#on my bug era clearly

[eliasdrid]

really cute weekend show, they catch bugs or something like that 🦋

[animal crossing inspired fanart]

[seddair]

I have a bit of a boomer take when it comes to baseball, I’m sorry

[13uswntimagines]

13 Eras of Us Era 2: It’s The First Kiss, It’s Flawless, Really Something, It’s Fearless (Taylor Swift X Morgan!Reader)

13 Eras of us Era 1

This is the Era where R and Taylor finally get together. There is a little spice (very clearly marked). R and Alex start to work on their issues, and we learn a little bit more about R's past... situationships. The team learns about "burrito girl" and Kelley saves the day and keeps things on track.

August 2016

And isn’t it just so pretty to think 

All along there was some invisible string

While August was turning out slightly better than July, it was still weird. 

It was weird being at camp when you weren’t on the roster. Weird being around the people you called friends when most of them weren’t talking to you. 

But what made matters worse was that you had been called in hours before camp started. You had blindly thrown random clothing into a suitcase, rushing to not miss the flight Christen, Alyssa, and JJ were on, all while calling your teammates to find one willing to watch your dogs on such late notice. 

Part of you even considered calling Tony, the bodyguard who had strangely stayed in town despite Taylor’s departure, hoping that maybe he could at least check on them until you could guilt one of your teammates into taking them. 

The older couple that lived next to you would let him in, you knew. 

You had given Mr. And Mrs. Rossi keys two days after you had moved in when they brought over a pan of ravioli and introduced themselves. 

You were just lucky that Niki Stanton had answered you just before you boarded the plane with a yes, so you hadn’t had to ask. 

You didn’t want to bug Taylor more than you had to. You didn’t want to assume that Tony would want to help you. 

You sighed, tugging the special 3rd knot on your cleats to make sure it was tight. 

It wasn’t like you would actually be training with the team. You would be there to partner for drills. To make sure that everyone else was prepared to face Ireland. 

The only problem was that it seemed like no one wanted you to partner with them.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. 

Rose and Emily had sent you regretful smiles as Jill directed you to pair with one of the forwards for a passing drill. Alex had already been claimed by Lindsey and Tobin and Christen had chosen each other. 

It left you on the bench, trying to pretend like it didn’t hurt that the rest of the team had lost so much faith in your abilities that they wouldn’t even look in your direction. 

You blew out another breach, checking your left cleat again. 

“Can I partner with you?” Mal asked sheepishly, blocking the beating sun from your face. 

You squinted up at her, your lips twitched into a ghost of a smile. “Don’t know if you wanna risk my bad luck rubbing off on you,”

“You don’t have bad luck,” She said, her lips also lifting. “But I will take some of your magic if you’re offering,” 

“You never could get enough,” You wiggled your eyebrows. 

“You’re too much,” Mal chuckled, shaking her head. 

There was a glint in her eyes, one that reminded you of long summers at U15 camp flirting over ice cream cones, and talking about what the future held. It reminded you of an easier time before you had been crushed by expectations. Before there were any expectations. 

You weren’t sure if the feelings you had harbored were real, or just a figment created by excitement and feeling free for the first time. What you did know was that while your feelings had long since mellowed into platonic, the comfort her friendship brought you was still as strong as it ever had been. 

If you couldn’t be on the pitch, you would make damn sure she had the debut of her lifetime. 

She deserved that, and hopefully, you would prove yourself to the coaching staff and be allowed to rejoin the team. 

She grabbed your arm, and dragged you to your feet.“Come on, I don’t want to be late for my first practice,” 

You made a low noise of agreement, trudging after her. 

“Don’t look so glum,” Tobin said, nudging your arm as you stepped into line beside her, across from Mal. “It doesn’t suit your sunny personality,” 

You pulled a face at her, catching the ball with your right cleat as Mal sent it your way, and you tapped it to your left foot and sent it back. “I think a majority of my energy has been sapped by all of my friends hating me,” 

“They don’t,” Christen said simply, flicking her own ball back towards Tobin. 

“We could never hate you,” Alex chimed in, catching a pass from Lindsey. 

“Cause I’m really feeling the love,” You grumbled back, staring at the ball instead of meeting your sister's eyes. 

You could feel their gazes glued to you, and you could imagine the looks on their faces. 

You didn’t need to see it. 

“Alright ladies,” Jill clapped her hands, drawing the group's attention. “Let’s start with passing drills. Midfielders will pass to their forwards, and forwards will attempt to score while the defenders will try to stop you,” 

She gestured towards the line of waiting defenders on one side of the goalpost, and the 3 keepers waiting by the other. “If you score, you get to keep the point. If you don’t, the defense keeps it. The side with the most points at the end will get to skip 2 laps on the conditioning run at the end of practice,” 

Your eyebrows furrowed. 

Jill didn’t usually run drills like this. This was something reminiscent of one of Roary’s drills. 

She couldn’t have been talking to him, but if she was... If she listened to his opinion, then maybe what he said was true. 

Maybe he really did have the power to make or break you. 

It sent an unpleasant shiver down your spine. 

You didn’t want to think about the… thank you you might owe him. Or how his suggestion of extra sessions might actually help. 

“Likewise, the keepers will also try to stop you so select the best shot, not just the easiest,” Jill continued, and you blinked back to yourself. “Questions?”

You shook your head along with the group. 

It didn’t matter who had come up with it. All that mattered was that you showed Jill that you belonged on the roster. That you made her regret not including you. 

“Ready to put on a show?” Mal bumped you as Lindsey and Alex started the drill. 

Alex easily outpaced Becky to get into position, but Lindsey had a harder time faking out Kelley, taking an extra second to make the defender step before she sent a perfect through ball into Alex’s path. 

“Always,” You breathed out as the ball left Alex’s foot, sailing through the air before pinging off of the crossbar. She ran a frustrated hand through her hair, and you dragged your eyes away to look at Mal. “Don't miss,” 

A devilish grin took over Mal’s features. “Don’t worry Ducky, I can’t miss with your magic,” 

She winked at you, and you rolled your eyes. 

You hated that nickname. Not as much as others you had been given. Not enough to ask Mal to get rid of it, not when she liked it so much. 

You stepped up to the ball and focused on Emily across from you as Mal did the same with Abby. 

Nicknames could wait until after you had shown them all why you belonged. 

OoOoOoO

You let out a long breath, standing over the ball as you stared at goal. 

You could hear your teammates behind you, chatting as they packed up their gear, but you did your best to tune them out. 

It didn’t matter to you that practice had ended nearly 15 minutes ago. All that you cared about was scoring from the spot. All you cared about was making sure you never missed another penalty again.

You took three steps back, your eyes flickering to the ball and then back towards goal. The back netting fluttered gently in the wind, like waving hands in the stands. 

You blew out one more breath and leaned into your run, counting down in your head. 

Your eyes never left the net as you took your three-step run up and blasted the ball toward the top right corner. 

It hit the net with a satisfying woosh, sending ripples through the material and rattling the woodwork. 

“Not bad,” 

You blinked at the approaching voice, turning to face the new number-one keeper of the USWNT. 

“Oh, thanks,” You nodded, blushing slightly and running a hand through your hair. You headed towards the goal to collect your ball and shoot again. 

You didn’t really interact with Alyssa, even in Chicago. Her quiet confidence always intimidated you. 

“Mind if I stand in goal for you?” She asked, trailing after you. “I wanna get some reps in,”

You paused, blinking at her. “You don’t have to do that for me,” 

She sent you a small smile. “I know. I want to,” 

You swallowed, flicking the ball up to your hands and tossing it towards her. “If you really want to,” 

“I do,” Alyssa caught it easily, looking at you for a long second. “When you send balls to the top right corner, you tilt your hips to the left in your run-up. It gives you away,” 

Your eyebrows furrowed. You didn’t know you were doing that. 

“Try to stay square,” She continued. “It’ll make it harder to read you,” 

You hummed, biting the inside of your lip as you stepped back towards the spot. 

She rolled the ball towards you, and you carefully positioned it where you wanted it, and took three big steps back. 

You twisted your hips, trying to remember to keep them square as you did your run-up. 

Your eyes fell to the ball, and you let out a long breath, doing the countdown on your head as you dragged your gaze to meet Alyssa’s in goal. 

You leaned onto your toes, doing your run-up and forcing your hips to remain parallel. 

Now that you were in step, you could feel what Alyssa was talking back in the way you wanted to pull to your left for the windup. 

Your foot contacted the ball, and you watched as it flew much more slowly towards Alyssa’s outstretched fingertips. It brushed past her, landing in the net with a much less satisfying swish. 

“I just feel like I don’t have as much power,” You said, watching as Alyssa got back to her feet and fished the ball out of the back of the net. 

“I save goals, I don’t make them,” Alyssa shrugged, rolling the ball back in your direction. “You could ask maybe Pino or your sister,”

Your nose scrunched at the options. 

You would rather gargle thumbtacks than do either considering Pino was still pretending that you didn’t exist and Alex was… too much. 

She was trying too hard, pushing too much and it made you suspicious. Why did she care now when she hadn’t before? When she had been ignoring you since the ball left your foot in Rio? 

When the two of you had been at odds since she left for Berkeley?

“It was just a suggestion,” Alyssa said quickly as you tapped the ball back towards the spot. 

“I know,” You mumbled, repositioning the ball with your hands. “I’ll probably ask Mal later. She’s always been better at PKs anyway,” 

Alyssa hummed in agreement. She didn’t know you well enough to argue, and you seemed pretty close with the new striker. You had perked up considerably after partnering with her during practice, and the two of you had been unstoppable in the new set of drills Jill wanted to try(even if Jill made you sit the scrimmage out). 

She hoped that helping you with your PKs would only add to the good mood you had been riding. She hoped it would help to alleviate the dark cloud that had been following you since the Olympics. 

You were young and under more pressure than anyone your age should ever be placed under. As the captain of your club team, she felt it was her duty to actually do something about it. If that meant standing for a million of your PKs until you felt comfortable, then that’s exactly what she would do. 

You lined up behind the ball, squinting at it. She noticed how you tilted your hips back and forth trying to figure out the mechanics of your kick. 

It amazed her how easily you could adjust, and how smooth you made it look. 

If you could get rid of your little tells, you would be deadly in front of the net. Just as deadly as you were during normal play. 

She watched as you leaned forward on your toes, your feet shuffling as you prepared to kick. 

“Hey you two, we’re going to leave soon,” Alyssa blinked up at Kelley’s voice, just as the ball left your foot. 

She missed your kick, and the ball sailed easily into the net to her left. “We were just finishing up,”

Your shoulders rolled, and it looked like you wanted to argue, but no words left your lips. 

It worried her how much you sunk into yourself at Kelley’s appearance. How your good mood vanished in a second. 

She shared a look with Kelley over your shoulder, noting the worry in the defender's eyes. 

At least someone else saw it too. 

“Come on, you can sit by me at lunch,” Alyssa said, wrapping an arm over your shoulder and guiding you towards the bench with your gear. “We can talk more about ball placement,” 

You made a low noise and allowed her to pull you back towards the team. 

You would take any help you could get. 

 *****

“Where’s Ducky?” Mal asked as she set her plate down on the table beside Lindsey’s, leaving an empty chair on her other side for you. 

She thought practice had gone well, and the good mood you gained through practice stayed with you to the weight and film sessions that followed it. You seemed excited about dinner, hyping up Chef Teron’s cooking and promising that you would join her after you took a shower. 

“Ducky?” Kelley frowned, taking the seat opposite of her. 

“Y/n,” Mal said, glancing up at the defender.  “She found a baby duck at our first camp together,”

It was the truth, even if it wasn’t the entire story. Kelley didn’t need to know exactly how the nickname had been earned anyway. Mal was sure she wouldn’t want to know…

Lindsey shot her a look. A warning of sorts that while Kelley didn’t know the story, the full extent of Mal’s relationship with you, Lindsey definitely did. 

“Em’s not here either. I’m sure they’re just late. You know how they get when they’re together,” Lindsey said, dragging her eyes away from Mal to look at Kelley. 

Kelley shrugged. “It’s entirely possible,” 

You and Emily were known to get into trouble when the two of you were together. 

“What’s possible?” Emily asked, appearing through the meal room door alone. 

“That you and Y/n are late because you two are nuts when you’re together,” Lindsey said, stabbing a piece of her chicken. “It's why Paul banned it at u20 camp,” 

Mal rolled her eyes. “No. He stopped putting them together after Y/n was up for three nights straight because she lost a bet,” 

“That’s true,” Emily shrugged. “She was on the phone with the mysterious Taylor when I left. I didn’t want to wait for her anymore,” 

Kelley’s eyebrows furrowed. “Who?”

She had never heard of Taylor before. 

Emily's shoulders lifted and fell again. “The girl that Y/n isn’t dating but pretty much is,” 

“I’m not dating her,” You grumbled, finally joining the table. 

Mal frowned when you took the seat between Kelley and Emily instead of the seat she had saved for you. She slid the plate she had made for you across the table nonetheless, and you nodded in thanks. 

Emily rolled her eyes, ignoring the way you glared at the side of her head. “She flew to your apartment because she was worried about you, and then went to a shitty game that you only played in for 22 minutes,” 

“I scored a hat trick,” You muttered, stabbing at the pasta Mal had grabbed for you. “It wasn’t that shitty,” 

“I’m sorry, what?” Kelley blinked at you. 

She was usually the first person you told things to, despite how… strained things were between you and your sister at times. It felt very strange to her to be out of the loop. 

You let out a suffering sigh. “It’s nothing. Emily is just blowing everything out of proportion,” 

“Am I?” Emily asked incredulously. “Let me repeat, a girl flew across the country to see you because you were sad,” 

“She’s my friend,” You muttered. 

“Ok,” Kelley said, holding up her hand to stop whatever retort Emily was about to make. “It was very nice of your friend to visit,” 

You hummed, seemingly mollified. “It was. She got to try her first burrito,” 

“What kind of person has never had a burrito?” Lindsey snorted. 

And your shoulders lifted and fell. “She’s from Pennsylvania. I don’t think they’re popular there. Or in Nashville,” 

Emily opened her mouth like she was going to protest, but a sharp look from Kelley had her closing it again. 

The way to get information out of you was to drop the pressure, and let you share what you felt comfortable with, even if it wasn’t the juicy details that anyone really wanted. 

“Does she live in Nashville now?” Kelley asked, pretending like she wasn’t invested in the answer. 

Your nose scrunched, and you chewed your food thoughtfully. You had only visited her in Nashville so far, but you knew she spent a larger amount of time in New York. 

 “At least part-time,” You said, stabbing another set of noodles. “She splits her time between there, LA and New York,”  

“Nice, kid,” Kelley hummed. 

“It’s good to make friends,” Mal added, swallowing the sudden lump in her throat, as you smiled brilliantly at her. 

She would believe you when you said that this… Taylor was your friend. After all, she was just your friend too. 

“What about friends?” Alex asked, appearing at the table, and placing her plate down next to Mal. 

“We were just talking about Y/n’s new friend,” Emily said, waggling her eyebrows. “Apparently she never had a burrito before she met your sister,” 

A disgusted look crossed Alex's face. “If that’s a sex thing, then I really don’t want to know about it,” 

“It’s not,” You huffed. “I think about more than just sex you know,” 

“You do? I’m shocked,” Alex deadpanned, and the table burst into bemused laughter. 

“You forgot that she thinks about soccer,” Emily cackled, nudging you. “And the dogs,” 

“Ah yes, the pack of mythological creatures,” Alex said, rolling her eyes. 

“So dogs, soccer, and sex. Seems pretty reasonable to me,” Kelley flicked the side of your head, and you jerked away from her. 

“I fucking hate you guys,” You ground out, stabbing another piece of your chicken, more bitterness than you meant leaking into your tone.

Mal’s head tilted to the side, as the comment only earned more laughter from the table. She noticed something she couldn’t place in Alex’s expression as the giggles died down. 

“I think she thinks a lot about penalty kicks too,” Lindsey added, chuckling. “It was all her and Alyssa would talk about at lunch,” 

Your face twisted into a grimace, and Mal knew at once that you didn’t find it funny. She saw Kelley’s arm shift next to you like a hand was placed on your leg to keep you from pushing yourself out of your seat. 

Alex’s eyebrows furrowed at the comment, and she leaned forward in her chair. 

“Your hips twist to the left when you aim for the top right corner,” She said, her voice going oddly gentle. “If you twist your plant foot outward, it’ll counter it so you can keep your hips square and still have the same power,” 

You froze, your forks halfway to your lips, and your back went rigid. 

It was one thing for Alyssa to offer her help, and another for your sister to do it. 

You bit back your retort that Alex had missed her kick too, that she was no better than you, and forced your fork to your mouth. 

You weren’t in a position to deny help. Even if you didn’t really want it. 

“I can show you later if you want,” Alex continued, seeming unphased by your stiffness. 

“Sure,” Your voice squeaked as you agreed, your eyes dipping. 

Alex’s smile was blinding. “Awesome. We can do it after dinner and before movie night,” 

Your chin barely moved as you nodded in agreement, chewing on your bite. 

Taking pointers from Alex was not a top thing on your to-do list. 

*****

“I just feel like it cuts my power in half,” You sighed, running a frustrated hand through your hair and turning away from the little goal the staff had set up for you. 

“You just need to find the right foot angle so your hips can get around it,” Alex positioned her hands as she explained it. “Just play with it for a bit. I’m sure you’ll get it,” 

You could feel her eyes on you like you were a specimen under a microscope, but you didn’t look up to meet her eyes. 

You couldn’t meet her eyes. 

It reminded you too much of when you were young. Of the hours the two of you would spend in the backyard, critiquing each other play after play. Of the summers you spent under the hot sun, practicing skill after skill until you could take out every other player you faced. 

It reminded you that Alex was more than a teammate. And that was too much. 

“Y/n,” Alex said, her voice going very soft, her hand landing warm and grounding on your shoulder. 

You sucked in a shaky breath. The two of you hadn’t been this close since she left for college. You hadn’t let her this close to you. 

“I’m fine, Alex,” You muttered, trying to shrug her hand off, but she didn’t let you. 

“You’re not,” Her fingers tightened on your shoulder. “And part of that is my fault,” 

Your jaw clenched. “You didn’t sky your penalty,” 

While Alex’s kick hadn’t gone in, it hadn’t been taken nearly as badly as yours was. The keeper had beaten her, while you had simply beaten yourself. 

“No,” She agreed softly. “But I also didn’t make sure you were ok afterward,” 

No. Afterward, everyone split off into different directions to handle their grief. Alex didn’t even say goodbye to you before flying out of Rio. 

“You don’t need to worry about me. I’m an adult,” You said, finally looking up to meet her eyes. The eyes were a near-perfect replica of yours. “I’m fine. I’m playing well, and I’m showing everyone that I deserve to be here,” 

Alex nodded. 

She couldn’t disagree that you had been on fire since camp started. That the connection you and Mal had on the pitch was proving to be lethal, and that she was sure Jill regretted that you wouldn’t be eligible for the game against Australia. 

But she could see that you were not fine. 

She wished you trusted her enough to admit it. 

“You might be an adult, but you’re still my little sister,” Alex said, her voice still soft, but determined as she squeezed your shoulder again. “And I want to be there for you,” 

“Now you want to be here for me. Now that everyone is watching you care. Now when it’s convenient,” You muttered, finally pulling yourself free of her hand. 

Her eyes snapped towards you, and the bitterness in your tone. “What?”

You paced towards the ball, taking extra time to fish it out of the back of the net, watching it as you directed it back towards the penalty spot. 

“You care now because that’s what you think is expected of you,” You said finally, your voice barely above a whisper. “You care because it’s convenient for you now that we’re in the same place. When I go back to Chicago, you’re going to go back to not giving a fuck,” 

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Alex growled, catching your wrist, and whipping you around to face her. “I have never not given a fuck,” 

Your jaw worked like you were contemplating the next words to come out of your mouth, and you slowly looked up to meet her eyes. 

They weren’t the icy stone that she expected or the cold blue that she had become accustomed to. 

They were a deep turquoise, vibrant, and… open. Vulnerable in a way they hadn’t been since you were 9 years old. 

“You just left me,” You said. “And then I was alone,”

Something dark lingered under your words. Something that she knew you weren’t saying. Something that she had a feeling was far deeper than what happened after the Olympics. 

“You have never been alone,” Alex grit out, the hand on your arm tightening. 

You rolled your eyes, ripping away from her grasp for the second time. “Whatever Alex,” 

Alex opened her mouth, a scathing retort on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t let it fly. She paused, watching the way you focused back on the ball. You flicked it up onto your toe box, juggling it a few times before you let it fall perfectly on the penalty spot. 

She recognized the movement. It was the same one you used when you were young, and you felt too vulnerable to talk. When you needed to control your emotions. 

She let out a long breath, calming the agitation still simmering in her chest. 

You wouldn’t respond to anger and harsh retorts. No. She had to take a more gentle approach. One that wouldn’t threaten your vulnerability. 

“I shouldn’t have left right after the game in Rio,” She said softly, taking a very slow step toward you. “I’m sorry that I didn’t stay to make sure you were alright,” 

Your shoulders rolled, and you positioned yourself to take another kick. “I didn’t need you to stay,” 

“I also should have checked on you after we got back, instead of just assuming that you were fine,” She pushed on as if you hadn’t spoken.

A strange sort of grimace flashed across your features. One you tried to smother as you did your signature run-up, keeping your hips square (and turning your foot out slightly wider) as you took your kick.

The net swished as the ball made contact, banging into the top right corner with a satisfying rattle. 

It was still amazing to her how quickly you could make adjustments. How easy it was for you to figure out the body mechanics to make a slight change work. 

She took another step towards you. “I know I haven’t been there for you, but I want to be. Not because I think it’s what’s expected of me, but because you’re my sister and I love you,”

She wanted to reach out and catch your shoulder again. To force you to look at her, but she knew that wouldn’t help. 

All she could do was watch as the words filtered through your brain; as you worked them over in your head; as you realized that she wasn’t looking for a fight or defend herself and your posture very slowly relaxed. 

“There’s an app,” Alex continued, taking the last step towards you, getting so close that she was nearly brushing your back. “It tracks miles, and fitness, and calories, and I think it could help us reconnect if you want to try it,” 

She could see the way your jaw worked, as you stepped away from her to collect the ball from the net again like you were chewing on her both words and her offer. 

The offer she meant to make while the two of you were still in Rio. 

She waited as you rolled the ball out of the net, flipping it between your feet for a long minute before you finally looked up and met her eyes. “Ok,” 

She nodded, more to herself than to you, just thankful that you had responded at all. She hadn’t expected even that. 

“I love you,” She repeated softly, reaching out and catching your hand and squeezing in 3 slow pulses. 

You squeezed it in return. “I love you too,” 

The slight reluctance in your tone bothered her, but she would take what she could get with you. It was more than she had gotten in a very long time. 

You cleared your throat, breaking the comforting silence that stretched between you. “When I want to kick it left, would I just angle my plant foot in the opposite direction?”

She blinked, once, twice, 3 times. “Yeah. It’ll help you prevent your hips from telegraphing,” 

You hummed, turning away. 

She should have known that you wouldn’t comment further. That you would turn back to football as soon as you could. She knew it wasn’t personal. 

But she wished it didn’t sting as much. 

******

You glanced down at the new addition to your right wrist, shaking your hand and testing how much the little watch slid with the movement. You had been playing with it since Kelley passed it to you at breakfast. 

You didn’t know that Alex’s app required a stupid piece of jewelry, but you hadn’t had the heart to take it off yet. Not when she was actually trying. 

It was still irritating to you, and you worried that it would get in the way during your afternoon practice and lift session, even if you wouldn’t be allowed to join their walkthrough. 

You didn’t want to break it before you really got to use it. You didn’t think that your Red Stars salary would stretch enough to cover a new one. Not when you were planning extra trips to New York. 

You sighed, grabbing your cup of green juice and taking a large sip. 

You were probably going to have to budget more as it was. Flights weren’t cheap, and neither was food, or a hotel (even if Taylor insisted you could stay with her. As her best friend).

“Hey kid,” Jill said, knocking on the Hotel lobby table. “Got a second?”

You gulped down the liquid and gestured towards the empty couch across from you. “Always coach,”

She smiled and settled into the seat. You leaned forward in your own, your drink landing on the table with a thunk. 

“We’re placing you on the active roster for the game against Canada,” Jill said. “Roary said that you had been making slow improvements, but I wanted to see for myself. You’ve proven that you deserve the spot,” 

“I…-“ You blinked at her. “Thank you. I will not let you down,” 

She waved you off. “I’d like to see some nice linking with Mallory and your sister. I want to really push Trancredi and Chapman,” 

“I can do that,” You nodded seriously. You knew you could get balls to Alex and Mal. You knew you could stretch the defense. 

You were a menace on the pitch, especially when you had something to prove. 

You had everything to prove. 

“I know,” Her lips ticked up and she reached across the table to pat your knee as she stood. “Go eat. You’ll be joining full team practice after lunch, and dawn will have my head if you pass out,”

You matched her smile. “Yes, coach. Thank you,” 

“You’ve earned it,” She said, turning and heading off towards the meal room, but she paused before she exited the lobby. “And stop hiding from your friends,” 

You blushed but nodded in agreement anyway. She winked as she left, and you couldn’t help the bubbling laugh that left your lips, undeterred by her request to stop icing out the team. 

She invited you because she wanted to see your progress herself. She wanted to see if you were progressing as slowly as Roary said you were, and you had proven that you weren’t. You had proven you were an asset. 

You had proven them wrong. 

The elation filled your chest, like champagne in a shaken bottle and all you wanted was to let it out. You wanted to tell someone. 

Well, not someone. You wanted to tell Taylor. 

She was the one who convinced them that you could prove them wrong after all. The one who had been there for you, even before you took the penalty kick in Rio. 

You grabbed your green juice from the table and pushed yourself up from the armchair, pulling your phone out of your pocket as you hung a left down a side hallway by the meal room so you could have some privacy before you faced the rest of the team. 

You easily flicked through your contacts, pausing over the one you had recently changed from blondie to Athena after the goddess of wisdom, and pressing it gently. 

“Hey, what’s up,” Taylor’s smiling face met you after the second ring. “Everything ok?” 

“Better than ok,” You nodded excitedly, flashing her a brilliant grin. “Jill added me to the active squad, and I’m playing in the game on Saturday against Canada,” 

Her eyes lit up. “Oh my god! That’s amazing! I’m so proud of you!”

Red leaked into your cheeks. “Thanks,” 

She hummed, her smile shifting into something softer, silence stretching between you for a long second. 

“What time?” She asked, and your eyebrows pulled tightly together. “What?” 

“The game,” She said, the soft look never leaving her eyes. “What time is it on?”

“6ish I think?” Your voice tilted up in question. 

The truth was you didn’t actually know what time the game was on. You didn’t know what time you needed to be on the bus, or when warmups started. 

It was the nice thing about camp. 

You never had to think about a schedule. You just went with the flow.

“I’ll look on the USWNT website,” Taylor rolled her eyes affectionately at you. 

“Good plan,” You said, your head bobbing. 

You opened your mouth to add a quip, but the sound of your name interrupted you. 

You blinked up at the new voice, suddenly realizing that your side hallway wasn’t as private as you thought it was. 

“You’re going to miss lunch,” Mal said, and you wondered how long she had been standing there. How long had she listened in? 

You waved her off. “Just save me a plate,”

You could eat after you were finished with your call. 

“No,” Mal glared at the phone in your hand.  “come on,” 

“You’ve gotta go,” Taylor interjected softly before you could send whatever whippy retort was on your tongue towards Mal, pulling your attention back to the screen. “We’ll talk later, I promise,”  

“I’ll see you later,” You sighed, waving towards Taylor before hanging up, a millisecond before Mal peeked at the screen. 

“That was rude,” You grumbled, slapping her arm when she was close enough. “I was having a conversation,” 

“Well, you were late,” Mal said, rolling her eyes and hooking her arm through yours to pull you tightly to her as she dragged you towards the meal room. “And you get grumpy when you don’t eat,” 

You got more grumpy when you didn’t get to talk to Taylor, but you didn’t voice that thought. 

You didn’t need anyone else questioning your relationship with Taylor, not when she was very firmly your friend. 

OoOoOoO

September 2016

Is it cool that I said all that?

Is it too soon to do this yet?

Cause I know that it’s delicate

The craziness that was August simmered down considerably as soon as September started. It was like the sudden chill in the air was a balm to the insanity that always accompanied the stretch to the playoffs.

With Chicago at the very bottom of the table, well besides Orlando, you knew that your season would likely end in 4 games. It should have made you feel bad, but it didn’t. All you could muster was a strange sense of… blaséness. 

You didn't have it in you to care after the loss of the Olympics. Not in a league that didn’t matter. 

It wasn’t like you were playing for Arsenal. 

What you did care about was that you had earned your national team spot back. 

With 2 assists and a goal yourself against Canada, you had solidified why you deserved your callup. That was before you found out that Taylor was there. 

Things only got better when you got to see her after the game. When you got to hug her and hear her say how proud she was of you. When you got to solidify your plans to see her when you played against Sky Blue. 

Nothing could dampen your… excitement, not even Mal (drunkenly) hanging off of you during the post-game dinner celebration. 

That carried over into your upset win over Portland with Chicago, and the week of practice you had between them and your game in New York. 

And now, sitting in the back of a dark dive bar in Tribeca, trying to ignore your drunk friends (teammates and foes) celebrating, your excitement. Your happiness was nearly palpable. 

Taylor was going to swing by before you left, and the two of you were set to hang out tomorrow too.  

But still, you couldn’t get rid of the nagging feeling in the back of your mind. Of the butterflies that fluttered in your chest each time you so much as thought about Taylor. 

You tried to slam a lid on it. To shove it into a little box, because you knew that if you let it out, you would fuck up your friendship. 

It was how you saved your friendship with Mal after all wasn't it?

You had swallowed the lump in your throat, and taken the little piece of her that she gave you. You had even listened to her talk about him while the two of you cuddled. 

But it was different because you weren’t sleeping with Taylor. 

“Hey, sorry I’m kinda late,” Taylor said, just as a hand landed very gently on your shoulder. 

Your lips instantly ticked up at Taylor’s voice and you turned towards the back of the bar to greet her (slightly surprised she hadn’t come in the front). “Hey, no worries,”

You pushed yourself to your feet and pulled her into a tight hug. Your nose pressed against her neck, and you tried not to think about how the scent of lavender and something so innately Taylor put your swirling thoughts at ease. 

You leaned back with a genuine grin, and slid her the drink you had ordered for her “Old fashion right?”

She frowned but took the drink anyway. “How did you order this? You’re not 21 yet,” 

You shrugged and slid back onto your stool. “I didn’t have to order it,” 

She took the stool next to you, her eyebrows lifting. 

“Really I didn’t,” You said, reaching for your own glass. “The losing team always buys the first round at least,” 

She eyed it warily as you brought it to your lips, taking a sip of her own.

“It’s water,” You said before she could ask. “Because Kelley and Christen strongly disapprove of underage drinking,”

“I do too,” Taylor hummed, leaning closer to you so she could hear you over the bar noise. 

“I know,” You said, sending her a cheeky smile. “How was the studio? Cooking up something good?”

She took a sip of her drink. “I think so. I can show you some of them tomorrow,”

“That would be cool,” You nodded, your eyes flickering towards your teammates. “There’s also a cool little brunch spot in TriBeCa. It’s called the bus stop,”

“I’ve heard about it,” Taylor hummed. “It’s like two blocks from my apartment,” 

“I can pick you up tomorrow and we can go,” You said, watching Taylor carefully. “Roary gets upset when I skip out early,” 

You didn’t want to be too… forward. 

You didn’t want to tip the hand on your feelings when you knew she didn’t feel the same. 

“That should work,” Taylor agreed, without even blinking. “I’ll let Jason know you’re coming and I’ll text you directions to the back entrance,” 

“Jason?” You smirked, trying to keep your voice neutral, and wiggled your eyebrows to complete the effect. “Have a boyfriend you’re not telling me about?”

She was your friend you reminded yourself. You weren’t allowed to feel upset if she was dating someone. She probably wasn’t even interested. 

“No,” Taylor chuckled around a sip of her drink. “Jason is my head of security. He’ll let the team know that you’re not just some random fan,”

“Have many of them knock on your door?” You asked, your smirk widening into something that reminded her of a Cheshire Cat grin as you nudged her shoulder gently. 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” She sighed heavily and a dark look crossed over her features (making you instantly regret the joking tone you had used). “It’s only gotten worse lately, especially since the video came out,”

You grimaced, your nose scrunching adorably. 

You thought the entire handling of the situation by Kanye’s camp was fucking disgusting. You thought he was a total narcissistic creeper and a douche. 

You had already gotten your national team teammates to agree not to listen to it. 

“If he’s ever at a game, I’ll put a price on who can peg him in the head more times,” You Promised with a short nod, and it earned you the desired effect of her giggle. “But seriously I think it’s fucking gross and that he needs to get a life,” 

“I appreciate that, but I don’t need you to fight for me,”  She said, laying a hand on your shoulder. 

“I know,” You nodded. “But I will anyway. A man should know how to treat people,” 

You would always be willing to defend her honor, just like you would defend Mal or any of your teammates. 

Well, maybe this wasn’t like Mal. You didn’t crave Mal’s soft smile or… praise like you did Taylor’s. You didn’t need Mal to acknowledge your bravery like you wanted Taylor to…

God you were really starting to lose the plot. 

Taylor was your friend. 

“I appreciate it,” She said, red coloring her cheeks. “Anyway, what are your other plans for tonight?”

“I’m going to help Christen drag the team back to the hotel, and then I’ll probably crash,” You shrugged, gesturing towards where Christen and Kelley were dancing with Huerta and Sam Kerr. “This way I’m actually awake to hang out with you tomorrow,” 

Taylor’s lips quirked up into a teasing grin. “I do prefer you conscious,” 

You wiggled your eyebrows, shifting on your stool to block Taylor from the view of your teammates when you caught Christen's eye. 

It wasn’t that you didn’t trust them, you just wanted to keep Taylor to yourself. You didn’t want to have to share her. 

“I didn’t know you owned anything other than sweatpants,” Taylor continued, gesturing towards the dark blue jeans you had accented with a pair of Batman Nikes.

You took a sip of your water to cover the light pink that dusted your cheeks. Maybe you had dressed up because you knew you were meeting her at the bar. “We won, so I had to wear something other than warm-up gear. Christen picked them,” 

Christen had helped you because you didn’t actually know how to put an outfit together. You wore sweats because they went with everything. You didn’t have to think about things matching. 

So by the 3rd try, the forward had taken pity on you. Picking a Manchester City jersey to go with your dark pants and your Nike kicks. 

Taylor hummed, smiling very gently at you like she was reading your mind. 

Really, she was fighting to keep her eyes from tracing your arms where you had rolled the jersey sleeves, and from dipping down to where your jeans hugged your ass. 

“Will you be back to your normal style tomorrow, or is she going to pick your outfit again?”

You rolled your eyes at the playful question. “Depends, do I get anything if I dress up?”

“I’ll buy you breakfast,” She smirked and you chuckled, more red bleeding into your cheeks. “Or brunch,” 

“I think that sounds like a fair trade,” You chuckled, nodding along. She giggled at you, and it was like music to your ears, even against the backdrop of the noisy bar. 

It made your smile broaden, just like it always did. It shouldn’t fill your chest with so much pride that you were the reason she was giggling. 

You really needed to get a handle on yourself before you did something stupid that pushed her away. 

You needed to make sure you wouldn’t ruin your friendship. 

You didn’t know what you would do if you lost Taylor. 

********

“I don’t think words can describe how adorable she is,” Taylor sighed towards her phone, taking a sip of her red wine. “I swear she blushes every time I so much as look at her,” 

It wasn’t her first glass of the night. It wasn’t even her second. 

She had opened the bottle as soon as she had gotten back from the bar, and now it was verging on halfway gone. 

She could feel the effects starting to take place, the way it loosened up her muscles and tongue. The way she couldn’t stop gushing about everything that had happened with you up to this point, not that her best friend was in the dark. She had been telling Selena about you for months, recounting each interaction the two of you had from the texting to the pillow fort cuddles. 

Selena hummed, taking a sip of her own wine on the other side of the phone. “I’m surprised considering how… fierce she was on the field. She almost murdered someone today,”

Taylor rolled her eyes. 

You had gotten in a defender's face after a bad tackle just outside of the box, turning angrily towards the reff when no yellow card followed the challenge. 

“That was a bad call and the reff knew it. The defender came in studs up and ruined a good through ball opportunity,” She said. 

Selena raised an eyebrow. “You know you sound like you’re speaking a different language right?”

It was something that had been happening more frequently. Taylor explaining soccer plays and referring to teams using phrases that Selena had never heard before. With all the time the singer had been spending with you, it shouldn’t have been surprising that Taylor would pick up on the dialect that was always on your lips. 

That didn’t mean that Taylor’s best friend couldn’t tease her for it. 

“Y/n was right to get upset. The defender could have hurt her,” Taylor reiterated seriously. 

“I’m sure,” Selena’s tone dripped with sarcasm as she studied her for a long moment. “When are you going to admit that your sudden interest in soccer is because you’re interested in her,”

Deep red immediately bled into Taylor’s cheeks, setting her face aflame.

 “I've already admitted that,” She muttered, hiding behind a sip. 

“Let me rephrase then,” Selena said, a trading smirk on her lips. “When are you going to admit it to her, because no offense, but she obviously hasn’t gotten the message yet, even after you continue to fly out to her games,”

Taylor choked on her wine, “I thought she finally understood tonight. She saved me a spot away from her teammates so we could have privacy, but then she said something about us being best friends when she walked me to the car,” 

“You’re going to have to be more direct,” Selena said, as Taylor took the last sip from her glass. 

“It’s just…” Taylor sighed, setting the empty glass down. “She’s still so young. She just turned 19. I don’t want to… I don’t know, pressure her into something,”

“I don’t think you are,” Selena said slowly, her lips pursing. “You’re both adults who can consent, and even though you’re older, I don’t think there's an unfair power dynamic happening. You’re her sister’s age right?”

“Yes,” Taylor nodded. 

Her and Alex were both born in 1989, and actually, your sister was older than her by almost 6 months, and you were very much an adult. She had made sure of that, refusing to even pursue a friendship until you were 18. 

“Then it’s not like you're some older woman trying to take advantage of her,” 

“No, I’m not. I would never,” Taylor immediately agreed. 

She would do anything to make sure you weren’t being taken advantage of. She knew how powerful existing dynamics could be, and she did her best to avoid their effects. 

You had to consent at every stage, even your friendship. 

“Then there you go,” Selena shrugged, wiggling her fingers at the screen. “Now can you please stop with the pining and make an actual move? It’s less fun than it was before,” 

Taylor threw her head back with a groan. “But how,” 

She had literary flown across the country because you had been added to the starting lineup for the national team and you still didn’t catch the message. 

Selena chuckled. “You’ve literally written a song about it,”

Taylor groaned again. 

She knew the song that Taylor was talking about. She could hear How you get the girl ringing in her head. 

But this was different. 

You didn’t even know about the pressure that had driven them apart. The demands that her management had of her. The complications of her… profession made it impossible for them to be together in the way that she wanted. 

And she hadn’t communicated that nearly as well as she wanted to. 

“That was different. I fucked up and Diana wouldn’t talk to me,” She said softly, 

“But you know the basics. It’s even raining,” Selena shrugged for a 3rd time, smiling impishly at her. “It doesn’t have to be complicated,” 

Taylor bit her lip. 

Selena made it sound simple, but maybe it was. 

“You’re right,” Taylor hummed, a plan forming in her mind. “I'll call you later. After,” 

Selena smirked. “Good luck with lover girl, but I don’t think you’ll need it,” 

“Thanks,” 

******

Taylor shouldn’t have been shocked by how easy it was to get into the hotel that the team was staying at. She shouldn’t have been surprised that the teenager behind the front desk gave her a room number with very little persuading. 

There also hadn’t been any security on the elevator. Or on the floor, your room was on. 

It was a little scary that she could get to you with literally no one stepping in, but considering your frequently snarky comments about how little people actually cared about you and the league, she should’ve expected it. 

If you said yes. If you started a relationship with her, she would have to do something to put a barrier between you and the fans. 

You probably wouldn’t like the idea of someone trailing you around, like Jason and her team trailed her, but it would be necessary. She would have to talk to Jason about it. Maybe Tony would be up for the job, you seemed to like him anyway. 

Finding your door was as easy as getting the number from the receptionist. 

But she paused in front of the ugly red door, her heart pounding on her chest. 

She swallowed hard, lifting her hand and knocking three times on the door. 

She had no reason to be nervous. You loved seeing her, and it wasn’t like you could bring one of your… conquests to a hotel room you shared with a teammate. 

It would just be your sleepy smile that would meet her. The one where your eyes crinkled and you ran a hand through your ever-unruly curls. 

But it wasn’t your tired smile that met her. 

Instead, it was Christen’s Press’ wide smirk, as the older forward opened the door. 

“So you’re the mystery girl from the bar,” Christen’s chin tilted towards her as she leaned against the doorframe. “I thought I recognized you,”

Taylor’s fingers wound into her cardigan, and she swallowed trying to get some moisture in her suddenly dry throat. 

“Is Y/n here?” 

Her voice came out shaky, horse. 

Christen bit her lip, watching Taylor closely like she was a specimen under a microscope. 

“She is not,” She said finally, her arms crossing over her chest, almost defensively. 

“Oh,” 

Taylor’s whole being deflated. 

If you weren’t here, then where were you? Who were you with?

Christen glanced into the room behind her. “She should be back soon though. Wicked started at 8, and she swore it was only a 3-hour show with a thirty-minute intermission,” 

Taylor’s eyebrows furrowed. “She’s on Broadway?” 

You insisted that you hated anything with a plot, but Broadway musicals had a plot. You had also told her that you were just going to hang out at the hotel with your friends. 

Why had you lied? 

Taylor could see the pity in her eyes, and she hated it. 

“Yeah,” Christen nodded once. “She sees at least one show every time she’s in New York. It’s like her 8th time seeing Wicked, but it’s her favorite,” 

“Oh,” Taylor breathed out. 

A pained look crossed Christen’s face, and she shifted on the door frame. 

“I’m sure you’ve heard about y/n’s reputation. I just…,” Christen’s voice was soft, hesitant even. “If… you woke up alone… or if she promised you something…”

Taylor frowned immediately shaking her head. “We didn’t-. She didn’t-. I wanted to talk to her about our plans for tomorrow,” 

Relief washed across Christen’s face. “Good. The two of you looked adorable in the bar, and she wouldn’t shut up about you. She has a habit of ruining things she thinks she doesn’t deserve,” 

Taylor’s eyebrows furrowed. 

What did Christen mean? What did you ruin? 

“You said she’s seeing Wicked tonight?” Taylor asked, her head tilting. 

Jason should be able to get her close to the theater before they let out. Maybe she could catch you. 

Christen nodded, sensing that Taylor was already forming another plan. “Yes. Jackie Burns is playing Elphaba and she’s one of y/n’s favorites,” 

“Thanks,” 

Taylor was already turning away from her, phone in hand. 

Christen caught her arm before she could retreat down the hall, and Taylor met her deep green eyes. “Just… treat her right, ok?”

“I will,” 

Both women felt the weight of the words. The promise. 

“There will be a hoard of angry footballers with a bounty on your head if you don’t,” Christen’s lips cracked into a smile as she released the singer. “Y/n doesn’t just let anyone close to her,”

“I know,” Taylor matched her grin. 

Taylor had already gotten close to you. Closer than you had let nearly everyone before her. Now she just had to actually get you to agree that your relationship was more.

She would, and then she would protect your relationship and you with everything she had. 

******

Sometimes, being a professional soccer player was… strange. 

Strange because you played on a well-known team, but that you could easily disappear into a crowd. Strange because strangers on the internet all so many opinions about you, but none of them actually knew you. 

They didn’t know how much you loved musicals because it let you escape the truth of your own reality for a few hours. They didn’t know how much you loved the way the skyscrapers were accented against the star-dotted sky. How the billboards lit up the sidewalk and the pedicabs and taxis when you stepped out of a show. 

How the rain made the lights twinkle like the street was covered in fairy dust. 

How the cool October air filled your lungs as you shoved your hands deeper into your pockets as you left the Gershwin Theater. 

You would stay and stand at the stage door, but it was already nearing midnight. You promised Christen you wouldn’t be back too late, and the dollar pizza guy around the corner from the hotel closed at 1. You would not be missing out on a greasy one-dollar slice. It was tradition after all, and you already had Jackie Burns’ signature on a framed shirt. 

Plus the rain made anything but finding the subway entrance something you wholeheartedly didn’t want to do. 

“Y/n,” 

You dipped your head at the call of your name, slipping further into the crowd and leaving the theater. 

You didn’t think that anyone would recognize you. They rarely ever did, but then again your face had been plastered all over the place since Rio. 

You weren’t in the mood to deal with fans anyway, even after a solid win over Sky Blue. Not while you were getting soaked. 

“Y/n, wait!” 

You pulled your hood over your head, ignoring the way it pressed into your damp curls, and hunched your shoulders in an attempt to make yourself disappear. 

You just needed to get around the corner of the Barclay building and cut between the hotdog cart and Juniors and you would be safe in the subway station. Away from prying eyes and the drenching rain, and back towards the team hotel in SoHo. 

“Y/n,” 

The voice was even closer, and a hand caught your arm just as you made it to the corner, pulling you to a dead stop. You let out a long, weary breath, painting a million-dollar smile on your face as you turned. 

Yelling at a fan wouldn’t go over well. 

But it melted as soon as you saw exactly who had grabbed you. 

“Taylor?” Her hair was plastered to her head, her dark gray cardigan soaked through, and her blue eyes accented by running makeup. “Where is your coat? What are you doing here?” 

“I need to talk to you,” 

“We need to get you out of this rain,” You muttered, ignoring her. You yanked your zipper down, and tugged your arms out of your jacket, tucking it around her shoulders and pulling the hood over her head. “You’re going to get sick,” 

You caught her hand after you zipped the coat around her and began to drag her towards the subway. 

At least the 51st station was heated. 

“Y/n wait,” 

Her slippery fingers tugged on yours, trying to slow you down. Trying to stop you. 

“No. It’s like 50 degrees out here and raining,” You grumbled, not even looking at her. 

How had she found you? Why was she out in the rain looking for you? What if she got Pneumonia because she chased after you without a coat?

You were trying to remember what Alex and Kelley always said about rain and cold, after rain games. You were trying to remember how Alex would get you warmed up when you were young. 

“Y/n, stop,” Taylor tugged at your hand again, and you glanced over your shoulder at her, still refusing to stop pulling her towards the subway. 

“What? I don’t want you to get sick and die,” You bit back, as the rain got harder, bouncing off Taylor’s hood in large, heavy drops. “Why would you come out here without a raincoat or an umbrella? Or-,”

Taylor jerked you towards her before you could finish, and before you could process what was happening, her lips met yours, stealing the end of your sentence. 

You blinked, your lips frozen for a long second, taking in the feeling of Taylor’s warm lips accented by the cool drops of rain. 

It was like your brain had short-circuited. 

You couldn’t kiss back, or pull away (even though you didn’t want you). All you could do was stand here, mouth halfway open, blinking owlishly at her. 

Her thumb brushed against your cheek as she leaned back, her eyebrows furrowed with worry that she had crossed a line. “Y/n,” 

You blinked again, water dripping off your lashes. 

Taylor kissed you. 

She kissed you in the rain. 

Taylor liked you. 

But she hadn’t said that. She hadn’t said anything. 

You blinked for a third time, tilting your chin up and leaning forward to connect your lips again.

 Taylor sucked in a breath before gently returning the kiss. 

Your lips moved together like they were made for each other. It was slow and warm, and… wet, accented by the rain dripping down your faces. 

Your hands found her waist, your fingers squeezing her hips, and hers tangled in the soaked baby hairs at the back of your neck. 

It was a perfect first kiss. Something out of a fairytale, or one of Taylor’s songs. 

You finally pulled away, breathing heavily through your nose, almost like you had run a full 90. 

“It’s raining, and I don’t want you to get sick,” You mumbled, leaning in and pecking her lips again. 

“Jason and the car are that way,” She said, gesturing back toward the theater.

You lifted your head in that direction, noting the sleek, black Escalade among the yellow cabs. You couldn’t see who was inside, but you knew that that would be true even if it wasn’t nighttime and pouring with the blacked-out windows. 

It had to be worth more than pretty much everything you owned, and you were soaked through. 

It would ruin the interior, and you knew you wouldn’t be able to afford fixing it.

Taylor shivered though, and you sighed, nodding. “Let’s get you warmed up,” 

“You need to get warm too,” Taylor hummed, trailing her hand down your bare arm and catching your fingers. “I have towels in the car,” 

You squeezed her hand, letting her lead you towards the car. The door was open by the time you got to it, the back seat already littered with black towels and a blanket. 

Taylor slid in first, and you followed after her, wiping your curls out of your eyes, and allowing her to wrap a towel around you, even though you didn’t feel cold. 

“Back to your apartment?” The bulky blonde man in the front seat asked, turning to look at Taylor. 

“I have to go back to the team hotel,” You said before she could answer him. “I’ll get in trouble with the coaching staff if I don’t go back, and it’ll upset my teammates,” 

Taylor’s hand landed on your thigh, squeezing gently like she was telling you that she would take care of it. 

“The hotel it is,” The man smiled, turning back towards the steering wheel, and flicking one of the buttons near the center console. More heat began to flood the car, as it inched forward. “Traffic is pretty bad with this rain, so it’ll be a bit,”

“Thanks, Jay,” Taylor sighed, grabbing the blanket and tossing it over the two of you. “We’re not in a hurry,” 

He glanced up at you in the rearview mirror. “Would you like me to put up the privacy curtain?”

Taylor’s lips curved into a playful smile, and she squeezed your thigh again. “No. Not tonight,” 

You raised an eyebrow at her. 

Did she do this often? This couldn’t have been the first time she was with someone in the back of the car. 

The thought made your stomach tumble.

Maybe the kiss wasn’t because she wanted something more, but because she wanted… sex. It wouldn’t be a shocker with your reputation. You were easy, always up for a lay. She just wanted to blow off some steam. 

You shut down that thought. 

It didn’t matter. 

“Are you warm enough?” Taylor asked, and your eyes snapped up to meet hers. 

“Hm?” your eyebrows furrowed deeper. 

You didn’t feel cold. 

She reached up very slowly, brushing a stray curl from your forehead and laying a thumb very gently on your lips. “Your lips are still trembling,” 

You leaned into the warmth of her hand, unable to stop yourself. “Oh, I’m ok. I’ve had to play in the rain before. This isn’t that bad,” 

She looked unconvinced, her other hand adjusting your towel so it covered more of your frame. “You shouldn’t have given me your jacket,”

“You shouldn’t have been out in that without one,” You shrugged, earning an eye roll. 

“I had important things to talk to you about,” She said, her thumb dragging from your lips to brush your cheek. 

Your lips tilted into a teasing smirk. “I don’t think we actually talked,”

“But I think you got the message,” She murmured, completing the circuit with her thumb back towards your lips. 

“Did I?” Your eyebrow quirked up at her. 

She tapped your lips, before leaning in and pressing a soft kiss to them. You couldn’t help the way you leaned into her, and kissed back, even if it had warning sirens blaring in your head. 

You would ignore the gnawing feeling that this would ruin your friendship and that Taylor would leave when she was done with you 

“You did,” She hummed as she pulled away, her thumb gliding across your cheek again. 

She sounded so sure of herself. Far more sure than you felt. 

Maybe Emily was right. 

Maybe you should just go with it.

OoOoOoO

You let out a long breath, leaning your forehead against the cool, hotel room door, watching as little water droplets slid down the smooth, red surface. Your hand rested on the handle, but you had no intention of opening it.

Not yet. 

Not while your head still felt like it was in a blender. 

Not while you were still reeling from the feeling of Taylor’s soft lips pressed into yours. Of her thumb making circuits from your cheek to your lips and back. Of her blue eyes staring at you like she could see beneath your skin like she wanted you more than she wanted anything else. 

But she couldn’t want you. 

She probably just wanted to… experiment, and your reputation made you an easy choice. 

You blew out another breath, hoping that the feeling of it leaving your lungs would help steady the shakiness in your knees. 

It was embarrassing, but you had been fantasizing about what her lips would feel like, how she would taste, for a long time. And now that you had actually tasted them, well, it was a craving you weren’t sure you’d ever be able to satiate. It would be so much worse when she decided she didn’t want you. 

You watched a water droplet slide down the door, lazily making its way around a chip in the paint. 

But maybe she did want you. 

You had chased you down in the rain, without a jacket, after all, and kissed you in the street like she didn’t care who was looking. 

You let out one more breath, fishing the key card out of your back pocket and pressing it against the lock until it clicked. You let your forehead push the door open, only lifting it after you had stepped inside the hotel room. 

You weren’t surprised to see that the lights were still on, and Christen was still sitting up in bed a book in her hand and her reading glasses still firmly in place. 

“I was about to send out a search party,” She hummed, catching her bookmark from the nightstand and carefully placing it into the book. It was only then that she looked up at you, a frown pulling at her lips. “Why are you all wet? Where is your jacket?”

You had the decency to send her a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry. I got distracted and then Tony’s pizza stand was closed so I had to go to the corner slice in Tribeca. I lost my jacket somewhere along the way,” 

You pulled your sodden Manchester City jersey over your head. “Do you think it can be saved?” 

Christen rolled her eyes and pushed herself to stand, crossing the room to the small closet and pulling out a hanger. “Let’s hang dry it, and we’ll see,” 

You followed after her towards the bathroom, turning it the right way out and gingerly sliding it onto the hanger. “It has to be ok. Bronze is my favorite and my parents finally got a name right,” 

She took it from you and hooked it around the shower curtain rail. “A true miracle that I’m sure Alex had nothing to do with,” 

Alex couldn’t have had anything to do with it. You never told her that you liked Bronze. You had only told Rosie. 

Though you weren’t sure how your parents had picked the right one…

She turned back to you, her eyes flickering to the skin just above your lips. A smirk broke across her face and she reached up to brush her thumb over your cheek. “Is that lipstick?”

You jerked your head away from her. “No,” 

There was no way Taylor’s lipstick could be on your soaking-wet skin. Not with the way the rain had drenched the two of you. 

Except… 

your eyes closed. 

Taylor had kissed your cheek before you exited the car. You slipped out of the Escalade under the awning of the hotel, safe from the rain. 

“Let’s get the not lipstick off of you then,” Christen hummed noncommittally, pulling you closer to the sink. “How did you get so soaked?”

You waited until she turned away from you to dig into her makeup bag to answer, contemplating the words that you would say. 

Surely her advice would help too, but then her girlfriend would probably tell your sister. 

It would be easier if you just kept it all to yourself. If you just followed Emily’s advice and went with it. 

“I got distracted and the corner slice doesn’t have indoor seating,” you said, eying the bottles she was pulling from her bag, dabbing a cotton ball on the top. “What’s that?” 

“Makeup remover,” She hummed, her fingers catching your chin and tilting it so she had a better view of the offending red on your lips. “It must be waterproof, so this is the only thing that will get it off unless you want to dye the sheets red,”

Your nose scrunched at the acrid smell on the cotton ball as she very gently began to swipe it against your lips. You let your eyes slide closed, trying to ignore how small it made you feel. Trying to ignore how much it reminded you of when you were little. 

But it was too late.

You could feel the ghosts of her hands drawing across your cheeks in quick, practiced movements, and practically hear Alex’s “hold still little monkey,” ringing in your ears. You could see the soft smile that always played at her lips and the way her blue eyes focused as she helped you. 

“Hold still little monkey, I’ll be quick. I promise,” 

They were memories you didn’t want to remember. They brought a warm, protected feeling to your chest that you wanted to forget. 

The betrayal that followed would hurt less if you forgot if you didn’t remember the safety and care that had never been a question before it. The feelings that you were searching for in one bed or another. The feelings that you were convinced you would never feel again.

But then you met Taylor, and she made you want to believe you were wrong. 

“You’re good to go,” Christen said, pulling you back to reality. 

Your eyes blinked open, and you sent her a charming smile as you pulled away. “Thanks,”

She nodded back at you, watching you for a long minute like she wanted to say something she wasn’t sure about. 

“What?”

“Your hair is sticking up,” Christen quirked a small smile at you, and your eyes flickered toward the mirror, frowning.

You were sure that’s now what she was going to say, but you were grateful that she didn’t voice whatever thought she had.

But she was right. Amongst the mop of curls you had been letting grow since the undercut disaster of the 2015 World Cup, several were sticking up at strange angles. The one at the crown of your head standing straight up in a semi-hilarious impression of alfalfa from the little rascals. It was probably due to the water and wax that you always wore on game days to keep it out of your eyes mixing. 

They would be a bitch to fix in the morning if they dried like that. Maybe you would just wear a beanie over them instead of putting in the effort to fix them. Or maybe you would just chop them all off again.  

You reached for one of the small white hand towels, tossing it over your wild, tangled, soaked curls and dropping your pants with the other in a fluid motion. “I should dry off,”

Christen rolled her eyes, entirely used to your antics after spending a season in a locker room with you, and many more of being on the national team. She was just thankful you had a bra and boxers on. “And maybe get rid of the sex hair so the media doesn’t have a field day,” 

You wiggled your eyebrows at her, pushing her towards the bathroom door. “Well, what would they do with my reputation then,” 

Realize you’re not what you present yourself as Christen thought wryly. 

She wondered if Taylor had figured that out yet too. That you hid your sunshiney personality under a brash and untrusting exterior. 

The girl had gone chasing after you in the rain after all, so maybe, just maybe, she saw you for what you really were. And hopefully, she was prepared to give you what you needed. 

What you clearly didn’t feel you had the right to crave. 

******

November 2016

Windows flung right open, autumn air, 

Jacket ‘round my shoulders is yours

It was a strange feeling, being on the East Coast and it feeling like home. 

You had been raised on the West Coast. You spent the majority of your time in the center of the country, but somehow, you found yourself craving the crisp autumn air that only existed in the east. 

There was the possibility that you were just drawn to the city. That you were addicted to how into the game fans got, starting up chants for you even though you were on the opposing team. But there was also the slight chance that your new-found love of the city was directly tied to one of its most beloved inhabitants. 

You and Taylor had only grown impossibly closer in the time since the kiss. The flirty texts between the two of you were more frequent as were the half-dressed locker room photos and videos of you dancing at practice. The calls had also increased to the point where you almost always fell asleep listening to her slow breathing, and woke up to a good morning. 

But despite your increasing closeness, the two of you hadn’t defined what you were. And you had absolutely no clue where you stood. 

You pulled your knee closer to your chest, resting your cleat-covered foot on the bench next to you, and undoing the three special knots you always put in your custom red laces. 

You were thankful that camp was over. That you would get to spend some time in the city after the win. 

“Is there a reason you were terrorizing Colombia? Or was it just for fun?” Emily smirked, appearing on the bench next to you. 

You raised your eyebrows at her, a cocky smile pulling at your lips. “Do I need to have a reason to play well?”

“No,” Emily shrugged. 

It wasn’t your fault that their entire back line had crumbled under your and Alex’s pressure. It wasn’t your fault that Christen had cut through them collecting the balls you sent her way. 

It wasn’t your fault that the keeper had missed the chance to save 4 of your shots. 

“The crowd certainly enjoyed the display,” Rose added, sitting on your other side, effectively trapping you between them. “Just seems like your celebrations were a little too on the nose for you not to be… directing them at someone,” 

You rolled your eyes. Just because you blew a kiss towards a section of the stands after your 3rd goal, didn’t mean that it had been directed. And just because the chanting of your name only got louder after that didn’t mean it had been for them. 

Well, it didn’t have to mean it was directed, even if you did have a person in mind to receive it. 

No one else had to know that. 

“It was the section who did the Morgan magic chant,” You mumbled, pulling off your cleat and lining it next to the fancy pair of Vans you had chosen for tonight. 

“Got a hot date?” Emily asked, nudging your shoulder with her own as Rose turned from the two of you and became engrossed in a conversation with Sam. 

“Something like that,” You mumbled, moving on to your other cleat. “I’m still not sure… where I stand. With my friend.”

“The one you’ve been sending half-naked photos to?” Emily wiggled her eyebrows at you. 

You would never live down the after-training snapshots you had taken or the pictures from the weight room that you had sent off. 

You nodded reluctantly. “We’ve been more flirty since September,”

“Since the kiss?” She asked, watching as you shed your game shorts and grabbed a pair of jeans instead of your usual post-game sweats. 

“Yes,” You nodded, pausing for a second and biting your lip. “But I just… I’m going to fuck this up,” 

You ran a hand through your messy hair, still damp from the post-game shower. 

“You’re not,” Emily rolled her eyes, and she stole your shirt from your locker before you could pull it over your head, forcing you to look at her. “You’re doing pretty well so far. Just don’t make it complicated,” 

You met her eyes, swallowing hard. 

“Just go with it,” You repeated her own advice back to her. 

You were just having dinner and a movie night with Taylor. It would be familiar. Easy. 

It didn’t have to be complicated. 

“Exactly,” She agreed, tossing your shirt at you. “You seem to be going with the flow pretty well,” 

You pulled the green material over your head, reaching into your locker for your trusty hair wax, rubbing it between your hands, and trying to smooth out your hair. 

You glanced down at your phone when it buzzed. “Speaking of going with it, I’ve gotta go,” 

You slid the device into your pocket along with your wallet and hooked your fancy watch on your wrist. You shoved your feet into your Vans and sending a wink towards Sonnett. 

“I’ll make sure your bag makes it to Kelley. Tell Taylor I said hello,” She smirked, patting your back as you headed towards the locker room door. 

You looked over your shoulder at her. “No,” 

Before slamming the locker room door shut. 

You turned the corner, finding a quiet place in the hall, and leaned against the cool brick of the stadium, hoping no one would see you. 

Maybe you had directed your hat trick kiss towards where you knew a specific person was watching. 

You pulled your phone out of your pocket and opened your messages. 

You loved Emily, and Rose. You really did, but their propensity for butting in while you were texting had been particularly grating after they found out who you were sending messages to. 

They had already gotten a hold of your phone twice. Once they tried to call her and the second they sent a string of cryptic texts that had Taylor convinced you had gotten hurt at practice. It took you almost 3 hours to convince her that you were actually fine. You had even had to put her on the phone with Luke from the physical therapy staff to convince her that she didn’t need to fly in from Nashville early. After that, you stopped texting around them altogether and changed your password to a 37-digit code. 

Plus, Mal glared at you whenever you were on your phone. 

Athena 👸🏼: Tony and Jason are taking me to the back tunnel by the car. Do you want to meet us there, or do you want us to meet you somewhere else?

Your eyebrows pulled tightly together and you looked away from your phone and down the long hallway. 

You certainly didn’t want her to be anywhere near the locker room where your sister and your nosey teammates were. You weren’t ready to… share Taylor with them yet. You weren’t ready to answer questions when you weren’t even sure where you stood with her. 

Your relationship felt… fragile… and you weren’t ready to mess that up yet. 

Soccer hottie ⚽️: Stay put, I’ll meet you there. 

You pushed yourself off the wall, turning to your left and strolling down the maze of hallways. You didn’t need to look at the signs to know which way to go, you had been to Red Bull (and snuck out of it with company you wanted to keep away from prying eyes) enough that you had the layout memorized. 

“Hey hotshot,” 

“Hey,” You smiled widely as you rounded the corner and Tony came into view. 

You had been seeing him far more frequently since the kiss. Part of you thought it was because he just lived near you in Chicago. He liked the same smoothie place you did and frequented the same restaurants. 

But a smaller part of you wondered if Taylor had something to do with it. 

“I thought you would be waiting with Tay,” You said as he squeezed your arm, pulling your overnight bag from your shoulder and slinging it over his own. 

“She sent me to come find you,” Tony said, a teasing smirk pulling at his features. 

You knew it wasn’t you he was teasing. 

“I don’t need a babysitter,” You sighed, running a hand through your still-damp hair, brushing the unruly curls from in front of your eyes. 

“She was impatient,” He shrugged, unbothered by (or entirely used to) your protest, gesturing to the barely noticeable clear earpiece in his right ear. “I offered to find you and give her an eta,” 

The wire disappeared down the back of his shirt where you were sure it connected to a radio. You rolled your eyes. 

Maybe you should be flattered that she wanted live updates of your whereabouts, but you couldn’t help the sinking feeling in your chest that she didn’t think you were capable of making it to the car tunnel on your own. 

“I told her I was on my way like 2 minutes ago,” You huffed, glancing behind you. 

You hadn’t taken long after the game to exit the field. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. You finished the obligatory lap and then stayed to sign autographs for the fans that had cheered for you all game. 

You rushed through the showers after Vlatko’s post-game droning and changed quickly. 

“I know,” Tony agreed, falling into step beside you as you continued down the corridor. “She’s just excited to see you. You put on quite the show,” 

You wiggled your eyebrows. “The crowd got into it and that made scoring and setting up my friends more fun,” 

Tony made a low humming noise as he stepped in front of you, pushing open the double doors that led to the private car tunnel so you didn’t have to. 

You barely stepped through before a body collided with yours. 

Your hands caught Taylor’s hips as you stumbled, and she wrapped you in a very tight hug. 

“I missed you,” She mumbled, and you felt a hand on your back to steady the two of you. 

You hummed, tucking your nose into her collarbone and squeezing her. “I missed you too,” 

It was true. 

It had only been six weeks since the last time you saw her in person, and you talked at least once a day, but it was a feeling of longing that saturated your being. Her presence was a deep… need that seeped into your bones. 

It was a little alarming how… dependent you felt.

The two of you embraced for another long moment, and you let the smell of coconut and lavender from her perfume wash over your senses and soothe the post-game dip that always prickled your brain. 

“You played so so well,” She said, pulling away, a wide smile radiating off of her.

You let your own cocky grin pull across your features. “Thanks, I like to get the crowd fired up,” 

“They were electric,” She hummed, letting her hand trail down your arm and landing lightly on your stomach. 

You opened your mouth to respond, but Your stomach ruined the moment with a loud rumble. 

Taylor frowned. “Have you eaten today?” 

“Not really. I had lunch and then just a protein bar and a veggie shake,” You shrugged, sending a guilty look her way. “I don’t like to have a lot in my stomach during games,” 

It was a bad habit you had picked up in highschool after a very hot game in August ended up with your pasta lunch making a reappearance in a sideline trash can. 

“There’s a fantastic Italian place by mine?” Taylor offered, almost shyly as your stomach rumbled again against her hand. 

You leaned in and pressed a very sweet kiss to her lips, unable to resist, and enjoying the light red that dusted her cheeks. 

Your hand slipped into her back pocket, and you sent her a cheeky smile. “Lead the way then,”

OoOoOoO

Dinner with Taylor was absolutely incredible. Well, confusing for you, but amazing nonetheless. 

The restaurant she had chosen was small, intimate, and expensive. You looked through the entire menu, choosing the cheapest pasta you could find, even though you fucking hated pesto because it was the only dish that wouldn’t mean you would have to raid the Chicago locker room for snacks when you got back. 

It hadn’t mattered because Taylor paid anyway. 

Conversation flowed between the two of you like water. It was so easy to talk to Taylor, and you were slowly growing addicted to making her laugh. 

It was exactly like it had been before the two of you shared the kiss(s) until you got back into the car. 

She had been very… handsey in the ride back. And you had been handsey too, your fingers dipping past her skirt to squeeze her ass at every opportunity. 

Things hadn't slowed down in the elevator, and you had attacked her neck as she fished out the key to her apartment. 

You were growing addicted to the taste of her skin as well. 

She pressed you into the island, her lips dragging down your neck and towards your collarbone as soon as you were through the door. 

That’s when the anxiety clenched in your stomach, thinking of the way your heart pounded in your ears when you walked out of the tunnel and into a stadium, your eyes trained on the jersey numbers in front of you. 

You needed a way to slow her down. To… delay the inevitable. 

You saw your pale, terrified face in the reflection of her sliding glass door, and it felt like a lightbulb flashing in your brain. 

“Want to go swimming?” You asked suddenly, and her hands paused on your waist as her lips ghosting just over your pulse point. 

“What?”

You felt her lips curl into a frown against your skin.  

“I didn’t take my post-game ice bath,” You said, pulling away, so you could meet her eyes and gesturing towards the city lights glinting off of her infinity pool. “and your pool should be cold enough,” 

Her eyebrows knitted tightly together. “You want to go swimming in October, in New York? Wouldn’t you rather continue this?”

You shrugged, painting a charming smile across your face (hoping she wouldn’t see through it).  “When else will we be able to enjoy a view like this,”

Her lips turned even further down, and your heart beat a little bit faster. 

You didn’t want her to think you were rejecting her. You weren’t. You just…

“You don’t even have a bathing suit,” She said softly, and you could hear the hesitation in her voice. The concern. 

You needed to redirect her. To make her think that everything was ok so you didn’t lose her. 

“I don’t need one,” You wiggled your eyebrows and caught her fingers, tugging her towards the sliding glass door. “Come on,”

The view was even better from outside, the lights of the city twinkling in time with the stars and reflecting off of the pool back at you. 

“Let me at least turn on the pool lights,” She grumbled, reaching for a small remote on one of the lounge chairs. “Wouldn’t want you to miss the edge and get hurt before the end of the season,” 

You smirked, releasing her while she squinted at the clicker. 

***SECTION CONTAINING SLIGHT SMUT***

You easily slipped out of your shorts and pulled your shirt over your head, leaving you in a pair of boxers and your sports bra as you stepped towards the infinity pool. “Don’t mess with it for too long,” 

You didn’t wait for her to respond before diving into the icy water. 

It immediately prickled at your skin like a million tiny needles, pulling the air from your lungs and giving you the sensation of the world's worst brain freeze. You kept your eyes closed, forcing yourself to relax against the painful assault, letting yourself sink to the glacial blue tiles on the bottom of her pool. 

You could visualize the heat seeping out of you and into the shimmering floor, and you allowed yourself to give in to the sensation. To imagine it was the tension in your muscles, the aches that always came after a game, slowly leaching into your frigid surroundings. 

Letting the water numb your anxious mind until all that was left was a serene sense of calm. 

It felt familiar. Good in a masochistic sort of way that you couldn’t accurately put into words. 

Your brain absentmindedly reached its countdown from 45, and you pushed yourself off of the bottom. 

You let out a long breath as your head broke the surface, wiping your curls out of your eyes, and turning towards Taylor. 

She was at the edge of the pool, the remote hanging loosely in her hand, her wide eyes glinting off of the fairy lights strung along the balcony and over the pool. 

“You coming?” You asked, plastering a playful smirk across your lips. “Or are you just going to stare?”

Her mouth opened and closed, reminding you of a fish. 

You rolled your eyes, gilded towards her, stopping at her feet and looking up at her through your lashes. 

You dragged your fingers along the seam in the tiles and gently laid your hand on her foot, trying not to smirk at the shiver that ran down her spine. “It’s kinda lonely in here,” 

She blinked at you, slowly pulling her shirt over her head and dropping it behind her. 

You couldn’t help the way your eyes dragged down the newly exposed skin of her collarbone, between her breasts, and down to the waistband of her jeans where she was thumbing the button there. 

All of your attention was glued to her as she slid the material down her long legs, revealing creamy skin that made your mouth water accented by the deep blue material of her underwear. 

It stirred butterflies in your chest like the sight of no other woman had. You wanted her like you had never wanted anyone. 

Not even Mal. 

“It’s unfair how hot you are,” Taylor mumbled, settling on the edge of the pool, her legs bracketing you as she slid them into the frigid water. 

You ran your fingers up her calves and onto her thighs. “You’re not bad yourself,” 

She rolled her eyes, reaching down and smoothing your curls off of your forehead, dragging her hands down your face to cup your cheeks. Her bottom lip disappeared between her teeth. “It’s criminal how much you show your abs during games,” 

You shrugged, floating closer to her and letting your thumb toy with the elastic on her underwear. “Sweat burns when it’s in my eyes. Plus the fans like it, and so do you,”

Taylor made a low noise, drawing you closer to her, so you could feel her breath on your lips. “You’re a tease you know?” 

“You dig it,” You smirked, leaning in the final centimeter to connect your lips in a slow kiss. 

You couldn’t help the low sound that came out of the back of your throat as her tongue gently pressed against your lips, and you opened them to meet her. 

She tasted like red wine and strawberries and something that was so… Taylor. 

It was sweet and spicy and addictive. 

And it made you want her. 

You pulled away when air became an issue, trailing down her cheek to her neck, under her chin, and lavishing the skin you found down by her pulse point with your tongue. You enjoyed the way you could feel her heartbeat, how you could feel it quicken under your ministrations. 

You tried to keep your mind focused as you made your way down her neck, to her chest. You tried to focus on the softness of her skin and to memorize the way it tasted. To imprint in your mind how your tongue glided in velvet skin. 

You tried not to let your thoughts drift towards how a soccer ball felt at your feet. How you were still working on how to twist your hips to not give away which direction you were going to kick. How you needed to point your toes to perform the newest trick you were learning. 

Her fingers tangled in your hair, weaving through the wet curls close to your scalp and pulling you impossibly closer. 

You mouthed the edge of her bra, placing feather light kisses in a line between her breasts (paying special attention to the barely visible freckle you found there), ghosting down her stomach, and landing on the elastic of her underwear, letting her hand guide you where she wanted you. 

You looked up at her, meeting her hazy blue eyes. “Are you sure?” 

Her fingers tightened, pleasantly scratching your scalp. “I’ve never been more sure,” 

Your lips tilted into a devilish grin, your body sipping lower into the frigid water. “As you wish,” 

*****

Taylor panted heavily against you, each breath warming your neck as you spun in slow circles in the cold water. Her legs wrapped tightly around your waist, and your hand worked slowly between your bodies, bringing her down from her orgasm. 

You had lost track of what number she was on. Actually, you had lost track of pretty much everything after her underwear came off. 

It didn’t matter how hard you fought to stay present, you couldn’t help the way your brain slipped away. How your thoughts slid from Taylor the second you were level with her center. How the all-encompassing butterflies in your stomach fluttered away and you faded into familiar sensations and your thoughts turned to soccer. 

You knew it was weird to be working through a double-pivot formation while you were having sex. It was weird for you to be thinking about ball rotations and through passes or lineups for upcoming games while you were getting a girl off. 

Except it’s where your mind always went. 

Taylor made a low noise against your throat, and your fingers stopped gliding through her velvety folds. Your other arm tightened around her as you pulled your hand away, bringing it to your lips and lightly sucking your fingers. 

You sighed at the taste, sweet, salty, and a little tangy, happy that Taylor's pool was salt water instead of chlorine. It would have made this entire experience much less enjoyable. 

“Don’t do that,” Taylor said, her nose nudging the space under your chin. 

“Hm?” You hummed around your finger, your abs flexing as she shifted. 

She reached for your wrist, pulling your finger from your lips. “I need a minute before I can go again, and you make it hard to wait,”

You leaned in and connected your lips, your tongue probing at her bottom lip and gently slid your tongue in when she parted her lips. Her hips rolled and you flexed your abs to give her a better surface. 

“I can’t help it,” You smirked as you pulled away. “You just taste so good,”

She shivered against you, but you weren’t sure if it was from overstimulation or the cold. 

“Come on, let’s get cleaned up,” You said, walking towards the pool stairs. “And you can recover,” 

Her legs tightened around you as you carried her up the steps, and her head rested on your shoulder. “I forgot how strong you are,” 

You made a low noise, focusing on your feet so you didn’t slip and send you both back into the freezing pool. 

“Where is your bathroom?” You asked, carefully sliding her glass door open and stepping into her apartment. “I don’t want to get water everywhere,” 

“Down the hall to the left,” She said, lifting an arm to gesture down the hallway, but not moving her head from its safe space between your neck and shoulder. “It’s through my bedroom,”

You nodded, easily making your way through the hallway, across the dark carpet of her bedroom, and into the massive master bathroom. 

You set her down on the Marble counter you found there, placing a light kiss on her head before you turned away towards the giant bathtub, and began fiddling with the golden faucets. 

It took you a second to make the water a good temperature and to flick the drain plug before you returned to her, slotting between her legs again.

“Do you want a drink or something?” You asked as she pulled you back in for another kiss.

“I’d love one,” She breathed against your lips. “I have wine in the fridge,” 

“I’ll go get it,” You hummed. “You just stay here and look pretty,” 

Her mouth curved against yours, and you finally pulled away, kissing her nose before you padded off toward the kitchen (ignoring how she tapped your ass as you left). 

It felt like a weight left your chest as you exited her bedroom, and you took a long breath as you made it to the kitchen. 

There had to be something fucking wrong with you. 

You had a naked woman two rooms over. A woman who had gone skinny dipping with you. A woman who was recovering so you could give her another orgasm. And here you were, doing your best to stall. Trying to quell the growing dread in your stomach. 

You shook your head, going to the wine fridge and pulling out the half-full bottle of red you were sure was the one Taylor wanted. You also grabbed two water bottles and found a wine glass in the cabinet. 

Just because you had hooked up with her… were actively hooking up with her… didn’t mean that she wanted your relationship to change. 

You took another deep breath. 

Being weird about any of this would just make it worse. 

You could be normal. 

You could save your friendship. 

You turned from the kitchen, slowly making your way back to the bathroom. 

Taylor smiled softly at you when you returned, holding out her arms to you. “I can’t believe you never took your clothing off,” 

You painted an easy smirk on your lips, setting the bottles and glass down on the counter before, letting her wrap her arms around you. “You were distracted,” 

She hummed. “You’re… very good with your hands,” 

You wiggled your eyebrows, leaning in to peck her lips before you turned away. You turned off the water in the tub and held your hand out for her. “Get in first. I’ll pour you some wine and join you. This way I can show you the other things my hands are good at,” 

She rolled her eyes, but let you guide her into the tub, sighing as she immersed herself in the warm water. 

You waited for her to get settled before you poured her half a glass of wine and passed it her way, and you grabbed a bottle of water for yourself, cracking it open and taking a very long sip. 

Taylor made another low sound, and you felt her eyes on you, following every movement. You flexed your arm and abs for effect as you finished off the bottle. 

You smirked at her as you pulled it away from your Lips, setting it on the counter. “Lean forward so I can get into the tub,” 

She eyed you, shaking her head. “This is a clothing-free zone,” 

“Is it?” You asked, cocking your head to the side. 

She hummed. “It is. I can’t believe you still have boxers and a bra on,” 

“You were distracted,” You shrugged smirking devilishly at her, placing the bottle on the counter and easily slipping out of your soaked boxers. “Something about the water being too cold,” 

“Try freezing,” She huffed, her eyes tracing the newly exposed skin of your thighs (your muscles standing out because of the cold), up towards your hips, taking a large sip of her wine. “But you warmed me up,”

“I’m good at that,” You murmured, pulling your bra over your head and stepping towards the tub. “Please lean forward so I can get in,” you 

“You are,” She breathed out as you slid into the tub behind her. She shifted so your thighs could encapsulate hers. 

Your arms wrapped gently around her middle, your palm laying flat on her stomach and your chin resting on her shoulder. 

You would have laughed at Taylor being the little spoon (because you were the shorter of the two of you), but you liked holding her. You also liked that the only places she could reach were your arms and legs. 

Safe territory. 

Territory that put you in control of the pace. 

“It’s unfair how you look so good, and how good you are,” She let out another breath, wiggling so her back was pressed more tightly against your front. 

You made a low sound, rubbing your hand up and down her stomach, your fingers just barely brushing her pelvic bone on each pass. 

You didn’t like how… pronounced they were. It was something you knew you would have to address at some point but now did not feel like the right time. 

“You’re pretty gorgeous yourself,” You murmured into her neck, kissing behind her ear, and letting your lips travel lower to the special spot you had found near her pulse point. 

Her head tilted to give you more room, and her hands fell to where your knees were bracketing hers just below the steamy water. She pressed very gently into a dark bruise forming on your calf from a mistimed tackle. “You have no idea what you do to me. How much those stupid videos your teammates are always taking make me want you,”

You smirked against the soft skin of her neck, letting your tongue linger for a long second as your left hand dipped even lower on her stomach. 

You knew the videos she was talking about. The ones that always seemed to catch you with your shirt off because you preferred to train that way. You hated when the damp material of your training top clung to you, so you normally forgoed one unless the media team was filming some behind-the-scenes stuff. 

“I’ll have to send you my own videos now that I know you like them,” You said, dragging your lips up her neck towards her ear, and very gently letting your teeth close around the soft tissue. 

She released a shakier breath as your fingers found her clit, and began rubbing very gentle circles. “I’d like that,” 

“You got it,” You hummed, pressing a little harder, and dipping down towards the heat that had nothing to do with the bath water while your other hand sliding up to her chest to toy with her nipple 

You smirked when her wine glass shook dangerously, the red liquid tipping out of the top as your fingers curled, pressing into the very special patch inside her. 

It reminded you of when a ball tipped off of a keeper's fingers. How it bobbled before landing back on the grass. How you always held your breath to see if it would land on the right side of the goal line. 

It was the perk of playing in Chicago, you supposed, that you had Alyssa as your starting keeper. You always felt like the ball was safe in her hands. You felt comfortable taking chances because you knew she was capable of cleaning up any messes you made. That her and JJ would protect the goal well enough that you could push forward. 

Taylor tensed around your fingers, and the glass finally fell, landing thankfully in the water instead of crashing to the ground outside of the tub. 

You kept your pace as she rode out her orgasm, your eyes focused on the red dissipating into the water until she finally relaxed against you. You finally pulled away when you were sure she was finished, kissing behind her ear and listening to her labored breathing as she came down. 

Her head turned, and you laid a kiss on her cheek. “You made me spill my wine,” 

“Oops,” You chuckled, not at all sorry, tweaking her nipple again before letting go and resting your hands on her stomach. 

She giggled in response, swatting your knee and then soothing her hand over a large bruise forming just below it. “Behave,” 

“I’m not known for behaving,” You said as she reached over and grabbed the fallen glass before either of you could accidentally break it. “It’s why the equipment staff are always following me around with extra shirts,” 

“Try for me?” She asked, her lips curving into a smile you hadn’t seen her send to anyone else, making you melt. “I don’t think I have any more orgasms into me tonight,” 

“Whatever you want,” You agreed, laying another kiss on her cheek. 

She hummed, leaning back into you, and you tightened your arms around her. 

You wondered if you should suggest that the two of you clean up and get ready for bed, but you didn’t even know if she wanted you to stay. You didn’t know if you would be welcome now that the two of you were done. 

You had never not snuck out after. You didn’t know how any of this worked, and you were too afraid to ask. 

“Just give me a few minutes and I’ll return the favor,” She mumbled. “You deserve it,” 

You shook your head, tucking your nose in the space between her neck and shoulder. “I’m good. I got enough watching you,” 

She sucked in a breath.“Are you sure?” 

You hummed, kissing the junction where her neck and shoulder met. “I’m good. I’m with you,” 

It was the truth. 

It was easier this way. You knew how to deal with things this way. 

She made a low noise of agreement. “Let’s just sit for a bit then, and then we can get cleaned up and go to bed,”

“Whatever you want,” You placed another kiss on her velvety skin, content to follow her lead. 

Maybe you would get to keep your friendship after all. 

***END OF SLIGHT SMUT***

OoOoOoO

Mornings were always your favorite. 

You loved the way soft light fluttered through curtains, casting a candle-like glow on the room around you. The way the oranges and yellows melted into brilliant white, chasing away the darkness like lanterns in a cavern.

It reminded you of when you were little, cuddled up to Alex after a nightmare. She would run a hand through your hair, and tell you stories into the early hours of the morning, insisting that tales of Knights and Princesses could chase away the monsters that haunted your dreams. 

“Just close your eyes monkey. I’ll protect you. Always,”

She made you feel safe. The rise and fall of her chest allowing your restless mind to relax.

It was no different here in Taylor’s bed, wrapped in perfect white sheets, her arm draped around your middle, her head resting on your shoulders, and her soft breaths tickling your neck at each exhale. Your bodies were pressed together, and you could feel her bare legs tangled with yours. 

She made you feel safe and warm and like you mattered and that fucking terrified you. 

It kept you up long after Taylor’s breathing turned deep and heavy, staring at the ceiling like it would give you the answers you were searching for. 

You kept your arm wrapped around her, your fingers playing with the very tips of her hair and drawing shapes on the skin of her bare back. 

You had to fight the urge to flee as soon as you were sure she was asleep. The urge that you had always indulged with your hookups. The one that meant you would never have to face the consequences of a hookup. 

But Taylor wasn’t a hookup. 

Even if she didn’t want a relationship, if you got to hold her like this, then you would accept whatever little part of herself she was willing to give you. And that terrified you too. 

You promised yourself you wouldn’t do this again after-. 

You let out a long breath from your nose. 

It wasn’t fair for you to think about that… relationship. If you could call it that. 

You should go before Taylor woke up. Escape before you ruined this like you ruined that. 

“I can feel you thinking,” Taylor mumbled against your neck, her lips tickling your skin. 

“Sorry,” You murmured, running your fingers very gently over the skin of her back and laying a kiss on the top of her head. “Go back to sleep, it’s still early,” 

She shifted against your shoulder, tired blue eyes peering up at you. “What time is it?”

You squinted at the clock on her bedside table. “Just after 6,” 

She groaned. “Why are you awake?”

“Habit,” You said, looking back up at her ceiling, ending the debate in your brain. “I have to go to team recovery?”

It wasn’t a total lie. You did have to pick up your kit bag from the hotel, and you liked to do morning jogs after games to work out your muscles, but really, you needed… separation to quell the monster threatening to rip your lungs into pieces. 

You didn’t know how to not ruin your friendship. How to navigate your feelings without losing her. 

You needed to go for a run, to feel the ache in your chest and your legs to help you figure out what the fuck you were supposed to do. But at the same time, you didn’t want to leave. 

You refused to let her become another hookup. You would just run for a few hours and then return. 

You weren’t running like you did with the others. You were just… catching your breath. You were just getting your head straight. 

“The cold plunge you took last night wasn’t recovery enough?” Taylor asked, smirking up at you. 

You let your lips pull to match her expression. “Unfortunately no, but I can bring lunch back here when I’m done?” 

“I think that sounds like a fair trade,” She said, leaning up on her arm and pressing a gentle kiss to your lips. 

“Does it?” You wiggled your eyebrows at her. 

“Hmm,” She made a low sound, connecting your lips again. “Do you have time for a shower before you go?”

You chased her lips with a teasing smirk as she pulled away. “I think that can be arranged,” 

OoOoOoO

“Is there a reason you’re running a one-woman marathon, or are you just trying to make it impossible for Al to beat you this week?” Kelley’s voice cut through the running commentary in your head, and you blinked up at her from where she stood on the steps next to a big Chelsea market sign. 

You glanced down at the smartwatch on your wrist. You didn’t remember putting it on. It had become such a normal part of your morning routine that you didn’t think about putting it on anymore. You had honestly forgotten that Alex was getting alerts about your run until Kelley mentioned it. 

You tried not to think about the connection it had to your sister. You only paid attention to the stupid app when it alerted you that you were losing anyway. 

“Is that why you decided to join me?”

“I know you like the Chelsea market and running the high line,” Kelley said too casually, falling into step beside you. “I joined you because you and your sister only run long distances when something is bothering you, and I thought you would prefer me over Alex,”

You glanced at her, but she adamantly kept her eyes ahead of her. It felt purposeful like she didn’t want you to know she was watching you. 

You were very glad that Alex hadn’t decided to come herself, or that she had been talked out of it. 

“And you thought I’d want to talk,” 

Kelley shook her head. “No, but I do have a way with Morgan women, and I figured I’d support you,”

“Hmm,” You hummed, unable to stop the slight smile that cracked across your face. 

She would never let it go that she was basically your celebrity crush before you met her. You had been obsessed with college soccer when you were young, and Stanford had always been your favorite team. 

While things had changed significantly since her and your sister started dating (and you actually met her), she thought it was hilarious that both of you had been in love with her at some point. She also thought it was hilarious that she was you quote-unquote gay awakening, but you really didn’t like to think about that. 

You let out a long breath as the two of you jogged another few blocks, enjoying the sounds of the city around you. It was strange, but you already associated the city with Taylor. 

“There’s a girl that I really like,” You mumbled, as you both passed a dumpling stand. “I stayed the night,”

Kelley made a low sound next to you. They all knew you met up with someone, but no one knew exactly how that night turned out. And you staying was kind of unheard of. “And you two slept together?” 

You opened your mouth to answer but closed it quickly. Did it count if you never took your clothes off? Did it count if you didn’t let her touch you?

“You got her off like with the others?” Kelley amended, after a quick glance your way. 

“Yes. Then I stayed, and we cuddled,” You admitted, your voice going very soft. “All night,” 

You felt like you were in a weird dichotomy. Sex with Taylor was supposed to feel different because you felt so deeply for her. 

You thought it would because the before was so romantic. You thought it would because you wanted her like you had never wanted anyone before. 

But the act itself had felt… almost routine. It was like you were on autopilot. It was the same as it had been with every other girl you had been with. 

Her body responded the same way theirs had, and it had been so easy to get lost in your own head. 

It was only when she pulled you to her chest afterward. When she kissed your cheek and let you wash her hair before you got out of the bath. When she held you for the entire night, you ran your fingers down the line of her spine. 

It proved that she wasn’t like the others, and you let yourself enjoy the intimacy. It was why you stayed. 

She was still your friend. 

You spat the word in your mind. 

You didn’t want to end up in the no man’s land between friend and more than friend. Not again, the first time nearly ended in disaster, saved only by your mutual love of soccer and the goal of winning the World Cup.

You and Taylor didn’t share the same… uniting factor. 

And with the feelings bubbling in your chest, you knew you would never have the strength to walk away if that's what she asked of you. 

“So this is more than a one-nighter?” Kelley asked though she was already sure of the answer. 

“I think?” You nodded. “I’ve never…I don’t know how to do this, so I called Emily for advice,” 

Kelley’s nose scrunched. She knew how close you and the blonde defender were, especially since the two of you had been going to youth camps together since she could remember. She also knew that Emily knew more about the mysterious Taylor than she did. 

“This is the hypothetical friend that you didn’t think you were dating who had never had a burrito?” 

You hummed again, smiling at one of the dollar slice guys as you passed his little alcove. “I don't want to fuck this up, and I thought Emily would help. She didn’t,” 

“What did Emily say?” Kelley pushed. 

Your shoulders lifted and fell. “To just go with it,” 

Kelley couldn’t help her frown. That had to be the worst advice known to man, and Sonnett should have known. “So you slept with her, even when you weren’t sure you wanted to?”

“I wanted to,” You said, your voice going very soft. “I just…-“

You didn’t know how to explain that you got so caught up in your head that the experience felt like every other. That it was robotic and routine and expected. 

“It felt… generic…when I did it to her. It’s not supposed to be routine when I do it to her.” 

Kelley caught your arm and pulled you to a stop. 

“Sex isn’t something you do to someone. It’s something you do with them,” She said seriously, brown eyes boring into yours like she was trying to read your mind. “It’s a mutual activity,” 

It was a terrifying prospect that you didn’t know that, and it sent red flags twirling in Kelley’s head, especially when you shrugged it off. 

“I like her, so it was supposed to feel different,” You muttered, pulling your arm out of her grasp when the crosswalk sign came on. 

It was supposed to be emotional and you were supposed to feel connected. You should have been so hyper-focused on every movement, every twitch of her body that the world faded into nonexistence. 

You shouldn’t have had to stop yourself from running through lineups in your head halfway through. You shouldn’t have felt like the only important part of the experience was the finish. 

What the fuck was wrong with you?

She sighed but followed after you as you jogged across the street. “And it didn’t?”

“Before did,” You said, keeping your eyes focused on the sidewalk in front of you. “And so did after,” 

“But the middle?” She asked. 

You shook your head, unwilling to put into words that you were too defective for it to be anything more than a quick fuck. 

Taylor deserved better, especially since the way she held you made you feel so… safe. The way she cuddled into you made you feel loved. More loved than your tongue could ever make her feel. 

“And that freaked you out?” Kelley asked, as you finally slowed your jog to a walk. 

You scratched the back of your neck, noting the annoying way your hair rubbed against the skin there. You really needed to get it cut. 

It wasn’t the connection that freaked you out, it was the prospect that you could now lose it. That you were fumbling around with no clue how to move forward, liable to fuck up something that had just started. 

You weren’t even sure if it was something. You had no clue where you stood. 

She looked at you like you weren’t a broken toy, and one misstep could prove her wrong and send her running. 

“I don’t know how to do this. It’s why I avoided sleeping with her in the first place. I was doing the friend thing well, and now… I have no idea what’s next,” You murmured, barely above a whisper. So quietly that you weren’t sure if Kelley heard you until her hand found your arm and gently pulled you to a stop yet again. 

“I think we can agree that Emily’s advice wasn’t great,” She started, making eye contact with you, and squeezing your arm gently. “I think what you should focus on are the things you do like to do with this girl. Do those take slow steps, and communicate with her. It’s a relationship, not a race,” 

“Slow steps,” You repeated, turning the words over in your mind. 

“Yes, and communication about what you like or don’t like and what you want or don’t want. Figuring out if you’re friends or more than friends would be a good place to start too,” The defender reiterated with a nod, emphasizing the back half of her sentence. 

She knew how much of a people pleaser you were, and how often you set aside your own feelings to make other people happy. If it happened with simple things like you refusing to stop Emily, Rose, and Lindsey’s teasing when it became too much because they were “still having fun” then she feared what other things you were willing to let go. 

You swallowed hard and matched her nod. 

You could do slow steps. 

You ran a hand through your sweaty hair, glancing around you. At least your slight crisis had landed you in Mulberry Street. 

“Do you wanna grab a snack before I head back? I told her I would bring her something for lunch after team recovery,” You asked, gesturing towards one of the many Italian restaurants surrounding you. 

Kelley raised an eyebrow at you. “You told this girl that you had training the day after a game and she believed you?” 

“I don’t think she knows that much about footy,” You shrugged. “She’s more of an American football fan,” 

Even if Taylor had played when she was young, you knew her knowledge was pretty limited. 

Kelley cracked a smile at you and nodded toward the restaurant you had pointed out. “As long as she’s not an Eagles fan, we’ll be fine then,”

You made a low sound of agreement knowing Kelley wasn’t as serious about Football teams as she was about premier league teams. Her main concern was that you were treated well after all anyway. 

OoOoOoO

You had calmed down significantly by the time you made it back to Taylor’s apartment, but Kelley had always had that effect on you. 

She had been the one who helped you breathe before your first cap (along with Alex, though you hated talking about it). She was the one who talked you down after you tore your Achilles during the World Cup. 

She always knew exactly what to say, and this was no different. She made you laugh and slipped in little pieces of advice without forcing you to ruminate on the situation. She made you believe that you could talk to Taylor and it would work. 

And as you sat across from Taylor while she snacked on the penne à la vodka you had picked up for her, your confidence didn’t waver. 

Kelley swore it would only take 5 seconds of bravery. 

“Are we dating now?”

Taylor paused, chewing her bite and swallowing as a perfect eyebrow arched in amusement. “Do you want us to be dating?”

You frowned, you hadn’t been expecting a question back. You thought it would be just a simple yes or no. 

“I think so,” You said slowly, meeting her eyes.  “I don’t know how to date,”

Her head cocked to the side. “You’ve never dated?” 

“Not really,” You shook your head, scratching the newly shortened hair at the back of your neck. “Besides a weird situationship, it’s all been one-nighters, so I’m not sure how any of this is supposed to work,” 

Taylor put her fork down, and she leaned a little closer to you, frowning. “Hold on, your realest relationship was a situationship?” 

“Yes,” You said sheepishly, your fingers digging more harshly into the back of your neck as you felt heat crawl up your cheeks all the way to your ears. 

“Why?”

It was asked with a giggle, but it didn’t rub you the wrong way. Taylor wasn’t making fun of you. 

You cleared your throat, eyes flickering away from her and back. “She was straight, and one of my friends,” 

It was a hard thing to admit, that you had fallen into a friends-with-benefits relationship with one of your closest friends, and that you hadn’t been able to keep your feelings locked away in a little box. You let things go too far. You let yourself believe that your favorite striker would leave her perfect boyfriend. 

You let yourself believe that she would return your feelings and pick you. 

She didn’t, and you had sworn off relationships after that. 

Why would you get involved when everyone always left?

“We were under a lot of pressure in the U20s and it was a good way to blow off steam,” You continued, your voice going soft. “Things just… went too far and ended messily,”

“Situationships usually do,” Taylor said gently, reaching across the island to place a careful hand on your arm. 

“We stayed friends though. We had to, because of the team” You murmured. “Eventually I just got over it,” 

Taylor hummed, her thumb lingering on a thick scar on the inside of your elbow. 

It seemed to her that a lot of your stories ended with you just getting over things. She wondered if you ever actually processed them, or if you just enjoyed pretending it never happened. 

“And now we link up really well,” You finished with a shrug, an easy smile returning to your features. “Anyway, back to the question. Are we dating?” 

Taylor felt her lips tilt up in return. “Again I’ll ask, do you want to be?”

“We’re going in circles,” You sighed, dragging your hand from the back of your neck up through your newly trimmed curls, thankful Kelley had stopped with you to get it cut on the way back to Taylor’s apartment. 

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Just answer the question,” 

Your nose scrunched. Had you not just explained that you didn’t know how to date? You didn’t even know what it entailed. 

How would things change? What would she expect? 

But she was looking at you with so much softness, so much… understanding. It made something tug in your chest. 

If you were going to try dating anyone, you wanted it to be her. 

“Yes,” You breathed out, fighting to keep your voice even and steady. 

“Then we’re dating,” Taylor shrugged, picking up her fork. “Easy,” 

“Easy,” You mimicked, trying to ignore Emily’s voice ringing in your head. 

It didn’t have to be complicated. 

[scarletwinterxx]

sunshine and midnight rain - mark lee scenario

hello! so i'm back and yes i'm still on my mark lee brain rot era😅 it's like whenever i see this guy i completely forget about the rest of male population haha anyways I hope you like this one🤍

if you have a request or scenario you want me to do, just send me a message I'll see what I can do😊💌

For my other works you can check them out here, and for my other story series’ you can check them out here.

and if you want, u can buy me coffee(totally optional but any donation is very much appreciated!) thank you🥺💛

All works are copyrighted ©scarletwinterxx 2023 . Do not repost, re-write without the permission of author.

(gif not mine, credits to rightful owner)

"Why are you so mad right now?"

"Because I asked you to do one thing and you didn't" Mark says, still avoiding your gaze.

This was not how you envisioned your morning, when you woke up Mark's side of the bed was already empty. When you went to look for him he was gone, no note, no text of his possible whereabouts. And when he got back, he was clearly and very obviously mad at you.

"I got home just fine" you say with your arms out. Mark still hasn't look at you and it's bugging you. You follow him out the living room. He's going round and round, trying to tidy the place just to avoid having a conversation with you.

"Mark, can you please look at me" you tell him, this made him stop and look over at you. A clear look of disappointment on his face, "I swear I was going to call you but the girls and I were talking and drinking. It slipped my mind, I already booked a cab home when I remembered"

"You went home, way past midnight alone and drunk. Do you know dangerous that is?"

"But I got home safe"

"And what if you didn't? What if something happened? God forbid I get upset about that, I was worried I'm sorry. Is that what you want to hear?"

You say nothing for a while, thinking of something to say back. You really are at fault here, you should be the one saying sorry right now.

"I'm sorry, I should've called" you tell him, now avoiding his eyes just as you feel the tears fill yours. Mark sighs, crossing the room until he's right in front of you. He hooks his finger under your chin, making you look at him.

"I'm mad because I care. I don't trust the world when it comes to you, I just want you to be safe always. I'm not going to stop you living your best life, but I want to know you're safe" he whispers, anger already disappearing.

He wipes the few tears that escaped, cradling your face between his hands.

"Are you still mad?" you mumble, this made Mark smile and shake his head.

"We're okay. I'm sorry for raising my voice at you"

"And I'm sorry for making you worry"

He kisses your forehead before pulling you in for a hug, "I don't like arguing with you, but I'd do it in every universe as long as we make up and end up like this. I love you, always. Okay?"

You hug him tighter, answering him without saying any words.

Just like that you're okay again.

Bless this universe for giving you such an understanding, loving, mature man to love. You'd be stupid to ever let him go which is why no matter what argument, the two of you always make sure to solve it together.

Mark never lets you go to sleep upset, he'll ask you what's wrong or if he's done anything to upset you. At first it was hard for you to admit your feelings that easily, you learned that you don't like being vulnerable, you don't like sharing your true feelings. You bottle it up. But ever since you started dating Mark, all of that changed.

He's there to listen, even when words aren't being spoken. He knows when to give you space, he knows when to chase after you and hold you tight. He knows you in a way you didn't want to know yourself, you used to be scared of these feeling but not anymore.

It's obvious who's the serious one and the jokester in you and Mark's relationship. The best thing about it is the fact that your boyfriend, no matter how serious he is, will always play along.

"Mark, you busy?" you ask, walking inside the office to see him on his computer

He looks over at you with a smile, "No, what's up?"

"I was wondering..." you say while walking towards him, he waits for you to continue. You got to where he was sitting, smiling cheekily at your boyfriend

He knows you're up to something, he grabs you by the waist sitting you squarely on his lap.

"Do you know how to whistle?"

"Do I know how to whistle?" he asks back,

"Yea like you know, like this" you pout, but before you can whistle Mark closes the gap between the two of you. Kissing you gently, he grabs the back of your head to deepen the kiss. Suddenly you forgot what you were doing in the first place.

After a few minutes of exchanging kisses, you broke apart. Looking dazed and in love, "Hey! I was suppose to do that! Did you know I was going to do that?" you asked

"Maybe" he mumbles, looking at you with pure adoration

"I'll pretend I didn't know" he adds, making you roll your eyes.

"You just want to make out"

"You're not wrong there, now come here I need your kisses"

The first time it happened, Mark thought it really was just coincidence.

You just started to decorate around the house, the tree was halfway done and a few other decorations scattered here and there. He was just walking to the kitchen doorway when suddenly you stop him

"What?" your boyfriend blinks back at you confused, instead of answering him you just point up making Mark look at where you're pointing. There hanging by the doorway was a mistletoe.

"When did you put that there?" he asks with a smile, finding the tradition cute. Even cuter when you're looking at him with the biggest smile, ready to receive your kiss

"I just put it up today, now where's my kiss" you say, pursing your lips at him making Mark chuckle. He grabs you by the waist, leaning down to kiss you. It was short but sweet, enough to leave you smiling like an idiot.

A few months ago, the two of you finally decided to move in together. It's been years since you got together, and most times you spend your nights together whether his place or yours. At some point you realized that it would make more sense to just move in together, so you did.

"Love, did you do laundry last time?" you asked him, walking inside your shared bedroom to see him resting on the bed

"I did"

"Oh thanks, love the fabric softener you used. Now all my clothes smells like you" you smile at him, jumping on the bed to cuddle him. Immediately he hugs you close.

"Then will you stop stealing of my clothes now?" he asks

"Negative, I like your hoodies better"

He chuckles at your answer, "Knew it"

"What were you doing?"

"Just checking my phone, I wanted to order this pan for making omelet. Should we get one?"

You love how his sentence now say "we" or "our" instead of his and yours. Of course you still respect each other's boundaries and individuality, but on things like deciding what to paint your home or what furniture to buy or groceries to stock up on it's always the two of you.

"Should we? If we're using it then why not, I love eggs for breakfast" you tell him, looking at his phone screen to check

"I know, that's why I'm getting it. Okay, I'll order it now then" you watch him as he do so.

"This is fun" you mumble

"Hm?"

"This, buying things for our place. I like it" you smile

"Me too"

"Do you want to marry me?"

Your question took him by surprise. Not because he didn't want to marry you, it's just when he thinks of that big question he's the one doing the asking and not the other way around.

"Mark? Sorry forget I said anything" you mumble, moving to rest your head on the pillow instead

"Remember when we first started dating or way before that?" he asks you

"Huh?"

"I was shy, I wasn't as confident as the other guys. People think I'm aloof and too serious. You never thought of me that way, you entered in my life like you were meant to be there all along and maybe you are. Scratch that, I know you are. You're meant to be in my life. When I knew I was falling in love with you I didn't know how to say it without scaring you away, so I did it slowly. I did it in a way that won't overwhelm you. Because to you it doesn't have to be a loud confession or a grand gesture. i loved you they way i knew you would understand. i loved you the way i know how. i just loved you. I know you, your mind is a wonder. You doubt, you question and you worry your pretty mind to no ends. I didn’t want to disrupt that"

By now you're face to face again, he's speaking so softly like he's afraid you'll float away of he's too loud.

"You said I was your peace, and back then that was more than enough for me. By some miracle, you fell in love with me too. And now we're here. So to answer your question, yes I want to marry you. One day I want to get down on one knee and ask you that question, I'm still working on being the man worthy to ask that" he continues, and you soak each and every word he speaks like he's already saying his vows.

Because you know, you know he is a man of words. If Mark says it, then it's true. He will never say such things to deceive you.

"Do you have any more questions for me, pretty girl?" he whispers, waiting for you to speak

You shake your head, scooting until you're on his side again. Tucking yourself as close to him as you can.

He tilts your head so you're looking at him, leaning down to kiss you on your nose, your cheeks and last your lips.

"I'll love you over and over again, just like when we met"

[kazz-brekker]

hotd episode 6 thoughts

ohhhh the family drama in this one was DELICIOUS, i enjoyed it very much.

i will admit i found the time skip a little jarring at first even though i knew it was coming, just because so much stuff happened during those years, but emma d’arcy and olivia cooke were absolutely SERVING and i loved them.

rhaenyra with her kids … rhaenyra obviously loving them so so much … rhaenyra smiling as soon as she saw baby joffrey … oh it was a lot.

as soon as older rhaenyra said “fuck” while climbing the stairs i was like. yes. absolutely. i love you, this is perfect casting.

i have been overly invested in daemon and rhaenyra’s children ever since reading f&b so i feel pretty emotional actually seeing jace, luke, joffrey, rhaena, and baela on my tv screen. they’re real! they’re little and squishy! i want desperately to protect them!

i’m really glad that they included alicent’s “do keep trying, sooner or later you may get one that looks like you” bit, it’s such an iconic line of bitchy dialogue.

i SO wish that we had gotten to see more of the relationship between rhaenyra and harwin (they didn’t even kiss!) but the little bits that we did see of it were really tender and lovely, especially with baby joffrey.

helaena targaryen being a weird little girl with a bug collection is something that can be so personal, actually.

also, her saying something like “you’ll have to close an eye” while aemond is talking to alicent about wanting a dragon … please oh PLEASE let helaena have prophetic dreams, that would be great.

i am aware that aemond targaryen is going to grow up to commit a ton of war crimes but honestly i just wanted to give him a hug in this episode.

alicent being constantly exasperated that her children are growing up to be a bunch of absolute weirdos was really, really funny.

we finally got to see vhagar! she is so large and so ugly and i love her very much and seeing her fly with caraxes was a lot of fun.

i’m really sad that we only got to see adult laena for one episode, she was so regal and self-possessed and i really liked her interactions with her daughters and the fact that she clearly doesn’t want to indulge daemon’s sulking.

the implication that daemon stayed away from westeros for 10 years because he couldn’t stand to be around rhaenyra when they were married to other people … oh man. oh boy. that is so much. can’t deal with this right now, sorry!

alicent and criston having a weird warped version of fealty and courtly love based on their shared hatred of the same person … yesssss i love it give me more.

harwin strong in his dilf era repeatedly punching criston cole in the face is literally everything i wanted to see from him in this episode.

viserys talking about the bonds of friendship being forged through combat together while aegon ii is beating up his nephews is just like. jesus christ. viserys please learn to read the room.

alicent and larys having their scheming little dinner together was so fun, especially since it’s clearly a common practice. seems like larys is going full-on villain and that’s going to be entertaining to watch.

kind of sad to see that daemon and rhaenyra’s marriages are both breaking down, but i can understand why since there are a lot of stressors in both of those relationships.

around halfway through this episode i was like “there seems to be a lot going on here, maybe i won’t have to watch harwin and laena die yet” so the last 10 minutes absolutely sucker-punched me.

rip lyonel strong you were a real one and possibly the only man in westeros with both honor and common sense.

i am not quite sure how i feel about laena’s death, i always thought childbirth was a lazy way to get rid of her and i can see that they were trying to add more dignity/autonomy but it also made it more violent … i’ll have to think on it.

the milf on milf violence in this was just really fun and i can’t wait to see more.

i am READY for the funeral drama next week, bring it on!

[zzzzzestforlife]

another day, another slay(ing of my sleep schedule) 💤

happy girlies (gender-neutral) see life as one meme after another 💅

making that dough 👛

✨ lead team meetings (5x)

👀 peer-review code (2x)

👩‍💻 write code

🐞 investigate bugs (3x)

getting inspired 💫

🌇 overcoming stress and overwhelm

🌦️ vlogs about starting fresh 1, 2

📖 catching up on my Service95 subscription

🍋 light research for my personal project

brain food 🍫

🇨🇳 Chinese lesson

🇯🇵 Japanese review

🇰🇷 Korean lesson + unit exam

🧠 developmental psychology reading

healthy era when 🍧

💆‍♀️ massage therapy appointment

🍱 i didn't skip any meals

🏋️‍♀️ do a workout that isn't going for a walk

💪 physiotherapy appointment

💌: ok, i clearly need to work on my health but otherwise, i did a pretty good job, right? 😅

[ps1snake]

day 2 of @book-omens-week : book era! in 1981, they would've been keeping an eye on warlock. it's also when james bond: for your eyes only came out, so they've gone to see that on a day off or something.

Transcript under the cut!

Panel 1: 1981. Aziraphale moves a small box, and crowley asks “Aziraphale, when you’re done cleaning do you want to see a film with me?” And in smaller text, “i don’t mind if you bring a book.” Panel 2: aziraphale imagines a dreamy crowley, with a rose in his mouth, saying “we’re all alone… in this dark theatre… anything could happen…” and in smaller text, “like, weird hand stuff probably” panel 3: in the real world, aziraphale says “that sounds lovely my dear!” And drops his box, as crowley pumps his fist and says “super!” before listing off showtimes. Between this and the next panel is a large “LATER…”. panel 4: they stand in front of a ticket booth, and crowley holds up two fingers and says “2 for bond, please” while aziraphale looks off-screen. Panel 5: aziraphale looks at two far-off moviegoers, who are saying “can’t wait to see it!” and “let’s invite everyone we know!” Panel 6: aziraphale imagines the two movie goers, staring bug-eyed at himself and crowley as they kiss cartoonishly in the back row. He says “hmm.” Then “no.” Panel 7: aziraphale waves a hand, and miracle sparkles come out. Panel 8: the two moviegoers skip off, surrounded by miracle sparkles. They say “i’ve just had a sudden urge to become a mennonite!” and the other responds “really? I’ve just decided to become amish!”

Panel 1: 1981. Aziraphale moves a small box, and crowley asks “Aziraphale, when you’re done cleaning do you want to see a film with me?” And in smaller text, “i don’t mind if you bring a book.” Panel 2: aziraphale imagines a dreamy crowley, with a rose in his mouth, saying “we’re all alone… in this dark theatre… anything could happen…” and in smaller text, “like, weird hand stuff probably” panel 3: in the real world, aziraphale says “that sounds lovely my dear!” And drops his box, as crowley pumps his fist and says “super!” before listing off showtimes. Between this and the next panel is a large “LATER…”. panel 4: they stand in front of a ticket booth, and crowley holds up two fingers and says “2 for bond, please” while aziraphale looks off-screen. Panel 5: aziraphale looks at two far-off moviegoers, who are saying “can’t wait to see it!” and “let’s invite everyone we know!” Panel 6: aziraphale imagines the two movie goers, staring bug-eyed at himself and crowley as they kiss cartoonishly in the back row. He says “hmm.” Then “no.” Panel 7: aziraphale waves a hand, and miracle sparkles come out. Panel 8: the two moviegoers skip off, surrounded by miracle sparkles. They say “i’ve just had a sudden urge to become a mennonite!” and the other responds “really? I’ve just decided to become amish!”

Page 2: panel 1: aziraphale blows out a relived breath. panel 2: crowley calls aziraphale over, waving the tickets, saying "angel! come on!" to which aziraphale responds "coming!" panel 3: crowley holds the door for aziraphale, saying "So what book did you bring?" Panel 4: aziraphale looks sideways, and says "so coy! as if I'll need it." panel 5: crowley looks mildly incredulous, and says "You really think you'll enjoy the film?" panel 6: aziraphale says "No. Oh, but isn't this so bold and romantic?" and crowley, who has question marks above his head, says "no?" panel 7: aziraphale dramatically points to the back of the theatre, and says "Look, seats in the back!". panel 8: aziraphale jogs up the stairs daintily. Crowley watches with question marks above his head. panel 9: aziraphale is seated. crowley clearly wants the seat on the other side of him, and stares at him. panel 10: crowley steps awkwardly over aziraphale, limbs akimbo. Aziraphale stares at his butt. there's an footnote indicator on this panel. Panel 11: both now seated, aziraphale looks expectantly at crowley, who is staring dead ahead at the film. panel 12: in the same positions, crowley says "theatre's awfully empty." as aziraphale stares at hi, deadpan. panel 13: in the same positions, aziraphale stares at him intensly. panel 14: while crowley continues to stare straight ahead, aziraphale leans heavily towards him, and stares at him with wide eyes, as if trying to blast him psychically. Panel 15: aziraphale tip-toes his fingers along crowley's arm, and says in a large cursive font "you know..." in the corner is the footnote, showing the same panel as panel 10, with crowley stepping awkwardly over aziraphale, who is staring at his butt. the footnote reads "*psychics HATE them," and their thoughts have been revealed as "nice rump" for aziraphale, and for crowley "this is so embarrassing i'm going to fucking kill myself."

page 3: panel 1: aziraphale leans towards crowley and bats his eyelashes, and says, in a cursive font, "we're alone... in the back of this dark theatre... anything could happen..." crowley looks slightly confused, and says "yes..." panel 2: crowley leans forward in his seat and says "but it's a bond film, so it's probably like all the rest of them." and in smaller text, "I love these." aziraphale's face has gone comedically flat and put-out. panel 4: from behind, we can see them in their seats and the screen in front of them, showing james bond in for your eyes only. Aziraphale says "Crowley. did you invite me here just to watch the photoplay." and crowley responds "Movie! or film." and in smaller text "and yes." even smaller text "why?" panel 5: aziraphale looks incredulously at crowley. crowley looks at the screen, with a big grin on his face. he is shown thinking "he's* just like me for real," with a footnote on "he's" reading "*bond." panel 6: aziraphale snaps his fingers, and a box says "POP!"" panel 7: crowley watches the film with a huge grin on his face, while aziraphale reads his book by the light of a miracle.

[linkhappyface]

mutuals look AWAY im in my self indulgence era im cringe but im FREE 🦅

okay baby wild(cough bug) headcanons

-such a lil guy. he loves to just lay on someone while they do other stuff and just be there but not really present. much different from normal wild hours where he has to be on the watch for everything snd people expect him to do EVERYTHING. no he is lil dude all he does is lie there.

-fav activity is laying on sidon in the water. the ripples and sidons slow lazy kicking. it puts him right to sleep which he desperately needs all the time.

-has a little seal plush he got in Gerudo Town its his most beloved item and hes never shown it to the chain for fear of getting teases or it getting dirty or hylia forbid broken.

-he gets so quiet when hes small. like hes normally super quiet and uses sign more often than not but hes like silent when hes small. especially when hes trying to push it down and repress those feelings. takes a lot of concentration to focus on being an adult.

-i dont like using the term impure regression so we’re calling it involuntary regression. his regression is almost always involuntary. it happens in response to anxiety, anger, fear. basically any negative emotions can make him small in a snap.

-it took him so long to even tell the others about his regression and even longer to allow himself to regress around any of them. when hes small he mostly just cries, silently. it kind of unnerving because he’ll cry for ages and nothing seems to help or stop it. definitely a trauma thing from all the times hes had to push his emotions down when he was younger.

-hes very sensory when hes small. likes to play in the mud and water and feel everything. and put everything in his mouth.

-his fav when hes small is sidon first but then twi. twi is like a human furnace. seemingly always running hotter than the rest of them for some reason. twi also radiated big brother energy he would take such good carw of the baby

-such a lil guy. literally such a small dude. microscopic. a single celled organisms perchance.

-clearly i love him

i wanna do the rest of them at some point so we’ll see :3

[squidkidghoul]

Octorok Ratings

Zelda 1: the original, and a strong start, it's cute, but still slightly threatening, it looks slightly like a bug, but still feels like an octopus, overall 7/10

Adventure of Link: It's slightly less cute than the last one but paved the way for better octoroks, I don't like that it has teeth, but in general it's still cute, and it's more octopuslike. 8/10

Links Awakening/Oracle games: definitely cute, but not really an octopus. It's a fine design, but it was done better in other games, I'll give it a 4/10

A Link to the Past: It's clearly an octopus, asides from the mouth, but that's really all it is. It is aesthetically pleasing to see them running around and firing rocks, but in my opinion, it's just a worse version of the AoL design. 6/10

Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask: Another quadruped, but a more octopus-like one, also the first stationary octorok, taking the place of the zora in other games. I think they're a cool design, but they look weird and sad. 6/10

Wind Waker: These ones either have six or ten limbs, making them definitively NOT an octorok. They look much more like squid, which are my favorite animal. Overall, both charming and aesthetically pleasing but could be more Octopus-like. 8/10

Four Swords/Four Swords Adventure/Minish Cap: Another quadruped, they sort of became the default land octorok design, They're cute and better than the LA and OoA/OoS design, but really don't look like octopodes. 6/10

Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks: Somehow, despite being in the same era as WW, and the WW type appearing in both games, It's another quadrurok. I get that it must be easier to animate four-legged ones moving on land, but still, OoT managed to do four-legged ones fine. They also just look weird compared to the MC design. 3/10

Skyward Sword: These ones really feel like a combination between Zelda 1 octoroks and OoT octoroks. They paved the way for BoTW octoroks, and I do like them, but they look sort of off, somehow. I'll give them a 6/10

A Link Between Worlds/Tri-Force Heroes/Links Awaking Nintendo Switch: These ones are my favorite of the 'land' type, they look like ALLttP, but have that charm of the Zelda 1, AoL, and MC designs. These seem to be the standard modern design, and I'm here for it. 9/10

Breath of the Wild: These ones are pretty much the previous ones but with a plant on their head and a different texture, and, as the last one is my favorite 2d design, this is my favorite design for 3d octoroks. They have that exact same 'cute but sinister' vibe that Zelda 1, AoL, and the previous one had. 10/10

[occasionallyprosie]

"Choosing Your Path"

Chapter 2: "Lives Traded"

The thing about being a hero, especially a Hero of Courage chosen by the goddess Farore and bearing the Hero's Spirit, is that no matter the cost, they will always pay the price to save another.

Febuwhump 2024 | Prompt 16: Came Back Wrong

Event Masterlist

<<Previous

Read On AO3 Warnings: Graphic Violence

"J-Just make sure my body's burned, kid."

"You're barely a year older than me you jerk! Don't do this!"

Hyrule heard Legend's voice fade out, and he wasn't wrong. Hyrule was barely older than him, but he still was older and he was considered an adult in every era unlike his predecessor, so he thought that was a win for him.

When he released his last breath, he didn't expect to inhale again and not feel the pain continue.

He shot up and the rocky terrain of his home era was gone, replaced by lush greens, tall trees, and bright colors in flowers and fruits.

Was he dead? Was this the afterlife?

If it was, then the others only just died too. Or time worked a bit differently, because the seven other heroes were also shooting up, gasping and grabbing at wherever their fatal blow had been.

"What the--Is this heaven?" Wind wondered.

"I was expecting hell," Four deadpanned, his tone not showing the clear disarray his mind and emotions were in.

"I... don't know," Sky breathed. "It doesn't feel like... it's not like the Sacred Realm, it doesn't feel like a different plane at all."

Someone else murmured their agreement. Hyrule stood.

"There you guys are."

Legend pushed a branch aside as he entered the clearing and immediately Hyrule could tell something was wrong. There was something off about his magic, about his eyes, about him.

"Vet?" Hyrule questioned. Did his spell fail? Did Legend still die? Was there a follow-up ambush?

"And you're all together, good..." he trailed off, frowning. His eyes flicked between them, clearly confused. "You guys alright? What'd I miss?"

Hyrule glanced back and, rightfully, they all did seem a little disturbed, most likely at their own deaths.

"What do you mean?" Hyrule asked. "I... Didn't we die?"

Legend stared at him, weirded but still, even the way he looked at him felt wrong. It felt like bugs crawling under his skin, it caused his ears to pop, his teeth to ache, it was like he was getting goosebumps eternally. It felt wrong.

"You... died--What?" Legend made a genuinely confused face. "Okay, clearly something happened since the last switch, so someone walk me through it. We left Champion's era, got split in the portal, I found a village and got potions. So... what'd I miss, since clearly none of you are dead despite what traveler's saying."

"Clearly," Wind said, rubbing his chest where Hyrule vividly remembered seeing a huge gash that nearly went clean through the Sailor.

Legend... didn't remember that? He'd gone so pale when Hyrule had noticed him see the scenes of their brother's deaths.

And the champion's--They'd gone to Hyrule's era right after the Champion's. Was this a... reset or something? Divine interference? Did Hyrule accidentally wish on the Triforce instead of channeling its power to save his predecessor?

Why didn't Legend remember then? And why was he so... Wrong?

"It... It's doesn't matter," Hyrule managed to say, grabbing Legend's arm and pulling him away from the others by a step. He'd protect his younger brother from those memories if that's what this was. "Just... where's the town?"

Legend gave him an odd look, and Hyrule noticed how wrong his eyes looked, they were still red, still that soft, warm scarlet, but something was just... wrong.

He couldn't think of another word, wrong was the only one that worked in the situation.

"Fine, keep your secrets," Legend finally said, pulling his arm free. "Town's this way."

Hyrule looked at the others once Legend's back was turned, his eyes wide and he rapidly cut along his throat.

They all nodded at the same time and quickly followed, some looking more pale than the others.

Wild and Twilight tucked close to each other, Warriors tugged Wind and Time close and Sky was hovering right beside Four.

Hyrule kept up with Legend, trying not to be sick himself as he recalled the gruesome images of their deaths.

He didn't know what was wrong, but something was and he didn't know what.

They got rooms at the inn and with Hyrule and Wild sharing a room with Legend, both were able to sneak out in the night to meet with the others in Time, Twilight, and Four's room.

"Okay, what happened cause last I remember I was..." Wind trailed out. "Dead."

"Yeah," Warriors agreed. "That... That was a definite death."

Time shook his head, pale and clearly upset.

"I... I don't know," Sky admitted.

"We won," Hyrule spoke up. "I... I lost track, but at some point, it was just the Vet and me left, then it was just... just fighting. I took hits but--We managed to finish them off in the end. As soon as it was over, I remember struggling to stay balanced... and I remember the Veteran calling out to me."

"You won?" Warriors breathed.

"Between the explosion and the lightning blast, there was only a third left and we managed to pull it off. Don't ask me how, I can't even remember." Hyrule stared down as he clenched his fist. "I used the last of my magic and energy to heal him, the Vet. Someone had to survive to finish this whole thing, and if I hadn't we both were going to die. Between the two of us, he was the better option."

Nobody said a word.

"I... I died. I know I did. He was... Honestly?" He looked up from his hands, clutching them to his chest as he met their eyes. "The battlefield once the monsters were gone was gruesome. Your bodies were gruesome, and I... I can't imagine how awful it must've been for him when he realized he was the last one. I know I forced that onto him, but frankly, if it had to reset or whatever, I'm glad he doesn't remember."

There was a long moment of silence.

"But that begs the question," Time spoke up, "how are we alive?"

Nobody answered. Hyrule though about it, he didn't make any conscious wish, not even anything that could've been mistaken for one, and it had to of happened when or after he died so...

"The only one who would know is the Veteran," Wild said. "He's the only one who saw the aftermath."

Hyrule felt a pit grow in his stomach. Suddenly that feeling of wrongwrongwrong he had around Legend wasn't something he could ignore.

Legend did something, Hyrule was sure of it. And whatever he did? It was... Whatever he did wasn't right.

He didn't know how he was going to figure it out though, if Legend didn't even remember the fact that they'd died then how could he remember how he brought them back alive?

He wouldn't figure it out, not for a while.

Hyrule took to keeping a close eye on their resident Veteran, he made notes of the things that were just off.

First off, Legend was spacey. He would stare at any single one of the heroes and just... check out, something pained glazing behind his eyes, and then he'd come back as if nothing had happened. It was... more worrying than anything.

Second, he ate less. More often than not, he would poke at his dinners, eat maybe half of it, before pawning the last of it into Wind's bowl. Wind always scarfed it down, the kid still growing and it showed, but Hyrule was noticing that Legend ate less and less of his dinners until this past day he didn't eat anything but maybe a third of his dinner.

Third, he hardly slept. It was hard to tell, but Hyrule had learned to notice a while ago. Legend was his younger brother after all, he eventually figured out how to tell that he wasn't sleeping and now that he did... every watch he had, Legend was awake, even if he had his own watch before or after. Even so, he didn't seem to get more tired during the days.

Then there was just his magic. His magic felt different, weird, it wasn't wrong, it didn't have that feeling of wrongness to it, but it... it wasn't right. It was stronger, to start with, Hyrule could feel it strengthening, but it also was... softening. It was becoming more... more Legend in a way magic straight up shouldn't. There was a clear difference between one's magic and their soul, but slowly, Hyrule was watching that line blur for his predecessor.

It was wrong. Something was wrong and he didn't know what.

In the end, it was another battle gone south that revealed it.

This time, they were in Time's era, but in a forest and monsters closing in on all directions.

It went south fast, Time barely blocked a spear from impaling him, Four was barely missed by an arrow that was probably supposed to hit his head, Sky was stabbed in the stomach and he shoved his attacker off and kept fighting.

A magic shield formed around Sky.

"Heal!" Legend ordered him. Hyrule wasn't sure when he learned to make shields like that, but it drew his attention to him and... well, it distracted him.

Maybe it was irony, that he survived so long last time the odds were stacked against them, and this time...

Hyrule stared at the blade sunk into his chest, the daira that chittered above him.

Oh.

Then the ground split open, it tore apart and swallowed the monsters whole. Hyrule fell but someone caught him, Legend, who threw a hand out at the remainders of the horde.

His eyes flashed pure white.

"Die," the hero snarled as the monsters exploded into smoke.

Hyrule wheezed, that was not normal. That was not--

He gasped, Legend's gaze snapping it him and his gash healing with a glance.

"Holy shit," he heard Wind whisper.

"Don't you dare die on me again," Legend snarled at him, Hyrule gasping heavily. "None of you."

His glare landed on the others.

"Wait--You remember that?!" Warriors exclaimed.

Legend didn't respond. Hyrule reached for his hand and he looked down as he squeezed it, sitting up better.

"Link?"

Legend met his eyes, for now they were amethyst and cold... but Hyrule wanted to know why they turned pure white moments ago.

"What happened to you?" He asked softly. "How are we alive?"

Legend didn't respond for a long moment, just staring into his eyes like he could see through them. A part of Hyrule whispered, the logical part of Hyrule said that Legend couldn't do that, but in that moment, he couldn't believe that. There was too much in his eyes, something different, but he couldn't quite call it wrong anymore. It was Legend, just... more, different, changed.

"Lives can be traded," is what the veteran finally said. "They can be bought back."

Time was the first to ask. "What was the cost?"

Legend stayed silent.

"Vet. What did it cost?" Time demanded, his voice growing sharp and panicked.

Hyrule couldn't help but agree with that panic. He had never known anything powerful enough to revive people to be kind, not ones that outright gave prices, not ones that made deals.

"Nothing I wasn't more than willing to pay," Legend said as he stood up, eyes flashing that new, dangerous flare. He looked over his shoulder at Time. "Nothing I wouldn't pay a thousand times over."

Time grabbed his shoulder. "What did you give them? Who did you give it to?"

Legend sort of just stared at him, Hyrule noted it was with that blank stare he's had more often lately. The silence was long, and it unnerved them all. The way he stared was... pensive, thoughtful, he was studying Time on a deeper level and Hyrule didn't like it. He had just been on the receiving end of that stare and it... It didn't feel violating, like he felt it should have, he trusted Legend, but it had been a deep feeling of being seen and not quite in a good way.

"Humanity," he finally said. "I gave them my humanity."

Hyrule felt his blood run cold. "No--Scholar, hey," Legend looked over at him, "who--Who did you give it to?"

"The goddesses," he answered easily.

As if... As if the goddesses got involved, as if the goddesses stepped in like that; as if the goddesses would care to make such a trade. Eight souls for one? Heroes too? That couldn't have been the goddesses, Hyrule was certain of that, but that meant something took a likeness that Legend associated with one of the goddesses or all of them, and when he was in a moment of weakness and desperation...

Something had taken advantage of his little brother, something had taken advantage of and taken the humanity of his little brother. Absolutely not.

He could not just let that stand.

"I can fix it for you. For a price." 

Legend startled, whipping around with his sword drawn on the... young woman who stood behind him. Green hair, elegant clothing, but a bit of wildness to her. She was hard to perceive, magic wise, her soul did not end where her magic began, it was one in the same.

"Farore," he realized, and he was certain of it. She had the aura as her Oracle, the same power and air, but infinitely more powerful.

She smiled, striding to him and he lowered his blade. She brushed a hand--warm, unexpectedly, it wasn't quite feverish warm, more like she spent the whole day in the sunlight--against his cheek.

"You've grown so much," she murmured softly, her eyes meeting his in a searching stare that went straight to his soul. "You have so much more to grow into... But I'm here to give you the choice of loss."

He stared at her. How was he supposed to respond to that? Was he meant to shove her away or what? What was the choice she was giving him?

"I can bring them back," she nodded to the heroes, their bodies, the blood. "I can take you all to a new era and you can continue as you normally would... In exchange for something you give me."

Legend inhaled sharply. He glanced to the side, at Hyrule's bloodied form, at Wind's nearly bisecting body...

"What do you want?" He asked, voice shaking as he looked at her. He wasn't sure but how was his life worth enough to exchange for eight others? He didn't know what else she'd ask for--

"Your humanity."

"Deal," he said before he put any thought to it. Why she'd ask for that? He wouldn't say no, of course. He'd give anything to bring them back. But why? What did she mean by that?

"All questions would be answered in due time," Farore told him softly, he wondered if she could read minds. "But just so you know, you will never be the same and those attuned to you will notice. You will lose your humanity slowly, you will feel it slipping away from you gradually, then at some point, your decisions will begin to fall into categories and it will be decided."

"What will?" He asked.

"What you will become. A deity, a demon, a protector, a warrior, a guide... it all depends."

A deity--or a demon? She...

"I am glad you accepted though," Farore said and he froze as she placed her hand on his forehead. "Breathe, my dear. Exhale the life I gave you and let's see you forge one of your own."

Legend raised an eyebrow at Time, whose hand still gripped his wrist tightly.

"Why didn't you say anything?" The man asked. "Making deals like that-- How do you even know it was the goddesses?"

"You'd be surprised how well acquainted I am with the golden three's magic, first of all. Secondly, because I didn't want to. Things were fixed, it was easier to feign ignorance than to come up with an explanation that wouldn't be blown out of proportion with such high emotions, and I can deal with the consequences of my actions myself."

"Consequences--" Hyrule grabbed his shoulder and all but forced him to look at him, jostling Time's hand off him. "You traded away your humanity! Do you even realize--Vet, you’re not human anymore."

Legend brushed his hands away. "Actually, I am, for now. It's a gradual loss. I'm less human than I was before, and I will continue to be less until it's all gone."

"That's not okay!"

"How."

"It's--You can't just trade lives like that!"

"And you didn't?!" Legend snarled and he felt his magic--now more volatile and harder to control than he was used to--lash out. "I choose my path, Traveler."

Hyrule reeled back as if struck.

"T-That's not the same thing!"

"Isn't it?! You traded your life for mine, and that's fine, but when I do it for all of you it's not alright?!"

Nobody spoke, they were all shaken by the revealed information, but to be honest? Legend couldn't care.

He cared about the fact that they were alive. He cared that he was slowly ceasing to see their dead, bloodied, chopped forms in their place. He cared that Warriors wasn't soaked in blood with arrows protruding from his body whenever he turned around. He cared that Wind's smile wasn't tainted by the huge gash in his chest.

He cared that they were alive, consequences to his own life be damned. He may become a demon, or a deity of some sort, he honestly couldn't care about that right now. What he cared about was making sure his brothers were alive and keeping it that way.

End Note:

What does Legend eventually become? Who knows! The Fierce Deity, unrestrained by time and eventually trapped inside a mask? Maybe! the Lord of Satori Mountain, slowly losing his humanity to protect the vulnerable (blupees)? Possibly! The next Demise, bitter and angry at all he's endured and lost? Also possible! Maybe he's just an old man in a cave, maybe he takes the form of a fairy to guide a too-young war captain, maybe he's a sheikah painter accompanied by a just as ancient wolf spirit, or maybe he's a dragon flying over the southern tropics of Hyrule with his humanity long lost and forgotten. It's his choice. It's his path to choose and follow, and he doesn't have a map to follow either.

[sugaredrhubarb]

Reading with Ru: 2023 oct/nov/dec fic and book recs

Hello hello! Back again with some final recs from what I was reading towards the end of the year. Gonna start with cod because that's where most of my moots are, and then some from other fandoms and published romance I've been enjoying as well.

Just in case this goes outside my little circle, please check the tags of anything I rec; I'll try to mention if I think something is particularly dark, but don't read anything you won't like!

COD

landscape with honey by @ceilidho - (bear shifter!price x reader) starting with ceil because, at this rate, I can't write a list without including her. my friendship with ceil partially started from bugging her asks about bear price, so this one is always gonna be special, but I genuinely love it, ceil writes blatant dubcon really well (as we all know), but I think it's in fics like this—when the hero is just a little off, and the reader is caught between what seems too good to be true and a gut instinct that something isn't quite right—that her writing really thrives. Anyway, I'm okay with a big, burly man hibernating with me in a cozy cabin in the woods for a winter. (side note: we need to be talking about ghost x feral witch reader more)

Mind the Drop by @sprout-fics - (BDSM au, price x reader) more aftercare in fics!!! This wonderful one-shot is based in a universe where people are biologically designated as dominant or submissive. Reader is a sub who is feeling the effects of some missed aftercare, which Price takes notice of and offers his... assistance. Honestly, this is just some really well-written comfort and aftercare from a fun concept.

My daddy didn't love me, so I guess I've moved on to you by @makoodles - (price x reader) clearly, I was back in my Price era, and this fic hits on the central theme of my attraction to him in the first place: daddy issues :) So, if you may want to read 17k of Reader and Price succumbing to their attraction and mutual daddy kinks, this one is for you.

Light On by @peachesofteal - (ghost x singlemom!reader) I feel like everyone was reading it, but if you haven't checked out this lovely story yet, please do! It's nice to take a break from the darker fic, and this one is so lovely while still acknowledging Simon's trauma and obsession. Peaches is an excellent writer, and this sent me down a rabbit hole of single-parent fics and books! I could read so much of this.

Pornstar!ghost by @ghosts-cyphera - ( x reader) lo is on a little break right now, but this is another wonderful entry on the soft side of cod fic. I really enjoy Ghost's charisma and confidence on display here, and every update had me giggling and kicking my feet. (I found lo through her price wife x 141 post, which is also a must read)

okay, so @ohbo-ohno (hopefully) knows I love her, and she wrote a ton and is constantly throwing out mind-bogglingly yummy drabbles, so here are some of my favs from her kinktober and 1k celebration: price x reader breeding (surprise, surprise), soap x reader somno (drugged noncon), 141 x reader orgy, ghoap ft price deepthroating, 141 x free use reader (the dream), kingpin price x reader, ex husband price x reader, gaz x reader a/b/o, and my personal fav I think about all the time ghoap x brand new vampire reader. Maybe got a little carried away, but I adore Bo's work, and she has a unique ability to make everything hot.

And finally, @charliemwrites. When making this list, I was tempted to just rec everything Charlie has posted in the last few months, so if you aren't reading her stuff already, I'm jealous that you get to experience it for the first time. Obviously, it would be a mistake to not start with her current fics: charmed slasher simon (he's a serial killer, so violence warning) and woof woof johnny, which are both so fun and compelling, I get so excited whenever I see a new update. I almost daily think about this dark(ish) Price decides you're his wife post. Charlie also writes just wonderful fluff and lighter but emotional relationships too, and both childhood friend simon and bodyguard!gaz have a special place in my heart

other fandoms

casualties by little fools writing/tianawritesfic - (darklina) yet another person I could rec every single work by. This is a boyfriend's roommate cheating fic with the perfect amount of mean man.

You kept me like a secret (i kept you like an oath) by burninghoneyatdusk - (darklina) I genuinely think everyone should read this; it's modern setting, so no canon knowledge needed. Alina wakes up after an accident and discovers she's pregnant, but she doesn't remember the last year of her life, doesn't know who the father is, and most importantly, doesn't remember the affair that ended her relationship. I could talk about it for ages, but I'm just gonna share my comment on the last chapter: "every action, line of dialogue, description, and internal thought felt deliberate— not a single word felt wasted. you stripped both aleks and alina bare and it felt impossible to not take them in completely. i don't even know how to talk about the therapy sessions and alina's healing. the exploration of her guilt, her past, her anger, her confusion it all felt so earnest and raw. what a gift to read."

Bury Us Both by morriganmercy - (Lavinia Lucia/Nick Bruin) this is sibling incest! For the love of god, don't read it if it's not your thing. I know nothing about The Royals of Forsyth series (books?), but this was recd by someone, and I saw the tags codependency, slowburn, heavy angst, pining, and religious guilt, and now here we are.

bonus! published romance I enjoyed

links are to goodreads

Return to Monte Carlo by Cate C. Wells - set in 1982, fmc runs away from her stifling life with her rich italian husband and his snobby family before discovering that she's pregnant. fun, smutty, warning for miscommunication galore. i saw some comments about the fmc being immature but she's swept into this crazy life at like ~19 so idk enjoy your smut and stop thinking so much.

Between the Devil and Desire by Lorraine Heath - a widowed duchess must learn to get along with a notorious self made rogue when he is given guardianship of her beloved son. I'm a sucker for historical romances and for single parent stories but the combo is so hard to get right and this one did it for me! while sometimes a little ridiculous, i felt the characters actions had clear motivations. watching the mmc's relationship with the son grow was really nice and it actually made sense given his backstory rather than the sudden "guy who hates kids suddenly cares" trope other books do. (warning for discussions of childhood abuse and sa)

Luna and the Lie by Mariana Zapata - say what you will about MZ slow burns but no one else can get me to read 600 pages for one sex scene at 95% in. are most of her character's really similar? yeah. but they're never annoying and i love that they're always good people trying their best. i love all the small details and i love me an older man who is secretly down horrendously bad only to gets worse and worse at not showing it.

Icebreaker by Hanna Grace - people have things to say about this book. do the characters get together early on? yeah. do they hook up in the back of an uber filled with their friends? also yeah (i thought it was hot so). is their very little plot in a 400 page book? sure. i'm here for a good time not to be intellectually challenged. i actually enjoyed seeing their time together and really enjoyed that they just fucking communicated even if there were mistakes along the way. plus big nice hockey player who cares about consent? swoon my little canadian heart.

check the reading with ru tag for more!

[mothmage]

20 Qs for fic writers

Tagged by @monstersinthecosmos , thank you!!!

1. How many works do you have on A03? 31 (and a few anon, i think 2 or 3. idk, when i post a fic on anon i forget about it forever)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 446,135

3. What fandoms do you write for? currently/primarily vc, iwtv (amc), star wars, and merlin (bbc)!

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? A Lovely Little Normal Life (which, honestly, kind of annoys me lol. i know it's just bc it's a huge fandom, but really? the stupid little 12k harry potter fic i wrote in two days is my most kudos? please...); Arthur Pendragon, Long May She Reign (forever pushing my lesbian genderswap agenda); The Face of God (les mis slightly canon divergent javert character study); The Odyssey of Recollection (amc iwtv s1 pov armand); Away From Stranger Tides (potc philip/syrena fic i started ages ago and never finished, lol)

5. Do you respond to comments? yes i love talking to people in comments!!!! i've made a lot of friends through comments!!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? omg. umm. merthur fans don't know this yet bc i havent finished posting but it's arthur pendragon long may she reign (BUT it's part of a series, so it's literally fine). idk, i dont tend to write long fics that end angsty. but my angstiest fic in general is probably Hollow-Boned Boy (armand contemplating his human life in the early CoD era) or Vision of the Damned (daniel's turning from armand's pov)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? i love a happy ending!! my series Odysseus in White Silk is probably the happiest ending, and in such an undeserved way hahaha it's so very AU because i was sad after s1 of the show and just wanted them all (and armandaniel) to live happily ever after

8. Do you get hate on fics? i dont think i ever have, but i tend to read comments in good faith too, so maybe someone out there is annoyed that i interpreted their vague dislike comment as a genuine comment or something, idk. in general though, i'll say no

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? yes but i dont post that often, idk if there's a particular kind, but generally it tends to be a little rougher than is probably appropriate without discussion in real-life situations, but also very...idk my friend described it as very tender, like theyre very clearly in love. which is so funny considering that that kind of tenderness irl gives me fucking hives lmfao

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? oh wow, not in a long time. i do have a wip sitting around rn that's a crossover between london spy and cloud atlas, which is really crazy until you remember that ben whishaw is in both london spy and the cloud atlas movie lol. and cloud atlas is already about weird reincarnations and parallel worlds and stuff, so it isnt too out-there.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? i dont think so!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? yes!! The Face of God was translated into Korean by ao3 user Crescent919 !! i've had a few comments on other fics asking to translate for personal use (always yes, of course), but no one else has asked to share a translation publicly

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? no!! i've been thinking about it lately though

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? all-time? probably merlin/arthur from merlin (bbc). it's the whole fate-destiny-choice thing, it just compels me like nothing else

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? hmmm, i would like to finish Roswell -- well, kinda (agent carter farm girl / alien crash landing au) because i still have all the original notes and outlines and stuff. i also made a shitty conlang when i was first writing it, which is crazy lol. but it would need some pretty serious revisions, and i would definitely rewrite the first few chapters that i posted years ago. i just kind of lost the agent carter bug, but i might return to that fic if i ever get in the mood for it again.

16. What are your writing strengths? ooh, i'm not really sure! i get a lot of comments mentioning characters' voices and/or personalities, so i would say maybe that!!! i also feel that i'm fairly good at mimicking an author's writing style when i want to (notably, i do not mimic anne rice when writing vc fic, lol)

17. What are your writing weaknesses? editing for sure. i have at least a hundred fics sitting on my hard drive fully or almost-fully written that i just need to edit. but i would simply rather die than do all of that. it's also why my whole merlin fic got put on pause while i went down the vc rabbithole, because i just can't bring myself to go edit the next chapters lol

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? hmm, i think it's usually unnecessary and comes off as a bit silly. that said, i did do it once (maybe excessively) in Daniel Molloy, Time Bandit (1984 daniel ends up in 1794 theatre des vampires, it's more of a character study than a time travel fic) BUT, let me defend myself -- i did it because daniel doesnt understand french, it's his pov, and he's incredibly confused and distraught for most of the fic. i felt like the dialogue being in french conveyed this sort of "daniel does not belong in this time/place" vibes. but, also, my french is...a little rough. so i'm sure it's an annoying fic for french readers lmao

19. First fandom you wrote for? warriors cats, a million years ago hahahah

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? ok, i have three different answers for this. the fic i think is the best, objectively, in terms of writing and content: The Story of Dani [...] (r63 devil's minion from armand's pov, starting with lestat's house). the fic i am the proudest of, mostly because it was my first "big" fic (it's funny now, bc it's only 41k) and i feel like i grew a lot as a writer while working on it, and i'm still happy with it: The Face of God (les mis pov javert, character study from childhood). the fic i have the most fun with and think about almost 24/7: Arthur Pendragon, Long May She Reign (r63 merthur, canon divergence, this is like a 4-part series that's currently over 300k lmao)

no-pressure tagging: @aunteat @leslutdepointedulac @butchybats @graygiantess and anyone else who wants to!!

[1moremilgram-enjoyer]

Thus commences the last in the "Haru bugs FF about Milgram" series, with only two more characters to put on the table !! ...Huh? Ask in my inbox? What ask in my inbox, I have no idea what you're talking about !! Aha !! Ahahahaa !! (i swear i'm getting to answering it i'm sorry for the wait) The last two on the list is Green Anime Baby (/ref) and Schrodinger's Sexuality, both of which you have already talked about before but this can serve as an opportunity to say whatever else is on your mind regarding them

The end of an era, really. The final two people.

Take your time on my ask! It's pretty hard to get so many thoughts on these characters in words, because there's a lot to them, so.

CW: Internalized homophobia, suicide and murder, cults and indoctrination, child abuse, heavy Amane apologism.

EDIT: On second read, I may have come off a bit strong with the Amane apologism. Keep in mind most of it’s hyperbole. I recognize her actions are morally grey, that’s the fun of it, but this isn’t a serious analysis. This is a collection of brainrot, and so I’m letting myself indulge in mindless Amane apologism, hope it’s not too much of a bother.

Let's start with Kazui. The (allegedly) gay (possibly) aromantic old man. Yeah, the aro/gay reading has grown on me since I made that Cat post. Though I'm biased towards the aro thing for obvious reasons.

Anyways, I like him! For the final time there is the issue of sexual attraction being a decently big part of someone's character, and me not really being able to relate to that, but at least this one has the whole thing about lying and societal expectations which makes it a bit more interesting for me. I personally have never had any big issues with my sexuality after I figured it out, but I can sympathize with his struggles to an extent. More than I can sympathize with Mahiru anyways.

I am always inclined to like characters who lie a lot, because it makes them more interesting to analyze. I tend to prefer when they aren't constantly telling everyone they're a liar, but Kazui isn't as annoying about it as some other characters (if I can like Kokichi I'll survive Kazui's thing). Kazui is cool because there's always the tiny doubt in my mind that maybe we're making a horrible horrible mistake by voting him inno this trial, but the more logical part of me knows that really isn't the case probably.

Shame his songs aren't really my kinda thing. I like Cat well enough, and I think half is good too, they're just not what I usually listen to.

I think it's funny his first instinct in his first VD was to try and apprehend Es, very funny guy. In particular, I think one of the most hilarious things that I've seen from Milgram so far is when someone before the release of Cat shipped him with the bartender just so Milgram could have a "Gay or European" parody, which is great, watch it if you haven't, and then it became canon (in theory).

As you know, I'm currently voting him Innocent, not just because of the whole "defending the others" thing, but because he clearly regrets what he did, he didn't mean to kill Hinako in the first place, so while what he did was pretty shitty, I don't think it's completely unforgivable.

I'm honestly coming up a bit blank on what to say about him other than the stuff I've sorta already talked about. I'll talk about the interrogations later, because right now I'm sorta distracted... by her.

Look at her!!!!

Look at how silly she is!!! She is not mentally stable but she slays that insanity look!!!

There's more of them??? This is fantastic!!! I love that for her!!!

Look at how happy she is, going to commit first degree murder!!! Yes, go literally slay queen! Kill 'em! Make them suffer >:D!!

(That last image and her murder shot may be my favorite Milgram frames btw)

I love her a lot a lot. To make it clear to you, I like her about as much, if not even more, than Min. Yeah, that's the critical levels of brainrot we're dealing with here.

She's just so fantastic honestly. Her entire story and personality and capital S Silliness is just fascinating, I could think and talk about her forever. It's hard for me to put into words, because I think about her and I start vibrating. Hands are shaking because Amane too awesome.

Amane is the reason why I even got into Milgram in the first place, you know? Like, I was seeing it pop up around my dash every now and then, but I was content to kinda ignore it... until I started seeing fanart of this weird little girl standing in an army of clones, and she looked a little... a little silly you know? I wanted to see what the deal was, and so I started obssessing over Milgram, so.

And what a time to join. Purge March may not be my favorite song musically (it's probably fifth after Backdraft, MeMe, Harrow and Bring it On. Magic is a bit below that but I also like that one), but it's probably overall my favorite MV of the series. Amane's an incredibly interesting character, the visuals are awesome, and lyrically it's amazing. Literally my only complaint is that it isn't longer, like please under three minutes? The shortest fucking MV in the series?! Evil /lh

One of my favorite Milgram lines in general is:

After you cry, repent, and kneel, it’s now your turn to say that hopeless “I’m sorry” You’re sorry? I don’t care! Please, go ahead and die already!

Just the almost jarring shift from "like our religion ordains, everything will be back to normal if you just apologize and repent :)" to "I don't care what you do, I hate you and I want you dead" is fuckaingadjk yes Amane go go go kill 'em! I don't care if you try to excuse your actions by twisting your cult's teachings so much you actually contradict them! That just makes it even better!

Yeah my sense of morality cannot properly process Amane's crimes as actually evil. Honestly she could kill the entire cast and I'd forgive her. Sounds like a skill issue on their part not gonna lie. Just let her stab Shidou, come on! Let her brainwash Fuuta! If she has DID, then let one of the alters not afflicted by Milgram rules stab Es! I think that'd be very funny.

God, she's just asodak`+ anda alsldk

Sorry, I'm normal again <- Kazui-core statement (aka a lie).

Amane's just really awesome. I can't properly make a character analysis here because I will simply explode and I'd like to survive to see her third trial MV. I think I'll love it no matter what it is, but I do have some things I would particularly adore. Bassically I just want her to go feral, just- just go insane. My inner Veronika in full swing, I wanna see a play by play of her murder and just her covered in blood and screaming like yeah girl beat 'em up! I've seen some people suggest she should just turn into a monster in her MV and that would be so awesome. I am so immensely normal about her holy fuck do you understand.

Obviously I think she should be voted Innocent this trial. Because I'm pretty sure there's just no coming back from a second Guilty, so we're essentially dooming her and irreversably breaking her psyche. Shidou will probably survive any physical wounds she could possibly inflict, but I'm not entirely sure Amane would be able to recover after a Guilty. I also have a full draft talking about all the ways voting her Guilty just to protect Shidou could go wrong (Fuuta could attack in her place/there's a chance it wouldn't even stop Amane/Amane could sabotage medical equipment even while Guilty/Amane might still have the "first stage of physical restraints" from Trial 1 making a second Guilty redundant/DID could let her skip over the rules/etc). So overall I think Innocent is by far the better option, and I hope the way she's bleeding Inno percentage is some sort of statistical quirk and not her actually losing ground on absolute terms...

... But.

Listen, an inno is absolutely the best option in my mind. But if she gets voted Guilty, after I cry for a few months straight...

I am going to be so excited to see what she does in Trial 3. My inner Veronika coming out again, I wanna see how bad she gets. The more terrible and feral she becomes, I'll only love her more. I want to see all the horrible things she's willing to do and say without justification (/ref). God Kami-sama I need therapy.

Ehem. Anyways, I like Amane a lot.

And there's the dynamics, the dynamics! I've already brainrotted about her and Fuuta a bit on his post, but holy shit I love them so much. I want them to get out of Milgram and be silly together. They really are the siblings ever. Fuuta would introduce Amane to all sort of online and self-indulgent stuff she probably wouldn't have had access to before, helping her reconnect with her own desires and happiness, and Amane would try to get him to touch some grass and fail miserably. They are probably my favorite prisoner duo overall; they're both already silly on their own, and their silliness is multiplied exponentially when they are together.

Like, you gotta understand. It's not just that they are objectively hilarious together and they should hang out all the time always. There's also the parallels. Have you ever noticed how they both present themselves as heroes in their own ways (knight and magical girl)?

That they both want nothing more than to impress the very people who are pushing them to do bad things?

[Magic] I hope, I hope everyone can be happy and smile

[Backdraft] Tolerate, impress those spectators

The way Fuuta sees judgement as fire while Amane sees it as rain?

And justavs jas doj oq

God I am exploding I am going crazy like O2 I'm burning myself into oblivion I'm undeniably inequivocally definitely completely insane-

Okay I'm calm now. I need to stop thinking about 0308 parallels because I will simply combust. So we're moving on to-

Oh fuck the Es parallels too!

Amane: We’ve talked about this before. There are things more important than the law. That would be our teachings. Es: I won’t acknowledge you turning such selfish rules into a standard of judgment. I won’t allow it. End of story. A: … E: Both religion and faith are free. However, a doctrine can’t become a universal standard of judgment. A: You fool. Isn’t Milgram trying to enforce a new standard of judgment precisely because laws cannot guide this world onto the right path? Are you still being weighed down by the law?

E: Shut your mouth…! I am the one casting the judgements here! A: Hehehe. And how does that set you apart from us?

A: “We”? What’s “we”? Are you not just “I”? E: … I…? A: Aren’t we the same? Me and Warden-san. You know, I’m aware that I’m out of the ordinary. That my environment was peculiar, and that everyone else is normal.

What if I just ascend into another realm? What then? Can I still post my silly little thoughts from the world beyond?

Listen, there's so much to talk about with these two. I've already said I'm a sucker for protag foils, and Amane may be the most direct foil Es has alongside Fuuta and possibly Kotoko. Not to even mention their sibling dynamic, too, only matched in awesomeness by 0308!

E: No matter what you do, no matter how grown-up you behave – you’re a child. That’s an unchangeable truth. A: You’re a child, too! E: Wrong. I’m fifteen, so I’m an adult in Puerto Rico and Haiti. You’re twelve, so you’re a child no matter the country. A: …!! E: Hehe. You look angry. A: I don’t. E: You do. A: I don’t!

Actual sibling behavior what the hell. I think they should stick together if they get outta the hell prison.

Honestly it's ridiculous how awesome this girl is. I could talk about her and her parallels with all prisoners for days straight. I am not normal about her.

It's not even the prisoners either! Like, have you heard of the Sacred Texts, the godforsaken fucking cat parallels?! I'm going crazy just thinking about them. The only reason I haven't posted 15000 different posts about it is because Amane PhD haver Dr purgemarchlockdown has already talked about it so much. But they are so incredible. Animal cover goes hard, too. I have to listen to all of those at some point.

I will be so upset if she doesn't end up Innocent this trial (not as in mad, as in extremely depressed and a bit mad). I've even tried to cope by thinking of how it's mathematically possible she's actually been getting more Inno votes than Guilty but her percentage is dropping anyways due to statistical quirks and please tell me once the percentage stabilizes it will hover around like 53% give me some graphs I want to try to make some predictions please augh-

Anyways I need to calm down or I will never be able to post this.

So let's look at interrogation questions! New ones come out soon, yeah? I'm excited to talk about them when it happens (and after someone translates lol). Kazui first!

(T1) Q2: Is there anyone you hold in high esteem?

K: You wouldn't know them, but I have a childhood friend. I really look up to them. Sorry for bringing up someone you'd have no clue about.

(T1) Q17: What would you do if the world ends tomorrow?

K: I would lazily do some fishing. My childhood friend who I talked about earlier has a boat.

Childhood friends to lovers AO3 tag is strong with this one huh. Hope his Trial 3 MV contains a scene of him fishing. It's just a funny image really.

(T1) Q3: If you were allowed to do anything, what would you want to do?

K: I'd like to live righteously.

(T1) Q4: Do you think that your family is proud of you?

K: No. They must find me embarrassing.

(T1) Q7: Do you like yourself?

K: I can't really say I do.

(T1) Q19: Do you want to be forgiven?

K: I'm not sure. I also want my weakness to be tolerated, to be honest.

Yeah, the (alleged) internalized homophobia is strong with this one, huh. I'm assuming that's what he's referring to when he says "weakness" unfortunately. I hope he gets therapy when he gets out of Milgram. But you can say the same about all the sillies I guess.

(T1) Q5: When you go to an amusement park, what do you like to ride?

K: The merry-go-round. I actually want to try riding on one.

What. Is this. Is this related to the merry-go-round in I Love You? Like Kazui wanting to try being in a relationship where the love is (somewhat at least) reciprocated? Will think on this more later. Maybe.

(T1) Q6: What is the difference between an adult and a child?

K: Responsibility. Adults can't just go and do whatever they want.

One day I'll start making posts about the prisoner pairs and this will come up in 0708 but I am currently unable to think more about Amane without imploding so.

(T1) Q12: What is the meaning of life?

K:I wonder what. If you find out, kindly come and tell this old man.

(T1) Q14: Do you listen to music?

K: Well, a decent amount. I'm sure you wouldn't know them because they're all old songs.

Why does my guy always talk like he's about to die from old age. Dude you're not even 40 you have literally half (song reference hah) of your life left at least, at least try to live it you know?

(T1) Q15: When do you wake up/go to bed?

K: Because I don't have a job now, I'm letting myself act freely. I sleep whenever I get sleepy, and get up before noon.

I've always wondered about this one. Retirement for police officers in Japan is around 60 years usually, so there's gotta be some other reason my guy's unemployed. That's assuming he was a police officer, since I've seen some dispute the claim, but I think it makes sense. Did he quit after Hinako's death? Something happen before it? It's really peculiar, especially because we don't really get any reference to this in either half or Cat from what I can see.

(T1) Q16: Do you believe in past existences and fortune-telling?

K: I don't. I can't shift to them the responsibility of what happens in life.

Oh you mean like how Amane pretends her murder was ordained by God even though her cult would very clearly disavow her killing anyone or anything because of the whole "follow thine destiny" thing? Curious.

Alright now get ready for me to analyze literally every single Amane question out of principle.

(T1) Q1: Do you have any special skills?

A: Nothing that I can call a talent. Perhaps studying. I do well in my Japanese class.

Does murder count as a special skill? Because I think she's actually decently good at it. Her studiousness is obviously caused by the whole cult thing, but good on her for being good at Japanese! Couldn't be me.

(T1) Q2: Is there anyone you hold in high esteem?

A: My father. My father has been on a journey for a while, but that is something very honorable.

I've always wondered how the father thing plays into her story, there hasn't been too much reference to him yet. There is the second voice reveal trailer thing, but honestly I'm not too sure what to make of it honestly.

(T1) Q3: If you were allowed to do anything, what would you want to do?

A: Nothing really. I am not lacking anything.

Alright you lying liar.

(T1) Q17: What would you do if the world ends tomorrow?

A: If everything ends? Then, I might do all sorts of things I have never done before.

I fucking love characters who lie to themselves yes fucking inject that shit in my soul-

(T1) Q4: Do you think that your family is proud of you?

A: Of course. No daughter is as exemplary as I.

(T1) Q13: Who do you want to meet right now?

A: My father. I want him to praise me for working hard.

Her (allegedly) dead mother staring at her from hell like ಠ_ಠ

One day I'll make a post about how it's possible everyone in Milgram's just dead and Amane got killed by her father when he returned home and that's how she ended up in Milgram and I'll be sad.

(T1) Q5: When you go to an amusement park, what do you like to ride?

A: That is a place I should not go to.

I hate her cult so bad. I imagine that would be obvious, but I'll say it anyways.

(T1) Q6: What is the difference between an adult and a child?

A: There is no borderline there. I think there are grown-up children and childish grown-ups.

She had to grow up so fast I'm fucking depressed. Also ngl "childish grown-ups" is kinda based I think Amane should just insult people more often it's very awesome of her.

(T1) Q7: Do you like yourself?

A: I have never considered it from the perspective of love and hate, but I do think I am a good child.

Ouch. Ouchie ouch ouch.

(T1) Q8: Between ethics and emotion, which do you prioritize?

A: Both are trivial.

"Throw down, ethics is a delusion"~

This is honestly just a really funny answer. I get why she's saying it (common ethics and her own emotions are not as important as her cult's teachings in her eyes), but there's always a bit of hilarity that ensues when you say "ethics are trivial." Amane should honestly be allowed to violate Geneva conventions, I think the world would be better if she did.

(T1) Q9: Tell me what your family consists of.

A: It was my father, my mother, and I.

Was, huh. Wonder what happened there (murder happened there (allegedly)).

(T1) Q10: Is there any prisoner you're close with?

A: If I were to say, I guess it would be Yuno and Mahiru.

And then she wasn't! Kami-sama that first trial aftermath was a warzone.

(T1) Q11: What kind of meat do you like?

A: I don't eat meat.

The part of me that loves body horror sorta wants Amane to be shown eating her victim in Trial 3 to really drive home how 'this is not what the cult wants her to do'. Is that not a normal thing to say? It makes me sound completely fucking unhinged? Oops. Anyways.

(T1) Q12: What is the meaning of life?

A: I think it is something you learn for the first time when you look behind yourself when it ends. I do not want to have regrets then, so I live on with all my might.

Sometimes (a lot of the time) I think about Amane when she grows up and hopefully is out of her cult's control, and how she'll feel about the first 12 years of her life. I hope she and Shidou make up.

(T1) Q14: Do you listen to music?

A: Not really, to songs that are highly entertaining.

I headcanon that if the prisoner's listened to each other's songs, Backdraft would be Amane's favorite because it's exciting and she likes Fuuta.

(T1) Q15: When do you wake up/go to bed?

A: I go to sleep at 9PM, and wake up at 6AM.

She sleeps for nine hours a night? This is the healthiest sleep schedule I've ever seen in my entire life the fuck is this. I get this is because of the cult thing, so I think my girl should get to do a sleep-over with some of the other prisoners eventually, but still.

(T1) Q16: Do you believe in past existences and fortune-telling?

A: Although there are many fake ones.

How do you think Amane would react to Mikoto's tarot thing? I can't think of anything funny to say so I'm just not gonna address the question.

(T1) Q18: Do you regret your "murder"?

A: No. It was a natural obligation.

So true bestie, kill the bitch. I will live up to my name as the Local Amane Momose Apologist, I want her to kill everyone that's ever hurt her (not the audience obvs).

(T1) Q19: Do you want to be forgiven?

A: Of course. I anticipate that you will make the right judgment.

Come on, how can you disappoint her again? Vote her inno, she deserves it.

(T1) Q20: Any complaints about being imprisoned?

A: No. Because this is a trial by God.

Reason #543785478 why voting her inno is the better option: there is zero chance she sees a second Guilty as anything but another trial she must endure, so she'll only cling harder to her faith and I seriously worry we might not be able to get her back by the time Trial 3 rolls around.

Okay brainrot over. I'll be surprised if anyone survives that amount of insanity but here we are. Thanks for all the asks! And excited to see what you're cooking on your end. Take care!

[mebbrrr]

One of the mcyt tumblr memories that I can remember most clearly from the dsmp era is you getting put in minecraft jail like 10 times

lives in my brain right above the bug ass saga

[spinningbuster98]

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (Knuckles) Part 2: Knuckles hates the circus

Now I know that unlike Sonic he doesn’t chuckle (yeah sure), but what does Knuckles have against the circus? I don’t understand why his treck through the stage has him pretty much skip 90% of the thing, was Carnival Night just not designed with him in mind?

Other than that though everything else is fine, ice Cap I like how his act 2 focuses on the bottom portion of the stage and I like how different act 2 of Launch Base is with him. It’s appropriate that he gets to fight two versions of the miniboss, after Sonic only fought one with the other two being left inactive if you noticed.

What’s less appropriate is me dying all of a sudden for no good reason because Knuckles just happened to clip through the floor as I was falling

Ok let’s go there

If we wanna talk about an “objective flaw” that Sonic 3 has is that the game is...honestly pretty damn glitchy

Now I know full well that the whole “Sonic is a glitchy, rushed mess of a series lol” take is something that Sonic fans are sick of hearing but...guys there is a degree of truth in that statement and it cannot be denied. Sonic games, even in the early days, have always had at least a certain degree of rough edges. Sonic 1 and 2 were pretty minor with this, at worst there were some physics related shenanigans but nothing too noticeable. Sonic CD was pretty problematic though, with some winky collision detection at points and noticeable slowdown when things got too hectic

Sonic 3 might just be the worst of the classics in this area and Sega must’ve known this because even the International manual mentions something along the lines of Robotnik setting some traps that might be impossible to escape from without resetting the game....which is a cute way of saying you might get softlocked while playing this and I can confirm

Now I don’t wanna say it’s as bad as Sonic 06, but every time, every SINGLE time I play Sonic 3 SOMETHING happens. Whether it’s my dying for no reason at all like what happened here or in a previous video while in the Death Egg, me getting crushed for standing too close to a crusher even though I wasn’t actually crushed by it, clipping through some terrain because I was going too fast forcing me to restart (this happened recently to me twice during another Knuckles playthrough I was doing, during Hydrocity Act 2, and another time it happened while I was messing around with the Hyper Dash as Sonic) and my most detested and frequent occurence: coming at a complete stop while rolling in some specififc loops or up some small hills which is the absolute worse: you lose all momentum and speed for no reason in a game that’s all about momentum and speed

I don’t know what it is with Sonic and glitches, the obvious answer that most on the Internet would give is that Sega likes to rush out games and that Sonic Team is clearly incompetent, but while there is truth in the former statement (as I’ll touch on later), the latter just doesn’t make sense to me: you may use this explanation for current Sonic Team, but this is the Sonic Team that brought us the original games, Sonic 3 itself, glitches aside, is one hell of a game, these guys are by no means incompetent so what happened? Honestly I think it’s partly due to Sonic’s inherently speedy nature, which makes it way easier for physics related bugs to occur.

Honestly for as much as I love Sonic 3 to death I...don’t really have a defense for this. When I was a kid I would rationalize the bugs as this just being an older game, but not only were Sonic 1 and 2 not this buggy, no other big game from this era had all of these issues. Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, Mega Man X,all of these games do have glitches (as all games do), but they’re mostly minor stuff that you have to go out of your way to trigger and can actually be beneficial for speedrunning. If someone were to play this game for the first time and call it mediocre because they happened to run into these bugs frequently...I wouldn’t know what to tell them. I personally believe that Sonic 3′s overall design, gameplay, music and presentation are so top of their class that it allows me to mostly ignore the rough parts, but depending on one’s own sensibility regarding glitches this might not be enough.

Of course I do have an idea as to why Sonic 3 is so much buggier when compared to its predecessors and I believe it’s mostly due to its complicated development and it having to be split in two halves and I really wanted to focus on the latter part

Whenever I hear someone talk about Sonic 3 split nature they usually go “oh man lock on technology was so cool!”

And I’m like: they split a whole game in two parts and made you buy both of them. They sold you an incomplete game only to sell you the rest later on. This is almost the same shit companies like EA and Ubisoft pull nowadays, had the 90s had DLC that’s what Sonic & Knuckles would have been. People trash modern gaming for this, and rightly so, so why does nobody ever talk about this? And I’m not saying all of this because I want to bitch about how “Sega bad” and get a free cookie from Sonic Twitter, I know about the context behind this game, I know about Sega’s deadline due to their deal with McDonalds (which, unless I’m missing some details, feels very stupid to me and proof that Sega’s decision making was pretty faulty even back then) and I know about the difficulties of putting the whole game on a single cartridge without skyrocketing the manufacturing price. Game development can get insanely complicated and messy and I genuinely have respect for Sonic Team for the quality of the final product, especially given the overall conditions in which they were working.

But in the end there’s no getting around the fact that consumers back then had to essentially buy two games to get one

Sonic 3 alone cost about 70 bucks in North America back then

(This is from a magazine from 1994)

I couldn’t find similar data on Sonic & Knuckles but I think it’s safe to assume that it had a similar price tag, meaning that, if you wanted to buy the complete Sonic 3 experience, you had to fork over roughly 100 dollars at the very least. Keep in mind: this is all without taking inflation into account

Now some might say that none of this matters anymore because nowadays you can buy the whole game cheaply off of Steam or something. I find this logic flawed: when judging a game you need to at least take into account the context in which it was made, as that was the only frame of reference that its devs could have while making it as nobody could predict the future

Let’s put it this way: consider all of the beyond half finished trash that some companies nowadays like to throw on the market, while patching it like a year later or something. Now consider that some of those games might get rereleased 30 years from now more cheaply and with their full content from the get go. Would that suddenly make everything ok? No? Then not even Sonic 3 should be excempt from this

Now I’m not saying all of this because I wanna imply that Sonic 3 is actually bad and a cash grab and Sonic was never good yadda yadda

I’m saying that while Sonic 3 the videogame is, from a qualitative standpoint, a phenomenal experience, one of the very best videogames from the 90s (though with some noticeable rough edges), Sonic 3 the commercial product was pretty shoddily, and perhaps even greedily depending on how you wanna look at things, handled. This is an indelible part of the game’s history and I think it should be talked about. For the past years I’ve seen Sonic fans bitch and moan about the prices of games like Forces or Superstars because they’re too high for games that are so short and clearly rushed etc. And they might even have a point or two but I find it absolutely unfair that Sonic 3, which has the same issues in this regard but on an even bigger scale, is never mentioned, purely because it came out when all the people who are currently bitching about the industry’s problems were kids who had their parents but them stuff and this kind of discourse was practically non-existence. It’s a matter of fairness is what I’m saying

[ladyvillainous]

Ardeth Bay SFW Alphabet

Working on a little something new but while you're waiting have some head canons on my latest character obsession

A Affection

(How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

For someone so serious he is surprisingly affectionate unafraid to take your hand on even kiss you in public, no matter what his men think. Though he is much more reserved in public than in private where he is free to show you affection much more enthusiastically.

B Best friend

(What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

Part of the same Medjai clan you’ve known Ardeth your entire life though he is older than you. When you were a child, you took to following him around, it bugged him at first but eventually he started to refer to you as his little shadow, he’s been very protective of you ever since. Taking the time to personally teach you how to defend yourself even thought such skills are not usually taught to the women of the clan as the sworn Medjai are exclusively male.

C Cuddle            

(Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

When in the right setting, relaxed and in the mood, I think the man can be very tactile, but I wouldn’t say cuddling is his go to, though he will always hold you close when you fall asleep.

D Domestic

(Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

This character is from the 1920/30’s where getting married and settling down with a few kids was expected. I think he longs for the simple domesticity of a wife and children, but his sworn duty keeps him busy and away from home for long stretches of time that he would need a very understanding woman. When he took his oath, he did so knowing that it was likely he would never marry or father children, his sacred duty would always have to be more important.  

He's always been reasonably neat even married he wouldn’t expect his wife to do all the chores happily pitching in and helping. He’s not a good cook but he has taught himself with help from your mother to cook your favourite dishes.  

E Ending

(If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

Ardeth is very cool, calm, collected and methodical in his approach to every aspect of his life I do not think he would enter into a relationship unless he knew it would be for keeps. His character is of an era where marriage was expected to be for life and where many couples had very short courtships.

However, the unexpected can happen but I don’t think he would ever choose to end a relationship, she would have to be the one that left him after which he’d vanish into the desert for many months and never speak of it again when he re-emerged.

F Fiancé(e)

(How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

He would happily commit to the right woman, but he wouldn’t do so until she clearly understood what the life of a Medjai entailed, he would not want it to come as a shock after they are married.

G Gentle

(How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

He is incredibly kind and caring to you both physically and emotionally though he can get somewhat direct even with you when the world is about to end but I think we can forgive him that.

H Hugs

(Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

He loves nothing more than to pull you into his arms and hold you close. He especially loves coming up behind you when you’re cooking or busy with some task to wrap his arms around you and bury his face in your hair. He loves the smell of the Jasmine body and hair products you use; on you he finds it intoxicating.  

I I love you

(How fast do they say the L-word?)

I think it would take a while because he’d need to be sure of you, that you understood his life and accepted him for who he was not who you might want him to be. It would take a lot for him to fall out of love once declared, to him love and loyalty are forever, and he doesn’t take that lightly.

J Jealousy

(How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

He is so careful about picking his partner I don’t believe he would choose someone that would give him any cause for concern accidentally or deliberately. Once he has falls for you, he trusts you completely because he took the time to get to know you.

K Kisses

(What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Ardeth is a very passionate person, if he feels strongly for you his affections will always been tender but all encompassing. He loves to kiss you on the palm of your hand or your inner wrist while keeping his eyes locked on yours, the intensity makes you blush and melt every time.

He loves it when you rise up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek it’s such a small gentle thing, but it sets his heart aflutter.

L Little ones

(How are they around children?)

He loves kids though they often find him a little intimidating at first as one of the Medjai commanders and due to his serious demeanour. He is always kind and patient with them going out of his way to help them with their work or training, so it takes very little time to win them round. He considers it practise for the day when he maybe blessed with his own child.  

M Morning

(How are mornings spent with them?)

Ardeth has many demands on his time he is usually awake and gone before dawn returning long after night falls if he returns that day at all. There are odd days here or there where he is able to stay with you a little longer, on these days he still rises early unable to break the habit, but he uses the time to cook you breakfast before crawling back into bed with you to take advantage of not having to be anywhere else for once.

N Night

(How are nights spent with them?)

He’s often home late if he comes home at all but he always as much as possible makes sure to keep you informed. You’ve learned to cook meals that work hot as well as cold so you can leave him a plate in the stove for when he eventually returns.

He's so grateful that you take care of everything at home and look after him so that he might take care of the clan, but he never takes you for granted. On nights he is especially late he’ll often return with a desert bloom or small trinket of some kind along with words of love as he pulls you into his arms.

O Open

(When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

Ardeth has no secrets from you if you ask a question of him, he will always answer honestly thought he doesn’t often offer up the information. This isn’t because he doesn’t want to share, but because he prefers to be in the moment with you rather than discuss clan business when your time together is so precious and limited.

P Patience

(How easily angered are they?)

You’ve seen Ardeth annoyed, passionate, frustrated and everything in between but you can hand on heart say you’ve never seen him lose his temper. Keeping a calm head has become second nature to him at this point it’s not that he doesn’t get angry he does but he’s learnt exploding doesn’t help anything.

Q Quizzes

(How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention)  

He remembers every single little detail, from your favourite flower and perfume to how you take your morning coffee. He considers these little things part of who you are and shows you how much he cares for you by remembering these things.

R Remember

(What is their favourite moment in your relationship?)

You wedding day is indelibly printed on his mind, how beautiful you looked being escorted down that aisle to him and the shy smile you gave him from behind your veil, he’d never seen anyone look beautiful than you did that day.

S Security

(How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Very protective, he would lay down his life if it meant protecting you from harm, but he has also taken the time to ensure you can protect yourself knowing he cannot always be there to look after you.

T Try

(How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

He’s not one for grand gestures it’s the little things that he does that pull at your heartstrings like remembering that you like the blue desert blooms over the red or noticing that your body oil is running low and picking some up for you when he’s at the market. The single most romantic thing he’s ever done for you in your mind was taking the time to go to your mother for lessons on how to make your favourite dishes and then practising until he got it perfect.  

U Ugly

(What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Ardeth can be very black and white and rigid about the old traditions and customs because he is so passionate about preserving their history. It can be very frustrating at times for a person championing change thought there are changes he too believes should be made, they’re just not as numerous as some would like.

V Vanity

(How concerned are they with their looks?)

He’s proud of his tattoos as they identify him as a Medjai a cause he is completely devoted to but otherwise is not too concerned with his looks. He keeps his beard and hair neat because it is more practical in the desert, where he spends much of his time. He takes care of his clothes for the same reason, for him it’s all about protecting himself against the elements rather than making a fashion statement.  

W Whole

(Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Yes, to him you are his other half, his twin flame, his soulmate he would be devastated to lose you but would always be hopeful that time would bring you back together, in this life or the next.

X Xtra

(A random head canon for them)

He privately thinks it’s wrong that Medjai can only be male. He personally knows several women who have as much passion, skill and drive as his men, perhaps more in some cases. Change is never quick or easy however, while some of the older commanders still hold position it is not worth making waves. It is however why he will happily put a sword in a woman’s hand and show her how to use it if she asks it of him.

Y Yuck

(What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

They would find a clingy partner that didn’t understand his duties and making demands on his time that he couldn’t fulfil very difficult.  

Z Zzz

(What is are some sleep habits of theirs?)

He snores (loudly) if he sleeps on his back, waking you every time to the point where you could no longer sleep tucked into his side. Now you lie on your side instead knowing he’ll wrap himself around you and thus avoiding the chance of being woken up repeatedly in the night.