#this ask is almost one year old whoopsies!!

[woosh-floosh]

I love your Kirby !!! He go :D!!

[dxppercxdxver]

me! when! they!!!

presenting the @224bbaker household family tree that makes no sense to anyone except the people who live there

also please appreciate hampton’s silly little moustache. i have no canonical basis for this but i know it in my heart to be true

[akiranzee]

👹 • ° ` — “THROUGH THICK AND THIN”

-> PAIRINGS: Muzan Kibutsuji x f!Y/n -> SUMMARY: Married to a rich, but ill man. -> WORD COUNT: 3.2k+ -> CONTAINS: angst, killings, violence, young marriage, blood, & both Muzan and reader are 19. -> A/N: I manipulated the story a bit. Whoopsies.

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“You may now kiss the bride.” As the priest announced the final vow, the crowd cheered and squealed as Muzan closed in and touched your lips.

You could see your mother crying tears of joy as the kiss ended, and everyone cheered on happily once again.

~~~~~

As the day ended, both you and Muzan went to your shared room, and rested.

Although along the night, Muzan’s coughs kept getting worse and worse, that’s been keeping the both of you up.

1:30AM, Muzan coughed up blood again for the 5th time, and as you were about to get water, he had enough of it.

He immediately stood up and left your shared room. You wanted to follow him, but you know, in times like this, he wants to be left alone. He doesn’t want anyone to see him look so vulnerable, as if a glass so fragile, especially by you.

~~~~~

As Muzan reached the outside of the building, and onto a dark alley, he punched a wall. Even if he was still 19, he feels a numbing pain, as if his knuckles were about to break, like an old man.

It made him angry. It made him angry at his illness, at his doctor, and at himself. How could he be so weak? How would he be able to protect you now? How would he be able to stay by your side?

He clenched his aching fists. If only… if only a power of immortality existed, he would do everything to get it. He would do it, even if it meant even risking his own short life.

All his life, his well-being only ached for such great power, he only ached for such invincible strength, one that could never be countered. He wanted to rule the world, he wanted to take the lives of those people who looked down on him, he wanted to rule their lives. He was that of an evil deed. But such a fragile flower as you are that he met, thanks to his doctor, the daughter that his doctor once brought with him many years back.

You looked weak. Hell, even weaker than his rotting body. Muzan, at 10 years old, met the 10 year old shy girl, which so happened to be you. In his mattress, he found life so boring. He never even grew fond of toys that his parents brought.

But upon seeing you that day, he felt a shine of life within him. As if his once rotting body relived again. Since that day, Muzan asked his doctor for nothing but you. Ever since then, fate seems to draw the both of you closer.

You, on the other hand, didn’t mind. Your father was a great doctor, and you were sure his powerful hands would cure Muzan, even if he was diagnosed with an unknown disease. Either yet, you still didn’t mind because he looked attractive even when his face looked pale, one that contained as if no more blood.

Nonetheless, even with his cold and prideful personality, you still found yourself… attracted to him.

~~~~~

Days passed, and Muzan’s condition got worse. Him coughing up blood have been continuously going on, as his final days was reaching. It was almost his birthday, he’s almost turning 20. He knows what would happen to him, you know. But you wanted to stay by Muzan’s side even at the end of his life. “Through thick and thin”, the vow said. The promise you both swore of.

You wanted to cry, but you know tears would do nothing, and pity would only worsen his current state.

Scared of what would happen, you called up your father, and asked him to try and cure Muzan again. The herbs, the medicines, no — they all didn’t had any effect on his condition. The doctor, your father; asked you to grab some water, one that is fresh up the mountains. And so you did.

Such a life did Muzan live, would he allow this to be the end? Would he allow, that not only did he live such a pathetic life, but he would also die a pathetic death? No. His pride refuses to allow so.

“Mr. Kibutsuji, I have found a possible cure that could maybe cure you. Although it is not tested and labeled as a potential cure, it has a possibility of healing such a disease that you have.” The doctor said, as he took out the medicine within the bottle.

“So… you’re saying you’re going to experiment me?” Muzan slowly looked up to the doctor, his eyes full of anger and hatred, as if he wanted to kill the doctor.

“Ye- well… not… um… nevermind, maybe?” The doctor couldn’t find the right answer, for yes, he was indeed about to experiment on Muzan, but he was sure the medicine he had made himself has to be the cure.

“We should try, Mr. Kibutsuji. This medicine that I have effectively made has no bad side-effects that would cause the harm of your life.” Even when the doctor spoke so confidently while pouring Muzan the supposed medicine onto his cup, Muzan hesitated in trusting the doctor, even if he was his father-in-law.

Muzan, soon enough, accepted the cup as he is desperate for the freedom he so seeks to escape this useless, frail, and weak body of his soon. As Muzan drank the last drop, they both waited. The doctor said the effect will immediately occur, not even 5 seconds, and yet, even after 5 seconds, nothing changed.

He was still the once weak and frail Muzan. And that angered him.

“First, you conduct such experiment on me, then now, you say that this is a failure and a waste of my time?” Muzan threw the cup onto the floor, and it broke into sharp, deadly pieces.

The doctor, your father, shuddered in fear now as Muzan looked at him with a fiery glare, his teeth gritted that showed his now growing fangs, and veins popping massively.

The once weak and frail Muzan that looked as if he was about to die, now looked horrid and grotesque, one that could kill. Such a deadly position did the doctor find himself in, indeed.

Before even the doctor could react, Muzan’s now long extended nails had slashed him to death.

His blood splashing and staining the walls of both your shared bedroom, his head almost detaching itself from his body as he slowly fell to his death.

Muzan felt powerful, as if he was finally reborn into this world as healthy.

He took a look at himself at the mirror. He grew. He grew fangs, muscles, nails, that his old thin clothes tore apart. He looked like a monster. But he didn’t care. He finally looked like he had some strength. No — not some. A lot of strength.

By whatever time coincidence they call this, though, you walked into the room and see this grotesque and gory sight. You dropped the bowl full of water and two towels. Your hands shaked rapidly, your mouth opening unconsciously, and pupils dilating unstoppably.

You looked at your father as he laid down on the floor, the smell of flesh and blood getting in your nostrills made your head ache, as you trembled with pure disgust and fear.

The only culprit was inside. Checking himself in the mirror. Your so-called husband.

Muzan turned towards the door, seeing you, and he smiled. “My dear… I’ve healed.. I’ve finally gained strength..” Muzan opened his arms, as if waiting for you to come and hug him.

“W-What…” You could finally speak, tears spilling down your eyes as your mouth continued to gape open. You managed to look at Muzan. No — you managed to look at the monster that killed your father.

Muzan tilted his head, seeming confused why are you not running towards him in happiness. “Hmm? What’s wrong, my dear? Are you not… happy?”

“Y-You… m-my… father…” You stuttered helplessly, as Muzan just chuckled.

“Oh, I’m sorry, he was being useless.. I had to.” As if killing your father was not enough, he kicked your father’s now detached head and rolled towards you. You screamed in pure fear and disgust, as Muzan just rolled his eyes, calling you ‘dramatic’.

“Dear, you’re killing my ears. Don’t overreact.” Muzan crossed his arms, and rolled his eyes again as you sobbed and fell to the ground.

Muzan sauntered towards you, reaching his arms out, as if wanting to hug you with his bloody nails.

But you backed away. And Muzan was left confused.

“My… f-father…” You repeated the third time, and Muzan was now annoyed.

“Yes, your father, I killed him.” Muzan tried to go closer to you, but you backed off again.

“W-Why…” You looked up at Muzan with fear. You didn’t know who this man was, anymore. No — he was not the Muzan you once knew, you once married.

“Why? I told you, he was being useless. But thanks to him, I have turned to this, a new me.” Muzan wickedly smiled as you stopped backing away, for your back had now hit the hallway wall.

As Muzan drew closer to you, you kicked him away at the stomach, and that made him angry. But that apparently, didn’t had any effect on him.

“You- why would you do that!?” Muzan questioned angrily as he pinned you roughly at the wall.

“Why, why would you kill him!? What did he ever do to you!?” You sobbed again, but this time, loudly. Muzan, as he is, got annoyed by this. He placed his right hand on your throat, threatening to strangle you if you don’t shut up now.

“Shut up. You’ll do as I say, because you’re my wife. Because you’re mine.” He looked at you with pure obsession in his eyes, his wide smile showing his wickedness.

Your face twitched in disgust, “No… I’d rather you kill me. I would never be with someone as inhuman as you are.” You looked at him with pure hatred in your eyes, as his face twitched in anger.

“How dare you… did you know how many lengths I have to go through with this just for you!?” He started squeezing your neck, slowly getting tighter, the air in your lungs slowly suffocating.

He didn’t realize it, but it seemed as if you had took his hand and pressed his long nails on your now bleeding stomach.

He looked down in surprise, as you smiled.

“…I hate… every single bit of you…” And that were your last words before your mouth drooled out blood, as your grasp on both his hands slowly loosened, as your eyes slowly closed, and your heartbeat slowened.

Muzan felt a pang in his heart. You looked peaceful. The smile in your face as you were in death’s door, proved that you would never choose him even if both heaven and hell falls.

Muzan sighed and stood up, licking the blood off his nails. He looked at you once more, and whispered “If only you followed through… you wouldn’t be in that miserable state.” Then he left. He was about to step outside of your shared house, when instinct called out to him. He must never walk under the sun.

He may be strong now, but all has weakness. His weakness? The sun. And he hates it.

He walked back towards his room, and took a look of the doctor’s book. He flipped through the pages, and saw that this was not the final cure. There was supposed to be another process for it to be final.

Blue spider lily. His doctor’s original plan, was to turn him into this, a demon, and then make him consume a blue spider lily to turn him back to human.

Muzan crumpled and tore off that page, seeming to have regrets that he hadn’t waited any longer. If only he had waited any longer, then maybe, he wouldn’t be cursed to not walk under the sun, and you would’ve still be here.

But Muzan paid no pity on you. “You were just like the others,” he thought, “in the way of my success.”

~~~~~

Days, weeks, months, years, and decades passed, Muzan traveled from mountains to villages, to cities, and to prefectures.

9,000 years had passed. He had created his own minions; the demons. He had managed to conquer almost the world, if it weren’t for the demon slayer corps. He had found out that he turned a demon himself, the king, to be exact, and an immortal. He had made his own fake family, just to hide from the demon slayer corps. He had achieved greater heights on his own. And yet, the thought of you still lingers at the back of his mind.

Your smile, your laughter, your breath, your warmth, your embrace, your kisses, everything. He remembers the smallest details, even. How your nose would scrunch up at the faintest smell of smoke, how you’d stick your tongue out in disgust when you face vegetables in dinner, how you’d blink your eyes twice at the sudden change of brightness, how you’d shake your head slowly before you sneeze, and how your eyebrows would furrow and eyes would close when you want or have already released carbon dioxide.

He chuckled at the thoughts. Even douma, was left curious as Akaza towed him away from Muzan’s room.

To put it shortly, he misses you. He misses your voice, your touch, your warmth, and your care. But he doesn’t know.

But the past is past, isn’t it? It has all already happened. Muzan, he himself believes that there might be people who are just like you. But his heart, believes that you’re the only one.

~~~~~

Red light district. A place where Muzan frequents. Where he ‘settles’ in with his family. Where his preys live. Where he met his worst nightmare.

Tanjiro Kamado, a young boy who has haunted Muzan from that one, single encounter. The boy seems to have reminded him, that he shan’t never forget the fear Yoriichi Tsugikuni imprinted within him.

The fear of death frightened him as he shuddered in thin air at the sudden reminder that he, has indeed almost died.

That glimpse reminder suddenly made him feel weak, and he hated every single thing about it. How his legs trembled, his hands shaking, and his eyes twitching violently. Such a night he could never forget. No. It is impossible to forget.

~~~~~

As he laid down on his bed, he was once again haunted by memories of you. It was almost every day, that it became unhealthy. Whether he was in a meeting with the uppermoons, or when he was in the middle of devouring someone, the memories of you chose no time and situation, for it appears so randomly in his mind.

He brushed it off, thinking it’s just a mere guilt that he could never forget you, but he never realized that it was because he misses you.

Time passed swiftly, and the final time has arrived.

The hashiras attacked in, and all his creations slowly died one by one, and soon enough, he was the only one left.

Tanjiro Kamado, the boy he hates so much, has come to behead him and end the lineage of demons. But no, Muzan won’t allow that. Even if he was in front of death’s door, he wouldn’t, for he has seeked a life where he wouldn’t have to worry about dying. And because he does, the only way to prevent his death is to kill this boy in front of him.

Yet, for so many minutes that passed, he can’t kill the boy. There’re too many people, hashiras to be exact, protecting this boy from death. But every single hashira has also failed to kill him. Until all were exhausted.

Muzan and Tanjiro though, battled like there was no tomorrow — where they don’t even plan to continue tomorrow, because they’re determined to end it all here, all at once.

But alas, did he transform to a gigantic, monstrous creature, that a lot of people came and helped the boy once again, for he has stepped out of the shadows, and stepped into the sun.

It was a scorching heat, it was burning hot, it hurts, it feels like hell. He was slowly dying. Muzan didn’t want to accept it, but all these people around, helped the boy once more. They never gave up.

“How pathetic,” he thought, “losing their already miserable lives to a boy whose worth is not even valuable.” Then he questioned, “Why? Why would they all risk their lives for a pathetic boy? Why would they give it their all to save a single boy? Why won’t they just give up?”

For every blow they landed on him, may it be weak or fatal, Y/n always appeared in his mind.

“I would have loved you if you hadn’t ended my father’s life!” “What value must I give someone like you when you gave people no value at all!?” “If things would only go this way, then I wish I never met you.” “I hope they kill you.” “I hope they win.” “I hope you die.” “I hope you lose.” “I hope I would’ve been there to see and laugh at your miserable fate.” The words tangled in his mind, words that his mind created; that fallacied him into thinking that you had really said those words.

Even if the sun was burning through him, your ‘words’ hurt him more.

He could feel his chest aching, and his eyes slowly forming tears.

He finally understands. He finally understands why you reacted that way, why you reacted so violently that day, on your father’s death. It was because you were human, and he did something inhuman. It was because even from the start, even if he was still human, he had always been evil, like a demon.

He was slowly disintegrating, following through the wind, his ashes slowly left his body. But before he would even allow that, he would never let the hardwork and dreams he had go to waste. The things he did to sacrifice you. That’s why, he passed it all to the boy.

His hardwork and dreams must never die with him. He has regretted nothing, for all has been done. Though, he did regret one thing. It was killing you.

Even in front of death’s door, the last thought he could think of, was you.

You, you, you, you, everywhere you. Just now, did he realize that he can’t live a world without you. That he was wrong all along. He can never find anyone like you, he can never be sane with a life without you, and that all he had ever wanted all along was to be with you.

The regret, and the guilt he felt back that day. If only he not only had the power of a demon, but also had the power to turn back time, he would do everything just to get back to that day.

As he finally faded into thin air, he had the same look as you were on death’s door. He smiled, with tears forming in his eyes. He was finally going to be with you. Screw that power of demon when you’re not even here. Why have such power, if he can’t even be with you? If he can’t even protect you? If he can’t even love you?

Both of you swore in front of the altar, “through thick and thin, we will always be together.” Muzan will finally keep what he swore. But he knows that he has no right to be with you. He knows that he has no right to call you his wife, let alone love you, for he was the one who killed you.

In the blink of an eye, Muzan opened his eyes and saw darkness. It felt as if any direction he looked, he was still staring to the void.

But then, he heard a voice. More specifically, a laughter. To be exact, your voice. He looked around and turned, only to see you with a smile so wide. Muzan took a step forward, then he raced towards you. But he suddenly stopped. How would you react then if you see him once again? Would you sob, and look at him with pure hatred and fear, or kill yourself once again? How can you ever smile at him that way when he was the only who killed your father, and you? He knew it was a boundary. And he could never cross it. For you are on the heaven, and he is at hell.

He loved you, he really did. But his mindset stuck up on “if I can’t have you, then no one can.” But he truly did regret his decision. But now, he has lost privilege of loving you. Because he’s the one who killed you, after all. He can now only look at you from afar, and smile as you laughed happily with a life without him.

If only he could bring back time… but no matter what, he will always stay and watch you, just like what he should’ve done 10,000 years ago. “Through thick and thin,” he whispers, as he watched you smiling wide without him.

[kerubimcrepin]

Episode 35 - The Gobbal Set

Finally, a non-heavy, light little episode. Thank god.

Their conversation is cute, their closed sign is cute, even they're both cute.

Never ask a woman her age, a man his salary, and Kerubim Crepin to tell a single story where he went to Brakmar, despite that seemingly happening many times, between, and those are just the ones I can remember at the moment, his and Lou's "slaughter safaris in Sidimote Moors" or having a rare sword from there.

He's trying to "disappear" all the occasions that may or may not involve Atcham out of his life, as if it's 1984.

He is so normal.

Kerubim would love NFTs.

I love you, Kerubim's Unspecified Adult Responsibilities.

Joris is so special for this.

I like to imagine, that as an adult, he publishes sad """romance""" novels under thirty pen names (lest anyone in his real life learns he has emotions)

They are, in part, musings on why one must imagine someone spending thousands of years of immortality happily, — the same way Sisyphus must be happy, haha.

If Kerubim and Atcham learn about this, he will explode.

He truly is god's strongest Kerubim apologism warrior.

I just wanted to include this because gay people.

He is so bad at this. It's very cute. I love him.

Let the traumatic flashbacks to Kerubim actually almost drowning commence:

I'm insane about researching Joris's psyche.

Is there anything you'd like to tell us, Joris? Does this make you scared frequently, haha? Do you think about this a lot?

A friend had recently convinced me of the headcanon that Joris has OCD (not that I needed much convincing. If you've read my fics, I uh... accidentally gave Joris OCD in one of them. Whoopsie.), and while it's mostly about his adult self, I can see him having inclinations/some form of that even as a child.

Mostly due to the "persistent scary thoughts of someone he loves dying," "being so upset by the concept of changing bedtimes, that is a Nightmare to him," "needing reassurance that his thoughts of Kerubim dying are Not going to happen for real," things, — which look similar to the way intrusive thoughts and thought spirals work, — as well as the "having so much anxiety compared to an average seven-year-old (due to Kerubim and the general home situation), that he sometimes still sucks his thumb while sleeping" thing.

He looks so peaceful here. Cute.

It is interesting that he values something that was quiet and quaint so much. I guess both excitement and the calm, are equally important to him. It makes sense, considering he keeps pivoting between returning to adventure, and then going on breaks again, during his long, immortal life after the series.

(From this show's quietude, to moving between cities, to settling down in Bonta for a little bit. Then, two-hundred-something years later, yet again, more adventures, and yet again, settling down in Astrub. Then in Wakfu, moving to Bonta again, going on missions with Joris, and complaining that he needs his retirement, while getting beat up heavily due to lack of regular training. His switching between these two things is so interesting.)

He's so funny for this.

[yallemagne]

the reincarnation plot from every bad dracula movie but make it queer

Preface:

Every time I go out for a walk I think about the goddamn reincarnation plot that movies use and I ask to myself “but what if it was Jonathan--” and then twenty years get taken off of my life as retribution. Basically most story ideas I have are “what if the bad thing happened to Jonathan”, and I refuse to reflect on what that entails. 

How most reincarnation plots go is that Dracula rifles through Jonathan’s bag and finds a picture of Mina and suddenly goes batshit as if he’s not seen a women in a thousand years (he totally has, he has three roommates). This happened in Nosferatu (don’t recall if it was bc she looked like his dead wife or he’s just an incel) and way too many other adaptations while having never actually happened in the book. 

But I can make the reincarnation plot gay AND stick more faithfully to the book. 

Okay lessgo--

When Jonathan finds the study:

Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love letter, and writing in my diary in shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last. 

and

I determined not to return tonight to the gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where, of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars. 

Besides just screaming femme Jonathan, that’s perfect reincarnation fodder. You can play this as if he’s recalling his own memories of being Dracula’s forlorn wife worrying about him as he goes off to war. 

And then he meets the Weird Sisters, and he recognizes one of them:

The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where. 

Most people interpret the blonde vampire as being Dracula’s original wife and the two dark-haired vampires his daughters. Totally see that. Now, why does Jonathan recognize her? Blah, blah, she’s him, he’s her. 

The thing about most reincarnation plots though is that they always have the Sisters but they have no bearing on the plot. Hey Mina, your “hubby” has three women he keeps as pets, why don’t you ask WHO THEY ARE AND WHY HE DOES THAT TO THEM. But those would be rational questions. 

So anyway, how do dead vampire wife and living Jonathan wife exist at the same time? I mean, it could be that Dracula’s original wife wasn’t turned when she was alive. Perhaps the same deal with Satan he did to become immortal reanimated his wife’s corpse. But of course, her soul was gone. 

Whoopsies Dracula, you fucked up. 

"How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me." The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:—

"You yourself never loved; you never love!" On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure of fiends. Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper:—

"Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so?"

I’m just gonna say, the blonde vampire’s response to Dracula staking his claim in Jonathan being “you’ve never loved”... foreshadowing. Even the corpse bride over here is like “bitch, I know you’re not gonna treat my soul right this time”. And I’m not the only one who has said Dracula looking at Jonathan and saying softly “Yes, I too can love” is pretty homosexual. 

Now you may think I’m veering towards Dracula/Jonathan, but Dracula is still an abuser, so no. 

With that said-- MINA!

She fetches Jonathan from the convent and they travel back to England, and Jonathan can’t help feeling severely out of place now. He spent so much time as a damsel in that castle, having past memories come to him in the form of nightmares, and then he spent his recovery surrounded by women who were sympathetic towards him and promise to keep the weird memory dreams secret. 

But now he’s in England, and he can hardly walk down the street without being a little genderqueer about it. 

And what is he supposed to think about his relationship with his gender when he’s not even sure these are his own feelings? Is he experiencing actual gender dysphoria towards being a man or are these just the thoughts of a long-dead woman? Doesn’t help if this is still set in Victorian England where if he were to confide these feelings in anyone, he could be institutionalized. 

Not to mention his relationship with Mina. Is he being deceptive towards her? He doesn’t know. He feels guilty for these newfound feelings. Does having a woman’s soul invalidate their relationship somehow? Does his previous relationship with Dracula invalidate it? Should he let her go so she can seek out a more worthy partner? The answer to all the questions are no of course, but this is a drama. 

I could go on and try to plot out an actual story on the spot, but the original intent of this was just to make a point that the reincarnation plot has more backing it if Jonathan is the reincarnated bride of Dracula instead. Which plenty of people have already said, but I'm giving my own talking points because I’ve been dying to okay.

[imaginewarehouse]

The Bad Guys x Reader || Drabble

Not the right scene, I know, get over it.

Plot: The van/reveal scene with you, the groups Femme Fatale and Snakes wife, included into it.

Warnings: ** MAJOR SPOILERS ** This whole thing is SET in the climax of the movie.

🔆🔆🔆

Panic was already climbing up into your throat from getting thrown into the cops armoured van, but as soon as those words escaped that little weasel's throat, 'Well, well... You finally get it.', along with the whole... look he's suddenly sporting- You jump up and slam your fist into the wall of the van. "CHIEF," You screech, a terrifying, demanding tone in your voice you have never used with her before. "I think you better get in here!!"

"Everyone alright in there, Marmalade sir??" Is the Chiefs response, surprising you. For years you have had her wrapped around your little finger; With your smooth words and painted lips, its your thing. You're the master manipulator, the seductress- but now, realisation dawns on you, that Marmalade holds all the cards. You're helpless right now, you think, heart giving a terrible thud inside your chest, glancing at Snake.

He's just as shocked and pissed off as you are, looking from you slowly to the 'Good Samaritan'.

"Oh, its all right Chief! Thank you! I'll only be a moment!" Marmalade calls back, looking squarely at you for a moment- the evillest, vilest look on his face that you have ever seen. You glare, sitting back down between a horrified Mr Wolf and an equally shocked Mr Shark.

"Wait. So... you stole the meteorite?" Shark asks, and you feel relieved to have the rodents beady little eyes lifted off of you.

"Oh, its not just a meteorite," Marmalade replies, more then a hint of 'neener neener I'm smarter then you' laced in his tone.

Piranha suddenly wiggles in the air, excited. "I told you guys it's a BUTT!- "

But just as you're about to crack a smile at your comrades announcement, Marmalade loses his shit once again. "IT'S NOT A BUTT!" He looks absolutely wild, hair in crinkly, 'mad scientist' wisps and pupils shrunken like he sees nothing he likes. Your eyes narrow; This wont be good. "It's the ultimate power source! You see, when it struck the city, scientists found that it emitted a powerful electromagnetic frequency, unlike anything else on Earth." He explains, chuckling. "I'm going to harness it's power to pull off the greatest heist the world has ever seen!"

"Wait... " Piranha and Snake both start.

"Whaaaaat?" Shark finishes, yours and Webs' expressions punctuating the rhetorical question.

Then Webs turns promptly to Snake, a deadpanned look on her face. "You should have eaten him while you had the chance."

"Yup."

"But why us?" Wolf finally, having been quiet thus far... looking worse then any of you. You noticed, because he's always the one that's together. You and him. You always have your composures, you don't lose it- so when you did, you had looked to Wolf. And he was doing worse, if that was possible.

A cruel beam spreads across Marmalades face. "Because you're the perfect patsies!" The glee in his voice is almost palpable. "Come on: When people look up 'bad' in the dictionary, do they see a sweet, adorable Guinea Pig? No. They see you. And they always will."

"Okay, fine." Snake agrees, easily. He's fine with how people perceive him, he identifies with it. "But you set us up!"

"Oh, pish-pish." Marmalade rolls his eyes. "Lets be honest: Evolution set you up. But Wolfie here really clinched it." He looks to Wolf, looking even crueller as his eyes fall on the hunched shoulders of your friend. "You fell for every one of my traps... " Your heart starts to fall, not white knowing what is about to come out but knowing its going to be bad- eyes snapping to Snake who's totally focused on Wolf. This is going to be bad, this going to be really, bad. "Starting with saving a helpless, little old lady."

"Wolf? What's he talking about?" Snake demands, worry creeping into his voice.

"Whoopsie," Marmalade covers his tiny mouth in fake guilt. A growl rumbles in the back of your throat as Wolf starts to breath harder, and dangerous betrayal starts to boil in Snake. "Did I say too much? What do you think, Y/N my dear?" The pigs eyes find your figure again, and you can feel it creeping over you; Causing you to actually wince. "You know, you could be saved, from all this unpleasantness; You don't have to be bad, you know? If you would agree to come with me, I'm sure I could... make arrangements, for you... "

"In your dizziest daydreams, pig." You hiss back, eyes darkening. Snakes' do, too, not liking at all the way you're being spoken to.

Marmalade shrugs. "Oh well. You go become a jailbird with your jailbird husband and your jailbird friends... shame, though it is. Anyhoo- " He turns back to Wolf, forgetting you quickly. "Looks like, yet again, the big bad wolf got outsmarted by a little piggie... "

Wolf suddenly howls, jumping up and fighting against his restraint. "You little pouchy-cheeked rat!" Your eyes widen as Wolf lunges for Marmalade, and the van doors pop open when his teeth bare at the rodent. No!- "I'll kill you! Do you hear me? You're DEAD. You're- "

As Marmalade topples out of the van, feigning fear, all you can see is the flashing lights of cameras and a crowd of scared faces, and feel... helpless. Its over.

The Chief rushes forward and shoves Wolf back into the van. "Oh no. You are done forever, Wolf!" She looks only sparingly, at you, and you don't even try to explain. Its no use. You just straighten your shoulders, and look away; A cool expression on your face as you regain your composure. Because you have to, you need it. Its all you have as a defence mechanism right now.

You know if you wanted her to, she would excuse you. She would say you weren't as bad as the others, because you made her think that. You made her fall in love with you.

But you belong right here and you aren't going anywhere.

As the van doors slam shut and you're all plunged into a deafening silence, you and Snake connect with the same furious, shocked expressions across the van. His eyes soften a little bit looking at you, though, and you allow yourself to relax the tiniest bit. Show a bit of your real feelings,- the heartbreak at everything falling apart.

How did all this go so wrong?

[nightwishesworld]

Food Poisoning

What’s that? I should be working on the 12+ asks in my inbox instead of doing my own stuff??? Whoopsie

In all fairness I’m not super proud of this anyway, so I guess it balances itself out

“It must have been quite the night for Daniela to be sleeping in this late,” you say over your morning coffee.

“Was it?” Cassandra, ever the lady, asked while a mouthful of breakfast. “I didn’t realize she went out to hunt.”

Bela nodded as she sipped her tea. “She looked a little worse for wear after dinner, don’t you think, Mother?”

“I noticed that as well, yes. I hope she’s not falling ill.”

“Wait, can vampires even get sick?”

“Not if they’re careful enough. But in short, yes, my dear, it is very possible. If our food is less than healthy when ingested we will get sick. Nothing major, rather similar to food poisoning in fact.”

“Ok, well should we go check your stocks? Maybe she ate something rancid.”

Alcina shook her head. “I’m sure she’s fine, y/n. It’s probably just one of those days for her. Besides, if she were ill that means all of us would be as well, and I don’t know about you girls, but I feel perfectly fine this morning.”

Both Cassandra and Bela nodded along.

“Unless she ate that weird guy she abducted from the bar. Maybe he wasn’t just drunk? He could have been sick. Also, I hate how blasé I’ve become to you guys eating people. You’ve officially numbed me.”

Alcina rolled her eyes at your dramatics while the girls giggled. “What are the odds of that, though? Consuming the only subject in the entire basement that hasn’t been thoroughly tested.”

You share a look with Bela and Cassandra. “You remember who we’re talking about, right Alcina?”

She exhales slowly, blowing tiny ripples on the surface of her wine. “Goddammit, I suppose I should go check on her.”

You already stood from your seat. “No, no you just sat down; I’ll go. What are the odds, anyway? Daniela is smarter than that.”

It was a short walk to Daniela’s chambers once you made it upstairs. You know you’re going to find her ill in bed, you just know it. The thrill of the kill makes her reckless even in the best of times. You know for a fact she devoured that weird old man the very night she dragged him home. Now your only hope is she’s not cursed with anything more than a stomach ache.

The putrid smell of stomach acid reeked even outside Daniela’s closed door. On instinct you wanted to rush in there and help her, but who’s to say she isn’t asleep? The smell could have been from last night and she was just too exhausted to clean it up before passing out. Not that that made you feel any better. Poor Daniela sicker than a dog all by herself with no one to hold her hair up or rub her back.

You steadied yourself enough to knock a couple of times before opening the door a crack. Just enough to be able to peek through.

“Daniela?” No answer.

It doesn’t look like she’s in bed either. Then you heard the retching. You wasted no time rushing in to find her hunched over a wastebasket on the floor. You gathered her hair away from her face, kneeled down next to her, and tried desperately to ignore the smell. The last thing needed is both of you throwing up.

“Are you alright, darling?”

It was a stupid question, but the words left your mouth before you could censor yourself. That didn’t stop the redhead from glaring up at you. Her eyes were glossy and red, probably from lack of sleep.

You waited a few minutes while her breathing steadied before letting go of her. “Will you be ok while I go get your mother?”

She gave a single nod.

You rush out of the room and head for the stairs. You consider rushing down and risk tripping over yourself but ultimately decide to tell for her.

“ALCINA!”

She was heading up the stairs almost immediately after you called like she was waiting for you to do so. “She’s retching on the floor.” Alcina sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I was really hoping you were wrong.” “Me too. What should we do?” Alcina opened the door to her daughter’s bedroom and immediately rushed to her side. “My poor darling, what happened?” All Daniela could bring herself to do was shake her head. Alcina kissed her temple. “I think that old drunk expired and no one told him.” That got a smile on Daniela’s lips. Alcina proceeded to wipe the dribbles of bile off her daughter’s lips with her dress. You entered the room but kept your distance from the pair. Both because you wanted to give them space and because the smell was making you nauseous. If it's making you feel sick then you can't imagine how crummy Daniela is feeling. "Why don't you bring her to our room and I'll clean this mess up."

"Don't worry about that, y/n. I'll deal with it later. Right now I need you to go tell Bela and Cassandra to ready themselves for a trip down to the village. I need the old witch to brew a few tonics for Daniela." You nodded quickly and start hurrying out of the room. "Make sure Bela brings her glass vials!"

The girls departed for the village with haste. They said it's been decades since any of them fell ill and any herbs or tonics they had laying around the castle would have lost their effect years ago. You panicked a bit when Cassandra asked what she should be asking the witch for cause you had absolutely no idea. Before you gave yourself a panic attack trig to figure it out, Bela reassured you she knew what to do. Some items could only be obtained from the witch's hut, which is where Cassandra was being sent, while others could be purchased in the village shops.

As soon as you saw them off you busied yourself with cleaning Daniela's room. It took a while, way longer than it should have, but it got done and that's all that matters. The smell was putrid enough standing in the doorway so being right in the middle of it made you really nauseous. Scrubbing the smell out of the wooden floorboards took up most of your morning, but making Daniela happy and comfortable was well worth the effort.

You rewarded yourself with a hot shower for your valiancy though. After you freshened up you found everyone curled up together in the library. Daniela was laying on her back, with her head resting on her mother's lap as she read a book. Bela was curled up in a ball next to Alcina while Cassandra laid stretched out on the floor with her chin resting on Alcina's knee. It was probably the cutest thing you've ever seen. Not wanting to ruin such a wholesome family interaction you quietly exited the library before any of them noticed you were there.

The next few days passed like this. Alcina was driving herself to exhaustion making sure Daniela was as comfortable as possible and you did the same to her in turn. The easiest way to get the matriarch to relax was by giving her a back massage. You straddled her bare back and slowly kneaded away at her aching muscles. Her occasional sounds of pleasure encourage your ministrations.

"How can one woman have so many knots?"

"I don't know; stress, work, lack of sleep, posture?"

You laugh. "Wasn't actually looking for an answer, Al. And don't try to tell me you haven't been sleeping. I haven't been sleeping because your snoring keeps waking me up."

Alcina turned to give you a look of disgust. "I do not snore."

"You do when you're stressed. Weirdest thing, by the way."

She opened her mouth to respond but only let out a pained hiss as you moved down to her shoulder blades.

"Too much?"

"No, just sore. You can keep going."

"Yeah, I can see that. I'm just trying to get your muscles to relax, nothing crazy."

Alcina sighs and relaxes back into the pillows.

"I'm gonna start going a little harder, ok? It's getting better, but try to not hold your breath if you can help it."

Alcina lets out a long exhale in submission. She hadn't even realized she was holding it in. The way you were moving your hands down her body made her cry out in a mixture of pain and pleasure.

"Sorry, Love."

"Don't worry about it, just keep going."

A comfortable silence passes between the two of you. Your mind wanders back to Daniela. It was surreal to see her moping around the castle.

"Do you think Daniela would like a backrub? I heard her say her body aches earlier."

"That's sweet though, my love, but let's just leave her be for now. I think she finally succumbed to the tonics."

"Ah, I understand. Is she feeling any better?"

Alcina shakes her head into the pillow. "Not yet, but the tonics are helping keep her stomach calm."

You feel the weight of an anvil release from your chest. "Thank the gods, I really don't want to clean up any more sick."

"No one told you to in the first place."

"I know. I just thought she would want to be comfy in her own room."

"I appreciate everything you're doing for her, y/n. Daniela does too, she's just not great at vocalizing it."

"She doesn't have to. I'll gladly take care of my family."

One night you come home from the village really late at night and come home to find Daniela snuggling with Alcina in bed. It’s the sweetest sight.

Alcina’s got an arm wrapped around Daniela’s middle, holding her close but not suffocatingly so. Daniela’s head is tucked under her mother’s chin, face buried in her neck.

You take in the sight before moving to give Alcina a kiss on the cheek (you would Daniela too but don’t want to wake her. She needs all the sleep she can get.) and move to leave for a guest bedroom just down the hall.

Alcina stirs and you apologize for waking her.

“I was only dozing,” she whispers.

“I’m sorry I’m so late. Mihaela was accepting drinks left and right, I had to make sure she got home safe.”

“How noble of you.” Alcina lets out a lion’s yawn.

“Go back to bed, Love. I’ll check on you both in the morning.”

“Daniela was waiting for you to come back, but fell asleep.” Alcina turned her attention back to her youngest daughter and kissed her sweaty temple.

“She feeling any better?”

“Her fever did go down a bit, so we’re on the road to recovery. A slow and winding road, but going in the right direction nonetheless.”

You sigh in relief. “Thank god. She was starting to really scare me. Do you think we should call that old bat up here to take a look at her? What if she doesn’t get better soon, then what?”

“But she is, darling. I just told you her fever is down. She still has a little bit of a fever, but progress is progress. In a few day's time, she will be much better.”

“You’re probably right,” you lean over Alcina and brush loose strands of hair out of Daniela’s face. “I just wish I could do more. I’d rather it be me instead of poor Daniela.”

“I’d rather it be neither of you,” Alcina mumbled.

“It’s just so scary to see her like this; so vulnerable and weak...”

“I’m not weak.” A groggy mumbling came from Alcina’s chest.

“Hey, Daniela, how are you feeling? Any better?”

The redhead nodded into her mother’s neck. “A little.”

“Good,” you smile. “You go back to sleep now, ok? I’ll come to check on you in the morning.”

“Wher’re you goin?”

“I’m gonna go sleep in a guest room so you can be with your mother.”

The hand wrapped around Alcina’s waist comes to grab your wrist. She said something but you couldn’t make it out. All you heard was muffled groaning.

“Don’t worry, Dani. This way you can have the whole side of the bed to yourself. I’ll come to check on you in the morning.”

She didn’t let go.

“Don’t you wanna be alone with your mother? I really don’t mind, Daniela, honestly.”

Daniela buried herself deeper under the covers. “You don’t understand. I-I want...both.”

“Both what?”

Daniela didn’t say anything. She only cuddled into Alcina’s chest.

Oh....OH!

You clamped a hand down on Alcina’s arm, unknowingly digging your nails into her skin.

“Are...are you sure, Dani?”

The redhead nodded into her mother, who then answered for her.

Your stomach fluttered with the wings of a thousand butterflies. Daniela never referred to you as a parental figure before, let alone call you her mother. “Alright then. If you’re sure that’s what you want.” You move to your side of the bed and crawled in, careful not to press against her too much.

Daniela lets put an irritated groan and reaches behind her to grab your arm and wrap it around herself. Yanking you against her along the way. She must be really sick. Since when did Daniela Dimitrescu demand cuddles? Especially from you. The only thing she ever demanded of you was to help her sharpen weapons or make up with Alcina after an argument.

She wriggled away from Alcina just enough to feel you behind her. She was still sandwiched pretty tight between the two of you, but if this is what she wants you aren’t complaining. She brought your hand up towards her chest so as to keep it away from her cramping stomach.

Her head was tucked in under your chin because you didn't want to breathe all over the back of her neck. Daniela was beyond glad you were still holding onto her, even though she would never say it out loud.

You made sure to tell her you would let go of her if cuddling got too hot, or cold, or stifling for her. The redhead groaned a response and nodded into Alcina’s chest.

Rather than having your arms wrapped around her, (that implied a certain amount of pressure) your arm was laying over her side and bent to her form without any sort of pressure so Daniela wouldn't feel trapped or constricted. Really more draped over her than wrapped around her.

But she was holding onto your forearm tight to keep you there even if she shifted somewhat frequently because she wanted you to stay.

“I’m sorry you have to feel like this, Daniela. I hope you start to feel better.” You threw caution to the wind and kissed the top of her head. To your surprise, Daniela cuddled further into you. It absolutely melted you.

You pepper her head with kisses. “My poor darling. I wish I could make it all go away.”

Alcina smiles warmly at the display as she repositions herself comfortably against the pillows. She leans forward to kiss the top of Daniela's head. "Promise me you'll wake us if you need anything?"

Daniela nods into her chest.

"Or if you can't fall asleep," you add.

Alcina leaned forward to kiss you goodnight, accidentally smothering her daughter in her chest. "Goodnight, my loves. Sleep well."

[fbfh]

dear baby; strawberry milkshakes - leo x reader parents au

words: 1.8k

summary: You and Leo are getting used to adulting together, when Chiron asks for your help. Next thing you know, there’s a little demigod for you two to take care of - and you’re not going to let her down.

warnings: almost boning but getting interrupted, shit is said twice, one use of fucking I think, mentions of orphanages and the foster care system, mentions of CPS, being at a CPS building, adopting a child, leo has trauma, leo and reader take in a child when you’re both 19, technically teen parents but not really, the kid has some trauma too, everyone has trauma but literally what’s new

au: sort of college + parents au

song recs: raining in new york mix - the bootleg boy (tw for some sort of sad dialogue samples), falling in love with love - bernadette peters in cinderella (1997)

a/n:  I saw a kids book called Sophia Valdez Future Prez and I know nothing about it but immediately knew I had to do a parents au where you and Leo have a daughter named sophia???????? also I accidentally gave myself baby fever whoopsie

also I was barely able to proof read this and had no brain while writing half of it so if the beginning feels rushed at all that’s why teehee

Straddling his lap, you start to take off Leo’s shirt. He tilts his head to the side as you nip at the skin gently. He moans softly, then tenses. 

"Shit!" He hisses, sitting up and pulling your shorts back up. You look at him bewildered, and he nods his head to the side, and you see a shimmery cloud that says that you have an incoming iris message from Chiron.  

"Oh shit," you echo, moving to a reasonable distance away from him, a thick throw blanket tossed gracefully across your legs and pulled up to cover your chest, and you're grateful your shirt hadn't been thrown across the room already. 

He pulls his shirt down and you toss him a throw pillow to cover his very obvious excitement. You give each other a ready as we'll ever be look and accept the call. 

"Hey Chiron… what's up?" Leo asks nonchalantly. 

"You must pardon my intrusion, dear children, I hope I'm not - er - interrupting anything.” “No, no, not at all,” you answer, hoping what you had been doing wasn’t too obvious in spite of how both of you are looking particularly flushed and deschevled, “we were just watching a movie.” 

Leo nods in agreement, and you list two different movies at the exact same time, the dark knight rises and moonstruck.

A beat passes, and you continue, “Double feature. Just finished Batman and we’re about to start Moonstruck.” 

Leo agrees. You can’t tell if Chiron is buying it, but he seems to move on relatively quickly. 

“Right. I’m afraid I must ask for your help with a rather time sensitive situation.” your brows furrow in unicen as he continues. 

He tells you about a young demigod a satyr found, not even four years old yet, but they haven’t been able to get her to camp. Apparently there were some complications, and CPS was called, now they’re looking for her parents to see if she’s going to a foster home or orphanage. If they can’t get to her before the CPS finishes processing her, she’ll be lost in the system. He’s asking older demigods and demigod families in New York, since processing time will go the fastest if the family or guardians are in-state. 

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but please consider taking her in, at least temporarily.” You and Leo share a look, hearts already hurting that life has gotten to this kid so soon. 

“I’ll give you some time to discuss this, please call me back as soon as you have an answer.” 

You agree, and the shimmery image of Chiron dissipates.

“... Oh my god,” you breathe. 

You turn to each other again, the same thing mirrored in each other's eyes. An immediate, unspoken conformation that there’s no way you can’t help this kid out passes between you. You know Leo, especially, will do whatever needs to be done to keep another orphaned demigod out of the foster system. The scope of the impact you could have on this kid’s life starts to dawn on you, and you lock eyes with Leo again, his face set in determination. 

“Estrella,” he starts, and you know what he’s going to say. 

“I know,” you confirm in agreement.

His leg is bouncing, and you lean over, grabbing a notepad and pen from the coffee table. Your mind is already racing, and you begin scribbling down a list of everything you’d need to do; get her a bed and clothes, research where she is in her developmental stages, put together a meal plan or at least some foods she’ll like - what do toddlers even eat? He starts pacing around the coffee table. 

“We gotta help this kid, we-” he cuts himself off, overwhelmed with determination. 

“We will.” you confirm, equally determined. You grab your laptop and start copying your list digitally so you can get everything organized. You stare at your reflection in the black screen while you wait for your computer to boot up. Once again, the reality of your situation hits you.

“We’re 19…” you state, in disbelief. Your mind is racing with doubts. What if you somehow make everything worse, what if you can’t handle it? He crouches next to you, placing his hand on your cheek.

“And we have a lot of love to give.” The smile in your eyes tells him that you know he’s right. You transcribe your writing, surprised that you’re okay with how fast this is all moving, and you let out another breathy laugh of disbelief. 

You go through your hastily made checklist, switching between tabs about child psychology, parenting advice, and kid’s furniture and clothes websites, strategizing with Leo on how you can pull this off, and a plan gradually comes together.

“I mean, this is a two bedroom,” he says as you look through pages of bed frames and mattresses, “we can clear out our studio and turn it into her room.” 

“And…” you add, checking yet another tab, “there’s a building nearby that rents out studio spaces and workshop areas. Ooh, and free parking.” you read on the website. It’s already late, but you send them an email anyway. Hopefully they’ll get back to you tomorrow. But for now… 

“We can get a bed tonight, but we’d have to hurry. We can probably get some pjs and maybe a stuffed animal while we’re there- toothbrush!” You exclaim, adding it to your list, “I knew I was forgetting something…”

 Leo stops pacing, and looks at you. “So… we’re doing this?” You can’t fight the smile on your face, and he already has his answer. 

“We’d better call Chiron back,” you say, excitedly bubbling out. You both enter the bathroom, and iris message chiron with mist from the shower. He answers almost immediately.

“We thought it over and…” you trail off, letting him finish.

“We want to help.” 

After changing into some presentable clothes and swinging by the store for a car seat and some other essentials (you almost forgot tooth paste this time), you’re driving with Leo to meet Chiron at the CPS office where they had Sophia - the girl Chiron told you about. You call the Ikea store not too far from your apartment, thankful you’re able to reach them before they close. You arrange to have them deliver a toddler bed to the spare bedroom in your apartment, your neighbor agreeing to let them in. Luckily, you had the presence of mind to get most of your and Leo’s stuff out of there, the corner of the living room now holding your desk and his drafting table. 

You’re still a little blurry on the details of how you’re going to get custody of this kid when you’re barely legal and have no ties to her or her family, but Chiron said he could work everything out. You assume the Mist will come in very handy. You and Leo discuss this on the way over. 

You can tell he’s worried. Knowing the horrors he went through in the foster system would be bad enough without all the demigod bullshit on top of everything. You take another deep breath. 

“This is what’s best for her,” he says matter of factly, “she needs to be with people who understand her.” You agree, and he continues, very fired up.

“She needs to be in an environment where she’s not going to be ignored and ostracized; she needs to be part of a family, not a fucking meal ticket.” 

You squeeze his leg supportively, and he takes another breath. 

“You’re right. And she’s going to get all of that.” He scoffs in agreement.

“There’s not a better place for someone like her than-”

“With someone like her.” you finish. He pulls into the parking lot and you enter, meeting Chiron in the building. Your hand holds Leo’s tightly, unsure of who’s shaking more. Chiron explains that he already had a discussion (wink wink) with the social worker, and knows that he has the perfect couple to take little Sophia in, and all you have to do is meet with her and sign some papers. 

So that brings you here, waiting outside the office door, holding each other’s trembling hands before finally entering. She doesn’t look up at you at first, until the social worker introduces you. Leo squeezes your hand, and she finally looks up, her eyes speaking a language you and Leo know. You know there is absolutely no going back from here, and you both sit down across from her. 

“Hi, you’re Sophia, right?” She looks away, clearly and understandably overwhelmed. 

“Don’t be rude, Sophia-” the social worker starts, but you cut her off. 

 “It’s okay, she didn’t do anything wrong.” you turn back to her, “You know, me and Leo have an extra bedroom at our apartment, and a kitten that I think would really like you. Do you want to come stay with us?” 

She doesn’t look back up right away, but she turns her head towards you. 

“Is it a boy or a girl?” she asks softly. How is she so precious already?

“A girl,” you reply, “named Jackhammer, because she purrs so loud.” 

She giggles, and you and Leo squeeze each other’s hands in unison.

“Really?” she asks. 

“Oh yeah,” you reply, “I’m sure she’d love to play catch the mouse with you.” She considers for a moment, then looks over at the social worker, who gives her an encouraging nod. After a moment of consideration, she replies quietly, “...Okay.” 

She hops down from her chair, and you both follow suit. The social worker hands you some papers, and you both sign. You guide her to the lobby, let Chiron know it went well and promise to update him soon, and bring her to the car. You pull out of the parking lot. 

Not long after leaving, you see a fast food place. 

“Are you guys hungry?” you ask, nudging Leo gently. 

“Yeah, I could definitely go for some fries. How bout you Sophia?” 

She nods, then asks quietly, “Can I get a milkshake?” 

Her expression is hesitant, and you get the sense she’s expecting a no. 

“Of course kiddo,” you say.

“What flavor do you want?” Leo finishes, turning to look at her. Her eyes are bright with hesitant excitement. 

“Strawberry, please.” 

After leaving the drive through, you have Leo search through your phone for any kid friendly music, and discover the only thing you have saved that’s appropriate for present company is the soundtrack to the Cinderella musical from 1997.

That’s how your little family started; driving late at night, singing along to Bernadette Peters, and drinking strawberry milkshakes.

[botwstoriesandsuch]

hey Kip! I’m sending asks into different writer’s askboxes, inquiring about cool themes/development facts/stuff the author wants to share about their personal favorite work of their own. What’s yours? :)

Ok so this ask is old and when I first got it I was like “dang I don’t really have a lot to talk about, what should I talk about I could those revalink headcanons the Kip Cut that turned into a working fic uhh hmm maybe I’ll just make something new to talk about real quick” and then I did and now there is a 12+ chapter Revalink fic in my drafts and I’m gonna talk about that now, whoopsie doopsie [click "j" to skip]

aHEM, OK so allow me to break out the primary school white board because yeah, I have a lot of thoughts and the oxford comma has not yet made it’s home into my brain. oh and spoilers for paraphrase. for both all of Chapter one and future events in later chapters, but it’s really nothing you couldn’t surmise from the AO3 tags

so I really wanted to tell the story of Revali and Link learning and struggling to love again after the less-than-fortunate events of Botw, but I wanted a...how you say...fresher, approach on the subject? Like I know we always say that fanfic writers writing the same tropes and stories time and time again is good because we eat that shit up--but at the same time I had asian parenting as was told never to half ass anything ever, no matter what. So now I'm gay and extra and have depression maybe and oh would you look at that @motherhyrule has dropped a beautiful revalink prompt right into my lap

Great so now that we have, that, I shall take you on the step by step process on how to make a :sparkles: story. So step one is to spend at least five to eleven business days for your white board to dismantle your genre and themes and work them around your character arcs. Luckily I have prepared one ahead of time

s*breaks out those laser pointers that uni professors use* So let's start with defining genre. As define because I HATE you, fuck you. I want you to suffer and writhe on the ground, motherfucker. How dare you think that I would give you nothing but pure predictable fluff, fuck you and yours

is the set of expectations that your audience has when consuming a piece of media

And the great thing about fanfiction is that unlike movies or book where the genres are more vague like, "oh it's a noir mystery genre. so there's a crime, maybe a murder, and a detective and a criminal." or "oh it's a teen romance. so there's some white people and a morally questionable six-pack 18 year old love interest that will be painted as desirable for some reason" BUT with fanfiction HALF of the work out the window, because as soon as you see those #revalink #aro sidon #zelpha #revali is an idiot and #found family tags you already know what's up.

Now what's so great about genre and expectation? Well the fun thing about it is that

I will use it to fucking break you.

... ... ...

<3 For example! <3

In Chapter 1: Holes, you already expect there to be revalink, you already expect them to be soulmates with the soulmarks and there's angst and yadayada ya. Revali and Link have to match because thatttss what this is all about, this is about them! This is about cute, little soulmarks and romantic words!

But whoooopsie doopsie [disney channel laugh track plays] they DON'T match anymore! Link's got a different mark! The number one rule of this entire genre has been broken whoooooooooooooooops. *ba dum tiss*

You might notice with a lot of my writing that I do this a lot, this whole..."oop but there's one little thing that's different." TebaSaki sick fic? Ok cool, but what if Teba burns an irreplaceable relic of the Rito champion to fight a wizzrobe first to characterize why his dumbass clicks with Saki. Mipha deciding to persue Link? Ok what if she chases after a dragon to externalize this conflict as she pierces it's flesh for a scale. Link fighting a Lynel? Ok but what if it's actually a sidlink angst fic in disguise and it's also world building on how Link deals with the bloodmoon that erases all of his efforts which is sort of similar to how his existence was erased from Hyrule 100 years ago mwaahahaha! Ok now that I say this outloud I think I just have a pattern of using fight scenes to externalize character growth. I like fight scenes...anyways.

I think another great thing about the realm of fanfiction is that with the tagging system, I can basically use a chekhov's gun sort of deal, without doing any writing. You know I'm gonna use that gun marked "soulmates" but you don't know when I'm gonna shoot it, and you SURE as hell don't know how.

And huzzah! One of the main points of conflict both drives the tension between Revali and Link, solidifies the unique genre and setting of this world, while also creating a new mystery that will carry over for the next few chapters.

Is Revali right in that Link's rebirth makes him destined for someone new now? What will Link do with the information that his soulmark has changed? Why did it change? Did Revali's change as well? How does anything fucking work right now?

And sure, you might be able to tell where things will end with them, but you sure as fuck will not know how because I HATE you. Fuck you. I want you to suffer and writhe on the ground, motherfucker. How dare you think that I would give you nothing but pure predictable fluff. I am not your goddamn fairy godmother, I will do as I fucking please. You will suffer as you fucking deserve, fuck you and your little tiny--

/j

Oh! But you might have noticed on my little planning whiteboard thing that there was a little T-Chart! For Revali and Link! That's because the next important thing besides plot (and in a lot of cases, including this one, it's argued to be even MORE important than plot) is

~CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT~

[to the tune of that history of the world video on youtube]

So yes, it's a little T-Chart outlining their character views in relation to the themes. And the great thing about themes is that they're not something you can necessarily predict in the same way you can with the genre and plot.

But now see, I'm very lazy so I'm just gonna plagiarize @hyrule-kingdom-updates thingy [that you should read btw] because they said my point quite clear enough

Now I don't really need to care about those points about bond and relationships and being understood, because I'm dealing with already established canon characters. I'm not some NERD who dabbles with entire casts of ocs who even cares about ocs not me that's for sure ahaahahaahahahahahaahahahahahAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH *cries in my orphaned WTTU fic* AHAHAHA*sobs*DONT FUCKING LOOK AT ME THAT WAY I SWEAR--

/j I love ocs

But the points I do wanna focus on is the idea that characters provide new perspectives on the theme, and that characters growth can be tracked based on their wants, lies, and needs.

So see, themes can be predicted the same as genre/plot because while you can have the same fanfic plots and tropes, theme will always vary!

Sometimes it's a journey of selfworth with Revali! Sometimes it's an exploration of trauma with Link. Sometimes it's about how you deal with the vulnerabilities of love with Mipha. Sometimes there's straight up NOOOO theme, and people just be fucking, and kissing, and baking, and having a good time. And that is totally fine too!

But I'm not a fucking coward.

I'm gonna weave in themes with my plot, because I fucking can.

I'm not a weakling like you.

Do you hear me, 2019 Kip? Do you hear me Demmers? Do you hear me Quill? I'm coming for your ass. You think you're so great, but I'm coming for you. Rest assured that your graves will be as deep as your sculptured pride--

Heeeere is that T-Chart again, plus more!

yyyyyYou might notice that Revali and Link are quite parallel, to paraphrase. Ayoooo, see what I did there? *dabs* I'm a genius. Anywho

They both start off the same way: 100 years ago they were in love and happy. Basically the equivalent of childish naivety. For the first time in their lives, life is whimsical and charming, and they make each other happy. In fact, it's almost a flaw with how they perceive this happiness. But don't worry! It doesn't last long!

You know what happens.

I think the chart is pretty self explanatory. Revali builds walls fast enough to give a republican a wet dream. Meanwhile Link makes every aromantic in the chat groan with his doubled down sentiments in the idea that his chances of being truly happy again are gone.

Now, I can't exactly describe the full on process of the inbetweens, and where Revali and Link are gonna go from here, because...you have to read it for yourself! Heehee...but something I did think was fun was how these character views on the themes are revealed. Because you'll notice that, I never give exposition. Ever.

Ok well, let me rephrase that. I never give exposition scenes. I will never give you a big LOTR fancy wizard scene explaining the ins and outs of a character's question or the world's magic or whatever. I'm a very impatient Kip, and I value efficiency. Nonono, it's all about multi tasking, baby!

Chapter 1: Holes is divided into three parts.

Post 100 Years - Medoh (Establishes Ghost Rev/Bonk Head Link's view)

100 Years Ago - Flight Range (Establishes old Revalink views)

Post 100 years - Mark (Develops Ghost Rev/Bonk Head Link's view in contrast to who they once were)

I think the way that you structure flashbacks is incredible vital, as it's a very quick way to characterize people without having them say stuff like "I used to be like you, until I took an arrow to the knee" or whatever.

And with the main structure of the chapters and the fic as a whole is focus on their characters, that means I can hide whatever other stuff I want in those scenes, becuase you're too busy absorbing the fun character stuff to realizing I'm giving you boring exposition. Like for example:

Post 100 Years - Medoh and Mark

Foreshadowing for the end of the fic

Set up connection to Medoh with Revali

Link has defeated Windblight

Link has been visiting Revali every night for the past few days

Link has already met Kass and presumably Teba

Link doesn't have the Mastersword

Revali's Gale is still an ability that needs master and practice on Link's end

And that's just some of the stuff.

And see, the only reason I can efficiently give all of this information regarding character, and even exposition, is because of the theme. The themes make everything relevant, and everything circles and encompasses one another, so there's absolutely no wasted space. I mean don't even get me started on how it's gonna be to characterize the other characters around this

I don't wanna talk about the other characters too much either because that's spoilers, but you can probably take a gandar based on my notes.

And oh my god this is just on the theme of the faults that come with "soulmates" and "true love" and all that, and how even magical destined relationships still require work and effort, and that no one thing or person solves all your problems. And that's not even TOUCHING the shit on trauma and scars. I didn't think it was even possible for me to talk about botw without touching on that, ha. Ah well, I've been talking for too long.

Revalink has a lot o' writing potential so das pretty cool yeah, I am excite

[soda-pop-kandy-krush]

Remus squealed as he landed on the pile of beanbags and cushions he had spent all morning dragging into his room from various places in the mind palace. He wriggled onto his front, pushing himself back up. “Again!”

Patton faked an incredulous gasp. “Again? You want me to throw you again?”

Remus giggled, babbling and making grabby motions with his hands, making Patton chuckle.

“Oh, okay, then. Just one more…” He said, scooping him into his arms and nuzzling his cheek lovingly. “You ready, squirt?” 

“Yeah!”

Patton chuckled, setting him down and gently gripping his wrists. “Hold on tight, now!” He lifted him slowly, letting him dangle by his arms and swaying him too and fro. Remus cackled delightedly, curling his legs up.

“Cana-bah!”

“Yes, baby- cannonball!” Patton cooed. “And we’re launching in three…” He swung a little more. “Two…” Remus squeaked in excitement, tipping his head back. “One… Go!”

Patton let go, watching him fly from his grip and flop face-down into his nest, cheering and clapping as he resurfaced. It would never stop amusing him, how Remus would cling to his legs and bounce up and down, begging to be picked up and hurled into the nearest pile of soft objects. And, naturally, he was happy to oblige. Even now, when it was almost nap time and he should be trying to calm him down rather than rile him up even more. Because how could Patton say ‘no’ when he gave him that sweet little gap-toothed smile?

“Again!”

Patton laughed. “Gosh, you’re just insatiable, aren’t you, kiddo?” He flicked his wrist, checking his watch. “But it’s almost two o’clock, Reemie, you know what that means…”

Remus blinked. “Na’ time?”

“That’s right, sweetie, time for a lie-down.”

He physically deflated at those dreaded words. “Bu’... bu’, ‘m not tired…”

“I know, ducky, I know…” Patton winced. If his smile was his kryptonite, the threat of his tears flat-out destroyed him- something Remus knew very well.

Hamming it up, he gazed up with his big, brown eyes, his bottom lip trembling pitifully. His twin had definitely taught him that little trick, Patton thought as he willed the ache in his chest to go away. All of the books said that he had to be stern, he had to lay down the rules and stick to them-

“P’ease, one more?”

… Well, then. Just how on earth was he supposed to refuse that?

He bit his lip, trying to hold back his grin, before sighing in defeat. “Fine. One more.” He held up a single finger. Remus was too busy scrabbling to roll out of the beanbag excitedly to notice, chirping happily as Patton crouched down to pick him up

“You, Mister, are far too cute for your own good.” He poked his freckled nose. “Ready?”

“ ‘eady!” He said, raising his arms to allow Patton to lift him, squealing when his feet left the ground and he started to swing back and forth. “Wheeee!”

“Patton?”

The pair of them turned around to discover Logan had stuck his head around the door, looking at Remus’ mountain of stolen pillows bemusedly. Patton beamed when he saw him.

“Hey, Lo-lo! What’s up?”

The logical side stepped into the room. “Hello, Patton. I thought I would come and wish Remus a pleasant rest before he fell asleep, but I can see that the two of you are… Otherwise occupied.”

Patton grinned. “Oh, yeah, we were just playing a game together- weren’t we, cupcake?”

“Yeah! Yeah!” Remus peeped.

Logan sighed. Oh dear. 

“Whilst I appreciate you were only trying to have fun, encouraging this kind of playful ruckus before a nap is not conducive to a healthy and efficient period of sleep. Not to mention how terribly unsafe it is to be dangling him by his wrists and tossing him into… Whatever this set-up is.” He gestured to the pillows and beanbags behind him.

“That’s our nest! We’ve been using it to build all kinds of fun stuff- like a spaceship, and a castle- ooooo, that was a fun one, wasn’t it, honey?”

“D’ agon!”

“Yeah, Lo- we defeated and conquered the land held captive by the evil dragon-witch!”

“Yeah!”

Logan pursed his lips, trying his best not to let his insides melt at the heartwarming display of silly affection, before narrowing his eyes as he scanned ‘the nest’ in closer detail. “... Is that the cushion from my desk chair?”

Patton chuckled. “I don’t know, kiddo, why don’t you ask the little troublemaker here?”

Said troublemaker was busy kicking his feet restlessly. Logan was so boring when he bickered with the others like this. Like the teacher from Charlie Brown. Wah, wah, wah...

Logan huffed, folding his arms over his chest and glancing at the toddler dangling from Patton’s grip. He slowly crouched so that they were eye-level.

“Remus? Did you take the cushion from my room?”

He looked up, the picture of innocence with his sparkling eyes and brown curls. A poster-child for the adorable little cherub-type- the sort of baby who was good-tempered, well-behaved, and perfect in every way.

Pbffffffft!

… And apparently, blew raspberries when he didn’t want to confess to the theft of other people’s property.

Patton sputtered. Logan blinked, frowning.

“I beg your pardon?”

Remus giggled mischievously before blowing another even louder than the last.

Pbffffffft!

Logan raised an eyebrow. Remus cackled at the unimpressed look on his face.

“Hey, hey, kiddo- what was that for?” Patton enquired gently, struggling to subdue his own laughter. “You know we don’t blow raspberries when somebody says something we don’t like…”

Remus just continued to laugh, clearly very amused that he had rendered Logan speechless. “Ra’ bee’! Ra’ bee’!”

“It’s okay, Patton. I understand.”

Remus quietened down at the sound of Logan’s dangerously calm voice, looking at him curiously.

Logan narrowed his eyes, the beginnings of a smirk pulling at his lips. “Clearly, he wants me to blow one back.”

With that, he pushed his hands up the bottom of his tiny sweatshirt and held him in place, pressing his mouth against the warm skin and blowing hard.

Pbffffffft!

Remus shrieked, immediately bursting into loud, joyful laughter and wriggling and squirming as much as he could- which was, frankly, impossible given that Patton was still holding him tightly by his arms.

“Oh, no, kiddo!” He cried, a massive grin on his face. He loved when Logan was in a silly mood and wanted to play with the babies like this. “Looks like the tickle monster got you!”

“No no nohoho!” Remus yelled, giggling hysterically and kicking his legs. One of them hit Logan in the chest, which apparently only spurred him on, as he started scratching his ribs at the same time as blowing another raspberry.

Pbffffffft!

“Logiiii-hehehe!” Remus squealed, his dimples visible from how hard he was smiling. “Nohoho!”

“No?” Logan spoke into his pudgy belly, making him laugh even harder. “But I thought you wanted me to give you some raspberries!”

It was getting difficult to hold back his own grin by this point. Patton had given up completely, and was openly laughing alongside Remus as he tugged at his arms. Logan slowed down a little bit and started blowing shorter puffs of air all around his sides and tummy, earning boisterous, squeaky giggles that were, categorically, the cutest thing he’d ever heard in his life. However, he knew that he would have to show some mercy soon.

Leaning back to take a deep breath, he blew one more right over his belly button, making him scream, before sitting back on his heels, his hair messed up and cheeks slightly pink. Remus panted, laughter still flowing out as Patton lifted him up properly to cradle in his arms.

“Whoopsy-daisy! I gotcha, kiddo.” He said, holding him close. Remus buried his face into Patton’s shoulder as his final few giggles disappeared. After a while he started rubbing his nose against his chest, bringing his fist to his mouth to slip his thumb in when he thought neither of them were looking. Patton chuckled.

“Well, it looks like you finally managed to tire him out, Lo-lo!”

Logan huffed a quiet laugh, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. Teaching lessons to bratty three year-old turned out to be quite the arduous task, even if the loving smile on his flushed face said otherwise. He was about to stand up and leave when a hand suddenly appeared in his line of vision. Patton wiggled his fingers, looking down at the logical side with that warm smile that always made Logan’s heart flutter.

“Wanna help me put him to bed?” He asked, looking unfairly lovely as the mid-afternoon light glowed orange behind him.

He ducked his head a little, smiling to himself, before looking back up with a nod. He took Patton’s hand, pretending not to notice how it made his heart race when he squeezed it, and led them both to Remus’ room, where they tucked him in and set a timer to come back and wake him up.

Little did they know that they wouldn’t need to, because in exactly fourty-five minutes Remus would spring out of bed and charge into the common room, dressed in Roman’s knight costume and declaring revenge on Logan for earlier. And since dismissing the requests of such an honourable cavalier would be terribly impolite of him, how could Patton not help to hold Logan’s arms down so that he could have at all of his worst spots?

[lilyharvord]

OKAY WAIT I LOVE YOUR CORIANE THOUGHTS!! i never really put much thought into marecal kids besides reading the epilogue or fanfics and being like okay cute. but your headcannon about the political impact of calore children with red blood is so interesting and i 100% agree with you. if you have any further ideas or writing i would love to hear it! the way the world world and silver succession would adjust/react to cal’s abdication and marecal’s relationship post broken throne is so fascinating to me.

🥺 NONNIE, I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED.

First of all, Cal's abdication is the biggest slap in the face to the Silver Secession (particularly Larentia who I headcanon leads the whole thing like a shadow puppeteer. Her husband died trying to keep that Calore brat on the throne, you can bet she's got two bones to pick with him even though she wants him on that non-existent throne just so they can go back to the "old ways"). They took him abdicating personally. They send him letters almost weekly, and they are all super passive aggressive comments about his birthright, and how denying it is akin to spitting on his father's grave, and later akin to pissing on it when Cal just burns all the letters and refuses to reply.

Anyway, the political impact of Cal and Mare's marriage. Ho boi, that one is a dousy. There's a reason they have a small wedding with only their very close family and friends. They try to keep it hush hush, for a little while, but of course the Silver Secession finds out because they find out everything. They bother the living hell out of Anabel until she sends one very threatening letter back after which the letters come far and few between (she never tells Cal what she put in that letter but she always gets a wicked gleam in her eye when he asks). But the political impact of their marriage is heard round the continent. Lets be real here: Cal is no longer a prince, but he is still a very high profile figure in the Nortan government (now the States). Mare is both a prominent Scarlet Guard figure and Montfort one. There are very LOUD whispers saying that Montfort forced them to marry to create a permanent bridge between the two countries. That Montfort is using Mare as a leash on Cal and the States to dictate how they function etc. (Which may or may not be the actual truth)

They dont want kids at first. Cal's a little heartbroken about it of course. He wants kids, has always wanted them. But Mare is right, and their children would be in danger from the moment Mare conceives. Then Mare says fuck it, I want a baby. They try and she gets pregnant. The Silver Secession finds out. Those letters that stopped coming for a while come back, but with a fury from hell. It gets so bad (after Mare is actually almost kidnapped at one point) that they have to go underground and hide until the baby is born. Dane and Carmadon offer the cabin in Paradise valley because it's location is actually incredibly secret and isolated and safe. So they go there, and Coriane is born a few months later. Cal cries in relief because her blood is Red. There is no way the Silver Secession will come after her now, but they try and it is the most hellish three years of Mare and Cal's life. It puts them off from having any more children. There are eleven kidnapping attempts before Coriane is even a year old (one for every month she is alive and breathing air)

Then they just stop. The letters stop coming, the kidnappings stop. Mare and Cal walk on egg shells, Coriane toddles along, growing by leaps and bounds and making them proud every second of every day. She's loud and proud and walks around saying: My name is Coriane BARROW Calore. When people try to call her Coriane Calore. They find out that the Silver Secession is not happy with Coriane being Red. And People whisper when they go to the States. Some people who are not exactly part of the Silver Secession but who still whisper "Long Live Tiberias the Seventh" when Cal passes in the street with Coriane on his shoulders and Mare at his side are not happy either. They sneer at the giggling toddler at his side reaching to touch the pretty things in the market. They jeer at her Red blood when she laughs so hard her cheeks burn bright, cherry apple red. They frown when they see Mare nuzzle her neck and press kisses all over her face. They especially dont like when Cal glares at them until they pull back into their stalls or shops or go back to their coffees and newspapers. Around this time, (In my headcanons) Coriane meets Nikolas Samos (second born to Wren and Ptolemus) and they become instant friends. A dangerous thing of course... for obvious dynasty reasons, and this fuels the Silver Secession for a little while.

Then Mare gets pregnant again. Shade is the definition of a Whoopsie! Baby. They immediately go into hiding this time. They take Coriane, Cal takes a leave of absence, Mare takes one too, and they dont tell ANYONE where they are going. The reason? The nurse who did mare's check up told someone it was a boy, and that person had some nefarious connections to a certain Silver Political group that was running on fumes up until that moment. The first letter that arrives at their little house in Ascendant is written in beautiful court handwriting (Larentia's unmistakable tact in every word of that letter) and swears fealty to Tiberias Calore the Eighth who isn't even born yet. Cal torches that letter with his bare hand before Mare can even read it. Coriane doesn't like being taken away from her cousins and her grandma and grandpa and her aunt Farley, but they go in the dead of night and don't look back.

Shade is born in the middle of a storm like Clara, and Sara is the only person to see Mare or Cal in six months. They come back to Ascendant two months after Shade is born with a healthy baby boy, and everyone looses their minds. There are six kidnapping attempts in two months. Mare and Cal dont sleep for weeks, there is one dead Silver Secession member who got halfway down the street before Mare used Brain Lightning for the first time and liquified his insides. She is so horrified by it she cries herself to sleep for three nights because Coriane saw her do it, saw what her mother could do, and won't come near her out of fear.

But that too passes after a few years, because it gets around that Shade is a Red baby that looks more like Mare and her dead brother than Cal. Then it's back to Coriane, who by now is old enough to begin to understand what is going on around her. She starts to notice the whispers, the pointing, the stares when she goes out with her dad to train. (She accidentally set her bedsheet on fire after a nightmare, and that is where the trouble begins again). The letters start coming again, but they're addressed to her instead. She's only ten, so when she gets the first one with her name on it in pretty writing, she opens it before Mare or Cal notice, and is so confused by what is in it that she shows them it for clarification. Mare takes it and rips it to pieces, and Coriane cries about it, because that was HER letter. They have to sit her down with a very young Shade then and tell her a story about brothers, crowns, and mutations, death, war, and pain, and sorrow, and love. Then she understands. She's eleven when she does her first broadcast to denounce a throne that doesn't even exist anymore. She shakes with nerves in front of a camera, and has to hold a notecard with what she has to say on it. She mispronounces five words, and almost cries when she stumbles over a phrase she doesn't even understand, something about ever and always and crowns being broken. Cal stands behind her the whole time, squeezing her shoulders in reassurance. The nightmares begin after that for him, because there is a letter sent telling him of a distant Calore relative who is very interested in Coriane and would like to meet her. When Cal looks into him, he finds out he's 45 years old. And when I tell you he packed a bag the moment he finished that letter and drove to the airfield to take an air jet himself and kill the man, I tell you that Mare stopped him by standing in the middle of the runway and refusing to let him take off without going through her. "You give them what they want if you go after him." she tells him when he breaks down and kneels before her while she sits on their bed holding his head against her stomach. They NEVER tell Coriane about that, but there is two more letters that come like it.

Coriane and Nik becomes very close, dangerously close. There is one fic I will write at some point where both of them are taken and they actually get them away from Montfort and to a secondary location. There is man hunt led by Cal and Ptolemus and they do not keep those children for long. There is no record of what happened at that dilated mansion in the middle of the woods in the upper States, but Cal comes back with Silver blood under his nails and Coriane in his arms four days later.

When she gets older, much much older, into her later twenties, three different people send requests for her hand in marriage. She burns those letters and doesn't even deign them a response. Shade gets similar requests, and he throws the letters away. The Silver Secession goes out with a whimper, and eventually Coriane and Shade are safe. But inbetween their childhood and those years, people start whispering different things. "The word is changing, it's really changing" they whisper, and then say, "A Calore had two children, both Red, and they are kind."

[artificialqueens]

I Don't Know How I Know (But I Know) (Taywhora) - Ortega

fic summary: Tayce and A’whora have been friends for three years and the joke around school is that they’re joined at the hip. They started working there at the same time and they were both given the year two classes, so they planned together, filled out their assessment folders together and prepped for parent’s evenings together.

Tayce and A’whora have been friends for three years and Tayce has been a little bit in love with her for two of them.

(in which Tayce teaches year five, A'whora teaches Reception, Tayce hates Valentine’s day, and A'whora has a plan to change that.)

a/n: with thanks to my co-author, Lawrence Chaney. title from Intuition by LIZ, please listen to it it’s a vibe. happy valentine’s day everyone xo

***

Tayce has heard people say that teaching is a form of acting. She thinks this is true, for the most part. After all, there’s no way in hell she teaches her year fives the same way she would act around her friends.

She pretends she doesn’t know the TikTok dance to Savage Love and fakes ignorance at the memes her kids all communicate in. She’s impatient with her class when they run in the corridor and chew gum (because they’re almost the oldest in the school, and they should know better) but she’s patient when they struggle with area and perimeter and brings her chair over to sit beside whoever’s confused to explain it all again. She’s strict- she gets the girls passing notes to each other into trouble as if she didn’t do the exact same with her friends at the age of ten- and she’s built up a reputation for being one of the teachers that doesn’t take any shit. She expects a lot from the children she teaches, knows they’re a blank canvas and that they’ve got the potential to understand things that some adults struggle with, so she teaches them about racism, homophobia and transphobia, makes it part of her everyday teaching as opposed to one milquetoast lesson about Martin Luther King per year.

Some of the parents fucking hate her for it. She’d be lying if she said that wasn’t one of her favourite parts of the job.

It takes a lot for her not to drop that persona sometimes. When she has to tear through one of her boys for muttering “ah shit, here we go again” as she hands out a worksheet on direct and indirect speech instead of bursting out laughing as if it’s one of the funniest things she’s heard in years, which it is. It’s times like that when she wishes she could be more like A’whora.

A’whora with the blonde hair and the Disney-princess smile who teaches Reception. A’whora who does silly voices for all the characters when she’s reading picture books to her class and who sits and does colouring-in with them when they’re playing. A’whora who’s too nice to them all because she thinks they’re too cute to discipline, but her class love her so their behaviour is good regardless.

(A’whora with the completely inappropriate nickname only disclosed to Tayce five mojitos deep on the staff Christmas night out, which she’d earned herself at uni via her reputation. Tayce hadn’t asked for any further details.)

Tayce has never seen a teacher better suited to the youngest class in the school than A’whora. She’s constantly got specks of glitter on her face from the crafts she completes with them, she hums the silly little songs she uses to teach them their sounds when she’s at the photocopier without even realising. She turns up to work in immaculate outfits and finishes the day with them covered in glue, marker pen, and even (horrifically) a child’s snot once, but she doesn’t even mind, simply zips them up into little bodybags and puts them in for dry cleaning.

Tayce is never done telling her how she could never do what she does, she could never teach the little ones; her patience would snap, she’s too mean for them, she’d get bored having to teach the most basic of basic stuff. A’whora only ever brushes her off and says how she couldn’t teach Tayce’s year group either; they’d eat her alive, they’d walk all over her, she wouldn’t even be able to do the complicated maths she’d have to teach. Besides, she argues, drawing a glare from Tayce every time, she’s definitely goofy enough for the Reception kids.

Tayce and A’whora have been friends for three years and the joke around school is that they’re joined at the hip. They started working there at the same time and they were both given the year two classes, so they planned together, filled out their assessment folders together and prepped for parent’s evenings together. They worked well together, so when their headteacher sent them to opposite ends of the school Tayce almost had a meltdown. Still, they sit next to each other in the staffroom and at every staff meeting. They take turns making each other lunch every day and walk to the roll shop to get toasties every Friday. Tayce walks down from her classroom to come and sit in A’whora’s at the end of every day and they chat and bitch and sometimes cry and get absolutely nothing done for at least forty minutes. A’whora picks her up on the way to work every morning and terrifies Tayce with her bad driving and the way she almost causes road traffic accidents with only a “whoopsie!” of acknowledgement, but she’ll make up for it by taking them through the Starbucks drive-thru if they’ve got a meeting after school that night. She blasts songs by artists Tayce has never heard of but are all in the same energetic, poppy, Y2K-esque genre that A’whora seems to love.

Tayce and A’whora have been friends for three years and Tayce has been a little bit in love with her for two of them.

***

A’whora’s friends tease her and tell her that teaching five year olds must be the easiest job in the world. A’whora loves her friends, but she fucking resents them when they come out with that shite.

A’whora knows that she herself is not the brightest crayon in the box. She had known that she’d never be one of the girls in her year at high school that went off to study medicine or law, and she’d known she’d never graduate uni with a first class degree or write an award-winning dissertation.

(When she’s having a bad day she comforts herself with the fact that at least she’s not joined a multi-level-marketing scheme under the guise of being a “businesswoman”, and this helps her feel a little better.)

But what she lacks in academic ability she makes up for in spadeloads by being a damn good teacher. She’s big-hearted and silly and patient. She always picks up crisps and KitKats when she’s at the shops and keeps them in a drawer under her desk to sneak to the kids who come to school without a snack. She sits in the construction corner with her kids when they’re playing and asks them about the models they make, and pretends to die a gruesome, slow death when they shoot her with their little lego guns instead of trying to get them to make something less violent like she knows she should do. She reads books about unicorns that captivate the little shy girls in her class who come up to her afterwards and whisper in their tiny voices that they think unicorns are real, and A’whora agrees with them and watches their faces light up. She makes every day fun for her little ones; because the beauty of teaching is having the control to plan what happens every hour, so she makes sure that none of the six they have to spend in her care are boring.

The key to being a good Reception teacher is to essentially make a fool of yourself every day for the benefit of twenty-two four and five year olds, which A’whora has no problem doing. She doesn’t care what her pupil support worker thinks of her when she acts out The Gruffalo with soft toy puppets she borrowed from the library. She doesn’t care what the management team think of her when she turns up for World Book Day dressed as The Tiger Who Came To Tea. The only person’s opinion she does maybe care a tiny, ever-so-slight amount about, is Tayce’s.

Tayce is that teacher. Tayce is the cool teacher. Tayce is the teacher that all the children want to be taught by. A’whora hears the year fours whisper to each other in the corridors every June and watch as they cross their fingers and close their eyes before they open the envelope addressed to their parents, then give a screech of excitement and joy when they see the name Miss Szura-Radix on their class allocation letter. She wears heels all day without so much as a grunt of complaint and jumps in A’whora’s car each morning with a full face of makeup on at half past seven (while A’whora paints her face at quarter past eight at her desk in between shovelling a croissant down her throat in an attempt at ‘breakfast’ and sorting handwriting worksheets). The year five and six girls straighten their hair to a flattened crisp in an attempt to emulate Tayce’s endless shiny locks and she’s the only teacher that the rogue group of year six boys addresses with respect. She has the discipline of Miss Trunchbull with the heart of Miss Honey, and A’whora thinks she’s the best teacher she’s ever seen.

A’whora’s been friends with Tayce since she started working at the school but her heart still flutters in its chest whenever she sweeps in to her classroom to chat after work, or sits herself down next to her before a cluster meeting with two cups of tea in polystyrene mugs and two biscuits, or whenever A’whora mysteriously finds a packet of Percy Pigs on her desk hidden under a pile of marking with a post-it note stuck to it that says “u are a pig (but i love u)”.

She wonders if that feeling will ever go away. She kind of doesn’t want it to.

It’s that feeling that made her volunteer to help out at the year five camp last March. Tayce was complaining about having to go to a remote outdoor centre and supervise ten year olds completing various death-defying tasks for a week all in the name of character building, and A’whora had said she’d go with her. The smile it had put on Tayce’s face was worth every minute spent up to her knees in mud. Similarly every second she spent waist deep in freezing water was worth the moment Tayce fell asleep on her shoulder on the coach trip back to school on the last day.

(And she still hasn’t told anyone else about the moment she thought her heart might explode; on the last night of the week when temperatures had unexpectedly plummeted and A’whora had been trying to get to sleep but all she had been able to do was shiver and chatter her teeth and toss and turn, and Tayce had sighed dramatically, rolled her eyes, thrown off her duvet cover and patted the space in the bed beside her, with a “just get in quick, before it gets cold”. A’whora had spent the following hours until morning with Tayce’s body tangled around hers, in the most blissful sleepless night she’d ever experienced.)  

There’s so many things that endear Tayce to A’whora. Her smile, her secretly chaotic funny side, the way she never, ever makes A’whora feel like an idiot. The way she’ll ask the questions A’whora’s too scared to ask in staff meetings. The way she cares so deeply and passionately about the futures of the kids she teaches to the extent where sometimes she’ll develop a little crease at her brow in front of her attainment spreadsheet and A’whora will have to gently pry her away from her monitor to reassure her that she can’t control the way her children’s lives pan out. The way she’ll sometimes call her Rory, which makes A’whora’s heart expand at least three sizes.  

Something else that makes her heart expand three sizes is the way Tayce acts with the Reception kids, despite her insisting she could never teach that year group. It happens one day when A’whora’s marking literacy while letting her kids play and Tayce swings by her classroom without so much as a knock. They’ll do this to each other sometimes when one’s in class and the other has planning time; just drop by and check in to make sure the other isn’t having a meltdown.

“Hey bitchtits,” she murmurs quietly, smirking as she leans onto A’whora’s desk. “How’s your day going?”

“Terrible since you decided to show up,” A’whora cocks an eyebrow back, then jerks her head towards her distracted kids. “This lot are like sponges, y’know. You can’t be dropping that kind of language in this class, even if you think you’re out of earshot.”

Tayce sticks her tongue out at her. “Aw what, you gonna report me to management?”

“Report you to management and say you’re in my class annoying me during teaching time!”

“Piss off! I’m the highlight of your day and you know it.”

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“No. Just some very lucky ladies,” Tayce bites back with a smile, instantly rendering A’whora’s cheeks beetroot red as if she’s been slapped.

“You’re horrendous. You’re an actual deviant. Olly Murs without the Pringles can,” she rolls her eyes, trying to style out how flustered she’s become. She can see Tayce open her mouth to shoot a comeback her way, which is why she’s glad when one of her boys appears beside her desk holding a crumpled piece of paper covered in crayon blobs which are clearly meant to represent objects.

“Hi Archie! You okay?” she smiles brightly, turning all her attention to the little boy and trying not to cringe at Tayce getting full view of her Cbeebies-presenter voice.

“I made a picture for you,” he says, showing her the piece of paper and pointing out all the features of his drawing with a chubby little finger. “It’s a dragon that breathes fire and bombs, and he’s called Squish.”

“Wow! Thank you, Archie, I love it!” A’whora keeps smiling, blinking at the drawing the boy’s still holding. She points at some shaky rectangles with a pink acrylic. “And I can see he must be really tall because those buildings are tiny underneath him!”

Archie’s no longer interested in her or the drawing, though, as he’s looking up at Tayce through his glasses. “You’re my brother’s teacher.”

“Am I?” Tayce says, surprised that the attention is suddenly on her. “Who’s your brother?”

“Joshua. Joshua White.”

Tayce’s face instantly lights up in recognition. “Of course, you’re Josh’s brother! I should’ve known, you look so alike.”

“He’s ten and I’m five,” Archie adds, somewhat unnecessarily.

“See, I think you might be taller than him, though,” Tayce deadpans. A’whora watches affectionately as Archie’s entire body crumples up in a laugh and he splutters out a “nooooo!”. Tayce’s face breaks out into a smile- warm and genuine with her nose wrinkling up. It’s maybe the most adorable thing A’whora has ever seen.

“Josh is good at art as well. He’s not quite as good as you, but he’s good,” Tayce smiles, and as Archie smiles back A’whora feels her heart melting.

Archie turns to Tayce suddenly with the drawing still in his hand, and holds it out for her to take. “This is actually for you.”

A’whora gives a snort of outrage and amusement, which she quickly turns into a cough. She watches as Tayce accepts the drawing gratefully, giving Archie a little squeeze on his shoulder as she says thank you and Archie scuttles away back to his friends all bashful. There’s a second where Tayce smiles after him then looks down at the drawing with fondness, and A’whora’s feelings for her hit her like a tidal wave.

Tayce doesn’t notice (because of course she doesn’t) and as she straightens up she grins triumphantly at A’whora, holding the drawing in her face proudly. “Well. Guess Archie’s got a new favourite teacher then, doesn’t he?”

“He wouldn’t last five minutes in your classroom,” A’whora smirks, lying. The image of big-hearted Tayce with a class full of the littlest kids drying their tears and helping them get all organised for the day ahead is so unbelievably cute it makes A’whora want to squeal like an embarrassing teenager. She doesn’t, though. Instead she holds out a hand expectantly, raises her eyebrows at Tayce as if she’s one of her students. “Am I getting my drawing back or what?”

“Easy come, easy go,” Tayce winks at her, flouncing out of her classroom door just as the bell rings for break.

***

Tayce doesn’t really flirt with A’whora. Well, no, that’s a lie. She flirts and then immediately laughs it off, brushes it off as a joke or banter even though maybe if she’d taken flirting with A’whora a little more seriously she wouldn’t still be in this position two-bloody-years in.

Because she knows A’whora flirts sometimes. She’s positive she isn’t making it up. The way she’ll deadpan a “well, you look like shit” as she hops into her car in the mornings, the way she’ll sit close to her under her fluffy pink blanket if she’s round at Tayce’s for a movie day (because yeah, they hang out outside of work, because that’s what friends do). It’s always a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it raised eyebrow here, a laugh there, a touch of her arm and a squeeze of her hand and a smirk that bites back a thousand words Tayce wishes A’whora would just say.

So Tayce will flirt back because that’s probably just what A’whora does with her friends, and that’s all Tayce is to her. Maybe. Tayce is never sure if A’whora likes her back or not, and the risk of completely wrecking what is her only workplace friendship is too great to actually do something about it, so she’s happy being her friend for now. Every second she gets to spend with A’whora is a treat, so she can’t complain.

It would be easier if she was still labouring under the delusion that A’whora was straight, which was the whole reason it took Tayce so long to start slowly falling for her. A’whora had had a boyfriend for roughly the first six months Tayce had known her, so she hadn’t even thought of her friend in that capacity at all. Then one day on a rainy January she’d thudded her bag down on Tayce’s desk and told her they were going for drinks after work that night because her boyfriend was a cheating piece of shit and she’d broken up with him.

Tayce’s fate had further been sealed when they’d been sitting together for an inservice day on LGBT training and A’whora had turned to her and rolled her eyes.

“We don’t really need to be here, do we? We could just piss off to McDonalds.”

Tayce had laughed softly, fixing A’whora with a slightly confused glance. “Huh?”

“Well, I feel like we probably have enough lived experience of the whole thing to not need training. Still, we could always duck back in in time for the transgender part. But I mean we probably don’t really need to be told how to support kids struggling with their sexuality, do we?”

Tayce still remembers how A’whora had snorted at her, her face obviously looking as if she was searching for the last puzzle piece in the world’s most confusing jigsaw. “What is it?”

“I don’t get…what?” Tayce had said awkwardly, still unsure of what A’whora had meant.

A’whora had pulled a face, giggling a little. “Are you telling me that rainbow flag is on your desk for shits and gigs?”

“No…” Tayce said slowly, the pieces slowly falling together. “So…”

A’whora gave another funny little snort. “Tayce, did you not know I was bi? I’m sure I’ve told you this before.”

Tayce still thinks she deserves an Oscar for still being able to keep the conversation going despite the fact her entire world had been flipped on its head like a globe made of hourglass. “You’ve not! You’ve never. I mean, like, why would you need to? It’s not something that matters. I mean obviously it matters to you, but it doesn’t matter to me. You’re my friend either way. I mean it just never occurred to me because…your ex, and uh…you can drive.”

Mercifully, their headteacher had started speaking before A’whora could respond to her beyond a single raised eyebrow and a smirk on her face.

It’s been ever since then that Tayce has been looking at A’whora in a different light. How gorgeous she is at the start of the day with nothing but her laminated brows and lash extensions to pass for makeup and how gorgeous she still is at the end of the day with her mascara and eyeliner smudged a little at the edges and her lipstick all rubbed off. How she’s generous and patient and how she’ll go out of her way to help Tayce understand the new flavour-of-the-month resource their headteacher makes them use, pulling one of her kid’s chairs over to sit close beside her to see the monitor and bumping her knee against Tayce’s every so often.  

It’s how she acts around her kids, though, that really highlights everything Tayce completely adores about A’whora. Tayce is on her way up to the staffroom with two tubs of chicken shawarma salad in her hands (one for her and one for A’whora, of course) and she makes it up one flight of stairs when she suddenly hears a cry like an air raid siren pierce the air, as well as a gentle, soothing voice muttering quiet consolations.

It’s the sheer hysterical nature of the crying that catches Tayce’s attention at first, and she looks over the bannister to see A’whora on the level below, sitting a little boy who’s bawling his eyes out down on the red squashy chairs outside the office. With a stab to her heart Tayce realises that it’s Archie, the boy who’d given her the picture all those weeks ago. Both his knees and the palms of his hands are torn to ribbons; he’s obviously had a fight with the tarmac and emerged the loser. Tayce knows he’ll be okay if an adult’s seeing to him, especially if that adult’s A’whora, so she knows she can leave. She doesn’t need to stay and watch the situation play out.

But she does. She watches as one of the ladies from the office comes out and reassures A’whora that she can take over, and as A’whora waves her away kindly and says it won’t take her two minutes. She watches as A’whora puts her hands on the boy’s shoulders and directs his breathing, talking to him calmly and softly. She watches A’whora rip into a packet of sterile wipes with grim determination, telling Archie how brave he’s being and that she knows it stings as she wipes quickly and carefully over his little cut hands. She watches A’whora peel the wrapping off four plasters, making it seem effortless even with her long acrylics, and the way she makes a joke about Archie being bandaged up like a mummy which brings a smile to his little tear-stained face and a smile to Tayce’s too. The other staff don’t get to see A’whora’s caring nature very often (given how often she whispers judgemental comments to Tayce during meetings) but Tayce sees it all the time. A’whora has the biggest heart of anyone she’s ever known, and the whole scene makes Tayce feel so endeared towards her that it almost frightens her.

It’s at that point when Archie looks up at Tayce on the bannister and makes eye contact with her. He flicks his eyes back down to his teacher.

“Uh, Miss Boyle? I think Miss Szura-Radix wants to talk to you, because she’s been there a long time.”

Tayce’s heart freezes solid at the same time A’whora turns around, who fixes her with a sort of funny smile, confused but not exactly unhappy to see her.

“Uh. Coming to the staffroom?” Tayce shouts down, under pressure to explain herself but simultaneously not having any explanation.

“Two seconds!” A’whora yells up apologetically.

“I’ll wait,” Tayce yells down, reassuring her.

Tayce is used to waiting for A’whora. She supposes another minute or so won’t make a difference.

***

This is the third Valentine’s day A’whora has spent with Tayce.

The first fell on a Monday and had been an abject disaster (or success, depending on how she looked at it). A’whora was still getting over her ex and Tayce had confided in her that she hated Valentine’s day and all its commercialised, capitalist tat with a burning passion, so they’d gone to the pub after work and got so outrageously drunk that the two of them were so hungover the next day A’whora drove them to McDonalds for lunch.

The second had been last year- a Tuesday, where Tayce had been subdued and a little down until A’whora had forced her into helping her choose new clothes for the roleplay area for her kids and the pair of them had collapsed into endless breathless giggles as they both tried on costumes made for five-year-olds, the memory of Tayce in a hi-vis vest, safety goggles and a tiny hard hat one that still makes A’whora laugh if she thinks about it.

Really she’s lucky that she gets to be one of the few people who’s spent the 14th of February with their crush for three years in a row, but not for the reasons she might want. Still, she can live in the delusional daydream she’s taunted herself with many times; how maybe today Tayce will turn up at her classroom door with helium balloons and a teddy, how she’ll say she’s been secretly in love with her for years and how she’s booked them a table at that fancy seafood restaurant in town that just opened up for an actual proper date (not a mate date and not some gal-entines or pal-entines bullshit).

And then Tayce hops into her car in a foul mood with her hair drenched from waiting for A’whora in the rain with no umbrella and a face like a cow’s backside.

A’whora tries to cheer her up. She blasts the R&B that Tayce loves but Tayce just asks her to turn it off, telling her that Kiana Ledé, Mahalia and Ella Mai are exactly what she doesn’t need to hear on Valentine’s Day, endless songs about being in and out of love. So A’whora blasts Charli XCX instead, which works well until shuffle puts on Forever, and then Tayce is in the huff again.

Teaching the year fives doesn’t exactly help her feel much better, A’whora thinks, as they both sit down to lunch together and Tayce turns to her with an incredulous scowl on her face.

“They’ve all got bloody boyfriends and girlfriends!”

A’whora stops eating the pasta salad Tayce has made for her and narrows her eyes inquisitively. “Who does?”

“All the kids in my class. They’ve been going around all day telling me who they’ve paired up with, who’s snogging who, the detailed dating history of these bloody ten year olds. They keep asking me what we’re doing for Valentine’s Day. ‘Are we making cards?’ No! We’re doing more work on decimals because none of you bloody understood it the first three times I explained it to you. Make a card in your own damn time,” Tayce rolls her eyes while A’whora snorts with laughter. Tayce side-eyes her, unimpressed as A’whora tries to defend herself.

“Oh come on, Tayce, you’ve got to admit it’s a bit funny.”

“Is it? Is it though? Is it funny that a ten year old boy can get himself a girlfriend but I can’t?”

Tayce’s words make A’whora’s heart jump a hurdle. She plays it off with a joke. “Yeah, but he’s got a ten year old girlfriend, Tayce. I’m assuming you don’t want that.”

“No, funnily enough!” Tayce shakes her head. She pouts uncharacteristically, tilting her head to the ceiling. “I just…I don’t know, I just want someone that’s there for me. Who’ll always listen to all my shit, someone that makes me smile when I feel like crap. Someone I can just be myself around and have a laugh with whatever the hell we’re doing.”

A’whora nods and doesn’t say what she wants to. We do that. We do all of that together already.

“But I don’t want all the shit of having to actually get to know people, having to go on dates and do the whole talking stage and get my hopes up only to have them let down. I wish I could just…” Tayce sighs, and A’whora’s on tenterhooks wondering what’s coming next. “…I wish I just already had that person, you know?”

You do have that person. I’m that person.

A’whora nods silently and the bell rings signalling the end of their lunch break.

Since she’s not as enraged by Valentine’s day as Tayce, A’whora has planned to get the sequins and glue out and get the kids to make Valentine’s cards. She loves planning tasks like this, mainly because five year olds don’t need much help when faced with a glue stick and a shaker full of glitter, so it means she can put her feet up and have a chilled afternoon. She explains to her class what they’re going to be doing, feels her heart burst with affection as they all get outrageously excited at the very notion of using glitter. She shows them how to fold their piece of paper carefully to make a card shape, and shows them the array of colours they can choose from (and has to explain to some disappointed boys that no, she doesn’t have any blue card so no, their Valentine’s Day card can’t be the colour of Crystal Palace football club).

She’s giving out the different colours of card to her kids and cutting them to size when one of her girls stops, peers carefully at the selection of colours, then looks at A’whora thoughtfully.

“Miss Boyle, are you going to give a Valentine’s card to Miss Szura-Radix?”

A’whora almost slices through her own hand in shock. She looks with incredulity at the little girl in front of her. “Bella! No, of course not. Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re best friends and you love her,” Bella shrugs, A’whora’s attempts to shame her into silence obviously having no effect. A’whora tries to scowl, tries to do her best ‘cross face’ despite the fact that the thought of giving Tayce a Valentine’s card sets her heart racing so fast it makes her genuinely think about driving to A&E.

“I don’t…” she starts, until Bella speaks again.

“You told us before that girls can fall in love with girls and you said that we can make our Valentine’s cards for our friends too,” she insists innocently. A’whora finally musters up a frown, thrusts a pink piece of card into her hand.

“Why am I even entertaining this conversation- go and get on with your work, madam!” she says firmly, and Bella walks away with her blank card in her hand, nonplussed.

But as her kids all begin to make their cards and they’re all too caught up in glitter and painting their hands with PVA glue to even need her help with anything, A’whora begins absent-mindedly folding a spare piece of pink card in half. She draws one, two, three love hearts on it, then takes one of the little glue sticks and carefully, neatly, fills them in with splodges of clear glue. She asks one of the little boys sitting at the table opposite her if she can borrow the red glitter when he’s finished with it and he nods his head, A’whora’s heart involuntarily swelling with pride at how good her children are at sharing. She tap-tap-taps the glitter shaker over the hearts on the paper, making sure each one is covered completely before standing the card upright and watching the excess fall off like sparkly snow. Opening the card, she takes the gold shiny gel pen from her desk and writes without really thinking it through.

Maybe if Tayce isn’t going to magically read A’whora’s mind and figure out what she’s been yearning for, A’whora just has to give her a little nudge in the right direction.

When she’s done she folds it back over, stands up, crosses the room to her empty yellow message folder and slides it inside. She asks her class if anyone knows where the year five classroom is because she’s got a message to send there. Fifteen tiny hands fly up and A’whora basically has to whittle the volunteers down to the only two kids who actually know where they’re going, and she gives them the folder and tells them to take it up to Tayce’s classroom.

She doesn’t think about the reality or the implication of what she’s just done, because if she does then she’ll start hyperventilating and not stop until perhaps June of next year. Instead she catches the eye of Julia, the little girl who moved from Poland in January. She can’t speak or write a word of English yet, but the way she’s looking at A’whora with a little smile on her face makes her genuinely wonder if she knows. Sometimes kids can pick up on these sorts of things. She shoots her a little wink and puts her finger to her lips in a “shhh” just in case, and the little girl breaks into a grin that shows two missing front teeth.

The thing about teaching is that it’s a great job for providing a distraction. A’whora can’t think about the card she made for Tayce when she’s cleaning up an entire pot of glitter that Jared spilt all over the carpet, nor can she think about what she’s written in it when she’s comforting Angelica because she didn’t get to finish her card in time for hometime. But the moment she’s waved the kids off and dropped them off to their parents she walks up the stairs from the front entrance with an impending sense of dread which only increases with every new step she takes.

“What the fuck have you done,” she mutters under her breath, earning her a weird look from one of the ladies at the office.

When she gets back to her classroom to find Tayce sitting on one of the tiny tables waiting for her, A’whora feels her heart freeze in her chest and the blood rush to her face, blushing just from seeing her there. Tayce looks in a better mood than she was at lunchtime, though, which is a good start. Maybe she never even read the card. Maybe A’whora’s reception kids took it to the entirely wrong class. Christ, that would be even more embarrassing.

“Hey, boo boo,” Tayce smiles gently at her, as A’whora crosses the room and elects to sit on the desk opposite her so they’re face to face and not too far away. “How’d your afternoon go?”

“Oh, uh, y’know,” A’whora stammers out, blundering her words in the world’s worst attempt at appearing nonchalant. “Lots of glitter, lots of PVA. In fact I’m probably sitting in a massive glittery splodge of it, as are you.”

Tayce laughs, checks the table comedically.

“How was yours? You seem a bit more cheerful,” A’whora continues, looking to the floor and not darling to meet her eyes. “Did decimals finally click with your lot, or…?”

“I am a bit more cheerful,” Tayce smiles, A’whora’s heart racing and soaring in anticipation at the same time. “But not really anything to do with decimals. More to do with the fact somebody made me a really very lovely Valentine’s card.”

Tayce reaches behind her back and produces her card- A’whora’s card- from the table behind her, and A’whora feels her pulse race at her wrists and her heart leap into her mouth to the extent that she’s rendered almost too shy to speak. What the fuck was she thinking? Tayce is probably about to rip the piss out of her for it, it was a huge mistake, and she’s probably thrown their whole friendship away for nothing.

However. There’s a little something in Tayce’s eyes, a little sparkle that makes the grey shine silver. So A’whora shrugs, fixing a carefree smile on her face even though she feels anything but.

“Well, I know you hate Valentine’s day, so…I thought maybe if I gave you a card you’d stop being so mardy about it.”

When she looks at Tayce again she can see there’s a little crack in her perfect armour, the sparkle in her eyes dulled slightly. When she speaks her voice is quiet and nervous, so stripped of its usual hyperactivity and energy that A’whora wonders if it’s even Tayce’s voice at all. “Is that, uh. Is that the only reason you made it?”

A’whora can practically feel herself clam up. She has no idea where Tayce is going with this; to clarify that it was a joke or to clarify that it was serious, and A’whora doesn’t know which one Tayce wants it to be.

“What you wrote,” Tayce continues, her gaze fixed on the glitter-covered carpet and making it even more impossible to figure out her intention. “Was that, like…some girly besties chat, or was it…did you mean it…like that?”

“Yeah, I did,” A’whora says instantly. It’s out before she knows it, a terrifying leap into a freezing cold conversational plunge pool with no life raft to help her climb out. There’s only one way out and it’s Tayce’s reaction, whatever the hell that might be. She snapped her head up the moment the words left A’whora’s mouth, and her eyes are wide in what could be shock but could quite easily be horror.

A’whora doesn’t think she’s ever been more hopeful and frightened all at once. The seconds tick by and Tayce is still frozen in position, and A’whora can literally feel herself inching closer to the edge of the desk in terrified anticipation.

“Jesus Christ say something, Tayce, before I cringe myself to death,” she says breathlessly, her blood feeling almost electric as it races in her veins.

Tayce leans forward, not giving much away as she brings a thumb up to A’whora’s cheek.

“You’ve got a bit of glitter on your face,” she murmurs.

When she leans in and closes the gap between them, A’whora feels herself melt against Tayce’s lips with relief. They’re in the middle of her classroom at quarter part three with the door open and she’s very well aware that anyone could walk in at a moments’ notice, but A’whora doesn’t care. A’whora only cares about the fact that Tayce is kissing her and she’s kissing back, and it’s so hard to believe it’s actually real and not some daydream come to life, and it’s happening on Valentine’s day which makes it even more far-fetched. But every time A’whora starts to think that maybe she’s dreaming she feels Tayce’s thumb stroke her cheek, or their knees bump together, or she brings a hand up to rest at Tayce’s jaw just to make sure it’s all real.

When Tayce pulls away and they smile at each other, giggling and blushing like one of Tayce’s year fives, A’whora only allows herself to properly believe it’s all actually happening when Tayce presses their foreheads together, takes both of A’whora’s hands in her own and murmurs quietly to her what A’whora’s wanted to hear for entirely too long.

“I love you too.”

[wyofabdoms]

Undercover I Do - Chapter6

Characters: Javier Peña x female reader

Summary: While on an undercover assignment posing as a married couple, you are attacked and nearly assaulted. Upon waking, all you remember about Javier Peña is what you remembering seeing from two photographs of the two of you posing as the happily married couple. As you struggle to regain your memories, Javi struggles with his own feelings for you.

Rating: Mature (Eventual smut)

Warnings: fake/pretend relationship, married and undercover trope, temporary amnesia, injury, swearing, domestic Javi, feelings, I have no idea how amnesia really works, brief mention of masturbation

Word Count: 5220 (Whoopsie!)

Notes: Home from the hospital, you settle into your home with Javi and continue trying to remember...

Read on Ao3

You come home from the hospital on a Friday midmorning and spend much of the day resting in bed...it seems like the simple task of walking up your apartment steps takes so much out of you.  When you enter the apartment, Javi greets you carefully, timidly, giving you a gentle and almost awkward hug around the shoulders and watches you carefully as you gaze around.  When you catch him looking at you, he inquires if you’re hungry.  You admit that you are and he goes to work reheating the food he had had the insight to order.  He gets you situated at the table with a glass of water and your food and joins you soon after.  As the two of you eat, you notice a small bouquet of flowers in the middle of the kitchen table and when you ask your husband about them, he dips his head and grunts something about being from some of the guys at work.  

You chat idly during lunch and spend some time looking at the pictures on the refrigerator door and tracing your fingers along the spines of the books on the bookshelf in contemplation while Javi cleans up after.  You pick up the wedding photo of the two of you from a bookshelf and trace a finger along the sliver of distance separating the two of you in the picture, casting your thoughts into the empty depths of your recent memory, trying to remember this moment, this day.  You sense him behind you and replace the frame quickly where it was before turning and mentioning to Javier that you're a little worn out; he immediately encourages you to lie down and rest, ushering you towards the bedroom before leaving you alone for privacy to change.

Opening your closet door, you quickly find a pair of sweatpants.  As you search for a shirt, your eyes slip from the side of the closet that is obviously yours and over to your husband’s side.  You notice a lovely purple colored button-up on the edge of the rack and reach for it without thinking, pulling it over your head, breathing deeply as it passes over your face.  You plan to take it off, but your eyes can’t seem to open once the worn-soft material is settled on your skin.  Even though it’s silly and it's just a shirt, something about knowing that it’s one of your husband’s seems to cocoon you with comfort and peace.  Which, you know, is crazy: this man...your husband...this level of intimacy with your former partner at this moment could make him practically a stranger.  But this feels...right.  You reach for another shirt, then another, then one of yours...you pull a dress off a hanger, then a suit jacket from Javier’s side.  You bury your face in each item, hoping that something will knock loose.  That something will blow the fog from your mind.  

You’re not sure how much time has passed when you hear him tap on the bedroom door and you shake yourself from where you’ve settled on the closet floor.  You call to him quietly, your voice ringing loudly in the small space that surrounds you and a few moments later you hear his concerned voice as he realizes where you are, his voice rising an octave as he says your name. 

“Hey!  What happened?  Are you ok?”  You can hear the concern in his voice as he rushes to you, traipsing over the pieces of clothing surrounding you and dropping to his knees next to you, filling the small walk-in closet with his presence, making it seem even smaller with the two of you crouched on the floor.  He cups your face in his hands carefully, turning you up to look at him, searching your eyes for any sign of pain.  You take in a pull of air at the sudden intimacy of the touch and his closeness.  His scent washes over you: Old Spice and cigarette smoke and something that is distinctly manly, distinctly Javi.  You carefully touch his wrist with one hand, trying to reassure him.

“I’m fine,” you say, huffing out a small laugh and gently pulling your face away from his hands.  He doesn’t believe you.  “No, really, I’m ok.  I just…” you gesture around at the clothes and shoes and belts and ties hanging in the closet, one side carefully arranged by color, the other looking as though it had been haphazardly shoved onto the rack in five minutes without much thought.  You duck your head, feeling slightly stupid. “...I was...smelling.”  You can barely get the last word out.  Javi looks at you confused for a few moments.  You glance up at him just as you see understanding cross his face as he surveys the clothing you’re clutching in your hands and covering your lap, next to you on the floor.  

“You were trying to remember…?”  You nod miserably, trying to avoid his gaze.  He puts two fingers under your chin and carefully lifts your face to look at him.  His eyes are kind, sympathetic, curious.  “Any luck?”  You shake your head, sadly.

“No, not...not really.  Not much more than I’ve already remembered.”  You suddenly feel even more tired than when you had first arrived, not just physically but as though your brain is ten times too large for your head and filled with slippery sand.  You feel your body sag against his hand and he reaches his arm around your shoulder, supporting you.  He takes the salmon colored button-up of his that you’re holding clutched to your chest and tosses it into the pile of other clothes, then carefully helps you to your feet.  He gently steers you to the bed, arranging you there before tenderly pulling a soft blanket up over you, flicking on the small lamp next to the bed.  He moves to close the curtains, darkening the space and his shadow whispers from across the room that he’ll be right back.  You feel yourself getting sleepy as you relax into the pillows, Javi’s touch and scent a comforting echo.

As promised he returns a few minutes later and places several items on the nightstand: a glass of water, some magazines, a book with a bookmark in it, the cordless phone, a piece of paper, and a handgun...your firearm, you realize.

He arranges them in order of least to greatest importance it seems: the phone, paper and water closest to you.  He sits next to you on the bed as you settle yourself more deeply into the pillow, suddenly finding it nearly impossible to keep your eyes open.  Half of his face is hidden in the shadow cast from the soft lamp light; the image he cuts is reminiscent of the space he takes up in your memory: mysterious, half hidden in darkness...but comforting and caring.

“I need to go in to work for a few hours.” His voice is low and gentle and washes over you like a lullaby.  He brushes your hair out of your face, his sudden touch causing your droopy eyes to open wide again suddenly.  He removes his hand quickly, as though your gaze on him burns him.  He swallows hard and nods towards the night stands.  “The office number and my pager number are written down, so if you need anything at all, you call me...ok?”  You nod sleepily and he stands, tucking you under the blanket more carefully, checking if you need anything else.  When you shake your head, he nods and you see him hesitate for several long moments, hovering over you, seemingly partaking in some great inner struggle.  Then he carefully leans down and presses a soft kiss to your forehead.  He pulls away and whispers into your hair.  “I’ll be back soon.  You rest, cariño.”   Then he reaches over and snaps off the lamp…

...and then, just like your memories of him, your husband is gone in the dark.

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+

+

You’re not sure how much time passes, but when you wake up, the apartment is still empty and the shadows have drifted from one side of the room to the other.  Feeling refreshed, you move carefully around the apartment, investigating the little things that make up a person’s home.  Your grumbling stomach directs you back into the kitchen and you rummage through cabinets after finding nothing much edible in the refrigerator.  Finding a package of pasta and an unopened jar of sauce you start water to boiling and as you wait, you’re drawn back to the refrigerator as you pour yourself another glass of water.  You remove the photo of Javier in a graduation cap and gown with...his father?  It must be.  You smile as you study the slightly blurry photo featuring a younger version of Javi and seek out resemblance between your husband's face and that of the older man in the photo.  You see similarity in his father’s eyes, perhaps, along with an extreme amount of pride.  You wonder if you’ve met him?  Was he at your wedding?  

Thoughts of your wedding cause you to go wandering again back into the living room and back to the wedding photo on the bookshelf.  You pick it up and carry it around the room with you as you continue your investigation.  You recognize some of the pictures and artwork hanging on the wall: that painting was from a brief stint you did in Cuba.  That ceremonial mask you found at a floating market in Cambodia.  And that pencil drawing you had picked up at a Saturday flea market while visiting a colleague in Atlanta.  You remember what a headache it had been shipping your belongings here two years ago...how customs had had such a field day keeping your stuff detained and how you had lived in this stark apartment for three weeks before Dixon and the Embassy had stepped in and your things had finally been delivered.  

By that time, you remember, you had already made two lab busts, witnessed a fairly violent interrogation, been shot at twice and had raced through the streets of Bogota after a group of sicarios.  You had also already fended off multiple advances from her handsome partner, Javier Peña, which had culminated when he had slid his hand up her inner thigh, resulting in your socking him across the chin and knocking him off his stool in the crowded work bar.  You grinned at that memory, then your grin faded as a new image took its place:  it was blurry, muted, like listening to a cassette tape that was playing at a ten times slower speed, warped and in slow motion...only playing out in images.  You remembered a man’s hand sliding up your inner thigh, brushing against you.  You couldn’t see the man’s face, couldn't tell anything else about him other than he was hovering above you.  Was it your husband?  You didn’t think so.  Javi might feel like a stranger to you right now, but you knew in your very core that he was safe, that he was good...kind.  But you felt cold at the memory of this man.

Then just as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone, and you were just left holding the picture frame, standing in front of your record player.

***

Javi heard the music halfway down the building staircase.  He thinks about knocking, but he doubts she’d be able to hear him over the music.  He juggled the grocery bags in his arms, fishing her apartment key out of his jacket pocket and struggling to get the door open.  When he does finally manage, the sounds of Three Dog Night covering “Your Song” nearly bowls him over.  He deposits the groceries on the kitchen table, startled to find a pot of nearly empty water steaming and popping, having boiled over on the stove.  He clicks off the heat, removes the scorched pot, then steps into the living room to find his partner sitting on the floor in front of the record player, sleeves and vinyl records strewn around her, her back against the living room couch.  The “wedding” photo has been moved and is sitting on the coffee table at eye level.  She stares at the photo of the two of you, her brow furrowed in concentration.  He can see frustration behind her eyes, too, and he notices that her eyes are puffy and red.  She’s clearly been crying.

He moves to the player and turns the volume down.  She barely registers his presence until he sits next to her on the couch.  The movement on the cushions behind her startles her and she jumps, jerking away from him.

“Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa…” Javi leans away, his hands raised. “It’s just me.”  Recognition crosses her face and she settles back into her previous position, sighing heavily.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”  

“No.  I’m sorry.  I was...I wasn’t paying attention.”  She looks back at the photograph in front of her.  Javi looks at it, too, then back at her, studying her face.  She turns to him, and he sees her eyes sparkling with tears building up there, filled with questions.  Javi juts his chin towards the blaring player.

“I never have understood why you like these guys so much.”  He smiles at her, hoping to distract her.  She returns his smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, still reflecting the sadness he sees in there.  She gestures to the scattered records on the floor.

“I was trying to remember again.  I thought...I thought maybe a song might help me remember something.  I got to looking at our wedding picture and thought maybe I could remember a song we danced to or something.  I…” her brows lowered over her eyes and she seemed to be studying something in the distance that only she could see.  “I keep remembering…”  Javi looks at her eagerly but he doesn’t rush her.  “You and me...at least, I think it's you and me...dancing somewhere.  It’s like watching a silent movie with all of the faces blacked out, like witness protection, and everything in the background is blurry, like it’s out of focus.  But I’m…” her voice trails off again and she looks up into his face curiously.  “I’m almost sure it’s you.  We’re at some kind of...celebration I think, like maybe a club or something?  I thought maybe…”  Another hesitation.  “I thought maybe it was our wedding.  Maybe some music added with what I can remember might clear the other stuff up, but…”  She shakes her head.  “Nothing seems to be working.”  Back to him again. “Do we go dancing a lot or something?  Did we have a song? Like a song we danced to a lot, like at our wedding?”

Javi gulps, not quite sure how to answer all of her questions.  He thinks for a moment.

“We, uh….no, we don’t really...we don’t really go out dancing or anything like that.  Work keeps us pretty busy.”  That’s all true, he thinks to himself.  No lies. He’s more careful with the next of her questions.  “We didn’t...that…” he gestures at the photo, avoiding using the term “our wedding”.  “...Was pretty informal.  There wasn’t a reception or anything.  It was small.  We didn’t have dancing or anything like that.”  She nods in understanding.  “And we don’t…” he shakes his head.  “No song or anything…” he chuckles a little.  “I’m more of a rock, country kind of  guy, we never really seem to agree on taste in music.”  Also true, he thinks, recalling the multiple arguments they’ve had over the radio station on stakeouts and when driving to locations throughout the city.  She smiles distractedly, mumbling something about how it must be an older memory with someone else, then.  She  seems to think of something.

“I saw the picture on the fridge of you and your dad.  Have I met him?  When we got married or anything like that?  I can’t remember him.”  Javi shakes his head, again thinking for a moment before answering.

“No, you’ve never met.  He doesn’t really travel much, he’s got the ranch back home to worry about.  He hasn’t had a chance to make it down.”

“So we got married here?  In Columbia?”  Javi felt his throat stick...this was dangerous territory; surely she would want to know about her own family, whether they had come down for the “nuptials”.

He and Dixon (along with her doctor) had spent the afternoon on the phone with her parents and family in America, filling them in on the situation.  Over the course of their conversations, they had all agreed that, should she reach out to any of them, they would also play along with the “married to Javier” ruse for as long as it seemed to be appropriate.  Javi had heard the uncertainty in their voices when they had inquired as to just how carefully Javier would be “looking after” her.  He had done his best to assure them that he would respect their daughter and sister, that he would do everything he could to abide by their relationship boundaries prior to her memory loss.  And, he had reiterated what the doctor had said from the beginning; he had promised them that he would not lie to her.  Realistically, though, everyone had walked away from the conversation understanding that he may very well have to bend some boundaries in this situation.  By the end of the conversation, the family had given him their blessing and had made him promise to stay in regular contact with them.  He had been exhausted when he had left work, feeling the weight of his partner’s recovery on his shoulders.  

But he wouldn’t have it any other way; she was his partner.  He would have her back no matter what.

“It was...sort of spur of the moment, happened pretty fast.”  Before she could ask any more questions he sat up straight and smacked his palms on his legs.  “Hey, are you hungry?  I haven't eaten all day and I got some stuff-”

“Oh God!  I started some water boiling and…” she jumped from her spot on the floor.  Javi stood at the same time.  

“Yeah...we’re probably gonna need a new pot.”  She looked at him sheepishly, mumbling an apology.  He gives her a teasing grin and for a moment it felt like before: giving her a good natured hard time and her ready to fire back at him, both of them comfortable with the ribbing back and forth.  

But then she crossed her arms in front of her chest and he felt the barrier of unfamiliarity rise between them again. 

+

+

+

+ 

They fall into a familiar ease as they go about preparing dinner.  Javi is reassured by how easily she becomes comfortable with him.  The moments when she had jerked away from him when he was near her had him a little worried, but there are none of that now, as they move around each other, next to each other.  

“Why don’t you let me deal with the sauce,” she says over the soft sounds of music coming from the radio in the window.  She puts a gentle hand on his bicep and pushes just slightly to move him away.  “You always oversalt things anyway.”  Javi chuckled and shifted over to the pork chops in the pan...it took him a moment to register what she had just said.

“Hey!”  He stopped what he was doing and looked at her.  “You remember that?”  She seems startled by the fact that, yes, in fact, she did remember that.  She looked at him, a dazed smile on her face.  

“I guess...yeah, I do remember saying that to you before.”  

“Yeah,” he grins, nodding at her encouragingly.  “You never let me cook anything...you claim I put too much salt on stuff because-”  She cuts him off and finishes the thought as it comes to her.

“-You’ve scorched all your tastebuds from smoking like a chimney!”  Her eyes light up in delight when he chuckles, affirming that that’s exactly what she always says.  She laughs carefully, following the memory, seeing if it might lead her to anything else.  

Javi recalls other nights like this one when, either in his apartment or hers, when they have worked together to make a meal, moving in unison just like they did tonight, just like they do at work.  He had never allowed himself to venture any further past the thought of: we make a good team.  More than once, Javier had found himself lightheaded and felt his heart tug as he gazed at his partner through a cloud of smoke from his cigarette, watching her laugh across the table at something he had said, appreciating the way she would curl herself into a ball with her feet tucked beneath her on the couch as they watch some terrible movie, admiring the curve of her neck or the rounding of her hips and backside as she stood at the sink to do dishes.

He glanced at her now, his gaze taking in that same curve of a neck, drifting upwards to her face, studying the shape of her nose, the flush of pink across her cheeks from the stove heat and the memory.  He marveled at how long her eyelashes were and was hypnotized everytime she blinked and they brushed against her face.  A wisp of hair fell out of her ponytail and across her forehead; she tried to blow it out of the way without stopping what she was doing.  Not thinking, he reached out and brushed the strand away from her skin, his fingertips ghosting across her face.  She started only a little, nothing like the other times he had touched her.  He pulled his hand back quickly, realizing he had been lulled by the domesticity of the moment, allowed himself to lapse into an intimacy that he did not actually have with his partner…

...when she turned her face to his, he was startled by what he saw in her eyes.  A curiosity flitted across her face, but in her eyes he very clearly saw want, saw desire.  She tilted her head upwards towards him a little bit more and he felt her body, already close to his, almost imperceptibly shift and lean into him ever more so slightly.  It was an invitation, a go ahead.  His eyes drifted down to her mouth and he felt himself stir when her lips parted and he saw the tip of her tongue streak across from one corner to another, wetting the skin.  His heart started pounding.  Luckily, the buzzing of a timer saved him from having to analyze what to do next.  He had never removed something from the oven so fast in his life!  The charged moment was blessedly broken and as they put the final touches on their meal, he was careful to keep his distance.  

They enjoyed their food, their conversation mostly about older memories from when they first worked together, which didn’t require him to be quiet as cautious with his words.  They were memories she already had, things she knew.  As they finished, she started clearing plates while Javi ran water in the sink.  As though by wrot, he rolled up his shirt sleeves and started washing while she started drying and (he noted) putting dishes away confidently, as though she remembered where every plate and utensil belonged.  As he was finishing the last tray, a familiar song filtered through the radio speakers.  His head came up and he started.

“Oh!  That was us!”  He said excitedly.  When she just looked at him in confusion he dried his hands on the towel and spoke quickly.  “The memory you were talking about earlier, of us dancing.  It was us.”  He nodded towards the radio as a sultry dance tune played.  “A few weeks ago, we were….ahhh...we were at a birthday party.  It was in a club like you said and...yeah, this song was playing.  And you and I danced to it.”  

He felt his cheeks color as he recalled exactly how they had danced after a few tequila shots with Ortiz and their guise as a couple in full swing.  He had never wanted anyone as badly as he had wanted her that night, one hand gripping her wiggling hips, pressing her ass back against him, the other tracing up her outer thigh, pulling the hem of her already deliciously short skirt higher so he could access the soft skin there.  She had pressed herself back into his chest, had lifted her arms above her head and behind his neck, one hand gripping in his hair, the other gently caressing the side of his face, stroking his ear, pulling his lips down to that spot on her exposed neck…

He gulped as he refocused his concentration on looking for more dishes to wash.  “I...forgot about it.  But you were right.  That was us.”  He released the plug in the soapy water and looked at her.  “That was a recent one!  A recent memory.  From during the…”  he caught himself before he said “undercover op.”  “...During the time you haven't been able to remember.”  Her face lit up, then fell again almost instantly.  

“It’s so random, though.  And it's taken so long just to remember that one thing…and not very well, it seems.”  

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”  When she still looked frustrated he gently touched her shoulder.  “Be patient with yourself, ok.  We’ve all just gotta...we all just need to be patient.”  He sighed and gave her a smile.  “But, hey!  This is really great, right?”  She said nothing, just looked at him forlornly.  “Come on, it is!  You’ve remembered something recent.”  When she merely shrugged and stayed quiet, he propped a hand against the counter and leaned on it, jutting out a hip and putting a fist on his waist.  He leaned forward and stared into her face until she made eye contact with him.  He said her name meaningfully.  “This is good news.  It’s gonna be ok.  I promise.”  She smiled after a moment, then nodded in agreement.  “Whadya say we celebrate.  I’ll run out and get some of that orangesicle ice cream junk you like.  I’ll even let you decide what to watch on TV.”

She smiled again at the sweet gesture, but shook her head meekly

“I’m still a little tired, Javi.  I’m sorry.”  He assured her there was no need to apologize and that he understood, of course she needed to rest.  Listening to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom, he collapsed on the living room couch, sighing heavily.  His brain hurt from concentrating on not saying anything he shouldn’t with her.  He wasn’t too terribly sad about the fact that she was ready to head to bed.

Bed.

He sat upright quickly and then scurried into the bedroom just as he heard the tap turning off in the bathroom across the hall.  He rummaged around in the closet quickly, grabbing a spare pillow he’d seen there earlier when he’d unpacked his things, as well as an extra bed sheet.  He rushed out the bedroom door just as the door to the bathroom opened…

...Javi had never been so grateful for a pillow.  He felt himself harden in his jeans as she froze, clutching her clothes to her chest.  She had a towel wrapped around her, but it left nothing to the imagination.  He felt like a deer caught in the beam of a headlight, and he had to remind himself to breathe.  He screamed at himself to stop staring, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her flushed, pink skin, her silky smooth legs, the way her wet hair framed her face and danced over her bare shoulders, shedding drops of water onto her skin.  He followed the route of one particular drop as it left her hair, fell to her clavicle, slid down her chest, over the curve of her breast and disappeared beneath the towel.  He gulped, willing himself not to lick his lips.

“Sorry…” He was slightly horrified by the high pitched croak that was his voice as he forced the word from his throat.  He cleared his throat and finally managed to tear his eyes away from her, staring down at the pillow and sheet in his hands, stepping out of her way.  “Sorry,” he said again.  “I just, uh...wanted to get a pillow so I didn’t have to bother you…”  He watched her carefully from beneath his eyelashes; saw understanding, then relief, then….disappointment?...flash across her face in an instant.  

“Oh…”she said softly.  “Well…”  He glanced up at her again as she carefully moved towards the bedroom...he moved further from her naked body down the hall.  “I...I feel badly that you’re sleeping on the couch…That….that won’t be very comfortable…”  He nearly lost his mind when he caught her biting her lip, knowing that she was thinking, weighing how comfortable she would be with offering to let him sleep in the bed with her.  He grimaced to himself.  As far as she knew, that was “their” bed, and it should be the most natural thing in the world for a husband and wife to both climb into bed together and share the space for sleep.  

And he certainly wouldn’t have minded climbing into bed with her, not in this moment, not after seeing her like this.  

But they absolutely wouldn’t be sleeping.

“No, it’s ok.”  He saved her the trouble of having to make a decision.  “The couch is fine.”  She twisted her face, not believing him one bit.  “Really.  You need to rest.  It’s ok.”  He turned and started towards the living room reminding her to call for him or wake him up if she needed anything.  He heard her soft voice call his name behind him and he looked back at her.

“Thank you.”

He smiled, feeling her words go straight to that secret, soft spot in his heart that only she could seem to get to.  He nodded and murmured good night before she closed the bedroom door between them.

Javi tossed his bedding onto the couch and plopped down after it, still feeling his pants stretching uncomfortably across his groin, the memory of her standing wet and nearly naked in front of him seared into his brain.  It was all he could do to not take himself in his hand right then and pump himself to completion at the memory of that drop of water on her skin, the feel of their bodies grinding together in that club, how her hand had gripped and tugged in his hair.

“Jesus fucking Christ!”  he muttered to himself.  You gotta at least wait until she’s asleep, Peña!  He did wonder what would happen at the thought of her catching him thinking about her, groaning her name softly as he came in his own hand…

Stop being a pervert, you asshole!  He chided himself stretching out on the couch and flipping on the TV, searching for something desperately boring to distract himself with.

How the hell was he ever going to be able to do this?

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 7, Chapter 8,  Chapter 9, Chapter 10,  Chapter 11,  Chapter 12,  Chapter 13

[ethereal-ineffability]

HELL YEAH, DUDE! INFO DUMP ABOUT YOUR OC, OR SO HELP ME!

eyyyyyyyyy. CW for discussion of violent fictional bigots leading to body image issues. Okay so here's the thing. My boy Curio a sweet, kind of shy, well-meaning, socially awkward 28-year-old wizard. Tallish, no muscles whatsoever, big round glasses, kind of stupid facial hair, your standard stereotype.

Except that's not what he looks like, really.

That image is missing a Hat of Disguise (grey irish flat-cap), which he wears constantly, even while sleeping unless he can be sure he's alone. His full first name is Curiosity and what he actually looks like is somewhere around these two pictures, except with broken horns and a helluva lot more faded-over-2-decades facial scarring.

That childhood scarring is the reason why he literally never takes the hat off, no matter what; not because of the scarring itself, but because of what it represents. He grew up with so much baggage attached to his identity as a tiefling because, apart from a very supportive but imperfect and over-her-head single human mother, he had no support network in a small town where he was the only tiefling and almost-if-not-all of the entire town were superstitious humans who were very not interested in examining their biases. The children his age and a few years older were the ones who gave him most of that damage. But there's a reason his mother named him Curiosity; ever since he was old enough to explore, he did so enthusiastically and constantly, and after enough of that (and playing mostly alone) he developed skills that other kids his age didn't have, and he essentially became a gifted child. His mom took advantage of that (and some favors with an old friend) when the bullying got especially bad and got Curio scholarships to send him away to a mage's college in a more open-minded area where he would be protected and taken care of, in exchange for helping with tasks around the college until he was old enough to become an official student. The college became his life. He threw himself into the study of everything having to do with magic - history, mechanics, culture, ethics, etc. - partly as distraction, partly as hyperfixation (I do imagine he's neurodivergent in some way), and partly, subconsciously, as a desperate way to grasp at some sort of explanation for why he exists the way that he does and why the world around him is the way that it is. The enchanted hat was something he got at some point during his time at the college, and it essentially became a comfort item for him, and even though he probably could have gotten by without it with *less* problems than he had in his hometown, he just refused to go without it for years after the fact both out of fear of what could happen again and out of what had become, at that point, a deeply ingrained sense that he was just *wrong* and that he needed to hide himself to avoid burdening others. And all of that is just background for his situation in the current campaign, as a 7th-level wizard who has been traveling with a southern sweetheart druid satyr, a young-looking and mysterious dreamfolk warlock, a puss-in-boots-esque tabaxi fighter, a sweet grandmotherly minotaur barbarian, and a tiefling sorcerer in his late 40's who has a lot of backstory commonalities with Curio, particularly being raised by a single mother, having bad experiences as a kid due to his fiendish heritage, leaving home young, and hiding his appearance when he was younger. (Side note, the sorcerer's player and I *did not plan this*. We both came up with backstories independently, we didn't really have a session 0, and we just now found out how weirdly similar our characters' lives have been, though there's obviously been some differences too.) I started out this campaign by letting all the players know openly that Curio was not human, because I knew I couldn't keep a secret. In the 9 months we've been playing (we had a hiatus for a few, so it's more like 6-7 months of weekly to bi-weekly sessions), the character that's come the closest to figuring it out has been the sorcerer, Turavel, because he has obvious advantages when it comes to picking out which things just don't seem right for a human wizard to do. For example, on top of the weirdness of Curio never taking the hat off, sleeping alone often, bathing alone often, etc., he barely (roll of 15 vs 14) caught Curio tearing up when Turavel was talking about where he came from, and he thought it was weird that Curio could cast things like Hellish Rebuke. (The player, actually, was the only one of us to call this out when it happened, so I made note of it.) At the time (months ago irl, about 2-4 weeks ago in game time), I as the player didn't think Curio's cover had been blown, because I was convinced that Wizards could cast Hellish Rebuke, and I

even informed the player that Curio has fake entries in his spellbook for Hellish Rebuke, Thaumaturgy, and Darkness, just in case anyone ever saw it who also saw him cast those things. But I discovered today while searching for level-up spells for him that I was wrong. As soon as I realized, I sent Turavel's player these messages:

"Looking through wizard-only spells and realized that I as the player made ANOTHER mistake, specifically about which spells would be natural to see a wizard use, which means Curio made another mistake because I'm not retconning anything I said about what he's done. Whoopsie Since you actually called it out at the time (not the latest nat 1, the one time Curio used it before that) I'll be clear with you: Hellish Rebuke is a 2nd level, Warlock-only spell. Curio has the Magic Initiate feat, which might explain why he knows Thaumaturgy which is a cleric-only spell, since his 1st level spell for that feat is Healing Word which is exclusive to clerics, bards, and druids... but if that were the case that wouldn't explain why he can also use Vicious Mockery, which only works with bardic magic. He would have had to have learned Healing Word in a bardic way, leaving Thaumaturgy unaccounted for, unless there's just some explanation other than fiendish heritage or magic initiate that Turavel has literally never heard of before. Maybe there's a bardic college that would allow for the learning of Thaumaturgy? Unlikely. In that case Hellish Rebuke would still be unaccounted for, unless Curio has a secret patron and is a multiclassed warlock/wizard. Occam's razor. And since Turavel's the only one who asked to see his spellbook [in return, after Curio asked to see the spellbooks of all the other spellcasters], help me remember and I'll let you contest me on arcana with advantage to put all this together when we meet next."

And that's where we are. Curio's about to get fully found out because of overthinking and overprotecting himself in ways that weren't necessary, after just casually and confidently trading spellbooks - for strategic study - with the one person in the party who was always leagues more likely than anyone else to figure out what was going on. The same sorcerer who is old enough to be Curio's father and knows almost *exactly* what he's going through, and who Curio would probably be the most ashamed to be found out by, because he would probably be worried that his disguising of his tiefling nature would be interpreted as an insult even though Curio has terrible anxiety about the whole thing and literally can't help it. And I just think it's extra fun that the reason this is happening so soon is because of decisions I made intentionally as a player to make it *harder* to find him out, while truly thinking about what he would actually do. And I swear to god if that roll at advantage doesn't work I'm giving him all the inspiration I've got, because this is too good. I'm excited for the ensuing cathartic drama and for this precious boy to finally start learning how to love himself. p.s. in case any readers haven't picked up by now it's a closeted-trans-youth meets open-trans-elder allegory. This is what happens when you play DnD with other trans people

[todaydreambelieversfic]

Author Spotlight: Byebyeblainey Day 1

Author: @byebyeblainey​ 

How did you get into Glee and Glee fandom?

in 2011, a classmate of mine posted a status with the link to the gcv of baby it's cold outside with the caption 'so gay' so being a curious 11-almost-12-year-old I clicked the link. I spent the rest of the night watching glee vers on youtube. I remember falling asleep and waking up and Bills Bills Bills was playing!! After that, I watched the Klaine kiss on youtube and then asked my sister to (illegally whoopsie) download the episodes for me so i could watch :)

In general, what drew you into writing (and/or creating)?

i've wanted to be a writer for most of my life! I was a huge bookworm as a kid and started wanting to write novels when I was like 9 or 10. Even today, it's one of my biggest aspirations :)

What was it about Glee that made you decide to write fanfic for it?

I don't even remember how I got into writing fic for the fandom but I just remember reading fic when I had a free moment and it was like opening up an entirely new world that I'd never even thought to tap into before. Even so, I attempted to write fanfiction twice in 2013 (it didn't go well and i'm never sharing the names of either fic) and then never again. Then, the 2020 Blaine Big Bang happened and I signed up thinking why the hell not with a lot of encouragement from my wonderful friend Aly (blurglesmurfklaine) and never looked back!!!

Have you been a part of other fandoms before? Have you written fanfiction pre-glee?

After my disastrous attempt at writing glee fic in 2013, I stopped attempting to write for fandom again until around 2017. The first fic I wrote that I was proud of was for the TV show supergirl. Since then, I've written fic for Thomas Sanders' Sanders Sides series, the Youtube channel Smosh, Disney's Descendants, and Frozen

Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

SINGLE PARENT! I'm such a sucker for a single parent fic, partially because I love kids and also because I love reading about parenting?? idk. I've never tried to write a single parent fic but that's not to say that I never will.

Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?

......mpreg. I also find myself too embarrassed to even attempt to write smut even though I read it pretty regularly. Something about writing smut that other people will judge and read makes me uncomfy

How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

I have one multichapter and two one shots going right now! My multichapter is being beta'd by my lovely friend Nery (little-escapist). The premise of it is Kurt is an anonymous restaurant critic for the NYT and Blaine is the head chef at a restaurant managed by Rachel. Kurt leaves a bad review on Blaine's restaurant which irritates Rachel and causes her to become unbearable. One night, they meet at a club and hook up - but Blaine doesn't know that Kurt was the writer who left a bad review on his restaurant.

***

Check out Byebyeblainey’s Fics: 

Is There a Twelve Step Just For You? - “He was still the same short, nerdy Blaine Anderson he’d always been. An easy target for school bullies everywhere. Kurt was the popular co-captain of the Cheerio’s, looking down on his kingdom like a fair but firm ruler. No one was on his level, certainly not a peasant like Blaine.”Or Blaine tries to tell Kurt that he has a crush on him but accidentally ends up asking for a makeover instead. Oh, dear.

When Are You Gonna Sing For Me? -  Kurt is one of the three members of wildly successful pop punk band One Three Hill. He is also forgetful as all get out and accidentally leaves his phone somewhere where a certain music teacher just happens to find it.

Tug At My Heartstrings -  As he got closer to the man, wallet already in hand to give him a tip, Kurt stopped in his tracks. Because the busker who was playing the violin so beautifully on the streets of his neighbourhood at just past 6pm on a Wednesday night was the most beautiful man he’d ever seen.

[love-sapphirerose]

Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon Episode 16 Review

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/yashahime-princess-half-demon/episode-16/.168486

I got a bad feeling about "Double-Edged Moroha" from the moment it started. You'd think, given that last week's episode randomly decided to break away from the story to have a flashback story time with Riku, that the show would take even a scant minute or two to establish things like context and pacing: Where the girls are. Why they are there. Some vague idea about how long it has been since that godforsaken misadventure with the Rapey Mountain Arsonist. You know, the simple stuff that helps the audience figure out what the hell is going on. But no, it doesn't even take a couple of seconds for Yashahime to start screwing up the most basic rules of “How to Tell a Coherent Story”, as we're plunged right into the middle of some anonymous mountain valley or something, with Moroha staring down Yawaragi, telling her cousins that there's some major beef going back three whole years that needs settling. If you don't recognize who this woman is, she's one of the Wolf Tribe members who has appeared exactly one time in the series before now, in a single frame from the very end of last-week's episode.

It honestly feels like something got supremely screwed up in the show's pre-production, and the Yashahime staff realized that they needed to cut an episode right out of the middle of the run, so they took the final scenes from the episode that led up to this climactic showdown between Moroha and Yawaragi, cut everything else that came before it, and slapped it on to the beginning of “Double-Edged Moroha”. Maybe that would explain the seemingly arbitrary placement of the Big Reveal episode from last week? The way it was written meant it could have been aired at almost any time and made an equal amount of sense (read: Not a whole lot), and the only information from “Farewell Under the Lunar Eclipse” that ties into “Double-Edged Moroha” at all is that Moroha ended up with Kouga and the wolves when her parents got sucked into the Black Pearl. If we hadn't gotten that single shot of Moroha being left to the wolves by Hachi, then “Double-Edged Moroha” would have come across as completely nonsensical. As it stands, it's now only 95% nonsense, which is technically an improvement. Good job, I guess?

If you couldn't tell, this was yet another episode of Yashahime that made me absolutely furious with how poorly written and executed it was, but in order to fully explain why, I'll need to cover the events of “Double-Edged Moroha” in chronological order, because the flashback-structure of the episode is stupid and pointless. We begin with the very last flashback, which shows us how Yawaragi attempted to train Moroha in the art of mastering her demonic transformations. We later learn that Kagome apparently placed a seal on these powers in some scene that we never got to actually see because the show was too busy failing at Towa and Setsuna's backstories, but Yawaragi decided to give Moroha the power to transform into Beniyasha with the rouge. Yawaragi then spends years yelling at Moroha for relying on the rouge too much and warning her about how too many transformations will result in her becoming a permanently bloodthirsty monster, so, uh, great call there, Yawaragi. Really thought that one through.

Anyways, one of the days Moroha goes berserk with her Beniyasha self and ends up calling down the wrath of a horde of

terribly-animated Birds of Paradise

before passing out. Instead of doing the logical thing and running away, Yawaragi just sort of stands there and decides they're screwed. That's when a weasel man (who is very helpfully named “Weasel Man”) wanders into frame from literally nowhere and offers to sell Yawaragi the Armor of the Iron Rat he's wearing, so that she can blow up the Birds of Paradise and whatnot. Not only is the completely random appearance of this obviously sketchy weasel not draw Yawaragi's suspicions at all, she also doesn't seem to find it odd that the guy can't even remove the armor himself without getting another person to unlock it with a key. Keep in mind that, for the entire duration of this stupid, stupid conversation, Yawaragi could have very easily just run away from all those birds and hid in a cave or something, but no, she casually takes the armor from the weasel, and wouldn't you know it, the darned thing is cursed to eventually crush its wearer to death unless they pay an exorbitant fee to the smithy rats for another key.

This is, to put it mildly, a very silly chain of events that do not paint Yawaragi in the smartest light, but we just have to roll with it, because that set of Iron-Rat Armor is precisely why Moroha has found herself sold into indentured servitude for the last three years. You see, Yawaragi decided that Moroha needed to complete the “crucible of Kodoku”, which has the eleven-year-old fighting a horde of demons in a spooky cave by herself to…get stronger, and master fighting without relying on Beniyasha, somehow? Yawaragi claims that Moroha needs to absorb the powers of the strongest demon in the cave, but she definitely did not do that, and we've never seen any of these so-called disastrous consequences of the Beniyasha transformation so far, which makes the entire venture basically pointless for our little heroine. For Yawaragi's part, the whole thing seems to have been an excuse to do some gambling with Jyubei, because she previously lost a bunch of ryou in the demon gambling house, which one apparently has to travel through in order to even get to the Crucible of Kodoku; also she needs, like, thirteen Ryou in order to buy a key for the armor that is going to eventually kill her. All of this leads to Jyubei offering to buy Moroha as his own little bounty-hunting slave, which Yawaragi accepts instantaneously, and there you have it: The ridiculous, contrived, and ultimately meaningless explanation for why Moroha has been trying to buy her way out of debt for three years.

Then, the second flashback, which is actually the most recent chronologically, shows us how it took Yawaragi three whole years to get to that damned hidden village of rats, only to discover that Konton arrived just beforehand and killed all of them. Whoopsie! We even get a nice shot of a dead rat mother cradling the corpse of her rat child – a weirdly dark moment that Yashahime certainly hasn't earned or anything – just to remind you that these Four Perils are super evil and powerful (despite the fact that they keep getting their asses kicked by a trio of teenagers who can barely be bothered to acknowledge their existence). Konton makes a deal with Yawaragi that he'll hand over the key if she kills Moroha and the others, and she accepts. “But!” Yashahime then asks, “Is she really going to betray her adopted daughter figure? Or is Yawaragi preparing Moroha for the final and most important lesson of her training?”

The answer is clearly supposed to be that second one, but Yashahime is just so goddamn bad at even the simplest character writing that the point doesn't land. Throughout all of these flashbacks, Moroha and Yawaragi have been dueling one-on-one, with Towa and Setsuna being told to sit uselessly on the sidelines, and Yawaragi keeps insisting that Moroha use her “creative imagination” to beat her, instead of relying on the rouge. This kind of falls flat when Moroha's victory just comes from her busting out a new special move, the Crimson Dragon Wave, which is neither a creative or imaginative resolution to the fight. Every Yashahime fight boils down to some combination of the girls' different special attacks, so why is this any different?

Way late in the episode, Konton suddenly teleports into the fight to gloat at Yawaragi. Nobody else really notices or acknowledges Konton's arrival, though you'd think this is the point where Towa and Setsuna would get off their butts and do something, because it isn't like Moroha's honor would be besmirched by kicking Konton's ass again. The show even forgets to include Konton in the next couple of shots of Yawaragi reacting to Moroha's attacks, even though it is absolutely critical that he be standing right behind her, because when Moroha unleashes the Crimson Dragon Wave, she whips behind Konton to hold him down in an act of self-sacrifice.

Here's the kicker, though: The guy can teleport. Yawaragi just saw him do this, and not thirty seconds earlier! So it shouldn't be surprising to anybody when Konton uses his Rainbow Pearl powers to teleport out of Yawaragi's arms and escapes anyways while the other girls throw some useless attacks at him. So, to recap: The audience learns that Yawaragi created the whole issue of Moroha's Beniyasha transformation in the first place, and she then spent years fruitlessly attempting to undo the problem, including purchasing a deadly set of cursed armor from a random weasel that was traipsing about the forest one day. All of this led to Moroha being sold to Jyubei, which was ultimately pointless because Yawaragi just ended up being coerced into attacking Moroha by Konton, and the one thing that might have made this entire cavalcade of terminally stupid decisions worthwhile – killing Konton – ended up being foiled by random Rainbow Pearl Powers. In other words, absolutely nothing of importance was learned, the girls are not one step closer to any of their goals, and Moroha inadvertently murdered Yawaragi for no reason. It is positively stunning when Yawaragi dies, and the show has the gall to play the moment off like some huge, emotional payoff…except Moroha is more or less fine by the time the credits roll.

Good Lord, this show is continuing to outdo itself in all of the worst ways. I won't damn it with the non-score of Episode 14, because “Double-Edged Moroha” at least has some halfway-decent looking action to try and distract you from how bad everything else is. I did, however, spend far too much time teaching myself how to use image-editing software so I could slap together this dumb meme that perfectly sums up my feelings about Yashahime at the moment. That said, it was probably more time and effort than anybody working on the show spent going over its sorry excuse of a script.