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realisaonum · 3 years

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book meme

thank you, jen @det395 !! i feel like this meme got away from me a bit, but no shame! i love talking about books and writing so onward ~under the cut~

1- how many books are too many books in a series?

mhmmmmm i guess it depends on the objective of the series, right? is the plan to have x number of books in the series and if so, when we finally get to the end will it be satisfying considering all the books we’ve read leading up to it? OR is the objective of the premise / characters just to exist doing whatever? both can be done well. i would say a lot rides on how much i trust the author.

2- what do you think about cliffhangers?

so this is meant for cliffhangers in a series like between books? i don’t really care if there’s a cliffhanger as long as i have the next book sitting right next to me. otherwise uh, only if the wait between books is tolerable, because at that point you need to know that the author can clear this mess up, right? there’s this other thing, like you know how if the entire series was already written, then they might release the books a month apart or a quarter apart - that could be alright too. but years in between? not especially a fan. is anyone a fan?

3- hardback or paperback?

jen, you and me are complete opposites here. paperbacks stress me out. i will go out of my way to buy a used hardcover if given the choice. of course, there are some publications i don’t mind in paperback —thinking poetry and super indie books that don’t have a hardcover release OR books where the spines are thin enough they won’t break and i won’t be holding them long enough for them to wear. hardcovers are sturdy and i don’t have to worry i’ll accidentally bend the cover in some damaging way. I am invested in keeping my books nice to the point that i create covers for my books out of kraft paper or brown grocery bags while i am reading them. this is something i started when i was in college and didn’t want these books i was hoping to probably resell get thrashed coming in and out of my bag for all these classes. My home library is probs more half and half paperback/hardcover but if given a choice usually it’s hardcover.

4- least favourite book?

i think it’s good to at least attempt to meet a book on its level. there are lots of books i didn’t like, but i wasn’t meeting them on their level and i know that so we’re ignoring those. i do however have a shelf on my goodreads dedicated to books that i have beef with so i’ll just go off on two of them.....

tana french’s the likeness for being plagiaristic shit. it is essentially poorly concealed alternate universe OC insert fic of the secret history. you’ve got french’s dublin murder squad folks and then this group they are investigating who bear a STRIKING resemblance to the greek students in tsh 🤔. this would be one thing. it is pretty well acknowledged that nothing is original and there are enough changes to The Likeness that MAYBE i could let it slide if not for this other thing: french’s book, the likeness, has lines that are just basically reworded quotes from the secret history and french positions these lines so they are said by the counterpart (essentially same!) character that gave them original life in tsh. i cannot stress this enough: you can HEAR how similar the sentences are and their core intent is always the same. it’s thinly veiled theft! it astounds me that French hasn’t been sued frankly. it is one thing to want to capture some of the genius that tartt’s debut novel holds, but it is completely lazy and disgusting theft to go about it in the way French did with this book. and YES the secret history was published before french’s book. if i could stomach how fucking goddamn boring the likeness was to read it a second time and cite every one of these offenses i would, but that’s yet a third strike against it—it’s too boring to be worth it.

T. Kingfisher’s second book of the Clocktuar War duology : The Wonder Engine. this is a book that i feel violated the contract between writer and reader. the first book feels almost like a YA book. the stakes while described as very high are treated, as actions unfold, as very low. nothing truly irreparable happens until the climax of the second book and the fallout of that action is so off-tone of everything that came before i felt deeply betrayed. no, like, completely betrayed as in it ruined the rest of my afternoon, i am still viscerally angry eight months later, and i will never trust this author again. sure, maybe none of those actions that led to the climax were out-of-character, but there was nothing NOTHING in the proceeding action that even came close to that level of consequence. it’s a pity because right up till that point i was having a really good time. the entire vibe of the rising action to the climax of book one all the way through the rising action of book two was just a quippy fun version of roadtrip/quest - it felt like a comfort read. the abrupt tone shift had all the subtlety of dropping a graphically, brutal murder into Blue’s Clues. you don’t do that - this is a basic tenet of a writer / reader relationship. i’m not touching this bitch’s shit again.

5- Love Triangle, yes or no?

not so much. i like jen before me will scream ‘just be poly.’ love triangles that lead into poly relationships? yes, awesome will be glad i read. but i am at a stage in my life where your standard will-they-won’t-they-love-triangle is just fucking pointlessly frustrating to me. an example: i read a Nic Stone’s book Odd One Out a couple years ago and something about the synopsis or the hype made me think that it would resolve the love triangle that way, so when that did not happen i was incredibly frustrated and immediately wanted to resell the book. it’s the potential of the thing. stone’s book could have been the perfect vehicle for opening up the concept of polyamory to a ya audience but instead just really squandered that potential with weak floundering — in my opinion!

6- the most recent book you just couldn’t finish

uhhhhh i’ve got two and i’m not sure i’ve entirely given up quite yet buuuuuuuut

fucking dune. i got really pissed off with this book. So just…setting aside the whole vaguing at a pedophilically inclined queer coded villain - it’s done so poorly, that it's almost funny? like it doesn’t (as of half way through) actually have any consequence on…anything at all and is tacked on like an afterthought to the end of his scenes. honestly it all could just be cut out entirely with no recourse to the larger story. So my actual beef with this book is the pacing is ATROCIOUS. like yo, not only do you expect me to give a shit about these Atreides cunts, when we just met them and we spend the same amount of time with them IF NOT MORE with the antagonist? but you also expect me to believe Paul was able to just convince the leader of the Arrakis people —the leader of an entire planet!!— with a single fucking sentence??? yeah, not so much. it was not set up for me to believe that Paul could do that! maybe if Kynes hadn’t died immediately after—or at least not died at that moment? baring the fact I thought he was by far the most interesting character, IF he had been convinced by Paul in that scene, it would have been great to see some actual work done around that - with a transfer or a liaise of power between Kynes and Paul and the Fremen. By not having any substantive scene that does it - it begs the question of what the fuck was the point of the character in the first place? unplumbed potential!!! over all there seem to be some key scenes missing to get the reader to where the narrative expects us to be? but the choices made of the characters we spend time with and the moments we see with them, the benefit to the larger story…is not always there. hey herbert, these words you have written aren’t doing what you want them to?? i feel like i should finish it but i reaaaaallly don’t want to :) the only thing i can say is it looks like from the trailer, villeneueve is giving space to these moments so that the viewer can foster a genuine connection with the characters? radical concept.

our lady of perpetual hunger - i started this one optimistically bc i like chef memoirs, but i am at the point where she has just given birth to her son and honestly DON’T CARE. i still haven’t officially given up on it yet since i actually fucking bought it like a dope. i certainly would not have if i knew how much NOT about working the line this was gonna be

7- book you are currently reading

Aside from the failures mentioned above, I am working on the second book in B. Catling’s Vorrh trilogy, The Erstwhile. Also very close to finally finishing Iain Sinclair’s The Last London - there’s a review of his work from the LA Times that goes “One of Sinclair’s greatest skills has always been his ability to take diverse if not chaotic source material and refashion it in a way that sometimes seems downright alchemical” which captures some of the wonder I experience when reading his work. His style and how he creates atmosphere and setting is just unique and astounding.

8- last book you recommended to someone

The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Before that I told my brother to read Eat a Peach, as we both love Anthony Bourdain and David Chang talks about him a bit here, plus it’s just a fucking great book. any book that gives insight into Chang’s methodology and paradigm is worth a shot.

9- oldest book you read

I think it might have to be Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (which apparently according to wiki premiered on the stage a whole four months before Hamlet so that’s what we’re going with) and if plays don’t count, I don’t care. I think they count and that’s what we’re going with.

10- the most recent book you read ?

Given the previous question, the most recently published book, right? It’s gotta be the one I just finished: The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic - Revised and Expanded edt., which like just came out this summer. I watched Jessica Hopper’s promo zoom, curtesy of my local indie bookstore, and went ahead and bought it. This was a great decision! It was just what I needed to read these last couple of weeks. i love there’s lots of short pieces that made the read quick and the fact that it’s non-fiction so there was no pressure of a plot or the emotional weight of character investment when I had a lot of big stressors dragging me down irl -it was such a relief. Hopper’s criticism is fun to read and there’s some real art in her appreciation of music here.

11- favourite author?

These are the top in a kind of order but not really: Donna Tartt, Jeff VanderMeer, Megan Whalen Turner, Flannery O’Conner, Chuck Palahniuk, Anthony Bourdain

Other faves very much worth mentioning: Emily O’Neill, Richard Siken, Brandon Sanderson, Warren Ellis, Nathan Englander, Stephen King, Eddie Huang, Carl Hiaassen, Anne Carson, and Iain Sinclair.

12- buying books or borrowing books?

Depends on if my library has it, of course! I nearly always see if my library has a copy first if i have never read it or the author before. If i’ve read the book before or trust the author, I’ll buy it. Like I’ll straight out buy new stuff from Jeff VanderMeer even though with him it’s either this-hits-exactly-and-is-my-new-fave or i-really-disliked-this-but-admire-the-boundaries-you’re-pushing-my-dude - so it’s always a gamble but a worthy one.

12- a book you dislike that everyone else seems to love

a little life (just bc it's torture porn elevated to art doesn’t negate the fact that it’s torture porn. Yanagihara’s project here is repugnant and the fact that this book is lauded as moving lgbt fiction makes my skin crawl)

sharp objects (good writing, compelling story, BUT typographical scarification doesn't work like that - i am not going to get into it but i know from first hand experience how Flynn described it is not accurate)

nesbø’s the snowman (what kinda dumbass detective would think THAT when a woman finds her missing father’s corpse? absolute idiocy - so obviously reverse engineered with that end in mind)

the raven cycle (fuck ronan lynch to start and then fuck him to end as well - there’s some other stuff but mostly he’s a total CUNT and if i don’t say that once a day i have probably died)

14 - bookmarks or dogears?

Bookmarks and sticky notes. Then I can place it pointing directly to the paragraph I last stopped on.

15- The book you can always reread?

This is my question because I reread all the time. ALL THE TIME. Books I reread often: The Secret History, Medium Raw (especially chapter 17 The Fury), Crooked Kingdom, The Violent Bear It Away, and The Goldfinch. Every year like clockwork (since it came out apparently) I will reread Stephen King’s The Outsider.

Other books I feel the urge to reread: VanderMeer’s Acceptance, Englander’s Dinner at the Center of the Earth, Frazier’s Nightwoods, Fresh Off the Boat, the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, the Peter Grant Series (which is queued up for another go here soon I think), any of the stories from A Good Man is Hard to Find, Sanderson’s Wax and Wayne Mistborn books, simon vs the homosapiens’ agenda, and there are two of Alan Morinis’ books on Mussar that I am technically always revisiting—when i need a reminder, i’ll jump around and read specific sections to get centered again.

16- can you read while listening to music?

Yes, but only ambient or near ambient (only usually one track on repeat) or a soundtrack I am extremely familiar with. No new music. I do usually need some audio stimulation or my mind will wander terribly.

17- one POV or multi POV?

Multi pov can certainly be done well (looking at the soc duaology and VanderMeer’s Acceptance) but working a multi-pov means there are more plates spinning, it’s more of a challenge, and some authors pull it off better than others.

18- do you read book in one sitting or in multiple days?

I don’t really do this anymore. that might have something to do with me picking up thicker books? but also i have a full time job now and let’s be real the book has to be hella good if i don’t want to put it down. the last book i attempted to shotgun was the final installment of my favorite series and it still took me two days so....i can get through a lot of books but none of them are ever in one sitting anymore.

19- who to tag:

@sybilius @mouth-rainboy @iwonderifthatisart @phereinnike @magnificentmoose @wambsgangs @moriarteaparty and anyone else if you feel so inclined!

Bonus Question: What’s on your to-read shelf?

As for me, I am excited about one i just picked up, Danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines, which i might start tomorrow and I will be taking Paul Madonna’s Come to Light on my trip to see my brother this coming weekend.

#this took a while but was fun #thanks again jen #very excited to read other folks responses #also like a general content warning? i mention/refer to things in the books but nothing's unpacked here #still to be cautious reference to mature themes #the narrator feeling posthumous

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ilkkawhat · 3 years

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tag game

tagged by @frozenmemories1987 💜💜💜

Nickname(s): MK

Zodiac: Virgo

Height: roughly 5′1″ or 154.94cm

Last movie I watched: The Devil’s Rejects

Last thing I googled: The height conversion from cm to feet/inches, I grabbed my height off of my medical record 😂

Fave musician: Bastille and Hozier are among the top, if not the top

Song stuck in my head: Cult of Personality by Living Colour

Other blogs: I still keep my very first blog as an archive, bisexualstokes-archive and I do have a gaming sideblog I hardly use, hylianns

Blogs following: 328

Amount of sleep: 7-7.5 ish on average

Lucky number: Don’t think I have one

What am I wearing: Comfy pajama shorts, and an oversized halloween t-shirt with ripped sleeves

Dream job: idk, kinda like what I’m doing now, being a quality assurance technician but I could do with dealing with less people

Dream trip: Just going anywhere other than here

Languages: English, some Spanish (I understand it better than I can speak it)

Favorite food: French fries, pizza, you know, all the junk you’re not supposed to indulge in lol

Do I play an Instrument: used to be in percussion way back in the day and didn’t really get past playing the bells, and I do have an ocarina somewhere that I did learn how to play zelda’s lullaby on at some point (that my dog was either singing along to, or very upset about because it was bad 😂)

Favorite song: bro idk, that’s something that changes almost on a daily basis lol. but “skulls” by bastille is one of the biggest, and still remains on my “on repeat” on spotify all the time

Random fact: I think I mentioned this before, but remember how I was doing that daily word count thing a couple months back in I think march? when I would post how many words I’ve written, share a snippet etc? Well, I stopped doing that for...reasons but one day I got bored at work (it was a sunday, actually, so I was getting paid double time to just sit there and wait on production lol) and went through those posts and using the magic of google doc’s revision history, managed to create this spreadsheet where I have kept track of my word count on an actual daily basis, what fics I worked on, how many fics I posted, my bad days and if I still wrote despite that (which surprisingly, I’ve not had as many bad days as I would have thought, and yes, I still wrote for more than half of those days) and even have graphs of like, which day of the week is my best, which month I’ve written the most, graphs of each month’s progress (july is so pathetic lol) so yeah. I’m not doing it as a way to shame my writing skills, but just...celebrate the progress I do and show myself that even on my qualified “bad” days, I can still come out on top of my brain

gonna actually tag some people this time! @frostysfrenzy, @csinickstokes, @jencsi, @cowboyc0ffee and @letswaitforme

#mk.op #about me

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innittowinit · 4 years

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Tommyinnit is going to be okay

summary: With lockdown, expectations and grades constantly seeming to be lower than desired, Tommy starts to give up on school. Luckily he has his makeshift family to help him out.

word count: 1778

notes: hhh im super sorry to those of you who were waiting for me to finish the next chapter to my amusement park fic, i was working on it but i'm feeling kinda :/ so i wrote this instead to get da feelings out. Updates should be back to normal next friday. also my birthday is soon!!! 22nd pog!!!!!!!!!! i'm gonna be 16 and i am :D about that

AO3

If you asked him, he’d say he didn’t care. He’d joke about how bad he was doing, call himself stupid, play into the grades and act like they were all he was capable of.

Truth is, he knew he could be better, he knew he was expected to be better, so when he was given his report card and saw that he was scoring mediocre in most subject and even failing a few, he swallowed the lump in his throat and laughed, telling his friends that he didn’t know what he expected.

School was tough but he was expected to be tougher, when he had pages upon pages of chemistry homework so hard that it made him cry, he didn’t tell anyone because that wasn’t what was expected of him. He stayed up for nights on end just trying to grasp at a passing grade but most of the time was spent panicking anyway, so why was anyone surprised when he started to give up?

When he stopped handing in assignments, when he stopped revising, when he stopped turning up to class, why were they all so surprised? They had watched his downfall with front row seats and now were gasping as they saw him drowning in the pool they put him in without teaching him to swim.

So here he was, locked in his bedroom, the shadows of the overly optimistic boy he painted himself as lingered as he looked around. It made him sick to his stomach, to lie to everyone like that. He knew for a fact if anyone from school watched his content they’d know he was lying. It was hard to differentiate himself sometimes, from the boy who just wanted to make his parents proud to the boy who roleplayed on minecraft servers. Now don’t get me wrong, they were both very much him, he just wished he could let his followers know that he wasn’t that happy all the time. It was only when he wasn’t being suffocated by his own academic failures.

Giving up was a stupid idea, it only made his grades worse but he justified it by saying that at least he was failing on purpose now. There could be no disappointment or shame if he didn’t try, if he told everyone that he just didn't care about grades and he could get better ones if he wanted he would be so much less pathetic than if he said that he had put in everything and still done badly. It didn’t work though, he was self-sabotaging. With every failing grade his self esteem fell further and further until he was sure it was gone completely. He didn’t feel stupid, he just felt like everyone else was smarter than him. He thought that maybe, if he tried hard enough, he could get himself out of this funk, but then again that required showing people that he was working hard and if he still failed after that he was sure he’d feel far worse than he already did.

Talking about this to someone was out of the picture too. Aside from the fact that he’d rather eat a live slug than make someone worry about him, he knew he’d just seem lazy and pathetic if he brought it up to anyone anyway. He just didn’t know how to explain that he’d got so overwhelmed that it broke him, it felt like his whole life he wished that people would stop overestimating him.

He just wasn’t good enough.

A knock on his bedroom door brought him out of his self-deprecating spiral, causing him to only curl in on himself, under the blankets, even further. No doubt it was his parents here to nag him about school again.

“Go away mum I don’t care! It doesn’t even matter” he huffed as he pulled his phone out,with the intention to ignore his family through looking at instagram.

“Tommy it’s not your mum” He heard a man’s voice speak from behind the door. “Look it’s me, Wilbur, Phil and Techno are here too. Your parents said you’ve been feeling pretty down lately so we just wanted to hang out. If talking is too much we can just play a game”

Silence.

Tommy took a moment to mull the words over, it stung that his parents had told them about what was going on but he could help but feel a little special that they had traveled so far to come cheer up him specifically. Especially Techno, he wasn’t sure if he should feel honoured or guilty that he had to fly out, deciding that both was probably the best option, he made a metal note to pay him back for the plane ticket.

“Listen Tommy” He heard another man’s voice as he silently walked towards the door “It’ll be okay in the end, I don’t know what you’re going through right now, and you only need to tell us if you want to, but I promise it’ll be okay. Life has a way of making things fit into place in the end”

Biting his lip,Tommy twisted the key to the left, taking a deep breath before opening the door. He knew he looked terrible, his hair was greasy and all over the place, he had a pepsi stain on the shirt he had been wearing for three days straight, and he knew for a fact he smelled unpleasant. Despite all these less than ideal features, the three men all gave him a hug as soon as they saw him. Each one of them had sincere smiles on their faces, they didn’t look like they were here to pity him at least.

Still without saying a word, Tommy stepped to the side to invite them into his messy room, before going to sit on his bed again. Coke and Pepsi cans were overflowing from his bin and he knew the plates of half eaten dinners were starting to smell, still though, they weren’t judging him. Techno and Phil sat either side of him and Wilbur sprawled himself out at the foot of the bed, as much as he wanted to keep up the silence and grumpiness, he couldn’t help but gasp a little, feeling his throat go tight and his eyes heat up with fresh tears, when Techno wrapped an arm around him.

How long had it been since he was hugged like this? It wasn’t like the greeting hug he had just gotten, it was so much more sincere and heartfelt. A ghost of a smile hinted at his lips.

As more silent tears dripped down his cheek, Techno rubbing his arm soothingly, he finally realised that he just wanted someone to genuinely care about him. He didn’t mind high expectations if they came from a good place; whenever Wilbur spoke about how Tommy would be so much bigger than he already was, he didn’t feel pressured, he felt motivated. He knew Wilbur genuinely believed in him and more importantly would still care about him if he didn’t live up to what he expected, in contrast to his parents who he honestly wasn’t sure if he had unconditional love from or not.

That’s what the problem was. Finally, he had Techno, Phil and Wil all here because they loved him, and he knew they wouldn’t judge him. They wouldn’t hate him for failing an exam, they wouldn’t mock him for getting overwhelmed, they certainly would love him no matter how bad he messed up.

Right in that moment, he stopped caring about whether or not he’d make people worry, he stopped caring about any possibly negative opinions of him because he knew he was safe, and he leant his head against Techno’s shoulder, crying out all the stress and insecurities that had lead to his spiral in the first place. It wasn't long before Phil joined in, wrapping an arm around him from the other side, and then came Wilbur, who was practically laying against all three of them as he tried to hug him from where he had been sat.

“It’s a lot of work and it’s a lot of expectations…..y’know I’m just not smart enough to live up to what they want me to do”

The blonde choked out his words, it felt great not to have to hold back his feelings for once, to finally have people who would listen. Really though, they had been there all along, his judgement had just been too clouded that he hadn’t realised.

“Listen Toms”

He heard Phil sigh sympathetically,

“You’re a smart boy, if school is making you feel like this, maybe the way you’re learning is the problem, I know it’s super generic advice but if you can find a teacher you trust you should be able to talk about what alternatives there are. As for expectations, fuck ‘em. You’re doing your own thing and you’re doing it well. You’ve already surpassed everyone's expectations.”

He felt Phil move over so Wilbur could sit with them properly, with pretty much 4 men all sitting on the same section of the bed, it was a squish but they made it work.

“Tommy man, I was a massive nerd in school. I was such a perfectionist that I’d panic about any grade lower than like 95%, I didn’t even have any expectations I was trying to live up to, I just wanted to be the best at everything. Anyway I’ve had more ruts like what you’re going through than I can count so I’m speaking from experience when I say, I promise you it’s gonna be fine. Tommy you’ll be okay”

Tommy didn’t bother replying, he was too choked up from the sheer vulnerability and love that he didn’t want to open his mouth and risk any noise coming out.

“Big T,” Wilbur chuckled as he practically climbed over Phil to see him properly, “I failed half my GCSE’s and I’m doing great. Try your hardest but if things go tits up just know that you’re life won't just be over”

Tommy just nodded, wiping at his eyes as he leant his head against Techno. For the first time in a long time he felt loved.

“We actually had a plan.” Wilbur had taken Phil’s spot, on the bed, completely now, and the man was left to crouch next to it. “We’ll clean up in here while you go take a shower and then we can watch Up. We made Techno bring some of those American sweets over and we also got a load from Tesco on our way here. How’s that sound?”

Again, Tommy nodded his head. He was going to be okay.

#tommyinnit #wilbur soot #Philza #technoblade #sleepy bois inc #sbi #fanfic #Emotional Hurt/ Comfort #school

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wizard-loving-wizard · 4 years

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TAZ November Celebration - Day 5 “Rockstar”

@taznovembercelebration

I have a few TAZ fics in progress, so I reeeally wanted to write something for the TAZ November Celebration! Enjoy some Taakitz, some Blupjeans, and some rock ‘n’ roll shenangians. (Rating: M)

Taako was bummed. He hadn't heard from the mysterious Kravitz all day. It wasn't unheard of for Taako to allow one of his fans to enjoy his fleeting company for one night only while he was on tour, but he really liked this Kravitz. He definitely thought he'd get a call back—that's why he’d left his number on the motel nightstand.

It was a shame. Kravitz was cute, in the excessively sexy goth-punk kinda way. He was also a dorky kind of funny, and annoyingly smart. He wrote for a local music magazine (!!!) and seemed to actually love Taako’s band. (“I didn’t come here for work, by the way. Not yet. I just love your music,” He’d said so casually, as if that wasn’t the sexiest thing a goth music writer could ever say.)

Taako had preened across the tall, sticky table, and when he pointed to the motel down the street, Kravitz was surprised but enthusiastic. They spent the night together, and it was very fun.

As his band set up for their next show at the same bar, Taako was losing hope. He hadn’t heard anything from Kravitz all day. This was their last night in Neverwinter, so it was mere hours before he would have to leave Kravitz behind for good. Plus, Taako kept catching the drummer being all romantic with his long-term girlfriend who was on tour with them, and normally that didn’t bother him, but today it made him lonely.

So Taako was already in a shitty mood when Merle marched onto the stage right before soundcheck, clacking his cellphone closed and announcing, “Bad news.”

Taako threw a nervous look over to his sister, who was messing with around with her bass on the other side of the stage. She looked up, equally confused.

“Johann isn’t coming,” Merle said.

Taako’s jaw dropped open.

“What?” Magnus asked, standing up behind his drum kit at the back of the stage.

“Dammit,” Lup muttered.

Taako glanced around at his band mates and his dejected manager. “Are you sure there’s no way he can stay?”

Merle shook his head, saying, “His mom is sick. He’s already in a taxi heading to the airport.”

“Damn.”

Magnus pouted, dropping his drumsticks against the snare sadly. “So, what? We can’t play?”

“No, not without a keyboardist.” Lup delivered the diagnosis with a grim look.

Before Taako could come up with any other ideas, they were resolved to take a break and pack everything back up in an hour. Once the rest of his band had cleared out the stage, Taako dejectedly settled his guitar into its stand. The bar was calling to him, so he hopped off the front of the stage to go get a drink.

In a surprisingly wonderful turn of events, he only made it halfway there before he stopped in his tracks, watching a familiar tall-dark-and-handsome step inside the front door. Could it be?

Taako weaved around to the front, until he made it into the purview of Kravitz’s scanning gaze. Kravitz brightened and said, “Taako!”

“Kravitz!” Taako greeted back, waving, and then remembered that this was the bitch who didn’t call him back.

Kravitz rushed up to him flustered and said, “I’m so sorry I didn’t call.”

Taako blinked in surprise.

He looked embarrassed. “My cat shredded your note before I could put your number in my phone.”

Taking the blushing as a sign of honesty, Taako threw back his head laughing. “No way!” His stomach warmed as he stared into Kravitz’s sweet eyes and realized why he was here.

“Yes, she’s still just a kitten.”

“Awww.” Taako remembered seeing pictures of the little black kitten last night, he thought, somewhere between his second margarita and third tequila shot. He leaned in a bit closer and resisted the urge to pull on all the things hanging off Kravitz’s stupid chic black clothes. He said, “Well, thanks for coming by. But there’s no show tonight, our keyboardist bailed.”

Kravitz looked around and then pouted. “Oh no! You guys can’t play?”

“Not unless someone in this bar can read sheet music,” Taako said.

But Kravitz had an electric look in his eyes. “Actually, I might know someone who can help.”

Lup had drank three beers alone in the closet being passed off as a green room, and she wanted the fourth to be different. She stumbled around backstage with two glass bottles in her hands, humming the Fantasy Costco theme under her breath and searching for her brother.

She found someone else before she found Taako: a human man coming in through the back door, looking like the last person that would ever patron this dive bar. Lup waltzed down the hallway towards him, screaming, “Hey!”

He jumped, staring back at Lup with exactly the amount of fear she wanted everyone to have when they first met her.

She smirked and walked closer. “You lost, thug?”

“Um,” The guy said, giving a cautious eye to the bottles in her hands. “No, actually, my friend told me—are you in the band?”

Lup snorted. “In it? Please, I practically am the band. I’m Lup,” She said, and juggled the beers into one hand so she could extend the other.

He shook it hesitantly. “Barry. I heard you needed a keyboardist?”

“Yes!” Lup jumped in excitement, almost losing both bottles, but managing to cradle them close. “You play piano? Can you read sheet music?” Barry was cute, and he was looking cuter every second.

“Yes, but—”

“Sick! Come with me,” Lup instructed, and grabbed Barry’s arm to pull him towards the green room.

“Have you—”

“Go in here.” Lup pushed him into the closet, following close behind him. She set the beers down and starting rifling through a bag for the folder she needed. When she found it, she slammed it onto the table in front of Barry. “Here’s your music.”

“I…” Barry trailed off, glancing through the folder experimentally. Then he looked at Lup. “Do you know where Kravitz is?”

“I have no idea who that is, buddy,” Lup announced happily. But Barry looked sad, so she revised, “How about you stay here and learn your chords, and I’ll go find him.”

Barry sat in the creaky folding chair and muttered, “Fine.”

Lup started to head out, ready to totally forget who she was looking for, but Barry stopped her.

“Wait, what’s the name of your band?”

Lup furrowed her brow. “It’s in there,” She said, pointing to the music he was looking at. “The Astral Complainers.”

“Huh,” Barry said quietly, and then smiled at Lup. “That’s pretty good.”

Lup smirked. “Thanks.” She almost darted out of the room, but hung off the doorframe to tell him, “If I find everyone, soundcheck starts in 10.”

As she skipped down the hall towards the stage, she heard Barry call after her: “If?”

“Fuck…shit,” Taako swore as Kravitz kissed his neck. The tour van was a pretty terrible spot to make out, but as annoying as the limited space was, there was something about being stuck in Kravitz’s lap that Taako definitely liked. As Kravitz ran his hands under Taako’s t-shirt, Taako squeezed his arms tighter around Kravitz’s neck.

Kravitz looked up and licked his lips. Taako couldn’t even take in a breath before he had to kiss him.

And that was when the door swung open.

“Ahh!” Taako shrieked at the sound. He jumped and turned and leaned all at once, sending himself tumbling to the floor, seeing his sister’s angry face on the way down. Shit shit shit shit shit, Taako swore inside his head, enjoying his new view of the dirty van carpet.

He heard Kravitz say, “Taako! Are you okay?”

Taako struggled to untangle his legs from the seat. “Ow. Yes! I’m fine!” He lied.

“You must be Kravitz,” Lup’s voice said, and Taako had no idea how she knew that, but it couldn’t be good that she did. He twisted and turned on the ground, trying to free himself.

“Yes, I’m—yes. Did Taako tell you…?”

“No. Barry’s here.”

“Great!” Taako announced, thought it was mostly muffled by the floor. He finally pulled himself up onto the seat next to Kravitz. “I saved the show!”

But Lup was not impressed. “Nu-uh. No boys in the van, no exceptions. You know that.”

“I mean, Kravitz saved the show!” Taako reached over to grab Kravitz’s arm, smiling sweetly. “I had to thank him.”

The way Kravitz smiled back, Taako couldn’t stop himself from leaning across the aisle, caressing his arm softly, and—

“Hey! Cut it out!” Lup said, and he felt a smack on his shoulder.

Taako’s face warmed as he looked back at his sister. “Sorry.”

“Whatever. Let’s go, we have soundcheck, now.”

Taako was already reaching for Kravitz’s hand when he said, “I should come and thank Barry.”

Taako smiled. “Perfect.”

Soundcheck went well. Really well. Afterwards, as Taako ran off to canoodle with the Hot Topic model some more, Lup was thinking that Barry’s skills far surpassed just reading sheet music. She went to corner him at the back of the stage, and got Magnus’s blessing of a wink and a swift exit.

Lup hadn’t realized she was so obvious. She knew she shouldn’t have kept turning around so much while they were playing. Taako probably had no idea anyways; with the handsome silken vampire hanging around, he had the biggest hearts in his eyes she’d ever seen.

“Hey. Barry. Good job.”

He smiled. “Thanks. I hope it sounds okay, let me know if—”

“It sounds great,” Lup promised, leaning gently on the keyboard and giving him a little smile. Water, she remembered, for her tipsy-ness and her voice. She took a drink from her water bottle and then said, “You’re good, do you work in music?”

Barry laughed nervously. “Yes, but, not this kind of music.”

“Aw,” Lup teased, batting her eyelashes at him. “Do you work in pop music, Barry?”

“No,” Barry said. “I write for the classical music section of the Neverwinter Music Magazine.”

Lup just stared at him for a second, a bit transfixed at his little attitude. She stood up straight, bit back her smirk, and said, “Okay. Classical. That’s fancy.” Then she had a thought. “Is that how you know Kravitz? Through—”

Lup got distracted when she noticed Barry staring at something behind her. She turned to look out to the bar area, where Taako was posing against a wall wearing Kravitz’s black cape, and Kravitz was standing two feet back taking pictures of him on a phone.

Lup looked back at Barry, who was smiling and shaking his head again, and she finished her question, asking, “Work?”

“Look at me,” Barry said, gesturing to his plain t-shirt and jeans. “If he didn’t have to sit next to me for eight hours straight every day, there’s no way he would be friends with me.”

Lup giggled. “He writes about, what, steampunk remixes?”

“Wrong again. Try good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll.”

Lup clicked her tongue. “You boys are something else here in Neverwinter.” She watched Barry give her an awkward look.

He said, “How long are you in town, by the way?”

“Tonight’s our last night,” Lup said. She shrugged, stepping even closer to the keyboard and leaning over it to tell Barry, “Gotta make the most of it while it lasts.” She smirked and backed away.

Turning around to look out at the crowd, Lup set down her water bottle next to her bass. She readjusted her mic stand, watching a group of six more people flood into the bar.

She walked back over to Barry and caught him just before he made it offstage. “Hey,” She said, stopping him. “Have a drink before the show. Just a beer. It’ll help with the nerves.”

Barry stared at her blankly for a moment, and then claimed, “I’m not nervous.”

“Barry, I have eyes. I can see that you’re about to shit your pants.” Lup pulled a coin out of her pocket and tried to hand it to him. “On me. I can’t have one, I’ve already had three.”

“Oh, no, it’s—”

“Barry,” Lup stopped him. “I’m a famous rockstar. I can afford it.” She pushed the gold into his hand and pushed him offstage.

Barry was standing at the back of the stage, hitting chords on someone else’s keyboard, and watching Lup rock out on her bass as she sang for the crowd. Her voice pure and strong, her hands playing deftly, her hair whipping around, she was the most beautiful person Barry had ever seen. He watched her, useless and trapped behind the keyboard, heart jumping around every time she turned around to come play next to him or just to wink at him. Barry liked this band. He liked this crowd more than he thought he would. And he liked Lup.

Maybe not as much as Kravitz liked Taako, Barry considered, watching his coworker jump and scream in front of Taako. Kravitz had been frantic that morning at work, rambling about a bar, an elf, and Coconut Milk (his completely black cat). When Barry had calmed him down enough to explain what happened, Kravitz acted like Taako was his soulmate. Maybe he was right, Barry thought, watching Taako shake and shimmy with his guitar, obviously staring only at Kravitz. Whatever was happening there, he was happy his friend seemed so happy.

Weird that he was then crushing on Taako’s twin sister, but maybe Barry didn’t really care. All he felt like caring about was watching Lup jump around in her fishnets, shorts, and ripped black shirt. He felt the bass deep in his stomach as he played, and tried not to think about how much fun he was having.

They played loud and rocked hard. The audience loved it, and Lup ended the show sweaty and high on adrenaline. This was when she felt on top of the world. The crowd roared in her face, still cheering, and she stood to watch it happen, swinging her bass back and forth. She smirked down at the fans right in front of her, and then over at Taako, who was glowing.

Lup remembered herself and turned around, immediately walking to the back of the stage. She stepped around the keyboard and pulled Barry into a one-armed hug. “Good show. You killed it,” She said, giving him a small smile, and she liked the nervous little smile she got from Barry in return.

“Great show, you guys,” Merle told them backstage. The five of them were a bit cramped for space in the tiny area, and Lup accidentally jabbed her elbow into Barry’s side.

“Ow!” He said.

“Lup, stop that,” Merle said, and flipped through his pages until he found the right one. “Right. Here’s the schedule for tonight.”

Lup stood up straighter and looked over at Barry to teasingly glare at him.

“We pack up in an hour, I need you back here, in an hour,” Merle repeated, for their benefit. “Then I’ll let you know what time we’re leaving.”

“Yes, sir,” Magnus said.

Merle looked up at them expectantly and said, “Don’t die, don’t kill anyone else, and don’t get married.” And then he was gone.

“What an inspirational man,” Taako remarked.

Magnus said, “Great show, Barry. Thanks. Gotta go!” and ran towards the bar, presumably to tackle his girlfriend at the merch table.

The door hadn’t even swung shut when someone else grabbed it and walked through to backstage—Kravitz. “Taako!” He said.

“Kravitz!” Taako shouted.

Kravitz ran down the hall, crying to Taako, “You were so good, it was such a good show,” and then they were kissing, a shiny black cape flying around and jewelry clacking together.

Lup took a step back to give them a bit more space, and she gave Barry a silly look over her shoulder as she squished closer to him.

Once Kravitz could pull his face away, he rushed over to Barry, saying, “Barry, you were so good, you did amazing.” He wrapped his arms around Barry’s head in an interesting-looking hug, and Lup just stepped back to glance at Taako.

He was also leaning back, and giving her a concerned looking and mouthing, BARRY?

Lup just shrugged, and nodded.

“—you are a rockstar, Barry, I always knew it—”

Then, Lup held up a hand at Taako. Then two fingers. And then mouthed, GOTH. CLOWN.

Taako held up his middle finger, and Lup flipped him off right back, and that was the exact second Kravitz and Barry turned around.

“What—”

“Nothing,” Taako said, and starting pulling Kravitz towards the bar. “Remember, we’re—”

“To, going to the—”

“The place.”

“Yeah. Bye!” Kravitz yelled, and they disappeared through the door.

When the door slammed back shut, Lup looked over at Barry.

He gave her a nervous smile and said, “Thanks for letting me play with you, and thanks for helping me.” He motioned to the back door. “I should get—”

“You can’t leave,” Lup interrupted. “Have a drink with me.”

Barry looked surprised. “It’s pretty late, I—”

“Please?” Lup asked nicely.

Forty-five minutes later, Lup and Barry were each on their third cocktails. They were at a low table by the bar, and the music and crowd were defeneningly loud. Lup threw back her drink and stared intently at Barry. “I don’t want to shout!” She shouted.

He blinked. “What?”

“You look like a girl scout!”

“...I can’t hear you!”

Lup rolled her eyes. “Do you want to make out?”

“Yes,” Barry said.

Lup stared at him, wondering if her half-joking question had worked or if he was fucking with her. She stared at his discerning, hesitant face, and couldn’t tell a thing. So she shifted closer to him, leaning in until her face was inches away from his.

He stared into her eyes.

“Sure about that, Mozart?”

Barry didn’t say anything, and he didn’t move.

So Lup kissed him, squishing their noses together and holding him still in the bouncing bar. Barry pushed forwards and reached for her shoulder, so she held his face and kissed him deeper.

“Barry,” She whispered contentedly when they readjusted and broke apart for half a second. She kissed him, pulling him as close as possible. Barry kissed her back steady and gentle, seeming fairly sure of himself for a man who tried to escape out the back door an hour ago.

Lup arrived backstage exactly when Merle expected her, towing Barry behind her, holding her hand. They joined Magnus and Julia, who were closely intertwined, and Kravitz and Taako, looking a bit too pleased with themselves.

Merle looked at Lup’s hand hanging tightly onto Barry and said, “Oh, jeez.”

Kravitz held up a little thumbs-up to Barry.

“Okay, look,” Merle explained, “The owner had some cancellations and now she has a few more open spots this week. She wants us to stay ‘til Thursday.”

Taako gasped in delight, but Magnus said, “But we don’t have Johann!”

Everyone looked over at Barry, so Lup turned to him, and smiled. “Whaddya say, will you play with us?” She asked.

“Um, yeah—yes,” Barry said.

Lup laughed and hugged him. She heard Taako and Magnus cheering. She gave Barry one last squeeze around the shoulders and let him go, turning back to face Merle. “Yeah, I think we should stay here a bit longer.”

“Let’s do it!” Magnus yelled.

“The ayes have it,” Merle declared. “Forget tear-down, you are officially free to par-tay.”

They all whooped and cheered, and it felt like New Year’s Eve when Lup pulled Barry in to kiss his cheek under a karaoke night poster.

Thank you so much for reading! If you’d like to see more of my writing, all my info is here.

#taznc #taz november celebration #taz #taakitz #blupjeans #taz balance #mine*

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artificialqueens · 4 years

Text

Not Nineteen Forever (19) (Branjie/Scyvie/Ninex) - Ortega

a/n: hi pals! so this was probs one of my top 3 fav chapters to write out of the whole fic. it’s got so many things that i just love, and i so hope u will love it too. i should probs make it clear that this isn’t the end of the fic! it’s going to have 21 chapters, so there’s two more to come after this (omg only 2????? bitch wtf???? WTF???). thank u guys for all the love my ask box gets flooded with after every chapter, i’m always so so excited when i see it so thank u so much, i really appreciate it!! here we go with n19f19 xoxo

please note: this fic contains young adults often behaving in irresponsible/unadvisable ways with regards to alcohol, drugs and sex. if you are someone who feels as if they could be heavily influenced by fic and incorporate what happens in the plot into ur own life, pls steer clear!

summary: Brooke, Yvie and Nina are three flatmates who forged a friendship in their first year of university and picked up some other waifs and strays along the way. Now in their final year, there are feelings that need to be unravelled and confessions to be made whilst navigating drunk nights, hungover mornings, takeaways, group chats, library meetups, cafe gossiping, and the small matter of getting a degree.

last chapter: there were confessions of love in a karaoke bar.

this chapter: a month on from the events of last chapter and with final exams and dissertations looming, Brooke thinks she can avoid Vanessa until graduation without having to confront anything that’s happened between them. this proves difficult when she’s trapped in the library with her.

***

Brooke was fine. She was more than fine, actually, she was good. She was calm, serene, fucking zen. If it wasn’t for the dissertation she had to hand in a week from now she would have ascended to Buddha-like status, doling out study tips to her friends like proverbs.

Brooke had always been good at exams. She’d been a straight-A student back in Canada, the whole process of revision coming naturally to her. She’d bought designated ringbinders for every subject, poring over textbooks and copying information out in messy cursive until she’d filled her whole refill pad. When she’d walked into the big assembly hall on exam day, she didn’t get the usual churning of her stomach or shaky hands that her friends had always described. It was almost as if the hall reminded her of taking ballet exams when she was a girl- she knew what to do, she had all the information in her head somewhere, and all that was required of her was to think and write.

Essays, however, had never come easy, which was a shame as they essentially formed the basis of Brooke’s degree. There wasn’t the fast-paced element to essays as there were to exams, and lengthy deadlines gave Brooke time to overthink, redraft, panic, delete, then do the whole process over again. She’d never fully got the hang of them; add in the fact a different tutor marked what she’d written every time and her grades were practically a lottery. She knew this element would follow her throughout her career- writing, fashion design, God even her ballet exams from years ago- it was all a form of art, and art was subjective. She knew there were designers out there that were universally respected, but none were universally liked. Nothing was universally liked. In an exam, there was a set of right or wrong answers, but essays were open to interpretation. An interpretation that her degree classification depended on.

Stretching and feeling her spine bump against the hard plastic chair, Brooke let out a huge breath. She could still see her Mum’s face if she remembered hard enough, when she’d told her her very first mark on her very first uni assignment back in first year; the way the woman’s face had faltered a little but forced a smile and a congratulations. It was the first mark below 70% Brooke could remember in a long time, and her Mum’s disappointment still stung. Brooke was currently sitting on a 2:1, but only just. Her dissertation was going to cement what degree she received and Christ, Brooke would be lying if she said the pressure wasn’t getting to her ever so slightly. It was at the stage where she was taking a beta blocker each morning before spending most of the day in the library. Sometimes she’d take another in the afternoon if she felt herself starting to panic. Maybe that was the reason she was so chill.

Looking at her laptop and the block of black text against white digital paper, she rubbed her eyes and glanced through the huge floor-to-ceiling pane of glass to her left. Her own sleepy face gazed back at her, the view rendered invisible due to the pitch black outside. Brooke didn’t dare look at the time, but she knew it had to be late if it was this dark at the end of April. Casting her eyes to Nina, she couldn’t help but give a snort of a laugh.

“What the hell are you doing?” Brooke asked, looking at the exploded rainbow of colour-coded flash cards that were strewn across the girl’s desk and spilling out onto the floor. There were scribbly neon post-it notes stuck all over her laptop screen and Nina probably had half the library stacked up in high-rise tower blocks on her desk. A quick glance at her screen showed Brooke that Nina had roughly sixty tabs open.

“My goddamn best.”

Brooke let out another laugh as Nina gestured helplessly at the mess in front of her. “Jesus Christ, Brooke, how the hell am I going to be a teacher if I’m this disorganised?”

Brooke gave a little shrug and raised her eyebrows. “I dread to think what your classroom desk is going to be like.”

“Probably going to accidentally kill a child on my first day. Nudge over a big pile of papers on my desk, boof. Dead,” Nina giggled, then let out a huge laugh and instantly clamped her hands over her mouth in embarrassment. The action made Brooke laugh out loud too until the pair were having a silent laughing fit in the exact place they weren’t supposed to be making any noise.

To be fair, the top floor was pretty empty given the late hour they were there. The few people that were left were already packing up their things and leaving, laptops shut in a manner of resignation. The yellow strobe lights that hung above gave the whole place a clinical glow, and the patterns on the fuzzy green carpet all seemed to merge into one. As Brooke ran a hand through her hair and was about to check the time on her phone, loud chimes rang out over the speakers built into the ceiling.

“Would all students please be aware that the library will be closing in ten minutes, that’s ten minutes. Thank you.”

Brooke almost jumped out of her skin. She blinked, then looked at the four numbers in the bottom right-hand corner of her screen. “Nina. No way is it almost midnight.”

“God. I’m not even surprised anymore. At this point it feels like we live here,” Nina groaned, cracking her back in a way that made Brooke wince then rolling her shoulders. “I guess we should head back to the flat.”

Brooke’s ears pricked as she heard a commotion from the other end of the floor. It sounded like a thunder of footsteps and a hissed argument. Turning slowly, Brooke’s heart sank as she saw exactly who she’d hoped she’d be able to avoid until graduation day.

Silky and Vanessa were standing at the printer a mere two sets of desks away from her and Nina. Silky seemed to be printing something out and insisting she wouldn’t be long as Vanessa tapped her heel against the carpeted floor impatiently, her Converse almost wearing a hole in the floor. Despite the late hour her makeup was still perfectly applied, and her hair was half hanging loose over her shoulders and half swept up into a haphazard topknot. Brooke pictured Vanessa growing frustrated at her desk, fretting over some form of past paper and tearing her hands through her hair, tugging her brown locks up and securing them with a hair tie. Brooke hoped she wasn’t too stressed about her finals. She remembered that when they were together Vanessa had had some form of big essay due, and she’d sat up in bed exhaling and worrying, typing furiously with her long nails crashing against the keyboard of her laptop like angry waves. Brooke had quietly brought her tea, wordlessly pressed a kiss to her temple, and Vanessa had cast her a soft smile that had made Brooke’s heart set alight.

Just then Silky looked across the room, saw her, and began to wave. Fuck. Brooke watched as Vanessa cast her gaze over to where she sat. Her eyes widened when she laid them on Brooke and she tilted her head to the sky, barely hiding a gigantic roll of her eyes as she followed Silky over to Brooke and Nina. Brooke had in the time it took for the girls to reach their desk to decide how she wanted to play this. It was a tough decision. Because in the month-and-a-bit since their dalliance in the hot tub, and an even shorter time since her crying meltdown to Scarlet in the Swan toilets, Brooke had developed a hard, harsh exoskeleton for herself that involved channeling all the love and regret she felt for Vanessa into venom, poison and dislike. If Vanessa wanted to be petty and unkind and rude to her, then fuck it. Brooke would be the exact same back. She’d tried it out already- responding to thinly-veiled barbs in the groupchat, ignoring her if they saw each other. Brooke didn’t want to act that way, didn’t want to do any of it, but she forced herself to do it in the way a small child had to be forced to eat vegetables; it was what was good for her. Good for them both. It was better that Vanessa hated her. She’d tried loving her and look where the fuck that had ended up.

The issue was, the frosty behaviour she’d return to Vanessa was uncontrollable. She knew it was causing vibes and tension in the group, splitting them all up and causing cracks and fractures in a time where they were meant to be closer than ever. Yvie had had words with her, as had Nina. It hadn’t got them anywhere. Brooke had tried to reach out to Vanessa, offered her so many olive branches that Vanessa had just started beating Brooke black and blue with them. Brooke knew it was for the best if she acted like the complete bitch that Vanessa thought she was.

“Hey, sisters! What you both doin’ here so late?” Silky asked cheerfully as she reached the girls. Brooke stuck a smile on her face, tried not to look at Vanessa and then failed. Her thick eyelashes were cast to the floor as she scuffed the carpet with her shoe. Brooke felt a stab at her heart. Luckily, Nina took over.

“Christ, I was just saying to Brooke it feels like we’ve moved in here. My diss is due on Friday and I’m stressed out of my mind. What’re you guys up to?”

Silky waved a thick stack of paper at Nina as if she was showing her evidence. “We were down on floor one but the janitor’s chucking people out. I needed some readings and figured he’d get up here last, so I just came to the top floor to use the printer.”

“Yeah, and we’re done now, so let’s go. I need to pee before we leave,” Vanessa muttered to her flatmate, her voice dull as she still didn’t tear her gaze from the floor.

Nina’s cheerful smile faltered. Silky, to her credit, looked embarrassed by Vanessa’s sulky behaviour. To Brooke’s dismay, Nina shoved all of her index cards onto her laptop keyboard and slammed it closed. “Well, hey! We were just leaving. We’ll come with you.”

Vanessa’s face twisted into one of discomfort. “Nah, Nina, really, it’s fine. I’m gonna head to the bathroom anyway-”

“We can wait for you! It’s no big deal!”

Brooke’s heart sank. Great. An excruciating walk back outside with the girl that hated her most in the world. Just as she was about to bullshit a reason why they couldn’t, Silky enthusiastically agreed. Brooke watched Vanessa bite her lip in frustration, give a forced fake smile and nod. They were both united in the fact that it was a situation neither of them wanted to be in. It was the closest Brooke had felt to Vanessa in a while.

Nina and Silky filled the silence on their way to the library toilets. They were only beside the lifts so not that far away, but every step felt as if it lasted a million years. Finally, mercifully, the girls came to the toilets and Vanessa ducked inside. As they waited, Brooke just wished and hoped she’d be quick so the awkward situation would be over sooner rather than later. One minute turned into two, and Silky became impatient. Brooke watched as she wrenched open the door and yelled inside.

“VANJ, C’MON! THE PLACE IS CLOSING SOON!” she shouted into the room, muttering under her breath something about Vanessa having a bladder like the Hindenburg. Brooke tried to be patient and cast her eyes up to the ceiling. Looking back into the floor of the library, she was alarmed to find it completely empty, void of people. It could have been that she was startled, but she gave a shout into the bathroom too.

“Vanjie, hurry up! Jesus!”

At this point Vanessa was standing blasting her hands with air from the dryer. She shouted something back at Brooke that Brooke couldn’t hear over the air jets, but she could hazard a guess as to what it was. Finally, Vanessa stormed out.

“Fuck me, will you girls hop off my dick? Can I not pee in peace without you rushing me along? We’ve got ages! It’s fine!”

And then everything was suddenly plunged into darkness.

Brooke gave an involuntary cry of fear, felt someone grab her hand. Looking down at her interlocked fingers and then up to who it was connected to, she was shocked to see Vanessa, her face illuminated in the green fire escape sign and completely petrified. All at once she seemed to realise what she’d done and dropped Brooke’s hand like it was made of hot metal. Nina had fallen silent, her expression one of shock, and Silky was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Fuck,” Brooke found herself saying. Her mouth had gone completely dry.

“It’s fine. It’s fine, they’ll just be turning off the lights before they lock up. Let’s just hurry up and get the lift,” Silky reassured them, but Brooke didn’t miss the worried frown that was set on her face as the four of them walked quickly. Vanessa reached the button first, scrabbled at it with her fingers. The little white light that usually illuminated the panel didn’t turn on.

“Oh my God this can’t be happening,” Nina whispered, her voice panicked and fast. Silky rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but the frown on her face was deepening. Reaching out, she pressed the same button firmly, jamming it into its little metal pad. Nothing. The girls stood in silence for only a few seconds, listening for the metal whirrs and clunks that the lift usually made on its way up or down the building. Nothing came.

“Stairs,” Vanessa said simply, her voice full of worry as she suddenly dashed in the direction of the stairwell. The three other girls followed and all pretence of remaining calm and walking was truly out the window as their trainers squeaked over the linoleum, feet thumping harshly against the steps as they tore down flight after flight. Brooke’s pulse was speeding so fast she thought she would have a heart attack, and the bones of her feet began to hurt more with every step she launched herself down two-at-a-time. Breathless and frantic, they finally reached the bottom floor, Vanessa crashing through the double doors at the bottom of the stairwell and speeding across the lobby to the main entrance. Brooke was hot on her heels, her heart now painful in her chest and her breath coming in thick, uncomfortable wheezes. Any hope she’d had sank to the floor with her gut as Vanessa pounded the automatic doors and almost wrenched the fire door off its hinges in an attempt to get out. It was to no avail.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” Nina repeated, her hands flying to her face as it blanched in fear.

“Fucking shit- HELLO? HELLO? WE’RE STILL IN HERE!” Silky yelled at the top of her lungs to nobody in particular.

“Guys, I don’t like this,” Brooke said, hearing the shake in her own voice as her eyes darted around the huge, dark building frantically.

“No shit, really? I’m having a fuckin’ whale of a time, personally,” Vanessa hissed, casting a glare her way before going back to shaking the doorhandles in a futile attempt to open them. Brooke felt her face curl up in a sneer, all the fear she’d felt previously moved into a convenient little box and replaced with all-consuming anger.

“Ugh, JESUS, Vanessa, of course, of fucking course, we’re literally locked in a uni building with no way out and you choose to start picking a fight with me. Big fucking-”

“ENOUGH!” Nina shouted, Brooke taken aback. She had known Nina for almost three years now, and in that time she’d never heard her shout. Well, she’d heard her shout with happiness or joy or fear, but never anger like this. She felt like one of her primary school kids as Nina continued. “Both of you just shut the fuck up for one fucking minute! Can we at least just find a way out of here before you start a fucking domestic?”

“I’ll take the cafe,” Silky said decisively, shouting to the others as she ran in the opposite direction. “Nina go right, Brooke and Vanjie go left.”

Brooke narrowed her eyes, looking again at Vanessa whose gaze mirrored Brooke’s. Relenting and not wanting to risk another telling-off from Nina, Brooke obediently tore off in the direction Silky had told her to go. She weaved her way through desks and bookshelves, checking every window only to find them all locked. As she was losing hope, the dull, green light of a fire escape sign caught her eye. Brooke sighed with relief as she tore towards it. This was surely a guaranteed way out. Reaching the tall door, Brooke slammed her hands on the cold, metal bar that lay across it, pushed down, and waited for the cold night air to hit her face and calm down her panic.

Nothing.

Brooke frowned, trying again and pushing harder at the bar. This time she got her shoulder involved, leaning all her weight against it. It didn’t so much as budge.

“We’re outta luck. They’re all locked from the outside.”

Brooke turned to see Vanessa walking purposefully towards her. Her tone was frustrated, but not towards her at least. Brooke felt relieved. She was beginning to regret snapping at Vanessa earlier, even if she was meant to dislike her. She wondered if she felt as scared as she did. Brooke thought about how Vanessa always hid her fear, remembered the time they watched some shit, gory horror movie at hers when they were together. Brooke had flinched and squealed and buried her face in Vanessa’s hoodie every two seconds while Vanessa had laughed at her, told her it was all fine and fake, but Brooke could feel Vanessa’s heart beat fast in her chest and her stomach muscles tensing every time a new horrific sight appeared on screen.

Vanessa leant against the bar that Brooke had tried, punctuating it with an angry kick of her foot. “That shit’s illegal, you know. Locking a fire door. We could sue fuck outta them.”

Brooke couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. “Yeah I’m sure we, twentysomething students with collectively hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of debt, have both the resources and the influence to sue the university. They’d shit themselves.”

She watched as Vanessa looked at her, a glare about to appear in her dark eyes, then disappearing as she allowed herself a small smile and a single snort of laughter. There was a pause of silence. Brooke decided to fill it. “Let’s find the girls, maybe they found a way out.”

As they passed by the floor-to-ceiling windows again, Vanessa suddenly gasped and tore off to bang on the glass. Brooke followed her eyeline and was overjoyed to find what looked to be a janitor, finishing up and walking away from the building. She joined Vanessa and pounded her fists against the window, shouting randomly if only just to make a noise. Her hope began to die, however, when instead of noticing the absolute cacophony of noise the girls created, the man simply got further and further away. Brooke watched as he got his phone out, a long earphone cord attached to it. She slumped against the glass and let out a helpless moan.

“Fucking shit bitch ass motherfucker!” Vanessa hissed in anger, pounding on the glass with her knuckles one last time. Brooke watched as she took a step back from the window, flexed her fingers and gave a hiss.

“You okay?” Brooke found herself asking. She could already feel herself frowning in concern as Vanessa nodded briskly, shaking her hand out and sticking the knuckle of one finger in her mouth.

“Fine. Just got a lil’ over-enthusiastic, cut my finger,” she spoke around her knuckle. Brooke felt a pang at her heart. She took a step towards Vanessa.

“Let’s see?”

Vanessa gave another laugh, harsher and more sardonic than her first had been. “It’s fine, Brooke, I don’t need you to kiss it better.”

Brooke held her hands up, unable to help the way her eyebrows flew up her face. “Okay, I’ll just go fuck myself!“

“Yeah, do that,” Vanessa muttered quietly, sitting on a desk beside the window and pulling her legs up to cross them. Brooke, in lieu of snapping back at the girl she’d once called her friend but had never called her girlfriend, did the same. They sat in a hostile silence, thoughts running around Brooke’s mind as to what she could do or say. So many options flooded her head that it was hard to see any of them clearly for what they were. It turned out she didn’t need to give any of them that much thought, however, as Nina and Silky soon appeared from the other end of the building.

“Oh, good! You’ve not killed each other,” Nina said brightly upon her return. Brooke snuck a quick look at Vanessa, then rolled her eyes.

“Guess you’re as shit out of luck as we are?” Silky asked, her voice quieter than usual by at least a few dozen decibels.

“Can you believe they locked the fire doors? Fuck them, man, imagine there was a real fire?” Vanessa spat bitterly. Nina sighed heavily and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“We could try calling someone?”

Brooke frowned. “Who could we call?”

“The police?” Nina said immediately, her naivety causing the others to burst out laughing.

“And say what?! Hey listen, we know you’ve got murderers to catch but we’re locked in a uni building, could you bring round a big battering ram and knock the door down?” Brooke laughed, not missing the way Vanessa laughed in response and feeling a twinkle of pride light up in her heart.

“Well, could the fire brigade get us out?” Nina suggested, Silky groaning and pulling her hands down her face.

“Nina, you need to lower your expectations of what an emergency is. Four dumb uni students trapped in the library is not gonna be considered an emergency. We’re not in danger, we’re all breathing, and none of us have been set alight. That counts the big three out immediately.”

“What about a locksmith?” Vanessa shrugged. Brooke screwed up her face.

“Ah, for those locks that automatic doors have on them,” Silky deadpanned. Brooke laughed at the comment, clearly a little too loudly because Vanessa was back scowling at her again.

“Hey, they do so have locks, bitch.”

“I don’t think you can ask a locksmith to open a house that isn’t yours,” Nina frowned. Brooke raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her.

“I love my house, the university library.”

“Shut up! You knew what I meant,” Nina protested, as the other girls gave a laugh again.

“Surely there’ll be some phone number online for the janitor or something?” Brooke thought suddenly, Silky quickly taking out her phone to check. There was a moment of silence as the girls held their breath in hope. Finally, Silky let out an overjoyed cry.

“Cleaning supervisor main area- based in central library! Yes ladies! We’re fucking outta here!”

Brooke smiled so hard that her face hurt as Silky held her phone to her ear. Thank God. The nightmare was over, she could go back to her flat and not be literally trapped in a building with her ex. She would soon be-

The four girls jumped as a faint ringing of a phone could be heard from out in the lobby. For the hundredth time that night, Brooke felt her heart sink.

“I don’t really know what we expected from that,” Vanessa sighed, looking every inch the kicked puppy.

It was quickly decided that their last hope were the girls who weren’t in the library, although this went down the drain fast as it was discovered that Yvie was over at Scarlet’s flat and they were both asleep, neither Akeria nor Monet were picking up, and Plastique had gone home to revise.

“What about Monique, Vanj? Could we try her?” Nina asked. Brooke was confused at the way Vanessa’s face twisted in discomfort, a little line setting deep on her forehead.

“Nah, she, uh…she won’t pick up,” she said simply, Nina nodding quickly and neglecting to ask any more about it. It didn’t stop Brooke from being intrigued.

“What the fuck are we gonna do, then? We can’t just spend the night here,” Silky’s voice was disbelieving. Brooke gave a resigned shrug.

“Silk, I don’t think there’s any alternative. It’s only a few hours, the place’ll open up again at six. We can go upstairs and sleep in those little pods they have for group projects. Then by the time we wake up again, it’ll be morning and we can all go back to the flat,” Brooke explained calmly, although inside she still had a lot of anxiety rattling about and the dark of the library wasn’t helping.

The girls reluctantly agreed that it was probably the only thing that was left for them to do. In nervous silence they climbed the stairs to the first floor, where Silky immediately set up camp in one of the pods, stretching herself out along the seats that had once been cushioned but had been flattened by hundreds and thousands of sets of bums over the years. Nina took one and set her laptop back up again, arguing that she’d actually been on a pretty good streak before she’d had to pack up and wanted to see if she could churn out another thousand words before she went to sleep. Brooke peeled off from the girls and took her own pod, her tall body unable to fully fit along the seats. As she attempted to sleep, one thing kept stopping her as it usually seemed to around this time of day. She sighed, tossed and turned as she thought about Vanessa. It had all gone so badly wrong. The more she tried to get her off her mind, the more memories she was reminded of. Hurting Vanessa was easier than loving her; snapping at her and being snarky made Brooke feel bad and a bit of a bitch, but loving her and torturing herself for what an idiot she’d been made her feel ten times worse, as if her heart had been removed from its sheath in her ribcage and been stomped on, kicked about, stabbed with a blunt knife and dragged through broken glass. Any attempt to sleep was futile. Brooke’s eyes hurt with fatigue as she sat up, rubbed them and stretched. She would go and see if Nina was still awake, maybe sit up and annoy her for a while.

As she crossed the floor she noticed a small movement out of the corner of her eye. Vanessa was sitting on the floor by the window, her legs crossed and eating a packet of crisps she’d managed to procure from somewhere. Brooke thought she looked so tiny compared to the huge pane of glass and the world that sat outside of it. Now that the lights were off, Brooke could see every detail that lay beyond the window- the soft yellow glow of the streetlights that faintly illuminated the park beside the library, the pink and white marshmallow cherry blossom trees that lined each path. A memory shot through Brooke’s mind like a lightning bolt- the eight of them in second year after their exams had all finished, having a barbecue in the park as the sun beat down and frazzled them all to a crisp, the smell of sausages and weed carried on the light breeze and the warmth in Brooke’s heart as Vanessa had teased her about something, the girls all laughing at Brooke’s embarrassment and protests.

God, they’d all been so happy.

Without really knowing what her plan was, Brooke walked over to where Vanessa was sitting and sat down cautiously beside her. The other girl looked at her, as if she was deciding whether to glare or smile. She ended up doing neither.

“Can’t sleep either?” Brooke chose as her opener, immediately regretting it for the cheesy line from a film it was. Vanessa gave a sarcastic chuckle, gestured around her.

“Apparently,” she said simply, Brooke looking at the carpet and kicking herself. There was a moment where the cogs in her brain whirred quickly, trying to come up with something else to say. Vanessa surprised her by speaking again. “I ain’t been sleeping too good lately anyway, though, so. I guess it don’t matter.”

“Me neither,” Brooke felt something click inside her, a surge of adrenaline coursing through her veins as she spoke again. “Vanessa, we need to talk.”

Vanessa kept her eyes trained on the pane of glass in front of her. “We are talking.”

“God, Ness, please don’t make this harder than it already is,” Brooke sighed, her face pleading. Vanessa’s head snapped round to face her and her eyes were what could only be described as murderous.

“Hard? Don’t fucking dare talk to me about hard,” she said, slowly and carefully and causing Brooke’s heart to frost over in fear. “This year has been shit, absolute shit, the shittest year of my life. You broke my heart- no, fuck that. You broke me. I had to take my goddamn feelings and put them all back together again, start from scratch while you swanned about absolutely fine. I am having to fight to get my average up because of the days I spent in my flat crying instead of going to lectures. Do you have any idea, Brooke, what this has been like for me?”

Brooke was silent as Vanessa continued relentlessly. “And then I finally got myself to a place where, hey, maybe I could be friends with you again! Then what happened? All the old feelings came back, didn’t they, and then we fucking…slept with each other and-”

“Hey, no,” Brooke jumped in, frowning and unable to listen to what was to come. “Don’t try to pin that on me, Vanessa, that was all you. It wasn’t me that fucking…straddled you in the hot tub and stripped off and talked about the sex I was having with other girls, was it?”

“Oh, no! You’re right. You’re correct,” Vanessa smiled sarcastically, soon getting replaced with a scowl. “You only got with me incredibly intensely in front of seven of our closest friends, who knew all the shit that’s gone down between us and watched like a fucking soap opera.”

“Well I didn’t hear you complaining at the time!” Brooke bit back, causing Vanessa to fall silent and play with a thread of her ripped jeans. Brooke let out a breath she’d been holding, took in a huge gulp of air. “Look, this is…this is off to a bad start.”

Brooke watched Vanessa’s throat move as she swallowed, her eyes cast downwards. Brooke was good at holding in her feelings, bottling them up like her life depended on it. She was terrified of feeling too much. She had no idea how this conversation was meant to start, but she knew she had to have it.

“Vanessa, I am sorry. I know it doesn’t mean much to you, but for what it’s worth, I am. I’m sorry for going about everything the wrong way. I’d never…done anything like this before, never properly seen anyone like I was seeing you, so I didn’t know how to behave. And fuck, maybe I was leading you on, and I’m sorry for that too. I just didn’t know what I wanted. Well, I thought I knew what I wanted but then I just…didn’t any more. I’m sorry for hurting you. I didn’t realise how much you liked me until it was too late,” Brooke cut herself off, sighing and feeling a bubble of sadness rise up in her throat. “Fuck, I’m trying to put it all the way I want it but nothing’s coming out right.”

Vanessa was looking at her, she knew it, but Brooke’s gaze had dropped to the floor. She brought her knees up to her chest. There was so much she wanted to say to Vanessa but none of the sentences she constructed in her head seemed to be sufficient.

“That night. You said that you missed me,” Vanessa’s voice was soft and small as she spoke, stripped from all the venom it had held before. “Did you mean it?”

Brooke jumped in instantly. “Yes.”

Vanessa was now looking at the floor, picking at her shoelace. “And did you mean…as a friend, or…just the sex, or…”

Brooke took a deep breath. I love you I love you IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou. The words were so close to coming out, but she stopped them. Now wasn’t the right time, nowhere near the right time. She tried to think about what the perfect response would be, sighed, scrapped it, and decided to just simply speak. “I miss you as…everything. I miss you as whatever you want to be to me. I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me. I just miss you for all that you are, the person you are. I miss us,” Brooke paused, realised her last remark was slightly risky. “Interpret that…however you want.”

Brooke snuck a gaze at Vanessa. A thought struck her as memories ran round her mind, and now she had started talking it seemed she couldn’t stop. “Do you remember after we…after lazerquest. Yvie’s birthday. We met up and we spoke about things and you said something. That whatever happens, we’d be friends always. Do you remember?”

Vanessa gave a little laugh. “You can wear a set of armbands in a current, don’t mean you won’t drown.”

She saw Brooke’s confused look, shot her a bashful smile. “I never expected to…end up feeling so strongly for you at the start. Didn’t expect to get as crazy about you as I got. Man…I wish you could turn feelings off.”

Brooke felt herself frown, a deep regret settling in the pit of her stomach. “I wish that too.”

She didn’t miss the brief look of surprise that flashed across Vanessa’s face. In the lull in conversation that followed, Vanessa wordlessly pushed the packet of crisps towards Brooke. She took one. Chilli heatwave wasn’t her favourite flavour, but it was a peace offering, and she’d take what she could get.

"So I stopped sleeping with Monique,” Vanessa commented, shrugging a little. Brooke blinked, almost choked on her crisp as she raced to get a reply out.

“Uh, yeah, I did notice you were a bit weird about things when Nina said you should call her.”

Vanessa pushed some hair out of her face, puffed her cheeks up with air and blew out harshly. “Monet kinda told me…she was catching feelings, and obviously I wasn’t there for that. So I said to her we shouldn’t keep going.”

Brooke felt a little twinge of pain for Monique. The poor girl had a crush and was just caught in the crossfire. “And how did she take it?”

Vanessa stared through the glass, her gaze steadfast. “I could tell she was sad. Disappointed. She didn’t start cryin’ or nothing, but…God, I still felt bad. I liked her, you know, she was a great girl. Maybe there’s a parallel universe where she took my heart and patched it all up again and we ended up together but…that’s not what it was for me. And the more she said she understood and that she hoped I’d find happiness, the worse I felt for having to tell her I wanted something different.”

Brooke nodded. She wanted to tell Vanessa that she knew the feeling all too well, but she didn’t want to interrupt her. Vanessa turned her head slowly, finally making eye contact with Brooke, and her eyes were the softest they’d been in a while. “I guess what I’m sayin’ is…I know now what it must have been like for you to break it off with me. And yeah, it completely fuckin’ wrecked me but…you did what you had to do. So…I forgive you, Brooke Lynn.”

Brooke couldn’t quite believe Vanessa was in front of her saying all this. Instinctively she wanted to launch herself forward and hug her, thanking her for her change of heart. Just as she’d convinced herself she was almost going to do it, Vanessa spoke again. Her voice held a slightly more steely note to it now. “But I don’t forgive you for kissing me or for that night in the hot tub. That really fucked with me.”

Brooke fought the urge to snap a childish you started it at her and instead said a soft okay. She also fought the urge to reach out and place a hand on top of Vanessa’s. The building was still pitch black and silent and the girls had reached a conversational purgatory. Vanessa had forgiven her for some of her mistakes at least. This was the closure Brooke had wanted. Despite herself, she found herself opening her mouth. There was so much still unresolved.

“You must kind of hate me for that."

Vanessa snorted, tilted her head to the sky. "I do and I don’t.”

A small silence. Brooke knew what she wanted to say, knew what topic she wanted to breach, but it meant plunging head first into the icy chill of the great unknown, and as much as she wanted to talk about it she was terrified of doing so.

“Is that because part of you loves me?”

It was out before Brooke knew it. Vanessa had frozen, her body unmoving with her head still positioned towards the ceiling like a terrifying Exorcist yoga pose. Brooke could immediately predict it, could practically hear it- Vanessa’s quick, sarcastic response, don’t flatter yourself, her getting up and thundering away to another part of the building in some angry game of hide and seek. She couldn’t face any of those options, so Brooke continued talking. “I was in the bathroom at the same time. In the next stall along from you and the girls. I heard you say that you never got to tell me. Did you mean it?”

“Why are you asking me this, Brooke? Is it to add insult to injury? Is it not enough knowing that the girl you broke it off with can still come crawling back into bed with you so easily, you have to rub salt into the wound by getting me to fucking…” Brooke heard Vanessa take a big deep, shaky breath, felt the tears prick at the corners of her own eyes. “…admit that I’m in love with you, yes, okay? I love you. What’s the reason?”

“Because I…fuck,” Brooke jumped in then immediately stopped. She felt her jaw wire itself shut, almost paralysed with fear. She didn’t know if she could verbalise everything she was feeling. “I’m not good at talking about this stuff.”

“No shit, Miss Marple,” Vanessa quipped bitterly, her eyes back looking at the carpet and avoiding Brooke’s gaze. The lack of eye contact helped Brooke. She carried on.

“You know, I used to lie in bed before I went to sleep and rehearse what I would say to you to tell you I liked you,” Brooke gave a laugh, remembering when things were more simple. “Except none of it worked out that way. And now I’ve actually got a second chance at it, I’m almost too frightened to say it. I completely fucked it with you, Vanessa. You’re an absolute one of a kind person. Your smile just makes me happy whether or not it’s directed at me. The love and loyalty you have for your friends makes me proud of you. You’re so determined and hard working and you’re smashing your degree. And you’re kind. You see the good in everyone and you’re not afraid to feel and tell the world all about it. All these things that I just…love about you. It took me being away from you and making the biggest mistake of my life, and that night when we were together like everything was back to normal, it took all of that to make me realise that I’m…fuck..”

Brooke almost hadn’t realised she was crying until a sob bubbled up in her throat, almost choking her. It was almost like her body’s survival mechanism, trying to save her from the potential rejection she might face once the words were out.

Fuck it.

“I’m in love with you. I love you so much that it scares me. It scares me more than being fucking…trapped in the library in the pitch black with no way out,” Brooke let out a hybrid of a laugh and a sob. By now, Vanessa had lifted her gaze to look at Brooke, and Brooke had shifted hers so she could protect herself from Vanessa’s reaction. “Because I don’t want to hurt you again, and you deserve better than someone like me.”

“Then don’t,” Vanessa said quietly.

“What?” Brooke whispered, confused. She tugged the sleeves of her jumper over her hands and jammed them under her eyes, used them to stop the tears from escaping.

“You said you don’t want to hurt me again. Then don’t,” Vanessa repeated patiently. Brooke blinked. She had no idea what that meant, so she went with the knowledge she had at hand.

“I love you, and you love me,” Brooke said softly, finally meeting Vanessa’s eyes. “Can we…do something with that information?”

Vanessa let out a loud blast of a laugh, making Brooke giggle even though she didn’t know what was funny. “God, that’s the most Brooke Lynn Hytes way of asking me out ever. Can we do something with that information.”

Vanessa’s smile was infectious. It lit up Brooke’s heart and she wanted nothing more than to lean forward and kiss her gently, to make Vanessa hers properly this time. As her smile faded though, Brooke felt her hope fade too. Vanessa let out a world-weary sigh. “Brooke, I don’t…I don’t know if I can do this all over again.”

Brooke’s heart dropped to the floor and shattered. She wanted to say something, fill the silence and reassure her, but nothing came out. She had opened up, and it had all been for nothing. This was her karma- she had broken Vanessa’s heart and now here was Vanessa breaking hers. She felt crushed. Lacking the energy to do it properly, she nodded her head once, the action small and probably barely noticeable.

It was so quiet that Brooke could hear Vanessa swallow beside her, hear her breathing deeply to calm herself down before she spoke. “You never hear it in the movies but sometimes…sometimes love isn’t enough, you know, sometimes you need to put yourself first, and sometimes the person you love ain’t necessarily the one who ends up making you happiest.”

Brooke felt her chest grow tight, felt ashamed as her head hung to the floor. She saw two tears fall from her eyes and drop onto the carpet, making identical, miniscule ponds.

“But then also,” Vanessa continued, the but aspect causing Brooke’s heart to dip and soar upwards as if it was on a rollercoaster. “I love you for a reason, don’t I? The way that you say shit that’s all sarcastic and funny. The way you make me laugh. The way you’re always blunt and truthful, and when you say nice things to me it feels like you’re just saying a fact. The way you got this childish, immature streak to you that makes everything feel like an adventure when I’m with you. You listen in the best way, ‘cause you never try an’ force advice down anyone’s throat. You’re always so concerned about everyone you care for and want them to be happy…and even though you ain’t good at expressin’ it, I know you have feelings and I know they scare you. You’re like a fuckin…model, you’re so beautiful and perfect. So that’s as simple as it has to be, right?”

Brooke looked up and saw tears in Vanessa’s own eyes. All the honesty was so raw and painful, like burnt or grazed skin, and it hurt and stung as if it was real. It was real. Brooke hid a sob, took a deep breath. “I don’t, uh. I don’t know where we take this.”

“I want to be with you. I want to love and be loved, feel my heart fuckin’…burst like it’s made of confetti,” Vanessa continued, letting out what could have been a sob or a laugh. “But I want to be happy. I don’t want to be hurt again. I’m scared.”

“I’m scared too,” Brooke nodded, feeling the tracks the tears were making down her face. She sighed, the pain in her heart too heavy for her to carry. “Fuck, maybe we’re just not meant for each other, maybe we got our chance already. Maybe nothing should come of this-”

“But, fuck, I love you, Brooke! And you love me,” Vanessa sighed in exasperation, her mascara collecting under her eyes as her own tears continued to fall. “And that…that means something.”

“I love you,” Brooke repeated, in case it counted for anything. It meant the world to her. Vanessa gave a sad smile, reached out and took Brooke’s hand and laced their fingers together. She squeezed Brooke’s hand twice, and the simple gesture made Brooke hopeful that everything was going to be okay.

“Shit, I waited so long to hear you say that and now it’s like…” Vanessa began sadly, trailing off. Brooke didn’t push her to finish her sentence. Instead, she squeezed her hand like Vanessa had done with hers. The action seemed to work as a prompt, because she spoke again, tilting her head with curiosity. “What do you want outta all this?”

Brooke knew immediately. “I want you. I want us to be us again.”

Vanessa let out a soft sigh, paused. “Okay, well. I don’t know what I want right now, Brooke. An’ it’s gonna be hard to start again. So you’re gonna need to give me time to decide.”

“That’s okay. I’ll wait for you. You can take all the time you need,” Brooke reassured her instantly. “I’ll still be here.”

Vanessa’s hand shifted in her own. Brooke watched as she frowned a little, cast her gaze her way again. "You mean that?”

“I mean it. Whatever you decide. Whether we’re worth an extra chance or not. I’ll wait for you.”

A small smile crept onto Vanessa’s face as Brooke waited for her reply. “That’s the most romantic shit anyone ever said to me.”

“Well, it’s just the truth,” Brooke muttered, feeling her cheeks grow hot and glad that the dark room would hide her pink blush. Then, getting an idea and feeling a little spark of that childishness and immaturity Vanessa seemed to love so much, Brooke let go of Vanessa’s hand and held out her other one for her to shake. The other girl looked at her, a funny, confused smile on her face as she took her hand and shook it obediently.

“Hey. I’m Brooke Lynn,” she began, trying to suppress her smile as she spoke. Vanessa giggled, falling back a little then leaning forward.

“What are you…”

“Starting again. What’s your name, beautiful?” Brooke teased, all the darkness somehow bursting into colour as Vanessa laughed beside her, swatting her on her arm with her hand. She hadn’t seen this Vanessa in so long; happy, laughing, cheerful and playful. Brooke could’ve cried with how much she’d missed her.

“This is some dumbass shit, you know that?” Vanessa giggled, but Brooke could see the blush on her own cheeks illuminated by the streetlamps outside. Vanessa appeared to see her expectant face, laughed a resigned laugh and indulged her. “Nice to meet you, Brooke. I’m Vanjie. Well, Vanessa, but everyone calls me Vanjie.”

“Can I call you Vanessa? It’s pretty. It suits you.”

Vanessa laughed again, making Brooke give a chuckle too. “Bitch! You never flirted with me this hard the first time.”

“Well the first time we were friends, so I couldn’t flirt with you. Not properly like I wanted to anyway,” Brooke laughed, taking a Dorito and throwing it at her playfully. Vanessa squealed, toppling herself out of the way. “You, on the other hand, flirted all the time.”

“I’m a flirtatious person! You shouldn’t have taken that shit personal,” Vanessa protested, attempting to look offended but unable to wipe the smile off her face.

“So Vanessa,” Brooke carried on, trying to stop herself smiling as she carried on with the charade. “What are you studying?”

They carried on like that all through the night, being silly and getting to know each other again right from the very beginning. They had missed out on so much conversation over the past few months that it was actually nice to catch up, to re-establish herself in Vanessa’s life. She was looking at graduate jobs in events management for after uni and thinking of moving home to save money. For a fleeting moment Brooke almost suggested that they move in together but she was glad she had the sense not to verbalise that, a thought that was perhaps better bottled up and saved for another time. After all, Vanessa hadn’t even decided if she wanted to be with Brooke or not yet. Brooke had to cling on to the hope that maybe she would, because she had nothing else. Well, that was a lie. She had Vanessa’s smile and her laugh, the twinkle in her eyes when Brooke made a deadpan comment. She had the way Vanessa opened up to her, told her how scared she was of trying to navigate the world on her own after she graduated. She had the way that Vanessa shuffled close to her when the sun eventually began to rise, its glow a burnt orange ombre into a soft yellow which faded into the gentle blue of the morning sky. She had the way Vanessa’s head fit perfectly into the crook of her neck as, worn out and exhausted, she closed her eyes and dozed off in Brooke’s tentative arms.

Most of all, she had the fact that Vanessa loved her, and Brooke loved her back. And even though it hadn’t been the movie scene confession Brooke had been expecting, that fact, the sunrise, and Vanessa sleeping softly against her chest was enough for her for the moment.

#rpdr fanfiction #not nineteen forever #n19f #ortega #branjie #scyvie #ninex #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #lesbian au #college au #university au #nina west #silky nutmeg ganache #s11

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prince-liest · 4 years

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6, 7, 21, 39 (what can I say, we’re curious about the same things 😂)

Haha, I feel it!! There’s some prime questions on this thing, tbqh... This is from this ask meme.

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

Answered here (tl;dr: worldbuilding from scratch) and I think another is writing a cohesive long-form story plot. However, while the previous weakness is something I’m not sure how to address, I think this is really just a matter of practice. I actually saw a cool piece of advice recently, something like ‘write your first draft, then for your second draft, make it look like you did it all intentionally,’ which I think is honestly exactly what I needed, haha!

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

"Hawks," she says, hands finally stilling in his hair. She cups his cheek gently, shakes his shoulder. "Wake up, dear."

He was never asleep, wouldn’t dare to waste her time by sleeping, but he opens his eyes nonetheless, staring up at her. He has no idea what kind of expression he's making, but whatever it is makes her lips twist.

"I'll see you next week, alright?" She reassures him, shifting him upwards.

He goes, limp and weak in the face of her arms' gentle pressure.

"Please," Hawks whispers, and looks down at the fabric of the couch, hands twisting over one another and hooking, just barely, onto the edge of her sweater. The word crawls out of his throat against his will, and hot shame trails after it like bubbles.

There is a pause, and Nao-san is kind enough to run a hand through his hair one last time before she stands, carefully guiding his hands off of her.

"Please remember to rest well," she tells him, "I know your work is very difficult, and you have that surgery coming up tomorrow."

He nods, still staring down, and doesn't ask again. She shows herself out.

- the Sword of Damocles is Swinging, chapter five

I genuinely am so happy with how the entire scene with Nao-san came out, but her departure is probably my favorite part of it. There’s a lot packed in here, and I’m happy with how much of it is there for inference rather than being stated outright - because it can’t be stated outright when Hawks is the narrator, and refuses to acknowledge that what’s going on is wrong. The bit where Hawks’s internal narration calls her parting gesture kind, when the whole scene pretty much aches of cruelty - I think that’s really representative of the entire encounter.

21. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

Not as much as I should, LOL! I do a first draft, do spot revisions, ask my friends to beta it, and then try to do an actual proper revision... but that last one doesn’t usually happen if it’s something I can post immediately, because by that point I’m often absolutely sick of looking at what I’ve written.

(That said, I do a lot more revising for zine fics, collabs, and gift fics than I do for stuff that’s just mine. I wanna make sure to respect other people’s time and efforts!)

39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

Fittingly, my situation is exactly like yours: I’ve only gotten one, and I’m not even sure if it was intended to be rude - though it was. I did end up responding, kindly but... my version of rude was pointedly not thanking them, haha, which idk if they even registered. If someone was ever clearly deliberately rude, I’d probably just delete it, though.

#writing meta #ask memes #slightlycrunchy #replies

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inkforhumanhands · 4 years

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Oooo, is this an ask meme I see? Answer all of them >:). Lol, but in all seriousness, 1-10

Anon, you are terribleeeeeeee.

What’s your personal favourite thing you wrote this year? If WIPs count, You Would Never Call Me Baby (if you search my blog for that tag the small bits I’ve posted should show up).

What’s your least favourite thing you wrote this year? lmaoo a ficlet called Moonlighting that I’m just about to post to AO3 after I make some small edits to it. I don’t like it because I was lazy since it was for a prompt and just stuck to a sexist trope that this world probably doesn’t need any more of. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Which of your fics was most different from what you usually write? Probably Escapees just by virtue of being a pet shop AU. I don’t usually write AUs, or if I do they’re very close to the world of canon, so pet shop was definitely different. Also honestly most of the ficlets that came out of Writer’s Month 2020 are not my usual jam, so if you know me only from ficlets get prepared for when I post stuff that actually came 100% from my own brain. ;D

Which of your fics this year was most successful? Going by kudos, Sniffer Dog ended up tied with Bess. Going by comment threads, A Learning Experience.

Which of your fics do you wish was more successful? Friendly Competition featuring Brett, which only has 7 kudos of shame lol (I think it was bad timing and lack of a ship that killed it.) also Cartography. I know prose poems aren’t that popular but I like this one.

What’s your favourite piece of dialogue you wrote this year? Okay I don’t know if this is cheating since I can’t really give away the whole conversation for spoiler reasons, but I think You Would Never Call Me Baby (still a WIP, I am SORRY) has some choice responses from Foggy. The first one is a chopped up bit of dialogue (as in part of Matt’s and some narration is missing). The second one is just Foggy’s response because Matt’s part is huge spoiler. ① Matt shook his head. “A sacrifice requires net loss. You’re not taking into account what I gained when I did all that stuff. I did it because I wanted you to like me, to– to ingratiate myself with you.” He shuddered in revulsion, hands coming unclasped to rub agitatedly at the back of his neck. “I’m looking at you in dismay, Matty.” ②“That’s a lot of F bombs for Matt Murdock,” Foggy observed.

What’s your favourite piece of description or narration? I suppose it’s a good thing that I’m having a really hard time choosing, but since most of my favorite parts are from Baby (the WIP) there are some I simply cannot show and therefore this excerpt isn’t my Favorite favorite, but I like it a lot nonetheless. The thing was, Matt had already relied too often on this story that made him a martyr, used it to prop himself up in his lowest moments until it had lost its potency. He’d had too many chances to revisit it, to revise the memory from his current standpoint. Too many opportunities to ransack it of all his agency. Matt had remade himself into less a hero and more a boy caught up in heroics. His accident could no longer be the proof Foggy thought it was—the proof Matt, too, longed for it to be.

Which fic this year was most fun to write? Hmm maybe A Learning Experience (linked above) because it was short and sweet and cracky.

If you could go back and change something about one of the fics you wrote this year, what would it be? Ties into my answer for #2, but I’m going to change Moonlighting to be slightly less sexist (hopefully?).

What, if anything, are you going to try to do differently in your writing in the new year? Write faster? (lol)

#ask games #inkfic #Anonymous #asks

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lucy-sky · 5 years

Text

Opposites (Ezra x Reader)

Summary: Being a freelance digger you landed on The Green Moon in search for treasure, and found more than you expected. You meet Ezra - a man you used to work with in the past. You had a history, but this relationship led to nothing. Is it a good idea to team up with him again, or not? Soon you’ll find out.

Words: 6 130

Warnings: Sexual content (quite fluffy, but still)

Note: Okay... I totally didn’t expect this movie to hit me THAT hard, but I guess it happened - I wrote a fic. And it’s rather long, omg. So... What you need to know about me is that I very seldom write about not Sam Rockwell characters, so this story is smth a bit out of my comfort zone. Also this is only the 2nd time I’m trying to write some kind of an action scene and it’s a real struggle for me to put such things into words (English is not my native language). Anyway, since I’m new to Pedro Pascal fandom and since I haven’t seen much content with this particular character (why though???), I’m very curious (and slightly anxious) about people’s opinions on this story. So, your feedback is greatly appreciated! But please be gentle :’D

@biobiopsy, you asked me to tag you, so here you go :)

That day was totally not the best in your carrier. After spending hours wandering over the wilds of The Green Moon, all you had in your case was a couple of gems. It was getting late and your filter was almost spent, but you still haven’t found a decent aurelac deposit.

After a short break you decided to head back to your ship. The filter wasn’t going to last long anyways. Maybe tomorrow you’d be luckier… But as you were just about to leave, something caught your eye. The ground… Was it what you thought it was? You got closer, took off your backpack and reached for the kit.

No way. No fucking way. It was a freaking goldmine!

Finally the fortune seemed to smile upon you! But now you had a problem: he deposit was large; getting the gems takes time, you knew from experience that rush is your worst enemy when it comes to this. Damn it! Why didn’t you just take a spare filter with you?

A sudden rustle from behind interrupted your thoughts. Your reaction was fast - you turned around abruptly, jerking out the thrower.

- Whoa, easy… Y/n??

You blinked in confusion. The man, standing in front of you, was someone you totally didn’t expect to meet right here and right now.

- Ezra?

Yes, it obviously was him. A man you used to work with about a year ago as a part of diggers team. He didn’t seem to change at all: same bold look in his dark brown eyes, same bright smile… You still remembered kissing those lips once - something you wished to forget, and almost succeeded in this… But life was never predictable.

- Damn, y/n, is it really you? Long time no see… It’s been a year, huh?

- Guess so, - you nodded, the weapon still pointed at him.

- Hey, come on, I came in peace, - Ezra chuckled, but you didn’t move.

- It’s my place, - you said harshly.

- Is it? Forgive me, but I don’t see any signs saying it’s exclusively yours.

- I got here first. The Green is big enough, go find your own.

- So we’ve just met and you’re already asking me to leave? That’s not very nice. Didn’t you miss me? - He smirked cockily.

- Not really.

- Shame. Cause I did. Where’s your team, y/n?

- I’m working for myself now.

- Oh. Why’s that?

- People can betray, - you snapped. - Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.

- Really? So that’s the reason you’re so mad? My so called “betrayal”?

- You stole the gems and disappeared. What else should I call it?

- Hey! Let me remind you, I didn’t take the entire harvest, just took what’s mine. I think that’s fair enough. And… Whatever you call it, you should know - it has absolutely nothing to do with you. It’s all about the asshole we used to work for these days. As far as I remember, you thought he’s an asshole too, right?

- Right. You knew that. So you could at least let me know about your plans.

- I… - He stumbled, - Only didn’t want to get you in trouble. Plus you kinda pushed me away so I didn’t want to be too persistent.

- Wow, you’re such a gentleman, - you replied sarcastically. Ezra let out an annoyed sigh.

- Anyway, I’m not here to steal anything from you. I would never do such a thing. I just wanted to offer a helping hand, - he continued.

- So far, I somehow manage without you.

- And I’ve never called it in question. But hey, this deposit… it’s really impressive. There’s more than enough aurelac for both of us, and together we can harvest it way faster. I mean… you don’t want other floaters to come across it, do you?

There was something suspicious about the way he talked… You narrowed your eyes examining his face through the glass helmet.

- You need something from me, right? Apart from the gems.

- Huh?.. - It was his turn now to look confused.

- What about your team, Ezra? - You cocked an eyebrow. - Where is it?

- I uh… See, I’m not always work in a team, sometimes I run solo as well…

- Okay. What about your ship than?

- Uh…

- Let me guess. They flew away and left you here, did they?

From his expression you could already guess the answer.

- Something like that. We had a kind of a… Misunderstanding.

- Well… Guess now you see how the karma works, - you couldn’t suppress a chuckle.

- Haha. Very funny, - he grimaced. - Look, I’m really sorry about what happened… Between us, okay? Believe it or not, I don’t wanna cause you any harm. I’m actually really glad to see you… Even though you keep pointing this thing at me. I’m not an enemy. Just think of it - we can be really helpful for each other. I’ve no doubts you are prehensile enough to understand.

“Prehensile”... Only Ezra could use such kind of a word in his regular speech... Maybe that’s why he was always good at convincing. But this time it wasn’t even about benefits or something. Was he helpful or not, one thing you knew for sure: you couldn’t leave him like that.

There was also another, less noble reason to accept his suggestion: you couldn’t stay here any longer, and leaving right now meant giving him your deposit.

- Fine, - you finally put the thrower down. - My filter is very low. Could you share?

- Sure, - Ezra smiled, his posture instantly getting more relaxed. - Although mine’s not new as well… Not much for the two people… But at least we can start working. There’s still time until it gets dark.

- Deal, - you agreed.

- Hey, y/n.

- Yes?

- I’m glad you’re doing well. Really.

“Sounds like he means it”, you thought.

- Yeah… Glad you’re doing well too… Or at least you’re alive and optimistic.

- This is the way I am, sweetheart, - he winked.

- Please don’t do that.

- What?

- Don’t call me “sweetheart”. Or I’ll change my mind about giving you a ride.

- Alright, no problem, - Ezra made a serious face. - You’re the boss.

- Let’s get to it, than.

***

Darkness already blinded the sky above The Green Moon completely when you finally reached your ship.

- So this beauty is all yours, huh? Not too bad! - Ezra nodded approvingly, looking around.

- Well, I’m actually still paying for it… But yep, it’s mine. This ship is my home, so treat it respectfully, okay?

- Of course. I bet after the harvest we’re about to get you’ll be able to pay the rest easily.

- That’s why I chose working for myself. When you work for someone, it’s exhausting as fuck, and you don’t get nearly as much profit as you expect. Plus the people are sometimes assholes. But that’s not even the point. The point is - I have no idea how much time it would take me to earn enough if I kept working like I used to.

- You’re right, that’s a hell of a job. Don’t do that anymore either… Well, maybe some occasional contract gig when I’m not occupied with something else… Only I still prefer working with partners, you know… Someone who shares my views.

- Yeah, you’re apparently too talkative to stay alone for a long time.

- What can I do? - Ezra scoffed. - I’m a heart and soul of a party.

- And here’s where it took you… - You remarked.

He just shrugged.

- Everything happens for a reason. You got something to eat?..

After an improvised dinner you spent a couple of hours revising supplies and preparing for tomorrow. When everything was ready, you took a wise decision to get some rest. Even though you covered the deposit with mud and moss as much as you possibly could before leaving, you still had to return to the dig early, or your place could be discovered by someone else.

- Hey, can I ask you something? - You said when you both were lying on the cots opposite each other.

- Shoot.

- What were you actually going to do? I mean… You’re alone here, with no ship, with the last filter left…What was your plan?

- Plan?.. Well I thought of finding some settlers and ask them. Perhaps I could bargain for something…

- Like what?

- No idea. I’d figure something out, I always do. That’s how I survive, - Ezra shrugged.

- This is crazy.

- Maybe. But you just can’t be prepared for absolutely anything.

- I’m at least trying to.

- Yeah, right. You hate asking for help, do you? Also I think you’ve got trust issues, sweetheart.

- I just choose to rely on myself, not someone else in the first place. And I don’t consider it an issue, end of story. And by the way, what did I tell you about “sweetheart”?

- Fine, fine, whatever you say, - he threw his hands up jokingly. You rolled your eyes.

- You know what? We could actually make a great team, - Ezra suddenly went after a pause.

- Seriously? - You huffed. - What makes you think so?

- Opposites attract.

- Bullshit. Go to sleep already.

With this you turned away from him. As you closed your eyes, you could hear him chuckling. What a cocky bastard. Yet you had to admit, at least to yourself - you really kind of missed him.

***

You woke up even earlier than expected. Partly due to nervous anticipation and partly because another person’s presence on your ship next to you felt a bit awkward.

Ezra was still asleep, and you caught yourself staring at his calm and peaceful features with a subtle tender sensation deep inside your chest… What’s wrong with you, y/n? A guy you had a vaguely romantic relationship with about a year ago appears out of the blue and you’re already melting. What a shame. And yet… You couldn’t help thinking about what may have happened if you didn’t push him away, if you weren’t afraid… What exactly you were afraid of? Getting too close?.. Perhaps he was right about trust issues though… No, this relationship would most certainly lead to nothing. You’re too different in many ways…

Opposites attract.

You shook your head. There was no time for self-scrutiny at the moment. You had to concentrate on work. Once it’s done, you’d have time to figure out your feelings. And also find out if you can really trust him or not.

Decidedly, you stood up and reached out to shake his shoulder.

- Wake up, sleeping beauty. The gems are not gonna dig themselves out.

The man let out a soft grunt.

- Seriously, Ezra. I’m not gonna tell you twice.

- Alright, alright, I’m awake, - he squinted at you. - You’re not very sweet in the mornings, you know that?

- I’ll take it as a compliment.

***

It was an extremely productive day. You had to admit: working with a partner was way more effective than doing it alone. With Ezra’s help you also managed to bring and set a tent where you could have breaks and eat without returning to the ship. It saved you lots of time.

One of today’s trophies you were particularly proud of. You already sensed something special as you pulled out a cocoon way heavier than usual. The color was slightly different as well.

- Ezra, look, - you called out. He frowned, carefully examining your finding.

- Why do you think it’s like that? - You asked.

- No idea. But we have to be careful. Let’s find out, - he reached for a knife. - Hold it like that…

You both held your breath as he made a cut.

- Ha! Perfect, - he gave you a triumphant grin.

Once the meat was removed, you saw an aurelac gem you’ve never seen before. It was huge, and almost entirely golden.

- Have you ever seen something like that? - You asked, staring at the gem in awe.

- Never. Just heard something about it. I thought it’s a myth…

- Hey.

You took your eyes off the trophy and faced him.

- We’re not splitting the gems, right? We take the harvest, return to the center, sell it and then split the reward evenly. Agreed?

- Sounds fair to me, - Ezra nodded. - I’m in.

- Awesome. Let’s get back to work than?

- Yes, Ma’am! - He replied with a chuckle. - By the way, what are you gonna do with all this money, apart from paying for the ship?

- Didn’t really think about it…

- I’d go somewhere for a nice long vacation, - he said dreamily. - Kamrea maybe… I’ve heard it’s a lovely place... Care to join me for further inspection?..

- I don’t know.

- Ah, come on! Why not?

- I’m not completely sure if I can trust you yet, - you said honestly.

- Okay… - He paused, then smiled. - Anyway, since we’re stuck together, you still have plenty of time make up your mind.

***

Walking back to the ship that night you both felt tired but pretty content. It gets dark quite fast here on The Green Moon, so you had to use flashlights. Ezra was telling you one of his many funny stories as you walked, when you suddenly heard a rustle from the bushes to the left of you.

- Hey, did you hear it? - You asked, tensing immediately, your hand slowly moving to the thrower.

He nodded, ready to grab his weapon as well.

The rustle continued.

- Who’s there? - Ezra asked out loud, pointing the gun at the bushes. - Show yourself!

At first nothing happened. You looked at each other, shrugged and decided to keep going, but once you started moving again, three silhouettes stepped out of the darkness, blocking your way. And they were pointing throwers at you as well.

- What the hell… - Ezra muttered. - Hey guys! Maybe we’ll talk like civilized people first, how ‘bout that?..

The tallest person said something, but you didn’t understand a thing - apparently these people didn’t speak your language. And they didn’t sound very friendly.

- Harvest, - you finally heard. - We need harvest.

- Sorry to upset you, buddy, but I’m afraid it’s not gonna happen. Our harvest is ours, - Ezra replied boldly.

- Ours.

The following things happened really fast: the tallest guy pointed the gun at Ezra, but he was faster and managed to injure him. Dropping the tent on the ground you rushed to the right, shooting on your way. The enemies were shooting back. One of them fell. But it was just a start: there were more of them, to the right and the left, you couldn’t tell exactly how many. All you could do at the moment was run. And shoot. It was too dark already and you had no idea if you actually managed to hurt any of them or not… Good thing they didn’t have any night vision devices either. The ship wasn’t far. You could already see it. But damn! These people just didn’t let you go. They seemed to be everywhere. Whispers and rustles of the forest and darkness didn’t help you at all. But still you managed to move forward somehow.

At some point you lost Ezra and the panic immediately started rising up inside you. In this darkness you could easily hurt each other instead of the enemies. With a shaky voice, you called out his name, knowing full well that shouting is not a good idea, but you instantly felt relieved when his hand found yours.

- I’m here. C’mon!

He pulled you with him behind the nearest tree.

- Fuck! Who the hell are they?? - You whispered frantically.

- Pretty sure they ain’t no floaters. Just bastards who don’t wanna dig but prefer ravaging the others… Fucking pirates! They found the ship and set the trap.

- But we can make it, right? It’s not that far.

- We have to. Come on, let’s go.

Still holding hands tightly you proceeded moving towards the ship.

- Ezra, look out!

You saw a pirate stepping out of the bush right behind him, and you shot. When you pulled the trigger again, you realized the thrower was empty.

- Shit!

Ezra shot a couple more times, before his thrower went off, but thankfully his shots were tidy enough to fetch down the opponent. You ran a few of meters more and hid behind the tree again, catching your breath.

- Got more cassettes? - You asked him.

He searched in his pocket.

- Just one.

Damn. The situation was getting even worse.

- Okay, got an idea, - Ezra said decidedly. - Here’s what we’re gonna do. You take the case with gems and run to the ship as fast as you can. I cover you with the thrower. Get inside and start the engine. If I won't be there in… Two minutes - you take off. Clear?

The plan was risky, but what else you could do? In these circumstances you just had no other choice than to trust him.

- Y/n? Can you do that?

- Yeah… Yes, I think I can, - you nodded, breathing heavily. - Let’s do it.

- Okay.

Ezra reached his pocket and recharged his thrower with a new cassette.

- Ready? - He asked and you nodded again. - Oh, wait.

He took something off his front pocket and tucked it into yours. You thought it was probably his empty cassettes to recharge on board the ship.

- There. Now go!

- Two minutes, right?

- Two minutes, - he nodded reassuringly and squeezed your hand in his for a split second. Enough to make your heart shrink. - Go!

Without further hesitation, you took a deep breath and rushed towards the ship. Your heart was hammering wildly inside your chest; all you could hear was your heavy breathing and the shots behind you. Someone wailed in pain. You were hoping with all your heart it wasn’t Ezra.

Only a few steps were separating you from the ship when suddenly a dark figure appeared right in front of you, as if out of nowhere. You had no time to think about what you were doing. As you saw the thrower pointed at you, you had to use the only possible weapon you had - the case with gems. So you did. Before the stranger managed to pull the trigger, your case crashed against the front of his helmet. You heard the sound of cracking glass and hit again; suddenly the case popped open and about a half of its content scattered to the ground. Apparently you broke the lock somehow, but there was no time to collect the stones. Taking the advantage of your enemy being disoriented, you rushed to the door and entered the security code with shaky fingers. Whoever these pirates were, they definitely weren’t smart enough to crack this code and break inside the ship.

Taking off your helmet and gloves, you ran to the cockpit, quickly started the engines, and then recharged your thrower in case if Ezra needed help.

“Two minutes.”

The time was running out. All of a sudden you realized how you’re actually afraid of losing him.

- Come on, Ezra!.. - You muttered through clenched teeth, staring at your watch. Less than half a minute left.

“I’m not gonna take off without him.”

You stood up, grabbed the thrower, and headed back to the door. A sudden loud noise following by a low grunt made you flinch.

- Ezra? - You shouted. - Ezra, is that you?

There was no answer and you felt like sinking.

- Ezra?..

- Yes, that’s me! Take off! NOW!

You let out a deep sigh of relief and ran back to the cockpit.

“Alright than… 3… 2… 1…”

- Ezra, hold onto something!

The engines roared and the ship took off. You closed your eyes, trying to breathe evenly and compose yourself.

“It’s over. We’re safe now.”

***

In a few minutes the ship left the planet’s orbit, so you could finally switch on the automatic flight control and go check on Ezra. He still wasn’t around and you worried he might be hurt. The dust of The Green Moon made every single scratch a possible lethal danger.

You found him next to the door, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall with his eyes closed.

- Ezra… Is everything alright?.. - You asked anxiously, hunkering down next to him. - Are you injured?..

He opened his eyes and looked up at you.

- I’m fine… Y/n… You won’t believe it, but… I think I twisted my ankle, - he scoffed.

For the second time tonight you didn’t know if you wanted to laugh or to cry because of relief. Unable to contain yourself, you leaned into him in a swift motion and hugged him tightly. Your reaction was so sudden it caused him jerk a little, but the next moment you felt him hugging you back.

- Hey… He whispered softly, letting his fingers run through your hair. – What did I tell you? Take off in two minutes. And how long did you wait?..

- I’ve always been stubborn, - you smirked against his shoulder.

- That’s what I always liked about you.

***

Later in your quarters, after you both finally got rid of the suits, you were helping Ezra to fix his ankle with a bandage.

- See, I was right, - He pointed out. - We really do make a good team. We have to think about working together in the future, huh?

- You know, I was really pissed at you, - You confessed. - When you left. I didn’t really care about the gems and stuff... But... It’s just that you simply disappeared without saying a word... As if I meant nothing for you.

You weren’t completely sure why you were telling this to him. Just a sudden desire to finally make it clear about how you felt. Ezra looked at you carefully, knitting his brow.

- I mean... I agree that it’s my fault as well, I really did pushed you away myself, so what else did I expect, but... still... - At this you stumbled, lost for words.

- Y/n, don’t. That was really shitty of me to leave like that, ‘cause it’s absolutely not true about you meaning nothing... I just... - He sighed deeply and the soft look in his brown eyes made your heart skip a beat. - I totally should have been more persistent.

Having said that, he reached out, his fingertips grazing against your cheek. A soft, barely perceptible touch, yet still so full of affection.

- I’m sorry, - he whispered, and leaned in.

The next thing you felt was his lips, warm and gentle against yours. The kiss was incredibly tender and quite chaste, but nevertheless it made you weak. Ezra pulled away a little, as if waiting for your reaction, but when you gripped onto his shoulders, he didn’t hesitate any longer. His lips crushed back on yours feverishly, his breath hot, and his tongue pushing inside your mouth decidedly, sending millions of shivers down your spine. He tasted and felt exactly the same as a year ago, but this time you both were way more desperate and needy at the sudden realization - you could have died tonight. In a way this kiss was a celebration of life, but also only now you realized very clearly how much you needed this, how long you’ve been completely on your own; and how you actually missed him, his touch and his warmth.

You gripped the back of his neck, pulling him even closer, melting against his frame with a trembling gasp as he let go of your lips only to nibble on your jawline. Your head felt light and dizzy of his closeness, sloppy kisses on your neck, tickling sensation of his facial hair against sensitive skin.

Deliriously, you let your hands wander to the hem of his shirt, slipping underneath and caressing his belly. Ezra let go of you for a moment to pull the t-shirt off over his head and toss it aside. His body was firm and tanned and you marveled at the sight. Your shirt went next, and then he pulled you back in his embrace. The skin-to-skin contact almost made you shudder, almost too much for your touch starved body. Almost unbearable, but you still craved for it. Your breath quickened as his tongue traced your collarbone while his fingers struggled to undo your bra. You reached behind your back to help him and soon your breasts were exposed to his hungry eyes, darkened with lust. You bit your lip as his thumbs brushed against your hardened nipples, it was like the sparks of electricity flashing through your body. Greedily, he kissed your lips again, pulling you down on the cot with him, on top of him.

As you straddled him, you could feel how hard he already was underneath you. Unable to let go of his lips, you started slowly grinding against him to release the pressure building in your core, earning a quiet moan from him. It encouraged you to go further and trace his neck with your tongue. You could feel him shivering, tightening his grip on your hips.

He let you explore his body for a while, tracing his chest with your fingertips, peppering his collarbones with soft kisses, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to take it for too long. It’s been a while since someone touched him with real affection. At some point he just couldn’t contain himself any longer. Letting out a low groan, he seized your waist and flipped you onto your back. Your surprised gasp was muffled by his lips capturing yours again, before moving further down your body. The tip of his tongue just barely touched a hard peak of your nipple, but it caused you whimper out loud. Tenderly, he kissed his way between your breasts and down your belly, along the hem of your sweatpants, before tugging them down slowly.

When he pressed a soft kiss on your mound through the thin cotton of your underwear, you were about to scream. There was too much of him, to many sensations at once, and your insides were tingling and aching for release, but you couldn’t get rid of a slightly awkward feeling. You’ve never been that exposed to a man before. Emotionally and physically.

Ezra seemed to feel your tension. Frowning, he looked up at you.

- Uh, y/n… did you ever…

You felt blush creeping up your cheeks.

- Sorry, I… didn’t have much time for romance… - You mumbled.

- It’s okay, - he hushed, his deep brown eyes looking at you with such warmth and affection you couldn’t help but smile. - Just relax. You won’t regret it. Trust me.

You nodded, taking a deep breath. Trust him. Yes, you did trust him.

Once your panties were gone, he positioned himself between your thighs, and his hot breath against your center made you tremble with anticipation. Then his tongue carefully slid past your folds and you almost purred at the blissful sensation. After a few long and unhurried licks he settled at your throbbing clit, sucking on it gently, and it didn’t take long before you finally exploded, writhing and moaning shamelessly, fingers entangled into his soft messy hair. He kept going through your climax, licking you clean until the overstimulation caused you flinch. You were still a panting mess when he made his way back to your parted lips.

Slowly kissing him back, you could taste yourself on his tongue, and even though your insides still fluttered a bit in an aftermath of your climax, you still knew you needed more of him.

- You alright? - He asked quietly, stroking your cheek with his knuckles.

- Uh-huh, - you made, kissing his upper lip while reaching between your bodies to cup his bulge. He sighed, slightly bucking his hips at your touch.

- Ezra, - you whispered, your face so close to his your noses touched. – I… think you should take off your pants now…

- That makes sense, I guess, - he snickered mischievously, placing one more quick kiss on your lips before getting on his feet and tugging off his pants and underwear.

Hovering over you, Ezra pressed his forehead against yours, closing his eyes and humming softly as your fingers trailed down his torso, through the hairs on his lower belly, to stroke along his length. The throbbing, teasing sensation was driving him crazy, yet your sweet caress, so gentle and intimate, almost made him melt. He both craved for release and wanted it to last forever. He opened his eyes, met your gaze, and kissed you again, deeply and passionately, causing you tremble beneath him.

- I need you, - you breathed out against his mouth, and he obeyed. The sensation of him filling you up was overwhelming. He moved slowly at first, allowing you to adjust, but soon your moans and gasps of pleasure encouraged him to pick up the pace. Clinging to him, you enjoyed every second of this intimacy. Everything felt so good: the weight of his body on top of yours, his hot breath on your skin, quiet moans and grunts escaping him… Digging your nails into his shoulders you arched your hips to meet his thrusts, urging him to go deeper. His hand slid under the bend of your knee, lifting your leg a bit to get a better angle. You whimpered desperately, jolts of pleasure flashing deep within your core as he hit that sweet spot of yours, bringing you closer and closer to the edge. A couple more thrusts and you clenched around him, a wave of pure ecstasy washing all over your body from head to toes. Ezra felt dangerously close too. He pulled out with a groan and let go. Through the haze of your post-orgasmic bliss you could feel his warm load spilling over your belly.

He collapsed on top of you, panting, and you were simply lying like that for a while, his face buried into the crook of your neck, your fingers caressing his hair. You felt warm and sated, and completely safe in his arms. Ezra lifted his head lazily to look at you. His eyes were soft and sparkling, and you felt so much tenderness for him at the moment, that you couldn’t possibly put it into words. Instead, you kissed him. You kissed the corners of his mouth, the tip of his nose. You kissed that little wrinkle he had between his eyebrows and let your fingers run through his tousled hair. He had this little blond streak and you remembered asking him about it once, but he wasn’t sure himself when and how he actually got it. Anyway, you always found it adorable. Ezra took your hand in his and brought it to his mouth to kiss your knuckles.

- That was… Pretty intense, huh?.. - He smiled.

- Oh yes, it was.

- You know what we need right now? A shower.

- True, - you agreed. - You can go first then. The shower cabin is too small for the two of us anyways…

- Bullshit. Pretty sure we can fit. If we get close enough, - Ezra smirked. - You’re going with me, sweetheart. End of subject.

- Yes, sir, - you laughed.

Finally you could admit - you actually liked him calling you “sweetheart”. A lot.

***

You woke up lying on Ezra’s chest instead of a pillow. His calm and even breath and the warmth of his body against you felt nice and comforting, and not awkward at all this time.

In the world you lived, there was one thing you knew for sure - you had to be tough. Showing weakness was never safe. But now, with him for the first time in ages you weren’t afraid of being opened up and vulnerable. And it didn’t even matter how different you were. Yes, you’re the quiet one and he’s talkative, he’s chaotic and you’re organized, he’s spontaneous and you always need a plan… But none of these was important. The most important thing was - deep inside you both felt loneliness. Now you weren’t lonely anymore.

You felt like you could spend a lifetime just snuggling like that, it was perfection, except one thing - you realized you were hungry as a wolf. Unable to bear with the rumbling of your stomach any longer, you carefully slipped out of the bed, put on some clothes and headed to the cockpit.

Your backpack was still lying there on the floor. You opened it and grabbed a couple of protein bars and a thermos bottle. Sitting on the floor with your legs crossed, you took a sip of warm drink. Your body was aching but it was a pleasant sensation. You glanced at the timer on the dashboard to find out you still had a few hours until landing. No rush.

The case was there too, next to the backpack. You reached out and opened it. Damn. More than a half of your harvest was lost, including that rare big golden gem. You sighed. Well, at least you were alive and well… And in fact, you found something way more valuable than gemstones.

“Everything happens for a reason. “

You heard his footsteps behind you and smiled.

- Morning… - Ezra’s voice was a little hoarse after sleep. He bent down and kissed the top of your head before sitting next to you.

- Morning. Are you hungry? - You handed him a protein bar.

- I sure am, - he chucked, leaning in and gently nibbling on your exposed shoulder.

- I didn’t mean that hunger, - you scoffed.

- Well, that too, - he took a large bite of his snack.

- Hey, what’s wrong? - He frowned, as he followed your gaze and spotted the opened case.

- Well, nothing particularly terrible. It’s just… I guess your dream vacation has to wait for a while… - You shrugged, and told him what happened on your way to the ship.

- Oh yeah, I saw that guy with a smashed helmet… Almost tripped over him actually… That’s pretty badass! - He nodded in appreciation. - Um… By the way… You didn’t check the front pocket of your suit, did you?

- Nope, - you narrowed your eyes. - Why? I thought you just gave me your empty cassettes…

- There were cassettes, yes… But… There was also something else…

Intrigued, you got on your feet. Your suit was hanging next to the door. You dove your hand into the front pocket and fished out something wrapped in a piece of cloth. Carefully you unwrapped the bundle and gasped in surprise: it was the big golden gem.

- B-but… - You stuttered, turning to Ezra and giving him a questioned look. - How?... Did you steal this gem?..

- What? No! You saw all the gems when you closed the case before heading back. How could I possibly do that? Magic powers?

- Than I’m confused.

- Don’t be. It’s not the same stone, it’s another one. Remember I told you I’ve heard of these gems? Well I also heard there are usually two of them, on the opposite sides of the dig.

- Opposites… - You murmured softly and he gave you a broad smile.

- That’s right. Just like you and me, huh?

- But why didn’t you tell me?

- Just wanted to surprise you. It’s simple as that. And it seems to me that mischief managed, - he chuckled.

- Bastard, - you laughed.

- Love you too.

- Is that… A confession? - You blurted out.

- Most likely it is, - Ezra smirked, stepping closer to you and cupping your cheek. - All I know is you are way, way more precious than any gem, sweetheart. Ugh... This actually sounds a bit cheesier than I expected…

- It’s okay, - you hushed, leaning in for a kiss. - I think I can deal with it.

***

For everyone who read until the end - thank you very much for your time and patience!

#pedro pascal #prospect 2018 #ezra x reader #fanfiction #reader insert #prospect #prospect movie #ezra #ezra (prospect)#lucy tries to write

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alri-xo · 4 years

Text

Ship of Dreams (Titanic 1997 AU) | Prologue

Gif not mine

A/N: So this fic has been brewing since last month and I put it off because of the list of fics I had in mind. This is special to me because like... I mean I cry every time at this movie. So I would like to thank the people over at the best GC in the world for basically pushing me to do this, especially @witchymegg I love you all. I'm still gonna call the ship Titanic bc I want to. (This will contain actual Titanic references and a lot of revisions in the dialogues.)

Pairing: Original Character x Reader

Warnings: No page break (I always have to say this bc I am on the app)

"We're here..." Mikhail Petrovna says as the two submersibles lower deep into the depths of the Atlantic. Ruins of a once lively ship gracing the cameras that they controlled.

Jared McKinley took the camera they use for documentation, as other people in the submersibles looked out of the small windows. The ship was covered in sea garbarge as fish swam in and out of its crevices.

"It still gets me every time..." Jared says as he filmed through the window, filling the blurry frame.

Baron and Mikhail chuckled and made remarks on their venture to the sunken ship. Going in deeper and deeper as the clock ticked.

"It still gets me every time... to see the sad ruin of the great ship sitting here, where she landed at 2:30 in the morning, April 15, 1912, after her long fall from the world above." Jared narrated as the submersible navigated down, capturing also deep sea squids, floating gracefully in the murky water.

"You're so full of shit, boss..." Baron Martin remarks earning a chuckle from the two other men as they reached target depth.

"Here we are again on the deck of Titanic," Jared says as he documents the rugged deck, teeming with marine algae and sand, "Two and a half miles down. The pressure is three tons per square inch, enough to crush us like a freight train over an ant if our haul fails...

The video camera skimmed over Jared's face as he spilled information on his monologue, "These windows are nine inches thick and if they go," a short pause in his speech as he spoke, looking up to see how deep they've been going under the ocean, "It's sayonara in two microseconds."

One of the submersibles landed on the deck, and the other some place else to get ready to use another piece of technology they had in store.

After his little monologue, they went to work. Baron slipped on the 3D Electronic goggles and held on to the joysticks to control the ROV.

"Walking the dog," Baron says as he controlled the orange box, suspended with a thick wire connected to the database inside the submersible.

It skimmed through the various ruins inside the ship. Ornate wood carvings engraved the interior of the majestic ghost ship, a piano in pretty mint condition given that it has been underwater since the 1910's. The ivory keys and their desire to separate from the ebony ones but they do not move.

The device moves around the grand chandelier suspended in the once alive ship, it's crystals covered in sea dirt dulling it's shine but only for some parts of it.

It ventures further into the ghostly mansion-esque structure, a glass bottle of what it looks to be champagne and fine china, defining that the ship once carried people of high class.

The device then ventures in with its lights illuminating the eerie scene, a woman's shoe and a porcelain doll's head, devoid of its body, hair and eyes.

It then spots one of the grandest suites of the ship, entering room B-52. Jared scolded Baron a little, saying to go slow and not like the day past. He rogers it and slowly enters the room.

The once plush bed now in ruins, the material draping in the movement of the water, it's probably white color now a dark gray because of it's age. The device then moves in a cloud of grey, a mixture of sand and rust.

It then spots an old tub and broken chairs, however it's not of Jared's interest. As it skims further in the room, the camera spots a wardrobe. In a story like this, a thing like a wardrobe can carry the deepest of secrets, even a blessing in disguise.

Jared asks to see what is under the wardrobe. The ROV deploys its robotic arms as it clears the antiques in its way, "Be careful, Martin."

The man who controlled the orange ROV mumbled an 'I will' as the device lifted up debris and antiques off near the wardrobe. They recovered a dark object, not so dark anymore that the light of the Dog shown on its features.

"Ohh McKinley... Are you seeing what I think I'm seeing??" Baron hoots as they recovered the metal box...

Jared scoots closer to the monitor that shows what the device just saw. A rusty metal box covered in silt and sand.

"It's pay day, boys..."

💎

Inside a net, the locked safe ascended from the Atlantic ocean. Everybody cheering as it boarded the boat. Every person on board gathered around the safe as they celebrated.

Baron wrapped his arm around Jared, "Who's the beeest??" He asked excitedly as Jared rolled his eyes playfully at him.

"You... Baron..." he says with a small smile as Baron pops open a bottle of Champagne, its bubbles spurting all over the men on deck.

The safe was being opened by a sharp turning blade, the hot sparks emitted getting sputtered on the orange specks of light as it the metal cracked open. The noise went down as a warm brown sludge flowed out of the decade old safe, pried open by a chain and a tug.

Jared bent down on his knees, the camera man hot behind him as the lenses anticipated the greatest treasure yet. His hand pulled out books and pieces of paper covered in the mixture of silt, rust and water.

He took out a stack of paper, rather large in dimension and paused for a second. He put it down then dug deep in the safe, but found not diamonds, but sludge.

Everybody fell silent in disappointment. His career as a treasure hunter tainted with the failure of his mission. The money spent, the sweat perspired, to waste.

"No diamonds..." one man remarks at the obvious fact that there is no diamonds. The face of Jared as the realization washed over him like a tsunami.

"Shit."

"You know, Gary's career went down and never went up again because of something like this," Baron says lowly, his words toxic like that of poison ivy as it was bearable, as a man like Jared tried to not get such words get to his head.

The camera was at his face, embarrassment and shame gracing his features as the tention increased. He furrowed his brows, "Turn the camera off."

💎

He went down inside the boat, the technicians working to uncover parts of the Titanic long forgotten, and unknown to the other passengers. Just the riches they know, but not the contents it once held.

"The investors want a word with you, McKinley," Derrick Bay says as Jared barks at the camera men, covering the phone.

"Hey, Ryan? Tyler? Yeah... It's not in the safe..." Jared says to the phone, explaining how it could be someplace else in the ship, to not let the investors down. During his explaining his eyes met the monitor in front of him, showing a view of the water cleaning up a painting of a woman, who is casually nude and young.

The water cleared the drawing's bosom refealing between the valley of the woman's breast holding a big diamond, a diamond in a darker color laced on her neck with smaller crystals, assumed to be diamonds in their infamous colorless crystal color.

"W-wait let me see this," he tuts as he asks for the picture of the treasure he's looking for and compared it to the necklace the young woman was wearing.

They further analyzed the drawing which was made with pencil, seeing the date at the bottom and the artist's initial's beside it, with an erasure at the first letter.

April 14, 1912, J BB

"I'll be God damned..."

💎

"Treasure Hunter Jared McKinley, mostly famed for finding Spanish Gold in the galleons of the Caribbean harnests the use of technology and submergence to find out what priceless valuables the sunken Titanic has in store after 84 years. He's with us via satellite in a Russian research center in the Atlantic. Hello, McKinley..." the anchor says in the news, the small television's sounds slightly audible to the ancient woman working on her pottery.

"Hey, Wendy... See, the Titanic is not just a shipwreck. It's the queen of shipwrecks... The elites stayed there..." he went on telling the story of the Titanic briefly, as questions fired at him from the new anchor.

The old woman stands up, her hair away from her face as her frail body hunches as she straightened herself. She wipes the red earth off of her fingers with a rag as her dog Diamond follows after her, nearing to the television.

"Meg, can you please turn up please, dear?" She asks of her grand daughter, Meg Treville.

She obliges as the sound of the television became clearer for her centennial ears, but she saw the drawing as clear as that in her teens...

"I'll be God damned."

💎

"McKinley, there's a call for you on satellite..." Derrick says as Jared ignores him as he instructs men to lower the submersibles for another expedition in the deep.

"Can't you see I'm working, Bay... Take a message..." he says not making eye contact with the man who holds the answers he's not expecting.

"I swear you don't want to turn down this call, Jared." He pleas, a reluctant look paints Jared's face, "You need to turn your voice up, she's kinda old..."

Jared held the phone in his hand, hesitant to speak to a possible poser, "This is Jared McKinley, Mrs..."

"Treville... Y/N Treville..." Derrick says, battling the whirring of the machines behind them...

"Mrs. Treville..." He says politely to the old woman on the other line...

"I was just wondering if you found the 'Heart of the Ocean' yet, Mr. McKinley?" She asks, her voice aged and wise as the two men shared looks of shock.

"I told you don't want to miss this call," Derrick beamed as Jared mustered up a small smile...

"Okay, Y/N... You got my attention... Now, tell me who is the woman in the picture?" Jared asks, as if taunting Y/N... But Y/N was taught at a young age not to lie.

"Oh yes... The woman in the picture is me."

<- Previous | Next ->

A/N: aaand SCENE. So this is the prologue to my very first Avengers series... I hope you enjoyed reading this... and yeah... I hope I did it justice... Stay Safe

-Alri

Taggies 💕

@witchymegg @theaussiedragon @amisutcliff @luna4501 @likeit-or-leaveit @underworldqueen13

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themanicmagician · 5 years

Text

Future GO Fic Snippet

Hey Folks~

Since this oneshot is taking a bit longer then I thought, here’s a sneak peak of a pair of scenes (subject to further revisions) to tide you over until its completion. We start out on an angsty note, but I tucked some smut below the cut 😘

~*~

Aziraphale is falling.

That must be what this is. It makes sense. He gave away his divine sword. He fraternized with the enemy instead of smiting him on sight. And, perhaps, his worst transgression of all: he lied to Her.

The humans are long gone, far from the gates of Eden. The serpent slithered after them. Aziraphale had watched him leave, a ribbon of black twisting along the dunes of sand. The angel had intended to follow—just to make sure the snake wasn’t going to stir up any further mischief, that’s all—when he was suddenly struck to the ground by an unimaginable pain.

He fought in the Rebellion, led a platoon of his own. He’s not new to physical pain. He all too clearly recalls when an unholy sword dug into the meat of his thigh, the excruciating torture that was battlefield surgery.

This is so much worse. His chest is searing, burning, like he’s being carved open. Is that what’s happening? Is God ripping her Grace out of his soul, wresting it back by force? He wants to apologize. To beg for mercy. Anything. But agony clogs his throat, and he writhes in the sand, clawing at his chest, trying to keep himself whole. The pain crests, and he loses all sense of time and space, dumb to anything outside of the hot lashes against his skin.

The sun vanishes and rises four times before the pain finally slopes off, and his mind is his own again. Aziraphale drags himself upright, and hobbles through the eastern gate, into Eden.

God’s despair has soured paradise. The flowers are wilting, foul-smelling clumps. The trees have all shed their leaves, and insects ravage their insides. Aziraphale stumbles to a stop before the nearest pool of water. It hasn’t yet dried up into crusted mud, but it won’t be long, surely.

Aziraphale reluctantly looks down at his reflection.

He staggers back. “Oh, God.” He chokes. His wings are white, pure white, as they’ve always been. He twists every which way, to be sure, and there’s not so much as a lone black feather, no clinging ash or sulfur. He hasn’t Fallen, after all. So then, what—?

With fumbling hands he unknots his robe and steps out of it. The pale flesh of his chest has been carved open with a molten gold, a single word branded across his skin in flowing Enochian:

Liar.

Aziraphale’s heart thumps with fear. She knows. Of course She does. Did he actually think he could get away with it? She’s omnipotent and omnipresent. She gave him the opportunity to redeem himself, to confess that he’d given away Her sword, and he’d lied about it.

Aziraphale traces a hand around the lettering, and winces at the residual sting. He should be grateful. He could’ve Fallen for his many transgressions. How many had been cast from Heaven by his blade, or on his orders? As demons, would they remember him still? Would they torture him for the eternal damnation he’d sentenced them to? Better to never be among them, to never find out the answer to that question. Things are better like this, certainly. Better to branded (like a beast), than Fall. He is grateful for Her mercy, he thinks, and almost manages to convince himself he believes it.

~*~

After the Ritz, they go back to Crowley’s. It’s Aziraphale’s choice. Once they’re in the Bentley, Crowley begins driving in the direction of the bookshop until Aziraphale, emboldened by his escape from Hell and perhaps three glasses of celebratory champagne too many, places a plump, manicured hand on Crowley’s knee and asks to be taken to Mayfair instead.

Crowley sobers for the lightning-fast drive, and Aziraphale follows suit before long. As lovely as the pleasant fuzz of mild intoxication is, he wants to remember every second of tonight.

The front door of Crowley’s flat is barely shut before the demon presses him up against it. He peppers kisses up Aziraphale’s neck, his jaw, before crashing their mouths together. It’s sloppy and frantic—they can’t get enough of each other. Crowley’s glasses go askew, and he irritatedly rips them off his face. They clatter off to the floor. Aziraphale groans into Crowley’s mouth, and drags his demon closer still.

He can feel Crowley’s need pressing hot and insistent against his thigh.

“Take me to bed, Crowley.”

Those wonderful amber eyes darken further with lust.

“Yesssss.”

Crowley scoops him up like he’s a damsel on the front cover of a bodice ripper. The romantic gesture steals Aziraphale’s breath, and he huffs incredulous, happy laughs into Crowley’s neck as he’s carried into the bedroom.

After placing Aziraphale reverently upon the bedspread, Crowley attempts to extricate himself from his stylish, too-tight pants.

“Nhrght—stupid—blasted, shitty, nrgah—”

Aziraphale watches him flounder and hop about for a moment, a fond, amused smile on his lips, before he scoots over to the edge of the bed, in front of Crowley.

“Let me help, darling.”

He finishes unzipping Crowley’s trousers. He hooks his fingers in the belt loops and eases the fabric down, slowly, inch by careful inch.

“Angel,” Crowley whines with barely-leashed impatience.

He’s wearing black briefs beneath. There’s a visible damp spot in the fabric. Aziraphale leans forward and mouths around the obvious bulge, his breath hot and wet. His tongue presses fleetingly against the fabric, tasting.

Crowley bucks, pressing himself against Aziraphale’s open mouth. “Fuck, angel. What you do to me.”

Then he’s kicking off his pants the rest of the way before tackling Aziraphale onto the bed. Aziraphale rolls his hips, and they both groan as their clothed erections brush together.

“Let me—I want to—”

Crowley’s hands dive beneath Aziraphale’s shirt, stroking his skin, squeezing the rolls of his stomach. They creep upward, closer to the brand.

Aziraphale goes rigid.

“Why do you wear so many blessed layers?” Crowley complains.

His hands retreat from Aziraphale’s stomach, but his relief is short-lived, as Crowley’s nimble fingers dart up to unbutton the front of Aziraphale’s dress shirt.

“No!”

Aziraphale clamps his hands around Crowley’s wrists. Crowley stills, one button undone around Aziraphale’s collar. Aziraphale’s heart pounds so loud he’s sure Crowley can hear it.

“Angel?”

“I just—not that. I’m not ready. Yet.”

He never will be, but Crowley doesn’t need to know.

“Alright,” Crowley says, withdrawing.

Aziraphale has fooled around with humans before (rather difficult to go 6,000+ years without being a little curious what all the fuss was about) but that’s all it ever was—fooling around. They were always furtive, illicit fumblings, where both men remained fully clothed, ready to straighten their ties and button their collars at the first sound of an unexpected interruption. He wasn’t thinking—love and lust had clouded his mind—and he’d nearly given away his darkest secret, just like that.

Once he’s calmed, he realizes his panic poisoned his arousal. Moments ago he’d been eager as anything, prepared to hilt himself on Crowley’s cock and ride him with abandon. Now, he just wants to bundle himself up again, and soothe his frayed nerves with a good book. Crowley sits cross-legged on the bed, more than an arm’s-length apart. He’s watching Aziraphale with unveiled concern.

Aziraphale fidgets with the balding velvet of his waistcoat, and bites his lip. “Oh, I’ve gone and ruined it, haven’t I?”

Everything had been going so well.

“No!” Crowley denies, sharply. Quieter, he repeats, “No.”

He extends his arm towards Aziraphale’s, reaching slowly for his hand. Giving him ample time to pull back if he wants. Aziraphale instead meets him halfway, and their fingers thread together.

“Whatever you want, angel.” Crowley says, his thumb stroking the side of Aziraphale’s hand. “Whatever you need.”

Aziraphale is awash with gratitude—and shame.

“I’m sorry. You’ve waited so long for me to...catch up, so to speak.”

Crowley let slip a low, wounded noise. “Aziraphale, you don’t owe me anything. You’re not obligated to do this—” He gestures to their current half-dressed states. “—if you don’t actually want to.”

Aziraphale clasps Crowley’s hand between both of his, and draws him closer. “No, I swear to you, that’s not it. That’s not what this is about at all.” He pinkens. “I very much want to be with you in the....biblical sense. It’s just…”

Oh, what to say? Not the truth. What good would that do?

“It’s just…?” Crowley prompts him, softly.

Dear, kind, wonderful Crowley. How will he look upon him if he knows what Aziraphale really is? What he’s kept from him for so long, too long?

He casts about for a believable excuse. His hands land upon the slight swell of his belly, and it comes to him.

“I am aware, and there have been comments acknowledging the fact that I am not, erm. In perfect physical condition. That I could stand to, you know.” Aziraphale pats his stomach. Crowley’s expression darkens. “Slim down a tick.”

“Who said?” Crowley growls.

Aziraphale glances away. “No one important.” He lies.

It’s all a load of tosh, for the most part. Yes, Gabriel’s comment about him needing to “lose the gut” had stung. But the Archangels have always found something to nitpick about him and his choices—be it his weight, his hobbies, his miracles. The hurt he felt was more in that he constantly sought their approval, and never managed to earn it. He received acknowledgement and recognition only for those moments he despised; he got an accolade for helping Noah construct the ark, and then slam its doors to a sea of faces.

Aziraphale likes himself, his body. He can change it easily enough, if he really wants to spend the miracle, but he is happy with the image humans have of him, of a silly little bookseller who gives warm hugs. Someone harmless and squishy that you can come to with any problems, and expect a plateful of biscuits, warm tea, and earnest compassion from.

Aziraphale twists the ring on his pinky round and round, praying for Crowley to believe him.

“I still want to do everything—anything—with you. I just need this,” He tugs down his shirt. “To stay on, during. If that’s alright.”

“Of course. If that’s what you need, angel.”

Aziraphale flashes him a grateful smile, and tugs Crowley over to him for a kiss. It’s softer than the kisses they’d exchanged moments ago. There’s nothing sexually charged behind it; rather, it’s just meant as a reassurance, a comfort.

The brand itches. Guilt pools hot and heavy in Aziraphale’s gut.

#my fic #bottom aziraphale #top crowley #aziraphale whump #crowley #aziraphale #chubby aziraphale #these scenes aren't actually next to each other in the fic but theyre the most complete #this fic shouldve been finished already but crowley and aziraphale just keep talking lmao #good omens #aziracrow #ineffable husbands

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iamanartichoke · 5 years

Note

Why do you feel that way about fandom? (In regards to your latest reblog)

Ah, I’m not sure if I know how to explain it, but I’ll try. (This got long, so I’m really sorry.)

The thing is, I first got into the Loki fandom early in 2018, so I’m coming up on about two years of being active here. That first year was so fun and exciting; I was elated to be able to discuss my Loki theories and meta with like-minded people, and I was so happy (and surprised!) at the attention my fic was getting.

I was also still at a point where I believed IW was going to blow our minds, so there was that extra kind of thrill of suspense (and a bit of fear but, when you believe in the MCU and haven’t yet lost faith in its writers/directors, the fear is surface-level and adds to the thrill - there’s not really the accompanying dread and despair).

IW was a crushing blow to that, of course, but even though we were all devastated, we were all devastated as a fandom. We were still in it together; we had one another to vent to and cry with and share fic with. “Loki is alive bc reasons” became kind of an unwritten rule in most post-IW fics; we all agreed that Loki deserved better.

In 2019, two things happened: one, I was underemployed and dragging my feet on finding better employment due to my mental health, which ruined my life for a little while. I had to move back in with my parents, which (I love them and am grateful they were willing to support me, but) was a toxic environment. I was too depressed to indulge in my escapism the same way (fic and fandom) and my progress on my stories slowed way down. I’ve never quite been able to get back the momentum I had when writing Sanctuary, but that’s another issue.

The second thing that happened was, obviously, Endgame came out and whatever theories and hopes the fandom was collectively holding onto about Loki were crushed. Not only that, but the portrayal of Thor seemed to amplify the divide in the fandom between the pro/anti Ragnarok argument.

It seems, to me, that what was a series of battles or skirmishes only became an all-out war after Endgame. That’s only my perception, of course, but I do feel that the latter part of 2019 saw the divide grow larger and larger. Everyone had opinions on what the “correct” portrayal of Thor was, and how it related to Loki, and whether fanon Thor and Loki’s relationship was founded in canon or not. Everyone was defensive of their own point of view; bullying and name-calling and anon hate became more widespread.

Again, this is just my observation. Those who’ve been on the front lines since Ragnarok came out probably have a much different perspective; I’m only talking about what I observed bc it directly impacts how I feel about fandom these days.

So here we are in 2020; like I said, I’ve been here about two years. I haven’t rewatched any of the Thor movies in ages (although @delyth88 and I are talking about it), because they make me so sad and also so angry. Sad for what we had, angry for what could have been. So much wasted potential. Loki’s horrific end hangs over everything, as does Thor’s radical character change, and I don’t have the same excited outlook about the characters and the meta potential anymore.

Not having watched the movies in a long time, along with that feeling of “ugh” around them, impacts me creatively bc I’m not actively feeding my writing inspiration. For me, fanfic writing comes from being so full of feels about the source material that I just can’t get enough and I need more. I draw my inspiration from things like watching Loki’s facial expressions, catching subtle moments between Thor and Loki, analyzing the way they speak, thinking about the story choices happening, and so on, and so on.

My source of inspiration has dried up, in other words, which has made it hard for me to keep a good writing momentum going. I was feeling great when I rewrote Sea, and then my inspiration kind of plummeted again - this time, bc I felt that I did such a good job rewriting and the response was so positive, I didn’t know if I could finish the rest of the story as well. Like I was already setting up the second half to fail, bc it would be much more “rough draft” than the first - revised and polished, yes, but not gone over with a fine-toothed comb the way the first part was.

The truth is, I carry a lot of stress and anxiety around my writing. I am always incredibly anxious that no one actually likes my fic, that no one is reading my fic, that people think it’s stupid or pointless, that my quirky humorous touches are ooc, that my plotlines are convoluted and boring and my sex scenes awkward and non-existent.

I’m having trouble with the Valki relationship bc I haven’t watched Ragnarok in so long, I’ve forgotten how much chemistry was between them and how it made me feel. I’ve forgotten why I chose to pair them up in this ‘verse in the first place. And I worry about that, too - that the people who read my stories for the Valki are walking away unsatisfied.

So that’s where I am with fic writing - slow and steady, still trying to find my footing, still secretly assuming what I write is shit.

This is on top of feeling more and more isolated on tumblr, mostly because of the aforementioned tensions and overall negativity that’s erupted in the fandom. I have been unfollowed and blocked by people who were once mutuals; I have been blocked by people I’ve never spoken to before.

There’s so much stress surrounding the things I post now - I’m constantly thinking, have I worded this correctly to convey my meaning without shitting on someone else’s opinion? Is this post going to be the one that makes this or that mutual unfollow me? Am I tagging correctly so my pro Ragnarok mutuals don’t see my criticism, and vice versa? Can I still post pictures of Chris Hemsworth, who is possibly the only man in the world I am definitely attracted to, which is a shame bc I agree that he’s kind of a douche now? But he’s so beautiful, but I have to disclaim that it’s just his face I’m attracted to? If I reblog this post about Loki that I think is hilarious, but is also founded on the flat stabby villain characterization, will I alienate my anti friends? Does it imply I don’t understand or appreciate Loki and that, by reblogging the thing, I’m endorsing a shitty characterization?

And so on. It makes scrolling my dashboard uncomfortable and un-fun, bc I end up saving tons of posts to my drafts without reblogging them, and after awhile I am not enjoying myself, so I stop scrolling.

But this means I miss tons of mutuals’ posts, and I was trying to check individual blogs for awhile but I kept falling further behind, and there were more and more posts I’d missed, and I’d get overwhelmed and then feel like they probably hated me anyway at this point for being a shit mutual, so I might as well just keep lurking on the dash for ten minutes and call it a day.

On top of that, I haven’t read fic in awhile bc of this mindset, so I haven’t commented, and then when I don’t get comments it’s like, well, maybe the story’s not shitty but no one’s reading it bc what do I expect when I’m not reading theirs? You’re not special, Charlotte.

The worst part about all of this is that none of it should diminish (and hasn’t diminished!) my love of Loki as a character. I am excited about the series, but I am also very anxious about it - about the story not being good, yes, but also about the inevitably divide that will further split the fandom.

No matter how the story goes, someone’s going to be upset. You can’t please everyone, and trying only makes for worse storytelling. So the wank will continue.

But I love Loki. I love everything about him. I am interested in writing about him and reading about him and thinking about him. I am invested in him and always will be. It’s just that, right now, I’m kind of falling further and further out of fandom and I find I have less to say.

And so I either have to wait it out, or work on my own mindset, or keep on keeping on. I just don’t know how long that will take or if I’m even liked enough here to try to bother.

tl;dr: Fandom has made me cynical and jaded, and it has dampened not my love of Loki, but my love of interacting with the Loki fandom.

(I know you didn’t ask for this hot garbage pile of my feelings, anon, so I’m sorry.)

#charlotte replies #a nonny mouse #fandom wank

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hunnybadgerv · 4 years

Note

WIP words: coincide, welcome, shame

Again, there’s the tiny caveat that while I do have 10 drafts in progress right now, at least ones that are recently written, they are limited in their scope. I’m torn about dipping into some of the WIPs I haven’t touched since spring to add a little diversity to this. This is why I’m glad I started using my story tracker again. Reminds me of the pieces that are still working even when my brain grabs hold of something else with a vengeance.

COINCIDE: (I had to dig for this one, even had to break down and grab a WIP I haven’t worked on since early this year. But here have some Siobhán and crew meeting up with an unexpected Abomination in a warehouse. In fact, I clipped far more of this than I intended originally because I am kind of really proud of my interpretation of the scene. But that could just be ego speaking. Though I should perhaps caution, that I kind of replace the DA magic system with something more akin to D&D, just because I find the DA system lacking and impersonal.)

Her gaze locked on the blue eyes of a young woman cowering, curled up in the middle of the floor. Her face dropped into her hands just before the convulsions started. Hawke’s eyes widened in horror as fire seemed to engulf the other mage. She didn’t know what was happening at first. But in another few heartbeats, the raiders weren’t the only ones caught unawares when a beast rose from where that girl shivered.

Siobhán knew as well as anyone that mages were susceptible to possession by demons. And she had heard of it happening, but never witnessed it for herself. It was terrifying and heartbreaking all at once. The girl called for help and someone answered; Siobhán just wished she’d gotten here sooner.

“You know nothing of magic!” a dark disembodied voice told the raiders. Its hands glowed purple as the abomination lashed out, lightning arching from gnarled fingers.

“Get the raiders. Leave the abomination to me,” she told her companions, who had waited for the fire to clear out before following through the door.

From her knees, Siobhán arced lightning through the room, which flashed bright white as the crackle of ozone filled the long thin room as it jumped from the ghastly form of the possessed mage to several of the raiders. While it stunned the men, the beast turned and growled at her. Clearly, she’d angered it, but that had been her intent. A simple string of syllables passed Hawke’s lips and a burst of thunderous sound shook the room, barely staggering the abomination.

It shambled toward her and swiped at her with skeletal, long arms and sharp elongated fingers. Blood dribbled down her cheek with a tickle, the metallic scent of it nearly overpowering the sharp scent the lightning left behind.

Reaching out for Varric’s arm, Siobhán whispered another incantation when she saw the demon’s hands sheathe with fire. With the last word, she and the dwarf vanished. Immediately after she disappeared, a thunderous boom sounded. A moment later, she and Varric appeared on the other side of the room.

Varric reached out for her arm, disoriented by the teleportation. “What was that?” His question coincided with an explosion that would have engulfed them both in a ball of fire if she hadn’t been

“Just a trick,” Siobhán said. Her attention remained on the creature across the room from her. Its eyes glowed with rage as it lashed out with lightning directed straight at her.

Her shield went up a second too late and her body stiffened and her nerves felt like they were on fire. With a wave of her hand a sphere of water about the size of her head appeared, and before it fell to the floor another motion formed several sharp shards of ice that hovered in midair for a moment before the flick of her wrist sent them shooting across the room at the abomination. Varric followed suit, firing a volley of crossbow bolts with Bianca.

The beast cried out and crumpled, and the pair shifted their attention to the one remaining man whose sword clanged off Aveline’s shield. Isabela danced behind him and dug her dagger in his back. He glanced over his shoulder in surprise as she pulled the blade free.

“Well, I can say that’s a first,” Aveline said, looking directly at Siobhán.

“For me, too,” Siobhán admitted.

“I thought that was a mage thing?” Isabela asked.

Siobhán eyed her harshly, as if the pirate might be able to read every drop of irriration that statement conjured up. “See if you can find anything that will tell us what they did with Feynriel,” she said, stripping her gaze from Isabela and glancing at Varric.

“It was so nice to see Rainer again,” Isabela said, looking down at the corpse as she twirled her dagger back into its sheathe.

There was a hint of menace in her voice that made Varric and Siobhán chuckle. Aveline seemed far less amused as she followed Hawke towards the mangled form of the former mage.

WELCOME: (Again, I went digging a little farther back to December of 2019. Clearly I need to revise and proof this because it’s been resting more than long enough to have been polished up. This is for my Doc-mancer, Amaryn a Sith Pureblood Jedi Knight--because that needed to be a thing.)

Hidden among the stars, amid the gentle hum of her ships engines, in the lithe arms of the man who tended all their wounds, Amaryn Rha could always find a moment of comfort. Something always drew her toward the medbay on the lower decks. She finally knew what it was—her heart.

When she entered, Doc looked up and flashed her one of those crooked smirks. Setting aside the datapad in his hand he crossed the room. She met him halfway, but they stopped, just inches from the welcome back kiss that had become like a ritual for them.

“Missed me, huh?” Doc said.

“Always.”

His fingertips grazed her jaw, tipping her chin upward gently. His eyes moved over her face, his lips curved into a sweeter smile. Then he slowly bent toward her. She welcomed his kiss, craved it with every fiber of her being. When he pulled her against him, her hands fisted in the back of his shirt, holding on with all her strength.

They moved in tandem in a dance she learned some of the steps to from him. Her hips met the edge of the medical table, caught there between cool metal and his warm body.

“I prefer to not be apart from you,” she whispered against his lips.

“Then you shouldn’t leave without me. Never know when you might have need of Ol’ Doc’s talents.”

“Talents, huh?” she asked with a wide grin that broke into laughter when he lifted her onto the examination table.

He pressed another passionate kiss to her lips. His fingertips traced down her neck, tracing the ridges that ran down her sternum.

“Like quick hands,” he whispered against her mouth. He bared her shoulder to the amorous march of his lips.

“Doc,” she whispered against his cheek. “Anyone could walk past.”

“Mmm, perhaps.”

Amaryn shivered; it could have been the nonchalance in his tone or the shift of cool air across her skin when his hand tickled against her side as he opened her robes. Regardless, her pulse pounded in her veins as her eyes darted to the open door. Doc sucked at the pliant skin of her neck, drawing a quiet moan from her. Her eyes slipped closed in response to the overload of sensations—her own fretting about the inherent risk seemed to intensify every touch, the smoothness of his hands baring her skin, the chill in the air and cold metal clasps on his shirt against warm flesh, the brush of rough fabric warmed by his body, the heat of his mouth and sharpness of his teeth.

It was enough to drive her mad there on the spot. “Please,” she breathed, pulling at the back of his shirt.

SHAME: (Ok, somehow this word is absent from a lot of my in draft WIPs, I mean I had to dig for this word in an unpublished fic. I honestly went to a piece I haven’t touched in 3 years--September of 2017 to be exact. Yes, I actually track those kinds of things in my document notes. It’s part of a large piece that I intend to complete entirely before posting any pieces of. It is Aderyn and Cullen after she returns to Kirkwall after the trip to the Deep Roads. It is one of the few pieces that is at the moment still part of this WIP--I’ve trashed a good bit of this piece in the years I’ve been working on it.)

In shame, like so many other times before, he looked away, staring at his hands, calloused and scarred. She had held his heart in such gentle hands and he’d thrown that away despite all his promises to do the opposite. Even with that thought, his mind jumped to excuse it, justify the actions took, that he begged her father to help ensure. True, it protected her in one way. The measure keep her entire family safe, but still he was sure now that he’d broken her heart entirely. His own ached keenly with the separation, with his own uncertainty.

Finally, his wandering halted and he took a seat on the bench that faced the center of Kirkwall. Leaning back against the cool stone, he stared upwards. Past the stairs toward the keep of the city that loomed over all.

His fixation left him vulnerable. Staring up towards the clouds dusted in sunset hues of orange and pink swirled just beyond the peaks of the keep’s roof, his attention focused on their wispy dancing as he tried to calm the argument in his head. At least until the ring of wood on stone rang in his ears. Cullen whipped his head toward the sudden and foreign sound. He locked eyes with Aderyn Hawke, aghast to find her there within a stretch of his arm.

How long had she been there, he wondered, staring blatantly at her. How long had he been unaware of her presence? He hoped not too long, that would be far more unforgivable.

“You really should try to be a bit less conspicuous, Knight-Captain,” she said with a tone that mixed familiarity and propriety in the strangest way.

With the formality of her, of all people, using his title, Cullen looked away. It pushed away at the rising spark of hope that dared blaze in his hollow chest when he saw her. “Perhaps you are correct, serah. I should have thought this through a bit more clearly." He stood and started to walk past her.

"Why did you come?" she asked in a quiet tone paved over with a calm which tried to conceal the quiver beneath.

When he looked at her, those eyes like the cloudless noontime sky were locked upon the place where her hand gripped a familiar staff, her father's, if memory did not fail. He stood beside her in that still moment, his skin prickling from the impassable proximity. Finally he lifted his eyes to survey the growing dark of the passing dusk.

"I cannot be certain from one moment to the next,” he admitted. It was true enough. Sometimes he came to apologize for being foolish and selfish, other times he came to beg her forgiveness and for the chance to find what they had again. Some days, he just felt an aching need to see her, maybe hear her voice or her laughter carried on the breeze.

#Badger Scribbles #WIP Words #WIP Games #Dragon Age #SWTOR #Amaryn #Doc #Cullen Rutherford #Aderyn Hawke #Siobhán Hawke #Varric Tethras #Aveline #Isabela #foofyschmoofer

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