#so naturally i just had to project that onto Dew and then make him be cared for and loved

[sphylor]

if you want to talk about pcos dew use this as a reason because im very in love with the idea

(this is all based on my own experiences with pcos and follows tried and true methods of helping things feel a little less shitty. also god i wish i had a Rain and Mountain ghoul to do these things for me hdsbjdf)

okay so Mountain and Rain look after Dew the most whenever his pcos is causing issues. Mountain keeps his raspberry plants growing all year round just so they can make tea from the leaves to help with Dew's cramps. they'll both encourage him to sit up from where he's been led in his bed, curled up around his middle with his hands pressed onto his abdomen like heat pads. Mountain will lay him up against his chest and replace Dew's hands with his own. they're warm like stones left out in the sun all day and that combined with gentle massages means they help ease the pain a little. Rain passes him his tea and feeds him the iron rich meals that they both prepared for him. the tea doesn't have any real flavour itself but its loaded with honey from Mountain's bees and Dew loves it.

they encourage him to go on walks when he can manage it, even if it is just a few laps around his room or down the corridor to the ghoul den and back. they let him lean on them whenever he needs to. when his cramps are so bad that he can't move about too much Mountain will carry him around and take him outside for fresh air. Normally Dew's in too much pain to actually pay attention to what Mountain's saying about each of the plants but the sound of his voice and steady heartbeat against his ear help distract him from the pain somewhat.

when Dew needs help getting cleaned up Mountain will change any sheets and put any clothes and other soiled stuff in the wash while Rain helps Dew clean up. sometimes all he can manage/needs is a quick shower where he'll lean up against Rain with his eyes closed and let the water ghoul do the work. other times baths are better especially on the more painful days. they'll sit in the tub together and again Dew will let Rain do all the work while he rests. the warm water soothes his pain and the steam helps if he has a migraine.

when they all lay down to sleep together in Mountain's big bed, Mountain will emit lavender and chamomile scents to help Dew sleep through the discomfort and pain. if he cant get to sleep even with that, though, Rain stays awake with him for as long as he needs (Mountain can't help falling asleep as the sun goes down bur Rain is always staying up late anyway). they talk or watch films or tv shows on Mountain's laptop and Rain does everything he can to help distract Dew from the pain and discomfort for long enough so that he can fall asleep. Dew really appreciates his company. he appreciated both of their efforts so so much. and how the rest of the pack helps too! but Rain and Mountain genuinely do not leave his side the whole time.

(aaa i also have some nsfw thoughts on the matter but maybe those are for another post ;3)

[nocturnalghoul-archive]

I originally thought up a bunch of ghoul hockey ideas/headcannons while I was at work yesterday (which I'll probably end up just dumping into its own post as is) that I meant to follow up on and expand today but then instead I wrote the following two little things that are really only hockey adjacent lol. I blame @forlorn-crows and @askingforthesun for reminding me I like hockey and giving me the Ghoul Hockey brainrot.

The first one centers on Dew's pregame rituals and the second is a follow up concerning... zambonis I guess? The both of them together probably total about 1.2k so I'm gonna stick 'em under a readmore :)

Pre-game Ritual

After enough damage was caused by restless ghouls cooped up in the abbey during the winter, the decision was quickly made to try and facilitate an outlet for the, to work out pent up energy. A short while later, hockey gear and sticks appeared and weekly games between the ghouls have been commonplace ever since. It took a while for the idea to truly catch on in the beginning, but by the time Copia came to lead the Ghost Project it was a well loved tradition and something that the ghouls got very invested in.

Dew had first picked up the idea of a pregame ritual from Omega, who was a firm believer in the same meal before each game to bring him luck.

... It may have gotten a little out of control from there. Is it truly a superstition if it gets you the desired results though? Dew definitely didn't think so. Over the years he gained more and more "habits" as he would refer to them to help him out in games until it reached the current state of affairs. Before each game he had 5 things that he swore were essential otherwise the game would go horribly.

A good pregame meal: The first of his many quirks he stole directly from Omega then later changed to make his own. For lunch before their weekly game he would always make one of the same two chicken and pasta dishes. After he became a fire ghoul it was still the same meal, but he made them so spicy that only he or another fire ghoul could stand to eat it. Originally he claimed that is just helped him get into the hockey mindset, but that statement later changed to him saying it helped him get fired up both literally and metaphorically to hit the ice.

Zamboni time: Eventually Dew got tired of always being the one to trip on the rouge debris stuck to the ice when they played. He eventually figured out that a fire ghoul and a water ghoul could run out there before the game and together essentially create a makeshift Zamboni equivalent out of ghoul magic so that the ice would be clean and smooth. At first he and Ifrit would go out and do it, but later he and Rain continued the tradition. It was almost meditative in a way, but he kept that part to himself.

A lucky charm: This particular aspect was the only one that he was willing to admit was truly superstitious. In his pocket every time he went out onto the ice, he carried a little plastic figurine of a phoenix that Aether and Mountain had given to him just before he left to undergo the process of becoming a fire ghoul. They said it was a good luck charm and a reminder that they were thinking of him and supporting him the whole time, even if they couldn't be there. It has been one of the only constants he had in the beginning. Dew figured that if it was good luck then than it was absolutely good luck now. It also reminded him that his pack had his back both on and off the ice, however he deemed that particular sentiment a bit too sappy to ever admit out loud. He would turn the small figure around in his hands just before the game and whenever he was sitting out off the ice.

Some good tunes and a nap: It doesn't matter how sleep deprived you are, a quick little disco nap can make you right as rain and ready to absolutely crush the competition. Dew knows this is a friendly game between the ghouls to let off steam and bond as a pack but he is 100% the kind of person to let his competitive nature get the best of him in this scenario. Besides, cleaning the ice uses a lot of energy and makes him sleepy. Also listen, Dew is a musician and everybody knows that the right playlist can be essential to get into the right headspace. The nap is also an excuse to lay in his room and listen to his pregame playlist. It is most closely guarded of his "habits" and kept secret from the other ghouls lest they try to mess with it and cause it to stop working. It is totally not because it's mostly bubblegum pop and he has a reputation to uphold.

Handshakes: The final superstition habit he developed before a game was a special handshake with whoever his line mates were going to be for the evening. Sometimes the ghouls would mix up who played what position and so he developed a different handshake with each member of the team. The most complicated of which are with Cumulus and Rain. The ghoulette was originally the one to instigate this behavior the first time and then they won 3-0 so slowly everybody else also gained their own unique pattern.

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

A follow-up thing I thought up expanding upon the second pregame superstition. How it came to be and how it transformed

Zamboni Boys

Preparing the ice before a game became almost ritualistic at a point. Controlled melt. Shape. Smooth. Freeze.

Dew had originally thought up the idea one day after watching Ifrit accidentally melt some of the snow around him when he got startled while they were on a walk together. The frozen lake in the winter is a great opportunity for a little ghoulish hockey, but is rough and full of imperfections to get caught on. Dew, tired of always being the unlucky one to catch whatever was stuck to the surface of the ice and all its rough patches with his skates, quickly formulated a plan.

If he had Ifrit use a little fire magic to carefully melt the very top layer of the ice, sweep all the debris away, then he could use a little water magic to help the surface refreeze all smooth and pretty. Essentially making them a makeshift Zamboni. After a little trial and error to get the process right, the remainder of the lake went smoothly and the result was beautiful.

Once Dew switched elements the process was one of the few ways that he had left to tether himself to who he was before.

The first winter after he reemerged as a fire ghoul, when the time came for the weekly hockey games between the ghouls to resume Dew was crushed. He had come to relish the meditative actions of preparing the ice and found that it always brought him a sense of tranquility. To lose that was just salt in the wound. As winter drew near he had started to dread the upcoming ghoul games knowing that they would only remind him of all he had lost.

Luckily, Rain had heard from one of the other ghouls about Dew's old pregame habit. Dew was resistant at first, but later had to admit that even if he was now doing the opposite side of the job , it still made him incredibly happy. After explaining the process to Rain and some slight coaching on technique they set out to prepare the lake for the first game of the season.

For the first time in months, Dew felt truly zen. By the end of it his face was hurting from smiling and laughing so much with Rain as they had fun on the ice. The two went on to regroup with the other ghouls so that the game could begin, Dew twirling his lucky charm in his pocket and truly giddy the whole way back.

The game was a mix of some older ghouls and the new current band pack on each team in order to give the newer ghouls a chance to better pick up on how to play the game in action. As the weeks went on, and Rain and Dew continued to prepare the ice together, he started to find that not only was the time to themselves bringing him closer to Rain, but also to his former element.

[bruinescence]

@reining-disaster cont.

"No one knows that better than I- I assure you." Whether he meant his size was hard to fit fully into the light with a larger party, or because he'd been dealing with the shadow curse for the past hundred years, he didn't specify. Palm wet from the roaming tear, he offers the other's distress a smile. One that great Silvanus might bestow upon the unbalanced of his territory - waiting for all to be made right once more. "It is all right. I would not lose another to this curse-...let alone myself until I am able to fix what I have yet to mend." And he meant it sincerely with every fiber of his will.

Shifting in an awkward attempt to keep from slumping too much weight on the other once he realized his ankle was sore from the shadow's thrashing, Halsin wobbled only slightly before steadying himself with a hand clasped to Rein's shoulder. The heat that graced the other's face was not lost on him with his elven dark vision combined with the lantern's light, but he kept the observation tucked under his tongue for the benefit of their predicament. They needed a short respite against the shadows if they were to continue undeterred.

"No worries. I've endured about three and a half centuries worth of abuse. A few moments more won't break me. But I suppose having your support is a boon in the end-"

A wince and a shift surely enough alerted the other to his temporary turmoil. Not good, considering how much the other liked to take an issue and run flailing off a cliff with it-..but he supposed there was naught but they could do but to shuffle off to a short rest off near one of the abandoned camps the shadow curse had already swallowed a hundred years prior. "You are-...most perceptive. But I shouldn't worry you so. Just a light sprain. A short rest should do me good. And I'm guessing one might help you calm down from our previous ...endeavor." He added, offering Rein a twitch of a smile.

"I am...astounded once again by your selflessness. But I could not intrude further without offering you my own aid first." Halsin noted, taking the moment to squeeze Rein's shoulder for support before pushing off. A stumble led him to catch himself on one palm against the ground and onto one haunch while the other lay slack beneath him. A twitch or two encouraged the druid's head upwards, eyes flashing a golden light that all but lifted him briefly beneath the arms where it had free reign to rip clothing from the edge of his from and replace fibers with fur and a wider stature by far. A splitting whine of a roar followed the dimming of the light resting on the edges of fur like dew drops as Halsin rose to three paws, lifting one in front of him to keep the soreness out of the joint.

[Better three feet on the ground than one, I say.] He projected to his company with a roar for any uttered sound, though the wood elf's voice followed up behind in a telepathic nature. [Let us make haste.] With a hoppy turn, he pressed his shoulder against the other's flank for additional support and began to hobble up the embankment with a lumbering gait.

[deadpoetsmuses]

"inspiration". | neil perry, dps.

in which a summer is spent with the poets, with a significant feature of neil perry.

✧ title: "inspiration".

✧ pairing: neil perry x fem!reader.

✧ genre: fluff, with slight mentions of angst.

✧ word count: 2,733.

✧ warnings: written in headcanon format, home life mentions, the reader lives in meeks' grandma's house, knox being a simp for chris.

✦ author’s note: requested by @mybabysweetascanbe! it's kinda funky how i wrote this as a headcanon but it still ended up being my longest fic lmao. also i wrote the poem that neil made for the reader myself so i'm sorry if it's kinda cheesy 🗿 but i hope you all enjoy this one !! don't forget to take care of yourselves guys <3

✎ The summer holidays had always been a time for the poets’ relief.

✎ Their academic year was constantly filled with difficulties for the poets, but it was harder for some when they were home for the summer.

✎ Neil felt as though he couldn’t be himself-- he loved reading and writing even more so than he did with accomplishing any of his parents’ wishes, like heading into medical school. He especially loved to act, and it was rough to keep that concealed around his dictatorial father.

✎ Todd’s older brother would be at home as well, and it was worse enough being in his shadow; but it had gotten worse with every one of his parents’ daily proclamations.

“We were quite disappointed with your grades from last semester, son,” His father reprimanded, looking down on him with stern eyes. “I just don’t understand what’s gotten into you. Your mother and I raised you quite well and you have your brother to guide you along. You know that he’s remarkably intelligent and well accomplished. Why can’t you be more like your brother?”

✎ Charlie and Knox had been just like Neil. The constant pressure that their parents put on them about becoming a banker and a lawyer was daunting; and all they wanted was to simply live as regular teenagers without concern for their future.

✎ Fortunately, Meeks’ grandmother was a woman who had a colossal and motherly love for the poets with a sizable residence in which her grandson’s friends could inhabit during their vacation.

✎ Thus, the poets resided in the Meeks household in the summer before their senior year so as to escape the stress and troubles brought to them in their own homes.

✎ Even though the summer was fleeting and their time was short, the poets found their time to be everlasting when they met the student boarder of the house.

✎ She went by the name of Y/N, which was a name that sounded just as sweet as the lady to whom it was attached.

“Hello, everybody! I’m Y/N!” The girl said, reaching out her hand to shake one of the poets’. Truth be told, it had been quite some time since any one of the boys had been in close contact with a woman; so they found themselves to be quite the martians in the situation. It took a few moments before one of the poets-- Neil Perry-- could offer his hand and shake hers. “I’m Neil! We’re friends of Meeks and his classmates from Welton.” The boy swore that he felt a spark as their fingertips touched, but he tossed the feeling aside; along with the apparition that he saw of a faint glimmer in Y/N’s eyes.

✎ The boys instantly took her in to their little group, and they all fell in love with her personality-- which was a platonic statement of course; but Neil Perry found this to be otherwise as he actually began falling into love with the new girl.

✎ He loved the way she cared for her new friends, the way she projected her personality through the clothes she wore, and all of the little smiles she gave him.

✎ With every beam and twinkle that she delivered, Y/N found herself to be falling for Neil as well.

✎ He provided a feeling for her that made the blacks of her eyes expand and butterflies to quiver inside-- which was the very same one Neil had felt when he first laid his eyes on her.

✎ She had been a fantastic addition to the band of poets, and the boys could not have had it any other way.

Despite the summer coming into fruition, the poets did not fail to meet up in their little cave every once in a while to read poetry, discuss girls, and laugh. The first meeting of that summer was simply like any other. “Guys, what do we think of Y/N?” Meeks questioned. A clamor of answers that ranged between “I think she’s great,” and “Do you think Mrs. Meeks has any more people in her house like Y/N?” echoed in the dark cave. Clearly, the boys had favored Y/N; but certainly not to the point where they’d be infatuated with her. “Yeah, I think she’s nice. She’s really pretty too,” Knox added. “Woah there Knoxious,” Charlie replied, expelling out a chortle. “I don’t think Chris would like to hear that. And besides, she looks more like she’s Neil’s type than yours.” Charlie’s words weren’t incorrect, but it was needless to say that Neil had strongly agreed with that statement.

✎ Over the summer, they would all begin to get to know each other better.

✎ The poets eventually introduced Y/N to the intricate realm of poetry, and she wholeheartedly fell in love with every line that was recited.

✎ They enjoyed every moment of their fleeting time together. Of course, there would be times where the boys would get into small fights and bickers.

✎ Pitts would always be yelling at Charlie for taking an ungodly amount of time in the shower, while Charlie would be yelling back about how Pitts always seemed to inhale the food that Mrs. Meeks provided for them before he himself could even take one bite.

✎ Cameron did his best to do some summer reading at night, but he found it quite hard as his room was beside Knox’s room, and Knox would spend hours on end talking to Chris over the phone.

“Oh, Chris. How do I love thee?” Knox sighed, lacing the telephone cords in between his fingers. “That’s the title of a poem we learned in Mr. Keating’s class. It reminds me of how lovely you are. Of course, she’s not as pretty as you are,” Knox’s giggles not only erupted through the phone; but it travelled through the walls as well, disrupting Cameron from the climax of his novel. “We get it, Knox! You’re a romantic poet! Now why don’t you go tell Chris about how you finished with a D minus in English!”

✎ While all of the little squabbles took place, they hadn’t even noticed the slight change in Neil and Y/N’s behavior.

✎ Y/N seemed to be keeping to herself more often, while Neil appeared to have possessed an undying smile on his face around the poets; particularly in the mornings when everyone gets up early except for him and Y/N.

✎ Little did they know, Y/N’s room had been vacant for the past few days since the arguments began-- which was approximately three weeks after the boys had arrived to the Meeks’ residence; and Neil seemed to be giggling in his room every night when the rest were asleep.

✎ In the duration of those three weeks, Neil had become more familiar with Y/N than any of the other poets had been.

✎ They’d walk along the nearby river every morning, discuss poetry in the late afternoons, and eventually fall asleep in each other’s arms at night.

“How long have you been living here?” Neil inquired, peering into Y/N’s eyes. His vision didn’t have to stretch too far as his face had only been a breath away from Y/N’s. The pair laid together under the warm covers of Neil’s bed with their legs entangled in one another’s and their hands interlocked, talking about anything and everything that came to their minds. “It’s been two years since Mrs. Meeks took me in,” She replied, gazing over Neil’s chiseled face. “In the whole time I’ve been here, I think you’re the most interesting thing that’s happened to me,” Y/N added, beaming up at Neil. Hearing her words, Neil slowly leaned his lips onto Y/N’s forehead, giving her an endearing kiss. She too had been the most interesting thing to happen to Neil in a long time.

✎ For each and every day that they were together, Neil wrote love poems.

✎ His poems revolved around his time with Y/N and included detail of all sorts; such as how colors appeared to be more bright and more vivid when he was with her and how lovelier the birds had sounded in the morning during their walks.

"My love,

The luminosity of the golden sun

does not compare to the radiance

of your glowing skin.

In this air full of morning dew,

the most beautiful scent in the air

is still you.

The sounds we hear of the melodious

birds are all because of your presence,

and they sing only for your beauty.

I look into your eyes and I see nature

reflected back at me; but it is much more

pleasant to perceive than if I were to do so

through my own set of eyes.

Though the morning lasts for a mere set of hours,

My fascination for you can go for as long as

this smooth river flows.

✎ Neil felt embarrassed about being so infatuated with Y/N, so he kept his poems hidden for the time being.

✎ Somehow, the boys had failed to notice Neil and Y/N’s constant disappearance.

✎ Although, they’d make little remarks from time to time that ran along the lines of “Ooh, Neil found a muse!” and “Y/N definitely likes somebody here. It’s probably me.”

✎ The last comment came from Charlie, which later earned him a smack on the head from Neil.

✎ So, Neil and Y/N did their best to keep their relationship hidden throughout the summer.

✎ The two were rather domestic in their relationship; they did all of the typical-couple activities that everyone else had done.

✎ To anyone else it would have been rather common to witness, but to them it was simply extraordinary being with one another.

It had been a scenic day at the river that morning. The beauty of the nature surrounding it had been ordinarily pleasing to Y/N; but all of its best qualities were magnified for Neil as his hand was in hers and the only thing he could smell was her fragrance. He had been quite nervous for the entire morning as he promised himself the night before that he would finally gather the courage to say those three magic words he’d been imagining to say for quite some time. Unbeknownst to him, Y/N had been thinking the same and had been visualizing how she would say it at that moment for the past few hours since. Just when the cascading waters began to relax and the chirping of the birds started to quiet down, the pair stopped on their trail and those three words were finally professed by Neil in a sudden manner while Y/N had spoken the same in a clear and gentle tone. They looked into each other’s eyes, recognizing the same look of love and eventually realizing what was said. As it was acknowledged, the two lovers simply smiled at each other and kept walking along; their hearts now beating on the same rhythm and their minds thinking of nothing but one another.

✎ Time to time, they would go up to the attic and listen to the music from Mrs. Meeks’ old gramophone, caressing one another as they slowly dance along to the lyrics of Ella Fitzgerald’s songs.

✎ Neil would always sneak a flower out of Mrs. Meeks’ rose garden and leave it on Y/N’s bedside table for her to wake up to.

✎ One of Y/N’s ways of communicating her love would be recommending books to Neil that she thinks is encompassed with his personality. Since then, Neil’s library had enlarged to a great extent.

✎ There would also be some occasions where one of them-- mostly Neil-- would get a little cheeky and try to express their love for the other out in the open.

“Eat up, boys! You know there’s plenty more of where that came from, so don’t be afraid to dig in!” Mrs. Meeks endorsed, setting down a bowl of mashed potatoes. With a jubilant ‘thank you’, everyone at the table promptly began to tuck into the mouthwatering cuisine. The boys soon found themselves distracted with the heavenly taste of Mrs. Meeks’ cooking; and Neil took this opportunity to covertly sneak his right hand onto Y/N’s thigh under the table. A scarlet blush crept its way up to Y/N’s cheek as she sent Neil a glare. Though her eyes expressed the message of “Not here!”, every other signal in her body sent the message of ‘Yes, Please’ to a very triumphant Neil.

✎ The summer inevitably came to an end and the boys were forced to return to Welton, much to their dismay.

✎ They couldn’t stand ending their summer; and they especially couldn’t stand leaving their new friend behind while the rest of them stayed together.

“Oh God, How are we supposed to leave this beautiful girl all alone in this big house?!” Charlie pleaded, theatrically dropping down to his knees and shouting out loud to the heavens. “It’s all just too emotional for us,” Pitts added as he went along with his friend’s act, his head bowing down to the ground in grief as he placed a comforting hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Just take me with her, God! Let me be with Y/N at her all-girls school!”

✎ Despite all of the inconveniences they put upon Y/N, the poets really did leave a mark on her. These boys showed her a new way of life-- she knows what ‘Carpe Diem’ means, and she knows how to seize her days because of them.

✎ Of course, Neil had a harder time coming into terms with their departure more than anyone else.

✎ Leaving the Meeks’ residence meant that he was leaving Y/N, which was something that he hadn’t prepared himself for.

“I’m not ready to leave you,” Neil confessed. Tears were beginning to form in his eyes, but he quickly blinked them away. After the individual hugs and goodbyes Y/N had given to the rest of the poets, the ill-fated time had come when she had to bid her own farewell to her lover. Neil believed that though their time was short and fleeting, it truly had been something special and something that he’ll never forget. Y/N was his first love, his first muse, his first everything; and no amount of riches could ever sum up to the prominence of that. Y/N placed her hand on Neil’s face, stroking away his tears with her thumb as she felt her eyes begin to swell up as well. “I’ll write to you every day, Neil.” Naturally, Y/N was on the brink of tears as well. She couldn’t bear to leave Neil after everything he’s shown her. It feels like she’s known him forever, yet everything felt so new and exciting with him. She loved him too much, and she knows she’ll continue to love him long after.

✎ Neil was afraid that she would forget about what they had soon after she had left, so he decided to give her all of the poems he had written about her.

✎ As her hands clasped the thick set of parchment, the tears she had been trying so hard to conceal had all poured out, staining the paper and her hands.

“Neil… these are beautiful,” She croaked. Her eyes skimmed over every title and date, realizing that there had been a poem for each and every splendid day that they had been together. “You’re beautiful, Y/N. That’s why I wrote these,” Neil corrected. “Everything I love about you is in these poems, and all of the love I have for you is written in each letter. I just don’t want you to forget about me while we’re apart.” The absurdity of Neil’s words made Y/N chuckle softly before she stepped forward and linked her hands around Neil’s neck, reducing the space between their lips. “I love you, Neil. You’re always going to be in my mind and you’ll always have my heart in the little pocket of your Welton blazer.”

✎ Y/N felt truly fortunate to have met Neil. This summer had come as quite a surprise for her-- she did not expect to fall in love so soon and with such an extraordinary person like Neil Perry. He was everything she’d ever looked for and he gave everything she deserved.

✎ Even though the bright days of the summer had ended and the early falling leaves of the autumn was yet to arrive, the change was of no concern as the only thing that mattered was what had been consistent-- and for Y/N and Neil, the thing that stood still for the two of them despite all odds was each other.

dedicated to these lovely people!! @mybabysweetascanbe @disagreeingpoets @catflowerbean @galaxyrhytm @nananostalgic @ughgclden @towriteabetterlife @neilsemeraldsweater @yourpal @willowestelle

[capt-spooki3]

By The Witch's Grace

Route Unlocked: Phil

Chapter Four: First Lesson

A Sbi "choose your own story" fanfiction

Click here for story description

Warnings: cursing, fainting

4.4k words

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Y/n stepped down the stairs on the porch, they decided on going to go find Phil because they were eager to ask him all about magic. As they walked down the last step, Wilbur hopped up with the guitar in hand and a big smile when he saw them.

“Hey! Uh Y/n, good morning, I was going to ask if you could help teach me guitar?” He held the instrument up in his hands, gently like he was afraid to break it. “You seem like you’d be a good teacher.”

“Oh, yeah, I can teach you sometime. I’m going to go find where Phil went off to, but there are music books on the shelf if you want to get started!” They smiled at him, his face falling a little and shoulders lowering before a small smile returned and he stood, looking a little too tense.

“Of course! Of course… have fun Y/n.”

They waved to him as they walked away, feeling a little guilty to leave him like that, but brushed it off as they approached the tree line and heard soft humming from within the trees.

“Why in the world does he have to be all the way in the woods- hey, Phil?” They stopped before the grass was taller and waited to see if they would get a response, but they got nothing. Right as they stepped forward to walk into the taller brush, a flicker of blue light illuminated from farther in the trees. “Using magic instead of words… of course.” They couldn’t help but smile and scoffed but continued forward into the forest.

A few paces in and they spotted him sitting in a clearing they were sure wasn’t there before, just watching a floating blue light right above the palm of his hand. There was a thin line of blue light that shone dimly around the area of the clearing. He almost seemed to be actively ignoring their presence until they took a step into the circle and he turned to them just before they tripped on seemingly nothing. Losing all sense of balance in an instant, they fell forward flat on the ground. They slowly opened their eyes up, groaning softly, but quickly realizing they weren’t in the forest anymore. The circle he had been sitting in had turned into a pasture on a small hill that overlooked an overgrown piece of land and instead of being morning, it was night now. Crickets sang softly and lightning bugs glittered the area and even the air smelt of dew and coldness of the night.

“What the hell…” They got to their feet slowly, looking around in awe while Phil watched in silence. They walked forward but stopped at the softly glowing, blue circle that seemed to be the same area of the clearing they saw before stepping in. “What is this… Phil?” Turning to him, they watched his hand enclose around the blue light he was holding, and it burst into little blue embers before disappearing before he stood up to join them at the edge of the circle.

“Peaceful isn’t it?” He spoke softly so as not to disturb the quietness around them both. “It’s magic in case you couldn’t tell, I’m surprised you couldn’t feel it before you stepped in.” He said with a little laugh, quietly surveying the area with a smile.

“What do you mean?

“Hm?”

They gestured aimlessly with their hands.”What you just said- the.. ‘couldn’t feel it’ bit. What does that mean?”

“Oh! Right, my bad mate” He laughed at himself, taking a moment to sit down again though beside them this time before he explained. “Let’s see, how can I explain this in a way that would make sense… so magic has a feeling when your soul is in tune to it, you’ll have a sixth sense in a way once you work on being able to feel it. When you get close to a magical area or even a person that uses magic, your soul will react.” Y/n looked at him like he was crazy when he said that but his smile just grew wider. “It feels warm like you’re standing near a fire on a cool summer night. I’m sure you’ll get a hang of the feeling quickly though so don’t worry. You know what! Let’s start on that now.”

He turned himself to face them and crossed his legs, patting the area in front of himself as he looked up at them to urge them to sit. They took another look out at the millions of fireflies that simply mesmerized them before sitting in front of him with their legs crossed as well. He reached over and took both of their hands in his and held them gently. Y/n just watched, confused but incredibly interested. They didn’t say a word and just watched him. 

Phil closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath and blowing it out. Slowly, his hands began to emit a gentle yellow that glowed the brightest in his veins nearest to his hands. The color started to crawl onto their hands around where he held onto them like it was a tiny fire spreading from his hands onto theirs. As his light grew slightly brighter, they felt a comforting warmth begin to bloom in their chest. Just like Phil described, it was like a fire was surrounding their chest but it didn’t burn it just protected and warmed.

“Do you feel it yet?” He opened one eye at them while they stared back, eyes wide and gleaming from the dim magic.

“You feel this all the time?”

“Not all the time, just sometimes. Like when we first met you, you were very warm, I could sense the magic from your home before you even opened the door. I swore you’d be able to feel my magic too, but I guess it makes more sense now that you couldn’t.” He slowly let their hands go, the glow falling away from their hands as well as his shortly after. “Is the warmth gone yet?”

They put a hand on their chest, watching it while they focused on their chest for the feeling, but it was long gone. It saddened them a little, but they looked back up to Phil and nodded. “Yeah, it went away as soon as you let go. How did you do that? What did you do?” 

“I condensed a lot of magic into my hands and boosted your aura with it. That’s the little thing surrounding your soul that lets you sense that magic, we’ll have to train yours if you want to sense magic on your own. Though…” He trailed off, holding their gaze a moment before he looked over at the star-littered sky. “That may take a while. As much as I want to encourage you to have time to spend with my sons and bond with them, this is an important part of learning. I’d have to ask you to spend most of your days with me until we’ve mastered this.”

“That’s fine!” They replied immediately, startling him as they leaned forward in excitement. “I want to learn! I’ll gladly give you all my time, I want to learn as much as I can. Like… like how to do this.” They said, gesturing to the projected area around them. “And… I don’t know, how to turn people into pigs or something.”

Phil burst out laughing which carried over to Y/n, making them giggle along with him. “Who are you? Circe?” He joked but they just ended up looking at him with confusion. “She’s a goddess who is well known for turning men to swine. Though… in all honesty, you do kind of remind me of her now that I’ve connected the dots. At least from what I have read of her.”

He left the topic on that note, not giving any indication of explaining his thoughts either. He taught them, quietly, in ways to feel natural magic. He explained to them the ways this earth held its own magic and if you were in tune with your soul, you could feel it in strong magical areas. There was even a promise to show them what he meant once they could feel his magic without aid.

Time passed while they sat together within the realm he made. It could have been hours and Y/n could have never been able to tell as the moment they were living in under the moonlight never seemed to end. The peace was everlasting and they couldn’t complain, this was the first time they have felt so at peace and safe with another person in years. Phil was patient with them in their confusion with this magic he was clearly well versed in, he calmly eased their mind when they grew frustrated and offered a new way to try and learn their soul. 

When they finally began to feel dim warmth in their chest again, he seemed much more excited over it than they were even when he was just teaching them. He questioned them on how it felt and if they could enhance the feeling along with other questions that made no sense to them as he used words that held no meaning in their mind.

“You made a lot of progress today, I’m proud of you. I think you need a well-deserved break though, we’ve been at this for quite a while.” He said to them while getting up slowly to stretch his legs and even his wings as he unfurled them, stretching them out for a moment before pulling them in to offer Y/n his hand to help them up.

They took his hand, standing up slowly as their legs ache from sitting in the same position for so long. “It feels like we’ve been here for hours.” They complained, looking up at him. “ How long… have we been in here?”

“I’d say it’s been all day.”

“Wha- hold on, all day!? Oh no, I told Wilbur I’d teach him guitar!" Y/n ripped their hand away from Phil’s when they ran to run out of the magic domain and apologize to Wilbur. They had no intention of stopping until Phil yelled out in a panic.

“No, wait- Circe!” It was too late by the time they heard him as they were already halfway out of the illusion, but as soon as they felt the chilled air on the other side, their vision darkened. The last thing they could feel was their fall being stopped by hands grabbing their arms and holding them most steadily by the waist. It didn’t seem to take too long for them to regain consciousness as their eyes settled on the treetops around them, hardly outlined against the night sky.

“Hey there, are you with me?” They turned their vision to beside them, being met with Phil’s face. He smiled at them despite the worry that was prevalent in his expression. The pounding in their head hit shortly after, holding their forehead with one hand as they groaned softly as they were pushed up into a sitting position though Phil kept his arm on their shoulders for support.

“What just happened?” Y/n mumbled out, tears were starting to prick their eyes from the pain. Phil ran a hand over their head to smooth out their hair, tending to them in a caring manner. “I assume… I shouldn’t have tried to leave that fast huh.” The realization had come slowly and he laughed softly at them, now holding their gaze.

“It was a bit too strong for you, that would be my fault. I should have warned you much earlier about that, the drastic change in magic around all around you to nothing but small traces of natural magic is enough to take anyone down especially after being surrounded by it for so long like we were.” He got his feet under him and stood up but kept a slight lean as he held both hands out to help them up. It took quite the effort to pull them up since their body still felt weak and their legs were jello, but they were standing at least with the help of holding onto Phil for dear life. “Wanna head back to the house? I’m sure Will has already started cooking and we can get you some medicine.”

They sighed, dropping their head onto his chest. “Yeah… that’s fine. I need a minute though.” Each time they moved so they could adjust their position, their legs nearly gave out so they didn’t want to risk collapsing on the way.

“Do you need me to carry you?” He offered, leaning his head to the side to see their face but they just laughed.

“No, no I’m fine.”

A couple of moments passed by and he started to push them off of him but consoled them quickly when they started to panic. “You’re fine, just let me pick you up okay?” He waited until they nodded that it was okay and slowly scooped them up into his arms since it was the easiest way to carry them other than on his back as his wings made that a bit difficult. They kept an arm around his neck to feel more secure and leaned into him a little, head resting on their arm over his shoulder. He didn’t prompt them to talk since they were visibly tired so that gave them time to just think while he made his way through the brush and trees.

They hummed softly before muttering. “Phil?”

“Yeah mate?”

“Why did you call me Circe?”

“Oh, yeah I guess I did huh?” He chuckled at his carelessness and glanced down at them though they only matched his gaze last second before he looked away to watch where he was going. “I’m sorry about that, I’ve been thinking about you and your resemblance to her since I mentioned it. I guess it fits you better than expected so I felt compelled to call you it.” He trailed off, the silence being filled with the crunching of sticks and leaves still on the ground from autumn that hasn’t had time to decompose since that year’s winter had come on too fast. They had begun to space out but snapped back when hearing him whisper to them. “I won’t make the mistake again, don’t worry.”

“Actually… it’s okay.” They moved their head a bit to watch the scenery pass as Phil walked, finally getting past the treeline “It’s endearing.”

Phil looked down at them and laughed softly. “You like it?” They nodded their head, not being able to help a smile. “Hm… I might just continue to use it then how’s that sound-” Right as he finished his sentence they both were startled by the door of the house being slammed open. They looked toward the sound to see Technoblade standing there with a hand on the wide-open door, looking slightly disheveled and worried.

“Phil! There you are!” Techno ran down the stairs and to the two, grasping Phil’s shoulders and checking him over feverishly while Phil watched amusingly. He looked Y/n over once he was sure Phil was okay. “I didn’t know where you two were, I was worried and- why do you both reek of magic? Did something happen? Are you okay? Why are you carryi-”

Phil cut him off “Hey hey, mate we’re fine! We are both okay, calm down.” He tenses up his wings and gives them a little shake before relaxing them again. “I was just teaching them and they left my realm illusion a little too fast and they aren’t used to strong magic changes like that.” He adjusted them in his arms and glanced at them. “They are just a little weak. If you want to help though, can you carry them into their room for me? I might be strong enough to carry them, but not for a long time.”

Techno took Y/n from Phil quickly and without a word, letting them get comfortable in his arms like they were with Phil. He waited to head toward the house until Phil started walking and made sure to keep to his side, he was acting just like a dog who hasn’t seen his owner for a little too long. He asked little questions on what the two were practicing and listening intently to Phil as he explained, though Y/n had to close their eyes at this point as a wave of drowsiness washed over them as they listened to the two talking. The deep rumble in Techno’s chest every time he spoke was oddly comforting, almost equivalent to that of a cat purring.

It seemed they dozed off because they were being gently laid on their bed the next thing they knew. The pillows had already been propped up so they could sit up easier. They sat back and looked at Techno once he had set them down. He gave them a light smile, patting them on the head to mess their hair up a little.

“Phil’s gonna be back soon, he’s getting you something to eat.” He said before turning away to talk out the door.

“Uh- Technoblade? Could you tell Wilbur to come here for me?” They sat up straight, waiting for a reply as he looked back at them. With a little laugh, he gave them a thumbs up and left the room with a small wave to them.

A few moments passed by while they waited, in that time Poppy raced into their room to offer nuzzles and lay on them to make everything better. They had become so focused on the cat and giving her attention that they didn’t notice Wilbur in the doorway until he knocked. Looking up at him in surprise, he waved with a smile and slowly walked over to their side with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Hey, I heard from dad what happened. How are you feeling?”

“Tired?” They laughed, watching as he sat on the side of the bed while they spoke. “I’m doing okay, I’m sure I’ll be fine by morning. Speaking of, Will I’m so sorry. I meant to come and help you learn guitar today but Phil kept me so busy that by the time he said to stop, it was night.” They leaned forward to emphasize their seriousness. “Tomorrow, bright and early, We’ll go down in the basement and I’ll help teach you okay?”

“Only if you’re feeling up to it alright?” He reached over, petting Poppy and making the cat lean into his hand and roll over to get more pets. “I don’t think anyone here wants you overdoing it.”

“I will and I promise, we can spend the whole day if you want.” They told him, glancing up when they noticed movement by the doorway again and seeing Phil with a bowl and a piece of bread.

He walked over and set it on the night table which was on the opposite side of the bed that Wilbur was on. “All day?” He asked, looking at Y/n who turned to him.

“Is that alright?”

“Hm..” Phil put his hands on his hips, dramatically taking his time to think. “I guess so, you probably want to have a day to recover from this huh.” With a small laugh, he rubbed their back lightly before heading out of the room. “Eat up and both of you sleep soon, it’s late.”

“Goodnight Phil!”

“Goodnight!” Wilbur echoed, watching him go before he looked back to Y/n. He looked like he had something he wanted to say but took a deep breath and smiled at them, getting up off the bed. “Hey you better enjoy the soup, I made it. And if I do say so myself, I did a great job on it.” They giggled a bit at him and he sighed with a little shake of his head. “You’re a really great person… I’m glad we met you. Ahem! Good night dearest Y/n and I’ll reconvene with you in the morning!” Making a show of bowing to them and standing up tall with his hands behind his back, he saluted before sharply turning and walking out the door.

They called after him with a laugh. “Sleep well, Wilbur!” Watching him go, they smiled to themself and with a few pets for Poppy they focused on eating so they could sleep and be ready for the day tomorrow.

-

“Now Y/n remember, I’m sure you won’t be using any magic but be wary alright?” Phil stood in front of them, holding intense eye contact before looking down at the eye of ender around their neck. He brought a hand up to hold it and examine it while they watched him. “I’ve been worried about this and I don’t know exactly how it’s going to affect you once we start playing with magic more. I could feel it sapping my magic from me yesterday…” He shook his head and let go of it, holding their arms. “Just… come to me if you feel off, okay? I’ll be right in my room with Techno.”

He sent them off with that, heading to his room where they assumed Techno was waiting for him. Wilbur was outside with Tommy since he demanded Wilbur come to see the sheep he has made friends with since everyone but him had seen. Y/n had Tommy tag along that morning when they went to feed the animals and he excitedly showed them how close he had gotten with some of the sheep and even a couple of the chickens. It warmed their heart to know he had something to fill the childish part of him that he wasn’t able to express when training to be in the guard.

They headed down into the basement to wait for Wilbur and decided to catch up on some reading. All of the talk of magic with Phil brought back their interest in it big time. They searched through the shelves, trying to find one that seemed like it had a lot of useful information that could help when Phil was teaching them. Standing against the bookshelf, they flipped through a book, stopping to read a page or two every once in a while until the front door closed and there were hurried steps down the stairs.

“Sorry for being so late, Tommy was telling me the names of all the sheep he named- I hope you didn’t already have names for them because he is all about this one being named Karen,” Wilbur said with a laugh as he got down the basement and looked up at Y/n who had the book in their hand, watching him. “Heh, uh hope I didn’t disturb your reading.”

They snickered, closing the book with a thump and sliding it back into its place on the shelf. “Oh, not at all.” Walking up behind one of the two plush chairs they had, crossed their arms on the back and looked up at Wilbur. “So, what all did you learn yesterday?”

“Oh! Well uh…” He grabbed the guitar up from beside the bookshelves opposite of Y/n where they kept the music books and sat over on the bottom step of the stairs. It took him a few moments of remembering out how to hold the instrument again, but once he had that down he strummed a few chords out of place before playing the standard ‘hot cross buns’ and after getting praise from Y/n he played ‘mary had a little lamb’ and ‘good king wenceslas’ which was a favorite of Y/n’s when it came to easier tunes to play.

“How did I do? That’s all I got to teach myself yesterday.”

Y/n walked over to him and knelt down where they adjusted how he held his fingers on the strings. “It’s easier to play and better on your hands this way. I think you did really well, better than I was and I learned just by listening to someone play and watching how they did it.”

He perked up at that, seeming to forget they knew how to play despite wanting them to teach him so desperately. “Do you want to play something? I’d love to see you play.” He offered the guitar to them to which they looked at it, seeming hesitant.

“Oh I don’t know, at this point, I think you’re better than me. It’s been a long time since I’ve played.” They touched the wood of the guitar, thinking back on when they last played. “I stopped making time for it when the hunters got bad. I guess I just fell out of it after that.”

“Well… maybe you can try again?” He met their eyes and pushed the guitar towards them again. “I know you’re learning new magic things, so maybe you can do something cool with that.” They took a moment to think about what he said and looked back at the instrument. Finally, they reached to take it from his hands and he seemed eager to give it up, pushing it onto them as soon as they had it.

They couldn’t help but laugh and sat back on the ground and crossed their legs as they situated the guitar, strumming a few chords and getting comfortable with the feel of it again. “Hm.. let’s see what I can remember here.” They strummed a few chords until something finally came to them. “Oh! I’ve got one, okay… I’m not sure how good this will be but…”

Humming softly as they started, they bounced their foot a little to keep time. They had to restart once with a small grumble but seemed to get the hang of it better with the second start. “Alright, so I think it goes a little bit like… I can feel it on my tongue. Brick and mortar, as thick as scripture. Drawing lines in the sand and laying borders, as tall as towers. I babble on until my voice is gone.” They sang, getting a feel for the music more as they went through as soon as they were singing the next verses they felt eyes on them. Other than Wilbur’s of course. They glanced up past him to see Phil, leaning against the doorway on the top floor of the house just listening. When realizing they were looking at him, he just smiled and waved a little before giving a gesture to tell them to continue playing. They smiled a little and gave a glance back at Wilbur then to their hands as they focused on playing.

“‘Cause like constellations a million years away, every good intention…”

___________________________________________

taglist:

@can-i-fangirl-yet @spitrot @sproudi @omgthatonenerd06 @acemt @wahman @m-etr3m8 @pog-sad-muffin @quiche-inoya @lea-the-foxe @sbi-is-my-onlysanity @smol-spoopy-trashcan-blog @confused-soot @p1gst3p @silvemistxe33 @cl0udy-grey @sweetchillipeppers @sharpcheese @aplaintart @thegeekisheere @vampirestrawberries @ishouldhavegonetobedsixhoursago @butter-lunch @logsteadshire @perytavern @sourparrot @childaintit @aikochan4859 @lukathecrime @fallxnly @novelist2 @ahmya-4 @little-gremlin-in-the-walls @supersecretsmutandco @the-flowerghost @cawcaw-pretty-thing @l1ttlepup1 @elias-code @ineedsomeconfidence @danielles-artroom @pineapple-banana-pie @ohnosiren @azilne @simp-of-newyork @shiroships @spac3goblyn @dominickle @whatever-happened-to-the-ducks @theseventhreincarnation @amibismexy

[monsoonblooms12]

Eumoiriety (Ethan x f!MC)

Summary: Four Years of Pooja Sharma's Birthday, from her first year as an Intern to her first year as an Attending.

Eumoiriety: Happiness due to state of innocence and purity💕

A/N: It's my baby's birthday and I went overboard. This is purely self indulgent and since I have zero to negative self control, this turned out way longer than I expected it to. Anyway, I hope you still like it💙

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey X f!MC (Pooja Sharma)

Word Count: around 3.7K (I am sorry!)

Rating: General

Category: A bit angst, A bit fluff

Warnings: None that I saw.

Prompts: @choicesaugustchallenge Day 29 - Birthday

READ ON AO3

Intern Year:

She walks barefoot on the green floor as the dews clinging to grass tips, soothe her like the cold breeze on a summer day.

A few golden rays filter through the canopy that acts as a barrier to the shining sun overhead. When they fall on the grass, the view looks like gold intermixed with emerald.

She wears a white gown, which flutters behind her, as her heart dances with the bees going flower to flower to get their prize of nectar in return for their favour of pollinating them.

There is a calm spreading through her soul, an ease, a slow infusion of tranquillity with her heart beats.

A swish makes her turn. Her eyes capture a silhouette, drifting farther and farther, as if taking her calm along with it.

It's replaced by restlessness.

There is a cajole, a whispered cajole, that urges her feet to run, her mind to think, her heart to wonder.

She follows. One step, and another.

The scene changes.

There are no more trees, no more green with the sun's shine.

At a distance, the waves crash on the sandy shore, their meet with their shore echoing in the silent surroundings.

She looks around and sees it.

The silhouette, now apparent that it was a man, standing with his back to her. He looks unbothered. As if he stole her peace and gave her his unrest in return.

She tries to walk slowly towards, footsteps imprinting on the sand, but the distance never seems to lessen or end.

She tries running, but to no avail.

The waves continue crashing, the footprints continue to get imprinted and the man continues to remain still and silent.

The only change has been in the sky, which is now leaden, dark with humongous clouds.

The thunder begins to cackle.

Once, Twice, Thrice.

She closes her ears with her hands, eyes shut to reduce the impact of the thunderous noise reverberating through every single one of her bones. But the roar keeps getting louder and louder until...

Her eyes snap open, but the echo from her sweven doesn't leave her. She turns around to find her phone ringing, straining her eyes with incredulous bright light (that she forgot to dim). The caller ID is barely registered, but the voice gives away the identity.

It's her sister.

With a flash, all the haze from the peculiar dream gets lost and bubbly happiness takes up the emptied space.

It's their birthday.

The first one since she came here. She had been so busy unknotting the twisted knots of circumstances in which she found herself tangled, that she had forgotten about the once unforgettable occasion of her life.

Maybe she has really lost that childhood she held on so tightly to, she thinks.

But not without a hope. Of a chance to get it back.

Maybe differently.

But the want to relive those carefree days, where the colour of pens you get as gifts, and the decision of who gets the piece of cake with the chocolate masterpiece on it were the only things that held importance. All other worldly, societal woes were secondary, trivial, uncared for.

She wishes her sister and she wishes her back.

3..2..1.. Happy Birthday! To Us!

They scream-whisper together, carrying on the years' long tradition.

The only thing different? They were on their cellulars, ecospheres apart, instead of snuggling and shouting together, and annoying their brother for an entire day.

Subconsciously, a tee-hee escapes her. Thinking about her brother, she takes a look at the clock. Correct 12:03 am on 12th August. If she knows him, he is probably counting the seconds.

At 12:05 am to the dot, another shrill echoes through the silent apartment. Her guess is correct.

On the other side of the screen, sits Idhayan arranging the cake so that Pooja can see the eloquent buttercream designs he has hand made on it.

In the background, there is a blurry motion. It turns out to be Alekhya.

She jumps onto the couch beside their brother, putting an end to his steady concentration.

He makes an irritated face, while she laughs.

And Pooja just watches, giggling alone.

The pang in her chest reminds her, once & once more, about just how much she misses them.

How empty, monochromatic her life is, with all these miles between them.

For the past year, every time any event took a turn for the worse, broke her, or hurt her, she wanted to go back to her safe haven.

The place where the chronicles of her life begun.

Many times, she had found herself convinced (by others as well as her self doubting mind) that she didn't belong here. That she didn't have the calibre, the skills to strive in this fight of dogs, in this race of horses where she felt like a donkey.

Or maybe a snail.

She dreamed of sleeping in her mother's lap when she first found herself in the crossroads of feelings and reason. Making her muddled head clear with words that never crossed the barrier between dream and reality.

When Mrs Martinez died, she imagined herself sitting on the swing, her brother's comfort brownies reduced to messy crumbs, as she let the mountain winds take away the burden of dread that pressed upon her heart.

And the day when Landry's backstab became eminent? She visualized her sister ripping him down, shredding him with knives of words because that's what he deserved.

She knew her father would have made them both coffee like he always did when he came home during breaks from piloting. He would have said a mere few words, which would have been enough for her to see the path ahead.

The mini virtual celebration ends, and the silence settles again. Tendrils of sleep come and go, but never stay.

She is left alone with her thoughts and worries, and a fear of the unknown which is hidden by the curtains of the future.

--------

The day passes like a swift blowing wind in a desert.

It's quiet, too quiet.

And probably for the first time in her life, she adores it. To be away from the hustle of a celebration, which would have been a noise in the cacophony, given the situation.

To get a period of silence for her thoughts to drift away, to think about the unknown, to predict a make or break.

The pages are turned swiftly by her fingers, one of which is clad with a minimal gold ring, another old ritual of hers.

The library harbours the overworked interns, who are now pushing the boundaries of time to find a way to help their friend out.

Their tired eyes pain with the lack of sleep, coffee fuelling through their veins, and mind engrossed in picking up any clue, any line, any tip that could be supportive for them.

Hours pass, no-one utters a word. Pens run on empty notebooks, hands managing to create only messy scribbles. Black and Blue fill the white as if it never existed.

The clock strikes the end hour.

They all get up.

They go home together, for discussions and relaxation.

At the doorstep, everyone enters before her, while she stands still, too engulfed in worries to notice the happenings.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Confetti pops, her reverie is broken.

The smile shines like a jewel in a priceless necklace.

The arrangements are minimal, just champagne, cake and friends, but that's more than enough for her. To make her forget the dark fog of pessimism.

Maybe there is hope left.

-------

Second Year:

12th August.

The day that is drifting closer by the minute.

It has always been Alekhya's birthday for her.

On her phone, In her diary, In her mind.

People might regard it as a beautiful flaw of her nature, the flaw of always placing others before herself.

But to her, the instinct seemed natural, obvious. She had never delved into the whys, and she doesn't want to begin now.

For Alekhya, the circumstances became vice-versa.

And this was the beauty of their bond.

Strong, Pure and Selfless.

They never seem to realize that, though.

They hold onto the strings of simplicity, of sweet uncomplexity. And that is what helps them to bridge the gap between siblings and best friends.

After the tumultuous year, that very much resembled the completion of a voyage through the rough Indian Ocean, where storms ravage through days and endless nights, thunders crack, and waves that scale the heights between the ocean and sky to become mountains of water, crash on the feeble pieces of wood barely held together in the form of a boat, coming back to her origin, her hometown is a necessity.

Especially for her to find that normalcy again.

She survived.

Even though she fell, almost drowned, gasped for a breath more times she could count and nearly accepted her fate.

Until that is, the pale faces of the ones she holds close, the endless stream of tears that scale their cheeks, their breaking hearts, came to haunt her in her reverie and prevented her from closing her eyes & from letting that almost undetectable beat of heart stop.

The wishes from last year come back to her. This time, it wasn't virtual anymore. This time, it wasn't just painted in pixels, but written in buttercream letters, one which she could taste.

This time, the hugs weren't just virtual. They were very real, and very needed.

As she sits amidst the bushes of phenomenal florals, she lets her mind project in vivid colours, the extremities of the last year.

Her heart, breaking into tiny glass pieces, not perceived by the eye but sharp enough to draw blood.

The fear of losing and letting so many others lose along.

The coming close and going away, almost kisses and slide of unassuming hands, those which could easily be perceived as a mistake, but were anything but.

Competing in a nameless competition and almost dying in the process.

Getting the lost love back. Slowly, Gradually. (even if it felt too early to call it that)

And then... Her mind stops as the playful tunes start emanating out along with florescent light from the cellular, and the face of the one who has been a regular image of the thoughts that lull her to sleep.

On the other side, his voice is soft.

She can visualize him in the Diagnostics Office, leaning back on his chair.

Most probably on a break.

The new day hasn't even started for him, yet he remembers that it has, for her.

Their talks are interspersed with comfortable silence. For them, just the knowledge that the person on the other side is still there with them is enough.

All through the conversation, she waits.

In a hope that the irrelevant and unimportant date is written in faded letters somewhere in that brilliant mind of his.

As the line approaches its end, talks slowly halt, she feels a faint pang of sadness.

Maybe he doesn't remember it after all.

She bids her farewell, and as his finger hovers close to the end call button, she hears it.

Crystal Clear but still seeming unreal.

Happy Birthday, Pooja.

Her thanks are intermixed with a light giggle, unable to hold back the pleasure that erupts within her, along with the flutter called butterflies in her stomach.

Maybe there is always hope left, after all.

-------

Last year of Residence:

There have been countless moments when she has asked the time to wait, to slow its rushing footsteps that leave no mark behind.

Sometimes it's a beg, while in other vespertine hours, it's a mindless murmur.

This moment is one of them.

When a handful of sand is slowly released on a windy day, the swooshes and swishes carry them away, farther and farther, leave them with no choice but to fly along.

The minutes were being carried away by the same current, where they had no choice but to pass.

No one had the power to hold it, not even the mighties, the richest, the most supreme.

The conditions now extensively mimic the conditions during her first year.

Just this time, it was textbooks on internal medicine and medical procedure instead of ethics.

The wishes that day are hushed, the minimal party comprising of cupcakes and mug cakes and the gang, christened "The Invincibles" after they successfully tackle one hurdle and another but remain strong and together, in their PJs.

It must be one of the first nights since who knows how long when they spent their time doing an activity that doesn't involve colour coded tabs and complicated biological drawings.

And even though some of them make faux complaints about the wasted time, they all needed this break more than they could express.

The morning sun rays filter through the white curtains guarding the windows way too fast, making them unable to pinpoint the exact moment when the black of the night ceased to exist, when the sky became melanocrysus and when the golden took over the entire stretch.

A single text message pushes her to drop the blanket of laziness, the cocoon she inhabited. Getting up and placing a smile has never been as easy as it was now.

Come Over

------

The condo is inhabited by a stark silence when she reaches there.

She knocks. The click of the doorknob on the other side is almost instantaneous.

His hand wraps around her waist like a reflex deeply etched in his encephalon. For the first time in forever, their kisses are not chaste. Or momentary.

When he whispers a happy birthday wish against her forehead, that's what she would call intimacy.

The purity of the action touches her heart and makes it swell, with an emotion that she predicts will not remain unnamed any longer.

-------

First-year as an attending:

The celebratory vibes are in the air today.

Her stride is confident, heels playing a mellow harmony on the shining floors.

No one doesn't recognize her.

The intern who nearly lost her license to the Head of Diagnostics team, it was a journey that had thrown her off-road a million times.

Sometimes the barriers were pinpricks leaving no marks, and sometimes they were boulders crushing her.

And sometimes, one of these on-lookers would tear down her faith by stabbing her from the back, the cowardice of their soul, being mirrored in the blades of those knives of betrayal.

And yet she stands strong, her resolve unperturbed, as she faces the demons, those of others and those of her own.

It's a fight she has been learning to fight since she was eleven.

To curtain her tears with a glow in eyes, to hide the broken heart behind pretty lies. And just like practice makes one perfect, she has almost perfected the art of having to hide the real her inside.

As she passes the numerous congregations, amalgamations of patients and staff, she is greeted by wishes from old acquaintances whose kindness is apparent in their smile and by wishes of employed enemies, whose disinterest or sometimes blatant hate is too, completely apparent in their voice.

But they are not the ones she is worried about.

Interspersed between these two extremities are people who speak kind and in flattery lines with a sword behind their back.

Those who know how to hide their true intentions in the modulations of voice.

Every time she hears a wish where nothing is apparent, her heart stops for a while.

Strings of thought muddle her head and she tries to figure out the reality behind their words.

Sometimes she succeeds, sometimes she fails.

And sometimes she faces vehement opposition of her tired nerves who ask her to stop caring about those who are passing by.

But she never stops.

Her legs carry her to the Diagnostics office.

Her Office.

The swell of pride, of a fulfilment she last felt when she got into Edenbrook, make her head light.

She tries to stop but gives up the efforts soon.

If she has realized something through the twists of lawsuits and turns of almost dying, it is that if you keep waiting for the turns of the clock to approach a "right moment" for a chance to celebrate, you will probably keep waiting your entire life until your breath is being taken away and all that is left are regrets and missed opportunities of happiness.

So she twirls like a princess in her imaginary ball gown, beaming with satisfaction, and taking pride in giving herself the give of success.

Of making her loved ones and herself proud.

She gets so carried away in the train of thoughts, in which one bougie is connected by another, and one more, that she doesn't notice the person who preoccupies the room.

The halt is so sudden, that she almost tumbles upon the man. Almost.

She manages to get hold of herself, her hand on his back.

He turns, eyes meet.

If someone would have asked her what is cosmic, she would have said "The melt of glowing ambers into ice blue." Sure, she has looked into them more times than she can count or recollect. But every time their orbs meet, the reactions the action produces, she can only give the word seraphic to it.

When Ethan left for Amazon, she would often wonder why is she still keeping the lamp of hope alive. His absquatulation broke her, acted like a spark to her over-thinking mind. She would lie on her bed, eyes tracing the same lines on the ceiling above her over and over again, thinking just what she did wrong. She never reached the end of the path though, never really achieved the answer, even after meandering through a hundred courses of thoughts.

But now, she thanks her old self for living through it all. For not letting that lamp extinguish. For keeping it safe in a little corner of the labyrinths of her heart. Wordlessly, she hugs him, the plethora of emotions becoming quite too much to be expressed in minute syllables.

His whisper next to her ears, the innocently simplistic words induce a shiver in her spine.

But the last word.

4 letters, 1 word.

It hangs in the air like a diamond necklace around a maiden's neck. Like a tiny pendant that shines brighter than all elaborate jewels, all lengthy anecdotes.

It's enough, more than enough for her.

And as their smiles slowly spread like the slow rise of the golden sun, gently letting the rays spread through the humble earth. And those smiles, they shine together, brighter than the Sirius.

Happy Birthday, Love.

-------

Her casual gown, bearing floral patterns, flutters along with the soft grass, she feels a sense of wonder. Whether at the shimmering moon, the stardust spread through the stretch in the woods, or at the simplicity of her surroundings, she does not know.

Her unassuming footsteps walk slow, observant of her surroundings. After walking down the trail, she stops at the clearance.

At a distance, something shines under the silver moonbeams. Her mind beckons her to return back, but her intuition asks her to move on. She listens to the latter's plea.

A small cuboidal box and a bunch of white tulips lay peacefully out of place. She usually would have left it, just in case it was a trap.

But this time curiosity overtook reason and she picks the bouquet up. A small note amidst her favourite flowers.

I love you

No name. No initials. But she knew exactly who had written it. Not because he was the one who asked her to come here, in the heaven hidden amidst the chaos, but because those flourishes of his fanciful lettering would never escape her notice. Even if the only source of luminance was distant fairy lights on trees and the faint moonbeams.

Her eyes travel away from the articles. At a distance, the silhouette stands. The same silhouette from her sweven. But this time, there is no restlessness, no rush, no tension in the air. No thunder cackles and no waves crash. This time the silhouette waits for her, unlike the last time when it was her waiting for him.

He turns, only the shine of his orbs visible. And the shadow of the gorgeous smile that dances on his lips. The last time, his stone mask was too heavy, too powerful for any of them to break or move.

But this time? This time, the mask has fallen off, it has met the end of its existence.

He comes closer, the shadow now a clear image. He goes and picks up the cuboid and hands it to her.

"Open it" He whispers in a soft voice, that disappears as soon as it appears.

She takes it and opens it, as per his words. Everything is perfect and normal.

Except for the space in the middle.

Something sparkles, in silver lustre. Her first instinct is, Diamond? She decided to pick it up

It's a key.

She looks up to him, bewildered. Is it what she thinks it is?

Move-in with me?

She places the box of chocolates down, the key held tight in her fist.

And then she kisses him.

She doesn't have to speak a word, but he understands. After all, why would two intertwined hearts need verbal responses to know what the other one feels?

Only his home, can fill the brick walls of his house with love, and make it a home.

------

They both lay side by side on the lush grass, hands intertwined, hearts beating in unison, silence filling their souls like air fills their lungs.

They look at the stars and the moon. Or more appropriately, the gaze at the starry screen, but the mind plays significant moments from their time together.

Pooja's mind however thinks about the four of her birthdays since she set foot in Boston. The mundane softness of them, contrasting all the birthdays she has had in the rest of her years.

The photo frame of the interns from the first year. The group video call, her life from the second year. The PJ party from the third year. And the key from the fourth.

They are puzzle pieces of the saga of her life, the absence of friends from early years, the gap, the void now filled.

And after years of searching, she thinks she has finally found it. Hidden in the normality, the simplicity, the mundanity of life.

Happiness.

PS: If you are reading this, I am very grateful for you. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day🤎

Tags🤎 (Please let me know if you want to be added or removed or if I forgot you):

Perma: @gkittylove99 @neotericthemis @udishaman @aestheticartsx @twinkleallnight @schnitzelbutterfingers @sophxwithers @sweatyrysconnoisseur @nikki-2406 @choicesfanaf @trrfanaddict @starrystarrytrouble @gardeningourmet @parkbarks @mvalentine @lovablegranny @mercury84choices @izzyourresidentlawyer @phoenixrising308 @adiehardfan @quixoticdreamer16 @a-crepusculo

Open Heart (All fics and edit): @lucy-268 @maurine07 @bellcat2010 @headoverheelsforramsey @estellaelysian @shanzay44

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@choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

[copias-thrall]

I really liked the Papa III x F! S/o where the s/o was a typical shy and cute introvert, but this huge dork with those closer to her. Would it be alright if I requested the same with our dear Papa Copia (god I’m so happy to call him papa now :) )

Of course, nonny! Let’s get some sweet Papa IV up in here.

(Reference Prompt here. 😊)

Copia notices you because of your quiet nature. There are lots of Siblings that are vying for his attention and favors…and then there you are: sitting quietly during mass and reading the hymn book.

(He doesn’t have to know that you’ve been reading the same page the whole time while you admire him from out of the corner of your eyes.)

Every time he looks out, all he sees is your quiet dignity, and it speaks to him on such a personal level. While he’s grown to enjoy and embrace the showmanship of the Ghost project, he’s not a natural extrovert. So, when he sees you existing in your subdued state, he can’t help but yearn to be right there with you.

He sees you reading your book in the quad on a nice day, and he immediately pictures himself with his head in your lap as you read to him. When he spies you daydreaming in the library, he imagines what it would be like to play footsie with you under the table. As he comes across you sweeping the halls with your headphones on, he pictures giving you a homemade mixtape to listen to while you work.

Really, he wants to worm his way into the rich inner life he knows you must have.

He never does anything about it, though—in his mind you’ve been perfectly clear about your indifference to him. And he’d rather not stammer through an invitation that you’re only going to reject.

The mess hall is always a sticking point for Copia. He loves the attention—he does; it amuses him to watch the Siblings fight over who acquires his meal and who gets sits next to him. He’s still a man with an ego, and he likes it to be stroked.

But.

Some days, the whole scene just gives him a headache. On days just after an important sermon, or when he’s just back from tour, or when he’s spent the morning on a stack of paper Imperator has given him, “ASAP now, please, Papa”—it’s simply too much for him to have to be On for his admirers.

On those days, he has his Ghouls create a distraction (and Dew is always more than happy to set a fire) so that he can get in and get out with no one noticing. Then, he tries to find a quiet, out of the way place to eat his food in peace.

And that’s how he encounters you cavorting about with your friends.

You're out on the grounds because it's a fine spring day, and he can't believe that his this reserved, demure Sister is running about and chasing her fellow sister with a worm! You're laughing—not a coy titter, but a full belly laugh after you make a ribald joke about Imperator and a Brother!

Copia gapes.

You have a secret side that only your intimates know about? Well! It’s a circle he desperately wants to be a part of! (Even if he’s contractually not allowed to jest about the Seestor.) 

He imagines your laugh ringing out in his quarters as you let his babies crawl all over you (someone who doesn’t mind worms surely wouldn’t mind rats, yes?), and how you'd make him laugh with your uncouth humor. He can almost taste the domesticity.

But…he decides to stay out of sight—he doesn't want to ruin the party (which he’s sadly come to realize that, as Papa, he does quite often just by virtue of his presence)—and that’s when he realizes he actually has a hope.

You’re lying back in the grass, watching the clouds roll by, and you say,

“Hey, that one looks like a rat,” to which your friend responds, “That’s just cuz you have Popia on the brain.”

“I do not!”

“You think he’s gOrGeOUs, you want to KisS him, you want hUG him,” he singsongs.

“Shut it!” you screech as your face flushes and you throw a balled up napkin at him. 

He blocks it easily, and you lie back down with a huff.

“Whatever. He doesn’t even know I’m alive.”

Embarrassingly, the conversation shifts to how you’ve done it to yourself and if you’d just look at Copia instead of doing your best impression of a church mouse, that would be a good start.

Your face burns the whole time. I mean, having his intense focus just on you? 

You shudder. 

Surely you’d combust.

Copia bites his fist.

He could…? Have you??

***

Perhaps any of the other Papas would have been on you like white on rice…but research has always been more Copia’s thing.

Which means he spends the next few weeks slinking about like a bad spy (seriously—he might as well have on Groucho Marx glasses) trying to figure out what all your favs and interests are. 

And the Siblings are beginning to talk about it.

“He was behind a column, and I thought he was a statue,�� hisses one. “He moved, and it scared the crap out of me!”

“I saw him petting the potted plants in the west corridor like a weirdo,” whispers another. “I hope Primo doesn’t hear about it!”

“I went into the broom closet to get cleaning supplies, and when I pulled the light on, he was just…standing there!” laughs someone else. “I was too surprised to be startled. He just coughed and excused himself!”

The only weird thing to you is that you seem to be the only Sibling who hasn’t witnessed Copia being adorable odd.

You often sit by that pillar to read when it’s chilly outside, and that area in the west corridor is where you sweep. Heaven!—that broom closet is next to the wash station you use! How haven’t you seen him even once?

Dew thinks this is great fun. He’s been suggesting even more ridiculous schemes (that Swiss and he giggle about back in the Ghoul dorms) for Copia to “overhear” you and your party—which Copia is taking down in earnest.

Aether thinks Copia’s being a dumbass and guesses he and the girls will have to fix this mess. Cirrus thinks Copia just needs to learn the hard way (“He’s taking advice from Dew—how does he not know better?!”), but Cumulus agrees. The two of them coral Copia into the practice space where they firmly, but gently, tell him to stop pussyfooting around and just kiss the girl already!

Copia stutters out a series of awkward rat noises before simply nodding.

“I have been procrastinating, eh?”

“You can do it, Boss.”

“Who’s the best Papa!”

Copia straightens his posture. “I am.”

***

You’re staring out the window in the classroom—woolgathering instead of dusting—when you hear a quiet throat clear behind you. You nearly jump out of your skin and hurriedly turn to make your excuses.

What you’re expecting is Sister Imperator on one of her shadow runs—but what you see is a one (1) Papa in his casual blacks (that still seem vacuum-sealed onto him) looking at you with eyes full of mirth.

It’s with great effort that you yank your eyes from his thighs up to his face.

“Oh! Your Dark Excellency, sir! I-I-I…” you stutter before composing yourself. “If you need the room…?”

A smirk turns up one side of his lips as his white eye twinkles at you.

“It is you I wish to be seeing.”

You toss the duster to the side and smooth down your habit.

“M-me?”

“Sí.”

Did you do something wrong??

You worry nervously at the sides of your habit.

“I—” Copia starts, then suddenly looks unsure. He runs his hands over his head, smoothing his thick hair back into place.

He starts again, his speech clipped and formal.

“Would you do me the honor, Sister, of joining me for dinner?”

 “I—dinner?” Like a staff dinner? Or...?

Copia blinks at you.

“I am asking you on a date.”

You blink right back.

Just you and him? Alone… 

His face turns into lines of apprehension.

“Mi scusi—perhaps I am mistaken.”

He starts to back away, and you finally find your voice.

“Wait!”

When he stops, you gulp and take a deep breath.

“I would like that, Your Dark Excellency.”

A look of relief smooths his worried expression right before he smiles at you.

“Ah…‘Papa’ is fine, Sister.”

He takes his leave of you, closing the door behind him.

You manage to hold yourself together for another moment before you let out a loud whoop and jump up and down (and unbeknownst to you, Copia is standing just outside the door, beaming).

***

Dinner went over smashingly (literally—between the nervous energy of two of you, a plate, a goblet, and a wine bottle all ended up in pieces). Copia was the perfect mix between awkward rat man and smooth Papa, and you felt comfortable enough to engage easily in conversation with him. 

You’d been a little trepidatious about after dinner (Copia certainly had not absented himself from the pleasures afforded to a Papa), but the only thing you’d done in his quarters was to meet his rats.

He’d walked you back to your room, then asked if he could kiss you. It was just a press of his lips to yours as he’d cupped your cheek, but it had felt like a promise.

The two of you end up making a perfect couple, actually. Copia, of course, respects your quiet demeanor, but it’s more than that—he understands it. The only time he singles you out is when you need to be his date to a clergy function or Abbey party—and he always gives you forewarnings for those!

On the flipside, you and he have the high capacity to be total dorks. The two of you feed off each other's humor, often being the only two in the room cracking up as you wheeze half-uttered statements at each other while the rest of the gathered looks on with pained expressions.

But neither of you care. 

You finally have your Papa, and he’s made all of his imaginings with you a reality. 

[love-bokumono-fics]

WIP Wednesday - Trio of Towns

Trio of Towns has no shortage of wonderful works that are in progress. Some of them I know are years in the making and I always look forward to an update.

So here's hoping you find a new story to love!

If you're reading or writing a Trio of Towns WIP that didn't get featured today, please feel more than welcome to drop it in the Submission box and share with the rest of us! (When I only share 10 fics at a time, there's always something that's bound to be missed.)

Two in One - by PineconeTheKitten; WIP, 1/?, 1.3k

Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Categories: F/M, M/M, Multi

Fandom: Trio of Towns

Relationships: Ford/Wayne, Female Farmer/Ford, Female Farmer/Wayne; Characters: Female Farmer, Ford, Wayne, Dessie, Inari, Witchie

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Magic Revealed, Gods, Goddesses, Spirits

Summary: Ford and Wayne were once two people. Now they aren't. Holly doesn't know what to do. As it turns out, Ward is pretty into Holly, and she into him.

Two Individuals in Love can be Asexual, a Case Study - by chickadeequill; WIP, 1/?, <1k

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandom: Trio of Towns

Relationship: Farmer/Ford; Characters: Ford, Female Farmer, Wayne

Additional Tags: Asexual Relationship, Romantic Fluff

Summary: After years of painstakingly avoiding romance, the town's eligible and single doctor Ford finds himself facing a simple question: is there room in his life for love? It seems the hardworking farmer just past the crossroads is still single as well, and Ford just can't figure out why she keeps declining advances from the other eligible singles in all three towns.

Watered-Down Ideals - by LemWrites; WIP, 3/?, 4k

Rating: Not Rated; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Categories: M/M, Multi

Fandoms: Trio of Towns

Relationships: Farmer/Ludus; Characters: Original Male Character(s), Frank, Megan, Hector, Colin, Noel | Noelle

Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, Fluff, Self Confidence Issues, ADHD, I gave a farmer adhd and anxiety, this may have more projection then intended

Summary: Join Steve, the newly appointed farmer in the Trio of Towns world, on a journey full of; useless gay pinning, being a disaster, self hatred and more!

Earth and Rebirth - by TheBeckster; WIP, 17/?, 66k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Categories: Multi, Gen

Fandoms: Trio of Towns

Characters: Holly | Nanami, Frank, Marlena, Wayne, Ford, Lisette, Brad, Carrie, everyone

Additional Tags: Undecided Relationship(s), Additional Tags to Be Added, lots of headcanons, Minor Character Death, Eventual Friends to Lovers, I'm not going to tag every single character, but they will all have a part in the story, Grief/Mourning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, New friends and found family, world building, Angst with a Happy Ending, Holly is an extrovert, endgame ship tbd, Cover Art

Summary: Holly considered herself fortunate to be living about as close to the dream as any young twenty-something could. A great family, a loving husband, and well, she'd admit their apartment was awful, but they'd be moving onto bigger and better things soon enough. She truthfully couldn't wish for more. But when an accident rips it all away from her, Holly finds herself seeking a change of scenery. Her Uncle's farm out in the middle of nowhere is the perfect place for her to hide to mourn. A familiar story with a twist or two.

Fire and Dew - by Juliko; WIP, 9/26, 73k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/M

Fandoms: Trio of Towns

Relationship: Yuzuki/Original Character(s)

Characters: Original Female Character(s), Yuzuki, Sumomo, Lisette, Colin, Wayne, Brad, Carrie, Shizu, Yaichi, Tatsumi, Omiyo, Umekichi, Lynn, Marlena, Daryl | Darius, Ittetsu, Moriya

Additional Tags: farming, Slice of Life, Drama, Family Drama, Family Issues, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Original Character(s), Major Original Character(s), Female Character of Color, Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Friendship/Love, Past Child Abuse, Child Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Romance, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Humor, Eventual Happy Ending, Comedy, Friends to Lovers, Adoption, Sick Character, Lulukoko characters won't appear in this fic, Falling In Love, Dorks, Ableism, Happy Ending, Romantic Fluff, Break Up, Past Relationship(s), Cows, Chickens, Sheep, Rabbits, Flowers, Stimming, Family Fluff, Bisexual Female Character, Pansexual Character, Lesbian Character, Children, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma

Summary: For as long as she could remember, Harper Leigh Maxwell's dream has always been to become a farmer, but her father's job makes it hard to do so, since it involves lots of moving. After graduating from college, she finally decides to take a chance and get her own farm. She's determined to make the most of this opportunity and do what she's wanted. In the process, she makes new friends, learns many new things, and faces many hardships. One of the friends she makes is Yuzuki Fujiwara, a mellow, sweet natured man from the town of Tsuyukusa who doesn't have the best constitution. The two of them form a strong connection that may even end up blossoming into love. But Harper's past might make things complicated, and when it threatens to catch up with her, she may find herself facing the demons from her pre-adoption early childhood. This is the story of two different people, with different interests, passions, and paths in life, walking the same dirt road every day...

Tiny Steps to Big Leaps - by Distracteddiddlin; WIP, 29/?, 28k

Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: Other

Fandom: Trio of Towns

Relationship: Ford/Holly | Nanami; Characters: Ford, Holly | Nanami, Brad, Wayne

Additional Tags: Fluff, Developing Relationship, surprise parenting, rating and tags will update, NB Farmer, Idiots in Love, Wet Dream, Love Confessions, oh it's fucking started now, Mildly Dubious Consent, for like the smallest split second

Summary: Me while writing this months ago: what if I did that that Ford/farmer fic again but with a twist? Basically it's what if Ford accidentally became a single dad after the farmer meets him

Stranded - by TheBeckster; WIP, 2/?, 4k

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: Gen

Fandoms: Trio of Towns

Relationships: Ludus & Siluka, Ludus & Iluka, Iluka & Siluka; Characters: Ludus, Iluka, Siluka, Tototara, Zahau, Caolila

Additional Tags: all aboard the childhood trauma boat!, Pre-Canon, Peril, Wilderness Survival, Mild Blood

Summary: Desperate for an adventure to break up the interminable boredom of a long summer, three kids set to the high seas and get way more adventure than they ever hoped for or wanted. AKA: Let's explore the Lulukoko Trio's shared childhood trauma!

Trio Of Towns - Figuring Out Love - by vampireprincess624; WIP, 6/?, 5k

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: Multi

Fandom: Trio of Towns

Relationship: Ford/Pixie; Characters: Ford, Pixie, Wayne, Brad, Lisette, Carrie, Noelle, Colin, Miranda, Frank, Megan, Hector, Other(s)

Summary: Pixie Fawn is left with a mess she has to sort out after leaving Ludus at their wedding because Ford, who had been away for seven months, appeared as a guest. But how is fixing things with the stubborn doctor more difficult than sorting things out with her ex husband-to-be? Are they destined to be friends or will their stronger feelings for each other lead to love? A lot of Ford/Pixie scenes where they figure out their love for each other. This is Part 3 to my series, Life In The Towns, and I strongly advise you read Part 1 (or at least the last few chapters) before this, but it should still make sense anyway. Hope you enjoy :)

The House That We Built - by CherryQDoodles; WIP, 2/?, 8k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandom: Trio of Towns

Relationships: Holly | Nanami/Ludus; Characters: Ludus, Original Characters, Lulukoko Villagers, Westown Villagers, Tsuyukusa Villagers

Additional Tags: Slow Burn, story building, Learning from the Past, Tons of fluffy moments, farmlife shenanigans, Festivals, Romance, Dark skinned MC, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

Summary: Nicola knew as soon as she was able to talk that she was very different from the family she was raised in. From her dark skin to her snow white hair she stuck out as the black sheep, but she loved them like they were her blood, and vice versa. But Nicola always dreamed of wanting more: to become a farmer. Growing crops, raising animals and everything in between! She just had to convince her father that she could handle the hard work within two years time. Follow Nicola's journey to becoming the best farmer she dreams of, and her adventures in the Trio of Towns!

Ford's Roses - by thelighthouse33; WIP, 5/?, 3k

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandom: Trio of Towns

Relationship: Farmer/Ford; Characters: Ford, Female Farmer, Wayne, Megan, Frank, Miranda, Carrie, Brad, Lisette, Noel | Noelle, Colin

Additional Tags: My First Work in This Fandom, better late than never, Ford x Holly, Story of Seasons Trio of Towns, Harvest Moon - Freeform, Gaming

Summary: This is a story of how the doctor of Westown, in charge of The White Capsule Clinic, falls in love with the new farm girl...

[wulfies-kpop-fanfics]

One Photo → Mark Lee [3]

↳  Pairing: Mark Lee/Reader

↳  AU: Soulmate!AU - The first touch of two soulmates permanently scars their bodies.

↳  Word count: 3,063

↳  Chapters: Prelude | 1 | 2 | You Are Here! | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

⁙ Summary: For an end of the year photography project, you’re tasked with taking a photograph for your favourite group, NCT127, and coincidentally, discover your soulmate.

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

WEDNESDAY - 3

The sun is shining brightly through your window when the morning stirs you awake. The curtains of your room are wide open, and just outside you can hear the songs of two birds in the near distance. Groaning, you wonder how you managed to get in bed, swearing that you had just been watching Infinity War with Mark.

You slip out from under your covers, grabbing and putting on your glasses that were set neatly on your desk. You realize once you stand that you're also fully clad in soft pyjamas. Confused, you wander out of your room and out to the living area. 

“Rhi?” your meek call into the kitchen and living room was met with silence. Holding your sides in a sort of self-hug, you wandered into the kitchen and looked at the stove time. It was around 10:30, and your class alarms never went off, so today must be a day where Rhiannon had class and you didn't.

Your thoughts put together what happened after you fell asleep in the moments after your fatigue was washed away in the shower, and you spend the rest of your morning poking at a bowl of cereal. Your days off usually meant staying in your pyjamas all day, playing Overwatch on the PlayStation you brought to your dorm from home or trying to take photos of dust particles if it was sunny enough. 

You didn't know whether to feel alone or content in the first moments of your day. Time passed as it always did, taunting you with anxiety and making you worry about not getting anything done. It eventually compels you to start cleaning, ticking off little boxes on the chore chart attached to your fridge. You're not sure how long you've been absorbed in sweeping the floors, but eventually, you're brought back from absent daydreams because of a gentle knock on the door. 

“One moment!” you call out, putting the broom back where it belongs and smoothing out your hair. You lick your lips and approach the door, opening it and looking straight into the face of Mark. 

“Hi, (Y/N),” he greets you cheerfully, gingerly holding out a small bouquet of flowers out to you. 

“Hi,” you answer softly, clearly surprised that he's there. “Thank you…”

“Rhiannon gave me a code to sign into the building as a guest,” he explains, “I want to take you out on a date if that's okay.”

Gingerly you take the flowers, a mix of tulips, sunflowers and roses. You smile up at him, a little embarrassed that you're not completely decent in front of him. “I'd like that, but…”

Mark raised his eyebrows. “But?” he repeated.

“I'm, uh… I need to get ready.”

Mark looks you up and down, and his face goes red. He smiles awkwardly at you and nods. “Okay, I can wait.”

“Okay. Make yourself at home and I'll get ready,” Mark follows you inside and watches you put the bouquet in a large glass that you fill with water. “I'll be right back.” 

You stare at yourself in your full-length mirror for a while as soon as you close the door to your room. After taking off your pyjamas, the scar on your body stands out. You're definitely not used to seeing it, and you're feeling a little worried that it will draw more attention to you than you want.

Once you remember that Mark is waiting for you, you choose a pair of blue jeans and a loose pink top. Smoothing out your clothes, you stare at yourself. You haven't been on a date since high school, and after that date, your crush stopped talking to you- he believed too much in only dating the one you were made for, and it broke your heart.

“You can do this,” you told yourself. “He likes you. He's your soulmate. It's fine, you're fine. It's fine, we're all fine. Don't freak out." you took in a deep breath, making your way back out.

Mark was sitting politely on your couch, and once he noticed you were back, he immediately stood, smiling. “You look great,” he said, approaching you.

You felt a twinge in your chest and you felt your cheeks get red. “So do you,” you manage to mumble, watching as his smile grew wider. 

“Are you ready?” he asked, holding out his hand for you to take. 

“Yeah,” you gently took his hand, and after you got your shoes on and grabbed your little drawstring backpack, the two of you stepped out and began your day.

It almost felt like a dream, walking and talking with Mark. The two of you got ice cream together and sat in a small park, feeling the cool dew of morning turn into the sunny warmth of the afternoon. 

“Have you ever been on a date?” Mark asked as the two of you were walking through a crosswalk to Union Station.

“One,” you answer. “Back in High School before I left home. I really liked him, but I knew we weren't going to be soulmates. It was when I wanted to be rid of the soulmate trope once and for all- live life scar-free, y'know?”

Mark frowned at you for a moment but then nodded for you to continue. He leads you into the building and toward the escalator that went down into the station.

“He took me out, bought me dinner and we had a good time. He took me home that night and he touched my shoulder… it was the first time he and I had physical contact. The next day at school we were both scar-free, and he told me that he didn't want to see me in that way anymore.” you half-smiled at Mark, tightening your grip on his hand.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “You won't have to deal with that anymore, I promise.” 

“How about you?" You almost felt afraid to ask him, a twinge in your chest affirming that you may not even want to know his answer.

He smiled. "Not really, no, unless you count Johnny taking me out for dinner when he debuted with 127." 

You raised your eyebrows. "Really? You're so good looking, though." Wind rushed through your hair as you both went down the stairs into the main station, the subway car you were to board whizzing through into the station. 

Mark blushed and wrapped an arm around your shoulders. "I didn't have the time. I was too busy thinking about my dream and my career. But now that I do have some time, I really am happy I found you."  

You both climbed onto the subway car, Mark holding you close as the busy subway filled up. He was smiling cheerfully at you, red still dusting his cheeks. You returned the look, wondering how you could have gotten so lucky.

The two of you saw Avengers together at the Yorkdale mall. Of course, you cried, trying your best and failing to keep your sniffling silent. Mark took your hand in the dark of the theatre and squeezed it gently, making your heart flutter and your lips quiver. 

You both decided to shop around after the film finished, sharing an enormous poutine in the food court once Mark's stomach began to audibly rumble. Mark was wolfing down the food at a breakneck pace, making you giggle at him once he managed to get gravy on his cheek.

"Slow down," you laughed, reaching over the table to wipe his cheek with a napkin. "Next thing you know you'll get it on your shirt."

Mark paused for a moment, a little surprised at the touch. "Not like I have a photoshoot later," he joked. "It's been years since I've had poutine." 

You licked your lips. "Maybe, um, I would like to take pictures later?"

Mark's eyes widened. "Really?" 

You nodded and smiled sheepishly, taking a bite of your fries before you missed your chance. "Just to make sure it's all real."

"(Y/N)," your name left Mark's lips, sounding like sweet sugar and honey. It sent shivers down your spine. "I can promise it's all real, but if you want, we can take some."

"Wow," you sighed, examining Mark's face. He was already so picturesque, no makeup, no hairspray or crazy visual design. He finished off the fries, another blob of gravy somehow made it onto his cheek, which made your eyes travel to stop at his lips. You licked your own, not even catching yourself thinking about what it would be like to kiss him. 

Mark stared back at you, resting his head on the palm of his hand. "How long have you been thinking about taking pictures?"

You perked up and managed to make eye contact with him. "In general or just of you?" You asked shyly, tapping the corner of your lips with your finger. "You have more gravy on you."

Mark laughed bashfully and wiped his face with a napkin. "Uh, both, I suppose."

"I've loved taking pictures since I was a kid. I didn't know I wanted to do it as a living until I started to take pictures of nature with my phone camera. After that day in the forest with my grandparents, I knew I had to drop out of my biology courses and go into photography instead."

Mark nodded as he listened. "That's really admirable," he said, making you blush again. He stood, gathering up the tray and tilting his head as a gesture to join him.

You cleared your throat and continued with a shy smile, "I, um, just really want to take pictures of things I like, and… uh, you have always been one of them." 

Mark put away the tray and took your hand, "there's no need to be embarrassed about it," he laughed quietly, "I like you too." 

You felt at home with Mark, warm and happy. Your heart fluttered more and more when he looked at you, smiled, or talked with you. At random times you'd want to take a picture, he'd stop and pose for you. Whether it was silly, romantic or a chic fashion-style photo in the subway station on your way home that evening, he did it for you.

The camera you kept with you in your little drawstring bag was now full of photos, ready to be manipulated (not that you really had much to touch up anyway) and saved to your computer. Perhaps you would frame your favourite one. 

The night rolled over you both like it had when you first spent the day together, which was only a few days ago, but it felt like a lifetime. The roads of Toronto were quieting down and the street lights were beginning to bathe the walkways in a soft amber glow. When you returned to your building, you didn't want to go in. 

"We should both rest," Mark insisted when you clung to him in a hug. "Big day tomorrow." He still wrapped his arms around you and pressed his cheek against your head gently. 

"What?" You looked up at Mark, confused. He leant back enough so he could look at you, a smile dancing on his lips.

"The guys want to take that one photo tomorrow. In the park with all the cherry blossom trees. I knew it was the place I wanted the night you took me there. You kept staring off in the distance, and once I figured out why, I wouldn't even consider any other place you would suggest if I had asked." 

"Mark-"

"Don't be embarrassed," he assured you quickly. "I really like that about you." 

"Well, I…" you were trying to avoid eye contact with Mark, not quite able to handle the compliments. "I'm looking forward to tomorrow," you say quietly, pouting, "but I still don't want you to go." 

"I promise that after it's done, we will spend the entire day together, okay?" Mark placed a finger under your chin gently. "Sound like a plan?"

You couldn't hold your pout while making direct eye contact, so it melted away into a reluctant smile. "Okay." 

The two of you went inside, walking down the hallway together toward the door to your apartment. When you arrived, you held both of Mark's hands. "Text me when you get back safely, okay?"   

He squeezed your hands gently. "I will. I'd like to do one more thing, though, if it's okay with you." 

You raised an eyebrow at him. "Like what?" 

Your heart began beating wildly in your chest when he smiled at you. Mark was such a wonderful person. On the surface, he was confident and funny, but below that was a shy and quiet nature, that knew what he wanted but didn't quite know how to get there. His hands left yours and instead cupped your cheeks. 

"This," his voice hit your ears so softly that you almost didn't hear it. Once he leant toward you, you caught on. With your heartbeat audible in your ears and your stomach doing acrobatics, your lips met. 

It was chaste, borderline experimental, soft and nervous. When he separated from you, he rested his forehead against yours for a moment. "I thought about doing that all last night," he admitted. 

"Do you really expect me to let you leave now?" Your question came out with a quiet laugh, almost letting yourself get carried away when Mark's hands left your cheeks. 

"I expect you to be reluctant, but I really do need to go," he's smiling sadly at you, "I just had to know what it was like before I left." 

"You owe me," grabbing his hand for one last moment before he turned to leave. 

"I'll pay you in full," he said with a grin. "I promise."

"Be safe." 

"I promise. I'll text you!" With that, he was gone. 

You nearly screamed the moment you heard the large doors to the building click shut. You had just kissed him. Mark Lee kissed you. Taking in a deep, shaking breath, you dug into your backpack and shakily grabbed your keys to unlock the door to your apartment. As you were opening the door, you felt resistance for half a second and heard quick scrambling on the other side for another half a second when you pushed your way inside. 

The first thing your eyes met once you walked inside was none other than your best friend. 

"Sorry," she said bashfully, hands behind her back. "I, uh, wasn't expecting to get caught." 

You rolled your eyes, grinning at her. "Are you apologizing because you were spying on me through the peephole or because you got caught?" You raised an eyebrow playfully at her. 

"Look, we both know which one it is, so I'd rather not make myself look much worse." 

With that you both are laughing, Rhiannon takes your bag for you and hung it up on the small coat rack while you took off your shoes. 

"I've been texting Haechan; or should I say Donghyuck now..." she said as the two of you sat together in the kitchen, Rhiannon applying a face mask to your skin. She was already wearing hers, perfectly attached. "He's been helping me with my Korean grammar, which according to him is quote-unquote atrocious," she says, patting your face gently before taking her seat again and leaning back.

"Well, you've never had a proper teacher," you remark. "It's incredible you can keep studying it with all the dental stuff you have to do. I can't even keep my studies up and I have less of a school workload than you." 

"Sometimes I think you're just lazy," she said teasingly. "Considering you just made me put a face mask on for you." 

"Don't hate, you know I can never get these stupid things on right. Anyway, I was gonna ask you if you wanted to come to the boys' shoot tomorrow. You can show off your vocab in person, your spoken is way better than your texting." You looked over at her, watching her frown beneath the moisturizer mask. 

"But I have a lab tomorrow," 

"Well, how about you meet us then? High Park, in the cherry blossom area where you like to people-watch while I take photos." 

Rhiannon hummed. "If you wait for me, yeah. I'll pack an outfit in my bag to change into after." 

You smiled. "Good, I wouldn't want to miss watching you meet Haechan in person." 

"Like I'd ever let you miss that. Unlike you, who went to meet Mark, Johnny and Jaehyun without me."

"Hey," you whine, "you knew I had no idea they were gonna be there."

"Yeah yeah, make up all the excuses you want."

After your masks came off, you washed your face and changed into your pyjamas. Slipping under the covers, you checked your phone. There was a text from Mark, which you probably got while you were doing masks with Rhiannon. 

Mark: I'm back safe

Mark: I really can't stop thinking about it

You: I'm happy you're safe, sorry I couldn't reply, was doing face masks 

You: I can't either

Mark: It's ok

Mark: I'm getting ready for bed, all the guys are pumped for tomorrow, and the concert is getting closer 

You: are you nervous? 

Mark: A little, but I will be less so knowing you're going to be in the front row 

You: I'm thankful I can be so close, I've never been in the front row of a concert before 

Mark: itll be loud, bring earplugs

You: kay, I will be able to hear still right? 

Mark: oh yeah, for sure hahah 

Mark: It gets super loud, I don't want your hearing to get hurt 

You: thank you for worrying about me

Mark: always :) 

Mark: We will meet you around 11:30 in the park along the path where you and I walked

Mark: See you tomorrow, we should probably sleep

You: Okay, I'll see you

You: Good night Mark

Mark: nighty night (Y/N) <3 :)

You: <3

You were barely able to put your phone down to go to sleep. The day was constantly running through your head, especially your first kiss. Your heart fluttered, your stomach flipped, and you felt like you could squirm under the covers of your bed enough to tie yourself up in blankets. 

When you finally managed to drift off, your dreams were entirely of what the future could hold. 

[imagine-loki]

Ruin

TITLE: Ruin

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT:

AUTHOR: fanfictrashdump

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine that halfway through a makeout session, Loki stops abruptly. He stares for a long moment before he says anything. “I can’t ruin you like this.” He anxiously stands to put space between you. “I have to leave.”

RATING: T

NOTES/WARNINGS: My to-do list is a mile long , but I saw this and my mind wrote it on its own. Did I never intend them to be romantically involved? Yes. Did I really think of Lily as an oblivious ace for a long time? Also yes. Do I enjoy the current chaotic bi vibes she’s putting out? H e l l  y e s. Language. Kissing. Idiots. Speed run, so errors may be plentiful.

SUMMARY: Loki has been feeling feels that he can no longer shove into box and ignore. Lily didn’t know she could possibly have access to that box and would very much like the opportunity to do so. Loki is dramatic AF and is pleasantly surprised he’s been lied to. 

=

His lips trailed an invisible line over her neck, gliding over the expanse of skin until it reached a point where her pulse thrummed steadily. A second later his tongue darted over the heated flesh, tasting the electricity of her skin and what tasted like fresh morning dew. His teeth followed, pinching skin together so he could suck a half-dollar size bruise into it before returning to the honeyed lips he had already kissed swollen. The half-gasped whimper that followed as response would have usually spurred Loki on in his actions. This time, it was the noise that broke him from his reverie.

He pulled back, blinking drunkenly at the flushed face staring back in wide-eyed, pouting surprise. For a second the perfectly sky blue marbles beckoned him back like a siren call, but the Prince caught himself before he managed to drag her back onto his mouth. Fine, silver strands slipped through his fingers, the ends curling delicately around his digits and tickled his palms. He tried not to focus on the fact that the fact that they felt like each follicle was woven of spider’s silk.

A kiss brushed onto the inside of his wrist, startling him out of the silent exploration of her hair. There was a silent question in Lily’s stare, a curiosity as to why he had pulled away when they both had been perfectly content to try to devour each other a moment prior.

All Loki saw was an innocent curiosity reflected back at him and a genuine desire to share affection. It was all very overwhelming. Loki’s hands retreated abruptly, just as the dark cloud settled over his features. “I can’t ruin you like this,” he murmured, his face screwed into a frown that looked more distraught than Lily had ever seen it. He was on his feet a second later, almost as if shocked by lightning. “I have to go.”

“Wha–Loki!” Lily called at the already slamming door, leaving Lily behind, in his quarters, she might add, earnestly confused as to what had just happened. How all of it had happened.

Lily couldn’t remember who had started their short-lived tryst. It just sort of… happened.

The pair had been play-fighting, an increasingly common occurrence that would come about from Lily feeling a little too sure of herself and would decide to test her reflexes and element of surprise. Loki could always see her attacks coming a mile away, if he were honest. The little plant witch had only managed to startle him once, and it was very quickly rectified. He had not let his guard down ever again.

The familiar sensation of being watched crept up his spine and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. There was no ominous feeling, but rather a knowledge that he was not alone. The smirk that crept up on his face was unintentional, but it also unsuppressed. Loki continued sorting through materials as if there were nothing amiss. The slightest breeze fluttered his hair and the smell of ozone and magic filled his nose as he easily grabbed the arm that had intended to wind around his neck and he flipped the person over his shoulder.

Lily landed, flat on her back in bed with a choked gasp, scrambling quickly out of the vulnerable position, but Loki was far faster than she ever hoped to be. Not to mention that he was so much stronger, his hands bigger, able to pin her down neatly with little effort. Her veins glowed green in tandem with the vines that intended to squeeze Loki still.

He gave a surprised chuckle in response–they never had resorted to magic when they grappled like this. His response to shapeshift was second nature. The giant serpent that slithered eerily in her screeching direction dealt with the vines with little issue. She swallowed her protests to pin him down before the shape of a porcupine had her shuffling off again. More vines, more pliant and dense than the first, bound the creature down before a fox took its place. The ebony of its fur contrasted with the bright green of the vines was surprisingly endearing. Loki noisily gnawed at the vines as he rolled onto his back, hind legs kicking up a storm.

“Aww, I didn’t think you could shift into cute things!” She cooed, scratching him under his chin, prompting him to let out a startled yelp.

While Loki was no stranger to Lily suddenly thrusting affection in his direction in the form of hugs and genuine compliments, they were usually after he was in dire need of it, or vice versa. They never seemed to share this affection when they were both perfectly fine, but rather as comfort. And while the gentle stroking of her fingers up the bridge of his snout was soothing in a quasi hypnotic manner, there was still a bubble of emotion that he was sort of uncomfortable with gurgling at the pit of his stomach.

In the tumult of his emotions, he had shifted back, vines disappearing into the ether, and yet her fingers still trailed that lazy route from his forehead, down the bridge of his nose and back. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint when his head had shifted into her lap or when he decided it was a good idea for his teeth to playfully nip at her fingers. All he knew was that after a moment he her face was down by his and their mouths pressed together. Everything after that had been a blur.

And now she was sitting alone in his room, trying to piece together the last hour and why in every god’s name he had decided to bail on her.

Lily marched out of the dark bedroom and out into the hallways. She was sure Loki would be hiding quite proficiently–there wasn’t a creature alive that could find Loki if he did not want to be found, but she could certainly try. Lily peeked into the lab where Tony and Bruce tinkered away at their science projects.

“Tony, have you seen Loki?” She knew Bruce would rather stay far away from the demigod, so it wasn’t worth asking.

“Have I seen Scary Spice? No, I have not and I count myself lucky.”

“That’s not nice.”

Tony didn’t miss a beat. “Neither is he. What do you need him for?”

“He wasn’t feeling well,” she fibbed, easily. “I wanted to check in on him.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Bruce quipped, flashing an awkward smile and going back to adjust an array of tiny screws. Lily raised an eyebrow and Bruce did a double-take in her direction. “What?”

Lily ignored the question, dropping unceremoniously into one of the stools by Tony’s bench. “Honestly, I think we should kick Loki out,” she said after a long moment.

Tony’s face crumpled into an odd frown. “Not that I don’t fantasize about that every single day, but, why?”

“He’s a bad influence I think.”

“On who? The assassins, the 1940’s super soldiers, the recovering alcoholic with anxiety or the rage monster over there? Or do you mean you? Because I think we both know you’re your own bad influence. We’re all our own worst enemies, here, kiddo.”

“He’s going to ruin me.”

The loud bark of laughter spewing from Tony’s mouth startled Lily. “You lied to me for five years about who you really were and then you failed to mention that you would go all Poison Ivy if you were out on missions for too long. The only being brave enough to go into that room and keep your borderline non-murderous was that dumb, goth, wannabe-boyfriend of yours.” Tony peered down his nose at her. “Loki is a lot of things, mutant ruiner is not one of them.”

“He made out with me.”

“Good. If he’s busy sucking your face off, he can’t keep messing up the paint job on my suit.” He smirked when Lily pouted. “It’s not my fault if you make terrible choices. You have to deal with them yourself. Welcome to adulthood” He sobered slightly, cracking his neck in a nervous fidget. “So, you, er, like him or something?”

Lily turned a brilliant shade of red, suddenly becoming interested in a loose thread on her jumper. “I don’t know. I’m usually kind of oblivious and assume everyone just wants to be my friend, so I never… I didn’t think…”

“Oh, god, you do. Disgusting,” Tony quipped, making retching noises to tease her.

“Shut up, Tony.”

“But, you do! You’re totally–”

“Shut up, Tony!”

Tony frowned, the expression turning to curiosity when Lily’s eyes trailed to stare out of her peripherals towards Bruce’s benchtop. Realization lit up his face as his mouth formed a wide ‘O’ before he chuckled. “You better put everything back the way you found it or Bruce is going to Hulk-smash you into porridge.” Something clattered noisily onto the ground before the sound of footsteps shuffling overcame them. “He’s heading for the balcony,” he whispered just as the steps retreated. “Don’t make sudden moves, he looks terrified.”

“Thanks. Pleasure wreaking havoc with you, Tony,” she announced, hopping to her feet.

Cool air rushed her face as the automatic doors hissed open. The weather was already biting in the late autumn, and Lily was in no way prepared to be outside for any length of time in just her jumper and jeans.

Loki stood at the railing, staring off into the city when she pressed her forehead to his back. His body stiffened, taking several heartbeats before his muscles stopped seizing up. By that time, however, the bone-wracking shivers had prompted some protective instinct within him to turn, shedding the charcoal zip jumper off his shoulders and over hers.

“You’ll catch your death.”

“Do you mean you or the weather? Because you’re rather elusive today”

Loki scoffed. “Lilian–”

“Not my name.”

He drew in a deep breath whose chill rattled noisily in his chest. “How’d you even know?”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Bruce pretends you don’t exist. He wouldn’t express his sympathy for your illness. Rookie mistake. I know how to read people rather well.”

There was a long stretch of silence between them, eyes jousting before he couldn’t bear to hold her gaze any longer. “I’m not what you want.”

Lily chuckled to herself, burying herself deeper into Loki’s coat. “Forgive me, but you have no clue what I want. Mostly because I don’t know what I want. Frankly, I didn’t think making out with a Norse god was one of the options.” She shrugged, leaning into his side and smiling to herself when he instinctually pressed in closer. “I mean, if you don’t want it, that’s a different matter, altogether.”

Loki cut his eyes to the side to stare at her. “You’re ridiculous. You can’t tell me you don’t see–don’t you?”

“See what?”

“Fucking oblivious.”

“It’s not like I actively seek anyone. I can’t exactly be myself with anyone else.” She smirked, nudging him with her hip. “I don’t want to be–” A yelp cut her short, swallowed into Loki’s throat before it ever got the chance to break through the air. His long digits bunched up either side of his coat to pull her closer. She sighed, molding herself into the curve of his body. Just as she was tilted her head to deepen their kiss, he pulled back.

“No. I–I have to go.”

Once more alone, wrapped in Loki’s coat, she remained confused. Lily let out a groan, letting the cold autumn air cool her down before marching back inside. She hoped he shifted into someone easily recognizable. And that this sudden attack of guilty conscience was short-lived.

It wasn’t.

A month-long game of cat and mouse, of watching him disguise himself as every single occupant of that godforsaken tower to escape temptation and they still had not managed to sit down for a conversation. Lily decided that if that was the game he wanted to play, that she was entirely fine with it. She prepared breakfast for the team, as usual, setting a bouquet of fresh flowers in the center with a smile. Eventually, everyone began to stream in for the morning meal and Lily sat at her usual spot at the far end of the table to watch everyone come in, half-asleep and ravenous.

Blue eyes trailed Loki shuffling in behind Natasha, who sat to her right while he sat to Lily’s left. Not missing a beat, Lily smiled at the assassin before tugging at Natasha by the strings of her hoodie. Their mouths met easily, the Widow’s lips quirking at the corners and prompting the sound of clattering utensils across the table.

Nat pecked Lily gently before allowing her to move back and grinned. She licked her lips almost lewdly and followed it with a sip of coffee. “Good morning to you, too, hon.” Impish energy glittered in her eyes. “You know what? I don’t think I got enough of you. Come here–”

A thud echoed in the room and the table clattered. Loki was half out of his seat and had buried his dagger into the mahogany surface of the dining table. Tony protested quietly, almost half-heartedly.

“If you so much as breathe on her, again, I will skin you alive, Agent Romanoff. I swear it,” Loki hissed. “When I said I didn’t want to ruin you, I wasn’t suggesting you go off and find someone who would!” Loki snapped back at Lily, his expression halfway between annoyed and hurt.

“What else am I supposed to do?” She declared loudly, grumbling unintelligibly for a long moment. “I have been driving myself dizzy chasing these stupid circles you’ve led me on. Do you want me or not?”

“In what Universe do I not want you? It cannot be more obvious that I love you and you make me feel special, you impossible woman! Even fucking Stark noticed! But I don’t deal well with emotions if you haven’t caught on, yet, and I don’t want to lead you on when I’m not sure how to feel anything!”

“I don’t know how to feel, either, you ass. Which is why I’d rather we figure it out together than have to play Guess Who?: Shapeshifter Edition with everyone in the Tower!”

Loki growled, scrubbing a hand down his face in frustration. “I’ve just told you I love you and you said you didn’t know how you felt!”

Lily stabbed a sausage rather aggressively onto her fork, bending two of the tines in the process. “Of course I love you, you moron. Who in their goddamn right mind would voluntarily put up with your moody bullshit, otherwise?”

He scoffed. “Fine, I guess we’re in love, then!”

“Whoop-de-fucking-do!”

Loki opened his mouth to snap another witty retort back, when the conversation caught up to him. His eyebrows rose to meet his hairline as wide, green eyes cut instantly at Lily. “We’re in love,” he mumbled. “We’re in love?” Surprise melted into hopeful softness.

“Wait, were you two not together?” A chorus of Clint and Barton followed the interruption, but it was enough to cut through the magic of the moment.

x

Loki fidgeted on his feet as he paced in front of the bed. Lily looked bemused as her eyes moved like the swing of a pendulum to follow him back and forth.

“I’m not good enough for you.”

“Not for you to decide,” she countered, easily.

“I’ve killed.”

“So have I. You’ve been there.”

He stopped to face her. “I tried to take over the planet.”

“Mind control.”

“I’m a monster.”

“I’m legitimately an eldritch horror hybrid.”

Loki kneeled, resting his forehead on her lap with a sigh. “But we–you–I don’t think I could bare losing you after a paltry few decades,” he reluctantly mumbled.

Lily giggled, which Loki thought odd, but weirder things had happened between them. “I mean, fair. I’m not sure how long I’ll live, but I am also a hundred and six.”

His head snapped up so quickly he felt the muscles contract painfully. “What?”

“The hair is not a fashion statement,” she whispered, feeling the weight of his stare and the million questions it contained with it. “There’s a reason I haven’t really dated. I’ve never met anyone I can ostensibly spend my whole life with.” She laughed nervously, rustling her hair. “Say something.”

“You lied to me?” He seemed impressed rather than angry.

“No. You’ve always just assumed. And, I let you,” she admitted, her cheeks coloring faintly. His hands had curled around hers, dwarfing them in his comfortable warmth. “If you had let me explain a month ago, I would have told you that I’m really not some innocent maiden you can ruin.”

The little anxious notch that she was so familiar with formed between his brows. “By the Norns, we have a lot to talk about then, flower.” Lily sighed good-naturedly at the statement. Before she had managed to protest, Loki craned his neck enough to slot lips to hers. “Later, of course.”

[onewfantaesy]

Stairway AU

The dirt crunches under Taemin’s shoes as he walks along the trail in the woods. He has his phone held loosely in his hands, and he looks around to find his next picture perfect shot. For his photography Instagram. It’s not super popular, only a little over 600 followers now, but way more popular than his friend’s dumb video game vlog. Nature pictures are his biggest hits, always getting the most likes. Besides, it just rained yesterday, so things are still kind of damp and misty looking. Very mysterious. Great material to work with.

“Woah,” he breathes, leaves crunching under his feet as he steps off the trail. Because there, a little ways away in a clearing, beyond a few trees, is a lone staircase leading to nothing but the sky. It isn’t very tall, as far as he can tell, as he steps closer. Maybe only a couple dozen steps or so. It’s aged stone, with moss growing along the sides, and he gets a few good shots of the sun shining just above it, rays of light bouncing from the steps and making the dew glisten.

After getting at least fifty different shots of these stairs from every possible angle, he runs his hand over the stone, tucking his phone in his pocket. He can hear the wind rustling the leaves in the trees, can hear the birds chirping, can feel the lingering rain in the air. He takes a careful step, testing to see if the stone will crumble under his weight. When it doesn’t, he climbs a few more stairs, looking out at the view around him. It’s beautiful. Green. Still.

The further up he climbs, it’s almost like the air around him ripples. He gets dizzy a moment, his hand gripping the railing, and stares at the ground below. He blinks hard a few times, the world still looking oddly hazy as he continues climbing. He wants the perfect picture from the top, to see just above the trees.

Except when he gets to the top of the stairs, he’s suddenly stepping just above the ground. He shakes his head a few times, confused, because now the stairs are going downward into nothing but dirt, and it’s suddenly evening instead of mid morning. Taemin turns back to look down at the stairs, seeing nothing but dirt and a few shimmers of sunset glistening off of rocks. He pats his pocket, reassured by the phone still in his pocket, and he decides to step up into the grass to head back to the trail. He just got confused, that’s all. Just confused.

The ground feels like it ripples beneath his foot as he steps into the grass, and he stumbles again, but nothing happens. He’s fine. Just tired, stressed from work last week. A big project was just finishing, which meant deadlines up the wazoo, and he was just stressed. Just overtired. He’d edit some photos and then go straight to sleep when he got home. That would help.

He starts walking towards where he’d parked his car, just down the trail, when he hears his name echoing from the woods.

“Taemin!” it’s such a familiar voice, but too muffled for Taemin to place it. “Taemin, what the hell?”

“Taemin!”

He gasps when a hand clasps around his wrist, and he’s tugged to turn around and he’s face-to-face with his team lead from work, Kibum.

“What?”

Kibum huffs and scoffs and rolls his eyes at him, tugging his arm as he walks in a different direction.

“You can’t keep wandering off, we’re in the middle of a shoot,” Kibum nags at him, and Taemin blinks a few times, his feet stumbling.

“What?”

“Seriously, Taemin?” Kibum groans, stopping suddenly and making Taemin stumble into him. “We’re almost done, then you can space out in the van on the way home.”

“What?”

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

“Did you hit your head?” Kibum asks. Then moves forward, cupping Taemin’s cheeks in his hands, staring into his eyes. “Are you alright? I know it’s been a long day, but it’s almost over. Just a little while longer.”

Kibum pulls Taemin close to him, keeps an arm tucked around Taemin’s back, and guides him to a clearing with an absurd amount of lights and props and cameras and people running around.

“Jinki said he’d order us dinner,” Kibum says softly, and Taemin can’t figure out why they’re talking about their manager. Or why they’re all here. In a forest. For a supposed photo shoot. They in pharmaceutical sales, not advertising.

“What’s going on?”

He doesn’t get an answer, because he’s whisked away to get covered in makeup by women who click their tongues at him and nag about him smudging eyeliner he didn’t know he was wearing and messing up hair he didn’t know had hairspray in it. Then he’s guided over to the trunk of a tree and told to lay across the grass while Kibum and Jinki are posing near him, and Minho from three cubicles over is sitting in a tree branch.

Taemin can’t make sense of any of this as professional cameras flash in his face, make h see stars, the light blinding him.

Then as quickly as it started, it’s over, and people are packing up and Kibum is helping him up and holding onto him again, still looking at him funny.

“You didn’t really hit your head, did you?” Kibum whispers. “I was only kidding. Are you okay?”

“I,” he stutters, letting Kibum help him into the back row of a van, “I think - where am I?”

“In the van,” Kibum says softly. “You’re pranking me, are you? You’re really worrying me.”

The world is rippling again as the engine of the van starts up, and Taemin blinks slowly as he stares at Kibum’s face. It’s strange, seeing him with brightly colored hair. Makes him look ethereal.

“I’m tired,” Taemin says, and he promptly falls over into Kibum’s lap, falling asleep, just barely registering Kibum’s shocked gasp and worried calls of his name from several different voices.

[sareyen]

It’s hard to see in the dark (Cherik)

Read on ao3

Warning: implied/referenced suicide, major character death

The aftermath of ‘Turn off the light’: Charles is dead and takes his light with him. Everyone stumbles around in the dark he leaves behind, and as they do, they come to realise that they did far too little, far too late.

Sometimes, Erik wished there were words in the English language that could wholly capture a concept, a feeling, a state of being. In German, there were some words that did that, some of which he had never grasped the value of until he met someone that was all of them and more.

Ohrwurm; for a melody that won’t leave your mind, though for Erik, that melody did not come in the form of songs on records lazily spinning around in the lounge, nor the tinkle of piano keys from the drawing room at Westchester. No, for Erik, Ohrwurm was a laugh, a voice, a curl of British consonants and soft vowels. A voice that rang in the recesses of Erik’s mind, a song that made his breath hasten and his heart squeeze.

Gemütlichkeit; a word that captured the overall feeling of warmth, friendliness, cheer, and many, many other things. Peace of mind, cosiness, a sense of belonging. There were lots of English words, but not even all of them together could really describe Gemütlichkeit. So, it was funny how Gemütlichkeit suddenly sounded a lot like Charles, because when Erik sat in the glow of the fire, the soft upholstery of luxurious furniture under his fingers and with Charles peering up at him through the swirl of a glass of scotch with a smile on his red lips, there was only warmth and friendliness and cheer and peace and belonging and more, more, more.

And Weltschmerz; a word that Erik only understood because it was something that made Charles sigh every now and then. Though there wasn’t a word in English that was quite the same, ‘world weariness’ was somewhat close, and no one felt the pain of the world more than Charles, because no one believed in it more. Erik always felt something stir up inside of him, a messy concoction of feelings unfamiliar to the man who professed to be without a human heart, when Charles would see anti-mutant propaganda in the papers or on the television. His stomach would flip when Charles’s blue eyes would harden, the shorter man striding towards the underground chamber and to Cerebro to find others like them so they could, maybe, understand what Gemütlichkeit meant too.

Or Geborgenheit, which was similar to Gemütlichkeit. This was something that enveloped Erik every day, in everything Charles did. With Erik’s youth, there were very few instances where he felt what made up Geborgenheit; comfort, security, love. But he felt it every morning when he would wake to Charles’s fingers softly carding through his auburn locks and the light chuckle that left his lips before he murmured “Ah, sorry, my friend – did I wake you?”. Erik would grumble, lithe arms wrapping around his lover’s waist to bury his face in the slope of the man’s neck, feeling warm and safe and cherished.

Maybe he should have realised something, recognised that something wasn’t quite right about the fact that Charles always went to bed after him and yet rose from slumber before Erik could shake off his dreams. He pushed the apprehension aside, though, because Erik was no stranger to insomnia or the elusive nature of sleep. Sometimes, when Erik struggled to sleep himself and woke in the night, his senses would pick up on the warmth pressing against the slopes of the metal desk lamp and the rhythmic movements of Charles’s familiar watch; reading, as always.

Those nights, Erik would give Charles’s watch a sleepy tug, the man jumping slightly. Charles would turn his head, handsome features half-illuminated by the lamplight, and give Erik an almost sheepish smile, like he had been caught.

He had been caught, but Erik hadn’t known that yet. He hadn’t known what he had caught.

“I’m sorry, I got lost in the book,” Charles would murmur, closing his tome with a light thump and padding over to the bed, crawling under the covers and pressing himself against Erik’s skin, nose nuzzling the German’s chest. “Go back to sleep, Erik.”

Last night was similar to one of those nights, and Erik thought nothing of it. Charles was wearing his silk pyjamas, the ones that felt nice when pressed up against Erik’s skin, and from the slightly rigid set of his limbs Erik knew he wasn’t ready to sleep just yet. There was a hum beneath his skin, one that was vastly different to the relaxed, lethargic haze washing over Erik. Charles probably had a book he was invested in, that he couldn’t put down. That was also like Charles, really; stubborn, unrelenting in his beliefs. Determined.

If there was something he wanted to see through, he would not stop until the end.

So, when Charles pressed his lips against Erik’s, the metallokinetic didn’t dwell on it too much, even if it felt a little different. Instead of a goodnight it felt more like a goodbye, but then Charles smiled, brushed his fingers across Erik’s forehead to push some wayward strands from the wrinkles beginning to form there, and Erik just thought of Geborgenheit and Gemütlichkeit and nothing else.

There was another feeling simmering there, though, and it made Erik toss and turn in his sleep. It was early in the morning that Erik fully stepped out from the unsteady grips of unconsciousness, that feeling settled uncomfortably in the base of his stomach.

Blinking heavily, Erik’s eyes did not have to adjust to the morning light, the heavy curtains blotting out any semblance of the warm rays. Odd, because usually when Erik awoke, the curtains were open a slither, enough to draw lines of gold over Charles’s freckles as he woke Erik up with gentle fingers in his hair.

Erik frowned, turning to Charles’s side of the bed and finding it empty, the sheets crinkled but not slept in. The edges of the plush bedding were still tucked into Charles’s corner, only slightly dishevelled from the heaving of Erik’s body as he turned onto his side, hand splayed over the cold sheets.

There was an English word for the feeling Erik had now, Erik knew. Foreboding. That sense of unease the stemmed from nothing concrete, nothing tangible. Just an added sense of there’s something wrong and something is about to happen, and that something was never a good thing.

Erik was pulling himself up when a gut-wrenching scream tore itself through the halls of Westchester. The estate was large, and the scream was a torrent; glass windows rattled, beams creaked, and Sean’s mutant cry snapped Erik completely awake.

It did not take long for Erik to throw the covers off himself and pull on a grey jumper, rushing out the door and down the hall to the source of the noise.

‘Charles? What happened?’ Erik projected in his mind, finding it more convenient to call out for the man who was likely already rushing towards Sean with the goal of soothing the sheer panic found in the boy’s voice.

Erik’s mental question was met with still silence, and Erik felt that feeling again. Foreboding.

Erik didn’t know why, but he began walking faster and faster down the halls, and things only seemed to become quieter and quieter. Erik thrust out his powers, raking over the metal inside the mansion; he felt the aged planes of old candelabras and slightly rusted faucets. He felt Hank’s wire-frame glasses warming as they slipped over fur, and he felt the shaking of the frostbitten zippers of Sean’s flight uniform.

Latching onto the location of that metal, Erik’s footsteps thumped on wood as he walked downstairs, drawing closer to Sean. When he walked out the back door of Westchester towards the gardens, his teeth bit together as he was slapped with a gust of frosty morning air, the dew on the grass iced over and winter wind biting.

The first thing he saw as he walked along the grey and naked rose bushes, pruned for the winter and devoid of their usual vibrant redness – redness like Charles’s lips, Erik’s mind supplied with a tinge of wry acceptance – was Sean folded over and dry-retching into the bushes. The boy shook like the leaves that blew across the stone pathways meandering across the ground.

When Erik neared, he could hear Sean’s wretched gagging punctuated with heaving sobs, and saw that the boy had tears dribbling down his face which was as white as a sheet.

Erik hadn’t had the foresight to wear shoes, and his toes blistered in the cold but he kept walking on. Sean must have felt him approach, because when Erik neared, the boy looked at him with unabashed despair written over his face.

For a boy whose power was in his voice, Erik couldn’t make out the words pouring out of his mouth, because they sounded a lot like “Oh God, Erik, he’s dead. He’s dead. The Professor… He… Oh God, he’s dead”.

From behind him, Erik could feel the others catching up. Raven flanked Hank’s hulking form, Alex, Darwin and Angel following behind them, but Erik paid no heed to them, clamping his hands down on Sean’s shoulders and shaking the boy. His fingers dug into Sean’s shoulders firmly, because he needed to understand, because Sean was speaking nonsense and he couldn’t be speaking English because what he said just didn’t make any sense.

“What happened?” Erik asked, voice rough after having just woken up and tight from the cold. Sean struggled to breathe, mouth moving again in words that made no sense. Raven gasped behind him, and Erik caught something about “Behind the bushes… God… His body… Blood… So much blood… His head… His legs… He… Dead”.

Dead.

Erik shoved past Sean, bare feet sliding across the frosted stone path and around the bushes, before his body froze.

Erik has witnessed death before. He had been in the room when his mother died, he had killed men before, he had seen Shaw’s body slump to the ground as a crimson coin hovered in the air. Erik remembered the sound his mother’s body made, a strangely hollow thump that was no different than someone dropping a sack of potatoes onto wooden floorboards. And he remembered what his mother looked like, lying there on the ground with blood pooling from the bullet in her brain. She had looked peaceful, face slack and eyes closed, and if it weren’t for the oozing circle on her temple she would have passed as someone in a deep slumber.

This was not like that. Because the sound that this body looked like it made when it hit the ground wasn’t a hollow thump but a deafening crunch, and the body looked like a corpse and not someone wandering the lands of dreams.

Erik’s heart stopped beating for what felt like an eternity as he stared, and once again he couldn’t understand. Because that body looked like Charles, but it couldn’t be Charles because Charles wouldn’t be lying on the ground in those silk pyjamas that felt nice on Erik’s bare skin, silk pyjamas that looked crisp with ice that clung in beads to the fabric.

But that was Charles, his brown hair gently blowing in the wind and covered in dew like the grass.

Charles, eyes closed and mouth slightly parted, lips blue and grey and mimicking the clipped rose bushes that weren’t flush with red any more.

Charles, still and prone, legs bent in ways they shouldn’t and a halo of red frozen around him.

Sean’s words made sense now, and yet they didn’t, because Charles couldn’t be dead. Not Charles.

Erik thinks he made a sound, because his throat started to burn and his lungs sear in the biting frost. His weight fell to his knees, and then onto his palms, which chafed against the stone. Erik didn’t register what his body was doing, because he was reaching for Charles with frantic hands, fingers pressing against Charles’s upturned back, his neck, his face, his head. His hair felt sticky, and his skull dipped in places it shouldn’t, and Erik made another sound that rocked through his entire body.

“Charles, Charles, what are you doing out here?” Erik pushed, hands shaking as he rolled Charles onto his back, the man pliant. His skin was ice cold, and red had turned to brown and black where it had stilled and pooled under his skin. Erik could feel the congregation of iron that didn’t move in a lump under Charles’s flesh and whimpered.

“No,” Raven said from behind him, voice near-silent.

“Charles,” Erik said again, tugging at the man’s shoulders, hauling him onto his lap. Charles’s head lolled back, and Erik’s throat let out a choked noise as he cradled the telepath’s head in the curve of his elbow, other hand brushing across his cheek, across the bridge of his nose, carding through his hair like Charles always did to him to wake him up in the morning. And yet, Charles’s eyes didn’t open to reveal that familiar blue, just as the sky that hung above him was grey and obscured by clouds.

“Charles?” Erik whispered, leaning in close, like he expected Charles’s parted lips to puff out a breath of warm air, but they didn’t. Erik rocked Charles back and forth in his arms, hunching over as he felt his eyes sting. Erik’s forehead dropped down against Charles’s own as he cradled the man’s face.

‘Charles… Charles… Liebling, you can hear me, can’t you?’ Erik pushed in his mind, his words a firm press. When they were met with silence, Erik’s mental voice rose and swirled, panic overriding the control he had built over the years, his soul unravelling.

‘Charles! Charles, read my mind, listen to me. Please. Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, don’t do this to me. Charles!’

Maybe Erik had been screaming the words out loud too, because he felt a trembling hand grip his shoulder.

“Erik… Erik, the Professor, he’s…” Hank said, voice clogged like he had a throat full of fur as well.

Dead.

For all Erik knew, a telepath could have shoved the word into everyone’s mind, because that’s the word that everyone thought as Hank’s voice drifted off.

“No,” Erik forced out, shaking his head. “No, don’t tell me that Charles is…” Dead. “He can’t… He wouldn’t just…”

Leave.

‘You’re not alone, Erik. You’re not alone,’ Charles had said into Erik’s mind that first night. Even as they rolled amongst the vast and endless waves of the pitch-black ocean, Erik had not felt adrift, because Charles anchored him and kept him afloat.

But now…

Yes, there was a German word for now.

Mutterseelenallein; the English word ‘alone’ was not the same as Mutterseelenallein. Because Mutterseelenallein was more than just the feeling of being alone – it was alone and it was more, it was a world with you surrounded by nothing.

It was the feeling of being without Charles, because without him, Erik was beyond alone.

***

The mansion was in shambles; furniture toppled over, papers scattered across the ground, metal torn from walls and twisted into grotesque shapes that mirrored the turmoil inside Erik’s soul. The mansion was a mess, but it was better that Erik unleash his anguish on objects without souls than the others, though Alex had copped a fist to the face when he had tried to help Hank pry Erik off Charles’s… body.

The thought made Erik’s eyes burn again, and his nails dug into the skin of his palm as he clenched his fists together. Metal groaned in pain around him, crying out in a way that Erik couldn’t bring himself to.

Charles’s mangled body was lying in Hank’s lab on a slab of metal, the only metal in the mansion that had yet to be twisted into obscure lumps. Every time Erik ran his powers across the metal slab, he couldn’t pick up on the way body heat usually seeped into it. He couldn’t feel the metal grow warm, like the way the inside surface of Charles’s watch was warm against the pulse at his wrist. No, the table was cold, as cold as the body lying atop it.

Hank, Alex and Darwin had forced everyone out of the lab while the furred man examined Charles. They said examined, now, because the first time Hank had said autopsy, he had almost been impaled by the spindles of a coatrack.

Sean had been too nauseous to go into the lab, and Erik too volatile. Angel was soothing Raven, who was in some sort of catatonic state. While Erik raged, Raven had shut down. She had fainted, first, the moment Hank and Alex managed to wrench Erik away from Charles’s body and allowing her to see it unobscured for the first time, and she had made the same sound Erik’s Mama had when she dropped to the ground.

Now, hours later, she had awoken, but moved around like she was still half in dream. She hoped she was. She hoped, desperately, that this was just a nightmare, a bad dream. She hoped that she would wake up in her bed, soaked in sweat and tears in her eyes, and run into Charles’s room like she had when they were children and jump into his bed. Like back then, she would crawl under his blankets and press herself to his side like a cat, Charles murmuring “There, there. It’s alright now. It was only a bad dream”.

But this wasn’t a dream, so Raven couldn’t wake up, and Charles wouldn’t be waiting for her in his bed and silk pyjamas and be there to pat her head and tell her that everything was going to be alright. He couldn’t, because he was lying on a metal slab as Hank cut him open and pushed and prodded at his organs to figure out how he died, even though everyone knew the how. Hank, in his own way, was in denial and had to seek out the truth through science.

When Hank entered the room, Raven immediately jumped up, rushing to him.

“Hank?” she asked, voice raw, and the man swallowed thickly. His eyes were red behind his glasses, and the fur beneath them was pressed flat and damp.

Hank seemed to be at a loss for words for a moment, trying to walk through the jumble of his emotions that obscured the facts. When emotions failed, Hank fell back onto the clinical; fractured skull, lumbar vertebrae, legs, arms, ribs. Those shattered ribs splintered into his lungs and his heart. Liver, kidney and spleen lacerations.

“But… It was the head injury that… you know,” Hank said, as if his words should be a relief. “It… It was fast. He… wouldn’t have felt pain, not like if he had survived long enough for multiple organ failure or a pneumothorax or-”

“But how, Hank?” Angel asked, glancing at Raven, who had collapsed back onto the couch beside her. Angel wrapped her arm around Raven’s shaking shoulders, rubbing her hand up and down the girl’s bicep as she began to sob, showing more movement than she had for the past four hours. “Did… Was it an attack? Another mutant? Someone… Someone who worked with Shaw, who could sneak in and…”

Hank shook his head.

“No. The autop- examination revealed that there was no foul play. That the Professor…”

“No,” Erik said flatly, anger and despair simmering on his tongue. “Charles wouldn’t… Why would he… There’s no reason for him to…”

Everyone looked at each other, hearts shattered like Charles’s bones, as they all asked themselves –

Why?

***

They held the funeral exactly one week later, in the backyard under the cover of rain. Raven had spent a day in Charles’s room going through his large wardrobe, pushing through the hangers of geriatric cardigans, pressed slacks and knitwear, trying to hold back her tears so they didn’t soil her brother’s clothes.

Oh, how she had teased him for his wardrobe before, threatening to burn each and every one of his tweed coats with fraying elbow patches and those silly fingerless knit gloves. Now, though, she waded through them carefully, scaled skin brushing across soft cashmere that still had the cling of Charles’s smell on them – like fabric softener mixed with old books and sunlight, and maybe a little bit like tea.

Raven pulled out one of Charles’s dapper suits, the one he wore to the ceremony after he got his first PhD. Raven remembered that day. Charles, beaming that smile of his that could light up any room, hair swept back and yet still flopping over his eyes whenever he doubled over in an all-encompassing laugh. His cheeks had been flushed by elation and drink, and he had been beautiful.

When they had dressed his body on that metal slab in the lab, pulling cold and compliant arms through ironed arm holes and rolling his body to pull on the black dress trousers, Raven had to excuse herself from the room because it was too much. Because that was her brother lying there, dressed like how she remembered him, but the makeup Angel had painted on his face was only a mask that made him look like a ghost pretending to be alive.

As Darwin read through his eulogy, saying something eloquent and collectedly impassioned, Raven’s mind drifted off. For the past week, she had wondered why, over and over, the single question unrelenting.

She and Erik had scoured the mansion for a letter, for an explanation, for something, but Charles had left none. They pawed through the margins of his books, the papers on his desk, everything, and yet they found nothing. Charles, who always had to have the last word, hadn’t left a single thing behind.

Nothing was amiss or out of place, and it was a constant sore reminder of the man that was now being lowered beneath the Westchester lawn beside a small metal monument. The monument featured Charles’s face sculpted in a wreath in the centre, lines and slopes formed by Erik’s hands and Erik’s powers, the depiction of Charles’s face startlingly accurate. Erik’s fingers had recreated the exaggerated curve of his nose, his full cheeks, his bow lips. Lips that Raven was sure Erik had memorised the feel of.

Erik, who had been so close to him, but had been just as shell-shocked – if not more – than anyone else standing in the rain around a headstone made of metal.

As Raven watched her brother’s body sinking lower and lower, Erik’s hands shaking as he used his powers to grip onto the metal handles of the casket to gentle place his lover to rest, Raven just kept staring at her brother’s sculpted face and asked –

Why?

***

Weeks passed, and then months, but by then Erik had stopped counting. His days bled into each other, his life now categorised into a painful stretch of time labelled ‘before Charles’ and the numb agony of ‘after Charles’.

Erik did find a word for ‘after Charles’, though.

Sehnsucht. The English words ‘yearning’ and ‘longing’ could not hold a candle to Sehnsucht. Erik’s thoughts were consumed by Charles, even more than when the man was alive.

When people say that you see the light when you meet death, they should really say that when you die you take the light with you. Because Charles was dead, and suddenly everything was dark, and yet some things were made clear. In the darkness, the people left behind realise what it really means when they say to not take anything for granted.

Erik had realised that all too late. He had tried for so long to not feel for any one, to not grow any attachments because he learnt, long ago, that when you care for someone you gave them some kind of power over you. By loving someone they could hurt you when they were taken away.

But Charles. God, Charles. Charles, who was so alive and vibrant and just a beacon of everything that was bright had seemed impervious to everything. He seemed infallible, and that had infuriated Erik, deep down. Charles, who had appeared so arrogant and self-assured, whose smirk always held the air of ‘I know I’m right, my friend, there’s no use arguing’. Who walked around the world a step above the rest because he knew everything that went on in their heads, and…

The emptiness in Erik’s head was stifling. Quiet, far too quiet. Every morning when Erik woke from a fitful sleep in Charles’s bed – which no longer smelled like him – he was enough in dream to momentarily expect to feel the warm curl of Charles’s mind lapping against his, to hear a silent ‘Good morning, love’ or ‘Sorry, did my thoughts wake you again, darling’, and Erik would grumble back a “You’re too loud, Charles”.

But then, Erik would open his eyes, and instead of seeing a pair of blue ones gazing back at him he only saw an empty expanse of bedding and a pillow still fluffy and smooth from disuse.

It was well into spring now, and the garden was awash with colour, but Erik barely noticed it as he walked around aimlessly. Erik often did that, these days; when the memories sitting in Charles’s bedroom overwhelmed him, he would go outside to try and clear his head. He’d walk along the paved path, around the side of the mansion, and each time he would get closer to that spot. The spot stained with a halo of red, red that he had overheard Sean whispering to Alex about, saying that “It’s all gone now, after we scrubbed it away, but I don’t know, man – I still can’t walk down that way without…”

Erik had turned the corner quickly, not wanting to hear the rest, because Charles had been washed away just like that, with bleach and rain and mud.  

As he walked through the garden, Erik flicked his wrist, Charles’s wristwatch floating out from his pocket. Erik held it in his palm, powers running over its grooves and indentations, over its arms that had stopped ticking the moment its owner stopped breathing. Erik could feel the stagnant metal, the scratches on the underside, the engraved ‘Happy birthday, son’ sharp on his senses. He couldn’t feel how the glass watch face was cracked with his powers, and instead ran the pad of his thumb over it, memorising its feel.

Erik stopped walking when he reached the lawn, the metal gravestone warm under the sun. Erik’s heart twisted as he neared it like he did every day, and he stretched forward to gently wipe away some of the grime that had been blown across it overnight.

And, like always, Erik kneeled in front of it and pressed his forehead against its surface, murmuring –

Why, Charles?

***

It wasn’t completely true to say that Charles left nothing behind, because he did. Memories, feelings, and a long list of readings from his last dance with Cerebro. They had only just discovered it, the thick paper studded with black ink sitting on the bench behind the large powered-down machine.

They probably would have found it sooner, if any of them had the heart to go in there, to a place that had Charles written all over it. Cerebro had become a relic over the past months, and like Charles’s watch, had become stagnant without its owner to keep it alive.

The last list of readings – latitudes and longitudes stamped in ink – had been folded into a binder, annotations in black pen scribbled along the margins. Annotations in Charles’s distinct hand, regal and smooth, swooping letters somehow conveying intelligence and innovation, but also understated elegance and a noble upbringing.

Alongside the locations of the young mutants Charles had been searching for were notes on their powers, or important facts of note. Katherine Pryde – intangibility. Ororo Munroe – atmokinesis. Scott Summers – Alex’s brother! Similar powers, how marvellous. Anna Marie – power absorption? Jean Grey – telepath and telekinesis, very powerful but she’s terrified about what she can do I understand.

And that was it. No scribbled note or instructions, just a list of people, of children, and yet it was a list that somehow brought a flicker of life back to the mansion. Because even if Charles hadn’t written down explicit instructions, they all knew what he wanted. What he had dreamed about.

A school, a safe haven for mutants. A place like Genosha, but for all the young mutants who didn’t quite know their place in the world. A school where they could learn to embrace their gifts, and to be around people just like them.

Charles left them this list, his final one, to find them. To build this school, one that he would never see come to fruition.

Why, Charles? What would make you do this to yourself, when you had wanted to achieve so much?

Why?

That question still haunted Erik in his waking days and in his dreams, but as he clutched the list of names, he felt that maybe, somewhere in there, there could be an answer.

He was right, and amongst those names was an answer.

But that doesn’t mean that it was a nice one.

***

“I know you,” the young red-haired girl said, large eyes staring unblinkingly at Erik and Raven as they stood in front of her. She looked at Raven first, tilting her head to the side. “Why are you not blue? When I saw his mind, you were blue. He liked you when you were blue, it made him feel… proud.”

Raven’s mouth dropped open, her pink skin flickering to blue for a brief moment in shock as the girl – Jean, as Charles’s list had told them – stared at her unflinchingly.

“I… who?” Raven stammered out as her image rippled, before settling into her natural blue scales and red hair. Jean blinking slowly, head tilting to the other side as she stared into Raven’s yellow irises.

“The man that spoke to me in my mind a long time ago. He has some of the same powers as me, but he was much better at it. He told me that you,” Jean said, pointing to Raven in her blue form, before turning her gaze to Erik and continuing, “and you would come find me. He said it may be someone else though, like the tall man that looks like a blue teddy bear, or the pretty lady with the wings. But he said it would probably be you two.”

“Charles,” Erik whispered, Jean nodding. Erik suddenly felt like there was a boulder in his throat, but he managed to speak around it. “You said he… spoke to you. When did he…”

“It was in winter,” the girl said, looking into the distance a little wistfully, small smile on her youthful face. “He was very nice. I was scared, and he told me that it would be alright. That he was scared too, and that it was okay to be scared. He told me that I could use my fear to learn how to control my powers better, so I don’t have to be scared of hurting anyone. I wanted to meet him, because he was really nice, and he understood, but he said that he had to go somewhere far away.”

Raven’s face fell and Erik clenched his jaw, Jean flinching as a hand flew to her temple.

“You’re… You’re angry, and sad, and… and… It… It hurts,” Jean stammered, one hand clutching at the fabric of her dress that rested over her heart, her eyes wide as they began to glaze over. Her pupils flickered wildly, mouth moving rapidly as she took a step back, shaking. “You’re too loud! I-It hurts, you hurt, I hurt, and… oh… Oh… and he hurts. He hurts a lot, so much, because he’s scared and alone and…”

Erik and Raven winced as the girl, with so little control of her powers, sent a wave of psionic energy at the two of them. The both of them fell to their knees with their hands over their ears, clamping over them like it would stop the ringing rattling through their brains.

“Stop it,” Erik gasped out in pain as the pressure in his head flared, and he could feel the young telepath’s mental fingers poking around his mind. Her touch was clumsy, uncontrolled, like she didn’t know what she was looking for as she rifled through the mess of memories and feelings, stirring them up and bringing them to the forefront of Erik and Raven’s minds.

Images of Charles flashed by, the girl somehow latching on to every memory involving him. She saw everything; the frost, the blood, the metal slab, the chess games, the laughter, the nights stargazing as they trekked across the country, the beach, the shared glances, the gentle brush of fingers.

Erik let out a pained noise as she dragged forth everything his mind had to offer about Charles, the pain anew, and Erik gathered all of his thoughts to push the girl from his head. Steel walls climbed up and up and up, reinforced with iron bolts and pointed barbs.

‘Get out of my head.’

“Oh,” the girl wailed, slowly lowering herself onto the ground, arms around her torso as she hugged herself, eyes wide. “That’s why he hurt… That’s why his mind felt like that… And he still hurts. Alone… he’s so alone…”

The young telepath’s eyes then rolled back, her tiny and undeveloped mind overwhelmed, and she soon slumped forward with her head lowered. Raven and Erik gasped as the pressure on their minds receded, the two of them looking at each other with heavy gazes.

Why?

***

It had been a month since Jean came to the school to live, and she had been skittish around Erik and Raven ever since. It wasn’t that Erik and Raven were avoiding her – if anything, it was the opposite. The girl knew something about Charles. He had clearly shown her something, or she could have plucked it from his mind as she had pulled their memories of him from theirs. And yet, whenever the girl saw them, her eyes would widen and she would scuttle off in the opposite direction.

“I get why the children run away from Erik, but Raven?” Alex said, raising a brow as the older mutants sat in the kitchen.

“It’s only Jean that runs away from Raven,” Angel pointed out, making the shapeshifter wince. “What the hell did you two do to her when you were recruiting?”

“We did nothing,” Erik said, narrowing his eyes as he vaguely gestured towards his head. “She did… things. She wasn’t like Charles – she clearly didn’t know what she was doing. But she said things about him. About Charles.”

“And we’ve been trying to talk to her about it ever since, but every time either of us get close to her she runs off!” Raven said, throwing her hands up as she munched on a strawberry. “She even… I think she even used her powers on me the other day. Cast an illusion so I didn’t see her, but it wasn’t perfect. Instead of erasing herself from my senses, she just made it fuzzy and it was unnatural. If it were Charles…”

“Anyway,” Erik said, cutting off that train of thought with a gruff grunt. “She knows something about Charles, about why he…”

“Well of course she does, Sugar. Unlike you lot, she knows how to listen.”

Erik leapt up at the sound of that familiar voice, the kitchen drawers all rattling open as the knives flew out from their homes to hover in the air around the approaching figure that had appeared in the archway of the kitchen. Hank leapt up as well, snarling, while everyone else faced the newcomer with narrowed eyes, muscles taut and ready to fight.

“Oh, do calm yourselves,” Emma Frost drawled, waving her hands warily at the knives that inched closer to her tight white suit. “Contrary to what you’re all thinking – except you, Angel, dear – I’m not here to harm. And no, Erik, I’m not here to ‘avenge’ Sebastian or all that other nonsense you’re thinking about. I’m here because I heard a whisper about your pet telepath being very much buried beneath the ground and was, well, curious. Because I hear things from up there sometimes, and even though we were certainly not friends, I can understand him. Quite. I didn’t think that he would… he was strong, stronger than me. But I suppose it was that soft heart of his… And it was all too much in the end, I suppose…”

“Frost…” Erik said warningly, knives jerking forward, Emma flickering into diamond for a brief moment before relaxing back to her normal guise.

“Sugar, I really do come in peace. This little lady can attest to that, can’t you, dear?”

Emma’s eyes turned away from Erik for a moment, looking behind him. Jean stood there wearing her nightgown, a teddy bear held tightly in her arms as she looked at Emma, tentative but not wary. There was something silent being said between them, that everyone was sure of.

“Jean?” Raven asked, the red head looking at her and nodding slowly.

“Mm. Ms Fr- Emma,” Jean said, looking back at Emma, who smiled a little. “Emma said that… That she just wants us to understand. We… We both want you to understand, because we understand.”

“Dear, the first thing you should learn is to not talk in riddles. People detest us and our powers already, they only get more annoyed if we try to be cryptic about it all,” Emma said, Jean’s cheeks colouring.

“Why would you want to help us?” Erik asked, Emma letting out a heavy sigh, reaching forward with her index finger to nudge at one of the hovering knives, giving Erik a flat look. The metallokinetic gritted his teeth, but let the knives fall onto the dining table.

“Oh, I’m not helping you. I’m helping him. Because, even if he wasn’t going to be angry about it, I will, because I’ve experienced it. Unlike him, I don’t care what you think. I don’t care if I make you uncomfortable. I had enough of that with Shaw, with that ridiculous helmet. Because if he just trusted me I would have done anything for hi-” Emma cut herself off with a harsh click of her tongue.

“You think you are different – from Shaw, from the humans. But you’re not,” Emma said, after calming herself, Jean slowly walking towards her. When she neared, Jean carefully reached up to hold onto the hem of Emma’s top, the icy woman looking down and patting her head – a little awkwardly, the gesture clunky for someone unaccustomed to doling out affection. Still, Jean relaxed a bit, looking more at home than she had for the past month that she had been living at the mansion for.

“And who’s being cryptic now? Cut to the chase,” Erik snapped, Emma smiling emptily.

“Well, we’re telepaths, Sugar. It’s easier for us to show you. We’ve felt how he felt, and maybe if you do too, you’ll understand why he did it.”

Erik opened his mouth, and before he could say the words in his mind, Emma let out a biting laugh.

“Stay out of my head?” Emma echoed, drawing the words from Erik’s mind, Jean wincing. “You see, that line worked on your pet telepath, and maybe a little too well. But I am not so principled. Maybe that’s why I’m still here, and he’s up there.”

“Stop this nonse-”

“Jean, Sugar. Let me help you. This is how you show them,” Emma said, gently touching the back of Jean’s head, the girl’s eyes closing as the teddy bear dropped from her hands, which rose in front of her.

And then, through Charles’s eyes, everyone saw why.

***

Charles stood in the middle of the packed room, the bow tie around his neck wound too tight and the starch in his shirt like a vice. He was short, short for the nine-year-old boy that he was, and he stood stiffly between his mother and father as they greeted their guests.

Charles had been nursing a headache all morning, and he was a little woozy from all of the painkillers his mother had plied him with, because no matter what he had to show up to the Xavier Foundation’s gala. It would be terribly rude if the Xaviers’ only son played hooky, when all of their guests would be bringing their own children. And, if Sharon was going to show everyone who held all the cards, Charles had to be on his best behaviour and show everyone exactly what a Xavier son was all about.

But the painkillers hadn’t helped with the buzzing in Charles’s head, which had only gotten louder and louder as more people piled into Westchester.

Charles let out a gasp as his mind twinged.

‘… up straighter, stupid, quit slouching.’

The words were in his mother’s voice, but she was talking to the councilwoman with her painted lips right now, wasn’t she? Just as Charles thought this, he felt his mother pinch at the flesh at his back.

‘Goddammit, did I give him too much? I gave him less than the adult dose, but…’

Charles swayed on his feet slightly, but not because of the drugs. His head felt like it was splitting, the buzzing turning into a muttered chorus of noise.

‘… Charles looks so ill. I told Sharon that we should let him rest. I’ll finish greeting the guests, and before my address I’ll tuck Charles into bed...’

Charles heard his father’s voice, leaning into its comforting timbre. Charles felt a spike of alarm, his father’s hand suddenly coming to rest at his back as Charles swayed.

‘… was that…?’

Charles bit back a pained moan as his head pulsed again.

‘… have to talk to Brian Xavier…’

‘Funding…’

‘No one’s looking, maybe I can nick that statuette now…’

‘God, she looks fat in that dress.’ ‘She’s skinny like a Jew fresh out of…’ ‘Oh dear Lord, he actually dared to bring his mistress to this?’

The voices picked up, more and more tumbling over one another, each wave barely breaking before the next washed over Charles who gasped for breath and drowned.

‘Oh, Xavier’s boy is an adorable lad, isn’t he? Looks like his mother, not much like his father. So that’s Sharon’s kid? Hmph, doesn’t look like much. Won’t fill his father’s shoes, eh? Once his father dies, he’ll inherit everything. Lucky bastard. John is the same age as that Xavier kid. Maybe I should push them to become friends. Friends in high places will get my son anywhere. Fuck, Sharon still looks as fit as she did in school. Damn. Good God, Brian’s boy looks white as a sheet. Why is he looking at me like that? Weird kid. God, watch where you’re going, you little shit. I would wring your neck, but that would get me out of Brian’s good graces and I need his sponsorship. Once Brian is out of the picture, everything will be mine for the taking, and then Cain… Jesus, that Xavier kid looks like he’s about to spew. Crazy kid. Weird. Something’s wrong with him. Is he sick? Maybe he really is a freak.’

Charles gasped, stepping out from his father’s concerned embrace and racing up the stairs, past the crowds and mental gazes and hurtling into his bedroom. He whimpered with his hands over his ears as he slowly sunk to the ground and crawled under his bed, breaths laboured.

I’mnocrazyI’mnotcrazyI’mnotcrazy.

Getoutgetoutgetout.

***

Charles looked up at his mother, who returned his gaze with a look of pure horror and terror and a plethora of other things.

‘Oh God, he’s no listening to me right now, is he?’

Charles kept his mouth shut, giving his mother a false smile, as if he didn’t hear her.

“Mother, can we eat at that restaurant with the dessert that they light on fire tonight?” Charles asked innocently, his mother’s painted mouth twisting up into a stiff grin.

“Of course, dear. I’ll get one of the staff to ring the restaurant.”

‘Maybe he didn’t hear. Maybe he doesn’t know that…’

“Father won’t be coming, will he?” Charles said, Sharon’s face faltering.

‘Oh God, how do I tell him?’

“Oh, it’s alright, Mother. I already know. And I know that you’re sad, and I’m sad too. Which is why we should eat at that restaurant, because it makes you happy,” Charles said quietly, shuffling forward and placing his hand over his mother’s own, which froze.

‘Oh God, how could he know? He must be reading my mind now, he must. Oh God, don’t read my mind, don’t, don’t, don’t!’

Sharon pulled her hand out from under her son’s smaller one like he burned her, getting up from her chair and picking up her glass of wine with her, smoothing her dress as if she could flatten her fraying nerves.

“How thoughtful of you, Charles. But maybe… maybe not tonight. I’m very… tired.”

‘You’re not,’ Charles thought to himself as he looked at his mother, who looked everywhere but at him.

You’re just scared of me.

***

“Charles, can you just, you know, stay out for once?” Raven huffed, rolling her eyes. Charles flinched, but the movement was so minute it was barely noticeable.

“Raven, it’s not that easy to just-” Turn it off.

“Or you’re just lazy,” Raven countered, rolling her yellow eyes. “Charles, I get that when we were kids for you to stay in my head all the time, but you can shield better now and I need my privacy! I’m 16, for Christ’s sake!”

“I’m trying, Raven, but I can’t just turn it off! It takes a lot of concentration to shut people out, and it’s really hard when there are lots of people and you think loudly and it’s feels better for me to just focus on one mind and you’re the only one I-”

“But you can’t just be in my head all the time, Charles! It’s my mind! My thoughts! Just because you can read them doesn’t mean that you can do it any time you want!”

“I know that, Raven, but I told you it’s hard to-”

“You promised me you wouldn’t read my mind without my permission!”

“And I kept that promise, but sometimes I slip!”

“Oh, right,” Raven said, scoffing a little. “You just ‘slipped’ and found out that Robbie kissed me the other day while I was pretending to be Cecilia and gave me shit for it? Suuuure.”

“That was… an accident. I wasn’t… I wasn’t searching for that, but you were thinking really loudly about how his lips felt and-”

“Oh, gross! Stay out of my head, Charles! I don’t want you to hear my thoughts!” Raven yelled, face scrunching up in disgust as Charles pulled his mind back, the swell of his powers naturally following his heightened agitation.

“Sorry! It’s… I… God, sorry, okay? I’ll stay out of your head, just… try to think less loudly. Please,” Charles sighed tiredly, Raven huffing.

“I don’t think loudly, you’re just too nosy for your own good, Charles.”

But you do think loudly, because your mind is so bright and special and you’re my sister and I want to be with you forever because you’re the only one that doesn’t think that I’m a freak. Because we’re the same.

We’re the same.

Even if you don’t think it, sometimes.

***

Charles watched through Shaw’s eyes as Erik’s hands slowly brought the helmet down over his head. The sharp cut of its opening made Erik look like a completely different person, not like the man that murmured sweet German words to the skin at the base of Charles’s neck, or the man that had draped his coat over Charles’s shoulders when he had dozed off in the passenger seat of the car.

Charles didn’t know who this was, because this person didn’t have a mind. He was just a void, a void that Charles loved but one that didn’t love him back, because he couldn’t stand the thought of Charles being in his head.

But Charles loved Erik’s mind. It made Charles feel safe, protected and warm, and… well, Charles didn’t have a word for it. At least, not in the English language. Maybe there was a word for it in other languages, but Charles had to settle for safe, protected and warm.

Charles didn’t want to do much more than to just curl up in a corner of that mind he so adored. He just wanted to lie there in front of the fireplace; he didn’t want to stoke the fire burning within it, or snuff it out. He just wanted to bask in its glow that thawed all of the chill from within Charles’s bones.

Still, Erik’s mind didn’t want him there. He had known it, in the subtle walls Erik had been building against him, in the way Erik’s mind would push back when he felt Charles taking up too much space. In the way the fireplace turned into an inferno and burned.

With the helmet, though, it just felt cold. Empty. And that was somehow worse, because Charles was sure that this was what Erik wanted. Because of the helmet, Charles knew that Erik didn’t want him, because to want Charles was to want his mind, because that was as much a part of him as his heart, his eyes, his mouth. It was written in his genes, and Charles knew how much Erik loved the powers of others; he was in awe over Raven’s abilities, proud of how Sean had learned to fly, impressed at the destructive power of Alex’s plasma blasts, and genuinely supportive of Hank’s new appearance.

And yet, Erik put on the helmet, because in the end, he didn’t accept Charles’s gift.

Charles thought that maybe, maybe, Erik would be like his own father. That, like Brian, he’d accept all of him, because even if not out of love, it was out of the goodness of his heart. Because Charles knew there was good there, even as much as Erik tried to deny it. Charles had felt it, had believed in it.

He’d still believe in it. Maybe it’ll just take more time.

Just a bit more.

Charles wouldn’t push him so much, Charles could stay out of his mind if he could. He just had to try harder.

And –

Oh God. The coin. Oh, no, Erik. Erik! No, no, oh, God, please stop. Please, please, please. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! Oh God, too much, it’s too much! It hurts too much!

I just want it to end.

***

Charles placed down his cards, a smirk on his face as he chuckled, gathering the chocolates they were using as betting chips and popping one in his mouth.

“Four of a kind,” the telepath said smugly through a mouthful of sweetness, Raven groaning and throwing down her cards while Alex swore. Darwin just smiled, Angel rolled her eyes and Sean stared at his own cards, confused. Erik, on the other hand, just quirked a brow as he let his losing full house drop to the table by the paperclips that he used to hover them in front of his face.

“We should ban you from poker, Charles. Or just card games in general. You have an unfair advantage,” Erik teased, the chocolate on Charles’s tongue suddenly tasting bitter.

“Right?” Raven chimed, clapping her blue hands in agreement. “It’s been like this ever since we were kids! It’s unfair! He can just, you know, mind shazam us and win every time!” Raven gestured at her head and stuck her tongue out, Charles’s brow creasing.

“I’m not cheating. I’m not even trying to read your minds. I’m blocking everything out, I promise – it’s no fun if it’s that easy. I can’t help it if I get a general sense of disappointment or excitement coming through, but it’s not as if I read your mind to find out your cards. Erik has beaten me before,” Charles said, voice quiet, pushing the chocolates in front of him around with his fingers.

“Yeah, only because he’s the best at blocking you out,” Raven said, Erik snorting.

“And because he is expressionless normally, so his normal face is already a poker face,” Sean said, yelping as a paper clip collided with the centre of his forehead, likely leaving a little welt.

“I’m really not trying to read your minds,” Charles pushed again, but by that point Raven had shuffled the cards, dealing out the next hand. Charles looked at his cards – a useless lot – and felt Erik looking at him from the side.

“Don’t peek, Charles,” Erik said, Charles rolling his eyes and pushing down the sinking feeling in his stomach.

“I told you, I’m not. And, anyway, I’m done for tonight. I’m quite tired, so I’m going to take a bath first.”

Throwing his cards down, Charles got up from his seat, giving everyone a polite ‘good night’ smile before leaving the room.

Before he could leave, though, he heard Raven’s triumphant “Ah ha!” as she flipped over his discarded cards.

‘See? He had a dud hand – he probably left because he saw I had a royal straight flush!’

***

Charles was asleep, he knew it, but he also knew that this dream wasn’t the same as usual. Like thoughts, dreams had their own personal signature, and this one didn’t feel like one of his own.

Someone spoke, wearing a dark suit adorned with metallic pins. They weren’t speaking English – German? Polish? Something of the sort.

Ah, Erik’s dream, then.

Charles, in sleep, took a little longer to gather his thoughts, and was about to eject himself out of Erik’s mind when he saw him. He was younger than the Erik Charles knew, but could recognise him from the unchanging severe brow and auburn hair, and his memory of the serene vision he had unearthed for Erik that day they had moved the satellite dish.

Young Erik, with the mind of Charles’s Erik, looked frantic as he was ushered into a room where Shaw was sitting, looking similar but different to the man on the Cuban beach. An image of how Erik viewed him as a child. This is an old dream, then. Or nightmare, Charles deduced, since he could feel the beginnings of panic settling into Erik’s subconscious.

Charles’s heart ached as he saw Young Erik bite his lip in fear when Shaw ordered him to move the coin. Charles stood there behind him, his presence not yet known, and watched as Erik’s mother trembled, gun pressed to her temple.

‘No, no, not again, not again. I’ve killed you, you’re gone, but why are you still-’ Erik’s mind whirled as he raised both hands, child-sized and shaking. In his dream, his powers were cut off, and Charles could feel his fear spiralling out of control.

Charles had told Erik that Shaw’s death would not bring him peace, and it hadn’t. It had made him feel more secure, of course, knowing that a madman like Shaw was no longer in the world, but he was not at peace. This nightmare only proved it.

‘But, maybe I can help bring you peace, my friend,’ Charles thought to himself, stepping forward in Erik’s dream space. Charles moved to stand beside Erik, who finally noticed his presence, eyes growing wide.

“Rage and serenity, my friend,” Charles said softly, gently touching Erik’s cheek, and then his temple. “Remember.”

Charles wrapped his mind around Erik’s, soothing out the fear and the panic, tweaking and repaving the path the nightmare usually followed. Erik’s small hands flexed, and unlike every other time he had experienced this dream, the coin moved.

But Charles only influenced that part, and didn’t stop Erik from moving the coin through Shaw’s head, making Charles scream.

At that point, Erik and Charles both woke with a start, the German pushing himself away from Charles who had been pressed against his side.

“Were you in my head, Charles? Did you see?” Erik said, voice strained, eyes narrowed.

“I’m sorry, I…”

“Stay out, Charles. I don’t want you in there, to see that. I… Just… Stay out. Please,” Erik said, voice drained. Charles nodded, another apology on the tip of his tongue like they always were when it came to this.

‘I just wanted to help. I’m sorry,’ Charles said to no one but himself, and when Erik opened his arms to let Charles nestle himself there again, Charles tried not to think about it for much longer.

But if there was one mind Charles couldn’t control, it was his own.

***

‘I’m tired.’

That was something Charles thought more and more often lately. Not tired like the way Sean is after watching too much television, or Alex from overexerting himself in the underground bunker. No, Charles very soul was tired; he had nothing left, really. All of the exuberance he had on the outside was but a façade now, a shadow and caricature of what he used to be. Of what everyone thought he was.

But he was tired. It wasn’t one big event that had wiped out his fire and his light. It was just a series of little things, of small comments, of mental walls and nudges away. It was in the wary gazes of the people around him, the frequent and unbidden ‘oh, crap, is he listening right now?’ that people couldn’t hold back even if they tried.

It was the way people could never really trust Charles, because whatever he said, it was probably said because he knew that’s what they wanted to hear, right? Because they wanted to hear that he didn’t listen to their thoughts, and for the most part Charles hadn’t. But like everyone, he slipped, and would catch a thought as if they had said it out loud, and because to him it was like they had spoken it, he would respond and the immediate backlash of ‘I thought you said you’d stay out of my head, Charles,’ would snap him back into focus.

Charles had been tired for a while now, and he wasn’t ready just yet, but he was preparing. He was beginning to say goodbye, in ways that wouldn’t let people catch on to him.

But, how could they? They weren’t telepaths.

Charles had spent time with every one of his family – because they were family to him, now – before that winter’s night. He helped them coax out more of their gifts, and praised and encouraged them to continue on their journeys. They had smiled at him, thanked him for his advice, and gone on their way, while Charles too slowly trudged on towards his final destination.

Saying goodbye to Raven had been hard. Charles had almost cried, and Raven had given him a questioning look, but Charles just shook his head, kissing his sister’s hand.

“No, it’s nothing. It’s just… you’ve grown up so well, and so beautiful. I don’t think I say it enough. But I’m proud of you, always. Don’t forget that,” Charles said, Raven rolling her eyes, though her mouth broke into a smile as Charles hugged her tightly.

And Erik.

God, Erik.

Charles had, at one point, envisioned a future with Erik. He imagined how they’d be years into the future, grey, wrinkled and old. Charles imagined Erik losing his hair, but somehow finding that imagined version of the German attractive nonetheless, and snorted at the idea of it being the other way around – Charles was fond of his hair, after all.

Charles imagined them still living in Westchester, but with a large rabble of children running about their knees, powers dancing from their fingertips. He pictured a middle-aged Erik resting his head across Charles’s lap as they read together, or the two jetting off to Paris and Germany, to visit where Erik had grown up.

Charles imagined years of Erik making him cups of tea, of kissing Erik, holding Erik, loving Erik. The fantasies and wishes came so easily, one after the other, a series of ‘what could be’ and ‘if only’.

Charles imagined waking up next to Erik every day for the rest of his life, and, he supposed, he had gotten that until the very end at least.

Charles touched his lips softly, smiling at the memory of how Erik’s mouth felt against his for the very last time, and carried that feeling with him as he climbed onto the ledge of the highest balcony. The wind rippled through Charles’s pyjamas and made him teeter on the stone edge, hands outstretched for balance.

The wind threaded through his spread fingers, coaxing, holding his hand.

One last time, Charles closed his eyes and cast his power out. He touched on the sleeping minds of Hank, Sean, Angel, Darwin, Alex, Raven and Erik, pressing a disguised ‘thank you, and good bye’ against each and every one of them, before letting himself tip forwards, weightless.

And Hank had been right – he hadn’t felt a thing.

***

Emma took her hand off the back of Jean’s head, and instead hefted the girl up as she leaned into Emma’s side with exhaustion after projecting what she had seen in the brief moment she had connected with Charles’s mind. Her youthful face was slick with tears, as were those of all of the others in the room – even Emma’s eyes were glassy as she felt everything Charles had felt, like she had lived through those moments herself.

“Oh, oh, Charles,” Raven sobbed, hand flying over her mouth as she cried, legs shaking. “I didn’t… I didn’t know…”

Erik stood eerily still, mouth slightly parted, though not a single breath passed between his lips. A single tear teetered over the edge of his burning eyes, sliding down a pale cheek as the echoes of Charles’s silent agony rippled through him.

Had he done that?

To Charles?

He had made Charles feel like that?

Charles, who had done nothing less than make him feel loved, cherished, safe – Gemütlichkeit. Charles, who had given him a home, a purpose, a reason to live that was more than just revenge. Charles, who had never told him how it all made him feel, how Erik made him feel.

But why would he? Erik had never wanted to listen. He had never asked.

He had always assumed Charles just knew, that if Charles wanted Erik to ask, or to know something, he would just make him. But that wasn’t Charles, was it? Out of all the people in the world, the gift of telepathy had been given to Charles. Charles who, like no one else, wouldn’t use his powers for his own selfish gain – to hurt others, to control them. Charles, whose powers taught him the value of free thought, of organic feelings, of everything that was real, had been the one given that gifts.

Charles had no ulterior motives, nothing more than the simple, basic feeling of wanting to be close to people he cared about, in the way that he knew best. While others held the people they loved close in their arms, Charles embraced them with his mind. That was what Gemütlichkeit was for him. It’s just that no one could understand it.

No one took the time to understand him, because they just pushed him away.

Erik pushed him away.

Erik, who should have been the person to hold him close, to tell him “You’re not alone, Charles, you’re not alone”. But instead of that, every time Erik told Charles to stay out of his head he had been alienating him, pushing him to isolation, making him feel unwanted, like he had felt all his life.

And it had driven Charles to… to…

Charles, Charles, Liebling. Gott. What have I done?

Erik’s heart twisted, and the pain was as physical as it was emotional, the man crumpling to the floor.

“I never told him,” Erik said, voice raw. “I never… I assumed he knew, so I never said it. Any of it. I never told him that I…”

That I love him. That he’s everything. That I only started living when I met him. That he was home. That he was Gemütlichkeit itself.

“So, now you see,” Emma said, tugging Jean towards her, the young girl hugging Emma around the waist. “So, before you accuse me – us,” Emma said, looking down at Jean, “of plundering your mind for no other reason than to pluck out your inane thoughts for the fun of it, just remember that this is how we are. To us, thoughts are like air, the stretch of our minds like lungs expanding. We don’t choose to read your thoughts – we choose not to. And it’s hard to block thoughts out. That’s what you don’t understand. For that Professor of yours to block you out most of the time takes a great deal of concentration, concentration that I, and young Jean here, don’t have.”

A note of anguish clawed its way out of Erik’s throat and he struggled to breathe.

Charles, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, forgive me. Please, come back. I need to tell you, all the things I never said. The things I should have said, every day. You have to hear them, you can hear them in my mind, whenever you want. Whenever you need it.

Please.

 “You said you heard him, heard C-Charles,” Raven said through a hiccup. “Let us talk to him. We have to tell him… Everything. That we’re sorry, for everything.”

Erik pulled his eyes from the ground, looking at Emma, who just shook her head, wry smile gracing her features.

“Trust me, if I could, I would – as much as I loathe to admit it, I’m not powerful enough to reach the astral plane yet, not like your telepath. And who knows where he is now, floating around up there in the astral plane, without a care in the world. Even if I could, would you really want me to? To take him away from that place, where he wants to be, just because you want it?”

Emma’s words weighed on everyone, and after a long stretch of silence, Emma sighed.

“I didn’t only come here to make you feel guilty, although I can’t say I regret it. Even if I don’t agree with everything he stood for, and even if he was a naïve fool with a bleeding heart, he was no coward. And he was a telepath, and what he wanted – one of his final wishes – was to make a place where telepaths are accepted. Complete and fully. And I can’t say I disagree with that wish,” Emma said, Erik blinking.

“What do you mean?”

“That wasn’t really a riddle, Sugar,” Emma said, patting Jean on the shoulder. “I’m saying that I’ll help you build that school you’ve started. You’re going to need me, if you’re going to find any one. Now, he said that the machine, what was it called again – Spanish for brain, he said – would need to be recalibrated, but I should be able to operate it with a little practice.”

“And,” Emma continued, smirking. “You’re all doing a terrible job at making Jean here feel at home. If you’re going to start making telepaths feel like they’re accepted as much as your blue skin and wings are, you’re going to need me.”

‘But you’re not Charles-’

“I know, Sugar,” Emma said, voice softening just a touch. “Trust me, I know. But, in the fleeting moment he pressed into my mind, he did tell me to say one thing to you.”

Erik’s heart hammered as Emma walked closer after making sure Jean wasn’t going to collapse in a heap, raising her hands questioningly. When Erik let her place her fingers on either side of his head, Erik shuddered as he felt her telepathic touch filter in. Her touch was cold, so different from the all-enveloping warmth of Charles’s mind.

But then, as Emma pushed the feeling and image of Charles into Erik’s mind – Charles, smiling that damned smile which lit up rooms and minds and hearts, fingers carding through his hair – he couldn’t help but loose a sob.

Alles ist gut, Erik.

Alles ist gut.

But it wasn’t.

Not in the dark.

[kkairosclerosis]

uncommon things i associate my deities with~

hi guys! im back from a quick hiatus! 

i recently moved to the city, but not too far from where i lived previously in the country. living in the city, however, is proving to be a bit more difficult then i had imagined, so ive been taking some weekends to go back home and ground myself again so i can feel more connected to my craft<3.

anyways, this morning, i was sitting on the porch of my parents farmhouse, looking out onto the sunset as my idiot dog ran laps around the frost-covered lawn, feeling more connected to my deities than i had in weeks. i decided, ‘hey, here a nice post idea. maybe ill talk abt the things i associate with my deities that others might not, and hopefully inspire them to as well!’ so, here it is! 

uncommon things i associate my deities with!

hermes——««

if this isnt your first time on my blog, you probably know: hermes is my patron. he has been for a while, even before i began to worship him. if you want to know more about why, check out this post. 

regardless, you can imagine that i hold very dear everything i associate with him.

in this case, it’s my dog. 

my dog is an...interesting border collie named oliver. i got into hellenic worship very shortly after getting him, and i have a very strong feeling he has a lot to do with it. 

i am thoroughly convinced my dog is a child of hermes. hes chaotic, but extremely smart. very, very fast, and spends hours running out in the yard. just running. nothing else. its even more intense when its windy, which, if you read the aforementioned post, you know that i associate the wind heavily with hermes. hermes is also the god of animal husbandry, and oliver is quite the farm animal. 

watching him run, i always get a strong sense of comfort. i know that the energy of hermes resides in him, its very clear. its almost as if his running brings the wind.  like hes running, and hermes says ‘hey, that looks fun! let me join!’ 

i, very regularly, ask for hermes protection of oliver. i do this because i know of the love hermes has for him. i can feel it. it makes me comfortable knowing hes safe while im not home with him. and i can tell it makes oliver feel safe as well.

aphrodite——««

aphrodite has always been dear to me, even before i started actually worshipping. i remember reading about her in the mythology books i frequented in the art room after i finished my projects, carrying them out to the field to just sit and read. she was an embodiment of beauty to me, and that has not changed since, so its natural that i associate her with one of the things i find most beautiful on this plane of existence: clouds.

when i was thinking of writing this post, i was sitting and looking at a cloudless sky. i was thinking: why is it that we most often consider a cloudless sky beautiful? is it because of the absence of ‘blemish?’ does a cloud signify a flaw? must all beautiful things be completely clear, or without mark? 

obviously, i thought this was ridiculous. clouds are so very dear to me. i mean, i have an entire album of photos on my phone of pictures of clouds i have taken. i have always been enamored. 

while i was pondering this, it hit me. beauty is unique. beauty is individual. thats exactly what aphrodite is about. these ‘marks’ in the sky are what make the sky beautiful to me. aphrodite is in these ‘blemishes’ because i find them beautiful. 

now, i dont mean to wrap this up in a corny way, but i encourage the people reading this to think this way about themselves. beauty is in your imperfections because they make you you. i have not seen one cloud that looks exactly like another i have seen, and thats exactly what makes them so beautiful to me. aphrodite loves all of you, and someone else does as well, so do not disrespect them by being mean to yourself. their idea of beauty is not misconstrued, so trust them. and if you dont think someone thinks your beautiful, know that i do<3.

apollo——««

apollo, to me, has always been sort of an enigma. i have a harder time interpreting his signs, especially recently, and i think that its particularly because of my recent falling out with my creative side. i have sort of abandoned my art, and it think its difficult for him to communicate with me through anything else.

one thing, however, i can feel him in is the sound of the birds in the morning. particularly, roosters.

as i mentioned before, my parents live on a farm. its natural to hear roosters first thing in the morning. some people find it annoying, but to me, its incredibly comforting. it means another morning has come. i’ve lived another day, and i have a whole new one to look forward to, until i hear the rooster the next morning. it means the sun is rising, and apollo rises with him. 

as a witch who particularly enjoys the sunrise, but has a hard time waking up to see it, the roosters serve as a sort of natural alarm clock. even if i do not physically get up to see the sunrise, i know it is happening, and i am awake for that first moment of dawn. it brings me comfort and a sense of small accomplishment, even on really difficult days.

and the days im in the city, and cant hear the roosters, its the morning songs of the birds in the part right next to my apartment building. this might be even more so, as apollo is the god of music. 

its a different type of comfort to wake up to the chill of the morning and hear the birds, knowing its a deity that loves me and wants to see me the next morning as well. i hope you, dearest reader, come to feel the same:).

asclepius——««

now, i haven’t talked about this much on this blog, but to me, asclepius has been such a pillar for me as of recent. with the pandemic and my own current health situation, i rely on him a lot for hope and support. i ask him to protect both me and my friends and family from illness or ailment, and in case of ailment, i ask him to facilitate a speedy recovery. thus far, he has never failed me, and i do not ever expect him to. i put my trust in him wholly. 

other than health, i find myself associating asclepius with cleanliness. while i see asclepius as the medic, i also see him as someone who is clean and organized. this is why i associate him with dewdrops.

now, bear with me in my explanation. morning dew, to me, feels clean. it feels almost pure, as it is one of the first forms of moisture a person can be met with during the day. 

picture it now. you wake up at sunrise, and venture out into your yard, the chill of the am just tickling at your face, cooling your nose to the touch. you take your first step off of the deck, and your bare feet sink into the grass, cold, and now wet from the dew. the feeling is shocking at first, as your feet get used to the new temperature, fresh out of the warm comfort of your blanket that sits invitingly on your bed inside. 

but the feeling is fresh. its grounding. its healing. 

that, to me, is how asclepius feels. 

sobek——««

i must be honest, sobek is the reason this post came to existence. i feel extremely strong about this one, particularly because i feel that sobek is under-appreciated and misunderstood as a god. i constantly encourage people to include sobek in their worship, as he, to me, has proven to be one of the most reliable gods i have ever worked with. i feel such a sense of comfort and love within him. i could sit in his energy for hours, days even. especially as a person who suffers from bouts of paranoia, his energy is one to learn to accept and become. 

for me, i see sobek in flowers. 

not many would see this, as sobek has this image of a tough, crocodile, protection god, which he is. but what a lot of people forget, is that sobek is also a god of fertility, particularly in harvest. in fact, sobek has done so much for my family’s farm. our garden is plentiful, and our harvests are more than we know what to do with. we end up making a lot of extra things with it, and giving it away to family friends and neighbors. i genuinely think that sobek creates abundance in our garden so he can give to our community. that is how loving i know him to be. 

however, what i specified was flowers. one of the most common offerings i give to sobek are roses. he seems to love them. sobek seems to protect that of which he loves, and roses are a symbol of love for me. i want to attempt to give him what he has given me. 

my family has a wildflower garden in front of our home. the morning i was sitting on the porch, i felt his presence, and i immediately looked to the flowers. delicate, yet extremely strong, and persevering. thats how i wish to be, and i can feel sobek in the encouragement of the flowers. 

i hope that didn’t come off too corny, although im pretty sure it did lol. i hope that this post was a good insight into my deities and how i understand them to be! again, disclaimer, not everyone experiences the gods in the same ways! some may agree with this post wholeheartedly, and some may have completely different experiences that make them disagree entirely! i am not one to gatekeep and define what the divine is, because the divine shows itself in different ways to different people. i hope you enjoyed this post, and have a wonderful day!

p.s. i love you and you’re worth it!

[stardew-imagines-me]

Hi!!!! Uhm, can I ask a short story, where the farmer (in your Highschool AU) was looked down on when they first arrived at the school, but soon climbed up the ranks with their academic ability and skills in other fields, which impressed the students and caught the attention of the Top 12?

I, uh... I got carried away ;”-) I just love the high school au so much

The first days of school were hell. They were always hell regardless if you were returning or transferring, but to transfer in the middle of the year? That's basically a death wish. You knew that, but what other choice did you really have? You had no home back in the city, your mother made that clear through tear filled apologizes and painfully tight hugs goodbye. You didn't have a home in Stardew Valley, this was just some place your grandfather gave to you in case you ran into trouble - it makes you suspicious sometimes about how good he prepared everything.

You can't blame either one of them though, it just had to be this way until it was safe enough to go back. But when that would be? You weren't quite sure, mom made it clear to not wait up though. Your new years would start here.

Start here... in the personal bathrooms once again. Another lunch spent hiding away from people who would only whisper to each other about your sudden appearance, your clothes, your family. The hot topic of the school for being the city kid outsider.

The rude remarks about your intelligence or  simple existence didn't bother you. Neither did the rough pushing in the halls, or the pitiful looks you'd receive. Even having no friends made a difference. You stayed quiet and calm despite the undeserved harassment, always focusing on your school work or eating your food with your head down. What would be the point in showing a reaction when you didn't feel anything?

There was only 5 things you liked since moving to Stardew Valley. The first was shopping; you could spend your whole day in the florists shop looking at all the different types of home grown flowers, or picking out new vegetable seeds to grow inside during the winter. You visited so often you were practically best friend's with the owner; an elderly man without a wife or kids. He soon became someone to vent to when a letter from your mom arrived.

The second would be the silence of the semi medium town. You could walk for hours in the woods and find that it was nearly silent always. Sometimes living on the outskirts of town was beneficial for your mental health.

The third had to have been sleeping. Now with no running children in the apartment above you, or your mom passed out on the only bed available, you were able to sleep for as long as you wanted without disturbance. That's practically your whole weekend, just sleeping the hours away until your body refused anymore.

The fourth, surprisingly, was the students. Not the normal ones, or the ones who pushed your head into the lockers whenever they felt like it, the ones who you had to observe from far away with everyone else because they were practically the royalty of your school.

Every single one of them had a different personality, had some sort of contribution to either a large organization, or came with talent unmatched by anyone. They were all so interesting, but one thing was you had never seen them all together.

You'd think, being some of the most exceptional students, they'd be together all the time - that wasn't the case though. You'd be lucky if you even saw three of them hanging out.

They were all so busy, so the possibility of them sparing a glance at someone the likes of you was.. small.

The last thing was the garden at school. That was something you would always admit you were a little too fond of.

Gardening was the only thing you had back in the city; your cups of bamboos and pots of orchids, the baby blooming orange tree that had finally grown it's first blossom since being potted or the mint you'd talk to whenever your mother was too busy at work.. she was always busy. To have the blank, nearly dead slate of the school garden was a gift from the cruel gods who put you in this situation to begin with.

Nevertheless, you signed up for the gardening club after your 2nd month at Stardew Dew High.

You understood when the three other gardening students were distraught by the death of their beautiful green sanctuary, you would've been too. You took it upon yourself to arrive at school extra early in order to turn the compost beds, pluck the monstrous amount of weeds from the dry soil and gather what seed was left in storage.

Late afternoons when you'd spend time talking to the acting president, Sei, she would share stories about the past gardening president and how he made Star Dew high into what attracted so much attention in the first place; private school gardeners were put to shame with his natural green thumb.

"It's kind of crazy, to think that we just started out in classroom with a few tiny pots of tulips. Without Boari, we wouldn't be here now," She smiled painfully towards the dug up flowerbeds, tapping her nails against the dirt path and resting against the greenhouse.

"Well, without the sponsorship from a few of the top 12, we wouldn't have any of this," she motioned to the large expansion of land the gardening club owned, "Bless Boari's soul for being so caring, he's the only person I've seen the top 12 so fascinated with,"

You nodded, arms propped up on your knees as you glanced at Sei every now and then.

"Amy and Kai? Bless those girls souls for trying so hard to keep everything running after Boari left. We all tried out best, but in the end it wasn't enough,"

That small conversation shouldn't have meant so much, but Sei had looked so sad, Kai and Amy always worked so hard. You knew they sacrificed a lot for this club, and even despite your sad reputation in the school, they never once put you down for just existing. They always offered their table when it was open, or encouraged you during classes you had with them - the least you could do was try to bring back whatever they had before.

And that's what you did.

Since that day, you spent your lunch time in the library studying for tests that were months away and finishing packets of homework that counted for the rest of the year. You spent every morning and afternoon planting, growing, watering, turning. You trimmed the mazes', you fixed the broken shelves in the shed and even took money from you own pocket to decorate the greenhouse.

You saw less of your garden mates, you hadn't been pushed in a good few weeks and your teachers praised you every chance they could when you turned in finished packet after packet. You had secluded yourself with good reason, and the lack of attention, negative or not, wasn't unwelcomed.

But there was one thing that left you scratching your head; the amount of letters, small gifts, sticky notes and even a pack of strawberry seeds had all fallen from your locker when you opened it one morning. To be fair though, you never used the damn thing, the lock was sticky.

As you watched the garden bloom almost impossibly fast, you noticed that no one touched you anymore, in fact, everyone offered bright smiles and shameful expressions. Odd.

-

"I want you to be the gardening president," Sei held out the green leaf hairpin towards you, proud grin stretching across her face while Amy and Kai stood to the side, clapping their hands and shouting excitedly.

"What..? Why?" Club hairpins were sacred, those were the absolute deciding factor on your reputation as a student. To be the president of an important club was to join the class royalty in some way.

But to you, it was just a leaf hairpin.

"You're like the plant whisperer! What do you mean why? You've literally regrown the garden single handedly, thrown yourself into being one of the top academic students in our school, and somehow stayed modest the whole time,"

"You mean oblivious, Sei," Kai teased, snickering behind her hand while Amy smacked her arm.

"Are you sure? I mean, I don't want to impose anything," Sei shook her head so hard you were scared she would knock herself unconscious.

"Without you, our dream wouldn't have stayed. Please, take the pin before my arms break off,"

-

And with the official announcement of the garden president change, and the garden fairy's arrival, you were classified as one of the elite.

Now students asked to sit with you at lunch, or begged to be in project groups with you - you even found yourself cornered by a few students who admitted they had always loved you and want to take you out on the weekend. That was a little extreme.

You couldn't care any less about the title though, sticking with eating lunch in the green house or staying silent during class. You had to be one of the most antisocial elites so far, and with Penny or Sebastian? That's kinda saying a lot.

"Hey, you're the garden fairy, right?" You recognized that voice anywhere, if it wasn't the one and only Alexander, football prodigy.

"Huh, you are cute aren't you? Should've found you sooner," Haley too?

You turned around, empty pot clutched in gloved hands and dirt smudged across your cheeks. Dear lord, it wasn't just Alex and Haley.

"I've seen you around!" Sam said loudly, his smile really was brighter than the sun. You looked to his side where Abigail hushed him and Sebastian waved, arms crossed over his chest.Elliott pushed the glasses that were drooping down his nose up as you caught your glance, and Leah smiled next to him.

"Did we catch you at a bad time?" Penny asked quietly, tucked behind a blue haired Emily, and a frantic Harvey. You were about to shake your head when Shane injected.

"Of course we did," Maru patted his shoulder, and gestured to you again, "You shouldn't talk for other people, Shane,"

Every single one of the 12 stood in front of you, watching as you stared at them, wide eyed and clutching harder onto your pot. Out of every moment they could've found you, it had to have been when dirt was smudged across your face and your gloves soaked and muddy.

"Uhm.." You started, everyone lighting up as you finally found your voice. For some reason, all the attention shook you, and all you wanted to do was retreat to the green house and contemplate your life.

"You probably don't know why we're here, sorry," Leah said, ducking her head quickly in a tiny bow.

"We came here to see who the person was that brought back the garden," Harvey seemed all too enchanted by the very mention of the garden.

"Yes, we also wanted to see who it was that our peers were regarding as the 13th addition," Elliott's voice was comforting in the overwhelming aura each one of them produced. You nodded again, slowly and trailed Haley's hands as they reached out to touch your hair.

Emily quickly snatched her sisters hand away, giving a frowning Haley to Alex, "Manners, Haley,"

They stood there, expecting for you to say something, anything at all, but all you did was stare at them. That was until your brain completely shut down.

"Uhm.. yeah," And with that, you shuffled quickly out of the empty classroom and all but bolted down the corridor into one of the main halls and down the stairs to the gardens.

You knew as you threw off your gloves, set down the pot and grabbed your backpack in a rush, your life wouldn't be the same from then on. Still, you would go home and spend one last night alone until you walked back into school the next day a completely different person.

[cela-astral-projection]

Have you been fast asleep And have you heard voices, I've heard them calling my name,

Is this the sweet sound that calls The young sailors, The voice might be one and the same. I've heard it too many times to ignore it It's something that I'm supposed to be.

Celeste was up before dawn. Hell, she had been up most of the night, too. Today was the day. No longer under lock and key. A fully vetted member of the medical staff. No longer subject to long, torturous lessons. She was free to practice medicine without the scrutiny of the Quaestor or the Doctor. She was free to leave the palace.

One whole year.

The morning air was cool, and dew slicked every surface. Glittering in the blue morning light, catching the first rays of the sun.

She was wearing a plain white button-down and a blue linen skirt. A knit shawl around her shoulders, more than sufficient coverage for the early morning chill. She stood at the grand gates, waiting for them to be opened for the day along with a smattering of other staff.

She could hear hoofbeats and carriages approaching. It was a part of the morning ritual. You came to the gate if there were errands to be run, or if you were off duty, and you went into town, and the utility carriages would ferry staff back and forth throughout the day.

As the line of carriages started picking up passengers, Celeste hung back, looking for Aedan. He had agreed to meet her and give her the lay of the land. Save for their initial walkthrough of the city when they arrived, she hadn't seen much of it. Whereas he was on regular patrols in the city.

But he was nowhere to be found. She worried, a bit. But then, that was a constant state. Worry. That something had gone wrong.

After the carriages were gone, she sighed, resigned. She would have to wait for someone to return, or walk on her own. She wasn't opposed. She wasn't staying here. She was free, and, by the gods, she would take advantage of it.

She made to leave but heard another carriage approaching. This one, decidedly not utilitarian. Gilded, opulent, with white horses, bedecked in finery.

Lucio's carriage.

The horses slowed to a stop, and the carriage door swung open. A tall, blonde man emerged, beaming. Dressed in his guard's uniform. He gestured grandly. "Milady, your carriage awaits!" Aedan called out, looking very pleased with himself.

Celeste stared at him, then closed her eyes, slowly, swearing under her breath. "Fucking idiot." She shook her head, but steeled herself, and stepped forward.

He bowed to her, reveling in it. She fixed him with a hard, cold stare. He looked up and winked, undeterred, offering his hand to help her in. She took it and stepped inside.

It was all red velvet and gold filigree. Golden roses on the walls, embedded artfully in the luxurious fabric. She sat, marveling at the ostentatiousness. Aedan stepped in behind her and sat heavily, kicking his feet up on the far seat.

"Congratulations, Sissy. You made it!" He said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and leaning in to peck her cheek affectionately. She did smile, then, shaking her head.

"You are an absolute fool, Vernersson. You know that, right?" she chided, playfully.

"Ah, fuck it. The guys in the stables owe me a favor. But, hell. If we go down, at least we're going down together. In style." He squeezed her and released her, crossing his arms behind his head, reclining. "Besides, I can always play it off that we were checking the carriage for signs of sabotage. I might get a promotion."

"Oh, there's a rank higher than lapdog?" she teased, sitting back.

"You wound me." he rolled his eyes. "Speaking of promotions, I heard that you were begrudgingly awarded the rank of Nurse Practitioner. Good on you."

She swirled her finger in the air, dismissive. "All it means is that I don't have to have Valdemar leering at me constantly. Nothing of value has changed."

"That's a blessing," he replied. Valdemar wasn’t someone he’d like to run into in a dark corner. And he knew that’s all his sister had done for the last year. After a beat, he decided to continue. "And what about the Doctor? You still working...under him?"

She shot a dark look at him but didn't reply. Aedan laughed.

Word was fully out. And, thankfully, it had been fallen more on Julian than her. He, the "superior" and she, his "subordinate". Even so, it had mostly been to Julian's embarrassment. There hadn't been any real consequences besides a little shame and a whole lot of blushing.

She had all but hardened her heart to Julian. He had been so contrite, trying his damnedest to get back into her good graces. She had rejected him roundly, and vehemently, each time. Every time it stung. But, she couldn't relent.

"You like the stupid motherfucker. Just...get over it. You don't gotta marry him. He's there. Screw him every once in a while. Helps pass the time." He said, reaching over to tug her hair playfully. She reached back to slap his hand.

"I do not need to take love advice from you. Thank you very much."

They rode in silence for a while. The voices around them rose as they came into the city square, circling the fountain at the center. Even this early, there was quite a gathering of people moving from building to building. They all looked up at the carriage, alarmed. Aedan looked out the carriage windows. "Ooh, yeah. I bet they are shocked. Lucio doesn't get up before noon on most days. Bet this is a surprise."

When the carriage came to a stop, the coachman yelled for Aedan "to get the hell out". He escorted Celeste out onto the street, then went to settle up with the man, the both of them chatting. Friendly. People relaxed, realizing the Count, was not, in fact, in their midst.

She stood in the center of the square, looking at the various avenues. The buildings. The colors. The people.

Aedan came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, giving a squeeze. He bent down to whisper in her ear. "Welcome to the big city. You're gonna love it."

----

"It's fucking hot," Celeste gasped, leaning against the wall, under an awning. It was sticky. Damp. She hadn't seen the sun much in the past year, and at this moment, she wondered what she had missed about it so much.

They had walked miles together. but Aedan was still just as chipper as ever, chatting with every vendor he came across. A man of the people. Generous and well-liked. She had never gotten to see this side of him. He had embraced Vesuvia in a way she had never been able to.

It felt liberating, but overwhelming all at once to her. So many things to see.

Her father had taken them traveling as children and teenagers, as often as he could. But he hadn't taken them here. Verner had always preferred smaller villages and cities. He loved nature, and could never fully embrace these big meccas. They were never gone terribly long, being so needed at home. She and her mother weren't able to be spared for long stretches, the village's primary sources of medical care.

Aedan was engaged with a girl selling flowers, talking animatedly. She watched him, waving her hand inconsequentially in front of her face, trying to generate some sort of breeze. After a while, he broke away and walked over to her.

"So, I have some business I need to take care of over in Goldgrave. It's a construction hell hole right now. Some stupid project Lucio is working on. I just need to check-in and make sure everyone is on task. You're in the market district. It's fairly self-explanatory. If you have any questions, the baker up the road is a pretty solid guy, he'll point you in the right direction. Here..." He reached into his satchel and produced some coins. "Just in case. There are vendors all over the damn place. Just...be careful. Dock kids are mucking about. They're all pretty harmless, but they're pickpockets. It's a whole thing." He gestured vaguely. "Just...remember, the gates do close the palace at dark. If you're out, you're out."

She put the coins in her pocket, looking up at him, curious. "What's Montag building?"

He rolled his eyes. "Damn sports arena. I don't know. Some stupid bullshit. Wants to watch people knock heads. The thing is ancient, he's just doing some renovations to get it back up and running."

She shook her head. That sounded very on-brand for Lucio. Watching poor fuckers fight...and, for what?

He gave her arm a squeeze. "I'm not sure when I'll see you again, Sis. The schedule's looking a little erratic. But, I'll try to duck in and see you soon."

She smiled, reaching up to pat his cheek. "Love you."

He gave her a half-smile. "Love you more. And if I find out you went to the South End without me, I'm gonna be pissed. I'm taking you to the Raven first." And then he turned to go.

Leaving her to her own devices.

---

She wandered down the narrow streets. It was shadier, here. The buildings and awnings blocking much of the sunlight. She had stopped at the kindly bakers' stall and picked up a few boules, and a pumpkin bread he had all but insisted she take.

She was mid-stride when she felt something fall on her shoulders. Heavy. And...moving. Slithering.

She froze, and a pair of red eyes came into her view. A skinny tongue, darting out.

She closed her eyes. What was this? Dehydration? Heat exhaustion? No fucking way.

When she reopened them, the little face had tilted, observing her. The damn thing looked amused.

She looked up slowly at the sign above. An apothecary's mortar and pestle, with a serpent wrapped around.

A woman walked past, and she shot her arm out to stop her. "I'm...sorry. Do you know if this..." she jerked her head, trying to indicate her new neck accessory "...belongs here?" she jerked her head towards the shop.

The woman laughed. "Oh, yes! That's the magician's snake. He'll be glad someone's found her." The woman reached, out, rubbing a finger affectionately under the snake's chin. "Oh, you silly thing! Getting Asra all in a dither."

And then she swept away, leaving her alone, again.

With a snake.

Around her neck.

She backed towards the door carefully and reached out to knock, stiff, fist still wrapped around a sack with various baked goods.

Someone called out, muffled, from behind the door. "It's open!"

She pulled a face, annoyed. "Yeah, no. You're going to need to come here, please!" she called back.

She heard rustling, and then the door swung open.

Asra blinked, unsure of what he was seeing. It was the woman from the Masquerade.

"Celeste?"

She wasn't quite facing the store's owner, afraid to move. But, the fact that they knew her name was almost as unsettling as the damn snake. She swallowed hard, staring ahead.

"I believe this belongs to you." She said, shaky.

"Oh, Gods. Faust." he scolded, reaching his hand out to collect her. The snake coiled around his wrist and up his arm. "I'm sorry. She likes to...fall."  He gave the snake a halfhearted glare, to which she responded by pressing her snout against his cheek.

"Sorry..." Faust replied, flicking her tongue out. A little kiss.

As it disengaged from her, she shuddered. She still felt like it was on her. The sensation of slithering. It sent chills up her spine. She closed her eyes, trying to regain her composure.

She turned to face the snake's owner and was immediately met with another shock. That hair. Those eyes.

"The mask maker." She said, appraising him. She hadn't seen him in full before. His face obscured by the fox mask when they had met previously. But, there was no mistaking those eyes. He was lithe, and his hair was fluffy. Curls and waves giving it volume, but it fell into his eyes. Shaggy, but somehow not unpolished. It looked just as pearlescent as it had the night of the Masquerade. He looked effortless. He wore a white dress shirt, unbuttoned to the navel, sleeves pushed up. He was swathed in various brilliant scarves. That wide, golden collar at his throat.

"Asra," he said, his hand still extended from reclaiming Faust. "And you're Celeste."

She reached up to take his hand, tentative, shaking it. "I'm sorry, I don't recall being formally introduced before."

"That's because you ran away." he teased. "I caught your name from the guy chasing you, knocking over party guests in his wake."

"Ah. Yes. Vocal, that one is." she said, rolling her eyes. "Well, I guess it's nice to meet you. And your...pet. Asra. Faust."

Their hands were still connected.

And neither felt the need to release the other.

Their eyes were locked, and they stood, quiet. People bustled past, going on about their business.

After a beat, Asra shook his head. "I'm sorry...do you want to come in? It's a slow day. I have tea?"

She nodded enthusiastically.  "Yes, tea sounds lovely. I had some pumpkin bread foisted on me. We can share."

He had almost expected her to protest but was delighted she didn't.

He pulled her in after him, and she shut the door.

The shop was cluttered and dusty. Trinkets, vials, jars, boxes, and shiny bits covered every surface. There were beautiful swaths of fabric hanging in the doorframes and in the windows, paired with cobwebs.

She turned to look at him, eyebrow raised. "You are a magician, are you not?" Her eyes glittered, challenging him.

"As are you, if I recall."

"And you let your shop look like this?" She released his hand and gestured vaguely.

His eyes darted around, and he lifted an eyebrow, not sure what she was implying.

She fixed him with an incredulous look. "Come now. At least glamour it so it appears presentable. A couple cleaning spells would put it right."

When he still looked bewildered, she sighed and dismissed him with her hand. "Go, make tea. I'll fix it."

He gave a laugh as he moved towards the doorframe behind the counter, going to settle Faust in and make their drinks.  "You don't have to fix anything."

"Oh, I'm afraid I do," she called after him as he swept out of the room. She couldn't let him go about dispensing herbs...medicine...like this. No wonder business was slow.

When Asra returned, he blinked, taken aback. The room was brighter than when he had left. The haze on the front windows cleared. Everything looked fresh and new. It even smelled different. Everything was still scattered around the room, but Celeste was shuffling through things on the countertop, examining the contents, moving them into distinct categories.

"What did you do?" he asked, eyes still fluttering around the room.

"I cleaned. You're an apothecary. You can't dispense out of here like this." she scolded, not looking up from her task.

"I’m sorry...you know this is my shop, yes?" he said, pushing some of the boxes aside and setting down the teacups. "I have a system. It works fine."

"You have an attack snake and dust. I see no system." she countered.

He wandered the room, examining her handiwork. He hadn't seen such color in the place for years. Not since he had set everything up. It did look...nice. Very nice. He hadn't even noticed that it had fallen into disrepair until he saw it illuminated like this, restored to its glory. He blinked, shaking his head. "Thank you. It's...great."

He turned to look at her. She had a box in the palm of her hand and was rubbing dried herbs between her fingers, bringing them to her nose to sniff.

"Lavender," he said, recognizing the box.

"Well, maybe at some point it was. It's stale. You're not going to get anything out of it. Some poor heartsick son of a bitch is going to be desperately disappointed if you put this in a love charm. I don't even want to think about the insomniacs, begging for sweet relief, putting this ancient stuff under their pillow. It's inhumane."

His eyes went wide. She knew her stuff.

She put the box down and put her hands on the countertop, tapping her fingernails on the surface, looking down, disappointed. "You know, at some point, I'm going to refer someone to you and I need to know that you have what patients need."

"Patients?" he asked, not comprehending.

"Yes, my patients...I...oh. Sorry," she realized, she hadn't properly introduced herself. That was a bit awkward. Especially now that she was taking inventory of his storeroom as she did at the palace. "Nurse Practitioner Celeste." She pressed her hand to her chest. "Palace Nurse Practitioner. Doctor Devorak's...Assistant." She said, struggling with the last word a bit.

"Ahh." He said, everything clicking into place. "So you're a magical doctor. Intriguing."

"I'm a healer. And a midwife. There isn't much call for midwifery in the palace. The Count and Countess don't seem to be in a hurry to produce any heirs. And...I don't practice magic in the palace if you recall." she lamented. "But, we go where we are called. Serving some greater purpose."

He approached the counter and pushed the tea saucer over to her. "How long have you been in Vesuvia? I don't think I've ever seen you in town before."

"Three hundred and sixty-five days as of today." She said, taking the cup. She blew across the top as a precaution and sipped. She lowered the cup, closing her eyes. Making a low "Mm." Obviously pleased.

Asra bit his lower lip, watching her face. She was lovely. Deep Chestnut hair in a halo around her face, feathering out at the edges. A forelock of blonde.  Long, dark, heavy eyelashes. Pointed eyebrows. Sharp cheekbones and a tapered jaw. A long, graceful neck. And those sea-green eyes. Muriel's eyes were vibrant, but hers were hazy. Misty. And, somehow, familiar. Equally beautiful.

"A whole year, and this is the first time I'm seeing you in town?" he asked.

She relayed rudiments of her employment and the year of sequestering in the palace. He listened, seemingly enthralled. When she concluded, he questioned her a bit, trying to suss out the details.

She was as honest as she could be. It felt wrong, withholding from him. She wanted to spill all of it out. But, she didn't know him. She couldn't know that he was trustworthy. Not yet. And, even if he were, would it be worth it to compromise him?

"Sounds like you've had a rough go of it."

She nodded. "All uphill from here, I hope."

He extended his cup to her. "Cheers to that."

She tapped her cup gently against his and raised it to drink. He mirrored her.

She looked into the cup, swirling it, then surveying the tendrils left behind once it was drained.

"Tasseography?" he questioned, skeptical.  "There are better methods of fortune-telling." He reached into his satchel and produced the cards, extending them to her.

She looked up at him, then down at the cards. "Six in one hand and a half dozen in the other."

He laughed, disbelieving.

She shook her head at him. "I'm serious. It all comes from the same place, doesn't it? It's all open for interpretation. Yours just has pretty pictures. Mine is damp leaves."

"Ahh. I'd say mine has a bit more weight." the corner of his mouth was turned up.

She sighed, resigned. "Fine. Read me, Magician."  She lifted them from his hands and cut them a couple times, then handed them back, tapping the top of the deck when he'd taken it back.

He flipped the top card down onto the countertop.

They both stared at it, then up at each other. Her cheeks went red, and the tops of his ears did.

"Well. Hard not to read into that," she said, low.

The Two of Cups.

Asra cleared his throat. "Indulge me for a second." He said, picking up the card and shuffling it back into the deck. He cut the deck for himself and handed it to Celeste, tapping the top of the deck, just as she had. She flipped the card down.

The Lovers.

Celeste a rush of cold that flooded from the top of her head, creeping down her spine. The cards felt like they were vibrating in her hands. She thrust them towards Asra, and he put them down on the counter, staring at them. Looking betrayed.

"...Well, if it helps. I didn't actually see anything in the cup?" she choked out.

[thoughts-n-paper]

It was just one of those mornings, one of those rare ones, one where she did not wake up out of place. Everything was at the right time and the right place, no confusion, no conflict, a perfect harmony. The dew from the previous night was sparkling on the green leaves as the sky filled itself with the orange morning glow, she even got to hear a bird sing. The perfect day and she ruined it by waking up.

She could have stayed in bed with him, wrapped around each other in silence, embraced in a void where nothing travels, not sound nor thoughts, not even time. She could have stayed, yet she didn't. It wouldn't be fair, she told herself, dragging up fantasies and living in fairy tales, it wouldn't be fair to stories in her head. she walked towards the outhouse, her feet against the coarse ground, she can barely tell the difference between the two now. She could picture his feet, soft and protected against the cushion of the sole of his shoes, living in his luxuries. He will grow old with a million distractions, finding someone to love, someone he will make a home with, make a family and she will be just a fading dot to him, a spot on his eye which he will eventually rub out. His world had that luxury, hers didn't. She can picture them, the tall buildings her grandfather used to tell her about, millions of tiny lamps lit up at the same time, the world glowing up, demanding attention and in one of those boxes, his face, lit up because he is happy, happy without her. That is the image she will keep in her heart, his life going on, him happy and satisfied. She will hang onto it till her last breath, she will clench her wrist tight and hold on to it, digging her nails into her skin so deep till the moment is absorbed in her blood and is running in her veins. Just the one image though, she tells herself, she cannot have too many of those flowing in her or she won't be able to lift herself.

The professor's message came early in the morning and it was clear enough that his work was done, he had perfected his experiment and this would be their last day together. A portable time machine, arrangements of magnets and wires, just iron and copper, that was all it took to shatter her. When the letter came, she didn't wake him up, she let him have his sleep, let him be restful for happiness or disappointment, whichever comes to him naturally.

"You are up early." She heard his voice coming from behind her. Without turning back she gestured to him to take the little piece of paper in her hand.

"Is this from the professor? Did he find a way out?" He asked her, confused by the message.

She turned halfway and gave him a side glance, "You should get some breakfast." And turned to stare ahead.

She could feel his stare shoving into her. She kept walking ahead, searching for a tree or a wall to hide behind. How she wished that the rubble of the old buildings would collect itself and reverse itself into the tall structured one it once was, she could disappear into one of those, lock it up and not go out for a day.

The crops in the field had grown healthy this year, pretty soon it will be time for the group to move somewhere else. A family would move into the house they built, the crops would be harvested, walls replaced and eventually, every trace of their existence would go away. The other night she had thought to ask to stay back on the farm and take care of the place, some people did that, change career paths and settle down. Laying on the bed next to him, she had created a whole life for herself. But the knock on the door broke the spell.

"So this is it huh?" His voice startled her. She did not feel him following her. She took a deep sigh and finally turned around to face him. He quickly ran up to her and wrapped his arms around her. Her face felt wet against his shirt, she did not realize she was crying or for how long she had been crying.

"Hey! It might not even work."

"Come On." she chuckled. "Don't get my hopes up."

"Maybe I don't go back."

She broke from the hug and looked at him with a quizzical look. "Can you though? Stay?" She turned away from him. "You know what happens. The plan, you go back, tell everyone and you change the future."

"I know. I know." He put his arms up in frustration. "But are we certain that it can be changed? Maybe you can't change the future." He walked close to her and took her hands in his, "Can the professor confirm that the future will change, that anyone would listen to me? First of all, we don't know the experiment would work, second, what are the rules? Can the future be changed, do we create some parallel universe? And why would anyone listen to me, I will be just some guy in a crowd of billions shouting the same thing every day? Nobody listens and nobody cares. Why would they care about me? Why would they listen to me?"

They both knew they were just excuses. Saving the world was not the reason he had to go back. He did not belong here, at this time. He grew up with a different set of rules, he was not a nomad like her, his family did not give him up and he did not give up on them either. He had to go back, no matter how much they both wanted him to stay. He was the piece that belonged to a different puzzle box, it doesn't matter how much they colored him to fit in, he would never fit in.

The walk from the farm to the building was quiet. It was as if the world around could sense it too, the wind did not ruffle any leaves and the birds did not care to sit on a branch. Nature knew to be quiet that day, mourning their story.

Hand in hand they approached their destiny. The professor was all smiles when they reached him.

"It's cliched but, EUREKA!" The professor shouted.

"Subtle." He grinned. "How did you figure it out anyway?" He asked while looking around the apparatus.

"This." The professor said while throwing a book at him. " All the answers we need. I found it in one of the abandoned libraries, thought it might come handy someday. It is a pity someone would just abandon books like this, we can learn so much about the 21st century just by reading them." The professor kept on rambling while going around the amphitheater.

The dome was one of the few big structures that survived the century. They were lucky that this village was not too much affected by disasters. The soil survived which meant that only a couple of batches of crops were ruined, and the houses were pretty intact so they didn't have to set up tents and spend their nights trying to twist in a sleeping bag. Although, moving to any place above the net survival rate was always risky, mostly the places were completely abandoned which meant days of field clean up, both wild flora and fauna and constant fear of when the old walls will give in and crumble on their heads. Or there would already be a community settled, in that scenario, they just move to the next project. Apparently, the smaller the population, the more closed off people become. They don't accept outsiders nor their ideas. It's things like these which make her glad that he will be going back, he did not have to go through the abandonment, the disappointment of this world and he would not have to go on surviving this attempt at utopia after destroying the one they already had.

She still couldn't look into his eyes. He placed his hand under her chin and lifted it, "It's okay,"

It felt more like a question than a statement, so she nodded.

"We don't have to do it right now." The professor said from behind them. "Take a day off, go have a picnic, say goodbye to each other, properly. I will still be here tomorrow."

"No." She walked away from him towards the setup. Pretending to examine it. " We shouldn't keep him long. There is a letter from The Center, they have summoned him, hearing is in a week, they want to question him, keep an eye on him. Inspection officials could show up any day. You know how they are, they don't want any locals or rebels disturbing the flow."

"Oh!" The professor sounded sad, he wanted them to have more time together, in his excitement he forgot the heartbreak he will be responsible for. " Well tonight then, we will do it tonight, after dinner."

They both nodded. "Now go!" said the professor gesturing them to get away from him. They both gave a little chuckle and started walking towards the door.

It took them five minutes to decide what direction to take after leaving the professor. The age-old question, what would you do if today was your last day alive?, everybody had some answer prepared, something to impress the person in front of them, something even to just joke about, but when the day comes, nobody wants to do the things they said, nobody can decide what they want to do, she could not decide, neither could he. They could go to the hilltop and make shapes out of clouds or go to the lake and watch ducks float away on the water. She could show him all the places around that he didn't get to see, but they are just abandoned relics now, they were much more beautiful in his time.

"Let's go to the railway station." He said breaking her chain of thought. "Jog up old memories." He smirked.

Just another abandoned symbol of an era, an earthquake had blocked all the tracks passing the station and fixing it was the least of anyone's worries, also nobody went there because it was too far from the safe zone, funny how they were yet to establish a proper lifestyle and had already got gangs trying to rip them off. She only encountered them once but pretty soon realized as long as you have something to trade your safety with, they will let you go wherever you want.

The place was quiet except for the sound of wind-fighting off the scraps of rusted tin. It was a horrific reminder to the way things were it was also one of the few places she found peace at, a place to sort out her insides. A place where they first met. He was wearing the same jacket that he wrote that day, however now it was covered in dust and torn from several places.

She remembers it like it was yesterday, he thought he was a vampire, said his skin was burning from the sun and his memory was gone, she just laughed and took him with her. They had met his kind a few times, quarantined from birth and drugged beyond tolerance and rationality, it was a wonder he escaped his parents considering the tight control they kept, saving up themselves for when the government would make everything all right again, just like old days.

Of course, he did not belong to that community, he did not belong to any community of the new world. It took her a full week and him two hours to realize that they were not from the same time. Somehow one branch of the tree had bent down to merge with its root. They didn't know-how and after a while, they didn't care.

"Now what?" She asked him.

"Nothing, we do nothing." He smiled at her and sat down beside one of the walls. He gestured her to sit next to her.

"So, going back. Do you think it will matter?"

"It should, you can't change your past, but the future is always uncertain."

"So I go back and tell everyone and you grow up with space houses and Jet packs."

"If you can save some fuel, then maybe."

He chuckled. They sat in silence for a while, her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat and him tracing her fingerprints in memory.

Nothing about it made sense, the beginning, the middle and the end. Their lives were ruled and consumed by the randomness of this one event, they spent weeks trying to understand and here they were, still oblivious. And was coming to an end.

They were at a waterfall, she had not been to this one before, in fact, she had never been to a waterfall before. People didn't go in untreated water unless they wanted to kill themselves or just ruin the rest of their lives. He took her hand and led her to the highest rock, she kept trying to stop him, tried to warn him about the risk of going in the water, but he wouldn't listen. She giggled when she felt the tingling in her toes as she stepped in the water, "You don't giggle much. You should do that more.", he said sitting down on the rock. He wasn't wrong, she wondered why was that, it was not like she had it especially rough. They all grew up together, facing the same hardships, some fell in love and started a family while some went on their way, exploring other worlds and some stayed, building up the new world together, still they never forgot to smile so why did she? She was lost in thought when she felt the touch of his hands and she was bought back to the physical world from nonexistence just like the fingers do not exist unless they are pressed against something, he was her surface.

"Hey wake up! It's dark already."

She opened her eyes slowly, it took her a while to make out his figure in the dark until he lit up the candle. "We should be going. Professor would be waiting for us." He was gathering up their stuff in the light of the torch. The rebels would be arriving any time to set up camp and even though wildlife was rare, it was never a good time to run into something with sharp teeth. He turned to her and came close, he placed the torch close to her so that the only thing illuminated in the vast black space was their faces and he wiped a tear from her cheek. Lately, she had been spending a lot of nights crying, the dark would trigger this storm inside her too strong to hold back. It would always leak out eventually.

When their lips finally separated, their faces were drenched and eyesight was fluid. She pressed her head against his and stood there, there were stones in their shoes and wet sand in their pockets, no matter how much they shook it off they couldn't move.

"Just give me a minute." The professor said to them while he went to work on his apparatus. She did not want to look at him and couldn't look at her either, they both stood next to each other, holding each other's hand, staring at the man running around in front of them with promises of rift and repair.

"Well, say your goodbyes now." The professor took him by his shoulders and walked him to a spot marked 'X' on the floor. "I won't bore you with details, but just stand there and in a few minutes you should be at your home running to hug your mother."

He smiled looking at her. They spent last night talking, they spent the last six months talking, narrating every story they lived and describing every scar they got, this day, their last day together and they barely said a hundred words between them. Maybe it was the word 'goodbye' or every word that came before and after that, but there was nothing to say to each other which would make them happy and so they just didn't.

"Let me know when you get home." She said with a smile on her face. He nodded back.

She closed her eyes and imagined them in the waterfall again, playing in the water, kissing as the drops ran down on the side of their faces. No worries and... A thunder-like sound broke her thought and then in a blink of an eye, he was gone. He was a distant memory now and she was too far for him to reach. She was left standing there staring at a wall, trying to conjure him in between the space. "Do you think he made it?" She asked the air which was left where he was standing.

"Maybe you should read this." the professor handed her a book, she could recognize the cover, something the professor showed them earlier, dug up from the professor's dusty collection. "Thank you, but I am not really in the mood." she replied dismissing the offer.

"Please. The first page." The professor nudged the book towards her.

"Fine." She took the book in anger and opened it in frustration, "What about it?" she asked as her eyes cruised through the page, and there in bold letters, stood the words she wanted to hear at the moment. 'As my father would say everyday growing up, "I made it home."'