enough. Other times, the giant black t-shirt-wearing sass god that he was in my mind refused to be tucked away and sat on top of everything else - which made it exceedingly hard to concentrate on homework, work, sleep, and anyone that didn’t have curly brown hair and shadowed green eyes. I was already three episodes into the Housewives, and had only seen about two short clips of him.  

 It didn’t help that I now had photographical evidence he existed.

 After seeing my mom’s lockscreen, I studied my favorited photo a little longer. We stood side by side, opulent and regal in my red-wine ball gown and Harry in his black-and-white elegance. I frowned at how I seemed to lean into him a little more than he did into me, but his hand still claimed my waist, fingers dipping lower onto my hip. Our masks hid different truths (or were some the same?). Each time I’d look at it again, I pretended not to have seen the image a dozen times before, opening and closing my eyes as though it’d help me look at it differently… each time, I thought the same. 

 We looked like we belonged together, the woman in the dress and the man in the tux. We fit.

 If you took away the costumes, would it still be true? 

 “He is a little on-edge,” I continued cautiously. Harry ran across the field, a little slower than usual, and I remembered his reddened eyes. “I think he’s having trouble sleeping.”

 She nodded as if this wasn’t a surprise to her. “He didn’t used to.” But it sounded like a question. “Sometimes I think it’d be better if I hadn’t come,” she said it under her breath, but I’d heard it just before the stands collectively groaned. The other team had stolen the ball from Harry and scored. 

 “Don’t say that, I know he’s happy you’re here.” Though I didn’t, not really. I gave her a gentle squeeze, not sure how else to comfort a friendly acquaintance. 

 She wiped her hands down her face and when they fell in her lap, she’d shaken whatever it was that was bothering her. “You’re right. Maybe.” Then, a quizzical look took over. “Has Harry told you anything?” 

 I shook my head. “He just said you got in a fight. Didn’t tell me about what though.” 

 She took out popcorn she’d hid in her purse, sly smile saying something she wouldn’t.  “He must really like you.” She still had that knowing smile when she erupted in a cheer, standing to clap with the rest of the stadium. 

 We’d won. Everyone’s phones lifted high in the air, recording the mania they’d all been expecting. Flashes, little bulbs of light, captured pictures of happy college students and their victorious team. The videos would be one of many posted to Instagram stories, along with those from the after parties.

 A crawling feeling drew up my spine. I looked around, expecting to be the subject of somebody’s photograph. Ridiculous, because I didn’t find anybody zooming into my face. No one was watching me, I reminded myself. But still, the feeling lingered.

 In the crowd, Matt stood taller than the rest. He flashed his all-American smile, jumping up and down with his other basketball friends. When he saw me staring, he waved big, but his smile faltered. He pointed to my neck before shaking his head, busting up with a laugh I realized I couldn’t hear. A laugh I didn’t know how much I’d been wanting to hear until now. Until I couldn’t. But even though I couldn’t hear him, his look said it all. His teasing voice sprang in my head - had a good night, huh? - and then my own chest bubbled with laughter. But his eyes dropped lower to my jersey and his smile fell. He looked away without meeting my gaze again, and I couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit of rejection. 

 -----------

 The dangling string lights above Karli’s bed swayed into each other until they became one blurry glow. Or maybe it was me… okay yes, it was me. I was the one swaying. From the carpet, I gripped her lavender bedspread to steady myself. 

 “I’m not surprised we won honestly,” she said, Cartier bracelets tinkering down her arm as if her cheering from the stands was the sole thing that made the Panthers win. In my impaired state, I fought a snicker. If the gang had seen her walking last night, one mugging would’ve given them all the money they needed.

 Horrible thought. 

 Awful thought. 

 Tremendously awful horrible passing thought I wouldn’t wish on anyone-

 But alas, it was still a thought. 

 “That makes two of us,” Viv chimed. 

 It was sometime past midnight, and Renny and I had already taken full advantage of the mini shots we’d packed in our purses. We broke them out as soon as the official meeting had ended.

 Tonight had been “get to know what we’re really all about night.” So we’d learned more their charity Service for Sight. Apparently, sometime quite soon we’d be paired with a vision impaired student on campus as a sort of “introduction” for the bigger service work to be done later at the Blind Children’s Center in Los Angeles. For the first time since joining, I’d felt an excited flutter in my chest. The only reason I was studying Biology was to eventually become a doctor, to contribute to the world in some positive way. And now the opportunity was falling in my lap to do something that felt...good. Maybe I did need to thank Renny and - oh, God - my mother for pushing me into this.  

 Most of the girls dispersed to post-game parties after that - including Harry’s frat’s. I tried not to think about Harry getting drunk and beautiful girls dressed in zilch getting to see his drunk flushed cheeks and taking advantage of his flirtatious nature… pressing him up against a wall, him dipping his head low to brush his lips against their ear…

 I stop my imaginative self-pity and laughed at myself. Harry? Taken advantage of by pretty girls? 

 For what it’s worth, I also tried not to think about how my phone had remained completely silent since the game. I’d sent him a “CONGRATULATIONS!! So proud. I have to go the DGS tonight but wish I could celebrate with you” just in case he’d been planning on seeing me. It was the nice thing to do after all. I was getting antsy for him to see the message and when we piled out of the stadium, I caught him just before he entered the field tunnel. 

 “Harry!!” I’d shouted. He faltered, before he matched the voice with the face. I pantomimed texting and waved my phone like a madwoman. “CHECK IT!!” 

 But Gemma was right behind me, and his face fell, turning on his heel just as he’d left me last. Except this time the bruise he’d given me wasn’t visible. And there were helluva lot less butterflies. 

 Shelby turned the first floor of the DG house to an after party of her own, but as soon as friends of friends started showing up, Karli began leading a small group of VIPS upstairs as I planned my escape. Renny hadn’t noticed, already giggling halfway up the banister with Kiki while Lynn followed, arm slung around Donna.

 My hand had just opened the front door when Viv called out to me. 

 “Stay,” she’d said, long blonde hair tossed over a delicate shoulder. It was hard to find something malicious in her tone, especially through my buzz - but I knew another intention was hiding, somewhere, even if I couldn’t see the end game. “Come onnn,” she drawled, her voice the sweet nectar of a venus fly trap. I could hear my mom’s voice now, telling me that I was being too harsh, judging too soon… 

 But even if I couldn’t prove it, energy couldn’t lie. Was I smarter than a fly? 

 I followed her anyhow.

 Sat between Donna and Renny, I was starting to think that the last Jack Daniel’s shot was a mistake when Karli slammed her hands against the carpet. It was a dull thud, but it could’ve shook the whole room the way we all went rod-still. 

 “You guys might actually turn out to be cool,” she confided. She burst up in a fit of giggles, but quieted herself, barely. “No, really, you’ve done a great job so far.”

 “Aww.” Renny placed a hand to her chest and I wanted to smack it down. I quickly glanced at Lynn, but instead of getting a can you believe this? stare, she seemed unbothered.   

 “It’s easier than how we had it,” Viv said.

 “Really?” I always thought they’d just strolled in, flashed a nice smile, bonded over how they had the same hairdresser and BAM. They were in. 

 Apparently not.   

 Viv looked past me to the door, and in the hushed way she spoke, made me think this wasn’t exactly what they wanted everyone to hear. Or anyone, besides the six of us. Karli and Viv looked at each other in sly excitement. With a swish of her autumn bob, Karli leant forward, hands splayed on the carpet. 

 “We have an assignment for each of you,” 

 “Uh, pass, I don’t need another one,” Lynn chortled. 

 Karli held out her finger, scanning us in the the most dramatic pause. “This isn’t an ordinary assignment. The first phase involves you getting a DG Pretty Please.”

 Donna tried to stifle her laugh. Renny hid a smirk, but she sat silent, completely transfixed. 

 “The DG Pretty Please is a task, anonymously assigned to you by one of our members. Think Secret Santa, but different,” she continued.

 “And some of these tasks will take longer than you think, so Kiki and I are giving you plenty of time to prepare,” Viv smiled, as though it was the most charitable thing she could have done.  

 “Is everyone getting a task like this?” Renny asked. 

 Karli scratched her eyebrow, slightly annoyed. “It doesn’t really work like that. It’s something you do if you’re asked.”

 But I heard the edge to her tone. This was something you did if you were told. With the way they’d watched the door for any unsuspecting party goer, it sunk in that this wasn’t technically official. It was the part everyone knew that came with sororities and fraternities, but the part no one put on paper. If getting a secret mission was as bad as DG hazing could get, I’d consider myself lucky.

 “Does Shelby know about this?” I asked, boldly. Renny shot me a glare, wordlessly asking if I was really that dumb to ask that question, to have just now decided to expose the unspoken agreement carried out wordlessly and infamously since the organization’s conception. 

 Karli snorted. “Shelby was the one who invented this.”

 “In December, we’ll have a final pledge meeting. Prove completion of your DG Pretty Please and if you do, then that same night your big will be revealed to you.” It was the only time Viv’s smile didn’t feel too forced. She enjoyed this madness.  

 Renny didn’t hesitate- “I’m in!” 

 “But!” Viv interjected. “If you aren’t successful, you forfeit a spot in the sorority. I know you all get super busy with clubs, and parties-”

 “And homework,” I mentioned. 

 “Oh, right. School,” Karli said, partially joking. “I know everyone likes you guys right now, but this is a serious assignment that affects your ability to be a part of this sisterhood. And you can’t tell anyone what your task is. It’s completely anonymous. If anyone else finds out, we’ll know you talked. Your challenge is void. You fail. We question your loyalty, bla, bla, bla, details. Any questions?” 

 “Can I get my money back?” I laughed, and the girls snickered - but I wasn’t really joking. 

 “Ha! No.” Viv was as much of a comic as I was. “You’ll get your tasks in a couple days.” 

 A chime went off, and we all looked at our phones. It was Lynn’s. 

 “We made the paper again!!” She did a little party dance in her lap and Donna peered at the screen. “Just got the notification,” Lynn explained. 

 The only college student left alive that got updates of the local paper, Lynn’s parents were published newspaper columnists. After graduating Yale and having a stint of employment in the Middle East, the couple traveled to New York and continued writing for the Times before they moved west coast and settled for the San Francisco Chronicle. ‘Major literary nerds’ was Donna’s affectionate term. 

 “Is it about the game? Did they include any pictures of cheer?” Viv was suddenly interested. She looked at the article, lips pinching in disappointment. There were snapshots of the different players from tonight, and I struggled to focus on the screen that was lain on the floor for all to see. But there he was, mouth open as if bellowing to his teammates, legs parted in a run. My blood ran hot. Was it stuffy in this room? Was it just this photo of Harry? Or was it just good ‘ol Jack Daniel? 

 I drew my hair up in a haphazard ponytail, smiling as Lynn scrolled to a picture of Louis scoring and pulling some ridiculous face in concentration. “There’s my boy!!” I hollered, pointing at the screen. “He’s just so dang good.” 

 Kiki’s brow rose. “Wrong jersey, love.”

 Lynn suddenly snapped, snatching her phone back to recapture our attention. “Dude, I saw Louis go in the locker room with Candice yesterday after Journalism. But I don’t think…” 

 Karli’s auburn bob swished as she shook her head. “Oh, hell no. My mom sees Candice at church every Sunday, she probably just took his dirty laundry to take home.” 

 “Doesn’t that mean he’d have to strip down first,” Lynn smiled.

 “Again, doubt it,” Kiki dismissed. 

 Viv heaved a sigh of relief. “Well thank God, I would’ve been out.” 

 “Out of what?” I asked. This time Renny didn’t stab me with her eyes for asking a question. This time, she was just as curious. 

 “You didn’t hear about the money pool?” Lynn asked. 

 “Uhhh… no.” 

 “I’m with you...” Donna said, eyes narrowing. 

 Lynn held up her hands. “What?! Babe, don’t look at me like that.”

 “It’s a game everyone in the house is in on,” Kiki said. “Whoever’s the first to fuck in the locker room wins the money. Do you want in?” 

 My body temperature rose another 500 degrees just remembering being outside the locker room, whereby I continued to be consensually ruined for any future makeout that didn’t involve Harry.

 Viv looked completely cool, composed. “Y/N must’ve missed one of those meetings.” 

 “I don’t know, I think Y/N might win if she plays. Did he give you that massive thing?” Donna’s voice was low, but not low enough. 

 Everyone’s eyes went to my neck. I swallowed, hard. Viv’s eyes glazed over and I didn’t miss the click of her jaw. 

 Can the gods come down right now and blast me away??! Why did I put my hair up!! Why!! I’d been so careful hiding it this entire night!!

 If I wasn’t drunk I’d be trembling. I didn’t trust Viv, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to hate me. Seeing her eyes glaze over I almost felt guilty. Almost. Until I remembered all the snide comments, the way she belittled me in front of Harry, the way she took pride in being one step ahead...

 Not this time. 

 I channeled my inner I don’t give a damn like the perfect mask it was, and flipped my hair over both shoulders, giving them my best ridiculous smize face that made Renny snort aloud.

 “Eh, I’ll think about it. But I’ll let you win for now.” 

 Kiki watched the scene unfold before her with a delirious smile, respect riddling her voice. “I think you’ve just given us inspiration for your challenge.” 

chappie 17

[monstersandmaw]

Mothman x male reader (sfw) - Starfall Springs

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Whoop! A story! An actual full-length story! I'm sorry it's been a bit quiet lately - I've had a lot going on, and doing all those hand-written thank you stories and cards took it out of me a bit last month.

But! We're back on track again! And here's an adorable mothman to celebrate!

So, without further faff, here's Fitz' story (here's his colouring and sketchy doodle in case you missed it over on Patreon). Don't forget to let me know what you think of it!

Content: 4,445 words, sfw, reference to high-school bullying and there's the appearance of a face from Fitz' past who brings back bad memories.

___

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”

“You… ok?” came a hesitant voice from behind you.

You jumped, turning your back on the mess behind you as the lab door swung closed with a soft hiss and your heart sank. Not only was the subject of your every waking (and sleeping) fantasy standing before you, but he was observing the absolute, catastrophic, and apocalyptic cock-up you’d just made of the test samples.

The mothman tilted his dusky head slightly and then allowed his delicate antennae to waggle before, to your surprise and evident relief, allowed himself a tiny chuckle. The sound wheezed out of him in a little squeak and he fluttered his twin wings to make a soft buzzing sound. His two sets of silvery brown arms waved in a pacifying gesture and he stepped closer on his impossibly tiny feet and murmured, “It’s ok. Those are the samples of varnish from the furniture conservation lab, right?”

You nodded disconsolately, no longer worried about concealing the mess of broken glass and flakes of ancient, decrepit varnish behind you. “They were…”

He buzzed his wings again and grinned, his dark, fuzzy face splitting into a frankly adorable grin as his mouth parts moved. “It’s fine. My friend is head of furniture conservation. I’m sure she can take some more samples for you. Relax… You don’t want to know how royally I fucked up on my first day here.”

“But it’s not my first day,” you mumbled. “Or even my first month…”

“I know. You’ve just been storing it up for now…” Fitz laughed and took you gently by the arm, steering you carefully away from the mess of shattered glass and out of harm’s way. Your hands were shaking. He tilted his head and frowned, his huge eyes unblinking and yet somehow full of concern. “Hey, you ok?”

You took a huge sigh and shook your head. “I… I just wanted to do ok here, you know? And I’ve fucked up already. My three month probation period isn’t up yet… They can just fire me, and there’s nothing I can do…”

To your surprise, he laughed again, but it wasn’t unkind. “It’s fine,” he said, his small hand coming to rest between your shoulder blades as he guided you away from the mess towards the door. Instinctively you leaned into the touch before you’d even realised it, and he smiled again when you jerked your chin up to look at his face. “Accidents happen,” he reassured you. “Come on, let me take you to the break room and get you a cup of tea.”

“Really, you don’t need to -” you began, but he only smiled. “I mean, I should clean this up first…”

“It’s non-toxic and it’s just you and me in the lab today. I’ll lock the door behind us. Besides, I’d like to get a cup of tea with you. You don’t have to come with me though,” he added, taking half a step back, “If you’d rather not.” It was then that you noticed just how delicate his tiny feet were, and he did another little shuffle as your eyes landed on them. He was barefoot, and they were fuzzy.

“Sorry,” you muttered. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

He smiled and led you away. “I haven’t had much chance to chat with you,” he said conversationally in his rasping, musical tenor, and as he turned you saw that in the downy fur on his hunched, dusky shoulders were the markings of a skull. You guessed that he was a privet hawk mothman, given that his wings and body had a glorious pink banding on, and as he glanced back over his broad shoulders, he caught you staring at the dusky brown wings that hung down his back, shuffled them ostentatiously and smiled. “I’m guessing I’m the first moth boy you’ve met, right?”

“Right again,” you said, flushing hot.

Fitz chuckled again, a sound like a whickering horse, and he said, “And you’ve not been in Starfall Springs all that long either…” It wasn’t a question.

You shrugged. “Few months.”

“Where are you living?” he asked, holding the door open for you with one left hand and ushering you through with the other.

“In a caravan on the outskirts,” you said. “It’s all I can afford right now, and I don’t have a lot of stuff so…”

“Oh,” he said, his antennae perking up. “Have you met Saph then?”

“Saph?”

“Guess not. She’s one of the conservators who works at the workshops across town but she lives at the park too. She’s a feisty little goblin - if you’d met her, you’d remember her,” he snorted, quickly adding, “But she’s great.”

“Not trying to set me up, are you?” you said, unable to keep the heat from your cheeks again, and Fitz laughed.

“If you want me to, I can try, but I’m no matchmaker. For that, you want someone like Crystal.”

You halted. “The goth faun from forensics?”

He bowed his head. “The very same.”

“No.”

He waggled his antennae in a way that reminded you of someone raising their eyebrows, and said nothing.

You snorted and said, “Well, thanks, but I don’t swing Saph’s way anyway.”

“Not into goblins, or not one for an interspecies relationship altogether?” he asked, a sudden and almost imperceptible quavering creeping into his husky voice, though when you glanced back over your shoulder as you entered the break room, he didn’t seem to show any sign of unease.

“Not into women,” you muttered, and the sudden rush of adrenaline that came with the admission nearly made your knees cave in. If you’d have admitted to being gay to a colleague at your previous job in the city, you may well have found your car tyres slashed at the end of the day at the very least. That had been a chapter of your life you’d been only too happy to leave well behind.

But Fitz seemed to relax and even laughed softly again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was absolutely none of my business. I apologise.”

“I’m the one who brought up matchmaking,” you countered jovially, pushing through your momentary stall. “It’s fine.” You filled the kettle and set it to boil while he went right up onto tiptoes to get a couple of mugs out of the cupboard.

He wasn’t as tall as you, perhaps half a head shorter, and when he turned round and caught you staring at the way his wings flexed slightly when he strained to reach the shelf, he seemed a little bashful. “Well, we can’t all be big graceful men like you,” he snapped quietly, clearly embarrassed. Excluding antennae, he was probably about 5’6”

It was your turn to laugh, “‘Graceful?!’ Did you actually see the giant mess I made back there?” you snickered, jabbing your thumb over your shoulder.

“Good point. Here,” he said, handing you a mug. “There’s an assortment of teas in the cupboard, and milk in the fridge. Sugar is in that pot there.” That last bit of information he added with particular relish, and you had to smile, knowing how moths essentially existed off nectar and sugar water.

“So what exactly did you do that was so catastrophic on your first day?” you asked with a twinkle in your eyes once you had your mug cradled in your fingers, and he threw back his head again and laughed, wings fluttering with merriment.

“I broke the portable XRF machine… Dropped it.”

Your brain stalled. Those things didn’t come cheap. “Wow, ok…” you said, fighting off a giggle. “That… That puts a few dropped specimen jars into perspective!”

“Right?” he said cheekily. “Oh man, the boss was angry about it, but, that’s what they have insurance for. It was fine, in the end. But I was banned from using any equipment except for a pencil for a week…”

Chatting with him over a cup of tea had precisely the effect that Fitz had hoped for, and you relaxed after the shock of breaking the glass, and didn’t feel so bad about the shattered containers and contaminated samples either. You got back to work not long after that, and he headed up to his office on the second floor with the promise that he’d have his friend collect a few more varnish samples from the antique furniture she was working on for you to run through the FTIR spectrometer.

Shortly after five, you had just switched the lights off and locked the lab door behind you when the sound of someone clearing their throat behind you in the dark corridor almost made you screech like a stepped-on dog toy.

Whipping around, you saw a dark shape in the dimly lit passageway, with hunched shoulders and a strange, cape-like silhouette. For a horrible moment your brain went blank with fear until you realised that it wasn’t a cloaked figure, but rather that the outline was in fact that of gently folded wings. “Fitz!” you hissed, “Fuck! You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry,” he said. “I forget that humans can’t see in the dark.”

“Or hear your adorable feet moving around,” you muttered.

“I’ve got good hearing too,” he said dryly, letting your awkward compliment slide by him.

“Of course you do,” you cursed. “What did you want, other than to make sure my adrenal glands are still functioning, which they are, by the way.”

He snorted a delicate laugh out of his fuzzy nose and stepped back as you walked down the corridor towards him. “I wondered if you wanted to get a drink after work, that’s all.”

You paused and frowned curiously at him. “Sure,” you said. “Alright. You have somewhere in mind?”

He nodded, suddenly shy. “Yeah. There’s a nice cosy little traditional pub on the north side of town.”

“That’s a bit of a walk from the trailer park, but I could use the exercise. Sure. You want to go straight there, or shall I meet you there later?”

Fitz shrugged a wing. “Up to you. It’s probably a good forty minute walk from here…”

You adjusted your rucksack on your back and said, “I’m up for it. It’s a nice evening.”

The mothman’s delicate mouth parts shifted slightly into his little smile, and the two of you left the building together. His stride was surprisingly short and dainty, but his delicate feet made easy progress along the road and down the hill from the research lab and down towards the rambling town of Starfall Springs below. The ancient trees of the forest which was known by locals simply as the ‘old forest’ whispered softly to one another and you could have sworn you heard half-articulated phrases drifting on the light breeze. Leaving the eerie, timeless place behind, you and Fitz rounded a bend in the country road and saw the sandstone buildings with their cheery terracotta roof tiles and lush, green spaces spread out like a fairytale tapestry below you.

You sighed contentedly and shook your head slightly with mild disbelief that this verdant paradise was now where you lived.

Fitz picked up on your shift in mood almost instantly, as though the wind had changed direction, and, antennae shifting back and forth slightly in alternating waggles, he asked, “Something wrong?”

You shook your head. “The opposite actually… This place is unreal.”

Fitz turned his head back to look at the same view, but something told you he saw a different scene. “I guess…” he said softly.

Quizzically you turned to look at him. “You don’t think so?”

He shrugged. “I’ve lived here all my life,” he said, letting the light breath of wind lift his wings a little before clamping them back down again. “I grew up here, went to high school here, moved back here after university… I mean, sure, it’s pretty, and it’s a haven for non-humans who’ve had a shit life in the city, but it’s not without its issues.”

“Like what?”

“Oh… you know… I don’t want to put you off or anything, but… it’s not just a case of ‘humans versus non-humans’… There are family feuds and deep prejudices amongst the rest of us too. Take the Silkfoots for example…”

“The driders up in the mansion on the hill?”

“Exactly,” he said, running his small hand over his fuzzy, dusky coloured head. “They’re alright, don’t get me wrong, but they’ve had this long-standing hatred for Rhae, you know, the reclusive lich mage in the tower, and his little so-called ‘gaggle’ of goblins… The miners hate the Silkfoots because they controlled all the trade and taxes in the area way back when and made a load of profit on it, and… yeah, I won’t bore you with all of it, but let’s just say there’s politics here too, right down to a seriously petty level.”

After a moment’s thought you said, “I guess I should have realised…”

He shrugged nonchalantly, though you could see that something troubled him deeply still; something long-ingrained and with great emotion behind it.

“How do you feel about more humans moving here?” you asked hesitantly.

Fitz took a moment to think about it, but after a sidelong look at you, he nodded and said, “I think it’s a good thing… It stops us non-humans getting too high and mighty and ‘better than thou’, way out here with no humans to hunt us or bother us or objectify us, and it opens up healthier communication between the species.”

“Back to that interspecies relationship stuff again,” you grinned, digging him lightly in his fuzzy ribcage and nudging him off balance for half a step.

His wings tucked in suddenly very tightly and he turned his face away, antennae flat to his head like a worried horse’s ears.

“Fitz? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable…”

A nervous laugh fluttered out of him and he risked another glance at you before laughing awkwardly and scratching the back of his head with his upper right hand again. The death’s head pattern on the thicker fluff of his stooped shoulders was disturbed for a moment before it rose like a werewolf’s hackles and settled back into place, as though he’d got the shivers for a moment. “Forget it,” he said, his hoarse tenor voice cracking a little. “I just meant that it’s nice to have some humans around who are actually good for us, for a change. My best friend in school was human.”

“Was?” you blurted before you could stop yourself.

You were nearly at the bottom of the winding road into town and the wide sweep of Starfall Springs beyond was beginning to melt into the dusky haze of late evening. Fitz sighed again. “‘Is’ human,” he corrected himself. “Just no longer my best friend.”

“Oh.”

He sighed. “He and I were so close. We never thought anything of the difference between us as kids. Then when he went away to university - Oxenbridge, no less,” he added bitterly, “He just… ditched me. Said that I ‘couldn’t possibly think he’d stay in contact with a dirty animal like me now that he’d escaped Starfall Shithole’…”

“Fuck, Fitz, that’s awful,” you growled, heat rising up your neck, fists clenching, pulse quickening to a gallop in your ears. “Ack, shit like that makes me so angry. It’s so unnecessary and small-minded.”

Fitz fixed you with a strangely sanguine stare and shrugged again. “I figured I’m better off without someone like that in my life. Still hurt at the time though.”

“I bet,” you breathed. Acting on impulse, you reached for his lower left arm as it swung gently beside you as you walked side by side towards the river and the old stone bridge into the town. You touched him lightly above his elbow and let your thumb play back and forth over the fur there, the colour of wet sea sand, and he shuddered violently and then laughed.

“Mothfolk are pretty sensitive,” he murmured, voice catching in his throat.

“So I see,” you said, repeating the gesture just once more and withdrawing your hand.

After a few more paces down the road, he smiled shyly again and said, “Thank you,” and you knew he was referring to his story about his best friend’s betrayal.

“Did you love him?” you dared ask.

He nodded silently. “He was my first.”

“Ah, shit, I’m sorry. That makes it even worse.”

Fitz took a big sigh and stared off into the horizon.

“Hey,” you asked, changing the subject and looking at his wings. “Can I ask you something completely different?”

“With pleasure,” he said wryly. “Fire away.”

“Since I’ve never seen any mothfolk before, let alone met one, I have no idea if this is a rude question or not, so…”

“I’ll forgive you if it is,” he laughed. “You’re making me nervous. Get on with it!”

With a snort, you said, “Fine, ok, how come you get the bus to work in the morning instead of flying? Surely it’d be quicker, and more sanitary than public transport…?”

Fitz gave a beautiful laugh, and let his twin set of wings unfurl slightly, a sign, you’d come to realise, that he was feeling relaxed and trusting again. “You want to watch me fly? Is that what you’re really asking?” he asked, leaning in a little closer as the two of you walked through the emptying market square and out towards the northern quarter of the town.

The lich’s tower stood out above the pine trees in the distance, but your concentration was all on Fitz as your mouth went very dry and you realised that you did want to see him fly. Very much.

You nodded.

“Maybe another time,” he said, eyeing the tall buildings on either side. “I’m not the most graceful in takeoff; less ‘jump-jet’ and more ‘cargo plane’…”

“Aw, I bet you’re cute though,” you smiled, and his antennae bobbed bashfully.

Changing the subject away from himself this time, he raised his upper right arm and said, “The bar’s just up there.”

You caught a glimpse of the beautifully hand-painted sign hanging above the door which showed a kenku with a hood covering their dark head and an open beak, and below the figure, written in a curly, elegant script, was the name of the pub: The Kenku’s Aria. “Strange name…” you commented. “I thought kenku had no voice…”

“Ah, interesting story with this one,” he said, pushing the door open with his arm and letting you step inside first. It was nicely full, though not too rowdy, and you waited for him to catch up with you again to continue his explanation. “Turns out that the current owner’s grandfather fell in love with a kenku, who had no voice of her own, but she’d heard this beautiful orc singing an aria from an opera once, and she choice her voice to be her own, and she would sing the aria night after night to draw in the crowds.”

“Amazing,” you breathed. You glanced around at the bar at the back and saw what looked like one of the lizardfolk working behind it, but instead of being entirely covered in jade green scales, they had tufts of black feathers behind their temples and down their back. It was only then that you realised you were the only human in the bar.

“Not popular with my kind here, I take it?” you hissed at Fitz as he leaned on the unusual, copper-topped bar to wait for the lizard to look your way.

“Hmm?” he asked. “Oh, I… I didn’t even think about that…” he said, turning suddenly mortified, his antennae lying flat against his head.

“Relax, it’s fine,” you reassured him, putting your hand unthinkingly on his upper arm again and eliciting exactly the same full-body shiver of pleasure as the first time.

He laughed and this time he put his other left hand reassuringly atop yours. “Perks of having more than two hands,” he quipped with a cheeky tilt of his head that was definitely his equivalent of a wink, before turning to order a huge glass of honeysuckle nectar from the lizardfolk bartender and pausing to wait for you to order something.

“Oh, a beer please,” you said.

“Which one?” the lizard rasped. “Ale, beer, lager, bottle, cask…”

“Uh…” you said, raking your eyes along the taps. “That one,” you blurted, pointing to one with a picture of a minotaur with a war hammer in his enormous grip.

“Good choice,” the lizard grinned toothily and began to pour.

You and Fitz retreated to a table not far from the bar, and he sank onto a little three-legged stool that allowed him space to drape his wings behind him without squashing them. You talked more about yourself than you asked him about his life, mainly because he seemed interested in what you’d done before coming to the research lab in Starfall Springs, but partly because you thought he’d probably had his fair share of giving uncomfortable answers to you.

Perhaps an hour later, you were leaning on the table between you, your chin resting in the palm of one hand with your elbow propped up on the tabletop, while Fitz carefully held your hand in both of his lower hands. It was a private, quiet gesture of mutual respect and understanding, and it gave you the closeness you’d craved for such a long time. The warmth of genuine affection that surged through you for this gentle being was almost overwhelming, and you swallowed the last of your second pint and looked away, eyes glassy.

The door opened and a breeze ruffled the shaggy fur of Fitz’ collar. Over his shoulder, you caught sight of someone who was so startlingly beautiful that it stole your breath for a moment. Fitz followed your gaze a moment later, and his shoulders dropped, antennae drooping, wings hanging limply down his back. “That’s Alec,” he said in a tiny voice.

“Who’s Alec?”

“He’s in fashion now,” you heard him say as you stared at the dazzlingly blue wings of one of the rare and exquisite lepidoptera, or butterfly folk, “But he was at high school with me.”

You turned your gaze back to Fitz and said, “Bet he was a right arsehole…”

Fitz nearly snorted his nectar back into his glass, and his adorable, curled proboscis sprang back into his mouth like a loosed spring as he fought off laughter. “Hit the nail on the head with that one. Actually, we were both kind of ugly… our caterpillar stages weren’t… all that pretty.”

“Oh?”

“I was bright green,” he said, clearly deathly embarrassed about it, though you couldn’t quite see why. “He was also green, and he was pissed that everyone thought I was like him, or - even worse - that he was mothfolk like me… He made my life hell, even after we had both metamorphosed…”

“Keep your head down then,” you said. “He’s looking this way.”

“Fuck.”

And sure enough, as though Fitz were a beautiful flower, Alec was drawn over to him, his fabulous, electric blue wings fringed with black splayed wide in a display of arrogant self-assertion. Your admiration for his beauty quickly soured as he sneered, “Well, well, if it isn’t everyone’s favourite little mothball. Fancy seeing you here, butt-fluff. I see you never left this little provincial backwater… Well, it was to be expected after all.”

Fitz took a long moment of utter stillness before he turned slowly to look up at the tall, slender lepidoptera who loomed over his seat. “We’re not in high school any more, Alec.”

“No, indeed,” he crooned. “Some of us have actually made a success of ourselves…” he said, reaching out with a black hand that reminded you of an opera glove and plucking at the thick, sensitive fur of Fitz’s collar with a snicker as the mothman winced and flinched.

You waited for Fitz to tell Alec to fuck off, or even bat him around the face with one of his fan-like wings, to inform him curtly that he had a PhD and worked at one of the top research labs in the country, but he didn’t move, didn’t speak.

��Come on,” Alec sneered after an uncomfortably long silence to the strange, wasp-like insectoid creature beside him who might have been a bodyguard or a crony, but it was impossible to tell which. “I’m bored with shagpile here already, and I don’t want to get fleas from his dirty fur… I only came here to speak to Anwen, and now that I have, I want to remove my beautiful feet from this vile, sticky floor as soon as possible.”

Your lip curled and you placed your hands on the table, intending to rise and yell at the obnoxious peacock, but Fitz shook his head subtly and implored you not to move without saying a word. Grinding your teeth, you respected his request and sat back in your seat, watching as Alec swayed away, as gracious and uncaring as a petal on the breeze.

“You ok?” you asked when he’d gone.

Fitz was trembling subtly. “No,” he said in a whisper. “Dammit. You can get away, you can go to university, you can get a job, but something can still tip you right back into being sixteen again and having selotape and chewing gum stuck to your new fur…”

“It’s a powerful thing, Fitz, but you showed him. He lost, and he knew it. C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

He smiled, his mouth parts shifting slightly and his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. “Where?”

“Anywhere. How about a stroll over the bridge on the other side of town? I bet the stars are nice tonight and there’s nothing but vineyards and farmland on that side of town for miles…”

For a moment you thought Fitz was going to refuse you. He still looked frightened and caged, but then he made an obvious effort to pull himself together and he nodded, visibly relaxing again. “I’d like that,” he said.

The two of you rose and threaded your way between the tables and out into the cool, summer night. The moon painted silver lines along the rooftops and delighted in her own reflection on the windows of the houses whose rooms were already dark, and as you walked towards the other side of town at a leisurely pace, Fitz slid one hand into yours and gripped it with surprising strength.

“Thank you,” he said again.

In answer, you squeezed his fingers back and said nothing.

___

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[dishonoredrpg]

Congratulations, ALLI! You’ve been accepted for the role of SEVEN OF SWORDS with the faceclaim of CILLIAN MURPHY. Canis is certainly a fucking concept, whom I adore to no end. He’s got a tenacious and willful sort of attitude about him, the kind of incredulous charm and wit that lends itself to an air of villainy and danger, and I think that he fits into the Seven of Swords like one fits into a well-made boot or glove. In spite of remaining leashed like a dog, he’s got no small amount of fire in him, and I’m eager to see what (or who!) he sinks his teeth into during gameplay. You’ve brought me a real gift, dropped it on my doorstep, and I am grateful.

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

— APPLICATION

OOC

NAME:    alli PRONOUNS:    she / her AGE:    twenty - one TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL:    cst /  i  am  currently  on  summer  break  and  have  the  ability  to  be  really  active ,  but  sometimes  things  do  come  up !  i  definitely  have  plenty  of  time  to  be  on  the  dash  with  several  posts  within  activity  limit  and  when  my  muse  is  high  ( i’ll  be  honest  i’m  a  hoe  for  high  fantasy )  my  activity  is  also  super  up ! ANYTHING ELSE?:    what’s the mead sis…….. the wenches are squabbling …….

IN CHARACTER

SKELETON:    seven  of  swords NAME:   efferus  aubenet   /   “canis”  &  “the  dog”   efferus  -  of  latin  meaning ,  “wild ,  savage ,  cruel ,  barbarous” .  a  name  canis  has  long  since  abandoned ,  preferring  even  the  subtle  jab  of  “the  dog”  given  to  him  by  opponents  of  his  crew  and  the  highborn  that  look  down  on  him .  he  finds  it  just  about  as  cutting  as  a  bread knife .  no  one  except  those  closest  to  him  ( ie .  the  pack )  even  know  this  name  exists . canis  -  latin  for  “ dog ” ,  though also  the  scientific  genus  for  all  canines ,  including  wolves  and  coyotes .  meant  to  symbolize  canis  as   the  leader  of  his  pack  of  wild  dogs ,  and  a  sign  of  respect ,  a  nickname  earned  on  the  streets  and  not  given  to  him  in  tyrholm . the  dog  -  a  nickname  received  while  working  under  king  septimus ,  by  those  that  see  the  second  fangs  as  dirty ,  unruly ,  savages .  also  by  revolters  who  see canis  as  a  dog  blindly  following  the  orders  of  a  tyrannical  king.  in  any  case ,  he  still  prefers  this  to  efferus .  sometimes  he  even  barks  in  response . FACECLAIM:    cillian  murphy ,  michiel  huisman   ( he / him  pronouns ,  cis  male ) AGE:    thirty - nine  ,  born  on  the  twenty - seventh  day  of  the  twelfth  month

DETAILS:   i  always  find  myself  drawn  to  underdog  characters ,  muses  that  have  overcome  more  than  most  others  could  even  imagine  to  find  themselves  in  their  present  position .  i  believe  there  is  so  much  depth  to  backgrounds  like  canis’s .  no family  so  he  created  his  own ,  nothing  to  his  name  so  he  created  his  own  legacy .  a  moral  compass that  tries  it’s  best  to  always  point  north .  that  fails ,  because  the  muse  is  so  painfully  human .  the  irony  of  a  sellsword  who  wants  more  for  himself ?  incredible .  when  i  was  skimming  the  skeletons ,  it  was  his  that  startled  practically  writing  itself ,  this  street  urchin  turned  warrior  figure ,  so  i  spent  a  lot  of  time  picking  apart  the  biography  until  i  was  left  with  canis . i  did  a  bit  of  research  on  the  seventh  of  swords  tarot  card ,  but  let  me  tell  you  ..  i  was  so  pleasantly  surprised  and  intrigued  when  i  did .  on  one  hand ,  when  upright ,  seven  of  swords  means  scheming ,  resourcefulness ,  cunning ,  and  lies ,  all  traits  that  have  gotten  canis  to  where  he  is  today ,  however  negative ,  the  legacy  he’s  forged  for  himself  and  all  deeply  tied  to  his  work .  however ,  when  reversed ,  the  seven  of  swords  can  mean  confession ,  conscience ,  regret ,  and  maliciousness ,  which  i  think  lend  beautifully  to  this  character’s  private  struggles .  there  is  a  very  heavy  mix  of  negative  and  positive  attributes  leant  towards  seven  of  sword’s  core  character ,  someone  who  wants  to  do  right  by  themselves  at  great  cost .  when  interpreting  the  tarot  as  canis ,  i  was  drawn  to  the  maliciousness  and  the  regret  ( in  sometimes  equal  measure )  of  the  reversed  card .  i  believe  there  is  so  much  more  to  this  character  than  just  his  web  of  scheming  and  lies ,  that  canis’s  true  self  comes  from  somewhere  within ,  and  i’m  really  excited  to  explore  his  inner  conflicts.  this  man  has  so  many  issues  that  he’s  buried  and  i  think  the  possibility  of  him  becoming  a  part  of  the  revolution?  impeccable.  my  muse  for  this  skeleton ?  through  the  roof .

BACKGROUND  

I .  O’ ROMULUS  AND  REMUS ,  CASTOR  AND  POLLUX ,  WHAT  IS  ONE  WITHOUT  THE  OTHER ?   a  twin ,  you  were  told ,  though  it  feels  like  something  you  should  never  be  permitted  to  forget.  you’ve  never  felt  him there ,  not  like  a  phantom  limb  or  a  guiding  whisper.  just  a  story ,  when  you’re  feeling  ungrateful  for  your  lot  in  this  realm ,  that  there  is  only  one  where  there  once  was  two.  born  in  the  dead  of  winter  --  the  one  that  bit  at  the  napes  of  even  the  most  fur  cloaked  nobility  of  markholm ,  that  anyone  unlucky  enough  to  live  through  it  can  still  recall  as  “ceaseless”   --   and  childbirth  takes  your  mother  as  it  goes.  two  children ,  born  sickly ,  cold.  so  you  are  dubbed  efferus ,  a  savage  beast  who  can  claw  his  way  into  life ,  barely  holding  onto  breath ,  already  having  taken  a  life.   it  takes  a  village  to  raise  motherless  boys.  sometimes  it  takes  more  than  that.  your  brother  doesn’t  make  it  past  the  winter ,  but  you  keep  growing ,  getting  stronger  by  the  day ,  and  finally  spring  flowers  bloom  forth  from  hard  soil.  the  goat  farmer  next  door  tells  your  father  you  are  a  resilient  one ,  that  the  undying  smiled  upon  him.  another  miracle ,  that  your  life  could  be  a  blessing  and  not  a  curse.   as  long  as  you  knew  him ,  your  father  kept  steadfast  in  deep  religion ,  devout ,  praying  over  the  crops.  the  cattle.  the  harvest.  even  your  birth ,  a  story  he  recants  so  mystically  it’s  hard  to  imagine  you  were  there.  “we  all  bled  fer  you ,”  he  always  starts ,  like  it’s  your  fault ,  “my  son ,  my  son.  let  all  else  be  damned  fer  ‘im.”  two  lives  for  the  price  of  one ,  he  reminds  you ,  and  you’re  just  a  boy ,  but  you  still  find  it  all  absurd.  there’s  never  been a rhyme  or  reason  to  suffering.  “you  make  a  deal  with  the  undying  and  you  get  what  you  paid  fer.”  sometimes  it  seems  a  compliment.  others ..  you  aren’t  so  sure.   your  father  hath  no  mercy  for  the  weak  or  spineless ,  though  he  wasn’t  an  inherently  evil  man  either ,  at  least  not  in  the  figments  you  can  conjure  of  him.  you  plow  the  fields ,  with  hands  so  rough  with  calluses  you  can’t  feel  the  hilt  of  the  axe  you  use  to  cut  the  firewood.  you  milk  the  cows ,  so  gentle  with  great  beasts  you  start  to  forget  your  name.  you’re  skin  and  bone  and  beating  heart  ,  not  much  to  look  at ,  but  just  the  blessing  your  father  asked  for  all  the  same.  a  good  boy ,  in  that  you  were  capable  and  healthy  and  strong.  a  bad  seed ,  in  that  you  cared  for  little  and  didn’t  always  do  as  you  were  told.   it’s  your  tenth  winter  when  frostbitten  tendrils  take  first  your  farm ,  and  then  your  father.  you  make  a  deal  with  the  undying  and  you  get  what  you  paid  for ,  you  remember ,  and  it  almost  makes  you  laugh.  perhaps  it’s  not  so  funny  that  you  mourn  very  little  the  life  you  lost.  perhaps  still  it  is  a  testament  to  your  strength ,  a  boy  of  only  ten  who  shoulders  already  a  lifetime  of  death  and  decay.  who  makes  it  look  a  load  easy  to  bear.  who  are  you ,  efferus  aubenet?  and  who  will  you  become?

II .  A  MIRRORED  MIDAS  ,  IF  EVERYTHING  HE  HAD  TOUCHED  TURNED  TO  DEATH  AND  ROT .   a  street  urchin  with  no  farm ,  no  family ,  and  most  prominently  no  coin.  winters  slip  away  like  sand  through  an  hourglass ,  and  it’s  all  you  can  do  to  keep  track  of  the  time  that  folds  beneath  you.  one  year ,  and  you’re  frail  and  quiet  and  know  only  to  keep  to  yourself.  three  years  and  you’ve  developed  a  taste  for  fighting ,  scrappy  as  you  are.  it’s  just  a  game ,  in  the  beginning ,  one  the  other  coinless  children  keep  telling  you  you’re  too  good  at ,  “it’s  no  fun  fighting  a  hungry  dog.”  five  years  and  you’re  taller ,  more  meat  to  your  bones.  you’re  better  at  sneaking  things  out  of   the  market ,  extra  to  feed  your  friends.  you  learned  the  hard  way  what  happens  if  you  don’t  bring  back  enough ,  if  you  turn  a  blind  eye  to  people  who  call  out  your  name.  you  hear  it  when  you  dream ,  half  awake  in  chilled  darkness.   “i’m  so  hungry,  efferus.  i’m  so  hungry.”   you  start  going  by  canis.  it  makes  it  easier  to  sleep.   six ,  seven  years  and  you’re  so  good  at  fighting  that  your  pockets  start  to  feel  heavy.  cobbled  streets  whisper  canis  when  you  cross.  bruised  fists  and  a  bloody  conscience ,  not  all soldiers  make  it  out  of  battle  alive.  it  dawns  on  you ,  slowly  but  with  all  the  force  of  a  crack  of  lightning ,  why  the  others  like  to  call  you  dog.  maybe  it’s  because  you  were  born  from  death ,  or  because  you  know  loss  so  well  it  colors  your  eyelids  when  you  blink ,  but  it  seems  all  you’re  good  for.  you  discover  a  rage  within  you ,  one  which  you’re  sure  ( you  hope ,  foolish  as  it  is )  any  man  is  capable  of ,  if  pushed  too  far.  but  it’s  directionless ,  vile  in  the  way  it  sits  inside  your  chambered  heart.  there  is  nothing  more  universal  than  pain.  nothing  more  isolating  than  anger.  a  boy  with  a  taste  for  blood.  so  blind  to  the  way  you  snap ,  like  branch  under  boot ,  when  you  push  too  hard.  what  place  is  there  for  you  in  an  unforgiving  world ,  wracked  with  hardship?  at  whose  table  do  you  dine?   you  knew  love  once ,  it  felt  like  sharing  bread  and  blankets  and  tales  of  woe.  like  years  on  the  streets  relying  only  on  wit  and  steadfast  determination  to  survive.  like  knowing  a  person  fully ,  inside  and  out ,  as  you’d  always  known  yourself.  that  too  would  be  taken  from  you ,  like  everything  else.  for  the  price  of  just  a  single  coin ,  you  watched  your  love  take  their  last  breath ,  watched  the  thief  make  off  with  their  blood  money ,  felt  truly  and  terribly  powerless.  worse  than  losing  your  father  to  deep  winter  chill  you  lost  your  first  love  to  a  blade.  and  in  the  end ,  it  meant  nothing.     the  sons  of  argos  could  not  undo  what  you’d  done ,  what  had  been  done  to  you ,  but  maybe  you  could  give  back  tenfold.  it  starts  small ,  at  a  table  in  your  favorite  tavern ,  as  all  great  plots  tended  to  do.  an  invitation  to  join  a  company  you’d  heard  about  only  in  whispers.  you  saw  espace ,  penance  where  others  saw  a  home ,  but  that  would  always  be  enough  for  you.  it  was  intended  to  be  permanent ,  a  family  you  couldn’t  lose ,  under  a  friend  who  would  lay  down  their  life  for  the  men ,  women ,  and  children  under  their  protection.  a  life  of  adventure  to  call  your  own  and  you  didn’t  need  to  suffer  anymore.  you  had  but  one  skill ,  it  seemed ,  beyond  tending  to  the  herd  and  trimming  too  tall  crops ,  and  your  father  once  taught  you  that  skill  fed  fortune  ( though  the  money ,  you’d  find ,  would  come  later ) .  you  don’t  think  the  sons  is  quite  what  your  dearly  departed  had  in  mind ,  and  this  makes  your  smile  widen.  you’ve  always  found  humor  in  odd  places.     what  follows  is  a  career  far  short  of  extravagant ,  fighting  crime  like  a  bunch  of  vigilanties ,  tied  to  a  city  state  that  knows  little  of  its  own  streets.  you  hunger  for  travel ,  to  sink  your  teeth  into  shores  unseen ,  land  untended.  to  make  a  real  name  for  yourself  and  anyone  who  followed  suit.  “mind  your  place ,  mutt,”  you  hear  more  than  once ,  and  you  want  to  swat  the  others  away  like  flies  buzzing  in  swelling  ears.  but  there’s  something  sharp ,  too ,  like  a  cut  that  just  won’t  heal.  your  voice  is  too  loud  amongst  the  rest ,  your  name  --  the  name  you  paid  for  in  blood  --  nothing  next  to  strength’s.  the  captain  you  were  meant  to  worship  turned  to  dust  in  your  heavy  fist ,  the  family  you  forged  alongside  them  never  yours  to  call  your  own.  you  tell  yourself  they  betrayed  you ,  like  everything  else  in  this  life  they  gave  you  nothing  to  hold  onto  save  for  the  back  of  their  coattails ,  but  in  truth  you  were  never  meant  to  stay.  minding  your  place  felt  a  lot  like  digging  six  feet  down  to  lay  rest.   it’s  like  waking  from  a  dream ,  one  you  push  down  when  it  returns  to  you  in  the  night ,  leaving  the  sons  for  good.  four  winters  you  slept  under  their  tents ,  ate  at  their  table ,  and  still  you  feel  nothing  when  you  pack  what’s  yours  ( and  maybe  some  of  what  isn’t ,  but  who  would  dare  come  looking  for  it? )  and  go.  no  one  follows ,  no  one  even  pleads  your  case ,  and  when  you  see  them  playing  knights  on  the  docks  the  fire  in  you  swells.  it’s  all  rot  now.

III .  WHERE  WOULD  ICARUS  BE  NOW ,  IF  SOMEONE  WISE  HAD  CLIPPED  CURSED  WINGS?      iriebury  is  the  stank  of  unwashed  flesh ,  the  heat  of  southern  sun ,  something  to  conquer.  the  citizens  are  mean  and  the  crime  meaner.  it  makes  tyrholm  look  a  lot  like  playing  pretend ,  the  sons  seem  like  a  group  of  toy  soldiers.  to  survive  in  iriebury  you  need  your  bark ,  you  need  your  bite.  naturally , you  thrive.   it  takes  just  one  winter ,  one  warm  southern  winter ,  before  you  have  something  to  call  a  crew  of  your  very  own.  the  second  fangs ,  a  handful  of  beaten  down ,  nearly  finished  off  mutts  that  think  you  look  like  a  future.  you’ll  find  one  day ,  when  you’ve  turned  to  face  the  wrong  end  of  a  sword ,  these  dogs’  loyalty  knows  no  bounds.  and  maybe  you  do  have  a  family  after  all.  they  don’t  look  like  warriors  born  for  battle ,  but  they’re  sharp  on  every  edge  and  speak  of  you  like  you  hung  the  moon.  like  a  prophecy  spun  from  the  undying  herself.  the  queen  of  iriebury’s  no  different ,  when  you  flash  her  a  smile  and  run  a  sword  through  her  guard.  this  is  your  destiny.   with  work  and  full  bellies ,  the  second  fangs  grow ,  picking  up  more  men  and  women  the  rest  of  markholm  cast  aside ,  giving  them  all  purpose.  leadership  becomes  you ,  you’re  kind  in  places  other  captains  breathe  fire.  your  men  adore  you ,  and  maybe  this  is  why  it’s  easy  to  lose  yourself  a  bit.  you’ve  always  been  looking  for  him ,  that  voice  inside  of  you  that  has  guided  every  confident  step ,  and  you  really  start  to  believe  you’ve  found  him  at  the  end  of  a blade.     what  you  do  isn’t  pretty like  life  in  a  castle ,  it  isn’t  gentle  like  the  farm  or  humble  like  a  temple ,  but  it  suits  you.  you  find  company  at  the  bottom  of  a  bottle ,  family  inside  the  taverns  and  brothels ,  atop  dirty  cobblestone.  it  all  feels  a  lot  like  honor ,  like  duty.  you’re  known  for  your  loyalty  and  cunning  among  burdened  skill.  work  lends  to  virtue  or  some  mirrored  image  of  the  sort.  the  second  fangs  take  the  jobs  you  approve ,  not  the  ones  the  queen  hands  you ,  nails  stained  with  blood ,  and   who  knew  a  mercenary  crew  with  such  an  eye  for  morality?  bastards  that  comb  the  streets  but  speak  with  love  fresh  on  their  lips.  you’re  a  heathen  with  heart ,  of  that  not  even  the  fiercest  opponents  can  dispute.  maybe  there  is  a  place  in  this  world  for  nameless ,  coinless  men  with  a  hunger  for  something  more.  you  give  back  to  your  beloved  pack  what  they  give  to  you ;  everything ,  everything  and  then  some.  a  life  that  means  more  than  scraping  the  bottom  of  the  barrel.   you  can’t  carry  on  like  this  forever  and  survive ,  and  it’s  only  a  matter  of  time  before  real  gold  starts  knocking.  a  steady  job ,  you’re  promised.  a  lifetime  of  stability ,  peace.  you  know  more  of  the  king  of  tyrholm than  you  let  on ,  and  maybe  you  are  naive  to  trust  the  word  of  a  woman  who  did  not  raise  herself ,  but  when  you  look  at  your  company’s  worn  faces  and  tired  smiles ,  weathered  from  southern  strife ,  it’s  never  been   easier  to  bend  a  knee.     some  odd  winters ,  some  odd  springs ,  lived  with  modest  lavesty.  septimus  is  an  arse  of  a  man  that  whispers  corroded  bidding  into  your  graceless  ear.  no  one  but  the  second  fangs  knows  how  much  you  shake ,  when  the  job  is  done  and  you’re  safe  at  home.  how  much  weight  you  shoulder ,  for  yourself ,  for  your  men ,  for  the  lives  you’ve  taken.  the  lives  you  will  take.  your  crew  was  never  meant  to  become  a  rebellion.  the  glory  feels  lost ,  you’re  a  knight  without  chivalry ,  a  wolf  without  teeth.  you  hear  dog  more  than  your  own  name  and  you  bite  back  bile  when  you  look  in  a  mirror ,  but  still ,  you  think ,  you  would  do  it  all  over  again.     the  second  fangs  are  a  happy  crew ,  well  fed  and  housed  and  nothing  like  the  orphans  you  sheltered  so  many  moons  ago.  when  it  starts  to  feel  like  you  have  your  own  sons  of  argos  you  shelf  the  thought.  your  pack  looks  at  you ,  strong  and  fit  and  still  just  a  bit  withered ,  and  laugh  and  cheer.  “yer  getting  old,  canis,”  they  jest ,  when  you  stumble  into  bed.  “hunch - backed  from  all  that  gold  in  yer  pockets.”  you’ve  always  been  wiser  than  most  of  them ,  something  raw  in  your  heart  that  keeps  it  beating  steadfast.  better  you  than  them ,  you  know.  most  men  would  crack  at  what  you’d  seen.  what  you  know.     there’s  good  to  be  found ,  once  you  learn  how  to  look ,  like  the  devotion  of  judgement  ,  a  beauty  in  worship  that  reminds  you  of  all  your  father’s  useless  praying.  peaceful  in  all  it’s  absurdity.  there’s  friendship  in  odd  places ,  with  the  empress  you  serve.  you  find  it  hard  to  trust  in  tyrholm ,  unaccustomed  to  the  politics  of  a  ruling  class ,  the  society  that  never  once  smiled  down  on  a  farm  boy  and  his  widowed  father.  you  want  to  be  wise  and  cunning ,  still  sometimes  you  feel  inadequate  next  to  those  raised  in  education ,  but  the  queen  saw  your  potential  before  anyone  else  in  the  whole  retched  kingdom ,  and  that  has  to  mean  something.  there’s  the  fool ,  a  real  dog  you  sometimes  think ,  who  mirrors  your  old  captain  so  much  it  makes  your  skin  crawl.  they  aren’t  so  bad ,  but  it’s  hard  for  you  to  look  up  at  someone  who  serves  at  the  hand  of  the  king.  you  wonder  if  others  think  the  same  of  you.  fools ,  the  whole  lot  of  them.   you  know  what  the  queen  expects  of  you ,  your  word  is  your  livelihood ,  but  these  things  take  time.  for  now ,  you’re  comfortable ;  your  cup  is  full.  there’s  always  been  something  about  wars  to  come  that  feels  like  home ,  ragged  and  battle  scarred  thing  that  you  are.  and  besides ,  it’s  easier  to  put  out  a  fire  that  burns  inside  your  ribs  than  one  that  swallows  an  entire  kingdom ,  of  this  you  are  certain.

PLOT IDEAS

STRENGTH:   oh  boy  oh  man.  canis  can’t  hold  his  tongue  with  distaste  even  if  he  tried ,  and  he  definitely  doesn’t  try  with  them.  his  anger  often  gets  the  better  of  him  and  i  believe  he  would  try  to  confront  strength  every  chance  he  gets.  he  sees  this  skeleton  as  nothing  more  than  the  king’s  right  hand  ( literally  so  exciting  to  me  that  strength  is  also  a  revolter  and  i’m  sure  neither  of  them  know  they’re  destined  to  work  on  the  same  side  again?? )   and  i  think  he  reflects  a  lot  of  his  own  inadequacies  onto  this  skeleton ,  a  lot  of  his  failure.  with  such  a  tension  relationship  i’d  like  to  see  fights  break  out ..  maybe  even  between  their  own  respective  men  that  they’d  have  to  quell.  far  down  the  line  even  settling  their  differences  and  working  together  as  the  military  leaders  of  a  revolution  because  who  is  better  suited  for  the  job  than  them?  but  it  would  take  a  big  blow  to  canis’s  pride  to  share  such  a  job ,  to  ever  work  alongside  this  skeleton  instead  of  against  them  like  he  always  has.  so  all  around?  here  for  it  all. NINE OF WANDS:   canis  looks  at  them  and  sees  passion  he  once  was  sure  he  felt ,  the  sharp  thing  in  his  gut  that  once  spurred  him  to  forge  his  own  path  in  a  world  that  never  once  showed  him  kindness.  his  scars  are  internal ,  but  they  wear  their  scar  like  a  badge  of  honor ,  at  least  that’s  how  canis  sees  it.  he’d  love  to  not  have  to  kill  the  king  himself ,  even  if  he  would  never  admit  it.  it  means  a  safer  life  for  his  men ,  it  means  being  done  with  tyrholm  and  a  life  of  ease  and  travel ,  everything  he’s  always  wanted  and  never  seemed  to  be  able  to  grasp.  i  wonder  if  them  growing  closer  through  sparring  and  their  ability  to  provide  him  the  best  weapons  he’s  ever  seen  could  change  his  opinion  on  wanting  them  to  kill  the  king  in  a  fit  of  rage??  i  could  see  canis  wanted  to  strategize  with  them ,  in  the  end ,  once  he’s  done  poking  the  bear.  love  this  gift  of  a  connection  a  lot !!!! THE EMPRESS:   definite  ass  kissing  going  on  here.  canis  is  more  than  grateful  he  was  hired  by  her  and  not  the  king ,  though  i  do  think  he  might  resent  them  a  little  for  the  work  the  king  makes  his  company  do.  he  prefers  to  take  jobs  from  them ,  when  ordered ,  though  i  feel  their  relationship  at  this  point  goes  beyond  just  work  like  it  does  with  septimus.  he  trusts  them  and  it  does  help  him  to  sleep  at  night  thinking  he  could  be  serving  their  hand  and  not  septimus’s.  also  entirely  possibly  they  call  him  the  dog  but  with  them  it  doesn’t  feel  like  malice.  he  would  never  dare  disrespect  the  queen ,  especially  one  he  sees  goodness in ,  sees  his  entire  future  in.  would  be  really  interesting  if  canis  even  is  a  little  too  friendly  with  them ,  giving  them  a  hard  time  where  maybe  no  one  else  would  dare  to  do ,  an  annoying  prick  in  her  side  that  she  NEEDS  to  get  what  she  wants. THE HERMIT:   i  think  he  has  a  lot  of  respect  for  the  hermit.  in  ways  that  his  pride  keeps  him  from  seeing  his  similarities  with  strength ,  he  sees  so  much  of  who  he  once  was  in  them.  young ,  making  their  own  way ,  maybe  even  some  of  the  same  rage ,  though  canis  has  no  place  to  put  his  own.  i  feel  like  if  the  respect  was  mutual  they  could  have  a  friendly  relationship ,  canis  even  pushing  advice  onto  them  they  might  not  want  or  need.  if  a  revolution  came  he  would  back  them.  somewhere ,  he  probably  even  sees  them  as  something  of  a  good  king.  canis  doesn’t  trust  them  fully ,  but  he  could  drink  with  them ,  knows  the  second  fangs  would  treat  them  kindly  as  well. THE HIGH PRIESTESS:   canis  is  scared  of  little ,  but  he’s  scared  shitless  of  them.  he  avoids  them  at  all  costs ,  looks  the  other  way  when  they’re  brought  to  the  same  space.  he  doesn’t  talk  kindly  of  necromancers ,  though  maybe  there  is  some  envy  there  he  needs  to  address.  he’s  sure  this  doesn’t  go  unnoticed ,  not  with  all  their  years  of  wisdom.  i  think  it  could  be  really  interesting  though  if  one  of  his  closest  friends  is  killed  on  a  job  and  they  bring  them  back  as  he  watches ,  sees  this  power  first  hand ,  feels  even  a  debt  is  owed  though  none  of  the  fear  is  gone.  a  lot  of  possibilities ,  i  could  see  the  second  fangs  might  be  dying  a  lot  more  often  pretty  soon ... JUSTICE:   the  world  calls  canis  the  dog  because  they  see  him  as  filth ,  as  something  mangey  that  feeds  from  table  scraps  of  the  king ,  but  canis  sees  that  justice  is  the  real  dog.  and  he  pities  him  for  it.  there’s  little  glory  in  the  work  of  a  bodyguard ,  and  maybe  canis  wonders  how  justice  would  fair  in  his  own  company.  never  the  less ,  i  think  they  could  butt  heads  just  as  easily  as  they  could  share  a  pint.  maybe  they’ve  even  fought  in  some  of  the  same  battles ,  know  each  other  from  war  torn  lives  and  have  a  bond  because  of  this.  lots  of  potential  for  both  malice  and  comradery ,  no  matter  what  line  of  the  revolution  they  tread. THE LOVERS:   canis  sees  himself  and  more  in  them.  he  doesn’t  pity  easily ,  has  an  ability  to  find  the  strength  in  even  the  smallest  mouse ,  but  he  pities  the  lovers.  in  some  ways ,  i  think  he  wants  what  they  have ,  longs  for  something  as  fulfilling  as  love ,  and  doesn’t  want  to  see  this  squashed.  every  day  he  gets  closer  to  telling  them  of  the  war  to  come.  i  really  wonder  how  long  he  can  go  without  letting  anything  slip ,  especially  if  they  look  at  him  with  gentleness  or  show  him  great  kindness.  he  feels  they  need  to  prepare ,  like  he  is ,  for  a  future  of  destruction.   THE MOON:   okay okay ..  i  have  two  different  paths  that  i  think  might  be  interesting  with  this  skeleton  depending  on  what  gets  plotted  out.  BUT ..  i could imagine  canis  stumbles  into  their  office  after  being  badly  injured  on  the  job ,  probably  requesting  some  random  herb  because  it  HURTS  and  he’s  WEAK  and  he  needs  it  to  be  DONE  WITH.  one  path  would  lead  to  the  moon  healing  canis ,  and  once  he  discovers  this  ability  he  probably  begs  and  bribes  ( heavily.  the  man  is  too  wealthy  for  his  own  good  now ,  and  what  else  is  he  going  to  buy?  new  boots?  his  work  just  fine. )  them  to  start  visiting  the  second  fangs  around  the  city  to  heal  them  in  secret.  he’ll  do  anything  for  their  ensured  safety.  the  other  path  works  quite  the  same ,  only  with  no  healing ,  just  plants ,  and  he’d  be  very  dependent  on  this  muse  either  way  because  of  the  miracles  they’re  able  to  work  with  his  men.  really  really excited  for  the  possibilities  of  plots  with  this  skeleton. THE TOWER:   a  backstory  plot  for  these  muses  is  calling  my  name??  like  maybe  the  tower  and  canis  had  a  deal  where  the  second  fangs  would  assist  them  and  their  men  on  voyages  and  pillages  for  a  cut  of  the  treasure  when  all  was  said  and  done ,  back  when  the  second  fangs  were  fresher  and  poorer  and  in  desperate  need  of  work.  and  maybe  one  of  the  two  betrayed  the  other  on  one  of  these  trips ,  with  greed  for  treasure  or  something of the like?  things  could  be  tense  between  them  now ,  at  each  other’s  throats.  OR  there  could  have  never  been  a  betrayal  and  they’re  actually  quite  good  friends  who  know  a  little  too  much  about  each  other’s  pasts ,  and  canis  offers  the  tower  company  amongst  the  pack  knowing  he’s  lived  through  canis’s  own  worst  nightmare.  the  terrifying  ordeal  of  being  known.  canis  could  definitely  trust  them  more  than  he  should.  this  one  has  me  really  excited  i  won’t  lie.

CHARACTER DEATH:    canis  would  quite  literally  volunteer  for  this  so  that’s  a  big  yes  from me.

WRITING SAMPLE

THE SELF PARA:  the tent is warm and the burn of the lamplight casts shadows across familiar faces. the second fangs. his pack, he always calls them, like they’re puppies and not vicious mercenaries. canis is most comfortable here, at ease, his usually pin straight posture relaxed despite the job he knows lays ahead of them. it’s not one he’s entirely comfortable with, an uprising in a poor village. always messy, always felt a bit like putting down a weakened calf at the farm. so they drink, to forget the day that lies ahead, the uncountable days behind. the faces. faces. faces, that echo like screams.   he can’t recall who speaks first, but it was likely canis himself, always a little too bold when his body buzzed with liquid courage. “that’s not what i’m asking,” one of his men corrects with a nudge of canis’s shoulder, always aggressive with each other, a pack of wolves nipping at each other’s heels. “the death’s on your hands. but it’s meant to be a good one. worth while.” and the captain’s own eyes twinkle uncharacteristically, perhaps because his inner conscious knows what his mouth does not. that the answer lies waiting at the tip of his tongue, a snarling beast of a target.     “and how much coin are we gonna get fer it?” ajax jests, but canis can see the gold flashing in front of his face, even from across the table. canis barks out a laugh, and they all bang their goblets on the table.   “aye,” in unison. they know each other inside and out, they speak a language strange and foreign. a family with many moons in their pockets. how many knights can say that?   “no coin,” canis finally adds. “no glory. no private dance at the brothel,” eying ren, and there’s another chorus of easy laughter, more aye’s.   “one of the nobles,” lawren grunts, and at first there’s just ringing silence. a paranoia that winds it’s way through the small group. they trust each other with their lives but this .. it’s like blasphemy. it’s revolution uncurling within them, more than just a job, it’s a force awakening. lawren speaks again, gentler, louder. “undying knows they’re all pricks.” and it’s easy again, more aye’s, cups overflowing with wine and ale.   but in between the laughter, he feels the wrench in his gut, the rage that threatens to flare. an allegiance of blood and blind faith  --  it reminds him so much of religion that he squirms. maybe his answer lies in a job, with wicked tendrils wrapped around his neck like a leash. the dog. how wrong would it be to bite the hand that feeds you? “i’d cut off my ring fingers and swear to celibacy to be rid of the fuck all king already,” canis growls, his knuckles white where he grips tight on his cup. and it’s quiet again. when he speaks they listen, they all listen, even the highborn in the castle, like he’s a wave crashing on shore. commanding attention. demanding it.   “you’re spending too much time with the clerics,” ren groans, with a face like a fox, her hair hanging limply in her face. he can’t tell if she’s smiling or frowning, but they’re nodding in agreement. all of them.    “what good’s that sack of shit king, anyway?” lawren chimes in, and then it’s deafening chatter. all canis can do is listen, absorb the pain of his men, the frustration, see himself reflected in their woes. say what any outsider will about his crew, maybe they are all mutts. one mind, one body, one restless spirit. tired of being used, of being chained to a cause that tries to fill deep chasms in bleeding hearts with gold. what is the price of true freedom?   “maybe the end is closer than you think, canis,” a small voice that rises above the others. a girl, mary, raised in the pack, only nearing her seventeenth summer. and she’s a legacy of everything canis has created, the family he wove with bruised and boney fingers. “we haven’t lost a battle, yet.” and she’s right, of course she’s right, whip smart and flea bitten. if there is to be a revolution, aid of the pack would be an immense advantage. it isn’t arrogance with which his men speak. it’s truth.   he has to chew on the suggestion, sharp glass in his mouth with every bite, impossible to digest, but maybe with the backing of his crew .. canis has trouble seeing the future beyond a sack of coins and a full bottle of ale. he knows little of politics, even after all his withered years serving as something of a king himself. it’s overwhelming, and he thinks his whole arm shakes when he raises his goblet. “nasty fuckers,” but his teeth shine in the lamplight, like fangs. like canines. “trying to get your own captain killed.” but when they clink glasses, it feels like a deal has been made, like he owes this death to more than just the queen, like the undying herself is watching.

EXTRAS

VOICE :   canis  has  an  eclectic  sort  of  accent ,  a  combination  of  all  of  the  people  he  met  while  living  on  the  street ,  his  father ,  the  lands  he’s  traveled  and  settled  into  with  his  companies .  he  constantly  sticks  out  as  an  outsider ,  no  matter  where  he  is .  he  doesn’t  mind  this  sense  of  otherness  because  whenever  canis  goes ,  his  family  is  never  far . canis’s  mockblog  can  be  found  HERE his  pinterest  can  be  found  HERE   ( blood  tw )

[bookandcranny]

Stone Heart Gambit

 Part 1 - Chapter 3

Soso wakes up in her bed, and for one blissful moment it’s as though all of it were only a dream brought on by too much chocolate before bed. Sunlight is shining through her window and, other than a dry mouth and a mildly upset stomach, she feels refreshed and content. Today has the makings of a perfect lazy day, she decides. She sits up, stretches, relishing the feeling of life coming back into her stiff muscles, opens her eyes, and squeaks.

The living gargoyle is staring at her from the foot of her bed. He’s eating a candy bar, pausing to pick flecks of caramel out of a rather impressive set of pointed teeth, framed on either side by a pair of tusks. Next to him on the floor is an empty bread bag, empty milk carton, two boxes of cereal- yes, empty- and a jar of peanut butter that has, as of yet, been spared from the rampage.

“You ate all my food,” Soso comments dumbly. All things considered, it shouldn’t be the biggest issue, but that milk was supposed to be communal and her housemates are going to kill her.

The beast bows his head. “I’ll replace it.” Before she can question just how he plans to do that, he hands her the peanut butter like a peace offering and— what the hell, she takes it and starts eating with her fingers. It calms her down, marginally.

“You were a statue,” she says with, if she does say so herself, remarkable evenness.

“I was. Rather, I was cursed into a prison of stone.”

“A curse, okay, sure. And now you’re… uncursed?”

He nods.

“But you still look like…” She coughs awkwardly. “I mean, you know, you don’t look human.”

“That’s because I’m not,” he explains. “I am Adamantius the unbreakable, son of man.”

“That’s a hell of a name.”

“I am the fire that burns in the west,” he says, as if that explains everything. “What may I call you?”

“I’m… Soso,” she replies. “Soso Willoughby. I don’t have any fancy titles, sorry.”

“Lady Willoughby,” he says, and his eyes sparkle. “I owe you a great debt.” He drops his head so low his horns brush the floor.

“Hey, I’m not mad about the food, don’t worry about it. You must’ve been hungry.”

“I was. I have been. For countless years I’ve been imprisoned, waiting until the fated night you would free me from my endless purgatory.”

“I did what?” she gawks. “No, you’ve got me confused with someone else. I didn’t free anyone from anything.”

He sits up and presents her with a slightly squished snickers bar. “A single selfless gift,” he says, sounding overcome. “Even when the world forgot about me, even after the stories of my triumphs were lost to time, you still came and spoke to me with such kindness. Truly I can never repay you, but I will stay by your side and serve you faithfully ‘til the end of my days in gratitude.”

“Whoa, wait, what?” she chokes. “I didn’t- I didn’t do anything! And you can’t… how am I supposed to explain you to my roommates? How am I supposed to-“ A thought occurs to her. “Oh god, how am I supposd to explain to Mr Surehouser that I stole his gargoyle? We need to get you back to the library before anyone notices you’re missing.”

The reverence falls from his face, replaced by a baring of teeth. “I will not go back there.”

Soso puts up her hands. “Okay, okay. Let’s… put a pin in that discussion. I need to think.”

“I apologize,” Adamantius rasps. “I didn’t mean to frighten you again. I swear to you, I will not cause you any harm. But I do not wish to return there, ever.”

“Well, what do you wish- want?” She leans tentatively closer, studying him. He’s less frightening in the light of day, but not by much. The color of skin still makes him appear as if made of stone, except now she can see his chest rise and fall with his breathing. A thin crack near the junction of one of his horns glows a faint red, the same flame-light that flickers behind his eyes, an inferno contained in a shell of granite.

“I want only to serve you, and to bring to account those who have wronged us.”

She doesn’t like the sound of that. “What does that mean?”

A flicker of something almost devious enters his expression. He gestures towards the bedroom window. Soso gets up to have a look. She pales.

Outside, the town is in chaos. Windows are smashed in, cars are tipped over, heavy claws marks carve a path down the entire street. It looks like the aftermath of a horror movie. A young man wearing a rubber mask is cowering in a tree on Summer Street as police and concerned neighbors try to coax him down.

“I thought it was just a really good costume,” another boy says, shaking like a lead as he gives his statement to a local news reporter.

Soso stands on the porch barefoot in yesterday’s clothes and tries not to panic. Adamantius comes up behind her in the doorway and she shoves him back inside. Remembering she’s not alone in the house, she keeps shoving until they’re standing in the narrow fenced-in area behind the back of the house, well out of sight.

“What did you do?” she demands.

“I thought the fates of the enemy should be left to your discretion, but I wanted to ensure they got the message.”

“Yeah, I think they got it!” She puts her head in her hands. “Dear god, you didn’t kill anybody, did you?”

“As I said, I was awaiting your orders.”

“Okay, my orders are ‘don’t kill anybody’.”

He cocks his head to the side. “Not ever?”

“Not ever! No killing, Ada- Adam- Why is your name so complicated!” she asks in frustration. “Don’t you have nickname or something I can call you?”

He lowers his head, looking pensive. After a moment he says, “There was someone once very close to me called me ‘Adami’.”

This information mellows Soso’s temper somewhat. Despite his appearance and somewhat murderous tendencies, there had been someone who cared for him, and whom it seemed he cared for in return, and now if his story was to be believed, crazy as it all sounded, they are likely long gone. Soso tries to imagine being imprisoned like he was, asleep and awake at once in a frozen form while the days, months, years went by. It sounds terrible.

“How long exactly were you… doing time?”

“I couldn’t say. After the first few decades or so time begins to lose its meaning. I didn’t so much feel the passage of time, only watched the rising and falling of the sun, the turning of the seasons. For much of that time, I wished only for vengeance, then for death, and then I wished for nothing at all. There didn’t seem a point. I had lost all hope of rescue long ago.” His gaze falls on her again. “Then you came. You spoke to me, and reminded me that I was still alive.”

Soso feels her face heat. How was she supposed to tell him that she’d only started talking to him because she thought he was an inanimate object?

“Adami,” she says gently. “We need to go back there. I need to figure out what happened, and the only other person I can think of who might know something is the librarian. I can’t- I don’t have enough room to hide you here without someone finding out, and once they do… I don’t know, they’ll probably want to put you in prison or dissect you for science or something!”

She reaches up and places her hands on his shoulders, privately marveling at the sheer size of him. She has to stand on her toes.

“I promise I’m not going to let anything happen to you, but you need to trust me.”

“Of course,” he says without hesitation. “I will follow where you lead.”

Soso exhales an anxious breath and releases him. “I’ll need my bike.”

 --

 Surehouser doesn’t wake up in his bed, and rather than the morning light he is woken by a persistent thumping sound. At first, he thinks it’s simply the pounding in his own head. He’s had a bottle of dandelion wine- a gift from some cousin or other- stowed away since the equinox, saved for the express purpose of drowning out the Halloween festivities with his own.

In the time it takes him to recognize the knocking for what it is, he’s become aware of three things. One: he is wildly hung over. Two: today is the first of the month. Three: following that logic, he is well overdue to submit his annual report, which was due at the first of last month. He should get to it, he supposes, adjusting his glamour to better disguise the air of malaise he carries with him. Then again he doubts anyone is going to come breaking his door down about it. If not for the occasional paperwork and the letters and packages from his relations he’d think the whole of faerie society had long forgotten about him. It’s not as if anything happens here anyway.

He trudges to the front door of the library, wondering who could be so desperate to get his attention, and finds standing there the young lady who’s been dropping by the past couple weeks, accompanied by an eight foot abomination.

“So,” says the girl. “Don’t freak out.”

Surehouser runs to his desk and retrieves the enchanted blade he keeps below the stationary drawer. He’s not as spry as he used to be though and the monster has him pinned to the cherry wood before he can so much as unsheathe it. It gnashes its teeth and twists his arm until he’s forced to drop the weapon with a cry. Without any other option, he drops the human farce and the light it forces outward stuns the creature just long enough for him to slip from its grasp. From there, escaping would be easy, just take the form of a jackrabbit or a will o’ wisp and be gone. He almost does just that, but it seems somewhere along the years he’s picked up a conscience. Damn it.

“Soso, get back, I’ll hold it off.” He places himself between her and it, forming a barrier. Between the throbbing headache and the fear he hardly notices her grabbing onto his arm.

“Hold on a second, both of you stop it!”

Adamantius readies to charge and Soso steps between them.

“I said STOP!”

It stops. “As per your instructions,” it growls, startling Surehouser almost more than the attack itself. “I will not kill him.”

“I don’t want you to do anything to him, understand?”

The creature- he looks torn. “Not even-“

“No, whatever it is, no!” she says, flustered. She chides the rampaging goliath like one would a misbehaving dog. It’s honestly impressive. “Mr Surehouser’s a friend.”

Another snarl tears from him. “He’s a faerie.”

It takes a moment to sink in, but once she realizes he knows there’s no way to deny it. Soso steps back and for the first time really takes him in, the truth of him. Under his human disguise, the librarian is summer court through and through; his body all mist and golden light. The base human features are still there, but unlike some of his more passable fellows, one look at him without the aid of a glamour is enough to know he’s not of their world. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, he veils himself with the familiar mask of the old unassuming librarian. It’s a magic specifically designed to make him easy to overlook, though the exact details of his appearance still depend largely on the viewer’s perception. It’s why he does his best to stay away from crowds. Too many conflicting accounts of the same man create a very real risk of his cover being blown.

It’s been a long time since he willingly dropped the act around another person, even among his own kind, however infrequently he sees them. Certainly he hadn’t planned to destroy his entire carefully-crafted persona when he woke up seven minutes ago. Yet here they were.

“That’s, wow,” the girl says.

He forces a chuckle. “Not the worst reaction I could’ve gotten, I suppose.”

“Yeah, well, I’m getting to a point where being shocked at every new thing is just taking up too much energy.”

Her eyes are winged and weary. Surehouser looks from her to Adamantius, an ancient warrior whom last he saw was petrified on his front lawn, a being even older than his great-grandfather, and significantly more sapient than he’d been led to believe from the wartime tales. He casts one last, longing look at his dagger laying on the floor and declares,

“It seems that we have a lot to talk about and frankly I don’t want to have this conversation standing up.”

He takes them out of the main library to a sitting area. There are two arm chairs and a small sofa loosely fitted into a circle around a low table in front of a fireplace, now dormant. Soso flops gratefully into the nearest chair. Adamantius isn’t so eager.

“I don’t like faeries,” he says. “And I don’t like your rings.”

“It’s a semi-circle if anything.” He sits. The monster stays standing, hovering at Soso’s side, tense and wary.

“So,” Surehouser begins after a moment. “You’ve, er, woken Adamantius.”

She nods slowly. “If it counts for anything, I didn’t exactly mean to.”

“It’s alright, Soso. I understand many humans in your age group go through an arcane phase, performing your little rituals and whatnot. Although how you stumbled upon something powerful enough to undo a curse like that is far beyond me.”

“I’m serious, I don’t know anything about magic or curses or whatever! It was an accident.”

He looks into her eyes; she seems earnest, though it can be hard to tell with humans.

“I gave him a snickers,” she says. “Adamantius says it was a gesture of pure kindness that broke the curse, or something.”

She looks to him for confirmation. He doesn’t take his eyes off the faerie, but nods his confirmation. She goes on to tell the full story, punctuated with various exaggerated hand motions.

“-And you don’t seem that surprised by all this,” she notes as it comes to a close. Or rather, catches up with the present. “And also, you’re a faerie? Is Surehouser even your name?”

“You could say so. It’s a name, and it’s mine.”

She makes a face. “Right. So like, what now?”

He lets out a long sigh. “Now, I need a drink.” He stands up and, obliged by the laws of hospitality, adds, “Do you want anything?”

“Oh, I don’t really drink. Also, it’s like 2:30.” When it becomes clear that that is not the deterrent she thinks it is, she turns to the creature. “What about you?”

“If you’re not having anything, neither will I.”

She purses her lips. “Actually, Mr Surehouser, if I could bug you for some water or something to eat… all I’ve really had today is, like, half a jar of peanut butter, and this guy was a rock for like a thousand years I guess so he’s always hungry.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Though food is not his indulgence of choice, he’s pretty sure he remembers where the kitchen is supposed to be. The fruit there doesn’t go rotten and the water he runs into a pitcher is cold and clean. For himself, two painkillers. As much as he’d rather not, he’s starting to think this is indeed a conversation he should be sober for.

Once he’s made up a tray he returns to the sitting room where the odd pair are exchanging muttered words and serious glances. Soso stands up to help him set everything out but as she reaches for the fruit, her monster stops her.

“For pity’s sake, Adamantius, they won’t harm her. This place is neutral territory. That’s the whole point.”

While he’s distracted she pops a handful of grapes into her mouth. “You two know each other?”

“Not personally,” says Surehouser. “Though at the same time you could say we’ve been neighbors for years.” He chuckles to himself. “For more than a century, now that I think about it. I’m a watcher. Not the first, though maybe the last.” He loses some of his good humor. The reality of the situation is setting in, unbelievable though it is. “It’s been my job to… well to prevent what is happening right now.”

“He is my jailor,” Adamantius clarifies.

“More or less. Soso, do you even know who it is you’ve been sitting so comfortably beside?”

“Does she know who you are?” he snaps in retaliation. “Have you ever taken a moment to explain the depths of your fraudulence, you oversized pixie?”

His eyes narrow. “Name calling isn’t necessary. But you have a point.” He turns to the girl. “I haven’t lied to you, but neither have I been truthful. Look around you. You see an old library, and me, its keeper. Although on the surface that is true, it’s such a small fraction of what it is. It’s only a name, only some books on some shelves.”

“Then what is the truth? The full truth.” She stares at him intently.

“Long ago,” he begins. As a start to a story, it’s as good as any. Soso’s told him her story, now he owes her one in return. “There was a terrible war between humankind and the fae people. You might know them as faeries, the hidden folk, the good neighbors. Again, that’s only the barest sliver of it. The fae consist of all magical beings, united against humanity. Once, our worlds were one, with the faerie lords, whose magic was strongest and purest, ruling over all.”

“While the humans,” Adamantius interjects. “Struggled at the bottom of the food chain. Although they were greater in numbers and more widespread than almost any other species, they were preyed on by the faefolk because of their lack of natural magic. When their science and scholarly learning grew strong enough to threaten even the faeries’ regime, war broke out. In the process, countless human lives and achievements were lost.”

“I would’ve gotten to that,” Surehouser says haughtily. “As I was saying, after years of fighting the humans finally made a breakthrough. Through study and spiritualism their brightest scholars developed a power that was enough to rival fae magic. They called it alchemy, and with it they created a killing machine powerful enough to turn the tide of the war. Adamantius, the man-made monster.

“Though it was magic, albeit humans’ version of magic, that created him, he became the ultimate soldier against the fae forces. Because of this, many came to consider his existence the ultimate insult, a betrayal of our ways.”

The monster in question lunges forward. Soso seizes his arm, nearly falling out of her chair.

“Your ways and your magic have nothing to do with me. I am the son of man.”

Surehouser takes a sip of water, smiling against the rim of his glass. All this drama for a beast who was unable to act without his human’s approval.

“Personally I’m neutral on the subject. War is a terribly ugly thing. The humans’ precious pet soldier did a lot of damage, but so did we. The only reason the humans won the war in the end was because the lords at the time feared their new alchemy. This single creation of theirs had dealt more damage in a few years, a blink of an eye to them, than all their previous efforts combined. If the humans managed to reproduce their experiment… well, the risk was too great.

“The fae forces surrendered and treaty negotiations began. One of the main conditions of the treaty was that each nation’s greatest tools of war be retired and sealed away somewhere on neutral ground, never to be used again. You see where I’m going with this?”

Soso looks offended. “Adami’s alive. A living person isn’t a weapon.”

He shrugs. “When I say tools of war I’m not speaking of just blades and bombs. Lots of things can be a weapon that you wouldn’t expect. Wealth, knowledge, even a bowl of fruit.”

Adamantius picks up an armchair.

“Kidding, kidding! No need to go throwing furniture.” He stands up, hands raised. “You are much more hair-trigger than the stories suggested. Come, I’ll show you what I mean.”

He takes them behind the front desk and pushes aside a shelf of “staff picks”, revealing a hidden doorway that opens onto the basement. Anyone who knew what to look for would be able to pick out a concealment charm easily. Sometimes it paid to do things the old-fashioned way, so to speak.

The entrance is short and narrow and Adamantius struggles to squeeze through for a minute before it becomes clear that it’s wasted effort.

“What a pity,” Surehouser chirps. “Guess you’ll just have to trust me with your human for a while.”

He growls his disapproval, but once again Soso manages to talk him down. “I’ll be fine. I promised, right? Nothing bad is gonna happen.”

The creature doesn’t look entirely at ease with the idea, but he relents. As they descend the steps, he stands stalwart at the doorway, his eyes following them down until they disappear into the darkness completely.

[cecilspeaks]

148 - The Broadcaster

Leonard Burton: The opposite of war is not peace. It is tedium. Greetings from Night Vale.

[distorted version of the theme song]

Hello, listeners. it’s your regular host Leonard Burton welcoming you to yet another beautiful day in Night Vale. There is the sun, of course. I don’t need to tell you there is a sun, you know this. You’re so confident that he sun is there. Past performance is not a predictor of future results, folks, yet sure as I say it, there is the sun. And near the sun are clouds, but they’re not near, are they? Millions of miles separate those clouds from that sun. And yet our eyes measure mere inches of the space between. What deception, this human sight.

The air is crisp and cool. A slight morning breeze touches us. We feel it like cold fingers playfully caressing our shoulders, our hair, our skin. I see no breeze, but I feel it. That which I feel, that is my only truth, listeners. Wind is a verity.

I hope you will join me in closing your eyes and walking naked through the invisible yet irrefutable air. Hold aloft your arms, widen your jaw and feel the impact of atom upon atom upon atom against your body.

This day is beautiful. This day is crisp. This day is true.

This morning I nearly died. I’m always nearly dying, proximity is subjective. This morning I nearly died in the same way I nearly die every day. After waking, I showered. After showering, I drank coffee. After coffee, I ate a grapefruit and oatmeal. After eating, I walked. After walking, I walked some more. I do not own a car and I live two miles from my work. I purchased a quart of whole milk, and then I climbed a tree. Atop a tree branch, I saw a grackle’s nest and I drank my milk. I counted four eggs, each of them blue. Each of them lifeless, abandoned for countless years. I did not finish my milk, because I cannot digest milk. I poured the remainder into the nest. Then I climbed down from the tree and walked again. I do this every day. It is, as the French say, vie sans signification.

As I approached the radio station, a cargo truck driven by a man who was not tall, barrelled down Mesa Boulevard. I stretched one foot outward from my body like so, and here I demonstrate my leg extending outward. A tentative (-) [0:05:00] as the French dancers phrase it. My head was turned away from the oncoming traffic, because I saw a municipal garbage can on fire. Gathered around the flaming bin were angels touching together their unusually long fingers and moaning. The cargo truck honked loudly, but it was not as loud as the moans from the fire-lit celestial beings, so I did not alter my attention. I stepped into the roadway like this. And then again like this, and then again like this. Then again several more times, til I had crossed the road safely. Immediately following my final step, the cargo truck roared past me. I had not died, but I had a vision of my death. No, not a vision. What do you call a vision without visuals? My vision was every other sense. I had a dreadful snap, I felt my legs (accordion) [0:05:56] beneath my neck, I tasted blood and asphalt, I smelled the pungent rubber tire against my nose. My vision halted me for what seemed like hours but was less than a second.

I should have died, Night Vale. For it was in my vision. Yet I did not. The truck honked again, and the man in the passenger seat who was not short waved his fit and cursed at me. On the back of the truck were several wooden crates emblazoned with a white labyrinth above a black square. The crates glowed from within. I do not glow from within. I am darkness from within. I crossed the street, the angels moaned, and I wet myself.

It is a beautiful day in Night Vale. How was your morning?

And now the news. There is peace in our time, Night Vale. We hold a parade today to celebrate the end of the Blood Space War. The Blood Space War ended many years in the future, and we celebrate armistice today. Time, you see, is not a line but a (-) [0:07:10], which is kind of like a donut. And we are living within the donut. If we were to look out across a hall in the middle of the donut, we would see other times that have happened both before and after us. This presumes we can see time, which we cannot. We can only describe visually the shape of things that have no shape. Here is an incomplete visual description of things that have no shape. One: death is a bottomless pool of clear water. Two: wind is a question mark. Three: morality is a thermos. Four: love is an overfull shopping bag with a broken handle. Five: fear is a cinderblock tower with a single door and no windows. I hope that makes sense to you, dearest listeners. Because it does not to me. I’m neither a scientist nor a poet. I’m a radio host. I merely repeat to you that which I have learned. And what I have learned is that time is shaped like a donut. Beyond that, I have no comprehension.

When you woke up this morning, Night Vale, did you remember a life you never had? Did you experience the faint memory of a conversation, of a smell, of a feeling that never happened? Jamais vu, I believe the French say. The French say so much. And what do they know of peace? Today, I celebrate peace, however I do it alone. I broadcast my feelings to no one. Night Vale is empty, and I am its only citizen. Yet I have a vision of a town full of people. One of those people is a man, a radio intern named Cecil Palmer, but he is not here. No one is here. No one has ever been here. Has he died? I do not know. He simply is no longer here. You do not remember his years of fine reporting on this very radio station, because you never heard those reports. I did.

I remember things that never happened, yet I have no evidence of any of it. Let me describe to you the shape of Cecil Palmer. He’s a line of leafless mesquite trees, he is a glass factory, he is a golf ball sized (hell) [0:09:37], he has a voice like distant highway traffic. He loves coffee and handshakes, he wears tight clothing, and has never once worked with modelling clay. He covers mirrors with cloth and has an irrational fear of glowing lights beneath locked doors and dark hallways. You cannot know any of this, because Cecil is my vision, not yours. He is real all the same. He is to be my replacement when I retire. But he does not exist, so I can never retire. I am your permanent host. I can still see his face. I’ve said it before and I will say it once more. What deception is human sight!

The parade for the end of the Blood Space war has begun! There is no one attending, because no one lives in Night Vale. Perhaps we’ll reach a day when no one has ever lived. An emissary has arrived in town to lead the parade. The emissary’s an astronaut, bloated white arms and a mirror for a face. The emissary walks slowly through our empty city streets. I do not know why I broadcast this to you, dear listener. For you are not even here. No one is here, except for me and the emissary, who walks like a marionette under the wobbly control of a novice puppeteer. And the angels, whose moans are songs and whose fingertips are (-) [0:11:11] rods. Also there’s the two men in the cargo truck who are driving far beyond our town. And somewhere there are the French, who are inventing phrases to describe, I don’t know what.

The parade of absent floats along empty streets (-) by a mirror faced marshmallow of a grand marshall approaches our radio station. I will enjoy getting to see the festivities up close and describing shapes out of the shapeless.

And now the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. Kids, did you know that everyone experiences time differently? Physicist Albert Einstein once said: “There’s no business like show business. Like no business I know.” He said this while starring in “Annie Get Your Gun” in London’s West End. The performed the title role ten years before Irving Berlin even wrote the musical. This is because Albert Einstein experienced time differently, but only when it came to songwriting. He had the complete discography of both Leonard Cohen and Kendrick Lamar before either were born.

And perhaps, like you and I only hear music after it is written, we experience time differently in other was. Like say our births. Think about your birth. You don’t remember it, do you? This could be because you’ve forgotten it, but how do you forget something that so powerfully impacted you? I would argue that your birth was the important moment in your life, and you have forgotten it? I cannot believe you’re so cavalier as to allow the memory of your entry into this world to dissipate like steam from a screaming kettle! No, you do not remember your birth, because it has not happened yet. I am sure this is scientifically true. It can be the only explanation. You experience time differently. One day you will be born, and you will experience awe and pain and confusion. You will begrudge the lack of input you were given in this decision. You did not ask to be born, and yet pow, bam, squish, there you are, or were, or will be.

Earth is an (--) [0:13:32] during a flood. Memory is the chipped bark of the cedar tree. Time is a donut. This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner.

The parade has ended. The street moments ago crowded with no one are once again still empty. The celebration of peace has ended, and another beautiful day comes to a close. The sun, like a shopkeeper with no customers, leaves work early. And the radio softly reminds us the shapes of the shapeless.

Oh! Oh dear, you startled me. Listeners, the emissary has appeared in my studio without warning, without even opening a door. And they’re sitting in the chair next to me and slowly rotating. Their visor is open, and I’m being forced to stare at the ineffable darkness within the emissary’s helmet. This seems like a good time For the weather.

[Subspace” by RAQIA https://raqia.bandcamp.com and https://www.instagram.com/raqiaband/]

Have you ever forgotten where you put your keys? You were certain they were on the mantle, but they were not. Have you ever missed an appointment because you were sure it was on Wednesday at noon and not Tuesday at ten? Have you ever remembered a life you did not lead? Has a carefully collated series of words ever made you uncertain, unconfident or un, just un? Un as an adjective onto itself.

The emissary arrived from the future, from space. The emissary told me changes were made, and those changes became mistakes and those mistakes became truths, and all of it would need to be undone. “Night Vale is a vibrant and full city with tens of thousands of people,” the emissary said. “Yet here you are, Leonard, the only person in Night Vale.” I nodded into the dark onyx of the emissary’s face screen. “How old are you, Leonard?” the emissary asked. I did not know. I still do not know. The emissary revealed to me a newspaper clipping. From the Night Vale Daily Journal obituary section dated November 1983. There was a photo of me and a story about my life: my childhood, my radio career, my wife, my children – my death. It was all true and yet I remembered none of it, except for the last part. I looked at my obituary photo. I read how I died. Under cargo truck wheels on Mesa Boulevard. In print, everything looks true. “What deception is human sight,” I said. The emissary lifted their trick gloved hands to their neck, unlatched the snaps and removed their helmet. I saw the face of an old woman, with sunken tearful eyes. “I am the general,” the emissary said, placing her enormous soft paw upon my hand. “I have tried to save myself, my soldiers, my town, my planet, through time travel. Every time we lose a battle, I return to before it even happened and fight it again. I fight each battle over and over, until we have won.” “You’re an excellent general,” I told her. “Of course I am,” she snapped. “In battle. But each time I interfere in the timeline, I create a widening ripple of historical changes. And now Night Vale is empty, on the verge of never having existed at all. This must be undone. Do you understand me, Leonard?” I nodded yes, to hide the fact that I did not understand. The emissary pointed to the moon. An enormous piece of the moon was missing. I did not remember that the moon was broken, but also I rarely look at the moon out of disdain. “Like the moon, time has broken,” she said. “Night Vale should be full of people, and you should have died long ago, Leonard,” she added. “Do you understand?” I shook my head no, to hide the fact that I did understand. “I’m sorry, Leonard,” she said. If Night Vale is repaired, you will return to the grave.” “But you have achieved peace,” I argued. “I have achieved peace,” she said. “And in doing so, I have made it so that no one in this city, or this world, or this universe, ever lived. I have achieved an infinitude of emptiness. Leonard, look.” She touched my shoulder with one hand, and with the other, she indicated once more the moon. When I looked, the moon was again whole. I looked back at the general and she was gone.

I hear now a voice, not my own, like distant highway traffic. I do not think I should be alive, but I do not know what else to be. Am I a ghost? Am I a god? Am I at all? Whatever it is I am, I reject my end. I embrace my existence, even in a world with no one to acknowledge it. I never wish to die, Night Vale, and still I refuse to do so. I am a broadcaster. I do not stop broadcasting simply because I do not live!

Stay through next for grackles hatching from long dormant eggs, and anything else I wish to describe, real or not. For you do not hear me anyway. And until tomorrow, See ya Night Vale, See ya.

Today’s proverb: Ask your doctor about dogs. Have a long conversation about how good dogs are. Show each other pictures of dogs.