#this was in my drafts from a couple weeks ago good lord

[perfectly-clear-from-here]

not me purposefully getting off my face drunk just to write this house party chapter realistically. downing another can solely for research purposes.

[bitsandbobsofwriting]

The aftermath of Merlin snapping, and yelling at Arthur in the middle of the forest;

Arthur pushes for change, the gang takes bets on when Merthur will happen, and someone, somewhere, is grumpy.

Part 2 of Merlin’s Angry Outburst. 

Part 1   Part 3   Part 4   Part 5

Once Arthur has a first draft of the repeal, the first people he brings in on it (with Merlin’s approval, of course) are the 5 knights, Gwen, Gaius, and Morgana.

(Morgana, who later that evening comes back to Arthur's chamber in tears (Merlin is also there) to reveal her magic, and thank him for not being Uther.) 

All of them enthusiastically agree, after only a little conversation.

Elyan and Leon are the most... dubious, but only because of the practical factor, they don't disagree with the actual repeal.

After months of the gang working in secret, they reveal their best draft to the council. At least half the council are new members that Arthur appointed, the rest are left over from Uther’s time.

They argue back and forth for a while, half vs half. A few of the older members, who were around before the purge, slowly start changing their minds.

In the end, it takes them maybe a month to get a majority, and Arthur overrules the remaining opposition. He is King after all, technically, he doesn’t even have to have a council.

Days after the agreement is reached, Arthur goes out personally to collect a few specific Druids, who had been waiting just outside the border for the go ahead.

It takes maybe another month to go through all the laws thoroughly, changing and editing and altering what needs to be altered. With the help of Arthur's close advisors on the political aspects, and the help of the Druids, Merlin, and Gaius, on the magical aspects (what should be allowed freely, what should be monitored, and what should remain fully banned).

The city celebrates when the announcement is made, they all loved the new King anyway, and had been overjoyed with the drop in executions, and deliberate ignoring of small instances of magic.

After a feast to celebrate the new found freedom among the people, the gang gathers once more, in private, and Merlin tells a shortened version of the story he'd told Arthur all those months ago.

None of them are that surprised (Gaius, Morgana, and Lancelot already knew, of course).

If they hadn't suspected Merlin of being a sorcerer before this whole thing started (Leon, Gwaine, and Gwen definitely suspected) , then they had certainly begun to in the last few months. They cheer when Merlin finishes telling them "just how often I've saved your oblivious arses" .

They cheer even louder when Arthur announces that he would be made court sorcerer, and it would be made official in a ceremony before the week ended.

There are no cheers when Morgana stands.

Curious eyes land on her, probably due to how terrified she looks, but the small encouraging nods and little smiles she gets from her brother (her Brother), Merlin, and Gwen, give her the strength she needs to tell everyone of her magic as well.

They see she is frightened, they imagine how difficult it must have been, being at first Uther’s ward, and then his daughter. They smile gently, and she receives hugs a plenty. Once all the congratulations are out of the way, she sits back down next to Gwen, still shaky and full of adrenaline, but happy.

She spends the remainder of the group’s quiet celebrations with her hand gripped in Gwen's under the table.

(Read this how you want, I personally envision it as the start of something)

So the days draw on, Merlin is announced Court Sorcerer, Arthur hires another manservant and gives Merlin a large set of chambers in the same hallways as Arthur's, complete with all the books on magic Arthur can find, and several of the magical artefacts that had previously been kept locked away (Merlin and Arthur are the only ones who are able to gain access to the room, something magicky I guess).

(No one mentions that that corridor is supposed to be for royalty only. Leon figures they're bound to realise that they're in love with each other any day now, and then Merlin will practically be royalty anyway so... might as well cut out the middle bit of having to shuffle chambers again later on).

The kingdom is prospering, and for months after the initial announcement, and implementations of the new laws, sorcerers and nobles from all over Albion, visit Camelot, to give congratulations to the King.

They give gifts and provide knowledge.

The Druids, however, are a slightly different story.

The ones who had been helping with the paperwork, had been... odd(?) around Merlin. But they respected his wish to keep all of that under wraps, or at least until it was announced publicly.

Arthur and Gaius know the whole Emrys story. Lancelot and Morgana know bits of it... but other than that... as far as anyone is concerned, the newly promoted Court Sorcerer is just another wizard.

The new Druids entering the kingdom are paying brief respects to the Forever King (I mean... at this point, he's still only King of Camelot... which is what he was before the magic ban repeal), before staring in reverence at the Court Sorcerer stood by his side.

They respect his wishes to keep the worshipping and gift giving to a minimum, though they still come to him for requests of miracles and ask him to perform druid ceremonies (blessings and name-givings and weddings and funerals (though they prefer to call them celebrations of life, rather than commiserations of death) and such).

Merlin can only brush off so many displays of such awe before the rest of The Gang demands to know what’s up, at which point he has to come clean about the whole... “Most Powerful Warlock To Ever Walk The Earth” thing.

Much to Merlin’s chagrin (and everyone else's amusement) the Druids still insist on calling him Emrys. The stubborn ones sometimes even go for "My Lord Emrys", which gets them a scowl from Merlin (and barely concealed laughter from everyone else).

Maybe... later on... when Morgana is more comfortable with her magic, after a few months practicing with Merlin (with a supportive Gwen Always at her side) , she is announced as the Court Seer.

Merlin had never had much luck with prophetic visions, but once Morgana’s fear died down, once she learned to let it flow, and breathe through it, the visions come easier, and kinder.

She stops seeing only visions of doom, and worst case scenarios, instead she has dreams of the many paths the future may take.

She does not panic when a path seems grim and dark, for she has a King and a Warlock and Gwen, by her side. Always. And they work through the future together.

So the ban has been repealed officially for around 6 months.

Arthur is a couple months away from completing his second year as King. And he and Merlin are still beating around the bush.

The betting pool for when they’ll finally get together has been growing bigger and bigger. Practically the whole castle is in on it now, with Gwen and Morgana as the ring leaders. Whoever wins... will be very lucky.

(It's Leon in the end, he pays attention, and he know what his boys are like. But he's a noble and has no need for the money, he pays for a few rounds of drinks and donates the rest to one of children's homes in the lower town).

But the war comes first.

~

Camelot has been prospering, and has many supporters throughout Albion, but one of the kingdoms, it doesn't matter which, you decide, does NOT like this.

Scouts and small patrols have been needling Camelot’s borders for months now, and Arthur and his Council (and Inner Council) have been making quiet preparations. They know that some sort of... something, is coming soon.

Especially when Morgana begins to dream of battles and blood and lightening.

They prepare for, and expect, a full scale war, but they hope for some negotiations and a peace treaty with the opposition.

Their hopes are dashed, when a messenger is escorted into the throne room, wearing The Opposition’s colours, with a letter.

Said letter is an angry rebuttal of everything Camelot stands for, full of accusations of abandoning tradition, and spitting in the face of great leaders, of which this soft boy-king should NOT be counted as. 

At the end, there was an official declaration of war.

The messenger boy was obviously scared to death, and once Arthur read the P.S, which invited Arthur to torture and/or execute him to the whatever extent he wants, he understood why. Without any hesitation, he offers the boy a job in the stables, a new wardrobe of clothes, and a servant’s bed in the castle.

After the official council meeting on the matter, setting up war committees, laying out contingency plans, organising the distribution of emergency evacuation plans, and discussing potential aid that could be requested from allies, Arthur pulls the gang together, for their own meeting.

“We knew this was coming, and there is no need to panic yet. Our outer borders are well patrolled, and we’re still getting up to date reports. The city walls hold strong, but I want to send out patrols to warn the villages of what’s coming. Start closer to the border, and work our way in. Leon?”

“My Lord, I have teams prepared for exactly that already, I just need to give the word and they’ll go.”

“Good. Morgana, I need you to try and keep focusing your visions, if we have even a small idea of how they might try to initiate the first battle, it’ll be a huge advantage.”

“Me and Merlin have been practising some new techniques to control where and when I can see, we’ll write everything down, and ask the Druids if they’ve seen anything as well.”

Arthur holds in a smile at the confidence in her voice. He is unendingly proud of how far his sister had come, and made a mental note to tell her that when all this was over.

“Brilliant, keep me in the loop. Gwen, when we’re done here, go and let the forgery know, the Royal Household will pay them extra to push out as much long range ammunition as they can. Arrows and crossbow bolts, we need as many as they can produce.” Gwen nods, and Arthur finally looks towards Merlin:

“And Merlin, I need you to be ready. Don’t wear yourself out too much in the next few weeks, I need you in good condition, if we’re to win this with minimal casualties-”

He glances over at Morgana before he continues:

“If the two of you could also ask the Druids if they have any volunteer healers. Make sure they know they aren’t obligated to come, but any help in the infirmaries would be greatly appreciated.” Morgana nods once more, as does Merlin, before he speaks:

“There’s a camp a couple hours ride outside the city at the moment, we’ll head out at first light-” He pauses and closes his eyes for a second, tilting his head, before looking to Morgana:

“They’re expecting us.”

Arthur addresses the room again:

“Right. I think that’s all for now, anyone have anything to add?”

Gaius responds after a moment:

“My Lord, if I could make a request for a few servants to help me set up supplies for the infirmary? Extensive preparations will need to be made to ensure that I have all I’ll need. Preferably people with rough herbal knowledge, if at all possible.”

Arthur nods straight away, responding:

“Yes, of course, I’ll ask the Housekeeper and the Steward who they can spare this evening, and they’ll be ready for you in the morning. Anything else?” At the silence in the room, Arthur tells everyone to get to work.

Leon marches straight down to the training grounds (Lancelot, Gwaine, Percival, and Elyan following him) to ring the summoning bell and inform the knights of the developments, and their tasks.

Gwen heads straight to the forgery (her and Elyan still oversee work there, but they have employees (and a few trainees) to run it) to give the Kings order.

Gaius shuffles out, and makes his way back to his quarters, already making mental lists of ingredients needed, and work to be done.

Arthur, Morgana, and Merlin are left, the royal siblings thinking to themselves, and Merlin thinking to someone else. Arthur contemplates that the whole mental link thing he had going on with the Druids was extremely useful.

Both his and Morgana’s thoughts were interrupted by Merlin huffing, and clenching his fists as he opens his eyes, obviously unhappy with whatever was said:

“Merlin?” From Morgana has the Court Sorcerer looking up from scowling at the table. He replies after wiping the frown off his face:

“Oh, it’s fine. They just made a... stupid suggestion is all. Don’t worry about it.”

“Stupid? Doesn’t sound like the Druids. What was it?”

Merlin looks mildly uncomfortable at that, and replies slowly:

“It... doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you another time. It’s late, you should practice some meditation and head to sleep, no potions tonight. And remember to keep some parchment and a quill by your bed, so you can scribble down anything you see-”

Merlin stands abruptly and heads towards the door:

“-I’m going to check the wards on the outer wall, and push a little more energy into the wells. I’ll see you both bright an early.” With that, Merlin heads out the room swiftly.

Arthur looks to his sister questioningly, but she shrugs as she responds:

“Who knows. “I’ll tell you later” means he doesn’t want you to know, OR he’s hoping I’ll forget because he doesn’t want either of us to know. He’s right though, I should meditate for a while-”

Morgana stands at this:

“- hopefully I’ll see you before we head off, if not, I suppose it’ll be dinner in the evening. Good night, brother.” Morgana leaves the room gracefully, heading in the direction of her chambers.

Arthur thinks for only a moment, before rushing off, catching up with Merlin as he readied his horse, preparing for the journey to the outer walls:

“I’ll come with you. I find I quite enjoy watching you do magic, and to be perfectly honest, I could do with some fresh air to help me think.”

Arthur pretends to ignore the slight blush that dusts Merlin’s cheeks, and readies his own horse. The two of them ride out of the stables and make the journey down the cobbled roads in comfortable silence, side by side.

They take their time on the journey, and the 15 minutes of companionable silence is finally broken by Arthur, who looks at Merlin curiously, as he says:

“So what did they suggest?”

Merlin looks up sharply at that, broken from his deep train of thought as he dumbly replies “What?”

“The Druids. What was the stupid suggestion?” Merlin’s eyes widen at that, and he blushes once more as he looks determinedly forward:

“Oh. That. I told you, it doesn’t-”

“Merlin...”

“Oh fine! They suggested that I... that I forge a mental link with you. Like the one I have with them.” The sorcerer purses his lips at that, and continues to avoid Arthur’s gaze:

“You can do that? Well... would it be such a bad idea? I mean we aren’t going to be able to meet and discuss things as often as I’d like through this whole ordeal. AND you’re basically the Kingdom’s powerhouse, I’m sort of relying on your magical know-how here. Surely it wouldn’t be a bad thing? For us to be able to converse across the battle fields?” 

Arthur, in an effort to not be hurt, reminds himself that he doesn’t know all that much about magic, and it very well could be a stupid suggestion, instead of one that Merlin is just personally opposed to.

Merlin, in response, looks to Arthur in great shock, before sighing and looking down to his horses mane:

“It.... is possible. And fairly easy, technically. But it would be painful, AND permanent. I wouldn’t be able to undo it after we won. And a temporary connection takes far too much energy to maintain, even for a short time. I just figured you wouldn’t want me in your head for the rest of our lives.” He tries to inject a little humour into his words, but it falls flat, and he just seems sad.

Arthur pretends he doesn’t notice however, and responds quickly:

“How painful are we talking? I mean I’ve been hurt pretty badly before. And... how exactly does it work? Would we be able to read each other’s mind constantly, without the other knowing? Or what?”

Merlin raises his eyebrows in shock at that, and his answer comes out slowly as he looks at Arthur:

“Like... a really bad headache? Imagine the hardest you’ve ever been hit, without passing out. It would last for a few minutes after the connection is initially forged, but would fade slowly over the next day or so. And no. Once the connection is established we wouldn’t be in each other’s head all the time, we would just be able to sort of... project our voices to one another. Other thoughts would be safe, even if you were thinking about me, I wouldn’t hear it unless you were thinking to me... if that makes sense.” 

By the end of his explanation, he’s looking nervously at the King, who is deep in thought:

“Hmm. Ok. I... only if you agree but... it might not be a bad idea. Even after the war is over. There have definitely been times where I’ve needed your opinion on something but you’ve been elsewhere, or we’ve been in the presence of someone else. Of course we’ve been fine so far, if you don’t want to, but-”

Merlin interrupts him, speaking quickly:

“I’m fine with it. I agree, it would be useful. So... I can bring what we need back from the camp tomorrow?”

Arthur nods firmly:

“Yes. The sooner the better, we can do it tomorrow evening, if that’s enough time for you?” Merlin once again looks shocked at this, as Arthur stares at him:

“Oh! Yeah, Yes. That’s fine. Like I said, it’s not particularly difficult, and I can ask Gaius to prepare us something for the pain during the day. Are you... are you sure? It is Permanent.”

Arthur rolls his eyes and huffs:

“Yes, you said that already Merlin. Are you sure?”

Merlin nodded his head decidedly, and spoke confidently:

“Yes. You’re right, it’s not a bad idea. Come on, if we hurry, we’ll make it to the walls, and then to the main well, and then back to the castle, before dark.”

The pair of them hurry their horses, and after another 10 minutes of comfortable silence, they finally reach the City Gates.

The guards give a quick bow, and The King and The Court Sorcerer jump off their horses before handing the reigns to one of the Gate stablehands.

Arthur (and the guards) watch in barely concealed wonder as Merlin presses his hands against the rock of the wall, and closes his eyes.

The golden glow can still be seen from below his eyelids, and he hums slightly as he frowns in concentration, seeming to push into the wall.

Arthur sees a short of... sheen, ripple across the rock, and extend into the sky. Merlin steps back and nods, admiring his handy work:

“They’re holding strong, I’ve extended the height as well. Kilgharrah and Aithusa should be the only ones able to get over it without alerting me now, from the air at least-”

Merlin heads to retake his horse, Arthur following him, before he continues:

“Though I still want to check the tunnels again at some point in the next few days.”

“Of course. Relax Merlin, it’s barely begun, and the borders still hold strong. We’ve plenty of time before things kick off in any way.” He makes sure to speak quietly. A public announcement hasn’t been made yet, and it would be bad if rumours started spreading before The King had time to put together a proper disclosure.

Merlin nods distractedly, and urges his horse to go faster as he heads towards the main well, in the town square. It’s late, not long until sunset, so there shouldn’t be many, if any, people there. Arthur speaks again:

“Why are we visiting the well? I wasn’t aware of any problems?”

“There aren’t any, but once the announcement is made, and once the outer villages are told what’s happening, we’ll have hundreds, probably thousands, of people flock to the city for safety. I just want to make sure we’re prepared for such an influx, and boost our water levels a little.”

Arthur nods at his response, but doesn’t say anything. He chooses instead to admire the man Merlin had become. He held himself differently, more strong, confident in who he was. Just like he had back when he was still a manservant, he served Arthur, and his people, above and beyond his job description. Merlin took upon himself, not only the politics he was supposed to oversee, but the personal safety of both the King, and every Camelot citizen, and he did it all with an alarming amount of grace.

Arthur sometimes catches himself thinking that it was almost as if Merlin was built to be a king. He may not like the spotlight, but he was a protector, and leader, unlike anything Arthur had ever seen before.

“I don’t think I ever thanked you, Merlin. It feels like years ago now, that you yelled at me in a forest.” He says it with a grin, but Merlin flinches. He continues before The Sorcerer interrupts him though:

“Really Merlin. Thank you. You were right, I would’ve got there in the end, but it wasn’t fair for people to suffer in the mean time, and you took the fall in their place. You’re a hero to your people... and to me. You should be proud of your accomplishments, I know I am.” 

Arthur resists the urge to duck his head as Merlin looks at him in bewilderment, a definite flush on his cheeks as he replies:

“I... thank you, Arthur. I always had faith in you-” Merlin begins to grin before he continues:

“-and besides, someone had to knock you down a peg. Perhaps you should hire someone to take you into the forest and yell at you every once in a while.”

Arthur laughs at that, and Merlin tries to push down the blush as Arthur responds:

“Now Merlin, why on earth would I hire someone for such a job, when I already have you?”

Merlin chuckles as he answers:

“Yeah, and don’t you forget it, My Lord. Hold the horses, I’ll just be a minute.” With that, Arthur realises they’ve made it to the well, and dismounts as Merlin has, holding both of the horses reigns as he watches Merlin approach the well.

The Sorcerer crouches down, and once again closes his eyes in concentration as he presses his hands into the stone of the well. The glow is a little less bright this time, but Arthur admires it nonetheless.

Merlin finishes quickly, and gathers his horse from Arthur once more, nodding towards the castle.

Arthur follows as Merlin hurries towards the looming building. He wasn’t sure why he was in such a rush, but he only begins questions it when Merlin hurriedly hands the horses of to a stablehand, and continues to run up the castle steps.

Arthur can only just keep up with Merlin, not having the breath to ask him what’s wrong, before Merlin suddenly comes to a stop, catching his breath for a moment to go through a door leading to the highest balcony on the West of the castle:

“Merlin... what.... what are you-”

Merlin wordlessly interrupts The King as he points to the skyline, the sun only a few minutes away from touching the horizon.

There’s not a cloud in sight, and the sky is painted in oranges and pinks in front of them, bleeding into deep purples and blues behind the castle.

Merlin finally mutters, not looking away from the sunset:

“Call me a girl all you want Arthur, but nothing compares to this. It’s beautiful, I come to watch it whenever I’ve got the time.”

Arthur had only glanced briefly at the sunset before looking back at Merlin in wonder, a fond smile on his face (not that Merlin would notice).

He stares at the side of Merlin’s face, the orange sky making the gold in his eyes look even brighter, and the glare of the fading sun making his hair shine. A gentle breeze has Merlin shiver slightly, and Arthur’s smile widens as he responds, so quietly he’s not even sure if Merlin hears him:

“Hmm. Beautiful.” He doesn’t look away.

~

THIS IS COMPLETED! All 5 parts have been posted:)

If y’all want my thoughts on anything specific let me know✌️

[prettywordsyouleft]

The Cowboy - Part 13

Summary: Leaving the city for a rural area called Blayne seemed simple enough. Your task was to convince the people to agree with selling their land for a resort redevelopment. But once there, you soon realise that your city ways are entirely different to theirs. Winning their trust was going to take some effort, and when you start to fall for a local cowboy, you wonder if you really needed Blayne more than the city life after all.

Pairing: Jung Jaehyun x female reader

Genre: cowboy au / drama / romance / if you squint there’s some enemies to lovers up in here.

Warnings: Jung Jaehyun is a cowboy, need I say more? (a bit of angst and drama, and it sometimes might feel like you’re reading a Nicolas Sparks book, so I’m told lol)

Word count: 2450

Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

“This is crazy!”

Glancing at Natalia next to you in the car as you neared the border for Blayne, you grinned. “I thought you grew up on farms?”

“The kind near the city. Nothing like this. There’s just a whole lot of land out here.”

“I would ask if you want me to turn around and take you back, but after travelling for this long, I want to just be done from being in this car.”

Laughing, Natalia craned her neck to use the side mirror. “I think the truck behind us might find that a little burdensome too.”

“I’m amazed that truck of his made it to the city and back.”

“Aren’t you glad Jaehyun came for you?” she wondered, and you couldn’t hide the genuine smile that spread out your lips immediately. “You’re smitten!”

“You’ve seen him. How could I not be?”

“Blayne’s livestock sure are made of fine specimens,” Natalia teased, and you laughed heartily.

“They do claim to have the best pigs in the nation, but I’m not so sure if that relates to all the men they have, Nat.”

“Well, the two I’ve seen…” She trailed off to kiss her fingers. “Total chef kiss.”

“Avery is single, too.”

“I never asked.”

“You didn’t need to. I could see the wheels turning from here.”

“Do you reckon he’d want a country Belle or-”

You grinned. “For Avery, I think he likes women in whatever way they come.”

“That doesn’t speak much for my chances.”

“Why not, Miss Natalia?” you chimed, and your best friend swatted your arm. “He didn’t even refer to me like that when I met him. Should I be sad?”

“Stop trying to snatch my cowboy away from me. You already have your own.”

Suddenly the truck signalled its horn behind you and you glanced up into the rear-mirror, noticing the indicator of the truck now on. Turning your attention to the side of the road, you couldn’t help but laugh at that gas station you had gone to all those months ago appearing again.

You didn’t need any gas, but it seemed Jaehyun’s truck needed the pit stop. Getting out of your vehicle, you noticed the smoke coming out from under the hood. Walking over to Jaehyun’s side, you gasped noisily. “Looks like it’s finally died on you.”

“She’s not dead,” he grumbled, running a hand through his hair agitatedly after popping the hood. “She needs water.”

“And a retirement,” Avery added on, leaning on the side of Jaehyun’s truck whilst shaking his head. “You and your stubborn ways.”

“I’m not giving up on her,” Jaehyun announced, and you frowned with the level of emotion you heard in his tone. He groaned. “Though, I think I might need to leave her here tonight so she doesn’t overheat further.”

Avery nodded. “I’ll go sort it out with Mick inside the station.”

Kicking the tire gently, Jaehyun turned to look over your shoulder, not quite meeting your eye. Stepping in and placing your hands on his hips, you shot him an encouraging smile. “We’ll come and pick your truck up tomorrow.”

“We?”

“Well, I’d offer to tow it, but my car won’t handle that. I’m sure Avery’s truck will, though.”

“I’m starting to feel nervous,” Jaehyun confessed, and you blinked curiously. “At your return. People are going to talk.”

“I hope they’ve been talking up a storm. And that they are still willing to talk even when I’m there. Nat and I will rely on that talk to get things moving.”

“You’re so certain about this,” he observed, and you nodded once. “Why?”

“Because this is my project. I invested a lot of my time and energy into Blayne and found the deficit too glaring to just forget about it all when your Dad ordered me to leave. Further, I can’t just stop loving you either. You and I still have a lot to discuss.”

Jaehyun nodded thoughtfully, his signature lopsided, dimpled grin appearing. “You’re a formidable woman, Miss Adaptable.”

You didn’t make a big fuss about sitting down for that chat right away once you were back in Blayne. There was a lot to be done, especially around your new residence. You weren’t staying on the Jung’s property this time, even though you wished nothing more than to wake up in your bedroom at the homestead.

Instead, you were the first guests since 1983 to inhabit the inn.

“You sure there’s no ghost stories associated with this place?” Natalia queried as you both ate breakfast in the kitchen a few days after your arrival.

Grinning at your best friend, you shrugged. “Who knows? But if there are any more co-inhabitants here with us, they ought to pick up a broom and give things a good sweep or dusting.”

“We’ve been clearing cobwebs for days. How is this town going to be a hub of change, Y/N?”

“Nothing worthwhile comes without any effort, Natty. This place is kind of charming if you put aside its outdated décor.”

“Charming, you say,” she mentioned, pointing to the dripping tap in the kitchen. Even if the room now sparkled as best as it could from your combined cleaning, you still had repairs that were pressing.

“It could be very charming,” another voice mentioned, and you grinned at Avery’s cheeky appearance. “Sorry for intruding. The back door’s always been easy enough to get in through.”

“So it’s not just your cousin who’s good with getting in and out of places they shouldn’t be.”

“Where do you think I learned it from?” Avery admitted with an easy laugh, and after sending Natalia a wink, he placed a toolbox up on the countertop. “Leaky tap, huh? I guess I ought to fix this for you before it drives you nuts.”

“Will you?!” Natalia asked, graciously smiling in his direction. “It’s not the only one needing repairs, admittedly.”

“It’s a good thing I ran down to the hardware store a town over for some new faucets then, isn’t it?”

“Where’s Jaehyun?”

As he looked for the right tool, Avery answered. “On the ranch.”

“He okay on his own?”

“Sure, if you call being in the company of my grouchy uncle after us leaving Blayne last week caused him to get behind in work, being okay.”

“I actually have to go see Mr Jung today,” you announced and smiled at the pair who stopped staring flirtatiously at each other to look in your direction. “It’s time to get things rolling, don’t you think?”

“Will you be okay?”

“If Jaehyun’s handling his father, then I think I’ll go assist him. I’m half at fault here.”

“I don’t agree entirely with that, Y/N.”

Natalia agreed with Avery. “You aren’t at fault at all.”

“There’s a lot of things I want answers to and a whole lot of information I will need to pass on to him now that I’m here to work on the redevelopment of Blayne for housing.”

“He has a temper.”

“That much I’m aware of already, Avery,” you replied with a grin, picking up your coffee and raising it in a gesture of farewell. “Nat, you stay here and help point out the areas for Avery to work on.”

“Sure, I can do that,” she answered and turned to mouth a thank you at you.

Chuckling as you stepped outside and over to your car, you stopped when you saw Dorothy crossing the road towards you.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Everyone said you were back, but I didn’t believe it until these eyes of mine saw it in person!”

Taking her hand fondly, you cocked your head to the side. “Did you truly think you could get rid of me that easily?! I have work to do here!”

“Are you staying in the inn, Y/N? I’ll make sure to send my Jacob over to help with anything you might need repairing. Lord only knows how that place is holding up.”

Pointing to the building you had just departed, you smiled. “Avery is inside fixing some taps already.”

“Really? Well, he didn’t wait long. I thought everyone was instructed to stay put until Old Jung stopped punishing his boy for bringing you back.”

“Is that how everyone is seeing it?”

“Did I speak out of turn?!” Dorothy asked with a gasp, and you shook your head firmly.

“Not at all, Dorothy. I’m grateful for what you just said. Do let everyone know it was June Jung who I called in regards to returning to Blayne about, however. She’s the one who let me and my best friend into the inn, after all.”

“June?! She’s never the type not to follow along with her husband’s word!”

Shaking your head again, you patted her lower arm. “There’s a lot to Mrs Jung that Blayne folk seem to not know about.”

Greeting June when you arrived at her home shortly after, you grinned brightly at her. She laughed. “I was worried after a few nights in that inn you might decide to leave.”

“It’s nothing like the homestead, but I can see with some effort put in how it can help with our plans.”

“He’s not exactly thrilled.”

You nodded. “I doubt your husband is.”

“But he is listening. I told him to wait for you in his office. He gruffly headed in there five minutes ago.”

“I won’t keep him waiting then,” you assured June, smiling again before taking the same pathway you had a couple of weeks ago.

Inhaling a deep breath, you pushed forward into the office, Mr Jung looking up at you. You smiled politely. “It’s nice to see you again. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m Y/N, Blayne’s new town building specialist.”

Mr Jung ignored the hand you held out to him and cleared his throat but didn’t answer. Deciding to take his silence as not a complete refusal, you sat down across from him and pulled out the proposal you had drafted up for this meeting. And without any hesitation, you launched into it.

He didn’t interrupt your speech, even picking up the copy of the plans you had placed on the table midway through and flicked to the page you were talking about. By the time you reached the end of your planned speech, you were a mixture of relief and curiosity.

You had no idea what Mr Jung was thinking.

Heaving out a breath when you were finally done, Mr Jung nodded softly. “Very well.”

“Is that all?” you asked, and Mr Jung stared over at you. His gaze didn’t make you uncomfortable, rather, vulnerable. It was as if he was trying to pick a way into your brain and figure everything out about you.

Sighing when he didn’t seem to find whatever it was, Mr Jung looked out the window. “My family has been here for generations.”

“I looked into it when initially setting up here,” you confirmed, and he smiled swiftly.

“I suppose you know about my wife then.”

“I do. I believe it’s why she’s been supportive of my stay here.”

“She tells me that you remind her of herself. I don’t entirely see it, though I’m aged and weathered now. My son, however, he’s young.”

“We don’t have to discuss Jaehyun if you are going to berate and accuse me of-”

“My son is the next generation of the Jung family line. He’ll inherit this ranch when I leave this earth, and I hope his children in the future continue to help Blayne remain a fair and happy community. When June and I found we couldn’t have any further children, where I come from a line of ten, I foolishly believed if I shaped Jaehyun from an early age to take on this place, we would continue a successful line. My parents entrusted this ranch to me, the only son. Perhaps if I had daughters too, I would have softened. But I only had one child, and I was too harsh.”

“Why did the fire happen, Mr Jung?” you asked softly, and the man rubbed at his face before leaning back in his chair.

“I told Jaehyun he couldn’t ever leave Blayne. That kid is something else. He always has been. He’s good with the cattle, he’s even better upon a horse. His school got him into rodeo early on, and I thought it would only shape him to have a competitive streak to help our ranch. The first time I saw him do a run, I knew there was more to his riding, though. But he was only twelve then. Teenage years would come, and I assumed he would choose new interests, or feel the weight of the work around the yard. Jaehyun didn’t let go of the barrels and would train even at night if he had to. He never failed to do his chores first, and I grew exasperated that I couldn’t find a way to stop him.”

“As a parent, shouldn’t you encourage his pursuits?” you pointed out, and Mr Jung nodded loosely.

“I was real proud of my boy. He had more trophies and rosettes in that bedroom of his than he had anything else. When he got scouted, he was beaming from ear to ear. I was selfish. We didn’t have anyone to take his spot here if he was going to be away. My father preached to me about how this ranch has been handled by Jung hands for decades. What you assume I did next is correct.”

“You took him out of barrel racing.”

“I thought it was for the best. And then he ran away from home. He caused trouble for a few families here with their kids following him. Avery was almost sent to boarding school because May was worried Jaehyun corrupted him. I had a township to maintain the peace with too. So I took the wrong approach with Jaehyun and cornered him further.”

“Why a fire, though?”

“I told him his only place on earth was Blayne. He said he wished Blayne would stop existing. I didn’t think he’d actually do anything about it. But he broke into the theatre that night, and the fire quickly took hold of our town.”

You merely sat there, trying to battle through Jaehyun’s past anguish and understanding the father who carried deep remorse for his actions.

Mr Jung noticed and smiled sadly. “I tried to take the blame. After all, I had driven my son to choose that path. But the people knew better. So my only approach to Jaehyun, who was racked with guilt, was to use that to hold him here. He’s never thought of leaving or doing anything else.”

Mr Jung stared at you with an indescribable expression. “Until you arrived, Y/N.”

_________________

Part 14

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[jungnoir]

destiny | 09;

⇢ summary: you’re just about ready to give up on life altogether; your love life is in ruins, you’ve lost your job, and your family couldn’t care less about you… and then you meet your blushing guardian angel, and maybe life isn’t so bad after all.

⇢ relationship: jeon jungkook/reader, min yoongi/reader.

⇢ genre: supernatural, angel!au, demon!au, romance, thriller.

⇢ words: 6.5k words.

⇢ warnings: mentions of depression, violence, vomiting. slightly nsfw toward the end.

previously |  next

a/n: happy new year! I know it’s been quite a while (literally an entire year since I’ve updated) but I’ve had this chapter pretty much ready in my drafts and just hadn’t gotten around to finishing because. everything. regardless, I hope this sort of makes up for it. love you all! hope you’re doing well. also WOW I swear a lot in this one.

His hand on your neck is meant to silence any screams that might slip out. He applies the perfect pressure to avoid crushing anything vital (and just by the feel alone, you know he’s got quite an amount of strength to pull that off) while simultaneously stealing all your air and forcing you to cower in fear. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know this guy isn’t someone to be fucked with, and all you can think about is the fact that Jungkook is right outside and has no fucking clue what’s going on. The very thought fills you with dread.

“Then again, you’ve got someone helping you.” What once was just a particular, calculated press against your skin becomes a deliberate act of violence as he begins to choke you harshly. You know the pain of his grip might last for weeks, and that’s only if you don’t die in the next minute. “Just makes me wonder what’s so special about you.”

“Nothing!” You rasp out, clawing at his hand now in some weak attempt at breaking away. If you could make enough noise, enough commotion, surely someone-

-but the stranger has already stopped you quick. You aim to throw the door open or something but his free hand quickly apprehends you until you’re just a squirming mess on the verge of passing out. Even your legs are pressed firmly to the wall by his own body, holding you fast so that you can’t help letting a few tears fall. There was no doubt in your panicked mind that this was Seokjin, the angel who’d been trailing you from the shadows for what felt like centuries. His grand act of approaching you, something you’d dreamed up to be a major climactic brawl in a battlefield made for a spectacle, turns out to be so simple. Perhaps that’s what you got for thinking biblically. Why go through all the trouble when he could just squash the problem the minute a chance presented itself?

Now, all you can think is “I can’t die like this”. A sobering thought of pure contempt. Drowning in the river was preferable to this.

You muster what breath you can, eyes blazing, “How does it feel… being God’s lap dog?”

Seokjin is, funnily enough, stunned for a moment. All bravado slips through a teeny crack in his demeanor when you say that, and even though it’s a low blow, it’s also enough for you to thrust a semi-powerful kick to the dressing room door to make the entire thing shudder like an earthquake. That sound, coupled with your comment, makes Seokjin release you in a panic. You hear some gasps from outside, a few people inquiring if you’re alright. An employee sounds most worried amongst the voices. You’re just shy of swinging the door open and forcing Seokjin to be revealed or to disappear all at once, but then he’s grabbed the back of your collar as you scream in frustrated fury. Seconds later, you’re no longer in the dressing room anymore.

Instead, you fall flat on a rough, sandy surface. You’re overwhelmed with nausea, pain, and fear, so your whole body is struggling to pick up on the most important things outside of that, but you do realize quite fleetingly that it’s sweltering. It takes you a few seconds as you curl up on the ground to peek behind your hands that shield your face and discover that it’s blindingly bright where you are, almost like a…

For fuck’s sake. “Of all the places…” You whine with a sore throat, coughing right after from the strain.

Seokjin stands above you and uses his foot to kick you onto your back so that you’re staring up at him and the baby blue sky. His hair color plays against it in an unfittingly gentle contrast, “I thought we might need somewhere safer to discuss things. Oh, and speaking of discussion,” he waves a hand near you and you instinctively flinch back before you feel the pain in your throat subside. You wait a few seconds, but it seems whatever he’d just done had no effect on the rising bile in your throat, so you assume that’s something you’ll have to deal with on your own. What an ass. “Feel better?”

“Fuck you! Maybe if you hadn’t choked me out in the first place-”

“You’d have listened?”

“Maybe if you hadn’t hunted us down to kill us, we would have!”

Seokjin frowns, “I didn’t bring you here to talk about you and that boy, I brought you here to talk about you. I am only concerned with you.”

Whatever that entailed did not sound good in the slightest.

You scramble to your feet and immediately regret the movement as it makes you sick again. The more than 100 degree weather does nothing to fix that either, the sun beating down on you and bouncing off the dusty white sands directly into your eyes. You’re feeling something nasty rising up from your stomach, ready to projectile…

Just as the scene changes, you paint a Victorian rug with streaks of your vomit.

Seokjin immediately groans out loud, placing a rough hand at the back of your neck like one would grab the scruff of a kitten. You’re far too weak to protest, rubbing at your mouth with the back of your hand, so you let him toss you into a chair. The jerkiness of the action should have sent another eruption out of you, but you recognize the relief that has overwhelmed you from the touch of his hand. Had he fixed that too?

“Never the matter,” the angel growls, waving his hand and making the mess evaporate from the very fibers of the rug, “you’re all very fragile. I should have prepared you first.”

“How can you do all that…?” You couldn’t recall Jungkook or Jimin showing off any power like that, and whether it was because of Seokjin’s status or their modesty (and adherence to rules), you were unsure. Most likely both.

Instead of answering right away, Seokjin reaches forward a moving cart and you finally notice there’s a glass pitcher of water (hopefully) next to an array of empty glasses. You take the time he spends pouring some water for you to examine your surroundings.

It looks like a secret room in an old English manor house. The walls are painted a deep charcoal and with the absence of natural light, you could mistake it for the void. The only light that does exist is a strangely dim white light coming from the ceiling. What looks like a rather ornate shell of a skylight (sans the window to actually reveal, well, a sky), seems to hide said white light somewhere in it. It’s such a vague glow that you can’t pinpoint if it’s coming from a lightbulb or magic.

The rest of the room is just as ornate as the “skylight”, filled with deep oak bookshelves, golden artifacts, and shining decorations that already look like they cost more than your house. It doesn’t really matter the longer you think about it. All of it has to be an illusion… right?

A glass is placed into your hand and you break out of your thoughts to make eye contact with Seokjin. He hovers over you with narrowed eyes and when you look back at your surroundings again, you notice all the little decorations have disappeared. Why had he- “We can negotiate those bits of the deal later if you so wish.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” You ask, hesitant to drink the water despite how much the heat of the desert had made you crave it.

“Like I said before, I brought you here to discuss you. I’ve been watching you and lover boy for a while and it has become clear to me that you’ve been pulled along for quite the ride. I’m sure it’s all very daunting.”

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if you hadn’t shown up.”

“How much do you know about our Lord and Savior?”

It was tricky to say the least. You’d grown up on tales of him, an over-powered being of immense stature. No one could come close to him, not even the devil. However, you’d learned bits and pieces from Jungkook, Yoongi, and the others to the point where your ideas of the figure had become skewed. There was no linear understanding of him. You honestly had no idea, “Probably not enough.”

Seokjin huffs, taking a seat from across from you in a chair similar to yours. Crossing a leg over the other, the angel stares you down, “Do you know why I’m after you both?”

“You want to kill Jungkook. Because he committed your sin.”

“Jungkook is my main target, yes, but it wasn’t my sin. My sin was sullying myself with a demon. Jungkook’s sin was sullying you.”

You frown, “He did no such thing! You had a fucking child! Jungkook saved my life!”

“You mean to say he ruined it. You were supposed to be dead a long time ago.”

You’d known that much, Jungkook had told you already. Even if he hadn’t, that had always been the plan. “It was… it was my choice and I wanted it then, I admit it. But I was hurt. I was overwhelmed. I wanted it because I was scared there would be no reason to keep going.”

The angel angles a brow upwards, “And the fallen was that for you? A reason to keep going?”

“It was- it was a lot of things. I was reminded that I existed, and that there are people who can love me the right way,” frustrated at the situation, you glare at him, “what the fuck? Is this some fucking therapy session?”

He has the gall to smile, “God knows you need one. I’d like to be the one to get inside that mind of yours.”

Shit. What if you’d given him just the right information to use against you?

You snap your lips shut and sink back into your chair, bubbling with more dread. He notices your sudden resolve and appears to want to ease your worries, “I’m not doing this to break you. Unlike God, I find you, as a person, quite redeemable. A gentle, pained soul who fell victim to the perversion of her guardian angel. It’s all very sad.”

So God did think you were a lost cause. Jimin had been right after all. However, you don’t want to keep talking when you’re so close to getting the information you’ve been waiting for. It seems even Seokjin isn’t fazed by your silence, continuing on without missing a beat. “You see, usually these angel and human matters can be chalked up to the angel getting too big for their britches. They think they can change things like fate: God’s very flawless plan from the beginning. They are simply… glitches in the matrix, you could say? That’s where I come in. I make sure these issues are handled and that everything goes back to normal. You see, God loves his humans. Truly. He has a bit of a temper, but it’s justified, you know? He loves you all so very much that seeing you stray from a holy and righteous path is heartbreaking for him. He can only excuse so much.

“So he doesn’t. But… sometimes I help him. I change his mind. Even Jesus had to convince God not to blame his executioners. The big guy gets real impassioned about those he loves. It’s all part of the territory of being in heaven’s sovereignty,” at this, Seokjin shrugs, “you were an unfortunate casualty of it. However, I brought you here because I think that you could be saved. You’re simply confused. I’m sure I could convince God to rethink... his punishment for you.”

Your eyes widen, nearly dropping your glass, “He’d do that?”

The angel nods, pleased, “Of course! After all, he just wants you to repent. If you show that you will, well, I could put in a good word for you. He and I are very close.”

“But only for me.”

Seokjin’s smile dims some. He was so sure he’d had you on the hook just then, “Well… yes. There isn't much I can say about angels. Humans are born sinful, but angels are born knowing better. If they succumb to sin, I cannot do anything about that. But… if you feel that you’d be leaving Jungkook behind, and if that would cause you to feel guilty, I can assure you that that would be taken care of. Your memory of him would be wiped clean and you’d receive another guardian angel in an instant. You’d be granted everything you ever wanted. You’d be able to live out a new path of life contrary to the one your fallen so selfishly carved out for you.”

At this, you begin to frown deeper than you ever have. It’s not out of confusion but deep, deep understanding. Seokjin’s deal was asking you to sell Jungkook out and in return… he’d make you happy. You’d forget all about what had happened and carry on a new person, virtually safe. You could only assume that meant forgetting Yoongi too. Everything you’d accomplished so far would be rearranged until the you that you’d become would be so unfathomable you wouldn’t ever consider it.

What scares you the most is that you actually consider it.

This all could end right now and you’d get out alive, maybe all the ordinary people you knew would get out alive too. You’d be completely removed from the situation. You’d just have to forget Jungkook.

“You asked me how much I know about God,” you start, thumbs twiddling, and Seokjin perks up, “the stories humans told of him always kind of scared me. He’s so powerful… he knew everything before it was even created. Nothing can get past him. And yet, he let humans have free will and the right to choose what their path in life would be. That part always boggled my mind. God’s supposed to love us unconditionally, but if we don’t return the favor, we suffer eternally. It seemed like a pretty big plothole in the otherwise ‘flawless plan’ you claim he made.”

“Yes, well, it’s not God’s fault that Lucifer’s so conniving.”

“But it is. Isn’t it? God created him. Lucifer is the one who brought sin upon the world but God is the one that created him. If he knows everything, why make him in the first place? It’s a fallacy,” Seokjin’s eye twitches just a bit as you lean forward, “that God knows everything. Isn’t it? He wouldn’t be so stupid. He had no fucking clue what he’d made when he made Lucifer.”

“I’d watch your tone. God hears all.” The angel’s ominous reply is all that you need to hear. He doesn’t tell you that anything else you’ve said is false or not. Of course not. You know as well as he does that you’re spot on.

You’re so stunted by the arrogance of it all that you have to laugh, “Allegedly.”

In that same moment, the white light above begins to flicker. A distant rumbling sounds from somewhere and that fear you’d felt earlier comes back with a vengeance. Seokjin looks annoyed, if anything, “I only have so much time to sit here with you to chat.” He stands up and walks over to you, seizing you by the arm, “So I’m telling you now that you still have a chance. No one else has to die. Do me a solid and make that a reality.”

Did he really not want to kill you? He’d had so many chances to. Even now, he could just… what did you have that made him hesitate? “You think I believe that?”

The ground rumbles underneath you and then you fall through, Seokjin’s grip slipping off your arm… or maybe being pried off.

Where you land next isn’t as disorienting as the last few times, but it doesn’t feel any better to be ripped away again without so much as a warning. For a moment before you land, you halt, almost floating. Then your feet make contact with stone and then your knees follow under the sudden press of gravity. A quick look around tells you that Seokjin is nowhere to be seen… and that where you are looks vaguely familiar.

The stone continues up the walls to the ceiling, creating a naturally cold room that expands no more than the size of a restroom (no toilets in sight, however). The furthest edge of the room from you is completely dark, while the other is helped by a fire stretching from one long, narrow wall to the other. There is no wood crackling beneath it though, nor is there an actual controlled area for it to burn. Flames simply lick up the bottom of the wall as if commanded by magic. While the rest of your body feels chilly, the warmth of the fire keeps your head warm like a fever.

You lay crumpled up on your knees and hands, staring into the flames with the most bemused expression, wondering what to do now. You’re definitely not intent on travelling to the other side of the room in fear of being met with something sinister you can’t see, but the fire only illuminates so much of the place and there doesn’t seem to be a door in sight. If Seokjin wasn’t here, you doubted this was a place he wanted to be.

Maybe he was torturing you? Intending to keep you in a dark, scary room in order to break your resolve? You didn’t know the extent of power he was allowed to wield but this whole transportation thing was starting to get really annoying. You chance a meek, “Hello?”

Your voice doesn’t echo like you expect it to. It sounds like it’s right up against your face, like you’d spoken into a pillow, the sound eaten as soon as it came from your mouth. Where the hell were you?

“...not exact, okay?!”

You pick up on a voice to your right and turn over with such speed that you land on your ass. Some stones move on the narrow wall, and then the room is illuminated from an entirely different source of light. It takes you a few moments to gather your bearings as your eyes attempt to adjust. Voices are frantic and coming closer, you can hear that much. You pick up on one instantly, “Jungkook.”

Your voice is weak with relief just as he comes into view. He looks an absolute mess as he throws himself at your feet and wraps you up into a bone-crushing hug. The strength of his hug doesn’t even bother you as you cling back with just as much force, grateful tears beginning to gush out of your eyes. You didn’t realize until then just how terrified you’d been, really. It was always there underneath the surface, but something about Jungkook’s sudden presence makes the reality of it all hit much harder. He smells like your shampoo still.

After a couple of minutes in his embrace, you pull away to examine his face, “Are you okay?”

He laughs and the way his tears have clogged up his throat make it sound more like he’s choking, “Who cares about me? Are you?”

You smile, tucking some of his hair behind his ear, “Better. With you here. Where are we?”

“Limbo, hell’s limbo.”

You’re not sure what to say in response to that. After what you’d been through in the last… however long it’d been, that seems the most plausible to you. “Is that like purgatory?”

“No,” another voice speaks from above you and only then do you realize that Yoongi is here too. He looms over the both of you but his gaze is fixed heavy on your face, “purgatory is where the dead go on their way to heaven. This is where the living come on their way to hell. Was a hell of a ride trying to get your ass down here.”

“Yoongi…” You peel back from Jungkook and stand up, a little wobbly as you lean against the wall, “...thank you. How did you do it? The places Seokjin took me… I felt like we were in a dream.”

His upper lip ticks up in a snarl, “It was. The place where you were is a void, heaven’s version of limbo. It’s where angels bargain with humans on the edge of death to repent. It’s an open playing field for angels to present themselves to their humans without them having to be dead or breaking a rule… not like the latter really applies to Seokjin, though. It’s only as strong as your will to be there,” with that, Yoongi reaches toward you and brushes what feels like sand off your cheek, or perhaps he just meant to touch you to make sure you were really here with the way it lingered, “and that’s the only reason I could pull you out.”

It was a lot to digest. You still couldn’t totally understand how he’d pulled you from heaven’s limbo if he was a demon, but that was beside the point. Right now, you just wanted to get out of this creepy box of a room for good. And it seemed you would be getting your wish.

Another figure became clear to you through the doorway, though this figure looked much more intimidating than the two by your side. Dressed immaculately with a sly smile that felt strikingly familiar, a man makes his way into the room, pressing a hand to his chest and bowing his head to you, “He had my help too, of course. A pleasure to meet you (Name), I’ve heard very little about you.” The man holds out a hand to you and you can feel both Jungkook and Yoongi stiffen on either side of you, but neither makes a move to stop him. This had to be another demon, no doubt.

You take his hand and shake it firmly despite your nerves, “T-Thank you for your help as well. May I ask who you are?”

The man grins wider, “You can call me Lucifer. Are you hungry?”

An entire array of human food is set out before you but you don’t have much of a stomach to touch any of it, though Jungkook seems right at home as he fills up his own plate. You can only guess he’s enjoying the hell out of having so much food at his fingertips without having to pay for it.

You can hear his delighted sound effects from the left of you as you both sit on one side of a long table. Lucifer sits at the head of the table to the right of you, also refraining from really eating anything. Yoongi sits right across from you on the other side with an annoyed expression on his face, fingers tapping the heavy oak table top in a rhythm you can’t decipher. It couldn’t be any more awkward.

“No appetite?” Lucifer asks, pointing to the food. There’s meat and vegetables and cheeses that you know and don’t know but none of it seems particularly appetizing to you at the moment.

You shake your head, “No. Actually, I have a few questions I’d like to ask you.”

“Ah, bet you’re bursting.” He chuckles and takes a swig of something you think might be wine. “Go ahead. I’ll try to recap the last couple of days as well as I can.”

“Days?!” You don’t mean to yell, you really don’t (especially not at the king of hell, but-), “It’s been days?”

Jungkook stops chewing to give you a concerned look, “Of course… how long was it for you?”

“Barely… half an hour, maybe more? But not days.”

“Yes, well,” Lucifer sighs, tucking his hands together in front of himself, “time works much differently in heaven and hell than it does here. Especially for those who end up in heavenly limbo. It’s essentially cut off from the rest of the universe which makes it that much harder to track those who end up there. Seokjin was smart in bringing you there than somewhere else on earth.”

Your head is throbbing at this point. If days had gone by, you could only imagine how much had changed since you’d been gone… “So… what has happened since then?”

“Apparently quite a bit, seeing as I was a last resort.” Lucifer’s tone almost sounds irritated. Like a petulant child, he glares over at his son with an unspoken tension that you would like to delve into much, much later when the important things have been moved out of the way. “These boys have been pretty busy trying to get you back. But we are all eager to know what happened while you were with Seokjin.”

Jungkook places a gentle hand on top of your knee under the table. For whatever reason, you note that his grip feels stronger than you’d grown used to. You’d thought the hug was just because he missed you so much, but even this simple touch was- “He… he found me in the dressing room, cornered me there and told me he’d been trying to get me and Jungkook alone. Somewhere he could really do some damage.” You recite all that you readily remembered, some details slipping as you focus on Jungkook’s touch. Yoongi’s eyes never stop boring into you. “He said a lot. He… he said he wanted to give me a second chance.”

Lucifer raises a brow at you, “At…?”

“Life. He said that if I… if I ratted out Jungkook, he’d work things out with God to set my life back on track. Memories wiped, a new guardian angel, the works.” You can feel Jungkook stiffen next to you.

“And did you take him up on it?” Lucifer inquires.

“No! No, I would… I would never. But he was so insistent… It sounded like he really wanted me to say yes. I don’t think he was planning to betray me if I took him up on it either.”

Lucifer heaves a heavy sigh. Folding his hands underneath his chin, the king of hell spares a glance at Jungkook, “He’s got a thing for innocents: those he believes did no actual harm in a situation. He’s always been soft that way. He has more of an affinity for humans than I ever did, but I have more reason to loathe humans than he does, so I guess it’s understandable.”

“He did… mention that none of this was my fault.”

“Of course! You were only following the path life laid out for you. It was the fallen angel you have beside you that decided to shake things up, and aren’t you lucky he did? It doesn’t surprise me one bit that you’re still alive. You’ve done nothing but suffer the consequences, it seems, against your own will.”

“But what about the demon he fell for? Or his child? Weren’t they killed so he could keep his spot in heaven?”

Lucifer leans forward, “I’m assuming your friends haven’t made it known to you yet, but they aren’t dead. They are both very much alive. In fact, the child in question was one of the people that helped in tracking you down. The mother… she is here, in hell, meant to stay imprisoned for all eternity. Or at least until the rapture,” with that, Lucifer drinks again, maintaining eye contact with your shocked stare, “but it was best that no one knew of their whereabouts. Only a handful of people even know that Inhui still exists. It’s become something of a legend amongst the demons and angels, shrouded in confusion. None of the angels would care for the mother, but the child would start an earthly war if they knew one still walked the earth. As far as they’re concerned, the child probably died from the natural complications of being an abomination.”

You frown, “How is that possible? An angel for every human on earth… that’s billions of angels and no one has even noticed the guy?”

“I was wondering about that, actually. He told us that he’d been walking the earth for a while now. Surely someone would have taken notice, right?” Jungkook speaks next, having abandoned his food entirely.

Yoongi snaps out of his bored stance, “Tae’s an anomaly. He’s forgotten everywhere he goes. His impression barely lasts long. Those people he encountered early on considered him a dream, or a hallucination, or a possession of the mind. His actual presence is… hazy. It’s easier to remember him by his name or his number, but everything else is-”

“Intangible.” His father finishes with a flourish. “No ordinary angel or demon could ever put a face to the name, only a feeling. Along with the rather excessive amount of glamours he employs when amongst the public, it is no wonder no one has sounded the alarm. Go ahead and recall his face in your mind, fallen. I’m sure you couldn’t piece it together even if you wanted to.”

Jungkook’s face screws up a little as an attempt, stricken dumb moments later when he can’t utter a thing. Your stomach churns at the thought, soiling your appetite even more.

It seemed like there was more to that story than you were being told, but you imagined that it would be quite a lot to relay to you in more than one sitting. After all, you still had no clue what you’d missed since you’d been gone, and it only hadn’t terrified you senseless because you were at least certain that the biggest threat to everyone’s lives had been right there with you the whole time.

“If you’re not planning to eat anytime soon, is there anything else you’d like to know? It’s not every day a mortal like you gets to talk to Lucifer.” With a small flourishing wave of his hand, Lucifer smiles at you, charming as ever. It was so strange. Yoongi acted nothing like his father, and yet you saw every bit of him in his expression.

You imagined Yoongi felt the need to distance himself as much as he could from his father’s intimidating image and had ended up creating his own in the process. Where Lucifer was inviting, however, Yoongi was… not for everyone. Even as he stares over the table at you, eyes hooded with what appears to be indifference rather than lasciviousness, you can’t help but see the other in him.

“I suppose not,” you murmur, “but now that I have the chance, I don’t really know what to say.”

Lucifer continues to smile, “Don’t fret! I’m sure after the doozy you’ve been in, you’ll need to rest up. You’re more than welcome to stay here until you feel it’s safe to go back topside.”

The thought of treating hell like a hotel to stay in was tickling to say the least. The minute you rise, Jungkook follows suit, nearly knocking his chair over in the process to follow you. “I’d appreciate that. Is there… perhaps a room I could cool down in? Maybe a bathroom?”

Lucifer had deposited both you and Jungkook in a rather nice room, fitted with all the things you’d find in a nice resort room overlooking somewhere like the Bahamas. The dark, brooding colors of Hell follow you even here, and what little light you are allowed in the room comes from fire or mysterious ambience. Still, it’s enough to splash your face with (what you’re definitely sure is) water in the ensuite bathroom.

Jungkook sits at the foot of the bed, watching you, “I missed you.”

Since the moment that the Lord of Hell and his son had left you to your devices, you’d become increasingly aware that something was off about your angel. You had imagined that it had been from the sheer worry he felt over you, but it was starting to feel different from that. Something not so easily explained. If only… if only you could figure it out.

You pat your skin dry and look over at him, measuring him up and down. Appearance wise, he still had the same haircut, same clothes, same shoes. It was the aura that felt different.

Slowly, you approach him from the bathroom and wish that there would be more light in the room to examine him with. In that same moment, what appeared to be a ray of warm light halos above you both, giving you exactly what you had wished for. When Jungkook looks up, he looks… radiant. “I missed you too…” You whisper, reaching out a hand to cup his jaw. At your touch, he shudders, melting into you, and those eyes then laser focus on your own. “Are you okay?”

“I am now.” He answers without hesitation, then turns to kiss your inner palm with such a sensual drag of his lips that you grow hot instantly. The surprise makes you yank your hand away and you swear you hear him whine at the missing contact.

“Y-You just look different.” You squeak, holding the aforementioned hand to your chest as if he’d burned you.

Jungkook’s bushy brows furrow. “Do I?”

When Jungkook had been an angel, he’d had a distinct glow about him that set him apart from others. It was cliche, but it made sense then. You knew that you were dealing with someone from another world. When he’d turned human, he’d felt softer, normal. He didn’t glow in any particular way lest the light hit him through the window just right. But now… that glow was back. In a way that didn’t feel familiar.

You reach your hand out again, but this time you let it wander. You push his fringe back from his forehead, then behind his ear, then down his neck to where a sweatshirt hides his collarbones. In a daze, you fall to your knees before his seated frame and push the fabric back some. You find… nothing. You don’t even know what you’re looking for. A vampire bite? What is so different?

Your hand starts to fall mindlessly as you wrack your brain, but it’s all for naught when Jungkook catches hold of it and intertwines his fingers with yours. His grip is warm and solid. But it’s still- “I thought he’d hurt you.”

You look back up into Jungkook’s eyes as he now leans over you with an intense stare. His hair curls around his cheekbones and twists away from his face at the nape, each strand fluttering as he inches closer until the longest ones are touching your face. “Not much. He healed what he did anyway.”

At that, your angel’s eyes narrow in their scan over you, “What did he do?”

You instinctively swallow. Perhaps because you remember the feeling. Perhaps because Jungkook looks like he could kill. “He… he had to get me to limbo. He had to…” You touch the skin of your throat the same moment you break eye contact, feeling the ghost of Seokjin’s fingers there. It wasn’t so long ago that it had happened after all. You could honestly still feel it.

The silence grows until it’s nearly unbearable, you eventually finding that Jungkook will say nothing while you continue to avoid his gaze. Against your better judgement, you chance a look up at him.

You don’t get very long to look. Jungkook takes both sides of your face and lunges forward like a man possessed and you are forced to follow. In your surprise, you stumble back onto your elbows and Jungkook slots himself between your legs, latching onto your lips in a searing kiss. It’s hot and fast and immature, the kiss of a person who has never kissed before and may never get the chance to kiss again. Youngho had never kissed you like this.

A gentle whimper escapes your mouth but Jungkook inhales it into his own. You feel something primal burn inside you when Jungkook growls out, crouching over you now like a predator cornering his prey, and he’s practically consuming you when you start to kiss back. Can you blame yourself? You easily fold into the feeling because it’s Jungkook and goddamn if you hadn’t wanted to kiss him badly before.

His inexperience does very little to dissuade from how good it feels too, and as you start to take over to guide him, he is all too eager to feel your reciprocated passion. The heady feeling he gives you in his sudden attack pushes all thoughts of Seokjin or the last few days out of your mind like a fast-acting asprin. All you can think of now is how tightly coiled you’d been and how Jungkook is loosening you up one press of his lips at a time.

He lays you on your back and you happily oblige, no cushioning found on the hard floor but you couldn’t care less. Jungkook is careful not to be too rough, aware of your needs as much as his own, and it’s jarringly sweet the way he cradles the back of your head to keep you from hitting it on your descent.

When he’s had enough of your lips (as if he could ever), he starts attacking your neck. He’s lapping at your skin and biting away as if he’s trying to remove all traces of Seokjin’s hands… as if he’s replacing the feeling with him and him only. “I’ll kill him,” Jungkook whispers, a foreign fury in his voice that makes your haze disappear in an instant while he continues to work at your neck, “I’ll kill him for ever touching you.”

Your hand shoots to his hair, feeling your heart beat faster from more than just the kisses, “Kook-” But any attempt at sobering up washes away when, to your surprise, he ruts against you. Youngho had never been that good at using his hips like that either. There was something definitely off with Jungkook.

As much as it pains you, you grab at his hair and yank back, ignoring (or trying to) the filthy groan that he gives in response before peeling away from your skin. You gasp for breath, absolutely winded, “What is going on?”

Jungkook pants past wet lips, “What do you mean-”

“Did Yoongi do this to you?” The sudden heated moment is over when you say that.

Jungkook’s blood has run cold. You have a very strong, haunting feeling that your mounting suspicions have proven correct. His eyes… as gentle as they always were when they looked at you, told you everything. He was not the same Jungkook you’d come to know. Something had happened to him. Something irreversible. You touch his face again and this time Jungkook does not move to embrace it. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world. “Why?”

In an attempt to escape your pitiful gaze, Jungkook’s eyes flutter shut, cutting you off from seeing him vulnerable any longer. It breaks your heart the longer he stays silent. There’s no denying it now.

A tear of his touches the palm of your hand instead of his lips this time, “How else could I protect you?” He chokes, weak, “I’m not your angel anymore. I can’t be like you. This is the only way... the only way I could stand to look you in the eyes again.”

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 135

I think y’all are in for a treat with this one. I won’t spoil it, though, other than to say that @baelpenrose and @charlylimph-blog thought this chapter was hilarious.

Think about that, please. Charly and Arthur think this chapter is hilarious.

Eyeah. That’s all I’ve got to say about that. I do not take responsibility for any injuries sustained.

As always, please don’t forget to check out the podcast! I will plug it shamelessly, so you may as well.

“Where are they?” Alistair murmured while he searched our shared office thoroughly.  Had it been anyone else, I would say he was being calm, but the fact that he was searching for anything, at all, tagged it in my head as a downright frantic pace.

“Where are what?”

“Nothing,” he dismissed, despite continuing his search.

I furrowed my brows. “You haven’t even had your tea yet. Or your breakfast?”

A pale hand waved me off. “I am aware.”

Shrugging, I gave it up as a lost cause and went back to the list of evacuees that Tyche and I had drafted up. After whipping up a preliminary list of who was assigned where, we were doing a more thorough second pass to ensure no conflicts of personality.  Deep in thought, I paid Alistair no attention until Parvati and Hannah arrived fifteen minutes later.

“Alistair, they aren’t here, so you can stop looking,” Hannah grinned as she took her accustomed seat.

“I am sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Surrrrre you don’t. Just like I’m sure you don’t know why several of the paint pens ran out of pigment,” Parvati assured him in the most sincere tone I had ever heard. My former therapist would have been proud.

I fought back a smile as he straightened and finally stopped his search, even going so far as to tug his shirt to get any wrinkles out. “I know no such thing.”  With that, he turned his back to all three of our snickering faces, requesting his usual tea and scone from the food console.

Composing my face, I tried to be serious for a minute. “You should eat fast, because our appointment with Arthur Farro is in about fi - “

My door whooshed open. Speak of the devil.

“ - ve minutes early, apparently,” I finished.

Unperturbed as usual, the subject of my previous suggestion strolled in with his usual air of confidence.  Just as he was going to take a seat beside Parvati, he leaned across the table. “Aww, no kiwi or pomegranate on your clotted cream this morning? Poor fing,” he said with a mocking pout.

“I am baffled why everyone believes such things of me,” Alistair grumbled into his tea with a scowl.

I sputtered. “You were using the pens on your breakfast?”

He didn’t even bother denying the chorus of confirmations from those around him, taking the higher road of sudden deafness. “Farro, I am still not entirely sure why a former warlord is necessary for discussions of an evacuation plan.”

“Warlords are generally just berserkers if they don’t have anyone to be ‘lord’ of.” Farro shot a dazzling smile as I supressed a groan. “But then again, being British, I’m sure you got confused, what with all the lords that were there in the last century without even land to their names.”

It really was easier sometimes to do things without either of them. Time to step in. “Gentlemen,” I purred in my most annoyingly ‘motivational’ tone possible, “the bathroom is right through that door, if you would like to continue your pissing contest.  However, some of us have actual work to do, so whether you fuck it out or fight it out, please do so on your own time.”

Both mouths shut with an audible click, and both men looked away from me. But at least they were quiet. Sophia: 1, Whatever-the-hell-this-was: 0.

I forged ahead while I had the chance. “Arthur, thank you for taking time to meet with us regarding the plans for fortifying the safety points. I’m sorry that Tyche couldn’t be here, however she scheduled her stay-cation several months ago and frankly deserves it.” By which I meant I had bribed Derek with a nauseating amount of bao to disable any communications to or from this office from going to her data pad until the start of her first shift post-vacation, and threatened my entire family within an inch of their lives to keep them from bringing up work around her for the next week. “However, I do have her concerns and suggestions ready, I assure you.”

With a scowl, he glanced at me and stood, calling up the emitter-map of the Ark. Quickly, he sketch circles around each of the ‘bunkers’ we had designated. “Xiomara had very sound judgement in the locations she chose for safe-zones, and I honestly expected it. Between her and Evania, there is a frankly terrifying amount of strategic prowess in what is theoretically our Health and Safety office.”

“You can’t be healthy or safe if you’re dead,” Hannah pointed out.

He tossed her a wink and grin. “Touche. However, none of them are perfect. This location,” he leaned to tap and zoom on a mess hall, “is fortified, has access to food and drink, even if you have to furiously call up non-perishables and potable water, and only has one entrance/egress.  A huge entry/egress, unfortunately: the door is ten meters wide.”

Parvati tapped a couple times on her datapad before chiming in. “It does close, however. And it locks.”

Arthur shook his head. “In two panels, each five meters wide. If even one is blown, the gap is indefensible. Both, everyone in there is free for the taking.”

“You are suggesting we ask Miys to narrow the aperture of the door?” I groaned when I heard Alistair leverage his overly-formal language.

It didn’t get any better when Arthur nodded. “Worst they can say is no, but the size of the door is simply for ease of access and to assuage anyone with proximity issues. Now that we all have these handy alerts - “ he tapped his temple for emphasis “ - it isn’t nearly as necessary. Noah? Bud? What do you think?”

The buzz from the ceiling was clearly amused. “I am amenable if this is a solution. As Arthur pointed out, the width of that door is no longer necessary.”

“Annnd there we go,” Arthur shrugged. “The boatwright said yes, if that’s what we want.”

My jaw nearly hit the floor when Alistair nodded firmly and stood. Swiftly, he highlighted three more areas. “These have the same potential concern. We should include those in the proposal.”

‘We’? ‘We’ whomst??? Since when were they on the same side?

“I agree,” Arthur continued enthusiastically, causing my head to start twinging in pain. “According to the engineers and the chemisists on board, the material of the Ark is remarkably fire-retardant despite it’s organic nature - let’s hear it for advanced civilizations - so there is no additional need for fire doors. There is however a possibility of concussive damage to the actual doors in any area, despite how thick the actual walls are.”

“Tyche recommended shock-absorbent material on the exteriors of each door, dropped via internal trigger and held taught by wires rather than any sort of scaffolding,” I suggested, recovering my focus. I flicked the concept at the emitter, where it was displayed alongside the schematic of the Ark. “Using wires would allow us to also store it in a roll at the top of the door, and allow pulleys to draw the wires embedded in the bulkhead down to cover the entire door.”

Hannah nodded thoughtfully. “The materials she suggests are a good idea - definitely maximizes shock absorption as much as possible. My only concern is that we can probably double the flame resistance of the materials for only a ten-percent loss of effectiveness.”

Calling up my datapad, I smiled as I quoted. “ ‘However, Hannah is a professional weaver and seamstress, and therefore I defer to her on any suggestions regarding materials used, provided there is no more than twenty-percent loss of efficacy’. Apparently she did the calculations and had Charly and Conor both check behind her - anything below twenty percent loss, and the blast would blow the doors.”

“And when did the more sensible Miss Reid learn engineering?” Alistair asked in what sounded like genuine curiosity.

“Tuesdays - I think?” I scrunched my face and searched my memory. “It was something very important when we were cosplaying.”

Arthur snorted, but gestured an apology when Alistair affixed him with a downright lethal glare.

Hannah ignored them both. “Wool… We should be able to synthesize raw wool, instead of the plant based materials here. Best of both worlds - fluffy, incredibly flame resistant, and disperses concussive force like nothing else. Line it with silk for shrapnel? We should be good.”

“Fortress defense via quilts. I like it,” Arthur grinned savagely.

“There is a reason tapestries were so important in the Middle Ages,” Alistair snarked at him. “Both flame resistant and insulating, both very good qualities when you see by torches and candles in a drafty residence that echoes like a cathedral.”

Arthur held his hands up in surrender. “Not arguing, no worries… Genuine respect, swear.”

“Better…”

“Annnnd forging on from whatever-the-fuck-that-was,” I interjected, trying to focus on the topic at hand rather than… well, whatever the fuck that was, “That’s overlarge entries and concussive force taken care of. What other concerns did you have, Arthur?”

“Frankly? Camouflage,” he told us sternly. “The best way to protect against an invading enemy is to make it so hard to find you that it isn’t worth the effort.  All these defenses are good an all, but… they’ll stick out like a sore thumb and practically scream ‘Hey! We’re in HERE!’ “ I stifled a laugh when he hopped and waved his arms furiously.

“Very dignified, Farro,” Alistair sniffed as he stood to get more tea.

“I know, right? I’m so classy…”

Rolling my eyes and still regretting having them both in my office at the same time, “We actually have the camouflage solved for.” You could have heard a pin drop, all four of them frozen, mouths open. “It came through this morning from Zach.” I swiped the fortress-quilt specs down, and popped up the plans for the camouflage. “We’re thinking on the visible spectrum, since humans are sight animals. Zach went with a ‘most common denominator’ approach - scent, infrared, acoustic, everything but electromagnetic vision.  The quilts cover the infrared and the majority of the acoustic issues: if any body-heat shows through fifteen inches of fluffed wool and a bulkhead door, we’re doomed no matter what.” I highlighted a line of data. “Scent, likewise: Zach is suggesting aeresolized, low concentration sulfur throughout the majority of the Ark, excluding the safe-zones. The safe-zones will also have one of Miys stationed in each one, acting essentially as an air scrubber. This will minimize acoustics from active air filtration, while also adhering to Miys being a non-participant: they will be present to ensure our comfort due to minimizing body odor, nothing more.  This was already planned, the fact that it will protect us from being detected by scent is just a lagniappe.”

I waited for the thoughtful nods to pass and decided I did not see the glance that Arthur and Alistair exchanged. As long as they didn’t draw blood during the meeting, I would let it slide. “Where it gets sticky is neuroelectric. Zach, it seems, took a page out of Charly’s manual-of-mischief.” I zoomed in on the specific line of the prospectus and waited.

“He wants to what?” Hannah asked, incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh I like this,” came the ‘devil’ in ‘devil’s advocate’.

“How would it even work?” Parvati asked, genuinely curious.

I chose that one to respond to. “Just like the microfilament wires that will support the quilts, he wants to cover the walls inside several false locations with a mesh and electrify it to mimic human synaptic energy. Needle in a haystack theory.”

“Wait,” Alistair held up a hand to interrupt. “Are you also proposing that the doors to these false locations will be covered in the quilts?”

“Absolutely,” I confirmed. “Given how far from prospective entry points all of the safe-zones are located, they would run into several false locations before they encounter a real one.”

“And if they decide to tear into all the locations, even the false-positives?” Arthur poked, trying to find a hole in the idea. Which, I had to concede, was why he was even here instead of sending me messages for this.

“What if they decide to tear into every mess hall? Or every door? We can’t plan for everything.” I shook my head. “However, we can factor in a few things that seem pretty consistent despite species - Beings who don’t have legitimate work and take slaves are generally prone to laziness, despite somehow working harder to avoid work than I have ever actually worked a day in my life.  Point being, give them enough false positives on the way, they won’t actually search everything no matter what they say.”

“Speculation and hearsay, not admissible in court.”

“Au contraire, mon frère. Charly did the sociological analysis on all the species most likely to be pirates in the region of the galaxy where we will exit relativistic space, and her estimates are that the plan has a sixty-to-eighty-percent chance of success in the event that all human combatants fail. And I, personally, agree.” 

He conceded a low whistle. “Damn. If I didn’t like Evan so much, I would say Charly is being wasted with Huynh. Objection withdrawn.”

“Quite,” Alistair agreed smugly. “Miss Harper’s plan is a sound one. The Archives, however - “

I interrupted, still irritated about the topic. “You will be stationed immediately inside the doors to defend against any intruders who make it that far, while Tyche will be defending the y-junction between the speculative fiction and historical fiction categories to prevent intruders from reaching the actual people.”

“But the religious studies section - “

“Has already been scanned down to a molecular level to preserve the information, even if we can’t restore any actual artifacts,” Parvati advised in a profoundly bored tone. “You do realize that anyone who reaches that section will not be able to reach the actual people from there without doubling back, right?”

“Miss Fletcher, there is a Gutenberg Bible on this Ark, potentially the last one in existence.” The tone was icy enough to send a shiver down my spine.

“Phee,” Arthur threw out, guaranteeing my irate attention, “Is there any issue with moving the Gutenberg to the Speculative Fiction section until we meet with the Ekomari fleet?”

“Are you seri - “

“Not to placate the Monarchist, I swear. Just - that is a profoundly important historical artifact, even if I agree with nearly none of the contents. The start of the Information age! Literature in the hands of the vulgar masses! Your field of study would have never existed in the form it was without that achievement. Who cares if the first use was to print the frickin’ Bible?”

Before I could object, Parvati added her prodigious two cents. “I do not have to be Christian to appreciate the illuminations in a manuscript, any more than I have to be a Muslim to be brought to my knees by the beauty of a mosque. We can appreciate the significance of something regardless of whether we agree with it or not.”

“This is probably where Charly or Tyche would point out that I am a huge fan of laws against animal abuse, despite firmly believing that Hitler was evil incarnate,” I sighed. “Yeah, we can move the Gutenberg Bible, provided - hang on, stop cheering - PROVIDED - “ I paused to make sure they were all paying attention, “that any other works of significant cultural or historical significance are moved as well. Any first additions, significant religious texts - or in lack of ‘significant’ religious texts, just a copy of each that is agreed to be acceptable by all who follow that religion. A copy of Frankenstein, The Tale of Genji, et cetera.”

I knew my request brooked exactly zero argument from Alistair, as his eyes visibly shone when I added more books to the list. What I waited for were any objections from the other three.

Sure enough, Hannah tentatively raised her hand. When I nodded, she spoke up. “I think we should do a kind of Voyager-plate: a copy, even just digital, of all our texts around music, crafts, technology, mathematics… Art, fermentation, food preparation and the history of it. Not just for this scenario!” she insisted urgently, “For any worst-case scenario. Keep a copy, or several. And put those copies, along with all the relevant artifacts that we have on board, and keep them with the people in the Archives, in the safest part of the ship.”

“Where it would take a black hole to destroy it,” Parvati whispered.

Just as the tears were threatening my eyes, Arthur flopped back in his seat and kicked his boots up onto the table. “Jesus fuck, you guys are depressing. Right, but depressing. It’s doable, though. We just transcribe it into the most common language for each version of ‘language’ in the Galaxy…”

Alistair snorted. “You warlords and your short-sightedness. Clearly, the resolution is to transcribe it into the most common language in the Galaxy with instructions on how to translate it further down.”

“No, you limey-ass bastard,” Arthur growled. “Too much is lost in translation - there is a reason the Qur’an and the Sefer Torah should never be translated to be considered valid.”

Nope. I wasn’t dealing with it. We had covered all the necessary topics, I could message the rest. I twitch my head at both Vati and Hannah, at which point they both rose from their seats. Neither was noticed by the arguing men.

Arthur was mid-sentence when a quick strike from Vati to the top of his spinal cord rendered all his words gibberish. Rather than realizing this, he glanced down at his suddenly-tingling fingertips in confusion. Hannah simply hauled Alistair out of his seat and ignored his squawked objections, her shorter but sturdier frame more than a match for his tall, slender frame and brain that was very much against violence towards women but undecided about how to stop them from chauffeuring you out of a room.

With exactly zero ceremony, both men were deposited in the corridor, to the satisfaction of all three of us. I waggled my fingers in a farewell. “Fuck it out or fight it out, I don’t care. But not in my office. Ta!”

I could not hold back the smile anymore when both started pounding on the door for entry, not realizing I had disabled their permissions right after the first volley had been thrown.  It was almost habit, at this point, to disable their permissions to my office when they started bickering, only to restore them when they decided to act like adults.

Clearly that wasn’t the case this time. Oh well, maybe in a couple hours. I would need to ask Xiomara to do a ‘sensor test’ of the gym and med bays to be sure.

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[blazogirlsoneshots]

Sunsets and Sick Days (Peter Pevensie x Reader)

requested by @swordofpevensie​: may i request a fic where y/n is comforting peter, while he is the high king? i need a fluffy and cute peter fic so bad

There was nothing quite as beautiful as the sunset at Cair Paravel. The bright oranges and soft violets blended perfectly with the sea and the outline of the castle. Every evening, it seemed, there would be some artist in some corner trying to perfectly capture the image. 

All of this beauty was lost to Peter, though, as he rifled through the mountains of paperwork strewn all over his desk. The young king’s eyes were bloodshot and his normally glowing skin had taken a whiter tinge. Scattered around in the various nooks and crannies, one would find empty teacups and broken quills. It was safe to say that the high king had been hard at work.

Peter groaned as he looked over the latest letter. It was a complaint from some Calormen lord over some trade deal that upset him or some other ridiculousness. Just as Peter was about to grab a quill to draft a response there was a knock at the study door.

“Come in,” Called the weary king. Y/N cautiously poked their head through the door and shot Peter a sheepish grin. 

“You missed dinner, again,” They said as they revealed a covered tray.

“Sorry about that, I’ve just been swamped-”

“With work, I know,” Y/N groaned, “Don’t you think you’re doing too much? I mean, you only started to get better three days ago.”

Peter tried to avoid Y/N’s worried gaze but to no avail. Normally, Peter was never this behind on work. Edmund would deal with the diplomats and drafting of bills while Peter would sign them and then organize the rollout that Lucy would then oversee. Unfortunately, Peter had been ill for the last couple of weeks and the work had piled up.

“I’m fine, Y/N, honestly. I have this all under control.”

“Right, and what did Lucy say about all this?” Peter said nothing, conforming Y/N’s suspensions. “That’s what I thought”

Y/N set the tray down and walked over to the cluttered desk. They walked behind Peter and gently removed his crown. 

“You can’t lead a country if you can’t take care of yourself. When was the last time you drank water or ate, even? I know that you have the need to take care of everyone and everything, and don’t get me wrong I love that about you, but you can’t work yourself to death.”

“But nothing can be done if I don’t sign these,” Peter started but quickly stopped as Y/N encircled him in their arms. 

“You’re the high king, can’t you put forth some temporary authorization for your siblings? I know you trust them.”

“Yeah, but there’s this whole balance of power thing or something,” Peter started to explain but stopped from a look at Y/N. They weren’t one for legal mumbo jumbo on a good day and now definitely wasn’t the time. “I can figure something out.”

“Good. Now, we’re going to go outside so you can get some fresh air and eat some dinner. I’m going to ask for someone to air out your study and light some scented candles because it smells like unbathed Peter in there.” Peter got up from his desk as he listened to his partner. There was something about Y/N entering chief of staff mode that made Peter fall in love with them all over again.

“Why are you doing this?” Y/N stopped and looked at him.

“Because I love you and I can’t stand to see you like this.” Y/N intertwined their fingers with Peter’s and kissed his cheek. “Why do you ask?”

“Because sometimes I think I forget that this is real,” Peter muttered, “You, me, Narina, all of it. Sometimes I feel like I can’t truly comprehend it.”

“Don’t worry, you’re highness, my love for you is probably the most real thing there is.”

masterlist

[prettyboyjackhughes]

-Draft Day- |J. Hughes|

“Char, you know as soon as they announce his name, you’re the first person he’ll try to find.” Trev says, messing with his tie. Tonight was the 1st night of the NHL draft. Jack is expected to go number one, Trev and Alex not far after. I was super excited for all of them but I wasn’t able to be in 3 places to sit with all of them. Trev and I had shared every little thing since we were born, might as well share this too.

“Well good thing he’s not that far away.” Jack says, turning around and smiling at me. Alex and Madi are in the row behind us. Madi and I had gone shopping for draft dresses a few weeks ago. I had bought a gray, short, off the shoulder sweater body con dress. Madi’s dress was a black, short body con dress with puff sleeves. She had paired her’s with nude heels and I had worn mine with black knee high heeled boots that made me almost as tall as Jack. Jack was wearing a blue suit with red stripes and a red and blue checkered tie. Trev had on a black suit with a light blue tie. Alex’s suit is my favorite. It’s light gray with a navy blue tie. Jack turns around and looks at me again.

“Trev’s right though. You’re the first one I’m looking for. So you’d better be ready to kiss me.” I laugh and lean in to kiss him.

“Baby baby! Not yet! I don’t want lipstick on my face when I get called up!” I roll my eyes and lean back in my seat, crossing my legs, my dress sliding up apparently too far for Jack and my brother’s comfort.

“Seriously Char? Pull it down!” Jack says loudly. Luke laughs and looks back at me.

“For real Charlie! No one wants to see that!” Trev says, pulling my skirt down for me. I roll my eyes and Madi laughs. The announcer comes on and asks everyone to take their seats and I reach over, taking Trev’s hand.

“Welcome to the 2019 National Hockey League Draft. Our first draft will be from the New Jersey Devils.” Jack shifts anxiously in his seat and Trev reaches down with his free hand to pat his shoulder.

“With the first pick overall, The New Jersey Devils are proud to select, from the U.S. program, Jack Hughes.” Jack stands up, the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on his face. He immediately turns around and almost falls over the chairs, reaching for me. I stand up and step towards him. Our lips connect and I can feel the smile on his face. After a few seconds, he pulls away. He hugs the whole Hughes family, Turcs, Trev, and Madi, and then makes his way to the stage. He had left his suit jacket on the back of his chair; leaving him in just his button up shirt. It hugs his upper body and arms in all the right places and shows off the muscles he’s worked extremely hard to get.

“Damn, he looks good in red.” I say, leaning back and patting Madi’s knee as Jack pulls the number 19 Devils jersey over his head, his hair sticking up adorably. She laughs and we all sit, waiting for Alex’s and Trev’s names to be called. We politely clap for every guy drafted but all I can focus my mind on is the fact that my boyfriend got drafted number one overall and was gonna be playing in the NHL alongside my brother and his best friend. Along with what will happen after all this is over, what Jack and I will do when we get home. Jack’s parents and Dukes were all staying at Quinn’s apartment in downtown Vancouver. My parents and Alex’s parents were all at a hotel about 20 minutes away from Quinn’s apartment. But since this is a big couple weeks for the boys and they would be coming and going so frequently, the parents all pitched in and booked the 5 of us an Airbnb for the next 2 weeks. While Trev was the third wheel to both couples, I’ve been woken up by him sneaking a few girls out at 4 in the morning before he thinks we’re all awake.

“You’re gonna get hell from all the girls in love with him.” Trev says as they announce the 3rd pick. I shrug, not worried about it.

“They’re not the ones sleeping with him at night. I am.” I say, smirking and laughing. Madi high fives me and I flip my hair.

“Wow, real humble aren’t we, Char?” Alex says, shifting in his seat and putting his arm around Madi’s waist. I smile and Alex gently tugs a chunk of my hair. .

“And with the fifth overall pick, the Los Angeles Kings select, from the U.S. National Development Program, Alex Turcotte.” Alex stands up and pulls Madi up with him. He pecks her on the cheek, not locking lips like Jack and I did. He hugs Trev, his parents and then reaches for me. I stand up, hug him and whisper in his ear.

“I’m so proud of you Turcs, love you.” He smiles and heads down to the stage.

“Madi that’s your boy!” I laugh as she snaps pictures of him.

“I feel like a proud mom!” She says, smiling. Trev’s gotten quiet during the last few minutes. I nudge him, waiting for a response as he stares at his phone.

“Huh? Oh I’m okay. Just, taking it all in.” I can see in his eyes he’s off but I’m not sure why. The management at the Anaheim Ducks had talked to him a while back and had mentioned if he was still there when it came their turn to pick, they’d take him. He was happy about that, since that meant he and Alex would both be out in California, but it also meant he didn’t really have anything to worry about. He’d be getting picked in the first round no matter what.

“And with the ninth overall pick, the Anaheim Ducks are proud to select, from the U.S. National Program, Trevor Zegras.” Trev looks up, almost shocked to hear his own name. He stands up, a goofy grin on his face. I stand with him, pulling him into a hug.

“Trev, I’m so proud of you! This is our dream! Now go!” He pulls away and goes to Mom and Dad, pulling them both into a hug. He finally escapes the row and heads down the stairs to the stage, the big grin never leaving his face. I take a Snapchat of him pulling the Anaheim jersey over his head and shaking hands with the general manager. I caption it ‘Proud of my Bubs❤️’ and post it. Soon, after what seems like hours of watching boy after boy get called up, teammate after teammate of the boys getting drafted, we are finally dismissed and get to go meet up with the boys. We head to the family waiting area and see the boys, all huddled in a group, waiting for us. Madi and I take turns hugging each of them. Jack suddenly pulls me away and kisses me. He kisses me, tongue automatically slipping into my mouth. After what seemed like no time, he pulled away.

“Sorry, I had to finish that from earlier. But anyways, the boys wanna go out. But we don’t have to. I know we had...plans.” He says, very obviously squeezing my ass as his arm sneaks around my waist. I smirk as I see Trev’s face, who obviously saw what Jack did. Surprisingly, he doesn’t come to say anything.

“I’d rather go home. I’m kinda tired plus, I really want it.” I say, “accidentally” brushing my hand against the inside of Jack’s thigh as I turn around to face him. Trev sees that too and finally does come over.

“Seriously you two! What is your deal? Our parents are literally right there! Why not just walk over and tell them you’re leaving to go have sex?” He says, attempting to keep his voice quiet but Madi and Alex still hear and excuse themselves from Alex’s parents, making their way over to us.

“Good lord Trev, keep your voice down! Besides, we all know you’ve been texting some girl all night trying to get her to come hook up with you when y’all go out.” Alex says, elbowing Trev. His face flames red and I almost want to put an end to the embarrassment he’s suffering on his big night but after what he said, I decide not to.

“Okay no need to expose me like that and it was one, okay two girls. So leave me alone.” He says, crossing his arms. We all laugh and Trev’s signature grin returns to his face.

“Okay kids, I need pictures.” Alex’s mom says, coming over and bursting our little bubble. Jack’s hand, which was safely in mine somehow escapes and travels back down to its original place. I roll my eyes and elbow him in the side. His hand goes away and instead, he wraps his arms around my shoulders. He’s going through a phase where he always has to be touching me, no matter how. From his hand in mine to playing with my hair, he’s always touching me. And I’m 100% okay with it.

“I want the boys first then we can do the couples and Charlie and Trev.” Turcs’ mom is a family photographer and really successful in Island Lake, where they’re from. Jack is in the middle, Alex on his left, Trev on his right. They all have the most genuine smiles on their faces. I pull Madi over to the giant NHL draft logo on the wall and we take a few selfies in front of it.

“Charlie, you know that boy is in love with you, right?” She says, glancing up at Jack and nudging me. I look up and catch him staring. I smile and he winks. My stomach drops and I get butterflies.

“Yeah I know, Mads. And I’m in love with him.” I say, smiling and hugging my best friend.

[tomsrebeleyebrow]

ocean eyes | ho x fem!reader (merman au)

credits to myself for the moodboard

Summary: Sometimes, having a crush might be a difficult matter to deal with... even more when the aforesaid crush turned to not be who you thought it was at first sight. 

Warnings: mention of ANGST (suicidal thoughts), language, SMUT including unprotected sex (wrap it up kiddo), lots of gridding and PDA, oral (fem receiving) and a glimpse of handjob.

Word Count: 8.7k (oh my what)

A/N: So... I’M BACK BABYYY, with some hot stuff too 🔥✨ And particularly with this quite original AU that was sleeping in my drafts for like two months and more… oopsie? 😂😅 Also I felt like our Hazza boy needed some love so here we gooo 👀 But oh lord is it good to be back to writing again! Thank you again to all of you who supported me and made me want to come back here 🥺💕 I’d be nothing without you all… So please, enjoy this oneshot, show me your support and there is also a brand new taglist below you can subscribe to if you like my writings (or you can definitely turn your notifications on to know each time I post) 😌🙏🏻

masterlist | ⚠️ new taglist ⚠️ | your support

“Tom, are you sure he's going to be there?”

“I promise (Y/N), I made sure to have Harry and Sam ask just in case. I'm pretty sure he’d be coming only to show off a little and for the free booze as always, but he will be there nonetheless.”

You couldn't help the giddy smile that spread to your lips, clasping your hands together with excitement. Tom was your best friend for three years now and definitely the best wingman you ever knew - true to the rumours, as the brunette was making sure the person you couldn't stop thinking about would participate at this (quite extravagant) vacation Tom decided to organise in the Maldives.

That person had been at a previous get together you had with some friends but as strange as it may have seemed, once knowing his outgoing personality he was such a loner and that made him hard to approach. Harrison, Tom’s best friend. Around your age and incredibly handsome that you couldn't get him out of your mind. These nice blonde locks of hair that turned slightly darker now, slightly curly when too long, a well toned body and not to mention the brightness of his blue eyes, almost translucent but reminding you of the vastness of the ocean.

That boy completely stole your heart... and didn’t really speak to you that much.

It was not that you didn't try to talk to Harrison before but most of the time, he would just ignore you or at some point look disinterested in his surrounding until he would just leave. Today you were more determined. And even if the blond man came off like a snob or a jerk - Tom assuring you he was not at all -, you really wanted to take some time to get to know him.

“Thanks for asking me to join the trip, Tom” you said, “I can't believe you suddenly felt like “taking a break and let’s get wild and free to the Maldives’ really” you beamed excitedly, trotting before your brunette friend while taking a whiff of the air, completely infatuated with the smell of the salty ocean water in the distance.

“Come on, that’s all fine (Y/N)” smiled Tom as he joined your side, “you needed that little vacation anyway.”

“You’re such a div, really… Moviestar...”

“Hey! Don’t call me that now!”

Laughing, you both trailed up the floorboard pathway on the white sand that leaded to the beautiful couples of straw huts on piles. The little floating houses were already teeming with lots of people, most faces you definitely didn’t know at all but you still managed to catch sight of Tom’s twin brothers and some other mutuals friends of yours. A smiling Maldives’ waiter welcomed and guided both of you down the plank pathway to the first straw hut where at least twenty people were already dancing and enjoying themselves. After seeing how extravagant this kind of party could be, you almost regretted wearing a simple white beach dress with your bikini underneath, but everyone else was dressed as casual as you were as well so you felt much better.

After grabbing some punch and chatting with your friends you (finally) found for a bit, you kept looking around for Harrison but it looked like he didn’t arrived yet. At least that was what you thought until you spotted him in the shadow of another straw hut further away, leaning on the rails and staring out at the crystal clear ocean. He was alone there, away from the loud music coming from the other huts mixed with the constant laughers of the guests. You’ve never been more happy to finally find him that you were not going to let any shyness hold you back, and then you made your slow approach towards him.

“Hey Harrison, it's nice to see you again” you began, trying to not seem too excited. “I didn't know you were going to be here...” you lied through your teeth but it was a small white one, as you stepped up next to his right side.

Harrison’s cheek tilted in your direction for the briefest of seconds, giving you a small moment to admire his bright eyes before quickly turning away. A frown ghosted over your lips but you held your ground, trying to start a small conversation with him but nothing you said seemed to interest him. After several minutes of trying and failing just to get him to speak, you leaned out and looked at the water before whispering.

“You must really like the ocean...”

“I fuckin’ hate the ocean” Harrison snapped, startling you it almost made you jump backwards.

His voice was a lot deeper than you imagined, such a tone with a pretty defined accent could charm you right out of your clothes with very little effort. You shook your head at such misplaced thoughts before looking up at his face as Harrison was glaring spitefully into the distance, both his hands gripping the wood banister as if ready to rip it in half.

You never saw such a troubled expression before that you instinctively grabbed the blonde’s wrist and gave his hand a tug.

“If you don't like the ocean, stop giving it your attention and enjoy the party” you interrupted his train of thoughts, surprising yourself by such boldness. “Come dance with me, I promise I'm not as clumsy as I look.”

It was astonishing even to yourself that Harrison allowed you to pull him away to guide him over the center of the empty straw hut you were both in.

“You may have a very goofy face, so I bet you really are clumsy” the blond man snorted, his fine lips quirking up into a grin but you didn't mind at all, specially since he just looked so dreamy with that teasing smile on his face.

You giggled while taking more initiative by sliding one hand around his hip and taking his own in the other, your heart skipped a beat at the way Harrison interlocked your fingers together with his.

“You better not step on my feet” he warned, before sighing, “... not promising I won’t, though.”

Giggling, you immediately took the lead as Harrison slid his other hand to the middle of your back. You gladly fell into his steps, doing your best to prove you at least had some sophistication. No doubt in your mind, you'd be so embarrassed if you did actually step on his foot. On the other hand, Harrison had the perfect build for dancing, even if it felt like he wasn't exactly sure about what he was doing at the moment. It wasn't like it was hard though, just simple stepping you both back and forth to the music with the occasional spin was all he had to do. But still, dancing was not an easy matter for anyone.

Eventually it seemed very natural to step closer to each other, resting your hands on his hips while his own swayed down to your lower back before settling on the curve that started the shape of your bottom. You moved together, getting lost in the heat of his build upper body, unable to stop the hopeful feelings boiling inside.

The music switched to a more beat heavy and bopping rhythm, so you detached only to turn in his grasp and sway your hips back and forth against him. It took literally less than a second for his own hands to slide around your waist and maneuver your behind to rub up against his crotch. Both of you tuned the world out and danced so intimately, it felt like nothing else mattered.

“Maybe you were right, you don't have two left feet after all” Harrison mumbled against the back of your head, pulling his hands back just enough to hold your hips tight and sway you from side to side.

You blushed softly at the way the blond boy curved you into his taller more muscular shape, the heat of his hands and skin giving you courage to delicately rest your own hands on his own hips and meet his movements.

“Thanks, but I'm just following your lead… It feels really nice to dance with you” you whispered to him, momentarily closing your eyes as you leaned back against his chest. "My name is (Y/N), by the way. Tom’s friend. Uhm, I tried talking to you back then at the Brighton party from a few weeks ago but—” you trailed off, forcing an awkward smile even if Harrison couldn't see your face.

“I remember you” Harrison cut off. He huffed, his grip suddenly tightening against your stomach before he purposefully felt down the shape of your legs along your soft dress. “The chatterbox who talked to me for like fifteen minutes even though I never said a word back.”

“O-oh…”

The forlorn tone in your voice was unmistakable as you pulled away from his grasp and tried to excuse yourself.

“I’m sorry, I never meant to bother you… I just wanted to talk…”

Your eyes became a bit glossy. You truly hoped Harrison would remember you but it didn't sound like you left a good first impression. But then his firm hand latched onto your wrist, halting your movement before you could step too far away and instantly yanked you back hard enough to stumble into his chest.

“I never said you could leave, (Y/N)...”

With purpose his other hand slid down to the bottom of your ass, making sure you couldn't escape as he held you still, tightly.

“If you haven't noticed, right now we are doing more than talking. You invited me to dance... s-so let’s dance.”

Once again, you followed his lead as the blond boy began moving you both around the hut. One of your hands was pressing flatly against his chest but soon it slowly shifted up to his shoulder, meeting his movement and curving your body into the posture of his own. It was both heart racing and felt so natural to dance with him that you didn’t really know far that long.

Some time passing, you talked with Harrison while dancing and, like you had promised yourself, got to know him a little more. At first, the boy was the one to ask you tons of questions, not really letting you a second to ask something back but after a bit, you learned that Harrison was an actor, slowly making his place into the industry and the current big project he was working on. He also only came here because the boy like partying in general, also for Tom obviously and for the drinks.

It made you smile, Tom's first hypothesis being correct but you didn't really care about Harrison’s reasons. All that mattered now was that he actually came and was here, with you. He even offered a small excuse for why he was so silent when you tried to talk to him a few weeks ago, as the blonde man had a really stressful day on set and knew if he opened his mouth, it would just be party pooper.

“It's never pleasant for anyone when I'm in a bad mood. So I just stayed silent, but you just went on and on… It was quite entertaining to watch you though” Harrison snickered, watching you puff out your cheeks and call him a jerk for not saying at least something to you, leaving out the part where you thought he was just some player and you weren't pretty enough for him.

Eventually you both got tired of dancing after several songs and went to sit on the stairs which leaded to the sea. While going, you also got a silent thumbs up from a dancing and slightly drunk Tom in another straw hut whom seemed to be wishing you luck, which you were grateful for.

After talking a little more on the wooden stairs, the ocean breeze just felt and smelled really delightful that you pointed down to the wharf and turned to Harrison with a bright hopeful smile.

“We should go for a walk down by the beach!”

“Really now?” Harrison scowled, turning his face away. “The damn ocean is already surrounded us now, why would you even go walk along it…”

With a sigh the boy stood, shoving both of his hands in his dark bermuda pockets and walking away. A frown formed on your lips turning away to grip the bottom of your dress, trying to remain strong as you weren't going to beg him for sure.

“Fine. I'll go by myself… I-I can enjoy the moonlight even if I'm alone.”

Harrison turned back, watching you not even spare him another glance before carefully taking the steps down the hut you were to then walk onto another flootboard path to the front of the beach. Once back on land, you slid off your sandals and smiled at the soft feeling of the still warm sand beneath your feet.

The ocean breeze rustled through your loose hair and the salty smell of the water wafted into your nose as you walked along by the edge of the waves. The cold and clear water lapped at your feet and over your ankles, before you stopped and looked up at the luminous moon casting a beautiful bright glow down against the surface of the water. With a subtle turn, you glanced at both your sides before a small tear ebbed down your cheek.

“I'm always alone… does anyone actually see me?”

You got to dance with who you can qualify as your crush and he finally talked to you tonight… and yet, you were still not satisfied. Way far from being satisfied. You have friends for course, but no one can see how much you were hurt deep inside.

I wish I could just walk out into the ocean and never come back.

Lifting your legs you took a step or two towards the glorious and vast ocean, only to have a warm hand suddenly grab a hold of your wrist. Turning, your eyes widen at the sight of Harrison’s diamond orbs, a tear involuntarily gliding down your cheek that you quickly wiped away with an abrupt turn.

“I see you, (Y/N)” the blonde man said, simply tugging your hand and getting you to step out of the path of the oncoming calm waves so he wouldn't get wet.

“You wanted to walk, right? So let’s walk, come on...”

With a tight but not harsh grip on your hand, Harrison interlocked your fingers and nearly dragged you along beside him as you stepped further down the immense beach of the island.

You'd never been more grateful that Harrison didn’t called attention to the fact that you were crying, even if he clearly heard what you said for sure. The warmth of his palm and slender fingers were incredibly soothing to the loneliness inside your heart. Without even a second thought, you indulged sliding your other hand around his elbow and laying your head on his shoulder.

Just for a moment, that’s all I need...

His beautiful eyes casted down to the top of your head, gritting his teeth wondering why he just couldn't leave you alone... even though the boy had no intention of getting this close to anyone. Harrison leaded the way slowly further down the beach, avoiding the waves and glaring spitefully at the water, hopefully he wouldn't have to get any closer to it, this being his only goal at the moment.

“... thank you.”

“I didn't do anything.”

You smiled slowly detaching from his shoulder, until your hands were the only thing still connected. Even in pure silent but with the sound of the waves in the background, it felt peaceful and not being alone was just a million times better than the expansive loneliness you were consumed with a minute ago. Taking a small leap you pointed up to the wharf and ask if you can walk up there together.

Harrison flared his nostrils but still took you both over to the stairs, guiding your way up until you were walking along the light wooden platform. Slowly you started talking again, realizing for some reason you were just so comfortable with him even if this was only the second time you’ve met within the span of a few weeks.

Even if Harrison had somehow a bit of a moody attitude, you could tell he was not a bad company. When his handsome facial features were fully relaxed and able to laugh and smile, those were some of the best moments but it felt like he had troubles opening up and letting himself have fun.

With the moon at your back and being alone with him, the moment felt so right. So you worked up the courage to ask him “the” question you wanted to since the first time you met. Letting go of his hand you stepped in front of him, pushing back your hair that was becoming delightfully frazzled by the ocean breeze and smiled at him, shyly.

“Harrison, I was wondering… if you had a girlfriend—”

“I do.”

“Oh...” you whispered, the smile on your face faltering for the briefest of seconds but you quickly recovered, not letting it bring you down before you turned around and held your hands behind your back. “I... expected a handsome guy like you to be taken, so I'm honestly not surprised.”

There was suddenly a heavy pang inside your chest, but you couldn’t ask for anything more than what Harrison had already given you.

“I had fun dancing with you, and also got you, the brick wall, to talk” you said while turning back to face the blonde with a gentle expression. “I-I, well I basically had a crush on you— I know it's pretty silly… but you were kind to me in your own way, so thank you. I promise I won’t bother you a-anymore…”

The expression on Harrison’s face kind of made him hard to read, but you were honestly trying to not look as you walk past him, briefly grazing against his hand before trying to make your grand escape.

The thump in your chest throbbed so loudly that it was rather painful and the only thing you could focus on, which was why it startled you so much when the blonde man abruptly turned and grabbed your elbow that your foot missed the platform while you tried to pull away. The next thing you knew was that you were plummeting off the side of the wharf, panic flaring into your eyes and desperately trying to grab onto his arm.

But it was too late. And you were now falling in the ocean.

You squealed in fear, watching Harrison not even waste a single second before diving in after you. Both of his muscled arms wrapped around your body and switched your positions so he was bracing your fall, as you both smacked into the cold waves of the water and instantly sinked below the surface.

It took you a moment but your eyes slowly opened under the cold water, feeling jarred and vision momentarily blurry before they focused on Harrison. Bubbles flubbed from your lips as you called to him and waded through the water until you were finally right in front of him. His expression churned your heart as the boy looked so utterly distressed, so you couldn’t help but cup his cheeks and lift his head to focus on you...

But then, you trailed down and immediately thought this must be a dream.

Below his toned torso was displayed a long and beautiful turquoise colored tail fin covered in scales, a mixed of varied shades of blue shimmering with the moon ray. It was as bright as a freshly full moon, flowered out like it was encased in multiple diamonds. It was definitely the prettiest thing you have ever seen, that you couldn’t help yourself but glide your hand down to pet along its base.

Your fingers barely got to note that bumpy texture before Harrison grabbed your hand and placed his own against your cheek. Your skin warmed as the blond boy pulled you closer and shook his head, a troubled look on his face that you had no idea how to help him before he parted his lips and spoke directly to you, no bubbles coming out of his mouth, just words.

“Why couldn't you just leave me alone?!”

His words were like a stab to your heart that you just darted forward to wrap both arms around his frame, sliding your head over his shoulder flubbing “I'm sorry” to him over and over, until your body started to fall lax and your eyes slid closed, the need for oxygen overwhelming your body. Everything began to fade until you felt him grip your hips, wading his fin back and forth until you were above the water and coughing for air.

With a shove Harrison detached you from his body, watching as the waves carry you back to the shore by the beach. Your eyes fluttered a thousand times, panting and trying to exert more air back into your waterlogged lungs, before focusing on him. The moment your lips parted to call him out, you noted the angry expression on his face before the blond merman turned and dived down back into the water, swimming away at the speed of light.

“W-wait! Please, Harrison!”

You stood there, looking back and forth and as far out into the ocean as your eyes possibly could but Harrison was long gone by now.

“... Please, come back” you slowly whispered, gripping both of your hands over the front of your now heavy and completely soaked dress.

The way your heart thumped into overdrive was almost as painful as the heartbreak you experienced just moments before the fall.

* * * *

After sitting on the shore for the longest time, hoping with all your heart that the blond boy would come back, it became obvious after nearly an hour that he wasn't going to return. Shivering, you walked back towards the main straw hut and waved off all of your friends’ concerns, saying you just went for a little dip in the water.

The party winded down after awhile with everyone departing and respectively returning to their hotel. You went back and waited like a lost puppy on the wharf for Harrison as long as you could, looking out into the expansive beautiful blue ocean and slowly starting to realize why he hated it and didn't want to be anywhere near it.

It’s my fault. He didn't want anyone to know and I forced him to follow me around. He probably hates me now… but I'd just like to know if he's okay.

“(Y/N)!” Tom called out, joining and sliding himself next to you on the wharf. “I was about to head back to the hotel. Want to walk back together?”

He had such a kind and tender smile on his face, almost able to appease you with his slight rosy cheeks due to all the booze he had consumed. If only you'd fallen for someone as gentle and funny as him, maybe you wouldn't be longing for an elusive handsome merman right now.

“Thanks for the offer Tom, but… I think I'd like to stay a little longer, if that’s alright” you spoke softly, trailing off why you wanted to torture yourself any longer but you just hoped so much Harrison would come back.

“That’s totally fine, darling. Some people are still at the party, but don’t hesitate to text me if you want me to come back to not walk alone. Or I can even ask a staff member of our hotel to come here and escort you if you prefer. Just tell me, okay (Y/N)?”

You'd never been more grateful to have a friend you can trust like Tom; lovely, helpful and kind hearted. Stepping forward you surprised him with a hug and a soft thank you. After that, Tom said his goodbye's and left. You waited on the wharf another hour by walking back and forth to look at both sides of it, before deciding to sit at the edge. Almost another hour went by and now, it must of been nearly midnight as your doubts were high that the mysterious Harrison most certainly had no desire to ever see you ever again.

The party in the straw huts finally died down, the staff from the restaurant on the island now actively cleaning the mess done by the guests. Eventually, you laid down on the hard floorboard wharf with heavy thoughts that lulled you into a sleep where you dreamed about the warm and enamoring feelings of dancing against his toned and protective frame.

Some time later the sound of steps resonated on the wooden wharf, soon followed by a heavy sigh as someone bended down next to your side, running delicately the back of his knuckles along your cheek.

“I thought you would have left by now… silly.”

The mesmerizing deep octave of his voice jared you awake, a soft smile curving up on your lips at the sight of his astonishing emerald eyes. The blond man frowned before standing up and pulling away, turning around to immediately walk away from you but you suddenly jolted up to grab the back of his pastel hoodie he was now wearing, desperation in your fingertips.

“I'm sorry, Harrison— I… it's my fault. I won’t tell anyone, I promise—”

“Is that all you wanted to say?”

Harrison’s voice was monotone but his face was full of an abundance of emotions he just didn’t want you to see now.

“Y-Yes…” you whispered, letting go of his hoodie. “... I also just wanted to make sure you were okay, and that you didn’t get hurt…”

You smiled softly stepping up to his backside, placing your forehead against the middle of his back indulging for just a moment.

“Your fin is incredibly beautiful…”

One of his hands clenched over his heart, his brows furrowing together while he gnashed his teeth. When you let go and stepped back, the loss of your heat was actually incredibly startling as Harrison turned towards you, to then notice you already began walking away.

“I'm sorry for annoying you… I'll lea—”

“Stop apologizing when you haven't done anything wrong!” Harrison suddenly hissed, latching his hands onto your body from behind gripping your waist so tight it nearly felt like he was trembling.

The gruff sound of his voice had you flinching and your cheeks warming as he buried his astute chin into the fluffy tresses atop your head. His strong and tight grip seemed almost desperate that you weren't sure what to do but your fingers gently layered over his hands, petting and caressing his knuckles. Slowly, the blond man relaxed until his hold was lax enough for you to turn around and look up at his troubled expression. With a smile, you slid your arms around him and gave him a startling hug.

“I know you probably don't like hugs but… they can make people feel better sometimes.”

Such a soft sentence had his expression soften before his own hands slid up around your back, holding you snugly against his muscular chest. His heart was tranquil and steady like the ocean, maybe even as soothing as those blue waves as well. Harrison even had a delightful soft scent that was kind of addicting.

After a few moments, you parted while looking up at his rugged and handsome face. Those translucent and shining orbs were so alluring, so mesmerizing that within just a few seconds, you were leaning forward and pushing yourself up on your tippy toes until your lips were pressed against each other. His slender digits instantly cupped your cheek and slid the other into your hair where he returned the kiss full force.

Warmth washed over your body and simultaneously the words he'd spoken to you before, that had you detaching so abruptly that Harrison literally growled like a wolf full of primal desire.

“I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that… But you have a girlfriend… b-but I can't stop myself from falling for you—”

You tried to turn away, but a yelp of utter surprise escaped your lips as the blonde boy tossed you down and pinned you against the floorboards of the wharf, not harshly to not hurt you.

“You're really naive, I don't have a girlfriend” Harrison rasped, cutting off whatever you wanted to say with another rough kiss, shoving his tongue into your mouth and tasting your startled whimper at his sudden furry. However you weren't about to stop him with the revelation that he lied to you.

The moment his hands let go of your wrist, they lifted and hazed right into the back of his messy dark blonde locks. Both of his own paws trailed lustfully down the shape of your womanly curves before pushing apart your legs and sliding his frame in between. Your skin warmed at the intimate contact of your lower halves pressing together, letting out the smallest moan.

“I don't want to get close to anyone, but you… You don't want to leave me alone or get out of my damn mind” Harrison husked, latching onto your bottom lip as he pulled away, giving it a nibble rough enough to have drool ebbing down your chin.

You panted up at him as the blonde man leaned down and trailed his lips along the soft skin of your neck.

"Ah— Harrison, I j-just wanted to get to know you” you murmured blushing, instinctively tilting your head unable to deny the want inside to feel more of his lips as he sucked on a tender piece of flesh here and there, until you could feel small love bites warming your neck.

“Then let’s get to know each other more… I'll start by getting to know your body, since you saw a part of mine I never wanted anyone else to see” Harrison hazed with a husky layer of desire, biting into the ridge of your ear while purposefully groping over the shape of your breasts, slithering his other hand up your dress.

A soft moan escaped your lips as he felt along the curves of your body, where you couldn't bring yourself to deny him and instead pushed at the back of his head just to press your lips back together. You could feel him smirking as Harrison gladly kissed you over and over again while feeling along the shape of your womanhood against your bikini bottoms.

“Ehem, excuse me but—”

Someone’s voice caught both your attention, trying to pause both of you as delicately as possible but your face was still incredibly red when your eyes locked with a waiter from the party as he found you in such a compromising position.

Pushing at Harrison’s chest you got him to sit up, even though he looked very displeased, but you merely grabbed his hand and pulled him along beside you.

“I'm s-sorry! We didn't mean to—… out here!” you softly apologized to the poor waiter but he shook his head, even if his face was slightly pink.

You were grateful you didn’t get caught into a way more embarrassing position, as you delicately leaded you both down the wharf to set foot on the sand again. Harrison didn’t said a single word but it seemed that the blond man was waiting for you to get further away from the restaurant, still along the beach before slamming you up against the closest palm tree, growling about how annoyed he was to be interrupted.

He snapped forward like a viper and claimed many more hot and heavy kisses, while sliding both hands around your hips and gripping the bottom of your ass to press you into his body as hard as possible. You whimpered at his roughness but tried to answer to his fervor, holding around his shoulders and neck as tightly as you could muster.

Sliding down your jaw Harrison bit into the side of your neck, pushing up your summer dress and lifting your legs to wrap around his waist, just so he could grind against your thinly clothed core to his heart content.

“O-Oh! Harrison!” you mewled to him with heavy desire laced in your breath, tossing your head back as you felt how hard he was already in accurate details.

The blonde boy grinned wickedly, relieved you were a woman who could admit your pleasures and not be utterly shy about them. Extending his tongue he lapped slickly along your neck, trailing back up your jaw until you were kissing feverishly once again. His hips swayed back and forth, rocking into your body a most pleasurable rhythm that would of been even better if Harrison was actually taking you right here right now, but the stimulation was there and it was driving you insane.

You moaned into Harrison’s mouth, unhinged until he pulled away and watched you make erotic overstimulated faces and whimper about how close you were already, which had his ocean eyes wild with primal desire.

“Gonna cum already?” teased the blonde merman, never slowing down while pressing the tip of his still clothed girth up and down your slit over and over again. “We only began and yet I can feel how badly you're twitching already...”

You whined loudly at how unfair his words were, gripping the top of his hoodie for dear life as he bounced you into him until you reached the most startling orgasm unraveled. Harrison chuckled as you felt lax over his shoulder, before licking the ridge of your ear.

“Mhm, we're just getting started, (Y/N)... Hold on tight.”

A tired smile formed on your lips as you circled around him with both of your arms and legs, and let him carry you back… to the hotel you’re staying at. Your mind wanders a few seconds about how the blonde Adonis that was carrying you could have guessed the place you were staying at, as it was not the only resorts on the Maldives’ coast.

“I asked Tom before where you were staying… and also your room number, if you’re wondering” Harrison mumbled as if reading your mind, his lips also finding the skin of your neck again.

Still too intoxicated by Harrison’s previous ministrations, you only recognised now the familiar corridor of your hotel which lead to your room. Coming to a stop you heard the sound of a door opening - definitely your room as you caught a glimpse of the number written on it while walking past - then closing right after.

“You also forgot to ask Tom to give you back your key before he left, silly.”

You let out a little chuckle before hearing the click of the door lock and not even five seconds later, you were almost instantly thrown down onto your very soft queen size hotel bed, feeling the soft sheets against your hot skin. Harrison didn’t waste his time and just pulled his hoodie off his body, offering you a nice view of his well defined abs before hovering back on top of you.

“Now, take off your dress” he then possessively husked, staring deep into your eyes as he gave both of your thighs a firm squeeze.

Such a naughty demand had you skin tingling but after pulling you dress up just a smidgen, you surprised him with a mischievous grin before grabbing and tugging at the tail of his hoodie with no second thought about it. Oh, his eyes met your challenge but didn't stop you as he lifted his hands and let you yank it over his head and toss it randomly behind him.

“Want to unzip and take off my pants too, doll face?”

You giggled at his smug smirk and you being a little vixen, you gave the clear outline of his girth a slow stroke enough to elicit a very tiger like growl from his fine lips, before finally pulling up the thin material of your white summer dress and lifting your ass to pull it over your shoulders, letting it drop onto the floor.

His predator diamond eyes narrowed at the erotic site of you wearing a pink cotton candy bikini, which he could already see through your white dress when you got soaked in the ocean. Harrison watched you blush softly as he trailed both of his hands up your slightly tanned curves, but you smiled petting your own fingertips along his chest enjoying the shape of his astute muscles.

“You look like a piece of candy. I don't really like sweets but…”

He tiptoed his index and middle finger up from your belly button and startled you with the yank of your bikini top until it was easily sliding away from your body, leaving your breasts on full display.

“... I'll make an exception for you ‘cause you look rather delicious.”

Oh, his lips were wrapped around the closest nipple in a matter of seconds, his hot and wet tongue utterly divine as he lapped hazy wet circles while using his other hand to roll and pinch the other tit, smirking at the way you gasped his name and arched your back like you wanted more. The shape of his warm fingers were incredibly enticing.

Licking his lips Harrison switched to the other delectable nip, swaying his tongue back and forth, sucking hard enough to induce a juicy wet pop before trailing a warm kiss or two down your stomach. His sharp intense eyes noted the damp area that outlined your intimate lower lips, no doubt from your previous orgasm and the blonde couldn't help the modicum of pride he had for making you feel that good.

With a look up to your eyes, it was almost surprising that Harrison bothered to pause but you wanted him very much, and didn't mind at all to continue this night of pleasure. One at a time he loosened the loops you had on both sides of your bottoms before sliding the thin material away from your body, leaving you completely bare beneath him.

Your entire skin tingled at the way he took in the unhindered sight of of your naked body, but it wasn't that you were overly embarrassed by it… It was the look in his beautiful ocean eyes that admired your frame like he was noting it to memory. From the trail up your legs, to the intimate area of your womanhood, over your stomach and breasts, until Harrison settled on the way your hair perfectly framed your face.

Sliding over your body he leaned up and cupped your cheeks, edging down to capture your lips for a surprisingly soft kiss like he was thinking about something. You couldn't help but appreciate some tender displays of his attraction as you welcomed the sway of his slippery tongue into your mouth and used your own hands to pet up and down his back muscles.

You mumbled some incoherent words with a soft smile as Harrison swished back down to suck passionately against your rosy little buds. He chuckled against your skin while planting wet and hot kisses, sucking every tender piece of flesh your chest had as he trailed down your stomach and licked teasingly over your belly button, delighted with the little wiggle your body did.

“Come on (Y/N), I want to hear my name roll of your lips as I have my fill of your flavour” the blue eyed merman seductively husked, pushing apart your legs only to instantly glide his tongue down your wet slit. He nearly growled right away at the delightful flavour of your essence and even enjoyed the automatic slide of your hands into the back of his hair, moaning his name on repeat.

“Please Harrison... devour me.”

You pleaded in heavy desperation, tossing and turning your head as the blond man answered your desires by shoving his wet muscle deeply into your core and curling it up and down, thoroughly enjoying your womanly juices.

Harrison’s hands gripped your hips pulling you closer to his tongue, his hot and heavy breath of sexual desire hazing against your clit and inner walls forcing you to twitch and spasm with every new pulse of electrifying pleasure he was providing you. Pulling back he gave one of your lips a pop, getting off on the way your entire body trembled as he worked his tongue up to your clit and licked hazy circles before sucking on it like a delicious piece of candy.

“H-Harrison– o-oh f–!”

A wicked chuckle hazed against your intimate parts, sparing you a solitary glance that told you he had no intention of stopping any time soon. Turning back down to his pleasure swollen target, his tongue lapped at your nectar before swirling as he sucked roughly enough to have you writhing in ecstasy. With heavy lustful desire for you to cum on his tongue, Harrison slid a few of his fingers up against your lower lips caressing up and down to entice you in a sensual V-motion before inserting both his index and middle finger. You whimpered loudly and gave his hair an over stimulated yank, that he didn't seem to care about, as he thrusted back and forth in your walls and got off maliciously on how tight and warm your inner folds were.

All your moaning compliments seemed to feed his hungry desires as the blonde gave you a faster rhythm, sloshing your juices and feeling your pulsating walls in excruciatingly accurate intimate detail. It just took a few more seconds of his tongue pressing against your clit for you to scream out his name in the throws of another vision blurring orgasm. Your slick arousal completely coated his tongue and even the tips of his fingers as he pulled away and made it an erotic show to enjoy them thoroughly.

“Mmh, you taste pretty good…” Harrison complemented with a chuckle, watching as your face darkened with a heavy blush before turning away and whispering how much of a tease he was.

“I do like to tease you, but right now… I'd just like to fuck you as hard as possible. Ready, (Y/N)?”

Such a question made every hair on your arms and legs stand on end, as he showed you the clear haze of lust and desire reflected in his pretty diamond eyes. Instead of answering, you sat up for a brief moment and felt along his abs before working the zipper down on his shorts like he asked earlier, and helped rid him of their tight confines.

The sight of his well endowed cock had you biting the bottom of your lip before bravely stroking his length up and down a few times, planting a kiss or two against his chest. His expression softened before tilting your chin up and capturing your lips, too full of desire to enjoy the feeling of your soft fingertips as he pushed you backwards on the bed again to quickly place his stout leaking tip against your entrance.

Even with your warm cheeks you gladly lifted your legs up for him, and snaked your hands around his slender neck meeting the sway of his tongue as he got a nice grip on your hips and pressed his own forward filling you up completely with one deep penetrating thrust.

When he pulled back, you shared similar grins before meeting in the middle for several enamoring kisses. Moving his hands up to your breasts, Harrison trusted the grip of your legs around his lower back before he started thrusting his hips back and forth. Almost instantly drool ebbed down your combined lips, as you mewled haphazardly into his warm mouth.

The blonde man squished and squeezed both of your breasts, rolling your nubs in tune to his movements as he buried his cock deep within your walls, purposefully made it a mission to mess up your insides. It wouldn't take much, since he was already rocking your world more than any man had before and you had no problem moaning it to him.

“Oh, Haz! Y-You're m-making me so dizzy–!” you cried out, throwing your head back at the hot and intense sensation you were feeling.

“You love it for sure– s-shit, you're squeezing me so fucking good...!” Harrison growled, attacking the left side of your neck as he shifted both of his hands to the bottom of your ass, then began to roughly push and pull you to meet with every sway of his hips. The raunchy and addictive aroma of sex filled the air as you moaned and screamed his name, digging your nails into his back, no doubt leaving him some prominent scratches.

After several hot minutes of leaving you an abundance of hard to hide hickeys, the merman pulled back and lifted your legs away from his waist, holding them up to spread wide apart so he could fuck and thrust as deeply into your walls as quickly as he wanted. Drool drizzled down your lips as you pressed both of your hands flatly at his fine toned chest, drowning in the utter euphoria he was giving you.

Your eyes rolled back, pretty whines and whimpers leaving your luscious lips, caressing a hand against his cheek watching his expression soften before he told you to lay back. Once you'd instantly complied Harrison leaned over your body propping up your legs to stay intimately splayed wide apart but he also interlocked both of his hands with yours and held onto you tightly.

You smiled widely against his fine lips as he captured yours, loving the feeling of his long and slender fingers not to mention how incredibly hot and sweaty his entire muscular frame was. This handsome man on top of you was really getting his workout on, and you loved every single bit of the pleasure he was able to give you.

With the lewd swishing of your tongues all over each other, the knot in the pit of your stomach was nearly at its boiling point and with your mouth covered you couldn't tell him. It really didn't matter honestly, you would rather swap saliva anyway as the blonde’s wonderful kisses felt sensational and divine you wouldn't dare give up the flavor of his lips.

Harrison must of felt the same way, as he barely seemed to be breathing during his hot and heavy make out. However he did pull away once he felt the unmistakable throb of your inner walls beginning to convulse against his cock, making him give you the vigor his muscular body could offer a woman like you as he slammed into your core over and over.

As soon as you let out an echoing orgasmic scream, Harrison held your body down and pressed his cock as deep into your pulsating core as possible, making you tremble with the searing hot wave of his arousal filling you up and leaking down your inner thighs, while he pulled away with the most primal grunt of his own desire. Instantly he collapsed down on top of your body, making you groan out how incredibly heavy he was, but your hands still lifted and caressed his back up and down as if trying to soothe him despite how haggard your own pleasured body was feeling.

After several minutes of combined heavy and exhausted panting, Harrison slid to your side where you followed his movement, smiling at him. Lifting you hand you hesitated for a solitary second before pressing it against his astute cheek,caressing his soft cheekbone. His expression seemed relaxed, so you decided to lean closer and give him a small kiss.

Harrison returned your soft peck, sliding one of his arms around your hip and yanking you closer a bit harshly which caused you to make an adorable squeaking noise. The sound of his laughter was alleviating as you pulled away and nestled into his chest, listening to his rhythmic soothing heartbeat.

“Are we even, Mister Merman?” you said with a chuckle.

“It was never about that, silly…” Harrison mumbled while holding you close, finding the smell of your hair softly reminding him the one of the ocean. And the blond man had to admit it was a scent that he found relaxing when on you. “I hate the ocean because I can't control the transformation, as you saw earlier… Being a creature of the sea is a curse, (Y/N).”

A soft frown formed on your face before you placed a tender kiss against the middle of his torso.

“We are opposites then, because I love the ocean so much. Swimming and walking along the beach are very relaxing” you whispered to him, using the tip of your index finger to trace a small circle along his abs, another thing he found soothing.

“That's what I thought at first” Harrison started again, “I grew up in the water but then, I liked being on land so much more that I moved to the city and got the opportunity to have an amazing job. But the sea won't stop calling me... and I can't avoid it. I just want to be free… I want to be human.”

His grip tightened, and it just broke your heart that he felt so trapped.

“I can't cure you, Haz… I-I don't know how to help you but…” you gulped down the fear inside your guts before tilting your head up to admire the handsome features of his face.

“But your fin is so beautiful, shining under the moonlight like diamonds… Please don't resent how enchanting that form is.”

His ocean eyes rose before a tint of enamoring pink dusted his cheeks and he had to look away. Sure people have said he was handsome and all before, but no one has ever said “enchanting” when referring to his true merman form. The feeling Harrison had about you from before came back, the reason he had a hard time avoiding you and getting close.

Turning back to face you his expression was calm and at the same time a little hard to read, but his hand lifted and swayed into the soft messy tresses of your hair before pushing your head forward until your lips softly smooched together for a warm kiss. You enjoyed each other’s flavour for a few seconds then went back to cuddling close together under the sheets.

“I sensed it before” Harrison whispered against your lips, “and I didn't want to admit it but you give me these waves... that are like the ocean. Soft and tranquil, like the morning breeze. But beneath the surface you hide the storm brewing inside, constantly…”

You carefully listened to him, not daring to say a single word as you may know where he was going with that talk.

“Don't do that anymore. I won't let you feel lonely, (Y/N). Ever.”

Tears formed in your eyes. That mixed bag of feelings which composed your person was clearly hard to decipher, even more for someone who didn’t really know you beforehand, but the man in front of you did it. So clearly and astutely it was almost shocking, but you were so grateful it was a man like him.

Lifting both your hands you wrapped them around Harrison’s neck and pecked him softly not just once but twice on the lips, delighted in the teasing little smile adorning his lips before you rested against the pillow in front of him.

“Alright. But I hope… that you will show me your pretty tail fin again, one day” you said, smiling kindly at him.

“Out of all the words, ‘pretty’... really?” Harrison noted, a little blush making its way back on his cheeks with a pout. “At least say ‘enchanting’ again…”

That adorable reaction of his made you giggle, and even if Harrison didn’t dare to say it out loud (yet), that sound ringed beautifully to his ears. Ahe he wanted to preserve it at all costs.

“But if you’re a good girl, I'll show you tomorrow night when no one else is around… and maybe we will do it again in that form?”

“H-Harrison!” you blushed hard in a stutter, not expecting that cheeky remark from the dreamy merman you were sharing your bed with.

As they say, there is a first time for everything...

Oh well.

🏷 Permanent tag list 💖

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[something-tofightfor]

2022: New Year, Same Blog

Yesterday, I said that I would update all of you on things that were coming in 2022 to my blog - some of them are current works that will be finished, others are brand new … and I’m sure there will be a few surprises. 

First: Like I said a couple days ago, I want to start using my Discord to talk with you because Tumblr is unreliable when it comes to messaging and sending asks. This is a way to keep in contact without having to share a phone number or other very personal information.

 You can find me at somethingtofightfor#7728. 

If you send me a request, please just let me know your username on here / what you want me to call you so I can add it to the notes and know who you are. 

Second: I’m going to start posting a weekly writing recap on Sunday nights. I won’t use a taglist or anything on it, but this way, if a story or an update somehow didn’t show up in the search results earlier in the week, there’s a second chance for things to be seen. 

Depending on how much I write and post, I may change this so it’s bi-weekly. We’ll see how it goes. I’m going to tag it “STFF recap” in case you want to follow the tag or whatever; IDK if anyone’s interested in that. 

…. And now onto the fun stuff, under the cut! 

Coming Soon (likely in this order!) 

Slopeside - the NYE story that I’ve been teasing. Mystery Pedro character + skiing + the last of the holiday magic. It is a smut. The character lends himself to it very easily, even when out of his element. 

Magnetic 21 - It’s done, it just needs edits and a title. Just under 12,000 words. 

Buried 9 - Cider’s POV is complete. I want to start writing Jack’s and see if it makes sense to include it in the same piece, or do another .5 as a separate chapter. 

Aphelion 5 - Planning on devoting a good chunk of time today and tomorrow to working on this. I hope to get a draft to @the-blind-assassin-12 to Alyssa by the end of the week (1/9)

Caught On 4 - I’m about 3200 words into this one, and it’s… something. (Spoiler alert: someone feels guilty and it isn’t you)

A Detour in Your New Life  - Part of the Just Too Good to Be Gone universe, this will be a recap of not only meeting Joel, but getting to know him - and telling him about your version of before. 

Planned/In Progress 

On Deck: (Jack Daniels baseball AU) - I’ll probably start posting this one around the beginning of the 2022 MLB regular season (if there is one because of the lockout). Look for it to start around the end of March. Should only be a couple parts to tell the main story - 3, maybe 4?

No One Sings Like You Anymore / Burdened Black Heart: (Joel Miller x Reader, JTGtBG universe) - I’ll get these done as I can, but they’re going to be longer one shots. BBH will likely not be a smutty one, No One Sings is DEFINITELY a smutty one. 

Untitled Javi P horror/soulmate AU series: I want to keep as much of this one hidden as I can. I know the basic plot, I know the outcome, I just need to write it - this one will be scary and violent (but also smutty, because … Javi). 

Starlight: (Ezra x Reader) I’m still not sure if I want these to be super long or super short, but this is going to flesh out the relationship. I intended this to be a short series with half of each part taking place before The Green and half after Ezra gets back … but we’ll see. 

Stuff I have in Google Docs and will get to if there’s interest 

More for Baby It’s Cold Outside Frankie and Reader

More for Just Be-Claus Marcus and Reader

The Thief/Reader from ‘Empty’ in other scenarios

A Marcus Moreno Thing that has about three paragraphs and zero plot 

Liminality

NSFW Alphabets for Joel, Jack, and (lord help me) Frankie Morales

I want to finish in 2022: 

Magnetic

Buried

Caught On

Just a Place

Seasons to Cycles

If there’s anything that you’d like to see me write or work on, don’t EVER hesitate to let me know. My inbox is always open, and honestly, some of the stories that I’ve posted on here have come straight from conversations and offhand comments from friends and followers. 

[angelaiswriting]

The Contest (1 of 7) | some R6S guys x fem!reader

✏️ Pairing: Bandit / Blitz / Glaz / Jäger / Tachanka x fem!reader

✏️ Summary: Dominic Brunsmeier can’t keep his goddamn mouth shut when it comes to eating pussy, and that’s how Y/N found herself being drafted to be the judge of this pussy-eating contest. (Straight out of a dream @kind-wolf​ had)

✏️ A/N: I... ehm, am a hoe, whoops 🙊 y’all, enjoy! Thank you, Alice, for always having great dreams and for letting me write about this. 🥰 The first actual part is coming soon, I just want to write a bit more of part four to avoid dishing everything out now and making you wait for the rest.

✏️ Warnings: nothing yet, but still 18+ only for sexual themes (oral sex f/r) being discussed.

✏️ Word-count: 1,937

✏️ The links to the other parts are in the masterlist linked in my bio.

THE CONTEST  |  >> part two: elias >>

When Y/N entered the lounge room, the conversation was already flowing and as she was already tired from the testosterone-filled day spent at the practically almost empty base, she didn’t make much of an effort to join it. She simply reached the alcohol cabinet, poured herself some whiskey, and sat down in one of the empty armchairs, ready to allow her drink and her friends’ voices in the background to fully relax her.

The day she had ahead was another one of those boring days. She was base-bound for the time being: other teams had been sent on various missions and only a bunch of operators had been left behind “on hold”. It wasn’t that bad: it meant having some days off, but those days often felt way too long and their emptiness brought up a heavy boredom she didn’t always know how to banish.

Her head had just leaned back against the cool faux leather of the armchair when her ears picked up bits of the conversation the boys were having and her eyebrows furrowed.

“Eating pussy is not a hobby,” Glaz was saying matter-of-factly.

Y/N’s eyes shot open, and the sip of whiskey that was halfway down her throat almost choked her.

“That’s something someone who doesn’t know how to eat pussy would say,” was Dominic’s reply. His eyebrows were knitted together and his lips almost pursed in disbelief at what his friend had just said. But then, when his gaze swept over and settled on Y/N, sitting right opposite him with the low coffee table separating them, his expression relaxed and his free hand, the one not holding his beer, came up to stroke his beard. “Have you ever eaten pussy so good you start considering learning how to breathe out of your ears?” he said and although he wasn’t talking directly to her, he was talking about her. He had told her just that a couple of weeks ago; he had groaned those words right against the chafed and tender skin of her inner thighs as she was still shivering with the aftershocks of her umpteenth orgasm, and she had breathlessly chuckled out loud at the mental picture that concept had painted in her mind.

At that, Marius laughed, a sound right from deep down his throat as Elias coughed in the attempt not to choke on his own drink. “You know no discretion.”

“Of course not! This motherfucker just said eating pussy can’t be considered a hobby!” Burning with disbelief, Dominic took a long sip of his beer and as he did so, he settled better in his armchair and allowed his ankles to cross as he rested his feet on the coffee table. “You learn how to eat delicious, juicy pussy, Glazkov,” he continued, the corners of his mouth curling upwards, “and then we’ll see if you still don’t change your mind.”

Timur groaned something in Russian and Alex cackled next to him. “I already know how to eat pussy, Christ. I bet I’m even better than you at it. You’re just boasting, but it’s all smoke in the eyes.”

Alexsandr proclaimed his agreement with a raise of his drink and before Dominic had the time to speak again, Y/N intervened, hoping to put an end to the discussion.

“Are you guys really arguing about your oral skills?” she scoffed, pulling her knees closer as her head leaned back against the headrest of the armchair. “How old are you, fifteen?”

“Listen, you know I’m right.” Dominic’s insistence threatened to make her smile, but hiding it was easy behind the rim of her tumbler. “You have to get down eye-level with your woman’s pussy and give it your fucking best. If you don’t go down on her like that’s the best thing you’ll ever do in your days, then you better leave the room to the pro.”

“Who, you?” Marius scoffed, eyeing his friend up and down before rolling his eyes at his Well, yeah, of course.

“Oh, fuck off. What are you, the self-proclaimed Cunnilingus Lord?”

“I don’t see anyone else worthy of that title here, so yeah, sure.”

There was a sudden uproar of “You clearly haven’t seen my women with me between their legs,” and “I’m sure you don’t even know where the clit is,” until Glaz’s voice seemed to drown out the others.

“You’re so full of bullshit, Brunsmeier.”

“I won’t let a child with his mom’s milk still on his upper lip insult me!” And while everyone’s words felt heavy and tense in the silence of the base, they all knew it was just a way to tease each other in the vain attempt to liven things up in these days’ placidity. Maybe an impromptu fight was just what they needed to have some fun.

But then, as Timur and Dominic stared each other down, Y/N’s soft laughter catalyzed the men’s attention onto something else. “I can’t believe you’re really about to fight over this. Why don’t you just sit in a circle and jerk each other off? The tension in here is palpable. When was the last time y’all had an orgasm?” She smirked and when she turned and caught Alex’s almost-shocked facial expression, something she never thought she’d one day see at the mention of sex, she chuckled some more. “You should place bets, and then come back and see who’s actually the best. The winner wins the money and the title of Cunnilingus Lord.” It was a joke, one she didn’t think would have a follow-up.

Silence ensued, and she would swear she could hear their brains work at maximum capacity as they mulled over her words. She knew how filthy-mouthed and filthy-minded these men could be — and she had spent more time with them than she had ever done before the past week — but it was still somewhat surprising to catch them red-handed as they fought about who had it bigger — or, in this case, who ate pussy out the best.

“What about a contest?” was Alexsandr’s proposal. He was sitting with his legs spread open and his hands in-between them, still holding onto his shot glass.

Everyone seemed to agree on his proposal and for a moment, as they spoke their minds, Y/N let her eyes close once more: if they wanted to challenge each other to a stupid contest, let them. The peace didn’t last long, though, because at some point, just as she was contemplating a nice bath instead of a shower before hitting the sack, someone called her name, and her eyes shot open just in time to see Dominic’s mischievous grin before it disappeared for good.

“I was saying,” he spoke up again, voice slow and measured as his feet came to rest on the floor and his legs spread a little wider, catching her eye, “that you would make an excellent judge.”

“And a partial one,” complained Marius, to which Dominic complained with a But she loves getting head! “We all know you two spend more time in the same bed than you do in separate rooms.”

She scoffed at that, more annoyed at the thought that someone would think she’d make someone else win on purpose than she was at the fact that she had just been brought into such a game. “Just because I’ve seen his dick more than I’ve seen yours doesn’t mean I don’t know how to judge good oral skills.” She frowned.

“It’s settled then.” Timur was grinning and his eyes seemed to twinkle under the lights of the room. “We eat you out, and you proclaim the winner.”

“Slow down, I never said I’d participate in your silly game.”

“But you also didn’t seem that opposed to it a second ago,” Dominic remarked. He was smirking again, and she knew he had something in mind. “You make the rules, and drop out if things start getting uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, no hard feelings,” Elias smiled, trying to look more innocent than she knew he was. “We care about you; you know we’d never push anything that could cause you discomfort.”

She eyed them all, one after the other, pondering the pros and cons of having these five men’s faces between her legs and not because of some chokehold during training. She had no problem saying yes to Dominic — she had been saying yes to him for longer than she could actually recall, and he had never disappointed. But it still felt rather weird to know that while it was just sex and they weren’t exclusive, that man was okay with that. He knew how to be possessive, but he wasn’t exactly jealous, and although they had never talked about it, she had never thought of him as someone who would share so willingly.

Unless his ego was at stake, though, apparently.

“There won’t be any dick involved,” she decided eventually. “I don’t know about clothes yet, but if I say you must keep them on, you will keep them on, understood?”

There followed a chorus of Yes, Ma’am and although her body relaxed against the leather of her armchair, she found herself squeezing her thighs together.

“No toys allowed, but fingers are fair game,” she added. “Scratch that, their use is highly encouraged. We can do it anywhere you want as long as it’s somewhere private. But absolutely no exhibitionism: there’s only going to be me and one of you in the room at a time. Only one person in a day, for God’s sake, I have other things to do other than being the judge for your stupid game.”

“Deal,” was Elias and Timur’s rushed reply and they exchanged a look at the simultaneity of the action.

“I’m not done,” she chuckled, shaking her head. “I’d say the rule is only one orgasm per participant but if you’re good at it — and you’ll understand it from my reaction —, you have free reign to give me another.” It was a plain attempt at riling Dominic up because it had been clear, just a few moments ago, that he thought he was the best, la crème de la fucking crème when it came to giving head to a woman, and a sick part of her wished she could be able to challenge him that tad bit more. “I don’t care about the order you decide to follow, that’s your business. I’d just like for you to let me know at least the day prior, so that if I’m busy with something Rainbow, we can reschedule.” She sat back for a moment, thinking of something else to add, but she came up empty-ended. “Now, if you accept these rules, you’re in, otherwise forget about getting close to my pussy.”

They all agreed, and they all promised they’d be good boys and behave.

“What’s the final prize?” Alexsandr inquired after a while, almost absent-mindedly.

“The knowledge that the winner is the best in this room at eating pussy? I thought that would be enough,” she laughed. “You can bet real money, that’s your business. But,” and she stared right in Dominic’s eyes as she prepared herself for what was to leave her lips, “another go between my legs could be put up for grabs.”

Dominic’s That’s out of discussion! put the others’ exclamations of jubilee to silence. “You go down on her only once, you fuckers. That’s it.”

Her grin at his reaction only widened when Timur spoke up again.

“What are you worried about?” And then, to the others, barely holding back his laughter, “Maybe the expert isn’t really that great after all.”

Feedback is always welcome if you want to drop old me a line 💛

Original pic used: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-clouds-and-blue-sky-4870972/

TAGS (to be added to or to be removed from any list, shoot me an ASK)

Everything: @idhrenniel @saibh29 @fuckthatfeeling @aya-fay @pebblesz892  @mblaqgi​ @becs-bunker

[volkswagonblues]

(part 2/?) deleted scene from firebender’s guide: zuko and sokka discuss proto-therapy

[note: going through my old drafts and realized i have a LOT of deleted scenes and materials from firebenders’s guide that got cut for pacing/plot reasons. Here’s a scene that was cut from the epilogue]

“There are healers up north who specialise in this,” Sokka said. “Waterbenders who heal imbalances in the mind. It’s not a substitution for talking with someone or,  I don’t know, solving your problems, but they can really help. The brain’s like any other body part.” He tapped his injured knee and gave Zuko a long look. “Sometimes old wounds linger.”

Mina had mentioned something like this, weeks ago. That, in the Northern Water Tribe, they healed some people’s bodies but not their minds. Zuko had assumed she was speaking figuratively, but then again, there was so much he didn’t know, new things he was finding out about every day,

“Would they help me?” he asked. Even if there was someone willing to help the Fire Lord, it wasn’t like Zuko had a concussion or a head injury.

“It’s worth a try. Some of them visited the Southern Water Tribe last year and they really helped me. ”

It was another new thing Zuko learned about today. “I didn’t know that.” 

Sokka shrugged. “Why would you?” he said easily.

[rest under cut]

“Do you think they would they help—” Zuko said, putting a special emphasis on the word. “—me?”

“Maybe. We’ll have to find someone experienced, someone who’s properly trained. Did I ever tell you about how Katara tried it on me once? It freaked me out. Made her promise to never go near my head again.”

This wasn’t the kind of ringing endorsement that made Zuko eager to give it a try, but he filed it away in the back of his mind. One day. When things calmed down a bit. When he felt ready. He could give it a try – one day.

While Zuko was mulling things over, Sokka was poking through the contents of his study like he owned the place. Once upon a time it would have annoyed Zuko, but he’d come to accept it as a Water Tribe thing. In a way it was nice to have someone treat his things as their’s; it was a gesture of easy intimacy that required blissfully little input on Zuko’s part.

 “What is this?” Sokka asked. He was pointing at a sheet of much-crumpled and folded paper on the desk.

 “Don’t open it,” Zuko said, and grabbed it back. “But if you must know, it’s a letter to my mother.”

Sokka said nothing, only propped his chin on his hands and looked at him.

Zuko looked away; he fiddled with the letter, opening it up and closing it a couple of times. It wasn’t even a proper letter yet, just a few sentences and thoughts scribbled out with a piece of charcoal on a piece of pulp paper. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, much less how he wanted to say it. He couldn’t even figure out how to address it. To Ursa was too cold, but he couldn’t make himself write Dear Mother, like he was a normal son writing home to tell his parents he was doing fine but would like some more pocket money, and please could you send some more socks. And if writing to Ursa was difficult to take past the draft stage, he couldn’t even come up with something for Azula. 

“What would you write, if you were me?” Zuko asked after a long minute had passed without either of them saying anything. He pushed down his first instinct to stuff the letter away and change the topic. He was trying to do better. He was trying to let other people help.

Sokka hummed. “Be honest. Tell her that what she did – the thing with the Mother of Faces – tell her what she did hurt you and you needed the space to think it over.”

“That’s it?”

“You know yourself the best,” Sokka said. “Write down how you feel.”

“I’m not sure ten pages of my simmering resentment would be good for reconciling with my estranged mother,” Zuko said drily. “But I’ll give it a try.”

A jade brush stand flew at him. Zuko ducked, and it bounced into a basket of scrolls behind him.

“You don’t have to send it, moron,” Sokka said. “You can write a letter just for yourself. Get your feelings out, and then write an actual letter afterwards.”

Zuko fished the brush stand out of the basket. “That was a two-hundred-year-old antique you just threw at me.”

“Everything’s an antique around here,” Sokka said with a shrug, but he took the jade from Zuko and examined it next to the lantern. The jade shone blue and green where the light passed through it. “Ooh, the colour is pretty. Reminds me of one of the really old glaciers, when you paddle past it and the sun hits it just right.”

There were probably dozens of these things scattered around the palace. It was true. Everything around here was an antique – they just piled up over the centuries – but there was no reason to be precious about something just because it had been around for a while.

“Keep it,” Zuko said. Things from the past didn’t have an intrinsic meaning; if it reminded Sokka of home, then let him have it. He would appreciate it a hundred times more than Zuko ever would.

Sokka flashed him a grin and stuffed it into his pocket. 

deleted scene 1: in which Zuko meets another firebender in the South Pole (here)

deleted scene 3: Zuko and Iroh and their time in Ba Sing Se, and also Zuko has a feud going with his 80yo neighbour (here)

deleted scene 4: Sokka and Toph invent proto-braille (here)

[quicksilversquared]

The Wavering Peahen: Chapter 5

When Nathalie started feeling oddly ill again, both she and Gabriel were worried that the Peacock Miraculous might somehow (impossibly) be to blame again.

So naturally, they pick someone else to be the Peacock for a bit. You know, as a test subject. Except the new Peacock… doesn’t exactly know that.

links in the reblog

"Oh my god, you guys, you'll never guess what my mom did for me!" Lila announced as she arrived at the picnic just a little bit on the late side and, other than her phone and a hastily-made Thermos of tea, completely empty-handed. If anyone asked, she would just claim that she had meant to make something, but she had overslept and not been able to start early enough to pull off what she had intended. "It was so sweet of her!"

Heads turned her way, and several of the other girls stepped closer like they were being drawn by a string. Rose was the first to speak up.

"What did she do, Lila?"

"She brought my old phone to a specialist so they could recover some of my old photos off of it- it got destroyed during one of my mission trips to South America and I lost all sorts of data!" Lila practically wilted at the 'memory'. "Thankfully my contacts were backed up in the cloud, but I lost all of my photos! All of those memories, gone! I thought that there was no way to get them back!"

Rose gasped in excitement. "But she got them recovered! That's so great!"

"Some were lost for good- most of them, actually. But I got some back and now they're on my phone and on the cloud, just in case." Lila glanced around. "I don't know if- would anyone like to see them, maybe?"

Rose nodded at once, practically teleporting to Lila's side in her eagerness to see. Alya wasn't far behind, and then Mylène and Nino came behind her. Lila beamed, pulling out her phone and swiping to open up her photos. She had stuck in some landscape photos that she had snagged online to mix it up so that not all of her photos were shots of her and famous people, but obviously the celeb shots were the star of the show.

"Oh, that's Prince Ali!" Rose said happily, half-hanging over Lila's arm to see the phone screen better. "You two definitely look close!"

"Yes, well, we've worked with each other several times," Lila told her. "So of course we're close! I took this picture maybe a year and a half ago? I was at his castle for two weeks while discussing all of the different types of charity work we were doing and ideas for going forward. It was lovely there, really. The beds were so comfortable, and the food was amazing!"

There was a chorus of 'that's so cool!'s and 'you're so lucky!'s. Lila beamed, happy with the attention, and dove into her prepared story, tying in a few of the few of stories that she had told before. More of their classmates gathered around, trying to get a glimpse of her phone. Lila held it up to show the photos off as she went, ever-thoughtful. One story turned into two, then ten, then a dozen as she flipped through the photos. It was a lot- normally she just did one story at a time, peppering them in where they were relevant- but she had been too sick to come up with many stories recently and of course the photos provided a perfect opportunity do a bit of talking.

(Maybe it was a bit too much talking, considering that she was still recovering from her illness and her throat was already sore and she was still feeling a bit faint every so often, but she was on a roll and needed to press her advantage while she had it. These photos were gold, and she needed to milk them for all they were worth.)

"Oh, those shots of you and Ladybug are great!" Alya exclaimed once Lila swiped to the first of the Ladybug pictures. Even though it was just a Ladybug look-alike, Lila had found herself gritting her teeth as she forced herself to cozy up to the sentimonster's side. She hadn't given in to the urge to punch the sentimonster in the face, just as a bit of stress relief, but that had less to do with being nice and more to do with her being worried that she was going to lose control of the sentimonster and have it turn on her. "Those must have been pretty recent, right? Were they on your old phone, too?"

"Ah- no, those were just from yesterday afternoon," Lila fibbed quickly, trying not to cringe. She probably should have held off of putting the Ladybug pictures on her phone- those would always be relevant, she could show them off some other time if she ever hit a lull in attention- but it was too late for that now. Maybe she could get a couple more posters and do another sentimonster session before Hawkmoth took the Miraculous back so that she would have more photo evidence in the future. "She was out on a run and saw me when I was on a walk to try to brainstorm ideas to help the global anti-pollution initiative with Prince Ali. Since we're friends, she decided to drop down and say hi! It was so nice of her."

"She must have been keeping a low profile," Alya commented, leaning in closer. "I didn't get any reports of superhero spottings yesterday, but I know they've been out before without people noticing! Did she help come up with any ideas?"

"No, she wanted to get going again before she got noticed and mobbed," Lila told her. "Which is understandable! She said she would think it over and get back to me if she came up with anything."

Alya nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. I'm sure she'll come up with something, though! Considering how creative she is with Lucky Charms, I bet that she'll think up something cool."

Lila tried not to let her smile get too strained as she faked her enthusiasm. "Yeah! I mean, if it's anything too out there, it might be hard to get people on board, but some out of the box ideas might just be what the world needs!"

"Would you mind sharing those photos on the Ladyblog?" Alya asked eagerly. "I always love adding good pictures of the superheroes, and those are fantastic."

Trying not to smile too obviously, Lila nodded. "Of course! That's fine." Honestly, the more people who saw it, the better. That way, if Ladybug decided to be a brat again and tried to call Lila out, it would be far easier for Lila to claim that they had had a falling out and Ladybug was being an asshole about it and for that to actually be believed. "I'll send the photos to you right away, actually, before I forget."

Alya grinned, whipping out her phone eagerly. "Great! Lemme just- ah, I should probably think of an actual article or something to go along with the photos, huh? Uh- maybe something about how Ladybug isn't just saving the world from evil, but also from pollution? Obviously I'd say that you're the one doing most of the pollution work," she added hastily to Lila. "Or two superheroines- one saving the world from supervillains, the other saving the world from pollution? I like that better! And then I'll just mention the crossover, her helping you come up with ideas and you helping her behind the scenes with akuma attacks sometimes!"

Lila nodded, attaching the photos to an email and sending it off to Alya. "That sounds good! And if you want any more details, just ask!"

"I will, trust me!"

Ten minutes later, Lila's audience started getting restless, clearly done with story time. She wrapped up quickly, claiming that she didn't want to take up everyone's time and monopolize the attention and promising to show off the remainder of the photos at school. Some people stuck around to ask a few questions, but others wandered off. Lila wasn't bothered. After all, the stories would get around eventually.

Eventually, Lila got to step away to peruse the picnic table. She didn't pick anything up since she still wasn't feeling 100% after her earlier dizzy spell, and getting nauseous and barfing would bring her a sort of attention that she didn't want, but it was a nice break from remembering all of her stories and playing her part.

The food spread looked pretty good- though Lila wrinkled her nose at an array of baked goods that had clearly come from Marinette's family's bakery- and she made a note of a few things that she wanted to try later, when she felt better. With one more glance around, Lila stepped away from the table and back towards the rest of her classmates. As she did, she nearly bumped into Marinette. The other girl's eyes narrowed at her but she didn't say anything, opting to simply walk past Lila instead.

Well. That wouldn't do.

"You missed out on seeing my pictures earlier," Lila said, raising her voice just enough that Marinette wouldn't be able to miss it. "Which is a pity, really. There were some really nice ones that my mom recovered off of my old phone. If you wanted, I could still show you a couple."

Marinette snorted. "So you've taken up Photoshop as a hobby, I take it?" she asked dryly. "And I think I'll pass on looking at the photos. If I wanted to see something that wasn't real, I'd go watch an action hero movie. That would at least be enjoyable."

Lila sniffed. "You're just so certain that they're doctored. Do you know how jealous that makes you sound? It's not a very attractive look on you at all."

"Puh-leeze. There was a photo of me and Jagged Stone on the cover of Metal Lord not even a year ago, and I've got actual selfies of me and Clara Nightingale on my phone from when she was doing her music video. I don't need Photoshop." Marinette rolled her eyes, stepping further away from Lila. "Some of us actually have the connections that you pretend to have. If anyone is jealous, it's you."

With that, she turned and left, heading across the park to join Alya and Nino and Adrien. Alya was still hunched over her phone- no doubt hastily getting a rough draft of her article done- but the others were just chatting and relaxing. The fact that Adrien was still clearly on Marinette's side was really annoying, but soon enough he wouldn't be. Not once Lila took some video of the senti-Marinette being a brat. Because it would take video to persuade him, she knew that. Photos wouldn't be enough, not when he was already suspicious of her. She would probably have to wait a week or so to actually show anyone the video, space things out to make them more believable-

Lila's breath caught in her throat as another dizzy spell washed over her. All of a sudden, she wasn't so positive that it was a good idea to come out today. She had just been recovering from a decently long sickness, and then she got up super early and had been pushing herself all day. Yeah, it had been nice to show off her photos right away, but maybe it would have been smarter to wait until Monday. Lila could have ridden out her dizzy spells at home, both the major ones and the smaller ones that had been plaguing her while she showed off her photos.

...maybe she could just sit down and she would be fine?

"Lila! Over here!" Rose called, almost as though she was reading Lila's mind. She waved and patted the bench next to her. "Max was about to start telling us about the changes he made to his game!"

Lila nearly groaned at the thought. Listening to Max meant listening to stats and graphics and coding nonsense that she really couldn't care less about. She avoided it when she could. But it also meant that she wouldn't have to talk, and if she tuned out and missed something and got asked about it, she could just claim that she had gotten lost on all of the technical details.

So really, it was practically perfect.

"What kinds of changes?" Lila asked, walking over and sitting on the fee bit of bench. "New villains?"

Max nodded, pushing his glasses back up on his nose. "That is some of it, yes. Having an ever-expanding cast of characters keeps it interesting and a challenge for those who have already played a lot and know how to defeat their opponents. There were some complaints that there were then too many rounds between the start and the boss villain, so I now have an option for people to select the number of akumas that they want to battle and which akumas they get is randomized. I also have added difficulty levels, for those wanting to deviate from the standard game. After examining the akuma stats, I have identified some that are more or less challenging than average and so the non-normal difficulty selections have a more limited pool of opponents to choose from. I also added Mayura to the game. I considered putting in Pavona, too, but..."

"She could be the boss villain for easy mode," Rose suggested. "Since she's not as good of a fighter as Hawkmoth!"

Max considered that, nodding absently. "Yes, I could see that. I have different coding for different fight levels already, so I could use the one I developed for the lowest akumas."

"The lowest akumas?" Lila asked, incredulous. "She- surely she's better than the lowest akumas, right? When she was out, she wasn't exactly just getting tossed to the side."

There was a long pause. Lila blinked, looking around.

Surely everyone could admit that Pavona wasn't completely useless on the battlefield, right? They had eyes, even if they were ridiculously biased towards the superheroes. There had been times when Pavona had been more than holding her own.

(Well. Times when she hadn't been failing spectacularly, at least, and mostly because the heroes were outnumbered, but she was choosing to ignore that.)

"I mean, I guess she's a better fighter than that giant baby," Alix offered after a long moment. "Not that that's hard, exactly. But as far as game context goes, it doesn't really make sense for the final boss to be as easy or easier than the akumas that came before it."

Max nodded, jotting that down. "That's a good point! I might make her a slight bit more of a threat than she actually is in real life, just for the game's sake. Though she does have the sentimonster thing going for her- maybe I can keep her fight level the same, but just have a couple different sentimonsters that she'll get paired with. That'll be the bit making the boss battle harder."

"That was a good point about how Pavona shouldn't be easier than the akumas in the game, Lila!" Rose chirped, beaming at her. "That'll definitely help improve the game!"

"Yeah, no problem," Lila managed, hoping that she didn't sound like she was talking through gritted teeth. She steadied herself against the table as her vision blurred out again for a moment, her mind going dizzy with it. "I'm always happy to help!"

"I think the problem that I'm facing then is coding so that Pavona and the sentimonster work together," Max said, tapping his pencil against the spine of his notebook. "And the same for the challenge mode, I think. It would have Hawkmoth and Mayura as the final boss, and they would work together. For that, some of the later levels could have randomized akuma-sentimonster pairings!"

"Ooh, good idea!"

"Nice!"

Lila tuned out as the conversation wandered off into more details of the game, improvements that could be made to the akuma powers to make them more flexible and not so fixed. Max eventually wandered off into a discussion- or a monologue, really, even while checked out Lila couldn't help but note that no one else was contributing much anything to the discussion- about coding specifics, and Lila tried not to sigh.

Boring. Boring, boring, boring.

  Even after sitting and relaxing for nearly half an hour, Lila still had absolutely no appetite. In fact, the mere thought of eating much anything was making her feel a bit ill, which was a bit concerning.

And yet she found herself staring down at a full plate of food in her lap.

To her own credit, she had tried to get out of eating anything, claiming that she had woken up late and eaten breakfast late and therefore didn't have an appetite, and besides her mom hadn't remembered to buy the things she needed to make something to bring and she would feel bad about taking food when she hadn't brought any. But her classmates had insisted that it was fine, that no one blamed her for not being able to bring anything, and that really, couldn't she eat just a little? So Lila had been pretty much forced to relent and load up her plate.

Maybe she could have let on that she had a bit of lingering nausea from her illness, but she had (for once) not wanted any more attention on her. She had been completely in charge of the narrative earlier, keeping the focus and gossip on what she wanted her classmates to pay attention to, and having the talk about her turn from her celebrity connections to her mysterious illness would be not exactly ideal. An illness could push the focus on her proof to the backs of their minds, easily forgotten about given some time, and she was not about to let a little cold do that.

Lila was made of stronger stuff than that, she knew she was. After all, she was a supervillain. Things weren't going to be easy.

But it was still frustrating that the challenge was coming from something as everyday as a stupid cold.

(She should have just left it at I ate breakfast late and so I'm not very hungry and then maybe she could have gotten away with just taking a little fruit and nothing else. The comment about not having brought anything, in retrospect, made the breakfast thing sound like a flimsy excuse for not eating.)

Hopefully she would feel better again soon. It was just so stupid that she had been feeling so great, and then all of a sudden, she was feeling worse than she had before. Sure, she had been able to milk her cold for all it was worth as far as homework went, but much longer and the teachers wouldn't turn a blind eye to that anymore. And sure, she had gotten out of actually doing anything in gym while she was sick, but she could do that just as easily with a claim that her arthritis was acting up or that she had rolled her ankle the previous day.

(There was also the issue of what she could possibly do if someone brought concerns to their teachers and they insisted on calling Lila's mom. She couldn't let that happen, or else all of her hard work would be for nothing.

Maybe she could spread the lie that her mom was already on top of it and taking her in to the doctor's office for a checkup. If the teachers knew that Mrs. Rossi was already aware of Lila's health problem, then perhaps they would be less inclined to reach out as well.)

"Aren't you hungry, Lila?" Rose asked anxiously, and Lila startled out of her thoughts. She had been staring at her plate without eating anything for too long, clearly. "You've just been pushing your food around and not eating anything."

"Ah, well, I did have a late breakfast," Lila managed, doing her best to make her excuses sound confident, even as another wave of dizziness passed over her. Was it just her imagination, or were they getting more frequent? "I must have eaten more than I thought then, so I'm not very hungry yet. I- maybe I'll just set my plate away to eat later. I just couldn't resist taking some food, it all looked so good."

"Oh, okay," Rose agreed after a moment's pause. "It's too bad we don't have a heating lamp or something to keep the food warm and fresh for you! Some of it won't be as good cold."

Lila flashed her a smile. "Thanks for the concern, but I'm sure it will still be good! And if not- well, the next time we have a picnic, I'll be sure to wake up earlier or not eat as much breakfast."

"We'll have to do this again soon, then!"

Lila smiled and nodded. "That sounds fun! It'll be a good way to keep up with everyone over the summer- well, at least if I'm still in the country and not traveling. I don't know what my mom's plans are yet."

Everyone nodded, letting out little murmurs of understanding.

"Hopefully you'll get to go some cool places!" Mylène piped up. "I mean, I hope you'll be around for part of the summer so that you can go on all of the group activities like picnics and pool trips, but I know how important it is for you to get to travel and meet people who can help out with your charities and environmental work and everything!"

Lila forced another smile in the direction where- well, she could mostly see Mylène between the spots that had momentarily taken over her vision. She blinked, and her vision cleared. "Yeah, it would be nice to get to hang out and be a normal kid for a bit, but I also want to see some of my friends from other places in person again! I've been keeping in touch by email and video call, of course, but it's just not the same."

"The downside to traveling," Mylène agreed. "I've made friends while traveling before- average people, not princes and whatnot- but I never end up staying in touch with them for that long once I leave. Our emails just end up tapering off."

Several of the others nodded in agreement. Lila almost did, too- after all, she always let communications with her former classmates taper off and end after a few months after she had to move or switch schools- before she caught herself.

Right. No talking about her real life experiences, or else people would start picking up on the inconsistencies and the ways that Lila's real life didn't line up with the other stories that she had told.

The conversation slowly turned to the kinds of friendships other people had made while on vacation with their families and how long they kept communicating once they had left, and Lila tuned it out in favor of trying to force down a few bites of food. There were a couple things that weren't overly sweet or spicy that didn't make her stomach want to completely turn itself inside out, so Lila nibbled on them while she pretended to listen to her classmates blather on about completely non-impressive people who they had met.

"Lila, if you aren't hungry yet, you don't have to eat," Rose said suddenly, cutting herself off mid-sentence. She glanced over at the picnic table, then perked up. "Hey, the container I brought my salad in is empty! You could just put your food in that and bring it home to eat later if you wanted!"

"That's so kind of you, Rose!" Lila managed. Ugh, forcing herself to eat anything had clearly been a bad choice. She had thought that she would be able to handle a few bites, but she was feeling more nauseous than ever. She didn't want to let that on, though. She wouldn't. She couldn't distract from her own stories and photos by being ill. "That sounds like a great idea. I don't want the food I took to have to go to waste. I-" she cut herself off as her stomach rolled again.

Maybe talking right now wasn't the best idea.

"Let's go get it, then!" Rose chirped, popping up out of her seat. "And you can grab anything you want to eat later from the table, too, while we're doing that. I know no one's going to mind if you take stuff to go!"

Lila pushed herself to her feet to follow Rose, doing her best to act as though everything was normal as she swung her legs over the bench and started walking. Her vision had almost completely fuzzed out as soon as she got up, but she couldn't let that stop her. It would clear up soon enough, after all. It always had before.

She took one step, then another, then a third, forcing them even and casual. On the fourth, Lila felt herself wobble, suddenly both dizzy and weak.

And on the fifth step, everything went black.

[murdergrandmafanclub]

Get to know me tag

I was tagged by @rat-spit-village like days ago and I’m just now getting around to doing this, because I’m lame, I guess :/

Favourite colour: orange or purple? (Both? They’re a super pretty combination IMO)

Currently reading: I recently finished the first five Dragon Age graphic novels, and now I’m trying to decide whether to read one of like 6 different new books that have been collecting dust on my bookshelf for months, or whether to read Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time

Last song: honestly not sure? Either certified Yank™️ music (think Chris Janson, Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryant) or something from a musical - I’ve long since stopped questioning my musical tastes 👍🏻

Last movie: Beethoven’s 2nd - I’d like to use my young cousin as an excuse but really I just wanted to revisit my youth! (Plus cute dogs, what’s not to like?)

Last series: I honestly have a load on the go, and choose based on the amount of mental energy required - Good Omens when I have a brain, the Fosters if I’m watching with my family and shitty reality TV when I really cba (I binge watched two full series of ‘Are You the One?’ last week over two days because I’m ill and it requires zero brain power)

Craving: an uninterrupted night sleep honestly, because I have shingles rn and I haven’t been able to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time and I. AM. SUFFERING

Tea or coffee: Neither. I am a child and I never grew out of drinking fruit squash and I don’t like water because it doesn’t taste of anything (I’m a nightmare to host for, I guess, as most genuine Grownups™️ don’t have squash unless they have children lol)

Currently working on: I don’t really draw or write, and in fact this question is pushing me towards a crisis because Dear God is it a long time since I’ve done anything creative HOWEVER I have like three or four fanfic ideas (dragon age, of course) that have been living in my brain rent free for months and I keep trying to work up the courage to write them down, if not to post them, without my anxiety punching me straight in the face. Having said that, I do currently have a first (very rough) draft of a f!Cousland/Nathaniel Howe fic sitting in my notes that I wrote stream-of-conscious style recently, so I guess that probably counts?

TL;DR I have zero taste and an irrepressible need to explain why, apparently

I’m not gonna tag anyone specific because I’m pretty new to tumblr and my brain has me convinced it would be a Burden™️, but folks, feel free to post your own if you fancy!

[my-fan-side]

Unconventional

A/N: Okay, so here’s the Eris-Nesta Friendship (but still Def Nessian) Fanfic that I’ve started drafting about a couple months ago, but went back to it just last week while cleaning up some of my file in folders.So anyway, I hope you guys like it. Thanks for those who have liked, reblogged and have shown interest on this fic. I appreciate it very much and you have no idea how much that means to me. :)

Chapter 1

When Beron Vanserra died, the crown was instantly passed to his eldest son Eris. How he died and to whose hands he had, was never questioned by anyone, any more. What everyone was concerned, and intrigued for that matter, was what’s in store for the future of Autumn Court under its new leadership.

The dead was honored, traditions was observed, the people of the Autumn court grieved, and High Lords from all other courts sympathized with them. But as they say, the end of an era, is a beginning of another. And so, after all the of mourning, a celebration is very looked forward to.

“Invitations! We’re all going to a Ball next week!” Elain came in bouncing towards her family and friends lounging on the townhouse’s foyer. Everyone looked up to her, and to her red head mate who carries a couple of boxes in his arms beside her.

“Already?! Just a week after his father’s death, and a gathering to celebrate his crown is already happening. Eager much, is he?” Mor snorted with a mix of amusement and irritation as she took one of the invitations and stroke its elaborate design.

“Well, He is already the High Lord of Autumn. He already became one, the moment Beron took his last breath. This is Coronation Ball is just for formality.” Rhysand pointed out as he sat beside his mate. Feyre was admiring the red and gold intricate swirls on the invitation as well. It is beautiful, and if the invitation alone looked this extravagant, she could only imagine what more the actual party would be.

Elain finished distributing the invitations and was now seated on the sofa beside Nesta and Cassian. She frowns on the inner circles’ reactions though. She expected them to be at least a little bit excited for the ball, since it’s been a while since they’ve attended one from a different court. She thought that the animosity between the group and Eris has already subsided. She won’t say it out loud, but she thinks it was a relief to all of them when the throne was transferred to him. They all knew that if not for Eris, some of the treaties between Autumn and Night court wouldn’t have pushed through. He has shown good faith these past years, so she’s not really sure what to feel on their reactions. Maybe she still hasn’t truly understood how deep does the scars run among these people.

Lucien opt not to comment and just rearrange the two boxes he was carrying by the table. He is used to these peoples’ dislike toward his brother, he doesn’t blame them, there’s history there. Still, he and his brother managed to establish a civil relationship for a while now. He wouldn’t say that they are now best brothers, but for now, at least they were on the same page on being at least friendly. At the beginning he bears it for their mother, but as time passes by, Eris managed to show them that he is a better male than his Father was.

“Well, Elain is right! It’s been a while since we all visited another court for a celebration. We have been busy these past few weeks. So, I, for one, is very excited to go party!” Cassian winked at Elain and it made her giggle, Nesta snort, and the rest of the gang shook head and roll their eyes.

“Speaking of. Nesta, this is for you, for the party.” Lucien handed the box to her.

“For me?” Nesta took the box unsure what to make of it.

“Yes, the other box is for Elain.”  Lucien confirmed and handed the other box to his mate.

“Hey! What about me?” Feyre protested with a pout from the other side of the room.

“Uhmm. Well, the one for Elain is actually from my mothers. A late birthday present since I’ve mentioned to her that last week was Elain’s birthday.” Lucien explained carefully, hoping not to upset his first Archeron friend. Meanwhile, Elain blushes on receiving that gift. She knows what’s in the box, she has already opened it when they were still on the Autumn court. It was a beautiful long dress, perfect for next week’s occasion.

“Uhhhh, so is this an advance birthday present for me too? From your mother? Because my birthday is still a couple of months from now, and I wasn’t aware she knows about it?” Nesta asked with raised brows. She’s confused on why Lucien’s mom would give her anything at all, what more, a present?

“Actually, it’s not exactly from mother. That – is from Eris, sort of. He told me to give you that.” Lucien said with a raised brow and a smirk. Elain bit her lip trying not to laugh. Not because of Nesta’s snort when Lucien said it was from Eris, but because of the rest of the Inner Circle’s reaction. They were all rendered speechless looking back and forth between Nesta and the gift box. Azriel and Amren with narrowed eyes. Rhysand with raised brows. Feyre and Mor probably didn’t even noticed their mouths agape. And Cassian, Nesta’s mate, who’s face went from shocked, then confused, then angry in just a matter of seconds, was frozen still.

Nesta, however, seems to be unaffected and probably amused on their reactions as well. She took the cover of the box, saw a card atop it and read it. What’s written made her snicker. And before she returned the card inside the box, Cassian grabbed it fast and read it aloud.

“Nesta.

Here’s a dress that I hope you’ll wear on my Ceremony. I know I can’t tell you what to do, I’ve learned my lessons. But, just because you’re from the Night court doesn’t mean you’ll wear black and white only. Or Gray like you usually do. Really, you should spice up your wardrobe a little, will you?

Eris.”

The letter sounds teasing enough that they can’t help but wonder how close Eris and Nesta have really become. And why the heck they didn’t know about it. Well except Elain and Lucien.

Cassian’s nostrils flared, and crumpled the piece of paper with Eris note. He was about to say something, when Nesta punched his arm, not that hard really, just to make him stop seething.

“Will you stop being territorial. Gods! It’s just a note!” Nesta rolled her eyes at his mate.

“Sweetheart, this...” he raised the crumpled notes towards Nesta. “…is just a note. “But that—”  he point his fingers towards the dress that’s still neatly folded inside the gift box. “--is not! Why the heck is Eris giving you a dress? And since when are you two friends? Why did I not know this? Wha—” He wasn’t able to finish his blubbering. Nesta put a finger on his lips to shut him up and answers his questions calmly.

“One, he’s giving me a dress because he wants to--- for some reason. Two, I can’t remember exactly when we started to get along, but it’s not like it happened the instant I have visited Autumn court as an Emissary. And three, well… I don’t know why you didn’t know. I guess it just never came up. It’s not like we talk about him that much. Do you want to talk about him?” Nesta finished her statement coolly and with a raised brow towards Cassian.

“No.” He grumbled, he’s annoyed and mad. Too many questions running through his mind.

“I do!” Feyre answered back. “I want to know how you are friends. I mean, you go to other courts too, but it’s not like you have close friends from every courts?” she said and then crossed her arms. She can’t believe her sister is actually friends with Eris. And they must be closer than just the casual acquaintances, because he was literally giving her gifts.

Nesta tilted her head towards Feyre and answered her evenly. “And how are you so sure I don’t?” She crossed her arms too and face her younger sister. Like a challenge. The others kept quiet eyeing the two having a staring match.

Then Nesta sighed and leaned back towards Cassian’s arms. “I don’t get why you’re all bothered about this. I can have friends outside this circle and this court, you know? Like you do.”

“We never said you can’t or don’t.” Rhysand clarified.

“Of course. Of course.  I guess it just caught us off guard. We didn’t know.” Feyre let it go and leaned back towards her mate as well. “But you do?!” she then turned her attention to her other sister. Pointing out that among all of them, she isn’t surprise with this.

Elain nods her confirmation. “Well, keep in mind that I usually used to accompany Nesta if she has to go do her work in Autumn, and she chaperoned whenever I go there to meet Lucien there, back then. So, sometimes it’s the four of us who spend time together.” She continued and then shrugged it off.

“Yes, and I’m polite enough to leave them and give the two of them some time alone.” Nesta nods her head pointing to Elain and Lucien. “Because I may be overprotective, but I’m not going to hinder on what makes them… getting to know each other better.” She gave them both a soft smile which the couple returned happily.

“But my brother is stubborn enough as well and decides to not leave Nesta’s side, when she gives us space. You know, Eris might not be the sharpest knife in the bunch, but he knows what he’s saying when it comes to Court Trades and Treaties. And to be honest, when I saw their clash of words on that topic for the first time, I immediately thought that it’s either they’ll kill each other eventually, or miraculously be the best of friends in the end. Well, I guess miracles do happen.” Lucien finished and laughed at that. Elain laughed with him, she thought of that too. Nesta just wave off the statement but that little smirk was undeniably on her face.

“I actually agree with that.” Amren spoke for the first time since the discussion started. “Eris is…cunning and dangerous, yes. But he’s also clever and have the set of skills one leader must have. Just like some one we all know.” She raised a brow and a sly smile towards Nesta. “Maybe that’s why they get along. Besides, whether we all admit it or not. We are glad it was him that have inherited that crown among the Vanserras. We all know it was what’s best for the Autumn court.” She said then finished the wine she was holding.

Cassian was openly glaring at Amren, which the other felt but totally ignored, because how could she actually defend that bastard? However, he can’t say anything else to contradict her statement though, because he knew it was the truth. And everyone seems to think the same because there was a quiet stillness after Amren said her piece.

“Anyway, count me in! Because it will definitely be one heck of a party.” Amren smirked and pointed her wine glass towards Lucien and Elain’s position, her statement seems to finished the conversation.

Tags: @sjm-things @moonbeammadness @maastrash

@typicalmidnightsoul 

[naerysthelonesome]

Time spent together

Part 5:

Road trip

It was the morning after Apollo had sent Lit that email. The email that had revealed to him that his subconscious was trying to sabotage him. The damned email in which Apollo had given Lit summaries of a dozen Greek retellings, most of them chock full of piney love stories. Apollo felt like he could kick himself.

He truly hoped Lit wouldn’t read too much into them… Was Lit the kind of guy that noticed symbolism?

He told himself it didn’t matter anyway. There wasn’t any reason he should see Lit again. They could complete the rest of the project from the safety of their dorm rooms, thank you very much. Even so, he realized, the thought of not seeing Lit again hurt. He wanted to see him again. He wanted to joke and flirt with him, to push his buttons, and have him get snarky and mad. He wanted to tuck that stray curl of hair back under his bandana and cup his face.

Wait what?

Apollo buried his face in his hands and groaned. He’d have to figure out a way to keep talking to Lit after this project was completed.

The next day was mostly spent emailing Lit, reading his drafts, and editing. Maybe a little daydreaming also. And the day after that, they’d submitted their project. It was good, but apart from feeling relief at its completion, Apollo didn’t care much for it. His heart was hammering most irritatingly as he looked for Lit, after class.

He was just a little bit surprised that the boy had been waiting for him.

“Hallelujah we’re finally done”, Lit said grinning.

Apollo rubbed the back of his neck. Was Lit happy to be done with him?

“Um yeah”, he replied with a hesitant smile, “So I wanted to ask you for a favor…”

Lit nodded. “Oh?”

“My sister’s having a party this weekend and-”

“Wait! Please tell me she isn’t named Artemis”, Lit interrupted with a laugh.

“Uh… she is my twin, so”

Lit snorted. “Dear God. Okay, continue”.

“Right. So my sister’s having a party this weekend, and I was wondering if you could come along”.

“Oh”, Lit’s still smiling, but a little confusedly this time, “Why?” he cocked his head to the side, and Apollo wanted to kiss his neck or something.

“I love my sister. I do. But I really do need some company if I’m gonna have to deal with her ass”. This wasn’t a lie. Artemis loved to tease Apollo about him never bringing his dates over, despite being single herself. Except in her case, it was a choice and not cowardice, another fact she liked to tease him with. “She lives with some friends of hers, a couple hours away. We could make a road trip of it”

Lit looked hesitant, and Apollo’s heart dropped a little, but then he nodded firmly, “Yeah! Sounds like fun. When do we leave?”

Well that went well. Lit was even starting to look excited.

“Tomorrow?”

…..

Apollo found Lit waiting beside his car, a light backpack slung from his shoulder, and a book under his arm. Upon coming closer, he realized it was one he’d asked him to loan from the library. The thought that Lit was seriously reading his favourite books made him feel both warm and scared at the same time.

“Hey! You ready?”

Lit turned to reply, and Apollo saw his eyes widen a little when he saw him.

“Ready as I’ll ever be”, he said a little shakily.

Apollo knew he looked good that day, with his olive green polo shirt and ray bans, but damn he wasn’t expecting that reaction. He felt quite pleased with himself as he got into the car.

Lit tossed his bag into the backseat and climbed in, securely locking the seat belt in place. Then they were off. Apollo saw Lit sigh back against the seat as they made their way out campus.

On the way to Artemis’, they drove past a big field that Lit seemed to really like looking at, and a then over a highway that he did not care for at all. Lit was flitting through the pages of his book, chewing on a pencil. Occasionally, he’d very lightly underline something in the book. Apollo wondered why, as he wouldn’t get to keep the book anyway.

“So you also desecrate public property”.

“Hmph. At least it’s an upgrade to the pasta sauce I found two chapters ago”, Lit replied shutting the book.

Since the road was long, straight, and utterly deserted, Apollo looked over at him. He had intended to ask him about the book but was caught off guard by how beautiful he looked. Apollo was fond of poetry and felt the immediate urge to write some about Lit. He wanted to write, or maybe sing, about the delicate hair curling at the nape of his neck, the faint white tracery of old scars, the brown skin seeming to almost glow in the afternoon sunlight, his long, dark lashes hanging over the pools of dark coffee that were his eyes. Instead, blood rushing to his cheeks, he turned away.

Lit reached out to pick up his phone and change the music.

“Whoa what’s wrong with Lorde?” asked Apollo, now slightly offended.

“Nothing at all”, Lit replied with a shrug, “I just fidget with stuff when I’m bored”.

The car was filled with beat of Daydreaming by MISSIO, and Apollo found he didn’t mind the change in music.

“Maybe we should play 20 questions”, Apollo said jokingly.

Lit sat up. “Okay”.

“Wait I was just kidding”

“Nono, let’s do it. But please don’t ask stupid questions. Some asked me to read ‘Serpent and Dove’ a couple weeks ago, and I did because I hate myself. It had the most uninteresting sequence of 20 questions I’ve ever read, I don’t want that for us.”

For us?? There was an us?

“Cool. I’ll go first. Why do you annotate books that you aren’t going to keep anyway?”

Lit let out a little sigh, and said, “It’s like leaving behind a small piece of myself. Of course, the next person to pick up the book won’t know it’s me, but that’s not the point”. He breathed in as if this wasn’t an easy thing to share, and continued, “I don’t tell people much about myself. I don’t make a lot of friends, and I’m definitely not an open book. I think this is way for me to just let people see me, but… anonymously. I know that probably doesn’t make much sense, but it’s what works for me”.

Apollo sat stunned, but tried as hard as he could not to show it. For someone that didn’t share much of himself, Lit had shared a lot with Apollo, and he didn’t quite know how to feel about it. Maybe he was grateful. Maybe he was terrified of Lit’s trust in him. The last thing he wanted to do was let Lit down.

“Well that was definitely interesting. Your turn.” Apollo thinks he did well enough at playing it cool.

“Um”. Lit fidgets around, shifting his legs and squeezing his own fingers. Gods above! It’s making Apollo nervous. “So the books you asked me to rent out…” Apollo’s heart starts to speed up. Surely Lit hadn’t noticed! “Was there any… particular theme to them, or?”

“Theme? Well duh. Mythological retellings”, Apollo managed, with a laugh that sounded fake to his own ears.

An embarrassed blush crept up Lit’s cheeks, and Apollo almost regretted lying to him. “I know… but, anything… else?”, he asked, waving his hand about like it could explain what he wanted to say more eloquently than words could.

Apollo decided to play dumb. It wasn’t like he’d been lying anyway. He really hadn’t meant for all the books to be so damn piney.

“Not that I can think of…”, he said, feigning a look of confusion, “Why?”

“Never mind”, Lit said, turning away to hide flushed cheeks, “Your turn”.

Apollo cleared his throat. He hadn’t meant to ask this next question so early on. Maybe he was doing it because he didn’t like lying to Lit. Maybe he was doing it so Lit would be distracted from his embarrassment. Maybe he wasn’t doing this for Lit’s benefit at all. Maybe he just had to get this off his chest.

“So this is a slightly serious question. If, you know… hypothetically speaking, I were to tell you that you had to…” If he weren’t belted to a car seat right now, he’d be squirming, “I may or may not have told Artemis that we’re dating!” he finally blurted out.

Lit turned to stare at him.

“I mean, of course we aren’t, but would you mind faking it for the weekend?”

Lit just looked like he was in pain.

Then his face broke out in a cheeky smile, and he said, “Let’s do it. And let’s make it convincing”.

[sheliesshattered]

This Isn’t A Ghost Story extras for Chapter 6: The Future

Chapter 6 of This Isn’t A Ghost Story has been posted! You can find it here on Tumblr, or here on AO3. Spoiler-ish extras under the cut!

With chapter 6 under our belts, we’ve made it through the main portion of this fic! The next two chapters will wrap up a few loose ends -- and possibly create a couple more, of the open-ended variety -- and if I hadn’t gotten quite so deep into the world-building for this, I might have actually ended the story here. All the research I did for the world-building directly inspired the next two chapters, which were both written and finished before I had anything more than a basic sketch in place for chapter 6. 

Egyptology in the 1920s has clearly been a huge part of the world-building for this story from the beginning, and we get a bit more of it in chapter 6. The Doctor mentioned Howard Carter briefly in chapter 5, and here we loop back around to that and find out that Clara and the Doctor knew Carter well. I didn’t want to derail the chapter too much with talking about their friendship in any detail, but large portions of the timeline of when they were in Egypt in the 1920s was built around the historical events of the discovery and documentation of Tutankhamun’s tomb, and there are a few passing allusions to it in the journal entries in chapter 3 as well.

Howard Carter (pictured above in 1924) and his team of excavators found the entrance to Tutankhamun’s tomb in November of 1922, which would have been during the phase when Clara and the Doctor are exchanging letters and falling in love. One little historical detail that I sadly couldn’t quite use was that 23 November 1922 was actually a date of minor significance in the discovery of the tomb. It was the day that Carter’s financier, Lord Carnarvon, arrived at the dig site to witness the opening of the tomb, along with his daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert, who would have been about a year and a half younger than Clara. This picture of the three of them was taken at the entrance of the tomb in late 1922, and is similar to how I imagine Clara and the Doctor’s picture with Carter would have looked:

As the tomb was being excavated, Carter and Carnarvon assembled a team of experts to help with the huge task of cataloging, preserving, and translating all the many items found in the tomb, and though I never called it out specifically in This Isn’t A Ghost Story, I figure the Doctor was part of that team, probably specifically focused on translation work. In late February 1923, there was a short halt in the excavation that lasted a few weeks, which was what led, in our fictionalized version of events, to the Doctor briefly returning to Glasgow, and Clara’s impulsive decision to follow him there. After their wedding in May of ‘23, Clara and the Doctor went directly to Egypt, and the Doctor returned to work on Carter’s team.

Family members, tourists, and the press were all known to visit the dig site during that first year of excavation and the resulting media craze:

Given that, and Clara and the Doctor being ‘disgustingly in love newlyweds’ it seemed reasonable that Clara would have visited the site at least a few times, and been on good terms with Howard Carter. Carter actually got his start in Egyptology when he was hired as a young man to paint reproductions of ancient temple walls and other Egyptian artifacts:

During the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb, he made detailed sketches, including careful measurements, of every item removed from the tomb and where it had originally be found in the tomb. Much of what we know about King Tut’s tomb now is down to how methodical Carter was in documenting the original untouched state of the tomb, both with measurements, drawings, and photography. These are both drawings Carter did of the tomb during that period:

Chapter 3 mentions that Clara decided to learn to draw in the summer of 1923, so I liked the little detail that it was Howard Carter, with his meticulous and beautiful art, that suggested she take up the hobby. Modern Clara also notes in passing that she drew all throughout her childhood, particularly her ghost, which all connects back to those early days of their marriage in 1923.

I’ve got more up my sleeve about the world-building elements for the next two chapters, but since chapter 6 was the last chapter I finished, long after chapters 7 and 8 were done, I thought I’d talk a bit about the writing process as well. The final scenes I wrote for the entire story were near the end of chapter 6, and despite knowing what I needed this chapter to do, what needed to be in place to set up chapters 7 and 8, chapter 6 gave me a bit of trouble along the way. 

I imagined this chapter in a lot of different ways as the story was evolving, but I always knew I wanted to emphasize the possibility of future travels for Clara and the Doctor. The theme of ‘101 Places To See’ is so strong in canon that echoing it for 1920s Clara was a big part of my world-building from the beginning, and I felt like any version of a happy ending for Clara and the Doctor had to include travel. An early draft of this chapter ended on Clara’s final line from Mummy On The Orient Express, ‘Then what are you waiting for? Let's go.’ to help emphasize that travel theme -- and because I can never resist borrowing a line from canon whenever I can find an excuse.

Another early sketch for this chapter had Clara and the Doctor venturing out for grocery shopping, with the Doctor complaining up a storm while Clara tried to carry on a conversation with him without any strangers taking note of it. Originally I had planned to include more of Clara’s work week, and had scenes roughed in where her friend and fellow teacher Amy Pond found out that Clara had gotten “engaged” over the weekend, leading Clara to have to make up something on the spot about how she’d been in a long-distance relationship that had only recently turned serious, which was why Amy had never met him. There was a whole thing about how Clara and Amy (who taught ancient world history) were co-directing Coal Hill’s production of Antony And Cleopatra, and Amy wanting to make sure that Clara wasn’t going to run off to see the world with her new fiance before the night of the play. Eventually that all got boiled down to just a single exchange between Clara and the Doctor, as I decided to keep the focus tight in on the two of them and their relationship, and not even include dialogue from any other characters.

One thing that comes up again and again in my writing projects is that when I’m imagining the plotline early in the process, it always takes up a lot more calendar days than the final product does. I imagine events taking place over the course of weeks, but then find that the emotional flow works much better condensed down to a handful of days instead. Despite my stories following that same pattern in development for more than a decade now, it somehow always seems to surprise me, lol.

Really early on in working on Ghost Story, I knew I wanted to keep Clara’s canonical birthdate of 23 November 1986 and build the rest of the timeline around that, and I picked out November 2014 as the time period for the main part of the story because it corresponds roughly to when the end of s8 of the show originally aired. But in a very early outline of events, Clara didn’t have the nightmare that led to her memories coming back until the night of her birthday, a full week later from what ended up happening in this final version. 

Even as recently as a few weeks ago, I was still planning on ending this chapter on her birthday, and it wasn’t until I started digging into the scene by scene and line by line breakdown of the chapter that I realized that it really wasn’t necessary. And leaving her birthday as an upcoming event folded in nicely with the ‘Future’ theme I wanted for this chapter, so again I decided to keep the focus tight on Clara and the Doctor’s relationship as they unravel the mystery and deal with the fallout of what happened in 1927.

Figuring out what I actually wanted to happen this chapter versus what could be left on the cutting-room floor, as they say, was a huge part of the final phase of writing This Isn’t A Ghost Story. Once I had cut out extraneous scenes and meandering plot tangents (and poor Amy Pond), I was left with a very specific list of scenes and conversations, and I wrote them much the same way I write everything, jumping around to a given scene as dialogue or internal monologue occurs to me. To me it always feels like putting together a large jigsaw puzzle, filling in holes and connecting up pieces as the puzzle comes together.

I find that technique works really well for me when I’m in early and mid development of a story, but once I was down to just a couple of scenes that still needed written, progress slowed way down. I got to the point where I knew the emotional content of a scene and even most of the dialogue, and needed just a little bit of stage direction to stitch the whole thing together. Those of you who have been following along with my #process thoughts posts here may remember me posting about working on that last scene just a couple of weeks ago, trying to wrestle it into shape. 

@tounknowndestinations, @praetyger, and a few others of you have asked about it, and I can now reveal that the very last bit to get written was the sequence with Clara preparing for bed and then the two of them getting into bed. I had the awkward sex conversation and the final scene the next morning already written, I just had to connect the first part of the chapter up with those last scenes. I’m happy with how it eventually came together -- and very curious to hear if any of you could pick out that that was the last bit written? -- but not having the option to work on anything else, just those specific words in that specific place, made it more of a struggle for me than writing most of the rest of Ghost Story.

My husband and beta reader Jack was more involved with the editing of this chapter than he was with any of the other chapters, and in several places helped me rewrite individual lines or conversation beats until we were both happy with how they read. @praetyger asked how I know when writing is ‘done’, and I have to admit it’s mostly a process of reading it over and over again, and then getting Jack to read it and taking his feedback seriously. I tend towards overly long run-on sentences, so if Jack gets lost while reading a sentence, that’s one he’ll call out as needing to be reworded for clarity. 

There’s one sentence in this chapter that we went back and forth over quite a lot: ‘The feeling of what might have been that seeing their wedding photo had elicited in her wasn’t some strange, misplaced jealousy, but rather the knowledge she carried deep in her soul, buried in her subconscious, that their story wasn’t over yet.’ It was originally even more wordy, and Jack would have preferred the final version be a lot more simple, but it just didn’t read right to me without ‘elicited’ so I stuck to my guns on that bit, even as I filed down some of the wordiness in other parts of the sentence.

Both for reworking a sentence and for writing big sections in the first place, my method is generally to write it and edit a little as I go, trying to get the word choice and pacing as close to what I want as I can on a first pass. Then I’ll let it sit, at the very least overnight but often for days or longer at a time, then come back and reread it when it isn’t so fresh in my mind. At that point, sometimes a phrase will jump at me as awkward or something I used just a paragraph or two earlier, so I’ll rewrite it, let it sit, come back and edit it all over again. Sometimes what seemed like plenty of room for an emotional beat when I was writing it will go by way too fast when I reread it, so I’ll add to it, give it space to breathe. Rinse and repeat.

For the record, Jack’s favorite line from this chapter is this bit of dialogue for the Doctor: ‘“Yes,” he allowed warily, clearly not sure where she was going with this.’ I imagine it’s probably for similar reasons as why he liked the ‘she didn’t add again but knew they were both thinking it’ bit from chapter 5. I try not to put my own marriage into my writing too much, but there are some experiences of being married that I think are probably pretty universal.

@ephemeralhologram asked about my writing inspiration, and for me my writing is always driven by a kernel of a what-if idea and a desire to convey a certain emotion. I almost always start out with a ‘plotbunny’ idea, some tiny thing that I daydream about and consider from multiple angles until a plot and emotional tone starts coming into focus. 

For Ghost Story, it was actually a shitpost here on Tumblr about a real estate agent having a conversation with the ghost who haunts the house they’re trying to sell, along with wanting to try telling a Twelve/Clara story in an alternate universe completely separate from the show canon, which I had never done before Ghost Story. The emotional tone started out much sillier, more in line with that Tumblr post, but as I got into the world-building and decided I wanted to have a mystery and mutual pining at the center of this story, the tone shifted quite a lot.

The other major drivers of writing inspiration for me are that I enjoy putting words together into interesting and emotionally evocative combinations, and I enjoy conveying character emotion and eliciting emotion in the reader. No matter what fandom I’m writing in, no matter how close to canon or how AU, how short or long the story is, those two things are always at the center of my writing.

I walk around the house or do chores that I don’t have to focus on too much (dishes are excellent for this) just tossing around bits of dialogue in my head until I find an emotional beat that grabs me or a bit of phrasing that I really like. I jot those down into a googledoc -- most of my DW stories start out in a doc called “Doctor Who Bits” that is in fact just fragments of multiple stories, and then eventually a story will graduate into having its own dedicated googledoc. Figuring out the plot is just as much about deciding on the emotional journey I want to take the characters and/or the readers on as it is deciding on an order of events.

Thank you to @tounknowndestinations​, @ephemeralhologram​, and @praetyger​ for the questions! I am more than happy to answer any questions about my writing process or details about this story, or anything really, so feel free to hit me up in my ask, or in the comments on this post, or in a comment over on AO3. Thank you to everyone who has followed along with this story, and for all the support and encouragement you’ve offered along the way, I couldn’t have written this story without this wonderful little corner of the Whouffaldi fandom! ❤️

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Extras for Chapter 7: The Museum