#this was written while i was in the midst of studying so do bear with me if its. well. not coherent | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

toruro · 1 year

Text

— ✧ oh my!

pairing: xu minghao x reader

description: choosing to be roommates with vernon chwe would undeniably be one of the few life-changing decisions you made in your lifetime. he brought along support, friendship, and most importantly: a hot friend. — or, in which you’re roommates with vernon and you happen to fall for one of his many chaotic friends.

tags: smut (18+), oral (m receiving), just stupid mutual pining, fluff, seriously self indulgent, mentioned past toxic/controlling relationships

w/c: 13.6k

a/n: REPOSTED. this was my first attempt at a kpop fic ever and my first time writing smut so please bear with how awkwardly written it is. a fic that was supposed to be multiple parts but i couldn't come up with a real plot either so ummm … nevertheless i hope u enjoy!

I. OH MY!

Moving in with Vernon is among your top life changing decisions, pretty much ever.

You two met in college, first sharing a calculus class together and occasionally studying together. Your friendship was budding—he was someone you could count on and never had to second guess. Spending more time together, you naturally grew closer, eventually reaching a point that when Vernon mentioned moving out of his shitty studio, you two immediately decided to find a place together.

Fresh out of college, it was the best decision in all ways possible—money was not nearly as big of a burden as before, and it was fun having a friend to talk to whenever you wanted in the vicinity of your own home.

It’s been an enjoyable eight months since you two started renting out this place together, and this evening, you’re in the kitchen cooking some brownies with an old package of brownie mix you found shoved in the back of one of your cupboards. You’re making a bit of a mess, but you can only hope that Vernon doesn’t mind too much—you will clean it, after all.

You’re in the midst of pondering about how long it’ll take you to clean up the little (big) splatter of flour you dropped on the ground when there’s a buzzing that comes from your phone. You huff, looking down at your fingers that are coated in oil and brownie batter. Setting down the bowl you were mixing, you then go to wash your hands as the buzzing dies out. After wiping down any moisture left on your skin, you pick up the phone to see a missed call from Vernon.

Did he forget something? you wonder, pressing the call back button and holding your phone up to your ear. You hear him pick up the line almost immediately, curious to know why he called you. “Hey,” you say casually when you know he can hear you. “Everything good?”

There are a few voices in the background that you hear, and you recall how he told you this morning he’d be hanging out with his friends. “Yeah, yeah, everything’s great. Look, I was wondering if it would be okay with you if my friends came over to our place? I would’ve asked earlier but I didn’t think we would be hanging out more and…well you get it,” Vernon sighs.

Your lips make a little ‘o’ shape, nodding to yourself as if Vernon could see you right now. “Yeah of course they can come over!” you tell him.

“Are you sure?” he clarifies, and you smile at the sincerity. “It’s just—I mean like they’re probably going to stay a while?” It comes out as a question and you laugh. “Don’t laugh at me,” Vernon grumbles, “I’m just making sure because they’re probably going to stay late in the night and there’s a lot of them.”

“Yes Vernon, I know there’s a lot of them—twelve to be exact,” you retort. “Yes, I’m okay with it, it’s not like I do anything these days anyways. I’ll be fine,” you tell him honestly.

“Okay, thank you so much,” he replies, relieved. “We’ll be there in like ten minutes.”

“Ten?!” you shrieked, quickly taking in the giant mess you made around you, baffled when you think about how you’re going to clean this up.

“Yes, sorry,” Vernon murmurs. “These guys change their minds so much and—ugh—you get it. We’re already close to the apartment complex so we’re just going to come up. Is there a problem?”

You hum, looking around you. “I might’ve made a bit of a mess in the kitchen, but…but I’ll figure it out.”

Vernon laughs. “I doubt they’ll care—most of them are dogs.” You giggle at the muffled protests heard in the background before he continues. “Anyways, thank you, I owe you one. See you in five.”

Your phone beeps when he hangs up and you stand by yourself in the middle of the kitchen. “Five?” you whisper to yourself, “Fuck! He said ten! But now five? Fuck!”

You whip your head around to look at the kitchen, grimacing as you’re dawned with the realization that there is no way you’re going to clean this up before they come. It takes you around 5 seconds to debate your options, finally deciding to just give up on trying to clean up and focus on finishing the batter and getting the pan in the oven.

You set your phone back down on the counter, picking up the batter bowl and giving it a few more stirs to rid it of any clumps before spreading it all out on a pan. It takes you a few moments to find the mittens and stick it in the preheated oven, a wave of relief washing over you when you’re done.

That’s one thing out of the way…I guess , you think to yourself, letting your hair down from the tight up-do you had it in earlier. Looking down at your black t-shirt and yoga pants, you take a few moments to try and dust off whatever flour rubbed off on the cloth. Of course, many stains still remain, but you figured this was better than nothing.

You’re about to grab a broom to clean up the floor when you hear a knock at the door. Sighing in defeat, you wash your hands once before heading to the door. You’re placing your hand on the door knob before you hear some clicking, hesitating to open once you realize it’s Vernon on the other end unlocking it himself. You step back from the doorway as the door is pushed slightly ajar, allowing you to poke your head through the small gap.

You’re met with the sight of multiple guys crowding around the door, a slightly frantic and honestly exhausted-looking Vernon leading the group. “Hey,” he greets as you step back once more, pulling the door open fully.

“That was less than five minutes!” you exclaim, trying your best to ignore the gazes of the unfamiliar faces behind Vernon. You’ve seen pictures of them before on Vernon’s social media and stuff but you don’t really know them at all—you’re only aware of bits and pieces from the stories he tells you occasionally.

“I’m sorry!” he puts his hands up in surrender, stepping through the doorway as you back into the kitchen that remained in the chaotic state you left it in.

“I didn’t have time to clean!” you whine, frantically waving your hand at the kitchen, allowing Vernon to take in the scene.

“Hey, hey, hey,” a new voice pops in and you see a hand snake it’s way around Vernon’s shoulders. A man with blonde hair and a chiseled face looks at you sympathetically. “It’s not Vernon’s fault,” he tells you calmly. “You can blame it on us for changing plans quickly. Don’t worry, Vernon feels bad about it, he told us.”

You sigh, a small pout making its way onto your face. “Fine,” you huff as the rest of the boys fill the large room that contains the kitchen and living room. You aren’t sure what to do now, watching them all shuffle around, taking off their shoes and attempting (key word: attempting ) to organize them in front of the doorway. You hadn’t really thought this far ahead—should you go to your room now? Would it be awkward to just hang around here while they’re in the living room (your kitchen and living room are basically one large room, so there’s no real way to avoid them)?

You’re glad Vernon picks up on your uncertainty. He turns to his friends, speaking up and saying your name, which catches you by surprise. “My roommate,” he clarifies, as they all look at you. You smile awkwardly, giving a small wave before averting your gaze. Vernon then turns around, pointing at the couch across the room, “Now can one of you set up the Mario Kart?”

The rest of the boys nod, beginning to break out into small conversations by themselves as they all make their way to lounge in the connected room, finally giving you a bit of space to breathe (not that they were making you uncomfortable or anything—you’re just a little shy).

“I’m sorry again,” Vernon tells you, and you can hear the genuinity in his voice. “What were you making, by the way?” he asks curiously, peering over at the mess.

“It’s okay! And I was making brownies—I found some old box mixes in the back of the cupboard and I figured I should make them before they expire,” you explain, looking over at his friends who have now settled in the living room comfortably. “Do your friends want some? I’ve made a big enough batch for everyone, I’m sure,” you tell him.

“Are you sure?”

“Vernon can you stop asking me if I’m sure,” you complain loudly, running a hand over your face. You hear a snicker come from the other side of a room, catching sight of one of Vernon’s friends seated on ground, a playful smirk on his face upon hearing your conversation. You feel your ears burn, quickly turning back to Vernon. “Yes, I just made them for fun. It’s better to share with them than have us eat all of it,” you chuckle, picking up a dustpan from the corner of the kitchen to begin cleaning up.

“Okay fine,” Vernon murmurs. “Thank you a lot,” he concludes, finally turning and joining friends on the couch. You begin your work to clean up the flour you dropped on the ground, getting lost in your own little world after slipping in your airpods, tuning out the noises of rowdy men and Mario Kart sound effects.

You’re practically done with cleaning the kitchen when you hear your timer go off, nearly skipping to the oven to turn it off and pull out the pan of brownies you’ve been putting so much effort into. The aroma floats through the room, and you catch the glances of a few of Vernon’s friends who peek over, trying to get a look at whatever you’ve come up with.

You smile to yourself, placing the pan on the counter before pulling out a knife to make nice, even pieces. It takes you a few moments, but once you’re done, you look down at them happily. Slipping on your mittens, you carry the tray over to the living room, a small, upwards curve pulling at your lips.

The boy you remember from earlier—the one who laughed at your reaction to Vernon—notices you first, and you can’t help but wonder how you didn;t recognize him from any pictures because holy hell he’s pretty. His eyes are looking at you through heavy eyelashes and there’s a coy smile tugging at his lips—he’s charming .

It takes you a good five seconds to realize you’re staring at him and another five to realize he’s caught you in the act. You whip your head away, looking at the rest of the boys, some of which who are intently focused on the game on the screen, others of which who are indifferent.

“Um, I made some brownies, if you guys want,” you tell them all, clearing your throat. “They’re fresh, so they’re a little hot, but you can wait for them to cool down.” You set down the pan on the table as the rest of them quiet down, some immediately spewing out words of gratitude.

“Aren’t you going to have any?” one of them asks, and you recognize him as the tallest. Mingyu? You recall some stories about him.

You shrug. “I kind of just made it because we had the boxes left…I think it’d be better if you guys shared it.”

Another boy with glasses sitting on the armchair speaks up. “You can eat it with us—our way of saying thanks,” he encourages. You throw out a close lipped smile, glancing at Vernon as if to ask if this was all just a show of politeness or an actual offer. He offers the slightest nod, and your once tight smile is let loose. You nod your head cheerfully, looking around you to find a spot to sit.

Noticing your confusion, the boy with the blonde hair and sharp face from earlier points to your right. “Sit next to Minghao, I’m sure there’s room there.”

You look down, met with the gaze of him , trying your best to hide your twinge of excitement as you silently shuffle over and sit down at the edge of the rug. Minghao . You like that name, you say to yourself in your head before shaking your head lightly—what are you thinking? You can’t be crushing on a guy you just laid your eyes on!

Inhaling sharply, you turn your head to the screen, grateful to see everyone else’s attention has also averted to the heated one-on-one match between the glasses guy from earlier (you now have learned his name is Wonwoo) and Mingyu.

They’re a loud bunch, but you can’t find it in you to mind—watching them all get along so well, so freely, is liberating in itself. You feel relaxed in a way you didn’t know you could be.

As content as you feel right now though, there’s an anxious thought buzzing at the back of your mind, and no matter how desperately you try to push it back, it keeps crawling its way up, especially when you feel your thigh brush Minghao’s .

Stop it , you chide yourself. Stop it! A little more harshly. Stop thinking about him!

“Hey…” the first time he says it, the words don’t quite reach your ears. “Hey,” he says again, nudging your thigh with his knee, increasing the minimal physical contact you two already had. You’re snapping out of your daze in an instant, whipping your head up to look at him . “You good?” he asks, and while you can tell he’s being sincere, there’s an almost playful smirk gracing his lips.

“Huh…oh, yeah,” you murmur, bashful that he caught you lost in your own head, thinking about him. “Just zoned out for a second,” you explain with an awkward laugh, pulling your legs into your chest and resting your chin on your knees.

“I could tell,” Minghao replies, and you can’t help but gaze at how cool he is as he reaches toward the coffee table, cutting himself a piece of the brownie. You watch him carefully as he takes a bite—you’re honestly just admiring his face, but you think you can brush off your shameless ogling as looking to see if he likes the brownie. He catches you staring, and you’re unsure of what he thinks of it, opening his mouth to talk again once he’s swallowed it. “It’s good,” he tells you, and you smile.

“I’m glad…it would have been kind of embarrassing if it wasn’t.”

“Don’t worry—chocolate isn’t even really my thing but I like it,” Minghao compliments, and you can’t tell if he’s being genuine or faux out of sincerity. Your grin brightens nevertheless as you sink back into the front of the sofa behind you, averting your gaze to the screen once again.

You’re feeling a little shy, of course, and the silence that now sits between you and Minghao isn’t uncomfortable or awkward, rather it’s…heart-warming. Your smile doesn’t leave your face as the room is full of cries and laughter and taunts as the results of the first round are revealed.

You sit in an amused silence, watching them for around another twenty minutes and even getting to play once (albeit your minimal effort—Mario Kart always gives you a headache anyways), before quietly standing up as the boys are cheering over Wonwoo winning yet another match. Minghao looks at you as you raise yourself above him, and your stomach churns at the way he raised a brow.

“Leaving already?”

You shrug casually. “I think it’s about time I get to doing my own stuff,” you explain, throwing out a small smile before retreating to your room before Minghao—or anyone else—can notice or say anything. You’re grateful Minghao didn’t make a scene about you leaving—it’s not that you don’t like the boys (far from it), but you’ve been tired the whole day and were looking forward to a nice nap.

Settling into your bed after shutting your blinds, you pull the covers up to your chin shooting a quick text to Vernon to make sure he wakes you up for dinner if you didn’t wake yourself up in time. You shut your eyes tight, doing your best to ignore the tight feeling that settles at the bottom of your stomach.

The second you identify the feeling, you squeeze your eyes closed tighter. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Your words don’t aid you, of course, because all you’re thinking about his stupid fucking Minghao and his stupidly hot face and his stupidly cute smirk and the stupidly handsome way he looks at you and— oh my god you need to turn your brain off right now.

You settle on not breathing, trying to pretend you’re dead, in hopes it’ll lull you to sleep. Of course, the effect is the opposite of your intentions—the lack of oxygen only reminds you of the way Minghao took your breath away when you first noticed him.

You huff to yourself, rolling your body over so your face is pressed into the pillow as you quietly curse to yourself. “God, I’m so fucked,” you whine, childishly pounding your fists against the plush of your mattress.

You’re being immature, you know you are—like a child throwing a tantrum—but who can blame you? He’s just so pretty and that smile of his is so endearing and you can’t help but find yourself so falling for him.

It’s a miracle that you fall asleep at all, let alone so quickly. You figure the exhaustion from the past week has finally caught up to you, even with the onslaught of attraction that came your way after seeing Minghao.

When you wake up, it’s much darker. The sun hasn’t fully set yet, but the sky is painted a deep red which is bound to morph to purple within a few more moments before finally sinking into nighttime. You glance around and you realize that the only thing besides the outside light that’s illuminating your room is your bed lamp that you forgot to turn off.

You rub your eyes a few times, still in a bit of a groggy, drowsy daze, before remembering what woke you up in the first place—the knock on your door. “Hello?” you croak out, immediately slapping a hand over your mouth at the mangles sound that leaves your mouth. It’s quiet for a moment and you’re able to identify the faint voices in the rest of the apartment as Vernon’s friends.

Your mind is suddenly racing through the possibility of who could’ve knocked on your door and— oh my god! What if it’s Minghao?! What if he heard y—

You hear your name being called out softly and your speeding train of thought falters. It’s Vernon. Thank fucking god. “You up?” he says through the door and you pull the covers off of you to meet him at the door. Poking your head through the crack as you open it slightly, you squint immediately at the intrusion of light to your unadjusted eyes.

“Good morning,” you joke, stepping back to let him in. “Thanks for waking me up…jeez, I was knocked out,” you murmur to yourself, rubbing a hand over your face as you walk to your dresser to find yourself a comb. “What time is it?”

“It’s like six…the guys were worried that they were being too loud when I told them you were sleeping,” Vernon muses, pulling up his phone to scroll through something. “But I was like nah she sleeps through everything—and I was right,” he says with a laugh as you roll your eyes, trying to make yourself more presentable as you pull your hair back into a low do.

“Whatever…did you guys have fun? I’m assuming so since they’re still here…”

“Yeah, we’re ordering dinner right now. I told you they were gonna stay for a while. That’s why I woke you up too: I was gonna ask if there was anything specific you wanted—if you wanna eat with us of course,” he explains, holding up his phone to display the food delivery app he had opened earlier.

“Would that be okay? If I had dinner with you all?”

“Yeah of course, no one would mind,” Vernon assures you as you look at yourself in the mirror, fixing your hair, narrowing your eyes at your roommate.

“You sure?”

“Okay now you need to stop asking me if I’m sure,” Vernon huffs with a roll of his eyes followed by your laughter.

“Okay okay, fine,” you reply. “Give me like two minutes I’ll come out and we can decide something with everyone,” you say, ushering Vernon out. He puts his hands up in surrender, turning around to join his friends in the other room. After he leaves, you debate with yourself whether or not you should change or join the rest with your pajama pants and loose fit t-shirt.

Overcome with the still lingering drowsiness from your nap, you choose comfort, and decide to just throw on a loose cardigan over whatever you’re wearing now before stepping out of the room. A yawn escapes your lips as you enter the living room, catching sight of all the boys lounging around—some are seated on top of the kitchen island, legs hanging over the edge, while others are laying down on the couch with their feet kicked up, the rest with their legs folded on the ground.

You try not to stare at Minghao too much when he enters your line of vision, but the task is becoming impossibly harder the longer you look: he’s laid back on the couch, feet resting on a blonde boy—Jun, you think is his name’s—lap, and you don’t miss the way his arms are crossed behind the back of his head, shirt lifting up just enough to reveal a little bit of the skin that dons his torso.

You begrudgingly peel your eyes away from the marvelous sight when you hear someone call your name, heads turning to you once they realize you’ve finally joined them.

“About time,” the boy with sharp features from earlier—Jeonghan—says as a greeting, waving you over as he stands next to Vernon. “Come on, help us decide what to order.”

“D’you sleep well?” another asks, and you turn your head to see who’s speaking as you approach Jeonghan. You recognize the boy now as Seungkwan, and you smile while nodding. “I swear me and Chan thought you were dead!” he exclaims jokingly as you furrow your eyebrows.

The boy next to him shoots Seungkwan a death stare before speaking up, much to your amusement. “What Seungkwan means is,” Chan begins with a huff, “we were playing a game and Mingyu lost and he yelled and we were scared we woke you up but nothing happened!”

“I told you, she sleeps through everything,” you hear Vernon mumble from behind you, not missing the joking look that’s toying with his face. You roll your eyes and hit his shoulder, loud enough for everyone to hear and cause them to laugh, smiling internally at the reaction you were able to elicit.

“That’s not true!” you whine, looking over his shoulder to see what restaurants they were choosing from.

“Joking, joking,” Vernon mumbles, turning his phone so you could see better. “We’re choosing between Mexican and Thai. You can choose which, since we’re all pretty evenly split.”

You hum for a second, thinking about which you’re craving more, finally settling on, “Thai!”

There are some cheers that erupt behind you, and your face heats up right away when you turn around to see some of them (Minghao in particular) with cheerful smiles and fists of victory in the air. “Thai it is!” Vernon announces. “Tell me what you guys want,” he says before looking at you. “The usual?” you nod with a grin, backing away as he places the order while the others call out the array of dishes you want, making your way to the seating area to sit down by one of the sofas (totally not because that’s where Minghao was sitting).

As you settle down onto the ground, Minghao speaks up. “Do you want to sit here?” he asks, sitting up from his horizontal position, pulling his legs back to make space between him and Jun on the couch. Your eyes shoot up, darting between Minghao’s deep brown eyes and the space on the couch.

“Are you sure? You can lay down if you w—”

“Nonsense,” Jun says with a chuckle, and you can’t even comprehend what’s going on until you feel Minghao’s cool fingers wrap around your wrist, tugging you up slightly as a direct invitation to take up the spot next to him. God his skin is so soft and his touch is demanding yet so gentle and it’s just enough to get the butterflies that you thought died off to be resurrected once more. “Our way of thanks for choosing Thai,” Jun tells you.

“Yeah,” Minghao agrees, and you try your best to focus on what he’s saying even if it’s impossibly hard with the way his body is pressed up right against you. He leans back as if to stretch his body, arms reaching back behind the couch and settling in the space behind you,

God, you feel like you could die on the spot—it’s not like he’s got an arm wrapped around you or anything so why does this feel so intimate? You can only hope and pray that he doesn’t feel the immense heat radiating off of you as you adjust yourself to sit more comfortably on the couch. In hopes to diffuse the tension that you’re kind of sure you’re the only one feeling, you speak up. “Do you guys want to watch something? A show? A movie?” you suggest reaching forward to pick up the TV remote from the coffee table.

“I’m down,” Wonwoo says with a shrug.

“Oh yeah!” Seungcheol speaks up, “I’ve been wanting to rewatch Batman for a while!”

“Batman then?” you, looking around at everyone as you click the remote to pull it up after you see the nods of their heads. You put on the movie, sinking back into the couch as you do your best to focus on the screen in front of you, and not the faint touch of Minghao’s arm to the back of your neck.

You’re successful for a bit, thankfully, but your peace of mind hardly lasts when the food comes in and everyone settles on the ground to eat—your and Vernon’s rule that there’s no eating curry on the couch. You, Minghao, and Jun slip from your spots on the couch and sit on the ground where your feet lay just a few moments ago, and suddenly you’re hyper aware of the little space you three are squished up against.

It’s a miracle, you think, if Minghao doesn’t notice the way your skin burns against his as his thigh is pressing right up against yours. This touch is different from the one in the afternoon—that one was…light…innocent. This one…this one’s different—it has you burning and yet shivers run down your spine. If you were a little bit more in your senses, maybe—just maybe—you would notice the tight lipped smile that tugs at Minghao’s li ps as well.

Oh my! Now the crush begins.

II. COME TO ME

That night, after the movie, the food, and some beer, the twelve boys shuffle out of the house at around eleven, murmuring soft and tired “thank yous” and “goodbyes.” You can’t deny that you’ve been…a little stiff the entire evening. Sitting next to Minghao for a good 2 hours wore you out—it was a constant battle between your moral consciousness and your…budding feelings.

Stop looking at him! You’d say one moment, but then, god—oh my god his hands! No! Stop! He’s so close to me —stop acting like you’re in middle school! But his smile is just so pretty, god he lights up the room , but wait, stop being so cliche!

Naturally, you're convinced you’ve gone insane. Once the boys left, you and Vernon are left in the comfort of each other’s silence before beginning to make small conversation as you guys begin to clean up (the others honestly didn’t leave that much of a mess, you were just a bit of a clean freak).

“Your friends are fun,” you tell him quietly as you throw out the food containers that you finished earlier. Vernon looks up at you with a small smile, and you can tell that he’s been anxious about you not enjoying your time.

“That’s good, I’m glad.”

“Why haven’t you brought them over before?” you ask curiously, pondering about how there might have been a chance you could have laid your eyes on Minghao ages earlier. “Aren’t they like your best friends?”

Vernon shrugs. “Well yeah, they are, but there’s a lot of them, like you saw. I didn’t know if you’d be okay with that, today just happened to be a day where it was hard for me to say no to them.” You laugh heartily at that—the image of Vernon being persuaded by twelve guys looking at him with puppy eyes. “I really am glad you liked them though. If it’s okay I’d like to have them over more,” he puts out tentatively.

Of course, you perk up at that—maybe a little too noticeably. “I’d love that!” you say excitedly, before shrinking back down at how eager you sound. “I mean like, of course I won’t barge on your time with them but they’re really fun to be around and I’d like to see them more often,” you explain, placing your hands on the counter now that you’re done cleaning all the dishes. Vernon seems to catch onto something and you want to die from embarrassment with the way he’s raising a brow at you.

But if he does notice anything, he doesn’t say it, instead choosing to shrug again and trudge away from the kitchen. “That’s great. Can I have them over next Saturday?”

You blink once then blink twice. “Of course,” you reply without a second of hesitation.

Saturday can't come soon enough. With your own work to do, you find your mind drifting constantly to the face of a pretty man who you can't seem to stop thinking about. You need to scold yourself every single time you realize you're daydreaming—god no, more like fantasizing—about a man who you've not only seen only once, but is one of your roommate's best friends.

Daunting as it is, you're finding this whole situation quite...fun. You can't remember the last time you've felt something so pure and rejuvenating as this crush—gosh, you feel childish for calling it that but what else can it be? Your heart palpates when you think about him, your eyes ache to see his beautiful face again, and holy hell you don't even want to get started on the raw goosebumps you get when reimagining the moment where his skin brushed up against yours.

It's Friday night now, and your stomach swims with anticipation of what tomorrow will hold. You're sitting on the couch in your living room when Vernon comes home from the gym, dropping a bag of food on the kitchen counter. "Hey, I was at the gym with Mingyu and he got me some leftovers that his mom made," he tells you as you look up at him.

"Oh sweet," you say, relieved you won't have to go through the effort of figuring out what to make for dinner. "Your friends are coming over tomorrow, right?" you ask, feigning nonchalance—fucking acting like tomorrow hasn't been the only thing on your mind for the past one week.

"Yeah, they're gonna come up pretty early actually. I was gonna ask you actually, if you wanted to come with us since we're planning on going to the beach later. It's gonna be pretty hot and we haven't gone down in a while," he explains, beginning to open the bag of food as you get up and join him, trying to ignore the endless thoughts that run through your mind.

"The beach? Of course I'd want to come—wait, would that be okay with them? I wouldn't wanna intrude in on your day."

Vernon shakes his head with a chuckle. "Oh my god can you stop?" he says jokingly, "they were the one's who suggested, actually. Not that I don't want you to come either—I do—I just want you to know that they enjoyed you being there last week just as much as you did."

"Really? Who suggested it?" You hope you aren't coming off as too curious—Vernon is perceptive, and you'd be a fool to think he couldn't figure out exactly why you're so insistent on figuring out who asked for you to be there.

He seems preoccupied though, taking the food out of the containers, much to your relief. "Uhh, it was Minghao I think. But like everyone agreed after that, Jeonghan even said he'd pay for your ice cream if you came."

You're convinced the universe is bullshitting you right now. Minghao? Your Minghao? Asked if you could join them? At the beach?

You might just pass out.

Naturally, Vernon looks at you funny. "Are you good? You look like you've just seen a ghost."

You shake your head nervously with a smile, turning back to grab a piece of fried chicken he pulled out. "No no, I was just thinking about if I even have any swim suits—I think I threw them out last summer because of Jungho," you murmur, and while it's not the full truth about what you were just thinking about, it is something that's on your mind. Vernon looks at you with a frown.

"You threw them out because of Jungho?" he asks sadly. "Fucking hell, I forgot how crazy he was," he murmurs, looking down to take his own bite of the food. You shrug solemnly, finding yourself in a mood a bit more down than you'd like.

"Weird times," you reply simply. "Think I could just go to the beach in like some shorts and a shirt? It's just water after all."

"Yeah that should be fine. We'd be leaving before noon so I don't think you'd have the time to buy new ones anyways," Vernon agrees, pushing himself off the counter.

You nod with a smile, ignoring the small pang of sadness you felt just moments ago. "Sounds good."

You're a heavy sleeper—you always have been—and given that it's a Saturday, it's no question that you're bound to sleep until Vernon is banging your door to make sure you aren't dead. Seriously. Saturday morning, despite your excitement, kicks off with a groggy start. You're rolling around in bed, ming hazy as you aimlessly try and figure out what time it is and what exactly woke you up since you know you don't set alarms for weekends. It takes a few seconds for the knocking on your door to register in your brain.

You blink once and rub your eyes, squinting so that they can adjust to the light as you peer at the clock, realizing that—shit, oh shit, it's almost 11. Didn't Vernon say that his friends were going to be here in the morning?! And that they were gonna leave before noon?! Shit!

You're scrambling out of bed, digging through your drawer as you call out a meek, "I'n up!" to whoever's knocking on your door, throwing on the only swim suit that you—thankfully—found tucked away in your closet the night before, covering it up with some shorts and a loose top that you picked earlier as well. You're quickly faced with realization that you still look like you just rolled out of bed which, to be fair, you had. That doesn't stop you from frantically brushing through your hair, trying to put it into a simple braid before finally feeling ready to open the door.

You're expecting to see Vernon, in all honesty, since that's how it went the last time they were all over. The man standing in front of your door is, in fact, definitely not Vernon. No, the man in front of your door is Xu fucking Minghao, and you think you're absolutely fucked by the way your knees go week.

"Hi, sorry, I hope I didn't rush you," he greets politely, stepping back, allowing you to take a good look at him. He's wearing a white sleeveless shirt that hugs hugs his body tightly, followed by a blue hawaiian shirt that sits loosely on his upper half. His lower half is adorned by simple swim trunks, and you do your very, very best to not stare at his calf muscles.

"I, uh..." your voice trails off, in a haze from how attractive he is as well from your fading drowsiness. You rub your eyes once under your glasses before responding. "It's okay, I don't know why I didn't get up earlier," you huff to yourself, looking down, "I thought I would."

"Don't worry about it," Minghao murmurs, and he brings a hand up to your head on top of your hair to ruffle it a bit. You might just scream. "It's good that you slept," he continues, walking back to the living room as you follow him. "We thought you'd wake up from how loud we were," he says with a chuckle as you enter the room with everyone else in it as they turn to you.

"Yeah," Seokmin agrees through a mouth full of muffin, Joshua lightly hitting his shoulder and chiding him for talking with his mouth full.

"She's awake!" Jeonghan cheers playfully.

"i know Vernon said you'd sleep through anything," Chan begins to admit, "but literally do not understand how you didn't wake up until now. I swear, there was a moment where Soonyoung was just screaming at the top of his lungs and we were all wondering if that was gonna get you to come out but Vernon didn't even bother to check."

Your face burns at the comment, but there's a warm sort of feeling that bubbles up in you when they all laugh—it's not a mean laugh, no, it's friendly and it's kind, and it's making you feel welcome.

"You guys just don't listen to me," Vernon huffs, tossing you an orange from the kitchen. "We're going to head out in like five minutes," he tells you. "We need to figure out the car situation because I think Wont's car and Joshua's can only five each and mine can hold four."

The next few minutes are spent trying to figure out who's going to go in which car, everyone deciding that Seungcheol, Seokmin, Chan, and Jun would be going in Wonwoo's, Jeonghan, Jihoon, Soonyoung, and Minghao would be going in Joshua's, and Mingyu, Seungkwan, and you would be going in Vernon's. You won't and say that you aren't a teensy bit disappointed that you don't get to sit with Minghao, but the beach is only a twenty minute's drive away anyways, and you feel this is also a chance to get to know Vernon's other friends better too.

The car ride is fun, and you enjoy Seungkwan's cheeky remarks to everything, laughing along to pretty much everything he says, as well as Mingyu's oddly calm hyperness...? You aren't sure how to explain it but there's a constantly endearing and jumpy aura radiating from the tall boy, yet he seems quite tame for the most part. Nevertheless, you're entertained and excited to spend more time with them as Vernon parks the car on the beach, pulling out his phone so he can figure out where the other's are.

"Ah" you murmur, as the fourteen of you are grouped up finally, making your way into the hot sand and towards the water. "This is like the perfect weather for the beach," you say, wiggling out of your slippers so you can walk on the sand with your bare feet. Seungkwan is standing next to you as you both trail behind the rest of the crowd a little, the both of you immersed in the warm feeling of sand between your toes.

"I love the beach," he says, throwing his head back to look up at the bright side. "I'm from a beach town, so when I found out that the beach—and all my friends—were here, I just had to move here too, you know?"

"The beach is nice, but I won't lie, it always makes me so exhausted after I spend a day out here," you admit, dragging your feet across the sand, basking in the hot feeling it brings. "Who knows, I'll probably go home and sleep so hard tonight that even Vernon might think I'm dead," you joke, causing Seungkwan to chuckle.

You two continue to talk about the beach and Seungkwan's home town as your group nears the water, everyone beginning to set up their towels and the picnic blankets you bought. Everyone helps out, and before you know it, Mingyu, Jeonghan, Seungcheol, Seokmin, and Seungkwan are ripping off their shirts and running towards the water. You watch them with amusement, standing up to shimmy out of your shorts and shirt.

Vernon looks at you, speaking, "You were able to get a swim suit?" he asks, confused considering your conversation with him last night. You smile somewhat sadly, and Minghao, sitting next to Vernon, can't help but notice.

"Uh, not really," you mumble, looking down at your black bikini. "I think Jungho just never knew about this one so I didn't get rid of it, and it was just shoved in the back of my closet or something. Anyways, I'm burning and I really want to get into the water," you conclude, turning around without giving Vernon a chance to respond.

As you run off into the water, Minghao turns and looks at Vernon him. "Who's Jungho?" he asks, shameless about his curiosity.

Vernon frowns as soon as he hears the name, and Minghao wonders just what kind of person this Jungho guy might be. "Just some ex. A really shitty one," Vernon murmurs, looking out at the sun. Minghao feels something uneasy churn inside of him. He gives Vernon that look, which tells him he wants to know more. "Like he just sucked. Didn't treat her right and shit. I didn't like him at all. None of her friends did. He tried to get her to throw out all of her swim suits and stuff because he didn't trust her at the beach or some bullshit like that."

"Goddamn," Minghao hisses, leaning back on his hands as he watches you play in the water. You looked like you were having so much fun—you were so at ease. He wants to chide himself for looking at the way your skin glistens in the sun, your bikini hugging your body in all the right places and in all the right ways. He knows he shouldn't be thinking about you like this, especially when he's only just met you a week ago, but that isn't to say he hasn't missed your quick glances. The way your eyes dart towards him, his body, his eyes, his lips, and quickly jump away when you realize he's caught you.

You feel the same way, he's sure of it. Minghao knows you feel the same tingles, the same sparks, the same rush of pure happiness when you see each other.

His thoughts are interrupted by Joshua speaking. "He made her throw out her swim suits?" he exclaims incredulously. "Insecure much," he mutters under his breath, and Minghao laughs along with that. "Good thing he's just her ex now—that sounds horrendous."

"Agreed," Minghao replies while Vernon nods, standing up to pull off his hawaiian shirt and top. "I'm gonna go into the water," he tells the rest of his friends before jogging lightly, following in your faint footsteps.

You're feet hit the water, and you stop in your tracks as you take a few moments to get used to the temperature change. You're looking up to see Seungkwan and Jeonghan waving you over to around twenty feet further into the water, but you call out to them to tell them to wait a second as you just melt in the feeling of the water against your toes. You stand there for a few moments before you hear a familiar voice coming up from behind you.

Oh. My. God.

You don't even want to turn around because you're scared of your reaction to seeing him shirtless—god, you aren't even sure if you'll be able to contain yourself! You think if you pass out, you'll just have to blame it on the heat, but still, how are you going to be—

"Hey," Minghao says cooly, stepping next to you in the water and holy crap, he's toned and he's practically glowing in the sunlight, the shadows hugging every peak and curve of his chest, his arms, his hands, his collarbone, his v-line—oh my god you need to stop. Practically ripping your eyes away from the wondrous view that is Minghao's body, you're forcing yourself to look up at his eyes (not that it's any less of a view—his eyes sparkle just as much as he does).

"H-hi." Did you just stutter? No fucking way you just stuttered. You think you might have to drown yourself right now. "I thought you were going to stay around with the others a bit longer," you say sheepishly. Minghao smirks at you, and he thinks now is his chance to try and fluster you up a bit more.

"Well I can't just let a pretty girl go into the ocean by herself, now can I?" he replies smoothly, taking a few steps in front of and waving you to follow him, and you would only if you hadn't just stopped breathing. How could he say that so casually!? How could he—wait. Wait! He just called you a pretty girl. He thinks you're pretty. Xu fucking Minghao finds you pretty, and he's saying it to your fucking face. You actually might die right now.

You can't even formulate a response, just tearing your gaze away from him and smiling shamelessly at the ground as you follow behind him slowly. Mission accomplished, Minghao thinks to himself, and something inside of him goes batshit crazy by seeing you so smiley and undone.

"W-whatever," you finally say as the water near to your hips as you two start nearing the others guys who are currently splashing each other with water. Minghao watches them, and get an idea, playfully splashing some water your way. You jump back quickly, eyes widening before you gasp. "You did not!" You quickly splash water back, but Minghao seems to see it coming and he moves out of the way. "Get back here!" you yell, running after him as he nears Mingyu, hiding behind the larger boy. With your eyebrows, you pay no mind to this, continuing to splash water everywhere, hoping that at least some of it will get on Minghao.

Mingyu puts his hands up, eyes scrunched up as he tries to block the water that's inevitably going his way. "Hey! Hey! Hey! Not me! Not me!" he cries out as the others laigh.

"Get Minghao!" you call out to the other boys who catch on quickly, joining you on your rampage against Minghao. Eventually there's just so much water splashing everywhere that within minutes you're all spent, gasping for air as you all try to rub the water away from your eyes. Once your vision is no longer blurry, you blink hard a few last times before turning your vision towards Minghao again and holy hell, you didn't think he could look any hotter than he did sitting in the sun but wow. His hair is wet and hanging low on his forehead but it's so messy and so hot and all you can think about is running your fingers through those locks yourself and making a mess in your own little way and—okay stop, you can't be thinking about this, especially not in public.

It takes a moment for you to fully calm yourself down before you're laughing with the other guys as they start to play a new game. You try to ignore the butterflies you get whenever you near Minghao, but it's a painfully hard task. You grow to accept the feeling as the minutes go on, simply existing alongside the bubbly feeling instead of pushing it down.

The next hour is spent in and out of the water, everyone else eventually joining those of you in the water, and you find that time is passing faster than you can even think. Time with them is fun, it's carefree, it's liberating, it's refreshing. Once you're all too tired and too spent, you're trudging back to the little spot you all have set up as everyone begins to pull out the food they packed. As you snack on your lunch, the fourteen of you sit in a circle and talk about the plans for the rest of the day.

"Let's play beach volleyball," Wonwoo suggests after everyone's finished eating, and it's no doubt that everyone else pretty much agrees immediately.

"Yeah, I saw a court in that direction, and I'm sure we'd be able to find a ball," Jihoon adds on as everyone stands up.

"I think i'll stay behind," you tell them all, leaning back on your hand as you fan your face with the other. "I'm kind of tired and I think I just need to sit down for a bit," you explain.

"That's okay, but you sure you won't be lonely," Vernon clarifies as he stands up.

You shake your head, but right before you're going to respond, Minghao speaks up. "Don't worry about her, I'll stay behind too." God, someone save you—your poor heart can't take much more of this.

"Oh okay, great!" Joshua says happily, the others standing up as well to go follow Jihoon to the volleyball court. "Catch you later!" You and Minghao wave at the rest as the drift off into the distance before being left in the silence that sits between you.

Minghao speaks first. "It's nice that you came, it's refreshing to have someone new, especially if they're like you."

You raise a brow at him, turning your body so that you're completely facing him, legs crossed as you lean forward. "Like me? What does that mean?"

Minghao gives you a sly smile, like he was expecting this. "Fun. Easy-going." He pauses. "Pretty."

"Is this your way of flirting or do you just enjoy being very direct about what you're thinking."

He laughs at that, throwing his head back. "Nice one. Those two are actually the same thing for me, so take that as you see it," he says with a shrug. You're face is on fire, and you're sure he can tell by now. Minghao catches on and he leans forward. "Is it working?"

"Maybe it is," you murmur nonchalantly.

"I think it definitely is," he shoots back with yet another smirk. God, you can't do this anymore. He's just so close to you and you don't know if it's because it's hot or if you're flustered or whatever but you're burning and not thinking straight and before you know it you're leaning in so close that you can feel Minghao's soft breath on your lips, stopping right before you two can connect.

It's the silent words now: kiss me, kiss me Minghao, and you almost think that this is true love when he leans in immediately after, heeding your silent requests.

Minghao's lips are plump and soft and taste slightly salty from the remains of the ocean water, in contrast to the sweet way he's got one hand cupping your chin. His thumb strokes at your skin and the touch is so light that you think you might go insane, gripping onto one of his biceps as you try to ground yourself in reality—in this moment, that you're scared might almost just be a figment of your imagination.

News-flash, it's not. In fact, this moment is very much real, very much happening, and very much one of the closest things to heaven you've experienced.

When you pull away, his hand is still on your chin and yours still rests on his arm. "I won't lie," you whisper, "I've been thinking about doing that all week."

"Me too," Minghao admits almost immediately, the revelation sending both shock and relief coursing through your veins. You let go of his arm, finally, and he drops his hold too, but you scoot closer to him so you're not sitting side by side as you face the ocean. "We shouldn't do anything else right now," he says quietly, and you know he doesn't have to say to know what you're both thinking. "I don't think you'd want the others seeing anything."

"You're right," you say with a nod, but you still interlace his fingers that are next to you with yours on the ground. Minghao squeezes your fingers back slightly in confirmation that this is very much okay. "Do you want to get something to eat? I saw some people selling fruit on our walk through the sand," he suggests after a few moments. You nod along, shuffling through the pile of clothes that are everywhere so you can find your shorts—it's sp warm out right now that your skin and swim suit have already dried off.

While you're fishing out your shorts and slipping them on, Minghao finds his hawaiian t-shirt and slips it on, although his bare chest is still very much on display, despite your poor heart's cries for him to cover it up—no! Don't let anyone else see! You blush bashfully at your newfound jealousy of others seeing Minghao the same way you do, but those thoughts are soon pushed away as he reaches out a hand to you to help you stand up. You grab his hand with a smile, following after him as you both head toward the fruit stands at the front.

"What do you want to get?" he asks you when he sees you squinting to try and see what they're selling.

"Pineapple!" you cheer when you realize one of the stands has your favorite fruit, and Minghao can feel his heart swell at the sound. "Can we please get pineapple? It's my favorite fruit and it's the best for hot days."

Minghao smiles and nods, and your heart nearly pops out of your chest. "Pineapple and mango?" he suggests as you stand in front of one of the stalls, pulling out his wallet. You nod before thinking for a moment, pulling out your own wallet before he has a hand a hand on your waist, pushing it away. "I'm paying," and it's not a question when he says it. You slowly push your wallet back into your pocket, mind racing with the thoughts of how a man can be as perfect as Minghao.

"Okay well," you reply, pulling your wallet back out in defiance, "I want to buy some fruits for the others too," you explain. "And I don't think it's fair for you to pay for all of that."

Minghao huffs, letting go of your wrist before turning back to guy at the stall. You two end up splitting the cost of five cups of fruits before returning to the set up on the sand that you have with your arms much fuller than before. Back once you're both sitting, you chat about whatever and you definitely forget how to breathe the multiple times that Minghao picks up a toothpick and feeds you the fruits himself. There's something so domestic and so comforting about the way you both smoothly speak, move, flow—being with Minghao is languid and despite your racing heart at the thought of being with him, you feel...relaxed.

This feels right.

After around an half an hour of talking, you find yourself laying on your back as you have Vernon's hat on top of your head as you listen to the ocean. "Should we go to find them? They'll probably be hungry by now and beach volleyball is starting to sound fun," you say, sitting up and readjusting Vernon's cap on your head.

"Bored of me already?" Minghao teases, sitting up as well, readjusting his shirt.

You roll your eyes. "You know that isn't it. The fruit isn't gonna taste as good later, even if we keep it in the cooler. It tastes better fresh," you reason.

"Fine fine," he murmurs in defeat and you grin, getting up to pick up two of the cups of fruit while Minghao grabs the other two.

"You know where they went?" you ask him, looking to your left and right, trying to recall which direction the boys left in.

"This way I think," Minghao says, pointing to your left and you squint, nodding excitedly when you see some volleyball courts in the far distance.

"Wow, that's pretty far," you think out loud as you both start walking in that direction.

"Can't handle it?" he coos, looking down at you as he takes his effortlessly long strides.

You scoff, turning your head away as you feign nonchalance. "Whatever."

"I'm joking," Minghao says quickly, reaching one hand over to pick up the cups of fruit your holding so that he's holding all four now. You're about to protest but he simply turns his arms away from you so they're out of your reach.

"Thank you," you say sheepishly, holding your hands behind your back as you two begin to speed up your pace when you both realize that the fruit will grow warm soon. It takes around seven to eight minutes for you guys to reach the volleyball courts, calling out to Vernon when you reach hearing range. "We brought fruit!" you yell, pointing at the cups that Minghao graciously carried for you.

The boys run over, almost all of them in a panting, sweating mess.

"It's like you read our minds," Seungcheol tells you and Minghao, picking a strawberry and stuffing it into his mouth.

Seokmin nods along, picking up a piece of mango. "We were just talking about how we're already hungry again."

"Yeah," Chan agrees, "and I think Mingyu was gonna pass out in the next five minutes if you didn't bring him something to eat." You all look at Mingyu who's sitting across from you, legs out and upper body leaning on his arms behind him as his face is scrunched up—he nearly looks like he's dying.

"Fuck you all!" he groans, falling back onto the sand. "I swear, Jun and Cheol were targeting me! They kept hitting the ball in my direction!"

Jun laughs at that, throwing a hand up to Seungcheol for a high-five. "Damn, I didn't think you'd catch on."

"How could I not!?" Mingyu whines, sitting up again to pick up another fruit. "I was on the verge of the death because of you guys."

Jeonghan ticks his tongue as everyone laughs, "Ah, don't be so dramatic Gyu, we were just having fun. Plus, who doesn't want to win."

Mingyu grumbles as he kicks some sand Jeonghan's way as everyone retreats back into the normal conversation of the plans next. After a few moments of discussion, you all decide to go back to your set up and stay there until sunset before heading home.

Once you all make your way back, the hours are spent chatting, building a moat (Mingyu and Chan seemed especially interested in this for some reason), and playing in and out of the water. As the sky begins to merge from blue to yellow to a deep orange, you begin cleaning up. At the moment, you aren't sure who brings it up, but the word "sleepover" gets thrown around and everyone is practically on their knees, asking to sleep over at Vernon and your place.

"Why our place?" Vernon complains. "Why not Minghao and Jun's? Or Joshua and Jeonghan's?" he begins throwing out the other's names.

"Because we like yours the most," Joshua says simply, everyone nodding their heads vigorously in agreement. Vernon huffs and looks at you for help, but you only shrug—you aren't sure how to respond to this and you aren't going to pretend like you aren't a teensy bit excited about the chance of Minghao spending the night (even though there'll be 12 other guys in your home).

"You guys owe us," Vernon finally says with a deep sigh, "big time."

The car ride back begins by Vernon, Joshua, and Wonwoo yelling at all of the passengers to not get sand into the car, and while you all desperately try to heed by their wishes, it's nearly impossible. You should've expected that nothing with this group is ever especially peaceful, but you're pleasantly surprised by how every event with them somehow has you bursting into laughter until your stomach hurts.

When you all return to your apartment, it takes a messy, chaotic hour or two for everyone to sort out when they would be taking showers, realizing that you should have planned this better once you knew that fourteen people would be scrambling to try and use your and Vernon's single shower. Once you're all washed up, you're left sitting in the living room, trying to figure out how you're going to pass the next few hours. Of course, one brings up Mario Kart, and suddenly they all perch against the couch trying to see who can beat Wonwoo.

It's now when you start to feel the exhaustion of the day catch up to you, recalling how you told Seungkwan that beach days make you tired. You excuse yourself to your room, locking the door behind you before slipping under the covers and nuzzling against the pillow.

In the silence—well not really silence, since apartment walls are thin and boys are loud, but still—of your own room, you find yourself catching a moment for you to properly think. And then it all comes crashing onto you.

Minghao. His lips, his eyes, his arms, his hands, his fingers, his lips (yes, his lips again), his touch, his gaze—and holy hell do you need more. You almost whine out loud into the sheets at the thought of having to wait for him any longer, your brain fuzzy from both your exhaustion and the tingling feeling that courses through your nerves.

Your mind races through the endless possibilities of what has happened and what can happen and before you know it you're falling asleep.

It's two hours later at around 8pm when you hear your phone buzzing by your chest, hardly lifting your head to see who it is. When you recognize the caller as Vernon, you hit the answer button, putting minimal effort into lifting the phone up to your ear as you grumble.

"God, do you ever stop sleeping?" he huffs on the other end, and you can faintly hear someone in the background laugh. You rub your eyes as you push yourself out of bed, rummaging through your drawer to pick out a cardigan to throw on.

"Sorry," you grumble with a yawn. "Beach days make me tired."

"I can see that. Anyways, we're in the living room ordering takeout, so hurry up if you want to have your choice," he threatens playfully.

"Alright alright," you mumble, trying to make your bed a little neater before leaving your room and heading towards the living room. They're all there, as expected, some movie playing on the TV as Jihoon is playing something on the guitar (where the hell did he get a guitar from?!) and Wonwoo and Mingyu are playing yet another game of Mario Kart on the Switch tablet.

"And she's here!" Chan exclaims, causing some eyes to turn to you. Minghao, sitting on one of the chairs at the kitchen island turns to you quickly, and the eye contact has you turning into mush immediately.

"When you went to your room," Vernon begins to say, distracting you from your thoughts and placing a hand on your shoulder, "I thought you were just going to chill for a bit. I didn't expect you to be napping."

Seungkwan comes in and swats Vernon's hand away from you. "You're so judgemental Sollie! Let her be!"

"Thank you Seungkwan!" you agree immediately, turning to raise an accusing eyebrow at Vernon. He rolls his eyes and steps away, holding up his phone which has the food order on the front screen.

"Hey, I'm ordering your food!"

You step back, putting your hand sup in surrender. "Okay fine! Fine! What are we getting tonight?"

"Mexican!" Jeonghan calls out. "It's my treat!" Everyone cheers as you tell Vernon your order, sitting down on the ground in the living room as everyone bunches up in the middle to begin discussing the next big problem you all have—sleeping.

It seems like no one quite thought this out earlier but your apartment is small and fitting fourteen people into this space seems near impossible, especially when you know that they'll all insist on you sleeping alone in your own room. It's a hassle to pull out all the extra pillows and bed sheets that you have, everyone trying to clear space to make as many makeshift beds on the ground as they can.

Somehow, you're all able to fit eight "beds" in the living room, Chan and Seungkwan being the lucky ones to squeeze into the extra space that Vernon has left on his bed and Jun and Jihoon calling the spots on the sofa and arm chair. From there on out, time seems to pass easily with the thirteen of them, and you're starting to understand how Vernon's been able to be their friend for so long. The hours pass quickly and by ten p.m., you're spent and tired from the day—too tired to go on.

Before you know it, you're helping them all make the final touches to the makeshift beds, bringing out as many extra comforters as you can in hopes to make sleeping on the ground a bit more comfortable. Bidding goodnight, you wave to them all and retreat to your room, but not before staring at Minghao for maybe a little too long. He stares back, of course, and anyone else would miss it, but you don't—the way he nods slightly, before turning away to say something to Jun.

III. OUR DAWN IS HOTTER THAN DAY

It's eleven when you hear the knock on your door, and it's embarrassing how quickly you scramble out of bed to open it. On the other side, as expected, is Minghao. You're pulling him in without a second of hesitation, grabbing his neck and slamming his lips onto yours hard. His hands are making their way onto his hips immediately, moving up and down along your waist and torso to feel every inch of you that he can. You've both been waiting for this for ages, and it's about time you lose control.

"Hao," you whine softly as he presses you into your wall, his tongue running against the corner of your mouth. His only response is kissing you deeper, teeth clashing as you seek to explore every last bit of each other. Minghao swears he feels his dick twitch at the way you call him by his nickname, his fingers tightening their hold on you.

"You'll drive me crazy," he murmurs, kissing down your neck as you run your hands up and down his arms to feel the curve of his arms.

"That's the—ah—plan," you grunt as you sucks at one spot on your skin. Minghao continues peppering your skin with kisses before you feel like enough his enough, intertwining your fingers in his hair and pulling his head up so he can look at you. "Can I suck you off?"

Minghao is, undeniably, taken aback by your forwardness, and while his head his telling him to take his time with you right now, his other head is telling him to give in. In any other situation with any other girl, he would be denying you, taking his time to at least finger you first but he's been too pent up and too horny since the first time you kissed him to say no.

You're surprised when he quickly nods—you aren't the type to dive right into this kind of stuff but Minghao has been doing something that's reconnecting the wires in your brain, causing the overwhelming urge to sink to your knees for Minghao to crash into you.

The second you're on your knees, you have your hands on the waistband of his shorts, pulling them down at once with his boxers to reveal his length, long and pretty and hard with a bead of pre-cum dribbling off the end. You reach up, holding the base with a hand as you look up at Minghao to meet his eyes.

"Fucking hell," he groans, throwing his head back before you reply with a hiss.

"Quiet! They can't hear," you remind him, before adjusting yourself on your knees so you're in a better position to prod his tip at the front of your mouth. You drink in the way Minghao's breath hitches as your lips wrap around him, tongue swiping at the tip softly before pulling back.

"Don't—" he takes a deep breath, "don't be a fucking tease."

"'m sorry," you mumble, pulling your head back. "Can't help it." You kind of mean it and you kind of don't. Honestly, you aren't sure what to think—all you want to do is make Minghao feel good and do it now. Minghao notices the desperate glint in your eyes, and he takes this chance to wind his fingers into your hair, pulling it back into a makeshift pony tail so he can move your face in the face that he wants. The thought has you both going down into a spiral.

Minghao looks down at you so intensely that you think you just might cum from the look alone, but then he's speaking. "You okay with this?" he asks quietly, running a thumb along your lower lip with the hand that's not holding your hair back.

"Yes," you reply almost instantly, and your eagerness has his eyes darkening—you can see it.

"Fuck," he groans, leaning back again while he takes your hand that isn't wrapped around his length up to his thigh. "Tap twice if you want me to stop, 'kay?" You nod quickly, hoping Minghao will get the idea that you're beginning to grow impatient.

Message received, it seems because before you know it, Minghao is guiding your mouth back to the tip of his length, so you can take him in. Once you have your lips wrapped around him, he pushes you forward more, causing your eyes to widen as you realize he's nearly hitting the back of your throat. You take this as your chance to do exactly what you've been aching for, and you begin to bob your head back and forth.

The moan Minghao lets out is near perfection, and you're immediately encouraged to push more, to push deeper, to do whatever it takes to make him make that sound again. You're about to do it again before you feel your hair being tugged so that you're fully pulled off his cock. "Fuck," he chokes out, looking down at the sight of you with red, puffy lips and blown-out eyes. "Do that again," he demands, and you don't waste a second before you wrap your mouth around him and push down as far as you can. His hand is pushing at the back of your head, his soft words from above encouraging you to go harder to go deeper because you're his angel and he knows you can do it.

God, the words that are spilling out of his mouth are downright filthy but they're messing with your head and before you know it your moving your head back and forth in sync with Minghao's hips that are snapping forward slightly, causing him to batter the back of your throat. It's not the most comfortable feeling but the discomfort definitely not what you're thinking about when you hear Minghao's pants—his soft groans that escape his lips now that you've got him so desperate.

There's drool running down your chin and it's so messy but it's so hot and it has your pussy aching but you can't even think of relieving yourself—not when you can feel the vein on the understand of his dick against your tongue, not when his hand is laced in your hair with such a tight hold you think you might just pass out, not when you know he's so close to his release within minutes all because of you. "Fuck," he grunts again, snapping his hips once more, particularly harder and sloppier this time. "I'm gonna—fuck, I'll come soon."

Your jaw is aching by now but it doesn't compare to the throbbing you feel in your panties—god, you're going to go crazy. You use your hand to rub whatever of his length you can't fit in your mouth, using these last few moments to let Minghao jut his hip and shove your mouth further onto him and holy hell do you love it. You can feel it coming with the way he twitches inside your mouth and you can tell he's about to come when he pulls you off of him, before you're opening your mouth wide again, eyes silently begging him: inside my mouth.

It's like earliedirtr, when you kissed, except now it's so much more frantic, so much more ecstatic—Minghao hears your silent requests and only takes a second to push himself back into your mouth. You only need to suck once or twice before you feel it in your mouth—his cum, hot and shooting down your throat. He pulls out after that, you taking a second to swallow and then lick the glossy tip, your body filling with pride at the way you see his leg twitch.

"God—fuck," Minghao finally manages to say between sputtered breaths, "You're so hot." He pulls you up by the arm as he slips his boxers and shorts back on, placing a hand on your hip as he brings you up for a fierce kiss. Your lips are all swollen and Minghao is extra gentle with the way he runs his tongue along them, kissing you so softly you almost forget that he just face-fucked you less than a minute ago. He's pressed up against the wall right now, but takes this moment to flip you both so it's you who's leaning back.

Minghao pulls away from your lips, chuckling at the way yours chases his in the few seconds after, before connecting his lips to your neck like earlier. "Let me give you something in return, yeah?"

"Yeah," you agree, nodding dumbly the second you feel his hand slip down your shorts, ghosting over your panties.

"Fuck, you're so wet," he groans as he pressed down through your panties.

"Hao," you moan, as he rubs little circles on your clit over the fabric, "please, please, hurry." Minghao chuckles and usually you'd be embarrassed but then again, there's nothing usual about getting fingered by your roommates best friend while all of his friends are asleep in the next room over. Minghao still is going slow with you, taking an extra moment to slowly push your panties aside. You're growing so impatient, the throbbing between your legs getting so impatient, that you think you might start sobbing. "I've been so good, Hao, please? I wanna cum," you beg, meeting Minghao's eyes as you look up at him.

God, you're doing something to him, he thinks—you might just be the death of him. You just look so cute and so desperate and the way your eyes are already glossy has his dick hard again. The fact that he didn't even have to ask you to beg for him is more than enough for a million thoughts to be racing through his mind, but in all honesty, the only thing he wants to focus on right now is making you come.

"Angel, fuck," he murmurs, into your skin, placing a kiss on your collarbone as he uses one hand to lift your shirt up to your neck so he can hold one of your tits, the other hand running through your folds so he can coat his fingers in your slit. "You wanna come?" he coos, prodding one finger at your entrance, and he thinks he might tease you a little longer but then he sees how quickly you respond and it has his resolve crumbling. He sinks is finger in and it's so long and so thick and reaches places in one go that you can't even even imagine of reaching with your own fingers.

You let out a deep sigh, instinctively grinding down on his hand so that your clit is also brushing against his palm adding to the stimulation. Minghao is gentle in the first few moments, moving his finger in and out at a steady pace before you murmur his name once more, causing him to push a second finger inside. "Oh my god, Minghao," you moan, and his eyes shoot up at yours, using the hand that was at your tits to cover your mouth.

"Quiet," he demands, as he continues to fuck you with your fingers. The sound of your wetness and his fingers against your gummy walls is echoing though the room and all you can think about is how dirty and how erotic this feels, and you moan again quietly again at the thought. Minghao's fingers still inside of you at the sound, and you feel your eyes widen and tear up once more. "Be quiet, or I'll stop," he murmurs, resuming his ministrations once he sees you nod.

"Minghao," you say quietly, throwing your head back when you feel him start to play with one of your nipples. "Feels so—so good," you hiccup, doing your best to keep quiet. He's fucking into you ruthlessly now, the pads of his fingers hitting spots you didn't even know existed, and you know your end is close by the way your vision nearly goes white. You grind against his hand harder, and Minghao picks up on the subtle movement.

"Gonna cum?" he breaths out and you don't even have it in you to say anything, your only response being your quickened movements. "C'mon angel, cum for me," he whispers into your ear and maybe it's his voice or maybe it's the way his fingers have you seeing stars or maybe it's the stimulation of your clit against his palm or maybe it's everything combined but you're cumming hard and fast within seconds around his fingers, and holy shit you think that might just be the best orgasm of your life.

You're left panting as Minghao's fingers slow down inside of you, twitching every few seconds from the overstimulation, before he's pulling them out of you and your panties completely. You want to hide your face, looking away when you realize how wet they are. "Why're you looking away?" Minghao asks, grabbing your chin so you can look at him. "It's hot," he tells you with a shrug, bringing his fingers up to your mouth, raising a brow. You're slightly embarrassed, yes, but you'd be a fool to try and deny him, opening up your mouth and suck your own wetness off him when he presses his fingers into your mouth.

After you swirl your tongue around him a few times, he pulls his hands back, replacing his fingers on your mouth with his lips, kissing you sweetly. You bring your hands up to his hair, moving your lips in unison as he places one hand on your waist, pulling your shirt back down to cover you.

"That was fun," you finally say when you're both pulling away.

"You're gonna drive me up a wall," Minghao mutters under his breath, taking a small step back. "But it was." He's silent for a moment before speaking again. "I'm gonna head back—wouldn't want anyone to wake up and find out I'm not where I supposed to be."

"You think someone would wake up?"

Minghao chuckles, and you feel those butterflies again. "You were pretty loud," he says, bringing a hand up to scratch the back of your neck.

"Whose fault is that again?" you ask.

"Dunno," Minghao says casually. "He must be super hot though."

You click your tongue as Minghao walks backward toward your door. "Hmm, I'll have to agree with that."

He smiles and kisses you hard one last time before ruffling your hair. "Sleep well angel."

a/n. not even going to bother reading this through because i'll get embarrassed. dw guys i'm working on a better hao fic soon >_<

#xu minghao #xu minghao smut #xu minghao x reader #minghao x reader #minghao drabbles #minghao imagines #minghao smut #minghao fanfic #minghao #seventeen imagines #svt smut #seventeen smut #svt scenarios #seventeen x reader #seventeen scenarios #svt fanfic #📝 writing

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srbachchan · 5 months

Text

DAY 5922

Jalsa, Mumbai May 5/6, 2024 Sun/Mon 12:27 AM

🪔 ,

May 03 .. birthday greetings to Ef Elena Iankova .. 🙏🏻🚩❤️

May 04 .. birthday greetings to Ef Alka Agarwal .. 🙏🏻🚩❤️

May 05 .. birthday greetings to Ef Serious Jane .. 🙏🏻🚩❤️

some greetings do get the aide of a repetition .. some that may have left , or not seen .. but our greetings ever for all .. 🙏

the love as ever .. the bearing of the summer heat as ever .. the provisions , though scanty but with the hope that those in need , get the need .. the water the cooling of the fans and the mist of the aqua that emanates from the blades .. !

Does it .. ??

I do hope ..

There is a stimulus that creeps in each starting of the day :

WHAT NEXT ..!

So alright, get up, complete the morning formalities .. 'formalities' .. and while they formulate , the mind rumbles along ahead to -

WHAT NEXT ..!

yes there is the remembrance of the scriptures and its recite .. the written and the believed and the known by the heart .. and in its midst the coming across mind set, of what the society 'gurus' and the 'bhagwaans' reveal in expounding to many that follow , that they do not believe in believing , they stipulate that it must be known .. known scientifically .. else belief is unsatisfactory .. and even go on to give it some striking poisonous explanations and words .. and I think in mind -

WHAT NEXT .. !

and you turn the page and wind up to the routine mentioned and guided by scheduling by the workplace .. the place where you earn the living .. and check and study the pages as you fed the first meal of the day , and pick the belongings essential for the pending work .. and then -

WHAT NEXT .. !

yes the destinational deliverance by the mode of relevant comfort if affordable and the charting of the consumed time to the place , by the study of the pages or the system of committed inform and wellness asking .. and the reach of the place and the walk to the vehicle of secondly home and then -

WHAT NEXT .. !

Ahh .. yes the face that delivers the deliverance of earn , and the studied application to its bearing by long lasting attendance and company .. with anxious glances to the small lit red box of time , and then -

WHAT NEXT .. !

the wonder then of the compilation of the written and the lens and the those with your side and the given consideration for the eat and the sleep and the up again to freshness deserved or in the most, just continue .. and then -

WHAT NEXT .. !

the wonder back in the deliverable machined movements of the done and what awaits the reside , and what transpire shall be and after -

WHAT NEXT .. !

Yes yes yes .. the game with the white rotund the three the 22 distance the competition and the results , the grief and joy and then -

WHAT NEXT .. !

❤️

THIS .. THIS .. THIS ..

and the ever graciousness of them about the GOJ .. some constants .. some fresh .. some uninterested , some asleep , and a few driven by the express on card pictures ..

signed sealed delivered ..

Amitabh Bachchan

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lulepap · 1 year

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Detachment Pt. 2

I'm writing this down in the midst of studying for midterm examinations. I know I've written one with the same title before, but since I'm now at a very difference place in my life, I decided to make a version that's completely different from the first part. Bear with me since I have no time to proof-read, and I am literally just on a 10-minute break from my remedial law review.

Detachment.

I've been very much in touch with myself lately and I realized how attached I really was with the people around me over the past 20+ years. It was probably the reason why I often sought validation from others rather than pulling out that same validation (and love, really) from myself.

I read an article recently in the newspaper that talked about how taboo it was for Filipinos to see people eating alone or spending time by themselves. Automatically they would associate it to loneliness. It's so ironic for a country so individualistic and selfish to be thinking that way. I'd like to think best about my own people, but honestly, more often than not, we think about ourselves a lot more than others.

Going back, ever since I've been spending more time with myself, I recall writing something about the word "detachment" and how I associated it (along with flowery words and other sentiments) with togetherness and companionship. No one could blame me because I was very much in love, and dedicated that piece to someone I was so attached to despite not spending much time with them.

It's cliche, but detachment has a completely different and more literal meaning for me now. Over the short break we had from school, I flew to Japan, spent time by myself, traveled around, spent a shit ton of money for the things I have always wanted to buy but couldn't, and on experiences I've always wanted to do but couldn't. All this became possible because I decided to prioritize detachment in the most literal sense.

This is probably the longest I've ever been single in a while.

I know that sounds terrible and it might make me seem like a serial monogamist, and that I can't sustain a healthy relationship. While that might be true, the time I've been spending with myself lately is slowly unraveling parts of me that I haven't pondered much on before.

Maybe the reason why I can't seem to maintain a healthy relationship is because I've never really spent time to get to know myself, what I like, what I don't like, what my personality is, and what triggers me. All those things I probably was always aware of, but never really got to reflect on and decide to change. If anything I learned the most here is that no one can really say much about you once they see how self-aware you are.

And you know what? I've been enjoying this single life a whole lot. I'm falling in love with parts of myself I never really got to appreciate because I've always been listening to what others have to say about me. I'm falling in love with the people I meet and talk to every day, not necessarily in the romantic sense, but in a way that I get to appreciate their beautiful parts as well. I'm falling more in love with the things I do and the things I'm experiencing because I'm taking a lot more time to appreciate them as well. The most mundane things have become so important to me because they've always been part of my routine and I never really got to enjoy them.

Now I do.

I find comfort in the detachment, and I'm taking time to really bask in the solace that comes with it. I'm not sure how long it's going to take me, but I hope to fall so much in love with and take better care of myself now until I find someone who will extend that same kind of love that I have for myself. I'm really tired of seeking affection from someone else just to make up for that self-love deficit. I've been doing it all wrong. I've been rushing to fall in love and have been lovebombing all over the place, it's crazy!

I'm excited for what the future holds for me, and when I do feel that feeling again, hopefully my hands would be just right. The sands of love deserve hands that are patient. The grip shouldn't be too loose for it to completely pour out, nor should it be too tight only to slowly fade away.

#tumblr diary #personal diary #journal

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vennilavee · 4 years

Text

the warm vortex

[main masterlist]

Pairing: bucky, sam, steve, natasha and reader. more platonic than anything really. and it’s mostly reader centric.

Please read the warnings before you read!!!

Summary: you’ve had high functioning depression for as long as you can remember. sometimes you can manage it, and sometimes it’s extremely difficult. you’re finding it hard to reel yourself in and you’re spiraling, but luckily you have some pretty great friends to help.

Warnings: really heavy discussions and inner thoughts of depression and anxiety. Also heavy use of alcohol. Please don’t read if any of these topics are hard for you to read about- you gotta do what’s best for you!

Word Count: 6596

A/N: written for @barnesandco‘s 1k challenge, with the prompt stay by rihanna ft mikky ekko. this was pretty therapeutic to write. this is also a rewrite of mutual and make me feel (undecided if i want to leave it up or not though).

It wasn’t always like this, that much you knew. You can’t think of a time when it wasn’t like this, but you knew there was a time when this bottomless pit didn’t exist on a permanent, full-time basis. There was a time when this darkness didn’t live rent free in your head, seeping energy from you in places you were hopeless to defend.

It’s not so bad most days. The darkness is mostly background noise, drowned out by the sweet taste of light. You have mostly healthy habits. You see a therapist once a week, and you text her sometimes, too. You have a journal. You paint. You read. You see your friends once in a while. You enjoy being in the presence of people who see you. The boxes are mostly checked. You’re just the perfect portrait, aren’t you? But you’re not immune to your vices. But you’re human, so wonderfully human. And you’re trying your best.

Just like anything else in life, things ebb and flow. Some days are relatively okay. Some days, you just want to be alone and let time pass you by. Some days, your mind is racing at a speed that you can’t catch up to. Some days, your mind and heart feel empty.

But somehow, you pull yourself up. Whether it’s by yourself or with the help of your friends.

The last time you felt that it was unbearable, that you felt numb, was when you were in college. You can’t remember the reason or the catalyst for it- perhaps you had always some of that numbness trailing along and blooming quietly. But you had finally found the word to describe it. You recall sleeping at any moment that you could, your appetite waxing and waning, seeds of hopelessness and guilt planting themselves in your heart and making homes there. It felt endless. An endless tunnel of...nothing. You recall drifting through your days, passively sitting in lectures, half listening to friends, somehow convincing them and yourself that you were okay. You were good at deflecting and you knew it.

Until it had become too much to bear by yourself. You couldn’t take the waves of uncharted sadness, the weight of the world on your shoulders. You were on the edge of something and everything was spinning out of control and yet you were standing still, unmoving.

Somehow you had gotten through college and graduate school, with the help of your long term therapist. For the first time in a long time, you felt a morsel of hope. For the first time in a long time, you could feel the sun illuminating your back.

After graduate school, you had managed to land a job at Stark Industries. It had taken you two video interviews and three in person panel interviews, but it was yours. You’d be right in the heart of Manhattan, in your favorite city. New York City was meant for you, and you were meant for it. You quite enjoyed the feeling of being in the midst of the chaos, bustle, and noise of the city and knowing that you were virtually a nobody. The anonymity of the city has always comforted you.

It had been about six or seven years since you had landed the job with Stark Industries. Now that your career had a solid start with Tony Stark, you were a well known name not just in the building, but amongst competitors and your peers in the industry as well. You were grateful that Tony encouraged your career development by letting you explore department to department. Tony often called you the jack of all trades because you were able to seamlessly offer perspectives and evidence based opinions for nearly any department at Stark Industries.

Which is why your agility and eagerness to learn had gotten you to a director role in less than ten years, a feat very nearly unheard of in corporate America. Let alone at Stark Industries.

And that meant that you knew many of the Avengers on a professional and personal level as well. You were quite fond of your relationships with them- the fact that you can call them friends has ceased to amaze you now. It feels normal. After all, they are only human.

You can recognize the tells of when things are getting bad. There isn’t a specific thing that you can pinpoint that makes it worse, even after all these years. It just comes when it wants. And it lifts a little bit when it wants. You’re constantly on edge, and yet at the same time you can feel the familiar pull of numbness. You’re not sleeping or you’re sleeping too much. And of course, you’re isolating yourself subtly. So as to shield yourself from perceived vulnerability and intimacy.

And yet, isn’t that just what you craved?

A dullness hangs over your head and you try your best to see through it.

You don’t really notice the concerned looks that you’ve been on the receiving end of from your friends. Bucky and Natasha, ever so perceptive. Steve and Sam, ever so observant. Or maybe you do notice, and you just avoid any display or discussion of vulnerability. They text you every so often, just to say hello. See how you’re doing. Or they’ll somehow find you in the tower, and they always come with snacks and water for you.

What great friends you have, and you can’t even look them in the eye. Your cheeks burn with shame, but you grin and bear it. Claiming that you’re just tired. Busy. You’ve got a lot on your calendar.

Bucky jokingly had asked if your executive assistant could pencil him in, even just for fifteen minutes. You had snorted and told him that you didn’t make enough money for an executive assistant. Yet.

Bucky often finds you around the labs and tech transfer rooms. Most of the time he sees you alone, completing some documentation and drawing up plans for the next day or week. Sometimes he sees you with your coworkers, discussing strategy. You always offer him a smile and a wave, even if you’re deep in heated debate with your team members. Maybe it’s something of a happy coincidence that you both are around there at the same time. Similar interests and all.

It’s the nights when he sees you alone in the laboratory corridors that you both get to know each other, beyond pleasantries. It takes a few weeks for you to even ask what he’s doing there. That’s when you learn of his interest in the industry part of ‘Stark Industries’, and how he is fascinated by the advancements of the century. The nights turn into almost daily hangouts, complete with takeout and snacks. Bucky finds himself comfortable enough to sit in your office with his legs up on the desk.

You always chide him with a roll of your eyes, but there’s never any heat behind it. Small talk had slowly evolved into a very real friendship between the both of you, and you looked forward to seeing him at the Tower whenever you could.

Natasha Romanoff was the one who had suggested you apply for a job at Stark Industries after graduation. While she was a former SHIELD agent, now Avenger, you had met her at your favorite coffee shop to study at. Perhaps it was destiny then, that you had met one of the most elusive spies of the 20th and 21st centuries and you hadn’t even recognized her. All she had asked you was for a pen, and you had stumbled over your words and nearly spilled your coffee on yourself in an attempt to reach over and hand her a pen.

What a menace. She still never lets you live that down. What were you meant to do when someone like Natasha Romanoff asks you for a pen?

From that day, you had made it a point to study at the same cafe, hoping to catch a glimpse of her once again. And maybe have a chance at a redemption arc for your terrible first impression. Eventually, she had come back and you had struck up a conversation with her. One conversation led to another, the seasons had changed, and suddenly, Natasha Romanoff was present at your graduate school graduation ceremony, looking onwards proudly.

Becoming friends with Sam had been easy. On your first day of work at your brand new big girl job, he had been one of the first people to poke his head around and introduce himself. He had even had lunch with you on your first day, and that is a memory you hold near and dear to your heart. To remind yourself that people do genuinely like you, and that you are not the version of yourself that you’ve created in your head. The version of yourself with virtually no redeemable qualities. The figment of yourself born from your own anxieties and insecurities, that truly does not exist anywhere but your own mind.

While it was in your own mind, it didn’t make it any less real.

You and Sam had fun together- he had managed to make himself a permanent fixture in your life by sharing music and movie recommendations with you. You had even established an exclusive impromptu movie club with him, where the both of you shared opinions and thoughts on movies while tasting new wines.

It wasn’t so much as an official club, as it was two friends hanging out and enjoying the company of the other.

You had been most intimidated by Steve Rogers, and you had no reason to be. You had seen Bucky and Sam tease him, you’ve run into Steve during late nights when you were working late, and you had seen him come into the Tower bruised up and bloody after missions. You had seen him during times of vulnerability, and for whatever reason, it took you the longest to open yourself up to him. You had mostly ignored him aside from pleasantries, if you could.

Until it was a cold winter’s night, around 1 AM.

You were just getting ready to leave the Tower, making a mental note to be better about your work/life integration. Whenever you left the Tower late, Tony always made sure you were protected so you wouldn’t have to walk home alone. He also had given you a guest room in the living quarters of the Tower, but you rarely stayed there.

The smell of burning sends your adrenaline into overdrive and you quickly found the source of the burning in the kitchen. It’s Steve and Natasha hovering over an oven as billows of smoke begin to engulf the area. Steve attempts to open the oven with his bare hand before Natasha whacks him over the head and hands him an oven mitt.

You’d laugh if you were sure that the kitchen wasn’t about to get burned down.

“Uh,” You say, “You guys need help or should I leave you to it?”

They both turn around at the same time. Steve looks like a deer caught in headlights while Natasha just looks exasperated.

“We were trying to make cookies. Apparently Steve can’t be left unattended.”

“Me?! You were the one who was supposed to keep an eye on them! Now they’re all burned!”

Apparently it takes seeing Steve and Natasha bickering about who left the cookies in the oven for longer than they should have for you to feel more comfortable around Steve. Nothing like burned cookies to humanize Steve Rogers.

And so you end up baking a new batch of cookies with Steve and Natasha, helping them clean out the burned bits. And you end up staying in that guest room that Tony had gifted you many months ago.

It’s a night of firsts.

Relatively speaking, the rational part of your brain knew that things could always be worse. But repeating that to yourself like a mantra didn’t seem to soothe the near constant ache in your heart. Sometimes the ache felt like a bleak numbness more than anything. In fact, you had come to at least appreciate the ache. Because then that meant you could at least feel something. It wasn’t fair to compare pain. Pain is pain. That became your new mantra, after your therapist had framed it in a way that just made sense to you.

You can’t be faulted for the way you feel, you know that. You can’t be faulted for constantly questioning everything and everyone around you, questioning intentions, and questioning yourself. Wondering if people even liked you, or if people merely tolerated you when you could barely even stand yourself.

Once those thoughts start coming, they don’t stop. Your friends notice you digging yourself into your work, isolating yourself and avoiding them. Perhaps this time, they’ll finally realize what you are.

And yet, they still find it in themselves to invite you out for a night out. They know you’ve been struggling and just want to show you that they’re here for you. They just want you to believe them.

***

You were at a quiet but vibrant bar near your apartment, one you frequented often with Natasha, Sam, and Steve. To be honest, you hadn’t really wanted to come. But they had been resilient in their efforts to see you and make sure that you were okay. You’re able to see through the fog for a moment, cracking a smile at Bucky who is sitting at one of the barstools, chatting up the bartender. He’d taken an interest in the art of crafting a drink lately, and you quite enjoyed seeing curiosity light up his eyes. You also enjoyed being his taste tester, but honestly you were game to try anything.

Months ago, you and Sam had told Bucky that maybe he should put himself out there. He looked at the pair of you like you had grown five heads each.

“Out where, exactly?”

“Meeting people. Getting into casual dating. You’re a catch and I wish you would realize that, too.” You had said it so genuinely that he finds himself nodding slowly. The memory nearly makes you cringe- it irritates you to no degree when people tell you that you should put yourself out there. Who were you to say the same to a friend?

God, how could anyone stand you?

You take another long sip of your drink and try to center yourself in the conversation around you. Bucky sits down across from you at the booth and tells you and Sam what tips the bartender gave him when making drinks.

“Maybe you could teach him a thing or two,” You remark and he grins appreciatively.

“I think I should get one of those bartending books. To see what mixes well with what,” Bucky muses.

“I feel like you’re enjoying the experimentation of it all. That’s half the fun,” Sam says, absentmindedly peeling the sticker off of the bottle of beer.

“Did you know that if you peel labels off of bottles, it means you’re sexually frustrated?” You say off-handedly, grinning when their eyebrows rise in unison.

“Sounds about right,” Sam sighs, “Lemme tell you somethin’. I’m hittin’ a real dry spell right now.”

“Tell me about it,” Bucky agrees, taking a swig of his drink.

“I guess nobody wants what you’re selling,” You tease and glance over at Natasha, who is currently chatting up a man on the other side of the bar. She’s all charm and flirty smiles and you wave at her when she catches your eye.

“Someone wants what you’re selling,” Bucky muses, tearing your attention away from Natasha, “This guy has been looking over here for the last fifteen minutes. Think he’s tryin’ to be sexy or somethin’.”

“Is he? Bein’ sexy?” You laugh, “Maybe he’s lookin’ at you, Bucky.”

“No, it’s definitely you, baby girl. Bucky’s not half as nice to look at as you are,” Sam grins, earning himself a whack on the shoulder.

You turn your head and see the man in question, giving him a once over. He’s cute, you suppose. Part of you welcomes the new distraction, and the other part of you wants to stay within the walls of your comfort zone. Sam and Bucky look at you expectantly, wondering what your next move is going to be.

You shrug and chug the entirety of your drink, getting out of your booth to walk over to the bar. You’re certain that the man who had been eyeing you will join you in a few short minutes. Asking you what you’d like to drink.

“Let’s see what happens, boys.”

Little do Sam and Bucky know that you’re about to find yourself slipping into old habits, and fast.

***

A night of drinks, one night stands, and walks of shame had turned into a routine over the course of the next few weeks. It was a welcome distraction from reality and you couldn’t get enough of it.

You can almost hear Natasha’s voice in your head- ‘there’s nothing wrong with sleeping around. But you’re sleeping around to actively avoid something deeper and you have to talk about it.’

Even if she’s right, you’ll gamble on it.

You’re spiraling into a whirlwind of self-deprecation, and you know it. The thought flits around in your head and disappears as quickly as it had come. You quickly toss back a pair of tequila shots and thrust the lime in your mouth for sweet relief. You enjoyed the way the tequila burned your throat before settling in your stomach with a happy hum.

Admittedly, you had begun to pull away from your friends even more over the last week or so. You weren’t sure, you were losing track of time. Worried texts and phone calls went unanswered for hours. Which would gradually become days. You had shirked off scheduled therapy appointments several times. Voicemails from your therapist were left unlistened to. Bless her heart.

You threw yourself into work until that became your primary excuse and then you just stopped answering altogether. Sam, Steve, Natasha and Bucky had all come around knocking on your door. Both physically and digitally. But you pretended like you weren’t home most of the time. You wished they would break down the door and find you, a complete mess. But you didn’t have the physical or mental strength to just open the door yourself. They probably thought you needed space. Which maybe you did.

That night you had taken that random guy home from the bar had sparked something inside of you and you didn’t want to let it go. The recklessness made you feel alive, it made your blood burn, and it made your heart thump with anticipation.

They probably deserve better than someone who’s head is spinning from self-loathing, someone who can’t stand the sight of themselves anymore, someone who can't seem to get themselves together.

But they’re your friends. They love you regardless, comes a small voice that you’re easily able to quash.

You find yourself unable to even brush your teeth without a frown jarring your face. The thoughts that bounce around in your head are wrong and you know it, but they are relentless. And you find yourself powerless to argue with them. You can only focus on what’s right in front of you. Focusing on anything else hurts too much.

So you focus on the music pumping through your veins. The burn of alcohol seeping into your blood. You focus on the arms wrapped around you and the neon lights blaring at you.

You barely feel lips kissing your neck and you’re surprised to taste saltiness on your upper lip. You’re crying, you realize. You’re crying because all of a sudden, you get flashes of your friend’s concerned faces and you’re here. Alone, of your own accord.

***

The first week you started pulling away, Steve had suggested that they should break down your door. You had been completely unresponsive, sending all of them into a state of alarm and concern. They did toy with the idea, but they ultimately let it be. Maybe you needed space. After all, wouldn’t you come to them if you were upset?

But then, you didn’t.They wouldn’t have known how you threw yourself into alcohol, barely ate proper meals, barely slept properly. They wouldn’t have seen how much you were barely keeping your head above the water. You were good at hiding it, in the beginning. You were all smiles at work, making small-talk and doing what you did best. Then you stopped caring about hiding it. You had called out of work a few days and hadn’t left your apartment. Tony and Pepper were most definitely concerned- it wasn’t like you to pull away like this. They had reached out to you several times to no avail. You had only said you weren’t feeling well. They only knew you were going through something and didn’t know how to handle it. Did any of them know how to handle it?

You’re out again in Chelsea this time, at a club lined with smoke, mirrors, and strangers. You’re singing along to the music as the drink in your hand sloshes with your movements. A sudden wave of fatigue washes over you.

You don’t want to be there anymore. The realization feels like a weight has landed on your chest, but you feel the familiar wings of freedom embrace you. Maybe this is it- maybe you’re finally breaking out of your spell. You just want to go home. You think of your friends again. How you’ve ignored them for weeks now. How they still reach out to you and you just… do nothing.

Downing the rest of your drink- because you’d be damned if you’d ever let a drink purchased from a club in Chelsea go to waste- you hold your purse close and make the decision to leave. Once you’re in the comfort of your home in your pajamas and under the covers, you open up your messages app on your phone. Your finger hovers over Natasha’s name.

With the courage of a small lion, you finally text her, and it feels like liberation. You just text her saying hi, with a simple heart emoji. That’s the most you can muster for right now.

It takes another week or so for you to get sick of the long nights out and of partying the way you have been. Then another week to get sick of the alcohol. It doesn’t numb you anymore; instead, it just makes you feel disgusting. This week, you’ve spent most of your days in bed. You’re afraid to go into work, so you’ve worked from home as much as you can. You even reached out to Tony and Pepper. And mustered up the energy to make an appointment with your therapist.

The fact that you’ve come this far on your own is even a surprise to you. This spiral felt different to you. Looking back on it, in previous years, you felt that you were able to snap out of it more easily. Whatever it was. Even if it took weeks or months for you to snap out of it, somehow you always did. Whether it was by a momentous epiphany, an intervention, or a conversation with a stranger. Somehow, for whatever reason, you always snapped out of it. Even if you haven’t seen or spoken to the few friends you have and the people who care for you, they’re still on the forefront of your mind. Feeding you bits of strength to get you through the days, whether you realize it or not. The fog, while it still shrouds you, feels a little easier to see through.

You hope you’ll have the energy to see your friends again soon.

***

On days that you’re not working, you find yourself sleeping for most of the day and wide awake at night. You’ve taken to roaming the city during these nights, walking around familiar places. The idea of showing up at the Tower unannounced has crossed your mind once or twice. The thought scares you, so you decide against it every time.

You’ve been doing better about texting Natasha once in a while. To let her know that you’re still breathing, even if it’s barely. She has offered more than once to come over for company, but you can’t bring yourself to agree. Bucky, Steve, and Sam all still text you everyday, even after your lack of responses. They even call you once in a while and leave short voicemails, letting you know of their days and how they miss you.

And still, what kind of person are you to continue living as if you were empty when there was clearly all of this love and care surrounding you? You couldn’t help it. The dark cloud has lessened somewhat, but still floats over your head. It’s just there, and you try to think back to a time when the cloud didn’t exist.

Your therapist’s understanding eyes and warm gaze simultaneously makes you feel a little better and makes you want to cry. She validates your feelings and tells you that it’s okay for you to not be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But she tells you that whether or not you can see it, it’s still there. And that you deserve that light and so much more. She’s keeping a close eye on you as well, texting you every so often to see how you’re doing. She sends you gentle reassurances, and you begin to echo those same reassurances to yourself. While the voice has gotten quieter for now, it’s still there but it doesn’t feel as loud as it did a few weeks ago.

What a ride it’s been. You’re exhausted from your own mind. If mental gymnastics was a sport, you’d surely achieve a perfect score.

It confuses you, how you’re sent into this dark shroud only to re-emerge on the other side. Well, sort of. Why did it even happen? Did something cause it? Or was it your own chemistry betraying you without any rhyme or reason?

Whatever the cause is… it’s not a great feeling and despite how overwhelming it feels, how it feels like you’re drowning. You still manage to keep your head above the water to get through the next minute. The next hour. The next day. The next week.

After neglecting your journal for longer than usual, you decide to buy some new pens and markers for doodling on the pages. Even if you can’t necessarily get the words out on paper, you still want to be able to focus some of the energy you have into something.

You can spend hours doodling and coloring in the pages. And so you do.

After your evening of doodling, you even dabble with the idea of calling Natasha. And so you do.

She’s ecstatic to hear from you, and she doesn’t bother to try to bottle it. Her enthusiasm makes you feel warm inside. It reminds you that you’re still here. That your friends are still here. In a display of courage, you ask her if she’d like to come over for pizza and ice cream. She immediately accepts, and you can’t help but feel slightly proud of yourself for taking that step.

For the first time in a long time, it feels like you have reasons to smile.

***

You had cleaned your apartment in preparation for Natasha’s arrival, and had even lit her favorite candle scent that you owned. It’s called black cherry, but smells sultry with hints of sweet and spicy. Boxes of pizza were hot and ready on your counter and two tubs of ice cream were in your freezer.

When Natasha arrives, you nearly lose your breath from seeing your friend after so long. You don’t know what to do- should you hug her? Shake her hand? How awkward and formal of you. Both seem wrong and Natasha picks up on your unease.

“You gonna let me in or what?” She asks with a raised eyebrow and you beam at her. You welcome her inside, insisting that she sit down on your couch. You hand her a glass of water and place the boxes of pizza on your coffee table, feeling the cobwebs around your heart begin to melt away slowly.

It’s after a few slices of pizza and making small talk that you feel that you have to bring up the last few weeks-

“Natasha,” You begin, “I’m just- I don’t know. The last few weeks have been really hard. I’m just sorry I ghosted you. And everyone. You didn’t deserve that, when you were only trying to be my friends.”

“Hey,” Natasha shakes her head, “It’s okay. Believe me when I say that we all understand. Sometimes your mind takes you somewhere you don’t want to go. We just worry, you know? If you need space, then that’s what you need. But I don’t want you to… be alone because you think nobody’s here for you. Because we are. We are.”

Tears well up in your eyes at the sincerity in her voice, and you believe her. You believe her with everything in your bones and it lifts you up higher than you’ve felt in a long time. The rest of the night is spent in a flurry of laughter, some tears, and lots of pizza and ice cream. Your heart is singing by the time Natasha leaves, cotton candy clouds of contentment surrounding you as you fall asleep quickly.

***

You go back to work at the Tower the following week, where Tony and Pepper embrace you with open arms. You’re quite blessed to be surrounded by people who understand you and want the best for you. You can’t be helped if a few tears leak out of your eyes when you see Tony and Pepper after what feels like is years.

You clean up in your office, brushing off the thin layer of dust over your things. Opening the cover of your laptop, you go into your Outlook calendar. Too see what was on the agenda for today. And you schedule an impromptu lunch with Sam, at your favorite food truck two blocks from the Tower.

You had gotten over the fact that you were able to schedule something as mundane as meetings with the Avengers during your second week of working at Stark Industries.

It was time to see your friend again. The thought sends nervous butterflies fluttering in your belly, but you’re proud of yourself for reaching out when it felt impossible only a few weeks ago. Sam accepts the meeting almost immediately and a smile stays on your face until you meet him for lunch.

***

Despite the awkwardness you initially feel about seeing Sam after weeks, it dissipates quickly once you see him at the food truck. He’s waving at you, genuine excitement radiating from him at being able to see you after so long.

He’s already bought your favorites from the truck and he’s waiting for you. So you both can walk to the bench you usually sit at while having lunch together. Sam refers to it as ‘our bench’, and you do, too.

“You look good, baby girl,” Sam greets you with a smile, patting the space next to you.

“Yeah, I guess the aftermath of a six week long bender is the look I should strive for,” You say with a laugh, giving him a good-natured shove of his shoulder.

“You know what I mean,” Sam says pointedly, taking a bite out of his food.

A comfortable silence falls over the two of you. You gaze out in front of you, taking in the people bustling past you. People on their phones, people with smiles on, people who look stressed. People in a hurry. The call of birds, the sound of people walking over leaves. It’s bright outside as the sun beams over the plush grass.

You tear your eyes away from the grass and turn to Sam, who is patiently waiting for you to speak.

“I really,” You murmur, “I really appreciated your texts. And phone calls. And voicemails. I’m sure you all would have come and broken down my door at some point.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Sam shrugs, “Breakin’ down doors. Steve did want to. But we were sure you wouldn’t have appreciated a broken down door, on top of everything.”

You let out a loud laugh at that.

“The real reason I asked you to come here,” You swallow nervously, “I just wanted to say. Thank you for believing in me, too. I know I get in my own head and it takes me time to snap out of it. Sometimes I feel like I’ll never snap out of it. And every time, I’m surprised that I do. So thank you. For not giving up on me, even when I was barely responsive. Even when I wanted to give up on myself.”

Tears are swimming in your eyes, as well as Sam’s. He sets his food down next to him, and wraps his arms around you, squeezing you tightly.

“I know this is something that we can’t control. And it feels like it’s here to stay. But so are we,” Sam says and you pull away to give him a watery smile.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

***

You see Steve when you have a really late night at the office a few days later. You’ve been trying to properly catch up on your work and you had lost track of time. Leaning back in your seat, you rub your eyes and stretch your neck.

You’ve been craving something sweet all day and have been unsuccessful in satisfying your sweet tooth.

You wonder if Steve is still awake. Maybe he’ll make cookies with you. Before you lose your nerve, you call him and familiar butterflies of nervousness flit around your belly.

“Hey, Steve,” You murmur, “Wanna make cookies with me?”

And so you find yourself in the kitchen with Steve at nearly 1:30 AM with mismatched oven mitts on. He’s quiet, as if he doesn’t know what to say.

“And look at that,” You grin, “We didn’t even burn the place down.”

“Don’t let Natasha know, she’ll get jealous,” Steve says and you laugh.

Another poignant pause.

“I-uh, I’m glad to see you again,” Steve says, scratching the back of his head, “Things are tough. But uh… we’re here. I mean, we’re here for you.”

“Thank you, Steve,” You murmur, “I know. And I appreciate everything. I’m glad to see you again, too. Who else would be here to make sure you didn’t burn the Tower down while making cookies?”

Steve snorts, and that’s that.

***

You see Bucky that same night. It had been close to 2:30 AM when you and Steve had finished making and eating cookies. You had both shared a few laughs and yawns when you decided you’d stay at your room in the Tower for tonight.

But before that, you decide to go down to the laboratories for a quick peek. Just to check on the progress of several projects and check the logs and data sheets. You haven’t been down here at night since… well, it’s been a while.

You end up just walking around, taking in the vastness of the room. You’ve always liked venturing down here at night, because the moon shines into the laboratories at an angle that it doesn’t anywhere else. Everything has a silvery hue to it, almost reminding you of something magical. And wasn’t it- wasn’t this the closest thing to magic that you would ever get?

You’re mesmerized by the jagged edges of one of the old trinkets on the workbench. It’s been here a while, it seems. Dust has gathered upon it, blanketing it in a coat of grey.

“You come here often?” A voice calls from behind you and you nearly drop the trinket in surprise. It’s Bucky, complete with a small smile and cozy sweatpants.

“Only when I want to be scared into having a heart attack,” You mumble, trying not to stare at him.

Your throat goes dry.

“How… How’ve you been?” You ask, leaning back against the workbench with your arms crossed.

“Been good. And how have you been?” Bucky asks.

“Well,” You begin, “I think you kind of know the answer to that. What with disappearing for weeks due to falling into a whirlwind of self-loathing, depression and who knows what else.”

“You’re talking to the king of disappearing for weeks due to a whirlwind of self-loathing, depression and who knows what else,” Bucky says with a quirk of his lips and it widens when you smile back.

“Two regular peas in a pod,” You murmur. He comes to stand next to you and bumps hips with you. You swallow again.

“I’m glad to see you again. This place was gettin’ boring without you.”

“Don’t I know it,” You reply, casting your gaze to the concrete floor with a deep breath, “Thanks for… Just thanks for understanding. And thanks for bein’ you.”

You meet Bucky’s eyes, and it feels like it’s in slow motion. His gaze is tender, illuminated by a splash of moonlight. He offers you a warm smile, one that you can’t help but return.

Even if he doesn’t quite say it, you feel it. You feel it in his gaze, the way he teases you lightly. You feel his unmistakable warmth and you allow yourself to feel warm, too.

***

The threshold for your depression feels like it’s been shifted higher. While it still exists and is very real and tangible... It feels like if depression was the ocean floor, you were hovering several hundred feet above it. With your continuous therapy sessions and better habits, you feel like you’re doing better. Even from before you had started spiraling.

Tonight, you were hosting a board game night at your apartment with your friends. You had asked them to only bring themselves and to not even think of bringing food or drink with them.

You were stocked with everything under the sun, from snacks to food to drinks. You had spent the better part of the day cooking and baking.

The familiar but unfamiliar feeling of warmth has you excited.

While some days still felt quite heavy and impossible, you had the courage to get through those days. You knew seeing your friends more often wouldn’t cure you… But it would certainly make you feel supported, cherished, and valued. And despite knowing that your friends would be there for you, you still sometimes can’t help but feel like too much. Those thoughts are sometimes hard to dismiss. Some days, you’re louder than those thoughts. And other days, those thoughts are louder than you.

But you get by.

Soon enough, your apartment is filled with the sounds of laughter and music, and you’re certain you haven’t quite stopped smiling. You wonder if this could be what the meaning of life is- this warmth that truly only came from a place of comfort with yourself and with others around you. You watch Bucky and Steve bicker while Sam instigates and Natasha looks on, shaking her head in amusement. Sam looks up at you, laughter fading into a gentle smile. You wonder if he knows what you’re thinking.

You wonder if the answer to the question that had transcended all of time could be found right here in the middle of your apartment.

#sam wilson x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #bucky barnes x reader #steve rogers x reader #avengers x reader #tw: depression #tw: alcohol #im nervous lowkey for this LOL

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erricdraven · 4 years

Text

lost and found

A fantasy au wherein alec is a guardian angel, magnus is a demon who makes deals, and maybe they’re not as different as they think.

written as a gift for @ladymatt for the malec secret santa 2020

As the flames at Magnus’ feet die out, he takes in his surroundings inquisitively. Beneath his boots are tentative chalk lines, thin and light in places, that connect into a pentagram drawn on a cracked cement floor. The room he is in is vast and all but empty, with high ceilings and exposed metal beams. A warehouse, most likely; the kind of place a human might deem a safe, neutral location for a demon summoning. As he turned to his left, a woman, young in years but with a heaviness weighing on her that belied her age, was staring at him from a few feet away with a tattered hardback journal clutched in one hand.

“You called me,” he stated, standing a few steps away from the barrier line. “I assume that because you did the summoning correctly and seem…prepared, that you know what it is that I do.”

She looked almost startled at being addressed, but the expression lasted only a moment before she held it back with a clenched jaw and narrowed eyes. “I know what I’m doing,” she asserted, though her voice wavered slightly.

After analyzing the detailing of the pentagram, Magnus touched the tip of his boot to a symbol that had been incorrectly drawn. “It’s an impressive work, but I would suggest you study a bit more next time. This right here…leaves an opening.”

Now the woman looked terrified, frozen in place with her arms encircling her middle protectively.

With a slightly sardonic chuckle, he shook his head. “If I was going to hurt you, I wouldn’t have pointed out your error.” He stepped closer to the edge line, closer to her. “After all, you wish to make a deal, yes? Which means you have something I would be happy to take. I don’t want to ruin that opportunity for myself just yet.”

read on ao3

For a moment, he just looked at her, observing. She had very short hair, so blonde it was practically white, and deep brown, almost black, eyes. Her pupils were almost swallowed up by the darkness of the iris. There was a small smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and dusting the tops of her cheeks, looking oddly childlike in the midst of her worn features. He was well-versed in reading humans after all these centuries, and he could see in her an authenticity that caught his attention. “What’s your name?”

“Alana. Alana Clarke. And I want to make a deal.”

“Well then,” Magnus began, steepling his fingers thoughtfully, “tell me, to what do I owe this summons?”

“I…have something I want to forget.” Her voice wavered slightly on the last word.

“Someone,” Magnus stated in realization. “A deal with me requires specificity, Ms. Clarke.”

It took a moment before she hesitantly elaborated further. “My husband. He was…cold. And unable to love, in the end. I never felt like I could leave him. One day, he snapped and I…I didn’t have a choice. I can’t let the memory of him control my life anymore. I can’t bear to let him change me the way I’m afraid he might.”

Rubbing his fingers together contemplatively, he replied, “That is a very serious choice to make. And one that cannot be undone. As luck would have it, it would be quite easy for me to give you what you’re asking for, but it has a steep price. And not just your soul. Are you certain this is what you want?”

Her silence was only too telling.

With a firm shake of his head, Magnus took a step back. “You must be sure. I am neither judge nor jury; I will only carry out what our deal entails. I urge you strongly to consider this. Memory cannot just be given and taken on a whim. Once I remove it, it will be permanent.”

Alana shook her head with a tired sigh. “I just… I can’t sleep, I can’t breathe, I can’t think… I don’t know how to go on without doing something. I—” Abruptly cutting herself off, she stood up a little straighter and schooled her expression into a carefully curated stoicism. “I have to take the responsibility, and I will.”

It had been a long while since someone with such conviction had come to Magnus like this. Often, those who summoned him didn’t understand the gravity of the situation they were making for themselves, but it was their mistake to make. This time, somehow, he couldn’t bear the thought of allowing her to follow them down that path of regret lurking in the future.

“For your benefit, I will not yet make the deal,” he began. “I require certainty, and I do not see that in you. I’m going to give you another opportunity to think very carefully about just what is worth the price of your soul before you sign it over to me.”

The next time Magnus found himself standing in the ash and last embers of unholy flame in the middle of the old warehouse, the person standing opposite him was not Alana Clarke.

Instead, it was a tall, dark haired man with a stern look on his face, standing stock-still with his hands behind his back. He was not entirely mortal, nor human, Magnus realized upon observing the presence of spiritual matter along the lines of his shoulders and down his spine. It also wasn’t lost on him that the man had a blade made of adamas tucked away inside the folds of his jacket. It was an ancient kind of weapon, not only priceless but rare.

The pentagram Magnus was standing on was far more detailed than the one that Alana had used to summon him, rooted in much stronger magic. The kind of magic that could only be infused by a summoner of great power. “I’m impressed,” he mused, turning in place to observe the rest of the finer detail.

“You made a deal with Alana Clarke,” the man stated coolly, as if he hadn’t heard a thing. “For her soul. And you’re going to have to rescind.”

Magnus couldn’t help but be amused by the situation. “Demon-client confidentiality prevents me from discussing any of this with you, I’m afraid.” But his curiosity was piqued. Especially when he realized that the faint smell of angel blood had permeated the air around them.

Angel blood.

“Of course, I should have realized immediately.” He stepped up to the edge line of the pentagram to look closer. “Which one of Raziel’s guardians are you?”

A soft sigh of exasperation preceded one word: “Alexander.”

“‘Defender of man’, yes? Seems fitting.” If he didn’t know better, Magnus would have said that Alexander preened almost imperceptibly at his words. “And Alana is in your care. Interesting, given the fact that she sought me out.”

The shadows of tenderness that had lingered on Alexander’s face for mere seconds at the mention of her name disappeared altogether as his expression clouded over. “She never should have summoned you. Her grief has blinded her, so I have to be the one to protect her.”

“You almost believed that when you said it.” Magnus of all people knew what lying to oneself looked like. “The truth is, it kills you that you can’t save her from this grief. Your purpose is to protect her, but there are limits to what you can control, and now you have to face them.”

“You can’t undo the past,” Alexander countered, eyebrows drawn low over his eyes in consternation. “And that’s what she truly wants. Whatever you offer her, it won’t be enough.”

“You know what she went through. You know how greatly she mourns—both for what she lost and what was never hers to begin with. There’s no price too steep for peace that can heal that kind of devastation.”

The angel visibly gritted his teeth, the muscle in his jaw jumping as it flexed. “Rip up the deal and give her soul back.” The slow cadence he spoke with betrayed the anger that he was sealing away inside.

“It might interest you to know that no official contract exists yet. Ms. Clarke hasn’t made her choice, so if you have concerns, you should take them to your charge herself.”

The anger stoked by Magnus’ words became increasingly apparent in Alexander, and he rolled his neck to the side slightly as if trying to shake free of something. “I won’t ask again.” When Magnus offered no reply, he took a few steps back from the pentagram. “Well, you’re welcome to rot here until you change your mind, then.”

If he were a different person, if circumstances were trivial, he would enjoy an indulgent show of his own strength. As it were, Magnus only gloated a little as he stepped over the brusque chalk line meant to confine him. “I have no plans to do any such thing.”

Alexander was speechless, his mouth slightly agape as Magnus moved towards him. “That isn’t possible. No lesser demon can—”

Reaching out with a dark red tendril of magic, Magnus held him still. “Pleased to meet you, Alexander. My name is Magnus Bane, reigning Prince of Edom and son of one of the First Hierarchy—a Knight of Hell.” When their faces were mere inches apart, he offered the faintest of smiles. “Ms. Clarke has sought my protection now, so I suggest you don’t try to interfere again.”

The air in the Hunter’s Moon was thick with the scent of stale alcohol and sweat-slicked bodies, and Magnus relished it. Perhaps it was the hedonistically human part of him, but there was something magnetic about the raw electricity of bodies pressed flush against one another beneath the hot lights.

His attention was diverted, however, when he noticed the man who had just walked in and was making his way to the bar. Alexander stood out in a crowd even when he was dressed down, wearing a grey Henley and jeans.

With a subtle gesture, Magnus caught the eye of a bartender gathering empty glasses abandoned on a nearby table. “The man who just walked in—make him a Vieux Carre.” A neatly folded hundred-dollar bill materialized between his thumb and middle finger, and he offered it to her.

The woman’s bracelets made a delicate jingling sound as she plucked it from his grasp. “He looks intense. Ex of yours?”

With a chuckle, he brushed his thumb tenderly against her chin for a fleeting moment. “Discretion, Maia.”

She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. “Courtesy of?”

“An associate.”

Despite looking thoroughly unconvinced, Maia pocketed the money and Magnus raised his drink to her in gratitude.

“An olive branch?” Alexander guessed a few minutes later, setting his glass down on Magnus’ table.

“Actually, it’s a black cherry garnish.” Magnus plucks the fruit from his glass and takes a bite of the tender flesh. “I figured a drink would be a good icebreaker.”

Alexander dropped down into the chair opposite him. “You don’t look surprised to see me here.”

“You’ve been following me on and off all day, angel. What am I meant to be surprised about?”

His expression darkens, his eyebrows drawn tightly together in consternation. “We haven’t struck an accord yet.”

Shaking his head faintly, Magnus downed the last of his Negroni. “There is nothing to negotiate. You have no claim on the contract between me and my client.”

“She is going to do this if I do not put a stop to it.” Rather than the burn of anger or the cold of hatred, Alexander looked pained to be saying those words. “I want to make a deal.”

Whatever he had been expecting Alexander to say, that certainly wasn’t it. Magnus sat in stunned silence for a beat. “Just to be clear… You want to give me your eternal soul to release Alana Clarke from a contract that she implored me to honor?”

“Yes.” He couldn’t know what he was agreeing to, and yet there was a fierce determination on his face that almost made Magnus wish that it were possible. “Let’s do it.”

“It is not possible, Alexander,” Magnus said somberly. His tone had gone soft despite himself. The desperation in the guardian’s eyes made something in his chest begin to ache. “Even if you did have a soul as the mortals do.”

It almost looked as though the faintest hint of vulnerable desperation was beginning to shine through the cracks of his façade. Instead, with a grunt of frustration, Alexander pushed back from the table and crossed his arms. “She is under my protection, Magnus.”

“In a manner of speaking, she’s under mine too.”

“If you control Edom, why even spend your time making deals for souls? Isn’t that beneath you?” he retorted heatedly.

“It’s not about the souls. It never has been,” Magnus found himself saying. It had never been in his nature to be transparent, and frankly he had never had a reason to try. The way that Alexander wore his feelings so genuinely compelled him to reciprocate. “The lesser demons who skulk around crossroads and manipulate the avaricious and covetous do so by nature. I choose the worthy summoners, the ones who want nothing more or less than resolution, and offer them peace.”

Staring down into his glass, Alexander heaved a sigh of frustration. “Indulging their emotions is not the same as protecting them.”

“That depends on who you are protecting them from, hmm?”

Something in those words seemed to reach Alexander in a way that nothing else between them had. His shoulders hunched wearily, as though a great burden had been dropped and left foregone. “I don’t know,” he surrendered.

Thunder rattled the window panes of the penthouse as the storm outside grew stronger, and Magnus could feel the glass shivering beneath his fingers where they were pressed on either side of Alexander’s body. They were both mostly clothed, but where their bare skin touched, it felt like fire. Occasional flashes of lightning illuminated the otherwise darkened living room, so Magnus used the cacophony of harsh exhales and soft moans to guide his movements.

It had to be the most profane act, because it felt like salvation.

“Nnnnh,” Alexander moaned, reaching up for Magnus’ hands blindly and intertwining their fingers.

More or less restrained, Magnus put more power into the movement of his hips. It was an inexplicable desperation that had led them to this, and now it was boiling in his blood and driving him forward.

The pleasure crested, and for one perfect moment, everything felt simple—they were just two people who found relief in wanting one another. That was how they had ended up here, after all; a categorically innocuous moment had somehow set Magnus’ skin on fire with how greatly he yearned to touch him, and everything between them had unraveled before he could do anything but follow in its wake.

For weeks the tenacious guardian had been nothing but a thorn in his side, but then all at once, something changed and Magnus could no longer remember how to simply dislike him. Perhaps he put too much stock in his heart—or whatever the son of a Greater Demon was capable of containing—to ever stay free of falling prey to the way of the mortal world. All he knew now, though, was that he felt dread like an ache in his chest at the unavoidable truth that Alexander would leave.

“Don’t leave,” Magnus whispered breathlessly in Alexander’s ear. “You can stay the night. I want you to.”

In reply, Alexander nodded and pressed an almost reticent kiss to his lips. “I’ve already crossed the line, what’s another step?” Even pressed together in such an achingly intimate embrace, there was a hesitance in him. Perhaps he was telling himself this was a big mistake, and he would hate Magnus in the morning.

It wouldn’t be the first time, at least, so he would drink away the pain in the evening and be remade again in the morning.

Already in a sloppy state of undress, they both peeled off their remaining layers of clothing and let them fall in a heap on the bedroom floor before crawling beneath the sheets. Magnus had slept alone for so long that his heart twisted in his chest at the feeling of a warm body beside him.

Once Magnus had settled into the mattress and was lying still, Alexander slid his foot between Magnus’ calves and pressed their bodies closer. His hands were more diffident in their movements, slowly tracing a path down Magnus’ forearm and over the bone of his wrist before loosely intertwining their fingers.

He closed his eyes for a moment, just to savor this fragile piece of time, but when he opened them again, it was morning. The deep orange and red of the sunrise bathed the bedroom in a warm glow, and illuminated Alexander where he was perched on the edge of the bed. “Are you going somewhere?”

The muscles in Alexander’s upper back rippled beneath his alabaster skin as he tensed. “I didn’t want to wake you,” was all he said, but for just a moment, his eyes lingered on Magnus as if he were hoping for a rebuttal.

“We don’t have to keep doing this to each other, acting as though we’re so unalike.”

That made him look away, and he stood with his back to Magnus as he adjusted the cuff of his shirt sleeve absently. “Yes, we do. We have to be.”

“God himself created even the avenging angels in his image,” Magnus replied with the hint of a smirk on his lips.

With a wry, all but humorless laugh, Alexander shook his head. “That’s not the point, Magnus! What kind of guardian allows the ones he looks after to pawn their souls for resolutions?” He turned back to face him with hard resolve.

Magnus couldn’t help but be reminded of the volatile, at times impetuous, young man he was. He had been quick to anger, holding himself in contempt for all the things that were out of his control. “Alexander—this is her life. Do you truly prefer that she suffer through this mortal existence when that is all she gets?”

“I have failed spectacularly in the past to do the one thing I’m meant to do, and I won’t let that happen again.” Grabbing his jacket from the floor, he shrugged it on and stalked off.

“I’m ready,” Alana declared without preamble.

A smattering of Edom’s red dirt shook loose from the tread of Magnus’ boots as he strode over to her. “I told you that the next time you summoned me you would need to be certain. If this is your decision, then all that is left is your contract.”

“Okay,” she nodded. “Let’s do this.”

Magnus held up his hand and angled it above her chest. “All this requires is a mark left on your soul, like an earmark. It binds you to me.” With a languid flutter of his fingers, a deep blue energy emitted from them and seeped beneath her skin. The pulsing of her heartbeat was thrummed against his magic and he could feel it as if her heart itself were in the palm of his hand. With a final push, the energy ensnared her soul, wrapping around it like ivy on a vine and pressing in to leave behind an intricate lace of markings.

She shivered faintly and let out a short, sharp exhale. “It feels like ice.”

“It should not last long,” he assured her as he pulled his hand back. “Now, taking your memories will be painless; simply stand very still.”

As soon as he began to probe her memories, her eyes clouded over into a haze of milky white. In brief flashes, he could see through her eyes flashes of the past that she had hidden away. He could feel a tangled web of emotions, each vying for pride of place. He could hear a cacophony of her name echoing in millions of different tones and inflections. Each piece pulled at her, nearly tearing her apart from the tension about to snap. Extracting them was like sucking the poison from a wound, leaving a bitter residue behind. It had been left to fester for so long that in places the memories were like rot, but in time, they all came away. “You’re purely your own now,” Magnus whispered in Alana’s ear, and with that, he vanished from her side.

For a moment, he just stood in the alleyway behind the warehouse, breathing in the damp, cold air of the rain’s end. A few droplets dotted his face and neck, and he closed his eyes to savor it. In Edom, there was no such relief like a storm.

Suddenly, he felt a presence in the shadows, familiar and passive.

“Come to spy, angel?”

Emerging soundlessly, Alexander stood with his arms folded behind him like a soldier poised in wait.

Quirking an eyebrow, Magnus turned to face him directly. “Are you going to start a street brawl for what she willingly gave me?”

The guardian almost smiled at that, and it put Magnus more at ease. “What kind of idiot do you think I am? Actually, don’t answer that. I have a feeling I would not like the answer.” Shaking his head, Alexander continued. “I was here when Alana summoned you. But I… I decided you were right, Magnus.”

“Sorry?”

Despite himself, Alexander chuckled wryly. “I could be cast out for what I have done, but protecting the mortals entrusted to me is worth any price.”

Magnus looked at him skeptically. “Forgive me if I am hesitant to accept your truce, Alexander.”

“Who said anything about a truce?” Though his words were antagonistic, his tone was peaceable. “But I suppose I should thank you for what you taught me.”

Holding up a hand to stop him, Magnus shook his head. “Please, angel. We are not obliged to such extreme shows of good faith. Besides, Edom would freeze over, and then where would I be?”

Alexander awkwardly shifted closer. “Here’s hoping we remain acquaintances from afar.”

“As if,” Magnus waved off, pressing in closer until their chests were flush. “You like me too much.”

“I never said that,” Alexander managed breathlessly before leaning in to join their lips in a kiss that could grow a whole garden from Edom’s barren desert sand.

For all of its flaws, Magnus decided that he liked Brooklyn. Edom was his domain, but perhaps this could be his home.

Penthouse One had become more or less a safe haven, oddly enough. The balcony provided the perfect place for his morning meditations, the living room could host a great many guests, and the apothecary was quaint and studious. And perhaps he was indulging in feeling like a mortal at times, but what else was he to do when he was topside so frequently?

The soft click of the door opening made Magnus set down his martini and move towards the entryway curiously. In the hall, he saw a figure cloaked in a long black coat with a hood concealing their face. Boots stained with dirt and dried blood left a faint trail on the wood floor, and the bow over their shoulder was battered with scratches and dings.

“Alexander, you’re home early.”

Shaking his head free from the hood, Alexander revealed his bloodied face. “I gave myself the rest of the night off.”

With a disapproving tsk, Magnus guided his chin away from him to get a better look at the trails of crimson oozing down from his temple and cheekbone. “No rest for the wicked, hmm?”

Alexander rolled his eyes as he allowed Magnus to steer him to the couch. “I think I may have broken a rib,” grunted as he lowered himself onto a cushion.

“Take your jacket and shirt off so I can see.” Magnus gingerly sat beside him and helped to maneuver his arms from the sleeves. His knuckles faintly brushed Alexander’s upper back and his whole body tensed in reflex. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, carefully working around the cloth that covered two deep, distinct scars where Alexander’s wings had been ripped from his back some time ago. They looked much like his father’s. As soon as they worked together to peel Alexander’s t-shirt off, Magnus couldn’t help but lean over and brush his lips, faint as a whisper, against the point between his shoulder blades between the dark V-shaped scarring. “Now, let me take a look.”

“Here.” With some difficulty, Alexander rolled slightly to his left side, revealing a blossoming bruise against the side of his rib cage. After just a gentle probing of Magnus’ finger tips against the tender skin, he jerked away. “Fuck.”

“Was it worth the fight, Night Arrow?” Magnus asked with a faint smile, unearthing a package of alcohol swabs from the first aid kit they kept hidden beneath the couch for just such an occasion.

“Always. I have to do something, right?” The bitter edge in voice would likely always be there at the mention of his being cast down. The scars on his back were a reminder he would never need, because Magnus knew he could never forget.

Magnus himself would likely always be haunted by the events of the night Alexander fell from Heaven. The sight of him when he stumbled to Magnus’ door, drenched in sweat and pale as death as he bled through the scraps of fabric he had wrapped himself in still felt too unbearable to recall. Even as a mortal, he still found a way to dedicate himself to the protection of the innocent, and Magnus could never begrudge him that.

“There’s something else that might help,” he murmured, wincing as he scratched absently at the drying blood on his forehead.

Setting down the swabs, Magnus straightened up to look at him.

“A kiss.”

“A kiss,” Magnus echoed, a grin spreading across his lips. “What will you give me for it? Your everlasting soul?”

Alexander dropped his chin and his lips parted just enough to tenderly take Magnus’ finger into his mouth. His tongue was warm and soft, and Magnus felt that all too human feeling of butterflies in his stomach. Releasing him with a quiet pop, Alexander smiled. “That’s not mine to give anymore. It’s already yours.”

#ladymatt #the-prophet-lemonade #thatnerdemilyj #bytheangell #sharona1x2 #malec secret santa #malec #shadowhunters #magnus bane #alec lightwood #otp: we always seem to find our way back to each other #mywriting

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toverijenspokerij · 4 years

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Saintly witches and sorcerers.

So an anon asked. And I had to dig out my journals. But here we are. There are two saints that I know of that are connected to witchcraft and sorcery. Or to put it broadly; magic. I only know of these saints, and have no dealings with them on a spiritual/magical level. So keep in mind that this is purely research. So whatever options for contact I’ve written down; these are suggestions and should not be taken as a set-in-stone-rule. And before anything you read here: I encourage you to do your own research. And by that I mean; read whatever you can find about said saint. And. Write. It. Down. Write down your own impressions, assumptions and whatnot down as well. Then take practical steps. Pray. I’ve found that praying to Mary/Christ/The Holy Ghost first and then to X saint just seems to ‘fine tune’ the whole process. As well as provide some level of protection. Just as living humans, the dead- even saints -can act up/be difficult. Take precautions like any sensible practitioner would. It doesn’t have to be big- like mentioned above.

As my last piece of advice: don’t go around giving offering right away. Again; nothing big. Prayer can be an offering, as well as the usual candles and water. Elaborate offerings can always be used as payment/holding up your end of the bargain. Though specifics are to be worked out between you and X saint. They’ll let you know what they prefer. First, a (dis)honourable mention: Saint Thomas Aquinas. He is firmly against magic during his lifetime. Stating that the magic art is both unlawful as it is futile, tells you pretty much all you need to know. Everything is traced back to demons, and frankly, boring. Reading his work(s) you’d almost get doubts on whether the man wasn’t an intensely pissed off failed ceremonial magician himself. Although if you want a saint who could neutralize magic send against you, he’d probably be a good one to contact. His work(s) are/were/are considered a must read/study for those who want to become a priest. His work on the nature of souls is interesting.

- Saint Columba of Sens: There is some confusion around this saint. Her modern day cult is in France, Sens. She is a mix of Spanish and French. Saint Comba or Saint Columba is literally an entity that is ‘in between’ things. Is she a nun or a (converted) witch? Is she for witches or against them? Or both, depending on who calls on her? Did she remain a witch after converting or did she join because of the protection of being a nun gave? Whatever the tale is; her patronage literally includes rain, witches, magicians, hags, wizards and magic. As well as Andorra and Galicia. Her attributes are a broom and a witches hat! Through another story- on how she was saved from rape -a female bear could also be one of her symbols.

Her day is September 17th. Although within the Catholic church it is presented as Saint Columba was only martyr, in older Galician resources a somewhat different story comes to light. According to Poska, the woman known as a saint from Sens was none other than a famous witch in Spanish Galicia.

''Across Galicia, St Comba is known as the patron saint of witches, a curious notion in and of itself. On the one hand, she acts as an intercessor on behalf of witches, while on the other hand, people go to her to defend themselves against witches. One informant told Marisa Rey-Henningsen, ‘there . . . you can see she was a great witch, and now she is the greatest of saints.’ Even today, Galegos remain comfortable with both the positive and negative connotations of having witches in their midst.''

Whether this is about two different women, who over time got fused into one character is something you- the reader -must figure out for yourself. Know that there ís such a Saint Comba. Though I’d argue that since she is specific to a region, you read up on that particular folklore as well. To contact her I would keep it to a simple prayer, though with the addition of doing that on either a full or dark moon. - Saint Simon the Sorcerer: Simon Magus, Simon the Magician, Simon the Sorcerer, the Bad Samaritan. From Samarië Most known for his clash with Saint Peter. He is often described as the founder of Gnosticism. Reputed to be a ‘formidable’ sorcerer as well as one who has the skill to levitate. The bad Samaritan nickname is linked to his malevolent character. Has no known symbols or feast-day. Though a black book, wand, black bull, crucifix or gold would work. As would any Sunday would suffice as a feast-day. His conversion to Christianity- in my opinion -was more due the fact that he saw a source of great power; which he as a sorcerer could have the one-up on others. But that is just me. In various tales his temper and ambition play a huge part. Often portrayed as a magician who wants to become a god or sees himself as a second Jesus. This most notably in the myth of Simon and Helen by Epiphanius

The apocryphal Acts of Peter gives a more elaborate tale of Simon Magus' death. Simon is performing magic in the Forum and in order to prove himself to be a god, he levitates up into the air above the Forum. The apostle Peter prays to God to stop his flying, and Simon stops mid-air and falls into a place called "the Sacra Via" (meaning "Holy Way"), breaking his legs "in three parts". The previously non-hostile crowd then stones him. Reputed that he would rose from his grave, like Christ, after 3 days. Sadly, he stayed in his grave.

Minus the early Christian politics; to me this seems like a saint who has quite a temper when provoked. Though no lack of power and ambition. Suited to sorcerers or practitioners who need a patron in this direction as well as exploring deeper mysteries. Do not place on the same altar/shrine as St Peter; risk of a potential power struggle.

#toverij & spokerij #working with saints #saint comba #saint of witches #saint simon magus #saint of sorcerers #saints of occult arts #folk catholicism

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pengychan · 4 years

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[Coco] Nuestra Iglesia, Pt 21

Title: Nuestra Iglesia Summary: Fake Priest AU. In the midst of the Mexican Revolution, Santa Cecilia is still a relatively safe place; all a young orphan named Miguel has to worry about is how to get novices Héctor and Imelda to switch their religious vows for wedding vows before it’s too late. He’s not having much success until he finds an unlikely ally in their new parish priest, who just arrived from out of town. Fine, so Padre Ernesto is a really odd priest. He’s probably not even a real priest, and the army-issued pistol he carries is more than slightly worrying. But he agrees that Héctor and Imelda would be wasted on religious life, and Miguel will take all the help he can get. It’s either the best idea he’s ever had, or the worst. Characters: Miguel Rivera, Ernesto de la Cruz, Héctor Rivera, Imelda Rivera, Chicharrón, Óscar and Felipe Rivera, OCs. Imector. Rating: T

[All chapters up are tagged as ‘fake priest au’ on my blog.]

A/N: First off, unlike Ernesto, I gotta give some credit! The song that features in this chapter was written by @eldathe, who has a gift I sorely lack (but whom I'll definitely not murder for it). Also, @lunaescribe wrote the bulk of the scene in which Ernesto and John discuss the scriptures. I only made some minor edits with her permission (watch and learn, Ernesto). Art is by @swanpit, who is a gift as always!

***

“So it… worked? It actually worked?”

“Why the surprise? I told you I could sell it.”

Sofía made a point to cross her arms and look just a little insulted, but she didn’t really put a lot of effort in it: relief was too great. Sure, she had been pretty certain she’d managed to back the gringo into a corner and force him to keep the secret, but she couldn’t entirely discount the chance he’d decide screwing Ernesto over was more important.

“Right, right-- you did a great job,” Héctor replied, laughing a little in sheer glee. “Well, it’s sorted! We’re safe!”

Imelda rolled her eyes. “From the Federales, yes. Not from boredom now that Juan will be the one to say mass.”

“Let’s be honest, Sunday mass was never a party when Padre Edmundo led it, and we somehow survived.”

“Fair enough.”

“Huh, Ernesto? Why the long face?” Héctor spoke up, blinking. Now that he mentioned, Ernesto did rather look like he’d just announced Juan had opted to personally hang him in the plaza first thing after the evening mass.

As a response, Ernesto made a face. “He wants me to study the Bible.”

“Well, there are worse punishments--”

“And learn Latin.”

“... Ah.”

“Oh.”

“My condolences.”

“Would you like me to send a telegram now for the Federales to come pick you up at their earliest convenience?”

Ernesto scoffed. “You know, this is the part where you’re supposed to be telling me Latin is not too bad.”

“But it is,” Héctor said, matter-of-factly.

“What, you’d have me lie to you?” Sofía gasped in moc horror, hand to her mouth. “Me? A nun?”

“... I hate all of you,” Ernesto informed them, only to yelp and laugh when Héctor threw an arm around his shoulders and ruffled his carefully combed hair.

“Ay, don’t be like that. We survived it, and you will too,” he declared. “But I have just the thing that will make you feel better!”

“You managed to sneak in a bottle of tequila?”

“Better - I have an idea for a new song, and I know you’re going to love it.”

“Hah! If I’m left with any free time for music now.”

“Well, Juan is going to be busy, no? Saying mass and confessing and whatnot. He can’t be watching you all the time,” Héctor pointed out, and patted his shoulder. “... It’s good to know you’re safe.”

Ernesto chuckled, reaching up to fix his hair. “We all are.” The rest of the sentence - for now - hung unspoken in the air, but none of them said anything. In the end, it was Héctor to speak.

“Well-- I’ll go looking for Miguel. I need to talk to him. And don’t you think I forgot you also owe him an apology,” he added, jabbing a finger against Ernesto’s chest before he was off... though not without giving Imelda a dreamy smile as he left the room. Ernesto scoffed.

“What, is apologizing is my new job now?” he called out, but none of them bothered to reply.

***

Héctor found Miguel at the stream, throwing flat rocks over the water and trying to make them bounce all the way down to the bridge while Dante jumped in the water over and over again, trying to catch them in mid-air and failing miserably.

The chamaco was breaking the rules in several ways - skipping his laundry duty day, staying out past the time he was allowed to be out, and in a place where he was not supposed to be - but Héctor wasn’t about to give him a lecture now that he had to try and extend the olive branch.

… Oh, who was he kidding, he wouldn’t have given a lecture under any circumstances. He walked up right behind Miguel, grinned, and strummed his guitar with a grito.

“Ayyyyyyy!”

“GAH!”

Miguel jumped a couple of feet up in the air, almost landing in the stream right along with Dante; the only reason why he didn’t was that Héctor reached out to grasp the back of his shirt quickly enough to spare him an unplanned bath.

“Careful, chamaco!” he laughed, pulling him back onto solid ground. “My new song may need a little polishing, but it’s not so bad to jump in the stream over.”

Miguel blinked, taken aback, then grinned. “A new song? What is--” he exclaimed, only to trail off. He made a face, crossing his arms. “I’m still mad at you.”

Héctor sighed. “I know, I know. I’m sorry I didn’t keep my word, Miguel, but it wasn’t a secret I could sit on. I had to make sure Santa Cecilia was not in danger.”

“Ernesto is not dangerous,” Miguel protested, but ay, Héctor would hear the slight hesitation in his voice, notice how quickly he averted his gaze. He frowned.

“Miguel…?”

“I just-- he was really mad that I told you. He yelled at me, hit Dante - I mean, he did growl at him, but…” he bit his lower lip. “He said he should have let me drown the day we met.”

He said what, Héctor thought. I’m going to kick his ass, he thought. With an immense effort, he managed to let neither of those thoughts show.

“He is sorry, and he will apologize,” he said instead. He’d better, or else. “He was under a lot of pressure, and said things he didn’t mean. He-- we were afraid word got out.”

Miguel looked back up at him, alarmed. Héctor, the nuns and everyone else had done their best to shield children from the harsh reality that was the ongoing war outside Santa Cecilia, but any child could tell that would have been bad, bringing the Federales down on Ernesto and Santa Cecilia like wolves on cattle.

“What? But it didn’t, right? It wasn’t me, I told no one else but you, I swear--”

Héctor smiled. “No, it was a false alarm. All is well,” he promised, and strummed the guitar again. “And I have the new song. Want to be the first to hear it, chamaco?”

It had been a while since Héctor had the time to write a new song, even longer since Miguel had been the first to get to hear it, and the thought was clearly enough to chase away the lingering fear and anger. “What is it called?”

“Cómo está tu Padre - it’s about Ernest-- Padre Ernesto and Padre Juan.”

Miguel bit his lower lip. “Padre Ju-- John is not too bad,” he declared.

“Oh?”

“He talked to me. Put in a good word for you when I was mad.”

Well. With how their recent interactions had gone, that was not something Héctor had expected to hear. “Oh. Well then, I suppose I’ll thank him for that.”

“The song isn’t too mean to him, is it?”

Héctor’s smile turned a bit sheepish. “Not excessively. Just some light-hearted fun.”

Miguel seemed thoughtful for a few moments, then he clearly decided it wouldn’t be too bad - or, more likely, that being decent for once was not enough to make up for the huge pain in the neck the gringo had been in the past few days. He perched up on a rock while Dante climbed out of the stream, a rock in his mouth, and flopped in the dirt at Miguel’s feet.

Ah, there was the public. Héctor cleared his throat. “When you're a Man of God, the people come to you to check in on the church…” he spoke, and strummed the guitar before singing.

“As I walk through the plaza, A señora comes my way From her lips falls a question Cómo está tu Padre? Ay, now what do I say? The Church of Santa Cecilia Watches with cynicism An American man hell-bent on Sharing blanco egoisms. Lone, he thinks he's the one! To have Divine Right to bear down on! He'll show dismay When his own way, Can't stay long. Such is life, with Padre-”

***

“John--!”

“Don’t John me. It’s Father Johnson, and you’ve had your break, Ernest. Now, read aloud--”

“It was three hours ago!”

The protest gained Ernesto a single, insufferable arched eyebrow from the gringo sitting across the table. He had his own Bible open, which looked… significantly more beat up than last time Ernesto had seen it.

“Oh, no,” he said flatly. “Three straight hours of study. No man has ever endured such torment.”

“Well, it is more than enough for me!”

“Unsurprising, considering you seem to be barely literate in Spanish--”

“Hey! I can read, write and do maths, for your information--”

“-- But if you are to learn any Latin before the end of days comes--”

“-- And I can read music sheets! Can you read music sheets?”

The gringo sighed and shook his head. “Not that it is relevant, but as a matter of fact, I received piano lessons as a boy,” he said. His expression, like that of a man who sucked on a lemon, made Ernesto suspect they had not gone too well. “Now, I ask you to focus until at least the end of the page.” He pushed the book back towards Ernesto. “Go ahead, translate the next part.”

Holding back a groan, Ernesto looked back down at the page. If he did what he asked, maybe they would be done soon. “All right, so, uh. Pray for us sinners, which is ora pro nobi--”

“Nobis.” Juan - since using his real name got him no leniency, may as well keep calling him that - cut him off for the eleventh time in the past five minutes. “It is nobis. Which case is that?”

“Uhhh… ab… gen...” Ernesto glanced up, trying to gauge his reaction.

All he got was a raised eyebrow. Again. He was more and more tempted to rip those ridiculous stripes of yellow hair off his face. "Think. Nos, nostri or nostrum, nobis. Nominative, genitive…?"

Something clicked in Ernesto’s head. “Oh! Dative! That would be dative, right?”

An approving nod. “Dative plural, correct. Now, what else did you get wrong?”

Ernesto looked back down at the page, trying not to think that if he’d just let him call the Federales he would now be hanging by the neck from a tree and none of this would be his problem anymore. “Peccatoris?” he guessed.

“Exactly. Peccatoris is genitive singular of peccator, first of all, so at least you didn’t entirely make it up. But in the sentence it refers to nobis, which means it must be…?”

Ernesto gave him a blank look. Juan sighed, but did not lose his nerve. “Think of the same sentence in Spanish - ruega por nosotros pecadores. Why not ‘nostros pecadora’?”

“Because nostros is plural and pecadora is singular. And feminine.”

“And what is the issue there?”

Well, that was a dumb question even a kid could answer. “That it’s got to match.” Ernesto frowned, thinking it over, and-- oh. Oh. “Wait. It’s got to match nobis, so-- dative plural as well?”

A nod, something that almost resembled a smile. “Very well,” Juan conceded, and Ernesto grinned. There, that wasn’t too bad, after a-- “And that would be?”

“Huh?”

“Dative plural of peccator. What is it?”

Ah. “Er… peccatorum?

"That’s genitive."

“Peccatores?”

“Nominative. Or accusative, could be either.”

“Uuuugh.” Ernesto let out a groan, and his head dropped on the desk with a distinct thunk. He could almost hear a smirk in Juan’s voice when he spoke again.

“Peccatores, peccatorum, peccatoribus,” he said, taking a cigarette out of the case. “Ora pro nobis peccatoribus. We’ll go through the third declension again before we call it a night.”

“What-- you said this was the last page!”

“I asked you to focus enough to finish it, didn’t say it’d be the last. You clearly need more prac--”

“It’s almost two in the morning!”

“Then we better be quick.”

Forehead still pressed on the desk, Ernesto groaned. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

“Not without a clear conscience, which is to say not until I’ve done my duty,” Juan replied, and pushed a notebook full of notes in front of Ernesto again. “It’s not difficult. You need to memorize it and, with enough practice, it will come naturally. You should have an edge on me there.”

Was he mocking him? Ernesto raised an eyebrow himself. “... Do I now?”

“Spanish is one of the closest languages to Latin, whereas English has different roots. It was difficult for me to pick up Latin at first. You’re doing quite--” he paused, stopping short of saying ‘well’. “... Passably, for someone entirely ignorant.”

“Hey!” Ernesto protested. He may not be a bookworm, or a scholar, but that was going too far.

“It is not meant as an insult. It comes from Latin ignorare, which simply means ‘not to know’--”

Ernesto dropped his head back on the table, and rather wished the Federal Army would come to put him out of his misery sooner rather than later.

***

“So, we’re marching south?”

“Jesus Christ, we have literally just arrived, I was hoping we could rest…”

“We will, I think they said we’re not going for at least another week--”

“Two weeks. If you’re going to eavesdrop, at least do it properly,” a voice suddenly spoke up, causing the gathered soldiers to wince and turn.

“Commander Hernández!”

“We were just, uh, we--”

“I was not eavesdropping, I only… er… walked by, and… sort of… overheard what they were telling you...”

The newly appointed Commander Santiago Hernández waved a hand, clearly unbothered by the very obvious lie, and they all breathed a little more easily that no punishment would be doled out. That was something they appreciated about Hernández, even though they didn’t know him well: he had been one of them until recently, when his actions in Veracruz and his show of loyalty in refusing discharge had gained him a promotion. He was above them, but didn’t flaunt it nearly as much as others would.

“It will be announced soon, so it is no secret,” he was saying. “Our battalion will remain here for a further week or two, in case reinforcements are needed around Mexico City, but it seems unlikely the current standstill will break. Once we receive the all-clear, we finally head south.”

That word - finally - sounded like a sigh of relief, and the men exchanged a few glances. It was no mystery that Commander Hernández had been itching to lead them down south for a good while, growing increasingly frustrated with the skirmishes and changing tactics that kept them in their current position. He was hellbent on finding a deserter who had shot a friend of his and had fled south, which was understandable but… a touch loco, really.

South is a very vague hint to finding a man who had run off months earlier. This Ernesto de la Cruz may have joined the rebels or been killed by them, died in the desert he’d escaped into, be hiding into some hole or even have crossed the border into Guatemala or British Honduras; chances of running into him were slim to none.

But of course, none of them was foolish to say as much aloud in his presence.

“This will be no stroll in the park,” the Commander was going on. “We will need to get through Zapata’s territory to get there, but it is necessary. We cannot let them push their control all the way to Veracruz and cut the country in two. We will have reinforcements for that part.”

“... And after that?”

“After that, the battalion splits. Some units will go towards Yucatán, while I will lead you towards Oaxaca and then down to Chiapas. There are some very active rebel groups in both regions who support Zapatistas, but few enough they can be dealt with. There is belief they have widespread support among the civilian population, and that is what we need to crush.”

If Commander Hernández noticed any of his men shifting uncomfortably, he pretended not to. His voice was cold, his eyes unyielding, the world reduced to friends to fight alongside with and enemies to be destroyed.

No, not friends - comrades. Santiago Hernández had no friends, not anymore. The last he had left were shot dead, by a deserter and by Americans. His fellow soldiers could show him obedience, show him respect and even camaraderie, but there was no one left to show him friendship.

And no one left who could talk reason into him.

***

“Since he rode in with swagger And a crass sort of charm, His unconventional ideas Keep our town safe from harm He draws in crowds To the church, old and young Quick to bestow, He'll make his blessings come We were fatherless, and Hey, presto! We were gifted with Padre-”

“Miguel.”

“-- Huh? No, Ernest-- gah!” Miguel let out a yelp, trying with very little success to hide the guitar behind his back and acutely aware of the fact the small crowd of children who’d been listening to him was dispersing very quickly; out of the corner of the eye, he could see Óscar and Felipe leaping over a fence like thoroughbred horses. Within moments the only ones in the yard were himself and Dante, with Father John towering over them.

… Well, at least he didn’t look too mad. Only rather tired. Miguel was suddenly very glad he’d decided to only sing the part about Ernesto and not the bit about him. Even so, seeing children shrieking and running off when he approached probably was… not very nice. Miguel gave a smile he hoped would come across as charming but that was actually very, very sheepish.

“Hola, Father John,” he said, making sure to pronounce his name as correctly as he could. The priest’s thin lips curled for a moment in something reasonably close to a smile.

“Hola, Miguel. That was… an interesting song.”

“It was just… just a bit of fun.” Miguel shifted a little, hoping he wouldn’t find out about the rest of it, or who had written it. Thankfully, the gingo didn’t prod for more details.

“... I do apologize. It was not my intention to spoil your fun. I am searching for my Bible - I seem to have lost it,” Father John said, letting his gaze wander around the yard, on the low stone wall and the few benches - but there was no sign of a Bible anywhere. “It is quite old and ruined, but it has a sentimental value. Could you spread the word and let me know if you find it?”

Ah. “Of course. I can go look for it. I will now,” Miguel spoke quickly, and turned to leave - but Father John spoke first, causing him to pause.

“... You do miss Father Ernest, I gather,” he said, and well… there was no point in lying there. Ernesto had even apologized to him for snapping, as Héctor said he would, even though he’d offered no explanation, and Miguel had accepted the apology. So all was well now… right?

“We kinda miss him at Mass,” he admitted. “I know you said he’s busy with other things, and-- I like how you say Mass,” Miguel added quickly, hoping he had not noticed how he’d almost dozed off and dropped the incense the previous Sunday. “It’s just-- well-- you know--”

“It’s all right, I understand. I’ll ask him to say Mass this Sunday,” he said calmly, and walked back to the church. As he watched him go, more of Héctor’s song echoed in Miguel’s head.

Like oil and water Their teamwork does seem strained And so I often am questioned Cómo está tu Padre?

***

Father John Johnson lit his next cigarette against his best judgment.

He normally practiced more restraint, even with a vice, especially considering rolling papers and tobacco felt like something immoral to spend his small allowance on in such hard times. That, and it was the last in his tin - which meant that in order to get more he’d have to go on an unpleasant trek up the hill, to the small stand on the edge of town, with the little gruff man who clearly overcharged and quipped about John reminding him of Spaniard colonizers each time.

John’s family was actually of Dutch ancestry - not a drop of Spanish blood as far as he was aware - but it was a fight John had decided not to pick. He’d just take the scathing remark and be content that the man wouldn’t go telling the rest of the town that the gringo priest bought tobacco from him. By far not his most shameful secret, but still one he’d tried to keep hidden.

“And what’s the point of that anymore,” John mused aloud, leaning back against a tree.

As much as he’d tried to avoid the thought, he feared his worse sin would leak to this town sooner or later, due to Ernest’s continued existence here. Granted, the man had all the more reason to keep John’s secret now that his own had been found out, but a slip of the tongue was all it would take.

And if that happened, well, he would no longer have to worry about keeping his smoking habit hidden. Who’d be bothered by a priest having a penchant for foul-smelling habits when it’s common knowledge he has an even stronger penchant for men in his bed? Perhaps Brother Hector would write a song about that, too. The thought terrified him, knotting up his stomach, and yet he couldn’t hold back a bitter laugh before he took another drag.

Such thoughts circling endlessly in his mind were part of the reason for his irresponsible rationing of cigarettes, along with Ernest’s gauche behavior ever since he showed divine and priestly mercy.

That morning’s breakfast had made him nearly reconsider indulging Sister Sophie’s plea for Ernest’s pitiful life. The man had been edging toward familiarity ever since John had given him the gift of mercy allowing him to remain in the parish, so long as he did his best to behave like a real priest so no one else learned his secret - which meant listening when John assigned him scripture to study, so his sermons no longer consisted of him improvising stories he thought he remembered from childhood.

Even so, he regretted allowing Ernest to occasionally say mass to keep people from questioning the change. It took all the restraint in John’s body not to stand up in the middle of mass that day to correct him that Jesus never ‘set a temple on fire for revenge’ and certainly did not ‘condone’ arson in the ‘right situation’. Indeed, John 2:14 was his first assignment for that little mishap.

Clearly, the lesson Ernest had taken from it was not precisely the one John had hoped he would. Instead he seemed quite coy at breakfast declaring loudly to all the sisters and impressionable Hector how reexamining the bible was such a ‘good reminder’ that Jesus simply ‘doesn’t care much if we sin!’.

“He was a bit of a hell-raiser himself! A rebel!”

Each phrase announced with a strongly targeted grin toward John in an obvious attempt to excuse his own behavior, which nearly caused John to flip a table himself. But he had shown restraint, and channeled that anger into what was now his last cigarette, which he would attempt to savor as slowly as possible.

“There you are!”

The voice burst seemingly from nowhere, causing him to yelp. “Lord have mercy!”

John startled, nearly dropping the cigarette and turning to glare up at that man. In response, he just grinned.

“I thought you had better reflexes than that,” Ernest began, the forced friendliness and warmth radiating off him just as strongly as it had during breakfast. He either wanted something from him, perhaps more foul carnal acts - in which case he would be sorely disappointed - or was trying to make sure his little stunt that morning hadn’t cost him John’s silence and mercy.

John inhaled, his voice coming out strained with fragile control. “I have… given you respite, patience, and lessons. I can not fathom a reason you must accost me in private when I have been explicit that unless it is in the parish for lessons we are not to--”

Ernest didn’t seem to be listening: the next moment he was plopping into the grass beside him, leaning on another side of the tree. “I know, I know,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m not going to take up much time, it’s just that you rather rudely ran off at breakfast--”

“You cannot fathom how close I was to strangling you over the nonsense you were spouting, you should count yourself lucky that I left--”

“But,” Ernest cut him off, “you left before I made my point about my, uh, study of scriptures.”

“I’m not grading you,” John replied flatly.

“I am aware. But I think I found something that could bring you, uh…” a vague gesture. “I just think it’d be something you’d like. I don’t think what you-- we are is such a big deal. In case you missed it--”

Missed it - now that was nothing short of an insult, and John’s composure broke. “I’m the real priest, Ermest - what could you possibly teach me that I don’t know about scripture!” he barked. Ernest didn’t even flinch, but lifted a Bible he’d seemingly pulled out of nowhere. Had he kept it hidden under his robes for a dramatic reveal just now?

“What, don’t like to think I can get something you didn’t?” Ernest made a face. “I am pretty smart, if I say so myself. Even you admitted I’m getting the hang of Latin.”

His boldness was coming back each day he awoke to see John had not yet cast him out it seemed. “Pride is a sin,” John muttered, making an effort not to release a slew of profanity he would have to confess to - God knew who to, since he was the only priest in the village. Instead, he pressed the cigarette between his lips and inhaled as though the smoke was oxygen.

Ernest shrugged. “Anyway. I’ll have you know that according to Romans 3:23--”

“Yes, yes. ‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’,” John replied without missing a beat. “I’m well aware. Is this a case to prove why you deserve full forgiveness and a return to--”

“Well, if you shut your mouth and let me finish, maybe you’ll see.”

Oh, John would love to be a pettier man, to make some empty threat about changing his mind to get Ernest on his toes again. But, well… God was watching, and he’s sinned enough lately. Far more than enough.

“Well then,” Ernest was going on. “Since he’s saying we’re all sinners, there’s no reason to feel particularly bad if we--”

“Priest. I’m a priest,” John cut him off again, stressing the words just enough to remind Ernest that he was not one, regardless of the cloth he wore.

“Huh?” He seemed honestly confused. “I know you’re--”

“Do you just keep forgetting priests are on another level of standard than--”

“Cálmese one minute, will you?”

“I am calm!” John snapped. “But if you don’t cease blaspheming, I’ll have you study so much--”

“So anyway,” Ernest barreled on before he could be scolded for the disrespect. “That verse reminded me of one I heard as a boy, and it took some digging to find it, has anyone ever thought of alphabetizing this thing?”

“This thing would be the Holy Bible, it would be appreciated if you showed some respect towards the Word of--”

“Anyway, it was a Psalm,” Ernest continued, clearly having made a habit of not acknowledging John’s attempts at educating him that day. “And it went, ‘for you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made - your works are wonderful’, and so on, right? God made us and all that, and makes no mistakes. You told me - and I’ve watched - you tried everything to avoid these desires, so… why would God make a mistake with you?”

John was silent for a moment; it mirrored a touch too closely to the argument Father Joseph had given him years ago. Shaking off the alarm, he turned his gaze on Ernest’s face for the first time in the conversation. “You have mistaken the Devil’s influence for divine design.”

“Didn’t you tell me you’d felt this way since you were a child - an innocent?”

“I was not that young, I was…” Almost a man, he’d thought then, but looking back now… oh, he truly had been barely more than a child. Something ached in John’s chest and throat, and he swallowed before speaking. “The devil, he… he works in deceitful ways.”

“Me too, you know.”

John scoffed. “Yes, you certainly do work in deceitful ways too, but that is no reason--”

“No, I mean-- being like that. As a boy.”

Ah. John fell silent, and turned back to Ernest. His hands were crossed, and he looked… uncharacteristically uneasy, no longer looking at him. “Even before my… experiences in, uh…” a sigh. “I said it was seminary, but of course that was not it.”

“Where…?”

“In the army. Overall unpleasant.” A bitter chuckle, but he didn’t elaborate. “But well before then, I would look at men. Other boys, really, well before I knew what sodomy was. Like you, correct?”

John had only ever looked that way at one boy when so young, but the memory of Walker Underwood - leaning back on the grass beside him to look up at the stars, talking and laughing, so unaware of John’s reddening skin and uneasy thoughts - still hurt all those years later, and he chose not to remark on that.

“... Correct,” he murmured instead, and Ernest nodded before speaking again.

“And it was not lust exactly, was it? Too young for that. So… why’d God make you like that if his design is divine? Either of us?”

A somewhat smug smirk was emerging on Ernest’s face, like that of a pupil who had turned in an immaculate report despite the teacher’s mediocre expectations. John turned his attention to the grass, his smoking hand lingering in the air as Father Joseph’s kindly voice and words echoed in his head.

Perhaps it is in God’s plan that it remains your cross to bear.

Ah, but Ernest did not think of it as a cross to bear. He accepted it, embraced, revelled in it… and God had not struck him down for it. He’d struck down neither of them.

He was quiet so long that Ernest’s look of confidence began to waver, as though he feared that perhaps he had simply broken him further as opposed to-- ah, was comforting him what he’d meant to do? His way to apologize for his deception? John suspected as much.

The thought sat warmly in his chest, and that feeling in itself should have concerned him, but… he wanted to revel in what comfort that knowledge gave him, if only for a little while.

Without a word, slowly, John’s free hand landed on the one Ernest rested in the grass. A delicate pat, the kind of gratitude a widowed parent shows to the child who thinks they can console them with a false belief the dead will return, knowing full well it is not to be. But the key there was that he... he recognized the attempt.

“You’re dreadfully naive about scripture theory.” John remarked, his voice somber. Before he could pull his hand free Ernest took hold of his index finger, forcing him to linger.

“Either I’m right, or God has messed up a lot of kids in his design.”

The notion God may mess up in any way, shape or form was another blasphemy, but it was probably the point Ernest was clumsily trying to make. So John didn’t rebuke him, nor did he try to pull away from his grasp, which was loose enough for him to be able to do so effortlessly. There was a doubt that may be just a ploy from Ernest’s part to remain in his good graces, or maybe even slither back into his bed, but even so it was difficult not to appreciate the gesture.

Perhaps he means it. Father Joseph surely did.

John gave a single nod, and allowed his hand to be clasped as he finished the remainder of the cigarette - Ernest’s presence no longer quite as stressful as it was before. Then the cigarette was done, he blew out the last of the smoke, and he pulled his hand away.

“We ought to head back--”

“Here,” Ernest said suddenly, pushing the Bible in his hands. John blinked, taken aback, and glanced at him to see he was looking away. What in the world…?

“You know I can quote the Bible in my sleep, don’t you?” he pointed out, just a little offended. “I know exactly which passages you’re quoting. I simply don’t think your simplistic interpretation--”

“No, I mean--” Ernest fidgeted, uncharacteristically uneasy with words. “That’s yours.”

“... I beg your pardon?”

“Your Bible. I, uh, got someone to fix it up. As a, you know. Apology.”

Ah. John looked down at the Bible in his hands, truly focusing on it for the first time. That wasn’t his Bible, it couldn’t be; he’d ruined it slamming it down on the camera, until the spine broke, the leather cover came off and several pages came loose. The one he held in his hands was newly bound, now, with a new cover and all pages firmly in place. Still, when he opened… that was his handwriting at the margin, his notes. His Bible, indeed. So that was where it’d gone.

“I see,” John heard himself saying, his throat a little tighter. He instinctively flipped the pages, searching for-- yes, there it was, right where he’d left it: his father’s letter. Disowning him, telling him he no longer had a son, to never be in touch again, so he wouldn’t taint them. But for the first time, seeing that letter did not fill him with shame. It filled him with anger.

“Didn’t you tell me you’d felt this way since you were a child - an innocent?”

I did nothing. I was a boy, I only thought of kissing another. His own child, cast out over nothing.

“I noticed it looked kind of ruined, and I figured old Raúl could fix it up,” Ernest was saying, seemingly unaware of his thoughts. “He owed me a favor, so--”

“Thank you,” John said, very quietly, and smiled, the restored Bible - his keepsake of Father Joseph, the man who had called him his son despite everything - clutched to his chest. “This means more to me than you’ll ever know. I-- I have no words.”

Ernest smiled back. “Not even in Latin?” he asked.

And, for the first time since the truth had become clear to him, John Johnson laughed.

***

Well, getting Juan’s Bible fixed up hadn’t saved Ernesto from his daily Latin lesson, but at least he’d been allowed to go to sleep at a reasonable enough time, so there was that.

Not that he had hoped to fall asleep soon or easily, because he never did, not when he had to sleep alone. In the dark and the silence, falling asleep to find himself back in the barracks - or in a battlefield, or marching under the sun, or about to gun down civilians - was all too easy. So far, he found that some company was the easiest way to keep all of that away at night.

He’d tried to casually suggest Sofía to spend the night with him, but of course, she’d shrugged him off and said she had plans. She was probably living it up with Sister Antonia right now, who was pretty but, in Ernesto’s opinion, nothing to write home about. Unlike him, of course. He was very much something to write home about. Or to the Archdiocese. Thanks for that, Juan.

Ah, yes. Juan. Asking him for nightly company was now entirely out of the question for obvious reasons, but Ernesto found that the thought of him helped a little just now. Namely, the thought of the look on his face when presented with his fixed-up Bible; the surprise, the smile, the laugh. It had been… nice, to hear that laugh again.

Not that it had been the goal, Ernesto thought, but he was not entirely sure what the goal had actually been. He’d just eyed Juan’s Bible on the table after the gringo left to deal with some confessions, and thought that it looked in terrible shape, like he’d dropped it from a great height. He vaguely remembered Juan telling him that the old Bible was a gift from Father Joseph and very dear to him, much like the crucifix around his neck.

Grabbing it had taken a moment, and the walk to Raúl’s shop only minutes. The man was mostly a leatherworker, but was good at book binding and also the father of a woman finally expecting a child after years of fruitless marriage thanks to Ernesto’s, er, blessing - so he owed him a favor. When he’d returned to pick it up, the Bible looked new and he’d actually flipped through it to check Juan’s notes and make sure it was the same one he had left.

What am I doing?, he’d asked himself then, and he did again now. ‘Getting a book fixed’ was technically the right answer, but why would he bother was another matter entirely. He told himself it was vital he remained on the gringo’s good side, and that also was technically true. So there, that had been it - no motive but self-preservation, as always. End of story.

Ernesto turned to the wall, pulled the covers up to his chin, and closed his eyes. His thoughts did keep drifting back to Juan’s smile, which was annoying, but when he finally fell asleep no soldiers, screams or gunfire disturbed his dreams. All in all, it could be worse.

***

You no longer have a father. I only ever had one son. For both of our sakes, never write again.

For a long time, John stared in silence at Reverend David Johnson’s neat handwriting in the flickering light of the candle barely lighting up his room. He had read that letter every morning upon awakening, and every night upon going to sleep, for well over a decade. A reminder of his sin, of his failure as a son. It hurt, each time, and it hurt him now.

Only that the hurt was different that night, the disdain no longer entirely against himself. The letter was written on Christmas Eve, a brief unfeeling response to a heartfelt plea. Cold. Cruel.

I was a child. I was his child. How could he?

John pressed his lips together, the letter in one hand and his Bible in the other. A father’s rejection, ink more and more faded, and a Father’s gift - now restored. John’s eyes drifted towards the candle and, while he did not burn the letter, he did think about it.

He thought about it for a very long time.

***

“A flying machine! What in God’s name were you two thinking??”

“That we wanted to build a flying machine. It worked pretty well, except for the part where it didn’t fly.”

It took every ounce of Imelda’s patience, plus some she probably borrowed directly from the Almighty, not to grab Felipe by the front of his shirt and shake him hard enough to make his teeth chatter - and if not for the fact he had a broken left arm in a cast, she may not have been able to hold back.

“Maybe we should have picked someplace less high for the first test,” Óscar was conceding, all bruises and skinned elbows but with his bones still all in one piece. “We’ll choose better next time.”

“Next-- there is absolutely not going to be a next time.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what mamá said.”

“Papá as well.”

“So we knew you’d say that, too.”

“But you need not worry, because the next flying machine will actually fly!”

Imelda groaned, reaching up to rub her temples. “Was a broken arm not enough for you?”

“Nope! I still have the other one,” Felipe quipped, flexing the arm in question to show off absolutely non-existent muscle.

Óscar laughed. “And on the bright side, if the Federal Army comes looking for new soldiers, they won’t take him! Huh, maybe I should break my own arm--”

“Don’t say that,” Imelda cut him off, her voice suddenly sharp. It was the sort of thing she’d been having nightmares about. “Not even as a joke.”

“... The arm thing or the army thing?”

“The Federales. Actually, both. But mostly the Federales.” Imelda found she couldn’t entertain the thought even for a moment and something had to show on her face, because both of her brothers stopped smiling at exactly the same moment.

“Hey, we… we didn’t really mean it.”

“We won’t say that again. Promise.”

Imelda sighed and finally nodded, managing a smile. “... Good. And if you want to entirely reassure me, you may also promise you will not keep trying to build flying contraptions and launch yourselves--”

“Oh look, it’s getting late!”

“We should be home in five minutes!”

“We should have been home five minutes ago!”

“Wait a moment--” Imelda began, only to trail off when her brothers took off running in the direction of their home. She sighed, making a mental note to let her mother and father know they should keep all tools under lock and key next time she saw them. Not that she thought it would stop them, but at least it would slow them down. Possibly until Felipe’s arm healed.

Their joke about Federales passing by to pick men to replenish their ranks rang through her mind as she walked back towards the parish, impossible to entirely ignore.

If they took them, I don’t know what I’d do.

Her thoughts turned for a brief moment to the loaded pistol she kept hidden in her room. She paused mid-step, clenching her jaw. No, that wasn’t entirely true, was it?

She knew exactly what she’d do.

***

“He left, didn’t he?”

“Yes, Commander, as you said he would. We watched him take a horse and ride off.”

“Of course. To warn his friends down south of what he heard in the cantina, no doubt.”

Santiago took a swig of his drink before setting down the glass, eyes glued to the map. It had been a grueling business, pushing past Zapata’s forces immediately south of Mexico City, but they had made it and now the battalion had split, leaving him in command of a couple of units… heading for the area where Ernesto de la Cruz had fled, leaving behind Alberto’s body in the smoldering sand.

I’m getting closer, I know I am. It’s only a matter of time.

And he could wait, of course. He could bid his time; being in the army had taught him discipline… something many of his men severely lacked. They were unruly, prone to talk and drink and then to talk even more after a drink… and that small village was full of ears. Thank God, said ears were also very bad at spying without being entirely too obvious.

Sergeant García scowled. “Do you want us to follow him and take him out before he can warn them of our itinerary?”

“No, let him warn them. Let those traitors waste time rallying around San Luz while we take another route right past them.” With some luck, they may even be able to catch them by surprise from behind. He’d come up with another itinerary, and avoid sharing it with anyone who didn’t strictly need to hear it.

“I see. Do you need any further help…?”

“I think I’ll be fine, thank you. You’re dismissed.”

The sergeant left and Santiago focused on the map again, slowly working his way through the glass. There were several alternative routes they could take, but he settled for one that went through some hills and a small village barely marked on the map, the name printed in such tiny letters he had to squint to read it.

Santa Cecilia.

***

A/N: yes, I had to study Latin and had nightmares about it from time to time. But it's cool, they're fading. Ancient Greek, on the other hand, shall haunt me to my grave.

***

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#pixar coco #ernesto de la cruz #hector rivera #miguel rivera #imelda rivera #coco #fake priest au

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secretficblog · 3 years

Text

In another life - Chapter 4 - Poe Dameron x Reader

Summary: Long before there were new Jedi, before the fight between the Resistance and the First Order came to an end, there was just a young man, skilled in flying anything he could get his hands on, with the urge to be something greater. Then there was you. You broke him

Rating: M for smut in later chapters

Now on ao3, come say hi if you want to!

Warnings: both of them are idiots, I feel like I only write idiots with zero communication skills, you’ll see; now with more angst; you dumped him;

no use of y/n

Word count: 1640

first chapter here ; second here ; third here

also can we just appreciate gif-makers on tumblr real quick? I could never.

Poe Dameron woke up to a cold bed with pain shooting through his right side. He lifted his left hand, pressing his thumb and index finger against the bridge of his nose and blinked slowly, adjusting his eyes to the bright light that shone onto your shared bed. He had expected you to be there. Not that he had almost died or anything but he had gotten seriously hurt and with the way you usually fussed over him, he would have bet good credits on the fact that your hovering face was the first thing he would see this morning. Smiling softly, he lifted his hand to the chain dangling around his neck and played around with the ring his mother had left him.

He was going to ask you soon, he had found this little hidden spot outside of town that looked beautiful in the soft evening sun. Not as beautiful as you would look of course, but it was a close second. He would take you there after a nice dinner at this little hole in the wall spot you loved to go to if the two of you had a job well done to celebrate. He would have to wait for that because you would get suspicious right away if he tried to take you for no reason. He could wait a little longer though, if that meant spending the rest of his days by your side.

Poe had been thinking about this for a while now, settling down with you somewhere safer. The nagging urge to do something greater, to help end this war and have his life mean something again never quite left him but your presence stilled it. He often thought about his mother and father these days, marveling about the things they had achieved and the sacrifices they had made for so many lives they didn’t even know personally in a Galaxy that was in dire need of help. He looked up to their achievements but above everything else, he looked up to their unconditional love for each other.

When Lieutenant Shara Bey and Seargent Kes Dameron came home from missions it was common knowledge that their debriefings were not to be held immediately. Instead they would rush to their quarters and envelop Poe in a big hug, sharing a kiss over his head and then they would spend at least and hour with him, sitting with their hands intertwined and him between them. Shara would tell him about the maneuvers she had flown that day, always keeping the horrors of the battles away from him in the meantime. When it was really urgent for them to go to the debriefings they would still make sure to at least pop into the room and let Poe know they were both back and safe. Poe also remembered how his father was never the same after Shara had died. Of course Poe missed his mother dearly, but it was as if a part of Kes had left with her that faithful day. He thought to himself that if he could form this sort of unbreakable bond with someone, not just anyone, the rest would follow along. Poe was certain he had found his someone in you. He leaned back into the softness of the pillows you had picked out on the market of Kijimi and turned his head towards your side of the bed, breathing in your smell and letting his eyes flutter shut. Yes, he thought to himself, being by your side was the right choice. He was where he was meant to be and so he drifted off again into a dreamless sleep.

The next time Poe Dameron woke up he was covered in cold sweat. A feeling of dread still lingered as he sat up abruptly in your bed. He dragged one shaking hand through his matted curls that were now sticking to his head. Looking around for you he noticed that there was no new sign of your presence since the last time he had awoken. “I’m sure she’s just out for a bit longer.”, he muttered to himself. Due to his wound and the two times he had fallen asleep now, he had no idea how much time had passed since you had half dragged him back into your home. Sneaking up on your attackers had been a reckless idea but he could not bear the thought of you getting hurt because of his business decisions. Sitting up with a groan he decided to hop into the refresher before your most likely imminent return. Gingerly peeling off the bandaging around his midst he studied his wound. A clean shot to his right side, nothing vital was hit otherwise he would not be sitting here.

You had patched him up carefully and although he could not remember the actual process he could see you in front of his inner eye, strong hands thoughtfully cleaning and dressing the wound while caressing the skin around it, your sweet mouth talking him through the process even while he faded in and out of consciousness, keeping him informed and guiding him through the pain.

Every step he took to the refresher felt like a parsec to him but the feeling of disgust at his blood and sweat soaked skin was stronger than the urge to lie back down. Once he had managed to reach the room and close the door, he allowed himself to turn around and study himself in the mirror for a moment. His skin looked sickly pale and his eyes were sunken in, dark circles surrounding them. Maybe he had lost more blood than he had thought initially.

Poe’s mind drifted to the amount of angst seeing him like this had most likely given you and he made a silent promise to make it up to you when you got home. His heart warmed at the idea of you returning to him and lighting up when you saw him on his feet again. If he was still strong enough after the shower and you weren’t there yet he would make your favorite breakfast to surprise you before pulling you back into bed with him.

With another glance at the ring around his neck and a small smile he stepped into the fresher. The water felt amazing on his skin, he could not remember the last time a shower by himself had felt this good. He massaged shampoo into his scalp way longer than necessary, letting the zingy-citrusy smell of it waft over him and inhaling deeply. After thoroughly scrubbing the grime of the day off of him and carefully cleaning the area around his wound he stepped out of the shower and dried off. When Poe turned towards your shared dressed to pull out a clean pair of pants and a shirt he noticed that it looked off somehow.

He spent some time looking at it, blinking slowly when the realization dawned on him. Your clothes were gone. His brows furrowed. Why would your clothes be gone if you were just out for a moment? He looked around more and noticed that the picture of your family you usually had on your nightstand was gone too. Poe’s feet carried him out the door before his brain could catch up to the movement, one of the used speeders you had bought after a job had paid way better than both of you had expected was gone too.

He didn’t know for how long he stared at the vacant spot next to his own speeder. His teeth were shattering by the time he was pulled back into reality by the noises of the people of Kijimi waking up and going about their daily business. All of them were non the wiser that his world was shattering in front of them as they left their homes to reach their destinations this morning. Poe Dameron had no destination anymore, his mind was spinning, he was drifting, his ears were ringing, you had left him in the middle of the night and taken his hope for a happy ending away with you.

Slowly, the ringing subsided and the noise of the world bled back into his mind. It was too loud, too much and he hurried back into your home. He saw his reflection in the mirror in the hall when he came in, his eyes were red-rimmed. When had he started to cry? Unfocused, he felt around for the first object he could find and hurled it at the mirror. He could not stand to look at himself right now. What had he done to make you leave? “Fuck!”, he yelled, turning towards the kitchen and clearing the counter with one angry swipe of his arm. As the plates and glasses that were on the counter shattered, he saw a piece of paper slowly drift towards the ground. He didn’t even notice that he cut himself on the remains of your favorite mug as he picked it up. You had written his name on the back of it in shaky cursive and folded it once.

The blood from his hand mixed with his tears on the paper as he read the last words he had from you. “I’ll find you in another life, Dameron, be a hero”. He should have told you, he shouldn’t have waited, if only you had known he was willing to put the need to become part of the Resistance aside for you, that he wanted you to be with him forever and settle down with you, if you had known, you never would have left him. Poe Dameron sunk to his knees in the middle of your broken home and for the first time since his mother had died he sobbed loudly and openly, mourning the life he could have had.

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I am. so. sorry. to put the poor guy through this. As always, thank you guys for reading, comments, likes and reblogs are very, very appreciated, they are what keeps me writing :)

The flashback is over, so prepare for really awkward tension in the next chapter!

Until next time guys!

#poe dameron #poe dameron / reader #poe dameron x reader #poe #poe x reader #poe dameron fanfiction #poe dameron / you #poe / you #poe x you #poe dameron x you #in another life #ial #star wars fanfiction #star wars sequel trilogy #star wars reader insert #reader insert #reader insert fanfiction #no y/n #no use of y/n

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hutchhitched · 4 years

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Social Commentary in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

I haven’t written a lot of meta about The Hunger Games trilogy. When I first read them, I devoured the entire set in three days before I was part of tumblr or writing fanfiction. My own metas were in my head and part of things I taught my classes and discussed with my friends, but not something I generally put on my blog. I don’t know why. (I do have a meta about Peeta’s hijacking that I’ve been meaning to write for a while. Maybe once I’ve finished this book. Hint: It has to do with George Orwell’s 1984, which I used in my classes last year and was performed at a theater in Houston right as the pandemic hit.) I don’t know if reading this book when I’m a decade older and after a really rough few years of my own has anything to do with it or just that I’ve been exposed to so much by being in this fandom, but I’ve got a lot of thoughts about The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I’ve only read Part 1 so far, but here are some observations. (It’s long, but at least read the last one—even if you have to skip to get there.)

Spoilers below:

Reaping day is July 4. We already knew it was during the summer, so that’s not a huge stretch. What intrigues me is the symbolism of July 4 for Americans since it’s Independence Day. For those of you who aren’t American or aren’t sure why that struck me, here you go. Independence Day represents the day the Declaration of Independence was signed (although, it was actually two days later, but whatever). The Declaration of Independence was issued 14 months AFTER the beginning of the American Revolution in April 1775 at the battles of Lexington and Concord and was not the cause of the Revolution as so many believe. Penned by Thomas Jefferson (at least colloquially), it famously discusses the celebrated (but sadly, not practiced) phrase that “all men are created equal.” That’s the phrase that’s trotted out and waved about, but the Declaration is mostly about tyranny and the role of government. In fact, the Declaration doesn’t start with “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Instead, it begins with this: “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…” In other words, the Declaration of Independence does indicate that all humans are created equal. It also discusses what the government is supposed to and not supposed to do. Having Reaping Day occur on July 4 is a brilliant jab that adds an entirely new level to what Independence Day means and how it’s celebrated—with lots of flag waving and fireworks and BBQ (and very little knowledge of what the document itself actually says).

Which brings me to Sejanus Plinth. Bless him. He’s the voice of compassion and reason in part 1 as he speaks up about treating other humans with respect and dignity, about the humanity of those in the districts, as he feeds the hungry, as he challenges the inhumanity of the Games. In short, he’s the Peeta Mellark voice from the final council of the tributes in Mockingjay. I have no idea what’s going to happen to him in the rest of the book, but he’s the humanity I’m craving as I read. A note on his name: Sejanus was a close friend and ally of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Sejanus worked to improve conditions in the Empire and served as a proxy to Tiberius when he was absent. He was strangled to death in 31 AD/CE. His last name is what makes me stop and want to hug Collins. Four years ago, I had no idea what a plinth was. I’d never heard the word, but I was the prop mistress for my church’s summer musical, and it was on the list of things I had to find. I googled it and found out it’s a base on which a statue (or something else) is displayed. In Mary Poppins, it was used as the base for a statue that came to life and talked to the characters in the park. In other words, it’s a place on which someone can take a stand and deliver a message—a platform, if you will, of the character’s compassion and humanity.

I don’t remember if we got that Tigris was Snow’s cousin in the original trilogy or not. What I do remember is that she was a former stylist who Snow thought was no longer useful and had her removed from the Games. I haven’t figured out yet how I feel about her in this book, but her banishment and desire to see Snow destroyed are even more intriguing to me as a result of her inclusion as his relative. I would not have pictured her as a Snow before reading the new book. I’m still waiting to be convinced. “Snow comes out on top” is awesome. I wish I could write half as well as Collins.

There’s so much Holocaust imagery in this book, it’s terrifying. The cattle cars, the inhumane treatment of the tributes, using a veterinarian to treat the tributes instead of a doctor, the numbers, the cages, the rats, separation into districts and restrictions on travel, the hunger and starvation. Ugh. I’ve spent the past several years studying the Holocaust with some of the leading Holocaust and genocide scholars in the world both here in Houston and in Israel. I’ve traveled to Germany and Poland to see the death camps and headquarters of the Gestapo and Nazis and so on. The Games themselves are genocide, by definition, as an attempt to reduce the population of undesirables by targeting the children so they cannot reproduce. Hearing Survivor stories always reminds me of how Collins discusses Victors. There are no winners, only survivors. Survivors have never forgotten the Holocaust, nor should they. It’s what helped so many of them find compassion and humanity and forgiveness (and equally what causes such despair and depression in so many, as well). During my time Yad Vahsem in Jerusalem last summer, one thing was repeated over and over and over. The real triumph for Survivors aren’t the children; they are the grandchildren and then the great-grandchildren. In Panem, there can’t be too many grandchildren if the children are killed before they reach child-bearing age. (There’s also something in there about Snow being raised by his grandmother, but I’m gonna let that one rest for now.)

In one of the seminars from last summer at Yad Vashem, a scholar of Holocaust music taught us about the role of bands and singing in the camps (all levels, from death camps down to prison camps). First, there are some achingly gorgeous songs (the lyrics of one which were preserved on a child’s shoe in the death camp of Majdanek). Second, she asked us what we thought were the purposes of songs and music in the camps, and we all gave the standard answers—an attempt to distract themselves, holding onto humanity, finding beauty in the midst of horror, and hope. As a faithful fan of The Hunger Games and the saying “Hope is the only thing stronger than fear,” I was just as astounded as others when she said, “There was no hope. People died in death camps. They were starved and covered in shit and piss and lice and filth. They wanted revenge.” I don’t think revenge is what music represents in this book or in the original trilogy, although I think that argument can be made with the use of the Hanging Tree song in rebellion in the movies, but I can’t get that woman’s statement out of my head when I read this book. Not everybody has hope. Katniss didn’t when she first volunteered. I think there’s something to that.

Lucy Gray Baird is not Katniss. I haven’t exactly figured out who she is, yet, but she’s not Katniss in the first part of this book, which I think some people were hoping she was (as an analogy, obviously). Her flirtations with Snow are fascinating, and her outgoing and peculiar behavior at the reaping in District 12 was my first indication that the title was not as clear cut as Snow=Snake and District 12 female tribute=Songbird (alluding to Katniss). She puts a snake down the dress of the daughter of District 12’s mayor. She also sings. Is she both? Is she the songbird only? If so, then why the snake? And Snow doesn’t appear to be the snake either. My bet’s on Dr. Gaul. She’s a piece of work. Or maybe it’s Clemmie. Interested to see where that goes, too.

Lucy Gray’s insistence that she’s not from District 12 is fascinating. She insists she’s Covey, which by definition is a group of birds. The Covey are a group of traveling performers, who were stopped in District 12 and not allowed to leave. Trapped birds—interesting. Also, besides the Jews, the Roma/Sinti were targeted during the Holocaust. This group was commonly and derogatorily referred to as “gypsies,” people who moved about frequently and were suspected of crime, stealing, and a myriad of other issues. The Roma and Sinti immigrated into Central and Eastern Europe from India. If Katniss and others in District 12 are descended from Lucy Gray, then that covers the non-white argument about her ethnic makeup. I have no idea if that was Collins’ intention, but it makes a lot of sense in my brain.

As for Snow, he’s not a villain in this book. At least he’s not yet. So far, he’s the hero (or maybe anti-hero is better), but he’s definitely not the villain. Since we’ve read The Hunger Games, we know he’s the ultimate villain later, but he’s not so far in this book. He’s got ambition and cunning, but neither of those are ultimately villainous. He mourns his mother. He loves his cousin and grandmother. He’s proud of his father’s military service. He’s sad about his friends who die. He’s interested in, if not attracted to, Lucy Gray. We know what he becomes, so it’s hard to read about him as a person with hopes and dreams and struggles. Why? Because it humanizes him, and when he’s humanized, it’s harder for us to say, “He’s evil, and that’s why he did those things.” This is much the same way people blame the Holocaust and World War II on Hitler. “Well, he’s evil, so of course he did that.” Or how we dehumanize gunmen in massacres—“Well, he was clearly a sick individual, so he shot up the place.” Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying these crimes are excusable (in real life or in Collins’ works). What I am saying is that knowing Snow was a child shaped by war, hunger, poverty, and loss makes it harder for us to distance ourselves from this “evil” person. His characterization is uncomfortable because it makes us face that we could also do terrible things in specific contexts. Evil people are rarely born. They are almost always made, which means any of us could be a villain. That is what’s really terrifying.

A couple of other notes before this gets way too long for anyone to read.

The role of the government: Sejanus argues it’s the government’s job to take care of its citizens. This is an argument that’s raged in the US (and other countries) for a long time. The question is how do governments take care of the citizens? By feeding them and giving them health care and making sure everyone has enough? Be protecting them with a huge army? By allowing broad civil liberties (e.g., choosing whether to wear face masks during a pandemic)? By instituting restrictive liberties (e.g., gun control, wire taps, screenings at airports)? It’s a really interesting point Sejanus makes early in the book. Not surprising not everyone agrees.

Mention of the three other book titles (almost): The Hunger Games are mentioned several times. There’s a reference to something that “really catches fire.” And then there are the jabberjays. There are no mockingjays yet. Probably because there is no mockingjay yet. Seriously, Collins is brilliant.

The role of war: War is not good for those who live through it. Snow is traumatized by the war, as are the rest of the Capitol’s citizens. It makes most have little empathy for those in the districts who rebelled against them. War has destroyed the city. It’s weakened the economy. It’s destroyed the Snow’s fortune. And then it also leads to the Hunger Games. This book is anti-war just as much as the original trilogy is. It is not anti-soldier, but it is anti-war.

The role of children: Suzanne Collins lives in Connecticut, right? Yes, she does. You know where? Sandy Hook. More specifically, Newtown. Where children were shot to death in their classrooms by a gunman a few years ago. A ton of gun control people thought the slaughter of children would be enough for gun control to be implemented in the wake of that mass murder. It did not. Since then, there’s been a meme that’s circulated (taken from a tweet) that says, “In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.” On page 60 of the book (right at the end of chapter 4), Snow insists the Hunger Games are to show how much people care about children when Dean Highbottom asks what the purpose of the Games is. And then there’s a paragraph in which Snow wonders if people really do care about children. He concludes that children don’t seem to be quite as important as we claim they are. I don’t think that’s a coincidental commentary on Collins’ part.

So, that became a lot longer than I planned, but wow. This book is fascinating, and Collins is a genius. I’m so ready for more. Part 2, here I come.

Hey, @everlarkedalways, does this count?

#tbosas #tbosas spoilers #balladspoilers #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #spoilers #book spoilers #long post #hunger games meta #meta

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torbenfrostclaw · 4 years

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The case of the mystery meat

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I got the call out from Huckleberry about a missing lord not far from Saltwood. A missing lord in today’s day and age was unheard of I knew we had to act fast if we were going to solve this case. I never returned to the manor after meeting with Huck’s guards the previous night I stayed out most of the evening a passed out in the local inn. Some time passed before Huckleberry arrived at the scene he seemed stressed yet again from the children under his care it looks like they made him a map for him to follow I felt bad for the poor guy but he’s a tough guy hopefully he won’t crack under the pressure.

As we approached the manor we were greeted by a grizzled looking man he seemed like he wasn’t the talking type before we could greet him he demanded to state a our business. I looked over to my friend Huckleberry and he introduced us and said we were here to help the lady of the house in finding her husband. We exchanged a few more words with the door man and I looked around for anything out of the ordinary while Huck and the man talked and before I looked back he was gone and he disappeared the house.

Not long after the door opened and a older woman walked out she said her name was Julia and that she was the lady of the house. She was rather formal to us unlike that meathead who guarded the door she quickly invited us inside to talk about her dilemma. As we entered her manor we were greeted by a dozen of staff all polite and courteous it felt nice to be treated like royalty but I knew it was time to cut to the chase and get to business she asked me and Huck to remove our weapons while in the manor but I knew better to keep a holdout weapon on me which I never travel without it. The lady seemed rather pushy about us getting comfy but sadly I wasn’t about to have to deal with broken furniture.

I pulled out my journal and begin to question Julia she was rather straight forward but I had a feeling in my gut something was off about this whole situation and something stunk about it and I was gonna get to the bottom of it. She asked her servant Wilson to bring out the tray it was nothing out of the ordinary it was a normal thing for servants to bring out drinks and food to guests but this one... This one was different a pretty looking dame walked in holding a tray with a weird looking cube in the middle of it. I took one look at it and it appeared to be a cube of meat but it didn’t look like it was from any animal I know of. Julia spoke up and she told Huck and I that the mysterious cube was her husband. I was taken aback from her statement this case was growing stranger by the minute. I pulled out my pipe and began to blow bubbles while I sat there and thought things over.

I caught a glimpse of the young maid and learned her name was Rose Millery she seemed to be in her early twenties and she seemed rather scared of the whole situation. I asked her a few questions but she seemed to not know much of anything. She is obviously one hell of a liar and has a poker face like I’ve never seen before or she truly doesn’t know anything. I went back to question Lady Julia I knew I had to get something out of her I asked her a series of spit fire questions to see if she would slip in her story. I asked if her husband met anyone strange and unfamiliar or was dabbling in anything dark and mysterious. I learned he like to be in his study it was a good angle to work to see if there was any form of cursed objects there. It appears her story was good there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary and her husband didn’t meet anyone new. Huck began to examine the mystery cube that was supposedly the Lord of the house. I knew I had a good partner to solve this mystery, Huck had a knack for these sort of things. He pulled out a set of tools to examine it and learned little but that wouldn’t stop us in solving this.

A sudden knock rapped upon the door it seemed to shock everyone because it was so sudden. Outside the door stood a majestic elk it didn’t surprise me seeing how I’m a beast but this one was ballsy it just stormed right into manor. Gotta hand it to that one to just barge into a manor all willy nilly with out a single care in the world had my respect. The room was rather cramped now no one knew what to do at this point with the elk standing inside. Then it out of the blue the elk transformed and appeared a rather loud night elf whose name is still unknown to me. Huck was reading over some letter that was handed to him throughout the hustle and bustle a letter was given and it had an odd name on it it was something I’ve never even seen before but Huck was focused on it. The elf walked up to Huck and placed one leg on the table to assert some sort of power move in dominance and said the name written on the paper and within the blink of an eye she was transformed into a meat cube. This case just went into left field. Sadly after some few hours the case turned dangerous the pretty maid left the room along with the other servants after Lady Julia asked to clear the room and give us some space. Lady Julia departed the room after sometime to check on the young maid and with an blood curdling scream she found the poor maid Rose laying dead in a pool of blood she appeared to have been stabbed multiple times in the back she must have known something we didn’t and somebody was trying to silence any loose ends.

Poor girl had her whole life ahead of her its a shame but the killer is close they’re nervous they’re making careless mistakes could it be the killer of the young maid is also the one who turned the Lord of the house into this cube of meat? Huck decided to leave the manor and search for clues outside he was gone for quite a long time and I was left inside to keep an eye on Lady Julia. She’s a sneaky one she pulled a pistol hidden in her breast pocket I’ll have to admit that was a good one she’s my kind of lady. It seems paranoia has taken over her mind and she has lost any normal way of thinking she began waving the pistol around and pointed it a few of her servants. I tried to calm her down and to think straight but it was no use she shot her servant Wilson. I had to resist the urge to draw the pistol hidden in my large coat and stop this madness but in the events of the shooting Huck walked through the door into the chaos that filled the foyer room. In the midst of the chaos it seems the killer revealed himself it was the old man Wilson the butler who has faithfully served her family for decades. He cursed the parchment in order to make the family of the house disappear.

In Huckleberry’s investigation he discovered that the curse really wasn’t a curse but a simple polymorph spell he picked up the cube and squeezed it tight and did some damage to it and over time the cube began to change its appearance and immerged the Lord of the house, He was alive and safe it was a relief to hear. The death of a noble wouldn’t have been a pleasant experience to deal with its to much paper work and I hate paper work. The elf was also returned to her normal self but she appeared to be rather angry with Huck over the exchange of words she didn’t take kindly to.

I left the manor and went back to the manor in Saltwood and poured myself a tall glass of whiskey and refilled my bubble pipe and blew more bubbles I have to say Torben you old bear you did good.

@huck-west (Mentioned)

@theborderlandcoalition

#Adventures of Torben and Huckleberry West

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nanowrimo · 5 years

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Inspiration and Respect in Historical Fiction

Time to hit the books! History is full of novel-worthy moments, but how do you write about these events while remaining mindful and respectful of the people who lived through them? Here to start off a new blog series on using real-world events as writing inspiration is Young Writers Program participant Madalyn R:

Inspiration is hard. I’m realizing this yet again as I sit down at my computer to write this blog post. While it can be tempting to travel down a rabbit hole of Pinterest’s top picks for writing inspiration (which will probably eventually lead to a collection of 50 Hottest Characters in Shakespeare), opening a history textbook may be your best bet.

Bear with me, reader, I know it seems dull and dry, but when you push through the academic, sometimes snooze-worthy, language, you’ll discover a wealth of literary possibilities that may astonish you and inspire your next written work. Certain people or events, such as Leo Szilard or the Battle for Castle Itter, are overlooked and ignored, and writing a work of historically accurate fiction about them can be enlightening to the public.

More commonly known events and characters, like the destruction of the Berlin Wall or the life of Queen Victoria, can be brought to life and reimagined with new narrators and perspectives. However, there are three crucial things to remember when writing historical fiction, and they all focus on a key concept: respect.

1. Respect the character.

The first, perhaps most crucial, is to remember to respect the historical figures and people that you write about. Research is a key aspect and will greatly aid the process of honoring characters. General textbooks and almanacs are wonderful for finding inspiration, but once you find a person to write about, go deeper with primary sources, personal writings, etc. These will allow you to sculpt a well-rounded and accurate character. When writing about a person who actually existed, it is important to not change their personality, appearance, religion, gender, sexuality, or race in order to make them more relevant or likable. This is a grave error that is not considerate of the individual, and it should be avoided.

Other things, such as mentioning their hobbies, friends, and family, help to remind the reader of the humanity of the character, which is something that can on occasion be lost in historical fiction. Of course, there are many other aspects to properly writing historical characters, but these are a few pointers that will hopefully serve you well.

2. Respect the reader.

It is also important to remember to respect the reader. While everything in historical fiction can seem new and exciting with differing architecture, fashion, and customs, the reader can often become bored with excesses of prose that aren’t related to the plot, themes, or dialogue. I often find myself including pages of descriptions of halls, libraries, gardens, and other such things in my writing, but I have picked up a phrase from my mother, “don’t assume your reader is dumb.” While some descriptions can be beautiful and grounding, it is usually wise to assume that unless you’re writing about a very narrow or little-studied time period, that the reader is well informed on the basics of the culture of that time.

3. Respect the time period.

Finally, it is crucial to remember to respect the time period. It is important to remember that you are writing about a different time with different cultures, politics, and technology. Unless you’re writing sci-fi, fantasy, or satire, don’t write about a Confederate soldier uploading a meme to his Twitter account in the midst of battle. If your character climbs into a car, ensure that it is the right model and year and decide whether or not this character would have a chauffeur or even be able to afford a vehicle.

When you’re naming characters (which is one of my favorite parts of writing), research the origins of the name, as some have shifted in popularity, use, and even the gender to which they’re typically given.

And while it can be agonizing at times, remember to accurately portray the political climate of the time period. Racism and sexism, to name just a few, were and are grave and serious issues that aren’t enjoyable to talk about, but they were central to many time periods, so I’d encourage you to resolve to write about these beliefs in a way that is hopefully accurate, yet respectful to all parties.

I wish you good luck and endless inspiration, fellow writer!

Madalyn R. is a literature nerd who spends her days reading anything from Seuss to Joyce and writing poetry and flash fiction. She is working on completing her first novel, a gothic work set in the 1840s focused around the fragility of identity and memory. In her free time, you can find her attempting to play the ukulele and scribbling in journals. She hopes to pursue a career in academia as an English professor.

Top photo by Christian Fregnan on Unsplash.

#nanowrimo #writing #amwriting #camp nanowrimo #historical fiction #worldbuilding #ywp #young writers program #by nano guest #Madalyn R

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dreamycastaway · 5 years

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Opposites Attract

Gardener!Aziraphale x Nanny!Crowley for @nim-lock!! Thank you for the prompt!!

“They were almost exact opposites of each other,” Warlock began, and, knowing that his friends would probably take this to mean that his Nanny was thin and all angles, while his gardener was soft and round, or that she was stern and he was gentle, immediately clarified his statement: “and not just in the way you’re thinking of. I mean, she literally told me I would ‘rule when Earth’s destroyed’ and he told me I ‘must never destroy the Earth.’” He shook his head. “Why would you say either of those things to a child?”

It was eleven years and change since the apocalypse was narrowly averted by four eleven year olds, with a bit of help from two lovers who wouldn’t admit it, two people who were remarkably bad at their jobs, and two people who found themselves in the midst of something they rather would not have been dragged into. For the most part, everyone had gotten on with their lives, either being in the know concerning what had not happened and breathing a sigh of relief that it had not, or not being in the know about anything, and being remarkably unaffected by how close they had come to Rapture. Only one person could not be sorted neatly into one of these two categories: Warlock Dowling.

Warlock Dowling, now a young man, had done relatively well for himself in the second half of his life. He had done relatively well in the first half of his life, too, but he had not done it for himself. Warlock would later recall that on his eleventh birthday, it was as if a switch had flipped inside him and he decided he wanted to stop being such a menace. On both counts, Warlock Dowling was wrong. What Warlock had realized was that the world ought to be cherished and that he ought to embrace being human, and he had realized this some days after his eleventh birthday. But the human mind is fickle and overly dependent upon heuristics, and the mind of a child all the more so.

It was now eleven years and one day since Warlock Dowling had somehow come to the realization that, in no uncertain terms, he didn’t want to be a brat anymore. This decision had served him well thus far with everyone but his parents and their ilk, whose misplaced disappointment in this son began with his decision at eleven and change to not be a brat anymore, and was then compounded by his decision at sixteen to tell them he was bisexual, his decision at eighteen to go to Oxford instead of West Point, and his decision at twenty to become a vegetarian and announce that he considered himself a pacifist. His parents’ disappointment upset him, but he had accepted it with as much grace as a twenty-two-year-old was able.

It was all of these monumental decisions plus several hundred smaller ones that had brought Warlock Dowling to where he was now: crammed in with six friends at a small table in the King’s Arms pub, celebrating his belated birthday over pints and pies. They had been there for a while now, as made obvious by the empty glasses, the red faces, and the wide smiles that would make their mouths sore in the morning. As is typical on the eve of a graduation, they had spent the last several hours reminiscing. Having run out of stories about their college years, but still trapped in the sticky embrace of nostalgia, the young adults had turned to childhood stories.

“Oh, Warlock, tell them about that nanny of yours.” Warlock looked across the table to see his best friend of four years sipping the last bit of her drink, incredulity already starting to take hold on her face as she remembered all the ridiculous stories Warlock had told her their first year.

“Yeah, alright,” he smiled. “But I’ve got to tell them all about Brother Francis too. He’s half of why it was all so weird.”

“How could I forget about Francis! Was he even a monk?” She flashed Warlock the type of grin exchanged between old friends who are proud to know each other well.

“Honestly, I … don’t think so. And I think “Nanny” might actually have been, like, a drag persona or something.”

Even with the storytelling chops of a young man who had read everything he could get his hands on even before he decided to study English Literature at Oxford, and had written quite a bit besides, it was still difficult to get the story started. How do you manage to capture a childhood defined by the constant presence of two of the strangest people you’d ever met, while keeping it short enough to tell your friends over drinks?

“They were almost exact opposites of each other,” he began, and, knowing that his friends would probably take this to mean that his Nanny was thin and all angles, while his gardener was soft and round, or that she was stern and he was gentle, immediately clarified his statement: “and notjust in the way you’re thinking of. I mean, she literally told me I would ‘rule when Earth’s destroyed’ and he told me I ‘must never destroy the Earth.’” He shook his head. “Why would you say either of those things to a child?”

“Jeez. They must have hated each other even worse than your parents.”

Warlock grimaced a little at the jab, but quickly decided he wasn’t going to let his parents get in the way of enjoying his birthday party. “You’d think, right? But I actually think they were … in love?”

His friends snorted and giggled.

“No, really! Like, okay, I had this plant when I was six, right? And …”

As the storytelling got underway, the young Mr. Dowling felt as if he were back in his six-year-old body, toddling through the gardens in his soon-to-be-unpolished little loafers, his ridiculous-for-a-six-year-old American flag lapel pin reflecting sunlight in a rather obnoxious way. He was holding something close to his chest, in a way that clearly was more for his own comfort than the object’s safety.

“Brother Francis!” he yelled, a few tears starting to stream down his face. “Brother Francis!” He called out again as he approached the kind old man, rather more sobbing than yelling at this point.

“Young Master Warlock!” Brother Francis turned around, gray eyes twinkling as they always did. “Why, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Anthony,” Warlock cried. “I think … I think he’s dead.”

A moment of panic passed over Brother Francis’ face, for reasons incredibly obvious to anyone knowing who Brother Francis really was. Luckily, it went unnoticed by the inconsolable child, who was far more concerned with wiping the tears off his face and shoving the object he had been clutching towards the gardener than he was with parsing the micro-expressions of the much older man.

The object, as it turned out, was a half-dead Venus Fly Trap in an all-black terracotta pot.

“Oh, Anthony!” Brother Francis said, recalling the plant he had given to Warlock earlier this week. “Yes, Anthony, of course.” He looked at the plant, pretending to know anything about plants, praying that what he said next would be true. “Anthony’s going to be just fine, Master Warlock.”

“Really?” Warlock said through blubbering tears.

“Yes. Why don’t I look after him tonight, hmm?”

“Okay…”

“Go ahead and tell him you’ll be back for him tomorrow afternoon, hmm?” The gardener paused, and patted Warlock reassuringly on the back. “And then go enjoy this beautiful Saturday and I’ll watch over him until tonight, when I can take him to the plant doctor.”

Warlock nodded resolutely, imagining that this is how “the troops” his father talked about so often must feel when they cross the threshold into field hospitals, bearing their wounded comrades. He leaned down to whisper some reassuring words to Anthony, hugged the gardener, and ran off into the Saturday afternoon.

Unbeknownst to anyone besides the two of them, Nanny and Brother Francis met every other Saturday night, under the pretense of discussing how they felt their plan was coming along. Frequently, there were other, unspoken agenda items, of varying degrees of excitement. Tonight, the first thing on the docket was Anthony.

Nanny was circling Brother Francis in a way that would have rather reminded the in-the-know onlooker of the demon Crowley. “You … gave him a plant named Anthony?” Nanny asked, trying desperately to keep any tone out of her tone of voice. She mostly succeeded at seeming neutral, helped immeasurably by her dark glasses.

A smirk that looked as if it would be more at home on the face of the angel Aziraphale began to play on Brother Francis’ lips. “Yes. You can imagine how horrified I was when he told me Anthony was dead.”

“But … Anthony is my name.”

“Yes, well. I told you I’d get used to it. I guess I’ve grown rather too fond of it.”

Nanny had stopped her serpentine walking, and was now standing across from the gardener with Anthony on the table between them. “Why a Fly Trap?”

“I read in a parenting column that teaching children to raise plants can help instill a sense of responsibility and care. And I figured, what with him liking dinosaurs and their teeth so much …” Neither being could stifle their chuckle. The Almighty’s little joke about a race of giant lizards ruling the planet got funnier with every passing year, and every passing human that believed it. “Besides, I know how Dagon and Beelzebub hate these things … I thought you might get quite a kick out of it.” This earned him an uproarious laugh from Nanny, who found herself almost doubled over by the thought of Beelzebub’s face if they knew the Anti-Christ was raising a Fly Trap.

Nanny feigned wiping a tear from below her glasses, and the old man across from her looked at her expectantly. “So?”

“So … what?”

The gardener exhaled, irritated at being put in the position of explaining something so obvious. “So, can you heal this plant?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Warlock told me you were going to ‘take him to the plant doctor,’” Nanny teased. “Besides … healing is rather too ‘good’ a thing for me to do, isn’t it?”

Brother Francis’ face had not been built to express annoyance, but it was trying its hardest nonetheless. He knew that Nanny had quite a green thumb, and he wasn’t sure why this particular task was seeming to drag on like a live reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses. He opened his mouth with the intention of expressing his aggravation, but thought better of it at the last minute, deciding to take the high road. “Please.”

“Fine.” She looked at the pot, well aware that what she was about to do would not be a hellish influence on the boy’s life. “Never was able to say ‘no’ to you,” she mumbled. The second half of her thought: though it seems to be much of what you say to me lingered on her mind as she leaned down towards the plant.

Given the other similarities between Nanny and the demon Crowley, one would have expected her to start yelling at the Fly Trap, screaming at it that she knew it could do better. Unfortunately, shouting threats at plants was a rather unsuitable gardening technique for a clandestine meeting in the middle of the night, and Nanny was forced to resort to softly, but sternly, telling Anthony the Fly Trap that she wasn’t angry, she was just disappointed.

She pushed the Fly Trap back towards the gardener. “I think it’ll shape up now.” She paused. “But it does need more sunlight. You can tell Warlock it’s doctor’s orders.”

Relief that he had not lied to the child about the plant being alright spread across Brother Francis’ face. He looked down on the already perkier Fly Trap. “Oh, thank you! You know, sometimes I think you should have been the gardener.”

Nanny and Brother Francis were opposites in a great many ways, but perhaps one of their most difficult differences was that Brother Francis tended to say things without thinking when he was overjoyed, and Nanny tended to say things without thinking when she was angry. Brother Francis had not been thinking when he suggested that Nanny should have been a gardener, and as he watched her purse her already thin lips into an even tighter line, he knew he had made a mistake. He took in a deep breath and blinked slowly, waiting for the sound of Nanny screaming or the greenhouse door slamming behind her. Instead, he heard one small, stifled sob.

A quiet “oh” escaped his lips, full of sadness, and he quickly stepped around the table to embrace his companion. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he said over and over again as she stood limp in his arms, crying softly.

No one else on the face of the Earth could have understood that long before this being had been Nanny or Crowley, he had once been a gardener, in the first and finest Garden there had ever been. It had been his apple tree that had been so powerful that the Almighty had deemed it forbidden. He had been so proud of his tree, the Tree of Everything. It was by praising his horticultural chops that Lucifer had convinced the Gardener to hear him out in the first place. The rest, of course, is history – the beginning of his sauntering vaguely downwards.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the muttering continued, Brother Francis’ voice breaking as he tried to contain his own tears. He knew better than to ask for forgiveness, to use that word his friend hated so much. He was almost certain that this would be, at the very least, the end of their colleagueship in the Dowling home. He was deeply worried that that would certainly foreshadow the end of the world. He would not allow himself to give in to the fear that this may be the end of their friendship.

As Brother Francis teetered on the edge of panic, he heard his companion take a shuddering breath. He stepped back a few inches, holding his breath as he waited for Nanny’s verdict.

“It’s okay, Angel.” She said, the first time she had called him that since they had arrived here. “It’s okay,” she repeated, and the two of them let the tension fall away from their shoulders. “I’m just glad no one else was here to see that.”

What neither Nanny or Brother Francis had realized was that someone else had been there to see it – none other than young Warlock, who had snuck out of bed in hopes of catching a glimpse of the mysterious plant doctor.

Luckily for the nanny and the gardener, he had not understood most of what he had observed. The boy tiptoed back towards the house, carrying the weight of the exciting new secret that his Nanny was apparently moonlighting as a plant doctor named Anthony. And that his Nanny and his gardener were somehow, despite all their differences, deeply and unchangeably in love.

“So … what happened to them?” The question from across the table pulled Warlock out of his hazy reminiscence and back to the cramped pub table.

He shrugged. “They just both … disappeared one day.”

His friends stared back at him in stunned silence. “Did you look for them?”

“I guess, but I was eleven. The fact they hadn’t told anyone I asked that they were leaving basically put a stop to my detective work.”

“Did you ever see them again?”

“I … don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Oh, he ‘doesn’t think so’. You hear that lads? Warlock’s life is so damn weird, he’s not sure if he’s run into the weirdest two people I’ve ever heard of, who happened to disappear under mysterious circumstances.” His friends laughed. “Maybe you’ve had enough to drink, Warlock.” Warlock looked down at his several empty beer glasses, and agreed that he probably had had enough to drink.

As the conversation moved on to other people’s much more typical nannies and babysitters, Warlock remembered the odd second-hand bookstore he had stumbled into a few months ago. It had seemed to him to be owned by a husband and husband team – one of whom was thin and all angles, one of whom was soft and round. They had been helping each other into their coats and chattering about what the lunch special at the Ritz might be this time of year when he walked in. This normally wouldn’t have stood out to him much – secondhand bookstores tended to contain all sorts of people.

What had stood out to the young man was that while his back was turned to the till as he browsed, he had been almost certain he heard the shorter of the two say softly to the taller “Look, Anthony, Sweetheart, it’s Warlock Dowling. He’s all grown up.”

Warlock spun around, his mouth forming the question before he even knew what he was asking. “Brother Francis?” But the shop was empty. On the register was a small, handwritten note: “Out to lunch. May return later.”

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #nanny!crowley #brother francis #gardener!aziraphale #anthony j crowley #warlock dowling #in which i write warlock as a good person as an adult because i CAN!!#dreamy writes

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