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celeste-clearwater-06 · 3 years

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Hello! I was wondering if you could please write something about how the Fellowship (+ Thorin?) Would help a s/o who's Disabled and Chronically ill. Like she has a lot of symptoms like chronic pain, chronic fatigue, difficulty sleeping, difficulty breathing at times, difficulty walking at times, higher sensitivity to the cold, difficulty talking at times, and anxiety, depression and executive dysfunction?

I've been really struggling with my chronic illnesses lately, namely my Autism, Anxiety, Sleep Apnea, a really bad Overbite, Raynaud's Syndrome, Asthma, etc, so I'd really appreciate an Imagine like this. I have a really weird disorder where one of my legs is longer than the other, and it's been causing me a lot of pain and difficulty walking lately, and people have been bullying me for it a lot too, so I could really use a Comfort Imagine right now. Thanks so much hun!!

It's no problem! I'm glad I can provide some comfort!! For each character, I'll use a specific struggling area, to make it a bit easier!! I hope I got these accurate enough, and of there are any mistakes, feel free to point them out!! You are strong, beautiful and so, so amazing!! Keep being you!! ❤❤

Help (The Fellowship// Thorin x Fem!Reader)

Aragorn (Autism)

Aragorn has known you for a long time, so helping with your autism is not new for him

He's particularly experienced in reading your emotions and meeting your needs, whether it's helping you out of stressful situations or calming you down, he's there 🥺

If there are large and boisterous gatherings in Rivendell, its almost guaranteed that you can become over-stimulated quickly, and Aragorn immediately senses this (spidey senses õoõ)

He's fast to find your hand and give it a gentle squeeze of reassurance

If that doesn't seem to help, he'll instantly stop what he's doing and take you out of the room

If you're someone who prefers lots of space and little physical contact, he is 100% respectful of this and asks if you'll let him touch or hug you (very much gentleman 😌)

If ever you're confronted by someone of importance, Aragorn is right by your side to ease some of the tension

Sometimes there are things you find difficult to say or get out of your system

The king seems to know exactly what it is and will help you out by saying it or asking you simple questions that you can easily answer

And he always reminds you, no matter WHAT

YOU ARE NOT STUPID 😤😡

You may struggle with some parts of your life, but every day, he's constantly telling you that you're very intelligent and kind

His patience is unending and he'll never let you think down on yourself

Overall, Aragorn is always someone and reminding you that it's all going to be okay ❤❤

Legolas (Anxiety)

Most nights, Legolas keeps watch (since elves don't require much sleep) and notices that you jolt awake out of the random

Now, most of the Fellowship notices that you're usually awake and ready to go before anyone else

But Legolas is really the one to address you first

You were a bit nervous to explain, since you didn't want to worry him or the great of the fellowship, amount the other disadvantages you have

He gently encouraged you, and finally, you explained to him your sleep apnea

Yeah, he was very concerned

I mean, his blue eyes widened with terror when you told him that you could basically die in your sleep if you weren't attentive enough 🙃

Legolas, from now on, sleeps directly next to you, or keeps extra careful watch over you at night

Because he could NEVER see his precious mortal friend become injured... Or worse 🥺🥺❤

The other members had noticed a change in his behaviors towards you as well...

Gimli teased him whenever he caught Legolas giving you some extra lembas bread or offered to carry you 👉👈

You really tried to assure Legolas that it wasn't a big deal when you were awake, since you're aware of your breathing situation

But still 😤

Legolas will always bring you comfort and take great care of you, and that will NEVER CHANGE

Because he loves you very much ❤🦋

Frodo (Anxiety)

Frodo is familiar with the feeling of great anxiety, seeing he had a stress-free life while living in the Shire and suddenly was forced to carry a piece of jewelry all the way to giant ass volcano

It's easy for you two to comfort each other and seek refuge in thoughts and feelings ❤

He's not super comfortable with the thought of you having a panic attack though...

Only because he's never had one

It starts to give him a panic attack whenever you have one around him the first time 😳-

Any time you begin to breathe heavy or hyperventilate, halfling boy is hot at your heels, rubbing your back and reminding you to breathe gently

(So many hugs, if you're up for it)

After you calm down, he's constantly checking on you, asking if you need anything etc.

Really, he just wants to know if he can help 🥺

And even with the weight and stress of carrying the ring, Frodo manages to cheer you up somehow

Samwise (Asthma)

Sam has never had to deal with asthma once in his life

He's very nervous when the subject is brought, afraid it might trigger something inside of you 🥺👉👈

But you just chuckle, assure him that it's alright, and you have ways of keeping it under control

And now, he wants to know everything about it, just to have the awareness in case something happens

Sam just wants to protect you forever, and this was a great way for him to start

He constantly reminds Aragorn that you'll need breathing breaks and will convince Gandalf to let you ride on his horse

He'll scold Pip and Merry if they are trying to drag you around and be silly, because as he says

"You'll rouse him/her/them up! We can't have Y/N gettin injured!" 🤨😠

Sam is MOM

As always, he's very kind and always makes sure your needs are met ❤🥺

Pippin and Merry (Raynaud's Syndrome)

Very confused halfings 🤔

Also extremely concerned!

You were eating one of the lesser pleasurable nights

It was cold and rainy, and a fire couldn't be started, not to mention the quiet arguments of Aragorn and Gandalf in the nearby woods

And Pip's eyes widened when he saw the tips of your petite fingers begin to pale upon hearing Aragorn mention Orcs

"What's wrong with your hands?!" He squeaked, pointing towards your now white-colored fingertips

You hadn't even noticed, nor felt, considering they were numb anyways

Merry looked over his cousin's shoulder and his eyes also widened, not with fright, but wonder

They were both fascinated with your condition, convinced that you were casting some spell Gandalf showed you

Although you reassured them it was just an extremely frustrating inconvenience that you had, among other things

So from then on, the disastrobus duo did their best to keep you out of the cold (and stressful situations!!)

As a distraction, the pair will tell you great stories of the shire, doing little dances and skits that always cheer you up 🥴

Sometimes, they can be a little rambunctious though...

Merry will pick up on this fact quickly, and nudge Pippin to get him to calm down

Even though it may not feel the best

They find your syndrome absolutely fascinating!! 🤔🤔

All in all, these two are always up for keeping your beautiful smile on your face and your spirits high!! ❤🌺

Boromir (Depression)

Throughout the journey, Boromir has always found an easy way to make you smile

After all, he himself has a fascinating way of brightening anyone's spirits

Yours included ❤

Boromir may not have great stories from The Shire, like Pip and Merry, but he sure has a lot of positive things to say

He'll often suggest sparring with the two troublemaking halflings, just so you can see him goof up and get knocked over 🥺

If the nights become cold and weary, he'll give you a warm hug or a nudge on the shoulder

And a few words of helpful encouragement along the lines of;

"Don't fret Y/N. You have more strength than you'll ever know."

"Let our spirits never dampen! We've come this far!" 😊

He's also an incredible listener

Boromir wants to hear what you have to say if you ever need to rant or get something off of your chest

And don't think for a second that he would ever judge you 😤

Son of Gondor sees past all of your insecurities and knows you for your beautiful, amazing self ❤❤

Gimli (Walking disadvantages)

As you travel across great plains and mountains, your limp doesn't go unnoticed by Gimli

It may take him a while to open up about it, since he's afraid he might offend you in some way

And once he asks you, you inform him that it's a difficulty that unfortunately cannot be changed any time soon

And where you come from, lots of people tease and bully you about it

He did NOT handle it well 😳

"wHAT BLUBBERING DULL-MINDED PIGNUTS-" 🤬

Although this Dwarf is short and a bit slow at times

He's fascinatingly strong 😳

And so, he makes it his duty to be your designated carrier 🥺

At first, your a tad skeptical...

I mean, he's only around 4 feet tall...

BUT HAVE YOU SEEN HIM THROW THAT HUGE AX AROUND?!

Gimli will happily carry you great distances when you need a break, and even longer

(Sometimes it's just to show off around the others-)

"Gimli, are you sure you don't want a break?"

"Aye lass! The strength of Dwarves is unending!" 😌

*struggling to breathe*

11/10, fantastic dwarf, will never let you down!!

Thorin (Executive Dysfunction)

Another Dwarf??

Absolutely

Thorin himself has trouble keeping composure with his time management (and sense of direction 🙄)

This means that he'll have an undying amount of patience for you and you only

There's just something about you that he fond of, and it fills in that little sassy, brooding place in his heart

Can also relate to you whenever you grow frustrated at the setback of your journey or lack of sleep

Is 100% willing to help you find your lost belongings (and once again, ONLY YOU)

Thorin will literally make the whole traveling party stop so that you can put something in your bag and make sure that you put it somewhere you'll remember

Always happy to give you extra gentle reminders of keeping your pack closed

The company is utterly SHOCKED with how he treats you

I mean, this man has always been extremely stubborn and hard headed

But when you show up, it's another person he can easily relate and share frustrations with

Also a master at organization?!? 🤔

The one thing he could do successfully was organizing the damn journey and traveling company, so ofc he's gonna be good at that 😂

Yeah, Thorin definitely has a soft spot for you

King under the mountain will never run out of patience and kindness for you 😌💙

Sorry these took so long!! I hope you like them!! ❤❤

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cobaincreates · 3 years

Text

eyes on fire

warnings: angst, smut, 18+

count: 9k+

i went ham on this because i personally needed it & yeah. wow look i actually posted something!!! love that for me & you if you enjoy this. feedback wouldn’t hurt love ya :)

listen to this

not my pic— but like imagine him with tHAT hair & fake blood on his face???? cya!

— — —

“woah, woah, wait…you’re telling me you didn’t cry at the thirteenth year?” you asked incredulously, trying not to run the car off the road. you saw the quick shake of the head of the person sitting beside you and tried not to gape. “ryan, we were together for a year and you’re just now telling me that you, not only lied to me, but that you did not cry at the thirteenth year?”

“why is that so shocking? it’s a cheesy movie.” ryan shrugged, lifting his hips in his seat to put his phone back in his pocket.

you rubbed your eyebrow exasperatedly. of course one of the single times you had recommended a movie to him— and he didn’t cry. you couldn’t believe it. “he gets to go back to his mother! how can you not shed a few tears?”

“i don’t know what you want me to say.” he laughed, annoyed.

“you have no heart.” you shook your head and turned your blinker on.

“you already knew that from dating me.” ryan poked you in the side, making your body jerk as you took the turn. “otherwise, you’d still be up my ass.”

“i think you’re mistaken. it was you who was up my ass.” you pointed between the two of you, keeping your eyes on the road.

ryan scrunched his face up and you caught a glance at it, giggling to yourself. it was so easy to mess with each other, even after breaking up. you were glad of that though since ryan was one of your best friends.

college was weird for anybody, especially someone like you who moved all the way across the country to go. california was like a fever dream now that you were back home, on an island. it was only for the weekend since that was about all you could take. it was halloween, although you hadn’t realized until ryan reminded you while on the plane.

now here you were, heading to a halloween party with ryan where he would inevitably meet your friends and people you went to high school with. it wasn’t that you were dreading it, you just had the idea of staying in for the night. especially a night like halloween when you could’ve handed out candy. as if ryan would want to do that in a new place.

“i swear if you throw up on my shoes this year, i’m removing you from my life.” ryan said as he shifted in his seat.

you flashed at another car to go before pressing down on the pedal. “i don’t think i’ll be drinking and driving this time. just don’t puke on my shoes otherwise you’ll be stranded.”

“i knew i shouldn’t have come with you, knowing that you would willingly leave me stranded on a fuckin’ island.”

“don’t test me, ry.” you sang just as you slowed the car along the crowded street. a couple of people dressed up walked in between the car in front of you and yours, heading toward the lively house.

multicolored lights lit up the windows and the outside of the house, the front room bathed in a deep red. you started to feel excitement bubble up in your stomach as you and ryan unfastened your seatbelts. a handful of trick or treaters passed on the walkway, some running around to scare others. you smiled to yourself as you put your car key in your pocket.

ryan’s arm settled around your shoulders as you walked up the driveway, a cool ocean breeze brushing over your face. this was something ryan still continued to do even though you had been broken up for months. it comforted you to know he was still just as protective of you as you were of him. it sort of became an unspoken pact of yours to just keep each other safe at parties or whenever you went out with friends back at school.

“i think we’re a bit underdressed.” ryan’s arm tightened around your neck, pulling you close so he could talk into your ear.

“only a little.” you hummed as you passed multiple people outside who all wore costumes. some zombies, some witches, a clown, even a whoopie cushion. at least you hadn’t come as that.

once inside, ryan’s arm slipped away from you as you both scanned the area. ryan was just curious while you were looking for your friends. the house was big so they’d be anywhere. the voices were much louder than the music, but you could still hear the halloween playlist playing. you stepped out of the way a couple times in the crowded entryway and eventually took ryan’s hand to bring him into the kitchen.

“y/n!” you heard and turned around to find ally, dressed as the infamous annie.

“you look ridiculous,” you laughed, ruffling her red wig and pulling her in for a hug.

“i always commit, don’t i?” she grinned before looking beside you at ryan. “hey! it’s so nice to finally meet you!”

they exchanged a quick hug, ally having seen ryan plenty of times through a phone screen. it was odd seeing them in the same room, right in front of you, but you smiled nonetheless.

“come with me! everyone else is in the front room.” she grabbed ahold of your hand quickly and started to pull you out of the room.

ryan touched your shoulder, making you and ally stop. “i have to pee.” he said, looking from you to ally in question.

“right over there.” ally said, pointing to your left. you could see down the hall that a few people were waiting, leaning against the wall.

moments later you were in your small alcove of friends, checking up on small talk and whatnot. ally was talking in your ear about some gossip in town and you really were listening, but also wondering if ryan would find his way to you or vice versa. your eyes scanned the room curiously, deciphering everyone’s outfits and costumes. you sort of loved halloween for that prospect, getting to be someone else. or something else— you supposed some people just really wanted to be a shark at times.

“she totally snubbed her!” ally said.

“are they talking anymore?” you asked, trying your best to continue the conversation.

“i haven’t heard anything, but the last time i saw them they were totally going at it!” her excitement grew drastically. her hand came down over your wrist. “i think she was saying...”

you were nodding along to ally’s reenactment, her words coming a thousand miles a minute. you completely lost track of what she was saying as you looked across the room at rafe cameron. without even thinking about it, your stomach twisted up and it felt like you couldn’t breathe. maybe there was too many people in the house.

rafe was tilting a bottle against his lips, head leaned back on the wall. he seemed to fit into the empty space beside a large entertainment area, but looked like he didn’t belong at the same time. he was staring right back at you, which in return only made your pulse quicken and your blood run hotter. from what you could tell from his costume, he had fake blood around his mouth that dripped onto a fine pressed white t-shirt. the fabric molded to his chest nicely and you swore you blacked out because the next moment, you saw ally peering at you.

“what?”

a shit-eating grin spread across her face. “you weren’t even listening, were you?”

“i was,” you said abruptly. you were glad of the red lighting as you felt the tips of your ears warm up. “the beginning anyways.”

ally laughed and nudged your side. “i get it, rafe cameron is much more interesting to pay attention to.”

“i don’t know what you’re talking about.”

ally gave you a knowing smile, peering past your shoulder. “come on, let’s go find ryan. you know how these people can easily swallow him up.” her hand grabbed yours again, pulling you directly through the crowd and in the same direction of where rafe was.

you kept your head down as you pushed through the mass of bodies, willing yourself not to make eye contact with him. it was a little difficult given that you had to pass right by him in order to get into the next room. topper, his best friend, had joined him now and he seemed to be talking into rafe’s ear about something. rafe was looking at you instead as you went by and you let out a big breath once you were by him.

there was no history between you and rafe cameron. absolutely nothing. maybe you had passed a paper to him in high school or were put into a group project with him, but that was it. you had never spoken to the infamous boy one-on-one. in high school, rafe was untouchable and you knew you weren’t even in range of his inner circle, or outer for that matter. frankly, you hadn’t even thought about him until now, seeing him again. growing up around someone like him and his family, you knew all of the stories. rafe was a complete and total heartbreaker.

ryan had managed to make some friends while only being at the party for a total of 20 minutes. really, you weren’t all that surprised seeing as that ryan could make friends with a horse. it was just in his nature to connect with people.

you found him in the entryway, sporting a drink in his hand and talking to a girl you recognized from gym class senior year. you couldn’t put a name to her face, but you gave a subtle wave and found a place on the other side of ryan. without looking at you, he put his drink out and you took a few sips before giving it back to him. ally had gone on her own path once you found him, saying she needed to find someone.

leaning against the wall, you pressed your hands against the cool surface. you didn’t bother listening in on ryan’s conversation, not wanting to intrude just in case he was trying to do more than talk. instead, you people watched, your eyes flitting across the party and the red room. the entryway was a deep blue, coating everything completely. you almost felt like you were in a movie of some sort.

you landed on rafe again, this time he was engaging in conversation with topper. he was off the wall, his finger against topper’s chest as he spoke. you swallowed and looked away just as he started to turn his head. part of you hoped he hadn’t caught you.

without thought, you pushed off the wall and went into the kitchen to finally get a drink. your mind felt like it was going 90 miles an hour and you needed to do something to busy yourself. you couldn’t just be a wallflower and people watch all night.

stirring up some concoction in the kitchen, it wasn’t rocket science to figure out who stepped into the room and came over to you. your stomach twisted up, which was a prime indicator. you kept your eyes on your cup and continued making your drink. it wasn’t like you to ignore someone’s presence, but you wanted to prove to yourself that you could handle it.

“y/n y/l/n.” a wave of shivers went up your shine. you had never heard him say your name before.

“rafe cameron.” you said in return and picked up your cup, taking a sip and turning to look up at him over the rim.

he gave you a smile. “long time, no see. you look good.”

your drink went down the wrong pipe, causing you to cough. rafe only smiled more. you cleared your throat and lowered your drink to your side.

“you look...messy.” you noticed the fake puncture marks on his neck, just under them was a lipstick print. you then looked at his mouth, red as red could be, and your ears warmed.

“what are you supposed to be?” you didn’t miss the way his eyes traveled up and down your body and you could’ve sworn they darkened. the kitchen had the normal yellow lights on, so there was no way any lighting altered his irises.

“didn’t have time to dress up.” you shrugged a shoulder. taking another sip, you kept eye contact with him.

“not even for halloween?” he teased and reached over you for another beer. you didn’t even flinch, watching his face move closer to yours. you stared right up into his eyes and help a gasp in. why was he getting you so flustered?

“i got in later than i thought.” you said simply, now breathing easier as he moved away and opened the beer.

rafe nodded, never once looking away from you. now you knew why some people saw him as intimidating. he looked like he would pounce on you at any second.

the next moment as people chatted and moved around the kitchen, rafe was gesturing with his head toward the entryway. “who’s the guy?”

you looked in the direction he meant and found ryan, smiling big while talking to the girl in front of him. he was leaned over her now and you knew that as a good sign. “ryan,” you told rafe.

“boyfriend?” he asked, and you held back the smile, wondering just why he wanted to know that.

“ex.” you didn’t miss the way he seemed satisfied with that answer, the smirk pulling at the corner of his lips.

“interesting.” he said and took another sip. he glanced at ryan while you continued looking at him. his hair was disheveled from its usual slicked back look and you kind of liked it better this way. to put it simply, he looked sexy.

“rafe!” you both looked over at topper who was making his way into the room. he pointed over his shoulder, cup in his other hand. “we’re going down to the beach, come on.”

“yeah, i’ll be right there.” he said and turned back to you, smiling again. topper met your eyes once until you looked up at rafe. “come with me?”

you thought about it, nearly saying yes until you remembered ryan. you didn’t want to leave without telling him, but you did want to see what they were doing on the beach.

“you go,” you nodded toward topper. “i’ll see you around.” with that, you turned and secretly hoped that rafe watched you go.

—

a game of flip cup never hurt anybody. you were well under way in your second round, on the opposite team of ryan and totally kicking ass. ally was beside you, currently downing her drink and proceeding to flip the cup perfectly. it was an innocent game that you had practiced back at school and ryan knew it all too well.

“see you on the floor,” you joked with him and held your cup out to him in cheers. his team was slacking, a current senior at your old high school having trouble flipping the cup.

ryan rolled his eyes, impatience seeping into his features. “i’ll be the one picking you up from the floor, y/l/n.”

you laughed while trying to keep all of the liquid in your mouth. you pushed it down swiftly, setting the plastic cup on the edge of the table and pushing up the bottom with one finger. it landed perfectly.

“fuck yes!” you threw your arms up in victory, high-fiving ally next to you. the game had gathered a group of on-lookers and they cheered for your team. ryan sulked.

a breeze blew over your shoulders, the salty smell filling your senses, as you stood outside. the night went on in full swing, the moon high up and the trick-or-treaters still out, wreaking havoc on the town. a fire in the small metal pit burned steadily, but you weren’t too far away to feel the pulsing heat. after this game, you planned on taking a break.

you had acquired a buzz so far, taking it slow so you could enjoy the party. for the most part you were and honestly, the little glances you caught from rafe were adding to it. he wasn’t trying to be sneaky about it at all and you liked that. it didn’t feel like he was following you around the party, but you did see him wherever you went. you supposed that small conversation in the kitchen had stuck with him, oddly.

standing at the table, you didn’t have to look to know where he was. maybe he thought he was being stealthy, standing near the back door, relaxed, hand in his pocket. all it would take was for you to look slightly to the right, but you held back for the sake of your own sanity. his stares had been driving you crazy. all you wanted to know was what the hell he was thinking. you could guess a couple things with the way he smirked or the way his eyes traveled over you, but you pushed those thoughts deep down. this was rafe cameron.

“my god, ryan you suck!” ally teased beside you now. you looked across the table at ryan who was struggling to flip the cup. ally laughed, holding her gut.

“since when can you not flip a cup?” you asked.

“shut the fuck up!” ryan said, trying to focus. you shook your head at him, grinning stupidly. it took him a couple tries before he finally got it and the turn went to someone else. he looked at you, huffing out a big breath.

“that was sad.” you said, crossing your arms over your chest.

“that was hilarious!” ally said.

“i need a fuckin’ drink.” he sighed.

“don’t quit now! we have to see you lose first.” ally brushed her hair out of her eyes, her annie wig now off and sitting somewhere in the house. just then you caught a glimpse of it through the window, someone trying it on for size. your eyes quickly swept over rafe, still in the same spot.

“i'm not playing anymore games after this.” ryan stated.

“no, come on! you said you’d be on my team for cornhole.” ally whined, the alcohol surely overtaking her senses. she wasn’t usually whiny.

“fuck cornhole.” ryan said just as your team cheered, having won the game. ryan gave you a nod and walked away, heading inside past rafe.

ally caught your attention before rafe could. “i'm freezing. let’s go sit by the fire for a little.”

you happily followed her, licking your lips and still tasting the beer. you both sat down on the cushioned loveseat, ally quickly throwing her legs over your lap. you took them in, setting your hands atop them. the heat was quick to run up your own legs and warmed you up instantly. burrowing yourself further into your sweatshirt, you let your muscles relax.

“i'm not a lightweight, am i?” ally asked.

you looked over at her from the sky, admiring how the fire illumiated the trees. you laughed lightly, patting her shins. “of course not.”

“you fucking liar.” she grinned and kicked your thigh. “i totally am. it’s fine, at least i always have a good time, right?”

“right.” you agreed. “you don’t make a fool of yourself, not at all.”

“shut up.” she laughed. “oh my god, you weren’t there!” she suddenly remembered. “topper had a party at his place a couple months ago and of course, knowing me i willingly went, not having anything else to do nor was my best friend here to entertain me or look out for me…” she eyed you teasingly.

“get on with it.” you rolled your eyes. deep down, you knew ally wasn’t that upset about you being so far away. sure, you had hoped to go to the same school, but she was the only person here who was pushing you to go further away.

“i think i had, maybe, two white claws—”

“oh god.”

ally laughed loudly, her back arching off the couch. “they’re so good! anyways, two in and i start crying about brie larson.”

“what about her?” your body started to shake with laughter even though you had no idea where this was going.

“have you seen her? have you seen that woman? she’s so goddamn beautiful, i can’t cope.” ally said exasperatedly. “it’s not fair that she doesn’t know who i am.”

“maybe someday.” you patted her knee. she started to roll her eyes, but you were quick to stop her. “you never know! crazy shit happens these days.”

ally didn’t say anything, reaching for an itch on her thigh. you looked back up at the sky above and relished in the warmth. suddenly, you felt ally tense up. you lifted your head and looked at her worriedly. she was looking past you and she lifted her legs to sit up.

“crazy shit, indeed. rafe is coming over here. act normal.”

you opened your mouth, no words coming out. she sat up quickly and tidied herself as rafe stopped beside you. you looked up at him, finding that same dumb smile. his fake blood hadn’t even come off yet— what the hell was it?

“hey, rafe.” ally said, way too high pitched.

“hey. mind if i steal y/n for a little?” he brushed his hair back and pointed at you.

“not at all.” ally said too quickly and stood up. “i was just going to get another drink.”

rafe nodded and let her pass. he moved to take her seat beside you as you looked after her, bulging your eyes. she opened her mouth in a fake excited scream, no sound coming out. you swallowed thickly and looked over at rafe. his elbows were perched on his knees, giving you a nice view of his back, muscles tight under his shirt.

“what’s up?” you half-whispered, getting your voice back.

he smiled at you, slightly turning into a smirk. “i was just wondering if you wanted to play a game of beer pong with me. top’s almost finished with his game.” he gestured to the kitchen inside where you could see the boy in question’s arms shoot up as he cheered.

“what’s the catch?” you asked, looking back over at him. why would rafe cameron ask you, specifically, to play a game of beer pong with him if there wasn’t a catch?

“does there have to be one?” he inquired, lifting a brow.

“with you, yes.” you said confidently, not having a clue where it came from. you had never talked to him this way— or ever, you reminded yourself.

rafe stared at you incredulously then let out a small laugh. he breathed in, glancing at the fire. you watched the side of his face, seeing how the fire flickered over his features and showed off how smooth his clean-shaven cheek looked. you wondered what it felt like.

before you could wonder anything else, he looked back over at you. the smile was partially gone, all teasing now. “if i win…you come down to the beach with me.”

you searched his face, a heavy feeling pooling in the bottom of your stomach. you shivered slightly and sat up to be a bit closer to him. his eyes followed you carefully. “and if i win?” the confidence came easier now.

you didn’t miss the slight lean he made toward you, the fire catching in his eye. “name your terms.”

you didn’t once look away as you thought about something you could get, had you won the little game. it took a lot in you not to let your eyes stray further down his face, no matter how distracting the fake blood was. you had never had such intense eye contact with anyone and if you had been thinking about it, you knew you would surely look away. now, experiencing it, you didn’t feel the nervousness or desire to look away.

“hm,” you hummed, willing yourself not to press your lips together once he let his eyes flicker down to them. “if i win you give me a piggyback ride to the beach.”

it struck you then just how beautiful his smile really was. the way his eyes lit up, crinkled a little. he laughed and nodded. “deal.”

—

“i know i won, very fairly might i add, but i am sorry for completely wrecking you in that game.” rafe said.

“god, it’s like your ego grew ten times bigger.” you teased, crossing your arms over your chest to warm up from the breeze. it picked up much more as you grew closer to the beach. the waves were loud as you anticipated feeling the sand on your now bare feet, your shoes left on the back patio. it was cold once you reached it.

you stopped a ways away from the water, closing your eyes for a moment. you missed this, you missed the wind, the smell, the sand. you could see a flash of memories across your eyelids, days spent at this very beach, sand getting in places it shouldn’t, and building monster sandcastles with your family. sure, california had beaches too, but nothing like the ones at home.

when you opened your eyes, you couldn’t see rafe in your peripheral view. you turned, finding him standing a few feet from you, his hands in his pockets. he smiled softly and gestured with his head. “you want to walk?”

“is that what you brought me down here for? a walk?” you said, a playful smile pulling at your lips.

“well, it’s much too cold to swim, unless you like getting hypothermia.”

“shared body heat prevents that, you know.” you turned back around, watching the water reach the sand and smiling to yourself at your remark. you hugged yourself tighter against the wind and took a seat on the sand, pulling your legs to your chest.

rafe appeared next to you a moment later as he sat. you didn’t look over at him or say anything, not knowing what exactly to say. you had a faint idea of why he wanted to be alone here, it was partially secluded, and dark enough to see the person in front of you. you wondered what he was thinking.

“back in high school i used to think i'd never get off this island. but being back now, i don’t want to leave.” you said, unsure of what it was that made you do so.

“i still haven’t left.” rafe said, laughing to himself. “at this point, it seems like i never will.”

your eyebrows furrowed and you looked over at him. “what do you want to do? with your life?”

he met your eyes, then looked back at the water and shrugged. letting out a breath, he threw a bit of sand in front of him. “no clue. i think i just need to get out and go somewhere for a little while. maybe that will help me figure it out.”

“i'm sure you will.” you said. “sometimes, that’s all it takes, is leaving. hell, if i didn’t leave and go to california, i wouldn’t have realized how much this place is in me. like, i'm meant to be here, you know?”

rafe fumbled with the sand in front of his crossed legs, then brushed it off on his pants. you watched him for a moment then looked the opposite way, biting your lip. your stomach was twisting again.

“how come we didn’t talk in high school?”

you forced yourself to blink a few times, questioning reality and if he actually asked that. you looked at him, confused and accusatory. “you never gave me the time of day.”

“so it’s all on me?” he laughed, giving you an odd look now.

“well, no. actually yes!” you said rather harshly. “you were the king, rafe cameron. i mean, not much has probably changed since i've been gone so you probably still are.”

“what does that mean?” he questioned.

“it means,” you sighed, becoming frustrated. “that everyone flocks to your beck and call. i certainly had no desire to do so back then, no matter how popular you were.”

“popularity doesn’t mean anything.”

“well, it certainly did to you, otherwise maybe we would’ve been friends.” you chided. he looked away from you, quite shocked at your words. you wanted to roll your eyes, of course he hadn’t changed since high school. he still expected everyone to fall on their knees for him.

you both sat in silence for a few minutes. the energy had changed and you wondered if you ruined the night. then again, why would it matter if you did? you were going back to california in a couple days anyways and you probably would forget all about this. but it still bugged you.

“what’s so different now?” you asked, the wind howling.

“what do you mean?” he asked, less annoyed. his features were smoother, now genuine curiosity in his eyes as you looked at him.

you gave him a look, one to say that he should know better. “sure seems like you’re interested.”

“what makes you think that?” he squinted, teasing. you were glad of this change.

“oh, i don’t know…you did a lot of staring.”

“so did you.”

you bit the inside of your lip, trying not to smirk. “why, i have no idea.” you said quietly to yourself, but rafe had heard you loud and clear over the wind.

you sighed to yourself and stood up, brushing the sand from your bottom. rafe looked up at you curiously and almost sadly. you looked back at the house, very much alive.

“i should go check up on ryan.”

—

ryan’s arm hung loosely over your shoulders, your body shaking with his as he laughed. he seemed to be getting on really well with complete strangers. you were happy for him.

if a stranger walked in right now, saw you sitting on the couch, surrounded by laughing friends and people you knew of, they would probably wonder why you looked like you didn’t want to be there. to be frank, you looked completely miserable. you were completely detached from reality, going over and over in your head the conversation you had with rafe on the beach. it wasn’t even eleven o’clock yet, and you were now begging the question, when are we leaving?

“did you want to leave soon?” you asked ryan when he looked over at you, smiling happily. you bit the inside of your lip, scolding yourself for even asking the question when he looked so elated.

“i'm alright.” he shrugged. “are you not having fun?”

the conversation still went on without him, it now feeling as if it was just the two of you. you shook your head quickly and put on a subtle smile. “no, no, i'm okay. just checking with you.”

“okay,” he nodded and squeezed you against him.

you let the smile slowly disappear once he engaged back with everyone else. you looked down at your lap, playing with your fingers. maybe you should find ally, you were sure she was doing something fun and time-consuming. that’s what you needed, was something to do to pass the time until ryan wanted to leave.

placing a hand on his knee to push you up, you told him you were going to find ally. he gave you a nod, taking a sip from his cup. you excused yourself past some people and started to look around for ally in each room. you didn’t spot her inside after a few minutes of looking so you wandered outside, maybe she had fallen asleep near the firepit. when you didn’t see her, you figured she was down at the beach. you could hear some distance screams of joy and laughter from that direction and could immediately imagine ally running around crazily.

giving up on your search for now, you took a seat at the fire again. you leaned close to it, watching the flames move. picking up the poker beside the sofa, you poked and prodded at the charring wood, sending little embers floating up. you watched as they disappeared, looking as if they would join the stars in the sky.

you weren’t sure how much time passed as you lost yourself in staring into the fire and feeling its radiating warmth on your cheeks. before you knew it, rafe sat down next to you.

you snorted. “you again? it’s like you’re obsessed with me now.”

“i came to get warm, i don’t know what you’re talking about.” rafe said, holding his palms out to soak it in.

“sure,” you hummed with a nod.

“you have a nice smile.”

you stared back at rafe, the smile in question dropping. speculation brewed in your mind.

“you’re staring again.” he said, the corner of his lips curving upward.

“what do you want from me, rafe?” you asked.

his smile dissipated as well before reappearing, trying to lessen the tension growing. “do i have—?”

“just be honest with me.” you interrupted. you were growing impatient and you could feel yourself starting to close up. no matter how much you enjoyed that lustful feeling for him all night, you wanted answers. “tell me what you want.”

never had you seen rafe cameron at a loss for words. it only boosted your confidence and you held the teasing giggle down. you never broke eye contact as he opened his mouth, searching for words. you raised your eyebrows at him, waiting.

“do you want to fuck me? is that it?” you prompted.

rafe swallowed very noticeably, the fire catching on his adam’s apple. “you don’t seem the type to be so straight forward.” he said as you put the fire poker down and turned to him, leaning over on your arm.

“you barely know me, remember?” your confidence was coming back as you placed your hand on rafe’s mid-thigh. he looked down at it then back up at you in surprise, his mouth ajar. you didn’t try to hide looking at it now as your heart raced.

“i've been wanting your mouth all night, rafe cameron.” you licked your own lips hungrily, your pulse picking up. you moved your hand to his face, feeling the smoothness you so craved to feel earlier in the same spot. you ran your thumb over his lips, gauging his reaction.

“fuck.” as if he hadn’t been wrapped around your finger before, he certainly was now. his hand appeared on your thigh, moving up to your waist to pull you closer.

your lips met suddenly, catching rafe off guard as his hand went to your face, holding it steady against his own. you instantly tasted the corn syrup of the fake blood coating his lips. you didn’t particularly enjoy the taste, but you liked the taste of him. he groaned at the contact of your tongue, opening his mouth for you to tangle with his. his jaw was strong in your hand, his skin soft. his thumb brushed your cheek roughly, trying to pull you closer. you smiled against him and pulled back in competition.

“y/n?” you pulled away abruptly from rafe, looking over your shoulder at ryan. you tried to steady your breathing as he awkwardly looked from you to rafe. “uh, ally is inside and she kinda hurt herself.”

of course, you thought. you licked your lips, your heartbeat pulsing under the surface of the sensitive skin. you felt rafe’s hands slip away as you stood up and started to follow ryan inside. you didn’t look back in fear of running back to jump his bones.

“who was that?” ryan whispered to you, not yet through the back door. “sorry i interrupted such a good moment.” he laughed.

“shut up,” you elbowed him and walked inside.

ally was sat in the kitchen, bleeding from her leg. you quickly aided her, inquiring what happened and what she did to be such a klutz. apparently, she thought it would be a good idea to live up to her dancer dreams and get up on the counter. obviously, it didn’t end well.

“totally worth it.” she slurred. you shook your head with a smile as you cleaned her up on the bathroom floor.

you wiped the blood off her skin, throwing the toilet paper in the waste bin next to you. rummaging for band aids as she drunkenly yapped on about her endeavor, you pulled the plastic wrappers off one by one and applied them to the long cut on her leg.

“i think you’re down for the count tonight,” you told her, smoothing the band aid down.

“okay, mom.” she dramatized, making a snide face at you with her eyelids closed.

“you can’t even keep your eyes open, dude. you’re done.” you laughed and helped her up. “good thing you live here.”

pulling her arm around your shoulders, you left the bathroom and brought her upstairs. her bedroom door was closed, along with all of the rooms, and thankfully no one was inside. you pulled her shoes off and didn’t bother with her dress.

“i want to go back downstairs.” she whined.

you rolled your eyes and pulled the covers over her. “the sun will come out tomorrow, annie. sweet dreams.” you kissed her forehead, noticing already how she started to drift off.

making your way downstairs, you watched as a group was heading out for the night. they closed the door behind them, the people in the entryway saying goodbye like a chorus. turning off the last step, you ran right into a very solid body. hands grabbed ahold of your waist to steady you and you looked up, seeing ryan.

“hey,” he said. “is she okay?”

“yeah. i put her to bed.” you nodded up the stairs and took a step back from him.

“i'm ready to go whenever you are.” he said.

your stomach dropped. you instantly thought about rafe, wanting nothing more than to find him and kiss him again. just as you thought this, he appeared in the entryway behind ryan. you glanced at him then back at ryan. “i'll meet you at the car?” you said and pulled out the key to give him. he nodded without a word and walked around you to the door.

“hey—” you started to say, meeting rafe halfway until he maneuvered you up against the wall, his lips quick to get to yours. you moaned softly into his mouth, reaching around him to pull him against you. he reciprocated this action, pushing his hips flush against yours. you broke away from him, breathing harshly.

“i have to go,” you said quietly, looking directly at rafe’s lips, feeling your eyelids weighted with lust.

rafe didn’t look pleased about that, rather annoyed really. his hand rested just at the side of your neck, his other under your top to grip your waist. “can’t you stay for a little while longer?”

you shook your head, smiling softly. “guess you should’ve made your move sooner.”

rafe grunted and pulled you back to him, his tongue slipping into your mouth. you welcomed it, running your hand over his chest, feeling how fast his heart was beating too. that alone was nearly enough to pull you in and make ryan wait, but you pushed on the firm chest, breaking apart from him once more.

“i really do have to go, rafe.”

—

picking up the jar, you read over the label. organic honey. now that you thought about it, you didn’t have any back at school. one jar wouldn’t hurt.

“i’ll take this please.” you said, setting it down on the table. the man on the other side nodded and took the few bills you held out to him. you thanked him for it, picking up the jar and your change and moving to the next stand.

ever since you could remember, you had gone to the farmer’s market every year. it was something you liked to do, something that involved the community you grew up in. there were so many selections and stands and things for you to look at that you could spend hours there. if you weren’t with ryan, you just might have been there until closing time.

ryan was across the way, checking out some older books that the library was giving away. you stopped beside him, peering into the crate he was looking in. eventually you moved on to the next stand, neither of you finding anything worth picking.

“so, what are we up to tonight?” ryan asked on the way back to the house, your jar of honey in his lap.

you felt your ears grow warmer, opening your mouth. “i was thinking of going over to a friend’s house.”

“ally’s? that’ll be fun.” he looked over at you, smiling slightly.

you glanced at him, opening and closing your mouth a few times. “no. uh, rafe’s. just me.”

“oh,” ryan drawled out, nodding slowly.

“i'm sorry. if you really don’t want me to go since you’ll be alone and have nothing to do, i can stay in and we can figure something out. you know what, let’s just do that?” you decided, waving it off.

“y/n, breathe.” ryan laughed. “i'm fine staying alone. you go to rafe’s.”

“are you sure? i can stay in, we can go eat at the wreck. you haven’t tried it yet!”

“we’re not leaving until tomorrow night. we can just get food then. it’s not a big deal. don’t stay in on my account, please. go to rafe’s.” he encouraged.

you couldn’t tell if he was really okay with it or if he felt differently. you had been thinking about it all day, replaying the kisses from last night and the way it felt to have rafe’s hands on you. your heart beat in other places now as you thought about it again. you shifted in your seat as you pulled onto your road. you thanked ryan as you got out of the car and went into the house.

—

dinner passed quickly. you pushed yourself to eat slowly, to actually spend time with your family and have them get to know ryan. a part of you still felt bad about leaving him alone there, no matter how many times he kicked your foot under the table.

now you were staring at yourself in the mirror, killing time doing nothing. you hadn’t done anything different about your appearance, you just showered and sprayed a bit of perfume. and you brushed your teeth. god, what was wrong with you? where was the confidence from last night? maybe it went out the window at the very prospect of driving to rafe’s house and going to see him. you had never done that before, you’d never been there, you’d never seen what it was like. plus, what if he wasn’t home? what were you going to do then? you didn’t have his number, although ally could easily get it for you.

no. no. you needed to stop. you had to do this before you left for california and regretted not going to rafe’s house. taking in a deep breath, you straightened yourself up and huffed. you said goodbye to ryan in the spare bedroom across the hall and he gave you a thumbs up, resulting in you rolling your eyes.

it didn’t take that long of a drive to pull up to the cameron’s estate. it was huge, you thought. you stared at the white exterior and felt not at all intimidated. turning off the car and willing yourself to get out, you walked up to the front door in determination and knocked. you practiced breathing to calm your nerves as you waited. it took a few minutes until the door opened and you breathed in sharply.

expecting someone completely different, you were met with a small girl no more than 14. you couldn’t recall if rafe had two sisters, you just knew of the one.

“can i help you?” she raised her eyebrows under the black rimmed glasses.

“hi.” you paused for too long and breathed. “uh, is rafe here?”

“he’s out. and you are?”

you lifted your own brows at her territorial posture, arms crossed. “i'm y/n. a friend of rafe’s. um, do you know when he’ll be back by any chance?”

her shoulders loosened as she grabbed onto the door handle. “sometime soon, i think. you’re welcome to wait.” she stepped aside, letting you in. you gave her a thankful smile, wanting to tell her that she was calming your nerves considerably.

“thank you. what’s your name?”

“wheezie. i'm rafe’s younger sister.” she closed the door solidly, pulling a phone out of her back pocket.

“it’s nice to meet you. i appreciate you letting me wait for him.” you rubbed your hands on your thighs, trying to get rid of the sweat.

she nodded with her eyes locked on the screen. “yeah, no problem. i actually have to leave, so…” she said and grabbed a coat from the chair behind the door. she opened it again and went to leave, but poked her head back in. “don’t steal anything.”

opening your mouth to protest, the door closed with a satisfied thud, echoing through the empty house. you glanced around, not knowing where to put yourself. you took a few steps and poked your head around the doorway, finding a huge kitchen with a few lights left on. you turned back around and looked up the stairs, figuring that was your best bet. just before you stepped onto them, you took your shoes off.

rafe’s room was pretty obvious what with the posters of random semi-naked women. you rolled your eyes at the typical male and wandered further in. his walls were a dark blue, black bedding messy on the mattress. some clothes were thrown on the floor, a desk with a monitor set up on it and some old dishes. you itched to clean it, but that would’ve been weird.

just as you were looking at the little knick-knacks on his dresser, you heard a door shut. you placed one of his rings down and waited expectantly in the center of his room, still not knowing where to put yourself. his footsteps were fast on the stairs, almost as if he were skipping two at a time. your stomach twisted when he appeared in his doorway.

“how’d you get in here?” he asked first, closing the door slowly behind him and switching on the overhead light. you took in his appearance, enjoying the backwards hat paired with a sweatshirt and sweatpants. you snapped out of it, realizing he was still waiting for an answer.

“uh, wheezie, was it? she let me in. and then she left.” you stated, twiddling your fingers against your thighs.

rafe nodded and moved away from the door, taking his hat and sweatshirt off. turning back to you, he brushed a hand through his hair then set them on his hips. “what are you doing here?”

“i think you know.” you refrained from rolling your eyes, letting out a laugh to lessen your nerves and to mask how much you were hoping not to be turned down.

rafe pressed his lips together, looking behind you for a second and taking a couple steps forward. you looked up at him, feeling the soft puffs of his breath on your face. “tell me what you want. be honest with me.”

you laughed at your own words from last night and looked at him under your lashes. you took a brave step forward, feeling his body heat. “i want you to kiss me like last night.”

rafe looked down at your lips, moving his face closer. you watched him, anticipating it and closing your eyes. you didn’t feel anything other than his hands lightly touching your waist. you opened your eyes to look up at him, to see what he was doing and why he was making you wait when you just told him what you wanted. he smiled lightly and looked over your face.

“and then what?”

you moaned and pulled him forward by his shirt, grabbing fistfuls of it in satisfaction. his mouth was warm and inviting against yours and you tried to think of what he smelled like, like salt and clean laundry. he tasted much better now that you could only taste him and not that god awful corn syrup.

you pulled away for a moment, sticking your tongue out to lick at his lips teasingly. his fingertips poked into your sides, pulling you closer and back against his mouth. you smiled against him and let go of his shirt to pull it off. instead of returning to your lips, rafe put his against the side of your throat, lightly nipping at the skin. you pulled your jacket and shirt off, rafe helping you swiftly. he continued his ministrations on your neck, holding you upright while you let your head fall back.

a gasp escaped your lips as rafe grabbed your hand from his stomach and placed it over his bulge. you hadn’t realized how prominent he was in the past few moments. you looked over his face as he pressed his forehead against yours, guiding your hand over him.

“do you feel that?” he huffed.

your legs practically turned to mush as you felt him, growing stiff in his sweats. you hummed, nodding against his head. without asking you or prompting you, you slid your hand from under his into his pants. the warmth radiated like the fire from last night, your own pooling between your legs. rafe let out another breath as you wrapped your hand around him, exploring.

“that feels good.” he whispered and tugged your body closer, a hand cupping your backside. you reached to press a kiss against his jaw, his head moving to give you more access. you made a quick trail and pressed a final kiss to the base of his neck, right over his clavicle.

as much as you didn’t want to, you pulled away, your own need growing by the second. you pushed his pants down with his boxers, trying to hold yourself together from not jumping on him then and there. he watched your face closely as he stepped out of his pants. swallowing, you pushed your own bottoms down and just as you were reaching for your underwear, rafe pushed you onto his unmade bed.

starting at your mouth, rafe kissed you fully and hungrily, sparing nothing. you wanted to hold him there, especially when he rutted his hips against yours, eliciting a high moan. you quivered at the feeling of him so close and you would’ve reached for your underwear then if he hadn’t left your lips and slowly started to make his way down.

“keep making those noises, y/n.” his breath blew over your chest and you obliged as his lips pressed against one of your breasts.

“rafe, please.” you touched his head and lifted your legs around him.

he lifted from your stomach with a smile. “what?”

“hurry up.” you begged, out of breath. he chuckled, kissing you lightly on the lips and moving back to what he was doing. you groaned but lifted onto our elbows to watch. he pressed a few more kisses to your stomach and just as he was going to the next spot, you raised your hips, teasing him. he laughed, his breathing tickling your sensitive skin.

his hands took ahold of your hips and held them down on the bed, his fingers warm and strong. you swallowed thickly, your eyelids nearly closing as a kiss was pressed directly over where your excitement had pooled. you let out a whine, low from your throat, and met rafe’s dark eyes.

“you’re so wet.” he said, letting go of one hip to replace where his mouth just was. you lifted your hips again, letting your head fall back at the pleasure that shot through you. rafe pressed his fingers firmly, moving slowly in circles. “is this how you were last night?”

“yes, yes.” you sighed, dropping onto your back. “fuck, rafe, please just take them off. please.”

he pushed against your clit abruptly, practically pushing the breath out of your chest. he obliged though, you felt his fingers slip between the material and your hips before he tugged them down. you opened your eyes as the bed shifted. rafe held himself over you, reaching into the nightstand and pulling out a condom. you leaned up to pull your bra off as he opened the small package and put it on.

“how do you want me?” you asked, still out of breath, reaching for him.

rafe smiled, his hands coming down on either side of your head to hold himself up. “just like this.”

his hair tickled your forehead as he lined himself up and took your mouth against him. you broke the kiss, moaning as he pushed in slowly.

“fuck.” you gasped, holding onto his hip.

“are you okay?” he asked after letting out a low grunt.

“yes,” you nodded, reaching up to kiss him. “i need you to move.”

rafe did as requested and moved slowly, starting a rhythm. his hand closed around a breast, your legs opening wider for him as his hips met yours continuously. you tried your best to keep your lips against his, reveling in the warmth and taste, but you found yourself pulling away and getting lost in what he was doing to you. you started to focus on his breathing, his low grunts, his moans that sent shivers up the back of your thighs. you relished in it.

“i'm glad we didn’t do this last night.” you laughed to yourself, out of breath.

“fuck,” he said. “i was pissed when you left, i ended up coming here just to jack off.”

you laughed again, reaching a hand up to his hair to tug at. you pulled his mouth to yours momentarily until he broke away and moved to your chest. “rafe, harder.” you pleaded, tugging on his hip.

he moaned against your chest, the vibrations going all the way to where he was pushing into you. you let out your own noise, louder than any before, as he picked up the pace and tried to hit you deeper. it wasn’t quite working so you lifted your knee up higher, digging your heel into his backside.

rafe softly bit down on your nipple, massaging the other one. it lost the warmth a second later as rafe let go and grabbed ahold of your leg, the smacking of your skin becoming louder. letting go of his hair, you held his other hip, digging your fingernails in.

“rafe,” you panted. rafe’s hips were going at an alarming rate, but you had never felt so good. he knew exactly what he was doing. “rafe, i'm close.”

rafe let go of your leg and moved his hand down your stomach to find your clit. his thumb brushed it, causing you to cry out. his breath was coming out in pants now too, with each stroke. he looked down at you, your expression of pure bliss as your eyes screwed shut and contorted. you bit your lip, something you didn’t realize drove him crazy. he moved his thumb in fast circles with the pace of his hips and soon enough, you were squeezing his hips and crying out in high pitched tones. the sound alone brought rafe closer.

“fuck, fuck.” you felt him twitch as he grabbed onto your hip, his steady thrusts now stuttering.

you were still riding out your own high, but you reached up with a shaky hand and touched his cheek. he opened his eyes then at the new contact, his mouth ajar, lips swollen.

“rafe, cum. i need you to cum.” you pleaded, licking into his lips with a kiss. he groaned, hips stuttering again then stilling completely as he emptied into the condom. you moaned at the sound, wishing that he was emptying into you. you wished you could feel how warm he was when he coated your walls. god, just the thought had you ready to go again.

rafe moaned as he slid out of you and flipped over onto his back. you licked your lips, still tasting him as you caught your own breath. your skin was sticky and sweaty, but you liked it knowing who it was from. looking over at him now, he was spent and tired, his chest moving with gulps of breath.

“well, i know you better now.” he said, making you laugh.

“right back at ya, rafe cameron.”

#rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron #outer banks #fanfic #fanfiction #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron x fem!reader

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dancingazaleas · 3 years

Text

erejean | pretty

RIVALS TO LOVERS SUPREMACY

i’m so sorry i just love erejean and i could go on about why i think they actually have a beautiful friendship in canon

edit: i wrote this while half asleep so i’m sorry

warnings/notes: cursing, college au!, eren’s personality doesn’t change too much, hopeless pining, this is short, this is messy, internalized homophobia, coming out, gay awakening

eren and jean have been rivals ever since they could remember. no one really knows how it started, but the only thing they did know it that one out of the two of them were acting a little weird.

unlike usual, he was oddly silent towards one another and often faced each other with flushing faces. he gave the other longing looks when he wasn’t looking.

eren genuinely didn’t know what was happening. for the past two to three years, jean’s always irritated the hell out of eren. eren’s even the one who came up with the ridiculous nickname of ‘horse face’.

but now, he thinks jean’s pretty... and handsome. eren doesn’t exactly know what happened, he just knows that ever since the end of senior year that his annoyance for jean has decreased almost into nothing.

okay, eren is kind of lying to himself.

eren still is annoyed by jean, but it isn’t like before. eren never used to be annoyed at how jean’s eyelashes were long and pretty. he never had been annoyed about how his hands were bigger in comparison to his own, he’d never want to hold them. he’d never been annoyed about how jean’s body wasn’t against his, encasing eren with his odd ember fire.

he hated how jean looks so pretty whenever he thinks to himself, he hates how jean looks so stupidly beautiful whenever he’s drawing. he hates how pretty jean looks whenever he laughs, and he hates that he wants that smile to stay there forever.

but what eren hates the most is that he isn’t even gay.

eren’s never really found men attractive growing up, but that didn’t exactly mean that he found girls attractive. eren had only ever dated one girl, who was now a lesbian with a girlfriend and also his close friend.

the only boy eren ever thought was cute was armin. but eren always brushed it off since the two of them were childhood friends. usually childhood friends find each other cute right? and cuddly? and... y’know what, nevermind.

eren sits in his room beside his bed, crying into the palms of his hands from confusion. he’s tried so hard to feel something for girls, any girl that would throw herself at him, but it didn’t work. eren can’t even get hard if he thinks about girls in a sexual manner, but finds himself doing so when thinking of men.

he’s so confused. he’s never been so confused in his entire life.

“eren, do you want anything from... are you okay,” eren looks up to see armin’s face bunched up with concern.

eren wipes away his tears even though it’s pointless because the tears keep flooding over. he can’t help but sob now, too embarrassed at how he’s feeling. armin’s on the floor beside eren within seconds, arms wrapping around eren’s broad shoulders and pulling him into his chest.

eren’s hands weave themselves into the loose fabric of armin’s forest green turtleneck, finally letting everything he’d been holding in out.

eren hates how he confused he is. armin’s shushing him while tracing circles into the fabric of his hoodie, and eren knows that armin is anxious. before eren can try and calm himself down, there’s a gasp from his doorway and the sound of footsteps coming closer. he assumes that mikasa is home, to which he’s correct.

“eren, what’s wrong,” she asks gently, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind.

he chokes out a sob, digging his head further into armin’s shirt.

“just wait until he’s calmed down to ask,” armin advises, continuing to trace patterns into his back.

it takes a few minutes for eren to be able to speak, and even then it’s difficult.

“eren, what’s wrong,” armin pulls his knees to his chest, ignoring the dampness on his shirt.

“i’m... i’m confused,” he sighs after a sniffle, hand wiping away a tear.

“about what,” mikasa questions with an eyebrow raised.

“fuck,” he hisses from frustration, “i don’t know what i like.”

“like? do you mean hobbies?”

“no.”

“things? stuff like books or cheese?”

“no.”

“food?”

“no!”

“people?”

eren stays silent, now pulling his own knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. mikasa and armin give eren a sympathetic look, they both had gone through this as well.

“you think you like men,” mikasa treads carefully, not wanting to upset eren even more than he already is.

“yea,” his voice shakes along with his hands.

“what boy?” armin tilts his head back to lean against eren’s mattress.

“jean,” eren sighs, already feeling himself start to tear back up.

mikasa hums in confirmation, “i see.”

eren’s crying again, absolutely ashamed of himself.

“he just... i hate him ‘cause he’s so pretty and caring. whenever i’m angry, he tries not to make it worse. he pays attention to the stupidest little details, like how i like the crunchier parts of the bread on chicken. he’s so warm, it’s like he’s constantly on fire and i just.. i wanna be surrounded by it. he’s actually really thoughtful whenever he’s not trying to be a douche, and i hate it,” eren cries while he puts his head on mikasa’s muscular shoulder.

“and there’s nothing wrong with being gay, i mean literally nothing. i just hate that i’m confused. what does this mean? i haven’t felt like this towards him before, so why now,” he sniffles, “fuckin’ stupid.”

“y’know... armin and i once felt like this before,” mikasa says, a small and comforting smile coming up onto her face.

“about marco and annie,” he asks, and shifts his gaze to armin.

“yes. whenever i first realized in sophomore year, i was so confused and upset. annie was so pretty, and boys weren’t. at the time, it all felt so wrong, like it wasn’t meant to be that way,” mikasa explains with hesitance, “i told armin i like girls, and he told me he liked boys and that he felt the same way during freshman year. we hated how confused we were, and we hated that we liked the same sex.”

“but all it takes is acceptance from yourself,” armin smiles, “it’s okay to be confused, eren. you’re still 19, you’ve got so much time to figure out who you even are. also, even if you say there’s nothing wrong with being gay, there’s a chance you’ll have internalized homophobia towards yourself. it’s okay to be a gay man named eren yeager. and it’s okay to be confused. you don’t need to rush it, set your own pace.”

“armin’s right. eren, we love you no matter what. you mean the world to the both of us, even if you’re confused with your identity. it’s okay to explore those feelings, and it’s okay to be wrong about them. either way, we love you so much, eren,” mikasa wipes a tear from his eye with her thumb.

eren wants to cry again just from how loving the two of his friends are.

“thanks you guys, i love you too,” he chuckles as they’re all pulled into a group hug.

————

two months later, eren’s telling all of his friends. they accept him with open arms, which isn’t too surprising, but it makes him happy nonetheless.

another month, he’s telling his superiors at his work. they’re the closest eren has to parents since his mom and dad died, and they accepted him happily. he wasn’t too surprised, but even so it made him cry. knowing that he was loved no matter what made him emotional.

another month later, he’s telling one of the most important people in his life. his brother, who raised him and mikasa since his parents died. he’s once again accepted with open arms, and is even reminded that zeke has brought home boys whenever they both were younger. he’s so lucky.

but even after all this, he’s still crushing on jean. only now, he’s more accepting of how he wants jean to kiss him.

eren also thinks jean is an idiot.

eren has made multiple moves on the muffin top, but he hasn’t even realized. eren’s linked pinkies with jean while his face reddens, he’s fed jean, he’s even resorted to telling him horrible pickup lines.

what makes it worse is that jean thinks this is a rivalry thing again, god knows how.

what’s even more annoying is the fact that jean so obviously likes eren back, but eren is also too stupid to notice. eren, somehow, doesn’t notice how his face shows up in jean’s sketchbook more than it should. he doesn’t notice the flirty innuendos that jean tells him.

and it’s so annoying.

everyone feels this is even more annoying then whenever the two were at each other’s throats 24/7.

jean yawns while he stretches his arms towards the sky, pencil falling from his fingers and onto the paper of his sketchbook. he’s been outside drawing for two hours now, practicing landscapes and drawing under a short amount of time.

eren’s sleeping beside him on the grass, head resting on jean’s book bag while his arms hold his hoodie to his chest. some of eren’s hair is falling out of the bun it’s in, swishing silently as the wind begins to blow softly against their bodies.

jean thinks eren looks so pretty. with a cautious hand, he tucks a strand behind eren’s pierced ear. eren’s skin his warm against jean’s hand, even though the wind has been blowing gently on eren’s snoozing face.

jean brushes eren’s baby hairs out of his face, softly smiling at eren’s serenity. and before he can stop himself, his cheek is in the palm of jean’s large hand.

jean’s thumb strokes his cheekbone while the rest of his fingers get tangled into eren’s hair.

“pretty,” jean mumbles while he smiles.

for some reason, jean doesn’t pull his hand away. even when eren eyes start to flutter open and look at him. even whenever eren’s cheeks darken.

“you’re pretty, y’know,” jean says, ignoring how the setting sun was starting to get in his eyes.

“you’re not too bad yourself, horsey,” eren snickers while jean rolls his eyes and scoffs.

they’re left in a comfortable silence as jean finally pulls away and turns back to the sketchbook in his lap.

it showed no progress of landscapes and random people, only a drawing of eren sleeping.

————

eren and jean find themselves looking at the stars while standing in the lake a month later. it’s hot during june, even during the late nights where the sun has been put to rest.

which is why they came up with the bright idea to go swimming in a lake at 12 in the morning. the idea wasn’t even planned, eren decided on a whim and just decided to drag jean along.

jean points up towards the stars, “the big dipper.”

eren follows his finger, a huge smile spreading across his face at jean’s correct assumption.

“there’s the constellation of gemini,” eren says while pointing.

“makes sense since it’s june.”

eren nods, looking towards jean.

he looks so pretty in the moonlight.

“hey jean.”

“yeah, what do you wan—!”

eren interrupts jean by splashing him with water, hearty laughs echoing through the terrain as goes on.

“not cool,” jean tries to say angrily, but ends up laughing.

he splashes eren back and then retreats deeper into the lake. eren follows behind, tackling jean under the water. they both laugh once they come to the surface, pointing out how the water now reached their thighs.

“that’s why we’re here, jean. to get wet,” he raises an eyebrow while putting his hands on jean’s shoulders.

“yeah, heads up!” jean shouts while he dunks eren under the water while on top of him.

they’re once again laughing when they resurface, both trying to catch the breath that had been taken out of them.

“you’re hair looks good wet,” eren says while gesturing to jean.

“i always look good,” jean jokes, eren snorting obnoxiously afterwards.

“whatever helps you sleep at night, man,” eren shrugs.

the two goof around for a few minutes longer, laughs echoing against the trees and back into their ears.

neither of them want this to end.

eren has an arm wrapped around jean as he holds himself up, laughing stupidly at god knows what. jean laughs as well, heart fluttering sweetly at the sight of eren’s pretty smile.

and jean doesn’t know how to think.

so, he pulls eren straight up, grabs ahold of his plump and warm cheeks and gives him a sweet kiss.

the sweetest kiss eren’s ever had.

eren reciprocates shyly, pushing his lips back against jean’s. he grabs at jean’s bicep, wanting to ground himself just to make sure that he isn’t dreaming.

jean pulls away whenever they need air, resting his forehead against eren’s.

“i love you,” he whispers to him breathily, moving his hands to hold onto eren’s.

“i love you too,” eren chuckles and stares into jean’s eyes, “even if you’re an idiot that looks like a horse.”

jean rolls his eyes, and instead of replying to eren, he gives eren another kiss. he’ll tell eren that he’s pretty after.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #snk #aot fanfiction #snk fanfiction #snk eren #eren aot #attack on titan eren #eren yaegar #eren x jean #erejean #jean kirstein #jean kirschstein #jean aot #snk jean #aot jean

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remusmainhoe · 3 years

Text

sirius x reader

warning:smut, language.

not sure what it is, I wanna say friends, to lovers, but really I just got carried away. I hope you love it, I had fun writing it.

I was laying on the grass, near the black lake. The sun shined on the water, the warm breeze lifting the pages of my book, my mother had gotten me about medicine since she worked at st. Mungos, but I always preferred the greek mythology books my dad had left me. I saw him from a distance, sitting down on the grass, sheltered by the shade of a tree, his back relaxed against the bark. Two other girls near him were giggling at each other, stealing glances of him every now and then, their cheeks flushed with anticipation for his attention. Even from a distance, I could make out his face, unbothered by the girls, his dark, smooth hair dancing in front of his face every now and then. His eyes remained closed, his mouth carved into that faint grin he wore so much. James was next to him, his mouth moving, grasping the snitch before it got too close to freedom, and letting it go once more. Seeing how James ran a hand through his jet black hair, careful enough to leave it perfectly messy. Remus crouched down on the floor, eyes hungrily reading every word of the paper in front of him. A strand of his sandy brown hair on his face gone ignored, his hands grasping his quill, focused. Peter was watching James, as his hands clasp around the snitch for the 100th time.

I couldn’t help catching a glimpse of the boy, feeling like the other girls whose eyes also felt what I could only describe as a magnetic pull toward him. To me, he felt like a flame, you could appreciate it, and regard it as precious, but you know better than to get too close. I try to peel my eyes off him, staring back at the book in my lap. When my eyes tired of the words on the page that no longer meant anything, I looked up again only to find those piercing eyes staring back. The corner of his mouth lifting, flashing his teeth, his calculating eyes refusing to let me go. I tear away from him, refusing to give in. I stand up, picking up my things, and make my way back to the Gryffindor tower, rushing up the stairs to my dormitory. I laid in bed, refusing to acknowledge the way he made me feel. The butterflies that swarmed through my body, the warm feeling in my chest, because no one can have this much control over me. Falling asleep that night, his eyes being the last thought before I fall asleep, and my first thought when I wake up.

Waking up slowly, getting out of bed, taking the morning air deeply, letting it feel my lungs, and hoping it could erase that feeling he made me feel. The great hall filled with the first light of the day, my lids heavy as I sit down at the Gryffindor table. The table slowly filling up with students fueling up for the days' classes. I ate my breakfast in silence, lightly listening to the words the other girls were gossiping to me. When I felt those piercing eyes on me again, not wanting to believe my own senses, I ignored them. Lessons that day went by blandly and slowly, I plopped down on my chair in the astronomy tower at midnight. Opening my book to get ready for the lesson, I felt someone sit down next to me, I glanced quickly to see who it was.

“I hope this seat wasn’t being saved for someone else,” he says, clearly noticing the confusion on my face.

“Um, no, it's ok” I sputter out, he flashed another smile in response, in turn making those damn butterflies return, I fight the slight heat in my cheeks.

Before anything else can happen, the professor calls things into order, starting the lesson for the day. Any of the tiredness that I felt, fluttered away. the professor assigned us to fill a star chart of the different constellations with a partner.

“Well, what do you say, partner?” He said turning his body to my attention, certainty in his voice.

I had known him enough to know the charade he performed with other girls, making them stutter slightly, making their cheeks hurt with the smile he would cause. I was certainly not one to judge, for who could blame them? The way that he moved in a way that felt effortlessly yet still carried some precision, the way his words came out of his mouth like honey. The most frustrating thing that made it difficult to forgive him for the effect he had, was that he knew he was goddamn gorgeous, and he liked to see the effect he could have.

“I say, I'm tired, and I wanna get this over with,” I said, surprising myself.

His eyes flickered with something, his shitfaced grin refusing to leave. He turned to his telescope and started to get to work. His hand fidgeting with his quill, his other hand gracing the telescope. I turned my head back to my telescope, observing Perseus, Studying the made-up lines I imagined connecting the stars, picturing Perseus ‘the hero’ with his sword and shield. I started plotting the dots on the chart, his hand hovering on the paper before getting to work on another part of the sky. I then saw Canis Major, which wasn’t that hard to find due to the brightest star ‘Sirius’. Remembering the books I read on the stories and mythology of the stars. Picturing Laelaps the dog that always caught whatever it hunted. sent to hunt the Teumessian fox, a fox that could never be caught. Realizing that they were doomed to be the hunter and the hunted for eternity, Zeus turned them both to stone then placed them in the sky as the constellations Canis Major (Laelaps) and Canis Minor (the Teumessian fox). The irony, of course, is that they continue the chase in an eternal hunt, with Canis Minor rising in the winter skies about an hour before Canis Major, I couldn’t help but smile.

“Did you find a man on the moon or something?” Sirius’s voice pulling me back to the astronomy tower.

“Hmm?”

“You’re smiling at the stars” he pointed out, his eyes full of intrigue.

“Oh, it's nothing, I just like the constellations and the myths and stories they carry,” I explain focusing once more and filling out the star chart we were almost finished with.

“Like what?” He asked leaning closer as if it were a deep secret only he was to hear.

“Well… I like the pegasus,” I said drawing it on the star chart “The winged horse, in Greek mythology, used by Zeus to carry thunder and lightning,” I said not being able to hide an amused smile.

“ the stories become a bit tangled though, there are different stories about each of them…” I continued “like the birth of Orion, one story tells how his father was a poor shepherd called Hyrieus. Once, Zeus, Hermes, and Poseidon stopped by Hyrieus’ house. Hyrieus was so generous with his guests that he killed the only animal he had - an ox. Hyrieus was not aware that his guests were gods. The gods wanted to reward Hyrieus’ generosity by granting him a wish. Hyrieus’ biggest desire was to have a child. The gods told him to bury the hide of the bull he had sacrificed to them and to pee on it. After nine months, a boy was born in that place. The child became a very handsome and strong man. He became a very good hunter and threatened to kill all of the wild animals of the world, however, Gaia the mother of all animals was not pleased with his intention. Gaia set a giant scorpion on Orion, who soon realized that’s strength and sword were useless against the mighty Scorpio. Orion tried to escape, but was stung and placed in the stars along with the Scorpio set to chase him forever as a reminder from Gaia to protect the environment.” I stopped talking, realizing that who I had been ranting to. Instead of looking up to see a look of boredom, and annoyance that I was expecting to see, I was met with those eyes, laser-focused on me, his body slightly leaned in my direction.

“I told you, it's nothing, just random shit I think about” I dismiss it trying to not get sucked into his gaze.

“Is that we read so often outside near the lake?” He asked, not looking away from me.

“Among other things” I respond, before can think about it, I say “why do you care?”

He looked at me for a moment, “I don't” he said, and leaned back in his chair for a few minutes staring at the sky. Our star sheet laid out completed, and minutes to spare.

“But let's say I do,” he said leaning back toward me swiftly, his scent gracing my nose, my lungs filling lightly with cologne, leather, and cigarettes.

“Ok, humor me.” I say “what could Mr. popularity possibly have to care about? Apart from his hair”, I say, this time keeping eye contact.

“What do you have against my hair?” He said in the mocked offense.

“Nothing” I answer with slight sarcasm, slightly holding my hands up in defense.

I don't know what made me feel the need to not let him get to me. Hogwarts, although a big castle, I would always see how the girls would spoil him with love, and attention. I’ve read enough books, I don't want to be the “I'm not like other girls” bullshit, but I'm not gonna let him play his little game of cat and mouse.

He paused for a moment before speaking again, “well I just think that any book that can keep you from stealing glances at me, must be one hell of a book”

“Well, you think mighty big of yourself” I choke out a laugh, “you know, for a second there you had me,” I say without missing a beat.

“Is that so?” He countered.

Before I can say more, the lesson ends, I grab my things not trusting myself to say more. Getting to my dorm room, my head infected with him. His grin plastered on his face, with those eyes that see right through anyone. I'm not angry with what he said, it's what he made me feel that terrified me.

The next day, I sat at the Gryffindor table having breakfast, when I felt someone sit next to me. I turned and saw him sitting there, a bit further from his groupie.

“What are you doing over here,” I asked out of pure reflex.

“It is a free country” he responded as he served his breakfast.

“Yeah… sorry” he hadn’t done anything wrong, and it wasn’t my business, even if it was weird to see his hip separated from James. We ate in silence and headed to our first class, transfiguration, the moment I took my seat, he plopped down next to me.

“Ok, what’s your game here?” I ask him, frustrated that I even have to fight back a grin playing at the corner of my mouth. If he noticed, he didn’t say so.

“Nothing,” he said innocently. The class began, and we were assigned to transform bunnies into slippers. I managed to make some hoping slippers, with a tail at the back, Sirius chuckled at them.

“Don't judge them” I said, not even realizing I was smiling.

“I'm sorry,” he says, poorly hiding his amusement.

“Why don't you try it then” I challenge looking at his bunny.

“Ok, fine” he shrugged, with a swish of his wand, his bunny turned into a pair of slippers you would probably only find at a high-end store. “I could give you a lesson if you want” he teased.

“You know, one day you’re going to need slippers that jump,” I said catching my slippers, and transforming them back into the fluffy bunny.

The classes after that, he sat next to me, at first I thought he would come back to his senses and go back to his group, but after 2 weeks of laughing at his jokes in class, how he would pull a little prank, how he would know how to get me to start ranting about something, I didn’t think twice about it. He then started to sit with me in the library, and distract me from doing work. Later on, he and I would go out near the black lake where I once sat alone, I read to him the stories I held so deep to my heart. He would grasp every word of it.

It was inevitable, but after a while, I started to hang out with the others too. Remus and I would revise together, James would pull me into small pranks, and I would help Peter understand some of the charms he couldn’t do.

I tried not to think about the things I would feel when I saw Sirius. How I wanted to mess up his hair just a little bit because it was too perfect. How his laughter gave me a feeling of happiness that spread to my mouth that made me smile and laugh like an idiot. How I would think about the way that his muscles moved when he practiced quidditch with James, how his face looked chiseled by the gods.

I was back in the Gryffindor common room, trying to finish as much work as I could before I realized that the common room was empty, looking up at the clock to see the hands read 3:30 in the morning. I was about to gather my things to head to my dorm and call it a night when I heard the door to the common room open. Turning around, I didn’t see anyone there, yet the door started to close on its own, the fat lady fast asleep. Before I can even process it, I hear a thump near the fireplace, and all of the sudden see Sirius on the floor, a cloak next to him. Before I can even question it, I see the scarlet red that trails on his white shirt, I felt my eyes open wide as I rush to him, my legs forming a mind of their own.

“Sirius?”

He looks up at me, “y/n.. I-“ he's cut off with a hiss of pain escaping his mouth as the blood trails down.

“Take off your shirt so I can see”

“Isn’t that a bold request” he forces a teasing smile.

“Your a wanker” I say trying not to laugh, my heart still racing. “You know what I mean”

He lifts the white shirt, if it weren’t for the gash on his torso, I could have been easily distracted by the way that his muscles moved. The way that the low light of the fireplace reflected off his skin, the way that his skin glowed from a slight sheen of sweat.

“Stay here, ill be right back,” I say getting up, he grabbed my hand before I could move.

“You can't get any help,” he said, his voice laced with panic.

“It's ok, I have some bandages in my dorm,” I said. I rushed up to my trunk and grabbed what I needed, my mother always made sure I was prepared and was eager to teach me everything she could about her work. I rushed back to the common room, kneeling next to him. My fingers slightly shaking from the initial shock. The scratch was deep, so I started to work on some charms that my mother had taught me. Sirius was laying down on his elbows. After healing the wound as much as I could, I grabbed a small towel, drowning it in water, and brushing it lightly on his dark red blood now rusting slightly on him.

“How do you know all that?” He asked, I hadn’t noticed him looking at me.

“My mum” I answered wrapping him up in bandages. “How does it feel?” I asked

“Loads better” he answered.

“You better get some rest, take the bandage off tomorrow in the morning, if it hasn’t healed completely tell me,” I said, “did you lose a lot of blood?” I asked starting to examine him to see if he was paler than usual”

“I'm ok y/n, thank you,” he said, “aren’t you gonna ask me why I was butchered, or why I'm out at 3 in the morning?” He asked.

“If you want to tell me, id be glad to hear it, but it's non of my business” I answered honestly, he looked at me relieved, “thank you, it's not really my secret to tell”. He was sitting up a lot straighter.

“I get it,” I said sincerely.

“Why are you up so late?” He asked.

“I was just working a bit, got carried away. I was on my way to my dorm when you stumbled in” I smiled.

“Yeah, sorry bout that”

“It's nothing, my mum would probably thank you for giving some medical practice” I joke.

“Glad to help. It's hypnotizing seeing you so focused.” He said

I laid in my bed that night, feeling guilt for knowing that I got so close to the flame I promised myself I wouldn’t touch, yet also feeling a sense of relief that he was ok.

The next morning I sat in the morning, not being able to help myself, wanting to know how he was. He came downstairs, the look of surprise evident in his eyes at seeing me waiting for him.

“Y/n,” he said.

“Hey, sorry, I just wanted to know if you were ok”

“Yeah, It's healed” he answered making sure only I could hear him.

“That’s good… well I just… I just wanted to make sure”

“Thank you again,” he said, taking a step closer.

His eyes were piercing right through me, his hand hovering slightly over mine. I leaned up and kissed him, my hand over his jaw, my lips on his, my tongue tasting him like a drug I never knew I was sober from. His lips welcoming me, I snapped back into reality and pulled away, his eyes still close leaning in my direction.

“I'm sorry… I … sorry” was all I could spit out, I made my way back to my dorm feeling like a fool for thinking that a guy like Sirius would like me, that he regarded me any more different than the other girls that touched those same lips. I had been stupid, I had burned my house I worked so hard to protect, on that flame yet what scared me was that I would do it again. His hand grabbed my wrist. before I knew it, those lips met mine again, but this time they were prepared. He pulled apart just enough to speak.

“I want you y/n”

“You already have me”

I couldn’t even think about how stupid I was being, how cheesy this all was, because when his hands lingered on my waist as his lips enraptured me all thoughts and common sense went out the window. Up in his dormitory he closed the door, we both knew everyone would be in lessons. My hands tangled in his hair finally getting a chance to mess it up. His hands sliding my shirt off as he unclipped my bra, and I took his shirt off, and he pulled down my skirt, I slipped out of my shoes. For a moment he looked at me, revealed for him, exposed.

“My merlin you’re even more gorgeous than I thought,” he said breathlessly. I could feel myself blush, he started to massage my breasts, and I let out a moan. I unbuckled his belt and felt him hard for me. All this time I thought he was in control, yet he felt the same things I felt. I slipped a hand removing his trousers enough to relieve him a bit, he let out a low growl and I throbbed. He moved my panties, starting to draw circles on my clit making me unravel. I laid on his bed, pinned down beneath him, he stretched me out, and I let out a gasp of pleasure. His mouth began to play with my nipples, placing hickeys everywhere because I was his. I bit down a moan.

“Don't hold it back love, I wanna hear you scream” he said in my ear. His movements making the pleasure in my abdomen build-up, but I knew he would tell me when I could cum for him.

“Sirius” his name coming out of my lips like water.

“Cum for me darling”

#sirius black #sirius #sirius x reader #marauders #marauders fanfiction #harry potter marauders #smut roleplay #sirius x reader smut #harry potter #hogwarts

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amwritingmeta · 3 years

Text

15x19: A First Ending

This was a good episode! Oh, I know, I know - we didn’t get Cas back. But oh, boy, that should mean that Misha shot for five of eight days for 15x20 and that makes me want to rub my hands together with the hope of what that might mean. All the good things!

Oh, don’t hang your hopes on mine btw. I had very high hopes that we’d get Cas back, or very strongly established as coming back (as per 13x04) with a final scene of him waking up in the Empty or something like it, and that didn’t happen, but omg I’m so glad they didn’t.

When Jack started praying and reaching out to Cas my heart almost stopped.

If Dean doesn’t instigate Cas’ return, then oh it would take away too much!

But then Jack’s moment didn’t lead to anything, and now, the more I think about it, there more it feels like a plant. A reminder of how he prayed to Cas the last time, and woke him. We shall see, eh?

And then we got Dean telling Chuck to bring Cas back, which was a pivotal plant as well. I’d been worried if they hadn’t mentioned Cas more than once, with Dean telling Jack and Sam that Cas sacrificed himself to save him, yeah?

If there had been no more Cas for the entire episode then, narratively speaking, I would have started wondering what role Cas might actually play in 15x20.

But Cas was mentioned more than once. We even got to hear his voice and have that fake return to stir our... I almost wrote loins, but that’s not appropriate so let’s change it to stir our... martinis.

Ah yes. We could all use a drink, I’m sure.

The dog as well! Dean was so happy and he carried the dog and petted the dog and put it in Cas’ spot in the backseat and was all, yes, emotional substitute! And then... poof. Because it’s not going to be that easy to replace Cas. *fingers crossed*

Here’s mostly why I’m hopeful for something quite different as the actual finale of the show, the proper wrapping up of these character journeys:

This first ending is for those who have followed the show explicitly to watch these two brothers. (yes there’s a word for them but let’s not)

It ends exactly how these viewers -- and quite possibly the writers who wrote it -- always saw the show ending. It gives an emotionally satisfying wrapping up of all the thematic threads of the show and gives the brothers their hard-won freedom, and keeps the brothers riding in Baby, together, indefinitely.

And these viewers and fans will always be able to stop watching the show there and keep that as their perfect ending.

Except it’s not the ending-ending. Is it?

This episode neatly and gorgeously wrapped up the Michael/Lucifer/Chuck storyline. It wiped the slate completely clean. Especially with Michael killing Lucifer and Chuck killing Michael. These characters just completely annihilating each other because they’ve all served their purpose.

And Chuck being drained of his powers and ending up ignored, never to be worshipped again, or even remembered, is such a fitting ending for him! And with Dean refusing to kill him, leaving him to his fate, I’d call that Dean integrating his Shadow.

No more fearing it. It’s powerless. Thanks to Jack (Dean’s inner child) who now holds all the power in the universe.

I’d say Dean Winchester has reached a point of internal balance.

And for all of these good things: Chuck powerless, Jack the New God, surely helping to fix what Cas broke by restoring Heaven (I’m assuming Heaven will be repopulated or that God’s grace will level it out) and Jack stepping into shoes that Cas once tried to fill and failed to, to the detriment to so many of his kin, is simply stunning.

I cried, properly, at Jack’s speech. It was beautiful.

But for all these good things and wrappings up of stuff, didn’t the ending feel kind of superficial? Like stuff was missing in those final five minutes or so? Like... I don’t know... Sam mentioning Eileen maybe? Because surely she was brought back along with everyone else, and one episode ago he was losing his mind over the loss of her.

And they didn’t even mention Cas. Jack mentioned Castiel as a good influence, but Cas was just bunched in with “everyone we’ve lost along the way”.

Meh.

Hey, it’s fine if all you care about is Dean and Sam and you think that they’re at their happiest when they get to drive along a road in Baby, listening to tunes and play-fighting and reminiscing about all those people that have come and gone, while they know they’ll always remain the same.

I mean, if we hadn’t gotten that montage at the end of this episode (a fucking MONTAGE ppl) I would’ve started thinking that maybe Misha was coming back to shoot flashbacks for 15x20, as we got to see the brothers remembering Cas (like with Mary), taking a walk down memory lane and driving around to well-known locales for a final hurrah.

But we got that fucking montage, ppl.

Leaving me to feel that they probably won’t also spend forty minutes rememberembering those same people. You know?

Also, dull. And Dabb is anything but dull. And Dabb loves pulling on stuff he’s hinted at in the first ep of the season.

And I remember reacting to Sam being the one to escort the kid and her mother into the, what was it? The high school, right? For safety.

While Dean and Cas had that tense exchange by Baby, where Dean couldn’t not ask if Cas was okay and Cas saying, hopefully, that he was, but Dean remaining stone faced and distant. “Awkward” is what Belphegor called it.

Oh. Please let there be awkwardness in 15x20. I beg on bent knees. Beg, I say!

Anyway.

What is 15x20 going to be about if it isn’t about finally answering the question of what will make the brothers happy?

A balanced universe, of course! But freedom without love... sounds kind of lonely to me.

So, have they answered the question of What do I want? yet? Is this what they want for themselves? More of the same? This season has hinted that it isn’t. It’s hinted very strongly that it isn’t.

So, I’m holding my breath that Dean’s final confrontation is to do with happiness and daring to want it for himself. Daring to admit to wanting it for himself. Daring to go after it...

Cas does not belong in the Empty.

And hope that it’s telling how Jack didn’t even think to get Cas out of there and bring him home. God got Lucifer out of the Empty so Jack definitely has the power.

And Dean didn’t ask him to get Cas out of there, not because he doesn’t still want Cas out, but because it would ruin the first ending for the people who want Cas to stay dead. Yeah?

It’s kind of beautifully done, to my mind, as a nod and a thank you to the people who have supported one reading of the show. It’ll be difficult for them to go apeshit when Dabb and the writers can simply tell them they don’t have to watch further than 15x19 and be content that they’ve got an ending that lets them cling to the brothers as the begin all, end all.

And yes, I remain believing we will get Dean and Cas together-together before the end of the show. I have no clue how much of a together-together we’ll get, but for the show not to give us a clear understanding of how Dean loves Cas back is unthinkable at this point, and will stay unthinkable until the show tells me otherwise, because nothing but those two together makes even a lick of sense to me.

Dean’s feelings were in the subtext this episode because that’s where they always have been and hopefully fingers crossed because this ending wasn’t for us, it was for other sides of fandom, giving them room for denial, if they simply don’t want to see that what Dean wants is Cas back.

Our ending isn’t happening until next week.

Dean: It’s a helluva time to bail. There’s a lot of people counting on you. People with questions—they’re gonna need answers. Jack: The answers will be in each of them. Maybe not today, but someday.

For me this may be setting up for 15x20.

Dean could be said to be accepting the reality of Cas being gone this episode. He starts off not telling the whole truth about what happened with Cas (of course), he’s drinking himself stupid, he tries to demand of Chuck to bring Cas back, he finds that emotional crutch in the doggo and he moves into acceptance because what else can he do?

Especially if he’s still reeling and is struggling with his fear of happiness, with not feeling deserving, with it being easier to simply let it all go.

But.

Letting go of the need is healthy, allowing it to make way for the real want that is about choosing Cas, not because he feels lost without him, but because Cas completes him...

That would be something.

(oh shush let’s get with the romance) (Jerry always brings it)

The brothers love each other, but throughout this narrative there’s been hints that they both long for more. So much more. It would be so weird if it didn’t all wrap up with more being wanted and chosen and offered and had.

So if the answers are to be “in each of them -- someday”, then maybe Dean just needs to reach a moment where he’s ready to admit to himself that he can’t stand the fact that Cas died not knowing that Dean loves him back.

I wonder if Sam will push for this admittance... I’d like to witness that conversation, that’s for sure.

And Eileen. I hope she’s back sooner rather than later next episode!!

What’s next episode going to be about if it’s not about the breaking of old patterns to make way for new ones...? Are we going to follow the boys around as they do laundry and cook and make a few tentative plans for their unknown future? They won’t be hunting much in 15x20, at least if Dabb is anything to go by. I guess there might be something brief as a final The Boys With Their Weapons Doing Their Thing, but... it won’t be a case episode. And it would’ve been strange if it was, you know?

So then. Hope. One more week breathing eating sleeping on hopes and wishes and we shall simply have to wait and see what we get.

I have every faith it will blow us away, but I’m also sitting pretty. Reining in those horses lest they run away with me. And whatever comes our way, I’m so grateful for this show!

#spn meta #spn 15x19 #spn speculation #dean #cas #sam #jack #chuck #michael #lucifer #deancas #destiel #hopes and wishes

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crashingmeteorz · 4 years

Text

post-war ba sing se bimbo headcanons

so zuko becomes the firelord, and jin and jet think it’s hilarious. he’s so good at it. he’s so charismatic. they’re like “who the hell is this guy? when did he get mature and responsible???” and song’s like “when zuko wasn’t doing stupid shit, he was stopping you two from doing stupid shit, i saw this coming a mile away.”

jin joins the kyoshi warriors, and is overwhelmed by all the pretty girls she’s working with, but for the most part it becomes a sisterhood. she will forever and always have a severe crush on suki, however, and really, can you blame her? so when suki reciprocates, jin writes song a four-page essay about it.

anyway, when zuko asks the warriors to come to the capital, obviously jin’s there, too. jet and song show up almost immediately after jin does.

“what, you two are hanging out without us now?” song asks them accusatorily. “it’s not fair that only you get to see jin, zuko.”

“yeah,” jet says. “and i used to see zuko shirtless a few times a week. and i thought i was lucky! now jin’s a kyoshi warrior and she gets to see it every day?”

“she does not!” says zuko. “yeah,” says jin, while shaking her head the opposite.

attempts on zuko’s life are about as common as rain showers, so song starts testing basically everything he eats with some of her chemicals. every time she finds something insidious, she tracks down every link in the chain that got the food to him, and finds a way to rectify the situation. she doesn’t trouble zuko with this, because he’s got enough going on. also, he probably maybe wouldn’t approve of her methods.

(song is not inherently violent, but when it comes to her family, she’s downright vicious).

jet wants to get in on the action, but between song’s disarming sweetness and the kyoshi warrior’s intimidation, zuko’s basically protected. what he isn’t, is good with people.

zuko can make grand dramatic speeches all day long, but when it comes to the council, or local government officials, or merchants, or literally even jet, he’s the same awkward kid jet met on the boat to ba sing se.

“you are never going to make it as firelord.” jet tells him from the couch he’s lounging on while he watches zuko practice a very basic interaction in the mirror.

“okay, fuck you, too.” zuko says miserably.

“sorry, i wasn’t clear,” jet says, standing beside zuko. “you are never going to make it as firelord without me.”

jet tries in vain to get zuko to lie better, to present himself differently, to deceive just a little bit, but it just isn’t happening. zuko doesn’t even want to lie, he doesn’t want to be like his father and azula, so they take a different approach.

instead, jet teaches him how to spot liars, and how to play the game. it’s basic stuff, like let silence linger because they’ll want to fill it if they’re afraid you don’t believe them. ask them bizarre questions so they overcorrect. if they’re complimenting you too much, they’re trying to deceive you.

to jet, it’s survival. to zuko, it’s like a whole world has opened up he never knew about. he hangs on to jet’s every word, and at the end, he asks that jet join him in council meetings, naming him an ambassador from the earth kingdom.

this is how jet discovers that he’s AMAZING at politics. he can’t believe how easy it is. he considers taking it up as a hobby when he gets back to the earth kingdom.

“you can’t do politics as a hobby,” zuko says.

“why not?” jet says. “it’s just fun. it’s not what i’m meant to be doing forever though.”

“do you have a mysterious job back in the earth kingdom none of us know about?” asks jin.

“yes,” says song, irritable from today’s batch of poison discoveries, “he’s working full-time as a little bitch.”

the more meetings jet attends, the more he wonders if politics really is for what he’s meant. arguing and debating delights him and, unlike the exhausted zuko, he leaves the debates feeling energized. but it just feels so bureaucratic, so useless compared to what he did during the war.

he’s so torn about it that he finally asks song for advice.

“i don’t know anything about politics,” she says tiredly. he’s playing idly with her hair after she’s had a long day of Keeping Zuko Alive. “why are you asking me?”

“because you don’t hold back,” jet tells her. “because you let me know when i’ve gone too far.”

song’s glad it’s dark in the lounge, because she can’t believe she’s blushing.

“well,” she says finally. “what would you be in it for?”

“what do you mean?” he says. “i just like it.”

“do you like the attention?” song asks. “are you just interested in the drama of it all? or do you want to make a difference?”

“i want to make a difference,” he says confidently. “i want to help the earth kingdom.”

“well, then, there’s your answer,” song says.

“yeah,” jet agrees. “no politics for me.”

“wait, what?” song asks him, because how did he reach that conclusion?

“it’s just smooth talking and paperwork. it’s not gonna help the earth kingdom,” jet tells her. “i’m not selling out.”

“is that what you think zuko’s doing?” she asks.

“of course not,” jet says, rolling his eyes. “but he’s also the firelord. that’s different.”

“and he’s your best friend,” she reminds him. “and you also happen to be on good terms with the avatar and the leaders of the southern water tribe, so you know you have influential people who will hear you out. if you want to make a difference, this is probably the best way.”

he’s quiet for a while. he almost looks disappointed.

“not every battle is on the battlefield, jet,” song says gently. “it’s not as glamorous, or as dangerous. it’s tedious and difficult and boring. but it’s what’s left, after the war.”

“i guess that’s the thing,” jet says sadly. “i don’t know who i am without the war.”

“i do,” song says with so much sincerity jet almost blushes. almost. he’s still, like, cool.

if they fall into a routine where song fixes his hair into something presentable for council meetings and jet forces her to take a break and enjoy the sunshine once in a while, zuko and jin don’t feel it’s necessary to comment.

for like three days.

“you stole my boyfriend,” zuko accuses song after catching her and jet kissing. the fact that sokka’s napping with his head in zuko’s lap as he says so doesn’t seem to faze him.

“you stole my ostrich horse,” she says, for the last time ever, “so now we’re even.”

“what’s with you and guys with weird facial hair?” jin asks as she stuffs her face with fire flakes, her new favorite treat. “first haru and now jet?”

“haru?” jet squeaks.

“i liked haru’s moustache,” song says thoughtfully. “i thought it made him look mature.”

“at least if jet grew a moustache i’d understand what everyone sees in him,” sokka says sleepily. “no offense.”

“you’re just mad i kissed zuko first,” huffs jet.

jet stops shaving that week. everyone notices.

when song and jet finally prepare to go back to the earth kingdom, jet privately asks zuko if it’s true that he and aang are considering founding a city that unites the nations. zuko tells him it is.

“well, i want in. whenever that is,” he says, and jet and zuko hug.

song and her mother open up a hospital and sanctuary that specifically caters to displaced families. jet reunites with longshot and smellerbee, and they drift around but tend to come back to the sanctuary. they often go out on missions to try and reunite families. it’s not quite fighting, and it’s not quite peace, so it’s a good transition for jet and his freedom fighters.

eventually, things slow down and so does jet. he starts walking around the village they’re located in without his weapons. a child asks song where she got the scars on her leg, and when she explains it was a firebender, the child says “oh, did he get in trouble?” song laughs and laughs, because for the first time in years, there are children who don’t know war.

jin doesn’t stay as a kyoshi warrior forever, but she does decide to settle down on kyoshi. she never really wanted the dangerous life, she just wanted some adventure and sort of stumbled into the chaos of jet and song and zuko. the quiet island is perfect for her. she still stirs up trouble once in a while though.

“COME GET YOUR IDIOT SHE TRIED TO RIDE THE UNAGI.” suki writes in two identical letters, one to jet and song and one to zuko.

“okay, whatever suki tells you, i want you to know she’s lying. i DID ride the unagi and it was SICK. sokka was here recently and said someone invented an image-capture thing is that true? because if it is i want you to bring one and come here ASAP so i can do it AGAIN.” says the fervent letter from jin that arrived three days after suki’s.

jet and song arrive promptly, song laden with medical supplies and a sternly-worded letter from her mother to jin. jet brings a camera.

zuko shows up a few days later with the latest in camera technology and a photographer, as well as his one-year-old daughter. he goes all-out because this is his and izumi’s first trip together. jet grumbles about being one-upped.

“you’re the firelord, you’re gonna encourage this?” song asks him, eyes furious but voice sweet as she plays with izumi. “excuse me, song, but the war is over, i have no jurisdiction here. if an earth kingdom citizen wants to exercise her right to be a dumbass she’s more than welcome to,” says zuko in his most diplomatic voice.

“and,” he adds more gently, “i missed you guys.” song still thinks he’s being ridiculous, but she gives him a big hug anyway.

zuko has to firebend at the unagi to stop it from eating jin and song is left to mend jin’s broken arm. jet takes pictures throughout the entire thing, from her climbing onto the creature, to getting thrown, to being bandaged up and laughs the whole time. song produces a second letter written by her mother which she was instructed only to give to jin in the event she rode the unagi.

all it says in neat hand-writing is, “i told you so. now come home so i can feed you, you ridiculous child.”

“i’m 24,” pouts jin, but since she’s the youngest, the group agrees heartily with song’s mother.

the five of them go to the sanctuary, where iroh is drinking tea with song’s mother and trading stories about their new respective lives.

zuko has to return to the capital in three days, iroh’s got his tea shop to run, and jin isn’t planning on staying long because her “super hot girlfriend is doing something extremely sexy” and she has to get back soon.

“jin, please, just talk normal for once in your life,” zuko begs her, bouncing izumi on his lap. “fine,” she says, “she’s being voted in as the leader of the island and i want to be there for the ceremony.”

jet realizes it’s not often he’ll have all the people he loves in one place, and quietly asks song something important.

they get married the night before zuko and jin leave, in front of jet’s freedom fighters and song’s mother and iroh. jin and zuko stand as their maid of honor and best man. zuko cries.

for the first time in almost two decades, all of them start to feel at peace.

ty so much for this au @azenkii writing about it is one of the most enjoyable experiences haha. is this update softer than usual? yes, of course, it’s what they deserve.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 masterpost

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

Text

The Fight

CW: Ableism against a child, references to attempted noncon/assault of a survivor, religious references to the Bible, conditioning, trauma recovery, trauma response

TIMELINE: Immediately post-Creepy Pet Lib Guy. Links in piece.

She hears his footsteps, the soft motion of him through the living room and into the den, where a single lamp is on in the corner on the side table next to the old couch Paul never could bear to throw out. Ronnie doesn’t look over at him, instead picking at a bit of duct tape affixed over a ripped spot while sipping her beer straight from the bottle.

There’s a show on the television - they have a new one finally, but Ronnie’s never thrown out a damn thing that wasn’t broken just because it got replaced and she’s not about to start now, so she moved it in here - but she’s not watching it. Not even sure what the show is, only that the laugh track is tinny and never seems timed to the moments of actual humor.

The house is mostly silent, this late at night. There’s no sound but the occasional gurgle from the ice machine in the fridge, the soft hum of electronics that she never notices except when the power goes out, and then only because of its sudden absence.

No sound but the television’s off-key laughter and the footsteps of her son, creeping up behind her.

“Mommy?” His voice is so high and soft, fuzzy with sleepiness, and she turns with a tired smile to see him dragging his favorite blanket behind him along the floor. It’s a quilt she bought at a church’s Christmas market when he was two, and it had buttons sewn in with the patches, giving the cats the quilt is decorated with three-dimensional button eyes.

His face is rounded and so like his father’s, even so, his face and eyes and his hair are all Paul’s, through and through. He’s an echo, a clone of his father, in a lot of ways… up to and including navigating a world that has already labeled him as difficult, and he’s only six years old.

“Hey, baby. What are you doing up?” She’s twenty-three with a six year old son, and doesn’t that seem strange, some days? So many of her friends from high school are still out until dawn, posting photos of their drunken shenanigans on Facebook, and here Ronnie sits… twenty-three, with a husband who works nights, and a six-year-old son whose teacher calls him hopeless, right to his fucking face.

“I, I, I had a bad dream,” He says, and his eyes are so, so big in his small round face. Paul’s eyes are like that, big and green and soulful. She’d fallen into them, her junior year, and she’d never wanted to climb back out. No matter that her friends thought he was weird, no matter that yeah, okay, he is weird - he’s her kind of weird, and she and Paul understood each other right from the start.

“Oh, no.” She pats the couch cushion beside her and he clambers almost eagerly up to tuck himself in beside her. Her throat nearly closes as he carefully spreads his blanket out to cover them both, the simple gesture of care and love. How do you look this boy in the eyes and tell him he can’t do something? “What was your bad dream about, do you want to tell me?”

“Monsters,” He says, as if that single word relays all the information she could possibly need. Maybe it does, really - at least the monsters her son dreams about are easier to vanquish than the ones Ronnie has to help him learn how to face on his own as he grows.

“Good thing I monster-proofed this house before we moved in,” Ronnie teases. She moves her arm around his shoulders and he smiles, faintly, eyes closing as he leans his head against her collarbone, his ear right where he’s always wanted it, ever since birth - over her heart. Listening to her heartbeat. Sure enough, his fingers find their way to her stomach and start to tap in time with it, and Ronnie sips her beer again.

“Monsters aren’t, aren’t, aren’t real, actually,” He says, speaking quietly and without opening her eyes, and Ronnie thinks if her six-year-old well, actuallys her one more time… she read all the parenting books and has a whole shelf of parenting memoirs she’s picked up and not a single one mentioned that little kids are fucking know-it-alls. Not one.

“Well, if they’re not real, then why are you buggin’ Mommy at midnight because of dreaming about them, huh?” She keeps her voice light and affectionate, just this side of teasing. Tristan doesn’t react well to any kind of perceived anger or rejection, moping for a day or more around while his brain tries to process that she didn’t stop loving him just because he did something that bothered her. Tris as a toddler broke her heart more than once with terrified insistence that you, you, you don’t even like me anymore after time-outs or discipline.

He’s just being manipulative, her mother had said once, but Ronnie knew better.

He’s three years old, Mom. He’s not trying to manipulate me, he’s scared.

He’s just doing what works, Veronica, you can’t always give in to it.

Mom. He is a little boy. Do you realize how you sound?

Now his teacher is repeating the same tired circular logic that cycles round and round her son without ever seeing him. Ronnie is staring down the barrel of another round of meetings, talking to administrators to try and get around the teacher’s rigidity and hostility, arguing for Tris to get moved into a new class, and all the while he’ll fall further and further behind in his in-class work - while at home he rockets through the homeschooling workbooks she buys, a six-year-old already doing second-grade reading and writing work, first-grade math, obsessed with a kid show about science that they have to watch every single day or he has seriously informed her he might die.

The knowledge is there, and his love of learning hasn’t been throttled by school yet, and Ronnie can’t do anything but try to work within a system that tells her that her son needs to be changed or cured in order to not be kept locked away from everyone else.

Monsters are pretty fucking real, in Ronnie’s experience.

One day her son will have to learn that all the monsters are human beings.

God, she’s so tired of fighting, and so very aware that she’s not going to stop until the whole damn world remakes itself to give space for Tristan, until the world deserves how unreservedly her son loves it.

She takes another drink, then sets the beer bottle carefully down on the coaster - she ordered them last year, and they all have little stylized drawings of the three of them on it, faceless sketches of a man, a woman, a child - man and child red-headed, woman with brown hair.

When she’d gotten the positive pregnancy test, right before Thanksgiving her junior year, she’d thrown up and cried for a week and been sullen and silent at the holiday table, trying to figure out what to do next.

But Paul had never hesitated. When she told him, his response had been to go home to his dad and ask to start working part-time with the Garden, running packages he never looked into, playing lookout outside of bars while the Garden met inside. His first pay - cash handed to him in an envelope - he’d spent some of it on a onesie, a baby blanket, and a stuffed puppy with fur so soft Ronnie could barely stand the fluff.

Then he’d spent some more on ginger chews and ‘Preggo Pops’, lollipops that were supposed to help with Ronnie’s morning sickness, and three books on pregnancy for her and one book on becoming a dad for him.

Paul did what Paul always did - took one look at a cliff he had to cross and simply leapt headfirst and hoped for the best. That impulsiveness that she loved and that had gotten him in so much trouble in life, the enthusiasm that carried her long with it.

There are monsters in the world, Ronnie thinks, running fingers through her son’s fine, soft hair. But there are people who help you fight the monsters, too. Even if the monster is just the stares from other students at school as her stomach grew, the way her friends’ parents stopped letting her come to their houses, the thin-lipped disapproval of the principal handing her a high school diploma as she half-waddled across the stage, refusing to be shamed, engagement ring on her finger. Even if the monster is a world that tries to shove her son into boxes that he can’t fit into, or a teacher who sends him home in tears convinced he’s too stupid to learn anything.

Her jaw sets.

Veronica Higgs has been headstrong since birth, and she’s never made a decision she didn't follow through on. Never turned away from a fight. She’s not about to start now, not when it’s her son.

Ronnie has never turned away from the sweet baby that had looked at her with such dark-eyed seriousness when he was born, the infant who cried for reasons Ronnie couldn't’ fathom, the toddler who screamed that the lights at Target hurt his skin, the little boy who lined up dinosaurs and cars and toy horses in perfect color gradients, the boy who rocks in her arms and hums when he’s happy, the boy she hopes will one day be able to live on his own without her, because…

Because if only Paul and Ronnie are going to fight for him, then they’re going to have to be a fight so fierce that everyone else can’t possibly hold out against them.

The doctors said he might not talk - and he talks a mile-a-minute, about any-fucking-thing that comes into his mind. They said he wouldn’t make friends easily, but he goes on sleepovers with his gymnastics buddies, just went to a party at Chuck E. Cheese with a little preparation so he wasn’t scared of the games and lights and noise when he got there. They said he would struggle in school, and-

Well, he does. But only because of the adults who refuse to understand that Tris learns just fine… if you let him listen in his own way.

“Hey, Tris?” She smiles down at him and he turns those big green eyes up to her. There’s a chapped spot on his lower lip that looks like he might have messed with it until it opened into a sore, and she reminds herself to get some vaseline on it. “You want to stay here with me for a bit? We’ll watch one of your shows, and then back to bed. How’s that sound?”

He smiles at her, and nods a little, still tapping along to her heartbeat. “Oh, oh, okay, Mom. Can, can, can… can-can… can we watch Dino King?”

“Yeah, sure.” Ronnie hates that show, but really - he loves it, and it’s one night, and she could use the way his open, brilliant happiness helps her forget that he’s going to have to work harder and harder to hold onto it as he grows.

She picks up the remote, brings up the menu, switches to a streaming network, and listens to the grating, familiar theme song start to play as her son’s eyes move contentedly to the screen.

He watches the show, but he never takes his head away from her heartbeat.

---

Natalie Yoder has had easier nights than this one, that’s for fucking sure. She leans over the kitchen table, papers spread out in front of her, trying to figure out where they went wrong. This is one of their biggest grants, it’s a bit of funding that she has always relied on, and… denied approval for the upcoming fiscal year.

Thousands of dollars she needs to feed and clothe and house her rescues, gone up in smoke, denied with a bloodless email and no ability to fight back, not for this one. Not this year. It could be a simple error, something she overlooked, sure. Or maybe the association that gives out the grants is suspicious of her story about transitioning homeless people into permanent housing, which really is exactly what she’s doing, isn’t it?

Just… not the kind of homeless people the grant givers are imagining.

She’ll have to call Vince to beg for him to help her fill in the gap, and that will mean time for him to speak with his finance guy and get another couple of shell companies to funnel the money through so it doesn’t go back to him. He’ll give it to her, to be sure - Vince could give her the money to run this place flat out for the rest of his life and still be one of the wealthiest men in America, thanks to his low-key lifestyle and strong work ethic meaning he spends more time filming or producing than he does doing anything else.

Nat knows why Vince doesn’t want to be home, to sit up alone with a bottle or a glass in his hand. She knows his work ethic is simply escaping the demons that will never stop haunting his footsteps, what he traded away for his success, what he lost, what the money and fame can protect him from but can’t remove the stamp of it already written over his soul.

He’s famous, and rich, and Owen Grant can’t touch him now… but the tradeoff of Vince’s survival was that some innocent kid was abducted and turned, through drugs and torture and horrifying assault, into Kauri.

Kauri, who hasn’t answered the phone or sent a text in a week.

Not since that fucking group meeting where Chris was assaulted and Kauri stood up for him. Not since Kauri’s intuition that Kyle had some less-than-savory interest in Chris had proven correct, because… it wasn’t intuition at all.

It was experience.

Nat groans, rubbing her hands over her face, closing her eyes and reminding herself, teeth ground together, to try and stay calm. It’s not unusual for Kauri to disappear for a while, a week or more. It’s not a sign that something is wrong. He was hurt by Nat pushing him, he needs time to think.

He’ll pop right back up again, smiling like nothing happened, like he isn’t giving Nat gray hairs (well, new ones, anyway) trying to tell herself he’ll be okay.

All she can do is trust that he’ll come back when he’s ready.

... and castigate herself for letting that fucking predator get close to Chris without picking up on what he was planning, and for not realizing Kauri wasn’t just being overprotective of a younger rescue, but - in his own way - waving giant red flags that Nat, and Jake, and everyone else just didn’t see.

That, and then losing the grant, have made for one hell of a fucking week.

Nat takes deep breaths. Her hands smell like dish soap and a hint of the roasted garlic she’d put in the soup for supper lingering. The kitchen still smells like the garlic, roasted parsnips and rosemary. Chris had never had parsnips before-

Not that anyone knows if he really hasn’t or not.

“Oh, Nat, you are a mess tonight,” She mutters to herself. “Just full-on moping, huh? That’s how we’re gonna play it?”

Then she hears the soft scrape of a foot on the tile and looks up, blinking, to see Chris in the doorway, leaning against the wood of the frame, the big purple fuzzy blanket she’d gotten him a few weeks back wrapped around his narrow shoulders, the hints of faded muscle that still linger there. Usually he’s draped in Jake’s clothes but tonight he’s only wearing his basketball shorts, no shirt at all.

The rare glimpse of so much of Chris’s skin - she hasn’t seen so much of him since the night he arrived in the pouring rain - tells Nat more than anything else that Chris isn’t okay, either.

“Hey, Chris. What’s up, sweetheart?” Nat glances over at the oven, squinting at the clock, and then groans. “Jesus, it’s nearly 2 am. I lost track of time, I guess.”

Chris doesn’t move from the doorway, not at first. He’s gone quiet again, since the assault, regressing back into periods of stillness and silence that they were so sure he’d gotten past. Jake says he’s testing again, trying to push Jake and Antoni into repeating the patterns that were tortured into his mind as normal, reacting with relief at their rejections - and then testing again, within hours, reminding himself that they’ll never say yes.

Nat looks at him, the shadows under his green eyes, and tries, “Did you have a nightmare?”

He slowly nods, and she watches his hands twist a little into the soft fabric of his blanket, rhythmically twisting to the side and back, nearly invisible with how well he can hide what he does to soothe himself, a skill taught in all the worst ways, learned in a desperate attempt to keep himself sane.

“Hm. I can see that. Was it about the meeting, the other night?”

His eyes dance away from hers, move to the ceiling, and he’s staring upwards at the rough texture up there as he nods, chewing on his lower lip with his top teeth, worrying at a spot that she knows he’ll eventually work to bleeding, sooner or later. He pauses and says, softly, “Kauri… didn’t come find me. That was, was my... my dream. And... it. It hurt.”

His voice, slow drips of speech, hits Nat like a knife to the heart. She nods, slowly, and pushes herself up, chair scraping back across the tile. Chris flinches minutely at the sound, curling a little into himself. “I understand, sweetheart,” She says, softly. “I’m so sorry we didn’t know sooner.”

She thinks, looking at him, of Daniel in the lion’s den, an old Bible story that’s never left her. Daniel trusted God and walked out unscathed, but she’s always thought maybe he wasn’t quite as unscathed as the Bible wants you to think he was.

It’s one thing to have faith that you’ll survive being thrown in with monsters - it’s another to be so inhuman that you don’t wake with nightmares, for months or years after, that you were never saved at all. She is certain, deep down inside of her, that Daniel dreamed of a lion’s teeth and a promise broken, a prayer unheard.

The stories talk about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in a furnace walking out of the flames untouched, but of course the flames had still touched them. Scars aren’t always written openly on your skin.

Of course they dreamed of flames scorching their skin, curling their hair, smoke stealing breath from their lungs. They, like Daniel, must have woken gasping, certain that their faith had been misplaced, that their trust that someone stood between them and the monsters who would destroy them had been betrayed.

They must have breathed, panting, in the middle of the night, and sworn they could still see the smoke in the air, feel the heat against their skin.

They must have needed to come fully awake to remember - and believe - that they had been rescued. They must have needed the reminder.

Chris has no scars from walking with monsters - all his scars are inside his head. Chris’s scars come in his fear that she will not want him, that no one really wants him, when he can’t fight back or say no or defend himself, when he needs someone else to be his defense, to go to war. They come in his insistent, constant testing of Jake, pushing to see if it’s all been a lie, if they only want to use him the way he has been taught he is made to be used.

“Kauri was smarter than any of the rest of us,” Nat says, feeling suddenly exhausted. “We should have listened. I shouldn’t have had to step in. You deserved better.”

Chris deserves a fucking angel to lead him untouched out of the flames.

All he has is Jake - and Nat.

She fills a saucepan with cold milk while he watches her, his eyes on her back a tangible, palpable weight, and pops a lid on, turning the dial until the flames flicker up from the burner to start heating it to a simmer.

“I’m going to have hot chocolate the old fashioned way,” She announces, pulling down a bag with some discs of melting chocolate in it. They cost too much and mostly nobody notices the difference, but tonight… tonight, she thinks the extra effort is worth it. “You want whipped cream on yours, when it’s done?”

“Yes, please,” He whispers, and she looks over at him with a small smile. His hair is mussed still from sleep, a hint of red on his cheek where he must have had it pressed into a pillow. His freckles stand out in the thin light of the kitchen’s overhead light fixture.

Next door, at Miss Ruth’s, a light turns on, and Nat glances through her own window to see it. Jaden, probably - that kid sleeps about as little as Chris does.

“Well, good, because I’m having some, too.” She pauses, leaning her back against the kitchen counter. There’s a long silence that draws out between them. The milk heats, bubbling just the tiniest bit around the edges in the saucepan, and Nat carefully drops in the chocolate discs to melt whisking until the liquid is a rich brown, thickened, ready for her to pour carefully into two mugs and top with the spray-bottle whipped cream she keeps in the fridge.

Nat sets the mugs down on the kitchen table, pulling Chris a chair up right next to hers. He relaxes a little at the tacit, silent request for closeness, drops into his chair with a slight smile playing over his face. He picks up the mug with both hands and takes a sip, getting whipped cream at the end of his nose, wiping it off with a scrunched-up expression that lifts some of the fatigue that dogs Nat’s muscles in the early-morning hours.

“I know the dreams are scary,” Nat says softly, reaching out to lay a hand on his back. He looks over at her, with those giant green eyes in his narrow face, searching for something in her. Maybe just for certainty that the promises she’s made to him will be kept. “But Kauri did come to help you. And you’re safe here, with us. We’ll always come for you, Chris, no matter what.”

He leans over, with slow inevitability, until the top of his head brushes against her neck, his head just at her collarbone. She lets her arm slide around his shoulders, her hand moving to run fingers slowly through his fine, soft coppery hair. “I, I, I forgot how to say no,” He whispers, and presses his head against her.

“I know, honey. But that’s okay, we get back up and try again, right?” Nat sips her own hot chocolate slowly, and Chris holds his cupped warm in his palms, but even as he keeps taking sips, he doesn’t pull away from her. Eventually, he puts the mug back down on the table and shifts a little, so his ear is just over her heart.

“We, we, we try again,” He whispers. “But, but, but I don’t want to, to, to, I don’t-... want to be, um, to be scared again, to… have someone-”

“I know.” Nat swallows, her throat closing, briefly, but she fights it back and keeps her voice - and her hand through his hair - steady as she speaks. “There are going to be bad people out there, Chris, who want to hurt you. But you’re not alone.”

She thinks again of Daniel, waking from nightmares of gnashing teeth, maybe kicking off blankets and pacing a room, his skin written invisibly with the aftermath of a terror that never punctured skin. She thinks of three men in a fire, dreaming again and again that the fourth never arrived to lead them out of the flames.

She thinks of promises made, and kept. Prayers spoken in desperation, and answered, although so often far too late.

She thinks of the prayers for mercy, in the cold white rooms, that are never heard at all.

She’s tired, but she loves them - all of them, who have passed through her doors and gone on to other places - and she can’t imagine being anything but their army, their defense, the wall they can hide behind to rebuild themselves until they fight on their own.

Not on their own, though, never really on their own.

She may never know what happened to him, to bring him here to her doorstep - but she knows that he doesn’t have to face the monsters, the flames, the danger alone. Not anymore.

“You’re safe here,” She says, gently, and turns her head to rest her chin on top of his head. “You’re safe here, and loved, and there’s nothing we won’t do to make sure you’re safe. Whatever comes at you, sweetheart, we’ve got you. And we’ll fight it for you, every time, until you can fight for yourself.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then he asks, in a whisper, “Do, do, do you you-you promise?”

“Promise, Chris. Cross my heart and hope-”

“Don’t-... don’t say the, the end of it.” His voice weakens. “Please.”

“Sorry, sweetie.” She tightens the arm around his shoulders a little, and feels him snuggle closer in response, a low sigh of relief at the reassurance in the embrace. “Swear on everything. I’ve got you, and Jake has got you, and we’re not gonna disappear. I don’t-... I don’t know if we can always save the day for you, Chris, but I can promise you that we will always try.”

He hums, eyes closing. One of his hands slides over her stomach, and begins - slight, soft, barely-there - to tap.

It takes Nat a few seconds to realize that he is tapping along to the beat of her heart.

---

Tagging: @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker, @boxboysandotherwhump , @oops-its-whump @moose-teeth , @cubeswhump , @cupcakes-and-pain @whump-tr0pes @whumpiary @orchidscript, @itallcomesdowntopain

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unwiltingblossom · 4 years

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So it's confirmed apparently that the summer camp will have a 'horror' theme. As some people have suggested, this probably means the 'test of courage' event will feature, and this is why Sigurd and Brynhildr both feature.

Let's get this out of the way first:

Realistically, we are going to be forced to do the walk with Mash and/or the welfare, and other pairings will be decided by plot reasons.

Semi-optimistically, we'll do the walk with every single swimsuit servant, though other pairings will still end up plot relevant.

very optimistically, we'll also get to do the walk with the men in their spiffy new costumes, or we'll get to decide x number of partners out of the pool of swimsuits + costumes to walk with.

But let's be delusional for a moment and pretend the game let us have our fun.

Here’s my pick of 7 tests of courage for Ritsuka + the way they’d play out.

1 - Bedivere

Bedivere will likely not fully understand the concept of a 'test of courage' because anything by that name in Camelot would have been much more hardcore and not really fit in with the idea of 'fun things to do on vacation'.

The other knights try to get together to be scarers, and Ritsuka is determined to play it up to get him to play along (or see if he gets spooked), but Bedivere just ends up mildly confused the whole time. He obligingly protects Ritsuka from the 'ghosts' and scares, even if he's a bit flustered that she keeps grabbing his hand or arm for 'protection'.

They make it through without much incident, aside from the time Kiyo charges in and tries to burn a ghost for startling Ritsuka, and when Artoria Ruler gets too into the role of being terrifying. Bedivere ends up a bit freaked out by that last one, but he pleasantly offers to protect Ritsuka if she ever wishes to do it again.

He's so pure she feels bad about dragging him into it

2 - Emiya

Old hat at this. He's pretty smug about being experienced in it, but questions why Ritsuka would pick him instead of any of the other servants. You know what this kind of test is really for, right??

She knows, Emiya.

He's exasperated about the fact that Ritsuka is clearly just pretending to be spooked over every little thing as an excuse to cling to him, like she didn't fight monsters or do this kind of test herself before.

It all goes well until Ishtar, Parvati and Ilya get into a fight over being the next one to walk with him, and then challenge Ritsuka to take her place when the two try to break it up.

Emiya tells Ritsuka next time, rather than cause so much trouble, she can just ask if she wants to hold onto him. With an insufferable smirk.

She dies.

3 - CasGil

OF COURSE HE KNOWS WHAT THIS IS. URUK HAD THE FIRST VERSION OF THIS, ONLY THEY WERE REAL GHOSTS AND MONSTERS AND PEOPLE DIED IF THEY WERE USELESS.

It's a pointless frivolity he wouldn't waste his time with, but Ritsuka's wisdom in turning to him for protection can't go ignored. Just this once he'll do it, so be grateful.

There will be no clinging, don't even think about it. Not that there's much chance, since half the scarers get spooked by his imperious gaze before they even try to scare him, and the rest of them are immediately neutralized (could it be he's spooked by some of them? surely not)

However! He'll be sure to remind Ritsuka to enjoy the king's protection especially for her just for now, it's an honor to be the only one he's focused on and protecting and blahblah blah

Some fool thought it'd be a good idea to let Enkidu be a scarer and the whole course is basically wrecked by them 'playing around'. In the process, Ritsuka also almost gets obliterated, good job.

Rather than dying, though, she's rescued by the king and Enkidu at the same time, and after an awkward moment they agree maybe they'll continue their game another time.

The whole course is ruined by then, though, so Ritsuka just has to grab on/be carried across the chasm left by the two and be dropped off at the finish line.

Next time if Ritsuka wants the king's attention, just say so and he'll come up with something less boring to do.

4 - Lanling

He has zero clue what is happening but if his master wants him to protect her and to spend time with him!! He's there for it.

He's more often spooked than Ritsuka, but she doesn't mind at all if he grabs her hand or arm in surprise. please do, cute one.

At one time his glasses fall off on accident and stun the scarers. Medb can't help herself and attacks, intent on capturing him for herself. Somehow it feels more like Ritsuka protecting and defending the prince than the reverse, but eventually he summons his horse and the two ride the rest of the way to safety.

He's pretty bashful about his poor performance but promises if he's given another chance he'll do better, now that he understands!

5 - Romani oh-

5 - Sigurd

I was gonna have it Diarmuid, but since Sigurd is the one with the costume...

Like with many others, 'test of courage' doesn't really summon up fun for the whole family, but master is weird so whatever. It seems like a waste of time but so is going camping as a vacation, and he supposes a bit of playing around isn't too bad. Plus, now Ritsuka can try out the glasses he made her. TEAM MEGANEKIRRAN GO!! (there is a glint button on the glasses just there, yep. right. NOW POSE!)

He's frankly a little awkward, but chivalrous nonetheless. Why are you spooked, master? Your glasses should protect you from little dragons like that!

Why are there so many dragons???

He gets into it, enjoying the challenge of fighting an increasing array of powerful dragons, even though Ritsuka is 99% sure that's not how the test is supposed to go at all.

Ritsuka is a bit haggard by the end and Sigurd is all amped up and warmed up for a good fight, glasses glinting in the moonlight. He just seems so happy, though, that it's kind of worth it? Yessirree, master was right, this was a fun time! Let's do it again!

6 - Merlin

Merlin knows the game and respects the hustle, he just doesn't get why Ritsuka would pick to go with him and not someone else (because he's dumb or at least is exceedingly good at pretending to be)

Still, he's not going to complain about walking with a cute girl, and will assure Ritsuka she can cling to him all~ she! wants~! (Ritsuka immediately wonders why she didn't decide to be a scarer instead. little magical shit, she'd dress up as fou and then throw actual fou at him)

Merlin decides to jazz up some of the scares with his illusions which end up somehow being terrifying because of this, so Ritsuka ends up startled and clinging to the smug wizard a few times anyway. Unsurprisingly, he just really wanted to nom on all that delicious emotion soup of being startled, tense, nervous, and flustered. He's shameless.

He even has the gall to chirp about how he's a knight too, and can protect Ritsuka from any danger, so she can always come running to him if she's scared of anything.

He's lucky he's cute, or she'd have Fou eat him.

7 - Amakusa

Of course, Amakusa is familiar with this game, even though he's never played it himself. He pretends he isn't, just to be difficult.

But Amakusa still has the body of a 16 year old, so Ritsuka enjoys the feeling of actually taking the test with someone of a similar age to hers (even though he isn't), and she can 'ooh' and 'aah' over his ability to exorcise spirits! If he's going to pretend he doesn't know what the game is, she's going to pretend to be spooked and grab his arm/torso/hand whenever a scare happens, just to see him flustered.

He cuts a very noble figure, and seems weirdly at home with the ghosts and stuff for...some reason...?

It's all well and good until JAlter lily comes running in spooked because she lost her partner, and he starts showing off. It's completely out of hand and somehow there's a giant ghost summoned from the mountain forest by this that he has to take care of.

He has the good grace to look a little sheepish for causing that much trouble.

It's still pretty fun for Ritsuka to walk along with Amakusa and Jalter Lily through the rest, even if he looks a little too dangerous when little JAlter gets too spooked by something and technically the test of courage is supposed to be just two people.

At the end, Jalter lily wants to do it again because she'll totally be brave this time, and Amakusa might, maybe, let on that it was fun to get to try it for once, rather than just hear about it. Plus, he got to be the hero protecting the damsels for once (even though it was trouble he caused...)

And that's the 7 trips Ritsuka took through the event that left her way more exhausted after vacation than before.

#fgo #bedivere #emiya #caster gilgamesh #amakusa shirou #merlin #sigurd #lanling wang #prince of lanling #ooc #fgo summer #fic #ritsuka fujimaru #long post

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snakedevour · 3 years

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my thoughts on chapter 81 ahead, fellas. it feels like it’s been a while since i analyzed a chapter drop but in my defense they only release once a month and 80.5 didn’t give me a lot of meat to bite into.

nyanyway -- here’s kkg 81. this chapter brings the focus back onto yumeko a little bit, showing us again how she plays, how she thinks, and how she challenges the people around her. basically, for me, this chapter was the whole buffet after several chapters of scraps.

SPOILERS BELOW.

i made a post maybe a week or so ago at this point mentioning that i wanted to talk about how yumeko’s friendliness is “impersonal” despite being genuine and how that feeds into her ( for lack of better words ). and i’m still going to do that and it’ll be in a separate post from this one but this chapter gave me some ammunition in regards to that thought.

the thing that makes yumeko difficult to navigate in terms of interacting with her is that she challenges the conventional definition of “kind” and in a way kind of forces you to delineate between that and “friendly”.

yumeko is a cocktail with two major components:

1. she is friendly 2. she is powerful

and when you have a friendly powerful person it’s easy to fall into the trap tsubomi has here, in which you feel that because you side with someone friendly and powerful you’re inherently under their protection.

and in a lot of storytellings that’d typically be true... but yumeko is awfully atypical. recall tsubomi’s commentary from chapter 63:

so long as we frame “friendly” as something that inherently goes hand-in-hand with “good” i think we set ourselves up to misunderstand yumeko’s personality. yumeko is friendly but she is not altruistic. yumeko does not “save” people; every time that it seems that she has it’s because they “won” it from her -- yumeko has never been benevolent for benevolence’s sake.

by a lot of standard definitions, i’d argue that she’s not even a good person.

it’s really nice to be reminded of that weird layer of nuance. we’re also reminded of something that might have gotten overshadowed by her comparative calmness lately and the housepet drama from the last few chapters --

more than just wantonly putting herself at risk, yumeko is obsessed with simultaneously imposing high antes on other people.

let’s briefly throw all the way back to chapter 16 just to get that in her own words:

i kind of want to say that yumeko has sadomasochistic tendencies but that’s probably for another post another day.

anyway, this takes us back to today and chapter 81, where tsubomi goes on to notice the folly in her own thinking:

paired with her thoughts from chapter 63 this says a lot.

“would yumeko bother helping me if I’m not taking any risk?”

i’m pretty sure the answer is no.

this really just sort of further cements my original opinion that yumeko definitely operates on some sort of metric of “earning” what one has. if you’re interested in my thought piece on that subject it’s right over here.

i really like where tsubomi’s train of thought is going here. up until now we’ve seen yumeko’s cutthroat mentality mostly as applied to herself and an opposing player. we’ve seen her drive the stakes high with yuriko, with sayaka, with miyo and miri and so on.

this is what i mean when i say yumeko’s friendliness has an element of uncanny valley to it. you can argue that we’ve seen yumeko drag people into gambling alongside her ( like itsuki ), but we haven’t really seen it in this kind of light where it’s leveraged against her willingness to help people.

so +1 to chapter 81 for re-highlighting this fact about yumeko.

moving along, tsubomi is having these thoughts in the first place because terano came by and pointed out to her that she’s an “extra”, and per the logistics of the game yumeko only really needs suzui’s cooperation to win. then we cut to this short set-up scene where yumeko tells the gang ( and us ) the plan for this turn:

this gets tsubomi thinking. because yumeko is donating to suzui, she’ll have 0 points which means if tsubomi challenges her, she’ll win and thereby fulfill the requirements of her life plan to “knock either yumeko or terano out of the election”. tsubomi we’ve seen in past games though is still kind of coming into her own individuality, and is very much used to just taking orders. on top of that, she still feels indebted to yumeko for pushing her to play against kiwatari during the debt swap indian poker.

another thing i commented about in the past was the “human” qualities and motivations of the characters. tsubomi is a real highlight of this chapter because she reminds us of that quality too, because terano’s remarks spark what i think is a very organic conflict in her thoughts:

“i don’t want to be a housepet” vs “i don’t want to betray the girl i’m indebted to”

“i want to live as a person” vs “i want to keep a good conscience”

it’s the portrayal of internal struggles like these that make me angy at the sexualization in this series because these really show that it just isn’t needed. kawamoto absolutely knows what he’s writing and it’s not like he’s writing it poorly so its like...what gives.

not to make this about yumeko again but she does seem to get pretty meta here. i’m pretty certain that she knows what tsubomi is thinking here and i’ll also go as far as to suggest that she might have even set up the play this way to test tsubomi’s mettle. i’ll get into that here in a moment though :)

i say yumeko has an idea of what’s going through tsubomi’s mind here just because her question is very telling -- “have you made your decision?” -- yumeko definitely knows that some sort of choice has been imposed onto tsubomi, and tsubomi’s mentioning of her lack of guidance this turn also implies that yumeko is leaving her to fend for herself. which i think is something yumeko will always do. we’ve established that she’s not altruistic in the slightest...i don’t think yumeko is at all interested in people who lack the will to help themselves, regardless of how pitiable their circumstances.

i know suzui is supposed to be the audience-proxy but idk my guys... i think tsubomi is shaping up to be the better conduit through which we see yumeko’s real colors.

also, more of yumeko giving us some insight into her values and how she thinks... but @ naomura why did you draw her doing this. yumeko you look SILLY but ily anyway

“only a choice at the end of agony can move your heart” -- yumeko’s starting to give me vibes of someone who’s apathetic unless the ante is driven wildly high hence why she does it but i need at least one more backstory drop before i speak more on that one. just saying it’d line up with a few things tho

moving on, it follows that tsubomi ultimately decides to challenge yumeko because that’s the logical thing to do if she wants to look out for herself. plus some commentary from terano about how it’s all according to keikaku.

anyway, i really enjoyed this next sequence because it throws back to yumeko even more. it reminds us that while yumeko loves taking on huge risks, that doesn’t mean she plays to lose. it’s been a while since we’ve seen yumeko engage in a setup like this so it was great to see that kawamoto still remember what kind of gambler she is:

i actually really love terano but i do enjoy seeing yumeko consistently trip her up. it really upholds yumeko’s role as a dark horse.

anyway, remember how i said yumeko probably set this play up to see what tsubomi would do? this is where we can circle back to that because we see, in fact, that yumeko did not donate her points to suzui like she said she would.

yumeko is such a convoluted character that you can get caught up on one aspect of her character to the point of forgetting another. in recent chapters we’ve seen her in a supporting role: supporting mary, seemingly helping tsubomi... but thanks chapter 81 for reminding us that yumeko is a gambler before she’s anything else and can and will set up other players. this also kind of raises a mild albeit interesting moral quandary: i think it’s pretty safe to say that this was manipulative on yumeko’s part, but it could also be argued that this is a gamble and she read far enough ahead and just acted accordingly. i think that ambiguity is the point.

and that’s the jist chapter 81, and tbh i really enjoyed it. it felt like i was back in ye olden days of yore where kkg was yumeko’s misadventures. for a while there it felt like they were like “ok we’ve established she’s a really good gambler we must shine the spotlight elsewhere now” -- which is fair, don’t get me wrong. knowing the rest of the -bamis is really important to the plot. it’s just nice to see yumeko back in action proper again 🥺

#the kkg deep dive #kakegurui spoilers #are there typos in this? probably #i'll scan it over again later but my brain cells are fried for now #but 81 was Really Good #the whole buffet #long post /

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dhwty-writes · 4 years

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Chapter 13 - A Broken Shelter

A lot of you are wondering how Geralt and Jaskier will get out of the marriage. All I have to say to that is… not yet! But! They talk! Also, there’s a picture of Janina, now.

Thanks as always to @persony-pepper for betaing this chapter. Have fun :)

Summary: Waiting for Jaskier in the woods is horrible. The news the Viscount delivers after are, somehow, even worse.

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There were a lot of things Geralt didn’t enjoy about the world he lived in. Injustice. Annoying songs. Barkeeps who spit in his food. Not enough drink, not enough sex, not enough time with his brothers. Destiny.

But the list of things he truly despised was surprisingly short. It went as followed:

1) Lukewarm liquids. No fluid on this earth was meant to — or even could be — be enjoyed tepid. Ale was supposed to be cold, bath water hot, nothing in between.

2) Ciri crying. He hated the helplessness that came with that. The realisation that he, Geralt of Rivia, a witcher, was utterly unfit to take care of a child. Much less a royal one. Much less a royal one who began seeing him as her father of all things.

3) Jaskier being silent. Jaskier’s tirades were legendary, everyone who spent more than a few seconds in his company knew that. The bard was able to monologue about basically everything: a pebble in his boots, a torn seam, trampled flowers, lukewarm ale, and, most impressively, the rude behaviour his fellow humans spared for witchers. But when he was silent? That was when he knew he should be worrying.

4) Djinns. He’d only known one in his entire life but that one was responsible for his bard’s almost-untimely demise and the fucking curse that had ruined his relationship to Yennefer, and thus to Jaskier. No, he wasn’t taking criticism on that one.

5) Being incapacitated when something dangerous was afoot. He hated it. He was a witcher, created to stand between danger and humanity. And yet, more often than he would like, he couldn’t.

Like now. There was obviously something dangerous afoot. Elsewise he wouldn’t have been sent away. Was there something even more incapacitating than being sent away? The early-winter forest didn’t answer when he asked it as much.

“My point exactly,” he muttered, pulling his cloak tighter around his shoulders and continuing his trek through the woods. It was fucking freezing and he hated it. He didn’t really know where he was going, just away from Lettenhove, and then back again. Always circling the castle, but never approaching.

“Fuck, Jaskier,” he cursed. He was still trying to make sense of the hasty ramblings the Viscount had uttered earlier. ‘There’s a reason witchers don’t meddle in human affairs,’ he thought gruffly, 'and it’s precisely this.’

A witcher’s life was a simple life. Pass the Trials. Complete the training. Set out on the Path. Kill the monsters, collect the coin. Return for winter. Repeat. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Humans were so damn complicated, noble ones doubly so. 'Beguiling, backstabbing bastards, the lot of them.’ They never said what they meant, shitting on the very same hand they shook and then using it to rub the crap in your face.

'Never trust a noble,’ Vesemir had taught him. He was beginning to wonder why he’d never followed that counsel. Because somehow somewhere along the Path he had managed to amass a gaggle of them; he’d befriended one talkative viscount-turned-bard-turned-viscount-again, bound his destiny to one notorious runaway court mage, and practically adopted the heir-apparent to the Cintran throne. ‘The fuck,’ he thought emphatically.

And none of them were exempt from this nobility shit. No, on the contrary, as much as they pretended to hate their noble life, all of them actually seemed to at least momentarily enjoy their power— revel in it even. Ciri least of them all, but Geralt was halfway convinced that she didn’t actually understand the extent of her position. Yennefer and Jaskier on the other hand? No, they fit right into the stinking heap of horseshit that courts tended to be.

And the longer Geralt stayed at Lettenhove, the less he understood the web of lies his former friend wove around them. He didn’t understand a damn thing of the intricate illusion Jaskier conjured with skillful words. And of course, the Viscount couldn’t be bothered to explain it. He hated it.

And the orders. Gods, how he hated the orders. Witchers weren’t made to follow orders, not from petty humans at least. From Vesemir that was another kind of story, but his former teacher could still probably wipe the floor with him, blindfolded and one hand tied behind his back.

The fact that Jaskier could do the same in a verbal sparring match was quickly banished from his head. He was angry, and irritated, and… confused, for fuck’s sake— and it was all Jaskier’s fault; he didn’t need to comply with him on top of that!

Still, he had followed the order. Not because he actually recognised Jaskier as his superior, but because the Viscount had been scared. He didn’t like seeing Jaskier scared. Vinegar was a hideous stench on anyone, but mingling with the not-bard’s usually flowery scent? It made him want to retch.

So, he had gone. To appease his not-friend, he told himself. 'And because of the promise he gave me.’ If witchers were capable of knowing fear — which they weren’t, definitely not — it would have been what he’d felt when Jaskier had told him to leave.

Even remembering the words made him feel… weird. It made him feel weird. There even might have been a sense akin to worry, mixed with a terrible resignation that ‘this is where it ends.’ That that was the moment Jaskier finally decided he had enough of him, that sheltering him as well as Ciri was too much of a burden, too much of a danger to himself and his sisters, and so the witcher had to go.

Witchers weren’t afraid. But if he could be, he just might’ve been.

But Jaskier had promised, and so Geralt had to cling to that vow. No matter if it had sounded like farewell. He shook his head violently and thumped his fist against a tree to clear his mind. 'No, don’t think of that. You’ll go mad if you do.’

It was the early afternoon when he heard hooves, still a good distance away. But when he strained his ears, he could almost make out the conversation. There was a quiet background chatter and unmistakable laughter. 'Jaskier,’ he thought, and stumbled against the tree, overwhelmed by the wave of relief. 'Finally.’ His head was reeling with alleviation as he stumbled through the underbrush, desperate to get back to his bard, to finally know what was happening, to-

“Oi!” an unfamiliar voice called. “Wait for me, Roman. I’m going for a piss.”

He staggered to a halt. 'Do not come seek me if there is another person with me,’ he remembered Jaskier’s words, the tremor of fear that distorted his words, and the deep wrinkles that furrowed his brow.

'Shit,’ he cursed silently. He might not know what was happening, but if there was one thing he knew, it was Jaskier’s fear. And Jaskier’s silence. If Jaskier did not call for him, if Jaskier was not alone-

He tried to fight the worry churning in his guts. 'Jaskier has nothing to be afraid of,’ he reminded himself. 'Not from his liege, he said as much.’ It had been Geralt he had been afraid for.

And he had given him an order. So, Geralt turned on his heel and hurried away from the riders.

After that first close call, it became only more and more difficult to keep the worry at bay. Especially as the sun began to set. Treacherous thoughts from earlier that day rose as the shadows grew longer. Geralt wasn’t afraid of the night, of course. It was a stupid thing to be, as a witcher. He didn’t mind spending the night in the woods. He didn’t need to worry about never waking again for such a folly.

'But what if I wake and Jaskier still doesn’t come?’ his foolish mind supplied. 'What if he’s too craven to tell me to my face that I mustn’t return?’

Geralt was almost brave enough to spare himself the wait for the answer. He was almost brave enough to go right away, leave Lettenhove, Ciri, and Jaskier behind and forget them. Almost.

But as so often in the past months, Geralt had to discover that he was a coward. Again.

He couldn’t find it in himself to leave, so he found a clearing to spend the night— far enough from Lettenhove and the road that no traveller would happen upon him but close enough that he would still hear Jaskier approaching.

He didn’t light a fire, nor did he settle down to sleep. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t dare. When Jaskier came to find him, he needed to be alert. ‘If he comes.’

It was almost midnight when his patience was rewarded. There were hooves in the distance again. This time, Geralt didn’t leap to his feet to rush towards them. He did his best to forget that embarrassing episode, truth be told. This time, he waited.

The rider brought the horse to a halt no more than three hundred yards from where he knelt. “Geralt?” Jaskier asked without raising his voice. He could still hear him loud and clear.

Absentmindedly, he wondered how often he had already repeated that process while he listened intently for another human. When he heard none, he got to his feet, making his way towards him.

“I’m here,” he said once he got within earshot of a human.

“And thank Melitele for that,” Jaskier responded, squinting to make out the silhouettes outside of the narrow circle his torch illuminated. Geralt almost laughed. He was facing the wrong way. Not-not-roach pranced nervously where the Viscount held her loosely by the reins. “Where- Oh, there you are.” To his credit, he jumped only a little when Geralt lightly touched his shoulder. Even through the thick layers of cloak, doublet, and shirt he could feel the shiver that ran down the Viscount’s spine when he turned to face him. “I’d already feared you’d abandoned me.”

'As did I,’ he confessed in the privacy of his mind. “Never, my lord.”

“Good. That’s good.” He took a shuddering breath.

Geralt didn’t know why he hesitated to remove his hand from Jaskier’s shoulder, just like he had that morning. It was odd, and he knew that he should stop but he couldn’t. Since when did he crave the casual touches Jaskier had piled on him. 'Since when do I miss them?'

Before he had a chance to examine the strange fancy, he was forced to lift his touch as Jaskier thrust both torch and reins into his hands. “Hold that for me, will you?”

“How was your liege’s visit?” he asked while Jaskier climbed into the saddle again.

“Hm,” he answered uncharacteristically. “Let’s say it was a mixed bag. Some good, some bad. Overall, the good parts outweigh the bad, I reckon.”

“Hm,” Geralt answered in turn and handed him his reins. He kept the torch, though, and looked up at Jaskier expectantly. He didn’t say a word. ‘Great.’ So, it was on him to carry the conversation. Again. “Was this the bridge?” he asked, for lack of a better question.

The Viscount stared down at him in obvious confusion. “What bridge?”

“After you got back from your parlay,” he explained. 'And got drunk,’ he didn’t say, “you told me about a bridge. One we’d cross when we’d come to it. Was this the bridge, my lord?”

“Well, um… yes. Sort of,” he replied slowly, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Not-not-Roach flicked her ears in annoyance. “It was the beginning. The first step across unsafe waters. It won’t get easier from here on.”

“Hm,” he answered. He hated those cryptic responses with a passion. “Care to elaborate?”

The Viscount tensed. “No,” he answered coldly.

Well, then. Nothing he could do about that. They continued their way back to Lettenhove. With each step Geralt fumed more; it was humiliating to walk while Jaskier rode. And in silence at that. Memories came back to him, of him snapping at the bard to shut up while he was babbling and humming and composing. The gnawing feel of guilt was hard to ignore.

It didn’t take long for him to break. “Don’t you think I deserve your honesty, Lord Lettenhove?” he spat out. “You seemed awfully concerned about my well-being for punishing me with ignorance now.”

“And you seemed awfully uninterested in my life for pestering me with questions now,” Jaskier quipped wittily. There was no real bite behind the words, though.

“It was easier to let you do the talking,” he offered up the tiny bit of truth. “Comes more natural to you.”

“And what about this situation makes you think any of this will be easy?” he shot back.

Geralt lowered his gaze. 'Nothing,’ he supposed. That wasn’t what Jaskier wanted to hear, though. “What do you want of me, my lord?” he asked quietly. “I- I don’t understand you anymore.”

Jaskier sighed and passed a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Geralt,” he admitted meekly after a while. “This isn’t fair to you, I guess. There’s just so much… It’s just a lot, alright?”

“Alright,” he answered in lack of a better answer.

“You are right, though,” he kept on talking. “I owe you honesty.” After a small pause he continued: “There will be others. Winters are seldom spent alone, as long as the roads are halfway safe to travel. And when they aren’t anymore, you stay where you got stuck until it thaws again. Now that two months since my father’s death have passed, I won’t be able to refuse invitations anymore. So, there will be guests in Lettenhove soon. And not all of them will be looking forward to sharing a roof with a witcher.”

“Hmm. I’m used to that.”

“I know, it’s just-” When he looked up, he could see Jaskier chewing on his lip. He hadn’t done that for a long time. “I’ll do my best to protect you. But I told you, you are not under my care, like Ciri is. I fear there will be blood spilt on my soil before the winter is done.”

He felt like he was suffocating, barely recognising the voice as his own: “So, are you going to throw me out?” That was what he had been waiting for, after all. The moment when Jaskier decided he wasn’t worth the trouble, when he showed him the door, when- His mind was racing, calculating already if he could still make it to Kaer Morhen. 'Never,’ he knew. By this time of the year the path was almost impassable, the Killer living up to its name.

“Goodness no,” Jaskier’s words shook him from his thoughts, “not if there’s another way.” The smile he shot him was almost playful. “I’d rather have you where I can see you, witcher. Not out there where anyone can just snatch you up and let you rot in some dungeon.”

He was still busy processing the smile and nearly stumbled over his next words: “Is there another way, my lord?”

The grimace that passed over his face was so utterly Jaskier that his earlier worries were almost forgotten. “I think so,” he said and wrinkled his nose. “You won’t like it though.”

Geralt shrugged. He didn’t like a lot of things about the present situation. The unbearable tension between him and Jaskier above all. “If it keeps me at Ciri’s side…,” he answered casually. 'And at yours,’ he didn’t say. He hoped his not-friend got the meaning all the same. “What is it, my lord?”

“I talked to the Count of Hangfelt. He gave me his leave to expand the Castle Peace to you. Isn’t that great?” He smiled artificially.

Geralt frowned deeply. “What’s a Castle Peace?”

“What’s a-” Jaskier spluttered and nearly fell off his horse. “Geralt, are you kidding me?” he asked once he had regained his balance.

He shook his head. He didn’t understand why that was such a big deal.

“No inhabitant of a castle might take up arms against another? All feuds end where the walls begin? The king’s peace holds no power over another man’s hall? Any of that ring a bell?”

“No,” he huffed. 'Great. More confusing noble fads.’

“No? Is that Redanian law, then?”

Geralt had no fucking idea. Did he look like a thrice-damned lawyer, for fuck’s sake? He wasn’t the one who had studied at a university.

Luckily, Jaskier didn’t seem to expect an answer: “The Castle Peace is what guarantees there is no bloodshed in Lettenhove. It’s what protects you from my sister’s wrath and makes sure I don’t wake to poison in my breakfast. It dictates that as long as you are within my walls no-one, not even the king, can lay a finger on you. It means the lord can grant you asylum.” He paused for a moment. “Well, in theory, that is.”

“In theory?” he inquired. He didn’t like the sound of that.

“In practice, I am not the lord of Lettenhove Hall.”

Geralt frowned. He’d learned that earlier that day already and that was still something to chew on. Lettenhove was drenched with Jaskier’s spirit to the core, so somehow, he had expected the castle to be in his family’s hands for centuries. Apparently, that was not the case.

“Might be, though,” he continued. “If all goes well.”

“Hmm.”

“Well, let’s not dwell on that. There’s… one more thing.”

“Spit it out, bard,” he growled. He hated it when Jaskier told stories in bits and pieces. It was his livelihood, for Melitele’s sake, he should be better at storytelling than this.

“Viscount, but alright,” he corrected him. “There’s an oath you need to swear.”

Geralt’s eyes snapped up. "Oath? What oath? You said no oaths.”

Jaskier at least had the decency to wince. “Ah, that’s not quite correct. I said a promise would suffice, for now. It doesn’t suffice anymore.”

He was fuming. 'Oh, you dirty, backstabbing little liar. Just you wait, you prick, once all of this is over-’

“So, about that oath,” Jaskier quickly continued. “It’s an old law, from the times when the humans first came to the Continent and hadn’t settled down yet. A wartime oath, forgotten by us, but still remembered by the Elder Races. Fitting for this time of bloodshed, isn’t it? You’d be, ah- protected like family. Much like Ciri is.”

He scowled warily. 'What are you not telling me, bard?’ He knew him long enough to tell when he was hiding half of the truth. “Where’s the catch?” he tried to ask as casually as possible.

“Ah.” The faint shadow of a blush crept up his cheeks and he looked away in embarrassment. “See, that’s the thing. It’s rather irreversible. One of its prerequisites dictates some kind of debt you can’t repay. And until you did your due, it won’t be lifted.”

Geralt scoffed.

Jaskier began babbling: “I knew you wouldn’t like it and I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything else, though, and-” It was almost endearing, reminding him much of how it had been before-

Then he couldn’t take it anymore. “Fine,” he interrupted him sharply.

“Fine?” Jaskier asked in plain disbelief.

“Yes, fine, my lord,” Geralt growled. He didn’t like it or anything but it wasn’t like he had any other choice. There was nowhere else he could go, and if that was what was needed that he could stay the winter, he’d do it. With a fucking bow and a smile, if need be. “You think my debts to you are high enough for that?”

Jaskier’s face was unreadable when he looked up. “They have to be,” the Viscount decided. He pulled on not-not-Roach’s reins as they stepped out of the forest and Lettenhove came into view. “I’ll draw the documents up tomorrow. As soon as Lord Hangfelt leaves.”

“He’s still there?” Geralt asked, not bothering to mask his surprise.

“He is. South Wing. Don’t go there if you can avoid it.”

“I won’t,” he promised. He observed the wistful look on Jaskier’s face, taking in the moonlit road. “Ride along, my lord,” he said softly. “I’ll find my way.”

He seemed to hesitate, looking doubtfully at the witcher. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he answered and didn’t even hide his smile. 'Almost adorable,’ he thought, 'that he’s worried for me.’ Despite knowing fully well that he could see just fine in the dim light. Even Jaskier could, the moon was bright enough.

“Well, then,” the Viscount replied, gripping the reins a bit more loosely, “Jakub will show you to your new rooms as soon as you arrive. Goodnight, my witcher.”

He tilted his head to the side. “Goodnight, my lord,” he replied. And then he was off, chasing down the road at a breakneck speed that never would make Geralt’s heart not skip a beat. After a few moments of staring after him in the dark he continued his own way back to the castle.

There were more guards than usual when he finally arrived on the top of the hill. They barely looked at him before waving him through. Warily, Geralt took in the empty courtyard. It was peaceful. Tranquil, almost. He’d never have noticed the strangers’ intrusion if not for the horses tied down in front of the stables. Well, and the guards posted before the South Wing, that eyed him warily. He nodded politely and slouched off to the East Wing.

He almost gave in to the urge to go check on Ciri, but before he even reached the North Tower, Jakub was at his side. “Geralt of Rivia,” he said quietly and Geralt raised a curious eyebrow, “his Lordship offers his apologies. After such a strenuous day, he’s already retired.”

That was new. The grey man had never bothered with his name before. Now he even offered a tiny bow. 'Why the sudden change?’ he wondered. He shrugged as an answer.

“If you might follow me, so I can show you to your rooms, sir?”

He nodded gruffly and trailed behind him, all the while frowning at him warily. First the name, now the sir. Was it some kind of trap? He didn’t think the grey man cunning enough for that, nor did he think it likely. So, it had to be something else.

His frown only deepened when Jakub held the door to the third floor open to him instead of leading him further up the stairs. “Why are we here?” he asked, hesitating to step into the antechamber.

Jakub blinked stupidly. “I am showing you to your rooms, sir,” he answered simply.

“Here?” he had trouble keeping the shock from his face. He knew well enough that this floor was off-limits for almost all inhabitants of Lettenhove Hall. Ciri was free to come and go, of course, Janina ignored her brother’s wishes as always, and he’d been tolerated the last two times he’d brought himself to come knocking on Jaskier’s door. But the rest? As far as he was aware, not even the servants were allowed to enter, safe for Jakub, of course.

Now, he almost envied them. The lord’s chambers made his skin crawl. The scent of fear, grief, and hatred had seeped deep into the very structure, each floorboard, curtain, and piece of furniture reeking of vinegar, onions and infected wounds. And tears. Always the salty tang of sadness— the scent clung to Jaskier, too. 'No wonder he hates his home so much.’

“This way, sir,” the servant said calmly, and led him to the only of the three rooms Geralt hadn’t entered yet. It was a nice room, he had to admit, far nicer than the one he had stayed in before.

He barely had a moment to take it all in — the large feather bed, the coals in the fireplace, the three additional doors — when Jakub spoke again: “Will you require any assistance with your armour, sir?”

“No,” he answered as he strode over to the bed. It was a four-poster, with velvet curtains and an embroidered canopy and all. He barely dared touch the fancy quilt on top. It was gold threaded, for fuck’s sake.

“Do I have your leave to retire, then?” He barely registered the servant speak, still too mesmerised by the silky feel of the duvet. It was silk, he realised with horror. “Sir?”

He shrugged, uncaring. “Sure.” When the door shut behind him, he took the chance to thoroughly examine his new room. First, he tried the doors. Two of them were locked and he didn’t dare to pry them open, but the other led to a private bath of all things. Not that he’d complain, especially not when he found fairly warm water waiting for him in the washbowl. He quickly stripped off his armour, glad for the opportunity to wash off the dirt of the day spent outside.

Once clean, he continued inspecting his new chambers. They were luxurious; there was no other word for it. With a fancy tapestry, a shelf storing old poetry volumes — and one new one, untitled and without a cover, deposited on the nightstand with nothing more than a bookmark drenched in Józefa’s perfume. The chest at the foot end of the bed was open and filled to the brim with warm winter clothes he wouldn’t be able to refuse now. There was a desk, too, expensive parchment and goose quills next to a weapon’s rack and an armour stand, where Jaskier’s old wooden sword was already waiting for him.

He had the sudden overwhelming need to sit down. 'Fuck,’ he thought. Who the fuck wasted all of that on a witcher? He found himself thoroughly questioning Jaskier’s sanity. The bard had never been the most proficient when it came to budgeting tasks, but this was a whole new level of ridiculousness.

He almost didn’t dare settle into the bed. 'What if I break something?’ To prevent that, he stripped off the quilt and two more silk blankets as well as some of the down-filled pillows, depositing them carefully on the divan.

But even wrapped in only the linen and woollen sheets, sleep didn’t come easily to him. That was for an entirely different reason, though: With nothing else to occupy his mind and his eyes closed, the sounds around him grew incredibly loud. There was a cat prancing around in the dining room, Jakub settling into bed, too, and mice in the walls.

And the worst part of all of that was that he could hear Jaskier, too. The Viscount was sleeping soundly, his peaceful breath resonating loudly in Geralt’s chambers. From time to time he turned onto the other side, rustling his blankets, or talked nonsensical in his sleep as he was wont to do.

It shouldn’t bother him. Sixteen years they had travelled together. Sixteen years of listening to Jaskier commit to sleep just as loudly as he did everything else. They had been separated by a campfire at most, sharing beds and bedrolls more often than not when coin and temperatures were low. Why were those same sounds so infuriating now?

He knew it was kindness that Jaskier allowed him to stay in so close proximity. Still, he wondered if Jaskier knew that it was torture, too.

There was another possibility for his irritation, of course. One that Geralt didn’t like to dwell on too much. Maybe it was the wall that separated them that bothered him. A physical divide adding to the emotional void between them. Maybe it was the fact that he was so used to the bard beside him. And now he wasn’t. So close and yet out of reach. 'Torture.’

And yet, he didn’t get up and leave. He didn’t flee. If that was the prize, he had to pay to get a few precious moments with Jaskier, he’d pay it. He’d pay it a thousand times over.

Just like the oath. Geralt scoffed. He couldn’t believe that Jaskier thought for even a moment that Geralt might refuse. He might be dense, but not that stupid. The rest of his life at Jaskier’s side? That wasn’t the worst fate he could imagine.

#My writing #OWBABH #of witchers bards and broken hearts #geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #the witcher #geraskier fanfiction #geralt x jaskier #geralt/jaskier #the witcher fanfiction

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onigirimsby · 4 years

Note

Royal!AU Akaashi x Reader? Also, I'm the anon who sent in the idea! I hope this is enough information. (:

Hi! Thanks for the idea! I’m so sorry this took so long :) I got distracted lol Anyway, I couldn’t decide what kind of royal au so i said why not 3 diff ones? hahahaha I hope it’s okay that it’s fem!reader

I feel like a proper royal au has GOT to be multichapter tho! You need room for the development, and the pining! 🥰

Royal AU Headcanons (akaashi x fem!reader)

The appeal of AUs is the idea that no matter the universe, they will find each other; no matter the timeline, they will fall in love.

Medieval Royal AU

You are a young princess, and Akaashi is your brother’s best friend.

He’s a duke’s only son who likes to play knight, and his family has been loyal to yours for as long as history can remember.

On this particular day, your brother yells out Akaashi’s name and you can’t help but lean outside your window.

There he is, on the palace grounds, looking lean and strong and majestic upon his horse. You want nothing more than to run down to meet him.

You can’t help admiring the way he dismounts his horse.

As soon as you think that, he looks up, as if he’s heard you (impossible). He smiles and waves while your brother chats absentmindedly.

You blush and wave back, glad he can’t see you very well from that distance. Your brother playfully punches him on the shoulder when he realizes what’s happening.

As soon as they’re looking away, you retreat back to your room and beg your lady-in-waiting to let you finish your embroidery later. It takes a lot of pleading and promising but she finally relents.

You run as fast as your heavy skirts allow and the palace staff have to pretend they’re not witnessing something so scandalous.

“Akaashi!” As soon as he hears you calling, he whips around, smiling as you approach him all flushed and with your hair messy from the exertion.

“Your Highness” He bows and you remind him he can call you by your name.

In a moment, a servant arrives with your favorite horse saddled and ready. Akaashi helps you onto the animal. His grip on your waist is respectful, though he lingers a beat too long that even your brother notices.

When you straddle the horse instead of riding side-saddle, Akaashi blushes, and you wonder why, since you’ve always ridden that way when it was just with family and very close friends.

Your brother sets a comfortable pace as the three of you ride, but it’s not long before it turns into a race.

You win, of course, and you’re not surprised when Akaashi follows in second, not too far behind. You dismount, and watch him ride into the secluded hollow that was the finish line.

As soon as Akaashi dismounts, you pull him close to you.

“Your Highness, it’s not proper.” He says, though he’s smiling as he presses a kiss to your lips.

“Akaashi, you’re going to have to stop calling me that.” You say, reluctantly pulling away from the kiss. “People are going to assume my fiance has forgotten my name,” you kiss him again, and this time his arms wrap around your waist as he pushes the two of you deeper into the shrubbery. “Besides, that’s not how you address a duke’s wife.”

“Oh, forgive me, your grace,” Akaashi corrects himself as he smiles into your kiss.

Ancient East Asian Royal AU

Your household is in a flurry as Akaashi unexpectedly visits your sprawling mansion. He’s young, but experienced in battle, and rumored to become the Emperor who will unite your nation. Or at least, that was his goal.

And you were the daughter of a nobleman who’d gained renown for being especially clever and wise.

When you reached marrying age, the expected suitors arrived, that much was normal. What no one expected was how difficult it would be to woo you, and how much of a prize you really were.

For starters, you’ve refused to show your face, despite rumors that you were beautiful, and you’d insisted on conversation and strategy games as the methods through which you’d pick your groom.

Another oddity was how you attracted suitors in the first place. Why would a well-respected, wealthy man work so hard, only to be rejected by someone they’d never seen. Sure, you were a nobleman’s daughter, but there were many of those in the country.

You were rumored to be beautiful, yes, but what really drew them was the challenge of outwitting you when no one else had. What had them coming back was the shame in being outwitted by a woman time and time again.

This is what had the young future-Emperor visiting your home. Akaashi knew if he were to unite his people, he needed a wise Empress to rule by his side.

When you welcome Akaashi into the room he kneels in front of your shrouded dais, and your glad he can’t see how nervous you are. You aren’t prepared for him. If he weren’t the future Emperor, he would’ve had to ask permission to visit, or announce his intention. And you had never expected to attract his attention in the first place.

Akaashi admits he isn’t especially eager to marry, let alone someone he’s never met, but he tells you he only wants someone wise and capable to rule by his side. He’s humble, and obviously cares for his people, and you guard your heart. You’ve fallen for those tricks before.

So, you give him his first riddle, and though it takes him days to solve it, in the days between, he visits you, still, just to talk.

The second puzzle is a task. It’s an impossible task, of course, unless he happens to listen to the advice of a lowly maid who has no right to talk to royalty.

The “maid” is always you in disguise. You want to see how your suitors treat those they don’t seek to impress.

To your surprise, Akaashi listens to the “maid”, and is thankful when the advice proves useful.

It goes on like this for an entire year; longer than any other suitor’s attempt.

He takes his time solving your riddles and puzzles, and you do your best to determine what kind of person he is. And all that time, he never once asks for your hand in marriage.

On the weeks he is absent to tend to his duties, you find yourself missing him. And upon his return, you’re excited to talk to him again.

He returns one day looking tired and bedraggled. He apologizes for his appearance and says he’s preparing for battle, one harder and more dangerous than any he’s faced before. And finally, he asks for your hand. If he survives - if he wins - he could not imagine anyone more capable to rule by his side.

To his surprise, you push aside the curtain of your dais so he can see who you really are.

“Let that be the final task, then.” You tell him. “Come back to me, win the battle, and I’ll be your bride.”

Modern Royal AU

You didn’t think you’d actually end up in the same class as the Crown Prince.

Of course, you knew he was entering the same university, since it was all over the news. You just didn’t think...

You try your best to act normal around him, because lord knows it must be weird enough being a prince. And you try not to get too annoyed when random people try to get pictures of him as he’s entering and leaving class.

You cringe at the thought of accidentally ending up in one of those pictures. Not that anyone would recognize you.

Your luck runs out when you end up working on a major project together.

How were you supposed to do your best and get a good grade when you were so intimidated by His Royal Highness Crown Prince Akaashi the Pretty or whatever?

And when he asks if you can work in his apartment (for obvious privacy reasons), you don’t expect a whole penthouse.

For what it’s worth, Akaashi does seem a bit shy about the opulence, and you do your best not to stare.

When you end up on the cover of a magazine (Scandal: Prince brings home mystery woman), Akaashi immediately apologizes and gets “his people” to take everything down.

You almost feel bad for him (after all, it was really just a blurry shot of your back), but you’re sort of terrified. It was a creepy invasion of privacy.

The next time you work on the project, you decide to book a study room in the university library.

The room feels too large and quiet, since they’re usually for larger study groups, and it’s awkward.

So, you babble to fill the silence and tell him it’s okay, and you feel worse for him. Until you realize how inappropriate that is, and apologize profusely. But you’re surprised to find him smiling.

Things warm up between the two of you after that. He’s a perfectly nice and well-adjusted person after all, and your a breath of fresh air from his formal and constrained life as a prince.

You’re surprised that you’re a little sad when you have to turn in the project, because that means no more convenient excuse to hangout.

That is, until Akaashi bashfully asks you out.

And he’s shy and scared because he knows his life is high-stakes, and it’s anything but casual, so he’s even more surprised when you say “yes”.

#Anonymous #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!! x reader #akaashi x reader #akaashi keiji #akaashi keiji x reader #for masterlist

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daemadness · 3 years

Note

1, 7, 9, 12, 16

Thanks!!! :D I’ll also put the rest under a cut because one just does not simply write short texts.

***

DIE ÄRZTE ASK GAME (click to the ask game!):

1. Wie & wann bist du auf DÄ gekommen?

It was in April 2009. My dad was on a German course and the book had “Männer sind Schweine”. The teacher (who was also later my German teacher!) liked dä so she played the song to them and my dad who’s very much into music, liked what he heard and at home of course searched for more. He then asked me (and my siblings) to come downstairs to his room because he wanted to showe us something - and it was the music video of Junge because he found it hilarious and the music really great.

At first I wasn’t sure what to think but said I could try listening to them, so then my dad started downloading and bringing me music on USB sticks all day every day until he got everything downloaded, and I just added stuff to my mp3 player whenever I got more songs. I did not speak German at all so at first I was pronouncing the name very much incorrectly (you know, “die” as in English), and sometimes I kinda miss it how I just saw a bunch of gibberish on my mp3 player screen. I still remember being in a work training at a horse stable and shoveling hay to a wheelbarrow, and my strongest memory is about the album Geräusch and I will always associate Anti-Zombie with this one horse box I was cleaning and it’s possible that I got obsessed with this album so that I started the day with it and was always cleaning the horse boxes in the same order. But I only remember Anti-Zombie and how I just suddenly realized that this song is one of the best I have EVER heard. (It still is! And Geräusch was my favorite album for a very long time and it’s still my favorite 2000s album.)

***

7. Lieblings-Bandmitglied?

I don’t really have a favorite? Like, musically I like Farin’s songs the most but some of my ultimate favorite songs come from Rod, too, like Anti-Zombie, T-Error, Geisterhaus (I think the best Rod songs are on Geräusch and those are some of the best dä songs overall as well), Mondo Bondage, Morgens Pauken, Sohn der Leere, Bang Bang (Instrumental)... I bet there’s also great 90s songs but I just forgot about everything again. Anyhow, I’ve never been that much into Bela’s songs. He has many really great ones too, but usually my favorite Bela songs are those that Rod has written with him. Which also explains why I’ve never been that fond of Bela’s solo music (I own the first two albums) and why I like FU/FURT the most from these two. I can’t say anything about Rod’s solo stuff or other bands as I have never listened to those, but I’m very much into movie scores and kinda interested in hearing what his movie scores sound like but I’m lazy and have memory issues and motivation issues so I don’t know more than that. (But I wish he did more songs for dä, I miss the times when he still had more than just 1-2 songs on an album. Although, I never witnessed the release of those albums but still :D)

But if this question is about them as people, then I guess it’s Bela and because I’ve just always been so amazed by his open-mindedness, you know? Like, he seems so genuine and caring and that he has had his feet on the ground at all times? (Or if he didn’t when he was younger, then he has learnt from that and can see that now, at least from what I have read from the books.) A while back I had an ask (to an ask game) on my mainblog, to choose between Bela and Farin and that post got a bit longer and you can find a deeper answer to this from that one. But let’s just say I tend to get super protective over Bela if anyone dares to claim he hasn’t always been as open-minded as what he now seems to be :D

Farin is way too similar to me and even tho he’s very relatable, especially what comes to the sense of humour, I still don’t agree on everything he says or does. And too much is too much. About Rod I don’t know enough because he doesn’t speak much and when he does, I usually don’t understand what he says because he (and Bela) is sometimes really bad at articulating and as a German learner it’s very difficult to make sense of anything he (or they) say sometimes. AN ex-friend once claimed I don’t know anything about Rod because I simply just don’t care about him and like..... no??? Also I don’t control it what my brain finds interesting, but I swear that one day I’m gonna read both dä books from cover to cover and I’m not gonna skip anything and then I’ll know more about Rod too.

***

9. Ein Lied, mit dem du viel verbindest?

“Allein”, definitely. Do you know that feeling when you listen to music, an album or song you have listened to so many times before, and then suddenly something just... hits and you hear a song the way you have never heard it before and you’re overwhelmed and mindblown? Yeah, that’s what happened to me with Allein. I don’t remember the exact year when that happened but I remember I was sitting in my car at a grocery store’s parking lot, listening to music and waiting for someone from my family to come out of the store.

Wait I actually found a post from my old Finnish blog from April 2010 about this song and the moment when it hit me!!! The post says the song became my favorite from Jazz ist anders! when I heard it for the first time, and this moment^ was the first time I read it lyrics and the first time ever I felt that lyrics also meant something to me. I was not able to translate anything myself yet but I found the song with English subtitles form youtube (now deleted) and that’s how I understood the story in the song.

So, I was almost 19 and relating to “Allein” a lot. Now it’s almost 11 years later and I’m (still) 29 and I STILL relate to this song so much and now also to the career part because I literally have been working with horses for over 10 years and have been studying them and I’m not sure why and now I don’t know if I even want to do this for the rest of my life or not. Idk, maybe it’s a bit sad too that for the past 10 years I have related to this song this much when it’s about loneliness... but it just doesn’t seem to end, idk if it will ever end, to be honest.

***

12. Findest du die Musik von vor oder nach der Reunion besser?

I would say the music after the reunion, but I’m also really fond of their 80s music, especially the self-titled album. I was lucky enough to find the original -86 release on vinyl, in perfect condition even, and you don’t understand how much that record means to me. I hate the song Geschwisterliebe and I will always skip that (especially now as I am able to follow lyrics from audio somewhat) but I still refuse to own a version of the album without that song. So that record really is very dear to my and my treasure and I sometimes take it out just to look at it and to be happy about the fact it’s MINE.

But anyway, to answer this question, I think I have to answer that I like the post-reunion music more because the 90s is my favorite dä time of all times. Planet Punk is still my fave dä album EVER, 13 is also a favorite, and I love Die Bestie, and all the interview and live and other video material from the 90s is also something I never get tired of watching. Maybe it’s because I was born in 1991 and 90s was my childhood so it feels familiar and safe? I don’t know. But I tend to be drawn to 90s music with all bands I like and if those bands have had a 90s phase. I guess there’s something about the 90s punk rock that I just like that also dä has.

***

16. Was macht Die Ärzte besonders?

Does this mean “what makes dä special”? Well, I’m gonna answer to that anyway even if it doesn’t mean that :D So I would say it’s the variety they have in their songs. They have loads of songs and albums and I still haven’t heard one song that would sound like some other song of theirs. (Apart from Hell, it has several songs that remind me of their older songs and I haven’t decided yet if that’s good or bad.)

There’s also pretty much something for everyone - which might also backfire because I actually knew someone who likes dä too but somehow we happened to like the opposite songs only. Like, you both can be fans and still not agree on favorite songs or even favorite albums or eras. It’s weird. So it feels like “yay we like the same band!!!” but in the end you don’t have anything in common because you don’t like the same things even within one band’s music...

For me dä is special because when I found about them, I was no longer actively searching for new music to listen to. And still they did and somehow all that diversity in their music was insane. Like, the singer’s voice is super important for me and I have turned down so many bands just because I don’t like the singer’s voice or singing style, and somehow this band has three singers and I like ALL OF THEM. Like, what are the odds??? So after getting used to their songs and learning song and album names and other stuff, I literally felt that I had actually found the music that has everything I need from music. I didn’t need to look for the best band ever because I already found it, no other band can top them, a band that would make better music than die ärzte just simply does not exist. And I’m totally happy with that which is why it took me years to even start listening to new music and new bands because I just didn’t need them anymore, I already had dä, you know. I was told (by the same ex-friend who said I just don’t care about Rod) that no band is superior than others but this person refused to understand when I tried to explain that they are superior to ME. And they are superior to me and I don’t give a fuck if others think I’m wrong, it’s my opinion and my favorite band and I have a right to say that they are the best band ever if they are the best band ever for me.

#answered asks #ask games #mcrmadness rambles

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evengayerpanic · 4 years

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Hello! First of all, love your fics. ♥️ Waiting patiently for the next chapter of Trains and Paasengers.😊 Is it okay to give a writing prompt? Hahaha! Like how Ellie and Aster's world will collide with Will and Vivian's. :) Maybe they're in the same city and they needed a doctor or even Ellie becoming a doctor under the guidance of Will. Or even the art world will introduce Aster to Vivian. Hahaha they just seem cute together and all the gut feels it will bring.

Writing prompts are always welcome to give, thank you so much for your kind words about my work! I should have the last chapter of Trains and Passengers up in a few days or so! I really hope that you enjoy what I’ve done with your prompt! It was a lot of fun to write, I adore Wil and Vivian, Alice Wu does an amazing job making her characters come to life.

_________________

“Tell me again who we’re having dinner with, baby, one of your students?” Wilhelmina Pang peered over towards the bathroom where her beautiful wife was half-dressed, desperately trying to finish curling her hair and applying the last touches of her make-up.

Vivian Shing looked up in the mirror, making eye contact with Wil as the latter did the buttons of her blouse up, rolling her sleeves just slightly - the way Vivian liked it. “Aster Flores.” She replied, setting down her curling iron and reaching for the tube of lipstick. “She’s the painter we hired to do the magic forest backdrops for our spring recital.”

“I see.” Wil smirked, adjusting her collar, before moving to Vivian’s side as the woman struggled to reach behind her for the zipper. “I got it, sweetheart.”

Vivian beamed, turning to face her wife with a blush of gratitude as Wil did her dress up for her. “I think you’ll love her, she’s a fantastic painter. She’s so very innovative, and she is just absolutely brilliant.”

“You used to think that I was brilliant, too.” Wil teased.

With a teasing grin, Vivian leaned in until she was pressed against her wife, faces inches from each other. “Yes, that was before you became a Mother. Now you’re boring, and no fun... I mean our bed time is nine-thirty at night, just how lame is that?”

“You’re the one who falls asleep during Jeopardy.”

“You’re the one that makes me watch Jeopardy, no wonder I fall asleep, Wil.” Vivian smiles, leaning up and kissing her wife’s nose gently, pulling back to look at her. “You aren’t jealous, are you, my love?”

Wilhelmina shakes her head, but it isn’t convincing.

“She’s twenty-two, and we’re going to dinner with her AND her girlfriend, you have nothing to worry about.”

Wil makes a face that Vivian can’t help but laugh at. Her voice playfully hurt-sounding as she protests. “I wasn’t worried anyways.” Her face grows soft as she wraps her arms around Vivian’s waist and draws her in closer. “Besides, you’re mine, even if I have to chase you down in an airport again to keep you here.”

Vivian laughs, brushing the lock of hair that fell from Wil’s ponytail behind her ear. “This time you better kiss me then when I ask you too.” She teases her.

Right before Wil can remind Vivian of all the times she’s kissed her since then, the door bursts open and three little bodies race into their bedroom, practically jumping at each other as they dive on Wil and Vivian.

“Mama! Bowen is teasing me!” Wilhelmina is pounced on by her four year old daughter, the little girl wraps her arms around her mother and wails into her.

“Nuh uh!” The six year old boy immediately retorts, shaking his head as his twin copies his movement.

“She’s telling a fib!” Bence, always the one to escalate the situation, immediately yelps. He sticks his tongue out at his little sister if only to prove her right.

Vivian sees this and immediately scolds him, a warning in her voice as she gives him the look that only mother’s can give. “Bence, leave Mei alone.”

The boy sulks, but only for a moment as Wilhelmina reminds their three young and rambunctious children gently, “You better be good, Nai Nai is coming to watch you, and she’s bringing Caihong.”

The children immediately stop bickering and begin to cheer. While Nai Nai is not their favourite grandma (they claim that their Lao Lao is nicer), all three children absolutely adore their Mama’s little sister Cai.

As Caihong has gotten older, she’s less inclined to play with her niece and nephews, instead choosing to be with her friends. However, Wil and Vivian plan on being out late tonight, and there’s no way that Wil’s Mother would leave her twelve year old unattended at night, so the child has to come along to babysit.

Wilhelmina is happy for her kids, but also feels bad for her poor sister who’s likely going to be delegated to being the children’s play toy for the entire evening.

Vivian smiles at Bowen and Bence, sitting down on the edge of the bed and letting the two boys climb into her lap to press kisses to her cheeks, waving Mei over as well so that Wil can finish tying her tie.

“So what’s the girls name?” Wil asks, her ears perking up as their doorbell rings and the children all sprint towards it excitedly. “The name of your painter?”

_________________

“Aster Flores!” The brunette young woman perks up, holding her hand out to Dr. Wilhelmina Pang with an earnest smile. “And this is my girlfriend, Ellie Chu!”

Wil takes her hand and shakes it, before turning to shake the other girls hand as well. “Nice to meet you, Aster. My wife speaks highly of you and your work.”

The young woman blushes slightly as Ellie responds for her. “Aster has plenty of good things to say about Vivian as well. She really enjoys working with her.”

The two women nod their heads at each other, before Wil tries to spark up a conversation. “So what do you do for work, Ellie, are you a painter as well?”

“Oh no.” Ellie stammers. “I’m nowhere near talented enough to paint like Aster does, I’m a junior editor.”

Wilhelmina looks at Ellie like she understands exactly what she’s talking about. “I know. Sometimes when I see Vivian dance, I feel like I’m super untalented.”

Ellie immediately perks up. “I once saw Aster paint a meadow of flowers in about four hours!” She pauses hesitantly. “Sometimes I can barely correct the mistakes in an article in that amount of time.”

The two women begin to gush about how talented the loves of their lives are, excusing themselves to go grab the ladies a drink. Aster and Vivian watch after them, amused smirks settled on both their faces.

“So I think I just noticed something...” Vivian trails off as the women get further away, matching white button-ups and near identical hair styles making it difficult to tell where Wil ends and Ellie begins.

Aster nods her head, feeling a little like she’s in the twilight-zone as the women both cringe when the male bartender speaks to them. She can tell they’ve just been hit on from the way that Ellie - or wait, maybe it’s Wil - she can’t tell from a distance due to the outfit they both decided to wear despite having never met before, steps back and Wil - or maybe it’s Ellie - hesitantly hands over the money for the drinks. “We’re dating the same person, aren’t we?”

“Well not exactly...” Vivian trails off, hearing Wil and Ellie both begin to awkwardly laugh at the bartender and also laugh a little at themselves. “I think that I’m technically married to the person that you’re dating.”

Aster wordlessly holds her hand out to Vivian, a small engagement ring sitting on her finger, her mouth still slightly open as she watches the two interact. Finally she turns slightly to Vivian. “She surprised me last night with this ring, so we’re engaged now.”

Vivan’s eyes widen, both at Aster’s news but at the fact that the two are getting along like they’ve known each other forever, despite it being less than five minutes. “Congratulations Aster! I’m so happy for you both...” She pauses again as the girls turn to walk back to them with drinks. “This is still really weird though.”

Aster nods in agreement. “Definitely weird.”

_________________

“And then I had to tell Paul that just because he has a key to our place, doesn’t mean he can come over unannounced and not expect to see something he doesn’t want too.” Ellie rolled her eyes as the table started laughing, Aster going pink in the ears.

“My Mom and neighbour Jay are like that, they’ve definitely walked in on a few things that they regret.” Wil smirks at Vivian, her wife smacking her in the arm lightly with a laugh as she also blushed with Aster.

“We took both of their keys away.” Vivian admits.

The four of them enjoy a nice dinner together, a few bottles of wine are opened and the conversation is all over the place; anecdotes from all four of their careers, full rants about how people treat lesbians and bisexual women, and even a few comments about the children that Vivian and Wilhelmina have.

It’s nice being able to talk to the younger couple about the process they went through with the kids, how Vivian carried the twins and then Wil was the one pregnant with their youngest. It’s too early for Aster and Ellie to think about having kids, but they still seem interested in asking details for the future.

They even laugh about their significant others attention to details when it comes to decoration.

“I swear, Vivian gets so crazy about decor, she made me paint our daughters room about six different shades before it was finally the right colour!”

“Aster made me move all of our living room furniture three times until it ‘felt right’, I was exhausted!”

“Wil’s favourite colours are so muted, if it weren’t for the kids being around I think we’d look like we were living in a black and white movie or something!”

“I told Ellie to go find some art for our office, her only decorating job, she came back with a horse picture and an actual dogs playing poker painting.”

They laugh when hearing about Ellie and Paul’s antics in writing Aster love letters, the story much funnier now that the hurt and betrayed feelings are gone.

“So, here I am, getting proposed to by my high school boyfriend in my Dad’s church in front of the entire town, and Ellie, just decides to scream out, ‘No!’”

Ellie blushes bright red, embarrassment written clear over her face until Vivian comes to her defense slyly.

“I think it’s cute. This one...” She nudges Wil with her elbow playfully, a smirk on her face, “Wouldn’t even kiss me in a crowded airport to prove her love.”

Wil rolls her eyes back at her wife. “Baby, we’ve been married ten years and have three kids... We got over the airport thing! Besides, I’ve kissed you in plenty of airports since then.” She shares a look with Ellie.

“Two airports.” Vivian teases. “Once during our honeymoon, and then again last summer when we took the kids to Disney Land.”

Ellie glances back at Wilhelmina. “Don’t worry, when I proposed last night, Aster waited a whole two minutes looking around our apartment, before finally turning to me and saying she was waiting to see if anyone would scream ‘No!’ this time around.”

“Remind me again why we put up with this?” Wil glances back at Vivian, only to feel her heart swell like it did all those years ago, and she doesn’t even need to hear Ellie’s answer, but she still humours her.

“Because... Women.” Ellie answers plainly, her own heart swelling as she grabs Aster’s hand and squeezes it, the smile Aster gives her lighting up the room.

“Ah yes, women. Good reason.”

_________________

By the time dessert is over and the bill has been brought; Wil and Ellie have made plans to meet for dinner again the next time the loves of their lives are stuck at work, they’ve also planned to take the kids to a musical in a few weeks, Aster and Vivian not welcome to attend because they’re ‘judgey’.

“Last time we went to a play, you said the set looked like it had been painted by a five year old, Aster!”

“No, I said that I had done better at five years old.”

“You almost got us thrown out of Mei’s ballet class, I’m not letting you get us kicked out of this, Viv!”

“That woman was teaching our daughter all wrong!”

As they leave to return home for the night; Wilhelmina and Vivian to their hopefully sleeping babies, Aster and Ellie to their cat Idgie Threadgoode, there is a round of hugs and handshakes between the couples. Surprisingly, Ellie and Wil are the ones to hug, while Aster and Vivian laugh and shake hands.

“Hey, El?” Wil smiles as the younger girl opens the door for her fiancee. “I’m really glad that your fiancee paints really detailed and talented set pieces.”

Ellie smiles back. “And Wil? I’m really glad your wife is talented and creative enough to have created her own unique ballet so that my fiancee can paint her really detailed and talented set pieces.”

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