#i found my long lost lizard friend today

[hecksupremechips]

Fucked up how lizards’ tails work I wish they didn’t

[angelofchaos001]

Some AU Writings

(This is a silly mix of the Splitmind AU and @thunder-wolf64 's Sizzling Waters AU, I was struck with a burst of inspiration and didn't want it going to waste)

What if I gave Sizzle a mother without the brain damage...hmmmm...

Splitmind Arti to the "rescue" >=3

(Writing under cut)

* * * * * * * * * *

Sizzle had been nothing but distraught since he lost Kelp.

How could things ever be the same? Or be better? That was his best friend.

Scratch that, it was his only friend.

Gone in an instant.

He wanted to curl up and cry himself to sleep every cycle since then. But he couldn't. He had to keep himself alive, but also because of-

"Pup? We need to be on our way now. I've let you sleep in as long as I can."

He whimpered and rolled over in the shelter, looking up at his mother. He wanted to be able to call her that and love her. To want to be close to her and love the affection she tried to show.

But something inside of him stopped him every time. Some little voice in the back of his head that didn't trust her, didn't like her, knew she was family but couldn't treat her like it.

"Just . . . go hunt for little," he said, so quietly that it was nothing but a hushed whisper. "I need more time."

"I don't want to leave you alone in here," she said. Her voice had a forced sweetness in it, trying to cover that rough, scratchy tone with milk and honey. Sizzle didn't even think she was faking it, she just didn't seem good with those softer emotions.

She was a blaze of fire at every turn, shouting and hissing whenever the slightest excuse for her to do so popped up. She was ferocious, brutal, and didn't - couldn't - stop herself from tearing anything that threatened her apart.

He hated it.

But he wanted to love her.

If he could, he would separate his mother from the violent monster inside of her and bring back what his memories showed of her. The kind protector who scanned the sky for vultures - not as a meal, but instead as a concerned parent.

The one who would pat him and his sister and congratulate them for the batflies they'd struggle to grab.

The soft red fur that he would bury his face in every night, cuddling as close as he could. Now, she felt colder than ever, but still burning with hatred.

"I need more time," he said, a little louder this time.

With a heavy sigh, his mom reached over and stroked her paw along his back. It felt out of place. Like a lizard -

Nope. Not a good metaphor.

Like . . . a garbage worm patting a scavenger. It was wrong. But he still wanted it. It wasn't the touch he would have liked to feel, but it was the only touch he would get.

This was all he had.

"I won't be far. Join me when you're feeling less blue, alright pup?" She tilted her head, and Sizzle felt new thorns stab at his heart. Why did she have to use that saying? Why...?

He gave a halfhearted nod. He thought he heard a contented smile from her. "Good. I'll make sure to get something special for you today. It'll help clear your mind."

As she leapt gracefully out of the shelter, Sizzle found himself yearning for some kind of companionship again, but couldn't find it in him to leave yet. What can I even do now? Where am I going?

I don't want to survive. I want to live. With Burning, and Kelp, and my sister, and -

Tears stung his eyes as he let out a wail. Everyone he had loved, everyone he knew, who he had cared about, was just gone.

He wanted the cycle to bring them back, place them right at his feet and say 'Sorry, here's everyone you love back'. But things didn't work like that.

Sizzle took a tuft of fur near the end of his tail and started twisting it gently. Was his tail getting messier each day? Had he really been neglecting his appearance that much?

Carefully, he began to pick through the matted patches and clean up the loose strands. Dirt and debris came loose as he worked, some things so deeply tangled he wondered how it even happened to begin with.

His dark green fur started to scatter across the shelter floor, bits that he couldn't work through yanked away with nothing more than a yelp and a pull.

The yelp of a blue lizard, scared and confused.

The pull of the harpoon, dragging it away into the sky.

Sizzle cried out and immediately stopped what he was doing. "Aaargh! Why? Why did it have to be then?!"

He was only gone for a moment. He'd found a new path.

He had been so excited to share that information with his mom.

And instead he got to watch as his only friend was murdered without a chance to fight back.

He was almost grown-up, but in so many ways, Sizzle still felt like nothing more than the small, helpless pup he was on that day, so long ago.

"Sister . . . " he whimpered, closing his eyes and thinking hard of what she'd looked like. "I don't blame you. I still love you. I hope you're out there somewhere, that the cycle was kind to you and you're happy now."

"I hope that Blazing is alive and well, and if she isn't, then . . . then I hope that she was brought back into a life much better than the one she had, as amazing as that was. I hope she can have a great family without anything happening to her or the ones she loved."

"And Kelp, I want nothing more than for you to be happy. To be loved. Cared for by someone special who will never let you go. Never let you down. Like I did . . . I'm so sorry, Kelp."

Many cycles now, he'd been reflecting on the ones he'd lost and wishing them well. In a cruel world, he could only hope that fate would take pity on them, give them credit for how hard they tried to be good.

"I love you all. I hope that someday, maybe not today, but someday . . . I'll see you again."

He hugged his tail around his body, curling up in a ball. It was his safe space, something where he couldn't be harmed. At least . . . not harmed a lot.

Sizzle's ear perked at the sound of a tunnel being used. He flicked to attention immediately, looking at the shelter opening where the marks flickered brightly.

The color was unfamiliar. It was maroon, like his mom, but . . . too red to be her. Too dark.

For a moment, he panicked, thinking it was one of those horrifying red lizards he heard about, but it wasn't the bright, aggressive red color that they were. This was more muted.

Could it be a scavenger? His heart leapt, thinking that it could be someone he cared about, finally coming to find him. But mom said she wasn't going to be far, and she'd never let a scavenger get this close to the shelter where I am . . .

So what is it?

Every muscle was tensed to run if needed. He'd outmaneuvered legitimate predators in these shelters before, thanks to his explosive capabilities. As the light dimmed and the shape started to emerge, it was a slugcat.

It was just his mom.

He let out a breath, though he wasn't relieved to see her. "Hey . . . " he said, glancing towards the ground. "What did you get for me?"

"I didn't get anything," a confused voice that was also MOST DEFINITELY NOT HIS MOTHER asked. "Who are you?"

"I - Uh -" Panic seized him as he suddenly shot past the figure in the entrance and through the pipe, emerging on the other size into a moist area filled with heaps of waste, and an acrid smell pierced his nose with every breath.

He didn't know where to run to. Up? Would he be fast enough? What if this slugcat could climb faster than him??

Could he hide in the nearby pool of water until they moved on? Doubtful. He wasn't the best at holding his breath, and the thought of being fully submerged again paralyzed him with fear.

No. There's no leeches here, Sizzle. It's fine.

His body refused to obey, frozen in place and shaking as the figure followed him out, blinking in the light.

"Woah," they said, glancing him up and down. "You look . . . like you've not been taking care of yourself. Want me to get some of those tangles out?"

Sizzle didn't know what to say. This strange slugcat looked similar to his mother, dark maroon fur, scars, prickly fur, and even had their left eye all scratched up. But that same eye was also wildly different and weird from the other one.

Their right was a pure, glossy white, much like their actual mother had. But the left was pitch black, save for a tiny cyan pupil that stared down at him intensely.

"M-Maybe?" He managed, but then more words tumbled out of his mouth. "What's wrong with your eye?"

"This one?" She asked, pointing to the left eye. He nodded, and she let out a warm laugh. It was the kind of sound that made him relax, just a little bit. "Oh, it's nothing. It was scratched out by a scavenger a long time ago, but then Pebbles fixed it up for me."

"W-Why is it all . . . " his paws waved wildly, searching for a description that didn't rude, but nothing came to mind.

"Screwed up? That's a long story that I don't feel like explaining right now." She took a few steps towards Sizzle, and he crouched down, ready to explode away and leave her with smoke in her face. "Just let me help you first."

As she crouched by his tail and gently began picking through tangles, Sizzle still felt weirded out by this. Every thought told him to run, but he couldn't escape now. If he played along, maybe they'd let him go unharmed. He took this time to study the slugcat more.

Aside from her eye, there were many other nasty stars on her ear, neck, tail, back, everywhere. She had shaggy, spiked-up fur and little golden accents on her paws. Her only accessories were some earrings, a pearl bracelet, and bandages along her arm. As he stared at the pearl, it looked eerily familiar . . .

"It looks just like mom's eyes!"

"She'll love it!"

"The scavengers aren't even here right now."

He flared his fur and scooted away, heart racing. "Don't - I - Where did you get that pearl?" He demanded, pressing himself against the ground.

The slugcat looked away and rubbed her normal eye. "I . . . do you really want to hear the whole story? It's long, sad, and it doesn't have a happy ending."

"I'll listen," he said, trying to hide the shake in his voice. "I promise."

"Alright then. See, I used to have two beautiful, absolutely perfect pups. I loved them to pieces. They were my whole world. You're likely not old enough to have pups of your own yet, but someday, you'll understand."

"No, no, I know how that feels," Sizzle shuddered. Why did this stranger's story seem to line up with his life?

She smiled softly and continued on. "Cada was the older one. By about . . . " she trailed off and shook her head. " . . . I can't remember anymore. But he was blue, and a little bit mischievous."

That sounds like my sister.

"The other one was green, almost like you. Her name was Fume, both because she was like the pale wisps you see from the acid, and because of her fiery temper. Just like her mom . . . "

The slugcat trailed off again, but cleared her throat and carried on. "Anywho, I was passing a toll with them by my side. Fume was on my back, and I had Cada by his hand. Well, I stopped to take a rock and give it a bit of bang, and I guess . . . I took my eyes off of Cada for too long."

No. It can't be. She can do this too. She was at the scavenger toll. That pearl . . .

The stranger took a deep breath, like she was steadying herself. Sizzle noted how her claws flexed and dug into the wet ground beneath her, making him uneasy. "Cada tried to take a pearl from their toll. This very pink one right here. He brought it to me eagerly. I told him to put it back before the scavengers noticed, but they'd already seen."

Sister . . .

"I tried to run with them both. But I had to leap over a tall wall, and Cada slipped from my hand when I did. I still regret not jumping back to try and save him." She pressed her paws against her eyes, forcing back tears. "I loved him so much. I never got to tell him how proud of him I was. And that very same bomb I stopped to make was used against me. I leapt over a pool of water - full of leeches - and the scavengers threw it at me."

His torn ear flicked, the old wound aching as the story seemed so familiar.

"I could only watch as they dragged Fume away. I . . . I couldn't save either of them."

Could that have been me? He thought, blood running cold. Was I one different moment away from being pulled by those leeches and drowning?

The strange slugcat blinked, and Sizzle saw tears only from her right eye. "I'm . . . sorry if that is hard to hear, but you did agree to hear it. I warned you."

"It's weird . . . " he murmured, getting louder as he spoke. "That sounds exactly like what happened to me. My mom could tell you that exact same story, more or less."

Her ears perked. "But . . . you're not Fume. I can tell by looking at you."

"I'm Sizzling Waters, but, everyone calls me Sizzle." He shuffled his paws awkwardly. "You can too, if you want."

She nodded slowly. "That's a scavenger name. Well, pleased to meet you, Sizzle. Call me Artificer, or Arti for short." With a flourish, she stuck out her paw.

"That's . . . " he stopped, thinking. That's mom's name, too. What do I even make of this?

Sizzle gently took it and shook it. She was warm, but it wasn't the fury his mother held. "It's . . . what?" she asked, tilting her head.

"Artificer's my mom's name, too."

She blinked, then laughed. "Oh, what a coincidence! Then, I guess I'll give you something different to call me by. Must be pretty awkward if you called me the same way you called your mom."

Sizzle stayed silent. But she's so different. She hasn't killed my family.

"Anywho, call me Ruffian, then. It's what Pebbles calls me sometimes, he doesn't mind sharing the nickname." She grinned. "I used to hate it, but it grew on me."

"Alright then . . . R-Ruffian." He shuddered and shook out his fur.

"Why are you all alone out here, I must ask. If your mother is anything like me, she'd tear up the Wastes until she found you."

"Actually, she's not far from here." That's what she said, anyway. "Maybe you could talk to her."

Ruffian laughed. "Perhaps! I do wonder, if she apparently is so similar to me, how her experience with the Chieftain has gone. I doubt it's as happy as mine is, but the beginning may be the same."

"The . . . what?" Sizzle had heard of the 'Chieftain' before, but never really knew who they were. Just that they were a scavenger leader.

"Oh, the Scavenger Chieftain. Clouds of Endless Smog, his name is, but I just call him Smog." She smiled. "It's funny. I used to really hate scavengers."

Sizzle bristled. He couldn't handle this again. Hearing about how someone hated scavengers so much they went on a rampage against them. My own mother did that.

"But . . . now I can see that they were just acting out a bit." Sizzle blinked, relaxing, willing to hear her out. "Cada took a pearl. He stole. It's that simple. Even if they were my pups, and I can still be mad, I can't be mad at every scavenger for it."

Sizzle curled his tail around his paws and listened. "What did you do?"

"Hm?"

"I mean . . . after they killed your pups?"

She sighed, like she was exhausted. "Something very stupid and very foolish of me. I went after them. Slaughtered every single one I saw, cleared out entire tolls single-handedly. I even went for the Chief himself. I killed him and took his mask."

Sizzle felt sick. She was just another scavenger killer, after all. She would have wiped Burning without a second thought. He shook. Would she hurt him for being raised with them? She recognized his name was a scavenger's, but . . .

"I changed my ways, though. Ascension is messy, and with my primal desires, I almost became an echo. Riv pulled me out, thank goodness, but . . . I had to change. I made things right."

Almost none of that made sense to Sizzle, but he nodded anyway. "Now . . . what do you think of scavengers?"

She smiled. "Well, I'm dating Smog, so there's that."

His jaw dropped. "You mean, the same one that you -"

"I know, I know, crazy, but . . . " she giggled. "He wanted to keep an eye on me, and with me fixing things, he eventually just fell for me." Rufian's eyes were much softer as she looked down. "Guess I did too, huh?"

Sizzle was about to say something else when he caught movement behind her. This, he knew, was his actual mother. Stalking up behind Ruffian, waiting to strike and take her out like a threat.

Not again.

"Ruffian, turn around," he whispered. "And then run."

He watched his mom's ears flatten. Was he too loud? Did she hear him, trying to escort his maybe-friend to safety?

Will she punish me if they escape?

She turned around, but Sizzle realized it was too slow. She'd never escape in time. His mom leapt out, sparks flying from her jaws and smoke curling from her fur as the loud PANG rocked his eardrums.

"PAWS OFF OF MY PUP!" She howled. Sizzle had never heard her so viscerally angry. Through the blur of her fast movement, her eyes were nothing but narrowed slits of hatred and anger.

Artificer barreled into Ruffian, hooking her claws into the soft maroon fur and provoking a shriek of pain. Sizzle felt frozen in place, except for moving backwards out of the way of the fight. He couldn't tell if she was bleeding yet - not against her fur color.

Ruffian kicked out with her back legs, clawing into his mom and throwing her off into the ground beneath them. He wanted to shout at them to stop fighting. To stop trying to kill each other.

Because losing either of them would kill him.

"You know NOTHING about him!" Artificer spat, hauling herself up and into the air again, grabbing Ruffian by the ears and pulling her down. "NOTHING about what he's been through! And he's MINE!"

She shrieked, before her tail seemed to burst into sparks and create such a loud noise Sizzle yelped and covered his ears. He could feel it ringing, the high-pitched agony, and he wasn't even as close as his mom was. Through the discomfort, he looked and saw Artificer covering her ears as well, her tail flicking and building up a charge.

Ruffian instead leapt away onto a higher ledge, grabbing a spear and pointing it at her. "Yield, and we both go home alive."

Sizzle hated hearing those words.

"Never," Artificer hissed, scoring the dirt with her claws and leaping up after Ruffian. "You picked your fate when you messed with my pup!"

He lost sight of the scuffle for a moment, blinking into the bright sky to watch the mother - and the mourning - rake at each other. Ruffian seemed to be intentionally not using the spear, a sign that gave Sizzle hope that both Artificers would come out of this fine.

Please say nobody dies.

Please.

Ruffian's claws tore out a chunk of his mother's fur, while she clamped down on their neck. Sizzle's heart sank, his fear and nervousness rising as Artificer jumped through the air, dragging Ruffian with her, and landing in front of Sizzle.

She let them go, blood dripping from her jaws and pooling around the body. "Go on, pup," she said, no emotion visible on her face at all, "Finish the job."

"W-What?!" He gasped. Was she insane? He - He couldn't. He could never, not in a million cycles, do this.

"Finish. The Job." She hissed, her voice grating a little bit. "This lunatic decided to mess with you. Probably filled your head with dangerous ideas. Maybe even tried to hurt you. Don't you want revenge?"

He whimpered, curling his tail around him. What if this slugcat was his sister? Or Burning? Or any of his tribemates? As unlikely as that sounded, the cycles worked in mysterious ways. All he thought, looking at the bloody fur before him, was I can't do this.

He didn't have to. Ruffian's paw shot out, grabbing Artificer by the chest and dragging her to ground, staggering upright while still bleeding. "I won't die that easy, you mangy mutt."

She was breathing hard, and shaking a little, but alive. Artificer snarled and twisted around, but Ruffian brought her foot down and pinned her on her back. "Stay down. I may not have a spear, but I know where your arteries are."

Artificer growled, but to Sizzle's amazement, didn't struggle. Was she planning to do something else?

Ruffian sighed, rubbing her neck and wincing. "Yeesh, that hurts a lot. I thought I knew pain over here, but I guess - " she stopped to cough and shiver.

"Ruffian?" Sizzle's voice was quiet. "Are you . . . going to be okay?"

"It won't kill me. Pebbles gives me all I need to survive these things. It does hurt, though."

"Serves you right," Arti spat. Ruffian dug her claws in, prompting his mother to hiss and writhe on the ground.

"I can't afford to leave this place right now," they started, sighing. "I won't make it out of here before the rain comes, and I have business to attend to anyway."

"What kind of business, pup thief?" Artificer grumbled something else to herself, and Ruffian groaned.

"The scavengers hate me again, for one. Probably because I look like you, apparently have the same name, and we share the same trauma."

The silence afterwards was deafening. Artificer blinked a few times, then quietly said, "Don't you want to wipe them out too, then?"

"Not anymore," Ruffian said, stepping back and letting her get up. "I stayed because I want to talk to you. If we really are so similar, then I can help you change too."

"No," Artificer hissed and her fur bristled. "They have to die for what they did. For my pups - "

"Is it even about them anymore?!" Ruffian shouted, tearing up again. "If you're me, then that answer is a resounding no! It stopped being about the pups long ago, and now it's only about a senseless slaughter!"

Sizzle buried his face in his fur. Is that true? This strange slugcat . . . is she going to get through to my mom? Will she ever change? Is it possible?

Artificer was silent, but disappeared over a ledge for a moment and came back with a scavenger corpse. Then another. "Here. I got these two, easy pickings, split off from their patrol group. I can at least send you off with something to eat."

Ruffian blinked, then sighed. "Iterators, the scavengers are going to kill me for this, but I need to eat." She crouched down and tore out chunks of meat, wolfing them down hungrily. Sizzle was petrified.

How?! HOW CAN ANYONE EAT THEM WITH HALF A HEART?!

Artificer cut off a piece of one and tossed it to Sizzle as well. "Come on, pup. You too."

"I'm . . . I'm not hungry," he murmured, looking away. "Please."

Ruffian paused, staring at him. "You're skinny as a pole, you must be starving right now. Eat. It will give you strength."

He shivered. This was wrong. So wrong, on so many levels. "I'm not . . . I'm really not . . . "

Artificer narrowed her eyes, but Ruffian dug through a small pouch hidden in her fur and pulled out a bluefruit, passing it to Sizzle. "Eat this, then. I keep some on me for Ranger to eat when he gets in a funk."

Sizzle's stomach growled. He didn't want to accept food from a stranger, but . . . hunger got the better of him as he gulped it down in nearly one bite. "T-Thank you, Ruffian . . . "

Artificer shot her a dirty look, and she shook her head. "Don't mention it. I carry spare food for my pup, like a good mother does."

"I thought - You said your pups died," Sizzle said, curious but worried. "What do you mean you have one now?"

"Ranger. I call him that, since it's what he wants me to, though he looks so similar to Fume that it pains me. I found him all alone, so I took him in as my own. I know he has a family now, but I just . . . can't let him go."

Arti smirked. "See? I don't hold my pup here against his will. He wants to be with me. That makes me a better mother than you."

Sizzle blinked. Do I want to be with her? Or do I just want to be with somebody?

Ruffian narrowed her eyes and bristled. "Don't start comparing. You're lucky yours survived at all."

"And I keep him that way. Where's yours right now, hm? Probably off being eaten by some scrawny lizard." Artificer smirked. Sizzle knew she was trying to agitate Ruffian, but he couldn't find the words to tell her that.

"He's safely hanging with Gourmand right now," she said, her voice lower and much more threatening now. "I can be confident letting mine out of my sight."

Artificer flicked her tail. "So can I. I left Sizzle just this cycle so he could have more time to recover from that awful shock of losing his lizard so suddenly."

Ruffian's eyes widened, and she turned to Sizzle. "Was - I'm so sorry, what color was your friend?"

"Pet," Arti spat, correcting her.

Sizzle stammered, trying not to get caught up in grief. "He - He was Blue. A King Vulture got him. It was - it - " he couldn't cry here. Not now. Not in front of his mom and this other strange slugcat.

She sighed in relief. "I was so worried for a moment. I had a nice tasty white one just a few cycles ago. But, no blue ones. If it makes you feel any better, heck, I've killed plenty of King Vultures."

"That doesn't help," he moaned, clutching his head.

"You're scaring him," Artificer said, huffing. "Now, go run along already. Or I'll chase you off again."

"You can stop threatening me," Ruffian said, glaring. "Sizzle, I hope to see you again sometime. You give me memories of a happier time. Stay safe out here."

Artificer stamped her foot before he could respond. "Hush up and go already," she growled, picking up the nearby spear that had been dropped in the fight.

Sizzle sighed. "Stay safe too, R-Ruffian. Okay?"

She nodded, and turned, preparing to leap again. Sizzle felt sad watching her go, but knew it was for the better. I'd rather have scavengers anyway. Not more slugcats. I hate my own species. What a mistake I am.

Artificer clutched the spear tightly, slowly walking up to Ruffian. Sizzle's alarm bells started to go off in his brain, but he was too slow to say anything. Ruffian's tail sparked, she reached her paws into the sky -

Artificer stabbed her, straight through the back.

Sizzle leapt up, rushing to Ruffian's side without even thinking. "NO!" he screamed. "No, NO!"

He was crying. No, sobbing was the better term for it. "Why would you do that?!" he yelled, looking at his mom, who only shrugged and wiped some blood off her fur. "She was leaving!"

"I had to teach her a lesson somehow. A warning to others, perhaps."

Sizzle wanted to be mad. To keep shouting and screaming. But it just wasn't his nature to do that. He just looked down at Ruffian, who was convulsing and gingerly touching the spear running through her chest.

"Ruffian . . . please, don't die. Come back, okay? Come back and be fine, please."

She reached out with a shaking paw, but couldn't reach Sizzle. " . . . I'll come back. I . . . I always do."

"I'm so, so sorry for what mom just did to you. I - I - " he broke down, curling beside her body.

"Shh . . . " she tried to smile. "I'll wake up . . . like everything else does. Your mom is just - " she stopped to cough, blood still pooling from the wound and from her mouth as well. " - just trying to to look out for you."

He didn't know why he cared for this stranger so much. Maybe just because they were willing to talk to him. They weren't a threat to him. And she had been nothing but kind to him.

Why did mom do that?

She was leaving.

She didn't do anything to me.

As Ruffian blinked, her right eye seemed to flick to match her left one as well all of a sudden. Sizzle didn't even notice until her faint and raspy voice had changed to a much stronger one, though still clearly pained and dying.

"You. Disgusting feral beast. I thought I'd never see you again. But clearly, you're some version of my partner that never moved on."

"I urge you, specifically, to go west, past the farm arrays. I don't care that you're bound to this world. Do everyone a favor. Solve the universal problem that you cause by existing."

"You are a stain in this world. A violent beast that needs to be changed or removed. You have no right to call that pup yours, when clearly, you two are so different."

Ruffian's eyes closed finally, and Artificer's ears flattened. "Finally, it shuts up and dies proper."

Sizzle took a moment to try and process what she'd said. About going west. His mom being a violent stain on this world.

He wondered who the voice was.

Why they only talked now.

But a corpse couldn't give him answers.

"Don't you feel better now, pup?" his mom asked, leaning down. "It's much quieter."

" . . . let's go," he whispered.

"Hm?"

"Let's just go sleep again."

she sighed. "My pup, the cycle has only just begun. The day is still bright."

"I don't care. I want to sleep again."

Artificer sighed and shook her head. "Fine. But next cycle, you're coming out with me, and you're finally going to eat proper and bulk up again."

Sizzle slipped into the shelter, looking back at the bloodstained red body left lying on the ground. His mom had grabbed her and was dragging it right outside the shelter as a 'warning to others', holding the corpse like a broken toy.

Ruffian . . . Artificer . . . I'm so sorry.

May your next life be far happier than this one was.

* * * * * * * * * *

GAH I went overboard but WRITING!

I just wanted to write something happier and then still crush Sizzle's hopes for happiness.

Enjoy this entire novel I wrote, lol -

Im not tagging others or doing proper tags because I am tired-

[kimberly-spirits13]

I Ruined My Summer Vacation

Okay so I ruined my summer with a camp counseling job and I am on the verge of quitting. It's my first week in and it has been a shit show. This is a school that I moved out of because of the problems it has but one of my good friends works there and was talking about how awesome the summer camp was. She told me that it was run by some great people (that I am kind of friends with) and that any problems get taken care of really quickly. It pays $500 a week (net income). So I started yesterday (two weeks late since I was busy and they said it was fine) and within two days this has happened

I got punched by a kid

A kid tried to fight me

a kid climbed onto the library shelves and tore the books down five minutes before carpool

a kid started biting the others and drew blood

a kid stomped on a lizard (and killed it) because another kid was looking at to be funny

a kid has thrown a cussing tantrum in front of other kids because he couldn't climb the tables

a kid broke a table

a kid elbowed another kid in the eye

one kid has gotten sent to the "head counselor's office" 20 times in two weeks and has not gotten in any other trouble

the same kid tried to snap in half another kid's elbow across his knees today (we got in trouble for pulling them apart since we can't touch the kids)

The boys have started slapping the girl's butts to be funny

I listened to a 6 hour long first grader rendition of Ice Spice

The first and second graders play COD and Fortnight with grown men online

We found out that the kids cannot play on the playground because their parents have sat them in front of screens their entire lives and they literally don't know what to do

I got to break up a beat down because one kid took a kid's puzzle box lid and the other took the one kid's baseball cap

the kids have started launching themselves off of the library risers (it's about 8 feet off the ground)

the kids have started dragging other kids up the risers and throwing them off

the kids have thrown things at the SmartBoards when they're angry (they're $8,000 boards btw)

Kids run away and hid from counselors and purposefully get lost so that we get in trouble

the kids are bullying each other and verbalizing that they are "targeting *insert a kid name"

The kids are illiterate

The 3rd and 4th graders struggle with basic multiplication and division (4x1 & 38/2 were the big ones today)

parents are signing up some of the kids for 8am-12pm camps and are not coming to pick up their kids after the paid for camps so we are looking after these kids without further pay because their parents are dropping them off like we're some sort of unpaid babysitter club

kids will make eye contact with you, call your name, and then do something you told them not to do, only to bunker down and not stop once you tell them not to

these same kids will wrap themselves around table or whatever they can find and say. "You can't do anything, you can't touch me!"

The HEAD STAFF has come in and asked to speak with camp counselors that aren't working this week and then ask where the camp coordinators are and we're like "uhhhh in their office?"

The head staff has yet to inform us of the kid's allergies so last week we almost had to send a kid to the ER because he got bit by an ant and no one bothered to say that he needed an EPIPEN and another kid ran away crying because a junior counselor pulled out a PB&J in front of him and he thought the junior counselor was trying to kill him (apparently he's got the airborne severity of peanut butter allergy but that wasn't in his charts or mentioned to us)

kids have started throwing soccer and tennis balls at each other when they're mad

a kid made a noose out of crafting items and tried to hang the others with it

a boy shoved a straw into another little boy's privates

a kid tried to hide puzzle pieces from his camp mates by shoving them down his pants because there was nothing we could do about it

one of the camp counselors who is a college football player broke down crying in the break room because he cannot get the kids to listen

another girl has cried a few times in one day because she cannot discipline the kids and they are telling her that their parents will sue her if she's mean to them

we tried to get in contact with one of the kid's parents only to find out that they have jet set across the world the Europe and will be out of country for the entire summer so the kids are staying at their very old grandparent's house and cannot be further disciplined

parents literally drop their kids off so that they don't have to deal with them and will not answer their phones if something happens and are always late to pick their kids up, hardly make the payment cut, and their kids behave as such

This is only day two. I've had some people tell me to stick with it since it's so early, and some say that it's obviously not going to get any better. I talked to one of my friends who has been working here for five years and he said it's the most well behaved group he's ever worked with. I hate this job, I hate that I'm waisting my summer. I may just give it the rest of this week and one more week and then I'm out. These are 6-12 year olds in a college prep private school and they are acting like rabid animals the entire day. It's not all of them, but it's enough that most of the counselors have talked about quitting. One of the lead counselors won't even be in the entire time since she's about to have a baby so it will get even worse. I cannot iterate how much I hate this job, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, and I am homeschooling my kids after this. I hope I get COVID so that I can miss the next few weeks.

[alicelufenia]

Today marks my 3rd anniversary of taking hrt. My egg cracked October 2019, so this year I'll be coming up on year 4 of my transition.

In that time, I've chosen my new name, came out to my family and friends, started hrt, got my legal name changed (surprise, it isn't actually Alice!), updated all my documents and utilities, including my passport.

I've come a long way in my transition, and I feel like an important part of it has actually been mirrored in my FFXIV character. So, for this anniversary post I wanna showcase that part which, while intersecting only slightly with my real life, is still special to me and also in theme for this blog and I'm sorry, I'm not making a sideblog anytime soon to put all my irl talk or whatever.

Don't worry you don't need to know anything about the game other than you play with other people and can make your own character.

At the very start of my transition, I changed in-game from the male character I started as to a female character. Surprise, I was a black-haired sun kitty. And it instantly felt right and comfy, and I went through all of Heavensward to end game with her.

Since it was early in my transition, I was doing my best to move as far away from masculine appearances as I could in my life, and my online character followed suite. I liked how unapologetically feminine and cute she was!

Sadly few pictures of her, but here she is!

After reaching endgame, I started playing with her more. I changed her to a lizard girl. Around this time I would start hrt, and was starting to build my character's personal lore, trying to make her more of a person than an avatar.

I liked the idea that she was a trans woman like me, and that she was undergoing a fantasy version of hrt. It was especially amusing for me, since the male and female Au Ra models are so sexually dimorphic, the guys being huge while the ladies are all tiny. Growing up I was always very short compared to the boys around me. I gave her mismatched eyes, an-ingame sign of hrt use (it's magic that's all it needed to be). I love how serenely confident she looked in her femininity.

I love her RBF too.

Time passes, and as I'm coming up on my first year hrt anniversary, my anxieties around performing femininity and suppressing masculine tendencies were beginning to relax. I've spent a long time seeing myself change over time, and within the transfemme spaces I inhabited where a lot of women who didn't have the bodies of your average cis woman. They were taller, more broad, "harder" facial features.

And they were all beautiful. I'm going to be honest, there was a long time where it was difficult for me to see other trans women. I would be giddy over transition timelines, but I felt bad that I was seeing ways how they were different from conventionally attractive cis women. Too tall, too broad, jaw lines a bit too defined. I felt really bad about feeling that way.

But during my transition, I also began to recognize that many cis women also are not conventionally attractive. Yet they are no less beautiful for it. I decided I wanted to make my character more un-conventionally attractive. Closer to what I found attractive in those other women.

In a way, the fem Miqo'te and Au Ra models were the conventionally attractive choices in the game; round faces, small dainty features, soft jaws, lithe and thin bodies but with ample boobs. So I looked at the other races, and fell in love with face 1 fem hyur highlander.

Highlanders have so much tgirl swag!

Thus Alice's modern look was born! I made her to embody all the things I had anxiety about seeing in myself and other women; she is max height and muscular sliders (and max boobs cause of course). She is in-game equivalent of 6'5" (towering over my irl 5'6"), built like a brick house, and has sharp features that are (imo) clocky <affectionate> and proud of it.

While she isn't exactly [goals] for me (I lost a ton of muscle mass since starting hrt and don't see myself gaining it back anytime) seeing her gives me confidence and comfort with my own body, knowing that traditionally masculine traits can be embraced by women who are still undeniably feminine. She is The Boundless Queen and a small but important part of my transition these past four years!

babygirl 💜

As a parting gift, I want to recommend a video essay that I've watched (and been rewatching too) that has really resonated with me. It is Jessie Gender's "The Myth of 'Male Socialization'". A massive 4 hour video essay divided into two videos; the first covering the concept of modern masculinity as is imparted by our patriarchal capitalist zeitgeist, while the second video, called "Ending the Trauma of Antagonistic Masculinity", where Jessie discusses what we can build beyond the all-consuming black hole of masculinity we currently experience.

It's a unique and touching essay, especially as it stars a non-binary trans woman weighing in on masculinity, a topic we are rarely invited to, but that we have a unique experience in growing up with expectations impossible for us to live up to, and that cis men have more in common with us (and more to learn from us) than they might think.

It is, admittedly, a big ask for anyone to watch both parts all the way through, but if you do take the time, I hope you get something out of it, as I did.

Happy Pride 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

[lawain-dimensional-heroes]

From the halls, there was the sound of people arguing in the distance. It came from one of the rooms.

"...Huh, what do you mean you're waiting a bit longer to help!?"

"Can't you just drop out of the tournament now? I mean, you've already fought the strongest opponent and won! Are you telling me you're just going to stay here for a while longer all because something turned out differently!?"

"I know you're upset and frankly I was betting on the fact that I'd lose my fight, but I really did not expect to win this. Besides, how would the whole audience and the contestants feel if they found out I forfeited the tournament? Besides, Mercedes lost her round and she cannot return so that's another reason for me staying here!"

"Well maybe if someone didn't chose to go all out we wouldn't be here arguing about it--"

"Well MAYBE if there wasn't a redemption bracket I would've left with ease and not worry about it but noooooo, after knowing there wasn't one I was expecting that if I lost I would've been out immediately, but lookie here, there WAS ONE AFTER ALL!!!"

"What is there even in it for you in this tournament? You've won against the best of the best and lemme remind you: I AM DEALING WITH A DOPPLEGANGER ISSUE HERE YA LIZARD BRAIN!! Is that stupid tournament really worth more than helping-- oh I don't know, ONE OF YOUR FIANCE'S!? Like gee, thanks for caring!"

"Look I'm in a very VERY tricky dilemma here where I do really want to help you, but not only are my friends here I've also promised to Merci that I'd win this for that shit Kotaro pulled on her just recently which I am STILL NOT over it! Not only that, using a vessel to help you out will make it even more difficult on my end. Once I'm done with this tournament we will solve this issue immediately, but until then my hands are figuratively tied at the moment."

"Okay you two, stop the arguing right now. Both of you have a point, multiple points even. Yes, the whole doppleganger issue needs to be addressed as soon as possible, but as Maroon just said: he's got a good amount of reasons why he cannot leave and those reasons are beyond his control. Now I can also understand why there's no reason why he couldn't help you out. It may be harder, but surely-- if you care for her a lot, you could-- let's say use those vessels to help her out, no?"

"On the surface it seems easy enough, but this technique requires me to double task. It's hard enough to fight while spectating the fight using the vessel, let alone being able to use said vessel to help out in another dimension or universe while I am competing in the tournament. There's a reason why I haven't used multiple vessels in combat. Focusing on multiple fights with each fight using a different vessel makes it nigh on impossible. Trust me, if I was able to that we'd be in Grandis right about now."

"Yes and you're free for now..."

"Yes, but for how long. It could be just today, it could be two days-- hell, it could be three but by the time we're getting somewhere in the situation, it'll probably be my turn. And honestly...Tear? Why are you so insistent on bringing me into this situation regardless of how busy I am?"

"Because you're the best person to be dealing with this. You've got the strength, you've known Eskalade pretty long by now, you know me well enough. What else is there for me to say?"

"...Fair point, but still... I really do want to help, but unfortunately I cannot extend my help at the moment. Why do you need my strength? You seemed pretty reasonable and if she is a doppleganger, shouldn't she be reasonable as well?"

"Well...That's the issue. The reasonable-- or rather lack there of. Can I be honest in saying this? Seeing her...I want her gone. And we might have to fight her too..."

"...And take her life too...You do know what you're asking of me, right? Taking your-- err, her life..."

"..."

"...Let's discuss this situation another after the tournament then. This is going to be a hard mission for the both of you. But if need be, I'd like to lend a helping hand, considering I no longer am participating in the tournament."

[fingfamily-blog-blog]

A Guest and Visit to Batu

Last summer, I went to a Korean Adoptee Conference in Denver, where I met a woman, adopted from Indonesia to Sweden, named Anna (she's lived in New York for 25 years). I spent probably about 3 hours in her presence, and found out that she was planning to come to Indonesia for the first time in her life (she's mid-40's) to learn about the culture she was taken from, and to do some family searching. She knew I would be here, so we planned to meet on Java. Well, that meeting happened this week. She's been in Indonesia about as long as I have, but Anna has been through what very few humans go through. Have you ever searched for your mother? Have you known who your father is all your life? Were you trans-racially adopted into a culture which brainwashed you to forget where you came from? Have you ever taken it upon yourself to answer the hundreds of questions such a dislocation imposes? Have you ever realized that all your presumptions were wrong and had to start over to try to understand WHO THE HELL YOU ARE for a second, or third, time? These questions are just the tip of the iceberg, because Anna has some ANSWERS to those questions. And if you can imagine how psychologically devastating such answers might be, then you might half understand what Anna has been through in the weeks and months that I've been bitching about my housing and work situation. Yet, when Anna came to my gate, she hugged me as if I were a long lost friend, and opened her story up to me. I am humbled at her composure and strength. It's been fun to get to know her better and to share my house with her. (Before her arrival, it's just been me and the lizards.) And, as is often the case, because I have a guest I've done some things I hadn't previously done. Today, Anna and I went to Batu, the city closest to Malang, and another 450 meters high into the mountains. Firstly we went to the Museum HAM Omah Munir. I've mentioned Munir Talib before in these posts. He's one of my newest heroes and he should be considered among the great Indonesian citizens. However, when I mention his name in polite society, eyes are cast down and doubt is expressed such that it is clear that the population is cowed by the government and military. Munir was a human rights lawyer, a teacher to the powerless, and a supremely brave speaker of truth to power. Thus, the military (which doesn't care to have the truth known about what it does) and the government (which cannot rule without the consent of the military - even today) conspired to murder him. And the 19 intervening years have seen the military and the government conspire to cover-up the crime and ensure that those most responsible for the crime face no justice. We were given a tour of the museum by a young woman (whose English was quite good), and who must realize that (just by being involved in this memorial to a citizen murdered by his own government) she has brought the attention of those conspirators onto herself. Munir started as a labor lawyer, working for the rights of union members. He was successful in advancing their cause in his early years. Then a young woman, Marsinah, a member of one of the unions, was found brutally murdered, and his work on that case made him famous around the country. When unrest developed in the last years of Suharto's rule, in the mid-90's, Munir found himself gathering information on the many hundreds of citizens arrested, tortured, disappeared, and killed by the security forces of the military. He advocated for reform of the military, as well as the government, and he set up lawsuits to hold the government accountable for their treatment of people whose only crime was protest against a corrupt regime. By becoming a burr in the side of the government, Munir knew that he was making enemies whose power was unlimited. Our guide quoted him as saying, "The only thing that will stop me is death." At the age of 39 (although he was married, and had two children), in order to internationalize his struggle, he took a scholarship for the study of human rights law in Utrecht, Holland, in 2004, and left Indonesia for what should have been one year. On the same flight out of Indonesia was a government agent named Pollycarpus, with whom Munir was familiar. At the instigation of higher-ups than he (the Head of the Indonesian State Intelligence Agency among them), Pollycarpus (and, it is suspected, two or three more) both before Munir entered the plane (in a cup of tea), and once he was on the flight (in a glass of orange juice), and once he began to be ill (in a cup of water), fed Munir a massive amount of arsenic, which killed him on the plane before half the flight was over. To learn this story, as a liberal citizen of the United States of America, is to provoke a wide range of emotion, anger, fear, sadness, shame, frustration, and the desire to speak truth to power too. Anna felt the same way. If ever an idea will outlive a man, here is the case. They killed Munir, but they paved the way for dozens, scores, hundreds to take his place, and to force the military to face its crimes, to be held accountable in a free society. And I intend to do my part for the months that I'm here. At the least, I'll ask to bring my students up to the museum. And I'll write about him as well. The air in Batu is free of the overpowering humidity which swelters the low-lands, and even Malang, in the daytime. We carried sweaters with us!!! We walked a ways through the northern part of town, through a steep green ravine, through various cultivated fields (roses, citrus), various hothouses, and found a coffee house called Tedai Batak. With the mountains ringing us, and clouds skirting about them, we sat talking about religion, spirituality, the difference between them, and how each plays out in the lives of the people we know, and Indonesians in general. Anna's 10 weeks here have been monumental in her life (if I may say) and her observations carry great weight with me. She's also in touch with the depths of her artistic and spiritual self, elements of character which I'm concerned with as well. Once the meal was done, a crew of elementary school children came to the coffee house. It seems like it's their after-school hang-out spot. With a plot of roses in front, and the mountain in the background, and the sweet elderly couple running the shop, I wished I could have been one of those kids, curious about the foreigners among them, drinking watered down tea with my friends, independent in my small town in the hills of Java. They seemed quite beautiful to me. I left Anna up there at an Airbnb. She's been exploring all aspects of the place of her birth, and she needs to take the time to write and draw, to process the widths and depths of her incredible experiences. I came home. I have 4 classes to teach tomorrow. I have a wake-up call around 5 a.m. But it was a lovely day, the kind of day one has when they leave home and journey into the unknown.

[snackhobi]

pairing: taehyung x reader / word count: 13.3k / genre: fluff, friends to lovers, smut (NSFW, 18+)

summary: you’re used to being in love with taehyung. you’ve had a lot of time to get good at it, after all—by this point you’re the world’s expert at keeping your less-than-platonic feelings hidden from him, what with the amount of practice you’ve had.

but then he signs up for a massage therapy course, because apparently you can never catch a break.

or: the one where taehyung gives you a full body massage and then some.

warnings: sexually explicit content, massage with a happy ending (literally 🤧), cursing, edible massage oil/lube, fingering (f), unprotected sex (be safe when you have sex please), multiple orgasms (f), oral sex (m), cum swallowing, pet names, body worship?, brief mention of shower sex

a/n: I swear this was meant to be pwp. this was literally meant to just be pwp with some massage shenanigans. and then I blinked and it had become a soft 13k fic which honestly… kicked my ass quite a bit. but I hope you enjoy it!! thank you as always to @hobi-gif​ for beta reading this and encouraging me and putting up with me changing this multiple times, what would I do without your support miss hope?

--

Taehyung goes through a lot of different phases.

He just finds so many things interesting. Photography, art, art history, music, fashion, thrift shopping; heck, there was even the time he got weirdly into making tea and became some sort of connoisseur, going through the whole rigmarole of buying the loose leaves and weighing them out, checking the temperature of the water, brewing for a precisely measured amount of time.

You still remember the look on his face when you said it all tasted like hot leaf water to you.

Because, of course, as one of Taehyung’s best friends and his roommate, you’re inevitably swept up in everything he does. You’re used to the weirdly acrid smell of photo development fluid and how cold dark rooms can get. You use phrases like chiaroscuro and sfumato to describe the simplest things after listening to Taehyung do the same for so long. You’ve lost count of the amount of times you’ve tripped over his saxophone case when he leaves it lying around the apartment. You regularly wear the baggy t-shirt with the face that Taehyung had painted on it—even if you still refer to it as the Squidward-House-Shirt despite the fact you know he was inspired by Basquiet and Schiele and not the Easter Island themed stone head that Squidward lives in.

You don’t mind getting dragged along with whatever he does, honestly; you don’t have time to attend every class, but go with him when you can. It’s always good to expand your horizons. You also love watching Tae’s face whenever he learns something new, the various expressions that flit across his features—from wide eyed excitement and eyebrow raising astonishment to the more solemn side that appears whenever he’s taking something in and thinking deeply about it, turning it over in his mind, mulling on it.

(You love watching Tae’s face all the time, actually, but that’s a whole other can of worms you’d rather keep shut.)

However, the latest course he’s signed up for is not one you’d been expecting.

“Massage therapy?” Your face twists in equal parts confusion and surprise.

Taehyung’s dropped this latest nugget of information while you’re cooking, trying to fry some rice while also peering at the phone screen that’s been thrust into your face. You’re not bad at multitasking, per se, but Taehyung’s iPhone is drifting so close that you’re almost cross-eyed and it’s blocking you from seeing what’s going on in the pan. 

“I had a coupon,” he says, as if that explains everything. (It doesn’t.)

“Scooch,” you say, and he immediately moves so you can turn the gas off.

“Jiminie and Jungkookie say that my massages help with dance, and that's just from Youtube tutorials.” Taehyung continues to talk as you bustle around the tiny kitchen. He’s already set the table so now he’s free to watch you finish doing the rest of the work. “And Joon-hyung says I have the perfect hands for it.”

You fumble with the pan as you’re scooping the steaming rice into a large bowl, only just managing to save food from scattering everywhere. You’ve thought about Taehyung’s hands a lot, about how large and long fingered and beautiful they are, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Really? Huh. That’s nice.” You stare at the pan, fixated on getting every grain of rice so you can avoid looking at Taehyung’s face. And hands. Which are still cupped around his phone. Which looks so small in his big, pretty grip.

Jesus Christ.

“It means I can give you massages if you ever start to get tense.” Taehyung sounds pleased, lovely grin on his face at the prospect of being able to rub his hands over you. As if that isn’t going to make every single one of your muscles lock up and turn you into some sort of coiled rope of a human being, which is the complete opposite of what a massage is supposed to achieve. 

“Great.” Despite your inner turmoil, your voice is level and steady as you meticulously scrape the last grain of rice into the bowl, chasing the tiny fleck of white around the huge pan. Scrape, scrape, scrape. “Sounds fabulous. Can’t wait.”

Of course Taehyung would sign up to learn something that he could use to help his friends. He’s so big-hearted and loving. Big-hearted and loving and kind and funny and affectionate and beautiful and deep-voiced and so entirely overwhelming in every single way imaginable. 

You do what you always do when confronted yet again with your all-consuming crush—you bottle that shit the fuck up until he’s not in the room.

And then you have a miniature breakdown at Pickles.

“I am going to die,” you whisper-scream. “He’s going to offer to massage me and he’s going to get a bottle of massage oil out and he’s going drizzle it onto his massive hands and I am going to fucking die.”

The bearded dragon cocks his head as he stares at you. Taehyung had come home with the reptile one day, tank and all, saying that someone on Facebook had been giving him away because they were moving house and could they just look after him for a little while, please, pretty please? Until they found a good home for him? Please?

That was over a year ago. (You’ve always been bad at saying no to Taehyung.)

“I hate my life,” you lament to the lizard, but then you hear the noisy flush of the toilet and know that Taehyung is going to emerge from the bathroom soon, so you have to wrap this miniature meltdown up pronto. “I wish I was a bearded dragon too, you know. All you do is get fed and sit under the heat bulb. Your life is so easy. You don’t even know what capitalism is.”

The silence you get from Pickles is far more support than you get from your human friends once you tell them. Yoongi just raises his eyebrows while Seokjin and Hoseok laugh outright in your face, just like they always do when you cry to them about Taehyung.

You need new friends. These ones are defective. (If only you’d kept the receipt so you could return them.)

“We learned how to do neck and shoulder massages today!” Taehyung says brightly after the first session.

You hum in response. You’re rewatching Pacific Rim together, cuddled up against Taehyung’s side, and you don’t have to turn your head to know what expression is on his face. There’ll be that little upturn to his lips, happiness at learning something new. That warmth in his eyes at being able to share it with you, even if you couldn't be there with him. Those little freckles on his face, under his eye, his nose, his lip; the one you’ve imagined kissing more times than you can count.

“My teacher says I have a natural talent with my hands,” he adds, and you’re so grateful that you can blame your sudden intake of breath on the scene that’s playing on the screen, as high stakes as it is. 

“That’s nice,” you say, and mentally pat yourself on the back at keeping the strain out of your voice. You've had a lot of practice at this. “I’m not surprised, though. You’ve always been good at doing things with them.”

That’s not a euphemism. Taehyung’s always so careful when he makes things; you’d learned how to fold different origami patterns together, matching crane for crane, lotus for lotus, and he’d always been so delicate with his fingers. He’s always so careful and considerate with you, too, fingers splayed wide across your shoulder as he squeezes you closer to his side, leaving you breathless.

“I wish you could come too.” Taehyung sounds disappointed. “We always have so much fun together.”

For the first time in your life you’re grateful that your manager at Olive Chicken is such a hardass and won’t let you swap shifts, so you’d had to miss signing up for the massage course with Taehyung—because you know there’s no way you’d be able to keep it together if there was some sort of tandem practice in class or whatever. Your crush on him is filled with equal parts of tenderness and lust and you’re well aware of that. You’d rest your hands on the soft skin of Taehyung’s shoulders and back, the lust would overwhelm you, and you’d immediately burst into flames like some sort of demon stepping over the threshold of a church. 

Why oh why did God have to make Kim Taehyung so hot?

Why oh why did God have to make you so… not?

You know Taehyung doesn’t see you in a romantic light at all. You’re grateful for this deep, platonic relationship you have, and you love him to pieces, but holy hell is it hard to walk around with Kim Taehyung looking the way he does and wanting to jump his bones while simultaneously being aware that it’s never going to happen. Whenever he smiles at you, or touches you, or holds you, it’s in exactly the same way as he treats any of his friends—and as happy as you are to be one of those friends, it also kind of kills you inside. 

(Because you know you don’t have a chance, have never had a chance, and will never have a chance.)

The idea of offering to massage Taehyung is one that makes you want to melt into a puddle of horny goo. But when he offers to massage you, it’s because you’re a convenient practice partner who he’s comfortable with. It’s no big deal. You could strip naked and slather yourself up in oil and stand in front of him with your bosoms heaving and say ‘Have at me, big boy’ and Taehyung would say: ‘Sweet! A chance to practice deep tissue massage! Gee, thanks for being such a great pal!’

The kind of deep tissue you want Taehyung to massage is very different to whatever he’s talking about.

… Anyway.

You manage to avoid Taehyung using his apparently magic fingers on you for a surprising amount of time, though you’re kept up to date with his progress, because he shares everything with you and tells you about everything and you always, always listen. Because, more than being your crush, he’s one of your best friends and you love him.

Which is why you try your best to be gentle, graciously refusing his offer of a shoulder massage after he sees you wincing, even if with anyone else you’d just tell them to back off with zero hesitation.

“It’s fine,” you say, flapping a hand at him. “I just slept on it funny.”

“A massage would help! It won’t take long, I promise. Five minutes? Please?” 

Taehyung’s looking at you with those big puppy eyes of his, pleading. You waver. You’re torn between being steadfast and avoiding a situation you’ve literally had nightmares about (Taehyung had offered to massage you, and you’d said yes, but then you’d fallen over as you were walking to him and suddenly a lasagne had appeared in your hands and you’d spilled it all down your shirt and he’d pointed and laughed and laughed and you’d felt so embarrassed that you’d woken up, cheeks burning), but then he pouts and you give in like the spineless and lovesick fool that you are.

“Five minutes,” you say, and Taehyung nods emphatically, looking pleased.

(You have the backbone of a chocolate éclair.)

You send quiet thanks to whatever God is listening when he doesn’t ask you to take your top off and doesn’t break out a bottle of scented oil. Instead he just asks for you to straddle a chair, clutching a plushie against your chest to cushion where it leans against the backrest, and tells you to get comfy.

“Just relax,” he says, as you desperately try to remember how your body works and coax it to relax like Taehyung wants you to. You fail miserably. You feel like a ball of rubber bands, each muscle a layer of tighter and tighter elastic that’s circled around you. “Lean forwards a little?”

At least Taehyung can’t see your face from this angle. You have no idea what sort of expression is twisting your features; consternation and horrified anticipation, probably. You're basically throttling your plushie, taking out your tension and frustration on the poor thing, Rilakkuma's placid face morphing into a twisted expression of sympathy under your grasping fingers.

“Perfect,” Taehyung says. The sound of praise in his deep voice has your insides turning into overheated syrup, hot and thick, dripping down and pooling between your legs. You hate yourself. Getting turned on by the most innocuous words from your best friend, really? Get it together.

The second you feel Taehyung's warm hands touch the back of your neck, your shoulders hunch up faster than a whiplash, a turtle sucking its head into its shell. Your friend laughs.

“This is the opposite of relaxing,” he says, voice warm with amusement. 

“You surprised me.” You dig your nails into Rilakkuma's soft brown fur. Taehyung just thinks you're not used to being massaged, not that you're being weird because it's him that's touching you. Because he touches you a lot. He’s just never done it like this. “Sorry.”

“It's fine,” he replies, unruffled and oblivious. “Let me try again?”

You bite your lip, desperately trying to quell the mix of arousal and tension that’s churning in your stomach, begging your muscles to unwind. You’ve kept your crush a secret from him for this long, you can keep that energy up. (You have to keep that energy up.) “Um. Okay.”

You’re still tense when Taehyung puts his hands on you again. The touch is warm through your clothes, firm but careful, digging into the sharp line of tension laid across your shoulders; despite the way your heart is threatening to launch itself out of your chest, you start to loosen up, because holy shit that feels nice, actually.

You melt against Rilakkuma and smother the bear's face in your chest. “Your teacher wasn’t kidding when they said that you’re good with your hands,” you mumble. 

You’ve never gotten a proper massage before but it feels so damn good that you can’t help but unwind, turning to jelly at the confident presses of Taehyung’s fingers and palms into the soft skin between your neck and shoulder. A little sigh spills past your lips when Taehyung starts to work at the part that’s been twinging after you lay crookedly on it, limbs akimbo in your sleep after a long night at work. “Oh, right there, Tae.”

Taehyung goes still for just a second before continuing, trailing his fingers over your shirt. “Here?”

Your eyes have drifted shut so you can focus on the sensation of that tension being pulled out of your body. “Yeah, right there,” you repeat, massaged into a state of lazy euphoria. The breath you let out is long and deep, catching in the back of your throat at a particularly firm rub of Taehyung’s hands; if you weren’t so blissed out you might be embarrassed at how much the noise you make is like a moan, but as it is, you don’t even notice. You just let out a little sound of discontent when Taehyung’s fingers stutter in their motions, displeased that he’s stopped even for a second.

By the time the massage is over, you’re so relaxed that you feel like you could melt into the floor, a wobbly puddle of unwound muscles and loose limbs. It’s official. You’re a massage convert.

“Holy shit.” Your eyes flutter open as you lean away from Rilakkuma so you can turn around. They’re the first coherent words you’ve spoken for a while; small sighs and sounds have been dripping from your lips and it’s only now that you’re able to regain your breath. “Tae, that was amazin—”

You’re met with the sight of Taehyung’s back as he power walks away, steps rapid, a little shaky, awkward. Before you can ask what’s wrong, he’s stepping into the bathroom. 

“I need to wash my hands,” he says without looking at you, before the door slams shut.

You don’t remember Tae telling you about how quickly you have to wash your hands after finishing a massage. But, thinking about it, you suppose it makes sense—you know, with massaging multiple clients or whatever—even if it’s surprising exactly how fast he’d hoofed it away from you. It sounds like he’s switched both taps on full blast as well, noisy even through the wooden door, and judging from how long he’s in there, he’s being very thorough. Hand washing must be a lot more important than you’d realised. 

Once Taehyung emerges, his face is a little flushed, cheeks a soft red. You wonder if the hot water tap is playing up again and filling your dinky bathroom with hot steam, and make a mental note to look into it. You smile at Taehyung from your perch on the sofa, Rilakkuma plopped on your lap, smile spread across your features; one that Taehyung returns, as pink-faced as he is.

“How’s your shoulder feeling?”

“So much better, honestly,” you admit. It’s incredible. He hasn’t even finished the course yet and he's already this good. He really does have magic hands.

“I’ll have to give you massages more often,” Taehyung says, though the end of the sentence trembles a little. He must be light-headed after all the steam in the bathroom.

The thought of more massages doesn’t fill you with as much mind-numbing trepidation as it might have earlier, utterly languid as you flop across the sofa, muscles uncoiled after the lovely touch of Taehyung’s even lovelier hands. No wonder people rave about spa days if they leave you feeling like this. Maybe if you’d been staring at Taehyung in the eye when he’d been touching you, then you’d feel a lot more awkward—as it is, it’s no worse than usual. Your crush is still all-encompassing but you also got a massage out of it, so.

“Sounds great.” This time you don’t even have to fake your excitement. “Now come sit your butt down so we can order some takeout and decide what to watch.”

When you bend down to speak to Pickles later, the bearded dragon is lolling on his favourite branch. “There’s still a high chance that I’m going to die,” you say in a low voice, before you flick the lights off so the lizard can sleep. “But he hasn’t broken out the oils yet, so I think I’ll be okay for now.”

--

Your luck doesn’t last.

“Strawberry and champagne, lychee martini, mint mojito, white chocolate, or tropical coconut?”

You look up from where you’re painting your toenails. “Huh?”

Taehyung bundles into the room and throws himself onto your bed, flopping on his belly and ignoring the way the mattress is jostled. You, of course, are used to his antics, which is why you’d swept your open bottle of nail polish up before he could spill it everywhere.

“What do you think sounds best?”

“Well, that depends,” you say, squinting at your toes and carefully sweeping the polish over the freshly buffed nails. “For candles, I think they sound pretty nice. For sauces to pour over a steak, I’d say I’d give them all a hard pass. What’s it for?”

“Massage oils,” Taehyung says blithely, too busy staring at his phone to see you muffle a curse when your hand slips and you paint your entire little toe blue. “I was wondering which you think sounds best.”

“Oh. Uh.” You fumble to clean your toe and salvage the now-terrible pedicure you’re trying to give yourself. It was only a matter of time before massage oils were going to become part of your life. Taehyung never goes into things half-hearted, so of course he’s going to invest in oils, too. God’s sake. You can never catch a break, can you? “Why these ones in particular?”

Taehyung pauses for a suspiciously long time, but it gives you the chance to furiously rub at your toe while he’s distracted. “We get a free bottle from the course,” he says eventually.

Huh. Okay. “That’s pretty neat. What was the last one? Coconut? Stick with the basics, can’t go wrong with that, right?”

“Coconut is always tasty,” Taehyung comments absently, and you glance up from your Smurf toe.

“Agreed, but it’s not like you’re about to eat massage oil, are you?”

Taehyung pauses, and then buries his face into his phone screen—suddenly very intent on rereading the list of ingredients in each bottle, it seems. “No, of course not, you’re right,” he mumbles.

He’s almost finished the course. He’s not going to be an accredited masseuse or anything, but you definitely think he could be, if he wanted to—you’ve never had less tension in your shoulders and neck in your life. Taehyung always eases his way into your personal space anyway, casual and effortless after years of friendship, but now you’re used to his fingers sliding over the back of your neck, a gliding touch, sending tense little goosebumps over your skin while simultaneously making you melt. 

“It’s pretty cool that you get free stuff, though.” Your toe is clean, thankfully, no longer blue. “And not just, like, a generic bottle of oil or something. They all sound really fancy. I didn’t realise that you could get massage oils that were scented like that?”

Taehyung makes a non-committal noise, which is uncharacteristic of him, but you’re too focused on repainting your final nail to pay it too much mind, letting out a loud huff of triumph when you’re done.

“Get me a bag of shrimp crackers, please?” You have a sudden craving but you don’t want to penguin waddle to the kitchen and risk getting anything on your wet nails. “Ya girl is hungry.”

“Got it.” Taehyung rolls off the bed without protest. You’re used to his antics, and he’s used to yours, indulging you whenever you feel lazy or want him to do something for you. “You need me to feed you?”

“I wasn’t going to use my toes to feed myself,” you laugh, but Taehyung ends up feeding them to you anyway.

When you recount the list to Seokjin later, his face crumples in a way that’s equal parts offended and disgusted. “They all sound terrible,” he says. “White chocolate should stay in chocolate form and not be turned into an oil. Why does massage oil even have to smell like anything?”

You’re both holed up in the tiny smoking nook behind Olive Chicken; neither of you smoke, but it’s a good excuse to go outside and get fresh air during longer shifts. 

“Hey, don’t ask me, I’m not the one who’s taking the course. I think lychee martini sounds interesting, though.”

“Agree to disagree.” Seokjin unwraps one of the complimentary chocolates the restaurant gives to diners with their bill, swallowing it whole. “Besides, we all know Taehyung could approach you with dirty, used fryer oil and you’d let him dip you in it.”

You slap the next chocolate out of his hand before it reaches his mouth. He’s unmoved and simply plucks another from his pocket, which is apparently bulging with them.

“Yoongichi,” Jin says, calling to the delivery boy, who’s just appeared from the dark like some tired-eyed spectre of fried chicken. “Tell me this. If I were to ask you what smell of massage oil you’d prefer, what—”

“I would say that I really could not care less.” Yoongi flops down on one of the rickety fold-out chairs before silently accepting a chocolate from Seokjin’s stash. “And then I’d ask why you’re asking me in the first place, seeing as you’re the one using it, not me. If Taehyung’s asking what massage oil you’d prefer, Y/n, it’s because he wants to rub it all over you specifically.” Yoongi munches on the chocolate, already filling in the blanks without needing to be told the context. You really are that transparent, huh. “Please, we’ve been over this.”

Jin pouts. “You ruined my set up. I had a whole speech prepared.”

“Oh no.” Yoongi remains blank-faced. “How terrible.”

“I hate both of you,” you say. “I’m going to tell Pickles how mean you are.”

“I bet if that lizard could talk, he’d tell you how tired he was of you two dancing around each other, just like the rest of us,” Yoongi says.

There’s no dancing around, though, no matter what your friends say. Well. Not on Taehyung’s end anyway. You’re out here doing the fandango, castanets and all, while Taehyung just stands stock still, oblivious.

You let out an incredibly long sigh. Seokjin hands you a sympathetic chocolate.

The massage oil doesn’t make an appearance in your life for a little while, though. The end of the course comes and goes, Taehyung proudly flapping the laminated certificate at you, wobble-wobble-wobble, filling the apartment with the sound of rippling plastic. But no coconut oil.

The scent of ‘tropical coconut’ has started to haunt your dreams, in a way that’s both good and bad; when you wake up in a sweat, heart pounding, it’s not because you’re having nightmares, let’s just put it like that. It’s like there’s an invisible countdown that you can’t trace and it’s only a matter of time before it ticks over and the shoulder massages (that you’ve gotten very comfortable with) edge into something different. Taehyung’s going to innocently offer to give you a backrub and uncap that bottle of scented oil and you’re going to explode into a mess of putty under his hands.

Well… then again… you had been worried about that with all the shoulder rubs. Now look at you. You weather those like a champ. Sure, your skin tingles and you run hot and you think about the sensation of Taehyung’s hands gliding over you whenever you’re alone, but you’re basically fine. Your friend who just so happens to also be the great love of your life remains none the wiser.

You bet a full back rub would feel great after a long week.

Which is why when Taehyung steps into the apartment with a look on his face that you immediately recognise as tiredness, you sort of wish you knew how to massage people, too.

He falls into your arms with little fanfare. It’s been one of those days, one of those ones that everyone gets, even Taehyung—he’s usually so Switched On and Exuberant and Alive, and people don’t seem to realise that even he feels exhausted, sometimes.

“You alright, bubs?” You can’t massage him but you can rub his back soothingly, let him snuffle against your neck. Sometimes you think about that little space between your chin and collarbones as Taehyung’s, a hollow that’s perfect for him to press his face into, hair tickling your chin as he curls up into you. His and his alone. “Did something happen?”

He just shakes his head.

“Okay,” you say.

(Close proximity and skin on skin with Taehyung doesn’t always have your pulse rising and your heart racing. Sometimes it’s just this: quiet and soft, your heart bright with fierce affection for this boy, the only thought in your mind that you want him to be happy, forever.)

The long silence is broken by the sound of Taehyung heaving in a breath before letting out a long, exhausted sigh. 

“Thank you.” His voice is quiet and low, far less energetic than his usual self.

“Nothing to thank me for, Tae,” you reply. “Always here for you. You know that, right?”

He doesn’t respond straight away. He just burrows closer, draped over you, until he murmurs, barely audible. “Why?”

Your face twists. “Why, what? Why am I always here for you?”

“Yeah.” Taehyung squeezes himself impossibly closer, skin warm against yours, forehead pressed to the skin of your neck. You can’t see his expression from this angle.

“Because you’re one of my best friends and I love you,” you answer, immediately. You don’t even have to think about it. “Because you’re important to me and if there’s anything I can do for you, I will. I’ll celebrate the good things in your life with you, and I’ll be at your side during the bad times, just like you are with me. Please don’t ever forget how much I love you, okay?”

There’s a pause, and then it feels like all the tension leaves Taehyung’s body, slumping his whole body weight against you. “Okay,” he murmurs. “I love you too. Thank you,” he says again. You just reply by squeezing his shoulders.

He’s a little quieter for a few days after that. You’re not sure why, because he’d perked up after a lazy evening of lying around and eating too many snacks, flopped against you like an oversized, clinging starfish—but you’re gentle with him nonetheless. 

(Well. You’re always gentle with him. It just takes you half a second to fold in the face of his whims, rather than a whole, full second.)

So when the dreaded bottle of oil finally appears, you’re far less ready to fight off Taehyung’s insistence on a full body massage, caught off guard after days of indulging him. Fuck. 

“You’ve had a long week!” Taehyung insists as you scrabble your way over the sofa’s backrest so you can hide behind it, clutching a cushion to your chest. “You need to relax!”

Without looking you fling the cushion over the sofa. Judging from the fact that Taehyung doesn’t make a sound, you’ve missed. “I was feeling perfectly relaxed until you started yelling at me about it! Why are you so obsessed with the idea of me being relaxed?”

Taehyung doesn’t respond. Oh, crap. Maybe you did hit him with the cushion?

You pop up from behind the sofa. Nope. It's an embarrassing distance away from Taehyung, who’s got that surprisingly large bottle of oil held loosely in his hands. There’s an expression on his face that you can’t decipher; a little crestfallen, a little unsure, but there’s something else there, too, something you can’t put a name to.

“Taehyung?”

“I just… wanted to help,” he says. “You’re always there for me when I’m not feeling great, and you calm me down, and I wanted to do the same for you.”

You immediately feel like the worst human being alive. Take the feeling you get whenever you accidentally step on an animal’s tail, multiply it by infinity, and that’s only just a drop in the ocean of awful, awful guilt that you’re drowning in. 

“Oh, Tae,” you say. Your voice comes out so much softer and sweeter than you mean it to, but you can't help it. “I’m sorry. I was just joking. It’s really nice of you to be so concerned. You just surprised me. You do help me relax and your massages are great.” (You tell him that often enough that he should know it, but it never hurts to repeat a compliment.)

His face lifts. It’s like the sun bursting forth from the clouds after heavy rain, and you have to resist the urge to shield your eyes, blinded by the brightness and beauty. Kim Taehyung is so unfairly gorgeous (but what else is new?). “So I can give you a massage?”

Despite the fact the prospect makes you want to fling yourself into space, when you’re faced with Taehyung’s dark eyes and wide smile and large, warm hands, you cave, because of course you do. If, way back when you’d first been frying up that kimchi rice and letting Taehyung thrust his phone into your face, you’d been told you’d end up in this position, you would have laughed outright. Haha, yeah, sure, like you’d be stupid enough to let yourself be wrangled into such a vulnerable state in front of Taehyung, nowhere to run, helpless under his fingers. Not.

But here you are. Whipped for Kim Taehyung, forever and always.

The pastel blue towels under your stomach and chest are soft as they shield you from the cold, hard floor. You’re incredibly aware of how chilly the apartment feels, air prickling against your bare skin; you shift to try and get comfortable, glancing over your shoulder to fiddle with the towel that’s draped over your hips and ass, making sure it’s covering everything. Taehyung insists on authenticity (as if you’re not lying on the floor of your apartment rather than on a massage table) and he says that it’s normal to be completely naked for a full-body massage, even underneath any towels that are covering you up.

Authenticity is also why he’s in the other room, warming up the massage oil, because that’s apparently a thing?

(You’re going to die.)

It doesn’t matter that Taehyung will only be able to see the back of your head, your shoulder blades, the small of your back, a slip of your thighs, your calves. None of these things are especially scandalous; all the parts of your body that someone might find more interesting are out of sight, pressed against the floor or hidden under a layer of Egyptian cotton microfibres. 

And yet you can’t help but be hyperaware of how you’re entirely unclothed. Even if it doesn’t bother Taehyung—what with, you know, the fact he’s not interested in you like that and doesn’t find you attractive at all (sigh)—embarrassment creeps hot and uncomfortable under your skin.

It just feels so crazy intimate to be laid out like this, even if people do this all the time, happily strip down to let professionals rub the tension out of their body. 

(Then again, most people aren’t best friends with their masseuses and haven’t harboured long, one-sided crushes on them, either.)

Just breathe. You can do this. You love the shoulder massages that Taehyung’s been giving you; just think of this as a shoulder massage. 

… A shoulder massage that involves warm oil, near-nakedness, and Taehyung’s hands sliding all over you.

… You are going to have a very long venting session with Pickles after all this.

You’re so distracted by your own self pity and distress that you don’t register the sound of Taehyung entering the room; the little pause when he steps over the threshold, feet stuttering, just for a moment. It’s only when he’s kneeling down that you notice his presence, body jolting from surprise before you let out a slip of high laughter.

“Jesus, Tae,” you say. In any other circumstance, you’d be clutching your chest. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” He sounds genuinely apologetic.

Your cheek is pillowed on your arms. When you turn to look at your best friend you immediately regret it; he’s settled back on his ankles, knees spread wide, and you come eye-to-eye with his crotch.

In an effort to look away from his clothed dick, your gaze flies up to his face, which might be even worse. He has this intense look in his eyes, and wow, alright, you’ve never been able to see Taehyung’s face as he’s been massaging you, but you never realised exactly how seriously he seems to take it, judging from his expression.

(Do all massage therapists look like that when they work?)

“That’s alright.” You’re a little breathless, but you’re going to blame that on how your boobs are smooshed into the floor, and not on anything else, nuh uh. Shoulder massage. It’s a shoulder massage. It’s just like a full bodied shoulder massage. (Maybe if you repeat it to yourself often enough then you’ll actually start to believe it.) “Uh. Do you need me to… do anything? Or do I just lie here?”

Taehyung’s expression lightens a little at the uncertainty in your tone, smile curling up the corners of his mouth. “You’re perfect right where you are,” he says, and then he reaches for the bottle of oil.

You turn your head away again, cheeks burning. There’s no way you’ll be able to handle the visual of him slicking his fingers and palms up. “Cool,” you say, voice only a little strained. “Coolcoolcoolcool.”

(It’s not cool.)

You don’t have a visual, but you do get the auditory experience thanks to the relative silence in the apartment. Goosebumps ripple down the back of your neck and trail down your spine at the sound of Tae’s hands sliding against each other, thoroughly coated in the warmed oil, and you’re so glad that you can blame it on the chill in the air.

At first, it’s okay. Taehyung starts at the parts of your body that are used to receiving his attention, though it’s different without the barrier of clothing in the way, not to mention how easily his palms glide over you, the air full of the light scent of coconut. It’s different, but manageable, and you think you just might be okay; as always, his touches are firm but careful, and your body is used to this by now, relaxing.

But. The second you feel Taehyung’s touch between your shoulder blades, you stiffen with a shiver. The oil is the perfect temperature against your skin, but you’ve always had a sensitive back; you can’t help but clench your fists, digging your fingers into your palms. Relax. Just breathe. 

“You’ve got a lot of tension here.” Taehyung’s voice is low as he digs the heel of his palm into the dip of your spine.

It’s because you’re touching me there, you think to yourself, but just let out a non-committal hum of agreement instead. 

You feel Taehyung's hands, a repeated sliding motion between your shoulder blades; the tension starts to leak out of you again, but your breath hitches in your throat at how you're pressed downwards and into the cotton towels beneath you, nipples hardening against them.

Thank God you're on your front so Tae can't see what effect he's having on you.

“Better?”

Taehyung's voice is always deep, but you'd swear it was even deeper in this moment, pitched low. Maybe that’s because the sound of blood pumping is filling your ears so it’s hard to discern. At this point, who even knows? Not you, that’s for sure.

“Yep.” Why are you so breathless? You haven’t moved at all, but you sound like you’ve just run the 100m sprint, winded and weak. “So much better.”

You regret agreeing to this. You are so out of your depth and there’s no way you’re going to be able to hide exactly how much this is affecting you and you want to collapse in on yourself and shrivel up like a sundried tomato, tiny and wrinkly and underwhelming. 

Taehyung shifts to reach more of you and you squeeze your eyes shut so you don’t come face first with his crotch again, shielding yourself from the view of his loose linen trousers stretched almost taut with how wide his knees are. It’s both a blessing and a curse—a blessing because you’re saved from aforementioned view, but a curse because your sensation of touch is heightened, and all you’re aware of is his hands sliding down your sides. You’d swear those fingers were so long he could circle your waist with ease.

(Massages are meant to relax you and yet you’ve never felt so tense in your life.)

Taehyung clicks his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I can’t get a good angle like this,” he mutters.

Before you can think anything or say anything, you become aware of the sound of moving and shifting and—

Your eyes fly open. Taehyung’s straddling your thighs, heavy and warm, and you suck in a breath so sharp and fast you can feel your chest expand, brain full of the screaming clang of warning bells. There’s no way this is a normal masseuse thing. There’s no way. It’s intimate and entirely too physical and there’s absolutely no way that this is something Taehyung learned in class. 

(What is he doing?)

But then any coherent thought in your brain slips when his hands settle on you again.

They so, so lightly brush the hem of the towel that preserves your modesty, and you can’t help the full-body shiver that wracks through you. You suck your lips into your mouth, swallowing down the noise that threatens to bubble up in your throat. There’s the sensation of fingers trailing up the line of your spine, feather light, smoothed by the slide of oil, and you feel like molten lava, burning hot and bright.

“Taehyung.” Your voice is high and faint.

His fingers splay down your ribcage and run down your sides, confident and smooth, warm with that coconut-scented oil, and you’re dying, you’re living; you want to disappear, you never want this to end. 

“Taehyung,” you repeat. Your voice shakes.

He hums, low and indulgent. “Yes?”

“M-my thighs,” you stammer, unable to articulate yourself. Why are you on my thighs, oh God, you’re so warm and heavy on top of me, oh God oh God oh God.

Taehyung completely misunderstands you. “Oh? Of course.” He sounds nonchalant. “I’ll massage those next.”

You can feel the drag of his linen trousers against your skin as he moves down to rest on your calves, and hear the bottle open as Taehyung drizzles more oil over his hands, far more than he could possibly need. His palms feel so broad and warm against the smoothness of your thighs, touches firm and confident as he digs his fingers into the muscle, and, oh, fuck, this is, this is too much—

Your legs jump when Taehyung hitches the towel up, just a little, baring more of your body.

“Fuck.” You can't keep quiet any longer. “Tae, I’m fine, I’m feeling way less tense now.”

He’s still, for a moment, before his hands slide up the back of your thighs. “Are you sure? You want me to stop?”

It’s only then that you realise how deeply Taehyung is breathing, fast and low, voice rough and gravelled. His fingers rest in wait, warm and slick with oil; you’re so close to losing any modicum of modesty, only one motion away from that towel being rucked high enough that there’s nothing protecting you from Taehyung’s touch and eyes.

“I haven’t finished yet, though,” he continues, digging his thumbs into your skin as he pulls his hands down your thighs, mindlessly following the motions he’s been taught. “There’s still more to go.”

You could twist around to look at him but you’re almost afraid to look at his face, afraid of what you’d find there. He sounds as affected as you are, but there’s absolutely no way. There’s no way.

“You don’t need to do the whole massage if I’m feeling relaxed, right?” 

(Because you’re feeling so relaxed right now, of course, and not like you’re about to go supernova and burst into heat and light. Absolutely.)

(But.)

(But. Taehyung’s hands settle at the back of your knees, swiping the sensitive skin with his thumbs. You can’t see his face, but you can feel something in that touch, something more than skin deep, like it’s sinking into you, through skin and muscle and bone, in in in, settling inside you, a flicker of—of—)

“Want to do this perfectly for you,” he murmurs. You clench your hands at the husky note in his voice, nails digging so hard into your palms it hurts. “You deserve the best. I want you to feel good.”

He must be able to see your back rise and fall as you breathe in sharply.

“Taehyung.” Almost pleading. 

“Yes, love?”

You suck in another sharp breath. The pet name sounds so soft and sweet in his mouth, somehow, even with the heated edge to his voice. One that’s definitely there. You’re not imagining it. 

(You’re not.)

“Do you want me to make you feel good?” he continues.

Before you can think, you nod.

“Yes,” you whisper. “Please.”

You’re trembling. Taehyung’s still heavy and warm across the back of your calves, sliding one hand to the inside of a knee and up the soft skin of your inner thighs. You instinctively shift them apart, as far as you can with Taehyung trapping your legs, and, oh, his hand is going higher, oh—

His hand is so big, cupping your overheated sex. It’s hard to tell where the oil ends and your own arousal begins, flushed wet and hot; when he dips his middle finger between your lower lips, long and gentle and firm, you let out a noise you didn’t realise you were capable of. The angle is off, a little awkward, the motions of Taehyung’s fingers stifled by how you’re lying flush to the ground, but God, you’re so turned on it barely matters.

You’re hyperaware of everything. The soft touch of air on the cooling oil across your skin. The fall of the towel, bunched around your waist, slowly slipping to one side. Taehyung’s hand, his fingertips easing through the heat of you, sliding over your clit, over your entrance, slow and soft and amazing. 

“Again,” you plead. “Again, Tae, please.”

“Feels good?” He asks, and you squeeze your eyes shut as you nod, cheek still pillowed against your arm.

“So good,” you say. “But I want more, please, Tae.”

“Anything you want,” he murmurs.

Taehyung’s hand shifts between your legs again, so hot, so big, so reverent. The slide is smooth as his fingers press into your folds, practically gliding. You twist beneath him, letting out a noise of displeasure when he draws his hand away, but then he lifts off your calves. You let him thrust your legs apart before he resettles between them.

Just as you’re distracted with the towel being tugged away from your hips, baring you entirely, Taehyung slides a finger into your weeping cunt.

You whine. It's so long. Now that your calves aren’t trapped, there’s nothing to stop you from rutting back against his fingers. He splays his other hand over the soft flesh of your ass, encouraging the rolling motion of your hips, and you’re gasping, wanton in your noises of desire and pleasure. One finger becomes two, and then three, Taehyung’s voice a low undercurrent to your stuttered moans as he presses them as deep as he can.

“Just like that, angel,” he breathes. “Want you to feel good, keep making those pretty noises, let me know how good it is—”

“Taehyung,” you whine, dragging the syllables of his name out when he curls his fingers inside you, so amazing, hitting you in all the right places.

“Baby.” He sounds wrecked, words sliding together, and you haven’t even touched him yet. “You’re so hot n’ wet, fuck. So perfect. Just like that, keep moving like that.”

You can hear the slick sounds of his thrusts into you. He’s already learned what you like, twisting his fingers in a way that leaves you breathless; they’re so fucking long, sliding into your greedy cunt with ease, reaching so much deeper than your own can. His pretty lovely hands are on you, inside you, and you’re heady at the thought.

“There, Tae, don’t stop, please, p-please.” The coil twists tighter in between your legs, a taut thread that’s ready to snap. He listens, repeating the motion that’s pulling you closer to the edge, eyes wide, staring at the way you’re writhing underneath him; the way the oil on your back and legs shimmers in the light, the evidence of his touch all over you, shining. “Tae, oh, God, right there, yes, yes, yes—”

Your entire body goes tense and then you’re cumming around Taehyung’s fingers, clenching your thighs together, trapping him inside as you buck your hips. You grind back against his hand, a loud moan falling from your lips, drowning out the noise of awe that Taehyung makes when he feels your walls pulsate around him. You're warm and tight and wet, arousal flooding thick against his skin, and he lets out a stuttered groan, fingers buried knuckle deep inside you, feeling every wave of pleasure that rocks through your core.

You’re panting by the time you settle back down and barely make a sound when Taehyung drags his fingers out of you. When he leans down the oil on your skin feels tacky against his clothes, material sticking to you, chest to back, hips to ass. You can feel the hot curve of him through his trousers, his cock heavy, getting harder—and it feels sososo good.

Taehyung’s face is so close, now, chin hooked over your shoulder. Even though you can feel the hardness of his cock pressed against you, the smile on his face is so gentle. Your heart thrums in your chest.

“So cute n' pretty,” he says, and presses his nose to the soft curve of your cheek. Rather than coconut, all you can smell is his shampoo, familiar and homely and heady. “All over. God, I can’t believe you’d let me touch you like this. I’m so lucky. Was that good, baby?”

“Yes,” you say, and then, because you’re still floating in a light haze of disbelief: “I’m the lucky one.” 

Taehyung laughs, low and quiet. It’s a honeyed moment, dripping slow and sweet, even sweeter when he tilts his head forward. His lips are soft against your cheekbone, your jaw, and when you turn towards him, they’re even softer against your mouth. You can feel the shape of his smile, and it tastes so bright, small kisses that turn open mouthed, so perfect. Because you’re kissing Kim Taehyung, your Taehyung, something you’ve been dreaming about for so long, now—even if this entire situation is pretty unbelievable, honestly.

When you pull back, his eyes spark with unadulterated joy. He’s warm and heavy, pinning you down against the towels that are soft against your front; arching your spine, you lean back against the weight of Taehyung’s body, his cock fattening up through the layers of clothes that separate you. He lets out a breath of surprise before he grinds down, pressing that hard heat against you, and your cunt clenches.

“Can I finish the massage?” He asks, sounding almost eager, even with the rasp of lust in his voice. You can’t help but laugh, an affectionate giggle that has you knocking your foreheads together.

“Of course,” you say, and he catches your lips again, swallowing the last of your laughter, sweeping his tongue over your lips, inside your mouth, wet and hot and a little messy, but good. 

“You need to be on your back,” Taehyung continues, slow after the kiss is broken, and, oh, okay, that has you shivering. “If you want to?”

Of course you want to.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Let me move.”

He shifts to give you room, but not before pressing a kiss to the back of your neck, the bump of the top of your spine, lips sliding against the oil that he’d rubbed there earlier, goosebumps erupting over your skin.

“So good to me,” he whispers. You don’t think he even means for you to hear it. 

(It’s said without thought; not thoughtless, no, but a soft little thing that says so much. A thought that’s slipped across his mind and fallen from his lips, warm and tender. Like you’re always good to him, and he sees it, he knows it, he feels it, he thinks it, and he’s almost in disbelief about it, because you’re so good to him.)

You feel warm and languid after cumming, loose-limbed as you flop onto your back. There’s no going back now. There’s no going back from this moment, naked and vulnerable under Taehyung, nothing hidden away any more—the soft fall of your breasts, your stomach, the lines of your hips, your fingers tightening in the towels spread beneath you as Taehyung’s eyes drink you in, wide and overawed at the sight of your flushed cunt, ripe and slick and ready for him.

(There's no more hiding how much you want Taehyung to have you, body and heart alike.)

You can see the shape of your body silhouetted on his clothes, where the oil has seeped into the material from how close he’d been pressed against you. You can see just how affected he is, cock straining against the loose linen of his white trousers, and you bite your lip to try and stifle the sound you make.

“Look at you,” Taehyung breathes, kneeling between your legs. “You’re so perfect.”

Your cheeks burn. “Taehyung, please,” you say, embarrassed. You really aren’t, especially in comparison to model-gorgeous Kim Taehyung, eyes dark and full of heated lust, hair falling in his eyes, effortlessly beautiful, always.

“You are,” he insists. “You have no idea how perfect you are.”

Before he reaches for the massage oil, he sucks the taste of you off his fingers, sloppy and messy. Your pussy throbs at the sight. And—you were also right about the visual being too much to handle, breath catching in your throat as you watch it drip into his broad hands. His palms shine as he rubs them together, interlacing his fingers, so graceful in their motions. You’re so wet from your orgasm, only getting wetter as you stare back at Taehyung, whose gaze has been heavy on you the whole time.

He starts at your collarbones. It’s even slower than before, and you ease underneath him, revelling in the softness of his touch. He sweeps his hands over your shoulders, down your arms, circling his long fingers around your wrists before lifting one of your hands. Your eyelashes flutter as he presses a kiss to your palm, a motion so full of adoration and tenderness it steals your breath away, and you squirm, shy.

“Tae,” you whine. “You can’t just do that.”

Of course he doubles down, lifting your other hand and repeating the motion, letting his lips linger between your head line and your heart line. “I can,” he says, words warm in your cupped palm. 

“I hope you didn’t do this in class.” Your voice is too weak for it to come out as the joke you mean it to be. 

Taehyung just shakes his head, mouth brushing over the tips of your fingers. “Only for you,” he says. “Did the whole class for you. I wanted—wanted an excuse to touch you more,” he admits, and your heart feels like it’s going to launch itself out of your throat.

“Then touch me,” you say, trying to sound confident even if your cheeks burn.

And he does. He lets your hands drop, gliding his touch back up your arms, down your body, over your legs; he massages your thighs and calves, digs his thumbs into the arches of your feet, circling his fingers around your ankles, shackles you don’t want to escape from. You feel so relaxed and lax, somehow, even if every touch has you biting your lip, anticipation roiling  in your stomach for what’s to come, Taehyung laying your legs down softly before he shifts back up, hands held out towards you—

—then he cups your breasts in his big, big hands and your back arches, fingers sliding over your nipples, glistening with coconut oil, circling them with the pads of his thumbs. You let out an embarrassing whine.

“Oh, Tae,” you beg. “More, please.”

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

You smile at another soft, unexpected pet name, flustered, but then your eyes slide shut when Taehyung bends down to kiss your neck as he continues to run his hands over the swell of your breasts. He trails his lips over your oiled skin, shifts down, drawing a line from your neck to the valley of your chest, the hard line at the center of your ribcage.

“Tae,” you murmur, and then, feeling bold under the heat of Taehyung’s dark eyes— “Baby.”

He hums before laying another sloppy kiss against your sensitive skin. You can feel the curve of his smile in the kiss. “Yes, love?”

“Is it really okay for you to… you know… get that oil in your mouth? I don’t want you to get sick,” you say, concerned, even through the haze of your arousal. His lips shine with it, at how he’s been trailing his mouth over all the parts of your body that he’s touched.

There’s a short beat, and then Taehyung buries his head against your neck—in that little hollow that’s his, in a motion he’s done dozens of times. Except this time you’re naked and he still has fingers splayed across the soft skin of your chest, nipples dragging underneath his palms.

“You’re always so considerate.” His words are muffled against your skin. “It’s fine. It’s edible.”

“You got edible massage oil from your course?”

Taehyung hesitates. “No,” he admits. “I bought it. It’s edible and, uh. Safe for intimate use.”

You’re silent, just for a moment, and then you can’t help it. You start to laugh. 

“Kim Taehyung,” you say, body shaking with amusement. “Did you buy edible massage oil that you can also use as lube?”

Taehyung pulls his face away from your neck and glances up. You’re giggling at him, and he feels so full of love and affection; he can’t help but join in, both laughing at him, loud and carefree.

“It’s why I asked which one you liked,” he confesses, once he can catch his breath.

“I can’t believe you lied to me,” you say, but you don’t mind, really, and he knows it. You lift a hand to push hair out of his face, running your fingers down his scalp. He leans into your touch with a smile, bright and lovely, before he abruptly shifts one of his hands down so he can lick a hot, wet stripe across the skin of your breast.

That stops your laughter pretty fast, surprised hiccup shifting into a broken moan when he engulfs your nipple in the heat of his mouth. “O-oh,” you gasp. “Oh, Taehyung—”

“Been thinking about this for so long.” Taehyung’s eyes are lidded and dark as he leans back, watching the way you react to his touch, arching up towards him. “Wanted to touch you like this so much.”

“Wanted it too,” you breathe. “Wanted—oh, God, Tae, fuck—”

It’s overwhelming. Not just the way Taehyung is flicking his tongue over each of your nipples, pressing his lips against your skin, no—but the idea that he’s been hoping for this, too. Each wet motion of his tongue over your pebbled skin drags pulls out of you; Taehyung’s cock twitches at a loud keen that’s drawn from your lips, a wet patch of precum seeping through his boxers and trousers, darkening the fabric, even though you haven’t touched him yet.

When you reach out to grasp him through his clothes, his hips jolt forward and he bites off a surprised gasp, cutting through the sound with his teeth. He feels long and heavy as you stroke him, thumbing over the wet patch at his tip, hot, even through all those layers between your skin and his.

“I want to feel you, Tae,” you say, staring at him. “Inside me. Please.”

His breath hitches when you tighten your fingers around his shaft and drag your hand upwards, slow and intent. 

“The oil isn’t condom friendly,” he admits, abashed. 

“Then you can cum in my mouth,” you reply. No hesitation.

Taehyung’s eyes are so wide, but then he smiles, eyes squeezing into crescents, mouth turning up into that lovely, broad grin of his. He looks so sweet and sincere, and you feel like you could explode, stuffed overfull with love for him.

“You really are perfect,” he says.

“Only for you,” you reply, your smile just as bright.

He lays one final kiss to your chest, above your beating heart, before he starts to strip. The oil has obviously soaked through his shirt and onto his skin because it sticks when he peels it off and carelessly throws it aside. 

Just like his heart, Taehyung’s body is soft and lovely. You sit up so you can touch him properly, catching him off guard when you pull him in for a kiss—one he eagerly leans into, and without the shirt in the way you can feel the way your skin slides against his, softened with oil. 

There really is no one as beautiful as Kim Taehyung. You drag your hands over him, so warm and wonderful under your palms; his chest, his cute tummy, his waist, his hips, the soft skin above his red, neglected cock. He’s radiant in his nakedness, every easing line of his body so perfect as he kneels in front of you, the flush of his skin, the heavy weight of his arousal, head shining with precum, so wet it’s practically dripping.

You lean in to kiss his neck and nip at his Adam's apple as his hands slide over your shoulder blades and down your back, the parts that make you shudder.

“Want you, Tae.” You whisper into his mouth, a soft secret that isn’t really a secret at all, not any more. “All of you.”

“Going to give you everything you want.” The words flow out of him with ease. “Everything you want.”

His chest and stomach shine with the massage oil that’s rubbed off from your own skin. You run your hands across him, and when you finally grasp his cock without the barrier of cloth in the way, he’s almost burning under your grasp, thick, his entire body shuddering when you pump his length. So sensitive to your touch.

“I’m goin’ to make you cum again,” he promises, and you love it, the way he talks when he’s losing himself. “Bet you’ll feel so good around my cock, so perfect.”

A shiver skates through your body. Taehyung’s fingers dig into your skin when he feels you trembling under his hands, and all you can think about is how you want him in you.

“Please,” you say. “Please, wanna make you feel good too—”

“Hands and knees, angel,” he rasps, and, God, yes, those words cut straight through you, sharp and electric.

Maybe you should feel embarrassed at how quickly you obey. The towels underneath you, so carefully placed at the start, perfectly flat, become rumpled as you shift into position; you arch your back, wanting to look as good as possible, and glance over your shoulder to see if it works.

Judging from the look on Taehyung’s face, it does. He looks like he’s never seen anything more awe-inspiring, eyes wide and mouth a little slack, dumbstruck. But then his jaw snaps shut and he splays his hands over the soft skin of your hips, your waist, your ass, shuffling closer to you; you feel the curve of his cock slide against your skin and you bite back a noise of need.

“Fuck, so beautiful.” He ruts forward, and you can feel the wetness of his precum slicking against you, a beaded line drawn across the sheen of massage oil. “My beautiful, perfect girl.”

“Tae,” you plead, already overwhelmed with need, heart squeezing at his words.

“Just one more thing, angel, I promise.”

It’s a good thing that the bottle of massage oil is so big, considering how liberal Taehyung is with it. You gasp when he uses one hand to spread your ass and before you can react there’s a drizzle of oil falling onto your skin, down-down-down, over your cunt, dripping over your inner thighs; Taehyung catches the excess with his palms before he slicks himself up, spreading that sweet coconut over his throbbing cock.

(You wonder what it’ll taste like when you lick it off him.)

When you feel the blunt head of his cock nudging at your pussy, your entire body lights up in anticipation, nerve endings on fire, every inch of your body singing under Taehyung’s touch—and when he finally sinks in, it’s almost effortless. He’s thick and long but everything slides so easy; you gasp and he moans, both lost in how your body opens up for him, hot and wet. By the time he’s bottomed out you're a quivering mess, collapsed onto your elbows. You’re so full. You feel split open in all the best ways, wanting to draw him in impossibly deeper even so.

Taehyung is gripping your sides, hands unmoving even with the slick oil underneath them, fingers digging into your skin. He’s breathing so loud, and when you experimentally shift your hips, he bites back a noise that cuts through that breath.

“How’s it feel, love?” His words slur together in arousal, but the hand that strokes your back is slow, thoughtful. “Feel good?”

“Fuck me, Tae, baby, please,” you beg. It’s so, so so much, so good, amazing, hotter and bigger and harder than anything you’d let yourself imagine, your entire body taking Taehyung and holding him in, in, in. “Please, I need it, it feels good but I want more, please.”

When he pulls away it’s slow and torturous and he goes so far he almost slips out, cock nearly sliding out of your folds. You whine, a little shameless, mostly needy, but then—

The snap of his hips drives you forwards, towels shifting underneath as you scrabble for a hold on something. Each sharp motion of Taehyung’s body has you choking for air and letting out whimpers and gasps, drowned out by the slap of skin on skin; his hipbones meet the soft flesh of your ass, again and again, but all you can focus on is the thick heat of his cock inside you, in-out-in-out, the press of his balls against your clit, everything so wet and smooth and slick.

You can feel how you’re losing yourself to that heady place that’s golden bright with feeling, lust and sex, the rest of the world gone, unimportant. There’s nothing but this—Taehyung touching you, filling your body so well, so perfect, helping you chase that high that’s growing faster and faster, that precipice of pleasure that he’s going to throw you over again, intent on it.

One of his hands trails up your back, between that sensitive dip of your shoulder blades and into your hair, locks tangling with coconut oil before he urges you up. He doesn’t yank or pull but his hold is firm and you end up back on your hands, arms trembling as you try to keep your balance, back bowed, overwhelmed. 

“Baby,” he rasps. “Oh, you’re so tight n’ hot, so pretty, fuck. You feel so good, do you feel good?”

Your answer is almost a wail, so overcome with pleasure, sensation, the glide of his hands over your shining skin, the mix of oil and arousal that drips out of you, only getting wetter with each thrust of his hips into you. “So good, o-oh God, Tae, baby, fuck, oh, theretherethere—”

“Here?”

He punctuates this with a roll of his hips, using the hand still on your hip to pull you back onto his cock as he fills you up once more, throbbing heat. He bends over you, and this time, there’s nothing stopping the skin on skin contact, the slide of his chest against your back as he kisses the soft skin behind your ear, nipping at your lobe, and that’s it, you’re gone. Your eyes slide shut and your mouth falls open as another orgasm crashes through you, legs shaking as you cum around Taehyung’s cock, grinding back against him to drag out that pleasure; the only thing holding you up is the hand still in your hair, the lips trailing up the side of your bared neck, the hard cock inside you, keeping you against him, so many points of connection with Taehyung.

(His chest pressed against your back, heart beating so hard you can feel it, your own heart moving in tandem, matching him.)

He’s been whispering filth to you, heated praise and love, how good you feel, how beautiful you are, what it’s like to see you like this, touch you like this, have you like this. Lovely, pretty, perfect, gorgeous, hot n’ wet n’ tight, fuck, love, oh.

You’re still shivering, the final pulses of your orgasm curling through you with each unintentional shift of Taehyung’s hips, the drag of his length inside your inner walls. You can feel something dripping out of you; oil, cum, you don't know, but fuck, it feels so so good.

“Oh, God,” you say. Breathless. “Oh, Taehyung, oh.”

“Pretty darling,” he murmurs. He swivels his hips, grinding against you, and your entire body jolts with oversensitivity, clit swollen where his balls press against it. You tighten around him and groan at how hot and big he still feels inside, even as you still shiver from the come down of your second orgasm. “Gonna roll you over so I can see that perfect face.”

And when you’re on your back again, fucked out and mussed and wrecked, he just stares at you. You’ve watched his face for so long, seen so many expressions flit across his features, but never something like this—it’s a mix of amazement and awe and tenderness and lust and love, a lift to his brows and a spark in his eyes and a set to his lips.

And when he leans down to kiss you, that look doesn’t leave. It melts and softens around the edges as you catch each other's mouths, as you kiss and kiss, small tender things interspersed with longer, deeper touches, lips and teeth and tongue—his eyes darken and his mouth flushes darker pink, kiss swollen and so beautiful, but that expression stays. It stays for you. 

Kim Taehyung is beautiful and lovely and unique. Kim Taehyung is so far out of your reach it’s kind of stunning, actually. And yet, here you are, existence of his touch over every part of you, in every part of you, lust driven, love full; the carefully balanced weight of his body splayed over you, pinning you down, keeping you close.

“I wanna see you cum, Tae,” you say. “Please?”

And just like he always does, Taehyung indulges you, just like you indulge him. He presses back inside you, cunt opening up for him so easy, so smooth, like his touch has already been etched into the memory of your body, perfect for him. He stays pressed close, face so near as he rolls into each thrust, sweat and coconut oil painted across your skin as your bodies shift together.

He’s been covering you in his words, both heated and sweet, and now you return the favour. You tell him how good he feels, how beautiful he is, so good, so perfect, so considerate, how much you’ve wanted this. So good, so long and thick, oh, Tae, feels so good, ah-ah-ah, baby, you’re unreal, fuck.

You can see the exact moment he starts to reach his high, the way he sucks in air, the way he lifts his chin, starts to thrust a little harder, a little faster, chasing that thread of pleasure that’s spiralling through him, and you urge him on. You lift your hips and clench so tight it has him gasping, hips stuttering, and you press your nose against his jaw, saying give it to me give it to me give it to me, wanting him to feel the same pleasure he’s given you. 

When he pulls out, you’re too busy moving to pay attention to how empty you feel, settling between his legs and swallowing down his shining cock almost desperately. There’s no coconut. You can only taste yourself and when you lave your tongue across his slit it’s all Taehyung-Taehyung-Taehyung, hot and salt and bitter; he gasps and his hips jump and you take it all, lowering your head as far as you can, the head of his cock at the back of your throat before you pull up, dragging your tongue over the pulsing vein at the underside, messy and wet. You drink down the wetness of his cock, your own arousal, mixed with his, the precum that beads at his head, staring up at him, your hands sliding over the sheen of his stomach, his thighs, cupping his balls, everything slick with oil and sweat.

“Oh, God.” Taehyung’s eyes are blown and his hair is a mess and his mouth is wide open as he pants for air, watching. “Baby, baby, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum.”

You suck hard, dragging your lips up from the base of the cock to the rounded tip, swirling your tongue, bobbing your head faster—

“Oh, fuck—”

—and you swallow down each wave of cum, swallow down the way his cock twitches as he spills the evidence of pleasure into your mouth, swallow down the lovely noises that shudder out of him, watching him the whole time, never wanting to look away.

When you take your mouth off his softening cock, you draw a line of kisses with your mouth, up the soft skin of his body, stomach to chest to neck to mouth. He licks the taste of coconut oil off your lips, the taste of himself off your tongue; you curl up in his lap, settled against him, the apartment’s cool air even sharper against your skin, magnified by the oil that still lingers.

(Even without the oil painted across him, Taehyung would still shine, even under the weak light from the cheap lightbulb that hangs above you.)

You feel soft and warm and small in the circle of Taehyung’s arms, pulled close, and you can hear the words in his chest as he speaks, a resonance that touches against your skin.

“‘M sorry,” he murmurs. 

You pause.

“Baby, love, darling.” The endearments are sugar sweet in your mouth, soft against his skin before you pull back to look at him, confused, concerned. “Sorry for what?”

“I really—I really was just planning to do a massage, but you’re so…” 

You let out a slip of laughter. The room smells of coconut and sex, but when you lay your head against Taehyung’s collarbone all you can smell is the light tinge of his sweat. You breathe in, deep, like you can hold onto that ephemeral part of him. “Oh, Tae. I’m so what?”

“You’re so good,” he says. “So good and kind and lovely and—and so beautiful. I was going to do the massage to make you happy and then… tell you. About how happy you make me.”

You burrow your head into the hollow of his neck, the way he does to you, shy. “I’m not as beautiful as you,” you reply. “Tae, you are literally the most beautiful person alive, and—God, I’ve. I’ve been. So head over heels for you.”

There’s a pause. “Really?”

When you pull back to fix Taehyung with all the surprise in your gaze, you can see that he’s surprised, too. His hair hangs into his eyes, and he looks a little unsure, like he believes you, but finds it impossible to fathom.

You leave massage oil on his cheeks when you cup his face in your hands, staring at him with wide eyes. “Kim Taehyung, I have had daily breakdowns about the intensity of my love for you to Pickles ever since we got him. You’re the first person I think about each morning—usually because we wake each other up—and the last thing I think about at night—well, usually because you end up climbing into my bed more often than not, but, it still counts,” you say. You’re both tangled together in so many ways already. “You’ve had my heart for a long time, you know. I just never thought I had a chance?”

When Taehyung kisses you, it’s brief, a hard press of his lips before he rests his forehead against yours. “You really, really have no idea how perfect you are,” he murmurs. “I’ve wanted—I want to do everything for you to show you how grateful I am for everything you do for me.”

“You don’t have to,” you protest, but he just smiles.

“I don’t have to, but I want to,” he says. “Like you don’t have to look after me, but you do.”

“That’s because I love you,” you say. “Like, capital L love you.”

You’ve been so afraid of confessing, so convinced that it was an unattainable dream; that Kim Taehyung would never, could never, has never seen you as more than a friend. But the way he’s looking at you now, the way he’s touched you, the way your body still echoes with the feeling of him inside you: you’re not scared, any more. You don’t need to be.

Taehyung’s eyes are so dark and warm when he replies, easy and effortless. “I love you, too.”

Your relationship has always been a give and take, is the thing. When you climb in the shower together, he washes the oil from your back while you massage shampoo into his scalp, laughing when he makes devil horns in his hair. He catches you by surprise when he presses you against the tiles, swallowing your moans when he coaxes one final orgasm from your tired body, rubbing tight circles over your clit as you buck against his hand and water cascades over you both. His cock hardens in your hands, sliding between your legs when you press them together, tight-tight-tight, his length rubbing against your cunt as he fucks your thighs until he’s moaning and shaking and cumming again.

(The water’s cold by the time you finally climb out, but that’s okay. You giggle and kiss as you dry yourselves, each other, excuses to keep touching and feeling, driven by affection, not lust.)

When you’re both clean, and dry, Taehyung’s leg thrown over your hip as he tugs you in, flush with his body under the covers, you press your lips against the line of his jaw.

“Taehyung?”

“Yes, angel?”

You smile and hunch up even closer to him, scrunching yourself up as small as you can to plaster yourself against his side. “Thank you for the wonderful massage. Definitely the best massage I’ve ever been given, ten out of ten, would do again.”

Taehyung laughs, pressing his rectangular smile into the kiss he lays against your lips, and you think that nothing tastes better than the happiness curling his mouth.

“Love you,” he murmurs. Always romantic. “I love you love you love you.”

“Tae-honey-hyung.” And it feels so nice to not have to filter your words, to bite back that second layer of meaning, to try and keep things platonic and chaste when you speak. “I love you.”

And it feels so nice to have your Taehyung beside you, your body still aching with the press of him inside you, a good ache, a nice ache. A physical ache from good love, rather than a heartache from a love you didn’t think was reciprocated. But it is, somehow, each of you so bowled over by each other.

--

(“Hey, Pickles.”

The bearded dragon looks up at you, placid as he lounges in his tank.

“Well, you’ll be happy to hear that you won’t have to put up with me ranting at you any more,” you say. “Taehyung did break out the massage oil but it’s all good. I didn’t spontaneously combust or anything, like I thought I would.”

Pickles’ tongue flicks out as he shifts, and you smile.

“Okay, that’s it, I’m done,” you finish. “Thanks, Pickles. You’re a real pal.”

Taehyung nuzzles into your neck. His arms are a tight circle around your waist, chin resting on your shoulder as he looks down at the reptile, too. He’s warm and solid against your back, and you lean into him, happiness tingling through you.

“I wonder how much longer we would have taken if you didn’t get that coupon for a massage therapy course,” you muse, and Taehyung chuckles, warm and lovely.

“We would have gotten there eventually. And we would have had each other until we did, anyway. Right, angel?”

Pickles stays quiet as you both kiss, but you can tell he approves.)

--

taglist: @beyoncesdragon​

[fuckingthefictional]

Hi! I would like a request about Derek from teen wolf, please. The reader is trying to approach him, taking care of him "because Derek is too busy taking care of the others", BUT IT'S BEING SO HARD because of all of his past. Derek and the reader argue one night because of the overprotective nature of the reader about him, and when she tries to leave the loft, completely upset with Derek, he tries to fix things between them. Could you do this with a lot of angst and, then, tons of fluff? Thanks!

Ignored

Pairing: Derek Hale x Reader

Warnings: Angst bbyyyy, and some fluffy goodness at the end, not checked over (so probably a crap ton of spelling errors)

A/N: hello hope you enjoy, sorry it took forever! I’m so busy with work, college and personal issues that writing has been put on the back-burner.

When the name Derek Hale was mentioned- one immediately thought of the broody, salty, sarcastic young man who lived by himself after the tragic Hale house fire.

Nobody would ever associate the name Derek Hale and caring. It just wasn’t in his nature. Because under no circumstances could Derek be remotely kind, caring or soft in any way possible.

That’s what people thought of Derek. But not you- or the majority of the pack for that matter.

Yes, you saw where others came from with their ideas and judgement (Derek’s lack of colour in his wardrobe obviously didn’t help either).

But to you when you heard the name Derek Hale, you immediately thought of the kind hearted man who would give up anything for the safety of his friends and family (as much as he claimed otherwise).

You knew him differently, you knew him like the back of your hand. You knew that his favourite food was Spagetti Carbonara without the mushrooms, that he didn’t like Coca Cola, that he secretly loved watching trashy tv shows like keeping up with the kardashians, and most importantly that he was running himself ragged.

He had bitten off more than he could chew when it came to helping everyone out. He was the one giving lifts and helping with homework and hosting pack nights, and handling Isaac’s nightmares, all of this happening at the same time as some supposed lizard creature being on the loose.

You had been ignored by Derek Hale for approximately 72 hours. Now this wouldn’t be bad if it weren’t for two things.

1. He wasn’t aware that he was actively ignoring you.

2. The idiot wasn’t your husband of 2 years.

Over 68 hours ago you hadn’t minded, you had even brushed the silence and distance off- knowing that Derek liked to have a little time to himself.

But when it hit the 5 hour mark of the 4th day, frustration and disappointment had begun to set in.

There was one more thing that made the whole situation worse. He was blatantly ignoring you- and only you.

It hurt. You could admit that to yourself easily without any qualms at all. It hurt.

Whether that was to do with the whole ‘mate’ side of things you didn’t know- all that you did know was that Derek Hale was drowning and he wasn’t going to swim until everyone else was okay.

-

Thud, thud, thud, creaak

“Der please sit down”

“I can’t. I gotta figure this shit out before the school finishes for the day.” Derek grunted from his spot in the middle of the room. His head firmly stuck in the thick, dusty book that he had been pouring through for the majority of the afternoon.

“Der please, take a break.” You pleaded with him, begging him to just stop for a second and relax.

“I can’t,” Derek murmured again, before he pivoted in his heel and walked away up the staircase.

His heavy footfalls retreated upstairs, the musty book still clutched in his grasp.

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you willed the tears in your eyes to stay put and to not roll down your cheeks in fat drops.

Why couldn’t you be enough for him?

-

The next plea came around 2 hours later, when you brought a bowl of homemade pasta and garlic bread up to Derek. Hoping that just maybe it would strike up a conversation, that maybe he would utter more than two short sentences to you.

“Babe- I made you lunch.” You elbowed your way into the room, balancing the bowl and plate in your hands.

“Just leave it on the desk.” He motioned to an empty slot on the overcrowded surface.

“I just thought that maybe we could have lunch together, have some time with each-other.”

“Y/N/N’s I would- but I have so much to do. Stiles and Scott are already on my ass about the damn lizard freak in town.”

“Der, you need to take a break.” You placed your hands on his shoulders. Instead of feeling them relax you could feel his muscles tense up.

Shrugging your hands off, he pushed the fresh plate of food away, “I can’t.” He spoke simply.

“But-“ you tried to object in protest, trying to plead with the broad shouldered man in front of you- hoping that maybe, just maybe he would come to his senses.

He did not.

“I said no Y/N.” Derek ground out, “I’m busy. Please for the love of God stop bothering me.”

The words stung you, causing you to stumble back in shock. Derek had a hard exterior, everybody knew that. But he had never spoken like that to you.

He had promised on your wedding day that he would always be kind, that he would be your biggest supporter and largest source of love.

But all those words felt like lies now. You felt alone, like an empty shell of yourself. Why couldn’t you just be enough?

-

Hours flew by, the watch on Derek’s wrist occasionally beeping to signify the new hour. If he were being honest- he had lost track of what the time was.

The only signifier was that Stiles, Scott and the others were in his presence- meaning it was at least 4pm

And judging by the sky outside of his office window, it was late evening, as the sky itself had melted from cool blues into a fantastic array of oranges and purples.

But besides the low chatters and bickering coming from Isaac and Stiles, the house felt almost too quiet.

There was no tv hum coming from the living room, no occasional flush or running of water from the restroom, no sizzle from food coming on the oventop, no sound of a page in a book turning. Nothing. Just silence.

“Hey Derek,” He looked up to see Scott staring at him, “Where’s Y/N?”

“Well-“

“Yeah, I haven’t seen her yet today.” Isaac chimed in.

“I’m not actually too sure.”

Derek was met with a sea of blank stares.

“I’m sorry- there’s a kanima out there roaming Beacon Hills, the very same kanima that is killing more people by the day. And you don’t know where your wife is?” Stiles asked incredulously, “Are you kidding me.”

“Well I’ve been so caught up on this research that I haven’t been spending as much time with her.” Derek attempted to defend himself.

“Derek, please tell me that you haven’t been ignoring your wife.”

Everybody had there eyes on him again.

“Well-“

There was an uproar of protests, all of which were yelling at Derek for ignoring and deserting his wife.

“You better find her Derek, before something happens and you regret it for the rest of your life.”

-

You really didn’t know how long you had been out here for. All you knew was that the night was closing in and the chill was setting in your bones.

But you didn’t want to go back to the loft, you honestly didn’t think you could handle seeing Derek after his outburst earlier.

The cold, damp ground soaked into your body- sucking all the warmth out of your body at a creeping pace.

The spot you sat in, hadn’t changed much since your first date with Derek. It was still isolated and it gave off the best views in Beacon Hills. Nobody knew about it but you and Derek.

Sighing deeply, you looked out over the viewing point- watching the tiny specks of light flicker in the distance. Every single light showed a different life that was being lived, each one with their own struggles. Beacon Hills was something else to say the least.

“I knew I could find you here.” A familiar voice broke your train of thought.

You kept silent, staring straight ahead, willing that your bottom lip wouldn’t start trembling and the flood gate wouldn’t open in your eyes.

“Look I’m sorry.”

You sniffed, still unable to look your husband in the eyes, “Are you though?” You briefly shut your eyes to stop any tears from breaking through, “or are you just saying that to get on my good side.”

You could feel Derek’s presence settle down besides your own. His breath creating little puffs of mist under the dark sky.

“I didn’t realise you were trying to help me, until it was too late and you’d left the apartment” He muttered, “It’s my fault, I should’ve taken your advice, I should’ve listened to you.”

You listened intently, knowing his words were sincere and heartfelt, “Why didn’t you listen to me then Der?” You responded bitterly.

“Because accepting help means showing weakness, and showing weakness is something I haven’t done since before the fire.” Derek’s voice was small now, “Before I met you, accepting help was off the table- I was a lone wolf, with no pack or family. And now I’ve found you and I’m desperate to not lose that again, I can’t lose you to this new threat in town- I can’t be alone again.”

Silence hung heavy in the air as your husband’s words set in. It made sense to you; why he was studying non-stop, why he had barely slept or ate.

It was apparent that while he was trying to protect his loved ones, he was also pushing them away in the process. That needed to change.

“You won’t be alone Der,” You lay your head down on his shoulder, “I promise that much- it’s you and me forever.”

“Through every supernatural event that happens in this town?”

You giggled softly, “Yes, and every single thing in between.”

[i-became-the-lady-of-the-blog]

They were hiding like they always did, staying in the corners, only ever greeting people and too nervous to make conversation. ‘The adorably shy queen’ the tabloids had named them. Shyness really wasn’t an issue, they loved meeting new people. But every time they even mentioned life outside the castle to another person, they could feel his cold, viridescent stare on them.

They were nothing but a doll, decor. Teenage girls wanted to be them, the boys found them cute. What a truly odd existence. Malleus had gone into the next room with some politician from the west. Having a banquet at political meetings had been his idea, giving them something to do while he worked.

A hand rested on their shoulder, they turned to see Leona Kingscholar. He looked the same, though a bit of rough stubble adorned his chin, he had new tattoos as well.

“We need to talk, herbivore”, the nickname that annoyed them to bits years ago now seemed like a call from heaven. A way out

An ally.

This is a sequel to this story

----

Before everything went to south, MC was a social butterfly. They would talk with anyone and find topic to converse easily but here they were. Too afraid to make a conversation with people to avoid making Malleus upset. They remember first time MC felt Malleus’ raw jealousy on their first year in Valley of Thorns. They were trying to cope with their abduction, to feel normal again and soothe their need to socialize with others. There were noble fae visitors on that day. Maleficent suggested drink tea on the balcony while she, Malleus and some of the nobles had a meeting. The remaining group went to the balcony, sitting on the chairs around the table. 

It was silent when the servants brought snacks for the group. MC thought the group hated them since they are a human so they didn’t utter a word. It was silent until one of the fae ladies spoke up and asked how they’ve been faring. MC was reluctant at first, fearing their judgment but as they spoke more, their confidence restored. It was not just the fae lady who initiated the conversation, the rest of the group were good people too. Talking with them soothed MC’s nerves, in fact, they craved to talk with them more. They were on the verge of a mental breakdown after being isolated for so very long, talking with them felt like a cure in that moment. They could not even recall the last time they laughed until that day. All was going well until he showed up. Their meeting ended earlier so he didn’t want to waste any time to be with MC, yet when he teleported, he saw MC talking and laughing with someone who isn’t him. He dismissed the guests politely before teleporting MC and himself to his- no their- bed chambers. 

Malleus was enraged that they were getting intimate with another even though it was just laughing and engaging in conversation. The sky darkened as Malleus expression was taking a dark turn. The sky was rumbling with thunder and lightening, as Malleus was taking slow and uncanny steps towards them, making MC flinch with every step. That day, MC felt Malleus’ true rage, true jealousy, true power... It was not uncommon for Malleus to take pleasure in their body regardless of MC’s wishes but that day, it was more than that. It caused MC to have nightmares over a year. Waking up because of a night terror and only to be soothed by the person who caused it was taking a toll on MC. But no one cared nor dared to stand up for them. That day MC learned not to talk with people when Malleus wasn’t around, how much cruel Malleus could get when he wishes and no one would bat an eye. That day MC decided to be obedient, to avoid more harm.

Now here MC was, greeting delegates from different countries and the nobles of Valley of Thorns briefly and making a small talk before moving on to the next person. No one managed to ask questions beyond daily talk and Valley of Thorns related queries. Their court and the delegates saw them as the Shy Queen, thinking that MC was still nervous to talk with people they didn’t know personally. The truth couldn’t be far from that. They just didn’t want to get punished for socializing nor feel that pain again.

MC needed a drink and compose themselves before moving on to the other guests. That was the plan until they saw something or more like someone. They had to take a second look since they didn’t think Malleus would be this bold to invite someone from the past, someone who knew who MC was before becoming Malleus’ prisoner- no spouse. Taking another look at the figure, the realization dawned upon them. It was Leona Kingscholar, the hot guy who was not even trying to be hot, the lion king of Savanaclaw, the person they and Grim kept awake all night for him to help fight the next dorm leader. Leona and MC were not close in the NRC but to see a familiar face...

MC just wanted to run and hug him tightly. They were about to do that but then Malleus came to their mind. Speak of the devil, he shall appear...

Malleus came soon after Leona spoke. MC wanted to explain the situation so it wouldn’t cause a problem but Malleus cut them off, pulling them over, kissing their hands affectionately, making a show in front of Leona.  MC recalled the rivalry between them. Leona was powerful but he was in the middle of Valley of Thorns, surrounded by powerful fae, Malleus, Lilia and Maleficent herself. He didn’t stand a chance. They didn’t want him to be harmed so they were eager to remove the reason of current conflict, themselves, from there but it was impossible for Malleus to just let them go. MC’s heart was racing, as if it would go out of her chest when Malleus forced them to eye contact. They thought a kiss on cheek would suffice but Malleus lifted their chip up before kissing them on the lips. If it wasn’t for the years of practice to stay still even while being violated, their knees would have given away. 

MC let out the breath they weren’t aware that they were holding. Everything was too much, the stress was getting to them but they couldn’t fail now and make Malleus think something happened between them and Leona. They saw a servant and ordered a drink. Before they could have some alone time, a noble approached them and started talking. MC was having a hard time to have the standard conversation as they has with the rest. They were feeling nauseous as the nobles kept talking but luckily the servant brought them a glass of campaign. Gulping the entire glass in one go, they got the attention of the nobles as they started to make unwanted comments. The alcohol made them relax just a tiny bit. Finally, MC was able to continue conversation. As it ended, they asked for another drink while going over to greet others.

After what seemed like an age, MC found an opening to take a break. They walked into the quieter corridor, hoping for some alone time. They didn’t get what they hoped for...

A hand rested on their shoulder, making them panic since they knew it was not how Malleus touched so this meant someone other than Malleus was touching them. They wanted to warn the person. They turned around to see Malleus’ possible victim, only to meet with Leona’s eyes. “We need to talk” He said firmly.

MC just wanted him to be okay so they couldn’t speak with him, ensuring Malleus’ wrath. They conjured up a smile as best as they could in that situation. “We have already talked, Prince Kingscholar. Now if you excuse me,” MC was going to walk around him and go back to the crowd - so much for relaxing.

“Lizard is in an important meeting along with grandma Lizard. The guards are not checking your every move all the time. They have intervals.” Leona stated casually. “This means we can talk, Herbivore.” He seemed determined to talk.

Mc knew they should have walked away but something in Leona’s voice made them trust his observation. “Be quick please, I don’t want to anger Mal- I mean, my husba- I- I-” They were having trouble with speaking with Leona without saying what went on behind the closed doors. 

“I don’t need to smell to know your nervousness, MC. Especially around the Lizard who is supposed to be your husband. Tell me what happened directly now.” Leona looked the same, though a bit of rough stubble adorned his chin, he had new tattoos as well. “Did you return home?” He was asking impossible questions.

MC gulped, recalling the day they lost everything. It pained them greatly to think about the day they thought they would see their family and friends again. “No...” They whispered, clenching their fists and burying their nails to their palm to not cry, yet they couldn’t prevent the quivering of their voice. “Dire Crowley told me to come over to the mirror room. He told me that he found a way to go home and wants me to check it out before going back completely.” They closed their eyes, it was as if reliving that dreadful moment. “My husba- Mal- no my husba... You-Know-Who was there with the old bat. I thought they wanted to see interdimensional travel for the first time but they had other plans.  You-Know-Who told Dire that he did a good job before he took me to Valley of Thorns with the old bat. I resisted at first but if you went through what I-” Their voice broke as they felt tears in their eyes, dropping to their cheeks. They wiped their cheek, “I answered your question, now please leave me be before some guard sees us together and reports to You-Know-Who. I accepted this is my life and I live this way now.”

“Not anymore,” Leona objected, MC could feel the anger behind these those words. “Your imprisonment ends today, you are coming with me, Herbivore.” He stated, ordering them around like when they were in the NRC.

In that moment, it seemed silly but hearing them from someone like Leona made them imagine how their life could have changed. Maybe this was their way out and he was their ally.

——

🍪 Anon I love your brain once again!

[dawn-the-rithmatist]

The Lizard Lady and the Flower Fellow (Zelinktine's Month, Day 15)

Hello friends! Happy Zelinktine's! Here's day 15 of this fantastic month of content. The prompt was "friendship", and I teamed up with the wonderful @linktheacehero and @binkus-and-smelda! Ace’s art can be found here, and Bink’s is found here :) You can read today's fic below the cut or here on ao3! (Which. I kind of recommend. This is a one shot but may be a bit long to comfortably read on the tumbles.)

Being friends with a princess was something that snuck up on Link. Literally.

He had been watching a game of tag from a distance- the other kids didn’t like it when he played. Link didn’t think that was fair, really. Sure, he was fast, but that wasn’t his fault! They were being sore losers. But they got mad when he tried to join in, and Link didn’t like it when people yelled. So instead he watched.

He had been weighing the options for how to spend his afternoon when he had been startled by a hushed voice behind him. “Excuse me, but would you mind holding still for a minute?”

He nearly jumped at the speaker’s sudden appearance, but held himself still. He was rewarded with the light sensation of fingers in his hair and a gasp of delight. “Thank you!”

He took that as his cue to move, spinning around to see a girl about his age standing behind him. Her blonde hair was neatly braided, and her clothes seemed just a bit too finely made for playing around in the gardens. Her green eyes were massive and filled with excitement as they gazed upon a squirming red lizard trapped by her stubby fingers.

Link blinked. “That was in my hair?”

“Mhm!” She flipped it over, revealing its scaly white belly, its limbs flailing wildly. “Hightail lizards are really fast, and since they’re so tiny a lot of times people don’t even notice when one starts climbing on them!” She held it out to him, grinning. “I can’t believe I actually caught one!”

Whoever this girl was, her smile was infectious. Link grinned back. “I bet we could catch another one, too.”

“Really?” A spark lit up in her eyes. “I bet you can’t catch more than me,” she said, and Link’s smile could have outshone the sun. She wanted to play with him! She must not have known about how the other kids ignored him, or why. He wouldn’t tell her, either. He would go easy on her- that way she wouldn’t get mad like everyone else, and they could be friends!

“You’re on.”

–

She destroyed him.

Maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised by that but- he hadn’t lost a game in years! Still, it couldn’t be denied; she was the victor. The girl caught five lizards in the time it took Link to catch two.

“How did you do that?” Link asked, eyes wide. He was fast, but even he couldn’t keep up with the little red lizards.

“You have to be sneaky,” she explained. “They’re really quick, so you have to get them before they see you coming. And they like these flowers!” She held up a blooming yellow flower, one that grew in scattered bursts across the gardens. “It’s not too hard if you know where to look.”

Suddenly, she stopped, her cheeks growing red. “Sorry,” she said, looking down. “You probably think I’m a know-it-all, huh?”

Link shook his head frantically. He didn’t want her to be sad- sad meant she wouldn’t want to play anymore, and then he would be back to watching tag games! “No, no! It’s neat! I didn’t know that!”

Her face lit up. “You really think so?”

“Mhm!” She was an expert lizard catcher! Who wouldn’t think she was neat?

She grinned. “What’s your name?”

“Link. What about you?”

“I’m,” she said, then hesitated. “I’m, uh… Sheik!”

Link wrinkled his nose. “Sheik? Like the ninjas?” The Sheikah were cool, but he had never heard of someone being named after them. But then again, his parents had named him after an ancient myth, so maybe he shouldn’t judge.

She laughed, but it sounded weird. “Haha, yeah, it’s a family name.” She looked around for a moment, like she was planning an escape- Don’t go! Not yet! Link thought- but then plucked another yellow flower. “The lizard on your head probably liked your flower,” she said.

His flower? Oh, right. He reached up to feel the small blossom his mother had tucked behind his ear that morning. He had forgotten about that. He was glad it was still there. But wait- did she think that was weird? Were boys not supposed to have flowers in their hair? “Oh- my mom did that,” he said.

She didn’t seem to mind, simply asking, “Do you know how to make flower crowns?”

Link’s eyes widened. “No,” he answered. “Do you?”

“Yup,” she said, popping the ‘p’ at the end. “Let me show you!”

It turned out that Sheik did not, in fact, think it was odd for boys to wear flowers in their hair, and Link spent the afternoon clumsily weaving together flowers, trying to make them look like the delicate crowns she made. The sun was high in the sky when she announced that she needed to go, and by that time they each had two flower crowns atop their heads, with another pair sitting half formed between them.

“Do you want to play again tomorrow?” Link asked, heart swelling with hope. Please say yes, he thought. This is the most fun I’ve had in ages.

He was rewarded with her brilliant sunshine smile. “Yes!”

As he waved goodbye and sat back down to keep practicing his flower crowns, Link felt the light in that smile all the way down to his bones.

He had made a friend.

—

Zelda showed up the next day feeling oddly nervous.

What if he had found out while she was gone? He didn’t seem to recognize her- but that made sense. She was usually kept separate from the other kids. Her tutors said it had something to do with status and “establishing respect from a young age,” but in Zelda’s opinion, it was just lonely.

She had gotten so excited to see the lizard- a hightail lizard, according to the book she had used to look up the creature the night before- that she didn’t think twice about approaching the boy. And then something wonderful had happened: he had wanted to play with her!

It had been so long since she had anyone her age to play with, and she had been so worried that he wouldn’t like her. But he hadn’t thought she was a know-it-all like her cousins always claimed. He thought she was neat.

But what if he had changed his mind? He was really nice. Maybe he had found someone else to play with. Maybe-

“Ta-da!”

She felt something settle on top of her head, and her hands shot up to touch it. Link was standing next to her, smiling shyly. “I kept practicing after you left,” he said. “I wanted to make you a good one!”

Carefully, she lifted the something off her head. It was a flower crown, woven carefully out of blue nightshade and the small yellow flowers from yesterday in a simple pattern. It was a little clumsy, but far better than the silly chains he had been making the day before.

She traced her thumb over the petals, thinking about the golden tiara her parents would sometimes make her wear, then plopped it back on her head. She liked this one much better. “Thank you, Link,” she said.

He blushed. “Now the lizards will like you more, and you look like a princess!”

She panicked for a moment. Did he know? Was this his way of telling her he knew? But he was still here, and still smiling, and… people usually avoided her once they found out. The adults made them avoid her. So he couldn’t know, because he would have left.

“You need one too,” she declared. “Help me find the right flowers?”

That day was as wonderful as the day before, Link wearing a crown made of mighty thistle and warm safflina to match hers. For a while, they pretended to be royalty- the fun kind, not the boring Princess Zelda kind- and when that grew boring, they pretended to be knights instead. Link knew a lot about knights, and Zelda absorbed the stories like a sponge.

“Sir Link! The dragon is coming back! We need our weapons!”

“Right away, Madame Sheik!” He passed her a sword (well, a pointy stick, but that wasn’t nearly as fun to imagine) and together they attacked the blackberry bush where the dragon was hiding. Berry juice splattered satisfyingly across their faces, and Zelda pretended it was war paint.

“A fine battle, my lady,” Link said in the silly voice he used to sound like grown ups.

Zelda grinned “Indeed it-”

“Link, where are you? Come on kiddo, we’ve got to go!”

Link’s face fell. “I’m over here, Dad!” he called back. A tall man with eyes the same color as Link’s appeared a few moments later, eyes scanning the area for his child. He smiled when his gaze settled on Link.

Then paled when he noticed Zelda.

“Good afternoon, your highness,” he said with a bow. “I trust my son was nothing but respectful?”

Oh no. No no no, she didn’t want this. She didn’t want him to be respectful, or keep his distance, or bow when she walked up. She wanted to be his friend, not his princess. Not outside of their imaginations.

“Dad, don’t be silly! It’s just a flower crown. We’re playing princes and princesses!” Link giggled, and her heart lurched. He didn’t understand yet, but that was about to change.

His father’s eyes widened as he noticed their twin flower crowns, and he snatched Link’s off of his head and threw it to the ground. “Don’t say things like that,” he said, his calm tone betrayed by a note of panic. “You’re a knight’s son, not a prince. Princesses deserve our respect.” He turned to Zelda, who was staring at the flower crown on the ground. “My apologies, Your Highness, it seems he didn’t know.”

Link was kneeling to pick up his flower crown- it had lost a few petals, but it was still in tact- but his father stopped him and began pulling him back towards the entrance to the gardens. “Let’s go, kiddo.”

Link glanced back at her, confused, but followed his father. This was the end, she realized. He would get lectured, and the next day Link would avoid her just like everyone else. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at the discarded ring of flowers.

She didn’t want it to end.

Zelda scooped up the flower crown and chased after them. “Link, wait!” she said, tripping over her own feet. She tumbled to the ground and was up in the next instant, latching onto his free arm and pushing the crown into his hands.

“Take it with you,” she said, tears leaking onto her cheeks. I don’t want you to leave like the others. Don’t leave me behind.

Link’s worried eyes met her tearful ones, and he took the crown with a reassuring smile. It’s going to be okay, that smile tried to say, and Zelda wished she could believe it. But he didn’t know, and when he did, it would be different.

“Thank you, Highness,” Link’s father said, bowing again before dragging his son away.

Zelda watched them go with her heart in her stomach, scattered yellow petals on the ground at her feet. “Bye, Link.” she said.

And then she was alone again.

—

“Would you care to tell me why I just saw you beating up a blackberry bush with Princess Zelda?”

Link stared at his father. “Dad, it was just my friend Sheik. She’s not-”

His father dragged a hand down his face. “No, kid, that was the princess.”

Link frowned. “Okay…?” Why would she lie about her name? Was it a secret or something? “I’ll just ask her to explain it tomorrow,” he said, shrugging it off. “She’s really good at explaining things.”

“Absolutely not,” his father said. “You can’t just- if she didn’t tell you, she didn’t want you to know. Just leave her be and stop bothering her.”

Bothering her? Had he been… “But we were playing,” he said. “She said she wanted to play with me.” It had been a long time since someone wanted to play with him, and it had been so much fun! Had he really just been bothering her?

His father sighed. “I know, kid. But what if you guys had a fight? She’s a princess, and we don’t want to make her mad. Besides, she’s going to grow up and then you won’t be able to see her anymore.”

Link bolted to his feet. “What? Why not? Is she going to leave? I thought princesses lived in the castle!”

“Well, she’ll be important, and they won’t let most people get too close in case they’re trying to hurt her,” he explained. “She’ll have guards- probably a knight assigned just to her.”

Link thought for a moment, picturing the little girl hunting in the dirt for lizards as a full grown adult, wearing a real crown instead of one made from flowers. A real princess, not just an imaginary one, surrounded by important people, with no time for the son of a knight.

Unless…

“What if I was her knight?” he asked.

His father stared at him blankly. “You.”

“Mhm.”

“Kid, you can’t even hold a sword properly.”

“But- but I could learn! And I could get super strong like you are, and then she could choose me to be her knight!” And then we can play together again, he added in his mind, though he doubted his father would care much for that idea.

His dad gave him a sad smile and ruffled his hair. “Sure, kiddo. But training happens in the afternoon, so you won’t be able to go to the garden to play anymore, okay?”

Link considered. The other kids wouldn’t play with him anyways. The only friend he had was Zelda, and if he couldn’t be friends with her unless he was her knight… he nodded. “Deal. I want to be the best knight ever.”

Link’s father smiled. That had been easier than he thought. The kid would be distracted, and he wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally offending the royal family. And who knew? Maybe Link would actually become a half decent knight.

—

Link approached training like a game of tag. It was easy enough, as long as you were willing to push yourself to your limits. As long as you could really commit.

Once, in a game of tag, someone older than him had been chasing him- someone with longer legs, and they had been gaining on him. But Link was small, and he was fast, and there was no reason he couldn’t still win. So he had used his smallness to duck under the older boy’s legs, and used that speed to get through before he could be tagged. He hadn’t hesitated and thrown himself into the move as best he could, and the older boy had fallen to the ground still “it”.

Training was the same.

Sure, he got a fair share of scrapes and bruises, and some days his arms shook so badly he could barely lift a spoon at dinner. But he didn’t stop.

He overheard his father talking with another veteran knight one day. “Your kid is really something else,” the man had said, and Link’s father had agreed.

“Can I see her now?” He asked when his father declared him ready for a real sword of his own, rather than just the wooden practice one he had been learning on.

“Sorry kid,” his father had replied. “Only if you become her knight.”

He asked again when he managed to hit the bullseye on the target during archery practice, and again when he completed his first full year of training. And again when he learned to ride a horse, and again when he bested his father in one on one combat for the first time, and again, and again, and-

“I’ll tell you when you can see her,” his father told him one day, exasperated. “I promise, I’ll let you know, but until then, just… forget about it for a while, okay?”

But he couldn’t forget about it. Two days of friendship had been more fun than he had had in ages. Friends were easier to come by among the knights, at least at first, but he was so much younger than even the youngest recruits. And then he began to do better, better than the other recruits and even better than some full knights. Then friends were hard to come by, and it was just like those kids playing tag all over again.

It’s okay, he thought at fifteen years old, watching the other recruits leave for a night on the town. He set down his weapons and settled in the grass, plucking dandelions and hyrule herbs to weave together into a flower crown. I have a friend. I just… haven’t talked to her in a while.

He had seen her briefly- they would pass in the halls of the castle, or she would walk by while they were training- but they never got the chance to talk, or even say hello. She would be with someone who looked official or important, sometimes even with the king or queen, or he would be with his father or in the middle of training and… and sometimes he wondered if she would even want to say hello. She was a princess, and they had known each other for two days.

But he still remembered her smile when she picked the lizard out of his hair. And he remembered her laugh when he declared her the finest knight in all the land after vanquishing the dastardly blackberry bushes. And he remembered how wonderful it was to have someone want to be around him, for no reason other than friendship.

“You’re getting that dreamy look on your face again,” one of the other recruits called from across their shared room in the barracks. He had moved in when he was fourteen. “Thinking about a special lady, hm?”

Link blushed. “Something like that.” Because Sheik- no, Zelda was special, but not in the way that his roommate implied. She wasn’t- they weren’t…

The thought made him flush deeper, and he shoved it from his mind. They were friends. Just because she was smart, and funny, and genuine, and had clearly grown into her beauty based on the few glances that he managed over the years… that didn’t make them anything other than friends.

Maybe he had a small crush. But that was his problem.

Link was knighted two days before the tournament was announced. There was plenty of pomp and grandeur- apparently he was the youngest knight to ever join their ranks- but Link didn’t care much for it. Sure, it felt good to know his training had amounted to something, and it was nice to be recognized. But nothing was changing, not really. He had been training (alone) and now he would be standing guard (alone).

(He had hoped that maybe Zelda would be the one to knight him, and had been disappointed by her father instead.)

The announcement was lackluster in comparison to the knighting ceremony, but in Link’s mind it was far more important. A pompous looking man with an obnoxious feather in his hat had arrived with an announcement for all of the knights: a tournament was to be held, and the victor would receive the honor of being appointed the Princess’s personal protector.

It paid well, and it was a cushy position. Sure, you had to stand around all day, but you got to stand around indoors, out of the sun. You got to see the beautiful noble ladies and overhear them gossiping about each other behind each others’ backs. You got to eat food from the fancy banquets, and go to the fancy parties-

And you got to spend time with Princess Zelda.

“I heard she’s a real bitch,” one of the knights complained. “My new girl is a maid in the royal quarters, and she said she’s got no friends. No one wants to put up with her.”

Link ground his teeth, but held his tongue. A dark anger bubbled up within him. They had no idea what they were talking about.

“I tried to talk to her once, and she talked for fifteen minutes about the mating patterns of hot-footed frogs,” another replied. “She might be a royal, but she’s weird.”

“Then don’t compete,” Link said, standing up and grabbing his gear. He needed to keep working up until the moment of the tournament. He refused to lose. “If you think she’s so strange, then drop out of the tournament and leave the job to someone who actually wants it.”

The younger of the two knights blinked- it was probably the most Link had spoken to anyone in years- while the older one stood, crossing his arms and looming over Link. “You think you can tell me what to do, new boy? I’ve been a knight longer than you’ve been alive. I’m not dropping out of shit, and if you think you’re just going to waltz in and take a cushy job like this in your first week on the job, you’re stupider than I thought.”

Link clenched his jaw hard, barely holding back from punching the man. Save it for the tournament, he thought. “I look forward to competing against you, then,” Link forced out, his forced cordiality fooling no one, then left the room without another word.

He had a tournament to win.

—

Zelda didn’t see why she had to be at the tournament. It wasn’t like the results would be impacted by her presence. She was an unnecessary variable in this experiment, so it really made no difference whether she was spectating beside her father or in her room working on her latest project.

Her father argued that it was good for her to get out of her room a bit more, but Zelda disagreed. Most of the people she encountered when she went out would prefer to not be talking with her, and were varying degrees of bad at hiding it. Better to stay inside, where she could enjoy her interests without judgment.

Of course, her father had insisted, and any arguments about how unnecessary she was to this whole process went ignored. So she found herself sitting beside him in the stands, watching as the competitors lined up to hear the first round’s matchups.

They were all knights she had seen around before, mostly grizzled veterans. Tall, scarred, and experienced people who tended to ignore her or tune her out whenever she was in the room. Well, that was fine. About what she had expected, really-

Wait. Was that…?

At the far end of the second row of competitors stood a competitor much younger than all of the others. His armor lacked any of the dents and scratches of his competitors, and he stood at least a full head shorter than the next tallest person in the tournament. But what stood out to her the most was his hair. He had forgone a helmet, leaving golden locks uncovered. His hair had been braided with flowers back into a stubby tail- red, orange, and yellow blossoms.

Mighty thistle. Warm safflina. And yellow dandelions like the ones that grew in the gardens in the spring.

“Link?” she breathed.

Her father was giving a welcome speech- something about honor and duty and all things knightley- but her mind was reeling back through the years, back to the boy who she had only known for two days and was somehow the closest friend she had made in her childhood. Back to lizard hunts and battles against imaginary monsters. Back to flower crowns and petals on the ground.

“Let the tournament begin!” her father proclaimed, finishing his speech, and the knights saluted him with their swords before leaving to prepare and await their matches. Zelda’s heart was racing. This was something unexpected, but so very, very welcome.

The first match started, and she watched for just long enough to determine that no, neither fighter was Link, before mentally spiraling. She had only seen him briefly since that day that his father pulled him away. He had been training to become a knight, that much she knew, but she had never been able to find the courage to approach him. He certainly hadn’t approached her, and she just assumed that their friendship was fated to end like that. He had learned the truth and wanted nothing more to do with her.

He’s probably just competing for the sake of the job, she reminded herself. Don’t get your hopes up. Personal protectors were paid handsomely for the extra commitment and time put in. She held no illusions about this tournament- the competitors here were for many reasons, none of which were her.

The first round ended quickly, and the second round began just as fast. Not Link- not important.

Still… a part of her was hoping against logic that this might mean more to a salary to Link. The hope burrowed its way into her heart, holding fast against the waves of reasoning that told her to let it go, let him go. Her mind said that she was just opening herself up for more loneliness and disappointment. Her heart seemed determined to not let that stop it.

The second round dragged on a bit- an even match between fighters, it seemed. But when the third round began, Zelda straightened instantly, giving the fight her full attention.

A boy with flowers in his hair hefted a sword and shield, his expression dark as he stared down his opponent. The man he was facing off against was probably twice his size, armor worn from years of battle, hefting an ax as tall as he was. Zelda pursed her lips; Link was facing a veteran in the first round. The odds were against him.

The fight was over in less than a minute.

Link moved like lightning, darting in close before the man could use the axe’s reach to his advantage. He scored two quick strikes before dancing away again, circling around his opponent’s dominant side. The veteran snarled, swinging the axe with a strength that could crush armor. Oh goddess, Link wasn’t wearing a helmet, if that swing made contact-

Link jumped out of the way at the last second, landing a backflip perfectly before darting in to strike at the man’s unguarded side. He slashed three times in rapid succession, blade a mere flash of silver, before sweeping the man’s feet out from under him. He fell flat on his back with a groan and a clang of armor. Link’s sword was at his throat in an instant.

Zelda stared. He was brilliant. How had he become so skilled so quickly?

The match was called and the veteran hauled back to his feet. Before leaving the ring, Link turned to where Zelda sat with her father and raised his blade in salute.

Green eyes met burning blue, and her heart stuttered in her chest.

And the tournament continued.

—

Link had never fought so hard in his life.

She recognized him- there was no mistaking that moment when their eyes had met. I’m here, he had thought, wishing the goddess could send his words directly into her mind. I’m going to win. I’m still here- I didn’t leave you.

He kept an eye on the other matches, and was pleased to see some of the tougher competitors being eliminated. He had been thrilled to meet the knight he had argued with before in the first round, and took great pleasure in taking the man down. But he had to stay sharp; anyone among the ranks of the Hyrule knights was no one to dismiss in a fight, and he had to come out on top.

The second match was closer than he would have liked, and stretched on for what seemed like an hour. It was only really a few minutes, he knew, but the dread of facing a nearly even match seemed to slow time to a crawl. After being declared the victor, he once again turned to salute- to the king, technically, but in his heart it was to her…

Only, she wasn’t there.

He frowned, but accepted the victory and left the ring. Where had she gone? Had he upset her? Maybe she was offended and decided to have him kicked out. Oh goddess, what if she hated him? What if he had just been assuming she was okay with him this whole time when she really never wanted to see him again? What if-

Stop it. You don’t know any of that, he scolded himself. Focus on the tournament and talk to her about it later.

Because no one could tell him not to talk to her once he won. No one except for her, anyways, and if she told him to leave, well… he would, even though the thought made him feel as though he was being stabbed in the chest. She was his friend (and maybe also his crush) and he would respect her choices, even if she chose to cut him out completely.

—

“We have our winner!”

Link’s chest heaved, his lungs burning. There was a stinging pain coming from one of his thighs where he had let a blade come a bit too close. His forearm was already bruising from the number of impacts he had taken with his shield, and sweat slick strands of hair were coming loose from his messy braids.

Self consciously, he reached up to feel his hair, then smiled. The flowers were still in place.

The king stepped down into the ring, Zelda- when did she get back?- following closely behind him.

Wearing a flower crown.

He blinked- no, not a hopeful hallucination. It was old, by the looks of it, made from dried blue nightshade and… and dandelions. His breath caught in his chest. There was no way- had she really kept it, all this time?

“You fought well today,” the king said, and Link did his best to pretend like his mind wasn’t racing, his heart thundering. The flowers looked like they were all dried, though still beautiful. It was the same flowers. It was the same crown.

He glanced at her, then back to the king. She winked at him.

“...the honor of serving as Princess Zelda’s appointed knight. Congratulations.” Link snapped out of his mental freak out for long enough to bow, pressing a hand to his heart.

“I will serve well,” he promised, and meant every word.

—

Zelda was losing her mind. He had been on duty for five hours and she was losing her mind.

Why did everyone need to speak with her, all of a sudden? They had been perfectly content to let her lurk in her room the day before, and the day before that, and for the past several years. Why today, of all days?

“Thank you, Your Highness,” the seventh - seventh- person of the day said with a bow. How many questions could people have about a single banquet? “Your assistance is very much appreciated.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied with a forced smile, perfect posture slumping as soon as they left the room. Next to her, she saw Link suppress a snicker and she grinned.

“You’d think it would be something a little more important than menu planning, if they’re going to bug royalty about it,” she said, false haughtiness in her tone. “I thought they would never leave!”

Link just smiled and shook his head, then started walking towards the door.

Wait. Walking towards the door? No! “Where are you going?” she asked, eyes wide.

He startled, looking back at her blankly. “I was going to stand guard outside. I thought you wanted some time to yourself,” he explained.

“Wh- well yes, but I wanted to talk to you!”

“To me?”

“Yes,” she replied, exasperated. Did he not get the message with the flower crowns? She had winked at him, for Hylia’s sake!

“Oh,” he said, cheeks pinking. “Wh-what about?”

“I…” Well that was a good question. What did you say to someone you hadn’t spoken to in years? Hi, I missed you, I know we only knew each other for a few days but I’ve wanted to talk with you every day since. “Well, anything, really.”

Link continued to stare at her blankly. She sighed. “You used to be a lot chattier.”

“I- heh, yeah, I guess so.”

They sat there quietly for a moment, the atmosphere tense and awkward, and she hated it, hated it in a way that she had never hated quiet in her life, and she had to- “Do you want to see what I’m working on?”

He tilted his head, looking puzzled. “Sure?” Oh, that had been a bit out of nowhere. Well, he wasn’t allowed to complain about her lack of social graces. He hadn’t been about to say anything.

She led him into her room and across the bridge. “This is my study,” she said, blatantly ignoring the awkwardness in the air. “And this is the Sheikah slate.”

The screen brightened, lighting up the Hyrule Compendium- or at least, what little she had been able to fill in. “It has the ability to create incredibly lifelike images, and if you get one that’s clear enough, you can use the slate to track the subject of the photo.” She held it out so that he could see, and he leaned until their shoulders bumped to get a good look. “The issue is, it only tracks things it recognizes, and only when they’re within a short range.”

“So you couldn’t take a picture of, say, a stray cat, and then use it to find that cat later?”

“Correct. It would just let you know when there’s a cat nearby, if it recognizes the cat at all.” She frowned, flipping to the creatures section of the compendium. “Even then, you have to be close before the sensor begins to work. I’ve been running experiments using hightail lizards, but it can be frustrating when there are none nearby and the sensor-”

She jumped as Link burst out laughing, cutting her off. “What? What is it?” she asked, looking around. Nothing obvious jumped out at her. “What’s so funny?”

“I just-” he broke off with another laugh. She had missed the sound, she realized. She hadn’t laughed with someone in… no, she didn’t want to know the actual amount of time. It would probably just depress her. “You’re still looking for those lizards,” he said.

She looked back at the picture. Red scales. White belly. The image she had managed to capture specifically had the lizard crouched in a patch of dandelions. She snorted. “Apparently, yes, I am.”

She looked up at him and found him grinning- far from the purposefully blanked expression he wore on guard duty. “If you need any help finding them, I happen to be a bit of an expert,” he said.

She smirked. “Finding them, sure, but catching them? I seem to recall you being a bit hopeless in that respect.”

Link gasped, clasping a hand over his heart. “Lies and slander, Your Highness.”

They burst into giggles, smiling like fools, and Zelda’s eyes fell on the dried flower crown placed carefully on her desk. She still remembered taking it off when she returned to her room the day he left, wanting to throw it across the room and cry and yell, but instead taking it and hanging it to dry out so she might have something to remember of her friend.

And he was back.

“I missed you,” she admitted as their laughter died out. “I- I know it’s silly. W only knew each other for a few days, but then you just disappeared, and-”

He wrapped her up in a hug, squeezing almost tight enough to hurt. “I missed you too,” he said, voice hoarse. “I couldn’t- I wasn’t allowed to talk to you, but I kept trying, and-”

“And you made it,” she finished with a smile, hugging him back just as tight. “We’re together again.”

She pulled away, keeping her hands on his shoulders and gazing affectionately into his eyes. “I want to hear about the past few years. Tell me everything.”

And he did.

—

Once they started talking, it was like they couldn’t stop. Zelda would have sworn that it had only been a few minutes- half an hour at most- but when she checked the time, hours had passed. She didn’t mind in the slightest.

It felt like they couldn’t say enough, in all honesty. Years of not seeing each other had left a strange distance between them that they were both desperate to bridge. They were closing the gap as rapidly as they could, building up a connection with stories and jokes in an endless stream of words.

He had learned to braid his hair from his mother. She hated needlework with a passion, and had bloodstained enough fabric with needle pricks to make her handmaids worry. He had five horses, all wild ones he had tamed himself, and was still offended the stables wouldn’t allow him to register any more. She was as close as family with the Gerudo chief. He kept quiet mostly for fear of bothering others. She hid away in her room for fear of judgment.

It was late when Link announced that he needed to leave, their mouths dry from so many hours of speaking. And yet, she didn’t want him to go. After having her years of quiet abruptly ended, she wasn’t quite ready to let go of the noise.

“Until tomorrow, Your Highness,” he said with a bow.

I’ll miss you. It’s only until tomorrow, but I’ll still miss you.

The next day was much the same. When they were in the presence of others, Link was silent, like a perfect knightley mask had fallen into place. Zelda followed suit, acting as the picture of royalty.

“Your knight is a good influence on you,” her father said. She had needed to choke back a laugh at that one; just before he had entered the room, Link had been telling her about the past three times he had pranked his captain. Just the latest three. She chose to hold her tongue, though- no need to get him in trouble, nor to waste her father’s good graces.

“I’m glad he was chosen,” she replied, meaning every word.

By the end of the first week, they were no longer quite so frantic to know each other, and an easy familiarity replaced the constant exchange of stories. Long nights of research were now often accompanied by the presence of her knight- her friend, she thought gleefully- bringing some menial task up to her study to work alongside her. Meetings with stewards and servants were sped along by suggestions and helpful comments. Interactions with the more intolerable nobles were immediately followed by jokes and snippy comments- she had been delighted to learn that Link was sarcastic- and any bitterness the conversation may have left was quickly swept away by the company of a friend.

He rarely left before midnight, long after his shift had technically ended, but he never seemed to mind. She certainly didn’t. And then he was there again the next morning, and she would pour him a cup of very strong tea to make up for the late night before, and they would commiserate over their drowsiness as the day wore on.

It only took about two weeks to realize that she was in love with him.

It snuck up on her, creeping up in the back of her mind like it her heart was afraid of scaring her away. It was the secret smiles and the quiet laughs, the way he listened when she spoke to him and the way he always spoke truthfully with her. By the time she knew the feeling in her chest well enough to put a name to it, it was too late to run from it.

“Good night, Princess,” he would always say with a bow as he left for the day.

I love you, she would think, and say back, “Good night, Link.”

—

“Do you ever wonder where those other kids from the garden ended up?”

Zelda glanced up from her book, a bit surprised. It was usually her who initiated their chats- not that she minded. “Not really. I still see some of them around the castle.”

“Really?” He tilted his head, curious.

“Sure,” she said, placing a bookmark. “Most of them visit with their families. Some of them never left.”

Link nodded. “Did they…” he trailed off. She could hear the rest of the question anyways. Did they ever get better? Did they ever change?

“No,” she said with a bitter smile. “They’re still the same.” Adults now, or nearly adults, but still keeping their distance at all times, still scurrying away the moment she got close. The only thing that changed was the gossip. As children, they had simply avoided her. Now, their childhood jokes had grown teeth, and they used them liberally to shred her apart.

Not that it bothered her. It was fine. She scowled down at her notebook. It was fine. She was over this now.

“Sorry,” he said, scratching his head and backing towards the doorway.

“What for?”

“For bugging you.” He looked down at the ground. Oh, he thought that scowl was for him. “I should let you get back to it.”

No, she wanted to say. You’re not a bother- you’re never a bother. Stop looking like that. I don’t want to be someone who makes you feel like that.

“I don’t mind,” she said, and the words were fine but they were also wrong, because they weren’t don’t go, please stay, I don’t feel quite so lonely when you’re here. “You’re welcome any time.” I would pay you a fortune just to sit here and be with me.

Goddess, she was desperate, wasn’t she? It should probably have been embarrassing. She was too busy yearning to care.

“Thank you,” he said, offering a stiff bow. “I’ll cease my intrusions for the time being.” Please don’t. “Until next time, Your Highness.” Just stay. I want you to stay.

I love you.

“Good night, Link.”

—

“I never actually congratulated you for your performance in the tournament, did I?” Zelda asked one evening.

“I- You don’t have to do that,” Link stammered, blushing. She liked his blush; it was the one expression he could never hide.

“I know I don’t, but I will,” she said with a cheeky grin. “It was impressive- some of those competitors have been in the knights’ ranks for decades, and you trounced them.”

He avoided her eyes. “Well, I- I trained really hard for it.”

“Still,” she insisted, “if you ask me that only makes it more commendable. You clearly have natural talent, but you also have the determination to build on it.” Before she could think to stop herself she was sliding a hand along his jaw, turning his face until he made eye contact. He followed her willingly, melting into the touch. “It’s one of the things I really admire about you.”

So close to him, she could feel his breath catch, could feel his throat bob against her fingers as he swallowed hard, and she- she really needed to stop this. She wasn’t doing her pathetic crush any favors by being this close.

“Y- you too,” he replied as she pulled away. “You put so much effort into everything, and you really seem to care about all of it. You…” he gave her a small smile “It’s nice to see someone care so much,” he finished. You have no idea how much I care, she thought, smiling back at him.

“It’s hard to believe that boy from the gardens is now one of the finest knights in Hyrule.” It’s not hard to believe at all. Of course you would be- how could you not be? “We’ve come a long way from beating up blackberry bushes.”

Link grinned. “Who would’ve thought my Madame Sheik was secretly Princess Zelda?” Still yours. Perhaps not your Sheik, but still your Zelda.

He reached out to grab her hand, expression softening. “Honestly, I’m- I like the way you ended up. Wouldn’t change a thing.” Her heart twisted in her chest as he stood to leave. You have no idea, do you? How much that means- how much all of your words mean. “Ah, sorry, forget I said anything.” No- don’t take it back, don’t apologize. “Good night, Zelda.”

Good night, Link.

“I love you.”

—

Link froze with his hand on the doorknob. He didn’t- she hadn’t actually said that. Had she?

He turned around to find her with her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide, like she was just as surprised as he was. Like the words had tumbled out without her permission. Had she… had she really said that? Did she mean it?

“Sorry, Highness,” he said, cautiously formal. If he had misheard, he didn’t want to lose his job- lose her- by overreacting to a misunderstanding. “Could you repeat that?”

Her jaw snapped shut with an audible click. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the same way she did when she scolded herself for mistakes. Then she opened them and looked right at him, looking as tense as though she were bracing for a blow. “I said…” a moment’s hesitation, then- “I said I love you.” The words poured out in a rush, like if they were held in for a single second longer they would burn her.

Link inhaled sharply. He hadn’t misheard. The hope in his chest swelled until he thought it might burst.

He approached her slowly, reaching to cup her face in his hands. “You- you mean like a friend, or…”

She was shaking her head before he could finish the question, eyes screwed shut against his searching gaze. “No. No, not like a friend, like- like I’m in love with you. And… like I have been for a while.”

Link beamed, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “Why are you closing your eyes?” he asked.

“Because,” Zelda sighed. “I don’t want to see you upset the last time I see you before you leave.”

“Who’s leaving?” he asked. He had fought so hard to get back to her; they would have to drag him to get him to leave her side now, and he would fight every inch of the way. “Zelda,” he said softly. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

She peeked at him with one eye, checking for a lie, before chuckling and meeting his gaze. Whatever she saw there must have been reassuring, because the tension flooded out of her in the next instant. She lifted her hands to cup his against the sides of her face.

“I love you too,” he said, and the words felt perfect as they fell from his tongue. Her eyes lit up. “I’ve loved you for… for a long time, I think. It was a crush, when we were little, but then I saw you again, and then we talked, and you’re- you’re incredible, and I-”

His rambling was cut off by the press of her lips against his as she surged forward into his arms. Link kissed her back eagerly, moving in tandem with her. He had never imagined he would get this chance, never let himself truly hope, and now he was overwhelmed. Her fingers tangled their way into his hair, pulling him in closer, and he responded by wrapping an arm around her waist, drawing her in, hugging her close, because she was here, this was real, and she loved him.

They broke apart far too soon for his liking, both breathing heavily. Zelda beamed at him with kiss swollen lips, and he couldn’t have contained the answering grin if he wanted to.

“Thank you for coming back,” she whispered, leaning her forehead against his.

“Always.” he replied, closing his eyes and pulling her close.

He was never letting go again.

[goldenscalez-art]

Fishing

Non-canon (maybe?) story

Summary: Small gift for @endominator! Rodan has a nice time with Godzilla

“So uh… what do you want to do?” The bird asked the lizard softly. It’s been a long time they hung out, they turned distant after The Battle, but, today, he visited him. Seems he wanted to fix their relationship, this was unusual…

“Well… Maybe we can… hunt together? I know you like fish as much as me” Godzilla responded, softly as well. He turned away and faced to the horizon to hide his soft smile, his tail twitched before turning back at the bird

“Why did you look away?” Rodan had noticed Godzilla’s weird attitude, he found it amusing. He shook his flaming wings before laying his head on the rim of his volcano, staring up at the lizard. He admired him…

Godzilla widened his eyes before responding “I- uhh- I was just checking something! Nothing to worry about” He said while his voice stuttered.

“For a King you’re really insecure, aren’t you?” He smiled and laughed softly at him, it was funny seeing the “King” acting like a cub. Almost no one knows of this side of his.

“Th-that’s not the point at the moment, okay?” He avoided the bird’s question with the same tone, his tail kept twitching nervously

“Fine” He laughed again before lifting his head up and raising his body a bit, lava flowed down his molten rock armor “So… we hunt?”

Godzilla couldn’t help but chuckle and tilt his head “Yes”. The lizard, then, stood up and looked at the ocean before waiting for the bird to get out of his volcano.

Rodan spread his wings and use them to help himself out. Both Titans stared at each other and smiled softly “You’re a good friend, you know that?” The bird had said

Godzilla was… impressed. He? A good friend? He always thought he was being harsh with everyone. He turned away and responded “I… I try…” His snout twitched

Both stayed silent for a second before the bird spoke up “Alright, let’s go! The one who catches the biggest fish wins!” Before he could finish Rodan had already taken to the sky; Godzilla looked up and reacted fast

“Not fair!” He said annoyed before walking up to the coast and submerging himself under the water. The fish hunt has started!

…

Rodan’s flying speed gave an advantage to him and he reached his favorite fishing place. Hopefully he is lucky and there’s big whales nearby…

He did his normal technique, hover in the air and wait for the fish to be near the surface. His golden eyes were fixated on the blue ocean, deeply concentrated. Better not miss a good opportunity that might give him a win

It’s been over an hour and he has caught some fish, but they weren’t big enough, he needed something bigger to beat Godzilla! He kept hovering until he finally saw signs of a good catch, another shadowy figure appeared near the surface of the water, a big one. It’s his opportunity…

He dived down as fast as his wings could him and opened his beak. He splashed on the water while he closed his jaw and held a strong grip on the fish’s now bleeding body, he flew out of the water and pulled the creature out with him, it squirmed heavily, trying to escape, but to no avail. Rodan inspected his catch, it was a whale, a big whale! It was perfect! He chuckled with joy before turning his body and flying back to his volcano with his beak still getting hold of the whale. He was careful as he didn’t want his good catch to fall to the water and lose it.

…

Godzilla lost some time while heading to the water, but he was a fast swimmer, it shouldn’t take him long to find a good catch. He lived most of his life in the water, he knew where the biggest fish would be.

He didn’t have trouble finding the location, an open place where the biggest whales used to travel to, he swam down and hid under the water’s darkness waiting for his prey.

For him it felt like an eternity had passed before a whale came through, he was probably running out of time; all he kept spotting was small fish that were of no use, but he didn’t give up and kept waiting until finally something promising appeared; the shadow of a whale loomed above him. He finally found the perfect prey.

The whale was oblivious of its fate. The next moment Godzilla swam as fast as he could to the whale, it had not time to react before it was caught on the lizard’s jaws and sharp teeth. Goji bit down at the squirming fish preventing it from escaping until it went limp, blood floating in the area. This seemed perfect to him, he smirked softly before swimming back to Rodan’s volcano.

…

Godzilla arrived last, Rodan had reached the coast before him, he held his catch on his beak with a proud look as he glanced at the surfacing lizard, who also had his catch on his jaws.

Both Titans leaned down and laid their catches on the sand, it was the moment of truth! Time to see who’s catch was bigger…

“I’m sure I won” The bird said proud of himself and he looked up at the lizard with a smirk.

The lizard chuckled before he replied with a smirk as well “No, I think I did”

“Well then, let’s see” Rodan said before switching the whales and explaining what they’ll do to determine the winner “I’ll compare yours with mine while you compare mine with yours. No lying!”

“Hmph! How do I know you won’t lie? Knowing you, you’ll do anything to win” Godzilla was skeptical of Rodan, they’ve been friends for a long time, he already knows his tricks!

“You’re a smart one” He laughed before speaking again “Fine, I won’t cheat this time, promise”

Godzilla narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to him in suspicion, but he trusted him. “Alright…”

Both Titans leaned down again and started comparing their whales, they compared their length and width. This took them 5 minutes before both Titans reached a conclusion

They lifted their body and started at each other, the bird’s golden eyes reach the lizard’s bright yellow. They each had a confused expression on their faces

They tied…

They looked down at their respective whales before Rodan broke the silence, he started laughing softly and sat down on the sand, his laugh echoed through the air until the lizard joined in, also laughing softly on the sand. This went on for some time until finally both Titans calmed down and silence ensued again

Rodan broke the silence again “This was fun…” He looked up and smiled at the lizard happily, it’s been a long time since they’ve hung out or played like this, it was nice doing it again…

“It was…” Godzilla said softly before looking down and smiling. He genuinely enjoyed doing this, being alpha was tiring but playing with Rodan relieved the stress.

Rodan spoke up again in a soft voice “Wanna eat?” He kept smiling at him and ruffled his wings, he felt he was being awkward

“Sure” Godzilla said and twitched his tail feeling awkward and nervous

“I’ll let you eat mine, I can eat yours if that’s fine” Rodan replied

Godzilla nodded and smiled before grabbing the whale below him and feasting on it, Rodan followed behind.

They ate in silence, each facing the horizon while turning at each other sometimes, when they finished Rodan spoke up again

“Th… thank you for being my friend…” He said softly and nervously as he looked down, feeling embarrassed.

“You’re… you’re welcome… I’m glad you’re my friend too” The lizard replied looking at him and smiling

Rodan lifted his head up and looked at him silently, smiling back, then both turned to the now sun that was setting, its rays hitting their bodies…

That was a nice day.

[whataboutmyfries]

Russian Roulette

Okay, okay. I am fully aware that it has been an absolute AGE since the last chapter but Life(tm) got in the way of this one and I'm so sorry it's getting to you so late.

Additionally, I hope you guys are aware that minimal editing has happened here.

@lumosinlove thank you so much for letting us mess around with your characters!!

~

Chapter 5

Logan slammed another cup of coffee to the table, running a hand through his already dishevelled hair. “Shit,” he breathed. “This is….this is probably enough for us to completely wreck their operation”

Finn leaned further back in his chair, blinking at the stacks of paper spilling onto the desk; about as much surprise as he’d show in front of Leo. “It is.”

Leo looked utterly unfazed as he sipped from his cup, closing his eyes at the feeling of the hot caffeine sliding down his throat. He rubbed at his eye, fixing the other one on Finn, then on Logan. “Will you do it then?”

Logan and Finn exchanged a glance. “I think you already know the answer to that.”

Leo studied the two of them before dipping his head in a nod of thanks. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again. “Thank you. For all of this.”

Finn waved him off, taking a long sip from his coffee. “Mm, I was wondering if you’d ever come around and show us that brilliant magic of yours.”

Logan laughed. “Forget magic. How would you feel about a game of cards?”

Leo’s eyes glittered “oh darlin’, I’m going to beat your asses.”

And damn if Leo didn’t deliver on his promises. An hour later, the three of them were sat around the table, staring intently at the cards spread over the wood. Finn tossed his knife, the blade making complicated swirls around his fingers as he caught it.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that to win nutty.” He chuckled; not even turning his head as he threw the knife at the dartboard.

Leo didn’t have to look up from his cards to know it’d hit the bullseye.

“Remind me again, which one of us is the magician here?” Leo drawled, eyes twinkling with mischief as he threw down his card.

Logan and Finn groaned, slapping down their cards in exasperation. Leo had won. Again.

“How does he do it?” Logan groused, pouting at the table, pulling one of Finn’s knives free of the wood.

Leo laughed, reaching behind Logan’s ear. And with a complicated twirl of his fingers, he unfurled a fan of cards

Piercing blue eyes looked over the top of the cards and Leo winked at the both of them.

“Magic.”

~

Three am found them sprawled around the room fast asleep. Mugs and cups and pots of coffee on every imaginable surface, papers spilling onto the floor. Leo blinked his eyes open to warm sunlight, shoving his face off the desk. Disoriented, he blinked his eyes frantically, trying to make sense of his surroundings. His eyes landed on a halo of red, and the memories of the previous night came back to him; only to immediately be ignored in favour of the beautiful boy in front of him. Finn’s head leaned back against the couch, exposing the column of his throat, the freckles there mapping constellations onto the creamy skin. Leo wondered if maybe Finn would ever let him trail shapes into those stars; if he tried hard enough, Leo was sure he could trace a wonky version of his namesake onto the alabaster skin. Unable to help himself, his eyes trailed upwards, crimson eyelashes fluttering against high cheekbones like trapped birds searching for a freedom he wasn’t sure he could offer.

He ripped his eyes away, his traitorous heart beating furiously against his ribs. It proved an even bigger mistake to look away because his eyes found smooth tan skin instead. Logan was almost devastating in his beauty when he slept, Chocolate-y hair shimmering in the early light. Sunshine dripping like honey from aristocratic cheekbones and hazel curls. Leo’s thoughts went into overdrive, his brain offering him vague snippets of poetry and literature in a futile attempt to describe the beauty of gods. The sunlight threw shadows across their faces, casting them in stark relief, and Leo’s heart all but crawled out of him to repent.

His heart was beating so loud it honestly surprised him that the two of them hadn’t awoken. This was a mistake. He never should’ve come here, let alone stay the night. Cursing his idiocy, he got up on cat-soft feet and gathered his things, chiding himself for letting down his guard so easy. He saw himself out, sparing one last look for the ethereal beings asleep on the couch. And as Leo let the door fall shut; he failed to realise that he’d been so caught up in cursing his mistakes; he hadn’t noticed hazel eyes trailing him on his way out.

~

Logan— on the other hand— woke to Finn’s feet sliding out of his lap. He knew he was home. He was safe. The syrupy darkness of sleep pulled him back under. Finn woke him again with a hand to his shoulder, the distinctive smell of coffee taking over his senses. Still drowsy, he grinned, a hum rumbling through him. Finn laughed, ruffling his hair.

“I don’t remember adopting a cat, but I can’t say I dislike it.”

Logan shoved at his knee with a socked foot, grumbling incoherently, though the smile on his face rather took away from it.

“Shhhhh it’s too early for your stupid face.”

“So no coffee for you then? More for me I guess”

“Touch my coffee and I’ll punch you”

“Oh shut up, you like my face too much to punch me.”

Logan blinked one eye open. “Who said I was punching you in the face?”

Finn laughed, nudging Logan’s cup closer to him. “Touche.”

Logan took the mug, nursing the warmth of the ceramic between his palms. “You know, that may be the only french thing that sounds halfway decent in that accent of yours.”

Finn flipped him off over the rim of his mug, drinking deeply. “Drink your sugar crash and leave me alone.”

Logan raised an eyebrow “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“It is the sole cause of diabetes in this world and I am willing to die on this hill.”

Logan huffed, shoving papers out from under him so he could shift his feet up onto the couch. The events of the previous night still weighed on him. Lizard had given them….everything. Every detail, every nook and cranny of the snake house was documented. He’d left no stone unturned.

And he’d lost everything, anyway.

“Harz, he’s given us everything we were looking for.”

Finn nodded, “He did, didn’t he?” He gave Logan a look. “What do you want to do about it?”

Logan shrugged a shoulder, staring absently out the window. “We said we’d help.”

“You know you don’t have to follow through, you don’t want to do it, we don’t do it.”

Logan met his gaze, Finn’s sharp edges smoothed into something softer by the early sun. “I want to. It just…..” He trailed off with a vague gesture.

Finn hummed. “I think I know what you mean. But, Lo, we don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do, okay? The second you want to drop it and leave, we leave, yeah?”

Logan swallowed past the lump that formed in his throat. His chest full to the brim with a feeling he’d come to describe simply as ‘Finn���. It was ephemeral and fleeting but felt like warmth; it felt like coming home. It was the feeling of waking up to find a blanket thrown over you, the feeling of a mug of steaming cocoa pressed into your hands on a bad day, the feeling of sunshine after tumultuous storms. It was the feeling of Finn, joyful and constant and forever ready with a bright smile or dry wit.

Logan smiled at his friend, shoving at Finn’s knee with his foot. “Awww, look at that. You might care about me after all.”

Finn shot him a look, the only warning he gave Logan before tackling him to the couch. Logan let out a somewhat aborted choke-squeal as he fought to get Finn off of him, wrestling his tickling fingers away from him. Logan cackled when Finn yelped overbalancing and falling onto the carpet—followed shortly by Logan, who had been too busy laughing to notice that Finn had grabbed him in a desperate attempt to stop his fall. They both lay on the floor, gasping for breath between peals of laughter, shoving at each other playfully.

Finn let his head drop to a side, catching Logan’s gaze. “You know…..It’s not like we have much to do today….”

Logan grinned “Ice cream and movies all day?”

“You know it.”

~

To put it quite simply, Leo’s brain refused to leave him alone. His smile was more facade than anything else, his beloved cards feeling clumsy and distracting in his hands. His train of thought had derailed almost an hour ago, his body running completely on autopilot as we walked the streets of Gryffindor.

They’d said yes. They’d said yes, and now Leo was going to be working with them. For a considerable amount of time. He couldn’t afford to throw something like this away on some fickle feeling, much less fickle feelings for a mob boss of all people. There was too much at stake.

Leo revealed the card in his hand with a flourish, the gasps of the people around him little more than background noise as he slipped through the crowd, surreptitiously pocketing a couple of fifties he certainly didn’t have before. He strolled unnoticed through the city, checking his watch as he went. He was early. good. He slowed his pace, watching passers-by go about their lives as he marvelled at the busy streets. It never stopped amazing him; the fervour that filled the city. Every street and bend so rife with potential, the possibility of wonderful things just itching to happen.

Like anyone else, Leo was wont to miss his home, the sprawling fields and endless forest of the countryside, but there was nothing quite like Gryffindor, with its skyscrapers shoved next to beggarly hovels and the hum of activity and excitement haunting every corner.

As his thoughts wandered through the city, his feet carried him to a familiar street lined with cafes and charming little stores. He ducked into one of them— a quaint bookshop, the well-worn sign hanging at the door proclaiming its availability to its patrons. The tiny bell above the door announced his arrival, the chime sounding through the magical place.

Leo had always thought that walking into Moony’s was like stepping through a portal to another world. Most bookstores were organised, neat. Books lined from A-Z subject to subject. Not Moony’s. Moony’s was a labyrinth. An explosion of literature and colour and homely comfort in every direction. Books covered every imaginable surface in the store, the shelves full to bursting. Haphazard piles of literature graced the floor, leaning against potted plants and comfy little armchairs scattered across the place. The books were stacked layers deep, some piles reaching as far as the ceiling, teetering precariously alongside narrow walkways. Leo loved it. The smell of tea and well-loved paper wrapped around him like a blanket as he walked to the checkout. An indignant meow drew his attention to the plush armchair, the stacks of books leaning against its arms fashioning it into something of a floral throne.

“Cheshire! How are you, you stinky little muffin?” Leo cooed, scooping up the ball of fur that had taken up residence on the chair. The cat in question purred happily, head butting Leo’s hand demanding head scratches. The blond laughed, indulging the cat and dropping a kiss onto his fuzzy little nose as he walked to the front of the store. A head full of tawny curls shuffled around under the till, clearly looking for something underneath.

“Found that treasure you’re looking for, Loops?”

Remus jumped, standing up with a smile, nearly knocking his head on the counter in the process.

“Missed me enough to come in early today?”

Leo snorted. “You wish. No, I just finished up quicker today.”

Remus raised a brow. “Sure you did. What’s bothering you Nutty? Tell me things.”

Leo’s chest warmed with affection. He sighed deeply; the singular breath seeming to take some pressure off his bones.

“You remember what went down with Pascal a while ago?”

Remus nodded.

“And that I went to the Lions for help like he said?”

Another nod.

Leo took a deep breath. “Well, they said yes.”

[neverendingstories00]

even more weird ass band of brothers headcanons I pulled out of my ass at 1am but it’s not 1am it’s actually 12am

-i’m sorry to say this but skinny is a tik tok fuckboy. like he dresses in chains, has a bunch of hoodies, does the fuckboy chin rub, etc. he’d said “are you lost baby girl” and then stub his toe and cry I just know it

-buck compton is a lawyer by day and football coach at night. he coaches like boys third football, like..imagine this huge albino man flexing his mucules in front of these srawny 14-15 year old’s...and talking about how he got shot but you always have to remember “one bullet, four holes” and the kids are like “we just wanna play please ”

-david webster uses ao3 and refuses to use wattpad. he says he’s “too mature” for wattpad and ao3 is for “the burned out kids” like 😤🙄 please SHUT UP. he’s one of those bitches who names there 20k oneshot enemies to lovers fic after a taylor swift song or paramore song and leaves a super long author’s note bc “his readers won’t understand the complexity of his story” like stfu the two people who read ur story are like fourteen chill out which is totally not a self call out

-eugene roe is a reformed emo kid. he use to be OBSESSED with twilight when he was a teen, collected all the books, had all the hot topic merch, etc. his biggest crime was illegally downloading decode by paramore onto his MP3 player and it still haunts him to this day. it’s all stuffed into the back of his closet in a little box and babe finds it one day and begs Eugene to do his eyeliner after finding photos of eugene, studded belt and fingerless gloves with eyeliner. Eugene can’t say no and does so. literally I love them so much

-chuck grant 100% played football and lacrosse in high school. like...I can just feel it. but he’d be the kid who sucked freshmen year and then the kid who was the best player by his senior year. also he’d be the coolest guy on the team I just feel it in my bones

-janovec would be the type of guys that say “I love women there queens” and like in really sweet way. like he always says “yas queen”, “slay!” and “pop off sis!” like it’s so cute but you asked him to hold you’re drink at a party he’d forget five seconds later

-frank perconte is the littlest bitch to cook with. like he’s super specific and uses “all organic italian” ingredients” and is super picky with cooking but in the annyoing way. luz calls him an “eye-talian” and it makes perconte fume

-bull and johnny were best friends as kids. like they met in middle school and Johnny was the short kid who everybody bullied. bull thoguht he was helpless but Johnny bit people...I wish I was joking. Ik it’s random but there besties for life and no Johnny stopped biting people

-smokey gordon was a horse girl. sorry not was, still is to this day. once he starts talking about horses he cannot shut up

-joe liebgott seems like he’s the embodiment of toxic masculinity but like once he talks off his shirt...he’s as hairless as a baby while Webster is literally a 🐻 also he’s a sucker for hallmark movies. like what started as a harmless joke turned into forcing Webster to sit in his lap as they made comments about the movie infront of them

-winters and nixon LOVE shows like outlander and poldark. nixon had read the books bc kathy (🤮) had left the books in there old house and he took a peak and then was full on sitting down, hooked to the plot. winters loves clarie and nixon loves jaime. they have arguments about the show and it’s very passionate

-another dick winters hc but dick winters is a fitness fad. he goes on runs with his dog, does cycling with nixon, was a boxer in college, etc. aka daddy Quaker is ripped

-remember the hc about Malark, skip, and penk not being able to spell the word pandemic? Speirs found out and forced them to sit down and spell the world. It turns out the three of them have no idea how to spell it. Penk had a mental breakdown, or as skip says, a “mental breakdance”

-speirs was the little kid that had no friends growing up and would stare at adults and spit out weird facts about death. legend has it still is like that today

-luz has the worst pickup lines like “my love for you is like diarrhea, I can’t hold it in”, “I wish I were cross-eyed so I can see you twice”, and my personal favorite “Did your license get suspended for driving all these guys crazy?” Bc toye lost his licensee for driving like a maniac

-shifty powers cannot legally swear. he says “poo on a stick”, “son of a gun”, cheese and crackers” and the most scandalous, “leapin’ lizards.” PROTECT HIM

-carwood lipton dresses like a grandpa going to a diner on sunday. he drives a green Volvo and Luz put a “honk if you need to shit sticker on the back” and Lipton never found out and is like “why is everybody honking??? ;(“ and Luz is like “>:3”

-also carwood embodies white dad energy. He’s the type of guy to say “who’s ready to rock and roll?” after getting out for the bathroom. baseball caps are his go too. also can we mention how much this man WORKS OUT?? like him and speris do couple workouts aw🥺🥺 except speirs does like death marathons and lip is clapping like a dad in the back

ok wow these are a lot I should be studying for my algebra one test but like....shifty with a bunch of sqiushmallows....hngnnhhhh

[squishymochisoo]

the ghost, my past lover || seo changbin (ft. kim seungmin)

genre: angst

pairing: seo changbin x reader, kim seungmin x reader

words: 2.2 k

synopsis: the boy you once loved was gone. but why did you still see him around? you blocked everyone out of your life and surrounded your heart with an iron wall. how on earth did seo changbin manage to break through those walls?

trigger warnings: death

a/n: happy birthday to me (in a few hours)! as my birthday treat to myself, i decided to post something! enjoy! and let me know what you think about it!

i hate that i can’t seem to forget you.

i hate that you’re a part of my psyche.

why did it have to be this way? “y/n, clean up after yourself please” seungmin sighed from across the room as he saw you slouch against your bed frame laughing at some drama you were watching. seungmin scrunched his nose as he saw your different pair of socks littered all over the floor of your room. for the past 5 years, he has watched you hide yourself away, closing every door that has opened up for you. five years it’s been five years since his passing it’s been five years since seungmin’s passing you had pushed so many people away in the past five years and build up a wall that separated you and world. seungmin could tell you felt reluctant to start anew. he knew you felt as though you didn’t deserve happiness, especially if seungmin wasn’t there by your side. he knew you felt as though his passing was your fault. as though your loneliness was your punishment for someone you lost. did you think that your own happiness would bring yourself further guilt? maybe you felt that you would forget him and your past if you found your happiness once again. as you watched your drama, you slightly casted your eyes to the corner of the room, wondering what the figure was doing just standing there. even after years since his passing, you still see him around. 

at first you were afraid. but after a year, it felt as though the presence was really truly him, the boy you once loved. sometimes you could feel his burning stare on your back as you cleaned the house or as you trudge back into bed after a long day at work. 

when you first saw him a week, days after his passing, you thought it was just the lack of sleep from those sleepless nights you lay in your now empty bed. as those days of seeing him around became weeks, you thought it was just the devil playing tricks with you. 

but when you catch a glance on his face whenever you cried, a part of you knew it was your seungmin. 

although you knew, the boy you loved and lost was with you all throughout these years, you never approached him or signalled to him that you knew of his existence.

whenever you wanted to speak to him, whenever you felt like you needed him. a part of you just couldn’t. you missed him so much. but he was supposed to be gone. why has he been walking around your house and talking to you for the past five years? 

was it guilt? was it sadness? were you just trying to punish yourself that you got out of the mess unharmed but the consequences that came afterwards left a scar on your heart? 

some days seungmin trails behind you and nags at you for not cleaning up your apartment. or for ordering in instead of cooking at home. but what hurts most is when he mentions your friends. “seriously babe, you’ve got to talk to jisung, jinnie and lix. you can’t just cut off contact with our friends. they are so worried about you. go talk to them, do this for me please” he pleaded. do this for me.

those words stung your heart. you couldn’t blame him, he didn’t even know you could hear him. but sometimes you would hear him talk about his dreams that he wanted to achieve, what he wanted to do when he was still here. you felt guilty as if he was also putting the blame on you. you knew he would never blame you for what had happened, but a small doubt did live in your mind. ~ “get ready you’re going out!” jisung screamed through the phone. no matter your efforts to cut off ties, the boys never gave up … surprisingly. “no thanks, my boss wants a lot of paperwork done by monday.” 

“so? it’s friday. you have another two days to complete it. please boo, it’s my birthday today!” jisung whined through the phone. 

“fine.” you reluctantly agreed as you saw seungmin’s figure sitting at your desk swing his legs happily at your answer.

“yay! wear something nice!” he shouted as he hung up the phone. ~ “y/n! come here quick!” jisung gestured you over as he held a drink in his hand. you looked at the people around the table only to find that you only knew felix, hyunjin and jisung. you stared at the three other men confused. 

“okay! this is changbin, minho and chan! now that you know each other let’s drink!” jisung laughed as he downed a shot.

 “hi” you laughed awkwardly and sat yourself next to hyunjin. 

“felix told me you work as a reporter?” the one called changbin asked from your left. you smiled and nodded.

“yeah i usually report social issues. you?”

“oh, i work with children as a psychologist.” you eyes widened, not expecting his answer.

“wait, how do you know jisung?” confusion evident in your eyes that someone like jisung are friends with psychologists. not that jisung was not capable of doing so or anything. 

“i took music production as an elective in uni and met him” changbin laughed, understanding your confusion. 

~

you and changbin watched from the booth as the other boys danced their heart out. as much as  you hated the club, it was the twins birthday party after all. 

“you sure you don’t want to dance?” changbin asked gesturing to felix and jisung whooping while dancing. 

“maybe some other time then”

 “you know, you shouldn’t suppress yourself from happiness you know” changbin muttered from the side. you weren’t sure if you were meant to hear it or not. you turned to him, your eyebrows raised as if questioning his statement. 

“i didn’t mean it in a very harsh way, it’s just – just – occupational habit, that’s all” 

“it’s fine” you waved off. 

“i’m sure the twins and jin would have told you about my … situation. seeing as minho and chan were very careful when talking about jisung finding his true love tonight. but it’s been five years you can talk about it.” 

“well… if it’s really fine, i’d like to help you out. i’ll help you to try to stop you from suppressing your emotions and desires.”

“yeah, i really can’t afford a psychologist right now.” you let out a small laugh, although thankful for his kindness. changbin shook his head instantly.

“i’m not doing it as a psychologist but as a friend.” changbin pouted and gave you puppy dog eyes that made you reluctantly agree.

 “okay it’s settled! now what drink would you like?” changbin asked as he stood up. you kept quiet pondering if you should be drinking. 

 “y/n, you haven’t had the mojito here in so long. wasn’t it your favourite?” you could hear seungmin ask from beside you.

oh right. 

you almost forgot that seungmin has been there beside you this whole time.  

“i’ll get you a mojito then” changbin voiced, breaking your train of thoughts. the look of surprise on your face, made him laugh as he walked away. 

how did he know what’s what you wanted? 

~ 

“where are we going?” as asked changbin as you entered the car. 

“amusement park!” your face felt at the answer.

“oh”

“oh my god changbin no. y/n hasn’t been to an amusement park since i was gone and that’s where i you know – “  

you could hear seungmin question changbin from the backseat, nagging and scolding changbin for making such a decision. 

“take y/n ice skating! they love ice skating”  

“oh how about ice skating?” changbin asked you. 

your eyes widened in disbelief. 

can changbin see seungmin? was that possible? seungmin was not part of your imagination?  or did he find out about your hobbies through jisung?

“oh my god can you actually hear me?” seungmin exclaimed. 

“y/n likes any type of bread and cakes you can find. they really like rice not noodles. when they need cheering up just bring them to a karaoke room to sing their hearts out. y/n hates liars and despises lizards. they suck at cooking and can only make scrambled eggs.” you heard seungmin went off tangent on your likes and dislikes.  

you couldn’t help but let out a sad smile. he still remembered all those things about you.  

~

“that’s not fair!” you whined as you pointed to minho and hyunjin. the 7 of you crowded around your living room.

“stop giving minho money, hyunjin! he’s supposed to be bankrupt by now.” minho stuck out his tongue at you. 

monopoly games with the boys are always … intense. 

they never tried to hide the fact that there were cheating which frustrated you more as you tried to play fairly. 

you rolled the dice and gasp when your thimble landed on minho’s park lane with a hotel.

“i can’t afford to pay that!” you glanced at your money pile. as minho celebrated your loss, changbin piped in.

“i’ll pay for y/n!” you felt your ears heating up at the comment.

“ooooooohhhhhh, what a man!” jisung swooned from the side causing you to roll your eyes. 

“ you can’t do that, it’s against the rules!” hyunjin added. 

“ and since when have you played by the book?” chan laughed from the sofa watching the game. 

hyunjin huffed and pouted causing you and changbin to break out into laughs. 

it’s been about three months since you met the three boys and they have been a handful. changbin kept his promise and helped you out whenever you tried to suppress your emotions and desires and it a weird way it worked.  

~

‘no i need to know’ 

you thought as you paced back and forth in front of changbin’s office door before entering. 

“changbin.” you approached the man sitting at his desk in his office.

“i need to ask you a question. and please answer it truthfully. don’t deflect it and please don’t judge me.” you begged. 

“w-what’s going on?” changbin asked nervously unsure what you were going to ask. 

you pointed to his couch in his office. 

changbin following the direction of your finger. 

“do you see him?”

“what?” 

“what?”

both changbin and seungmin voiced at the same time. your lips quivered as you took in a breath.

“it’s too big of a coincidence that every time he talks about what i like, what i hate, my drink preference, my subway order and to even my dreams. you seem to echo what he says.”  

“y/n –”

“at first i thought jisung had told you everything about me. but there were things that even jisung couldn’t have known. from my first pet to my family?” 

you heard seungmin take in a deep breath. 

“ y-you could see me?” tears collect at your eyes as you heard his broken voice. 

“how did you know about ice skating and how did you know that i couldn’t go to amusement parks anymore, not after the accident.”

“why didn’t you tell me? why didn’t you tell me you could see me?” seungmin screamed out. 

more tears fell from your eyes are you looked at seungmin. 

“i couldn’t. not after what happened. i just couldn’t face you. it was my fault.”

“how was it your fault? it was nobody’s fault! i died due to my own negligence.” 

 you shook your head violently as you sobbed.

“i- if i didn’t force you on that roller coaster ride. n-none of this would have happened” you hiccuped.

“y/n, i didn’t tell you about my heart condition. you’re not to blame. please stop blaming yourself. you’re getting better and happier thanks to changbin hyung. please to this for me” 

 please do this for me 

you cried out and your breath quickened. you fell to your knees as you tried to gasp for air. 

“y/n, listen to me and take deep breaths” changbin held your shoulders.

 “deep breaths, “

“i didn’t know you could see him too, he told me a bit more about you and what happened. i couldn’t tell you because how absurd would that have sounded?”  

you nodded, understanding where changbin was coming from, tears still spilling from your face. 

“seungmin,” you started as you turned towards where you saw him last. only to find that he was gone. 

“seungmin!” you cried out looking for him around the room. 

~

 seungmin.

 the boy you once loved.  

the boy you never saw again. 

it was at that turning point , where you got better exponentially. changbin helped you moved on and sealed the scars that was once left on your heart.  

sometimes you felt like you weren’t ready to find love yet. a part of you still thinking you deserved this punishment, that part of you stopping yourself before your heart could skip a beat. 

 although… your cheeks heating up or your heat beating slightly faster whenever you saw changbin might prove you wrong.  

you deserved to feel loved. 

you deserved to be happy. 

although seungmin was the boy you once loved. 

changbin might just be the boy you love.

|||

hope you enjoyed this short fic! i wrote it quite quickly so forgive me for any grammar errors whatsoever.

also leave a comment or anon me about what you think of it! your critiques /comments do make my day!

[daretosnoop]

Chapter 2: The Investigation Begins

Chapter 1

This chapter is more descriptive heavy. I changed the layout of the upstairs area to include a bathroom and another bedroom. 

At first, all Nancy felt was dizziness. It was strange. It wasn’t the first time she’d been knocked out by someone. But it was the first time it was done by a masked skull figure, and they didn’t exactly knock her out so much as throw, something, towards her face. Whatever it was, it was potent. She still felt woozy and would have gone back to sleep if it weren’t for the thunder and a woman’s voice.

“Here, drink this”.

The sudden smell of something bitter filled Nancy’s nose.

“Don’t give her anything strange, then I really will have to take her to the hospital,” came another, lower, voice.

“Oh hush now. Just get back to your work,” the woman snapped back. She turned towards Nancy and urged the drink.

“It will make the dizziness go away, dear”.

Ignoring all warnings of caution, Nancy reached for the drink and drank. It was bitter, not that she expected it to be anything else, but it worked. She quickly found herself coming back to terms with her surroundings.

“There’s a dear,” the woman said. “I’m Renee. Mind I ask what you were doing unconscious in the Bolet manor?”

“Someone attacked me”.

“Someone, attacked you?” Renee repeated, not understanding.

“Someone dressed as a skeleton attacked me. I’m Nancy Drew. I’m looking for Henry Bolet”.

“Girl, you sure you didn’t hit your head too hard? Should we take you to the emergency?”

“No,” the lower voice broke in. “No emergency rooms! I’ve already got enough to deal with, and this power outage doesn’t help matters!”.

Renee sighed and shook her head. She turned towards Nancy.

“If you need me, I’ll be out in my garden”.

Saying so, she got up and left out through some double doors.

“I’ll call them and put them on hold and see how they like it!” the low voice grumbled after Renee left the room.

Slowly, Nancy got up and looked around. The room was dimly lit. Candles were everywhere, decorating bookshelf after bookshelf. One bookshelf was oddly decorated by teeth, with each book depicting a tooth on its spine. Another had a stuffed lizard on it. Trophies decorated the other side of the room, and in the left hand corner a desk sat with a young man on a swivel chair.

“Uh,” Nancy called weakly, then cleared her throat. “Excuse me. Are you Henry Bolet?”

The swivel chair turned and she came face-to-face with an oddity of a man. He dressed sharply and was very fit, but he leaned into the red chair and slouched a bit. His crisp looks were contrasted with features that Nancy recognized as a goth look. Not quite one or the other, she thought.

“I am”.

“Uh, well. I guess I’m the woman who fell unconscious at your house. Sorry about that. Bad way to introduce yourself, though, I guess it could be worse.”

Henry looked at her perplexed. “How so?” he asked.

“Well, for starters, I could be all up in your face demanding why you kidnapped my friend”.

“Okay,” Henry drawled.

“Long story. I’m Nancy Drew. We have a mutual friend, Ned Nickerson?” She held out a hand towards him. “Pleased to meet you”.

Henry shook her hand firmly.

“Ah Ned,” he started but then dropped the sentence. He knew who Ned was, barely. They shared accounting courses. Ned Nickerson blended into the class and Henry would have never thought to approach him. But somehow Ned noticed him and stuck around to give a friendly wave and smile.

“He’s, persistent,” Henry concluded.

“Well, that’s Ned for you,” Nancy said, giving Henry a bright smile.

Ned was the only one to notice Henry being even more gloomy and withdrawn as usual. Perhaps he overheard the phone calls Henry had with Bruno Bolet’s doctor and solicitor. Henry didn’t know, but Ned asked him how he was coping with his uncle’s loss. When Henry said he was going to New Orleans, Ned insisted on having someone check in on him.

“I’m guessing he sent you here to check on me. I kind of come off as needy, but I’m fine, really. So you can just go on home and tell Ned I’m fine. Go out and enjoy New Orleans”.

Henry didn’t really understand why Ned would send some friend over. They barely knew each other, so this Nancy person would find things even more awkward. It was best to just get this over with. The sooner she left, the better it would be. The whispers were chattering amongst themselves. They weren’t loud, and they seemed at ease. It was a new sensation.

Skull… find… mask… skull… her…

“I can’t just leave! I don’t know how you’re doing. Plus,” Nancy started to shift her weight from one foot to another. “You see. I’m the type of person, well,” she sighed. “Look, I just can’t let go of what I saw”.

“What did you see?”

“The door was open so I stepped inside. When I entered the living room, there was a man dressed in all black with a skeleton mask. He threw something at me and I got knocked out”.

She’s really lost it.

“I have not lost it!” Nancy snapped, reading his face.

“Are you sure you didn’t just make it up?”

“I know what I saw, and I’m determined to figure it out”.

Well, at least she’s not bothering him about his feelings.

“Can I at least look around for some clues. I promise not to break anything”.

Henry sighed.

“Alright. But I better warn you. Uncle Bruno was eccentric and into all sorts of exotic pets and things. So be careful. Just because he’s dead, doesn’t mean they are”.

Way to sound ominous Bolet. He didn’t mean to scare her, but also didn’t want to deal with a bigger headache than the one his uncle left for him.

But Nancy just smiled, thanked him, and left the room.

 Nancy really didn’t understand why Ned asked her to go and visit some classmate of his. He even acknowledged that he barely knew this Henry Bolet, but she’d be damned if she let the Nickerson charm fail now on account of her. Everyone became enthralled by a Nickerson. So she came down to the French quarters of New Orleans with a friend, Bess Marvin, for a week of good sights and good food, only to have it pour down rain for two days. Trapped in their hotel room, she and Bess called their friends, Ned and Bess’s cousin, George Fayn. It was there that Ned requested her to check in on Henry, and seeing as the rain had no intention of stopping, Nancy went alone.

She was expecting it to be a simple check-in, nothing longer than an hour or two. When she knocked on the door, on one answered. She learned from the concierge that most folks kept their doors open in New Orleans. It wasn’t just on account of friendly neighbours It was also to allow ghosts to exit the house after accidentally entering it. Apparently, ghosts became cranky if they get trapped in a house. Twisting the knob, she entered the manor and went to the foyer. Towards her right was a room and she walked towards it. A person stood in a black tailcoat and boots with his back to her. She called out to them and as they turned, a shiver ran along her shoulders. The person had no face. Or rather, their face was obscured with a skull mask. Before she could ask who they were, what they were doing here, why even were they wearing a mask, the electricity went out. Rats, she thought. Trapped in an empty house with a skeleton person, well done Nancy. A flicker went off and a flash of lightning lighted the room. Within that brief time, the skeleton person managed to tramp up to her, close enough for her to see the eyes underneath the mask. They threw some powder in her face and between her stinging eyes and choked coughs, Nancy lost consciousness.

Had she not been an experienced detective, Nancy knew she probably would have become one today. She went back to the living room and started to investigate. The skeleton figure was inspecting the model cemetery when she entered, so she headed towards it. It was really beautiful and Nancy could see why it would have won an award. This Bruno person clearly appreciated cemeteries from the intricate figures of each burial ground. She read the names. Sleeping Meadows, Terra Siesta, Crowing Crypts, Sorrow Park, Withering Roots Memorial, Forty Winks Mausoleum, all clearly meant for a final resting place. Each burial ground was uniquely decorated and had crypts that indicated how a person was buried. She followed each paths around the cemetery, anticipating any indication of what the skeleton figure was looking at. There was a swamp with an alligator in it, surely a creative addition. There was also a large mausoleum separate from the other burial grounds. It seemed randomly placed and as Nancy peered closed, she saw that there were four engravings on it.

There were buttons that allowed her to change the engravings. Clearly this was some sort of locked box, but she didn’t know the combination that would open it. But she was confident that this was what the skeleton figure was looking at. Stepping away from the model, she looked around the room. There was a collection of portraits on the left wall. These must be the Bolets. They were quite unique in how their appearances overlapped. Guess, this must be where Henry gets his looks and style from. Each portrait revealed the personality of the subject. Oddly enough, they each held some object in their hand. One frame was empty and below it, Nancy saw a piece of paper. She picked it up. On it was an etching of a crow. It matched the engravings on the solitary mausoleum. Surrounding the crow was a detailed border. But Nancy remembered that only one of the engravings had this border. So, there must be three other pictures I need to find.

Nancy looked closely at the bird drawing. It looked like someone stenciled it from some surface. I wonder if this belonged to the Skeleton figure. The paper was slightly damp. So, that must mean the skeleton figure, must have stenciled this outside somewhere. I’ll have to take a look around outside.

Pocketing the paper in her trench coat she moved towards the fireplace. It was cold, but there were indications that it had been previously used. It’s too hot to be using a fireplace right now. She picked through the coals and found scraps of some paper. Most of it was too small and burnt off to be of any use, but she did find one piece with a name on it. Zeke. It looked to be the name of some business, but what?

Nancy stood up and went back to the study room. Henry was still typing away at his computer.

“Henry? I have some questions for you”.

The man swiveled around and raised an eyebrow.

Start small Nancy, you don’t want to scare him. He already thinks you’re seeing things.

“How well did you know your uncle?”

Henry shrugged. “Barely knew him at all”.

“Didn’t he raise you?”

“I guess. If you could call sending me to boarding school, summer school, military school as raising a child. He may have looked after me, but he never cared to spend any time with me”.

“Oh”. Great going Drew. She tried again. “Well, what about your parents?”

“They died in a car crash when I was eight. Then I got dumped onto my uncle. End of his bachelorhood I guess”.

Okay, that didn’t go so well either. She might as well rip the whole Band-Aid off.

“I think this skeleton figure was looking for something in this house. Is there some big object or hidden money or something that people might want to get their hands on?”

Henry looked at her, puzzled.

“Uh, maybe? There’s a lot of junk in this house, as you can see. Some of it might actually be worth something.”

“Well, I think they were after whatever is locked up in the mausoleum box in the cemetery model. It has a lock on it and this,” she took out the crow stencil. “This must have been left by the skeleton figure. If we can unlock the mausoleum, we can get whatever’s inside before the skeleton figure comes back. Do you know where the solitary mausoleum is located?”.

“Look,” Henry began and Nancy internally groaned. She knew that word and tone all too well. Distrust and disinterest. It was rare to ever find another person who had the same interest and excitement in uncovering mysteries. Most people didn’t care about the little odd threads that didn’t add up, only to cry when everything become unwound. It was times like these where she sometimes wished she had her friends and fellow detectives, Frank and Joe Hardy, to back her up. People were more willing to listen to a group than an individual.

“Why are you so concerned about this skeleton figure?” Henry asked.

“Why are you so calm?” Nancy countered. “Someone broke into your house and you’re calm about it? I clearly interrupted them which means they might come back, which means you’re in danger”.

“I got a lot of work to complete”.

Who doesn’t. Nancy sighed, “You don’t need to help me, just tell me a bit about the garden space. Is there a mausoleum that’s separate from other burial grounds?

Henry hesitated. There was such a mausoleum and he knew it very well. Too well.

“What do you need from that mausoleum? The door is completely locked. No one had been inside in years”.

“I don’t think I need to go inside. I just need to look at the building itself. There are engravings that could match the key for the model one”.

Henry nursed his head. “Alright. Once you enter the cemetery and go past the bent tree, the mausoleum should be to your left. Just keep heading that way. Hard to miss”.

Nancy beamed. “Great, thanks so much. She turned to go out towards the door, then turned back.

“Yes?” Henry drawled.

“Do you happen to have any paper?”

“Sorry. Ask Renee”.

Nancy nodded then headed out the door.

Henry watched her leave then turned back to his computer where an excel sheet filled with numerical data awaited him. God, I hope I don’t regret this.

 Outside the Louisiana heat infused into Nancy’s skin. She was not accustomed to the humidity and could already feel her back start to warm up and stick to her dress shirt. She turned to her left and saw a small alcove draped over by green vines. Tucked inside was Renee who was busy potting young plants.

“Hello,” Nancy called out.

Renee looked up sharply and Nancy wasn’t sure whether it was the heat or Renee’s grey eyes that initiated the sweat droplets down her back.

“Hello, dear. Welcome to my little lantern-lit corner of the world. Come in here where it’s dry”.

“What are you growing?” Nancy asked.

“Whatever I need dear”.

“Nothing like freshly grown herbs to add to your food, right?”

Renee looked hard at Nancy and her voice dropped.

“I don’t use these herbs for cooking, darling”.

Then what do you use them for? Nancy wanted to ask Renee this, but the older woman switched topics.

“Have you had a chance to talk to Henry yet?”

“Yes, I have. From your conversation earlier, am I correct in assuming you two are not on the best of terms?”

“My you’re forward aren’t you!” Renee laughed. “Henry is a very morose, very negative young man. Very cunning too”.

“How so?”

“I am almost certain he’s selling his uncle’s property on the sly. When he’s not supposed to, that is”.

“Doesn’t it all belong to Henry now?” Nancy asked.

“Absolutely not!” Renee exclaimed. “According to Dr. Bolet’s will, Henry is to receive thirty percent of the estate. Dr. Bolet’s physician, Gilbert Buford, is to get thirty percent. Our Lady of Route 57 Dentistry and Cosmetology gets thirty percent, and I am to receive ten percent”.

“Is the cemetery part of the estate?”

“Yes and no. It’s not legally part of the estate, but it technically belongs to the Bolet family. It all belongs to Henry now, along with his thirty percent”.

“Who is Gilbert Buford?”

“That’s Dr. Bolet’s heart doctor and best friend. Those two go long back. Thick as thieves”.

Nancy reflected on what Renee provided her with.

“Does Henry seem upset by only getting thirty percent?”

Renee drew her head up and stood tall. “Young lady,” she started. “The Bolet family is intrinsically connected to New Orleans. Henry is not only gaining assets, but also a name, title, and land. Thirty percent of the Dr. Bolet’s fortune is quite a tidy sum, never mind the Bolet family fortune and cemetery”.

“Oh”.

Renee looked towards her plants and slowly resumed her potting.

“I suppose I gave you the impression that Henry is greedy. While I cannot attest to it, Henry is nonetheless not someone you can trust. You best watch yourself around him”.

Renee potted some soil then paused.

“One more thing dear. That skeleton man, I’ve—I’ve seen him too. Now don’t ask me more questions, I don’t want to think about it. But just know, there is something in this house that’s just not right”.

Nancy nodded then switched the topic.

“Do you happen to have some paper?”

“Get the urge to draw something?”

“Yep!”

“Well, now. I know I have some paper in my room, but I won’t be able to go get it till after I’m done potting my plants”.

“I can help you pot the plants”

Renee laughed. “Impatient one you are! No. No. No need. Just take this key and go on up yourself. And while you’re at it. I’m feeling a bit hungry. In my cupboard there’s a stash of Koko Cringles. Be a dear and bring one down for me, and help yourself to one too”.

Nancy took the key and headed back inside. Henry didn’t acknowledge her entrance, so she continued out of the study and up the staircase. It was wonky and creaked a bit. There were four doors. One door was on a lower level and the other three were sequentially placed along the top most level.

She didn’t tell me which door was hers.

Nancy placed the key in the first door, but the handle had no lock. Curious, she pushed open the door and saw an empty room that was bare of anything save a drawer and bed. There was some clutter around the bed and she assumed it was Henry’s. Why would he sleep here though? It was so, lifeless. The rest of the house had character, but this room just looked sad. Nancy quickly shut the door and move up a floor.

The next door had a vase decoration near it, though Nancy didn’t recognize the plant resting within. This door had a lock and she tried the key. The door unlocked. She stepped inside.

 The room looked like a doll house. A creepy one at that. There was an elegant but simple bed with green bedsheets. The bedside cupboard. A vanity table was littered with all sorts of bottles and herbs, and a chest sat in one corner, opposite the bed. Nancy first went to the table.

A bottle with the label ‘hiccup powder’ sat at the forefront. Surely not, she thought as she picked up the bottle and opened it. But to her surprise the burst of powder caused a series of hiccups to come bursting out of her. She quickly put the bottle back, then began to rummage through the other bottles. There was nothing labelled sleeping powder or knock-out powder, though some of the bottles were unlabeled. She didn’t think it was wise to open them though. There was no paper on the table, so she went towards the cupboards.

Opening the top drawer, Nancy found the paper. She then opened the bottom drawer and found a stash of chocolate. Jackpot baby! She took one for Renee, and then ate one. The warmth of the melting chocolate felt good in the creepy room and Nancy couldn’t help but take one bar for the road. No telling when she would need to keep her fortitude up in this house. She got up and turned towards the door when something on the wall caught her eyes.

The wallpaper itself was old, faded and ripped in places, but clear as day in the centre were seven symbols surrounding a major rip. They contrasted a glaring red against the pale yellow wallpaper. Blood red. Nancy stepped towards the symbols and tentatively placed a finger on one sign. The colour was dry and odorless. Probably not blood. But she had no idea what those symbols meant.

Walking around the room, Nancy noticed a rocking chair and went towards it. Lightning flashed and as thunder rumbled, Nancy caught a glimpse of a doll. Not just any doll, but one she specifically saw with an old case of hers. A doll that belonged to a woman that died more than 200 years ago. Nancy had no idea how Renee could have gotten her hands on that doll seeing as the company closed a long time ago. She turned to her right and saw the chest.

Squatting down, she saw four abstract figures on each corner and a large blank circle at the centre. Surrounding the large circle were a multitude of buttons. Curious, she pressed one, and a line appeared on the centre circle. She pressed another and another line appeared. The centre image was now beginning to look like one of the corner figures. She pressed two more buttons but both failed to finish the image and the circle blanked out.  

Nancy looked back towards the wall symbols, then at the chest. Random symbol equals random symbol? She tried again to replicate one of the corner abstract figures. This time it worked and the figure turned blank. Curious lock, she thought as she solved the other three figures. Once all the figures turned blank she heard a click and the chest lifted a little.

Opening the chest, she saw all sorts of odds and ends and a book on hoodoo symbols. She opened the book up and skimmed through the pages. On one page she noticed that the symbols on the wall matched the one’s in the book. Beside each symbol a name was written. Bah? Boo? Dee? Mo? They didn’t spell anything, nor make any sense. Still, it was best to record it down. Nancy took out a notebook and pen from her trench coat and jotted down each symbol along with their associated name. She then packed everything up and headed out of the room and back towards the garden.

[ambarto]

Finwean Ladies Week Day Two: Lalwen

Headcanons again today, and this time I’d like to talk about my headcanons for Lalwen, which I think I have mentioned a little in the past but what better occasion than @finweanladiesweek to ramble about all my thoughts. I can tell you Lalwen is definitely one of my favorite characters to think about.

Lalwen was what we could call a biologist. She was fascinated with animals, and in particular with all the kinds of bugs, spiders, and various little creatures that crawl on the ground. She liked other animals too, although still of the small kind, and usually animals most people don’t overly like (think lizards, snakes, that kind of stuff). She maintained that those small and often unseen parts of the ecosystem were much more fascinating than the macroscopic world of large mammals and birds. She described many species, and while animals were her favorite field of study, she was also the first in Valinor to posit that mushrooms were not plants, which was a rather controversial statement at the time.

Out of all her siblings, she was the one who got along the best with Feanor. She was quick to brush off any unkind words he might say, and had a sharp enough tongue to put him back in his place. She actually rather enjoyed talking with him, as he was also a scholar, and could keep up with her discussions of the efficiency of spiderwebs even if it wasn’t really his field of study.

Regarding her other siblings, Lalwen’s favorite was Fingolfin. They argued a lot, but it was usually the kind of sibling spats that got forgotten quickly. He was always the most willing to engage with Lalwen’s interests, and to go with her on rides exploring Valinor. Findis and Finarfin, on the other hand, both had a fairly different temperament than Lalwen, and different interests too. While all four siblings loved each other, usually Findis and Finarfin stuck in one corner talking about one thing, while Fingolfin and Lalwen sat in another talking about something else.

Despite being a Princess, Lalwen’s presence in the politics of Valinor was almost non-existent. She learnt early on that all the occurrences of court didn’t interest her, and if she could avoid being present at any given occasion she did. Findis used to scold her sister much for this, calling her irresponsible, as she thought as members of the royal house it was their duty to engage with politics. Fingolfin, on the other hand, usually enabled his younger sister, thinking that there was no need for her to be as involved as the rest of their family.

Lalwen was always, and especially in her youth, a very restless spirit. Already as a child she was the kind of kid who was always outside and running around, and would hate having to be in the house for an entire day. Growing, she became that sort of girl who her parents almost never saw, so much she spent with her friends, and partying, and going on trips. And since she was old enough to travel on her own, she would so often take her horse and leave Tirion for days or weeks, or sometimes months too, to explore all there was to see in Valinor. It was because of this restlessness that she followed Fingolfin out of Valinor - the idea of an entire other continent she had never seen before was too big a temptation for her to stay behind, no matter how much her mother begged.

In Beleriand, she never had a land to rule over, because she never had any interest in ruling. Not only the various details and politics involved were things she had no interest into, but governing would also mean that she’d have to spend most of her time still in one place. For the most part, she made herself a home in Fingolfin’s lands, but would often travel around. It actually made her brother worry himself sick, as Lalwen had the tendency of leaving whenever and without sending letters or word of where she was, until six months later she would write him saying that she was staying in Himring for a while and also did Fingolfin know about this cool worm she had found?

She survived the Dagor Bragollach, but not easily. She was wounded on the field, and was carried out unconscious as Fingolfin’s forces retreated. She lost her hearing in one ear, and one of her legs was wounded in a way that left her with a heavy limp. The impaired mobility in particular wasn’t easy for her to deal with, as it made traveling so much harder. Not that she had much wish to entertain herself, not right after her brother had been killed. She remained in Fingon’s lands until the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, at which point she instead moved to the Falas with Cirdan, and later followed him to Balar. While she couldn’t fight on a battlefield, she had developed a great knowledge of poisons thanks to her studies on various venomous animals, and she helped develop cures for many of the poisons Morgoth used in his weapons.

After the War of Wrath, Lalwen decided she wouldn’t stay in Lindon under Gil-Galad. Part of the reason was that by then she had seen so many of her loved ones die that it brought her genuine pain to be around Gil-Galad and remember that he was almost all the family she had left, let alone have people call her ‘Princess’, as if the title meant anything by then. There was a loneliness in Lindon that could only be cured by being more alone, or at least, not with people who would constantly remind her of everything she had lost. But also, Lalwen’s desire to explore had never really stopped, and by then she had learnt how to deal with her disability, so she took a horse, and left.

Eventually, after much traveling, she realized that she was turning into an old lady, as Men said. She had traveled through all of Middle Earth, much of Harad, and had even decided to go look if she could Cuivienen a couple times, and she was growing tired of always being moving around. When she was a girl, that would have been the ideal, but after many thousands of years Lalwen found herself wishing to find a place to settle in. Not to mean that she would never travel again, just that she would have liked to have a nice house to go back to and rest, and know that there were people she knew waiting for her there. That being said, she also still wanted nothing to do with politics, not to mention that everyone else seemed to be handling things well, and she didn’t feel the need to upset any political balance with her reappearance. In the end, she decided to settle in Greenwood at some point during the Third Age. She did come clear to Thranduil about who she was, and he allowed her to stay so long as she did not cause trouble, which was alright by her. Other than him, very few people knew or suspected who the eccentric Noldo with a cane and a lot of opinions about taxonomical classifications was.

Lalwen had had through her life many romantic stories and affairs, and definitely more than many would deem appropriate for a Princess. With some Elven ladies, occasionally she’d fell in the bed of a mortal, and maybe once or twice in that of a Dwarf. The longer she lived the more she found old Valinorean ideas on marriage and courtship and so on rather stuffy. That being said, she had never really ruled out a wedding altogether, and the day she realized a Silvan hunter of Greenwood was starting to mean a lot to her, she decided maybe she was old enough to leave her amorous adventures behind and get herself a wife. Fortunately, her lady didn’t mind finding out that Lalwen was a mostly forgotten Noldor Princess, and Lalwen’s proposal was accepted with enthusiasm.

Eventually, Lalwen sailed back to the West with the Last Ship, together with Cirdan and Celeborn. She had seen as much of Middle Earth as there was to see, and while she did love the land, she had long since started thinking back about her homeland. Her wife, while not Eldar, had also started to get weary of a land that was more and more mortal and less and less suited for Elves, and decided that like many others of her people she also would have liked to follow the gulls.

Now, Findis, firstborn of Finwe and Indis, Princess of the Noldor, sister to the High King Arafinwe, known poet and debater, was as a general rule against violence, but when she saw her sister hop off a ship after six thousands years of no contact with a wife and apparently uncaring of having basically disappeared, her fist might have just happened to collide with Lalwen’s nose.