#yellow square my beloved

[wtfforged]

a character reaches the highest level of comfort-characterhood when you start drawing them in outfits you wish you could wear and/or outfits you have in your closet

[neiptune]

surreal, but nice

cw: 7k wc, female reader, strangers to lovers, osamu doesn't exactly know how to handle one of the most famous music artists in japan suddenly popping in onigiri miya, inspired by notting hill, my sappy entry for the romcom collab hosted by @bloompompom! thank you @yellow-sword-lily, this fic is also a little yours :)

Miya Osamu is a creature of habit.

He gets up fairly early, showers, never leaves the small apartment without fixing himself a nutritious breakfast, more or less knows and is therefore prepared to what to expect from each particular day.

Downstairs there’s his beloved shop, a dormant creature he gently stirs from sleep each morning. When he doesn’t have to head to the market to select and order the freshest products, Osamu starts the day by contacting all his suppliers and arranging the deliveries. He then checks the inventory, reviews reservations, welcomes the only other chef to discuss any special preparations or new experiments. It’s not unusual for him to check his emails, monitor the website and official social media of the shop, the one thing he actually hates doing because he knows damn well one negative comment will ruin his day, especially since there’s nothing he can do to rectify mistakes made days, sometimes weeks before.

He has a chef, one dishwasher, three servers, two food delivery drivers and that’s about it. Osamu Miya is the owner, manager, host, executive chef, server and cashier of onigiri Miya. He juggles management skills, culinary talent and business acumen just perfectly. He’s prepared and knows exactly what each day has in store for him.

Until you happen.

Osamu has been cooking for almost three hours by the time the shop officially opens at 11AM. It’s not unusual for new faces to come in from time to time, despite his clientele being more or less established, but it is rare to hear the little door chime ring so soon. Except if his dumb brother happens to be in town.

But you’re not his dumb brother. You’re a new and yet strangely familiar face, even hidden behind thick sunglasses and a beret that one could deem more appropriate to a parisian getaway rather than a Kansai one.

“Morning” you offer a little bow, hesitant by the door “you’re open, right?”

“Uh, sure” he smiles, still a little uncertain after a moment of astonishment “I don’t often have clients for breakfast. What can I get ya?”

“I’ve been told this is the best onigiri shop in town. I’ll let you decide”

You seem to consider your options for a moment, then decide to sit at the closest empty table. Osamu would usually provide more than a nod: he’d make conversation, ask questions. Forming bonds with whoever visits his shop and trusts his food is his favorite part of the day, as well as a great activity to engage in while his hands are busy putting the rice into molds.

“Close that mouth” is the only thing he utters under his breath, glancing at the server who set your table “yer catching flies”

“But it’s her!” Hiro squeaks as silently as humanly possible “I’m gonna ask for an autograph”

“You will do no such thing”

“We could hang it in the shop!”

“Go help in the kitchen, Minato called in sick today. I’ll handle this”

Hiro disappears behind closed doors but only after batting his freakishly long lashes to his boss, a heartbreaking disappointed look on his face.

Osamu takes a deep breath and squeezes the molds together, an action executed as gently as possible to keep the fluffy texture that makes his onigiri the best in town.

He knows you, of course he knows you. Not only your face was on any available surface for the entirety of the previous summer (posters, billboards, magazine covers to advertise your first ever concert in the Koshien stadium), he’s also pretty sure in high school Atsumu had perpetually ruined the walls of their shared room with some crappy adhesive squares used to hang your poster.

Osamu is not really a dedicated listener, he knows a couple of your most famous songs and that your success is damn near planetary. You have a house in Tokyo but spend most of the year in America, California if he recalls correctly, and you tour across Europe as well. Yet, it’s been easy to pick what to serve you. The gourmet options such as salmon roe or roast beef are off the table: they don’t make new clients feel special. What new clients need is a taste of authenticity, something that reminds them of home, and don’t you look just like the kind of person who could use some of that?

Osamu decides on pickled plum, tuna mayo and bonito flakes. One serving usually consists of three onigiri but he can’t resist adding an extra treat for you, a tenmusu onigiri. He’s recently perfected the recipe with an egg-free tempura batter that is still thick enough to absorb his special sauce.

He hopes it’s not creepy that he lingers by your table after he brings your meal: celebrity or not, you’re a new client. And Osamu can’t resist observing the wander taking over customers who are unfamiliar with his kitchen, as soon as they take the first bite. He hopes you are no exception.

“If this is an onigiri” you lock eyes with him and smile, glorious, radiant “what the hell have I been eating until now?”

“Probably not the best in town” he grins, proud, a slight blush already coating his cheeks. Damn it, he’s tempted to turn the baseball cap once more, let the brim shield his awkwardness. But that would be totally lame.

“Is it a family business?”

“No. It’s just… mine”

You hum, busy chewing on another bite. Then you swallow and ask another question, invite him to sit eventually, then apologize because he’s probably busy (he is) and has things to do (he does) but this is never going to happen again for Osamu, because he’s not Atsumu. And so he sits and makes conversation like a normal human being that definitely isn’t obsessively dwelling on how beautiful you are, how different your voice sounds when you’re not singing, how much he’d hate for a client to come in and pop that bubble. Which is exactly what happens and he doesn’t like it one bit how you interrupt your chuckle, lower your head, hunch your shoulders in an attempt to hide. He doesn’t like that he has to excuse himself, call Hiro back form the kitchen, make conversation with Suzuki-san, listen while he describes all his latest hospital visits in horrifying detail.

You look at him from time to time, the quiet shop owner suddenly turned chatty sparks your curiosity. He’s skilled with his hands and genuinely interested in what the person who must be an habitué has to say. He’s attractive, too. Especially as he tries to disguise the occasional glances directed your way or the disappointment that flashes in his eyes when you get up and start collecting your things.

“Can I get the check, please?” you approach the counter, pretend not to notice his hesitation. Osamu decides against indulging in the “it’s on the house” cliche, opts for treating you as any other client. With the exception of a small discount you won’t even notice.

“That was the best breakfast I had in a while” you collect the receipt and put in your pocket.

“You should come back, then. To have another” Osamu cringes internally as soon as the words leave his mouth and Suzuki-san’s chuckle makes him want to dig a hole to disappear into. But you smile, despite probably having heard the corny line a million other times, and tell him that you just might.

It would’ve been perfect: a beautiful ending to a glorious encounter. It could’ve been. If only you didn’t turn around so abruptly, a small shriek echoing across the shop as you came face to face with Mai, the sudden sound and panic causing her to jump and spill the fresh iced tea from the jug in her hand all over your painfully clean, crisp, starched, white button down.

You both freeze, your mouth open in a silent scream, an horrified look in Mai’s eyes that would’ve been comical on literally any other occasion. Osamu wishes he would’ve went with the “it’s on the house” cliche.

“Oh my god! Oh god! It’s you! I mean, I’m sorry!” Mai’s voice comes out an octave too high “my god, I’m so sorry!”

“Well, this is great” you frantically grab a handful of napkins from the counter and attempt to dab the mess on your shirt “I have a meeting in half an hour!”

“Please, take my uniform! I will pay for the dry cleaning!”

“Actually” Osamu chimes in as politely as possible, trying his best not to let his anxiety get the best of him “don’t take this the wrong way but, uh, I live upstairs. You can get cleaned up and…”

“You’re kidding, right?” your astonished look is almost glacial. It makes him falter just slightly.

“Or ya can leave with a giant orange stain on yer wet, probably uncomfortably cold shirt?”

“Miya-san!” Mai’s hiss and your shocked expression make him think that sarcasm probably wasn’t a good idea. Osamu sighs.

“Listen, I’m really sorry. These are the keys, you can go on your own, I promise the bathroom’s clean”

You eye him for a few seconds more, then decide against grabbing the keys from his hand.

“I’m gonna need a change of clothes”

Osamu blinks a couple times, dumbfounded. His clothes? You’re asking to wear… his clothes?

“Sure! Yeah, sure. Come on” now his voice sounds uncharacteristically squeaky and he clears his throat as you follow him up the stairs, Suzuki-san’s good grief still ringing in his ears.

Thank god he cleaned the entire apartment just the day before. As much as he likes to brag about being the tidy twin, deep down he knows he’s just as messy as Atsumu.

Osamu tries hard not to look at you, leaning against the doorframe with your arms crossed while he rummages in his drawers in search of something that could fit you. He shortly wonders if it’d be a good idea to offer a complementary bento box to make up for the disaster Mai caused.

“I’m genuinely sorry” he starts rambling because the silence is unbearable and some of Atsumu’s genes really do take over sometimes “the worst incident we ever had at the shop was my brother almost choking on his dinner. I had to perform the heimlich maneuver, it wasn’t pretty” god, where the hell are this clean, not embarrassing shirts?

“Guess this one will go down in history” your voice is less sharp now, which relieves him.

“Oh, no. I will never tell anyone about this, ever. Mai and Suzuki-san will have to sign an nda. A proper, legally binding one”

The laugh you offer sounds weirdly intimate in the small space of his bedroom, it makes the tips of his ears hot. Finally, he’s able to dig out a decent, basic shirt you accept by thanking him softly. When you lock yourself in the bathroom, Osamu rushes to the kitchen to tidy up the mess he’s left behind after that morning’s breakfast. No time to concentrate on how you’re actually, genuinely in his home, cleaning yourself in the same bathroom he showered in, without a shirt on.

No one’s ever going to believe him. Hell, he may not believe it himself by the end of the day.

“Hey” he jumps at your voice, sudden and closer than expected. You look good in his basic shirt, it suits you somehow. Did you shove your own in one of the bags you left by the door?

“Hey” Osamu says back and cringes for the millionth time “are ya hungry?”

You smile when he shuts his eyes for a second, right after the silly question leaves his mouth.

“Not hungry”

“Right. Of course. Thirsty? I have really good tea, from Shizuoka. And orange juice” he pauses for a second, then adds “or water”

Your smile grows, almost melts into a giggle. “Not thirsty either”

“Okay” he clears his throat “how about dessert? I made some mitarashi dango just yesterday”

“I have a meeting to attend”

“Oh. Sure, yeah, that makes sense” he wants to bash his head against the wall “I’ll walk you out. To downstairs” thank fuck ‘Tsumu isn’t there, he’d never let him live this down. Jesus.

You precede him to the door, gather your bags, then softly thank him for the shirt.

“Nice meeting you, Osamu” he nearly explodes when you say his name, no honorifics whatsoever. How do you even know? He hasn’t carried a name tag on his shirt for years.

“It was nice to meet you too” there’s no time to dwell on dumb, pointless questions “surreal, but nice”

He thinks if your smile could conjure waves, he’d gladly give up all the oxygen in his lungs and drown in them. Has someone ever looked as beautiful while smiling at him? He doesn’t think so. He can’t think. Not when you’re leaning closer, not when your arms are suddenly wrapped around his neck, not when you’re pressing your lips to his. Holy shit. You’re pressing your lips to his. And he’s forgotten how to breathe, let alone kiss. Osamu just freezes, like a marble statue, like a teenager who’s never touched a woman before. Right as he’s about to swallow the shock and fucking move, you’re already pulling away, eyes not leaving his despite the slight self-consciousness swarming in those irises.

And then you disappear, just like the dream he believed you were, all that’s left is an empty spot by the door and his heart slamming against a pathetically ill-equipped ribcage.

La Suite is one of the most luxurious hotels in the prefecture and Osamu feels out of place with the 30 onigiri order he’s carrying past a french restaurant and a traditional japanese one, all soft carpeting, dim lights and wide windows. So different from his.

He timidly explains that he’s there to deliver an order to a certain Bennet-san, who for some reason insisted he’d be the one bringing it to her hotel. They look at him funny but let him through and give the coordinates: top floor, superior double room. A woman meets him the second he steps out of the elevator and sternly asks him to follow her, a silly part of him wonders if he’s about to get murdered in one of the top 25 hotels in Japan. But then she knocks on a door right before swinging it open and he doesn’t even get to explain that he’s not supposed to get inside, she can take the bloody bag and he’ll be on his merry way, but once again Osamu fails to determine what the day holds in store for him.

Once more, it’s you. A less preppy version, one that seems so small in such a gigantic room, the sea breeze blowing from the terrace gracefully lifting up the hem of a tennis skirt you immediately fight to keep down as you promptly get up from the couch.

“Hi” he says, so dumbfounded he barely notices the door closing behind him.

“Miya-san” you bow, keep your eyes down, no sign of a smile he could by now deem familiar “I’m sorry for the trouble, I know the hotel is pretty far from the restaurant and you must be busy. This will only take a second”

Osamu’s brows furrow, confusion evident in the way he cocks his head. You don’t catch it, because your eyes are glued to the floor. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior. I don’t know what came over me, I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me”

His eyes soften as part of the tension leaves his shoulders. Truth is, Osamu is glad you’re apologizing: despite how beautiful and dreamy you may be, life is not quite a movie and he doesn’t exactly appreciate being blindsided by a stranger. He doesn’t really understand what made you think kissing him would be a good idea (was his awkardness interpreted the wrong way? Did his stare linger on your smile a second too long?) but he’s certain you meant no harm. A shitty person certainly wouldn’t take time out of her day to leave an autograph on a napkin, especially right after half a jug of iced tea was spilled on her shirt just minutes before. To Hiro, with love.

After a moment, he clears his throat. “Can ya look at me?”

You meet his gaze hesitantly, mouth a thin line of harsh disapproval directed at yourself. For a second, you remind him of someone and he almost breaks into a smile.

“Thank you for apologizing. We’re good”

“Are you certain?”

“Yeah!” he chuckles “you didn’t have to place such a big order”

You blink twice, then start nervously fiddling with your fingers “ah, actually I didn’t do it to… well, those onigiris are just really good. I wanted to take some extra ones with me”

“You’re leaving?” he doesn’t mean to sound disappointed, especially not while you’re so intentionally keeping your distance.

“Kinda. My record label rented a house in the countryside, I’ll spend most of the summer locked in, trying to finish my new album. I couldn’t do it in America, I missed being home but didn’t want to endure Tokyo’s chaos so I ended up picking Hyogo. Sorry, you didn’t ask to know all that” you chuckle tensely “we leave tomorrow and I didn’t want to go without apologizing first. That’s all. You may go now”

Osamu hums. “I may go? As in I’m excused?” he laughs when your painfully stoic expression melts into sheer horror.

“No! Of course not, I didn’t mean it like that!”

“You take yourself too seriously” he grins “I’m just messin’ with ya”

“That’s not very nice of you”

“Would you compare it to kissing a stranger out of the blue?”

“Oh god” you hide your overheated face in your hands “you said we’re good!”

“And we are” Osamu steps closer to gently place the bags still in his hands on the marble topped pedestal coffee table. It’s just fun to tease you, one of the many irritating habits he shares with his brother.

His brother. Osamu looks up, a risky desire taking shape in his head and threatening to spill over the tip of his tongue.

“I’m really sorry, Miya-san” you repeat and he doesn’t love that you’re now calling him that “uh, this is your shirt. Cleaned and ironed. Thank you for…”

“Whatcha doing tonight?”

You freeze, paper bag still in hand. “Uhm, nothing interesting”

“No packing?”

“My manager does that for me”

He chuckles. “Right. Chances you’d want to spend your last night in the city at an even less interesting birthday party?”

Osamu waits patiently while you weigh your options, recognizes the confusion in your hesitant stare but doesn’t quite understand why there’s a weary vibration to your voce when you accept, the slight disappointment that flashes across your features.

It’s only fair, you think as he parts from the room with a smile and the command to secure those onigiris in a fridge. If showing you off to his friends like some valuable conquest is the way he wants to even the score, you’re in no position to deny him. You’re the one at fault and you’ve been given a chance to make up for it by wearing the facade you wear best.

Then why does it feel so disheartening, this time?

When Shinsuke opens the door, he’s more surprised by your presence than the carefully wrapped gift in your hands. Not that he doubted Osamu: why send a message to the group chat telling everyone that a) he was bringing someone and b) they should’ve absolutely not behaved any differently than usual if not better (in bold), if he wasn’t actually going to show up with a plus one?

Still, a small part of him did wonder if Atsumu’s and Rintaro’s relentless teasing finally got the best of him. Shinsuke doesn’t think that his friend works too much or that he should start “looking around” before “his hair starts greying again only this once naturally”. He remembers Osamu rolling his eyes at his brother when he implied that at this rate he’s gonna have to tie the knot with the restaurant, only to then space out for most of the evening as everyone else found new topics to migrate toward.

In short, Shinsuke wondered if Osamu was going to come up with a last minute excuse to justify the empty spot next to him at the table. But it seems that spot is going to be taken after all, by you nonetheless.

“Nice to meet you, Kita-san” you smile after Osamu introduces you by your name and nothing else, not a wink, not even a subtle hint or a reasonable explanation “happy birthday”

Shinsuke accepts the gift with a polite thank you and he’s almost made sure you could preserve a nice, normal memory of stepping foot into his house for the first time, of course failing to consider the Hinata factor.

“Thank god, Osamu, I’m so hungry- holy shit! Is her your gift? I only brought a cap that says farm hair don’t care!” there’s a strange but seemingly friendly redhead looking at you with eyes so wide you fear they might roll out of their sockets.

“Shoyo, any chance you checked the chat today?” Osamu smiles at him widely but Kita recognizes the tension at the corners.

“What? Of course not, I was busy picking a cute gift” Hinata smiles too but his excitement is genuine “hello, nice to meet you! Please come in, you can help us set the table!”

You chuckle and meet Osamu’s horrified eyes for a second, his posture relaxes as your gentle reassurance puts him at ease. I’ll be in the other room, then. Leave it to Hinata to make a gigantic deal out of a special guest only to treat her as one of his buddies ten seconds later. You seemed comfortable, though, as one always feels whenever Shoyo happens to be around.

“Who is she?” Shinsuke doesn’t mean for his tone to be so conspiratorial but he keeps it low, just in case you might still hear them.

“A friend. Kinda. Ya wouldn’t believe me” Osamu takes his jacket off and hangs it by the door, then picks up the plethora of bags from the floor and makes his way into his friend’s kitchen.

“No, I mean… who is she? Why does Shoyo know her?” Shinsuke follows suit, intent on helping him distribute all the food he’s brought in the different plates he has prepared. Osamu shakes his initial surprise off with a chuckle.

“Only one of the most famous pop music artists in Japan”

Kita stills his movements for a second, then absorbs the new information with a simple nod. “Right. And you met her at the shop”

“How d’ya know?”

“Where else would you be meeting a pop music artist?”

“Don’t make it sound so obvious” Osamu pulls a face and Shinsuke’s eyes twinkle with mischief.

“Well, she’s here. With you. Is it like… a date?”

“No” the peremptory answer comes embarrassingly fast “it’s her last night in the city, she’s here because she didn’t have anything better planned”

“But you invited her”

“Yes”

“Because you like her”

“I don’t-” Osamu gestures vaguely with his hands “it’s not like that. ‘Tsumu used to have a poster of her face in our room, for fuck’s sake”

Kita hums. “So what you actually mean is it can’t be like that”

“I don’t see the difference”

“I do”

“Well-” a loud commotion Osamu has been trained for over two decades to instantly recognize as his brother’s voice, makes the words die in his throat. By the time him and Shinsuke return to the colorfully decorated living room (courtesy of an overly enthusiastic Hinata and one resigned Rintaro), Atsumu is already talking your ear off and seemingly invading your personal space multiple times as he follows you around the table you’re setting with Suna like a golden retriever on a sugar overload.

“Shoyo, you were supposed to keep her safe” Osamu glares at his brother and takes a mental note to scold Aran too, later. For snickering.

Hinata doesn’t get the chance to defend himself because of course Atsumu’s the only one who could outshine that intense excitement with his own.

“Samu! What the hell? If this is yer gift to Shin, what are ya plannin’ to get me exactly?”

“Can everyone stop assuming she’s here as a thing and not as a person?” it comes out harsher than intended and Osamu feels his face grow hot when all those present simply stare at him. When you stare at him.

Suna clears his throat.

“Cut him some slack, he came out of the bathroom and we could barely convince him she’s not a hallucination” you chuckle at that, which makes the ever stoic Rintaro look away with a faint blush blossoming on his pale cheeks.

“Wait” Atsumu looks at you, then at his brother and his brows become progressively furrowed “she’s here with you? As in, you invited her? And she said yes?”

Osamu wonders why he thought a simple admonishment in the group chat would be enough. He has half an idea of shoving an onigiri right into his brother’s loud mouth and not perform any maneuver whatsoever when the rice obstructs his airways.

“Actually, I wanted to come” you chime in so gently it takes a few moments for him to register the words “I’m leaving tomorrow and when Miya-san mentioned it was one of his friends’ birthday, I shamelessly asked if I could tag along. Hope I’m not a bother”

Kita is looking at you the same way Osamu is, puzzled. Hinata almost chokes on his coke and starts coughing profusely, so much that Aran has to lend him a napkin.

“A bother? No, of course not!” his nose might be on fire but by god, he physically cannot let you believe such nonsense for a second too long.

Atsumu’s mouth hangs wide open, brows still knit that make his expression overall hilarious “you make her call you Miya-san? Yikes, bro” he turns to you and makes a scene of slamming a hand on his chest “please, feel free to call me ‘Tsumu. I think we’re intimate enough by now”

“Given that we took five selfies and you made me sign my name on your abs, I also think we’re intimate enough” your grin seems genuine, which only startles Osamu more.

“Ya made her do what?” oh, there are probably not enough words in the japanese vocabulary for the way he’ll have to apologize at the end of the night.

“It’s fine, I didn’t mind” you shrug “but if I could ask everyone a small favor…”

“Sure, anything!” Atsumu’s interruption only makes your smile grow wider “I’d really like to celebrate Kita-san’s birthday like you’d normally do. Please don’t make a big deal out of me, it’s his night after all”

“She’s asking not to be treated like a circus act” Aran whispers to Hinata, who blinks his big brown eyes in quiet understanding.

“Done!” Atsumu’s fist hits his chest right where the heart is as he solemnly declares “you’re one of the boys now, consider yourself a pal”

“Thanks, ‘Tsumu” he tries to keep his composure but nearly implodes as you direct your attention to Shoyo “no, Hinata-san, this doesn’t mean we won’t be taking that picture I promised. Don’t worry” your wink is the prettiest, most wonderful thing he’s ever witnessed and thank fuck he’s done drinking that coke because his airways suddenly feel clogged.

Kita thinks this is already the most entertaining birthday he’s ever celebrated.

And celebrate his birthday you all do. Normally, as per your request. You sit between Rintaro and Osamu at dinner and masterfully divert the attention from yourself whenever the questions start piling up. The uno reverse technique works well: your curiosity feels flattering and everyone is happy to satisfy it. The questions you direct are extremely specific, your laugh echoes alongside everyone else’s and Osamu can’t help but think that, in some odd way, you fit in seamlessly. 

Keeping his eyes off of you isn’t but a strenuous fight with himself, it’d be lovely if looking would be the only activity he’d be allowed to engage in. It’s not hard to guess why hordes of fans and admirers are so enamoured: you’re such a natural. Polite, poised, funny, charismatic. Making you laugh feels like a privilege, having your brows raise in interest makes the story one’s recounting instantly fascinating. And yet you’re not doing any of that on purpose, he can tell. The one thing you’re being intentionally careful about is avoiding his gaze and making sure your arm doesn’t accidentally brush against his.

Osamu wants to ask himself why but also refuses to indulge in childish fantasies. What, he thought you liked him? Part of him believed you’d accepted to come to some stranger’s birthday party purely to spend an evening with him. Bullshit. Everyone in the world knows who you are and he simply owns an onigiri shop in Hyogo, one you happened to visit by sheer chance. He’s the guy you are so embarrassed to be seen with, you had to come up with a lie to justify your presence at the very same table that seems to adore you.

But when he jokingly throws a grain of rice at Aran, you hide your chuckle behind your hand. If he speaks, you always turn to look. Osamu doesn’t remember a social gathering where he tried to come up with just as many things to say, desperately conjuring genes that always weigh heavier in Atsumu. Unfortunately, the one person he could always count on, his dear friend and trusty supplier, decides his birthday night is the perfect occasion to stab him in the back.

“I’m sorry, I just need to ask” Kita refills your glass with fresh wine from across the table before retracting to his seat once more “your encounter with Osamu, how did it happen exactly?”

“Yeah, was his onigiri so good you wanted to-”

“Do not finish that sentence, Shoyo” Aran clears his throat as Suna, next to you, has a hard time swallowing his stir fry noodles.

“She heard my shop was the best in town, which it is, came to try it. That’s the story” Osamu wishes he could disappear into his kitchen as he often does when things at the restaurant get uncomfortable.

“I don’t buy it” Shinsuke shrugs “is that really the whole story?”

Kita’s knowing stare really hasn’t changed since high school and it seems you’re affected by it just as much as every other human. His eyes bore right into yours, trained to detect hesitation or even the hint of a lie, giving you no escape. Goddamn it, he’s still the team captain, there’s no running from him.

“Well” you gently swirl the glass in your hand, suddenly very much focused on the crimson liquid swooshing inside “I also kissed him”

This time someone does actually choke and, of course, it’s Atsumu. Right as Rintaro utters an ever quiet holy shit, he explodes in a coughing fit and Aran promptly strikes between his shoulder blades with the heel of his hand, perhaps with more force than needed. Thankfully, Atsumu manages to swallow his bite and, despite the tears threatening to run down his cheeks in all their shimmering glory, still conjures the energy needed to point an intimidating finger at his brother “ya bastard!”

“That’s a joke, right?” Hinata’s eyes have once again grown three sizes.

Kita doesn’t ask, the answer is written all over Osamu’s crimson red face. He was right, no one would’ve believed him.

“No, I really did” you take a sip from your glass and now everyone is looking at you like you’re some kind of alien. Except for Atsumu, who’s still glaring daggers at his brother.

“So this is… a date for you two?” Suna’s just as shocked as everyone else but seems to be the only person currently able to string words together.

“Oh, no” you brush the question off with a gracious wave of the hand “I just did it to thank him”

This time the silence stretches for a moment too long. Atsumu seems on the verge of passing out.

“You kissed him to thank him?” Kita cocks his head.

“Yeah. I mean, he was very kind. Have you never kissed someone to thank them?”

“Uh… no. I don’t think so”

“Really?”

“Do you…” Aran hopes to the gods that the words don’t come out the wrong way “do that often?”

“Aran” as much as Osamu wishes the earth could swallow him whole, he doesn’t want you to think his friends may be implying something they’re really not.

“I didn’t mean it like that!”

“It’s okay” you let our a nervous chuckle and because Osamu is sitting so close, he hears the shaky breath too “I know it was wrong. I tend to forget that’s not what normal people are used to. I apologized and now we’re good, right, Miya-san?” your eyes meet his and he feels his heart drop right into his stomach.

“Why are you used to that?” he asks instead of replying to your question and you just. Freeze.

“Yeah…” Hinata quietly chimes in “that doesn’t sound like something anyone should be used to”

For the first time, you don’t know how to respond. Osamu senses your panic, can read it in your eyes, but is too baffled to think of something smart or chivalrous to say.

“Holy shit, ya know what that means?” Atsumu slams both his hands on the table and both you and everyone else jump “it means she thinks I’m hot! In another life, I’d have a chance! Sorry, Shin, I know it’s yer birthday but I think this is the best night of my life!”

A quiet, astonished moment follows, then the table erupts in genuine laughter. You’re giggling so much you have to hold your stomach, Kita is shaking his head in resignation, Suna rolls his eyes with affection. Osamu settles for a smile as he relaxes against his chair once more. His brother may be loud and annoyingly inopportune, but his quiet support never once faltered throughout the years. One doesn’t need to be an old acquaintance to be taken under Miya Atsumu’s wing: if he senses as much as the hint of unease, his charismatic idiocy is summoned right away at the service of whoever may need it. Yet his loyalty remains unshakeable: Osamu knows that, in his stupid head, you’re already forbidden territory.

His mind is dizzy with confusion he doesn’t know how to properly address. As Kita blows out the candles on the cake he’s made, Osamu feels a wave of affection inundate his heart. He remembers that are nights like this that are worth being present, even if he has to get up at dawn or his sink is full of dirty dishes and he’s exhausted. Life only ever feels right when he’s with his friends or his family. It’s a routine he’s trained hard to get used to: work, work, work, carve out small moments to spend with those who come and go. It’s important for him to be there, when they come.

Osamu almost misses it, too focused on cleaning an extra plate or two in the kitchen, to make sure the birthday boy can get to relax once they leave. And then you call for him, a small crack in that poised facade of yours when his name almost slips out. You rush into the kitchen and urge him to hurry up, they’re already singing happy birthday to Kita-san. Come on, you’re missing it!

You probably wanted to go for his sleeve and found his hand instead, dragged him out of the room so quickly Osamu barely had the time to put the towel down. For some reason, once in the living room you don’t let go right away and neither does he. You only do so to clap with everyone else and even then it’s not entirely possible to establish who lets go first. Regardless, Osamu gives your hand a light squeeze and hopes you notice, despite there being no signs to indicate that.

You’re the first two people to excuse themselves: he refuses to let you go back to your hotel on your own, doesn’t give two shits that you have a driver or could well afford a cab because it’s a beautiful evening and Osamu is itching to have as little as ten minutes alone with you. He watches as you formally offer a hand to Suna and he grins as he shakes it, gently taking it in between his in a respectful attempt at suggesting that there’s no need to be so ceremonious.

You exchange quick hugs with everyone else, take the picture promised to Hinata, chuckle lightly when Atsumu timidly asks for a kiss on the cheek just because “it’s the american way of saying goodbye!” and of course you accomodate the request. Osamu is almost willing to bet you genuinely had fun but he also can’t seem to shake off the odd feeling suggesting you’ve somehow taken it upon yourself to just… appease everyone for the entire evening. Like some kind of duty. He doesn’t want you to think back to this evening like a task that had to be carried out.

“Oh my god, I cannot fucking believe it!” Atsumu’s shriek echoes loud and clear in the empty street  as soon as Kita shuts the door and you meet Osamu’s exasperated glare.

“I’m genuinely not sure what I should start apologizing for” he runs a hand through his brown hair and his stress makes you smile as you fall into a comfortable walking pace.

“I should start by thanking you for inviting me. Can’t remember the last time I had such a normal night”

“My friends are many things but I don’t know if they really fall into the normal category”

You laugh at that. “I think they’re really nice. It was fun. I didn’t know there were two of you”

Osamu grimaces, lightly shaking his head “good call, he’s the thing I should start apologizing for”

“I liked Atsumu” of course you did, don’t they all? “you’re lucky to have such good friends and a brother. Is it true what they say about weird connections us twinless mortals wouldn’t get?”

He sighs. As much as Osamu hates stereotypes and all the disadvantages that come with not being able to be his own person, the curse of always being considered nothing but part of a set, he knows the bond with Atsumu is just as rare and irreplaceable as people make it out to be.

“Well, I can pretty much always read his mind. But it’s not a twin thing, s’just an Atsumu thing” he shrugs “most transparent, honest person on earth”

“You’re both very kind” your observation strikes him. It hits the nail on the head: he does his best but it’s unusual for someone to notice ‘Tsumu’s selflessness right away.

“Could say the same about ya” he’s eager to direct the topic to the thing he’s really interested in, the one person who refused every bit of attention directed her way throughout the night “that tea collection must’ve costed a fortune. Shinsuke loves tea, yer manager picked well”

You hum, gaze focused on your feet. “Actually, I picked it”

Another thing Osamu has in common with his brother, the ability to royally fuck up in such a short amount of time.

“Oh, I didn’t-”

“It’s okay, happens all the time”

“What happens?”

“People assuming things” you’re not mad, there’s just a sad vibration to your voice. If he could punch himself in the face, he would.

“I’m sorry”

“Don’t be” Osamu hates the smile you toss at him. He hates it so much he stops in the middle of the sidewalk and watches you turn around, confusion flashing in your disenchanted eyes.

“There’s a pretty cool park ‘round the corner. How about a detour? If you’re not too tired”

You hum in agreement, ask him to lead the way. Careful, Osamu, you’d like to say. This same polite regard is what got me in trouble the first time.

The park, which is more of a garden really, is a slice of eden in the jungle that any city inevitably ends up feeling like. Lowlands, an abundance of irregular but colorful flowerbeds that seem to glow in the dark, the warm air of the evening saturated with the sweet scent of lime trees, a gravel path you both follow all the way to a small, wooden playground. It’s only natural to gravitate toward the swings, relish in the comfort of the stillness the evening offers. It always feels like the earth rotates slower, pace decelerating to give you more time to enjoy the things it’s hard to appreciate during your hectic days.

Osamu approaches the swing like an old friend, takes hold of the chains with both hands. He lightly pushes off the ground with his feet while pulling back, giving you a perfect view of his perfect profile.

“I don’t want to assume” he says quietly “so is it okay if I ask?”

“Yeah” you rest your head on the chain you’re holding, still looking at him who won’t look at you.

“Why did you tell ‘Tsumu you asked me to come tonight?” the actual question dies in his throat. Were you that embarrassed of being there with me?

“You seemed pretty self-conscious. I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable” and I guess that way, you got to seem cooler.

Osamu almost chokes on his own spit from how surprised he is by your answer. What the fuck.

“I wasn’t-” not for the reason you seem to believe “I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable!”

You smile, patiently waiting for the moment where he’ll finally turn to meet your gaze instead of persistently staring at his feet. “I don’t think I ever felt that comfortable in a room filled with men”

“That shouldn’t be an exceptional occurrence”

“Right. But it is”

He spends a few moments trying to come up with the right words, a handful of seconds spent with part of his brain wishing he could have a talk with all the men who made you feel unsafe. How many? Where, why? Are they the reason why Osamu wants to get so desperately close and yet keep a respectful distance, not to scare you off, not to be another name added to the list of creeps you surely hate?

“Why did you kiss me?” those are far from being the right, considerate words he was trying to summon, but they bubble up from his throat before he can stop them.

You hum, pensive “I don’t know. You’re pretty, you’re gentle, I thought t’was what you expected to happen. It’s what men usually expect in return”

“In return for what?” he fights the urge to keep his eyes down, confident that the darkness will conceal the redness of his cheeks. You think he’s pretty and the first thing his dumb brain is able to link the revelation to, is Atsumu. Shit, he was right, this means you do find him attractive as well.

“Anything, really” your chuckle is devoid of actual humor “I know this night was supposed to make up for it but I didn’t expect to have so much fun. Regardless, I hope we’re even now”

Osamu furrows his brows.

“Ya think that’s why I invited ya?”

“Why else?”

He almost laughs, incredulous. You hide that mistrust really well, Osamu has to give it you. It feels unfair that life has given someone who seemingly has everything, so many reasons to think you can only be seen as an empty shell, some trophy with the sole purpose of being flaunted.

“You said you were leaving. I didn’t like the idea of not seeing you again”

“Really?” your lips curl into a small smile “the weird girl who jumped you on your first meeting?”

“You’re weird” he concedes “and selfless. Intelligent. Maybe jokes are not your forte but, hey, ya get to look like that” your laugh compliments his really well and Osamu can’t help but think he’d like to sit in a park, in the middle of the night, and talk and laugh and be with you just once more.

You briefly wonder if the man sitting so close to you is aware of just how devastatingly charming he is. Part of you wishes he’d want to take you out on a proper date, let you meet his friends on different occasions, include a weird stranger in such a well balanced life. Part of you also knows you’d never want to ruin that for him. Not for someone like Osamu. People who are unfortunate enough to stumble across you are almost always harassed away, it’s a life you’re used to and can’t bring yourself to run from. It’s who you are and, most importantly, all you have. It’d be too dangerous for your heart to desire anything different.

But he’s looking at you as if you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, land emerged from the sea millions of years ago for his eyes only to experience such a sight. No one’s ever looked at you with such wonder.

“I don’t want to assume” he holds your gaze locked to his, swing dangling lightly as he leans closer “so is it okay if I ask?”

“Yes” you utter a little too breathlessly.

“Can I kiss ya?”

You hum in affirmation and close your eyes, heart beating a little faster than what you’re used to as you sense his proximity. He smells nice, radiates warmth and his soft hair tickles a little when his lips gently press to your cheek.

Osamu smiles when he catches a glimpse of disappointment flashing over your features, the first of many clues he wants to learn how to interpret correctly. The cracks in a facade he’d make his personal mission to tear down.

“I know you have to go away tomorrow” he gently moves a strand of hair away from your forehead “but I wondered, if you didn’t, whether you might let me see ya a little. Or a lot, maybe”

You lean into his touch, calloused fingertips still barely grazing your skin.

“A lot sounds good”

[avayarising]

DPxDC prompt: Here is the News

“You’re watching CDTV Now, and I’m Ace Atchinson with a special feature. Last week, the nation was shocked when a team of junior heroes affiliated with the Justice League apparently vandalised one of America’s most beloved national monuments.”

A short, jerky video plays, showing an explosion on a large stone face – one of four carved out of the side of a mountain. The smoke clears to reveal a large hole where the nose used to be. Several figures fly out of the stone and are caught by some sort of flying vehicle. It swoops across the mountain and away.

“With me live in the studio this afternoon are some of the members of Young Justice, here to tell us their side of the story. Superboy, Wonder Girl, Impulse – did you destroy Mount Rushmore?”

“Yeah, we did,” says the boy with black curly hair and a leather jacket over his brightly coloured hero suit. A bar appears across the bottom of the screen. Superboy, it says. Member of Young Justice. “On purpose, too.”

The girl, with stiff black hair and large square glasses, scowls in his direction. “We weren’t trying to destroy it,” she says as the camera closes in on her. The bar across the bottom of the screen now reads Wonder Girl and Member of Young Justice. “We were rescuing our friend.”

“She’s a ghost you see and the apes captured her and held her in this secret base –” The brown-haired boy in goggles stops when he is nudged by the girl beside him. The bar flickers for a moment to say Impulse before returning to Wonder Girl.

“OK, so, we need to go back, like, five steps here. There was a secret government base inside Mount Rushmore where they were conducting inhumane experiments on ghosts.”

The host laughs in a strained, nervous way. “Ghosts?” he asks.

They nod. “I’d like to introduce you to another member of our team,” says Wonder Girl. A mist forms behind her as she speaks, and swiftly coalesces into the form of a pale, slight girl, hovering behind the sofa. “Um,” she says nervously. “My name is – I mean, I go by – Secret, and… I’m a ghost.”

-––––

“Danny! Turn on CDTV now!”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it!”

–––––

“–torture and imprisonment, and she hadn’t even done anything! They’re just prejudiced against ghosts because they think they’re dangerous!”

“She is dangerous,’ says the black-haired boy proudly. The label Superboy appears on the screen again, in case anyone had forgotten. “She can shape-shift and go through walls and even possess people –”

“K– Superboy!” hisses Wonder Girl. “Not helping!”

“I’m right here,” says the ghost girl. The people who do the labels have obviously been hard at work, because she now has one too, saying Secret and Alleged ghost. “And I can do those things, but that doesn’t mean I want to hurt people or –”

There’s yelling from off camera, and a crash. A bolt of blue-white energy flies past the camera and the image whites out. There’s a scream, and a burst of static. The image returns, fuzzy and striated. Another bolt of energy. A large man wearing white rushes into view. Someone in green boots and a yellow and black cape lands on his head and knocks him down. A bang, and the image turns sideways as the camera crashes to the floor. The sound cuts out. There’s smoke, and running feet, and suddenly the side of the studio sofa, before another flash of blue-white light and the screen goes dead.

Nothing happens for almost a minute, and then the TV starts playing a rerun of the highlights of last week’s sports game.

––––––––

“Well, shit,” says Danny.

Superboy here is not in fact Kon but Match pretending to be Kon and trying to sabotage the team. Robin was hiding in the ceiling behind a lighting rig because Batman is going through one of his ‘we are cryptids’ phases and wouldn’t allow him to appear on screen. Anita hasn’t joined the team yet, which is good because her dad is one of the agents and it would have been awkward.

[who-knew-a-sheep-can-write]

In A Week's Time: Elliott x Fem!Reader (NSFW)

Contains: Soft sex, creampies

Summer. A scorching summer season had settled amongst the valley. Where others saw a reason to just flock to the beach and wade in the oceans or to take advantage of the museum’s better quality air conditioner, you had been excited for this season to make profits. Sure, you had made a good profit off of spring’s fresh crops what of strawberries and parsnips and bulbs of garlic all in a row; it was summer you were waiting for as well as many other farmers around. You could just imagine your crop fields full of patches of blueberries and of melons, peach and orange trees in full bloom as well as stalks of hops to keep the kegs full of aging beer (and let’s not get started about the starfruit patches to which you’ll be turning into wine by the end of their respected harvest).

You were out of bed before Elliott - which was rare as he’s used to waking with the gulls cawing horribly before the sun even rises over the ocean’s shore. The writer’s eyes prying open to see you already out the door, flowing auburn hair a mess against the soft pillow covers, sticking to his chiseled face as he watched on in confusion as you bolted out of the front door. He squinted, grumbling something under his breath about how eager you were and quickly followed behind you.

The early summer morning breeze was cool, crisp, inviting as you overlooked the expanse of your farm from your porch. The sun barely peeking over the trees of the forest bordering the outskirts of the farm, bits of orange rays poking through, and twinkling off of the iridium sprinklers littered around, scarecrows still standing tall, protecting the now empty fields of dead spring crops.

The front door opened behind you, you peered over your shoulder to see your beloved husband standing there, squinting as the sun slowly rises over the horizon and spill into the farm. You always loved how squinty-eyed he was when he wakes, hair tied back. He was always so handsome, even when he had just woken up. You giggled, remembering how he had woken up when the spring had started and you had woken early to start planting the usual plots of strawberries, parsnips, and beans. The poor man had his shirt on backwards and nearly had his shoes on the wrong feet before you helped correct him. It was always so sweet of him to wake up early with you every crop season to help you clear and plant and water with you.

“My darling?” he mumbled behind you.

“It’s summer, Elliott! Time for the biggest harvests of the year!” you proclaimed, puffing your chest out proudly.

“I’ll make coffee,” he nodded, leaving the front door open to allow your cat to slip outside and happily trot towards the barn and coop towards the south exit of your farm that leads to Marnie’s ranch.

Around midday, you had retired back to the house where Elliott was waiting, radiating with excitement. He had just come back two hours ago from Pierre’s store with many bags of seeds roped around his hands and wrists for you to start sowing. You climbed the stairs and overlooked the expanse of your farm with your husband. You both took in the tilled dirt ready to be watered after lunch. You were both excited to slowly be able to see the dull beige and browns and ochres of the farm’s soil to slowly bloom vibrant greens and pinks and blues and yellows of fresh vegetation by the end of the season.

“Tired, my darling?” he stepped inside, allowing you to pass into your home.

“Not yet,” you hummed.

“Good! I have wonderful news I’d love for you to hear,” he chimed.

“Oh? And what would that be, Elliott?”

Leading you towards the kitchen, you noticed a large, square vanilla envelope bent in a slight curve. A glass mixing bowl sat a little ways away, most likely used to press out the envelope. It was opened, the obvious tear towards the top of the envelope, the contents gently pushed back inside. What looked to be a single sheet of paper was inside.

“Do you remember the genre of book you’ve inspired me to write, my love?” Elliott hummed.

You could remember that day clearly. Nearly two seasons had passed, the end of the scorching summer was settled on the land, the valley preparing for fall. The weather had cooled just a tad, but it was enough to warrant you a trip down to the beach for a dip in the ocean. Your crops were all done for the season, every last bundle of blueberries plucked, every melon uprooted, hot peppers and tomatoes picked from every patch you had planted. You were done for the rest of the season when it had come to the farm.

But as soon as you arrived at the beach, you had immediately lost all focus upon seeing Elliott’s cabin. You had been meaning to visit, and before you could even realize it, you were knocking at his front door. The poet was surprised to see you, emerald green eyes widening in pure delight at the sight of a new visitor.

Auburn hair tied back by a vibrant green ribbon, delicate locks not long enough framed his face nicely. Sharp jawline freshly shaved, not a single hair missed nor a single blemish on his healthy tanned skin. A loose white button-up long sleeve shirt sat unbuttoned a bit on the top. His shirt had been tucked into a pair of loose black slacks. If you hadn’t been blushing at the sight of a man as handsome as Elliott, you would’ve questioned him on why he decided to dress like a pirate.

Instead, he had roped you into an elegant conversation, allowing you to step into his cabin. Enchanted with his delicate words, you soon found yourself staring at him as he looked at you, groomed dark brows pulled up slightly as he waited for your answer.

He smirked as you shook your head slightly, clearing the fog from your mind as you suddenly found yourself in an embarrassing position.

“Sorry, excuse me,” you stuttered, feeling your cheeks heat up.

Elliott simply chuckled softly. His silky voice filled your ears before he glanced back at you, a smile still tugging on his chiseled lips. Yoba, they looked so soft.

“It’s this awful heat. I find myself losing my words too. I was asking you your favorite genre to read.”

“Oh!” You felt your stomach tighten into even tighter knots. “I… Romance I guess. I haven’t really had a lot of time to sit down and read something proper like an actual book. Maybe a news article on my phone or something but…”

“Romance? Ah, a classic form of literature! I find myself sinking into romantic novels myself, especially during a storm.”

“Romance,” you hummed.

He pulled the single piece of thick paper from the envelope, still a little curved from its time spent in the mailbox since early this morning.

“It’s a very short notice for such big news, but I’ve been invited to do a reading tour for the book you’ve inspired me to write.”

He handed you the piece of paper.

It was from his publisher, a full schedule on the bottom of the short notice. Every day was packed with readings to signings and meetups, all scheduled for one week.

Next week.

“You’re leaving Saturday,” you noted the date stamped at the very bottom, the following Sunday being his return.

“I am. But only for one week, my radiance.” He paused for a moment, you looked up at him with wide eyes full of excitement. “Will you be alright? I’ll be gone for one week and it’s already the start of a new crop season for us-”

“Go on it! This is what you’ve wanted, yeah? I’ll be fine!”

Elliott stared at you with slight shock, soon melting into a warm smile full of absolute love.

“I’ll be here for the rest of the week, though. I’ll still be here to help water what is not covered, help with your animals.”

You nodded and looked back down at the paper in your hands. You noticed the time to leave on Saturday is missing.

“When do you leave Saturday?”

“I believe before noon.”

Elliott produced one round-trip bus ticket from the envelope. The same company that brought you here to Pelican Town a little over two years ago.

Lo and behold, he would be leaving at ten o'clock in the morning.

Elliott plucked the schedule and ticket from your hands and placed them back on the counter. He quickly replaced the empty space between your hands, he filled them with his own. Grasping them tightly with his own, he pulled you closer to him.

His hands were strong, skin soft, fingertips scarred slightly from countless papercuts he’s given himself from binge-reading new and old books on rainy days as well as spending countless and stressful days writing, editing, and rereading his work that he’ll now read to many people out there in the world. You loved how nice his hands felt, warm, but not too warm to make your hands overheat. His hands were bigger than yours, enveloping them with their strong warmth as he pulled you closer until you both were pressed flush up against each other.

You caught whiffs of him. You always loved how Elliott smelled, from his shampoo and conditioner to the subtle hints of his aftershave and cologne. Pomegranate was the main node you would get (it was really the fruit that had started your acquaintance with him when he asked if you grew them on the farm) but he would also always smell somewhat like the sea. Sea salt in the ocean breeze, fresh and alive, and inviting like the ocean on a hot summer’s day.

And looking at your husband before you, you could feel your body heat up even more. His hands slowly rising in temperature, slowly roasting your fingers and palms still a little cool from handling your iridium hoe. You swore you could feel little tingles sparking between the minute gaps between your fingers and palms, fireworks, explosions of nerves edging you both further and further closer to the end of the cliff until-

You both suddenly found yourselves suddenly tangled in each other’s limbs. Bodies pressed flush up against each other, no room between your persons. Your breasts pressed firmly against his chest, stomachs with no gaps between, legs struggling to stand up properly and support each other.

Your hands snatched at the collar of Elliott’s button-up, crisp and clean with no wrinkles in sight now sat crumbled in your grasping hands. Your fingers flexing, suddenly releasing the collar to claw and crawl to his broad shoulders, snatching at the thin, soft material by the handful, pulling him closer if that was any more possible.

Elliott’s passion placed into his display of affections always seemed to catch you off guard. You knew Elliott was a passionate man the moment you met him, but as you grew to knew him and quickly fell for him, you learned that Elliott and romance went together like Gus and any event where he’s able to serve the town. Elliott always made you feel loved, always made you feel beautiful. He may look like he belongs on the front of a romance novel cover with his god-like appearance, but damn it all if he doesn’t know how to absolutely ravish you as the books would suggest.

One of Elliott’s strong hands had come to the back of your head, agile fingers gently grasping at the back of your head, fingers wrapped around your locks, locking your heads together. The other went around to behind your shoulders. He grabbed at the back of your shirt, a fistful of cloth fabric teasing him whereas he teased you with a few tugs, threatening to rip your shirt right off of your body without another thought.

It wouldn’t have been the first time he would have done that.

Elliott’s lips seemed to be made for yours. Every kiss was perfect.

Elliott softly moaned into the kiss, the swaying weight between you two nearly had your legs fumbling, nearly allowing the two of you to fall over yourselves. Elliott pulled away for just a moment, emerald green eyes gazing into yours for a brief moment, lust filling his gorgeous hues the more he looked at you, a faint pink blush dashing over his chiseled cheeks. You could feel your face heating up as well, the apples of your cheeks suddenly scorching just looking at him right here, nose to nose with your loving husband.

He had quickly pulled you into another kiss, lips tenderly pressing against yours in a passionate embrace, lulling your legs to finally be able to move towards the bedroom.

It was sloppy, your backs pressing against the walls of the short hallway connecting the living room to your shared bedroom. Elliott had you pinned to the wall at one point, your head pushed to the side, mouth open as soft mewls and moans escaping from your slick lips as Elliott sucked at the nape of your neck. His large, strong hands were squeezing your wrists, your fingers limp yet curling as you felt him pressed his clothed erection brush against your person.

You both had managed to tear yourselves from the wall, suddenly another mess of tangled arms, hands grasping in hair and snatching at clothing until Elliott’s nimble fingers had finally dipped under the bottom hem of your shirt, carefully peeling the hem up into a small curl of fabric until he could firmly grab at it with both hands. With a swift and sudden pull of his hands, you had suddenly found yourself topless in the sights of your beloved.

Flushing under his emerald gaze, Elliott had paused for a brief moment to look over your body, eyes scanning your form, lust slowly consuming his features the more he gazed at your form with fluttering eyes. Elliott hummed deep within his throat, hands coming up to cup at your shoulders. Hooking his thumbs under the straps of your bra, he delicately slid them off of the curve of your shoulders and crawled his fingers to the hooks behind your back. Your bra quickly came undone in his hands, the delicate lingerie now sliding off of your body with a tug of his agile hands and carelessly tossed over his shoulder.

The sight of your naked breasts alone was enough for Elliott to start to unravel more and more.

A coy little smirk fell upon your lips as you saw out of the corner of your eye the tenting in his pants, noting how the fabric was tightening more and more as the seconds ticked by.

“I hardly think it’s fair for you to still be dressed while you’re stripping off all of my clothes,” you pointed out.

“My dearest, I believe you’re right. How rude of me.”

Elliott had complied with your statement, but he was a little shit. Nimble fingers that had just ravaged your top and bra off of your person within just a few seconds, had plucked the top two buttons of his shirt apart at a snail’s pace; All with a devilish look in his eye as looked directly at you.

You flung yourself at him, hands grabbing the collar of his button-up and pulling his close to connect your lips once more. Elliott’s hands moved from his shirt to grip at the sides of your head firmly, sinking his fingers into the locks of your hair. Your hands fumbled down to the rest of the buttons, fingers struggling to pluck them apart one by one until you had no more to unbutton. Your fingers brushed against his bare chest and abdomen, lightly sun-kissed skin, toned generously as the lean muscle under your fingertips flexed softly at your bare touch.

Elliott shrugged his button-up off of his shoulders and tossed it aside, the hunk of material sliding against the hardwood floors.

Elliott advanced towards you, pushing you backwards until the back of your knees bumped into the lip of the bed. You stumbled back a bit, losing your balance and falling back into the mattress, your body bouncing a bit as you landed on the springy mattress. Elliott smirked, enjoying as your breasts bounced with you.

Elliott’s graceful fingers moved from your shoulders downward, fingers dancing down your body, past the curve of your breasts, and digging gently into the soft skin of your stomach until his fingers danced along the waistband of your pants. The button had suddenly slipped free and the zipper had been pulled down.

Elliott had leaned forward, you softly gasped when you felt his warm lips press gentle kisses down the center of your torso in a straight line, going from the bottom of your neck to in between the space of your breasts down to your belly button all while he had wrestled your pants out from under your rear. He worked your trousers down the length of your legs, eventually hitching them off from where they bunched up at your ankles and allowed the trousers to flop onto the floor, all while he was still trailing kisses right down your center.

He briefly looked up at you under a near curtain of auburn locks, emerald green hues amused at your heated face, wonderful lips smirking as you softly begged him to keep going.

His index fingers hooked around the delicate upper hemline of your underwear. Twisting his fingers just a bit to secure the hemline, he slowly pulled downwards, peeling your panties away from your pussy and down the length of your legs, soon joining your pants on the floor. The sight of you dripping wet, heat blooming from between your legs stirred Elliott onwards, but he remained collected; no matter how much he wished to absolutely ravage your body.

Elliott had stood up, you whined a bit as you immediately missed the feeling of his lips trailing up and down your torso, worshipping you, ravishing you with his soft kisses.

Your loving husband gripped the waistband of his own trousers and fiddled with the buckle of his leather belt. Shiny brass clicking a little at him fiddling and soon the long strip of punched leather slid out from the belt loops of his black slacks and was tossed onto your trousers pooling at his feet. You watched on in awe as he slowly dipped his hands under the waistband for just a brief second before plucking apart the button of his own pants and pulling the zipper down, revealing straining boxer-briefs.

You flushed at the outline hidden inside the confinements of his underwear. Cock straining, erect, yet tortured to be stuck into tightening underwear.

The black slacks dropped to the floor, Elliott nudging both his trousers and yours off to the side of the bed just out of the way. The matching black boxer-briefs looked awfully tight, you could only imagine the struggle Elliott was going through as he looked over your delightful form.

A few locks of auburn hair drifted out of place, some sticking to his slightly sweaty forehead while the others hung loose in his face, covering his eyes slightly. A faint blush still settled on his cheeks as he looked down at you with half-lidded eyes full of lust and desire.

“Elliott,” you cooed, your body heating up.

Your gut was coiling, heat pooling more around your pussy, your stomach feeling full of butterflies. You could hear your heart pounding in your ears, feel your blood roaring with life.

You needed him inside of you now.

“My dear (Y/n), what do you need?” he purred, still eyeing you as if you were nothing else but prey.

“You,” you whimpered.

“And what do you want me to do?” he teased, the corners of his lips twitching upwards into a coy smile.

“I want you to fuck me into this mattress.”

You swore you could see something snap inside of Elliott. The once calm and collected writer you called a husband seemingly snapped. You could no longer see the emerald in his eyes. The sea of lovely green now consumed by his pupils blown wide.

It was a good thing you both live on a farm, a good walking distance away from the rest of Pelican Town, otherwise, you and Elliott would be looking at many noise complaints from the rest of the town.

You watched as he snatched off his boxer-briefs, the poor man-handled fabric flung away, no longer in your line of sight.

What was in your line of sight, however, was your husband’s cock springing outwards, now free of its confinements.

You only had mere seconds to gaze at it before Elliott had pinned you to the mattress, the man hovering over you, hands pinning your shoulders to the mattress, impaling you with his cock.

A moan lodged in your throat, choking slightly as you cried out in pleasure at the tightness. Elliott gave a satisfied groan as well, broad shoulders sagging for just a mere moment to lose himself in the sea of pleasure he found himself in.

You loved how Elliott’s cock fit inside of you so perfectly, it was like to was made for you. His cock was large, thick, always stretching your tight pussy just right. Just the feeling of being stretched had you whining, clawing at the sheets by the handful. Your head rocked back into the mattress, cradled by the bunched up sheets under your head and neck. Your eyes screwed shut at the painful stretch.

Elliott moaning softly, panting against your chest. His long auburn locks had spilled across your sweaty chest, thick strands clinging to your breasts, pooling on your person for a brief moment as Elliott had dipped his head to revel in the feeling of his cock in your tight pussy.

He craned his head back up, looking down at your sweaty face, mouth wide open as you cried and mewled under him. A wild smirk spread across his lips.

He was generous enough to give you a quick second to adjust to the tight stretch before he had started to slowly piston his hips.

The back of your head curled into the sheets piled underneath you more, your throat stretching, baring more skin to him. Elliott had leaned back down again, still pistoning his hips at a slow rate to enjoy the tight feeling of your slick walls around his cock.

Your guts were knotted with lust, only wanting you to raise your hips and match him with his thrusts, meet his cock thrusting inwards with you lifting your hips up, wanting your sexes to slap together, to rock the bed and make it groan like you normally do together. You loved how wild and powerful Elliott could be in bed.

Elliott’s hands snatched at your hips, nails digging into the soft skin. You whimpered at the bite of crescent moons, loving the pain adding on to the pleasure bubbling inside of your person. Each thrust seemed to make your organs knot closer together, made the coils heat up, and tighten. Your moans only spurred him to speed up once he had given you ample time to adjust to the tightness inside of you.

Elliott had let go of your hips, favoring to trap the sides of your head by placing his hands out flat against the ruffles and rumples of the sheets now bunched under the back of your skull, careful not to snag at any of your locks. His grip on the sheets tightened, supporting him better as he rocked his hips back and forth at a great pace, pounding into you like a machine powered by pistons.

He had dipped his head down to meet your parted lips. He groaned into the cavity of your mouth, wincing and tightening his grip on the sheets as your walls had clamped down on his cock. You could hear the sheets creaking, the soft fabric stretching and compressing under the intense grip Elliott was putting it through until he had released it just a touch.

He pressed hot, open-mouth kisses all around your face. He trailed kisses along the curve of your jaw all the way back to your earlobes where he would nip and gently tug at them. He would trail a sloppy line down the curve of your neck, grazing the columns of your throat with his teeth. He definitely had produced a good amount of hickies along your neck and upper chest, so much to possibly warrant a turtleneck at the beginning of summer if you were to have made any plans of going out in public. He had even gently sunk his teeth into the soft plush of one of your breasts, enjoying the little squeaks you produced as your clawed at Elliott’s back and grabbed at his broad shoulders.

Once he had deemed he had marked you up enough, he had only continued to ramp up his pace until you suddenly choke at the speed. You gasped, feeling your passageway clamp down on him once more, your husband crying out in pleasure and tossing his head back to revel in the feelings spiking through him.

You cried out, feeling the coils inside of you tighten even more, now white-hot as the seed about to enter your womb pretty soon as your climax was fast approaching.

You caught sight of Elliott’s eyes, emerald hues still missing, lost in a sea of black. His pupils dilated, still-full blown with lust, looking as though he had captured a starless sky in his eyes.

It was hypnotic, and the thundering of your blood in your ear like war drums had only added on to the pressure building up in your core. The splitting pressure inside of you had you squeezing your eyes closed, wincing, a soft moan passing through grit teeth as a wave of painful pleasure rattled through you, only tightening the coils inside of you even more.

Elliott was unraveling as well, auburn locks falling in his face, hiding his reddened and sweaty rugged face behind the curtain of his groomed mane. His shoulders tensed, lean muscle flexing in his shoulders and biceps, veins poking against his lightly tanned skin. His thrusts had gone from fast and passionate to sporadic and sloppy, longing and yearning to finally release inside of you.

A sudden eruption of heat spilled from between your legs, a massive release of pent up pain and turned to pleasure. A lewd moan had spilled from your open mouth, eyes rolling to the back of your head as Elliott groaned above you, riding and thrusting into your slickening pussy, only allowing him to lose himself to his gaining lust.

Your limbs suddenly felt heavy, weighed down by bones seemingly made of lead and iridium, allowing you to sink into the plush comfort of the mattress as Elliott continuously pounded into your pussy without fail. The man of many elegant words had crippled down to only guttural moans and heavy groans. He could barely make any other noises, he was too busy chasing his won climax. He huffed and puffed in your ears, shoulders shaking as he pistoned his hips back and forth like a well-oiled machine.

It had nearly been another full minute before you felt the slight twitch inside of your passageway, his cock stiffening ever so slowly in between the rushed thrusts of his hips. His thrusts were growing sloppier by the thrust, the bed groaning under the two of you as it rocked with each thrust. The two of you were a flurry of moans and lingering kisses, Elliott occasionally kissing down your jaw or sucking at your neck. Your pussy still slick with your sweet only allowed him to seemingly thrust faster inside of you, you could feel his cock twitch a bit more.

He was going to cum quickly.

His hands on either side of your head snatched at more of the rumpled bedsheets, twisting as his back arched downwards. With each thrust, there was no room left between your two persons, no air gaps between your sexes, drawing his cock nearly out of you only to slam right back into you without mercy. You swore you were drooling, trapped in the starry bliss clouding your mind, still chasing the joys of your climax as he only ravaged your pussy more and more.

The stiffer he got, the sloppier he got with his thrusts until hot milky white suddenly erupted from Elliott’s cock, the man coming with a choked shout. His shoulders curled up into his neck, head shooting back, auburn locks spilling over his broad shoulders and you milked every last drop of semen out of his cock still buried inside of you.

You cried, mewled as you felt the fullness inside of you, only to exhale as Elliott’s cock had slid right out of your passageway, his semen following quickly after to spill onto the bed.

Elliott nearly collapsed on top of your worn person, the man of elegance managing to roll himself to land right next to you. He draped one of his tanned arms over your body, the meat of his arm over your breasts so his hand could reach under your armpit, dragging you closer to his sweaty chest. You both laid there panting, hearts racing as moments ticked by, the thrill of your orgasms slowly riding down as you both looked at each other in the eye. Sweaty faces, blushed at the cheeks and noses, you both couldn’t help the small and loving smiles spreading across your faces. You both looked at each other through the messy, frizzy locks clinging to your sweaty faces. A good shower was to be put in order now, but it would have to wait.

You shivered, still feeling his hot seed spilling slowly out between your nether lips, tangling with the sheets under your person, a mess you would both clean in just a moment.

You stood there by the bus stop, waiting for the bus to arrive with your husband right by your side. You could tell he was nervous, he would always toy with his long locks when he was. He had even pulled his hair back and tied it to try and stop himself from fiddling with his luscious auburn locks, but he couldn’t help himself.

He was nervous, and rightfully so!

He was going to be gone for a week, reading for his adoring fans, signing autographs, meeting new and important people.

You took his hand, startling the man out of his daydream. Wide emerald eyes looking at you for a mere second before he seemingly calmed down… just a bit.

“You’ll do great out there. I promise,” you smiled. “Just breathe, remember to stay calm and you’ll do great.”

Elliott smiled warmly at you. He only wished you could come along with him, join him on this adventure he was going to have, but you had a farm to take care of, animals to raise and crops to tend to so you can help feed the town.

You had your responsibilities, and now, he did too. This would open up a lot of doors, a lot of opportunities to expand his craft, make good relationships and business partners, spread the word about his writing more and more.

He only wished he could have you by his side. After all, you were his biggest inspiration for finishing his book. This was all because of you; Because you had introduced yourself to him your first day of arriving at Pelican Town, because you took up his many requests on the wanted board in front of Pierre’s, because you had taken the time to get to know him, to give him many wonderful gifts, to give him the mermaid’s pendant… You had spoken to him nearly every day, no matter if you were covered in dirt from the farm or covered in slime and bits of dead bugs and whatever horrors you had slain in the mines, you made it your goal to befriend him, to stick your muddy boot through his cabin door and get to know him. Even now, the mermaid’s pendant sat heavily against his throat, the polished silver chain choking him with suspense as he started to worry.

What if something happened and he wasn’t here to help? What if something happened to the farm? It’s summer, storms would surely come to try and wreck the farm. What if you were caught outside? What if you were caught in the barns? What if you got hurt and he wasn’t there to help you? To protect you?

The bus had rolled down the street and stopped right in front of you both. You both eyed each other one last time before you fully turned to him, Elliott doing the same.

Now face to face with your husband, you reached out and pulled him into a tight embrace. You could feel your throat tightening up just a tad as he wrapped his strong arms around your person, a quick press of his lips against your cheekbone.

“I promise to write to you every day, my radiance,” he murmured into your ear.

“Every day?”

“Every day without fail.”

“I love you, Elliott.”

“And I love you, (Y/n).”

The doors to the bus swung open, the bus driver not even looking in your direction at first.

Elliott pulled away only to press his lips to yours. The kiss was so full of passion for how brief it had to be without keeping the bus driver and the other bus occupants waiting.

You pulled away to look him in the eyes. You could see the yearning for him to stay with you, but you both knew this was coming sooner or later.

“Be careful, yeah?”

“Of course, my dearest.”

And with that, Elliott picked up his (overstuffed) suitcase and carry-on bag and set off into the bus.

You watched on with a reassuring smile as Elliott sat down at the window facing you. You followed the bus as far down the sidewalk as you could until there was no walkway left. You watched from your spot on the sidewalk as the bus was slowly swallowed by the darkness of the tunnel, heading towards the city.

With a soft sigh, you glanced down at the mermaid pendant sitting around your neck. You gently grasped the shimmering blue twisted shell and gazed back at the tunnel.

You ignored the biting, bitter feeling bubbling in your gut, wrinkling your nose at the sensation of dread wafting around your mind, and turned to follow the trail back to your farm.

Maybe if you busied yourself with farm work and the mines and whatever foraging you could find, the week would fly by quickly and Elliott would return to you sooner than you would think.

Upon arriving at the farm, you sighed. You knew the farm felt emptier the moment you stepped foot on the land. Even as your cat brushed around your leg and trotted towards the barn and coop, you hoped time would fly by quickly.

Picking up the milking bucket and shears from the chest by your house, you followed behind your faithful kitty, attempting to busy your lonely mind with work until your beloved author returned to you.

[painted-bees]

August 12, 2008.

 Magritte had only ever heard good things about Vancouver's Granville Island and so, naturally, it was the first place she set out to find upon arriving in the city. The Greyhound station her bus pulled into had been only a short walk from the Skytrain that would carry her two minutes to Granville Station. And it was here that Magritte had the good sense to find a nice, unintrusive space to sit cross-legged and lay her old, faithful piano keyboard across her lap.

  The instrument, pulled out of its cozy bed from within her large duffel bag, was a well loved Yamaha PSS-270. Its dull, black, plastic body was covered in ancient, disintegrating stickers, and a generous amount of electrical tape served to hold its batteries in place.

  With an affectionate press of a button, she woke the machine up from its slumber, selected her choice presets and, with no specific setlist in mind, began to improvise a little tune. Something cute and fun, perhaps a little bit like Donkey Kong’s Stickerbrush Symphony in tempo and progression. Or just…”Stickerbrush Symphony”, wholesale, why the hell not? Improvisation melted seamlessly into the classic video game tunes that were fondly familiar to her.

The beloved instrument cradled in Magritte’s lap had been pulled apart and reassembled more times than she kept track of. But still, it held together and played its charming FM sounds dutifully. A tidy row of silver metal switches, lined up along the side of its body, were left carefully undisturbed as her fingers danced across the yellowed plastic keys. Magritte had learned very early in her busking career that the general public did not appreciate the unpredictable discordinance of a bent circuit as much as she did. And so that row of silver little switches connecting the data lines stood stoically in their ‘on’ position, not allowing for any delightful surprises, but also not deteriorating the synth-chip’s sound into glitchy noise on a bad turn. Perfectly vanilla, perfectly agreeable, endearingly nostalgic.

 She had placed an old ball cap upside down infront of her, tossing in a few quarters of her own as a way of inviting more from friendly pockets. Ideally, she’d play an hour or two and leave with enough change to buy a coffee. Not just a Tim’s coffee–no. She wanted a decadent foamy latte from a cute, artsy little cafe she could sit in. She couldn’t bear to walk through the streets of Granville Island without having the spare change to treat herself on an impulse. And so–she’d not leave the train station until the passing public funded her frivolous spending habits.

After all, it was her birthday. She deserved a little gift.

 Busking in a transit station was always a bit of a trade-off. It was a bustling place full of foot traffic but the people here were focused on reaching their destination; busy and preoccupied. In a place like this, Magritte had no expectation to captivate loiterers. Not many transit-goers could spare a minute or two to sit and listen while she hammered out her cheap little tunes on cheap little piano keys. And so, when a well worn pair of tan colored, loose-laced Timberlands entered her field of vision, stopping definitively to stand before her, Magritte turned her gaze upward to welcome the listener with a wide, sloppy smile.

 Without giving her brain time to register the face she was speaking to, Magritte opened her mouth to chime a cheery greeting. She was cut off faster than she could process his expression.

  “You’re in my spot.”

  The man’s voice was curt, and the cold annoyance in his tone was mirrored in the expression on his short, square face. Pale blue eyes looked down a sharp, slightly bent nose at her. His narrow lips were pressed narrower still in a stern line, framed by a full, sandy colored beard and moustache. Atop his head, long hair of the same light color was pulled back into a small, tight bun; more slick and tidy, but far less full than the sloppy bun that Magritte’s unruly mane of curly rust colored hair had been wrangled up into.

 Her dorky smirk dissolved with a few confused blinks into a slack jaw of nervous apology. “O-oh! I uh-s-sorry!” 

Her startled gaze snagged itself on the acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder, and the instrument’s exciting potential made her straighten her back with intent.

 She found her smile again. “What if–maybe we could jam? For a few minutes! And then I can scoot on outta here and leave you to it if you want. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to–”

 “Do you have a permit?” His tone was unchanged by her eager proposition.

 “Huh?” It wasn’t that Magritte didn’t hear him, but she needed a moment to process what was being asked.

 “You can’t be here without a permit. Not the stations, not anywhere in Granville either.” The unaccommodating man took a few steps towards her duffel bag and used the top of his foot to lift and slide it away from where she had safely tucked it. “Get a move on.”

 Magritte protectively reached out to grab her bag as the man carelessly footed it out of ‘his’ space. And in doing so, she caused her keyboard to slide off her lap, forcing her to clumsily abort her duffel-grabbing effort in favor of clutching her instrument before it could somersault over the edge of her knees and land face-down onto hard ground.

 The man, it seemed, was done with words and had already begun moving into the small space that shoving her bag out of the way had created. She felt her face turn hot as she began to gather up her items. Any desire to engage the guy more than she already had was lost along with her nerve.

 As she relented to stowing her keyboard back into her duffel bag, an unfamiliar hand shoved a cold, unopened can of Coke in front of her face.

 “Here you go.” Another man’s voice. A softer one, this time. Magritte glanced up to meet eyes with the stranger who was offering her a free drink, only to gaze into a pair of red, plastic, star shaped dollar store sunglasses.

He gave the soda can a little shake, prompting her to take it into her hands. “Sorry I took long, I had to give someone directions to the aquarium.”

 “Is this…for me?” Holding the can in both hands, Magritte stared at the unopened beverage, unsure what to do with it.

 The new stranger leaned onto his back foot. “You said coke, right?”

 Before Magritte could stammer out a response, the new stranger turned his attention to the man with the guitar. “‘Ey, Kurtis. You mind, dude?”

 The unaccommodating man, ‘Kurtis’, had just started settling in, and looked towards the new stranger with an expression that appeared as perplexed as Magritte herself felt. He turned up both his palms in a slightly contentious gesture. “Didn’t know you were playin’ here again. I’ve had this spot for, like, a year. People don’t usually park here without asking me first.”

 “Okay, but you can’t just kick ‘em out like this, man.”

 “I didn’t know she was with you–”

“Doesn’t matter,” Magritte’s new best friend replied. “Sixty minutes. It’s not a long time to wait if you gotta wait.”

 Magritte, who had been watching Kurtis’ confidence slowly drain from his body with each passing second, turned to examine the cut of her spontaneous new accomplice. His hair was a shade or two darker than Kurtis’, and trimmed much, much shorter, with longer locks in front that fell in straight tufts over the tops of his ears and just past his thick, blocky eyebrows. His eyes remained obscured by the cheap plastic shades, and their childish novelty paired strangely with the well trimmed goatee that fanned out from under his lip to define the curve of his somewhat long but gentle chin. And he had with him a rectangular instrument case of…some variety. Not big enough for a guitar, not small enough for a flute. It didn’t give away the shape of the instrument inside, but the black oxford cloth and gold colored metallic detailings of its exterior gave it a classy, charming look she had not seen for an instrument case before. It was cute. Magritte wondered if such a style was available for portable keyboards.

 His hands, which wore white fingerless driving gloves, cracked open his can of sprite, and he took a casual sip while waiting for Kurtis to, “Get a move on.”

  Relenting, Kurtis shuffled away from the spot he had been deliberately crowding Magritte out of. With a snort and a nod of his head towards her, Kurtis said, “Can’t exactly play Paganini on a Portasound, Raf. What’s on your setlist?”

  Raf brandished a lopsided smirk and jutted his chin in the direction of Magritte’s upturned hat on the ground. “Put a toonie down and I’ll show you.”

  “Fuck off.” Kurtis’s scoff was accompanied by a laugh–one that sounded surprisingly genuine to Magritte's ear. “I came here to earn change, not spend it. But I’m curious to hear how the Ephrem Classical pairs with Toy Piano.”

 Raf let out a low groan that could have been mistaken for a growl. Moving into the corner that Kurtis had surrendered, he unslung his instrument off his shoulder with a shrug. “There’s plenty you can play on just forty-nine keys.”

 Being very confident about this fact, Magritte couldn’t help but provide her insight on the matter. With an enthusiastic lean-in, she interjected, “Yeah, like Kirby’s Dreamland!”

 Raf’s head flinched in her direction almost imperceptibly, and if she had caught the subtle downward twitch of his eyebrows that betrayed a pang of confusion, she might have felt a bite of embarrassment. But instead, she heard him agree. “Like…Kirby’s Dreamland, yeah.”

 He turned to look over his shoulder at her, his sunglasses mercifully hiding the bafflement in his eyes. Magritte beamed gleefully back up at him.

  “Well, have fun.” Kurtis levelled a stern yet somewhat pleading glance at Raf.” I’ll be back here in an hour. Don’t let anyone else move in if you leave early, please.”

 Raf simply shrugged and sipped loudly from his can of sprite in response.

  As Magritte watched Kurtis disappear into the foot traffic, she began to tentatively scoot back towards where she had previously sat. “I didn’t mind giving that guy his spot back, he was just kinda–”

 “A dick. Nah, I saw that. S’why I stepped in.” Raf had carefully set his instrument case down, and was in the process of zipping it open.

 Leaning slightly to get a peek at what he was playing, Magritte said, “Thanks for the pop, by the way! I can pay you back after. If uh–you’re actually gonna stick around and jam with me.”

 He pulled his instrument out of its protective cradle; a pale varnished wooden violin. “Don’t worry about it.”

Inside the carrying case, Magritte noticed two bows neatly stowed. The bowstrings on the bow Raf selected was a standard white color, but the strings on the one he left in the case were an eye-catching red.

“Truth be told,” tucking the chin rest of the violin beneath his chin, he played one string, and then two experimentally, “I don’t really play anymore.” His fingers closed around one of the tuning knobs at the head of the violin, but if he had tweaked it at all, it wasn't perceptible. “So it’s gonna be pretty rough. But uh…gotta commit to the bit, I guess.”

  Magritte took the moment to open her soda and enjoy a refreshing sip. “What kinda music do you normally play?” 

  “Classical,” he replied almost too quickly. “You?”

  Magritte hesitated for a second. She should have had an easy answer for this by now, but all she could manage was, “a bit of everything. Anything, really!”

  Raf ran his bow over the strings again to hear their tune before turning to look at her. “Yeah?” His eyebrows were raised, and his smirk favored one side of his face; an expression Magritte interpreted as incredulous. He fidgeted with a tiny, lone knob on the violin's body where the strings ended.

  “Y-yeah! I, um…” Settling her keyboard back into her lap, she turned it on. “You can just play whatever, and I can fill it in. I can improvise, I think.”

  Raf paused and stared down at Magritte’s little Portasound with a sigh much heavier than he intended. The thing was lacking, not just in keys, but in sound. It was a struggle to think of something he could play that she’d be able to accompany. The titles which did come to mind where…overplayed and would have to be simplified considerably to suit the keyboard's limitations. Weighing it in his mind, however, he decided that ‘simple’ may benefit not just the limited range of her instrument, but of her musical skill as well.

 He ran the bow over his strings to measure their tune one last time before tentatively, very slowly playing the first few crystalline notes of Für Elise. He felt a tension he didn’t know he was holding melt off his shoulders as he watched Magritte’s face light up. She curled over her little piano in a hurry to play his accompaniment. She knew this one.

  She picked a soft, more ambient sound from the keyboard’s voicebank, electing to quietly cushion the violin’s notes rather than chafe against them. It was…difficult. Her little yamaha and its quaint library of FM chip sounds did not get along nicely with ‘real instruments’ that were being played ‘straight’. It wanted to be weird and annoying, just like her. But the notes Raf played, while simple, were extremely clear in tone; neat and tidy. The bow did not once stutter on the rough strings, it glided with practised ease. And with a great deal of restraint.

  This guy…he was playing beneath his skill level. For her sake, presumably. Like a gentleman.

 As Raf brought Für Elise to a close with the last, steady draw of his bow, Magritte swapped her soft, ambient voicing out with an annoying music box sound, and began hammering out a choice section from the 3rd movement of Appassionata. Her fingers slammed the keys harder than was necessary, solely because she enjoyed the percussive sound it added to each obnoxious, feverish note. 

  Lowering his violin, Raf watched Magritte’s fingers flutter furiously across the mini keys with respectable precision. Holding both the bow and the neck of his violin in one hand, his free hand reached up to remove his sunglasses and he rubbed his eye with the heel of his palm. A humbled snort escaped through his nose. “Yeah, okay.”

  “Play any song.” Magritte slowed her fingers to a stop without completing the movement. “Even if I don’t know it, even if it goes beyond the range of my little piano, I can improvise something nice for it, I promise!”

  Fitting his sunglasses back on, Raf let out a tentative hum. “I’m not much of an improviser–”

  “You don’t have to improvise anything! Play whatever you want, however you wanna play it. I will improvise around whatever you give me!” Magritte’s voice had risen to an excited shout, and instinctively, she withdrew into herself just a little bit, as if making herself smaller would also make her voice smaller, too. “It’s my favorite thing to do. It’s a lot of fun.”

  His incredulous smirk returned, but this time his brow furrowed slightly, encouragingly, under his growing sense of intrigue.

  “It’s–” Magritte held up both hands haltingly, “it’s probably not gonna be like how you know it should be. Just…so you know. It might even be…bad? In some parts? But-! Mostly it’ll be neat! I promise!”

  “Neat…” Raf brought the violin up once again to rest under his chin. “Neat’s cool. Alright, let’s see, then.”

  As though he had been inspired by Magritte’s aggressive interpretation of Appassionata, he began with a series of fast, chirpy, clean notes of his own. A wholly different song, but Magritte recognized this one too. She had most often heard it as a phone ringtone, but she couldn’t recall who composed it nor what the song was titled. She provided a jaunty, equally bouncy accompaniment that she’d have described as ‘percussive’. The violin’s unwavering confidence was a delight for Magritte’s deft little fingers to dance around. He never fell out of tempo, and she was able to punctuate his notes with hers in perfect time. Maintaining synchrony for the entire length of the fast paced composition filled her with such satisfying joy, she had failed to properly appreciate an obvious fact about her musical accomplice until he brought the song to a close; he was a skilled musician.

  Staring up at him from her spot on the floor, Magritte’s wide eyes almost sparkled with delight. “You’re like…Concert hall good, aren’t you? Are you part of the local orchestra? Or at least like–aspiring to be?”

  Raf’s gaze hung on her as both his jaw and posture slackened. “Uh…” 

  She didn’t give him enough time to respond, hitting him with another question. “What was the title of that song? I just know it as one of the Nokia ringtones.”

 “P–” Raf’s stunned silence cracked with a laugh that sprang forth from his chest and took him by surprise almost as much as Magritte’s line of questioning had. “Paganini. It’s–it’s Paganini, Caprice number…number 24.” The response was punctuated with warm chuckling. “Or, you know, that one phone ringtone, yeah.” He smirked at her for a moment longer, studying her for any sign that she was putting him on. “How do you…accompany me that well, on that little machine, and not even know the song?”

 Magritte waved her hands in front of her. “No, no, I knew the song! I’ve heard it before, I just didn’t know what it was called.”

 “Yeah, alright.” He snorted one last incredulous laugh and brought his violin back up for another song.

 Magritte stopped him before he could settle on his next pick. “Do you play professionally? I mean, it sounds like it but, like–”

  “No.” Before Magritte could inquire further, the first notes of their next song filled the space between them, drawn out of his violin with long, purposeful strokes of his bow.

  The next several songs, Raf played seamlessly one into the other–without pausing for conversation. That was just as well for Magritte. It had been ages since she was given the chance to play music with someone, and never had she played with someone who was so…solid? Consistent? The real deal. Usually, she had to avoid getting carried away when playing with another person. It was very easy for her to close her eyes and get taken to places that her musical partners could not follow along with. But with Raf, she was finding herself challenged to keep up with him. Most of the songs he had chosen, she had not heard before. And so she needed to keep an attentive ear out if she wanted to pick out repeated phrases, and predict melodic trajectories.

  Finally, they arrived at the end of an especially eclectic piece, and Raf did not immediately follow through into another composition. Instead he lowered his bow, and Magritte took her opening to converse again.

  “I really liked that one. It was super janky, in a fun way.”

  “Yeah,” Raf said. “I was always fond of it, too.”

  “I liked the plucky bits. Did you write it?”

 “Did I–” Raf palmed both his bow and violin in one hand, and massaged his eyes and browline with the other. “No, some guy named Ravel did. Tzigane, that one’s called.”

  Magritte chewed the inside of her cheek. “R-right.”

  He furrowed his eyebrows at her. “You knew that one, though.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “...You just let me solo the first four minutes based on vibes?”

  “I thought I missed the bus on it.”

  “The actual composition has no accompaniment until about half way through, so…bravo.”

  “Wait, really?” Magritte leaned forward eagerly. “Did I play the accompaniment correctly, too?”

  “Not even close.”

  “Drat.” She slumped.

  “Was good, though.” Raf picked up his sprite from where he had placed it, on the ground next to his case, and drained the last bit of its contents.

  Magritte perked up again. “Yeah!?”

  He held the lip of the empty can between his teeth as he began tucking his violin back into its carrying case. “Mmhm.”   

  Magritte watched him pack up for a moment longer than it should have taken her to realise, “Wait, you’re leaving already?”

  Raf zipped his instrument safely away before removing the empty soda can from his mouth. “Yeah, I gotta get going. But look,” He bent over to collect Magritte’s upturned ball cap off the ground. The few quarters she had started with now had a generous handful of friends with them; more quarters, some loonies, a few toonies and–

 Magritte accepted the hat when Raf handed it to her, and pulled a crisp twenty dollar bill out of it. “W-who left this!? I wasn’t even paying attention, I should have said thanks!”

  “A mystery.” He slung his violin case over his shoulder.

  Magritte urged him to wait, fluttering a hand at him. “Half of this is yours!”

  “Nah.” He favored her with a smile. “Genuinely, this was a treat in itself. It’s been a long time since I’ve played for fun like this. It…was fun.” That last part sounded as though it came as a surprise to him.

  Frowning, Magritte pleaded with him. “Okay, okay but–okay. Lemme treat you to a coffee then, at least? If you’re in no real hurry.”

  Raf paused to regard her with a measuring stare. He then sighed and shoved his hands into the pockets of his black denim hoodie jacket, waiting for Magritte to stow her keyboard away into her bag.

  Zipping the duffel closed, she hoisted it with effort over her shoulder and beamed up at her new friendly acquaintance. “If you know any cute, cozy coffee places with a real decadent latte, I’m open to suggestions!”

  “There are…a few.” 

  “I’m Magritte, by the way!” She extended her hand out to him.

  With slight hesitation, Raf shook it. “Rafael.”

  As the two of them began to make their way out of the station together, he dared to ask, “Are you here visiting, or..?”

  “Oh!” She bounced on the balls of her feet, “I just came in from Calgary like…two hours ago. Ideally, I’d like to stay until the spring, but that’s gonna depend on things.”

  “Calgary?”

  “Yeah! I was in Edmonton before that, and in Winnipeg before that–but that was mostly a fever dream. I wasn’t there long. Montreal before that, though, was nice..!” She talked the entire walk, and he was content to quietly listen. part ii

[bondilluns]

*ibuprofen girl voice* come with me to hesitant alien x alpharetta x auckland gerard world 🫴🏻🌸🩷💘💞

thanks to my beloved @frrreakiero for putting this image in my mind <333

[ID: A digital painting of Gerard Way singing onstage. They hold the microphone to their face with one hand, and grabs its cables with the other. They rest their feet on one of the amps. Their outfit is inspired by hesitant alien, Alpharetta, and Auckland tour outfits. They wear a black suit and a white crop top with a magenta silk scarf, a fluffy pink feather boa, a black mini skirt with pink squares, black tights with holes in them, black heels, and black leather gloves. Their hair is short and dyed blond. The background is pink and yellow, with spotlights shining behind a thick fog. End ID.]

[15-lizards]

mrs. reed i have an important question pls. or two actually. it's for fanfiction purposes and also i am obsessed with ur fashion and hair headcanons and regularly check the tag for updates.

how would a fem!selmy character dress ? also important note she spends a lot of time in braavos.

how would a fem!halfdornish half volantene character dress? she also grew up enslaved so not a big fan of red priests OR volantis.

how would a fem!house strong character dress? it's viserys' court in the late (rotting corpse) stages and she's very ambitious. thankyyy

it's very specific but maybe a challenge considering? idk i love your headcanons and want to know your thoughts but feel free to totally and completely ignore/generalize more :))))

Let me read ur fic!!

Selmy girls, to me, dress very down-to-earth casually, with a preference for golden yellow colors. The top gown she might wear in Westeros, plain and long sleeves gowns that may or may not be fitted to her, depending on whether she has a surcoat/overgown on as well. The left is a mash of Pentos/Stormlands she can wear in either place. It has the cut of an average gown she might wear in Westeros, but the overcoat, the belt, the headpiece, and patterns are inspired from her time in the Pentoshi ports. The right is a full-Pentoshi gown (shout out to the Chechen culture for his one) with a simple cut and silky fabric to wick away sweat. Metal jewelry and accessories like belts and brooches hand crafted by Essosi artisans, and of course a loose veil/scarf/head wrap to protect her head from the sun

For your dornish-volantene girl, she might scorn all finery from or that reminds her of Volantis. She wears long strips of light cloth wrapped around to make a loose skirt or pants, and another bolt to create a wrapped top of some kind, and that’s it. Nothing heavy or golden, just something that can give her ease of movement and also not remind her of her enslavers. If she was ever in Dorne, she most likely would adopt that style of clothing, especially on the coasts or in the sands, where there is far less shade than in Volantis. Simple, square cut gowns of cotton that are decorated by incredibly detailed embroidery and other types of patterns. Again, a veil or headscarf is useful in Dorne, but some situations may require full facial coverage from the sun

Unnamed Strong sister my beloved. Bringing her to court while she’s still a young girl, she is dressed as the innocent she is. White gowns with colorful borders and flowery patterns, short puffed sleeves, ringlet curled hair, and a lace neckline high enough to be considered appropriate for a young girl. As she grows up, she starts wearing finer gowns (perhaps from Rhaenyra’s closet), soft silk with gilded lining, neckline pushed down low enough to get a courtiers attention. Once she’s a grown woman, she is far more comfortable, wearing Targaryen colors to symbolize her favor with the crown (or green, depending on which side she’s on). Off the shoulder necklines and flatter sleeves symbolize that she is a woman now, not a child. Many layered gowns with cloth of gold underskirts show off her new wealth.

[blazenfire223]

[ID in undercut]

HAPPY GOOD OMENS 3 YEAR FANDOM ANNIVERSARY TO MEEEEEEEE!!!!!

A VERY special day for me! It's been 3 whole years since I've been in this beloved Fandom of mine and I'm so happy that I'm still here. This Fandom means so much to me, more than I could ever express. Thank you all so much for being such an amazing and creative place for me to express my love for this show. You are are so amazing. I love and adore you all 💜💜

(Also I made this year's piece angsty in light of Season 2's ending hehe 🤭🤭)

[ID: A digital illustration of Aziraphale and Crowley. They are on opposite sides of the canvas, with Aziraphale standing on the left and Crowley sitting on the right. On Aziraphale's side he stands tall with his arms behind his back and looking up towards a light, presumably Heaven's. He is not in his usual beige outfit but instead in a grey suit with a cravat and frilled inside sleeves and brown dress shoes. His eyes are red from tears and streaked with gold. His nails are also painted gold. His halo, one that encircles his entire head, and one of his wings are out as well. Above his head are the words 'Archangel Aziraphale'. The word 'Archangel' is in purple and crossed out and the word 'Aziraphale' is in yellow. On Crowley's side he is sitting with one leg up and the other on the floor, bent. He is leaning on his leg with one arm and holding a bottle of wine in the other. He has his sunglasses on to hide his face but it's made clear he is crying. He is wearing a simple outfit, a dark turtle neck and jeans with his signature snake skinned boots with red soles. Devil horns are above his head and a tail is out as well where he sits. A dark wing is out as well, to match Aziraphale and together their wings overlap to make a heart where above it there are the words "And a Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square." Similarly to Aziraphale there are also words above Crowley that say his name in red and 'One of the Bad Guys', crossed out and in black. The background is in black and white on each of their respective sides. /End ID]

[darsynia]

They Show Their Truth (one single time) | Oneshot

gif from @marvelheroes

Summary: Steve's managed to keep how he feels about Natasha a secret, but the vision he saw in South Africa shook him.

Caring about Natasha Romanoff this much means that when there's a chance to heal her wounds by revealing his secret, Steve throws himself on the grenade, because of course he does.

Length/Warnings: 5,443 | Porn with plot, unrequited love. Minors DNI

Tags (please forgive me if this isn't your thing, feel free to ignore if so 💚): @ronearoundblindly @munstysmind @chickensarentcheap @themaradaniels @starryeyes2000 @deepbatched @chibijusstuff @caplanreblogsfics

This was written as a request for my friend @salovie a while back!

They Show Their Truth (one single time)

“I don’t trust a guy without a dark side.”

The worst part is that Stark would probably appreciate what Steve is struggling with. He might even trust Steve more because of it, and isn’t that just exactly the worst conclusion to draw, tonight?

Steve’s on his back on the floor in the Barton family room. He’d feel more comfortable if he could rest on his side with his back against the couch, second best to the wall, but every square foot of wall in this room is filled with shelving. Toys, books, puzzles; the accoutrements of a life he’ll never live, all stacked up with the chaotic order of an unexpected visit. The couch is ready for Natasha, with a sheet covering the cold, worn leather. He’s left her the handcrafted afghan and the better of the two pillows Clint’s wife had offered, and kept the sports fleece for himself.

It makes sense that they’ve put the two of them in here; whatever is going on between Bruce and Nat means it would be irresponsible to force them to share. Stark’s by himself on an air mattress in the laundry room instead of in the guest room with Bruce, because out of all of them, he’s the one most likely to accidentally set Banner off-- and just like Clint said, it’s not that they don’t trust Bruce. They don’t trust Tony.

Steve likes Laura Barton. It seems to him that she understands the purgatory they’re all putting themselves through, most of them, anyway. He sure as hell hopes she hasn’t caught on to his, but she couldn’t have.

If she had, she wouldn’t have put him in a room with Natasha.

He gets up and turns off the overhead light, using the chain, then flips off the switch. The ceiling fan’s breeze is just on the edge of too much, but if Nat wants it on, it’ll be set up so the light won’t disturb her. He walks over to the door and cracks it, listening. Laura and Natasha are still talking quietly in the kitchen. Steve pushes the door mostly shut again, and turns off the light that’s across the room from the couch, leaving just the one lamp directly next to it. 

He winces. The room is now bathed in an orange-yellow glow that reminds him of the quality of light in the vision he’d seen in South Africa. The truth is that practically everything here reminds him of the vision.

The glint of the sun off of the axe had reminded him of the flashbulbs.

One of Barton’s kids had spilled juice, and its blood red color had been like the wine on the soldier’s chest.

A rare moment of collective laughter in the dining room with Nick Fury had pulled Steve out of the moment and thrust him, unwillingly, back into the vision.

He’d had to walk away, away from the mirth, away from her red hair as she faced away from him, so similar to the twice-damned vision where Peggy Carter had asked him to dance. As he’d turned to say yes, she’d spun away, dress flying off to reveal a tight-fitting black jumpsuit, the brown wig falling away to red, her familiar, beloved face morphing into Natasha Romanoff’s familiar, beloved face.

Because she is. Beloved. Despite everything. No amount of brutal training at the gym until his hands are numb and bruised, no amount of self-denial or self-recrimination has cured him of it. Hell, no monk has ever kept himself as pure for the sake of his God as Steve Rogers has, for fear of thinking of his teammate in a way that is definitely unholy.

The result has been the exact opposite of his intention; all roads lead to Natasha in his mind, because as ever, Steve Rogers aspires for that which cannot be. The only thing he’s learned from being chosen for the program, from rejecting orders and saving his best friend despite everything, from crashing the plane to save the world, from waking up after seventy years on ice, is that fate loves to give him what he wants.

And he wants her.

“Not this time,” Steve murmurs from his position on the floor, one knee up, arm behind his head.

“Well, if that’s the way it’s gonna be,” Natasha says in a sultry, teasing voice from the doorway.

Steve launches himself into a stand as if she’s the personification of an enemy, and in a way, she is.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, Steve, but you’re a little edgy.”

“You and Clint are always telling me to rough it up a little, just trying to follow orders,” Steve jokes, backing up out of her way as she walks into the room.

“We were thinking more along the lines of getting you to watch some porn, grow some scruff,” she tells him. “So, you trying to be chivalrous, leaving me the couch and the best blanket?”

The tingling awareness he’s been fighting down for hours rears back to life at her provocative words, even more so when she immediately tempers them with a challenge about the couch. He knows her. Her behavior tells him that she thinks her words were reckless, that’s why she’s covering them. That means there was some truth to what she said, that they were revealing. If he were an enemy, it might be a trick to let him lower his guard, but she doesn’t know that he’s been fighting her in his mind for months. At least, he hopes to hell she doesn’t.

“Not at all,” Steve lies smoothly. “It’s pure math. I don’t fit.”

Nat turns her warm, impish gaze towards him and Steve feels a jolt of pure, unadulterated desire. Don’t, sweetheart. Don’t, he begs in his own head. She’s vulnerable, open, teasing, coy. Because she trusts him.

“Now, come on, soldier,” she says, sweetly mocking. “That’s boy scout math. Unimaginative math. I could probably fit the whole team on that couch if I had to. They might even enjoy it.”

He’s hardly ever seen her like this, but he knew she had it in reserve. “Well,” he says in his best regimental, Team Captain voice, hoping she won’t hear the regret he feels in pulling it out to dash water all over her lush, flirty flames. “That might be so, but that has nothing to do with sleeping.”

“Oh no, Steve,” she says, amused concern woven through the husk of her voice. “Turn it off, I absolutely cannot sleep with a Steve Rogers figurine in the room with me tonight!” Natasha comes over to him, her lips curved into a smile under furrowed eyebrows, and before he can fully understand what she’s doing, she’s got her hands on him, stroking along his back, and he’s hard, his heartbeat spiking, she’s going to know, fuck, fuck… 

“Nat, what--” he chokes out, throwing his arms out wide in hopes that he can talk himself down before she walks back around.

“I’m looking for the pull cord,” she says, resting a hand on his arm so she can lean over and catch his eye. “For your sayings. You know, ‘It’s the American Way!’ and ‘Do it for your country!’”

Every single thing she says sounds like innuendo to him. To think that Tony fucking Stark thought he doesn’t have a dark side. He’s sworn more in silent frustration about this gorgeous, unattainable woman than Stark probably has in the whole year, on purpose, out loud.

“Lay back and think of Uncle Sam?” Steve suggests, forcing his limbs to move, walking toward the other side of the room as he pulls his arms out of the long-sleeved overshirt he’s wearing.

“I’ve actually done that, you know. Multiple times,” Nat tells him, chuckling.

“Are you going to sleep in that? Do you want me to leave the room while you change?” he forces himself to ask. She’s got her own dark, long-sleeved shirt on, over a soft, grey thing that clings to her curves in a wholesome, farmhouse way that doesn’t stop him from finding it sexy in the slightest.

“You wouldn’t have to even if I wasn’t,” she tells him in a voice that chastises him for even asking.

I don’t trust a man without a dark side, Tony’s voice repeats, in his mind.

He should have just confessed to Stark. ‘Some nights I’m so desperate for thoughts of Natasha that I’ve tied my hands to my own bedpost. Just enough resistance so I wake up if my hands drift down to touch myself. It’s her face in my erotic dreams, her body in my everpresent thoughts. Not Peggy’s. I’m not wholesome, Stark. I’m a sinner. A hypocrite.’

“The figurine comment was metaphorical, Steve,” Nat is saying. She’s inches away from him somehow, because once again he’s caught up in his thoughts. “You okay? Tony said you were unaffected, but--”

“He’s wrong. She got to me.”

“Yeah,” Natasha breathes, looking up at him. “Me too.” Her eyes are troubled, hurt, practically anguished.

Steve’s resolve weakens, and he smiles down at her with a fraction of his feelings showing through as reassurance. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Nat looks up at the ceiling and does a little frustrated shiver. “Talk, no. I either need to--” she breaks off and looks at Steve, her eyes shining with repressed tears. “There’s something really wrong about punching Captain America in the face because I need a release of tension.”

He thinks he knows what her aborted sentence was. I either need to hit someone or fuck someone.

Steve says what he was thinking out loud. “People see me as standing for the way things ought to be. Fairness. Doing your duty. Things working out the way they’re supposed to.” He lets out a short, frustrated sigh. “Life doesn’t always happen that way, and reacting with frustration against that fact is very reasonable. If you need to, go ahead. Punch me.”

“She really did get to you,” Nat whispers.

“I mean it. You know I can take it, Natasha. Physically, I mean. I won’t take it personally.” He wants her to. If he can’t have her softness, he’ll take hardness over nothingness.

The regretful vulnerability is back on her face. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew why I need it.”

“They’re trying to tear us apart, Natasha. The best way not to tear is to reinforce the connections you already have.”

“It’s not about what I saw. At all. It’s about wanting someone and being rejected, not even because I’m not enough, but because he’s too broken.” She reels back in reaction to even saying the words, and impulsively, Steve reaches down and takes her wrists, shakes them until she responds by resisting his actions.

“You didn’t want to set him off in Clint’s house. You won’t set me off,” Steve lies. She already has, in exactly the wrong way. “Shove me, hit me, punish me. Get it out.” He pulls her hands, despite her resistance, until they’re flat on his chest. “He said he was too broken?”

Natasha’s lovely face crumples for a split second before her jaw tightens in anger. She shoves him; Steve was ready for it, doesn’t stop himself, lets the momentum carry him back a little.

“As if being broken is some kind of contagious!” she bites out, her voice angry but restrained. There are children sleeping in the house somewhere, after all. “As if I’m not a shattered teapot--” another shove. “--held together by the kind of toxic glue that builds up--” she punches his shoulder in a jab that does more than sting. “--in your system until I’ve killed you just by doing my job!”

For the word ‘job,’ Natasha drops back and her foot flies out, catching him in the chest. If they had been anywhere else, Steve would have let the full force of it knock him across the room, as intended, but he can’t risk the sound bringing someone who might see the heat he’s trying to repress. Instead, he takes the hit, his foot braced on the door, which shakes but doesn’t make much noise. Steve ends up on one knee, looking at Natasha, who is breathing heavily out of fury rather than exertion.

“Isn’t that just the perfect kind of symbolism,” she sighs, sounding defeated.

Steve raises his eyebrows, biting his cheek inside his mouth against the way his pants are pulled tight and uncomfortable against his arousal. That should be enough to kill it, but she’s walking toward him and all he can focus on are her hips, the way they sway. He wants to see what they look like with his hand gripping them, his thumb pressing against the thin, delicate skin that curves toward her inner thighs.

“You have my shoeprint on your chest, Rogers,” Nat says.

“What, it’s visible now?” he quips. The hold she’s got over him has been too close to the surface for too long.

“Now don’t go trying to make me feel better,” she says in that rich, amused voice of hers, tossing him a look before starting back toward the couch. It reminds him of the first time he ever wanted her; she’d said something in that tone and he’d found himself suddenly desperate to trace the origins of the sound with his lips and tongue against her neck.

“Any man who doesn’t want you is definitely broken,” Steve tells her, standing.

If she doesn’t recognize his confession, is that his fault?

“Even if that’s true, and I know it’s not, I’m just as easy to brush off,” she says, nodding at the way he’s wiping away the dust of her shoe so it doesn’t soil Laura Barton’s bedclothes. His hands still, not just because of what she’s said, but because Natasha’s rolling up the sheet and tossing it to the side, adding the pillow seconds later.

“What are you--” he starts, cutting himself off when she tugs the couch cushion off of the frame of the couch and sets it beside his makeshift bedroll. “Nat?”

He can’t sleep beside her. He can’t not sleep beside her, not after Bruce seems to have done his best to fracture her confidence into little pieces just so he could sweep her away more easily.

“You asked what you can do? You can do this.” Her words are short, choppy, defensive. “I can’t sleep next to Clint and take my confidence from him, not when he’s doing that for Laura right now. Unless you--”

“Here, my arms are longer,” Steve says, picking up the sheet and unfurling it over the cushions for her before she finishes that final, uncertain sentence.

“Thanks, Captain,” she tells him, her lips twitching up into a tiny, precious smile.

“At your service, Ma’am.”

He doesn’t let himself watch her wriggle into a comfortable sleeping position, choosing instead to walk over and turn out the light. He seeks out his own sparse sheet and too-short blanket in the fresh darkness, turning his back so his arms can’t seek her out in his sleep. Steve does scoot back far enough that he’s up against her cushions, the only concession he’ll allow himself to her nearness. He reminds himself sternly that it is just to give her the warmth and closeness she said she needed, nothing more.

Steve wakes to the feeling of a small hand worming its way under the tight shirt he’s wearing. He can feel Natasha’s body pressed up against his back, all softness and curves and forbidden sweetness.

Is she awake??  

This is the stuff of his nightmares, dreams he’s forcibly categorized as such because of the moral implications. Her arm has snuck under his, so he lifts his arm, hoping the change of pressure will be enough to wake her up. Instead, this earns him a closer snuggle, one where he can identify her breasts along his back, the dip of her pelvis molding against his ass.

“Nat?” he whispers.

“Cold,” she says, her lips and nose nuzzling the word against his shoulder. Steve doesn’t know what to think. Her hand on his stomach is warm. In his sleep-fuzzed laxity, he decides to react the way he assumes he would if he didn’t have an attachment to her, which is to roll over and encourage her to curl up against him to warm herself up.

Steve rolls onto his back, the movement brushing his body against her in thrilling ways.

“Mmm,” she murmurs, chasing his heat as he carefully scoots over so that she can slot into the warmth of the place he’d been lying. Steve only succeeds in moving about three inches before Natasha throws her right leg out and twines it around his left leg as she slips down from the thick cushions toward him. Before he fully understands what’s happening, she’s mostly on top of him, her head pillowed on his shoulder, her hot hand tucking ever so slightly into his waistband.

“Natasha, this can’t be what you do with Clint,” Steve hisses at her, desperate for her to stop moving before he shames himself with the speed of how fast he hardens for her. So far he’s controlling himself through sheer embarrassment on her behalf, but that won’t last much longer if she keeps squirming.

“Mmm, you’re right. He would have shoved me off by now, and we would have sparred about it or I’d have headed off to have a hot shower and a thorough conversation with my own hands,” she says, her voice wavering between an actual whisper and a tone husky with vocal fry.

Steve is nearly speechless. “Shower it is, then?” he suggests.

“Fresh out of hot water.” Natasha tells him, using a firm grip on his waistband to haul herself across his body to straddle him. Steve lifts both of his hands up over his head in self defense, but he’s essentially lost the battle. She’d removed her pants at some point in the night, and she’s sleep-mussed and gorgeous. Their enemies’ mental handiwork has done its job, led him right to what he’s always wanted, and it’ll be the end of them. She has to feel his reaction to her.

He closes his eyes and turns his head away. “I’m not going to fight you,” he says.

“That much is obvious,” she observes.

“What do you want me to say?” he asks between gritted teeth. “Put any man in this position and he’ll react the same.”

“Anything but that,” Natasha says in a small voice. Steve looks at her and sees pain in the angle of her head, the tightness around her eyes, the straightness of her back. She’s not putting all of her weight on him, he can tell, and just imagining the coiled strength that she’s exerting to rest so lightly and devastatingly against his thighs is undoing him.

She’s holding steady, but it feels like she’s pressing down thanks to his reaction to her. His body is gorging itself on a futile hope, and there’s no way that Natasha Romanoff doesn’t know this.

“I’m not Bruce,” he says, simply.

Her smile is a slice of pain. “Obviously,” she says, lowering herself fully and rocking her hips, pinning him with a challenging gaze.

Steve’s instinct is to stop her, but when he tries, his hands clutch naked skin and soft lace. The smile she offers him in response freezes him in place.

He shakes his head, delighted, miserable. “What are you looking for? Validation?”

“Goddamnit, Rogers, stop trying to fix everything,” she says, grinding against him again, making him gasp. “If the team’s fucked, the team’s fucked, so why not fuck the team, right? That’s what I’m trained for.”

The agony in her voice is all the worse because she doesn’t sound vulnerable anymore, and her eyes have lost the sheen of regret. She’s bitter, determined, and so broken in the process that Steve aches for her in a whole new, terrifying way. He reaches up to touch her face and she slaps at him before grabbing him, tearing open her shirt and clutching his hand to her breasts, fighting to keep him from fisting it.

Steve sits up, alarmed at her violence, and she tightens her thighs against him, rocking rhythmically.

“This is just sparring with different weapons, Nat, don’t do this,” he says.

“It’s all I have,” she snaps. “It’s my role. Tony would do it, you know he would.”

The jibe hits him in just the right way to be really painful, and Steve wrenches his hand away from her breast, trying to mitigate the way she’s ramping his desire up so skillfully with the drag of her body.

“Tony couldn’t, not in the way you want,” he says, his heart pounding, realizing that her plea for him not to fix it will have to be the one that will go unanswered. He knows exactly what she needs. Exactly. It’ll rip him apart to do this, in all of the best, soul-destroying ways, but it’s what she needs. Steve Rogers, throwing himself on the wire for his team.

“You and your stupid fucking rivalry--”

Steve interrupts her by arching his back, thrusting up against her, holding her gaze. “That’s not it.”

Natasha’s still hard-edged, scoffing. “I should have realized that would set you off. It must drive you crazy that his giant tower puts him ahead in your dick-measuring contest.”

“You think Tony wants you the way I want you? He doesn’t,” he says, blunt and honest. Her hips stutter in surprise, and Steve lets himself slide one hand up to the front clasp of her bra, flicking it open. “He’s known you longer, sure.” Natasha’s green eyes are wide, stunned. He takes advantage of her momentary stillness to hold her steady as he sits all the way up, sliding his other hand up to cup her face. “But would he throw away everything he has at the very thought of kissing you again, on purpose this time? No.”

“Steve?” she breathes, hesitant, haunted.

“Say the word and I’ll sleep on the porch and never mention this,” he tells her, hoping to hell she doesn’t.

“What even is ‘this?’” Natasha asks, tracing his face with doubtful eyes. “You trying to make up for Banner? I’m not a grenade, Rogers.” Her words are vulnerable but her voice isn’t. She’s using it as a weapon, pushing her sex appeal into the tone, sultry and challenging.

He watches himself push one of her wild curls back behind her ear, indulging a long-held desire that has nothing to do with the other ways he wants to touch her. “Seems like you’re trying to blow up like one. You just picked the exact wrong person to prove your point.” Steve makes eye contact with her. “Since when do I lie to you? About anything?”

“You want me,” she states dubiously, tossing her head, shaking it as she questions him, as if even saying it at all is too much to be believed.

“Very much.”

“I find it hard to believe this is anything more than a seventy-year--”

Steve buries his hand in the curls at the back of her head and kisses her, pouring all of his longing into the sweep of his lips, coaxing her to respond. For all the time he’s wanted this, he’d always thought if he got the chance again, it would be like the first time. Unexpected, unplanned, uncomplicated, unrepeatable. Not like this. Not with ardor, affection, adoration.

Natasha shifts toward him after a few seconds, letting out a small noise and tilting her head to deepen the kiss. Her movement sparks the napalm in his blood, little explosions of pleasure that follow her hand as she grabs his shirt, dragging it up his back to bare it for her fingernails. Steve can’t help it, he thrusts up into the sweet heat of her thighs in his lap, even as she gasps her mouth open for him to taste her. Natasha pulls back and rips off her shirt.

“Touch me, please, Steve, touch me,” she begs, grabbing his hand from where he’s been gripping her hip like a lifeline.

“I--” he starts, completely forgetting what he was going to say as he watches her throw her head back as soon as he palms her breast, shifting his grip so he can trace his thumb across her nipple. “Ahhhh, fuck,” she groans. Steve dips his head to suck an open-mouthed kiss against her neck at the same time he uses both hands to circle his thumbs across her nipples again. The sound she makes in response is as resonant and aching as he’d always hoped it would be, from the outside.

“Do you believe me now?” he says, each word a kiss.

“I might need more proof. You could be very dedicated to my well-being,” she laughs. It’s throaty and sexual, and he surprises her and even himself by the way he abandons what he was doing to hold her down as he grinds his hardness against her yet again, blatant and demanding. “Yeah?” she encourages.

“Yeah,” he pants, screwing his eyes shut to settle the overpowering urge he has to wreck everything about himself and the team, rip off their clothing and rut with her. He wants to keep this, and to hell with Banner and his reticence.

“So, you’re saying…” she dangles, reaching down and unbuttoning his pants, taking down the zipper, and lifting herself up long enough for him to yank everything down in a frantic rush. Steve can barely believe what’s happening until it happens-- she takes him in her hand at the same time she curls her other hand around his neck to haul him down for a filthy kiss. Every single nerve ending in his body is a conductor for her electricity, and the two of them together prompt a chemical reaction that send his pleasure centers into overdrive.

With a herculean effort, Steve pulls back from the kiss, cupping her face with one hand, the other fisted in the fleece beneath them, channeling all of his excess energy and desperation. He’s not in control, and he knows he could hurt her by accident.

“Was supposed to be about you,” he manages to say between a gasp and a groan at the way she’s working him with expert movements.

“Are you kidding? You should see your face,” Nat says in that rich, sensuous voice of hers. “Very complimentary. But how did you keep this from me?”

Steve drops his head, overcome, when she leans over and tongues his nipple in a completely unexpected, devastating move. “S’wrong,” he slurs. “Ahhhhh, stop, stop, Natasha, you-- stop.” She stills her hand slowly, easing him into the loss of it, and it’s so thoughtful, so thorough, so Natasha, that the action cuts the last threads that held his heart back from its inevitable fall.

“Bet you never thought you’d try to stop me,” she whispers in his ear, hooking her chin over his shoulder for a second, her various movements inexplicable until suddenly they’re not, she’s naked and sinking onto him, and Steve’s gone, he’s gone, his back arching, hips chasing her heat and tightness.

“Shhh, shhh,” Nat reassures. Her hands smooth over his back, his arms, his face, and finally he can open his eyes and see her, sweat-touched and exquisite.

“Natasha,” Steve whispers, shaking his head. He has never felt so clumsy and imprecise in his life. “I wanted to make you see,” he tries to explain. She’s given him everything he’s wanted, freely, somehow, but his goal had been to tear apart her insecurities, not force her to support him in exposing his own.

“You did. You are,” she says, but he shakes his head, noses a caress onto her shoulder.

“We’re all a mess in so many ways, the team,” Steve tells her, groaning as she tightens around him, seeking out her lips to taste the groan when he strokes his fingertips over her nipple. “Most of our strengths are outside-in. Yours is inside-out. You’re made of steel, coated in silk.”

“You always fuck so poetic?” she teases, but her eyes are luminous.

“Gotta get it all out now,” Steve whispers, seeing his peak on the horizon and craving as well as dreading it.

“Steve,” she warns, and he shakes his head.

“You know I’m right.”

Natasha leans over, kisses his neck just under his ear, and whispers, “That why you haven’t really touched me?” she challenges.

“I’m inside you, that’s not enough?” he groans, knowing it’s not, feeling caught out, hating and loving the way she absolutely knows him. His avoidance had been subconscious, but she’s a master of that domain.

Oh my, is she.

Natasha sets a hand on his shoulder and caresses him all the way down to his hand, pulling him, unresisting, to just above where they’re joined.

“Touch me, Steve. Make it so every time I see your hands I remember this. If I can’t keep you, if this is it, if this is all I get, give me that to remember this by,” she whispers.

“Fuck, Natasha, you can’t just--” he groans, so close to coming his vision is whiting out, but she stills her hips.

“You kept this from me,” she says.

She’s right.

As penance goes, it’s appropriate.

Steve turns his hand, lightly probing and swirling his fingers exactly where she wants him to. Her reaction rattles him to the core; Natasha had always struck him as an inherently sensual person, even if she only let small glimpses of that show at any given time, and rightly so. But even a light graze of his fingers against that sensitive part of her takes her apart. It’s wrecking to watch, and he craves the chance to see it over and over, again and again, in any and every possible way, even as his orgasm approaches exactly like the tiny death the poets call it.

“God, Steve, yes. Yes, fuck, please, please,” she babbles, her mouth pressed against his shoulder to muffle the noises just enough for propriety, or so he hopes. “Please, sweet-- ahhhhh!”

Because fate loves to give Steve just what he wants, they come apart at the same time, the cloying, clenching, glorious pleasure bearing down on him just as the woman he cares so much about shakes and shudders and begs in his arms.

They hold still for long enough that each of them has to know it’s just to prolong the inevitable.

“Count of three?” Natasha finally whispers.

“No need,” Steve says, and they slowly pull apart, avoiding eye contact. He’s trying to decide which shirt to soil when she brings him a package of non alcoholic baby wipes.

“Thanks,” he says.

“No, thank you,” Natasha says. It’s sincere, he realizes. No sarcasm, no innuendo, no amusement, just a sincere, heartfelt gratitude that feels simultaneously like a slap and a caress.

“You’re important to me,” he mutters, pulling his clothes back on.

“Right back at you, Cap,” Natasha tells him. It’s the transition, he can sense it. He settles back onto the sheet, facing her this time, a tiny concession to plausible deniability. She’s perceptive enough to catch it, of course, but they’ve got a shared secret, now, and that’s just the way things are. There’s just one more thing to do, one final rip through a single word written on a mostly torn piece of paper.

“Don’t give up on Banner,” Steve tells her, his tone as kind and matter-of-fact as he can make it, right now. “Today was probably the worst day of his life. People don’t make rational decisions on days like that.” The smile feels bitter and truthful on his lips.

Natasha’s lying on her side, lifted those few inches above him by the height of the cushions she’s resting on top of. Her expression had been sober, maybe even sad, but on hearing those words, a tiny fraction of lightness crosses her face. One corner of her lip turns up.

“Really?”

Steve’s paper metaphorically flutters to the floor, the bold block letters of the word landing imprecisely, but readable. UNRE QUITED, it reads. The meaning of the first four letters of the second half are not lost on him.

“Really.”

[sirladystitch]

Hey guys! Thanks for stopping by, I'm excited to get started on here!

I'm gonna go into a bit more detail under the cut, but TLDR, I've made a new blog to document the process of my next big quilting project, which I hope to enter into the AQS 2025 Lancaster show.

Why I'm Doing This

A few weeks ago we went to our local state fair specifically to see the handicrafts section and got inspired by all the quilts there. I've been wanting to step back from fandom stuff and work on more original pieces, and I've always wanted to try entering more contests, so I figured a quilt show would be a perfect thing to work towards.

I want to do something that's showy and has room to embellish as much as I want without being overly complicated. I've decided to rework my phoenix pin design:

(Sorry about the pixelation/anti-theft stuff I can't get Glaze to work on my computer lol)

How It Will Be Assembled

I'm going to build the quilt in two parts:

The background is pretty simple, just a matter of squares and long strips to frame out a section filled with applique leaves and apples (I was too lazy to redraw it here just imagine it lol).

The bird itself will be sewn onto gauze and then placed onto the background as a last step. The pieces are fairly large blocks of color, the embellishments will be dealt with through painting, embroidery, and beading. This will allow me to work on detailing the bird without dealing with the bulk of the background.

The applique pieces will be fused background and then sewn together with decorative stitching/embellishments. I think the actual quilting itself will be tracing the basic shapes and trying to be as neat as possible while doing so.

Sizing

Since I'm hoping to enter this into a contest, I needed to size it to fit within the contest dimensions. I've settled on a quilt that's about 70" by 50", which is a little shorter than the 72" height limit and totally within the width limits.

Materials

Fortunately I think I have most of the materials I need on hand, at least for the quilt top. The design will be primarily batiks (my beloved), although the bird will probably require some additional iridescent textures and layering.

Math is hard but I think for the background I'm going to need:

30 x 52 Blue background

50 x 1.5 strip yellow cubes

50 x 1.5 strip blue cubes

four 5.5 x 5.5 corner squares

two 2.5 x 52 red side panel

two 2.5 x 30.5 red top/bottom panel

two 1 x 52 yellow side panel

two 1 x 30.5 yellow top/bottom panel

eight 1 x 52 black side panel

eight 1 x 30.5 black top/bottom panel

eight 1 x 6 black corner frames

203 inches of 2” black binding

assorted green, brown, gold (tree applique)

The bird will be primarily made of fat quarters and 1/4 yard strips, plus lots and lots of scraps.

To be honest I another reason I am making the background first is so that I can adjust the background as needed since I have a bad feeling the numbers don't quite add up.

Timeline

The deadline for the contest submission is May 8th but I'm hoping to be done before that. I'm roughly planning the following schedule for benchmarks:

End of Sept - Have all materials and cut background pieces

End of Nov - Have background assembled, minus binding

End of Dec - Bird pieces painted as needed and the base of the bird has been fused together and onto the gauze background

End of Feb- Bird embellishments done, bird trimmed and sewn down to the background

End of April- Quilting complete

I'm hoping to take some time off of work in October to really get a head start on all of this, so fingers crossed progress goes smoothly. Wish me luck, and thanks for joining me on this adventure!

[leiawritesstories]

Stick Season (Part 3)

thanks for putting up with the writer's block lol :) if you've been reading this au, you have my heart and all my love (hehe because it's Noah Kahan...all right i'll stop) there will be one more part, maybe two :))

masterlist

Word count: 2.5k

Warnings: talk of death/funerals, swearing, lots of emotions, tears, idiots in love (kind of?)

enjoy!!

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

Black wool peacoat cinched tightly around her waist, Aelin stood at her father’s side, her gloved hand in his, and stared vacantly at the square granite plaque that marked the site of her mother’s earthly remains. 

Evalin Ashryver. Beloved Wife and Mother. May She Rest In Eternal Peace. 

Rhoe placed his free hand against the plaque, leaned his head against the cold stone, and closed his eyes, the creases on his face more pronounced with sorrow. His lips moved silently, exchanging private words with his departed wife. Aelin remained steady at his side, surprised that she had been unable to shed any tears throughout the simple, poignant memorial service. Deep down, Aelin had loved her mother, and no amount of criticism or disapproval could completely quench that love. 

“Aelin. Ae–Fireheart?” Rhoe’s voice broke through her reverie. 

She shook her head. “I’m here.” 

“Are you ready to go?” Her father’s question was nothing but kind. 

“Yes.” She cast a final look at Evalin’s plaque, turned, and walked side by side with her father out of the mausoleum. “Dad?” 

“Hmm?” 

Aelin released a shaky breath. “I…Is it bad that I haven’t cried?” Worry creased her forehead. “I feel like a horrible daughter, but I haven’t cried. Or even really felt that sad.” 

Rhoe stopped, faced his daughter, and took both of her gloved hands in his. “No, my Fireheart, it’s not bad.” He wrapped Aelin into a hug. “I know your relationship with your mother was…ah, complicated. It’s not bad that you haven’t shed any tears.” 

Aelin felt her throat tighten at her father’s quiet reassurance. “I love you, Dad.” 

“Love you too,” he returned, his words clogged with tears. “Perhaps someday you’ll feel like visiting her stone, and perhaps then you’ll cry. But maybe not.” He looped his arm back through hers. “It does not and never will make you a bad daughter.” 

~

Rowan had needed to get out of the house–with all the cousins there, it was often a wild whirlwind of chaos, and his type-A personality couldn’t handle it 24/7. So Sellene and Enda had kicked him out, sending him into town with a short shopping list that ended up taking hours to complete. 

It wasn’t his fault that he’d had to drive clear over to Rifthold to find a stand for the Christmas tree, because of course the only hardware store in the region that had tree stands in stock would be thirty miles away. 

There was only one more item on the list, though, and Rowan had been avoiding it for as long as he possibly could. Why the fuck did Sellene want a book on “holistic herbal healing,” for gods’ sake? He was going to look like an idiot buying that. She’d left him a note saying Orynth Shelves had the book in stock, so at least he wouldn’t have to go terribly far, and Philippa–who owned that bookstore–was a sweetheart who’d known Rowan since he was a kid. 

He glanced into the display window of the bookstore as he walked up the street and cracked a half smile. Philippa must have had some volunteers from the high school help with the holiday display, because she had great love and knowledge of books, but she did not have great knowledge of artistically pleasing book displays. Short stacks of holiday books, from classics like A Christmas Carol and How The Grinch Stole Christmas to modern novels with brightly colored covers sat atop a blanket of fake snow and mingled with little decorative log cabins, plastic pine trees, and even a ski lift. Soft yellow twinkle lights gave the charming display a cozy, small-town feel, and the whole effect was that of a little village in the mountains offering winter books galore for enjoyment. No, Philippa definitely couldn’t have planned and executed that display by herself. 

Nobody was at the front desk when Rowan walked in, the bells on the front door jingling behind him. He headed straight for the section where Sellene had told him the book she wanted was, located the title, and plucked it off the shelf. And grimaced. It wasn’t ugly or obnoxious, but the words Holistic Herbal Healing for Beginners were lettered in large, decorative script on the cover. There would be no doubt what the book was. He muffled a sigh and walked back to the desk, hoping Philippa wouldn’t tease him too much about the damn book. The desk was still unattended, so he rang the little bell. 

There was a rustle of papers from the office in the back, and a moment later–

“You’re not Philippa.” Before the words were fully out of his mouth, Rowan knew how stupid they sounded. 

Aelin pressed her lips together, her characteristic sign of holding back laughter. “Sorry to disappoint.” She glanced at the book in his hand, and an irrepressible grin tugged at the corners of her lips despite her valiant effort to stifle it. “Getting into alternative medicine, hmm?” 

“I–it’s not–huh?” Rowan’s brain finally caught up with the fact that Aelin had made a joke. 

“It’s for Sellene, isn’t it?” She tapped the tablet in her hand. 

“Yeah.” He passed her the book. “She’s had me running errands all over creation for hours. Had to drive all the way to Rifthold to find a fuckin’ stand for the tree.” Aelin scanned the book’s barcode, a small smirk curving her full, plush lips. Lips that Rowan still dreamed of tasting three years later. Pull it together, idiot! “This is the last thing on her list.” 

“I didn't think she was into holistic herbal healing,” Aelin drawled. She glanced at the total. “That’ll be $12.99. Cash or card?” 

How about I take you on a date instead? For some inexplicable reason, those were the first words on Rowan’s tongue. “Card.” Aelin nodded and slid a card reader across the desk. He tapped his credit card and the little reader flashed green. 

“Thanks for coming to Orynth Shelves!” She handed him the receipt and gave him her brightest customer service smile. 

He blinked. “Wait…are you actually working here?” 

“Temporarily, yes.” She knew him too well–anyone else would have bristled at his question, thinking it offensive. “Since I’m home through New Year’s.” Unless he was seeing things (which was a very real possibility, considering that ninety-five percent of him still ached with love for Aelin Ashryver Galathynius), he could have sworn there was something deeper than exhaustion hiding beneath the smile and the paper-thin veneer of cheerful humor. 

“Does that…you’re not alone, are you?” 

“No.” She paused. “I’m with Dad, and Aedion decided he was going to crash at our house, so he’s there too.” 

“Typical Aedion.” 

“Yeah.” She cast him a glance that, as always, saw more than anyone else ever saw. “What about you? House full of wild children?” 

“And adults,” he added with a wry grin. 

She huffed a soft laugh. “No wonder you got the shopping list.” 

“Should I be offended that you think I’m always the designated shopper?” 

“Of course not. I know you too we–I know how you are with chaos.” 

The words she hadn’t completely said trickled into the frozen corners of his heart, filling him with some kind of warmth. I know you too well. “I know you do.” He hadn’t meant to say it like that, in that soft, low voice he only ever used with her. 

Raw longing flashed across her face, quickly muffled by blank, controlled politeness. “Thanks for visiting Orynth Shelves,” she repeated, this time in a whisper that cracked on the last word. 

“Aelin,” Rowan breathed, feeling his pounding heart spill into his expression, “I want to see you again.” Because he did. 

Three years without her was three years too long.

“I don’t think that’s the best idea,” she returned, conflicted. 

He tucked the book under his arm and braced his hands flat atop the desk. “Since when have we done what other people think is the best idea?” 

A single tear glittered in the corner of her left eye. “I’m going back to New York in less than a month, Rowan. I…even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t deserve to see you.” 

The words stabbed him right through the heart. “Whoever told you that was spewing bullshit,” he said, his voice soft but firm with conviction. 

She smashed her lips into a flat, tight line, keeping her composure from crumbling. “I…why?” The question just about broke her chest in half. “Why would you want to see me after what I did?” 

“Because I lo–loved you.” It took all of his restraint to keep his hands where they were and not place his fingertips to her fallen face and lift her chin up. “Because you’re still the better half of my heart, and nobody will ever change that.” 

“Ro,” she breathed, shakily. She lifted her eyes to his, and the depth of the grief in her gaze paired with that familiar nickname threatened to break him in two. “I’m…not sure.” 

“I’m sure.” Damn his restraint to hell. He reached across the desk and, tentatively, placed his hand atop hers, the barest possible slice of contact. “Please, Ae.” 

She drew in and released a deep, uneven breath. “Okay.” Beneath his hand, she turned hers over and flattened her palm against his. “When are you free?” 

~

The Stone Castle, a restaurant in downtown Orynth that had been owned by Emrys since as long as Aelin could remember, was as warm, welcoming, and bustling as ever when she walked in the front doors on Friday evening. She’d worked there for a couple of years when she was in high school, and the place still felt the same. 

“Miss Galathynius, as I live and breathe!” Emrys himself appeared from gods-knew-where and shook Aelin's hand warmly, his smile creasing his cheeks. “It’s been too long since you were home.” 

“It really has.” She grinned at the jovial older man who cooked the best food in fifty miles. “New York can never compare.” 

“You flatter me,” he chuckled. “Now don’t tell me–are you meeting a certain Mr. Whitethorn tonight?” 

Her silence and rising blush was an answer in itself. 

Emrys beamed. “You know where to find him, then.” 

“You meddle far too much,” she teased, laughing wryly. “Thanks, Emrys.” 

He winked. “Have a lovely evening, my dear.” 

“I’ll do my best.” Aelin shed her heavy winter coat, hung it neatly on a peg in the coat room, adjusted her purse on her shoulder, and walked towards the back of the restaurant with her heartbeat suddenly hammering twice as fast and nervous questions clogging her mind. Should she have agreed to this–was it too soon? Was it too much? Would it be wrong to back out now? 

“Hey.” As if he could sense her, Rowan was suddenly in front of her, steadying her with one large, warm hand on her upper arm. “You look gorgeous, Ae.” 

A small smile curved her lips. “Thanks.” She linked her hand in his and let him lead her back to their table, the same booth they sat in every time they came to Emrys’s restaurant. “You clean up pretty well too, Rowan.” 

He cracked a grin. “Would I sound desperate if I said I’ve missed you?” 

A tiny corner of her iced-over heart melted. “Not at all.” Her grin turned softer. “I missed you too.” More than I’m ready to admit, she added, mentally. 

Neither one of them needed to look at a menu, so a brief silence fell over their little booth before Rowan exhaled shakily and the question tumbled out of his lips. “Why, Ae?” 

Hot tears pricked at the corners of her eyes at the way his simple, plaintive question sliced right through all the walls she’d built around her heart. “I…” Something she didn’t know how to name stopped her before she could rattle off her usual spiel about it wasn’t working anymore. “I let myself think too much,” she finally admitted, voice hoarse. 

“Fireheart,” Rowan breathed, reaching instinctively for her hands but stopping himself–gods, the man had always been too perceptive. 

Aelin linked her fingers with his, grounding herself in the solid, reassuring warmth of his rough palms. “On the drive home that day, I…my mother called, and she was…you know how Evalin could be sometimes.” 

“Indeed.” His thumbs stroked idly over her knuckles. “So, she called you?” 

“She didn’t try to hide her displeasure that I planned to stop at your house first,” Aelin murmured. “She…she was always finding some fault to pick at, some flaw to criticize, and I should have said I was farther away so she wouldn’t get on my ass about seeing you but I wasn’t thinking because I was so godsdamned happy to see you again so I just said I was going to your house, and then she told me I didn’t care about my own family and it just–” The sob she’d been strangling broke free, escaping as the first tear slipped down her cheek. 

“I’m so sorry, Ae,” Rowan whispered. Gently, he reached up and caught her tears, brushing the salty crystal drops away from her cheeks. “You never should have had to go through that.” 

“I let her get in my head,” she croaked. “I let her disapproval control me.” 

He slipped around to her side of the booth, hesitantly offering to hold her. “She was never pleased with anything, was she, love?” 

Aelin tucked herself into Rowan’s side, half in his lap, and pressed her face into his shoulder, an old familiar position in which he’d held her so many times before. “Never.” 

The heat of her silent tears seeped into his sweater, but he didn’t give two shits about the clothing. He’d sacrifice his entire wardrobe if it meant holding her in his arms like this. 

“I’m so sorry, Ro,” she murmured, raising her head to meet his open gaze, her turquoise eyes shrouded with tears. “I ruined everything–gods, I was so shallow, you probably still hate me for it.” 

His heart cracked at the wavering insecurity hiding behind her words. “I have never hated you, Ae. Never.” He swept a stray tear from her cheek. “You shattered me when you drove past, yeah, but even that could never make me stop loving you.” 

Breathless, she blinked, stunned to her core by his words. “You…what?”

“I love you, Aelin Galathynius.” His thumb traced her jawline. “To whatever end, right?” 

“How?” she choked out, curling her fingers into his sweater like she was afraid this was all some kind of dream. “I broke us apart, Rowan.” 

“And you’re putting us back together as we speak,” he said. 

The pure conviction in his voice, and the love she’d always had from him but had been too protective of her heart to fully feel, seeped through the cracks in her armor and filled her depleted heart with warmth. “Are you sure?” 

“With you? Always.” 

She sniffled. “You’ve always been too good to me, love.” 

“Impossible.” For the first time in three long years, he tipped up her chin and touched a whisper of a kiss to her lips. “Nothing can ever be too good for you, love.”

~~~

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[weafurry]

YAYY YIPPEE HII/silly

(Sorry I didn't get to this till now it was late when I saw the ask and I didn't wanna answer it while I was half asleep. Also apparently tumblr doesn't let you edit asks anymore?? )

Leaving this under a cut tho cuz I know this shit will get LONG

ANYWAYS. The. Big one related to that™ post came from a combination of me wondering how the FUCK Cedric got the yellow phosphor needed to rebuild proto + consequences of the revival of characters my beloved

And uh. Yea any yellow phosphor he does end up getting his hands on I. DOUBT WOULD BE ENOUGH.

So uh. Proto being rebuilt with less yellow phosphor then is probably even remotely adviseable and that causing a whole ton of issues™ . And Cedric not even knowing cuz of the whole just. Scanning the blueprints in.

Also this is proto we're talking about here. There's no fucking way he'd tell anyone until shit got BAD.

LEMME JUST. Screenshots from when I was brainrotting over this in my first OneShot fixation

And yea. The author probably would have had yellow phosphor stored in the lab somewhere just incase. (Esp with the head canon that. Proto predicted his own death a long time ago cuz. Prophet moment. And. Told the author and the prophet but never cedric and rue cuz everytime he went to he would get another vision of them trying to intervene and things only going worse)

BUT. since I want my angst goddammit. That part of the lab collapsed first and while Cedric was abled to salvage some yellow phosphor it ends up not being enough.

BUT LIKE. YEA. the way I always imagined Cedric and Rue actually finding out is. One of those moments where a bunch of errors and shit happens . Happens when him Cedric and Rue are walking in the refuge. And this one's bad enough that he can't just metaphorically grit his teeth through it like the other times this has happened in public. Once it's over Cedric and Rue are reasonably extremely concerned and. Fuckin rush him to the lab to try and see if there something they can do to fix this.

AND UH. That segways into another little detail of this headcanon. BECAUSE. he let this go on for so long with the damage all the errors and malfunctions overtime have caused. It probably would just be better to rebuild him and reuse the yellow phosphor they already have. BUT UH. since the situation around him being rebuilt made it so stressful the first time around, he. REALLY doesn't wanna do that again. I have. Such a vivid idea of a scene in my head for that. They're like. Talking with kip. And shes like halfway through saying the word rebuild and. She doesn't even get to finish he just cuts her off.

So what they end up doing is, in the meantime, using red phosphor to prevent any further damage until they can go to the barrens to get blue phosphor so said phosphor won't have to be replaced as often.

I ACTUALLY. made a dumb little chart of how. I imagined them looking different a few days ago

I imagine that. Actually having a normal level of phosphor would. Definitely HELP. But. There would still be some issues partially because it's not one uniform type of phosphor and partially because of the damage the issues caused. And you couldnt pry this headcanon out of my cold dead hands. Consequences of the revival of characters go brrrrrrr

AND THEN UH. Don't get me started on the night terrors as a result of the whole squares thing headcanons.

that whole thing. Came from me going. "do robots still need sleep?" and ultimately deciding yes when i came up with the other headcanon that. only tamed robots dream.

When I made this headcanon I actually hadnt played solstice in a while, and for some reason I always remembered it as, him handing Niko the disk while the lower half of his body was already in the squares. which. no he actually hands it to them while the squares are directly behind him BUT. I still choose to remember it that way HSHSH. anyways uh. Important and related to this headcanon. He remembers what that feels likeeee. and hes probably the only oneee because in the solstice ending everyone only sayss they remember the squares surrounding themm not actually touching themmm and even robots who have gotten caught in them and liveed probably dont rememberrr especially since most of them arent tameddd and uhh even if he only remembers the beginning of ittt hes probably really good at filling in the gapss with the whole prophet thingg (thanks @malwarechips for that last idea/silly)

ANYWAYS UHm. so the whole. tamed robots dreaming thing right. HIM. having night terrors about the fucking squares.

I always imagined it as like. about a week after solstice, once things are starting to calm down and return to normal, one night cedric and rue wake up to proto just fuckin screaming at the top of his (metaphorical) lungs. And. they fuckin burst into his room to him tossing and turning in his sleep and then fucking jolting awake. and like.this keeps happening like. practically every other night. he's losing sleep over this shit. Which probably isn't helping all the other issues from the whole phosphor ordeal which he still hasn't told Cedric or Rue about at this point. And I mean. I doubt the nightmares would be restricted to just. in the mines. cuz dreams are weird like that esp when traumas involved AND UH. With the whole prophet thing. That. PROBABLY WOULDNT MIX WELL. (once again thanks eve for that last part/silly)

(On a lighter note I did have the thought of Cedric and Rue sleeping in his room one night and him actually finally getting a good nights sleep and thus that just. Becoming routine for them. The thing about my angsty headcanons is 99% of the time there's hurt/comfort potential in there)

I DO HAVE. some more lighthearted not angsty headcanons, but i wanna save most of those for their own posts cuz theyre small enough that i can actually draw them and finish them.

I will say one more though. this one is 100% projection but *points at proto* chronic migraines

[writingseaslugs]

Octavinelle: Manicures with Them

Well, here goes my favorite dorm~ I'm semi-smart at times and would never allowed Floyd to touch my nails though, just saying.

Disclaimer: All characters in this series is aged up. For more information about my version of this world and the type of reader you can expect, please do a quick read of THIS post.

Heartslabyul | Savanaclaw | Octavinelle (You’re Here) | Scarabia | Pomefiore | Ignihyde | Diasomnia

Manicures with Them

Azul Ashengrotto

Azul always keeps his nails just a little past the skin of his finger and files to be more square. He normally will apply either a French tip manicure or a purple color. He doesn’t do anything too crazy with them, always keeping it more professional. He does wear gloves all the time so most people don’t even know his nails are done, but he makes sure on the off chance he takes them off they’re presentable.

If you offer to do his nails, he’ll be more than happy to allow you. He’s pretty stressed a lot of the time and doesn’t give in to luxuries to have his nails done, so having you offer it is nice and relaxing for him. As long as you keep them looking professional for running a business, he lets you do your own thing. He might even have a lazy and relaxed smile on his face while watching you, maybe pointing out an easier way to do something.

He might be a bit nervous at first to do your nails since he normally only ever does his own. He’s never done anyone else’s nails, so this is stepping into new territory for him. He does an amazing job at the end and will be asking if you want anything special done with your nails. He’ll only use normal polish though since he doesn't know how to do acrylics. Just don’t expect him to be able to do your nails often; he’s pretty busy and won’t always have the time.

Jade Leech

Jade keeps his nails short and files to be flush against the skin of his fingers. He normally applies a clear coat on them in order for them to look nice, but doesn’t do much else with them. On occasion, he might do a teal or black to compliment his hair, but he never bothers much. His nails are done so it’s easier to deal with, not for appearances. He normally just wears gloves all day, so nobody ever sees them, so he doesn’t find a need for them to be over the top.

He’ll happily let you do his nails since it’s one less thing he has to do, not to mention it’s relaxing. He might have some dirt under his nails though from hiking or taking care of his beloved fungi, but it’s never too bad. It’s one of the reasons he likes to keep them short. He’ll request you make sure they aren’t long and if you really want he might let you paint them other colors. He really enjoyed it when you did his nails and you painted them all brown except his pointer fingers which were yellow to match his eyes.

He might tease you a bit when you ask if he can do your nails, but he will later be inviting you over and have everything set up. He takes extra care in doing your nails and will color them however you want. He might even start keeping more nail polish around just for when you ask him. Sometimes though he’ll just do whatever he wants. He enjoys matching his nails to you or painting them teal with black strips on one side of them so they match his looks.

Floyd Leech

Floyd is horrible when it comes to biting his nails and cuticles. It isn’t uncommon for you to see a bit of blood around his nails from his chewing on them and breaking the skin. He also never has them painted since it tastes gross when he bites them off. He’s just a menace with his nails and half the time when he chews them they end up being sharp and jagged which makes it painful when he grabs someone with his hands and digs his nails into them, something he finds amusing so he keeps doing it.

If you offer to do his nails, he’s super happy and will ask if you can make them pointy (you can’t, he chewed them too short and he never lets them grow long enough before chomping them away). He might pout when you begin filing them so they aren’t so sharp anymore but is happy that you’re getting rid of all those pesky hang nails since he actually does hate them. You can put nail polish on him, but he doesn’t sit still and you might get some all over his nails that you have to clean up. He will also ruin them within ten minutes because he doesn’t wait for them to dry before touching stuff.

If you ever ask him to do your nails, you won’t have any left. He’ll cut them super short and they might bleed. The nail polish bit? Well, it’s going to be all over your nails, arms, and clothes. You name it and he’s gotten it on you. He also will have some smeared across his cheek from wiping something off his face. It’s honestly kind of funny, but a good lesson for him to not do your nails. He might ask you to do them again after the first time so just…don’t ask him in the first place.

[mad-raptorzzz]

[ID: Multiple colored sketches of King from the show The Owl House. He is a small dog-like bipedal character with a horned skull for a head. One of his horns was broken and has a fissure in it, with the fixed tip being a slightly different color. There are two sharp fangs at the front of his skull with a space, then two round/squared teeth thowards the back. His body is dark grey with a lighter grey belly and tip to his tail. He has bright yellow sclera with pink irises and a red collar with a gold circular tag. In the top right corner there is an on-model sketch headshot of King how he appears in the show looking at the camera. The top left image is King reimagined in my style looking sadly downward. Here he has much scruffier fur that sticks up more. Also, he has two sharp fang-teeth and three round/square teeth. Below this is another drawing of King looking towards the camera in my style. The bottom left has King posed like a cat, with his back arched and his tail poofed out, small angry lines jut from his face. In the middle is my style King wearing the robes he has during For the Future. These are dark blue, light blue, and purple pajamas with a hood and slippers. They have the Collector's insignia and yellow stars on them. His skull has a crack above the eye on the right side and he looks tired and scared. On the right side, there is a my style King looking happily up and to the right. And on the bottom right side of the image is a screen-shot redraw of King in my style eating a cupcake. He is crouched down and has his mouth open, about to shove a blue cupcake inside. The background is grey-blue. /.End ID]

King my beloved. Any character voiced by Alex Hirsch is always going to be one of my favorites. Bill, Grunkle Stan, Soos. Then you give me Hooty and King. My guy, just take all of the room in my brain why don't you. I loved King when he was just a fluffy little guy and I love that he has a complex backstory and man. They have given him some very sad lines. One of the saddest scenes with him I am working on drawing right now.

I drew a very show accurate drawing of him in the top right. The rest are warm up sketches of him in my style. A little more scruffy and a few more teeth in the skull part. One redraw of a screen shot too. I love his little yells of rage. Ugh. King.

[kvetchlandia]

Moisei Nappelbaum     Anna Akhmatova, Moscow     1929

No foreign sky protected me, no stranger's wing shielded my face. I stand as witness to the common lot, survivor of that time, that place.

Instead of a Preface

    In the terrible years of the Yezhov terror I spent seventeen months waiting in line outside the prison in Leningrad. One day somebody in the crowd identified me. Standing behind me was a woman, with lips blue from the cold, who had, of course, never heard me called by name before. Now she started out of the torpor common to us all and asked me in a whisper (everyone whispered there):     "Can you describe this?"     And I said: "I can."     Then something like a smile passed fleetingly over what had once been her face.

Dedication

Such grief might make the mountains stoop, reverse the waters where they flow, but cannot burst these ponderous bolts that block us from the prison cells crowded with mortal woe. . . . For some the wind can freshly blow, for some the sunlight fade at ease, but we, made partners in our dread, hear but the grating of the keys, and heavy-booted soldiers' tread. As if for early mass, we rose and each day walked the wilderness, trudging through silent street and square, to congregate, less live than dead. The sun declined, the Neva blurred, and hope sang always from afar. Whose sentence is decreed? . . . That moan, that sudden spurt of woman's tears, shows one distinguished from the rest, as if they'd knocked her to the ground and wrenched the heart out of her breast, then let her go, reeling, alone. Where are they now, my nameless friends from those two years I spent in hell? What specters mock them now, amid the fury of Siberian snows, or in the blighted circle of the moon? To them I cry, Hail and Farewell!

Prologue

That was a time when only the dead could smile, delivered from their wars, and the sign, the soul, of Leningrad dangled outside its prison-house; and the regiments of the condemned, herded in the railroad-yards, shrank from the engine's whistle-song whose burden went, "Away, pariahs!" The stars of death stood over us. And Russia, guiltless, beloved, writhed under the crunch of bloodstained boots, under the wheels of Black Marias.

I

At dawn they came and took you away. You were my dead: I walked behind. In the dark room children cried, the holy candle gasped for air. Your lips were chill from the ikon's kiss, sweat bloomed on your brow–those deathly flowers! Like the wives of Peter's troopers in Red Square I'll stand and howl under the Kremlin towers.

II

Quietly flows the quiet Don; into my house slips the yellow moon.

It leaps the sill, with its cap askew, and balks at a shadow, that yellow moon.

This woman is sick to her marrow-bone, this woman is utterly alone,

with husband dead, with son away in jail. Pray for me. Pray.

III

Not, not mine: it's somebody else's wound. I could never have borne it. So take the thing that happened, hide it, stick it in the ground. Whisk the lamps away . . .                                         Night.

IV

They should have shown you–mocker, delight of your friends, hearts' thief, naughtiest girl of Pushkin's town– this picture of your fated years, as under the glowering wall you stand, shabby, three hundredth in the line, clutching a parcel in your hand, and the New Year's ice scorched by your tears. See there the prison poplar bending! No sound. No sound. Yet how many innocent lives are ending . . .

V

For seventeen months I have cried aloud, calling you back to your lair. I hurled myself at the hangman's foot. You are my son, changed into nightmare. Confusion occupies the world, and I am powerless to tell somebody brute from something human, or on what day the word spells, "Kill!" Nothing is left but dusty flowers, the tinkling thurible, and tracks that lead to nowhere. Night of stone, whose bright enormous star stares me straight in the eyes, promising death, ah soon!

VI

The weeks fly out of mind, I doubt that it occurred: how into your prison, child, the white nights, blazing, stared; and still, as I draw breath, they fix their buzzard eyes on what the high cross shows, this body of your death.

VII

The Sentence

The word dropped like a stone on my still living breast. Confess: I was prepared, am somehow ready for the test.

So much to do today: kill memory, kill pain, turn heart into a stone, and yet prepare to live again.

Not quite. Hot summer's feast brings rumors of carouse. How long have I foreseen this brilliant day, this empty house?

VIII

To Death

You will come in any case–so why not now? How long I wait and wait. The bad times fall. I have put out the light and opened the door for you, because you are simple and magical. Assume, then, any form that suits your wish, take aim, and blast at me with poisoned shot, or strangle me like an efficient mugger, or else infect me–typhus be my lot– or spring out of the fairytale you wrote, the one we're sick of hearing, day and night, where the blue hatband marches up the stairs, led by the janitor, pale with fright. It's all the same to me. The Yenisei swirls the North Star shines, as it will shine forever; and the blue lustre of my loved one's eyes is clouded over by the final horror.

IX

Already madness lifts its wing to cover half my soul. That taste of opiate wine! Lure of the dark valley!

Now everything is clear. I admit my defeat. The tongue of my ravings in my ear is the tongue of a stranger.

No use to fall down on my knees and beg for mercy's sake. Nothing I counted mine, out of my life, is mine to take:

not my son's terrible eyes, not the elaborate stone flower of grief, not the day of the storm, not the trial of the visiting hour,

not the dear coolness of his hands, not the lime trees' agitated shade, not the thin cricket-sound of consolation's parting word.

X

Crucifixion

"Do not weep for me, Mother, when I am in my grave."

I

A choir of angels glorified the hour, the vault of heaven was dissolved in fire. "Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? Mother, I beg you, do not weep for me. . . ."

II

Mary Magdalene beat her breasts and sobbed, His dear disciple, stone-faced, stared. His mother stood apart. No other looked into her secret eyes. No one dared.

Epilogue

I

I have learned how faces fall to bone, how under the eyelids terror lurks how suffering inscribes on cheeks the hard lines of its cuneiform texts, how glossy black or ash-fair locks turn overnight to tarnished silver, how smiles fade on submissive lips, and fear quavers in a dry titter. And I pray not for myself alone . . . for all who stood outside the jail, in bitter cold or summer's blaze, with me under that blind red wall.

II

Remembrance hour returns with the turning year. I see, I hear, I touch you drawing near:

the one we tried to help to the sentry's booth, and who no longer walks this precious earth,

and that one who would toss her pretty mane and say, "It's just like coming home again."

I want to name the names of all that host, but they snatched up the list, and now it's lost.

I've woven them a garment that's prepared out of poor words, those that I overheard,

and will hold fast to every word and glance all of my days, even in new mischance,

and if a gag should blind my tortured mouth, through which a hundred million people shout,

then let them pray for me, as I do pray for them, this eve of my remembrance day.

And if my country ever should assent to casting in my name a monument,

I should be proud to have my memory graced, but only if the monument be placed

not near the seas on which my eyes first opened– my last link with the sea has long been broken–

nor in the Tsar's garden near the sacred stump, where a grieved shadow hunts my body's warmth,

but here, here I endured three hundred hours in line before the implacable iron bars.

Because even in blissful death I fear to lose the clangor of the Black Marias,

to lose the banging of that odious gate and the old crone howling like a wounded beast.

And from my motionless bronze-lidded sockets may the melting snow, like teardrops, slowly trickle,

and a prison dove coo somewhere, over and over, as the ships sail softly down the flowing Neva.

-- Anna Akhmatova, “Requiem”  written over a long period of time between 1935 and 1961

[fifteensjukebox]

tagged by @amidalleia tysm!!💖

last song: winning by emily haines & the soft skeleton has been in my head and i have whatever a photographic memory but for music is called so i think it counts. i was trying to figure out the change in timing starting about a minute into the song and my memory wasn't good enough to figure it out, and i think the last song i actually listened to was wet blanket by metric (emily's band) in the car yesterday. what can i say i love her! (the update is that I tossed this post into my drafts earlier and i have now actually listened to winning and almost figured out what she's doing but i'll have to discuss with my music theory-knowing brother)

favourite color: turquoise/mint/teal/sage/cool amethysty purples/the denim blue VW car colour (my beloved first car was a vw beetle we called lulu so that colour is now lulu blue in my house à la dodie yellow)

currently watching/reading:

rewatching btvs and angel mid s4/s1 respectively while showing it to my mom and brother for the first time! it's taking ages but we're having the best time

gilmore girls - (late mid s3) first watch w my parents! there's so much i know from here and so much i don't but i know i love jess

grey's anatomy - watched s1-17 with my family a few years ago (begrudgingly at first bc i so did not want to watch a medical show. and sooo long! but it really is that good (sometimes)) & have been watching weekly as it airs since, but we just caught up on the first bit of the current season yesterday bc i didn't realize it was back. and i love the new class of interns so much we are SO BACK

not dead yet - the only show i'm currently watching by myself week to week as it airs and of course my favorite character is the white man i hate it here... i do love the women too though!!

doctor who 12th doctor rewatch but i stopped like a month ago in the middle of the episode before the cybermen plot starts bc it's just going to break my heart to lose bill for a third time. but i miss them! missy most of all so i will get to it soon

i'm not really reading anything at the moment but i have a couple audiobooks on hold at the library (yeah this is jenny's answer exactly but it applies!)

relationship status: single and i don't go out enough so i doubt it'll change anytime soon

sweet/savory/spicy: i want to say sweet bc i loooove sugar but i add salt to everything lately, i even added it to a rice krispie square the other day, so....

current obsessions:

also still nancy drew forever and always, but honestly i don't have a fandom hyperfixation atm! it's all about furniture shopping.... i'm looking for a small chair/stool for my bedroom desk, and a bigger table to go with my living room big chair so i can have my laptop/food/whatever else i want bc i seem to spend most of my time here

and emily haines/metric music (lately i haven't been listening to much me after 2007, but i love the more recent stuff just as much!

last thing you googled: something about the st vincent rock&roll hall of fame exhibit bc i'd seen a clip about it on someones story but i couldn't find the full video (still haven't)

no-pressure tags: @redheadedbrunette @apolloamy @godofsmallthings @jemhowling @acafemmeic @electrictouchfeaturingfalloutboy @coldnightairinmylungs & anyone else who wants to! i love these sm