#slowly... the pictures become Bluer..

[vinnytotherescue]

What makes us human (lies of p x female reader)

What is it that makes us human?

            Is it our heart, pumping warm red liquid into our bodies to keep us alive one more day? Is it our lungs feeding us oxygen and pushing our chest to move in an ongoing life-long choreography? Or is it our brain controlling our body, organs, and mind enough to answer this question? Is it maybe something simpler? Like the warmth we exude by simply existing or our curious eyes moving around ready to capture a new memory.

            Unfortunately, there is never one answer to this question since every human has a different view on this topic. A doctor would agree that a beating muscle is enough, but a philosopher would argue that there is more to being human than a single organ.

            Responding to this question becomes an even bigger hassle when said person is no human but a highly intelligent puppet. From the moment Pinocchio was created his very first goal was to become human, whatever that meant. But as time went on he began searching what it really suggests. The more he investigated the more conflicted he got with the inconclusive answers and their variety. His second solution to his problem was posing this question to the residents of Hotel Krat, an even bigger hassle as he later noted. Antonia was the first victim of his complicated question and the least helpful.

“What makes us human? Oh, my dear sweet boy, that’s a difficult question, isn’t it? It could be anything really, from having working organs to being able to feel”

            Next was Lady Sophia, his presumed advisor through his long and tiring journey of fighting and killing automatons around Krat. Her answer was better but not exactly what Pinocchio hoped for.

“Being human is such a peculiar concept. We are able to react to situations and feel different emotions like anger, joy, and love. If you meant physically now, we are given organs and whole systems that make us operate. But when you think about it, we are not that different from puppets. Are we? I mean you do have operating systems maybe not  as complicated as our own but the thing you lack is proper emotion”

            As Pinocchio grew closer to becoming human, he did have the opportunity to feel certain emotions, but never the ones he heard about. The feeling of anger and dread was not what popped into his mind when he thought of being human. What he longed for was joy, happiness, and most importantly love. Would he ever be able to feel love?

            That’s when you came into the picture. A young woman trying to escape this hell hole named Krat. It was only supposed to be a two-day trip to the city to meet some friends when that turned into a full-blown nightmare. How she managed to survive that long was a question in itself since she had no weapons and skills to properly use any. Simply hiding in boutiques and abandoned apartments was her way of surviving. Leaving the city of course was out of the question since she was evidently lost.

             Gemini was the first to notice her hiding in a cabinet as they ventured into another seemingly empty apartment. Unfortunately for her, the noise that came out of her mouth as a piece of glass fell on her foot was not subtle but thank god it wasn’t a normal automaton that found her.

            Pinocchio slowly walked toward the source of the sound and when he stood outside of the cabinet, he simply tugged it open. A kick to the face was not what he expected to say the least. Stumbling back, he was quick to compose himself and grab her arm as she desperately tried to escape his iron grip. Her kicking and punching immediately stopped when she heard his soft velvety voice next to her ear. Her eyes widened and her head snapped to look at her captor or maybe her savior. His eyes were bluer than the summer sky and the freckles adorning his pale face resembled all sorts of constellations.

Reassurance filled her chest for once in those long two weeks as she stared at the seemingly human person behind her.

“It’s ok I got you”.

            Pinocchio felt the need to bring her to the hotel since she was the first living human he managed to find “roaming’ the streets. That happened a few months ago and since then the puppet’s interest never left. He would always inspect her, her humanity. The way she moved as if dancing when trying to decide which book to read, the way she bit her lip when she was thinking, or the wide smile she would give to the cat every time she crossed paths with her. What made her so human?

            What made him wonder though was the peculiar warmth he felt in his chest each time he was close to her. After every trip to Krat, he felt a small change in him, giving him hope that he was becoming more and more human. But the feeling that deeply resided in his chest was still a question left unanswered. Could he feel something? But he is still a puppet, of course, he had a fair share of human traits as time moved on but was having emotions one of them? Talking of questions, he never got to ask her the one that posed to the rest of the Hotel Krat residents. What made them human, what would make him human?

            It was nearly midnight in the hotel and (y/n) was immersed in a book she got from the library a while ago. She lay on the couch her eyes scanning the yellowing pages without a care in the world around her, and the boy that entered the dimly lit room. He moved toward her making his footsteps purposely louder as if not to scare her. Her eyes though stayed put on the letter-filled pages.  P walked until he was in her field of vision, maybe a little closer than what she anticipated. His face was right next to her as he bent down to take a look at the book she was reading. The moment her head snapped to the left she came face to face with her crush.

            “P-Pinocchio t-too close!” her cheeks turned a bright shade of pink as she tried to put some distance between them, to her disappointment. Pinocchio only stared in confusion.

            “Sorry did I scare you?” he slowly moved to sit next to the shrieking girl on the couch patiently waiting for her response.

            “No of course not” she tried to put her brave face on, but his piercing blue eyes only made her more vulnerable “I was just surprised to see you that close that’s it” folding her arms over her chest and putting the book to the side she tried to focus on P’s face. There was always a look of confusion on it that she found adorable, but she would never say that out loud.

“Can I help you with something P?” her voice was soft once again and brought that warm feeling back into his chest. P examined her face and tilted his head.

“Can I ask you a question?” (y/n) was taken aback for a moment but managed to compose herself quite fast.

            “Yes of course P, what is it” The way his name rolled off her tongue so effortlessly hypnotized Pinocchio. It was like a siren was calling his name.

            “What makes someone a human?” (y/n) certainly did not expect a question like that late at night. He searched his eyes for some sign that maybe he learned how to joke but nothing. They just sone bright with curiosity as he awaited her response.

            “Well, that’s a difficult question P you know that right?” his eyes suddenly turned sad as he turned to look at the fireplace. Her heart broke the moment she saw that, and she was quick to come back.

            “But if you really need to know I will tell you what I think” A small smile took place on his lips as he nodded his head vigorously.

The girl held her chin between her fingers her eyebrows scrunched up as she tried to figure out how to proceed. What made them human? She never really thought about that before.  

            “Well, I don’t know for sure, to be honest. To me, a human is not someone with blood coursing through their body or someone who needs to breathe air. Of course, you may think that’s important but what makes us human is how we act. People whom we learned to call humans many times have done things that only a monster would do. To me, these are not humans. Humans are kind people who help others. People who would care about someone in need. People who will not hesitate to provide help. Their curiosity and their positive active stance in life are what makes them human”.

            P’s eyes were so focused on her, and a look of admiration found its place on his face. Knowing immediately what the next question would be as she saw his mouth open, she responded.

            “And yes Pinocchio, to me you are human. You did everything a human would do. I don’t care whether your heart is metal or soft, whether you breathe or not, you have shown me all kindness and showed many emotions that other humans haven’t.”            The warmth in the puppet’s chest got stronger and stronger. Him? A human? His metal heart was filled with something he could not explain but he loved it. His smile grew wider and before he could control his body his arms were tightly wrapped around her. (Y/n) came out of her trance in mere seconds as she felt his cold body on hers. Her cheeks burned red and her heart beat like crazy. She tried to keep her body under control so that he didn’t notice but to no avail. Pulling away from her hope returned to his eyes.

            “That means that you can answer my other question as well!” before she could get the chance to interfere, he started talking.

            “There is always when I’m around you this warmth in my chest that won't disappear. It’s so strong and I want to be close to you to feel it more and more” (y/n)’s eyes widened in shock as she stared into his cerulean eyes.

            “You mean love?” her heart was beating so loud that it was hurting her ears. Pinocchio had found out about love in all the books that he read but he never thought that he would be able to experience this as a puppet. Maybe he was closer to becoming human after all.

            “I love you?” that came like a question at the beginning “I love you”. P locked eyes with her and waited patiently for her reaction like a lost puppy. The realization hit the girl like a brick and time stopped for a while. A while that made P think that he said something wrong.

            “Did I say something wrong” His metal heart seemed to stop for a minute. For once in his life, he felt lost. The girl suddenly jumped in his arms sending him right down on the couch. Her smile was so wide and small giggles escaped her mouth.

      ��     “I love you too silly.”

For once in his short life Pinocchio could answer how it feels to be human, what makes him human.

The end

Thank you everyone for reading! i haven't written in a while so im a bit rusty but i had to write for P im literally in love with him :')

[draki38]

The Witch of the Woods

author's note: this is a short story i wrote for a monthly challenge and i thought some people would like it the formatting is probably off because i copypasted it from a google doc WARNING: death and tragedy ahead

Maeve sat down on a comfortable chair in her library. A group of kids on the carpet stared up at her. "Alright, children. This Halloween, I'm going to tell you all a ghost story, but you've probably never heard one like this before. This is the story of the Witch of the Woods." She paused for a second. "As most of you know, the Oceanforest is just east of here. Your parents have probably forbidden you from going anywhere near it, fearing you would become one of the lost souls doomed to wander the trees for all eternity. However, I can tell you what it's like there." she said wistfully. "The ground slopes down endlessly as the canopy stretches far above. The trees get taller and taller and the creatures become more and more bizarre. The sunlight slowly fades away to pitch darkness. It's said that anyone who has seen the bottom never returns. They lose their physical form first, then their mind, and finally their spirit, becoming another blue flame luring travelers deeper into the abyss." She sighed. "But not very long at all ago, there lived a witch in the Oceanforest. She guided the wayward travelers out of the depths and helped return humanity to the forsaken wandering souls. Her name was Hazel. She was unlike anyone I've ever known. She wasn't just kind to the lost souls, but to everyone. Many people were saved by her kindness. But many people distrusted her. They thought her kindness was a distraction to prevent people from noticing the evil she was creating in the shadows. And so, the more superstitious townsfolk marched into the forest, with a plan to kill her." The children gasped. "The witch hid herself with a spell, but her magic was weak after restoring a lost soul. And so, they found her and stabbed her through the heart. Most thought that Hazel's story had come to an end. But with her last breath, she wished that her soul would carry on and allow her to protect the travelers even in death." Tears began to pool in Maeve's eyes. "Sometimes a wanderer of the Oceanforest will pass through our town, and they will speak of a ghostly figure with flowing red hair, eyes bluer than the sky, and a kind smile showing them the way out of the mysterious depths. A guiding light helping them escape. So Hazel is still there, hiding among the trees, helping all who pass through her domain. The end." "Miss Maeve, how do you know so much about Hazel?" one of the children asked. "Let's just say... she was someone special to me." The children slowly filtered out of the library, leaving Maeve alone. She pulled a thin gold chain around her neck out of her shirt, revealing a heart-shaped locket. She opened it, and inside there was a picture of a girl with long red hair, blue eyes, and a beaming smile.

[chancedarling]

The slice of a smirk that flashes across his face as Selin flushes and scrambles of him was neatly hidden in her - apparently embarassed - rush to 'uncompromise' the compromising position. By the time she's in a less awkward position, Chance remains flat out on his back, loking up at a bluer than blue sky. A few photoshop perfect fluffy white clouds drifting past. Picture perfect... But this picture was more of a Dali'esque perversion of reality... Or maybe even a Dorian Gray. No matter the backdrop, there was no mistaking the seeping poison in this place...

...He just has to find the fucking source.

But this seems to be becoming something of a habit. Save Zaid's dumbass from drowning. Save Darcy from becoming a jammy splatter. Save Selin from a fateful fall...

Chance the - good guy. (In so far as it continued to serve his own purpose). And why not have a few debts outstanding? A few people owing him a favour or two or... Y'know... Their life...

There's a deep breath - inhaled through his nose and exhaled slowly from his mouth. Selin taking in the bloody mess. In all actuality even though his hand ached like a bastard, things could have been worse... Could have. Probably would have. Probably. Probability. --he knows it was no matter of sheer dumb luck. He DID this. Or at least, he pushed this outcome into the reality they now occupied. Perhaps in some other planar or parallel universe, the outcome was different. Pehaps they would have been torn to shreds by the monkeyballs, or dashed to broken bloody pieces on the rocks below. But not in this one. He'd... Felt it. That punch from his chest, the pull and push on the strands of fate, coaxing, weaving, tugging...

"Just..."

He squints up at Selin - the smile on his face this time one of mild contentment.

"...Enjoy this for a sec. Then we can worry about... Stuff... In a minute. Just, breathe it in. Peace. Quiet. Being alive. No monkeyballs."

He offers a few moments of silence before there's something of a resigned sigh and he puches up to sit and take stock. His hand definitely had a fully formed bite mark - teeth marks quite visible. A few other scrapes and scratches. Probably a few more bruises in the morning (also becoming something of a habit). But he doesn't linger on his own misfortune. Because that's not what Chance 'the good guy' would do. Instead he casts his glance toward Selin, scraped knees, visible scratches here and there, forearms and elbows skinned badly from being scraped across the rocks toward that ever looming edge...

"You think the doc has any hello kitty bandaids in the medicenter?"

A slight lilt as he quips, keeping the situation as light as he can without losing any of the gravitas about what might have occured.

And with absolutely zero shame, he's shrugging out of his shirt, trying to manouvre it in his good hand without getting too mugh blood on it. That he wipes on his pants, before starting to tear off strips from the cloth, handing the cleanest and most presentable ones to Selin.

"Here, wrap those cuts. Don't need 'em getting any kind of crap in there before the doc can take a look at you."

The last lengthy strand he does wrap around his own hand.

"You think I'll need a tetanus? Or a rabies shot? You think Monkeyball Bob there had rabies?"

He's grinning as he speaks. Nonchalance in the present.

"C'mon. Let's get you back to our itty bitty slice of civilisation before any more of those Ball-Bobs show up. If they decide to go for round two, we might not be so - lucky."

Everything happened so fast.

The way Chance grabbed for one of the monkey's after they launched themselves at the two of them, followed by both of them getting grabbed in return. The tower of monkey's scattered and while Chance was fighting of one on his own, Selin was getting dragged across the rocky ground towards the edge of the cliff.

She began shrieking out in terror hoping that if Chance couldn't get out of his tussle, that maybe there was a bystander somewhere below to lend a hand. Her calls for help were useless though, it didn't seem like anyone was around.

She cried out to Chance as she tried to grab onto anything to delay the pull over the edge. But the claws of the monkey's were tight and sharp as they gripped onto her legs, digging into her skin to make sure they didn't let go.

When she could no longer feel the ground beneath her legs, her panic rose. These things were really going to throw her over the edge of the cliff for trying to look into a secret hatch? Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to will another change in size to manifest. Now was a good a time as any. She was terrified and maybe if she grew, then whatever fall she was up against (because there was no way she would confirm how far the drop was) might not be as deadly.

But, no. There was no changes occurring as she struggled to keep herself on the ledge. And then the anxious feeling crept into her mind that if she kept trying to force a change, that she might shrink instead of grow.

She definitely didn't want that. So she opened her eyes again just in time to see Chance coming her way, holding a large rock over his head, looking ready to drop it right on her.

Trust me. he says. At this point, she doesn't have any reason not to So her eyes closed again as she braced herself for any miscalculations. Selin felt the collision as the weight of the rock not only caused the monkey's to release their hold on her but also drag her down just a little further off the edge. When she felt Chance's hands on her wrists she grabbed onto his as tightly as she could before being yanked back to safety, toppling over, and landing roughly right on top of Chance.

It felt like she had the wind knocked out of her. She was more focused on catching her breath without realizing the compromising position they were in. Once those deep, heavy breaths filled her lungs with air, the silence around them clued her in that it was all over. She returned the smile, hers sheepish but relieved that they made it in one piece "Hi..." She breathed out, only then did it click how she was laying right on top of him.

"Sorry! Let me just- Sorry about that!" She said as she pushed herself off him, sliding over so she was next to him instead. "Are you ok?" Now she was able to take in all the scrapes and cuts he had taken. "Those things really did a number on you, there's blood everywhere. We-we should really get you to the medcenter."

[mermaibee]

Day 3: Struggle/Evolution .. The struggle to clean is real.. 💙

[redrydersrequiem]

Reunited chapter 2

Previous chapter Next chapter

updated 3/19/25

This is again for my own entertainment. I like to write even if im not the best at it. I like to use pictures and gifs in my stories it makes it more theatrical in my mind. I redo sentences and add stuff all the time cause I continuously reread my stuff and try to fix things. I hope everyone enjoys and i hope all of you have a good day. ❤️

Miles pov

Light blinds my foggy eyes everything coming slowly into view when something big and blue takes up most of my view 

“Colonel, can you hear me?”   A blue savage is staring down at me and my first reaction is to punch the hell out of them. 

Everything is jumbled as I don't know where I am or what's going on just that I have a hostile near me and I need to get the hell up out of here. More hostile show up all I can do is take swings at them as they try to grab me and hold me down. The first one from before is now in front of me again. While the others all hold me back.

“Hold him! Calm down, colonel! Come on it's me, Corporal Wainfleet!”

I finally take a breath and focus on the face in front of me. Wait did that thing say he was Corporal Wainfleet? What. Squinting at the Navi in front I see it does look like Lyle but blue. 

“Lyle? Is it you?”

“Yes and Z-dog and Fig,” Lyle says gesturing to the two navis respectfully holding me. I take a moment and collect myself. 

“Just let me go. I'm completely calm.” I can see they all slightly hesitate but do so anyway, still keeping their hand up just in case I start swinging again. But I don't care about them right now as I finally notice my own two fists. No longer the tan skin I'm used to, instead they are blue. No, it can’t be. I push Wainfleet aside and go toward the giant glass window in front of me. One of those savages stares back at me from the mirror. Hands moving the same as mine eyes blinking the same everything.

“Well, ain’t this a bitch.” I say now realizing what has become of me.

After being checked out by the scientist I'm reunited with Wainfleet and ordered to watch some video from my past or some shit like that.

“Attention two minutes until we hit the surface.”

I just ignore the soldier barking orders at me floating around trying to watch the video I've been told I have to. Once it starts my previous self shows up on the screen. All tan skin and gray hair. Tough guy military stance through and through.

“ In case you were in doubt you are Colonel Miles Quaritch, just younger, taller, bluer, and less pretty.”

 I just huff at my former self's gusto.

“In two weeks  I will attack the Navi fortress. It was thought advisable that I make this backup. Parker what the hell else do i need to say to this.”

“Just remind him how it works anything else you need him to know yada yada” “ Freaking useless” I hear the former human say under his breath.  

“Your memories and your personality are going to be sent back to earth where you are being cultivated just like the other lucky sobs of our team. You are a recombinant with my memories and my charm. You won't be able to remember my death because it won't happen.”

A chuckle occurs from over the human's shoulder, a female chuckle 

“Miles are you guys just now doing your daily video logs cause if you are i'm gonna have to write you up.”

A woman appears behind Miles, everyone else in the background looking sheepish until she fully enters the frame. She is gorgeous. Her smile was breathtaking, making my heart pulse loudly a low pur coming from my blue chest.

“Hello there darlin. How’s the baby.?”  Baby? What baby? Is all I can think, attention directly on the video playing as my tail flags anxiously behind me. Stupid thing.

“Jr is fine he’s at his check-up and I thought I would check in on y’all, what are you all doing all secretly up in here hmm”

“Nothing darlin, Parker just making us all catch up on our chores right guys? I hear yes and aye-aye from the background”

“Well if you guys would just do what you're supposed to you wouldn’t get in trouble.”

“You’re right darlin. Why are you in here though aren’t you tired.”

“I am but just because I had a baby doesn’t mean I can’t help out. The lab people are running around and I'm just making sure everyone is where they are supposed to be.”

“Well why don't you go back to our room and sleep darlin I'll make sure your job is all done and I'll pick up Jr.”

“Miles, if I didn’t know any better I would say you're trying to get rid of me.”

“ Not at all mamas, I just want you and the little one to be all rested.

“Fine, I'll let you get back to your little video.”

The woman moves off my predecessor's lap but not before bending down to cup his face, planting a quick kiss on his lips. I notice a ring around her finger. So she wasn’t just a baby momma she meant something to him, to me. As she slips away the original faces back at the camera and measures it with a tight look 

“That right there is someone very important. She means the world, remember that soldier without her you ain’t got nothin'. Now she doesn’t know what's about to go down. Or maybe she does I don't know, she's quicker than she looks. But remember she is to be protected. 

Whatever happens you as a clone have two objectives, the most important: take care of that beautiful thing you just saw. And secondly get revenge on the man who almost took her away Jake Sully. Remember that a marine can never be defeated. You can kill us but we just regroup in hell. Semper fi.”

“Ohrah” I hear Lyle say floating in front of me.

“Lyle, who was that?”

“Who was who, Colonel”

“the girl?”

“Oh, that was y/n”. 

“y/n” 

“Yeah, she was your fiancé. She was part of our team remember”

“Yeah I think but I don't remember everything”

“It’s cool colonel give it a bit they said we'll get all our memories back in time” 

“Wait you said she was part of our team right.” 

“Yeah colonel she was a great field medic but also a great soldier” 

“What happened to her?”

“I, I, actually don't know, I don't remember!, hey geeks were missing someone.” Lyle yells over to the scientist but before they can answer we hear the landing protocol go into effect. I guess we'll deal with this when we get to the ground.

I drop the subject for the Moment as I go over to the rest of my team to start our briefing. 

“Well, ladies we are definitely not in Kansas anymore. We’re on our way to Pandora. I know you're all asking yourselves the same question: why so blue?”

Chuckles go around as the twelve sets of eyes focus on me.

“The sins of the past have made us reborn in the form of our enemies. We have their size, their strength and their speed, added to our training its a powerful cocktail”.

“We got a mission?”. Lopez asks from his set in the back. 

“We do. Our mission is to find and kill the leader of the Navi rebel army. They call him Toruk makto. We called him Jake Sully.”

“But before we get to hunting I know you’ve all noticed we're missing a body here”.

“Yeah, where is y/l/n.” 

“I dont know yet zdarnski but trust me i'm going to find out so till then you all go about your business while i figure out mine.”

Lyle is at my six as we stalk through the base looking for the head of General Ardmore.

“Colonel there they are”,  Lyle points over to a middle-aged woman head bitch energy radiating from her. Emphasis on the bitch

“General Ardmore,” I say standing at the ready in front of the small woman 

“Nice to meet you, Colonel. I hear good things. But a lot has changed since you were last here. Come”

“She gestures walking through the bridgehead”

“The new command center here has just been commissioned. The crowd fitters can erect a building in six days. We’ve done more here in one year than in the previous 30 years. No longer is our mission here to mine. It’s too tame. We are here to make Pandora the new home of humanity. But before we can do that we have to pacify the savages. Sully's whims have become bolder and more frequent. His attacks are well executed. Good coordination between the troops. We only know that they are probably hiding out between the hallelujah mountains and we are still unable to flush them out. That is where your team will come in.”

“That’s all and well but I do have a pressing matter to deal with first.

“And what is that colonel?”

“I seem to be missing an important member of my team.”

“Ahh yes come with me” 

She leads Lyle and me around to a lap-looking sector. The ceilings were thankfully high enough that we didn't have to crouch. It was just getting through doors that sucked.  Taking sips of the co in my mask we come to a giant window, probably looking into a lap. The general presses a few buttons and the once dark glass now becomes clear. 

A Navi women who looked very much like y/n 

“No.”

“General I know you had relations with this woman when you were human is that correct”

“To my knowledge yes but none of the files said she had died.” 

“Yes, well with what we found we were able to determine she died of blood loss during the battle of Hometree. She and another soldier were both gunned down by the natives.”

My hands just clenched into fists as I continued to stare at the young woman behind the glass. 

“Since she was part of your unit and a capable soldier she was also made part of Project Phoenix. However, due to her health problems, her backup was from a much earlier date than the rest of you. Like you all, she went back to her twenty-year-old self with her memories being uploaded from the video logs she did before the battle. Like you all, she doesn’t remember or know of her death. Unlike you though We  had to take more liberties with some of her memories since she was very personable with the traitors during your time which is why I have a hard job for you colonel”

“And what would that be”

“I want you and your unit to keep a very close eye on Corporal y/l/n here to make sure she stays on mission. Got it”

“Understood general.”

“Good she should be woken up soon and the scientist think it would help for you to be there. They’ll contact you when they are ready till then im sure you both have other people to notify. 

Your pov

Everything hurts. My body feels like I’ve never moved but overworked every muscle at the same time. My ears are ringing and my eyes sting. What is going on? Did I get sick overnight or something? Damn. I hear clapping and a few snaps next to my ears startling me, probably one of the others messing with me but I can’t bring myself to swat at the sound.

“Corporal can you hear us”

“Huh” 

“Corporal I need you to open your eyes if you can” Wait am I in medical right now what happened?

“I slowly open my eyes, a bright light flowing into them. 

“Responses look good. Ok corporal y/l/n  can you look at us please”

I finally turn my head and see a nurse. A tiny nurse. What the hell? I try to swing up quickly but everyone goes on to try and calm me down, everyone is tiny-looking and starting to freak me out. But suddenly blue flashes in my peripheral 

“Darlin, I need you to calm down. 

Wait, that voice that's Miles, Miles will help me. I quickly turn to look at the voice of the man I love when a male Navi stares back at me. My jerk reaction is to push him away. Some unknown man staring at me while I feel like I've been drugged yeah that's a no-go situation but the male grabs on hard to my arms. It’s not until I go to push again that I notice my arms aren't my arms.

“Darlin, I need you to calm down and take a breath real quick, ok.”

“I'm just frozen in shock” 

“ Quartich?”

“Yeah darlin it’s me.” I then and see the other avatar that tried to grab looked familiar as well. 

“Lyle?”

“Hey, sweet cheeks.”

Miles just growls out at Lyle and that is when I know for sure it’s my miles that’s standing in front of me. The boys get me to calm down as the doctors now look me over. I’m too busy staring in the Mirror at my new body to pay attention to anything they say. Wainfleet had taken up a spot along the wall in my view to give me some reassurance. While Miles had gone off to speak with someone I just continued to stare. It was me that looked in the mirror but it wasn’t me that looked back.

After getting my bill of health, some fresh clothes and a rundown on the CO2 mask and where i have to use them. Miles and Lyle escort me to our new quarters.

Entering everything is gigantic. It would probably be comical if any normal humans saw it. 

“L/N” I hear called out loudly as a body comes crashing with mine. It’s Z-dog with Lopez and Mansks not far behind her all the others also standing to come to greet me. 

“Wow, Zdinarskit'st you I'm so glad to see you again.”

I grab and hug z much to her jargon.(she’s not really a hugger) Lopez and Mansks also come over and pull me into a quick hug, everyone else nodding at me with a smile on their face.

Look At you all. It’s kinda weird everyone is blue. 

“Don’t you know it” hear Ja call out from the back of the group. Everyone just laughing as Miles and Lyle rejoin everyone now that I've been reintegrated. 

“Well would you look at that, the whole squad together again,” Lyle says tucking me and z in each arm squeezing us into his side. We both just exchange a glance before brushing him off onto the floor, everyone else laughing.

“That's enough ladies. I hear Miles shout into the room.

You all know your rooms we'll meet back here tomorrow morning at o700 hours.

Roger colonel. Everyone just salutes and goes back to goofing around or going to their designated quarters. I kind of just stand there like a deer in headlights watching it all. Taking in everyone’s new faces and bodies. My family is back together again and right now that's all I can find in me to care about.

The next couple of days are very tiring. Training to get back into shape and familiar with our new body’s strength and size. Miles is a constant by my side, us practically going right back to where we left off. But it feels like i'm forgetting something, something important, it's on the tip of my tongue but it wont come out.

I see Miles get particularly more on guard whenever the general comes around to visit, always throwing glances at me. I have to admit the woman rubs me the wrong way but I'm grateful to her and the RDA for bringing me and my family back together again.

But that's where my loyalties end.

The others all go back into their roles in the group, no one focusing on the past or what happened to them more inclined to stay in the present and think of the future. 

We’re finally given the go-ahead to search the area, while I don't agree with trying to capture anyone I have no choice but to follow our orders to find a person called toruk makto. 

We get into the Forest everything is beautiful. I always thought pandora was beautiful but being able to experience it without a mask is crazy.  Walking under gigantic leaves I just take my hand up and spin under it filling its soft texture. Lyle laughs at my childishness but I can’t tell he thinks it's cool out here judging by the look on his face when a bunch of helicopter lizards Kenten if I remember correctly start flying around us. 

Miles stops and gives the order to fan out in the clearing. I see it's an old shack. But why is it out here and why is it so familiar? Before I can think more miles tells me to survey the surrounding area. While he and two others go survey the field. I do as he says not wanting to question things in a possibly hostile environment.

Miles pov

We make it the last known location of Jake Sully. Not wanting to compromise y/n I have her survey the surrounding area as Lyle, Lopez, and Zdog approach the old shack. 

Z and Lopez scope the shack as Lyle and I survey the ruins of an old amp suit.

Scrapping the moss off the side I see it was my old amp suit. There’s no body inside just the remnants of broken glass and an old arrow sticking through the seat.

“Lyle see what you can pull of this thing” I stand up taking a breath my eyes find y/n looking at some plant growing on a tree. A smile wide on her face as she plays with something floating in the air around her.. It calms me to watch her be at peace. 

“Here you go sir” Lyle hands me a screen to watch the amp's final moments. 

On the screen I see Jake in his avatar form all dressed up for war. Me and him going after each other. But then I see y/n. Human y/n stumbling into the clearing and standing between us. 

What the fuck are you doing there darlin, I say to myself my eyes still glued to the screen.

She’s trying to talk us both down. And I can tell by my former self-body posture falling that whatever she's saying is working. That is until I hear her scream at something behind me. The angle turned quickly to meet with the female savage Jake had found. And a very familiar arrow coming straight toward me. The screen changes once more to y/n above me tears in her eyes and that's where it all stops.

And that's how Miles Quartich died. But wait y/n was there I thought the general said she was with another soldier when she was gunned down. I have so many questions I'm unable to process as a crunching noise comes from the brush off in the distance alerting everyone. The team all pulls formation before four kids are now flung into the area by brown and Prager.

Your pov 

The old battleground makes me unsteady like an impending dread that fills my heart.

Miles and the others have all made sure I’m not part of whatever they are doing I’m just perimeter surveillance

I see something white float through the sky. It's an Atokirina, it's beautiful almost like the seeds of a dandelion, It floats peacefully towards me. I hold out my palms as it grows closer and closer gently landing in my outstretched hands.  Just as the seed settles in my hand I hear yelling from the group behind me. I run back to the group gun ready, only to come face-to-face with Navi children being manhandled by the others. 

“Hey wait they’re just kids”  I say but the others ignore me. I try again but the words stop when i see a human boy as well. Covered in blue strips with a mask on his face and the world starts ringing.

Miles pov 

Three Navi children and a human are all captured in a second. I look over them all seeing they look somewhat like us. The young male has eyebrows and a very familiar-looking face. Lyle points out that he thinks we have half-breeds on our hands holding up the older girl's hand to show five fingers. Now that got my attention.

“Show me your hands kid” The kid just flips me off. Now I know there’s no doubt why the kid looks familiar. He looks like his father. 

“You’re his”

I can hear y/n calling out to us to calm down and that they were just kids but I force myself to ignore her. It’s not till I go towards the youngest one that I see the human that was with them closely. His hair is matted into dreads and he has blue stripes painted on him. He also looks familiar. 

“What’s your name kid?” 

“Spider, spider l/n”

“Miles?”

“No one calls me that.” Before I can say anything else  I hear a sharp gasp from behind me. Y/n pushing through us to go towards the boy.

Your pov

“Wait your name is Miles.” I say staring at the young boy. The longer I look the more the pain in my head and heart grow, I can feel myself starting to hyperventilate. The longer I stare into the child’s blue eyes. Eyes that reminded me oh so much of the man I love. 

“But that's impossible the RDA wouldn’t have left you here. They were supposed to take care of you”  I can’t even make a complete thought as my hands gently try to reach out to the boy ghosting over his arms and face. The tears are blurring as the child just stares at me in shock. 

“Mom?”

“My baby” is all I can choke out before the ringing in my head turns up to a thousand. 

Spiders pov 

The female is looking at me with tears in her eyes as she crouches down to be height level with me. It’s starting to freak me out but I can’t look away from her. Like there’s a string pulling me to go to her and hug her but that’s stupid she is just another soldier just like Quartich. But…..Wait it can’t be. The more I look at her the more familiar she becomes. She looks just like the photo I have. The slope of her nose and cheeks. The shape of her face and as she smiles at me is when it hits me. 

“Mom?”

Miles pov

I can tell she’s shocked seeing the kid. I know I should pull her back before something bad happens but my body won’t move my mind not wanting to take this from her. It’s not until she yells out that I finally move. 

“Y/n.” I just charge over to her grabbing and pulling her away from everything back into the opening field. 

“Y/n, Y/n look at me what’s wrong “

“My head miles I.”

“Shh it’s ok just breathe, Lyle come here” Lyle bounds over and takes my silent command to look after y/n while I go and speak with Spider. 

The sully kids pov 

Why is that lady on the ground and what’s going on? Are all the kids able to think as they continue to struggle against the people holding them? It’s not until they hear the words my baby come from her that they realize the avatar in front of them is none other than the y/n l/n spider's mother. Back from the grave just like Quartich. It is impossible, wait till Dad sees this. A broken yell breaks them out of their silent conversation as they see y/n no longer in front of Spider but now on the ground clutching her head, Quartich and the bald one next to her. All of the others look at them and her with worry evident on their faces. She means something to all of them.

Miles pov

Taking in the surroundings I go and radio to the bridge head our location and how I need a pickup when getting a confirmation i walk back over to the sully boy.

“Ok kids here’s what’s going to happen you All are going to deliver a little message to you dad for me.” I slap a com link in the boys hand and stare him down

“Your daddy needs to give himself up while I’m still being nice. And if he doesn’t there’s going to be an all out manhunt for him and your family got it.

The kid just hisses at me.

“And to make sure you all deliver my message spider here is coming with us”

“What no let us go the older female screams”

All of the kids are struggling to protect their friend. I have to admit I was glad he had such loyal friends.Shaking my head a squashing those feelings down

“Let the kids go”

“What but sir “

Taking in the surroundings I go and radio to the bridge head our location and how I need a pickup when getting a confirmation i walk back over to the sully boy.

“Ok kids here’s what’s going to happen you All are going to deliver a little message to your dad for me.” I slap a comlink in the boy's hand and stare him down 

“Your daddy needs to give himself up while I’m still being nice. And if he doesn’t there’s going to be an all-out manhunt for him and your family got it.”

The kid just hisses at me.

“And to make sure you all deliver my message spider here is coming with us”

“What no, let us go.” the older female screams”  All of the kids are struggling to protect their friends. I have to admit I was glad he had such loyal friends. Shaking my head I squash those feelings down.

“Let the kids go”

“What but sir “

“Just do it we need to leave”  The others toss the kids away from them guns raised to make sure none of the little shits attacked us while our backs were turned. Taking spider in hand I shove him towards Lyle. Exchanging the struggling teen for the hurt woman. Holding y/n close as the chopper starts to come into view. The rain has started casting the clearing into darkness. My team continues to watch my back protecting me and y/n from the sully kids and the danger that may lurk behind them. It’s not till I hear a clear yipping sound call through the air and see the children all react to it. That I know he’s out there. He and that she-demon he married.

The sound comes again and the children book it out of the clearing back into the safety of the trees. Ordering the team to load up and placing y/n in Mansks arms I decide to turn back surveying the trees. That’s when a shadow in one of the large trees catches my attention. It moves slightly as another one comes into view just below it. 

“Jake!!!” I yell out. “I know you're out there sully. I hope with this I’ve gotten your attention. Tell your boy there to relay my message. I’ll be seeing you again real soon.” I hop into the chopper and we quickly make our ascent back. At the bridgehead, spider is taken to a holding room per the general's orders now while I don't agree I have more pressing matters on my hands. Y/n looked exhausted, her eyes sunken and her ears and tail twitching everywhere.

“Darlin how you feel?”.

“My head is killing me.”

“The science pukes said it would pass. Everything will be ok”

“No, everything will not be miles. I'm so confused about what is going on. Why are we after Jake? I thought Jake was our friend.

“Well, what's the last thing you remember?” 

 “From when I was human.?” I just nod tail flicking behind him worriedly 

“I remember you proposing and I remember being assigned to help Jake and the science group, I remember having our son and being so happy. but after that nothing…. Now you tell me  what am I missing.

“A lot happened darlin. While Jake was on our side he and the others decided to turn their backs on humanity. They… 

“What do you mean turn their back on humanity Miles, you i  both know the RDA didn’t and still doesn’t care about the Navi. Whatever they did they were probably in the right.

“How does killing everyone we love as a family make them right?”

“They were protecting themselves and their homes just like we would do if the roles were reversed. This is all once again the RDAs fault.

“Darlin you and I both know we owe everything to the RDA. Now I'm sorry this situation is not what you want it to be hell I don't want it to be but we have to do what we're told ok? Just focus on yourself for once in your life I beg of you.”

“Miles that's not how life works”

“Well I'm gonna need it too cause I don't need you giving the general any ideas”

“The general, what does she have to do with this?” 

“She knew you were close to the scientists in the past. They didn’t want that to become a detriment to their current mission. Our current mission may I remind you. So they have me watching you. And if you slip up I'm supposed to hand you over.”

Understanding comes to my face as I see now why Miles was always so closed off to me recently.

“So for my sanity and your survival, I need you to continue with the mission do you understand” 

“Miles I'm not going to”  /“Y/n i'm not asking I need you to do this until we can figure something else out, please.”

“God this situation is so fucked” All I can do is pace around while Miles sits on the edge of the bed. 

“Fine, I’ll pretend if it keeps you and the others safe I’ll pretend but I refuse to hurt anyone miles. You have to realize this isn't the same as then now we are the navi and I know without a doubt the RDA does not care about any of our blue asses.”

“Your right darlin, we all know it but” 

“But, we have to come up with a plan. I don't want to lose everyone again and I refuse to lose my son again. Ok.” 

“Ok” 

“Now speaking of  we have a very alive problem staying in this room right now that we need to take care of first please I want to see him”

“Darlin I can’t let you do that... I see he's staring at me but his cute little ears are drawn back and his eyes hold guilt”

“Miles where’s our son”

“Darlin he's not your son” 

“Where is he Miles” I yell out at the marine now blocking my way

“The general has him darlin’.

���WHAT!”

“Wait! Goddamit!” She storms past me despite my best attempt to block her into our room. She always was quick and made it seem all too to easy get past me to make her way to the interrogation wing. Running after her I stop quickly grabbing Z Dog and Lyle who just stood watching me storm past them. They follow me quickly but I’m already trying to come up with what to say for  damage control.

Your pov 

I get to the room and my blood boils. There he is, Little Miles, or Spider as he kept calling himself earlier. He's standing strapped to some sort of machine as the general yells out where’s Jake Sully? I can’t even begin to think straight taking in the scene in front of me. All I know is that my son is screaming with blood now slowly falling from his nose. Oh hell no. I immediately rush over stopping the machine before Ardmore can stop me and just as Miles, Lyle, and Z-dog all come into the room. 

“And what the hell do you think you're doing?” she screams, stomping over to me but Miles quickly grabs me by the back of the neck and pushes me towards z and Wainfleet. 

Colonel is there a problem here she asks eyeing my struggling form

No ma’am. Miles says signaling to the others to fully haul me out of the way.y 

Miles pov 

“Colonel, I thought you said l/n wasn’t acting out” 

“She’s fine we’ve been able to sidetrack and subdue her from thinking of the past too long”

“Good now explain what the hell that was just now”

“Simple general we just found our in” 

“Excuse me”

“You know how they say never get between a mama lion and her cub. That’s what just happened l/n’s outburst just proved to the kid he can trust her and with that will be able to get him to trust us and give up sullies operation.” 

“He’s not your son colonel this is not the time to play happy family is that understood “

“Yes sir”

“Good I will warn you once again do not let l/n compromise this mission or she will be put down is that understood” 

“Understood general.  I salute the smug woman in front of me though it takes all my will power and walk out to find y/n and Spider “

[bubble-tea-bunny]

what we’re meant for

[apollo x reader]

author’s note: apollo’s ear piercings>>> makes me wanna get more ugh

word count: 9,251

The air feels colder after it rains, but it’s also crisper, fresher, and with a deep inhale you let it fill your lungs, mentally steeling yourself for today’s hunt.

You stand at the edge of the woods, sunlight peeking through the foliage of towering trees and bugs and birds alike flittering between the thick, aged trunks. The grass is damp from a combination of raindrops and morning dew, and you know you’ll need to watch your steps particularly carefully to avoid any muddy spots, lest your feet sink in. A small gust of wind blows, ruffling your hair, braided as it always is to keep it out of your face, and you shiver. Your deep breaths are also made in an effort to acclimate yourself to the lower temperature. You refrained from wearing a cloak despite the chill because you knew it’d only impair your ability to use your bow properly. Though the longer you stand in place, the more you’re beginning to regret that decision. So before you can get the chance to regret it even more, you slide down the small incline and venture into the forest.

Last night the rain had been heavy, and you watch out for fallen leaves and branches, taking care to walk around them. It’s always quiet here, but especially so in the mornings, and any misstep would alert the wildlife to your presence. The birds are singing, a complement to the peace of the early hours, and serve to help you feel less alone as you traipse along. You try to identify the species to whom each unique call belongs, testing what you learned from Alexios during the days you’d agreed to let him accompany you on hunts. Studying birds had become one of his favorite pastimes, and he delighted in sharing with you what he read and applying his knowledge.

There’s a melody, high-pitched and staccato, and you think hard about what Alexios had shared, about the distinct tones. You then hazard a guess, and your attention is pulled to a small bird that perches on a branch of a tree you’re passing. It opens its mouth to sing, and you smile, having found your guess to be correct. It seems you’re getting the hang of this.

Your birdwatching is interrupted by the ruffling of leaves, and you freeze, gaze lowering to scan the surrounding area. You listen closely to determine the direction the noise had come from, and the moment you hear it again, you establish the way you need to go.

You move slowly to remain as quiet as possible, following the sound of pattering on soil and the snapping of twigs. It doesn’t move very far and you’re able to close the distance, ducking behind a bush when you catch a glimpse of fur. Once you’re hidden, you peek around, eyes settling immediately on the sand-colored rabbit sniffing at a plant. As it begins to take a bite of the leaves, you carefully reach for your bow.

The birds chirping help provide some cover, but it’s not perfect because you’re much closer, and any noise you make will stand out. You begin to pull your bow from over your shoulder but pause when the rabbit does, its ears lowering. Had it heard you? It lays flat on the ground then, and you figure it must have; it’s getting ready to flee if it hears anything else.

You hold your breath to keep silent and manage to get your bow and an arrow without the rabbit noticing. As you nock the arrow and take aim, you exhale, then take another deep breath, holding it again to remain steady. You only have one attempt to catch the rabbit here. Otherwise, you’ll have to chase it or search for another animal.

The string of your bow is at maximum tension, pulled back as far as it can go, and your fingers unwrap from around the arrow, letting it fly. You can swear it almost whistles through the air before it hits your target. It’s a clean shot, and now you allow yourself to relax, letting out a sigh and emerging from your hiding place to retrieve your catch.

You pull out the arrow to return to your quiver and tuck the rabbit into your rucksack. You’re not quite done hunting yet, for one rabbit isn’t enough for you and your family. You’ll need to keep searching, but luckily, there’s ample time yet until noon, when you’re expected back to assist your mother around the house.

Slinging your rucksack on, you stand back up straight. The sun is at an angle to shine down through the trees, its rays bright and brilliant. It’s just the warmth you need, and you stay in this spot briefly, basking in it with closed eyes. See, you think to yourself, the cloak would’ve been unnecessary. You’ve got the sun to keep you warm after all.

With your eyes shut, your hearing is extra sharp, and at the sound of more rustling, you’re kicked into action. You’ve pinpointed the direction more quickly this time, and you proceed to track your next target. You try to walk along the ground the sun touches, feeling its heat spread over your back. Please continue to keep me warm, you murmur. It feels nice on cold mornings like these. It’s a playful request because of course the sun can’t hear you, but you like to pretend it can, and that you’re in its good graces, that it should indulge you and kiss your skin so gently.

The silly thought makes you smile, and it rests comfortably on your lips as you navigate your way between the pines.

***

This morning is a morning like any other, nondescript and quiet. The thick blanket of clouds beneath the expanse of Olympus is parting as the rumble of rainstorms fades to welcome a clear sky. Colors always appear more vivid after the rain: a bluer sky, greener trees and grass. Every drop breathes new life into the earth, invigorating then magnifying it. Fewer sights are better than this, and that’s why Apollo finds himself tarrying in the courtyard.

He allows his mind to empty as he absentmindedly gazes down below, watching the world awaken, freshly cleansed and ready for a new day. The air up here is crisper as well and he breathes it in deeply. This would always be one delight he shared with mortals.

After lingering a while longer, he’s poised to take his leave and proceed with his day, but a curt prayer reaches his ears and stops him short. To hear prayers isn’t unusual, and he hears them often, but this particular one grabs his attention for a short list of reasons. One, that it hadn’t been addressed to him explicitly, but to the sun. It’s this that tips him off to the fact it must not be anything serious, no heartfelt plea for blessing but something muttered distractedly to fill the air, but he hears it all the same, and, if anything, is amused by it. Two, and perhaps—no, not perhaps, definitely—the more important point, is that the sound of the voice is distinct, melodious, enough to pull him in, wanting to hear more.  

So, rather than leave, he leans against the stone railing and scans the earth far below, listening for that voice again and searching for its owner, whose sweet song has graced his ears so sweetly on a morning that’s quickly taking a turn, no longer a morning just like any other. Where might you be, little bird…

There in the woods, he finds you. Bow in hand and rucksack on your shoulders, clearly in the midst of hunting. It’s simple to surmise that you’re doing your best to walk beneath the sun, and he can’t contain his smile. With each of your deliberate steps he grows more interested in observing you, and if the other gods notice how long he has been here, head leaning on a propped up hand and eyes drawn downwards, they don’t say anything or attempt to interrupt.

The birds that fly above your head are poor competition and while he wishes you would speak more, you don’t, but he understands since your current task requires silence. Though when you shoot down a deer, you let out a quiet exclamation of victory, and you might as well have shot him instead, for his heart seems to beat that much harder in reaction to your voice. Not only is the sky bluer and the foliage greener following the rain, but the cheeks of fair maidens are redder too, as evident by your own. They’re flushed, for you did have to go on a bit of a chase for that deer, but it’s charming in its own right, especially when joined by your satisfied smile. Apollo wonders if, should he lay his hand tenderly on your cheek, the heat of them might rival the sun he governs. He wonders if you’d allow him to sate his curiosity.

Much as he’d like to stay here watching you for the rest of the day, he can’t, and he reluctantly backs away from the railing. His every footstep takes him away from you physically, away from the sight of you, but mentally, you’re in the forefront of his mind in the passing hours. How hadn’t he noticed you sooner? He scolds himself for being careless, that he should miss something so remarkable as you for as long as he had.

Perhaps it might be argued that the gods are kept busy by the whole picture, presiding over the world as a whole, rarely afforded the chance to study the details. But to Apollo it makes little difference because with the discovery of you, with your fanciful wish for the sun to be at your back as you hunt and your voice soft as the plucked strings of a lyre, he is learning that sometimes, the real masterpieces are in the margins of a painting: well hidden but rewarding to find, so that upon picking it out, suddenly life is seen through a fresher pair of eyes, enlightened, and prepared for other secrets behind the canvas or in the painter’s brush.

Morning bleeds into afternoon and afternoon into night, and when the stars are strung across a dark sky, Apollo returns to his spot in the courtyard to search for you. He didn’t want to sleep until he saw you one more time.

You’re at home, your mother preparing for dinner the animals you’d caught earlier. In the mean time, you converse with a young boy. You talk about the birds you heard while hunting, and how you managed to guess their unique calls correctly.

“You’re a wonderful teacher, Alexios,” you compliment, and Apollo thinks about how he wants to hear you say his own name.

Alexios smiles widely. Then, there’s a mischievous glint in his eye. “I must be. If I could teach you, then I could teach anybody.”

At the playful jab, you lightly shove at his shoulder. “I’m a good student!” you defend yourself. “I just get distracted easily.”

“You’re like the sheep father tends to.”

You laugh, bright and melodic. It’s the only music Apollo needs. He’s of the opinion you’d be better suited in Olympus. Your dulcet tones and the delicate planes of your face are the essence of the divine and otherworldly, but he speculates you’ve been placed on earth to grace your fellow mortals with a piece of the heavens, your existence a reminder of the higher powers that be and the beauty they take care to form.

However, Apollo has no qualms in admitting he’s selfish, because for all of that, he’d still prefer you to be here and to keep you for himself. Thoughts of you lull him to sleep this evening, and, at least in this way, he can feel closer to you.

In the following days, he begins planning how best to approach you. To watch from a distance could only satisfy him for so long; he’s yearning for more. Lately, he’d taken to standing at the edge of the courtyard when he needed to think, since from here, he could also watch you, and during one such instance of this, he’s joined by another.

“You’ve been awfully quiet.”

Apollo blinks and glances to his right. Ares is walking over, in full armor and a helmet tucked beneath his arm. He must’ve just returned from training at the arena.

“Have I?” Apollo asks, but he already knows the answer.

“What’s got you so lost in your head?” Ares reaches out, intent to poke at Apollo’s forehead, but Apollo steps back and swats his hand away.

There would be no point in lying. Ares would see through it. Not that Apollo cares to lie. He has nothing to hide. “There’s a girl.”

Ares hums in understanding. “Ah.”

Apollo turns back to study you. Currently, you’re at the market with Alexios and have stopped at a fruit stand. “I want to meet her soon.”

“Is something stopping you?”

“No, no…” Apollo trails off and stays quiet briefly, already becoming distracted. But Ares detects he’s not finished speaking yet and waits. “I just want to figure out how to go about it is all.”

Ares raises a brow. “You’ve never cared about that before.”

At first, Apollo doesn’t think much of this remark, that it’s not worth noting, but upon further consideration he realizes it is rather unusual for him to take into account the how of a first meeting, and not simply appear before you the moment you’re alone. That’d always been standard procedure for him, and the question this raises in him is surely the same as what’s raised in Ares but that he doesn’t share aloud: why now?

Apollo likes to watch you in your natural environment, likes to watch you be, well, you. After all, it’s what had grabbed his attention to begin with, witnessing you in a scenario you’re comfortable in because of its familiarity, to the point you move through the forest with precision, clearly knowing it as well as the back of your own hand. He wants to interact with that part of you and observe up close the one who offers frivolous prayers to the sun as a mere aside, paying no mind to the gods who might actually be listening. Your desire is for the warmth to wash over you on cold mornings and Apollo would fight to keep the skies cloudless forever so that as long as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, your prayer will always be answered.

If he were to appear to you in his form as it is now, as a god in his full glory, it would ruin everything. You’d be taken off guard, startled, unsure how to act in his presence, and he doesn’t want that. It leaves him with the present dilemma, but he thinks he might have come up with something that will work…

Finally, he sighs, and humors Ares with a response. “You’re right. I guess I haven’t.”

***

For some reason, the animals elude you today. Your ears are sharp and well trained, so you’re certain it can’t be that you’ve missed any telltale cues of one in the area. The woods are quiet,  and they feel empty. If you have anything to say about it, it’s a little bit disconcerting.

Eventually you settle against a tree trunk for a short break, laying your bow and empty rucksack next to you. With you sitting, now you don’t even hear the crunching leaves beneath your sandals, and your eyes rove over the immediate surroundings. Nothing rustles, disturbed by creatures who are exceptionally well hidden. Where are they, any of them?

Perhaps you’re just unlucky this time? Returning home empty-handed didn’t matter too much; it was always possible to buy meat at the market. You just preferred to hunt for game yourself because of the thrill it gives and the accomplishment you feel being able to provide for your family in this way. As such, you don’t want to give up yet. After you’re done resting, you’ll continue. Like always, the only rule you have to abide by is to be home by noon.

There’s a stir in the bushes to your left, the leaves jostling, and you sit up quickly. Slowly you grab your bow, fingers wrapped around the grip, and gingerly you pick it up from the dirt and lift yourself to stand. You don’t walk in the direction of the bushes immediately. Your vantage point would be no better since whatever animal is here, it’s well-concealed, and even if you could spot it through the branches, your arrow couldn’t reach. Instead you wait to see if it starts to move out into the open.

Bow in one hand and arrow in the other, you’re prepared to take aim as soon as you spot your target. You just have to hope it doesn’t notice you first and take off into a run. The animal hiding is beginning to move, for the leaves rustle more, and you nock the arrow.

A red fox emerges, golden eyes trained on you as if it had already known you were there. But if that were the case, you’re confused as to why it hasn’t run away. Your arrow’s still knocked, though it’s pointing at the ground, and you stare at each other for one, two, three beats of silence, and this fox’s unwavering gaze leads you to believe thats something is wrong.

No, not wrong, but definitely out of the ordinary. The fox isn’t afraid, and you can’t bring  yourself to stare it down from the sight window of your bow, not when it’s unlike any other fox you’ve encountered, so you relax the tension of the string, removing your arrow and returning both hands to your sides.

The fox moves first, walking towards you, and you’re frozen in place. It feels like a dream, being approached like this by a wild animal who means no harm. You wonder if it might speak to you, a conduit for the gods to impart wisdom, but what they could possibly want to say to you, you haven’t the faintest idea. You’re hardly remarkable, not as well-versed in matters of the divine as the priests of the temple. Has this situation come about as a result of opportunity? To be out in the forest by yourself, there’s little chance for interruption. And with the quietness here, so far from the polis, there’s also little chance for misinterpretation, should the gods truly have something important to share.

The fox now stands right in front of you, its bright eyes blinking, vulnerable but comfortable. You decide to follow its lead, crouching down and setting your bow and arrow on the ground. It’s close enough that you can reach out for it, and cautiously you do, extending an arm to gently run your hand along its red fur. It doesn’t shy away, and as the seconds tick away, you find yourself feeling more comfortable as well. You’re still well aware of the peculiarity of the position you’re in, petting a wild animal so casually, and maybe the gods really are poised to talk to you.

However, the fox is silent as you greet it with a murmured greeting, only continuing to stare up at you. You continue talking, no room to feel embarrassed to converse with a wild animal when it’s already strange to be petting it with ease, and you’re only partly pretending that it can understand because with the way it watches you, you can swear it understands your every word.

“Why are you here?” you inquire, voice hushed. “I suppose you saw a friendly face and wanted to say hello.”

You scratch the fox behind the ear and it nudges its head into your hand, enjoying the sensation, and you chuckle. “Well I’m glad you thought me worthy of your time.”

And your time with it, it would seem, is drawing to a close, because the fox backs up, out of your reach. You watch it with a smile pulling at the corner of your lips and you stand. Lifting a hand to give a little wave, you expect it to turn around and proceed with its own day, concealing itself within the bushes again. And while the fox does turn around and walk away, what surprises you is that it pauses and looks back over at you.

You tilt your head. It’s a very deliberate glance, for it stays where it is, still staring. Was it trying to communicate? Had you been correct after all, that this fox could understand you and had something to share? You stand motionless, ruminating on these thoughts, but the fox continues looking at you, no attempts made to leave… at least not alone. And you know that it could no longer be denied. This fox is trying to say something: it wants you to follow.

Grabbing your bow and rucksack and covering the short distance to the fox, who, satisfied that you’re trailing close behind, proceeds with walking ahead, you reason that there are worse things to be following through the woods. You’ve heard the stories of divine beings interacting with mortals, manifesting in some form to offer guidance, but never did you think you’d be one of them. You can’t help trying to guess what guidance this fox has to offer even if the best course of action right now is just to wait. If it’s leading you somewhere, there’s a destination, and whenever you arrive, you’ll have your answer.

Distracted as you are with watching the fox, you don’t notice the tree root sticking out from the earth, and your foot gets caught on it. You yelp, falling forward, and your hands slide against the leaves as you catch yourself. But then there’s another disturbance, the rustling of more leaves which you’re certain isn’t your doing, and you squash the pained groan you almost let out from scraping your knees in order to listen for any more movements.

Has your run of bad luck finally ended? You’d pushed aside your original task of hunting for game when the fox approached, but now that there’s potentially a rabbit or a deer to track, you’re conflicted as to what to do. And as you’re wont to do in situations like these, you imagine what your mother might say. She’d tell you it’s fine not to go after whatever you’ve heard because the gods aren’t to be ignored, and there would always be other animals on other days. Yes, that’s what she would say yet you still struggle decide.

Your eyes slide from staring in the direction you’d heard the disturbance, down to the fox, who’s paused again, waiting patiently. You know that your urge to track whatever animal is out there doesn’t have to do with the sense of duty to bring home food for dinner, for a trip to the market is no issue. It’s your passion for hunting, the calls of the wild which pull at you. Perhaps it may be ridiculous that the urge is so strong as to compete with the chance to commune with the gods in such a tangible way, foolish even, in the eyes of many, but you would never be ashamed of it. Still…

With a huff, you stand up and brush yourself off. If only to sate your curiosity, you reason, taking wide strides to catch up to the fox.

The two of you don’t walk for much longer, but as you do, you hear the jostling again, of a wild animal sniffing at bushes in search of food. And with every step, you realize the sounds are getting louder.

Finally, the fox stops behind the trunk of a large tree, and you come up behind it, crouching down. Why have you brought me here? You think it but don’t ask it out loud, and you don’t have to because you peak around the trunk and find the answer: there’s a deer in the wide clearing, munching on berries it pulls away from a bush. You duck back around and look at the fox in surprise. It had led you to the animal you heard earlier? The fox sits down, looking up at you with its golden eyes, its job done.

You smile. Sometimes what the gods share with mortals is profound, wisdom only coming from the ones who call Olympus home, and other times they simply share a helping hand.

You’re not about to let the opportunity go to waste. Drawing an arrow and nocking it on your bow, you take aim.

***

One meeting is hardly adequate for Apollo. The moment he’d interacted with you, he knew he wanted more.

He thinks about what you’d said, how you thanked him for deciding you to be worthy of his time. And how could you not be? It was a different experience entirely to observe you up close, to see the confusion on your face upon his arrival but then the softening of it as you relaxed and welcomed him, even for how atypical the whole affair was, to get so close to a fox. You understood it to mean something even if you couldn’t say what, and when prompted to follow, you did so.

There had been that momentary struggle when you heard the deer, unsure whether to break away or continue to follow him. He doesn’t fault you for the indecision. If anything, it helped him to better understand the love you harbor for the hunt, and he’s of the opinion that such passion should always be encouraged. He’d been leading you to the deer to begin with, but you didn’t know that, and even so, you pushed aside your desire to track the deer yourself to continue following him, acknowledging that where he might lead you had nothing to do with an animal to catch but being okay with it.  

The tone of your voice had been so soft, like petals trailing along skin as one lays in a flower field on a warm day, and your eyes were gentle. He would like you to continue watching him in that way, perhaps on a quiet night, a dark one, when the stars are clear and brilliant so that he can promise you that he would scoop them from the sky and fashion them into a crown for you should you ask. Or if not that, he would gladly rearrange them to form a picture of you, a constellation made of only the brightest, to immortalize you in the heavens.

He sighs with longing he doesn’t bother to hide. His eyes slide closed and all he sees in his mind is you. Always you. He needs to see you again soon, to quell the ache in his chest.

The next time he does meet you, he assumes not the form of a fox, but of a human. He wants the chance to actually speak to you. In the early hours of a clear day, he roams the forest, in the areas you tend to frequent. There’s no worry of running into other people on accident. You tend to only be the one hunting this deeply into the woods.

He hears the sound of footsteps approaching from behind, and he turns just in time to see you walk around a tree and into view. Once you spot him, you stop, surprised to find you’re not alone. You hesitate to say anything at first, confusion apparent in your gaze, but you brush it aside as you offer a polite grin.

“I didn’t expect to see anyone out here,” you say.

Apollo chuckles and rubs the back of his neck, feigning sheepishness. “I came here to think and got so lost in my thoughts that, well…” He spreads his arms wide, referring to your surroundings. “I wandered further than I realized.”

You grin widens, and you relax a little more now. “I don’t blame you. The forest is a perfect place to find some peace and quiet.”

Apollo smiles too. “Yes, it really is.”

When you ask for his name, he tells you it’s Loukas. You repeat it, to be sure you heard him correctly, and it’s not as satisfying as he knows it would be to hear you say his real name, but it would have to do for now. Then you say Well it’s nice to meet you, Loukas and it’s heartfelt, yours smile amiable and extending a hand of friendship, should he want that. And yes, he does, very much so, and more still—as much as you’re willing to give.

You ask him questions about himself and he makes up information on the spot, but in an effort to avoid having to conjure up too detailed a backstory, and because he doesn’t want the focus to be on him, for you’re who he wants to learn about, he turns the tables on you and asks about you. It’s surface level, things he already knew by observing you from Olympus—your family and what they do, why you’re out in the forest early in the morning.

But what he gleans from conversing with you goes beyond that. You care for your family deeply, wanting to be a good daughter and older sister. You just want them to be happy, and anything you could do to make it possible, you would do. Hunting began as something practical, done to provide, but you’d grown to love it, energized by the cold air filling your lungs and the rush of blood through your veins when you’re set on a chase. Life for you is generally quiet, but in the forest, with your bow and arrow, it can be livelier, if only for a little while.

Apollo listens with rapt attention as your life unfolds before him and your eyes sparkle from the light of the sun overhead, but he’s more inclined to believe instead that they shine from the stars tucked away within you. Your soul is the essence of another universe and he’d like to live there, Olympus a distant memory but it wouldn’t matter to him, so long as you’re together.

He’d quickly been lost in his musings about you, the life he’d like to live with you, but he’s pulled from it at the mention of a fox and your quiet laugh of disbelief as you recount what a unique encounter it had been.

“Sometimes when my father asks for help watching the sheep, I’ll sit in the pastures and talk to them, but with the fox, it was different. I was sure it could understand what I said.” You chuckle again, embarrassed. “I’d been struggling to find any animals that day too, and that fox led me to a deer. It was like the gods were watching out for me.”

You glance at Apollo, nervous for what his response could be, because it does sound a little outlandish, but he simply smiles warmly. “Olympus rests in the heavens, but on occasion, the gods take care to remind us they’re closer than we think.”

“Well said,” you compliment, then continue teasingly, “Did you hear that from one of the priests?”

Apollo laughs and shrugs noncommittally. “They have a way with words.”

Time with you passes much too quickly and he’s saddened as it draws to a close. Your parting words include an apology for disturbing him, since he’d come to the forest to think, and he’s speaking to you as Apollo, not as Loukas, when he promises that you would never be a disturbance. He’d enjoyed your company, hopes that you’d enjoyed his too and that perhaps this wouldn’t be the end. Until the next meeting? It’s asked in a way that leaves it open, for there’s no set date and you’ll leave it to chance that you run into each other on another day.

You nod and your lips, stretching into a grin, look so soft. “If it be the will of the Fates, we’ll see each other again.”

“I’ll have to pray for their favor then.” He lifts a hand in a wave goodbye, and you return it before making your leave, gradually becoming concealed by the foliage.

But Apollo would do no such thing. The hands of the Fates keep the world turning but where it concerns you, he would pull the strings himself. He doesn’t bother to entertain the idea of what your thread might contain, whether there’s a place for him in it or not, because he doesn’t care to find out. He wants to be with you, and it’s a desire so powerful that he would dare to push back against the Moirai in order to fulfill it.

From the moment he’d said goodbye during your first conversation, he already knew you would meet again. He’d be there in the woods to wait for you. It isn’t the will of the Fates that turns this wheel, but Apollo.

Hermes had noted both the change in Apollo’s demeanor, his propensity for bouts of silence as he watches the earth below, in combination with his recent absences to go down there, but for what, Hermes doesn’t know. Apollo is forward with him as to what he’s been up to, like he had been with Ares, but unlike Ares, Hermes is privy to just what Apollo feels regarding the Fates and their plans for you.

“It’s no small matter to reject what they’ve ordained,” Hermes remarks. “The threads they spin, it’s destiny. Even for that girl who’s caught your eye.”

But Apollo isn’t easily swayed. It’s the strong who admit no destiny, and he would shoulder the burden of Atlas and carry the sky on his back. Where it concerns you, the Fates were a mere interference. He’d forge the future on his own.  

***

The way your eyes light up when you do see him again makes everything in the world feel right, and upon your playful comment—It seems the Fates have been kind—he brushes aside the  idea of destiny and the Moirai easily. In response, he hums, declares They have despite not meaning it since, well, it isn’t true. And he wishes he could tell you it was his doing, that it would always be him pushing you two together because he wants the praise which falls from your lips to be for him and him alone. Though he supposes there would be time yet to reveal such secrets to you, and despite the irritation he feels at needing to wait, he will do so without complaint.

Besides, he’s too preoccupied paying attention to you to bother complaining. You take up all the space in his mind, and there’s room for little else. It’s entirely unusual for the likes of Apollo to be this enamored with anyone, and he studies your form closely as you talk—the curl of your lashes, the sheen of your hair pulled into a braid, the color of your lips—wondering if you found your beginnings as a sculpture, not a human, and it was Athena who breathed life into your form. If such is the case, where was the pedestal off of which you stepped, leaving it behind without looking back in favor of exploring the world around you? Which lands claimed the privilege to have you on display? Those which he posits as possibilities are hardly worthy, but very few, if any, could be.

Had you come from Olympus? It’s the only place Apollo knows contains beauty to the degree you possess. He imagines you there, in the fields or in the courtyard, settled amongst the flowers and staring overhead at a sun unobscured by clouds. He imagines that you look right at home, and it would be ironic that you should be under his nose this whole time, his songbird  easily spotted by glancing out the window of his bedroom. Your every word’s a dream and he delights to hear your honeyed tones. He wants you to pray to him with that sweet voice, and he’d honor all your requests so long as you sang for him.

You’ve started teaching him the calls of various birds which flitter overhead, and the ghost of a smile rests on his lips to hear your enthusiasm. There’s an occasional bout of hesitation on your part, unsure if you’ve identified the calls correctly and digging through your memory for everything Alexios had said, and you flash a toothy grin of satisfaction when the bird whose call you’d been attempting to guess makes its appearance, and you learn you’re correct.

Apollo enjoys this activity, but the only bird whose calls he’s interested is you. He trails his gaze along the column of your throat, envisions the vocal chords within them producing the melody and majesty you radiate. His fingers twitch with the urge to follow the path taken by his eyes, to slide along your jaw, down your neck, touch feather-light and and inquiring from you, in hushed whispers, to what artist he owes an expression of gratitude for gracing him with your existence.

As the days turn into weeks spent together, you only grow closer, and it reaches a point that you suggest he join you and your family for dinner. You look hopeful that he’ll agree, but he can’t, given who he is. He needs to keep his distance from everyone other than you. He hates to be the cause of your disappointment, however slight, and that’s why a heaviness settles in his stomach when he declines.

He’s polite, explaining that he doesn’t want to intrude, and the small smile you’d been wearing fades. Already he’s aching to see it again, wants to beg for it to come back and if you truly wanted him to accompany you, he would do it, any consequences be damned.

Was there a chance that you knew he was lying about the reason? Your head is tilted and you delay giving a response, and maybe you don’t know the real reason (he highly doubts you could figure that out) but you detect enough from the tone of his voice that he fed you a lie. If you do realize it, you don’t address it, and instead, like you heard his earlier wish to see your smile again, that charming smile returns. Now there’s a playfulness to it.

“Then I guess you’ll just be my secret,” you tease.

Apollo grins. It would be his pleasure to be your secret, held close to the heart like all secrets are.

He’d like the beat of your own to help him fall asleep at night. He lays in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about you and whether you’ve also settled in for the evening. If he were to extend arm outward, along the blankets to the empty side, as though reaching for you, he wonders if you’d sense it, the faint touch of his fingertips, a testament to what Apollo feels for you. No distance between you would ever be too great. His dreams are filled with you and perhaps this is a sign that you were thinking of him. He hopes so.

Apollo had been certain of his feelings from the moment he first set his sights on you, but the idea of confessing and revealing his true nature stayed far from his mind. It hadn’t been by any will of his own; he was enamored with you during every meeting, genuinely enjoyed talking, that he hadn’t bothered considering the next step, content in the current moment to just be.

But on a bright afternoon while out in the courtyard, he finally gives it thought, and it’s perfect, really, because sunny days remind him of you, and maybe that’s what prompted the last push. To be around you was to keep a piece of the blessed sun he governs right by his side, your presence warming him even on the stormiest of days, and he desires to know what it would be like to be the recipient of your love as you are of his.

He’s the god of the sun yet he wonders where you have been all these millennia. Maybe your essence had always been there, manifesting in the blooming of flowers one century and then in the powerful flow of a river the next. And on and on your soul drifted through time until it settled within you as you are now, a culmination of the lives you have lived, and maybe Apollo had always known where you were because whenever he looks into your eyes he sees eternity. You’d been with him since the beginning of it all; he was just looking in the wrong places.

There’s a chill in the air on the morning he plans to tell you the truth. You shiver, having come without a cloak, and he offers you his, throwing it around your shoulders before you get the chance to decline. You smile, accepting the help gracefully, and Apollo returns your smile automatically.

Do you remember, he starts, about what I said the day we met? You hum as you attempt to recall what he’s referring to but can’t remember. He doesn’t blame you, since you’d discussed many things then.

“It was about the gods, and how sometimes they’re closer than we think.”

Your eyes light up in recognition. “Oh, yes! But… what about it?”

Apollo doesn’t respond immediately, considering carefully how to phrase his next words. It’s unlike him to be this way, and he is aware, irritatingly so, of the slight hesitation in the back of his brain. It’s not that he’s afraid, because every instance he had imagined this moment, his heartbeat raced not with nerves but with exhilaration. He owes it to the pressure overcoming him to make this flawless, so that you can know the true depth of what he feels toward you. His gaze slides from staring at the horizon down to you, who watches him so attentively, and he realizes the pressure is unfounded. He just needs to be real, and you would understand by the parts he doesn’t say out loud.

So, taking a deep breath, the cold air filling his lungs, he speaks. “How would you feel to know one had been at your side?”

“You mean that fox?”

“Not just the fox, but every time you ventured into these woods. You hadn’t been alone.”

Your head tilts. “I wasn’t alone all the time: I had you.”

Apollo goes quiet, waiting to see if you connect the dots yourself. He looks at you and envisions the gears in your head spinning as you stare at each other. Saying it out loud, what he’d been implying, would have garnered the same result as staying silent. His lack of words is still a response to your unspoken question, and he notices the unease which settles on your face, expressive as always, unable to hide what you’re thinking and feeling.

“Loukas…?” Your voice is hushed. Maybe you only say the name because you want to ask what he means, wanting to hear it explicitly, or because you’re questioning if that’s even his real name.

Apollo notices that now you look at him as you did during your first interaction, when the first few polite greetings had been exchanged: like a stranger. You’re keeping yourself guarded, and there’s a tightening sensation in his chest and he hates it. He hates how it hurts and hates to see you look at him that way. And he would never fault you for it because he’d kept his identity a secret, but he loves you and the only way to show it to you, to make it real, was if he told you the truth of who he is first.

He shakes his head. “I go by another name.”

He transforms before you, his mortal covering falling away and giving rise to his divine form. The burst of light which issues forth from this process is so bright you need to cover your eyes. You bring your arm up, and he’d like to reach out and take hold of it, to gently lower it to your side so that he might meet your gaze, but he restrains himself and, instead, says your name quietly, a signal that it’s okay to look now.

And you do. Your eyes are wide in astonishment, your mind no doubt scrambling to process the fact a god is standing in front of you. Sure, you might’ve interacted with one before, in the form of that red fox, but this is something else. This isn’t a vague manifestation, like another animal or a dream, the mysterious—and more typical—methods gods tended to utilize for communication with mortals, but a literal god. No veil or disguise. No hiding.

Apollo studies you closely, contemplates the myriad of emotions which are no doubt flittering through your mind like a dozen little hummingbirds. He keeps his tone tender, for you’re already shocked, and he realizes the situation is a delicate one. Suddenly you start to resemble the deer who roam the forest—graceful in posture and magnificent to behold but still tense, prepared to flee the moment you detect there’s anything unusual.

My name is Apollo, he says lowly. And since I first laid my eyes on you, I have been with you here in these woods.

You take in his appearance: the long blond hair, tanned skin, golden eyes which match the sun shining behind his head high in the sky. He’s beautiful, and that should come as no surprise where it concerns an Olympian, but to witness his beauty yourself is an experience unlike any other, leagues above merely hearing from the priests how he might look or observing the sculptures fashioned as praise for him.

His eyes are what draw most of your attention, and they are kind as well as familiar. They mirror the brighten golden gaze of another being you had encountered in the past, and you let out a quiet breath of disbelief. He had been with you even then. Your intuition speculating that the fox had been a god wasn’t unfounded at all. It hadn’t been an aimless musing, a what-if because you’ve heard the stories of gods appearing to mortals. You’d been correct. It had been fact.

“But why…” You trail off, unable to finish the question because truthfully, how could you? The implications of his actions, of spending all this time with you, only to reveal his true self, speaks for a reality you are having trouble coming to terms with. Why you?

Apollo understands what you’re asking without you needing to continue, and in readying himself to explain from the very beginning, the corner of his lips lifts in a tiny smile as he reminisces on the first words he’d heard you say to him, indirect but meant for him all the same.

“The day was cold, fresh off the heels of a rainstorm the night before,” he starts. “You asked the sun to keep you warm and kept your footsteps to the places on the earth where it touched.”

You remember that moment, and it surprises you that it had reached him, because it hadn’t been a prayer, not a genuine one. Simply a playful aside.

Apollo’s smile grows. Sincere prayer or no, I heard it, and when I did, I wanted to know the one who said it. He explains to you it was your gentle tone which pulled him in, voice laced with affection which underlies your every word, and he wanted to hear more of it, to hear you sing and it could be about anything—your hunts, your family, gossip from the markets—and he would hang, and has hung, on it all because everything you say is the sweetest melody. You put the birds to shame.

And this, he hopes, is adequate to answer your query. He’d seen the confusion on your face, wondering why you had stuck out. He wants to help you understand, see things from his point of view, because even if you might not think so yourself, you’re remarkable. At the tail-end of his speech, throughout which a sense of eagerness had been clawing at him from the inside because this was it—the moment he confesses and might finally feel the softness of your skin against his, might finally hear you say his name—he tells you he loves you.

You’re at a loss for words, as his hang in the air between you, and Apollo had been expecting a reaction of this sort. To be loved by a god was no small matter. But what he isn’t expecting is the shake of your head, slowly at first, like you’re uncertain, but then again, more assertive. It’s his turn to be confused and he murmurs your name, a slight upturn at the end as if asking a question.

“You don’t love me,” you state.

Apollo’s brows furrow. “I assure you there’s little else which I have been so confident about before.”

“But a god and a human together…” You shake your head again. “It’s not meant to last.”

His heart wrenches painfully in his chest to hear you say that, though he understands where you come from. Such stories were common, himself being the god in some of them. The relationships are temporary, but this time, with you, he’s serious. His feelings for you are real, transcending the point of mere infatuation. He loves you and the declaration isn’t empty. He’s almost desperate now as he tries to come up with a way to convince you that your own story, between the two of you, would have no tragic end, maybe even no end at all. Because when stories reach the closing, happy or not, there is always inherent in the drawing of the curtains a perceived sadness, a pulling away from the world upon the stage and one is unceremoniously thrust back into reality, which is nowhere near as spectacular. It’s a disappointment he never wants to feel with you, and he would do all he could do keep you together.

“I sometimes wondered if there was anyone for whom I would change the course of the sun,” he tells you, his eyes drifting upward to glance at the sky. “And I could think of no one until I saw you. I told myself that if you so desired, I would keep the sky free of clouds so you might always feel the warmth of the sun.” His eyes slide back down to meet your own. “If you wished with that sweet voice of yours for the sun to rise in the west and set in the east, I would do it.”

You’re visibly more relaxed now, your gaze having softened as he spoke. It shines with the temptation to give in, to accept his love and give him yours in return, but a small part of you continues to struggle with the idea of loving a god. Apollo hopes you can see the sincerity on his face, as close to a desperate plea as he can get short of actually begging out loud.

“And if I were to ask for that,” you start, "for the sun to rise in the west and set in the east, what of the earth? The crops and the people who rely on its consistent path through the sky?”

Apollo shakes his head. “None of that would matter to me. Don’t you see?” He says your name again, and in a fit of irony the tables have turned because your name upon his lips is a prayer in its own right. “To be with you is to have the world fall away.”

Tentatively, he lifts a hand to set it gently on your cheek. You don’t flinch or back away, and he sighs, one of satisfaction to finally feel your skin, the softness of it to match that of your eyes and your voice and your everything. He declares it to you once more. I love you. And he would keep declaring it until you believed him.

You cover his hand with yours and lean into his hold. There’s still conflict in your gaze, a storm of emotion, and the way you murmur his name sounds like a call for help. You want to be saved. You want to be rid of the discord within you and to accept all he has to give, and you’re closer to the edge, have moved closer with his every word, but the last bit of hesitation keeps you from falling over. Apollo…

The breath leaves his lungs to hear you utter his name, a sound he has longed to hear since the first time he heard you speak. There’s a twisting in his chest but now it’s from that flood of love which he is barely able to contain. He wants to hear you say his name again and again, and he’ll fight against the hesitation you continue to feel, chip away at it until it’s only you and him and he could guide you over the edge and into his embrace.

His thumb strokes your cheek, a comforting back and forth motion. “We’re meant for each other.”

“You speak of destiny, but who other than the Fates can determine what any of us are truly meant for?”

Apollo is reminded of the conversation he had with Hermes what seems like many moons ago.  All at once the fires of passion flare with him, magnified by his defiance of the Fates. When he’d declared to Hermes that where it concerned you, the future was his to forge, he’d been serious. He proclaims it now to you, promises that when it comes to the two of you, the Fates are powerless.

“The thread of your life is spun and measured by the Moirai, but I would pluck it from the hand of Atropos and her shears so that you might stay with me forever.”

It’s his final appeal, the ultimate supplication, to dare to go against the hand of fate. You understand the gravity of this assertion, and at hearing it, the last of those defenses in you drops, and there’s a clearing of the storm clouds, which he detects in the clarity of your gaze. As you look up at him, you do so with sureness, with love, and to bear witness to and be the recipient of your radiant affection is to make the task of intertwining your own fates as easy as waking up in the morning. You give him the strength to carry it out and there truly is no one else for whom he would go to such lengths for.

He kisses you and your lips are warm. Maybe you’re a piece of the sun that has fallen to earth, a shooting star which has made its home here until he found you. You’re the part of him that’s been missing, and holding you now, Apollo is aware of how complete he feels.  

Upon parting, you remain close and watch one other. The silent look shared is intense, profound; two hearts beating the same lonely tune, fiercely longing for love and not caring what the world—or the heavens—might think.

[unmaskedagain]

Marinette: Crazy Rich

           So in this fic,. If you’ve seen Crazy Rich Asians, you’ll know why as the fic goes on. Also, I totally ripped a few lines from Girl Meets World; fans of the show will recognize them instantly!!!

 They met when they were young; younger than either of them remember. The first time, Marinette and Ali had both in babes in their cribs when their grandmothers’ introduced them. The second time, they just learn to walk and or run, and seemed love making a mess of everything; again not something they could remember but had plenty of pictures of.

The third time, and the one they both remembered, Marinette had been just six-years-old. Ali had been seven. They each were the apple of their grandmother’s eyes. Their grandmothers were best friends having known each other since they were little girls.

It had been a playdate at one of the Young family homes. Ali had worn a dapper grey suit that would look ridiculously expensive on an adult man, let alone a child that just barely learned to tie his shoes. Marinette had worn a darling silvery purple dress that was closer to a ball gown than any dress any other four-year-old girl would wear to a playdate.

           Both kids shyly hid their faces behind their grandmother’s skirts and had to be coaxed softly to greet each other.

Prince Ali bowed regally as he had been taught, “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Young.”  He was a handsome boy with dark-skin, olive-green eyes, and black hair. Ali always wore a charming smile on his face as expected of him. He was a Prince, and while it wasn’t easy, he did what of expected of him.

“It is an honor, Prince Ali,” Marinette curtseyed gracefully. She was a beautiful girl with long black hair and bluebell eyes. She was the essence of a perfect little lady. “We have a wonderful playroom that I would like to show you if you able?”

Prince Ali looked to his grandmother for an answered. She nodded silently, an amused smile on his face. The young prince grinned, “Yes, please.” He held his arm out for Marinette. She took it, a pink blush on her face, and they walked side by side out of the foyer, their perspective bodyguards trailing after them, while their grandmothers’ cooed in the background before departing to have tea.

           The playroom was larger than three apartments combined; it had specific areas dedicated to art, sports, video games, tea parties, a jungle gym built to look like a castle, and even an area just for snacks. In order to get around, there were trampoline paths.

           Prince Ali blinked in awe.

“You get used to it,” Marinette giggled. “Come on!” She grabbed his hand and ran across the trampoline path to the jungle gym. They jumped the entire way, their bodyguard watching from the distance ready to act if something went wrong.

“Call me Marinette,” Marinette said when they made it to the top. She pulled out two foams swords and handed him one. “Or Mari.

“Ali,” He said as he took the sword.

“I’m Pirate Captain Sparkle,” She yelled and pointed her sword. “And you my dreaded rival have come to steal my treasure… Captain.”

“Tiger Eye,” Ali nodded seriously. “Captain Tiger Eye. Engarde!”

           The two pirate captains dueled all over the jungle gym before teaming up to defeat the evil space monsters that came to steal all the ice cream and candy in the world.

           Ali laughed as he jumped into the foam ball pit after a giggling Marinette. They both laid there for a moment trying to catch their breaths as they stared at the ceiling painted to look like the night, each constellation connected.

“You’re not how I imagined,” Ali said.

           Marinette hummed, “Spoiled rotten, uptight, crazy rich brat who only like tea parties and princess things; who’d cry the second I don’t get what I want?”

“Well… yes.”

           She shrugged, “I get that a lot. I don’t know why. If I so much as considered for a moment of throwing a tantrum in public, my grandmother would have me shipped boarding school in Sweden. No matter what my parents said.”

           Ali nodded, “Same. Though, mine would be in Scotland. My mother has a strong fascination with Harry Potter.”

“You’re not what I imagined either.”

“Stuffy prince, that always had his nose in the air,” Prince Ali started, “So he can look down on everyone; that expects everyone to bow and cater to his every whim?”

“That about covers it.”

           He snorted, “My grandmother would have me scrubbing bedpans at one her hospitals the moment I ever said was better than anyone.”

           Both laughed.

“Do you ever get tired of it?” Ali suddenly asked. “Always been told to do this, or that you can’t do that. Always being on your best behavior because of what people would think. I never get to do anything I want.”

Ali was the first grandchild and took after his grandmother Queen Aishwarya with his kind, fun-loving nature, as well as his ability to recognize authenticity in people. Like Aishwarya, Ali would later become a philanthropist who dedicated his time to volunteering at and donating money to child hospitals and leading the go-green initiative in his country. He wasn’t allowed to behave like most kids; never allow himself to be as free as them.

“Shoulders back and stand up straight,” Marinette recited. “Mind your manners, smile for the cameras. Always be clean and orderly. It’s like I’m a trophy. Don’t make a mess. Watch what you say but never let anyone think you can’t say it. Sometimes it sucks. But what I can I do. Can I really cry about it? I’m a rich, only child that gets everything I want… as long as I behave. There are expectations of me, and if I stay, I get shut down.” Hard.

           Marinette spent her childhood split between France and Singapore.  In Paris, she was able to relax as Marinette Dupain-Cheng the daughter of a pair of rather well-known bakers. In Singapore, she was Marinette Dupain-Cheng-Sung-Young or just Marinette Young for short; the granddaughter of Eleanor and Phillip Young, an heir of the wealthiest family in all of Singapore and most of the world. And people, her family mostly, and the paparazzi had expectations of Marinette Young.

           Marinette Young was a Singaporean child socialite. The media referred to her as “The Princess” for her beauty and the impeccable fashion sense she distributed from a young age. She followed her older cousin Astrid to all the fashions, taking her cues from her.

“Yeah…”

           Marinette lift her head to look at Ali, “What do you like to do?”

“I like to help people,” Ali murmured. “I like helping my grandmother at the hospitals and making sick kids feel better. Maybe be a doctor!”

“I like fashion, my cousin Astrid likes it too,” Marinette said. “So let’s make a deal. You help kids. I’ll work in fashion. That’s what we want to do so we’re going to do it. Okay?”

“Deal,” Ali nodded firmly and then looked thoughtful. “Are we friends?”

           Marinette smiled, “Best friends.”

           And so there were. Over the next few years, the two would meet up for playdates frequently. Eventually, Prince Ali would come to know Marinette Dupain-Cheng well too.

           When the playdate ended, Marinette waved goodbye sadly as her new friend left.

           That night, while her grandmother brushed her hair before bed, she asked. “Did you like Prince Ali?”

           Marinette nodded, “Yes. He was very polite and played pretend really well.” She left off the part where he was a dreaded pirate captain because of details.

“Aishwarya and I thought you would like each other,” Eleanor nodded. “I’m glad to see you get along well. Hopefully, you will grow closer as you get older.”

“Why?” Marinette asked curiously. Her grandmother had never cared about whether she would still be friends with her playdates in the future. Normally, the playdates were a way to have a business meeting with it being obvious to the outside world that it was, in fact, a business meeting.

           Eleanor smiled softly down at Marinette, looking less like the elegant scary Dragon-lady the media claimed she was, and more like any loving grandmother.

Eleanor knew she always favored Marinette, her first grandchild; even if she had severely frowned on her oldest daughter Sabine marrying a baker. Though she had frowned less once their bakery became a successful international chain, akin to Gordon Ramsey restaurants. Their headquarters in Singapore. In Eleanor’s defense, they came from a rather wealthy family and with roots of nobility. Who wouldn’t be a little upset if their heir and beloved daughter running off to marry a baker she met in France? Sabine had even gotten Nick and Astrid to help with her elopement.

It would be years before Eleanor manages to quell the snickers and rumors that persisted after Sabine’s departure, and just as long until she was willing to speak with her oldest child again. However, that was mostly because she learned Sabine was pregnant.

Eleanor was in France for the duration of the pregnancy and had loved Marinette instantly the second she was born. Her beautiful granddaughter with hair so black it looks blue in the right light, and bright blue eyes bluer than anyone could even imagine. It’s a wonder, Eleanor, ever let go of her. (But apparently, Tom had the right to hold his child too, or some nonsense like that.)

           Because of her grandmother, Marinette’s childhood was… odder than most. While her parents preferred a more modest lifestyle despite their wealth, her mother’s side of the family… did not.

“Do you know how your grandfather and I met?” The older woman asked. Marinette shook her head no. “We met when we were really young, about you and Prince Ali’s age. Our parents were business partners who believed marriage was the best solidify the partnership, and bring up both of our families statuses. So we were betrothed.”

           Marinette blinked, slowly understanding hit her. “It means engaged right?”

“In a way,” Eleanor nodded. “It meant we were promised to each other and that one day we would marry; uniting our families as one. Do you know why I’m telling you this?”

“The playdate,” Marinette said. “It was a test to see if Ali and could get along. We are to be promised to each other.”

           Eleanor put the hairbrush down. “No. You are promised to each other. We finalized the arrangement today. The official betrothal will be announced after your thirteenth birthday. One day, you will marry Prince Ali. Prince Ali is the oldest child of Queen Aishwarya’s oldest son. Do you know what that means when you marry him?”

           Marinette nodded, not fully understand what being married meant. Or what being betrothed meant but knew it was important. She thought of Snow White and Cinderella, and what marry a prince meant for them. “If I marry Ali, it means one day, I’ll be Queen.”

“You’ll be a princess,” Eleanor correct gently. “Queen Aishwarya’s steps down, which will not be for quite some time, her son and heir will take her place, and then one day Prince Ali will take his father’s place. Then you will be Queen.”

           Marinette grew up dealing with the fact that she would one day be Queen the best way she could; she put it of mind. It wasn’t like her life changed all that much; she just attended more lessons than usual.  Heck, her life changed more when she became Ladybug. So she was engaged to be engaged, so what? All that meant was that she couldn’t date anyone seriously. She could date though, which was what counted.

           She and Prince Ali were still best friends and what girl didn’t want to marry her best friend?

           When Marinette was thirteen, Prince Ali had a surprise visit to Paris under the guise of visiting the local children’s hospital. It was the first time he came to visit without his grandmother with him. And it was the first time Marinette met him without her grandmother there.

           They met at a secluded rooftop restaurant. Prince Ali wore a dark suit. Marinette wore a stylish, elegant red dress, that coincidently matched Prince Ali’s tie. Her hair was pulled back into a messy bun. When they sat down for dinner and a violin started to play, it took Marinette all but five seconds to realize what was going down.

“This is quite romantic. You could’ve had just asked me on a date, you know?” Marinette raised an eyebrow. “I might’ve said yes.”

           Ali gave her a devilish smirk, “As if there was ever a chance you’d say no.”

           His bodyguard huffed a laugh, “He was too chicken to ask.”

“Really, Kalil! Really!” Prince Ali face-palmed in the face of Marinette’s giggles. “It’s not funny,” He told her.

“Yes, it is.”

           Ali sighed but gave a low chuckle, “It’s a little funny.”

           It went silent as each tried to think of what to say.

“I just wanted to-” Ali started.

“I know that this-” Marinette said at the same time.

           They both gave small laughs. Marinette nodded, “Please, go ahead.”

“We’re older now,” Ali swallowed hard. “You’re thirteen now. And I just wanted to… I wanted to know if it was still alright. If you were still open to marrying me?  If not, we should be mature about it. We should let our grandparents know before the announcement. Then we’ll go our separate ways and never talk or see each other again if you want.”

“Save yourselves and our families the embarrassment,” She nodded. Marinette fought now to glance down; to not show weakness, as her grandmother taught her, as her mother taught her like Astrid taught her. She was a Young. Youngs’ were not weak. “Do you want to marry me?”

“I asked you first!” Ali whined, making his bodyguard snort.

“How old are you? Six?”

           He stuck his tongue out, “Six and a half for your information.” Ali shook his head. “When we were little we made a deal. You’d go into fashion, and I’d help sick kids, help people all over the world because it’s what we wanted to do; not what anyone wants us to do. You’re a fashion designer. I’m a philanthropist. Pretty brave of us considering if Nick ever decides to run for the hills, you’d be shipped off to Harvard business school before you managed to make a protest. And if something, gods forbid, ever happen to my father; my grandmother would have me sworn in as the next king before I even buried him. Medical school or not. So let’s be brave again. Let’s only marry each other if that’s what we want. Deal.”

“Deal!” Marinette nodded. “So do you want to marry me?”

“Mari!” Ali groaned. “I asked first!”

“What point being?” Marinette said innocently. “Fine, let’s start with an easier question. Do you like me… like that?”

“Do you like me?”

           Marinette’s bodyguard, Torivana, snickered in the background. Marinette glared. “I… like you, Ali.” Other than Ali, she had only ever had a crush on two other guys; both crushes were short-lived. Adrien, who was regulated to being the brother she always wanted after she learned he was Chat Noir and her parents all but adopted him. And Luka, she realized quickly, with his dyed hair, rock band, and future tattoos was the type of guy her grandmother would have assassinated before she’d let Marinette seen in a romantic relationship with. Plus, it didn’t help that Luka asked her if Adrien was single.

Ali was different though. Marinette had set out in the very beginning to not like Ali romantically, figuring she could break off the promise between the families if it was seen that there was no romantic feeling between the two. However, the more she fought not to like-like her best friend, the more she did.

“It’s you I like, Ali,” Marinette admitted, her heart beating wildly.

           Ali looked at her for a moment, just really staring at her. “I like you too.” And he did. He fell for the blue-eyed badass that was his best friend. He’d known he liked her for the longest of times but was too afraid to tell her. “And I’d never want you to not be a part of my life. If you don’t know if you want to marry me, that’s fine. We can wait. I can wait. If you want to play the long game and see what happens. Okay. I’ll play the long game. Live your life, I'll live my life, I know you're out there... and I'm out there, too.

“That's your deal?”

“That's my deal.”

“Someday?”

“Someday.”

           Marinette leaned forward, “I have a counteroffer.”

“You are definitely Eleanor Young’s granddaughter.”

“That’s a compliment,” Marinette shrugged. She took a deep breath and said, “I want to marry you; not just because of our families but because of our friendship. I think we’d be good together. We are good together. Maybe, I’m not in love with you now but maybe after some dates, whenever you buck up and ask me on a real one, and being girlfriend and boyfriend for a while, maybe I will be. If sometime in the future, when we get older, we change our minds, we’ll figure it out then. You fight my grandma, I’ll take on yours.”

“I want to marry you too,” Ali admitted, a small smile on his face. “You know you can ask me out too, right?”

“I could,” She stressed the second word.

           They laughed and just looked at each other, olive-green eyes getting lost in blue and vice versa.

           It was the sound of a throat clearing that made them jump out of it. Each blushed red as the waiter looked at them expectantly with a raised eyebrow and a smirk on her face.

“We should order,” Marinette said, opening up her menu quickly.

“Totally!”

           They ignored their bodyguards chuckling in the background.

           Outside of the Marinette Young universe, Marinette Dupain-Cheng found it a lot harder to be nice and amicable all the time. For starters, Lila had come back to school. She didn’t mind most of the lies she told. They were annoying, however, after years of dealing with faux-faced people, she could ignore most of them. She could even ignore that al her so-called friends believed them.

           However, Marinette hated, absolutely hated when Lila lied about Prince Ali. The lies were utterly ridiculous but Marinette was overprotective and had half a mind to use every resource to have the Italian Embassy look into all of Lila’s travel claims. But she was better than that. She would not stoop to Lila’s level.

           …

           It took three months for Marinette to lose all her friends in class. They had simpered after Lila and her lies and believed Marinette to be a bully. They stopped hanging out with her, stopped inviting her places, and sent mean texts to her phone causing her to change her number. They openly declared they weren’t her friends anymore.

           Again, this wasn’t something Marinette batted a lie at.  She didn’t care what they did. Or said. As they long as they didn’t go too far, Marinette was fine with ignoring their existence. Should they step the line, Marinette would use everything in her power to destroy them.

           It was a good thing after all. Her mother, Grandmother, Nick, Astrid, and everyone else in her family always taught her to be wary of fame-seekers and gold diggers.

           It was clear that the class wasn’t really interested in what Lila did but the promises of what she could do for them. And if they had to toss aside a childhood friend to get into her good graces then so be it.

           The class was getting ready to depart for winter break.

“Prince Ali and I are going to winter in Switzerland, you know.” Lila lied, causing Marinette’s eyes to narrow. “Every year since we were children. It snows all the time in Zurich. And he just loves it.”

           First of all, Ali hated the cold. It was why Marinette insisted one of their playdates be in the Alps after he broke her favorite china doll; spite, pure spite. Second of all, it didn’t snow all the time in Zurich; barely at all.

           Anyone could fact check the second one. But no one bothers. Not even the journalist of the class, Alya.

“We go with the Young family,” Lila continued. “One of the richest families in the world. I am friends with Lady Eleanor’s granddaughter.”    

           Marinette nearly fell down laughing right then and there.

           At the end of class, her ex-best friend and the class’s new class president, stood up, “Don’t forget everyone, class party at my house,” Alya cast a quick glare at Marinette and Chloe who sat in the back. “At least for those of you invited.” Their other classmates snickered and threw vicious smiles at the girls.

“As if we’d want to go,” Chloe said. “We have plans for Winter break that doesn’t involve going to a last-minute, obviously poor planed party. That never happened in the last class president’s watch.”

           Marinette smirked. “She’s right. We have plans. Chloe’s coming with me to visit my grandmother in Singapore. My family can’t wait to meet my best friend. Luka and Adrien will be attending as well.

           Alya huffed at not getting the reaction she wanted. Also because she never got invited to go to Singapore with Marinette before, and they had been best friends for the longest time. Shows what kind of friend Marinette was! Lila would never do that to her.

           Chloe, Adrien, Luka, Kagami, Ondine, Aurore, Claude, Mirielle, Nathanial, and Marc would all join Marinette for Winter Break. They were surprised when Marinette had offered to pay. Even more so when it was on a private plane.

           Trust Chloe to be the first to say something.

“So you’re rich,” The blond asked.

           Marinette hummed as she reads her magazine, “We’re comfortable.”

“That is exactly what a super-rich person would say,” Claude laughed.

           When they got to Marinette’s home, that was less of a home and more of a palace, they realized just how right they were. Particularly when they saw the dolphins.

“So you’re crazy rich,” Claude correct.

           During Winter break, once they got to Singapore, Marinette officially introduced her best friend, Prince Ali, to her other friends. They got along well, though he was a bit wary of Chloe at first.

At the Young Family New Years’ Eve celebration; which was closer to a giant festival, it was announced that Prince Ali and Marinette Dupain-Cheng-Sung-Young, the only grandchild of Phillip and Eleanor Young, would marry after Marinette’s 21st birthday. The new article was released shortly after; it was filled with pictures of them as children growing up together, depicting their friendship, each family’s wealth, and it told the agreed-upon lie that Prince Ali asked for her hand, as traditional in his country. The media went wild.

Marinette knew the moment it was announced and her picture was released that things would change. She wouldn’t just be Marinette Dupain-Cheng, daughter of bakers. At least she couldn’t pretend anymore. Marinette would be a princess; people talking about her, Ali, and the future royal wedding for years to come.

Once the celebrations had died down, her friends ganged up on her.

“A prince!” Chloe shrieked. “You’re marrying Prince Ali. How could you not tell me! I get to be the maid of honor to a Princess!”

           Adrien glared, “Why are you the maid of honor. I’m practically her brother.”

“Exactly!” Chloe hissed. “Maid of Honor!”

“Oh, this is not over!”

           That night Marinette, with her grandmother’s blessing, gave Aurore the exclusive scoop on the engagement via an interview and an article. Overnight, her blog became internally famous. Magazines and newspapers citing her as a source.

           Returning to Paris had been wild. The moment they stepped off the plane, they were met with the flashes of cameras from the paparazzi; each one screaming her name.

“Marinette! How does it feel to be marrying Prince Ali?”

“DO you think you’re too young?”

“Are you ready to be a princess?”

           Marinette ignored them all as she got into the limousine with her friends. “So that was pleasant.”

“That was insane!” Aurore laughed. “Is it always this bad?”

“No, Singaporean paparazzi are a bit tamer.”

           The limo didn’t head to the bakery. Marinette nor her parents would be living there from then on. Instead, they bought the empty mansion across the street from Adrien’s home. They purchased it when her grandmother let them know the announcement would happen soon; giving them plenty of time to decorate. The gates were heavily lined with security.

“Oh we are so having our next sleepover here,” Mirielle said brightly when they got into the house.

“Are you going to miss living at the bakery?”

“Yes,” Both Marinette and Adrien said, causing Marinette to glare at her friend, “We talked about this; just because I had a bunk bed, did not make it your room too!”

           Adrien huffed but clearly looked like he disagreed.

           Luka chuckled and wrapped an arm around his boyfriend’s shoulder, “Aww, babe. Did the mean girl hurt your feelings?”

“You were my friend first,” Marinette pinched her nose. “Where’s the loyalty?”

           When school started back up again,  Marinette’s limo literally went straight across the street to pick up Adrien.

           Gabriel opened the door before Marinette even had the chance to knock. “Miss Dupain-Cheng-Sung-Young, an honor.”

           Marinette eyed the man. He, while always polite, seemed nicer than she’d ever seen him before. Normally Marinette would fill the urge to fix her casual outfit. But today Marinette didn’t do casual. She wore a tan Cashmere sweater dress, stockings, with black Burberry heals, and a look of boredom on her face. Gone were the pigtails, instead Marinette’s hair flowed down her back. “Is Adrien ready for school, Mr. Agreste?”

“He will be down in one moment,” Gabriel answered. “Congratulations on your engagement. You and Prince Ali make a lovely couple.”

“Thank you.”

“I was unaware there was a Young in Paris,” Gabriel chimed. “I would have loved to arrange a few playdates between you and Adrien.”

           Marinette smiled coldly, “Adrien is one of my dearest friends now. And while an official date hasn’t been set, I do hope I can count your attendance at my wedding. Despite recent… difficulties.”

           Gabriel stiffened, “Difficulties? With Adrien?”

“With Lila Rossi,” Marinette corrected. “A model of yours. She has made several outlandish claims both towards the Young family, Prince Ali, as well as several celebrities. I fear the actions that would need to be taken to… rectify this. I sincerely hope the Agreste brand isn’t hurt in the process.”

           Despite the subtly of her words, the threat was loud and clear. Fix Lila, ditch Lila, or we’ll destroy you.

           Adrien came down the stairs in a rush, not noticing his father’s pale face. He and Marinette, and Gorilla left the older man still standing stunned.

           Gabriel called for Nathalie, “Fire Miss Rossi immediately. Sever all connections, now!”

           After Adrien, they picked up Kagami, whose mother was an old friend of Sabine’s as they had grown up together. Kagami had always known that Marinette was actually Marinette Young.

           The next stop was Chloe who seemed more at home in Marinette’s limo that Marinette did.

           When the got to school the paparazzi were still waiting. The bodyguards Gorilla and Torivana held guarded the children as they entered the school. Damocles was waiting at the door, a simpering smile on his face, and a greedy look in his eyes at the potential donations he could get from Marinette and her family.

           Marinette cut him off before he could even open his mouth, “You expelled me without a proper investigation. Or going through the proper channel because of an ambassador’s daughter threw a hissy fit. You’ll be hearing my lawyers.”

           The man paled so white Marinette thought he had died right then and there. Until she saw him shaking.

           The bodyguards escorted the kids through the halls, where students stopped to watch the future princess pass.

           When they got to class, they saw most of the students waiting.

           The four ignored them and joined Nathaniel in back where they had been sentenced for not believing Lila.

“Girl!” Alya yelled with a grin on her face. “I can’t believe you’re marrying a prince! You should’ve invited me to your family’s party. I’d have loved to come.”

           The others in class nodded. Though Rose did look a bit teary-eyed. That was when Marinette remembered her ex-friends crush on Ali.

“That party was dope, dudette!” Nino added. “How’d you get Beyonce to perform?”

           Marinette smiled, “Shouldn’t you be hanging of Lila’s coattails somewhere. Where is Miss Rossi anyway?”

           Alya shrugged, “She’s a liar, you were right. Best friends with the Young Heir, yeah right. You should’ve just told me you and Prince Ali were a thing, and I’d have believed you.”

“You should’ve fact-checked,” Chloe glared. “It was obvious she was a liar.”

“No one’s talking to you,” Alya glared from where she sat in her seat. “I’m talking to my bestie.”

“Again, Lila isn’t here,” Marinette said. “And last I checked we are not friends.”

           Alya rolled over what Marinette said, “How could you give Aurore the inside scoop? I totally needed that. Ladybug had been ignoring me for months.”

“Aurore’s my friend,” Marinette said easily. “Which is more than I can say for most of you. How was the class party by the way?”

           A few of the students had the grace to blush and look away. Alya wasn’t one of them, “I’m sorry, okay. I shouldn’t have believed Lila.” Alya shrugged. “You don’t have to sit back there anymore. Me and Nino can make room.”

Marinette blinked. How could she not be getting this? “I wouldn’t sit with you if that seat was only one in school not on fire.”

It was at that moment Bustier and Lila walked into class. Bustier seemed oblivious to the tension that seemed the classroom; though she did know all about Marinette being engaged to a prince.

To Lila’s credit, she didn’t blink at the few glares she received. Her eyes on Marinette, half full of greed, half full of jealously. She knew all about the Young family; insanely rich socialites who were the It family in all of Asia. She cursed herself for not researching into Marinette more before declaring the girl her enemy and doing her best to maker her life hell. And now Marinette was marrying a prince.

Lila frowned. No wonder the bluenette always glared at me, She thought, she knew first hand that I was lying.

“Marinette,” Lila said sweetly. “I was so happy and that you and Ali finally revealed your betrothal. I wish you would’ve told me.”

           Most of the class looked at the girl like she was crazy.

“I don’ t like you,” Marinette stated easily. “You do not know Ali. You were not childhood friends. You do not know the Young family. Astrid did not ever come to you for fashion advice. She does not know you exist. As Eleanor’s only grandchild, I can happily say that we are not friends. Leave alone.” She cast a cold look to the rest of the room. “That goes for the rest of you. You happily declared we weren’t friends anymore. Well, we’re not friends anymore.”

           Her declaration rang through the classroom.

           No one said anything to her for the rest of the morning, apart from her friends in class.

           When lunch came, just before the bell rang, there was a knock on the door. Prince Ali stood there, looking as regal and as handsome as ever. “It seemed, I am a bit too early.” He said with a polite smile, though he had been long aware of the inhabitants bullying way.

           The bell rang.

           Marinette smiled, “Just in time actually.” She got up and walked to the front of the class, most of the students too stunned to move.

           Lila jumped at her chance to actually meet the prince, “Oh Prince Ali; it’s wonderful to see you again. My mother spent some time in your country. She worked was an ambassador.”

“And you are?” Ali asked, causing Lila to flush red as another of her lies were exposed.          

           She knew she could’ve easily spun to the class that Marinette was just jealous of her. They’d believe anything. It was a lot harder with the prince there to deny everything.

           Neither him nor Marinette waited for a response.

           They long since vowed to only ever wait for each other.

[henry-cavill-baby]

Mark of the Witcher ┃ 1

Pairing: Geralt of Rivia x Original Female Character

Warnings: Little Violence

Length: 3k~

Summary: It was legend amongst the Witcher’s of Kaer Morhen, and not one had donned such a thing for centuries. Some thought it had come from the Conjunction of the Spheres, or perhaps a cruel sorceress out to end the Witcher line.

Unfortunately, Geralt dons the Mark on his left shoulder, and for only when the first born of Pavetta enters the world, does it begin to all make sense. He doesn’t really understand what it means, or really know where his destiny lies, but with Jaskier at his side, he will find the girl who lies within the Cintran walls and is meant to be his.

And not even Queen Calanthe can stop him… right?

Through the halls of the Cintran Castle, Pavetta wailed as though she were dying, and in truth, that is how she felt.

They had all known this day would come to pass, that the child would have to be born, but as Duny paced outside his wife’s chambers, biting the quick of his nails, he did not think he could bear it for one moment more. 

It seemed as though the entire castle and its people were put on hold; those outside pressing their ears to the walls, wanting to hear the first cry of the new child. 

Calanthe, the Queen of Cintra, gripped her daughter’s hand. “Push, my sweet. Bring my granddaughter to this world.” 

But sweat continued to pour down Pavetta’s face, her tears staining the silken sheets below.  I want my husband, please, bring me Duny.

She’d wept her pleas, but they went ignored. Men were not welcome during birth, and this time would be no different. 

When another painful feeling went through Pavetta, she screamed, and her cries shattered the bedroom walls. The nurse patted a damp rag on her clammy skin, but it did little to help. She felt as though she were being torn apart from the inside, her organs and intestines ready to slip out with the child. 

“You’re close,” Calanthe insisted. “Just a little longer.” 

But Pavetta squirmed against the soft sheets on the feathered bed, whimpering, “I—can’t. It hurts—I can’t.”

The Queen gripped her daughter’s hand, “You can, Pavetta. You’re almost there, just push, darling, keep pushing.” 

After what seemed like an eternity, Pavetta gave one last push followed by a weak cry, echoing her child’s fierce wail.  My child,  she looked between her legs at the nurse cleaning off her baby,  my sweet Aleira. 

The small pruned child wept for her mother’s arms, and Pavetta was all too ready to accept her to her breast but the pain of birth ceased her consciousness, and the handmaiden worked to clean off the unconscious woman—wiping away the sweat and tears of birth, but saving the placenta for later consumption. 

It would no doubt be baked into a sweet meat pie for Pavetta’s first meal as a mother.

One of the handmaids gingerly cleaned off the child of muck and gunk, bundling her up in a fresh blanket and carefully placing her into the arms of the waiting Queen. Calanthe’s eyes were misty as she gazed down at the squirming child.

There were no physical deformities on the girl—not a toe missing or a finger out of place, both eyes unseeing with mirth and curiosity. It was the perfect child, one of the blood of Cintra, and the granddaughter that would be the lioness of Cintra. She held perfection in her hands.

As Pavetta slept off the pain of birth, Calanthe ran her hands along the child's back and shoulders, brow wrinkling at the wrinkled skin she felt underneath her fingertip. 

It was quite small but noticeable to a keen eye,, and even worse, it was a mark that dropped her heart to her stomach.

To most it would mean nothing if not a birthmark, but she knew more than most. She was vaguely aware of one of the handmaidens questioning if the child could be returned to the sleeping mothers arms, but Calanthe drearily walked to the door. The handmaiden might have said something, but it was null to her ears.

The door pushed open with ease, and Duny shouldered past to see his wife. 

“Ah, what a lovely child, my queen.” Mousesack said with a smile, trying to get a glimpse of the little one, “Has she been named?”

The frightening glare that was shot in his direction was enough of an answer to follow Calanthe to a separate chamber.

He made sure to shut and lock the door as soon as it closed, and made his way to the near trembling Calanthe.

“What troubles you, my queen?” Mousesach eyed the child.

Calanthe kept her voice steady, “Take the child, Mousesack.”

He was quick to take the small girl into the crease of his arms, watching her look around the world with a sense of amazement and wonder. Her eyes were bluer than the waters of old, and her round full lips would hold the heart of any man who dared gaze upon her.  A beautiful child indeed.  

“Should we not return her to Pavetta?” His eyes looked to the locked door, and back to Calanthe with confusion.

"Her shoulder, Mousesack.” Calanthe’s voice grew harsh. “Look at it.”

The harshness in his Queen's voice was concerning, and his heart thudded to the dungeons of Cintra as his gaze landed on what had caused the Queen such anguish. It was small for now and would no doubt grow with age, but his knowledgeable eyes knew exactly what it was, and he knew his Queen did too.

It was the mark of a  Witcher.

  The blade sliced through the final Wargs head with ease, dropping to the floor with an undesirable thump. 

Blood poured from the severed head, and Geralt sneered at the still twitching body of the Warg that had been terrorizing the small town. It had fed on three children before a poor butcher had called him, of course with coin as a guarantee if he did indeed bring back the head of the creature.

“Is it dead? Geralt?” A voice whispered from seven trees over and a brown tuft of hair with blue eyes peered around the oak. “Is it safe to come out now? Should I be running?”

Geralt turned to glare at the bard that was like a thorn in his side, yellow orbs glowing with irritation. “It’s dead, Jaskier. It won’t bite.”

“Ha!” Jaskier spat. “You say that now, but I think you’re forgetting that little sea maggot that you said was dead and then tried to take my head off.”

Jaskier scolded as he skirted out from behind the tree and made his way to Geralt. “Is that all of them? I thought the Butcher said there were three or four.”

“He was wrong.” Geralt grunted. “The pups died from starvation days ago. It was just trying to feed them.”

“Oh, well alright then.” Jaskier rocked on the balls of his feet as Geralt made to clean off his sword. “Where to now?”

He gestured to the direction of the town. “I bet once we deliver the head we’ll have enough to get a room and— ooh , a nice bath perhaps.  I think the both of us smell a bit riper than normal.”

Geralt grunted and lifted the bloody head; “I’ll get my coin at sunrise. We'll camp here.”

“Geralt,” Jaskier whined, “Come on, a fresh bath sounds so much better than sleeping on the hard floor with bugs and dead things.”

Geralt grunted. “Hm.” 

Jaskier sighed and dropped his lute onto a particularly soft piece of moss, mouthing ‘stay there’.

Setting up camp was never a feat for the bard and Witcher, but Jaskier saw it before Geralt—

“Did that thing scratch you? Seriously, Geralt? What happened to telling me these things so we can fix them before you get an infection and die and I have to take your place as savior of the Continent?”

Geralt lightly patted his side and red was indeed blossoming under his armor. 

“How would you live without me, Geralt? Honestly.” Jaskier scolded the big bad Witcher as his nimble fingers cleaned up the cut with a little of this and that, trying not to gawk at the shirtless Witcher under his fingertips.

Jaskier had seen Geralt’s scars before; there were ones that he’d seen him get first hand, others older and more faded. Some were obvious bite marks from creatures much larger than any human, and others Jaskier knew not to ask about. 

Well, except about—

“What’s this one?” His fingertips skimmed over the Witcher’s left shoulder. It wasn’t raised or held any ridges meaning it couldn’t have been a scar. It looked far too detailed to be a scar anyhow.

“Hm?” Geralt grunted, head turning slightly to show Jaskier had his attention.

“This one doesn’t look like a scar.” Jaskier slowly said. “It looks more intentional, you know? Where’d you get it?”

“Nothing, bard.” He only called him bard when the topic was one Geralt wasn’t fond of.

“But what does it mean? Is it like a tracker or sorts? Does it ever burn?  Oooo, does it glow?”

“Shut it, Jaskier.”

“Stop fidgeting, it’s going to scar if you keep moving.” Jaskier reminded his Witcher companion, trying to effectively wrap the slightly less bloody cut.

“It’ll heal on its own.” Geralt grunted.

“But it could heal—alright, I guess we’re done for now.” Geralt grunted with a glare and took his place on the other side of the low fire, sneering into the flames.

An injury was a sign of weakness, it meant he was getting slower—more likely to get himself or Jaskier killed. It made him feel almost human.

“Soooo,” Jaskier hummed in a jolly tune, “You going to tell me about that scar?”

“It’s not a scar, bard.” Geralt sneered, “And it’s none of your business.”

“But what if I want it to be my business.” Jaskier smiled like a cat that’d caught the canary. “Come on, Geralt. I share all of my secrets with you and you can’t share one measly little detail with me. Just picture it, a new ode to the scar on the Witcher’s back.”

“Hm.”

Jaskier glared with friendly mirth at his disgruntled Witcher, “Come on, Geralt, and how bad can it be?”

Only a honeyed glare was the response, and they both stared into the flames, waiting for the spit-roasted rabbits to become charred and brown with smoky flavor. It was a meal much needed for the Witcher, and his fingers twitched against the caked red on his pants. Ominous howls resonated through the dark woods, and Jaskier chuckled nervously.

“Do you think there’s more Warg’s out there? I think they’d be better company than you—“

“It’s a soul mark.”

Jaskier shut his gaping mouth at his white haired friend, sputtering, “Soul Mark? What—what does that entail, Geralt?"

This would make for a new epic in the White Wolf’s name.

He sneered at the red flames with tired eyes, “It is common lore amongst Kaer Morhen. No other Witcher has bore one in centuries.”

“I always knew you were a special one, Geralt.” The low growl from the rough chest across the fire had Jaskier smiling sheepishly, leaning forward on his seat on the log.

“Is there a reason no other Witchers have this mark? Not that I’ve ever met another Witcher aside from you, but do you even know why you got it?”

“If I knew, Jaskier,” he huffed, “I’d have gotten rid of it by now.”

“Are you not curious, Geralt?” he spoke with mirth and utter curiosity. “I’m going to assume that you share that mark with some other lonely soul walking this plane, and that person, Geralt, could be your destiny.”

Geralt took a swig of his water jug, “Destiny is for fools, Jaskier. It only ever disappoints the hopeful.”

“Are you not hopeful that someone out there is meant to be beside you until the end of days? Not just myself of course.”

askier hummed, “I am assuming all of this, of course, seeing as you are outright refusing to tell me exactly what your little mark entails—are you sleeping?”

“Shut it, bard.”

 “We could cut it off before Pavetta wakes.”

Mousesack glared at his Queen, questioning her sanity.

“Oh yes, we’ll return the future princess of Cintra bleeding out from the shoulder, no questions asked.” 

The child in his arms squirmed for a better position, mouthing at the buttons, little belly craving her warm mothers milk. Her little toes wiggled in earnest as she watched her grandmother pace the room with fury.

“I’ve had enough of these fucking Witchers,” she snarled with unaltered rage, startling Mousesack. 

“He already called the Law of Surprise like a fool, and now his claim on that child is near unbreakable. Have we not been punished enough, Mousesack? It will destroy Pavetta to know that her daughter will live out of her days with—with…”

“Geralt, of Rivia, my Queen.” He absent-mindedly rubbed the child’s belly through the soft cloth. “He is not as cruel as you seem to believe.”

“All Witchers are the same, Mousesack.” She spat with bared teeth, “I’ve read the texts, and I’ve seen enough of them to last a lifetime. They do not feel, they do not love, and they are creatures meant to be slayed.”

Mousesack furrowed his brow, allowing the babe in his arms to grip his fingers with strength belying a newborn babe. “I do not wish to speak out of turn—“

“Then do not speak.” She snapped while waving a frivolously dramatic hand through the air. “No one can know about this, Mousesack. Not Pavetta, not Duny, no one.”

The air in the room felt tight and cold, the child yawning and snuggling into the gold of his robes. The silk was softer than a cloud, and it rubbed against the smoothness of the baby's skin.

The black mark stood stark against her fresh pale skin, and he lightly fingered the soft curve of the wolf's head that ended in the center with sharp teeth.

It was a mark he’d seen donning the silver necklace that Geralt was never seen without.

Turmoil boiled in his gut at the thought of Geralt taking away the granddaughter of Calanthe; it would destroy the Queen, just as it was now, to know that soon Geralt would feel the pull of the mark and make his way to Cintra to claim what was his.

To claim the lioness of Cintra as his partner in life.

“What shall you have me do, my Queen?”

His steps were soft across the room, gliding to her side and watching with pursed lips. The distress on her face was broad and clear, and the impatient knock on the door jolted them back to reality.

“My queen?” he begged over the banging door,  “Your choice?”

Calanthe stood and smoothed down her golden dress, lips twitching with barely repressed disgust for the child in his arms. 

To go from utter adoration to putrid disgust so fast made her head spin, and she tried to gingerly take the dozing babe in her arms, staring down with watery ways.

“We shall be patient, for now.” Her hand rubbed the fat of the child’s cheek, a cracking smile breaking as blue eyes opened to gaze with amazement.

Mousesack opened the door and allowed Duny to race in, gazing at his daughter with loving eyes. Calanthe handed her off with a smile, watching the father leave with words of adoration spilling from his lips.

  It came in bursts—flashes of light behind his honeyed eyes—images of himself with a woman. 

Geralt looked down and saw his bare feet resting in hoards of purple lilacs, as far as the eye could see. They lingered in the air—floating before his eyes and suffocating his keen senses—but the aroma of the freshest peaches lingered in the back of his mind. 

Salvia pooled under his tongue as the temptation to bite into the wettest, softest fruit flooded his thoughts. Fruits of tender flesh were hard to come by in these times but this was one that was to die for.

His legs moved on their own, stumbling through the soft field of lilacs with no mind in any actual direction. This was a place that was strange and new, and a call rang through his heightened Witcher senses. 

“Geralt.”

He must’ve been dead—that Warg must have bitten on his head and this was truly heaven—and the voice calling for him was an angel. It was ethereal and haunting at the once, and desperation to find the voice and hold it close grew stronger.

His stumbling grew more desperate for the voice, running through the field and coming to a halt.

It was a woman indeed; she was far away in the naked flesh in a field of purple. Her back was turned to him and he nearly fell to his knees at the sight of her full buttocks and flesh back. It was flesh that he could see himself marking with his teeth, his nails as they rutted against one another.

The desire to nibble and suckle on the sweet flesh, to mount and fuck was startling to the normally tame Geralt.  Who was this sorceress, casting a spell on me?

The golden eyes of the Witcher zeroed in on his mark donning her shoulder; wanting to touch and make sure it was real.  It couldn’t have been . The wind blew her short dark locks and exposed a pale neck, small ears that looked positively edible.

He was immobile, stuck to the floor and only a spectator as her head turned to gaze at the fallen Witcher. Blue eyes akin to the waters of plenty, red lips softer than the petals of a rose.

His voice was desperate and hungry. “Who are you?”

Her body turned and he fell to his knees. His golden orbs took in her perky round breasts with dusty thick nipples, the soft fat of her stomach that would no doubt hold the children he could never sire, the thick thighs that would be best wrapped around his head as he feasted on her most desirable parts.

Who was this enchantress?

“Find me, Geralt. Before it’s too late,” she whispered, vanishing into the air. 

 Part 2 Soon!

[themaskedwriter]

Blue Delphiniums

Clues

If you’ve been around for long enough, you might’ve known me simply as “Marvel Trash” back when my colors were a minty green and tan. If not, you’ll always know me by my inability to write anything other than happy endings and fluff.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Delphiniums are perennials grown for their showy spikes of colorful summer flowers in gorgeous shades of blue, pink, white, and purple. They prefer moist, cool summers and do not fare well in hot, dry weather.

Warnings: language

Word Count: 2690

Just when life seemed to be calming down for the super soldier, something had to go and rattle it all up again.

Bucky had been doing so good. He’d gone to therapy, gotten out of the Avengers’ line of work, made amends and began to make a life for himself. He’d rejoined society, slowly becoming “normal” once more.

He liked long sleeved Henley shirts and wearing his hair up in a bun. He enjoyed cheeseburgers and coffee, though not necessarily together. He found the new sci-fi genre to be fascinating and he loved reading fantasy novels at a cafe with his favorite cappuccino. He even had his own apartment in Brooklyn now. He was finally enjoying his life again.

His life was just now beginning to fall into routine again and nothing was interrupting that.

Until her.

He met her at his favorite little local cafe just a block away from his apartment when he literally ran into her. He’d just gotten his cappuccino when he turned around only to collide with a girl who’d been behind him in line.

The drink had gone everywhere; all over her, all over him, all over his novel and her bag. The brown liquid left no survivors.

Bucky stared down at the woman in shock, his eyes blown wide and his mouth agape. He ought to have said something—an apology at the very least—but his voice wouldn’t work.

She was staring at her shirt, a surprised expression on her face as she held her arms out to the side. The brown liquid had stained the yellow material of her shirt and made it an ugly shade of burnt umber.

Bucky’s mouth began to open and close but not a single word could come out.

Slowly she lifted her head up to look at him and her eyes locked onto his.

And Bucky’s heart skipped a beat.

She was fucking gorgeous.

She stared up at him with those eyes of hers and he felt like she was staring into his soul. Her lips were slightly parted in awe as if there was something wondrous about his face and it made his heart skip a beat.

He couldn’t move. He was frozen on the spot; and it seemed like she was too.

They stood there motionless for what seemed like hours, the time passing painfully slow.

He had to say something, anything, but she beat him to the punch

“Blue Delphiniums.” Her voice was light, airy, and impossibly soft as the two words rolled off her tongue in a gentle wonder.

He didn’t know how to react. Blue Delphiniums? What the hell were those? The stunned and flabbergasted look on his face must’ve been noticeable and amusing because she giggled at him.

Not a laugh, not a chuckle, a giggle that took his breath away.

Smiling coyly up at him, she gestured vaguely. “Your eyes. They’re the same shade as Blue Delphiniums.”

“O-Oh,” was all that he could manage to say. And then after scolding himself silently he followed up with, “Are they pretty?”

She nodded. “Very pretty.” Tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, she ducked her head. “I’m sorry about your coffee.”

Coffee? What...? Oh. “Fuck, ah,” he murmured rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “Don’t worry about it. It happens. I’m sorry about your sweater. It looks like I stained it pretty bad.”

“It happens,” she echoed back. “I’m—”

She never got to finish her sentence because she was interrupted by a man further back in line. “Hey! Lovebirds! Mind getting out of the way?”

Bucky glared up at the man in line who’d interrupted the woman before him, and he opened his mouth to say something, but he was cut off by her.

“Oh! So sorry, sir!” she rushed to say as if she was flustered to have taken up his time. “Yes, we’ll just move right out of the way.” Before Bucky could protest, she reached forward, took his hand, and pulled him out of the line.

Bucky couldn’t help but notice how soft her hand was against his rough and calloused skin.

She let go of him all too soon for his liking. He wanted nothing more than to reach forward and take her hand again.

Out of the way from the growing line, she finally stopped and looked up again at him. “Anyways, like I was saying, I’m (y/n).”

“(y/n)...” he repeated. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m... I’m...” Dear God, had he forgotten his own name?

“Bucky Barnes,” she finished for him. “I recognize you from the pictures. Your face is a little worn, but your eyes are the exact same.” She peered up into them. “They’re bluer than I imagined... But then again I only saw black and white pictures and paintings. They don’t even compare to the real thing.”

Suddenly feeling self conscious, Bucky looked down, a shy smile on his face. “Well thank you.”

“No problem!”

“I-I’m sorry about your shirt,” Bucky said after a bit. “I didn’t mean to spill my coffee on you. I can pay for the cleaning or—”

She simply waved him off. “Don’t sweat it; I have to do my laundry anyways.”

“Still. I ought to do something for you. Anything, you just name it.”

Every fiber of his being, every instinct he’d built up over the years, every ounce of himself shouted that it was a bad idea to offer such a favor. He opened the door for her to do whatever she wanted to him, and, while he could probably take her down easily if he wanted, he would rather not have to do that.

But there was just something about her that made him want to trust her. He didn’t know what it was, but he could feel his guard crumbling down.

She shuffled her feet and smiled slightly up at him. “Well... You could walk me back to my apartment so I can get changed? I don’t live too far from here... Maybe a block or two.”

Bucky nodded without hesitation. “Of course. Lead the way.”

She nodded, turned on her heel, and walked out of the cafe.

He sped up to keep up with her, following her from a slight distance as he observed her joyful gait. The bounce in her step was mesmerizing and made him grin to himself. Her attitude was infectious.

She led him through the streets, coming up to a building that was all too familiar to Bucky.

He stared up at his apartment building incredulously. “You live here?”

She nodded as she pushed open the door. “I’m on the third floor. It’s a lovely building.” She propped the large glass door open with her foot and looked at Bucky with an expectant smile.

Bucky complied and walked in, still stunned. “I-I’m on the sixth floor.”

Her already bright eyes lit up even more. “You’re kidding!” At the shake of his head, (y/n) laughed. “I wonder why we haven’t seen each other?”

“Well my floor is accessible by security card only and I’m kind of a hermit,” he mumbled. “I don’t really leave for anything other than coffee, food, and work.”

She nodded. “That’s understandable. I rarely want to leave my apartment either. There’s nothing like being at home.”

“This is true.”

Together the pair approached and entered the elevator. The ride up to the third floor was short and quick, no more than thirty seconds in total. (y/n)’s apartment was the fourth one on the left, number 307. Bucky made a mental note of the number to himself.

She led the way into the quaint little apartment. It consisted of a small common area and two doors, one that led off to a bathroom and one that led off to her bedroom.

“Wait here,” (y/n) commanded softly before dashing off to the bedroom.

“Okay...” Bucky stood in the middle of the room absently as he observed the apartment. A small brown couch took up most of the room along with a table and TV. On the wall next to the door was a small whiteboard with notes scribbled on in Expo marker. If Bucky paused to read it, he’d see dates for doctor’s appointments, reminders, and random phone numbers, addresses, and positive quotes. Her kitchen was meager, but he could see the little bits of her in it.

Overall, it was homey and personal and he liked that.

(y/n) emerged moments later from her room, this time in a nice lilac cardigan. She smoothed out her shirt as she saw him, a small smile on her face. “Thanks again for taking me home, Buck. It was so nice to meet you.”

“Any time.” He smiled shyly down at her. “I’d really like to see you again, if that’s okay.”

Her lips curled up. “That’s more than okay! C’mere.” She reached forward and took his hand—his metal hand—and dragged him over to the whiteboard. Swiping the Expo marker from its spot in the cup holder, she uncapped it and began to scribble a number on the metal.

His artificial nerves lit up at her touch and the chill of the marker’s tip and he shivered.

She didn’t seem to notice. “There. That’s my number. You can call me any time and we can do something sometime.”

“But... What will we do?” he asked, dumbstruck, as he walked towards the front door.

She opened it up for him and let him walk out before looking at him with a twinkle in her eye. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.” She shot him one more mischievous smile before closing the door behind him and leaving him alone with his thoughts.

———

That night Bucky found himself up at midnight browsing the website of every flower shop in Brooklyn. It seemed that no one in the whole godforsaken city grew and sold Blue Delphiniums.

He didn’t know what it was about those flowers that made him go on this mad search, but he knew that he had to find a bouquet of them.

(y/n) had compared them to his eyes, commenting about how pretty they were. She obviously liked the flower.

Was that why he was hunting for them? For her? But, even if he did acquire them somehow, what would he do with them? He couldn’t just give them to her? Unless...

He shook his head as he continued to scour the internet. Never mind that. He had to find them.

Hours later, at around two in the morning, he finally found what he was looking for. A small shop five blocks away from the apartment building had a small inventory of Blue Delphiniums and—much to his delight—they delivered bouquets within a ten block radius of the store.

Bucky’s fingers were flying across the keyboard to put in his credit card information and type out his custom message on the greeting card before he knew it and, in record time at such an ungodly hour, he’d purchased a bouquet of Blue Delphiniums to be shipped to (y/n)’s apartment.

Leaning back in his desk chair in the silence of the night, he felt slightly pleased with himself, though extremely nervous. He’d just sent his neighbor whom he’d met that day a bouquet of flowers. Back in the 30′s and 40′s, he wouldn’t have even dreamed of doing that unless he wanted to get serious with a girl he liked. But he just sent this bouquet on a whim...

He sighed and rubbed his face with his hands, the warmth of the flesh and the chill of the metal a welcome sensation. His thoughts were alternating between being sluggish and running a mile a minute and it was exhausting him. He just needed to go to bed.

He dragged himself out of his chair and trudged over to his bedroom, flopping over onto the bed. Burying his face into his pillow, he imagined that it smelled like (y/n) and a smile crossed his face.

Hopefully, if she accepted his message, he’d be seeing her tomorrow.

———

Estimated delivery time for the flowers was set to be at eight in the morning, according to the site.

Bucky was at the cafe at noon.

He anxiously tapped his foot against the wooden floor of the cafe as he stared at his phone to watch the time. He’d asked her to meet him at 12:00.

It was 12:05.

She still had not shown up.

He was beginning to think that she wouldn’t show up. Of course she wouldn’t. Why would she? He was a stranger. She didn’t know him. Why would she bother with—

“Bucky!”

His head snapped up and he almost laughed out loud with relief.

(y/n) was weaving through the crowd as she made her way to him. She was wearing a light blue sweater with her hair braided back into a crown. Bucky could see little flecks of blue braided into her hair and his heart jumped as he recognized the blue to be small Delphinium flowers.

Bucky didn’t even realize that he was smiling so dreamily up at her until he saw her cheeks turn pink.

“So sorry I’m late,” she said as she sat  down. “Foot traffic was a little nuts.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, reclining in his chair. “I’m glad that you could come.”

“Of course!” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I was expecting you to reach out to me, just I thought it’d be by text or call in a few days; not by flowers on my doorstep the day after.”

“Yeah...” Bucky chuckled nervously. “I didn’t mean to be so forward—that really is out of character for me—but I wanted to see you again.”

She smiled softly. “I wanted to see you too. I’m glad you sent the flowers.” She reached up and plucked a small blossom from her hair. Twirling it around in her fingers, she remarked, “Blue Delphiniums. Exactly like your eyes.”

“I thought you’d know they were from me if I got you those... But man, they’re so hard to get!” He shook his head incredulously. “Do you know how long I had to search for to find a store that sold them?”

“Not a clue.”

“A long time.”

She giggled. “I could only imagine. I don’t think they’re in season right now. How you found them is a miracle.”

He couldn’t help but feel a little proud. “Well thank you. Now, tell me about yourself.”

The two of them talked for hours about anything and everything. He learned more about her and she learned more about him, and with every new tidbit that came to light, Bucky found himself enjoying himself more and more. She was fascinating and made him nothing but intrigued in her. Her mind was... Wondrous and so full. She was intelligent and honest and it made Bucky want to know her more. She made his heart race and his palm sweat. She was incredible.

The cafe was closing before they knew it and it startled them when the owner began to chase them out.

“We’re going, we’re going!” Bucky cried out with laughter.

(y/n) laughed along with him, turning to him as the owner closed the door behind them. “I had fun today.” She smiled up at him.

He smiled down at her in response. “Me too.”

“I’d love to do it again sometime.”

“Yeah... Me too.”

Her grin was sly and coy as she looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Are you going to ask me out with flowers again or are you actually going to use my number this time?”

He hummed. “Y’know, Doll, I think I’ll go with the flowers. I’m old fashioned that way. Besides...” He reached out slowly towards her hair, taking one of the Delphinium blossoms between his fingers. “I think that Blue Delphiniums just became my favorite flower. And they look so good on you.”

He could see the red creep up her cheeks before she ducked her head. “They are my favorite flower,” she mumbled.

“Mine too.”

[notimetoblog]

Flustered

Summary: It’s easy to see when Bucky is flustered. His mannerism are beyond adorable but they might be hiding something more. 

A/N: I have missed getting to write so much and am so happy to be finally able to write something again! I have a few challenges I'm a part of and a few requests that I have neglected for far too long. I have started all of them, basically, but the idea for this story just wouldn't leave me alone. I really hope you guys enjoy and want to thank you so very much for all your patience and love! Thanks so much as always for reading!!

MY STORIES

A flustered Bucky was a sight to behold. His cheeks would be dusted in the most adorable shade of pink and he would immediately begin fussing with his long locks. It wouldn’t happen often, but when it did, your mind would quickly try to capture a mental picture of it. 

Most outsiders saw him as a brooding soldier with a troubled past. And yes, that was part of him, but little by little a more complex and truer Bucky emerged from the remnants of the machine Hydra had created. This Bucky was sweet, full of compassion, witty, and a total flirt. 

But now, he sat in front of you at the breakfast table, blushing and messing with his loose hair. What had brought on his bashfulness didn’t matter when all you could think of was how gorgeously adorable the man in front of you was. 

“You can’t do that to me, Y/N,” he said through a smile, cheeks still pink. 

“Do what?” you feigned innocence. 

“Reduce me to a puddle.”

“Is that what I did?” you asked, a smile slowly spreading across your lips. 

His gaze held yours, a soft gaze that would make anybody lose their minds. You tried your best to remain calm and collected, though, very much enjoying the current situation. 

“Don’t give me that,” he laughed, eyes focused on yours with a new flare in the beautiful shade of blue that swam in his eyes. “You know very well what you’re doing. I’ll have you know, it isn’t very fair.”

You raised your eyebrows at that new flare. Maybe this would be the day this little dynamic of yours changed into something you had been wishing for a while now. 

Maybe this quiet morning, under the harsh lighting of the compound’s kitchen, would see the both of you become something more than just good friends. Because this little dance had been going on for a few months now. The flirty comments, the attempts at making the other flustered, and it was fun and sweet, but your heart was longing for something more. 

It had been quietly hoping for something more solid. Something that would still be full of flirty moments, but that rested on a more defined foundation. But as soon as that thought would appear once more in your mind, the question of whether Bucky was ready for that immediately followed it. Because yes, he seemed happier than he had been before, seemed much more confident and stronger, but nobody would be able to deny the damage that had been done to him. And nobody could blame him for guarding himself as he rediscovered who he was. So, you always played it safe, always hoped your friendship would continue even though deep down inside you hoped it would flourish into something else. 

“I’m not being fair?” you asked, almost laughing at yourself for the way your voice sounded much softer than it did a few moments ago when you were blatantly teasing Bucky. 

“No, you’re not,” he confirmed. Eyes still holding that new flare you were suddenly becoming obsessed with. 

“How come?” you almost whispered.

Hearing your whisper made Bucky’s eyebrows furrow, a look of confusion replacing that new looked fascinating you. 

“Do you really not know?” he asked leaning across the table. 

You answered his question by silently shaking your head. 

He fussed with his long locks again. Trying his best to tuck a particularly stubborn strand behind his ear. After a few seconds of fighting with it, he brought his hand down and rested it beside his other hand on the table, gaze now suddenly fixed on his hands instead of your eyes. 

“It’s harder for me to shake off your comments,” he replied with his own whisper.

 It was your turn to furrow your brows. Your thoughts raced as they tried to understand what he was saying. But they were hopeless as they couldn’t seem to find an answer. 

“What do you mean?” you chose to ask him instead. 

He looked up from his hands, his gaze vulnerable. 

“You say things to me,” he began, “and then you move on finding another thing to say. But I’m still trying my best not to read too much into the first thing you said to me.” 

He tried not to read too much into the things you said? What did that mean?

“I’m your friend, doll,” he continued, and you would be lying if you said that didn’t sting. “And it’s something I have to remind myself of, because I respond to your comments with a few of my own, but you can shake them off easily and I can’t. I’ll think about them for hours, trying to remind myself that I’m just your friend.”

You felt your heart speed up in your chest at his confession. And despite the speed in which your heart raced, your mind fell behind trying to make sure you were understanding him correctly. It slowly pieced everything he said, double checking you weren’t misinterpreting anything he was saying. 

You saw as his gaze drop to his hands, fingers fidgeting as he waited for any response. 

“You think about my comments for hours?” you found yourself asking.

Without looking up from his hands, you saw him give you a slow nod.

 “Bucky?” you said gently. “Can you look at me, please.”

After a few seconds of hesitation, he looked up to you, but he spoke up before you managed to say what you had been wanting to say for so long. 

“I don’t want to ruin this,” he said as he pointed at you and at him. “That wasn’t my intention. I like when you compliment my hair or when you notice I’m wearing a new shirt. I really do. I even like when you say something about my eyes or what you did just now where you leave me a puddle at your feet. This isn’t a problem with you, it’s me. And that was the most cliché thing I could’ve said, but it’s true. I don’t want your sweet comments to stop, I appreciate them, and I didn’t mean to call you unfair, I just, why don’t we just forget this happened and we can go on about our day like normal? I promise I’ll find a way to deal with all of this.”

“All of what?” you asked after a beat of silence. “You’ll figure out to deal with all of what?”

He stared back as if surprised at himself for letting that slip and at you for pointing it out.  

“All of,” he began, cautiously navigating his way to an answer. “All of the feelings I have for you,” he whispered. 

You looked as he almost deflated back into his chair and your heart broke. For months, you figured he wasn’t ready for anything more than a friendship, all the while he was convincing himself of the same thing thinking it was you that couldn’t see him as more than a friend. But now was your time to make sure he knew just how many feelings you had for him too. 

“Last week,” you said, smiling as you thought back to the moment you were talking about, “you came over to me in the living room, doubling over as you laughed at Sam and the mess he was making while trying to beat your famous waffles. Do you remember?”

He nodded, brows furrowed again. 

“And you told me all about what was happening in the kitchen. It was hard to follow,” you chuckled, “since you kept having to stop your story to laugh. But you finally got it out and eventually left to go back to the kitchen. Meanwhile I stayed in the living room, replaying that moment in my mind, because nothing makes me happier than seeing you happy and hearing your laugh.”

You paused a second, feeling his gaze shift as he began understanding where you were heading with this. 

“You mean so much to me, Buck” you shyly shared your own confession. “Much more than you seem to think. You don’t even have to make a flirty comment, to have me thinking about you for hours.”

“You mean it?” you barely heard him ask. 

“With all I’ve got,’ you replied, feeling your cheeks heat up. 

“Then that date I keep telling myself I shouldn’t ask you on wouldn’t be too farfetched of an idea?”

“All you gotta do is ask, Buck,” you said, smiling along with him as he heard your response. 

“Darling,” he began, his cheeks once again dusted in pink, his hands playing with his hair, “can I take you out to dinner tonight?”

“A thousand times yes,” you replied cheerfully. 

That flare you had noticed returned to his eyes making them brighter, bluer, even more beautiful than you thought possible. 

“I should’ve called you unfair months ago,” he laughed as he jumped out of his chair and leaned down to press a sweet kiss to your cheek. 

You looked up into his eyes, knowing very well you would be falling even harder for the adorable man that had now shown you he was more than ready to take your friendship to the next level. Sure, he was adorable when he was flustered, but in all honesty,  he was adorable no matter what he was doing. And now you would see just how adorable he could be as your date.  

-----

Bucky Tags

@camillechan @just-add-butter @buckyisthepuresthuman @carry-on-my-fandom @creideamhgradochas @sixweekcure4dreams @verycoolveryunique @dugan365 @jitterbuck @buckysmusculararm @headinthe-fridge @buckybarnesappreciationsociety @hedwigthelegend @sappybarnes  @coal000 @the-whitewolfie @natcad @winters-beauty @dixonsbugaboo @sawdustandsugar @silverbvcky @whyugottabsorude @theoutlinez @killjoynotes @agentpegcxrter @demonspawn2468 @books-movies-eternal @buckysbeech @thefridgeismybestie @lionheo04 @pinkfairyfluff @imaginecrushes @cauraphernelia @angieptt @fridolf-arach @nerdgirljen @bucky-is-a-hero-fightme @consttantina @titty-teetee @bfuckjames @crowleysqueenofhell @sebtrashcan-stan @jaamesbbarnes @heartssick @losemymemory @redstarstan @dracris33 @fuckthatfeeling @tamed-chaos @bringmetoawonderland @mlehbleh @mawimey @delicatelyherdreams @buckyswinterchildren @jaysaku @stanclub  @your-pixels-are-showing  @thisismysecrethappyplace @who-the-heck-knows @starfisharchives @plumsforbuckxx  @until-theend-oftheline @hello-lucifer-here @sold-my-soul-in-2016 @ifyousayyouloveme @friendly-neighborhood-lich-queen @bambamwolf87

[strawberrypaul]

I’ve Just Seen a Face

Request: I have a request idea, what would a first date with Ringo be like? - @queen-paladin

Word count: 1870

Pairing: Ringo x female reader

Warnings: None, just fluff as usual

Era: I’m imagining early (very early, ‘62/’63 maybe) beatles.

Summary: You are going on your first date with Ringo and well, you’re nervous as ever.

Today was the day. You were going on a date with Ringo. The one and only Ringo Starr! Feelings were rushing through your body as you stood in front of the mirror wearing just a towel after coming out from the shower. Of course, you were excited as ever but also nervous. Damn, you were nervous about this date. What were you going to wear? How would you do your hair? A nice set up? Or just wear it casual? Makeup? Or no makeup? All these things were rushing through your as you stood and stared at your reflection in the dirty bathroom-mirror. But you definitely did not have time for all that now. You decided to put on a pastel blue maxi dress with flowers all over it. It was very cute but not too much. The dress you had chosen was very fitting considering it was still summer.

You and Ringo met at a café one day, just a few weeks ago. You were sitting on a chair, staring out in the blank, and sipping your cappuccino when you heard the door open. And in came a young man dressed in a black costume. Nothing too strange about that. You didn’t think much more about it. But as he turned his head to look around the small café you saw his eyes. Never in your life have you ever seen such delightful, bewitching eyes. They were bluer than the bluest sea, deeper than the deepest sea too. It was cheesy but it was also very true. It is the kind of eyes you could drown in, and you did. Once you looked into them, you couldn’t rip your eyes off of them. They were beautiful than a picture taken by the most successful photographer, you had thought.

During all this time you had been thinking about this man’s eyes, the young man had ordered his own coffee and now stood in front of you.

“Do you mind if I sit here with you?” he asked politely. You had to shake your thoughts away.

“No, not at all” you said with an uncomfortable chuckle. You felt your cheeks become rosy and so you looked down and stirred your cappuccino. But you felt his eyes on you. And it would be impolite of you not to look at him now that he sat right in front of you, you thought. Shyly your eyes went to meet his. He had an oh so charming smile on his face. Perfectly white and straight theeth.

“Richard. Well, my lads call me Ringo. And what may the name of this young lady be?” he said, not dropping his smile. You blushed at his nice words. “My name is-” you started but then you interrupted yourself. Did this man just say his name were Ringo. As in Ringo Starr? You must admit that you didn’t listen all that much to The Beatles. But you knew damn well who they were. And the more you thought of it, the more it got to you. Right at that moment you were sitting and drinking coffee with the drummer of The Beatles.

“ ‘s there something wrong?” he looked at you with worried eyes. You had to snap back to reality. “No, I’m sorry. It’s nothing, I just.. uh.. My name is Y/N” you forced a smile. How was this possible? There are so many cafés in Liverpool, why did he come to this one? There are just a few people that knows about this little café. But you had to ignore these thoughts for a moment, and not turn yourself into a beatlemaniac. You instead sat patiently and listened to his words.

You talked forever that day at the café. But after a long time sitting and talking about everything from what you worked with to what he likes to cook for dinner, he had to go. All things must pass. You had truly had a great time with him. But that was it, you thought. You were not going to meet him ever again. But right as he was about to leave, he turned back to give you a piece of paper. With a questioning look on your face you took the piece of paper he had handed to you. He didn’t say anything, he just left after that. Almost rushed it looked like. You stood confused at the door to see where he went. But he was gone. You hummed to yourself before looking to see what was written on the paper he gave you. As you unfolded it you could see some numbers and that’s when it hit you. He had given you his number, for heaven's sake! You freezed completely. This is unbelievable, you had thought for yourself as a smile rose upon your cheeks.

All that was just a couple of weeks ago. Now you stood in front of the mirror and panicked a little about going on your first real date with him - the man you met at the little café in Liverpool. You tried your best to convince yourself that everything would turn out excellent. And it probably would too. You also tried to tell yourself that you were only overthinking it all. This is just going to be a normal date, with a normal man, who is a normal drummer, in a perfectly normal band! Terrific.

Just as you had finished putting on your barely noticeable lipstick the doorbell rang. The nervousness kicked in again. He was here to pick you up, two minutes early. But you had no time for overthinking that too right now. You took one last look into the mirror before walking to the door with quick steps. The first thing you noticed when you opened the door was his shoes. They were shining. He must have polished them right before he left. You looked down at your worn, red cone heels. They were your grandmother’s once upon a time. And you loved them. But you also got this worrying feeling that Ringo might not like them, or you. And deep down you knew that it was just another foolish thought but you couldn’t help it. That was the way your brain played with you sometimes, it was slowly destroying you.

You looked up to meet his blue and happy eyes. His face expression made you giggle a little. He was completely speechless. “Are you not going to say anything” you said with laughter in your voice. “I am sorry Y/N, you just look too gorgeous” he said, a shy smile showing up on his face. “Well, thank you Ringo. I must say you too look awfully good tonight” you laughed. You could tell he was shy - and you found it adorable.

When you got to the restaurant the waitress lead you to your table. You noticed how she took an extra look on your date before turning around to lead another couple to their table. But you did not get jealous. You do not belong in the jealous category, especially not on the first date. You didn’t know eachother all that well. And he was an attractive man so, you understood why the women were so attracted to him.

“What are you getting?” he asked looking up from his menu. “Hmm, I’m not sure. Though I think I will go for the steak, sounds yummy.” you answered him smiling. “Yeah, I was looking at that one too. Think I might just take that one as well.” he said and then put the menu on the table. And after a short while a waiter walked up to the two of you to take your orders.

“Perfect! Let me double check; two steaks and one strawberry milkshake to share?” the waiter asked. Both of you just nodded and so the waiter left your table. Waiting for the food to come you heard your stomach rumble. “I’m getting really hungry now, my stomach is screaming for food” you chuckled. “Mine too. I think they’ll bring the food here any minute now”. You just nodded in agreement.

You and Ringo sat together and talked a little more as you waited for the food to come. “I was absolutely speechless when I realized you played in The Beatles when we first met at the café.” you laughed. “And why did you decide to sit with me out of all the people there anyways?” you asked. “I’m not sure what it was. I know it was something about you that made me go ‘Ah, I have to go talk to this beautiful lady’ and I guess that’s all, really” his smile becoming even wider. You could feel your cheeks heat up at his words. He had just called you beautiful. But that thought didn’t last long. The waiter was finally back and serving your food. “One steak for the gentleman and the same for the lady. And lastly, one strawberry milkshake to share. Have a nice evening.” the waiter politely said. In choir you and Ringo thanked the waiter.

“This is delicious Ringo! Have you tasted the milkshake yet?” you said sounding like an excited little girl. He chuckled but then answered “No, I haven’t, no. Was it any good?” Ringo asked. “Any good? It is the best milkshake I’ve ever tasted!” you exclaimed. He took a sip of it and then looked at you with hearts in his eyes. “Y/N this is so good!” he too sounded like a little kid. “I told you it would be the best milkshake you’ve ever tasted” you grinned.

Almost two hours later it was time to head back home. Ringo offered a ride back to your apartment which you thanked him for. The car ride back home couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. You two did not talk as much as you did at the restaurant but it was fine. It didn’t feel awkward at all sitting quiet in his car together. It was rather nice actually.

When you arrived you stepped out of his car and so did he. “Thank you, Ringo, for this wonderful evening. I had lots of fun with you and I would certainly do it again. If you’re up to it too, of course.” you sweetly said to him. “Y/N, thank you for tonight. I would love to do this again. Just give me a call and I’ll be right at your apartment, alright?” he gave you his sweetest smile which made you melt on the inside. “Alright, Ringo. Goodnight.” you whispered to him as the two of you hugged. You were not entirely comfortable with kissing him on the lips on the first date so, a peck on the cheek would have to do. “Goodnight, Y/N”.

You were left standing on the sidewalk in the dark night as you watched him drive away from your apartment. The nervous feeling in your stomach was gone and now there were only happy little butterflies in there. He seems like someone you could get used to being around. You unlocked your door and got inside with a wide smile on your face. You probably looked like a complete idiot smiling like that. But it was fine. Everything was fine, you thought before closing the door behind you.

Side note!

This one was requested by @queen-paladin so, I hope you enjoyed it! I hope you all enjoyed it, of course! Idk I feel like I was just writing, not really knowing where I was going with it. So I hope it’s not too uninteresting to read! 🧡

Side note 2!

I’m deeply sorry It took so long for me to post this. I wrote it pretty quickly, perhaps 1-1,5 hours but, there were things that just went wrong so I had to do it again and all that. But here it is, finally!

[alotoffandomtrash]

Batfamily AU Part 3

I have a bone to pick with this community. Why don't we have more Officer Grayson aus??? Like it would give us the opportunity to see so many scenarios. 

Picture this. Innocent looking Officer Grayson with his pretty face and cute bright eyes. Everyone thinks his adorable and naive, yet they enjoy his charming presence as he just goes out of his way to be nice to everyone. Talking about second chances and no matter how much most of them want to continue hating him forever, but... they can’t.

Dick being gentle and patient when they have to bring troubled kids. Always knowing how to talk down angsty teenagers to behave even if he uses very odd and unconventional methods. Amy isn’t surprised, her own kids adored Dick and looked forward to seeing him. The rest of department wasn’t as unfazed, they were taken aback by Grayson’s talent. When someone casually asks him why he’s so good with kids, he laughs. “Let’s just say my siblings have proven to be a bigger handfuls at times. Especially the youngest, but I don't mind. He’s adorable.” They could only stare as he gushed over his cute little baby brother. None of them even knew he had siblings until that moment.

Imagine the entire station slowly becoming curious of Grayson. They notice his desk doesn’t really have any pictures of family. They can’t exactly break into his locker, so they just sit there and try to catch as many little details as possible. Trying to figure out the suspiciously happy guy on the force. 

Amy of course is leading this investigation group convinced she needed to find out more about their rookie after an odd conversation after they had way too many drinks. They had been celebrating after a particularly hard case when the topics of family and childhood came up. “I can’t see myself letting my kids become cops in a city like this. It’s too wild. So I try to get them more interested academics over sports.” Dick had seemed amused. “I can’t really relate to that. It feels like training is all I ever did as a child, but then again my childhood wasn’t particularly normal. My dad is protective in other ways.” It had been a random comment that came back to her with no context after she finished dealing with her hang over. A part of her couldn’t let it go as she obsessed over what he meant by that.

After months of finding nothing the universe takes pity on Dick’s co-workers. Cass appears in her awesome glory and she just runs over to Dick with no hesitation, jumping into his arms. She completely ignores the shocked secretary and weary officers around her. Dick is surprised by her visit, but takes it in stride, spinning her in circles as he hugs her. Taking a moment to reprimand his little sister before sitting her down on his desk chair so he can get his lunch, which he suggested they should split. The entire office is staring at her and she pretends she doesn’t notice. She studies the office and when Dick comes back they get into a kick conversation in sign language. Too quick for anyone who isn’t fluent to catch up. They only see the way their expressions shift.

A week later Grayson gets a packaged full of photographs and drawings with a little note saying, “Cassandra asked me look for things you could put on your desk to remember us by as you work. -A” Amy who was there when this happens tries to act uninterested as she peaks over his shoulder. In end, barely any real pictures end up on his desk, mostly drawings and doodles. Some looked ancient while other recent. Some very well made doodle of a cat and dog. The only few pictures included a group of teenagers of different ages, a smaller grumpy boy always next to Dick in every picture. Their were some pictures of Dick alone with each teenager alone. Theirs one of him hugging and kissing the cheek of the youngest, the boy trying not look like he was enjoying the attention. Amy didn't ask why their was a lack of adults in the pictures, the only exception was a picture of an old man with a younger Grayson.

The station could meet his entire family one by one, having them all show up causing chaos. Making them all wonder how many siblings could one man have. Or they could meet all of them together. Which would be way more entertaining for us.

And Dick. Dick you be torn between being delighted that his family is gonna come visit him and terrified, because it’s his family. 

His coworkers make the mistake of inviting him to the family picnic event the BHPD plans ever year. They beg him to bring some family or any type of company really, since they never see him with anyone.

Dick immediately knows their going to regret this.

Cue the bat family showing up with sun glasses, designer clothes and looking like they stepped out of a magazine.

Cue Dick being seen in regular clothes for the first time by most of his coworkers. Sprayed on skinny years and blue button up that makes his eyes even bluer, if thats even possible. 

The double takes everyone suffers through every few minutes as bombs are dropped everywhere.

YOU FATHER IS BRUCE WAYNE???

YOU’RE RICH?

HOW MANY SIBLINGS DO YOU EVEN HAVE?!?

Alfred shows up with way too much food, but no one is complaining since his cooking is amazing.

Dick hugging and cuddling the shit out Damian. Describing him as cute despite the child threatening to murder him as he hugs him.

Damian, Tim and Jason getting in a big fight and screaming at each other as they run around the park.

Stephanie making jokes and messing with the spooked out cops.

Cass was just watching all of this in amusement with Alfred.

 Bruce is both finding this hilarious and awkwardly trying to act like a normal father as his son’s friends interview him with no mercy. Because the cops LOVE Dick and they want to make sure he has a family that takes care of their cute rookie. Their also extremely curious about Dick and his family in general.

Dick is horrified. And the entire department watches how Dick mothers his siblings. “No, Damian. Violence is not the answer. Iv’e told you this a million times. Please, little D. And Tim get down, he won't kill you. I promise.” “Jason! Your supposed to be an adult.” “Cass, sweetheart, have you done your speech exercises today? How’s everything in your new apartment?” “Stephanie, slow down. You’ll choke on your food.” “Cheer up, Bruce. Relax. Work can wait. Do you want me to swing by and help you in the office?” “Guys, help Alfred, this is his day off too.”

They watch in amusement as Dick tries to be everywhere at the same time. Trying to be everything to everyone. Because that’s just so him.

Cue the cops and bat family boding over Dick Grayson’s strange ability to make people like him, being weirdly unconventional and being able to keep people together.

[poorguysheadisdoingwhatnow]

things from NC Newsies

THE TRUMPET SOLO I STAN

Crutchie is really channeling his inner 90s newsies it's fantastic

When Jack tells Crutchie to come with him to Santa Fe, Crutchie is kind of bashful and reluctant

Jack has drawn a picture of Crutchie riding a horse and he GIVES IT TO CRUTCHIE

carrying the banner is fantastic I'm pretty sure Jack is buttoning Crutchie's best for him at some point and it's so pure

Finch is IRISH and I think Specs is also IRISH and I think Romeo is ITALIAN AND IT'S GREAT

TOMMY BOY IS A GIRL SHE’S MY FAVORITE

Jack smacks a delancey with the crutch and THE CRUTCH BREAKS and Crutchie had to use it as a cane the whole rest of the scene I have never laughed so hard (he came back out the next scene with it tied in the middle with a strip of cloth)

This Davey is so delightfully awkward he's wearing a full suit I am in love

And Les is so sure of himself he’s so confident I love this child

Pulitzer waited the whole song so he could put his shoes on dramatically at the wax line and I can't take a man in bright red socks seriously

He said "shave me too close and you may cut my throat" and Nunzio GIGGLED

Medda is amazing and lovely and geez what a performance

After Jack leaves the drawing for Katherine (which he draws on the back of a poster) she stares at it for so long like all the way through the next set change

okay the world will know we got Davey in his vest and tie but no jacket he’s eVoLvInG

Jack paints “strike” over the headline

Davey doesn’t start singing along with the others till like the second verse and even then he’s really hesitant until near the end when he starts doing the motions

It’s Crutchie, Jack, Les, and Race that go into the World building. Davey tries to follow them but the door closes on him before he can

“I think we launched our strike in a most auspicious manner”

silence from the others

“...woo!”

Katherine’s so sassy she mimics the way Jack says “What’s the last news story you wrote?” when she says “what’s the last strike you organized?”

okay before watch what happens when Jack’s like “I can tell you what i’m hoping for tonight” Katherine looks at him and just laughs it was great

and when Katherine starts watch what happens, there are newsies sitting in the towers behind her, but as the song continues, they keep straightening up and leaning forward to listen to her

seize the day is great at the beginning everyone runs in and every person looks around and stops like they were expecting more people and are crushed that they’re not there

there’s a nervous newsie (becomes one of the scabs) that runs away in the middle of Davey’s solo 

speaking of Davey’s solo, it was amazing. he started all tense and nervous with his shoulders up high and then he slowly got more confident, especially closer to Jack’s speech

also when Crutchie comes out with his strike sign, Race gestures to Davey and goes “that’s great”, and then to Crutchie and goes “that’s pathetic”

also that nervous newsie made my life he was so scared of the others (actually all three of the scabs seemed really scared but I mean they were scabbing)

dance break was lit, they didn’t spin on newspapers, they sat on stacks and hit them like drums with other rolled-up newspapers

fight scene was so sad y’all I swear I had to hold back tears, one of the Delanceys grabbed Crutchie’s crutch and just bashed him in the head and knocked him out and they dragged him off stage so fast

there were still newsies running from the cops in the background at the beginning of santa fe

like they were sprinting

“Tommy!” when one of the newsies couldn’t find tommy boy for a second it broke my heart

Santa Fe was so emotional I love the way Jason Gotay sings holy shit

king of new york was amazing, the erster line killed and there was a great moment of that awkward laughter after Jacobi’s joke, you know like when an uncle tells a bad joke and you’re just like “ha...yeah”

Davey and Katherine are besties fight me they hug more than Jack and Katherine hugged the whole time

DAVEY GOT THE WHOLE TAP SOLO TIME THEY GAVE HIM TAP SOLOS HIS SLEEVES ARE ROLLED UP HIS TIE IS GONE I AM 90% SURE HE CHANGED INTO A BLUER SHIRT 

Katherine’s first tap solo was so cute she sat on a chair and barely moved her feet and then when she got going they kept picking her up

Les and Race chilled in the background together they’re buds

all the newsies kept playing catch and keep-away with the newspaper

“and you ain’t even dead!” was a clear, quality line

SURPRISE LETTER FROM THE REFUGE CAUSE IT WASN’T IN THE PROGRAM

okay when Crutchie gets to “when that train makes-”, it’s not that anyone shushes him, it’s that a kid beside him sits up really fast from a nightmare, reaching out, and Crutchie slowly helps him lie back down and shushes him back to sleep

also he still had his crutch

and Snyder came in at the end and yelled for quiet and Crutchie lay down really fast and stuffed the letter under his pillow

THE TRUMPET LIP SLUR I STAN

the butt swat after “we’re inevitable” is very pronounced

also their conversation about Crutchie is done much more sad than angry and it about broke my heart

“POOR GUY’S HEAD IS SPINNING”

whenever Hannah brings Jack into Pulitzer’s office, he kind of bows to her and she is totally blushing as she leaves I feel ya Hannah

okay this Pulitzer is so sinister his voice is so deep I love him

also Katherine didn’t come in till he said the line “I think she can hear for herself”, the Delanceys brought her in

Jack didn’t put up much of a fight, it’s like he just gave up, his shoulders slumped and he just let them take him to the cellar

“now that there is firm” is still the stupidest line in this whole musical

BROOCLYN IS HEER THEYR HEER

SPOT CONLON HOLY SHIT he has his PIMP CANE FROM THE 90s I died

mmmmm the rally LES BROUGHT HIS DATE also there were so many little kids there they’re my fave

everyone ran and ignored Jack after he finished speaking, also Katherine had snuck to the edge of the room and was watching what happened

also the cartoon of Pulitzer was him with a baton, stepping on a kid and hitting another with said baton

so “Specs showed me” WE SEE SPECS SHOW HER

she talks really fast she’s so nervous about her plan but still so sure, it’s more like she’s talking so Jack doesn’t interrupt her

SHE SLAPS HIM INSTEAD OF KISSING HIM WE STAN AN ICON

Kath and Jack don’t even kiss till near the end of the duet and their hug is so big and pure they keep hugging all the way offstage

they all have lanterns going into the cellar, and they’re all singing really quietly and you can hear how nervous they all are about getting caught

Bill and Darcy my heart

“And proud to be a part of your revolution” he sounds so reluctant maybe Katherine made him

they have a dance break during the last verse at the key change and we see all the newsies handing out the flyers and Jack and Davey are at the top of the towers throwing more into the air

omg Pulitzer’s office, first of all Spot sits right down on the desk and finds a cookie and just starts eating it like what a mood

shit Davey’s got some nerve now I absolutely love how Daniel Plimpton portrayed him and his character development I could write an essay about it (and I might)

Spot is such a little shit omg

THEY WON also Jack’s totally about to leave he has the stuff he packed and Katherine just whips out a bag like damn she really is by his side isn’t she

“What’s Santa Fe got that New York ain’t? Sandstorms?”

Jack and Kath kiss and it’s so cute and when the others notice another newsie DIPS SPOT CONLON

Crutchie’s back and he looks like he did in the Refuge I about cried again

but dang his “you’ll be laughing all the way to the pen, little man” was so vengeful sounding I love it

their finale was fantastic the lighting and everyone’s little bows one guy did airplane arms

anyway this show was absolutely perfect

[louthegreatfurrry]

And I just finished my part of art trade two, this one ALSO with the awesome @justafictionalthing !! This post doesn’t cover the full trade yet, as this one was one piece from me and several pieces from her, so I’ll add the rest of the pictures when I receive them.

THIS is the first picture, a fanart of my fanfic “Be my Flower, be my Sun”:

Drawing two; self-indulgent hug because everyone has bad days.

Drawing three; Marvin with wings for my fanfic “broken wings”

Drawing four, for my fanfic Into Enemy Land (A Harry Potter crossfic; as you can see both Claus and Marvin are headcanoned snakes)

Drawing five, also for my fanfic Into Enemy Land.

Drawing six... also... for my fanfic Into Enemy Land (i like this one okay)

As always, art trades are open!

You can find the 6k Megamind fanfiction underneath the cut.

When you’re an incredibly handsome criminal genius you end up inventing and building a lot of technical machines – some big, some small, some neither. You sort of have to be used to your inventions backfiring. And Megamind is used to it.

But this time it’s different.

The machine is a big beast of wrenched and warped metal, and when it fails, sharp blue light explodes from the engine in a shockwave of chaos and distant shimmer.

The force of it throws Megamind off-balance – he falls to his knees to brace himself, and in the process his cape wraps itself around his head –

by the time he manages to straighten himself up again, the string has already tied itself around his thumb.

*

The blast of iris blue light had spread across the whole globe, allowing billions of people to see the strings; both their own and others. Suddenly thousands of red threads connect the people of Earth – and no one has any idea why.

Until someone manages to pinpoint the source of the blast to be Metro City.

Megamind becomes the number one suspect, mainly because of the color of the blast.

He’s ready to ignore it all, to just continue on as normal and let the humans figure it out themselves, but a young adult posts a video on YouTube, asking him for an interview. “Not anything about your career,” promises the young interviewer, “just about this recent development of… you know.” They hold up their right hand – a string is tied around their index finger. “Promise,” they add, shooting off a charismatic grin towards the camera.

Megamind agrees, but only because they seem to perform well under stressful situations.

(The stressful situation being ‘talking to Megamind, incredibly handsome criminal genius and master of all villainy’, of course.)

(it’s the grin; it’s absolutely the grin; anyone who can grin when faced with Megamind must be able to face death itself without a flinch)

*

“We have established that this phenomenon can be traced back to you, Megamind. But the thing we’re all wondering about is,” the interviewer says, looking comfortable and at ease in their chair, “do you have a string?”

(do you, not who is it linked to)

(are you capable of love, not who do you love)

(are you worth loving, not who loves you)

Megamind glances down at his hand. A string is tied around his thumb, loose enough to not hurt but tight enough to stay in place –

“No,” he says, voice steady though it wants to shatter.

(it’s better this way.)

*

The humans’ strings are red; fierce red, like embers glowing in the night.

Megamind’s is a blue-ish purple thing that looks like it’s made of plant-fiber rather than cotton.

‘Strings of fate’. That’s what the humans call them. It’s wrong, of course. Megamind doesn’t know a lot about them, but – there had been some cultural information stored in his pod, and – and nudged in between dances and rituals there’d been a mention of ‘strings of blood’. They connect people with the same lights glowing within their hearts. The same roots, if you will.

It’s why his string is pale indigo and the humans’ red.

And - all hearts sing about pain and horror and pleasure and hope, but different hearts sing in different melodies.

That’s why no one can see Megamind’s string; their hearts just don’t sing in the same melody.

(Megamind wants so desperately to believe this, he does, but he can’t, he can’t, it’s never that simple)

(they can’t see his strings because –)

(because –)

(because Megamind is so broken)

*

(There’d been a moment, a shift in time, where Megamind had thought –)

(he’d hoped, for just a tiny bit, that –)

(that he wasn’t alone.)

(But that was wrong, of course, the string doesn’t go into the sky, after all, so the person must be on Earth, they must –)

(oh no, Megamind had thought, after that moment of shimmering hope had passed, oh no.)

*

(of course, he thinks later, of course he can see the humans’ strings –)

(it’s not because their melodies sound the same; it’s because he’s tied to one of them –)

*

He tries to break the string.

First the scissors pass through it, then the blast from the dehydration gun, then the flames from the flamethrower – the jackhammer ruins his cape, but ultimately does no damage to the string –

not even his alligators can snap through the blasted thing.

But he can feel it and hold it if he so wishes – it seems like it only registers his body as real, and nothing else –

when he realizes this, Megamind tries to gnaw it over. He tries to tear it apart and to file through it with his nails – but nothing works. Nothing. The string remains pale indigo and unscratched against his skin, and –

Megamind sits underneath the cool spray from the shower and Does Not cry.

(the poor, poor person his string leads to – )

(they don’t deserve –)

(and Megamind doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t deserve this bent and twisted hope –)

(doesn’t deserve love)

*

“Sir,” Minion asks once day, fins fluttering nervously. “Sir, do you have a string?”

Megamind, who’s slouched over his drawing board with the imprint of a pencil on his cheek and a pair of goggles askew on his forehead, blinks. “You can’t see it?” he asks, tired and weary and –

(he just wants to go home, wherever that is –)

Minion flutters a bit more. “Sorry, sir, no.”

(it’s because their hearts don’t sing in the same melody they don’t sing in the same melody they don’t sing)

(but Megamind –)

(he –)

(can’t bring himself to believe it.)

*

Megamind kidnaps Roxanne Ritchi the next day, and it’s easy to pretend that nothing’s changed, easy to pretend that everything’s okay –

(he’s been doing it for so long, after all)

– until Miss Ritchi cocks her head at him. “Huh,” she says, “you really don’t have a string.”

“And I see you do, Miss Ritchi,” he drawls, gaze lingering pointedly on the tie around her pinky finger.

She shrugs. “Almost everyone does.”

Almost.

Megamind continues with the scheduled scheme and can just barely keep from scowling.

Later, when Metro Man is carrying Megamind towards the prison, he gives Megamind a stoic look. “It’s good you don’t have a string, buddy,” he says, sounding far too honest for Megamind’s taste. “It’s what’s best for all.”

(and he’s right he’s right he’s right –)

*

(but Megamind lies in his bed at night, staring at the string shimmering faintly in the dim light – and he wants, wants, wants –)

*

Over time, it becomes obvious that the string changes color. It’s mainly blue-ish indigo, but other times – usually when he steps out of the Lair – shades of red bleed into the color, changing it from blue to a warmer purple.

It doesn’t take long before Megamind understands what it means.

Humans’ strings are red. His is blue.

Red and blue make purple.

The closer he is to the person he’s tied to, the more of their red is added to his blue.

(and if he feels happier the bluer his string is, he doesn’t mention it to anyone.)

*

Megamind originally made the holowatch as a way for Minion and him to run errands without people shrieking and running away in terror.

Now he uses it during days when the walls close in on him, when the darkness becomes too pressing, when the lonely silence of the Lair rings like a siren in his ears.

Today is one of those days.

He’s walking through the streets of Metro City, watch strapped around his wrist. He’s supposed to grab donuts for later, but he can let himself stroll at a casual pace. It’s not like there’s someone waiting for him at the Liar – Minion is busy on the other side of town, placing orders for more bot-parts.

It’s an accident.

He’s reading a sign he’s passing, too busy to notice the way his string slowly fades into a faint magenta, and suddenly he’s face-to-face with a pair of brilliant eyes.

The world halts, freezes, tilts –

Megamind, terrified and worried, glances down at the open space between the woman and him –

a purple string hangs between them, one end tied to his left thumb, the other to the woman’s.

“Ah,” Megamind says, focus snapping back up to the eyes.

“I – hey,” the woman says, sounding a bit unsure of herself but otherwise –

(disguise, something whispers in Megamind, she’s looking at a disguise –)

She sticks out her hand. It hovers in the air between them, an outstretched olive-branch, a bridge, a scathing hope – “I’m Cat,” she offers, smiling a smile that’s just a tad too genuine to be mere politeness.

Megamind’s hand reaches out to shake Cat’s on its own accord.

(shit, shit, shit, whispers Megamind’s heart)

(quick! yells Megamind’s mind, say something stupid – chase her away – anything, something –)

“Bubsy,” he blurts.

Cat blinks, obviously taken aback – but then she swallows her surprise and beams. It looks only a little bit forced. “Alright, cool!” she says.

Megamind’s still holding her hand, he realizes, and releases it so fast that you’d think it had bitten him. “Ha, yes, cool, right – ” he stutters, brain still trying to catch up with things –

“Hey, uh – I don’t have the time to talk right now,” Cat says, glancing to the left in a twitchy move, “but what do you say about getting a coffee sometime?”

(yes, Megamind’s heart whispers)

(NO! Megamind’s mind yells, loud enough to deafen the small flutter in his chest)

“I – ” Megamind tries, “I don’t – ”

“Cat!” comes someone’s impatient cry.

Cat startles. She throws a look in the direction of the cry – her hair, long and tawny brown, falls over her shoulder. “Hold on!” she calls, before hastily turning back to Megamind again. “Uh – ” She blinks, then lights up and begins to dig through her pockets. After a hasty search she pulls out a slip of paper. “Here; my phone number. Get back to me, will you?”

(Megamind’s mind shuts down.)

(yes, whispers Megamind’s heart –)

Megamind accepts the offered paper.

“Gotta go, bye!” Cat rushes, before turning on her heel and hurrying over to a small group of people, some of them scowling impatiently and the rest looking intrigued.

Megamind walks away so fast that he nearly breaks into a run.

(shit, he thinks, shit, shit, shit –)

*

(he lies in his bed that night, staring at the string shimmering in the dim light – and he thinks of that beaming smile and those brilliant eyes and he wants –)

*

Three days pass before Megamind does something about his newly acquired slip of paper.

He’s laying in his bed, covers tangled around him and sleep a million miles away.

(he shouldn’t sleep shouldn’t sleep doesn’t deserve the blissful unawareness of temporary death –)

Hands clenched into fists; nails digging into flesh – Megamind twists, desperation and depression and terror clawing up through his throat –

his gaze lands on the crumbled paper resting on his bedside table, and his breath catches in his throat.

(hope; blinding and brief but there –)

His fingers shake when he punches in the numbers on his phone.

The message – a simple ‘hi’ – is sent before he can hesitate or rethink his actions, and then he falls back against his pillows.

A hurt noise falls from his lips.

(she gave you the wrong number, some part of him whispers, a slow and dark drawl, no one wants to be with you, come on, not even in disguise)

His phone dings.

Megamind scrambles to unlock it –

hey! bubsy, right?

Ah, right – well, too late to do something about now –

yeah, he sends back. sry, did I wake u up?

nah, comes the reply, couldn’t sleep anyway.

Something eases in Megamind’s chest.

*

He has no idea how it happens, but Cat somehow manages to rope him into a coffee.

A date.

(he should’ve said no, should’ve said no, should’ve said no -)

But – it doesn’t hurt to – to just talk, right? Nothing bad can come from that. Just so he knows who he’s bonded to – that’s all. Getting to know each other.

(it feels like a lie.)

(…)

(and it probably is.)

*

“Minion,” Megamind says as he’s preparing for the date the next day.

Minion’s heavy suit clanks loudly when he comes out from the kitchen. “Yes, sir?”

“I’m going on a date; I’ll be gone for a while.”

When Minion blinks, it’s slow and hesitant. “A… date, sir? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

(it hits too close to home – it isn’t a good idea, it isn’t –)

“Oh, relax, Minion,” Megamind exclaims, waving his hand dismissively. “It’ll be fine! It’s not like she’ll hurt me!”

“Alright, sir,” Minion says slowly, sounding even more uncertain than he was before, “if you say so.”

*

Megamind has no idea how to act on a date.

Cat meets him outside of the coffee-shop; a small and cozy thing called ‘a Thousand Paws’. She was the one to suggest it – Megamind’s never heard of it before. “Hey,” she greets him warmly. “How are you?”

Megamind has no idea how to small-talk, either.

(I’m horrible, he wants to say, I’m bad and I’m evil and I’m Megamind - )

“I’m fine,” he croaks. “You?”

“Superb,” Cat replies. “Come on; these guys make their mocha just perfect.”

Megamind has no choice but to follow her into the café. He stays a little behind her when she goes to order; he’s wildly unprepared to face a crowd in this state – he’s brought no weapons that he can reach in his disguise, and he’d… rather not drop it, for obvious reasons.

By the time he’s done worrying, Cat has placed their orders and is making her way towards a table.

Megamind follows her dutifully.

*

“-okay, but how’s this,” Cat says. The coffee stands untouched between them. “She said she didn’t believe me.”

Megamind bursts into laughter. “No way!” he says. “No way!”

Cat nods determinedly. “Yes way; and then – ”

*

Upon taking a sip of his coffee Megamind grimaces. It’s grown cold, all the warmth faded from it –

(just like the warmth faded from you, the part of Megamind whispers thickly, just like warmth fades from everything you touch - )

“Bubsy?” Cat asks, and worry has crept into her voice. “Something wrong?”

Megamind forces himself to shake his head. “No, no,” he says. “Ko-fee’s gone cold, is all.”

“Oh!” Cat says. “Do you want a new one?”

(no, no, no, don’t spend money on me –)

“I’m fine,” Megamind says. He sets down his cup again. “Anyway, what was I saying?”

“The library,” Cat swiftly reminds him, “and the guy from your class.”

“Ah, yes – and he – ”

*

Cat snickers. “You know, this is really cliché, but – ” She cuts herself off and shakes her head, a faintly amused smile on her lips. “Your eyes are very pretty.”

Megamind blinks, taken aback – “You think so?” he asks, barely keeping his voice from trembling.

“Yeah!” Cat exclaims eagerly, sitting straighter in her chair. “It’s strange, they kind of remind me of - ” Her gaze flickers. “- emeralds.”

Emeralds?

(what do you say when you’re gifted with a compliment – what do people say – what – think human)

“Thank – thank you,” he stutters, grateful that the disguise hides the small blush.

*

“Say,” Megamind says, gesturing towards Cat’s right hand, “that’s a pretty ring you have there.”

“Hm?” Cat looks down at her hand. “Oh, yes! It’s silver; my best friend gave it to me.” She uses her index finger to shuffle it off her thumb, and proceeds to hand it over to Megamind.

It shimmers briefly in the light; it looks worn and loved –

(unlike him, who’s only worn and hated)

oh.

“It’s pretty,” he says, handing it back over.

“Thanks,” Cat replies, easily slipping the ring on again. “I used to wear it on my left hand, but…” She nods to said hand; Megamind looks at it almost against his will.

The purple string rests unbothered on the table between them.

“Ah,” Megamind says, throat clogging up. “Right.”

Cat tilts her head; her hair drapes itself over her shoulder. “I wonder why it’s purple. Do you know?”

(yes, Megamind thinks, yes, yes, it’s purple because I’m wrong and you’re not)

He shakes his head.

Cat hums tonelessly and shrugs absentmindedly. “Worth a try,” she says. “Can other people see it from your angle?”

He shakes his head again.

Cat shrugs again. “Oh, alright,” she says. “Don’t suppose it matters much anyway.”

“Indeed,” Megamind whispers, and his voice is only a bit shaky.

*

Afterwards, when they’ve downed two cups of coffee each, Cat and Megamind stand outside of the café. Cat closes the door behind them, and then turns to him with a smile – a small, hesitant thing that emits more warmth than light. “I had fun today,” she admits.

Megamind –

(fun fun fun how can she have had fun)

“Oh,” he breathes.

“And, uhm… I’d like to meet you again, sometime,” Cat continues, oblivious to Megamind’s shock.

“Ah?” he says.

Cat snickers. “I’ll take that as a yes, then,” she grins. “If my presence has left you speechless I’m better than I thought.”

“Jhh,” Megamind sounds.

Cat’s expression is fond; lit up and emphasized by the amusement in the twist around her eyes. She shakes her head – but it’s with a smile, and she giggles as she does so. “You have my number,” she reminds him. “Text me sometime! Or call, I don’t know.”

Even though his mind has been reduced to jelly, Megamind manages to nod. He can… text… words… yes.

“Alright, then,” Cat says. “Bye!”

“…bh… bye,” Megamind manages to get out. His lips are numb, his fingers are numb, his whole body is numb –

Cat disappears around the corner.

*

(she had fun with him she had fun with him she had fun with him –)

(she wants to see him again.)

*

“Sir!” Minion greets him cheerfully. “How did the date go?”

“Ah,” Megamind says. “I – she wants to meet me again? And – I – it went good. Great.”

Minion bobs a bit in his headpiece, maw split in a wide and toothy smile. “Wonderful news, sir!” he says. It sounds a bit forced.

Megamind can’t blame him.

*

Less than five days go by before Megamind snaps again.

(it’s too much, the pain and the cold and the horror, and he needs, needs, needs –)

sure! Cat replies to his request of another meet-up. just say when :)

*

(Megamind doesn’t trust himself to take Cat to something she’d like, so he asks her – over text, because his voice would break otherwise – what she’d like to do)

are museums okay? ^^

Megamind is majorly relieved about this development.

*

There’s a museum opening downtown – it has sections about several different time-periods of the Human era, but if its advertisements are to be trusted, at least two stores are dedicated to Egyptology.

Megamind knows, within moments of seeing Cat, that she’s more than just a little bit interested in Old Egypt. Excitement and joy crackles in the air around her, and she’s bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet when he nears.

“I’m so fucking excited,” she says, grabbing Megamind’s hand to pull him into the building.

(his hand she took his hand –)

Megamind chuckles. “I can tell,” he mutters, grinning when Cat turns to pout playfully at him.

*

And Cat tugs him through all the rooms, ooh’ing and aah’ing at small tidbits of information. She explains things with loud words and grand gestures, a delighted heat in her eyes. When Megamind asks a question the answer comes immediately, happily, and enthusiastically – and as they progress from room to room and see mummies, masks, stones engraved with hieroglyphs and golden caskets, Megamind stares at her in awe, this wonderful and amazing person he just barely knows –

the string hangs between them, deep magenta when Cat holds his hand and of a softer shade whenever she rushes ahead –

(when Megamind looks back, he can safely say that this is where he begins to fall in love.)

(he loves easily, Megamind does, easily and fiercely when he finds something he wants to protect; and this person who shows her interest and excitement so intensely and who burns so brightly –)

(she deserves the world and he can’t give her that, but he can give her hope)

(Megamind, of course, doesn’t realize this just yet. He’s oblivious and drunk on the warmth of Cat’s hand in his –)

(and that’s okay.)

*

Afterwards Megamind takes Cat to her favorite café again. The last date was on her, this date is on him, he says, and she grudgingly accepts.

When they’re enjoying their drinks in a silence that already feels comfortable, a man walks by and sneers. “Ugh, man,” he says, and his eyes are on Megamind, “your black ass don’t deserve a beauty like her! Leave the birds to us real men, go get a hoe from Africa or somethin’.”

Megamind is ready to sneer back at him, has a response ready at the tip of his tongue, but he shoots Cat a glance, first, in case she doesn’t want him to make a scene.

Her expression doesn’t freeze, doesn’t turn horrified –

it trembles, for a moment, but hardens in a calm mask of determination. Then she stands up in one smooth motion, grabs her cup of coffee, walks over to the man, and throws the hot beverage in his face.

Gasps echo throughout the room. The man himself cries out in surprise before making a dash for the restrooms.

“Don’t listen to him, hun,” Cat says, loudly and forced through gritted teeth, staring at the retreating back of the man, “he’s just a bigoted piece of shit.” She returns to her seat and mutters, so quietly that Megamind can only barely hear it, “motherfuckin’ cock sucking son of a crack whore -!”

Megamind blinks. “Uh,” he says, “your, ah, your coffee?”

Cat waves her hand dismissively, even as she peers into her now emptied cup. “Don’t worry,” she says, “I gave it to charity.”

He laughs, grateful for her anger and her fire.

(he’ll always remember this day with fondness; the day someone first fought to protect his dignity)

*

Cat hugs him after their third date. They’ve been to the movies and haven’t done much talking the last two hours, but Cat held his hand when the worst scenes were on screen, and he held hers just as tight.

When she says goodbye to him, afterwards, she wraps her arms around him and holds him – tight, tight, close.

(warm she’s warm and she’s hugging him)

There’s a moment where Megamind – hesitates –

(what if she figures it out by his touch what is she figures it out what if she figures it out what then)

(please, whispers Megamind’s heart –)

– he hugs her back.

(an explosion of warmth; of joy; of home and this is his fated –)

*

Hugs come easier to them after that. Megamind rarely initiates them, doesn’t want to startle Cat too much – but she appears to be fine with touching. Hand-holding, too, becomes more common – and the string hangs between them, intense magenta when their fingers intertwine.

*

(but Megamind twists in his bed at night, guilt tearing through him and ripping him apart, because –)

(what if she finds out, and she will find out you moron, and you need to tell her before it’s too late but he doesn’t want to lose her, and he should pull away, should say it’s enough, should run before he can make her cold –)

*

Minion is worried. Understandable, as Megamind’s life slowly starts to revolve around Cat, rather than defeating Metro Man.

But Minion, loyal fish as he is, doesn’t say anything. He keeps it down to uncertain flutters and disapproving looks and lingering, concerned glances. Megamind pretends like he doesn’t notice. Minion pretends to not know that Megamind is pretending.

And things aren’t okay.

(Megamind’s phone dings with a message; it’s from Cat, and it reads hey hun I have sum extra time tomorrow wanna hang out at my place)

But they’re better.

*

(and Megamind knows, he knows that Cat still looks at him as only a friend – an exceptionally good friend, perhaps, thanks to the string tied to their thumbs, but – nothing more than that –)

*

“Hey, hun,” Cat greets him at the door. She smiles one of the many smiles Megamind has learned to appreciate – not the beam from their first meeting, nor the pleased grin whenever she drops an awful joke, but the soft one that translates to welcome home. “Come on in.”

Megamind dips his head and accepts the invitation. He’s been in her apartment before – not a lot, but enough to know the layout of the place. He steps into the room – the living room is, for some strange reason, the room the apartment opens into. Really; a hallway would’ve been far safer.

Cat steps aside from the door and throws herself onto the couch with a tired sigh. “You will not believe the day I’ve had at work today – gods, it was fucking terrible – ”

“Oh?” Megamind says, shrugging off the jacket he’d slipped on over the disguise. “Do tell,” he encourages, moving over to sit beside her on the couch.

“It’s nothing big,” Cat says, opening her eyes to give him a fond look, “just, you know. Work.”

(he thinks of big robots and long nights and flashes of light and bloody near-fucking-death –)

“Anyway,” Cat says, before Megamind has the time to react to her previous statement, “I found a new movie I know you’ll absolutely love, if you want to watch it with me?”

Megamind is fully aware of the fact that his features brighten considerably. He doesn’t care at all; Cat deserves to see the positive impact she has on the world. And besides, watching movies with her is always fun. “I accept your humble offer,” Megamind says formally, shifting in the couch to find a better position. “What movie shall we watch, my dear?”

Cat’s cheeks turn a few shades redder, but she grins through the blushing. “I’d prefer it to be a surprise, if you don’t mind, sire.”

Megamind waves his hand lazily. “That is no problem at all,” he notes snottily. “Now, turn on this – thehle-wish-on.”

A few moments pass where nothing happen. Puzzled, Megamind turns to Cat, eyebrow raised –

she’s staring at him, but there’s no humour in her gaze anymore, only cold contemplation. “…television,” she says softly. “It’s pronounced television.”

(testing him she’s testing him)

“Ah,” Megamind says –

(everyone knows that Megamind pronounces words wrong sometimes)

“Thank you,” he finishes. “Television.”

Cat smiles, and the humour is back again. “Alright, then, sire – your wish is my command.” She reaches for the remote, and moments later the screen flickers to life. A beat, pictures start playing on the TV, and –

A delighted gasp falls from Cat’s lips, and then she drops all the games and blurts, “can I see this first?”

“Sure,” Megamind promptly says.

He shouldn’t have agreed so fast, he realizes, when the pictures on the screen pans out, and –

it’s him. Without his disguise. Bad and blue and bald and cackling at Metro Man, who’s in the process of striking a heroic pose.

Megamind recognizes the pictures to be from his most recent Evil scheme. It’s a week or so since it happened, however… this must be a delayed report.

Cat leans forward and makes an intrigued noise.

(interested in his destruction; in his downfall –)

The cameras zoom in on him; he turns to face them, grinning the grin he’d practiced for hours beforehand.

Cat lets out a high-pitched giggle.

Wh -?

The pieces snap into place.

“Wait,” Megamind blurts, puzzled and befuddled and filled with blazing hope, “are you seriously –? Over m – Megamind?”

Cat tears her focus away from the screen in favor of glaring at him, and Megamind realizes with a start that it’s only half-joking. “And why not?” she asks, and now she sounds defensive –

(but – but – but Megamind is Megamind, how can she – how – what –)

(the look in her eyes, the adoring affection – he’s seen it before on her, knows that it’s genuine –)

“First of all,” Cat continues, “he’s fucking adorable.” She says it as if it is the truest reality; as though she knows that if everything else fails, this will still hold true – ���Look at those eyes, and his smile – ” She gestures wildly for the screen, motions sharp and short and angry. “There aren’t many guys who could pull of his style and look that good!”

On-screen Megamind raises his leather-clad hand, and a swarm of brainbots rise like a stormy and vengeful cloud behind him.

Megamind begins to gather his wits; he has to give her a reply that makes sense – a garbled mrph? won’t hold against her –

“Second,” Cat says, the word trembling with the weight of her emotions, “give me one bloody example where he’s actually hurt someone – or even tried to!”

He opens his mouth to say that he hasn’t been following a lot of Megamind’s moves.

“And Metro Man doesn’t count!” Cat interrupts him harshly, jabbing a finger in his direction. “He’s bloody fucking invincible. You’re just judging a book by its cover! Like everyone else!”

The notion that Megamind is judging a book by its cover is so surprising and hilarious that it startles all his wits back into place.

He laughs; mostly at the thought that he’s judging himself wrong. “Okay, okay!” he says, before chuckling a bit more. “I didn’t…” Now he hesitates; the confusion and disbelief settle heavy in his stomach. “I didn’t know you felt so strongly about him.”

(she must’ve defended him before, against other people, she must’ve, if she gets so mad –)

Suddenly it seems to dawn on her what she’s said; one last flare in her eyes, and then she slumps over, a sheepish grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Yeah,” she says. “Well. I think he gets the short end of the stick, sometimes.” She looks over at the screen again, the sheepish expression tilting into a softer, more regretful one.

On the screen, Metro Man boasts proudly about how he won the fight. Megamind is sulking in the background, chained and soon-to-be confined by the prison’s four walls.

“I don’t think he’s evil,” Cat whispers, even as screen-Megamind scowls at the Mayor’s back. “I don’t think he’s evil at all.”

*

Megamind… has a lot to think about, the following days.

*

(she thinks he’s adorable she thinks he’s adorable she thinks he’s adorable –)

*

His greatest worry had been Cat discovering his true identity and then promptly leaving him to himself, mad at him for lying and mad at him for being him.

He should tell her – he really, really should – and now that he has proof that she’d be okay with him being, well, Megamind, that choice should be easy to make –

but she’ll be mad, she will, because he’s lied to her about who he truly is since day fucking one –

and the guilt, the tearing, the ripping, the mind-numbing remorse and terror –

it gets worse.

*

“She thinks I’m adorable,” Megamind admits to Minion the following week. His voice… might have been just a teeny tiny bit dreamy.

“Well, sir,” Minion says, putting down the coffee cup with a little more force than necessary, “you’re dating. I would expect her to think so.”

“Oh, no!” Megamind exclaims, sitting straight in his chair. They’re in the kitchen, Megamind sitting by the table and Minion standing over by the oven, watching over some bacon sizzling in a frying pan. “No, no – she thinks I, as in Megamind, incredibly handsome criminal genius and master of all villainy, is adorable.”

Minion stops what he’s doing. He’s not facing Megamind, he can’t see his expression –

one nervous heart-beat.

Two.

“Sir,” Minion says, turning in his head-piece to fix Megamind with a stern look, his voice soft and dangerously quiet. “I expect to meet her as soon as possible.”

Minion has used this voice only twice before; once when Megamind was a teen, and once after one of the earliest battles with Metro Man. Both had been caused by an intense overload of worry from his dear fishy friend.

“Yes,” Megamind says, not even thinking about the consequences. “Of course.”

Minion nods approvingly, turns back around, and continues to watch over the strips of bacon.

*

bubsy do you have time to come over today

Megamind looks at his desk, littered with half-finished blueprints and somewhat-thought-out plans for his next scheme.

ofc, he replies, anything for u.

*

Cat doesn’t say what’s bothering her, she only opens the door with a tired but welcoming nod. Maybe she thinks that he doesn’t notice, but he’s her bonded, there’s a string made of plant-fiber painted purple that says they’re meant for each other, and during the last few months he’s gotten familiar with her expressions.

He sees the hesitancy and remorse and worry in her eyes –

and for the first time in his life, he initiates a hug.

Cat clings to him, arms wrapped tightly around his torso and forehead pressed into his shoulder. Megamind doesn’t say anything, only holds her closer, ready and willing to be her anchor and her strength.

After an embrace that lasts for centuries and seconds Cat lets go. “Bubsy,” she says, quiet and unwavering and eyes downcast, “I’m falling in love with you.”

The world halts, freezes, tilts –

(he’s been terrified of breaking her, terrified of doing something wrong to her, but the months spent by her side has shown him just how much he can love, just how great he can be –)

(he wants to be good for her, wants to give her the world, and he’s no longer afraid of breaking her because he knows he makes her happy, but –)

“No,” Megamind says, taking a step back with a small headshake. He’s over by the door; he could run, if he wanted to. “No, you’re not.”

(she doesn’t love him she loves Bubsy she loves the disguise; she thinks Megamind is adorable, thinks he’s cute, certainly, but she doesn’t love him, and –)

(Megamind isn’t Bubsy, he’s Megamind –)

Cat heaves a shuddering breath. “I – I know this thing – ” She gestures towards the purple string tying them together. “ – only means that we – that we’re – platonic soulmates or what-fucking-ever – but these months – I’ve fallen in love with you, Bubsy – I know you don’t – love me back, or whatever, but – ”

“Don’t love you back?” Megamind asks, shocked and terrified – he’d thought she knew, thought she could feel the love in every brief touch, in every lingering glance, could hear it in every little joke and word – “Don’t love you back?” he repeats, voice rising in pitch. “Cat – I love you, with every fiber of my being – ”

His throat clogs up.

(say it, whispers Megamind’s heart, say it, tell her.)

(do something, begs Megamind’s mind, something, I don’t care, anything – )

Then his vision begins to blur. It’s too much, the pain and the horror and the dark cloud of self-hatred that had just begun to lift with Cat’s help, and it’s too fucking much –

(human he should’ve been human he should’ve been human so he could’ve loved her with everything he has, but he can’t because he’s –)

Megamind –

– twists the dial on the holowatch.

And the disguise fades.

“That’s not the problem,” he whispers.

Cat’s eyes are blown wide within seconds. “– Megamind?” she breathes.

It’s strange – Megamind can pinpoint the exact moment she understands. He sees it in her eyes, sees it in the way she shifts her weight. And then he sees something – else – something tilts, in her expression, something tilts and cracks and mends again, and –

she takes a step closer; cranes her neck to look up at him. “You love me?” she asks, voice a mild whisper void of hesitation or horror.

Megamind forces himself to nod.

“And you’re Bubsy,” Cat says.

It’s not a question.

Megamind nods again.

“Wonderful,” Cat breathes, and then she kisses him.

Megamind has never understood why people describe kissing as something that shoots sparks – it’s a kiss, it’s pressing lips against lips, there shouldn’t be sparks –

– but now he gets it.

He’s willing to bet money that the kiss was supposed to be soft and short and sweet – it’s the sort of thing Cat would do, taking it nice and slow before exploring more –

but the moment he kisses her back, months of tension and guilt and longing flare in between them.

(a pulse of need that doesn’t come from either of them; a warmth; a desire; a wish)

(the feeling of home, and this is his fated – )

Cat’s hands are on his shoulders when she pushes him against the door behind him, mouths working on mapping each other out; she pulls back, just enough to draw a sharp breath and gasp, “ – Megamind – ” She moves to kiss him again, but she pulls away once more before Megamind can respond to the kiss. “ – I suspected – didn’t know, of course – ” Another kiss, more desperate this time, fingers tightening on his shoulders. “ – I do love you – ”

“ – I – realize – now, yes, that – ” Megamind manages to stutter, the next time Cat pulls back. He – desperately – wants, needs –

“ – Megamind – ” Cat repeats, diving in for another brief kiss before seemingly forcing herself to stay back.

Megamind gets it; he wants to talk about this, about them, wants to understand her –

but the bond between them, the string, the plant-fibre that ties them together – it has other plans, and it wants those plans set into action now.

“ – Cirrus – ” Megamind gasps out, “ – it’s – my name – Cirrus – ”

Cat rests her forehead in the nook of his neck for a moment, heaving for breath, the moment a brief second of calm – “Oh, Deus,” Cat whispers, and the words fan across his skin, “that is – ” She presses her lips to his skin, hot and soft and – “ – that is fucking beautiful – ”

“ – ah – I – thank?” he stutters out, half his mind focused on keeping him upright and the other focused on what Cat is saying. There’s not much brainpower left to help him speak in coherent sentences.

“ – Cirrus – ” Cat repeats, pulling back long enough to look him in the eyes, “I – Cirrus, I love – that, love you, fucking – ”

(Megamind needs –)

He kisses her, keeping it careful and soft and slow. It takes Cat by surprise; so much that she doesn’t try to deepen the kiss. “Less talking,” he whispers, when he ends it a moment after, “and more doing.”

Cat laughs; it’s a beautiful sound, even amid all of this, and Megamind captures the sound with his mouth.

*

(they barely make it to the bedroom.)

*

(Minion’s wish is granted the next day. He beams, Cat beams, they all beam, and Cat holds Megamind’s hand just as tight as he holds hers when Minion first calls her ma’am.)

(it is, they all know, far from the last.)

*

(and Megamind lies on the couch in Evil Lair, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and shorts and a pair of socks Cat bought for him. She’s sleeping on his chest with her arms slung around his torso, a content smile on her lips and socks matching his.)

(and Megamind lies on the couch in Evil Lair listening to a heart sing the same melody as he –)

(he glances at the purple string resting between them, shimmering faintly in the dim light – )

(and he has.)

[kpurereactions]

Too Close

Jackson Mafia Scenario 3

I never thought in all my life I’d be standing in Santorini. The open air was refreshing made me feel free for once, the ocean was bluer than the sky if that was even possible. Here I was standing in a gorgeous white mansion with an open balcony the wind blowing my hair all over the place. And here I stood in a pure white lace dress, with a boho hipster brown caramel hat, and white chunky heels to go with it. I closed my eyes letting the sun shine down on my skin tanning it perfectly as I listen to the ocean talk and the sun setting painting the sky with oranges and yellows with some purples.

I smile but that smile breaks when I hear someone walking behind me. I turn around to see Jackson with his white dress shirt sleeves rolled up and a few buttons undone holding a glass of scotch. His blond hair is loose and not slicked back like it normally is and I give off a full smile and skip to him. He stands up straight and holds out one of his hands welcoming me towards him. But I don’t take his hand instead I hug him and bury my head in his chest loving the warmth he gives every time I hug him. His chest rubbles with laughter and he sits down his drink and picks me up having me wrap my legs around his torso.

He kisses me softly but pulls away and sets me down. “Go change baby girl I want to go swim in the pool and watch the stars and kiss you,” Jackson says smiling at me before kissing my nose. I walk off and into the master bedroom seeing our suitcases and pictures of both of our families and some other stuff from around the world. I go to my suit case to find a swim suit but I stop when I see one already out on the bed. I let out a giggle from what it is knowing Jackson picked it out. It’s a strap less black bikini that’s a push-up as well. I grab it and it fits me perfectly which makes me wonder when he find out my size. I look in a mirror and lower my head nervous that he may not like my body they way it is. I wasn’t your normal model girl that every guy drooled over and it made me scared that once he saw me he’d go back to being stone cold. I sigh and hope for the best as I walk across the cold birch wood floor. I slowly walk into the moon knowing the sun was long gone while changed.

I cover my body when I hear Jackson move around the pool to look at me. I take a shaky breath but it’s cut short when scotch minty flavored lips are connected to mine. My arms leave my body and wrap around Jackson’s shoulders. When I feel nothin but his skin my eyes fly open and I pull away instantly. My cheeks heat up so fast when I see he’s shirtless and has washboard abs. He gives off a loud laugh that makes you laugh as well. “Baby please don’t ever hide your body from me. To me your a goddess and someone who deserves to be treated like one, let me treat you like one.” He mumbles the last part before kissing me pulling me into the pool gently and holds me as we talk about everything and anything.

He had gone inside for a minute, a business call or something that made me roll my eyes. This was supposed to be our time. I sighed as I folded my arms over the edge of the infinity pool that over looked the ocean and rested my head, taking in how beautiful the moon looked over the water.

Jacksons warmth was returned to my body in what seemed like no time, must have been a quick phone call. His lips touched me first, connecting in the center of my shoulder blade before his arms wrapped around my neck. I couldn't help but smile and rest my head against his, I hated how weak he made me.

"Was it worth it?" He asked, nuzzling his nose into the crook of my neck now.

"Was what worth it?" I asked turning slightly to face him.

"Swimming at night. Is the view worth it?" He smiled softly, accepting me I. His arms as I stepped forward to wrap my arms around his waist.

"Definitely. It's almost like it's still light out, the moon is so bright." I said pressing my cheek against his chest so I could still look at the moon.

"Can I kiss you?" He whispered bringing a wet thumb up to caress my cheek.

A soft smile met his lips as I looked up to hip and nodded. His hands moved up to my cheeks and gently pulled me forward, the smile staying on his lips as I tilted my head up to meet his lips. He kissed me softly, but with so much passion. His hands gently combed through my wet hair as I brought my arms up to snake around his neck, pulling him slightly against him to deepen the kiss.

That kiss was an eye opener for me. for the first time I felt so bad that I hadn't given him the most precious part of me. I loved him so much and told him every day, but how could he truly believe me since I didn't trust him to touch me in the only way he hasn't? It wasn't his fault and he understood why sex made me uncomfortable but I was starting to resent myself for not trusting him.

So I pulled him even closer.

My arms tightened around his neck and I let him turn me till my back was against the wall of the pool. Bent slightly lower, his hands moving to the backs of my thighs. Trust him.

Being so close to him in such an intimate way started to make my heart flutter and I could feel my body heating up as he pressed me into the wall even more, his hands moving to grip onto my behind as we continue to kiss.

"Baby, lets slow down." He breathed against my lips, his body slowly retracting from the spot where my lower half hooked around his.

"I don't want to." I whispered tightening my legs around him.

"What?" He said a bit louder, pulling his head away from him to fully look at me.

"I don't want to stop."

"Are you serious?" He said, his expression softening when he realized his words were starting to make me second guess myself.

"I want to be with you." I finally got the guts to whisper.

He responded by pulling me tighter into him and bringing a hand up to pull my neck into another kiss. He turned and started to walk through the water, our lips still connected. He walked up the pool stairs with my still wrapped around his torso until we were on solid ground. He let me go and get my feet under me before walking me backwards to the outdoor pool bed that laid under a canopy of soft fairy lights.

I smiled and took charge a bit making him turn till his back was facing the bed. With a slight push he softly fell to his back. The expression he had on his face made me smile and bite my lip as I moved to straddle his waist. He sat up to meet my lips before letting me push him all the way back. His hands moved up and down the backs of my thighs as encouragement to sink lower on his lap.

The moment I did and I could feel just how hard for me he was shivers of pleasure started shooting up and down my spine. He didn't have to tell me twice to start moving, I found myself needing to explore the part of his body I hadn't had the confidence to fully get to know.

Soft moans left Jacksons smiling lips as I moved myself across his lap and when my eyes met his again his smile widened and he pressed his forehead to mine.

"You have no idea how good this feels." He whispered pushing my hair behind my ear, his eyes closing. "I'm going to cum just like this." He said again.

I almost felt bad, I didn't even think how sexually frustrated he had been while being so committed to me, so I started to move faster, rolling my hips harder and faster against his quivering member.

It didn't take long for his hands to grip tightly against my ass and for his head to dip against my chest. His hips rolled up into me and everything clenched as he let himself go into his shorts. He held onto me tightly, his hands letting up slightly as his breath became even once again. He chuckled and moved his hands to hug my waist tightly, his head turning to the side so I could see how red his cheeks had become.

"Lay down, give me a second." He whispered kissing you softly before pulling back and quickly striping of his shorts.

This time it was me who was blushing as he just so casually let himself fall out of his shorts. I bit my lip as I watched him wipe himself down and discard the swim trunks to the floor. I couldn't help but laugh as he gave me a playful 'Come here baby girl' as he pulled my legs towards him making me lay flat on my back. I let him control my position, bringing one of my knees up as he laid himself between my legs. I hooked my arms tightly around his neck as the kiss he laid on me when from playful to heavy.

My entire boy was on fire with how close we were to one another, and the only way I knew how to express how badly I needed him was to tangle my fingers in his hair to hold him close as I curved my hips into him. His slight chuckle let me know he got the message and immediately his hands moved up to undo the single clasp of my bathing suit top then quickly down to remove my bottoms.

"God your so beautiful." He said clenching his jaw as he took a minute to look me over. Any long and I thought he was finding all my flaws, but as a sweet smile met his lips and he began to slowly descend back down my love and want for him only seemed to deepen.

He kissed me again, this time slowing and once again the feeling of his harden member began to press against my core.

"We're going to take this nice a slow baby girl." He said against my lips. "Though you are so wet for me, I don't know how long I can contain myself."

I chuckled at that, hooking my arms around his neck tighter as the kiss deepened. His tongue danced over mine as one of his hands moved up and down my body until it hovered right over my wet, teasing me slightly before he started to stroke me. I couldn't help but moan and arch my back slightly, wanting him to put aside the foreplay. I was already ready. He seemed to read my mind as he adjusted himself slightly, taking ahold of himself and rubbing his tip against me a few times.

"Ready?" He breathed, waiting for my nod that seemed a little too eager.

The last time, and only time I had sex was when I was 15, so this feeling was once again like the first. I tried to hide the hitch in my breath but his senses seemed to be on high. He stopped all movement and waited a few seconds, I realized my breathing had stopped. When I took a deep breath he continued till he hit as far as he could go. He stayed there, watching me, and waiting for me to tell him to continue.

For half a second I wanted him to stop. I wanted him to pull out and for us to pretend like this never happened, but I couldn't get him too. I wanted him and I couldn't let my past ruin this, so I opened my eyes and nodded as I pulled his neck till his lips were on mine once more. He pumped slowly, the uncomfortable feeling that I vaguely remember subsiding and pleasure started to increase faster than I thought it would. Almost to the posing where his slow motions were unbearable.

"Jackson go faster." I breathed, repositioning my arms around his neck.

He chuckled out an 'As you wish baby girl' and began to curl his hips up into me faster.

Both of our breathing became heavy and filled the silence of the night. His lips never left mine as he pumped and pumped until he need more. My eyes opened as he sat up, a loving smile touched his lips as he ran his hands down the length of my thighs. I moaned as he pushed my legs up, the new feeling causing my hand to reach out towards his arm and my nails to dig in his skin. I wanted to watch him, to see just how good he was feeling but my own pleasure kept forcing my eyes shut and my head to tilt back. By now his pace was alarming. His muscles flexed and veins started to become visible in his arms and forehead turning me on even more.

"Do you want me to make you cum baby girl?" He asked dipping down again and pressing his lips to my neck. "Or do you want me to save that for another time?"

"Make me cum." I breathed. I didn't know what it felt like, but I had a feeling I was already half way there.

Another moan left my throat, this time it was a noise I didn't known I could make as he licked his finger and placed it on my clit. He pushed one of. My legs up to reach deeper once again and began to circulate.

The feeling of static erupting through my body made me think I was cumming, my hands dug into the mattress and my back kept arching. But when it actually happened I felt as if I lost all control. My moms turned into shot whimpers and my joints all locked, a groan from him told me that he felt my body clenching around his member.

"Let go baby." He grunted, I didn't even know I was holding it in. "I'm right there with you."

I tried to relax but as his pumping quickened even more my body seemed to get tighter and tighter and my whimpers louder. With one quick change of his hips he hit a spot in me that made my fingers extend and my toes curl. The. Everything in me began to shake.

My body flexed as I crunched upwards, my thighs quivering as a cold rush of euphoria ran through my body causing goose bumps to rise over my skin. An ungodly, shaky moan pushed its way out of my throat as I tried to reach up for him. My body seemed to have a mind of his own as my back arch and the quivering intensity once more before my body completely relaxed. He wasn't lying when he said re was right there with me, the moment he felt me finish he was pulling out and came across my stomach, the warm liquid making my skin tingle as what happened hit me.

I laughed and covered my flushed face, laying still as he reached for his sorts once more and cleaned me off. I stayed like that until his hands gently pulled mine away from my face and he laid down next to me.

Smiling softly I tried to cover myself still shy around him even after what we just did. He smiled at me trying to pry my hands away from my face. Giggling he finally gets my hands away from my face. “Stop hiding yourself Y/N. Your gorgeous in every way possible.” Jackson whispers gently kissing my head. Hearing those soothing words help me let loose some of my demons I’ve had since the last time. He kept whispering sweet nothings in my ear luring me slowly to sleep. Something I seriously needed after our night, I never felt more loved than falling asleep next to him.

Nothing could be felt but cold. Ice cold......something I was terrified would happen and it did. Jolting awake holding the blankets to cover myself I look around the somewhat let room. Tears form in my eyes as I come to realize he left me. Sticking my warm hand to touch his cold side makes me start to shake from the anxiety building in my chest. But so something sharp sticks my fingers making blood drip on the white silk sheets. I look at what made me bleed to only see a bouquet of roses tied with a silver bow. The tears start to roll down my rosy cheeks knowing that he only wanted that and left me here alone and forgotten. Grabbing the first thing I see and wrapping around myself. Jackson’s scent warps is way around me as I notice it was his dress shirt that decorated my tan skin. I hear clatter in thee kitchen and i rush in there to see Jackson standing in grey sweat pants with no shirt and his blonde hair in a devlished way from his hand. A sob escapes my throat as I whimper out a thank god. Jackson must’ve hear me causing him to not really to look at me since he’s cooking. “Morning ba-“ He stops short when he looks at me “What’s wrong?” He asks putting down what he was cooking.

I don’t answer him since i rush at him wrapping my small arms around his shoulders. He sees my struggle since he’s so much taller than me as he picks me up putting me on the kitchen counter. I bury myself in the crook of his neck and wrapping my legs around his waist locking him into me. He pulls away pushing hair out of my face. “Baby what is wrong?” He asks anger and concern mixed into his voice. “Did someone hurt you? Did you hurt yourself? A Nightmare?” He kept rambling off questions and more tears just fall down my face, leaving tear stains on the shirt. Taking a deep breath trying to calm myself “I woke up and you weren’t there and i thought you left me for good and it scared me.” I let out a sob with the last word having the anxiety kick up even more. Something flashes in his eyes as he wraps his arms around me calming me down by kissing me gently everywhere he had access too.

He didnt say anything. I’m sure he didnt know what to say he’s never seen me freak out like this before. When i calm down more just sniffing and tears slowly falling now he grabs my hands and kisses them. “I’ll never leave you baby girl. I could never leave you. Your so small and tiny just the thought of someone hurting you makes my blood boil in ways i didnt know were imaginable. Just seeing you with my Members makes me so mad that i almost killed Youngjae for touching you. I never wanted to scare you or make you think that i left you. I just wanted to have breakfast in bed, and do some other things maybe.” He says winking at me causing me to let out a small giggle. I kiss him on the lips enjoying the way he smiles into every kiss.

“You know what I’m taking you back to bed.” He says swooping me up letting a laugh out as i scream out. He kisses me deeply as my hands wrap in his hair as he walks into the room as the door closes i know he’d never leave me.

Fallen

(smut written by Kitty)

[dearmeiguo]

On Falling - 论落下

People can’t stop telling me I’ve lost weight. It’s September of last year. I’m in Beijing. I know it’s hot, but I can’t stop feeling cold, nodding in recognition of this observation, which is just east of a compliment: “Yes, I’ve lost weight. I’ve been very sad.”

The women (they’re mostly women) nod. Maybe they frown. Maybe they smile and try to make a joke out of it (”It’s hardest to lose weight in your face, but you did it,” one woman tells me brightly, “You look so pretty”). 

If I’m being honest, it’s a relief to be heartbroken in China. At least here people understand that sadness is bodily. It’s simply understood that what you cannot bear to feel or say will emerge in some other way. Two years before, my best friend in Beijing does not have postpartum depression; she has a terrible rash that spreads from her neck to her arms and prevents her from holding the baby without tremendous discomfort. For years, another friend nurses a persistent twitch; a consequence, she says, of her divorce. And me, I don’t get sad; I get thin. I don’t manage to look in the mirror every morning, but when I do, I know my friends are right. I can see my clavicle stretching out away from my hollowing chest, my chin revealing some other, previously unexcavated shape. 

I have been thin like this several other times. Once in Taiwan, after I was robbed for rent money the same month I had to front the cost of an international plane ticket for grad school interviews but still didn’t quit kickboxing. I agonized over each 30NT jianbing during the day; I traced the boney bumps running down the center of my chest in fascination at night. And once in 2011, when I realized I was just an angry aside in a faculty meeting from being kicked out of graduate school and losing my health insurance. I still remember staring at the food in the dining hall through the haze of my anxiety and realizing that no matter what I chose, I would have no appetite for it. 

The concept of appetite is a good one, I think. As I withdraw more and more from conflicts, from conversations, from the things that constitute my participation in a profession, I keep thinking, I just don’t have the appetite for this. Every morning, I force myself to eat a full bowl of oatmeal, and still my ribs continue to emerge from my side, one by one: tiny, unfillable caverns leading to the heart of me.

What can sadness do to a body? Here in the USA, I think we’re more used to thinking about the effects of stress, and of course, that makes sense: better to deal with the emotion that can be dealt with, whose excess can be blamed on poor management. When my gums start receding during the first year of graduate school, the dentist is quick to tell me it’s stress. When the corners of my mouth are infested with terrible sores after I move back from China for the first time, the irreverent nurse practitioner tells me I’m deficient in Vitamin B because I am eating poorly and also I am stressed. When I can barely sleep because of a deep aching in my wrists, the doctor says it might be carpal tunnel or it might be stress and hands me a brace (he’s wrong; it’s a strain from scanning books, and it leaves me as soon as I spend two days on a train away from a copy machine). 

A friend of mine who’s good with doctors tells me to be careful: all doctors have a default answer for every symptom, and they will rely on that until proven otherwise. I sit in office after office, and without making eye contact with me, the doctors all ask the same question: Are you stressed? There are so many true answers to this question. Usually I settle on this one, barked out between laughs: This is the least stressed I’ve been in four years.

So I’m not stressed, but I am sad. And what kind of malady is sadness? I don’t carry it the same way I carried stress--in my mouth, through my teeth, with my jaw clenched--but I carry it, anyway. Maybe you’re stressed and you just don’t know it, someone tells me before launching into a vague story about his own chest pains--nothing serious in the end, he assures me, just stress--and I can feel myself narrowing my eyes, becoming unkind. I don’t say the thing I want to say, which is, How manly of you. I don’t do the thing I want to do, which is punish them the way I’d like to punish myself for having to be vulnerable.

Stress is not mysterious to me. I know when I am stressed. My least favorite ex-boyfriend used to claim he could smell my stress after long days of work. I know what he meant. During a period of intense stress in 2015, I find myself hyperventilating first as a technique to calm myself down, and then, when it hits, as a joke. You grew up with stress, someone who should know tells me. And sure: I know how to make space for stress. I know when to start rinsing my mouth with Listerine. I know about the importance of nightly flossing for dental and mental health.

Sadness, on the other hand, is mysterious to me. It takes me by surprise. There’s a way in which there’s no floor to it. At my favorite bar in Koreatown, on the top of a skyscraper overlooking Times Square, I start bawling after a friend asks me an offhand question about the future. I cover my face, not to hide the tears, but to keep the whole city from quivering below me.  In the Oakland Kaiser Parking Lot, I think about an image from the memoir I was reading in the waiting room--of a woman, scrambling under her car in the rain, unable to find the key her former partner promised her would be there--and blubber uncontrollably as I wind the car slowly down the structure, floor by floor. I don’t stop till long after I’ve parked at the wrong destination and walked to the right one. Under the covers in my bright sublet, I feel a great ravine opening up down the front of my ribcage and close my eyes as I tumble down it. 

That night, my joints won’t stop aching, and I know: this is the sadness at work. In the bar, in the car, in my bed, I am falling. In the mornings after, my skin looks different. Tighter. And--if I’m being honest--bluer.

Stay with your anger, my therapist told me once, see if it turns into something else. I know she was being literal, but I can’t help but hope she means something figurative. I picture the scene from Amadeus where Mozart’s face falls after he apprehends his father’s double-sided black mask from the back (where it’s laughing) and then is apprehended by his father when he turns around to reveal the front (where it’s frowning). I love this scene for Mozart’s winning stupidity, for the way neither of his interpretations make any sense. After all, no genuine transformation has taken place. Both sides of his father’s mask are just that: masks. 

I do stay with my anger. It turns into sadness. For almost four months, I spend every day I don’t have to work lying in bed with a tiny calico cat on top of me. At the time, I don’t know what I am doing. A year later, it will be clear I am staying with the sadness so it can turn into something else. I am waiting to hit the floor. 

July of this year: I’ve stopped losing weight. Every week at the doctor’s office, I peek at the scale out of the corner of my eye and feel some small measure of relief: no change. The tests are over. The doctors still want to talk with me about my stress; I switch my pills instead. There’s no full-length mirror in my sublet, and I avoid looking at my reflection in the darkened windows of the vacant retail stores on Shattuck. What am I so afraid to see? Some reminder of my own despair that will send me, once again, into a free fall? Or, worse, no one I recognize--a gaunt stranger, her once-taut face dangling and loose, like some ill-fitting mask? 

My mother says that when I was a toddler, I used to run with my head thrown up and my hands stretched back behind me.  When I explain the scars near my eyes, I don’t know how to tell people that if they stick around long enough, it will all makes sense. That no matter what else they see, this is the face of someone who hit the floor chin-first and kept falling: down, out, and all the way through the other side.