#[which was a bigger deal when you take into account that he was starving a good deal of the time]

[coollyinterferes]

  🤸‍♂️              🏌️

That’s basically how some of Robert’s little (failed) heists ended when he was a kid: Him being chased off/getting hit by a shopkeeper with a broom.

[irenadel]

So I recently read the short story “An Unwilling Apprentice” and found it all sorts of unsatisfying and intriguing, mostly because in canon we are given completely contradictory hints in regards to how old exactly Maul was when Sidious took him and in what circumstances he was taken.

1) Maul seems to remember nothing of Dathomir. True this can happen both if he was taken as a baby too young to remember or by sheer, ornery self-defense against remembering something less shitty that current circumstances.

1) a) Maul’s name: Maul says in Rebels that he used to have a name long ago, that was forgotten, which is just... I’m... it kills me okay? That just outright destroys the fuck out of me. Because it means he’s acknowldging a Dathomir he doesn’t remember, but now knows existed (thanks to Savage and that bitch Talzin, whom I stan), a Time Before Sidious. And also because... I don’t think “Maul” is actually a sithly soubriquet. “Maul” sounds too much like other nightbrother names, which sure, all sound sithly but that’s because Dathomir is neck deep in Dark Side Aesthetics. It’s entirely possible that “Maul” is his actual birth name. Talzin and Savage never call him anything else, though Talzin would have a vested interest in restoring to him any sort of lost name, maybe not in the immadiate aftermath of dragging Maul out of the pit of raving insanity, but at any point afterwards... maybe? a little? Mother Talzin if you named him something less metal please speak up...

2) There is that one depiction of Maul in Son of Dathomir, presumably at the time Sidious just got hold of him.

And like that’s absolutely adorable but he IS too old to not remember anything because of age (then again comic book artists are notorious for drawing weirdly adulty kids), so that means he did not remember because he blocked most of his memories? Well.... my problem with this is that you create a sort of phantom (ha!) preMaul where you have to imagine Maul sans Sidious’s influence and that’s.... strange if you’re not thinking about a baby or a toddler who have just the beginning of a personality. It’s unsatisfactory for me at least, because you strip Maul of all we know of Maul and chase after the shadow of a kid who no longer exists.

3) We have two accounts of how Maul ends up with Sidious, one of them Talzin insisting he was stolen (what does that mean? furtively? or by coercion like Asajj) and the other being Sidious’s account from the comic Son of Dathomir “a not so appreciated gift” or some old sithly nonsense like that. One must consider that both parties are liars, who is the worst liar of the two? who the fuck knows? So it’s entirely possible that both accounts are wrong or one is right or both are bogus.

3) a) Then there’s also that thing where apparently Talzin wanted to be Sidious’s apprentice and like... for what? and how? and why? and how did you think this was gonna come out okay!? You’re already either clan mother or poised to be clan mother, what do you need this shmuck for!? (Wait! did she become clan mother because of what he taught her? Intriguing new possibility) Like with all competent, older dark siders (I see you Dooku) I am always left baffled by how anyone who is both powerful and saavy ever gets roped into siding with Sidious. The dude is like Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The Movie. There is nothing about him that says Trustworthy... unless he actually has the chance to groom you since childhood. Like I get Maul, Anakin and Ben Solo.... but WTF Dooku and Talzin?! You guys knew better!!!!

3) b) This is happening when Sidious’s own master is still alive right? Whether you take that to be Plagueis or else... So, so, so.... is Sidious hanging around Dathomir to find out a way to kill his own master? Doesn’t he say something along the lines of “I was learning from her when she thought she was learning from me”? I dunno, sounds like a shitty Sidious thing to do.

So all this to say “An Unwilling Apprentice” presents us a scenario where Maul is in Dathomir long enough to be a boy taught by his mother, who is sometimes bullied by other, bigger boys, and old enough to understand fishy things are happening between his mom and the creepy dude (Sidious). And the manipulation is spot on, don’t get me wrong, Sidious does that thing he does with Anakin where he tells Talzin to do horrible things to herself to gain more power and all these things do is drive a wedge between her and her son, all the while he is stoking anger and resentment in Maul, so that when the time comes Maul goes with him willingly even though that was not the deal he and Talzin had struck. So it is true both that this boy is being “stolen” but also given as a sort of gift to Sidious...

It’s just that this author does the thing authors in Star Wars always do, where they ignore previously established canon, because we can’t actually have one coherent galaxy can we? Because... one, Maul is old enough to remember everything... and like okay I can go with him just blocking those memories.... but this also means Maul was taken old enough for Savage to remember and Savage doesn’t seem to in TCW. Let’s grant that Maul is an unreliable narrator who may be supressing memories or lying about how much he remembers.... but SAVAGE doesn’t remember him. How much Savage actually remembers of his brothers and life is also up for debate, given the Dark Side Steroids and brainwashing he underwent, but still.... STILL it seems the only one who fully remembers Maul is Talzin.

But then we have this in “An Unwilling Apprentice”:

“Matters, however, were only to get worse, for later that night, having been hauled from the pit, the boy found himself introduced to those his keeper claimed would become his kin: a tall, wiry boy of a similar age and a stocky, broad shouldered boy at least a year older.

‘These two boys had for too long been starved of the love and attention all children crave, for the keeper was a stern and self-righteous man, and their mother had long before been taken from them to join a mysterious order from which she had never returned. It seemed fitting, then, that the two of them resented the new boy as much as he resented them, for he represented another mouth to feed and another who would vie for the keeper’s scant attention.“

Are the boys bullying Maul, Savage and Feral??? What the hell kind of jump in characterization is this? Because Savage and Feral seem to be adorable bros who just bro around being bros and not harming anyone until Asajj shows up to fuck their whole shit up... And like I get people can change a lot growing up but...... come on, you don’t have time to take me through such a radical change in personality, this is a short story! Or maybe these bullies have nothing to do with his brothers. (There’s another brother mentioned as a “weakling”? Is THAT Savage? But then Savage is definitely Force sensitive and not a weakling.... is it Feral? Why mention weakling brother if we don’t get enough information on him to place him or have him do enough to affect the story? AUGH!)  And there’s the line, “their mother had been taken from them”.... So nightsisters grow up with nightbrothers? What? Is this keeper brother Viscus? What is going on? What insanity is this?

This is what I mean by ignoring canon. Dathomir is presented as a society violently segregated by gender. You never see any young boys with the nightsisters or any young girls with the nightbrother. For all intents and purposes they all live apart until Violent Breeding Ritual of Rapey Undertones ensues. Any story where you want Maul to be raised at least partially by Talzin must account for this segregation and in that sense you don’t actually... need.... the bullies.... they are kind of superfluous.... You have a whole caste system beating down on babyMaul and his mother wanting to keep him besides her. But then once more you have to account for olderMaul remembering nothing of this. Which okay, fair enough, Savage seems not to remember either. Neither of them seem to be scared or even wary of women... though by all means Savage should definitely be....

I just think it was a good plot with a weak setup that ignored a super useful canon setting and does not account for Maul remembering nothing of all of this! 

When considering all of this I wonder if the most interesting explanation is that Maul did spend enough time in Dathomir to remember but he does not from sheer trauma. I think adult Maul seems to depend on Sidious a lot but... he also seems a lot more... I’m not going to say rebellious, but I’ll say “aware” than Anakin. He goes behind Sidious’s back much more than Vader and is way more resentful of his position as a subordinate (and ready to lord his masterdom over Savage as soon as he gets it... but.... harmlessly.....like siths but for babies, babysiths).

Maybe the more interesting view is to think that Maul remembers nothing and it is only upon encountering Savage and Talzin that, little by little, he begins to remember pieces of it. It would explain his sudden loyalty to Talzin. It would explain his desire for a long forgotten name that Sidious never gave him... it would explain... a lot...

[gubler-me-up]

Unsung Heroes

Request: Hi! I just found your account and I am in LOVE. I know this is a sort of very specific ask, but could you write Spencer Reid dating a masculine/trans masculine person? I think it would be really cool so yeah lol thank u in advance 🥺🥺💖💖 (ur literally so damn talented)

A/N: Thank you so much for the request, anon! Sorry it took a long time to get to but I’m glad I’m getting it out before the end of the year. This is my first masc trans reader fic out of two in my requests, so I hope you enjoy it! Please let me know if there is anything I can improve on or anything you would like to see in my next masc trans spencer reid fic that I didn’t portray well here. I did a bit of research to make sure my portrayal was accurate but I am always open to improving my work especially so readers feel comfortable and represented while reading. Hope you enjoy and happy reading! 💕

Couple: Spencer Reid/Masc trans!reader

Category: Fluff

Content warning: None just pure ~fluff~

Word count: 2.5k

————-

You threw on your favourite flannel to complete your outfit. You looked at yourself in the mirror one last time to fix your hair properly before Spencer arrived. He might not be a fan of styling his hair but making sure your hair was to your liking was your thing. Especially after getting a fresh cut it was important to you that you made the best of it before your hair started to grow back.

You then quickly checked your beard to see if there were any noticeable razor bumps. You didn’t see any visible ones but the ones below the surface were always the dangerous ones. You ran your hand over your beard to feel for any up and coming bumps. You stopped your finger over a spot that felt tender to the touch.

“Ah, you already feel as if you’re going to be a pain,” you mumbled to yourself.

You heard soft knocks on your door before you could continue your battle with your soon to be razor bump. You grabbed your wallet and keys off of your dresser before leaving your bedroom to answer the door. You opened the door to see Spencer standing in front of you with his hands gripped on his satchel strap and an excited smile plastered on his face.

He gently lifted his satchel to bring your attention to it. You chuckled as you saw how full it looked. You looked at him with a quizzical expression as he started to laugh himself.

“I thought we could read some light literature as we indulge in these breakfast burritos you’re so excited about,” he said.

“I haven’t read a good book in a while let alone encyclopedias,” you chuckled.

“They’re not all encyclopedia’s. Just one,” he said.

You laughed as you closed the door behind you. You didn’t believe him one bit about only having one encyclopedia in his satchel but you weren’t going to overly tease him about it. You were more interested in him trying a breakfast burrito for the first time.

You originally didn’t get the hype over breakfast burritos for a while until you were running late to work one morning and saw a food truck nearby. They convinced you to try their breakfast burrito and you’ve been loyal to them ever since. You knew Spencer was more of a coffee and go person but you thought he might enjoy trying something new.

“We’ll find out the truth after we get something to eat,” you said.

Spencer smiled and nodded as he loosened his grip on his satchel strap. He let his hand loosely fall to his sides. You smirked as you reached your hand out to him and he immediately grabbed it. To say he was forever touched starved was an understatement.

You were glad you could give him something he didn’t already have plenty of in his life. Touching books and case files all day definitely couldn’t give him the physical touch he deeply desired. You were happy every day for the past six months you could be the one to embrace him in any amount of touch. Bonus points for him always smelling good as well.

Spencer pressed the button for the elevator. “Are these breakfast burritos really as good as you say they are?”

“You’re doubting me now?” You asked.

“No, I would never do that. I’m just saying we sometimes have different tastes in things,” he said.

“Oh? What kind of things?” You asked.

“Well, you prefer listening to more contemporary artists while I’m more into classical,” he said.

“Musical taste is whatever though. I can get down to Mozart any day,” you chuckled.

He laughed. “Well, you take your coffee with oat milk and three brown sugars. I take mine black with a little sugar.”

“If you think half the sugar canister is a little sugar then I don’t wanna know what you consider a lot of sugar.”

You both laughed as the elevator doors opened. You both stepped into it and you pressed the lobby floor. You looked at him with a smirk before grabbing his chin. He smiled at your touch as he looked lovingly into your eyes.

“What?” He asked.

“I think there’s one thing we can both agree we have good taste in,” you said.

You leaned in and kissed Spencer on the lips which you knew he longed for. He didn’t hesitate to embrace you fully into his mouth. You don’t think you’ve ever kissed a guy with softer lips than him. He latched his hands onto your face and started to stroke his thumb against your beard. It ran over the growing razor bump but you didn’t mind if he touched it.

You parted your lips from him before you changed your mind and opted to spend the day with him in your apartment. He chuckled and didn’t move his hands away from your face. It didn’t seem as if the good doctor was quite finished with you.

“You want another taste?” You joked.

He nodded. You obliged and leaned in to kiss him again. You could have him for breakfast all day every day. Since breakfast was taken up by a breakfast burrito with your names on it, you guessed you could have him for lunch instead.

————

You and Spencer had found a rock to sit on near the lake. The park was quite full for a Sunday morning but with such nice weather you couldn’t blame people for wanting to be out and about so early. You watched Spencer carefully as he took his time eating his breakfast burrito. You couldn’t quite tell if he liked it or not based on his blank stare into the water as he ate.

“How do you like it?” You asked.

He quickly snapped out of his long gaze into the water. He looked over at you and smiled but it couldn’t fool you. You knew something was running around that big brain of his and you wanted to know what.

“I like it. It’s definitely an interesting concept,” he said as he took another small bite.

“Spence, what’s wrong?” You asked.

He shook his head in response to you as he finished chewing. You gave him a second to finish whatever was left in his mouth before he started talking. He let out a drawn-out sigh before licking his lips.

“I was going over case files this week and went over this one from a few years ago. This little boy’s family was murdered  and he was the only survivor. Found out he left his aunt and uncle’s house to go into foster care. Apparently, he’s been having a hard time no matter where he goes,” he said.

“Well, from being a human I can tell you family sucks but from working in social work I can tell you the foster care system sucks. It’s hard to look at some of these cases and talk to these children having a hard time for sure,” you said.

“I just don’t feel as if I’m making a difference,” he confessed.

You shook your head in protest. If anyone was making a difference it was Dr. Spencer Reid. You knew how doubtful he could be of his capabilities sometimes but you knew he just needed a little reminder here and there.

“Are you kidding? You’re out here risking your life to catch serial killers every day and you don’t think you’re making a difference?” You asked.

“But it just stops there. The lives ruined never get fixed. The survivors never know a sense of peace. I just help solve cases and then move onto the next thing,” he said.

“You don’t have to deal with the social work or therapy side of these cases because there are people who take that area over for you. You do enough, Spence,” you said.

“And you do the most, Y/N. You’re so good at social work and when you’re not doing that you’re dedicating your time volunteering for homeless youths,” he said.

“It’s easy to volunteer though. Anyone can do it,” you said.

“And here I am not doing that.”

Spencer stared back into the depths of the water as he took another bite from his breakfast burrito. A bigger bite this time. You were honestly impressed. He probably took a bigger bite so he had more time to chew and less time to talk about his worries. A true genius.

You looked into the water yourself. The waves coming in reminded you of what one of your coworkers said to you once. You laughed to yourself which brought Spencer’s attention back to you.

“You know when I first told one of my coworkers I was transgender they asked if my transitioning period felt as if that one scene in Mulan where she looked at her reflection and knew she was supposed to reflect who she was inside and then decided to pretend to be a man to go into war on behalf of her father. I said not exactly and before I could explain to them why their analogy wasn’t really accurate, they hugged me and said they were proud I was able to reflect who I was inside on the outside,” you said.

“The lake reminded you of your coworker’s ignorance?” He questioned.

You chuckled. “No, it reminded me of that scene in Mulan and then that reminded me of my coworker’s ignorance. That being said though they did tell me how a lot of people they know are unsung heroes. I asked what they meant by that and they said unsung heroes are people who are trying their best but aren’t acknowledged or are overlooked by others or themselves.”

“Are you trying to say I’m a little harsh on myself?”

“Just a little.”

He looked back out into the lake again. You could see the wheels in his head turning as he thought about what you said. You continued to enjoy your breakfast sandwich as you let him ponder on your words. Usually it was the other way around and the words you were pondering were a bit more complex but you were nonetheless glad you could get him thinking.

By the time he looked at you, your burrito was nearly done. His whole time thinking he hadn’t taken another bite of his burrito. You didn’t know if you were happy he was about to talk to you about his insights or upset because he made a good breakfast burrito get cold.

“You don’t think I’m an unsung hero do you?” He asked.

You shook your head. “Of course not. I think you’re just a hero who wants to save the whole world at once but can barely finish a breakfast burrito.”

He chuckled. “This thing’s huge.”

“And so is the world but just like your bites, you have to solve issues within it in small nibbles,” you joked.

He laughed as he took another bite out of it. He tried to chew it with a smile on his face but you knew he hated the fact it was cold. You laughed at him as he swallowed the remains of his bite. He carefully wrapped his half-eaten burrito before looking at you with a wide smile. You were glad to see him smiling again and the doubt lifted from his face.

“I think you’re right,” he said.

“You think I’m right? Say that I’m right again and you might just have to hand over your Ph.D. to me,” you joked.

He chuckled. “Which one?”

You both laughed. When Spencer made a joke, it was definitely one for the books. However, when he made a good joke it was one for the history books. You believed the longer you two are together the better his humour could become.

“All jokes aside, I want to spend my free time volunteering with homeless youths with you,” he said.

You looked at him surprised but a smile soon appeared on your face. You grabbed his hand and squeezed it. He looked at you with those big, beautiful brown eyes of his filled with hope. You nodded your head.

“I would love for you to volunteer with me. I think the kids would love learning a thing or two from you,” you said.

“Teach?” You said.

“Yeah. Every Friday we teach youths a different arrangement of skills that will help them in life. It’s a great sight seeing them have hope in their eyes again. I first started with counselling transgender youths in the program and have branched out to other members of the LGBTQ2S+. I now help homeless youths who have been victims of physical abuse. It’s definitely hard stuff to hear but seeing their faces when they know they’re being helped through their problems is the biggest reward I could ever ask for.”

Throughout your whole speech you could see tears at the brim of Spencer’s eyes. He tried to wipe his eyes before any tears could fall out but you already knew you had touched his soft spot. He smiled brightly at you before letting out a soft chuckle.

“I hope they like physics,” he said.

You laughed. “Taught the Dr. Spencer Reid way, I think they will have a new appreciation of the science.”

You both broke out into laughter again. You broke the laughter by kissing him on the lips. You could never get over how happy he looked every time you kissed him.

“I love you, Spencer,” you said.

He grinned. “I love you too, Y/N.”

“How about we get you some real breakfast and head back to my place for lunch?” You said.

You stood up on the rock and placed your hand out for Spencer to use to get up. He gladly grabbed onto it as you hoisted him up. For someone with a Ph.D. in physics you would think that he would have a better sense of how to balance. It was just another cute quirk of his you loved.

“Some real breakfast?” He questioned.

“Yeah, your coffee with a “little” sugar,” you said.

“Ah, my real breakfast. So what’s going to be for lunch?” He asked.

You grabbed his hand to hold as you two walked through the park. You smirked at him as you looked him up and down. He blushed as he let you examine him from head to toe.

“Your encyclopedia’s of course,” you said.

“Wait, what? Why my encyclopedia’s?” He asked.

“Ah-ha, so there are more than one in your bag,” you said.

He sighed. “Was this your way of making me confess that you’re right again?”

“Yes.”

“So there’s no lunch?”

“You’re lunch.”

“Ah, I see you’re on a diet then.”

“You know what? I love that my humour’s rubbing off on you so well.”

“I think it’s a sign we belong in each other’s life for a long time to come.”

You laughed. “I’m not the romantic type but I have to agree.

“So how come I’ve told all my friends from work you’re the most romantic person I know?”

“Oh? I guess I’ll show you how romantic I can be during lunch.”

—–

MASTERLIST

Tagged: @shadyladyperfection, @slutforthegubes, @pinkdiamond1016, @spencerreidsthings, @itsmyblogandillreblogifiwantto, @slutforsr @bxtchboy69, @fallinallinmendes @haihappen5 @mgg-theprettiestboy @siltuz-png @ptrs-prkrs @tclaerh @agentadhd @alexmarie29 @closetedreidstan @mac99martin @blxckhearthood @jesspavlik0vsky @katexrichardson @keniaasf @reidbuck @corishirogane3 @thegoddamncrazycatlady @keniaasf @pastelbabygirl19 @shadybagelsludgecolor @bootycrackraisinjuice @vintagebeauty1496 @bluerose512​ @laneybobeczko-g​ @averyhotchner​ @littlewierdalien @cynbx @mggsprettygirl​

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: A line not to be crossed

( Don’t forget to come see my on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord ) Deep in the Vergo cluster was the world of Hypress. A serene world of forests, exotic wildlife, and most importantly the central headquarters of the Zoomboian Trade Organization.

Unlike other trade conglomerates who have their headquarters on busy trade worlds filled with never ending streams of shuttles and ships transporting untold billions worth of cargo, the ZTO had placed their headquarters on one of the most remote locations in the galaxy. In fact it was well known that despite owning Hypress outright the only standing structure on the entire planet was the headquarters building itself and a nearby landing pad.

Some would consider this level of distance from major trading hubs and routes to be a hinderance but it was in fact a power move by the ZTO showing that they were so assured of their success that they did not need to be in the center of trade networks to know their investments were sound. This level of assurance and confidence was often enough to saw potential clients to go through the ZTO rather than other organizations, but for those requiring more they were often flown to the world itself to conduct their negotiations in person in the shadow of the ZTO's grandeur. Thus Hiplin found himself sitting across from his latest and possibly most important client. Markus Flint was the founder and current president of the outer rings mining guild. He was well built for a human which was unsurprising considering  having started out as a lowly miner himself. Markus had risen through the ranks and come to manage entire asteroid belt mining operations before breaking away to form the mining guild. His popularity among the laborers drew many miners to him until the guild was the only source of professional miners in the outer systems forcing mining companies to pay the guild to lease their members.

The ZTO had been trying for decades now to enter into the lucrative mineral trade but had been stone walled so to say by the mining companies seeking to keep their competitors at a minimum. It was only the creation of the mining guild that the ZTO decided to approach the matter from a different perspective.

If they could strike a deal with Mr. Flint then they would be partners with the sole source of skilled labor miners in the outer systems allowing them the leverage needed to pry the death grip the established mining companies had on the industry.

They had invited Mr. Flint to Hypress to negotiate just that and had sent their top negotiators Hiplin and Glom to facilitate the deal.

"Does the meal to your liking?" asked Hiplin.

"Aye," Markus began before cutting off a large piece of meat and biting into it, "if this were any fresher than I would think me self back on terra itself."

From the corner of his blackened eye Hiplin could see glom nodding. It had been his idea to procure the favored meat of humans called "steak". He had originally purchase an entire cargo hauler of the food for their chefs to practice on until they could cook it perfectly. A seemingly needless expenditure that now was bearing fruit.

"That is most satisfactory to hear."

Hiplin returned to his meal as well which was equally as carefully planned out as had been the accusation of the meat. Research had shown that humans are somewhat uncomfortable with alien features, such as his vertical mouth and oddly shaped teeth. Therefore his meal consisted of foods that would require him to chew longer before swallowing leading to fewer bites and fewer visual displays of his mouth opening to put the human at ease. Even the table itself had been hand picked for its circular nature giving all those present a feeling of equality.

Inwardly Hiplin had been frustrated with the level of subtext human culture had established over their few thousand years of existence that surpassed even the oldest species of the universe. Humans, though outwardly simple in nature, had developed a seemingly sixth sense to detect underlining messages that made them shrewd traders.

"I must say I was quite surprised to hear the all mighty Zoomboian's wanted to talk with me."

Hiplin looked from his meal to see Markus carefully examining his cup. "With all this wealth and power you have it's hard to believe what you would need me for."

As Hiplin was still chewing his food it was glom's que to speak. "We are not all money grubbers here you know, Mr. Flint." Glom put down his fork and pointed to himself. "I started out as nothing more than an accountant when I first joined the ZTO and I have never forgotten my origins in the back rows of my accounting hall."

Markus grunted and set the cup down and regarded Glom, his clear blue eyes sizing up the negotiator. "I can respect that as a made man myself, but even I don't own an entire planet."

"Yet." Hiplin finished chewing and chimed in while pointing his own fork at Markus. Not capable of producing a facial expression of a smile, it was deemed the motion would be the equivalent of the friendly expression.

Markus let out a loud deep laugh and slapped the table before raising his cup again. "I will drink to that!" He downed the contents in a single gulp before resting the cup down and swatting his stomach.

"I best step away before I make myself as big as a planet; lord knows I can't help myself when I'm around good food."

"Surely you jest." Hiplin said, putting down his own fork. "You appear no larger than any other of your species."

Markus raised and eyebrow and stood up from the table. "Are you joking? If I was any bigger  I would be hauled off to the slaughter house and sold as discount Sunday diner."

Hiplin did not reply as his mind raced. He was unsure if he should continue to compliment Mr. Flint or acknowledge his statement. His training dictated that he should never insult a clients appearance, but with humans the rules were never set in stone. If he continued complimenting him after such a statement he may suspect that his statements are needless flattery and think negatively; but if he confirmed Flint's statement he risked taking what was meant as humor and turning it into fact risking the possibility of anger.

While Hiplin continued debating internally it was Glom who spoke.

"If you were any bigger you would not be able to fit through the door rather than get all the way to the slaughter house."

Hiplin's eyes went wide at glom's remark and he shot a deathly stare at him which Glom met in turn and with a slight nod gestured for patience.

"This one gets it!"   Markus slapped the table again and laughed. "If me wife ever learned I couldn't fit through a door she'd starve me for weeks to make sure I could fit through grate!"

Markus continued laughing as Hiplin let out a deep sigh of relief. Glom was smirking as he had correctly guessed which tactic would most prevail against a human like Flint. After careful study Glom had determined that Mr. Flint was the human type to despise flattery and favored the simple direct approach in speech patterns.

 Hiplin stood himself now and gestured to the adjoining room. "Perhaps we can continue our negotiations now in more formal settings."

Markus nodded as Glom stood as well and the three made their way to the next room over. As they reached the doorway Glom turned to the still smiling flint and said "If your wife is as plum as you are than I am sure we can send you some larger doors when you return home."

The first sign something was wrong was when Hiplin noticed had stopped walking. Markus turned slowly and to Hiplin's surprise the previous smiling face was gone, now replaced with one of underlining hatred and anger.

"What did you just say about me wife?"

The words came slowly but were as sharp as diamonds.

Glom's own expression appeared surprised and worried so hiplin spoke to try and defuse the situation.

"What I believe my cohort meant to say was-"

"Was I talking to you!?" Markus rounded on Hiplin as a few droplets of spit sprayed from his mouth at the outburst.

Markus turned around again and walked towards glom. "I asked you, what did you just say about me wife?" He stabbed his finger into glom's chest with each syllable.

"I..I..What I meant to say was.." Glom was stammering now as his mind raced.

Markus was now standing in front of Glom and though he was only a few inches taller than Glom it felt as if he was towering over him now. Markus leaned down slightly so he was face to face.

"Did you just call me wife fat?"

Glom's mouth opened and closed several times while he looked toward Hiplin for help but nothing came.

Markus fixed Glom with his coldest stare yet and spoke slowly. "You don't eve'a talk about me wife."

Before Glom could respond Markus turned to Hiplin with disgust written all over his face. "We're done here." he said and then strode off to the exit with his boots beating heavily against the fine wood.

Glom and Hiplin panicked and quickly followed after Mr. flint.

"Mr flint, please accept my humblest apologies for my cohorts behavior." Hiplin spoke huffingly while trying to keep pace with Markus. "He is terrible with human customs of humor."

"Terribly so!" Glom chipped in now moving to the opposite side of Markus.

"You don't call a man's wife fat to 'is face and expect him to act like everything is fine an dandy!" Markus huffed loudly and pushed open the thick doors to the hallway leading to the landing pad. "You're lucky I don't have me mining hammer right now or else they'd be washing you out of the carpet for months!"

glom was about to say something when Hiplin grabbed him by the shoulder and motioned him to be quiet.

Before they knew it the group was on the landing pad with Markus making his way back to the mining guild's shuttle with the two negotiators in toe.

"Please!" Hiplin begged as Markus began ascending the boarding ramp, "Let us forget these last few minutes and resume our negotiations; it will greatly benefit us both in the end."

Markus turned and looked down at Hiplin with nothing but disgust across his face.

"I've seen ye true colors now and there ain't no way I or me guild would ever do business with the likes of you!"

With that he went up the boarding ramp and the shuttle ascending back into the stars leaving the two negotiators dumbstruck on where things had gone so wrong.

[hitozy]

gentle love ‹ masterlist › twin stars

𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭

It didn't come as a surprise when days later my parents invited us over for dinner. What was surprising was seeing Jae there, and no one else in the family.

"She's been feeling lonely, yn. You and him are her only friends - she feels left out of the group. Try to understand."

I did understand, I understand better than they think. I could tell by the way she eyes him lustfully when we came in the house, the way her hug lingered longer than his, her coy smile and the drag of her hand travelling sensually down his arm. She wants Iwaizumi back and she couldn't make it any more obvious.

My only consolation is that Iwaizumi looks incredible uncomfortable and keeps on swatting her hand away or giving her a stern look, but she doesn't ease up on her assault. When she leans in close to him, pressing her breasts against his arm, making him blush is when I've had enough.

I feel vile rising up my throat, the food I had just swallowed trying to come back. Excusing myself, I saw a slight worry in Iwaizumi's eyes, he started to get up to accompany me, Jae pulls him back down. "Wait Haji! I need to tell you about this thing that happened at work, you would never believe..." As I moved further away, the sound of her voice blended into silence.

Instead of heading to the restroom in the corridor, I went inside my old room looking for comfort in my memory filled four walls. I sat there in silence looking at the pictures of my childhood and on each of them, there's Iwaizumi without fail. Some have Oikawa here and there, Jae is also in many of them, Maki and Mattsun in between. The only ones that don't have Iwaizumi in there is during those four years he left for Uni and was slightly replaced by Maki and Mattsun that never left me alone. But I found no solace in these once happy memories. The moment I found out about Jae and Iwaizumi, the lies and the betrayal, they had turned bitter.

"Haji haji! Where are you going?" Jae's voice called out from outside my bedroom door, dread creeping up my body at the thought of having to witness another devastating separation. I have half a mind of jumping out of my bedroom window, just to avoid to breaking my heart further.

"I'm looking for yn. She didn't look so good."

Jae huffs annoyed, "It's always yn! 'YN is coming with us' or 'YN was sick, she needed me there' or the best one! 'YN is my friend, I will always be on her side.' When is this false care of yours going to stop? I know I made a mistake on regecting you Haji. I want to take it back, I want us back, don't you?"

My blood ran cold in that moment, her words structing a cord in my heart, revealing insecurities buried deep for years. I had always had a subconscious feeling that Iwaizumi only hung out with me during his teen years out of pity, no matter what he said.

"False care?" He was right outside my bedroom door, I could hear the shuffling of his clothes and the clacking of Jae's high heels stop. "Did you just say false care?"

"Is that all you picked up on? Haji, please, I want-"

"Don't you ever say that about me and yn, Jae. You have no right. If there is anyone here that has any 'false care' it would be you."

"Haji-"

"If you actually care about anyone but yourself, then you would stay in your place and stop with all of this. You had your chance, Jae. I gave you so many chances, I begged you the night before the wedding and you said no. There is no going back."

"Why are you so mad? We could just runaway now and forget everything Haji!"

I hear him sigh and I can picture the disappointment on his face, the annoyance, the anger. Its palpable in the air even with the door separating us. "I am mad, Jae, because I've been in love with an asshole for so many years. Because I still love you, an asshole, even though I'm trying really really hard to forget you. Because I-," I can see the way the doorknob jiggles, a tell-tale sign that he rested his hand on it, "I can't believe how little you care about yn. If what you said on the wedding day is true, which I still don't believe; why would you do this to her? She's your cousin, she's been like a sister to you and so many of us for years and you're okay letting her suffer this way?"

"I just- on that day you said you didn't care if she was actually in love with you. Why are you-"

"You and I and every single person in the world that has met my mochi know that she deserves better. So much better, so why in the world would you do this? YN loves you, so much, and you'd just drop her like that Jae? What is wrong with you?"

"Easy. She has you and I want you, that's what's wrong."

Its silent for a moment, I can imagine the incredulous look on Iwaizumi's face at her words. Is he going to jump at her and kiss her? Will he runaway with her and leave me? The mere thought of it tears another piece of my heart and I don't think I could take anymore. I stand up to hide in the bathroom, from anyone that may come in.

But then he speaks.

"Well, Jae, I am hers and you are just going to have to deal with it."

The silence was deafening and the tears I was shedding, the sobs I was holding back only worsened the nausea I already had. Running to my bathroom as fast and as quiet as I could, I barely made it to empty my stomach.

If they spoke more outside, I knew nothing about it. Iwaizumi came in moments later to brush and hold my hair out of my face, rubbing my back. Once I was done and all cleaned up, he pulled me in close and kissed my forehead, "Are you feeling better, mochi?"

I observed his face and whatever emotion he had while speaking to Jae was long gone. His eyes showed worry and tenderness. As I reached out to rub this forehead to stop him from deepening his wrinkles I feel a bit better. If Iwaizumi is here, then it means he's no leaving, not for now and I can live with it. "A bit, but I wanna go home and watch a movie."

He grinned at me, making my heart skip a beat like as if everything that happened a while ago was nonexistent, "Cartoon or 4D?"

"Both?"

"Both it is then, my sweet mochi. Let's go and say our bye's now. Your dad might get the wrong idea and come to shoot my head off."

I snorted, remembering the time when Iwaizumi lost the inter-high and sneaked into my room for comfort, cuddling me in just sweatpants when my dad walked in and had a fit. I repeated the words he had said back then, "Not in my house nor with my daughter, Iwaizumi!"

He chuckled, "Never been more afraid in my life, even though you were there."

"What does that mean?"

He only gave me a secretive smile and bopped my nose. We said our goodbye's to my parents - noting how my mother didn't give us any leftovers, probably afraid to get me sick, even though it was her fault. As we walked out, I also noticed something else missing or more like someone else, "Where's Jae?"

Iwaizumi tensed under my fingers, wrapping his arm tighter around me. What worried me was the sudden tense smile my mother gave me and the slight anger radiating of my father.

"She had to leave, love. An emergency."

I watched them closely and a horrible thought came up in my mind. Did they know about them?

I looked at my mother and I saw guilt in her eyes, "Oh honey, I'm sorry. If I had known how jealous Jae was about you marrying Iwaizumi, I would have never invited her."

... What?

"But I should have seen it coming," Mother continued, "She has always been jealous of you, since you were kids. Always taking your stuff or blaming you for things you never did. I would have expected her to grow up," she huffed annoyed, "but it seems I was hoping to much from her."

She caressed my cheek, "It's a good thing Hajime put her in her place. Such a good husband!"

Oh thank God, they only heard the last part of it.

My father takes my hand in his, it had always been much bigger and covered with callouses from years of hard work. "My darling, if anyone ever tries to hurt you or make you feel less worthy than you are, please know that it is not true," he kissed the back of my hand, like he's always done, "a princess must always be cared and treasured. Always remember it and if not, I will be here to do so."

He cracks a grin at Iwaizumi, "But I guess you won't be coming to me for it, will you? You have Hajime to do it now, and I would believe you prefer it that way."

The sudden blush that appeared on my face made all of them laugh, the tense atmosphere of my question forgotten in the wind.

"I'll make sure to remind her that she is nothing less than a queen, old man."

"I'll hold you accountable then, Hajime."

―

Later that night, in the comfort of my bed Iwaizumi comes in bearing gifts. Tea for my upset stomach, blankets and a few sandwiches. "You hardly ate anything, so I though this would be better for you."

"But you made like, ten, Hajime."

"... I'm starving, alright?"

My head resting under his chin, his arm draped around my shoulders, my leg thrown over his, covered up in the softest blankets ever, a wedding gift from Oikawa with a letter that I keep in my bedside.

He's a tough cookie, YN. You and I, we both know it but please, don't give up on him. I've only seen him smile so carelessly when your around. He's carefree and senselessly fun when you appear. I only see him be true to himself with you and I'm happy to know he has finally realized it after so many years. Continue to give him only smiles and happiness, little mochi. Love, the best (duh) King Oikawa

We cleaned up once we had enough of the foods and just continued to watch until the end. He started to take his leave to his bedroom when in jerk reaction fashion, I reach out to pull him back.

"Stay."

He looks at me intently, trying to figure out the message behind my words. He gives me a smile as he comes back in and pulls me back onto his chest, "You always hated sleeping alone. You should have told me this was okay for you."

"Too quiet, to big."

"Then... How about we share the bedroom?"

―

All you who sleep tonight Far from the ones you love, No hand to left or right And emptiness above –

Know that you aren’t alone The whole world shares your tears, Some for two nights or one, And some for all their years.

All of you who sleep tonight - Vikram Seth

taglist ! @daphnxy @zukoslosthishonor​ @i-am-a-hoe-for-shinya @mrsdoradominguez-barnes @anejuuuuoy

a/n! i wrote this chapter in less than 10 minutes. then spent three days cleaning it up. i am finally getting my shit together and found a schedule that I can work with for everything I have to do :D

[theydontknowaboutusimagines]

This Christmas - A Harry Styles Christmas Series (Part 3)

Two life long friends. Secretly in love. Home for the holidays. Will they risk everything by telling the other how they feel? Or will they spend another year loving from afar? 

Read these first    Prologue     Part 1    Part 2

**

It was now morning and you stared at the blank document in front of you. You have now written the first twelve chapters and you’ve hit a wall. A big, huge fucking wall. You had been trying to write now for well over an hour and you just couldn’t come up with anything. You made a few notes as to what you wanted to happen, but figuring out how point a leads to point c… you were blanking.

You finally decided to take a break, sneaking inside the house and making breakfast. It was still quite early, so you thought it would be nice to do the cooking while you were staying there. You searched around for ingredients and pans you would need. Of course, there was something on the very top shelf you couldn’t reach. You sighed, standing on your tippy toes, barely able to grab it. You just needed a few more inches and you would have been able to get it.

However, just before you decided to go and grab a chair, you felt a heated weight pressed against you and a tattooed hand grabbing the item for you.

“I see you haven’t grown much since we were twelve,” Harry smirked in your ear.

Goosebumps covered your skin while your face heated up, “Fuck off,” you smirked back, pushing him off of you.

You turned around seeing him standing there wearing nothing but a pair of jogging pants and some crazy bed head.

“New style you’re going for there?” You smirked, walking past him and over to the counter.

“I still haven’t heard a thank you,” he pointed out.

“Thank you for being a foot taller than me, so that you could reach the flour for me,” you joked.

“I believe you should be thinking my Mum and Dad for that,” he winked.

“Whatever,” you rolled your eyes. “What are you doing up this early anyway?”

“Jet lag,” he shrugged.

“Right,” you said. “So, what part of the world did you travel from this time?”

You poured out each of the ingredients while Harry watched you.

“LA,” he said.

“Oh, that’s right, the movie,” you said, nodding. “How’d that go?”

“It was great,” he said. “I loved it.”

“Any spoilers?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I could ask you the same thing, Ms. Netflix special,” he said, leaning up against the counter. “Congrats on that by the way.”

“Thank you,” you smiled. “And I would totally give you spoilers but nothing is going on with it yet. They’re still casting some of the characters.”

“Speaking of, I’m hurt you didn’t offer me the starring role,” he joked.

“And make your head even bigger, no thank you,” you giggled.

“Well, I mean I do seem to have an awful lot in common with your main love interest,” he pointed out.

You froze, staring at the mixture in the bowl, trying to figure out what the next step would be. However, your hesitation pretty much proved he was right.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you squeaked.

“I’m just teasing you,” he smirked, knocking your shoulder with his. “But you have to admit there are a few similarities.”

“Your point?” You asked.

“No, point,” he said. “Just dropping a hint on the next time Netflix comes your way, I’m available.”

“Wait… is The Harry Styles coming to me for a job?” You gasped. “Is the bank account drying up that quickly?”

“Ha. Ha,” he rolled his eyes. “Since you’re going to make fun of me, I guess I’ll just go back to sleep and let you make pancakes all by yourself.”

“That was the plan all along,” you pointed out.

“Okay then… I’m going,” he said, staring at you.

“Okay, then go,” you smirked, shooing him out.

“Oh, come on,” he whined. “You know you want my help.”

“You can put the flour back on the top shelf,” you told him as you finished mixing the batter for the pancakes.

He rolled his eyes, grabbing the rest of the ingredients and putting them back in their proper places. As he did this, he caught himself glancing over in your direction. His gaze dropping down the length of your body and back up again. You were wearing leggings and a large jumper with the sleeves pushed up. Your hair was yet again in a messy bun with strands of hair sticking out around your face.

The real reason Harry was awake so early wasn’t purely from jet lag, but from having a dream about you. The last few weeks, you had been on his mind more than usual, but ever since seeing you again you were all he thought about. More specifically, he thought about the time he walked in on you in the bathtub the other night. He thought what it would have been like to join you to feel your skin against him.

And there he was again, thinking about you. He really needed to stop or else he was going to have another problem.

“Harry!” You snapped your fingers in front of his face.

“Oh, yeah, what? Sorry,” he said, shaking the thoughts from his head.

“You okay over there?” You asked. “You kinda spaced out for a bit.”

“Oh, yeah, great,” he said as his face blushed a shade of pink.

“Can you heat up the veggie sausage?” You asked.

“Sure, sure,” he said.

You looked over at him as he fumbled around. You held back a giggle as you watched him. While you were finishing up the pancakes, your mind started to wander into the thoughts of if mornings would always be like this if you and Harry had ever given a relationship a try. You may never know in real life, but this was your little glimpse into what could have been and you weren’t sure if it was a good thought or a bad one.

**

Later that afternoon, you finally managed to write and finish an entire chapter. You still weren’t where you wanted to be, but progress was progress at this point. It was around lunch time, so you were just finishing up getting ready to go out with Harry. You weren’t sure what was on the agenda, but you were looking forward to it. You also made a mental note that tomorrow you needed to visit your mum for a bit because it was kinda rude that you were spending time with Harry and Anne when you told your mother you were going to be working the whole time.

Which you were, most of the time, but you still needed to go see her. Anyway, while you were getting ready you received a text from your editor asking about how things were going with the book.

Hey, Y/N! Just checking in to see how things are coming along.

Hey! Things are… going. I am writing and I’ve gotten quite a bit done in the last few days. Once I’m finished with the first fifteen, I’ll send them your way, sound good?

Perfect. I can’t wait to see what you came up with!

Let’s hope you still feel that way once you’ve read them. Ha!

After a few more texts back and forth, you double checked yourself in the mirror before grabbing your coat and heading out to meet Harry. You didn’t have to walk very far because he was already out the door of the main house, carrying a few bags with him.

“Um, are we taking a road trip for lunch?” You laughed.

“Nope,” he said. “But we do need some essentials.”

“Food better be included in that because I’m starving,” you said.

“It wouldn’t be lunch without food,” he said in a duhh tone.

You rolled your eyes, “Anyway, where are we going that we need all of these essentials, whatever that means.”

“You’ll see,” he smirked. “Now, let’s get going.”

The two of you walked out of the backyard and walked towards the walking trail that connected to the end of the street. The walk was filled with silence from the two of you, but it was refreshing. Any awkwardness that started out between you was now creeping away and everything felt like no time had passed.

It was strange really, but then again it was you and Harry. About twenty minutes later, you and Harry arrived at the nearby park, where he placed the bags on a picnic table. He took out a blanket that he used to cover the table in two shorter ones to place on the benches connected to it. Next, he took out containers of food filled with fruit, sandwiches, and crisp spreading them over the table. Finally, he took out some drinks before looking over at you.

“Lunch is served,” he smirked holding his hand out.

“Wow, you really went all out, didn’t you?” You laughed sitting down on one side while he took a seat across from you.

“Eh, I figured this was better than going into town,” he said.

“Do people still come up to you here?” You asked, popping a strawberry in your mouth.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Most of the time things are pretty chill and people just want to chat me up, see how I’m doing. And then others, usually the younger generation are the ones who are a bit more… uh… “

“Annoying? Bothering you?” You added.

“Basically, yeah,” he nodded with a laugh.

“One… hearing you say the younger generation really makes me feel old,” you laughed. “And two, how do you get used to random people just coming up to you like that. Occasionally, I’ll have someone say hi to me… but that’s very rare.”

He shrugged, “I don’t know. It comes with the territory I guess.”

“I guess you have been dealing with it for over a decade,” you said. “Which is still hard to believe.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. “I still can’t believe it and I’ve lived it. There’s so much I’ve already done that sometimes it’s hard to remember that I’m only twenty six and still have a lot of life left to live.”

“You’ve definitely done and seen more than most people our age,” you nodded. “Is that why… you tend to spend more time with other uh… celebrities because they understand that part of your life?”

Harry sighed, putting his sandwich down as he thought over his words, “In the beginning yes. I had all these thoughts of who I was supposed to be, or where I was supposed to be or who I was supposed to be seen with. I kinda lost myself and what I wanted to do in it. Like I used to think I had to live in LA because that’s what everyone did when they made it, but now I can’t stay there more than a few weeks at the most.”

You nodded, taking a bite of your own sandwich in response.

“I don’t want to say that’s what happened with us,” he started. “But I can’t lie either. The truth is, I don’t know what happened, really. Things got overwhelming and I just... “

“Stopped calling?” You finished for him.

“Yeah,” he sighed.

“I’ll admit, when our friendship kinda just ended… I was pissed. I was hurt. I hated you for a good little bit. I was jealous whenever I saw you out with other friends or at all these exclusive parties. I thought I wasn’t good enough to be in your life anymore. Like I was the past and that’s where I was supposed to stay,” you whispered. “But then I realized, I was also to blame. The phone works both ways and I never tried to call or text you again. I could have tried one more time and maybe that would have been the time and we wouldn’t have lost years out on our friendship.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged. “Or maybe I would have still been an ass and everything would have stayed the same.”

“Guess we’ll never know, huh?” You asked.

“Good thing that’s in the past, right?” He asked, hopefully.

“Yeah, it is,” you smiled.

**

You and Harry spent the rest of the afternoon at the park talking about everything. It was like you two were trying to make up for all the years you hadn’t talked and in a way you two were. When you were done talking, you walked along the park, which quickly turned into a little game of running around and jumping on his back, just like old times.

By the time you both headed back home, it was getting dark. Houses covered in Christmas lights lit up the night sky and the two took a bit of a detour looking at all of the decorations. There were times you caught yourself looking at Harry more than looking at the different lights and decorations set ups. Your head and your heart were having a severe disconnect at the moment.

Your head was trying to be all logical and warning you about letting your guard down. Old feelings you had previously suppressed were slowly coming up, but your head kept trying to push them down. Your heart, however, kept fluttering whenever he would laugh or your hands would slightly brush up against one another. After a bit, you found yourself clenching your fist because the want to grab his hand and lace his fingers with yours was becoming unbearable.

If only you knew, Harry was feeling the same way. He glanced at you, smiling to himself as he watched the lights glowing over your skin. Being with you today further proved that he was in love with you. He realized then, he couldn’t hold back his feelings from you much longer and he didn’t want to, he had to get them out.

Harry stopped all of a sudden looking over at you, “Y/N…”

“Yeah, H?” You asked, turning around to look at him.

“I-” he started.

“Everything okay?” You asked.

“I-I,” he stuttered out. “I’m really glad we’re doing this…. Reconnecting… and shit.”

“I am, too,” you smiled.

Harry forced a smile, mentally kicking himself in the ass for chickening out as the two of you finished the rest of the walk back to the house.

**

Uh oh! Who do you think will be the first one to finally admit their feelings?

Find out in PART 4, posted tomorrow at Midnight CST. :)

[dimitrescus-bitch]

Secondhand Stress (Sansa Stark x Margaery Tyrell)

smut

Sansa Stark needed a break. She had been studying nonstop for some big exam and Jeyne was honestly tired of seeing Sansa so stressed. That, and Jeyne was starting to get secondhand stress. Jeyne had finished her exams and was just waiting for the results, so she was in absolutely no mood to take on Sansa's extra stress. Now that Sansa had completed her exams, Jeyne was taking her roommate out for the night to a bar so that she could get hit on by some guys that Sansa wouldn't go home with and have some free drinks. All Jeyne had to do was wait for Sansa to get back home from returning her books to the library.

"Finally!" Jeyne exclaimed whenever Sansa stepped into their off-campus apartment. It wasn't too far away and was much closer to the good bars than the on-campus apartments were. Jeyne and Sansa had learned their junior year of college that the good booze was about ten miles away from campus downtown in the city. So, every month or so, they would set aside some money from their paychecks and go out to drink there. Neither of them really minded drinking at the bars on-campus, but they weren't the same. Something about not having to deal with 15 different, yet nearly indifferentiable douchebags hitting on you from all angles didn't make for a fun night out. "Go hurry and get dressed. The Uber is on its way."

"Uber for what?" Sansa asked. Jeyne, ever so helpful, did not answer her question, instead shoved her down the hall to get changed. Sansa saw a dress on her bed, one that hadn't seen the light of day since it arrived the day after Sansa had drunkenly bought it. Jeyne had also taken the liberty of setting out two different pairs of "fuck me pumps" that had also been ordered while intoxicated. Thankfully, Sansa's parents didn't check to see what their kids were ordering on the family's Amazon account.

"You look hot, let's go." Jeyne pulled Sansa out of the door and to the car waiting for them. "I requested a sports car drop us off. That way, we'll definitely get in on."

"What bar are we going to tonight?" Sansa asked Jeyne.

"It's a new one. I drove past it earlier, huge glass windows and a lot of lights going on," Jeyne told Sansa. Sansa sighed, knowing that Jeyne didn't actually know where they were going. Still, Sansa was thankful to be spending a night out on the town after missing their past couple of nights out. Jeyne had been cross with her about it, apparently the rest of their friend group wasn't as fun to drink with as Sansa. That didn't surprise the Stark girl. There was a saying about Westeros and alcohol. Northerners could drink anybody under a table as long as it wasn't a true southerner. It was true enough because even though Winterfell was a bigger city in the north, they hadn't had a whole lot to do during the winter except for drink and play hockey. Sansa hadn't spent a lot of time in the south, but that was wine country and the holiday she had spent with her family there, had proved that they didn't mess around with their wine. However, her father had quite a difficult time finding a good local beer there.

"The Rose Bud," Sansa said as their car pulled up to the bar. It wasn't one that Sansa had seen whenever they'd last scoped out the downtown bar scene. The lights inside were soft and warm colored, which gave it a much more relaxing atmosphere than Sansa expected. They took a seat at a table close to the bar and a waitress brought over a menu for them to look at. "Do you want to get something to eat? I'm starving?"

"Tonight is about getting fucked up and fucked," Jeyne told Sansa. "Personally, I'm thinking tall, dark, and handsome over there."

"Gross, he looks like my brother. You need to get yourself sorted out," Sansa told Jeyne. Jeyne tilted her head so she was looking past Sansa and at the guy who definitely did look like Robb. Sansa rolled her eyes and frowned as she noticed it was mainly just wines. "These are like baby drinks Jeyne."

"These are great drinks, they're just not alcohol cleaner like what you're used to," Jeyne teased. Sansa kicked her under the table and Jeyne grumbled as she walked away. It was almost a record time, Jeyne finding a guy to abandon her at the bar for. Sansa sighed and ended up just ordering the drink with the highest proof available. Sansa was content with her drink, it was sweet and lacked the bite that she had gotten accustomed to whenever she used to steal sips of her parents drinks after dinner, but it was still nice. Sansa was definitely tipsy, which was when someone finally caught her eye.

There were expensive suits all over the bar, but none were as stylish as this one. At first, Sansa had just admired the soft pink coloring of the blazer. Then, she took a closer look and noticed the rose patterning etched into the fabric. Sansa wasn't sure why, but for once in her life, she was going to make the first move. Sansa slid out of her chair and steadied herself. The heels were a bit of a mistake, but Sansa was always up for a challenge. On slightly shaky legs, Sansa walked towards the woman in the suit and sat down next to her.

"What are you drinking?" the woman asked Sansa.

"The strong one," Sansa answered. The woman smirked and waved the bartender over. She pointed at a black bottle with a very pretty golden 'M' on the label.

"Good choice. It's a little strong though, must not be from around here," the woman teased.

"Sansa Stark," Sansa said, assuming that the woman would recognize her name and place her as one of the famous Stark kids. Their family was known throughout Westeros, there was always someone with a story about one of her parents.

"Margaery Tyrell." Sansa shook the woman's hand and noticed how soft, yet strong they were. "Would you like to get out of here?"

"With you?" Sansa asked. She was being hopeful, but Sansa didn't really know who else she was supposed to leave with Jeyne was definitely gonna end up with that guy she saw earlier and it was just the two of them who'd come out.

"Unless you think someone else should join us. I'm fine with the idea, but I was hoping to keep you all to myself for tonight." Margaery was charming the pants off of Sansa.

"Just us, definitely just us tonight," Sansa said and Margaery tugged her along outside. They got in the backseat of a car that looked like it was more than Sansa's rent for an entire year. Margaery opened up the bottle she took from the bar and handed it over to Sansa so she could get a drink. "Thank you. I really need a drink, I've been pretty stressed."

"I can tell. You're sort of wound up still," Margaery said as her hand glided up Sansa's thigh. Sansa choked on air when Margaery's fingers dipped under her dress. Margaery stopped touching Sansa to make sure that she was okay and Sansa decided to take the opportunity to kiss Margaery. Her lips had looked soft in the bar, and they were definitely soft in the car. Sansa felt good about that kiss, but completely melted whenever Margaery kissed her back. Margaery tasted like that vacation to the south that her parents had taken the family on years ago.

The car came to a stop in front of a very nice building and Margaery ushered Sansa out of the car. There was no feeling of giddiness as they made their way up to Margaery's penthouse apartment. Margaery kept her eyes on Sansa, watching her with a concentration Sansa had never experienced in a partner. When the elevator stopped inside of the apartment, Sansa was in awe of how beautiful everything was. Margaery didn't give Sansa much of a chance to really take in the decorum, but Sansa did get a very good look of Margaery's bed.

"Do you know what I want to do to you?" Margaery asked and Sansa shook her head. Margaery began to push Sansa's dress up a little bit, paused, and then looked at Sansa with a predatory smirk. "Do you have any ideas now?"

"Maybe a few," Sansa said weakly. Margaery leaned down and kissed Sansa, tongue gently prodding past Sansa's lips. Sansa welcomed her tongue and a familiar warmth overtook her body again. Margaery broke the kiss to continue to press kisses along Sansa's jaw and then down her neck. Sansa's hips lifted slightly and Margaery took the opportunity to once again push Sansa's dress up her body a bit. Once she got it just above Sansa's waist, Sansa's legs spread. Margaery's hand slipped in between Sansa's legs and over her underwear.

Sansa let out a small gasp at the feeling of Margaery's fingers against her. It had been too long since Sansa could remember being touched by another person. Her nights out with Jeyne often led to drunken masturbating, but this beat it. Sansa would have paid for that overpriced alcohol if it meant she'd get to run into Margaery again and again. Especially because Margaery was touching her like somebody who actually knew how to touch a woman. Sansa thought that was really a rarity, she'd only had a couple of partners who could have done that. And none of them held the same level of attractiveness that Margaery did. Margaery was beautiful yes, but there was also an air of something else that drew Sansa to her.

"Please, inside of me." Sansa began to pant a little bit. Her body was getting hotter and hotter, all waiting for Margaery to give her some release. Margaery, despite her aura of control, gave in to Sansa's request and pushed a finger inside of the Stark woman. Sansa spread her legs a little more and Margaery added another finger. Margaery kept a steady pace and all Sansa could hear were the sounds of Margaery's now soaked finger sliding in and out of her as well as her own moans. It was hot and Sansa didn't want it to end, but it seemed that her body had other plans.

Sansa's body trembled under Margaery's. Sansa's head was spinning and it wasn't until she felt Margaery's tongue inside of her that she was grounded again. Sansa's hands gripped the blankets on top of Margaery's bed as her back arched a bit. Margaery's hands came up to hold Sansa's body against the bed as her tongue slowly circled Sansa's clit. It felt amazing and Sansa could feel herself getting worked up again. Margaery moved down from Sansa's clit and began to lap up at her entrance. It was messy, but it left Sansa dripping all over Margaery's very expensive bed set.

"I think I'm go- oh!" Sansa didn't get to finish her statement. Instead, she came screaming and trashing. Margaery slowly trailed her tongue up Sansa's body as she moved to lay beside the taller woman. Margaery licked any trace of Sansa off of her fingers and then pressed a kiss to Sansa's lips. Sansa kissed back, but couldn't find the energy in herself to move.

"It's okay, if you're here in the morning, I'll show you a thing or two over breakfast," Margaery promised. Sansa nodded and curled up against Margaery. Margaery wasn't normally one to let her one night stands cuddle, or offer them another round in the morning, but there was something different about Sansa that Margaery liked.

[leverage-ot3]

notable moments from The Tap Out Job

leverage 2.02

Jack: Somebody drugged his water. It's an old boxing trick. He couldn't defend himself, and... He's still in the hospital.

that’s fucked

- - - - -

Eliot: It's not a cockfight. All right? Let me show you something, Hardison. Come here. Can I borrow you? (puts a gentle hand on Parker’s hip, guiding her to the open space behind the couch) All right. Square up. Remember what I showed you?

(Hardison and Parker square up)

Hardison: Are you...

Eliot: There's three phases to an MMA--to an MMA fight, okay? One, striking. (Parker punches Hardison in the face) Nice. Next is grappling, the takedown. (Parker grabs Hardison and throws him on the floor) Exactly. All right. The third one is jujitsu. Okay, try to isolate a joint. (Parker gets Hardison in a hold) That's good. That's a textbook armbar, Parker. Put some pressure on there.

Parker: Like this?

Eliot: There you go. Or you can go for a choke hold.

Hardison: She got to be choking me. (tries to get away)

Eliot: Remember that thing that I showed you?

Parker: Oh, yeah. The choke.

Eliot: Lock that in. All right. You don't have to hold the arm. See, that's a triangle choke. That's nasty. Puts pressure on his carotid artery, and the guy will submit by tap out.

Hardison (tapping the ground): Eliot, I'm tapping! I'm tapping!

Eliot: These fights are won by inches, I'm telling you.

Hardison: I can't breathe!

Eliot: All about leverage.

Sophie: Yeah, it looks really painful.

Hardison: It is painful!

Nate: No TV deal, you said, huh? Hardison, what are this guy's other interests, this Rucker guy?

Hardison: Seriously, you ask me a question right now...

Sophie: I'll take that. Yeah, rotary club, golf membership.

Nate: Golf, huh?

Hardison: Help me!

Sophie: Yeah. I mean, this guy's like a 1950s sitcom character. He plays a weekly game with the local businessmen. In fact, last year, he won the club championship.

Nate: Did he? Hmm.

Hardison: Let me go!

Nate: I guess it's...

Hardison: She's killing me!

Nate: …it's time to hit the links.

Hardison: I'm cool. Just let me go real quick.

eliot canonically teaches parker how to fight in his spare time and I LOVE THAT

fucking CHAOTIC OT3 + parker is having a great time while hardison is dying

ALSO can we just for a minute appreciate how when she puts him in a chokehold she was wrapping her legs around his neck, which basically had his head in her crotch area and !!! it wasn’t sexualized at al !!! literally A N Y other show would have sexualized it even just a little bit but not leverage. never leverage.

- - - - -

I love it when they fuck with peoples gear (like with the baseballs or hockey pucks or in this instance the golf balls)

- - - - -

parker playing with the golf club covers

- - - - -

literally EVERY con has nate being an asshole (this one was one of the more annoying ones tho)

- - - - -

hi I am but a simple bi and eliot in that grey hoodie was VERY attractive

- - - - -

Room Service: Room service. Can I help you?

Sophie: Yeah, no, I can't eat this. I'm sorry?

Everything on my plate is yellow.

Room Service: It's chicken-fried steak.

Sophie: It's what? Chicken-fried steak?

Room Service: Yes.

Sophie: No, let me just tell you, all right. Meat should never be used as an adjective.

~ a little while late ~

Sophie: I'm starving.

Parker: I found these in the minibar. (throws her a bag)

Sophie: "Pork Rinds"? How do you peel a pig? (throws it back)

- - - - -

Hardison: Got it. See, Online video websites, they track viewer hits by IP Address, so the trick is to just spoof a bunch of IPs, then write a script that lets you browse the video page via the proxy list and...

- - - - -

Sophie: Well, this guy, he just--he give me the creeps.

Eliot: We've gone up against rougher dudes than this before.

Sophie: I know. But it's this whole treating people as commodities. This whole barbaric sport.

Eliot: Hey, don't lump these guys in with Rucker. All right, he's not what the sport's about.

Sophie: Eliot, this "sport" is about two guys beating the crap out of each other.

Eliot: MMA fighters act with more respect than any other athlete I've seen.

Sophie: Yeah, they're "Braveheart," I get it.

Eliot: No, you don't. These guys don't fight because they like hurting other people, all right. They fight to gain some sort of control over their opponents, over their environment, over their lives. Have you seen this town? Huh? The farms are drying up. The only stores are bail bondsmen and pawn shops, and there's nothing they can do about it. So, yeah, they get in the ring and try not to let it all suffocate them. (a beat, he smiles) And it's about two guys beating the crap out of each other. (she smiles back)

- - - - -

eliot is wearing a green flannel in this one and it looks very nice and comfy

- - - - -

Rucker: Well, bottom line is, you need good product. What event are you here to produce?

[Interior Van]

Hardison: On it. There's a tractor pull in grand island, a livestock show in council bluffs, white people doing other white things…

pls keep calling out white people pls we deserve it lmfao

- - - - -

Director (in car looking at his phone): Come on! Come on! Give me something! Come on! Is this gonna take long?

Nate (through window): No. Two shakes. Are you in a hurry?

Director: Even half a bar... what? Yes. Hurry. Does anyone in this backwater hellhole know what that means?

Nate: You're a director, right? What was your name again?

Director: What? It's Laurence. Todd Laurence.

Nate: Todd, well, listen, Mr. Laurence. See, I wrote a script...

Director: Huh?

Nate: Yeah. It's about a limo driver who solves mysteries till his wife leaves him for --

Director: For the love of god!

Nate: ...the best part: The feed store manager. Right? His wife…

Director: Yeah...?

Nate: Tramp...

Director: Hey, hee-haw, move the car! Okay

- - - - -

parker in leather pants, a bright yellow ‘I heart Nebraska’ tshirt and weird hat, eating a corn dog? ,,,a look I guess

- - - - -

Hardison (showing passes): So, I'm Todd Laurence? (girls flock to Hardison) Ladies, please, look. For the last time, I am not the tailback for the cornhuskers. Go! I don't even know what a cornhusker is.

- - - - -

Rucker: And all you need is a product?

Sophie: Well, that's what they are: Products. You get the girls with Trianna, you get the boys with MMA. And there's always another fresh-faced princess ready to go through the singing/dancing mill in Florida. Occasionally, we let one be a lesbian, keeps the press on their toes

- - - - -

Hardison: What? What? W-what was I supposed to do? It was cousin Jimmy.

Sophie: He's right. We couldn't have planned for that.

Hardison: Look, you know what I can do? I can re-task a satellite, I can get a level 3 NSA clearance, but I can't hack a hick

- - - - -

Eliot: All right, it doesn't matter. What do we do now?

Parker: We can move the Howorth.

Eliot: We're not moving the Howorths. All right? This is their home. That means something to people here.

Sophie: Yeah, we can't babysit them forever.

Nate: We've taken out bigger players than this. You know, there's got to be some way, something we can...

Eliot: No, no! I take the dive.

Sophie: You sure?

Hardison: Give me some time, okay? I've found some funny business in Rucker's accounts. I can move some things.

Eliot: Forget the fact that we just got beat by Barney Fife, all right? This is the right move. Tactically it's the right move. You all know that. (walks away)

none of them want to see eliot hurt more than he needs to or see him go down like that and I cry

alec ‘give me five minutes I will do literally anything for eliot’ hardison

- - - - -

Sophie: Hey. Listen, you-you don't have to do this, you know. Nate's gonna come up with something.

Eliot: I'm losing a fight, Sophie. I'm not diving on a grenade. I'll be all right.

Sophie: Yeah, I know. I'm not talking physically.

Eliot: I think my ego can handle it.

Sophie: Look, you told me that it's about control, about knowing that you're never gonna be the victim. And that's what keeps you going, right?

Eliot: You think I'm upset 'cause I got to let this guy kick my ass? I learned a long time ago, you can't control the violence. I can take the punishment. That's what I do. What I need to control is not out there. (touches his chest) It's here. Always.

(Sophie smiles and walks away)

- - - - -

hardison holds eliots face before he fights I never noticed that before

+ eliot’s hair is curly when it’s wet/when he’s sweaty. this means he blowdries his hair on a regular basis. eliot, as a part of taking control of himself and his life after moreau took interest in self care and taking care of his hair in this essay I will-

- - - - -

one thing I love about this is that eliot doesn’t have a six pack (see this commentary I made with a few lovely additions by my mutuals)

- - - - -

Jack: Where's Rucker?

Hardison: Oh, the Iowa State Police just got a tip that a fugitive is headed into their jurisdiction. And I'm pretty sure crossing state lines with a bag full of cash won't look too good.

Parker: Especially when they find the little surprise in his trunk.

[Flashback, Pawn Shop]

Parker: I need guns. (dumping money on counter) $6,000 worth. And one of those.

LMFAO THERE WAS A TUBA TOO

- - - - -

Doctor (examining Eliot): You took a hell of a pounding. We should get you a CT scan. You could have internal bleeding.

Jack: You let yourself get hammered like that on purpose? That's a hell of a lot of punishment to take.

Sophie: That's what he does.

- - - - -

eliot held the rope up for parker to step under when they were getting out of the ring

- - - - -

Sophie (to Parker): Pork rind? They're actually pretty good. (parker shakes her head and rubs her stomach) You sure?

sophie nO

[roarkecohen]

Gender: transmasc (quiet about it) Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: I don’t talk to strangers Age: 39 Birthday: December 7th Occupation: Owner of Patterns Fabric Store

@phqextras​

Bio: No one who knew Roarke knows him anymore. His parents would never have known if he went missing. They just didn’t have that kind of relationship. Not now, not before.

The divide between the person he was in his youth and the person he is now isn’t necessarily night and day, but it is a clean break. Had anyone known him somewhere in his late 20s, they might say the change happened overnight, but no one can claim that level of friendship or that kind of knowledge. The Roarke of today is a careful construction, though it’s been long enough now that the new personality comes easier than ever. It’s almost natural.

As a kid, Roarke was a bit of a runabout. There’s no real reason, certainly none of the usual ones. He never stuck to one particular crowd, never formed any tight allegiances or bonds, and never had any tough breaks either. If anything, he stood out against the rest only for being a bit odd and a bit bland. Neither hesitant nor eager in the face of new experiences and only resistant to modifications to his own body, Roarke seemed to have hardly any personality at all. He passed through lives easily as a result, always taking more than he left behind.

It was an okay childhood, all said. Roarke’s parents got along okay, though they weren’t particularly affectionate, not with each other and not with their children. There were brief moments of concern, like when Roarke got picked up by the cops for some weed that they couldn’t actually find on him. His dad went off about how it wasn’t good to get in with a bad crowd, but there was no love behind the words, not really, and they fell on deaf ears. Roarke’s mother was never particularly doting, and at every turn in his life where she could do less and not be considered a terrible mother, that’s exactly what she did. He and his sister would fight one moment and be attached at the hip the next, but even as they grew older, they went their separate ways. Roarke would never know it, not really, but the home he grew up in was devoid of love in every conceivable way, so it was no big thing for Roarke to slowly vanish off his parents’ radar as he grew older, back when they still thought he was their daughter. The transition from being a dippy delinquent to a man of the city wasn’t fast, but it was private, which is all Roarke cared about. No one knew him from before except his family, and they had lost contact with him ages ago, which is exactly as Roarke would have it.

New York City is a hard city to make it in, but it’s great for anonymity. A bigger pond than Rochester, Roarke was drawn to the ability to vanish in a place like NYC. For those few years when he was still figuring himself out, taking odd jobs here and there, coworkers would try to convince him to socialize, to join some local club or group, but he would never go, and if they got too pushy about it, he’d pick up a new job. He just. Didn’t want his life to be a big deal. It was easier to blend in socially with all the middle-ground people who didn’t aspire to much or ask many questions. With them, Roarke was a social chameleon, flexible in style and personality, running all sorts of odd jobs with ease. Less and less did he need the lowpaying wage work he’d had to take when he first came to the city. He got something of a reputation for being reliable, even if no one could say one single thing they knew about him.

Fashion and sewing came later. It wasn’t like so many of the sob stories where he was born needle in hand ready to take on the world. The desire to design, let alone construct, had never been there. It was more a hobby he came upon by accident after a bad job. His shoulder had taken a hit, something that still ached, but worse still, his favorite waistcoat now had two holes in it. The damn thing sat abandoned for months in the back of his closet until a rainy day made his aching shoulder flare, reminding him of the offending garment. He tried to look up how to sew it back up, but the garment was really a loss (the blood stains would never come out anyhow), so he took it apart, sure that making a new one would be a sitch. It was not.

Roarke invested hours and hours into learning to remake the thing, tracing the pattern and cutting new pieces from fresh cloth, adjusting the fit when he’d somehow messed it up. The whole experience, days gone by, was fucking infuriating. His perfectionist streak, a well-kept secret, reared its head as he picked out stitch after stitch, recut the fabric again and again, resewed buttons ten thousand times. But by the end, he had a near perfect replica of the original thing, with a better fit to boot. And that victory was everything. The first bloom of some kind of passion in his life. The first moment Roarke ever really gave a shit. So he held on to that. A few days later, he took the whole thing apart again and rebuilt it with a tens unit for his shoulder.

It helped that climbing social circles is more easily done when you can blend in and have something to offer. Roarke only ever designed for himself, but people seemed to like the menswear he made, a mix of punk repairs on his existing wardrobe and sleek-cut waistcoats and button-downs and slacks. Taking a few design and production classes was the second most expensive thing he ever paid for, but it paid off quick, and before long, Roarke was on the rise. The jobs slowed as he turned them down for more lucrative (legal) work, a decision that probably kept him from seeing any real time in the long run.

And eventually, the appeal of New York started to wear off. There was a major fashion industry there, yes, but LA was poppin’ too. Besides, people started to know him a little too well, though mostly in the sense that they were catching on to how utterly hollow he felt most times, how little there was to the man besides the hair and the clothes. A new place would be a safer place, and there were opportunities aplenty in LA, a place to start fresh and build a budding career.

There was a lot to move by the time he left, so Roarke sent a moving van ahead and drove himself with the stuff he didn’t trust anyone else to handle. In a small hotel in Ohio, scrolling aimlessly through craigslist ads, he saw a listing for a mannequin. A nice one, a vintage one that would be thousands today, for just a few hundred bucks. It would be tight, but it was too good to pass up. Roarke set up a good time and place and headed into a perfectly picturesque little town - Pleasance.

He’s never left.

It really was one thing after another. First his shitty car broke down. Well, ‘broke down.’ A deer jumped into the road and sent him careening and the resulting run into the ditch fucked up the axle, a repair he would later learn was expensive to fix in both time and money. Stranded, he booked himself into the local seedy hotel, had a crappy vending-machine dinner, and passed out hard from the stress of the day only to have his shit rocked in the night. Woke up the next morning to find his room torn to shreds, way more damage than should have been possible with him still in the room. Worse still, all his stuff was gone. Passport, driver’s license, wallet, important documents lockbox. Everything. He reported the theft to the police but there was little they could do. By that afternoon, his bank account had been wiped and his identity clearly stolen.

With no connections, no cash, and no way to prove who he was or who he had once been, he was truly up shit creek, the nightmare slowly sinking in. Days passed and the moving team wanted to know where he was, but weren’t willing to accept he couldn’t get the fuck out of dodge. The hotel kicked him out after a couple weeks, their apologetic hospitality for the robbery stretched as thin as the cash he’d managed to find stashed in his laptop bag. His evenings were spent trying to drum up work and avoid detection while sleeping in the local park. Roarke had tried the woods once, but got too creeped out and never went back. Eventually, he did get his car back, having paid for the part up-front, so at the very least he could be somewhere warm at night. But he was still broke as a joke, starving, a stranger in a strange land with no identity to speak of.

He’s still not sure, but either luck or charity got him a job at Alby’s department store. It seemed the old man might have taken pity on him, or maybe he really did sell himself well enough to pick up the job. It didn’t matter. What mattered is that he had an income under the table (since he had no documents), which meant cash payments he could spread thin and hoard for the last leg of his cursed trip. The hotel bill was slowly getting paid off and he was able to recover some of his documents - though even this was tricky in between addresses. Every night, he curled up in his car with the engine blasting heat for a few hours to catch the first leg of sleep. Then, halfway through the night, he’d move to some dark curb and hide under a messy stack of blankets to sleep the rest of the night, hoping to avoid detection. It had worked for months, but luck had to run out, and one night, it did.

Didn’t help when the cop woke him up that they found a gun in the car. A gun he was not officially licensed to carry, what with all his documents gone. Even so, the cop was going to pick him up on a homeless charge and look into whether any documentation existed on the gun before they added that to the bill, too, and Roarke really couldn’t face another injustice, another stroke of shit luck. Couldn’t face getting booked for the least criminal thing he’d ever done. So he lied.

“I have a home, I just fell asleep.” It was an insane thing to say. Maybe he’d hoped the cop would believe him and let off, who knows, but it was a fake as his dick in the duffle bag in his back seat, so God knows why he said it. And of course the cop didn’t let him off, but rather insisted on an escort home. Polite as can be, with the threat underwritten in that tone. Roarke was uncuffed and let back into his car and told to drive, to head to his house, and by then the lie was rolling, so he had to stick with it. Which was insane. But he did it.

Panicked and uncertain, Roarke drove aimlessly, not even familiar with the layout of the town. The cop lights flickered behind him as he went on, clearly wasting time, and eventually, Roarke had to commit. On instinct alone, he pulled into an empty driveway and stepped out of the car, kicking himself for letting such a stupid ploy carry on, knowing that with each step he was digging his own grave deeper and deeper. He stepped out of the car, smiled at the cop, apologized for getting a little turned around because “sorry officer, it’s late and I’m just so tired, let me just get my keys” and trudged toward the door. Each step added months to the sentence he knew he was going to get, but something kept pulling him forward, keeping him caught in the lie. Even as the cop followed him up the drive, even as he reached for his keys in his pocket, the moment of truth coming fast, because there’s no way he would open the door to a house that wasn’t his.

And in his hand, the keyring jingled in a way that wasn’t familiar. And there in his fingers was a key he didn’t recognize. And just like that, drawn by fear and guilt and exhaustion and something external, he slid the key into the lock of the door handle he didn’t know, and turned.

And it unlocked. He swung the door open. The officer apologized and wished him a good night, said he’d be back later with news about the gun, and to please not skip town in the meantime. And Roarke stood on the threshold of a house he didn’t know, wondering how the fuck he’d got this lucky. So he waved as the cop left, stepped inside, and flicked on the light. And he never left town.

Headcanons:

Roarke (not to be called Rory) has a quiet distrust for most technology but he is dangerously proficient at using tech that suits his needs.

The first garment he ever made, his waistcoat, is a well-kept secret. No one has actually seen him wear it. He won’t admit it, but he’s attached to it, so he keeps it at home and wears it without a shirt to soothe his shoulder, or else he hides it with another layer.

Close relationships are not a priority for Roarke. Though he can easily glide in and out of discussion with any manner of people, the effort of creating proximity between himself and another person is not something he cares to expend. On the rare occasion he grows close to someone on accident, his direct tone and persistent drive quickly re-establish distance for him.

Despite his insistence, not every part of his personality is made up.

He prefers to make clothes similar to his own aesthetic - fitted garments that accentuate the natural form of the wearer. His years moving in and out of different circles of influence have given him a pretty good handle on many different styles of dress.

Yes, all of his clothes are hand-made.

He doesn’t do much business in town other than running the fabric store, which was something he bought and took over in order to get away from Alby. He doesn’t hate the man, but doesn’t trust him, and the official story is that Roarke is grateful for the leg-up Alby gave him when he first came to town.

He’s mostly resigned to being stuck in Pleasance for the rest of his life, but he’s bitter about it. His efforts have been to survive, but not to settle down. He hasn’t told anyone the story about how he got his house or got stuck in town, simply saying that he inherited the place and had a hang-up with the property transfer.

He does frequent the movie theater at least once a week, but never at night or when it’s going to get dark during the film.

Roarke always seems out of place in town, like he’s afraid he’s being watched. He misses the anonymity of a big city and being in a small place makes his skin crawl. He’s always afraid someone will learn about him and his past and makes every effort to keep people at arms’ length.

None of his family know where he is, but also no one particularly cares. If his father knew, he might have something to say about Pleasance, but no such luck.

When he “got” the house, all the furniture was covered in moving cloth, generally a bit dusty but looking as though it were waiting for an occupant to move in… or return.

The only seemingly personal possession he ever found in the house was a picture on the mantle of an older woman from the 50s. He doesn’t recognize her, but she feels familiar to him somehow. Roarke won’t move the picture from where it sits, either, feeling as though that would be some sort of desecration somehow.

He steadfastly refuses to quilt despite the insistence of the older women who shop at his store.

He has a pet tarantula named Tranchy. It bothers him how much he loves it.

Roarke will never own up to personal encounters in the town, but he fully believes they happen to other people (though he’ll never say as much). He’s worried he spotted the so-called Strange Man one night, but narrowly avoided actually encountering him. As a general rule, he avoids going out at night altogether, though being in his own house is no less disquieting.

[atimefordragons]

IN THE NAME OF THE MOON, I SHALL PUNISH YOU! || EHS

☾♔; May 19, 2020 ☾♔; 2:19am ☾♔; sotd: Man of the World (Takanashi Yasuharu) ☾♔; cotd: Kuruma ☾♔; Elite Highschool ☾♔; Audition

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: Sailor Moon, the Champion of Justice!

𝐀 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐑𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞 (𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟑, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎): Finally done, I'm soz for taking so long! I've just been Narutoing. He's my boy, dattebayo!  

☆──════ ⋆ ☽ ⋆ ☾ ⋆ ════──☆

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒

➤TITLE: S̶p̶o̶r̶t̶y̶ ̶S̶p̶i̶c̶e̶  The Sports Star ➤OC NAME: Katarina Văduva ➤AGE: 16   ➤BIRTHPLACE: Brăila, Romania ➤BIRTHDAY: December 31 ➤FACE CLAIM: Bruna Marquezine ➤USERNAME: @.dracarysbitch

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

➤LIKES: football (soccer, not the american one), eurovision (obvs), tennis, volleyball, basketball, ice hockey, figure skating, anime, manga (loves shoujo, but would rather die than admit it), a song of ice and fire (of course), russian literature (tolstoy is a fav ofc), winter, blizards, snowstorms, fresh snow, sweet foods, video games (dragon age, assassin's creed, the witcher, until dawn, pokemon), sailor moon, pink, blue, stitch, disney (sleeping beauty is her fave, even though she doesn't really match her personality, it's more that her parents gave her away for her safety, and Kat used to imagine it was the same for herself when she was a kid), space, faberge eggs, sanrio (her favourites are Kuromi and Pandausa)

➤DISLIKES: sasuke uchiha (fucking bitch), supercilious people, the lodge (lol, grow up you fucking losers), shows that go on forever and never end (please, please just end), shows that have shit endings, game of thrones (fucking dumbfucks), americans, right-wing politics (it's so stupid, just grow a heart), religion (what a scam), being alone (either physically or with her thoughts, let's bury that shit), losing, being wrong, having to concede any ground on any matter whatsoever, not knowing things

➤HOBBIES: anything that is physical (fucking jocks, amirite?), she's loves going for jogs (can't relate - secretly naruto runs during night time jogs 'cause no one can see her being lame), and playing streetball, etc. watching anime, reading manga, ranting on the interwebs about her shows and books (in general she avoids the bigger internet drama 'cause it's stupid, but sometimes you gotta put a bitch in their place, 'CAUSE DAENERYS IS THE PRINCE THAT WAS PROMISED, FUCK YOU!), watching reruns of pro-games (can't relate, so boring)  

➤STRENGTHS: determined, perseverant (is that even a word?), passionate, relentless, protective, observant, straightforward (usually ends up insulting people though, so it's more of a weakness tbh), goal-oriented, independent, self-reliant, has enough self-awareness to not go off on weeb/otaku interests in front of most people, but if it's like a "smart" anime, she'll discuss it (like Death Note, she's not gonna fucking admit to still loving Naruto at this age, shut up), diligent, loyal, a bad bitch (lol, not so much, but she likes being perceived as a strong girl who can and will stab you with her stiletto. the image only lasts for a few seconds, she more just comes off as rude).

➤WEAKNESSES: stubborn, very blunt, which tends to come off as brash and rude, though she's not always intending to be mean, despite that rude, blunt nature, she's also a bit tsundere, and struggles admitting her to deeper feelings. Gets flustered when complimented (outside of sports, there she's fine 'cause I'm the best bitches, or so she says), and she just can't admit it when she needs someone, whether it be a friend or romantic interest, especially if it's a romantic interest, 'cause she's also of the mind of who needs a boyfriend when there's food? while she's observant when it comes to changes in people's behaviour, she in general lacks the capacity to act well on her observations, and is awkward when trying to comfort someone or cheer them up. When it comes to her own feels, part from rage, annoyance, or "Jock Mode", she can barely admit to them, let alone discuss them with other. Speaking of "Jock Mode", she is competitive AF, somewhat dismissive (this usually only comes out in games, but she tends to ignore weaker opponents in search of stronger ones who pose a challenge). Also tends to display some arrogance in the sports she's most talented it, particularly volleyball. It's not quite a personality flaw, but she's weak for loving parents, or just a loving family in general (in life and when watching movies, it makes her fucking cry every time, which really puts a damper on her tough girl image, it's not usually a visible one, but she can't hide the longing in her face when she watches a parent and their child being a normal, happy family). Definitely has tunnel-vision, once she has a goal in sight, that's all she sees. Can even be paired down to dumb things, like C-grade trashy alien movies. She tends to notice only the aliens and revel in their destruction, while ignoring everything else, including the plot. Has plenty of issues; abandonment, trust, ptsd - none of which she is dealing with. She's just ignoring it and hopes it goes away once she becomes a cool, reliable adult™️ (lol, good luck that, adult life is a lie).

𝐁𝐈𝐎

➤SHORT BIO: Katarina is half-Brazillian, half-Russian, though she is under the assumption that she is Romanian, she is biological the daughter of Vasily Raevsky, a Russian Oligarch, and Xuxa Amalia Reis Moreno, a Brazilian businesswoman and all round bad bitch. For reasons unknown to her, Katarina was in effect abandoned at birth and placed in a Romanian orphanage in Brăila, which is also presumed to be her birthplace. Her birth certificate lists both parents as unknown, the orphanage named her. Having no parents or known family, and raised in an orphanage has given Kat many self-reliant skills, and allows her to live independently, but it has also left her with a deep sense of loneliness (not to mention PTSD 'cause Romanian Orphan life is a nightmare). She recognizes that much of her yearning is still childish fantasy, and often covers up that desire with her brash nature or jock hobbies.

Growing up in the orphanage was... not easy. The Brăila Home for Children was not the best, to say the least. Though it could've been worse (*shudders at the case of the Sighetu Marmației institution for disabled children* - do better Romania, oh my god). The orphanage was under and poorly staffed. They would often neglect and abuse the children, one year shaving every childs head so they all looked the same, and often chaining rowdy children to their beds. During Katarina's time, many of her fellow orphans died from minor illness or injuries such as cataracts or anemia, which were treated poorly or simply ignored, and a number also starved to death. Because of this, Katarina has a habit of hoarding food, and keeping snacks under her pillow. She also has difficulty sharing, and despises headboards that are railed(? the ones with gaps, idk what to call them).

When she was around eleven, the orphanage received ample anonymous donations, leading to much improvement, and the arrival of a new Director, Ileana Cojocaru, who, over time, earned the trust of Kat and her fellow orphans, and became something of a surrogate mother. Ileana did a nearly complete staff overturn (fun side note, some of the staff, especially those who harmed Kat have gone missing in the past few years, coincidence? no), as well as hiring accomplished childcare professionals from all over the world to help the children. It was Ileana who sparked Kat's, or rather Rina as Ileana called her,  interest in sports, though Ileana was more into football herself, she encourage Kat to explore whatever she wanted, though particularly team sports so that Kat could foster dependent relations. Kat herself particularly enjoyed volleyball, joining a little league team and winning a number of competitions. Due to her skill both in setting and spiking, she usually plays in the Opposite Hitter position.

Katarina entered EHS in Highschool, on what she assumed to be the Elite's scholarship program, arranged by Ileana, who even said as such, though in truth, her entry and tuition are all being handled by an anonymous benefactor. This fact was revealed to Kat last summer after Ileana died (of p̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶e̶a̶s̶e̶ cancer), whose lawyer was put in charge of the bank accounts meant to pay for all of Kat's needs. The lawyer refused to divulge whom the anonymous benefactor is, citing a non-disclosure clause, though the need to discover who has given Kat a whole new mission in life.

➤FAMILY: On Katarina's part, she doesn't believe she has one, though she does consider Ileana to be her family, and has grown to care somewhat about her fellow orphans from the Brăila Home, while growing up they were rivals struggling to survive. Ileana's death devastated her, and she's dealing with it by straight up ignoring it. Lol, I'm not sad, my eyes are just glistening with the ghosts of my past.

Biologically, despite her complete lack of knowledge of it, Kat comes from rather a rather illustrious family. Her mother, Xuxa Amalia Reis Moreno, is a Brazilian Businesswoman, herself the daughter of a self-made millionaire, Xuxa is expanded the Moreno parent company, MC Inc., an oil and mineral company in origin, into numerous side ventures, owning and operating businesses ranging from restaurants to magazines and clothing lines. Her father meanwhile, Vasily Raevsky, is of the (former) noble House of Raevsky, now oligarchs in modern-day Russia, who virtually control Russia's diamond and precious stone industry, currently owning controlling shares of ALROSA, the largest diamond mining company in Russia, and accounting for 95% of the countries diamond production, as well as 27% of the global diamond extraction, and the House of Fabergé, which they purchased after the fall of the Soviet Union. If she remained in the care of either of her parents, her name would technically be Katarina Vasilyevna Moreno Raevskaya, which is a fun and utterly useless fact.

Her parents met at a rich people conference (idk, Davos or some shit like that) and engaged in a short lived affair. Her father was already married and could not accept her, and her mother had no interest in being a mother at all, let alone a single one, leading to them choosing to give her up in Romania, an arbitrary choice that fucked her up, lol.

Via her father, she has an elder brother, Viktor Vasilyevich Raevsky, who is in fact her anonymous benefactor. Viktor discovered her existence after Vasily had an accident and was close to death, so he confessed his sins and what not. Viktor eventually tracked her down and sought to improve her life. Though he wants to bring her into the family, he doesn't for the sake of his mother who cannot deal with the affair, though she refuses to divorce Vasily for appearances sake.

𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐑𝐀

➤MOODBOARD: https://tinyurl.com/y8a2gjy8 ➤SCHOOL WARDROBE/AESTHETICS: https://tinyurl.com/ycodubrb ➤PLAYLIST: https://tinyurl.com/y6wwmp74

➤TOP 3 CHARACTER PICKS: the Sports Star, the Princess, The Rebel(de) <-- lol, see what I did there? I'm so funny.

[spyvstailor]

Need 70 More

Sorry to do this, guys, but even though I thought I placed a one time stop payment on a bill that was coming out, it came out anyways, so my bank account is now overdrawn. I need just 70 more to get to a comfortable spot in my friggin life. However! Good news is you all reached my original goal! So life is doing good things for me!

HUGE THANKS AND SHOUT OUT TO EVERYONE WHO DONATED AND REBLOGGED! SOME OF YOU GAVE LIKE WAY TOO GENEROUS FOR MY SHITTY WRITING AND IT DID NOT GO UNAPPRECIATED OR UNNOTICED! GOOD THINGS WILL COME TO YOU IN LIFE FOR YOUR GENEROSITY. I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Donate to my Paypal. Also I now have a Ko-Fi at the suggestion of someone dear to me, so here’s the link to that. It’s kind of barren right now, I’m working on it to offer people things they might like in order to earn my keep.

But as promised, here is my give so I may take. Chapter Two of Graveyard Dirt & Salt!

Chapter Two

The bell tower was covered in bird shit and looked like it was going to give him some kind of disease, but the view from it was worth the filth.

If he stood, with his back to the trees that grew in thick to the South of the convent, the back end as he'd come to call it, he could see straight down the cattle trail that lead from the convent gate, almost all the way down to the highway beyond the woods. To his right, to his left, to his hindquarters, was nothing but trees. Thick woods to give them cover.

They were both a blessing and a curse.

In his mind, if anyone took beef with them, the trees would be perfect cover for lurking invaders. But on the other hand, the trees kept their little convent a secret from the rest of the world.

Kicking some of the larger detritus out from his new nest, he unfurled his bedroll and began to make himself at home. If he stayed longer than a week, if he lasted longer than a week, he would give it a good, solid scrub down, but for now it was a place to sleep without worrying about having his ass snacked on.

Besides, he was pointedly warned against trying to settle into the cloister itself, the dorms where the nuns seemed to sleep. So he had to make his bed someplace other than the infirmary.

The clacking on the wooden ladder up to his perch alerted him to the fact someone was about to visit and he settled on his haunches, wanting to appear non-threatening to the woman who was about to appear.

A blonde head popped up into view, followed by a blue jumper dress.

The young nun carried with her a plate with bread smeared with what looked like honey and she smiled sweetly at him.

“Mother Mena wanted me to bring you some food, she said you'd be hungry.” The woman said.

“That's very sweet of you, thank you.”

Setting the plate in his lap, the woman turned to leave.

“So...tell me about you nuns here, what's your deal?” He called out to her, mostly desperate for some conversation after months of solitude.

The woman turned. “Oh...uh...well, what do you...um. I'm sorry, I'm Mary Elizabeth, I'm a novitiate, which means I haven't taken my vows yet. We're a Cisterian order, which means we value stability and simplicity.”

“And you don't ever...do anything beyond pray?”

“Well, we garden and take care of our chickens and hives, mostly we supply...well, we used to supply vegetables and peaches from our trees and eggs and honey and bees wax to the local farmer's market to support our convent. Most of our funds go to charity in the church, people starving in other countries, disaster relief. And we reflect, on God, on man, on everything in between.”

Splitting the bread slice in half, he handed her the larger piece and bit into his.

Mary Elizabeth took the offered piece with a shy grin and squatted down like a lady to join him, knees together, skirt covering anything inappropriate, one hand on her knees to ensure this.

“Is it really bad out there?” She asked as they chewed in silence. “Some of our order went to the market nearly half a year ago and never came back.”

He nodded. “I can't give you any hope, they're probably gone. Swept away with the dead.”

The woman's pretty little face puckered in dislike of that idea, but she soldiered on bravely.

“It's like Revelations. The dead rising. Scares the dickens out of me, if I'm honest.”

The woman was so sincere in her fear, as she rightly should be, but it troubled him to think of her now knowing the full extent of what was going on outside the convent walls. The Lieutenant had been forged by war overseas, by rigorous training and by all he had seen and done in his forty-three years and he couldn't imagine being in the dark while the whole world fell to pieces around you. Then again, he was always the one running into the danger, as others fled.

This slip of a girl, barely old enough to vote, it seemed, was scared of the rotting corpses that walked across the land and he understood how she could be. It was bigger than them, out of control, there was nothing left but the dead and the vultures who picked at the corpses of society. The wildfire had spread, the towns and holy places had fallen.

Downing the last morsel of his bread and honey, the Lieutenant stood up and pointed at her. “Well, either you're closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge or you are not aware of the calibre of disaster indicated by the presence of a pool table in your community.”

The woman clutched her hands together and beamed happily. “Oh! I love The Music Man!”

“Ya got trouble, my friend, right here, I say, trouble right here in River City,” he went on playfully.

Mary Elizabeth blushed shyly. “Mother Mena says you're the trouble around here.”

“She's getting a hunter and protector out of this deal. Missy should watch her tongue.” He returned, easing his ass against the railing and folding his arms.

“I'd better get going, I have to do the washing tonight and I wasn't really supposed to talk to you.”

“It was nice to talk with you regardless, Lizzie. But don't get yourself into trouble on my behalf.”

The woman giggled. “You too, Lieutenant. And I won't. I think it's uncharitable to pretend you don't exist. Seems a little cruel. Not that I judge Mother Mena! She's kind, she's just...scared, I think.”

“We're all scared. That's the human condition. Fear of being the prey to a greater predator and for the longest time man was at the top of the foodchain. Mind yourself going down now,” he cautioned, moving to offer her a hand down the ladder, before remembering that he wasn't to touch any of the nuns, so he drew his hand back quickly.

Mary Elizabeth beamed at him. “Thanks for the offer though. I like a gentleman.”

For days the Lieutenant hunted for the nuns, but he was like a ghost at the convent. The nuns saw him, the spoke of him in hushed whispers, but no one dared approach him.

He'd bring them an animal sacrifice and they'd send someone up to his tower with a plate for his share of the meal, but he was still awful lonely.

It had taken an entire week before another nun spoke to him.

“That is a household worth of baggage, Lieutenant.” She said.

He had just returned to the convent with a successful bounty, two ducks and a goose for dinner, when Sister Mary Agnes approached him. He had met her the other day when she was the one to bring him some food. He liked her matronly look.

“I got lucky,” he returned, preparing to clean the kills.

“I meant that pack on your back,” she said, kneeling beside him. “Doesn't it ever get awful heavy after all that walking?”

Glancing at his pack, the one he went everywhere with, he grinned. “It's my apartment. Everything I own is in that bag.”

“How on earth can a man travel with so much on his back? Don't you ever get tired?” She demanded.

“Mais, when you don't have a home, Sister, you make do. My apartment is on my back, ready at a moment's digging.”

The woman stopped them both, her dark eyes grave. “What's it like out there, Lieutenant? Really?”

“Hell on earth,” he admitted. “If it's not full of the dead, it's lonesome and abandoned. Torn apart like the aftermath of a child's temper tantrum. It's like walking through a bad dream.”

“Sounds like things are bad.”

“Worse. Whatever you're thinking, it's worse.”

Mary Agnes frowned. “I sometimes wonder why, when everything has turned to dust, we're left here holding the bag, as it were.”

“We're the survivors,” he explained. “It takes a lot of hard work to become the survivors. A lot of loss and a lot of pain, but we're here.”

“I suppose that makes sense. They always said the broken ones triumph.” She nudged him kindly. “So what broke you?”

For a second he was thrown, gunshots echoed in his memory. Shouting and verbal abuse, memories of his mother, of everything that had shaped him came flooding to the forefront of his mind, before he managed to recover himself.

“Why, sister,” he teased. “We are all broken children under God's eyes. Doesn't take much more than a dead dog or a bully in our childhoods.”

“I pried,” she returned simply. “I'm sorry. But humour will only deflect for so long, Lieutenant.”

“Mais,” he sighed. “It lasts long enough though.”

He was on the wall later that evening, watching an uggie as it shambled from out of the woods towards the wall he was on.

Poor little lady in her bathrobe, one slipper still on, the other long gone.

“Didn't expect to be caught in your jammies, huh?” He asked the thing.

It grunted and made a mad dive for the wall just under him, hands clawing at the stones.

“Never actually thought people even wore bathrobes,” he went on calmly. “Maybe I should start wearing one. Look like one of those old Hollywood actors. Cary Grant, yeah?”

“What on earth on you doing up there?” Missy asked from the ground behind him.

“Bird watching,” he returned casually. “Wanna come up?”

“And fall off that wall and break my tail in this habit? I think I'll pass on the offer. Being up there in jeans is one thing, but this habit is a wind catcher for sure.”

Turning around he held out his hand to her. “Come on. I won't let you fall.”

Hitching her robes to her, she moved to a spot where she must have propped an old ladder in order to climb up.

He moved to help her onto the wall, once more forgetting that he couldn't touch the nuns.

She held out her hand as he moved to grasp her elbow and stood on the wall, peering down at the uggie in her jammies.

“Do you suppose they're in pain?” She asked.

“I don't think so, think they're running on instinct and nothing else.” He said, running his hand over the butt of his rifle a little nervously, ready to steady Missy at a moment should she prove correct and the wind grab her. “Reminds me of this fact I heard about octopi and how if you put their corpse by salt their little tentacles react, but they're dead as rocks. Like that, I suppose. Them folks in Japan eating them basically raw, and their little tentacles grab at them chopsticks. Little undead squiggles putting up a fight.”

“This is a person,” she murmured. “She had things to do, goals and dreams.”

“We're all born astride the grave.” He stated.

Handing her his rifle, he pulled out his knife and jumping off the wall, over the thing, he came up behind her and knocked the uggie against the stones, holding her there so he could drive his knife into the base of her skull. It sunk heavily to the ground and he eased the poor woman back into a dignified laying position. Kneeling by the corpse, he wiped his knife blade on her bathrobe, before looking up to find the nun peering down at him quietly.

“Do you want a hand with her?” She asked.

He moved to help her down, his large hand sliding around her waist so that she could hop against him to break her fall somewhat, the other day she had precariously climbed down and nearly fell, today she was wearing her full habit, she offered him a hard look as he set her on her feet.

“That had better been my only option of dismount,” she warned him.

“Unless you want to break your neck today, then yes, ma'am.”

Kneeling over the corpse, Missy pushed the woman's hair out of her face and peered upon the rotted visage.

“Last rites?” He joked.

“I can't give those,” she said. “I just wanted to look at the poor woman. I killed so many of these the past few weeks, I never had a chance to pause and give thought to them. I honestly thought it was for the best to put them out of their misery. They are abominations after all, but they were once God's children.”

Kneeling with her, the Lieutenant nodded. “Bet she was someone's mama. She looks like a mama.”

“I hope her babies are alright, but from what you tell me, I don't imagine they are.” She was quiet for the longest time, before adding, “you'll keep my girls safe, won't you?”

“If you want me to,” he replied. “I haven't got anywhere to be.”

She looked at him for the longest time, those pretty blue eyes of hers shining and hard, despite being the bluest things he had ever seen. Set against her white chocolate skin and framed by luscious dark lashes, she was hell in a habit. If he had to gauge an age on her, he would wager she was around the same age as him, maybe a little younger. She certainly aged well if she were any older, and maybe she had, she was in charge of her convent, after all, and it took a while to advance in any profession.

“Then if you advise me on how to keep them safe, I will listen, but I will not compromise our faith for anything. The bell will stay silent, and we will do a patrol of the wall, but I will not expect any of my girls to harm anyone or anything without knowing for certain that it won't damn them. Some of my nuns still have their faith and I want them to keep it strong.”

“Fair enough,” the returned with a grin, holding out a hand to shake.

She considered it for a moment.

“Nobody went to hell for shaking a Cajun's hand,” he teased.

“Yet,” she murmured with a very, very small shine in her eyes.

Reconsidering his dirty hand, the Lieutenant wiped it on the front of his shirt, before offering it again.

This time she took it, shaking gently.

“You know this reminds me of this story my mamere used to tell me,” he explained, grunting as he scooped up the dead woman. “About this--”

“Sorry, your 'mamere'?” Missy interrupted.

“My granny.” He said, moving the corpse onto the muddy cattle trail of a road leading up to the convent gate where a fire would burn better without starting the woods ablaze. If they were going to keep collecting bodies, he would have to begin burning them. That pile in the woods would soon be doing nobody no good. “She used to tell me about this old man named Gilliam, used to beat the hell out of his old hound. Never deserved the poor thing, so one night, my...uh...granddaddy, he goes over, dead of night, dark as Hades--”

“I don't mean to cut your tale off at the root, I'm certain it's a wonderful parable, Mister Lieutenant, but we are about to burn a body here? Perhaps some wise words or none at all?” Missy suggested.

The Lieutenant was quiet, settling the corpse up in the middle of the muddy trail, before reaching for his lighter. He set the woman ablaze, burning her clothing, knowing full well the parchment paper flesh that remained on her corpse would go up in smoke easily.

Standing back, he glanced around cautiously, knowing that uggies liked to pop up when least expected.

Finding them alone, he turned his attention back to the burning body.

“Uh, dearly beloveds we are gathered here today to, uh, burn this--”

“Are you marrying the corpse or laying her to rest, Lieutenant?” The woman demanded with another very small twinkle in her eye.

“Mais, girl, go easy on me. I ain't a priest.”

“Honey, even the heathens had idols they worshipped before the Christian God,” she pointed out.

“So I'm lesser than a heathen and yet greater then a toad, yeah?” He winked at her.

As the smoke began to choke them with the scent of burning flesh, the nun turned on her heel and headed back to the wall, hiking her hem up as she went tiptoeing through the mud.

“You're certainly bigger than a toad,” she said. “Now use that might and give me a hand up and over, please?”

She squealed an undignified and rather girlish noise as the Lieutenant came up behind her and scooped her up and at the wall with his hands.

“Mind your hands,” she warned coolly as soon as she recovered her dignity.

“Sorry,” he said easily, shifting his left hand from where it cupped her inner thigh, “there's so much skirt to you that I wasn't sure where the safest place to stick my hand was at. I guess I aimed wrong.”

“I nearly had to abandon my vows for you to make an honest woman of me,” she declared, hoisting herself up onto the wall.

Beaming up at her, the Lieutenant said, “hey, now, Missy. Mind your tongue before the devil cuts it off.”

As soon as she was safely on the wall, he said, “now hand me that rifle you got.”

“Aren't you coming up?”

“Well, I promised you some venison now didn't I?”

“This late? Lieutenant, it's almost dark.”

“Best time of day to hunt for deer, yeah?” He winked at her and held out his hand for the gun.

That night the Lieutenant stood in his bell tower watching over the land.

He had to admit, at night like this, with only the cicadas chittering, the ruined world was beautiful still.

As much as he loved people, he enjoyed his solitude as well and with the stars in the sky and the land absolutely still, he was able to just think his thoughts.

“If it keeps on rainin', levees gonna break,” he sung to himself, wandering around the small perimeter of the bell tower, watching all sides for anything moving in the shadows below. Raising the rifle he peered down the scope at something that shifted, it appeared to be shrubs and the wind. “If it keeps on rainin', levees gonna break.”

In the woods he knew they were there, lurking, shuffling, ambling, tripping up and falling. Maws open to devour whatever they fell upon, hands clenched into death claws at their sides, the muscles having retracted and dried up in death.

“And the water gonna come and we'll have no place to stay,” he lowered the rifle as an uggie emerged from the woods.

It was just a shadow really, shuffling from the darkness, finding the wall with its chest, bouncing back and staggering to regain its footing. For a moment, the thing stood dumbly, head bent down, before it seemed to lift its chin and sniff the air.

It wasn't worth it for him to shoot the thing, his gun wasn't much use at times like this, the sound only drawing more to his location, but he liked to use the scope to watch as the dumb thing sort of collapsed against the wall.

From his perspective, he could only see the top of its head, but the manic bobbing told him it had caught their scent and was trying to find a hole in the wall to get at dinner.

Tomorrow he would have to reinforce the wall properly, a few sharp sticks, some hole traps, anything to give them an edge on the dead. He'd head into the nearby town to find something that still drove that he could back against the wrought iron gate.

He wasn't sure about that one, most of the time the vehicles didn't turn over at all. Having never pondered it, he supposed that maybe the gasoline had gone south. He knew it could stale, had tried to drive old lawnmowers enough times to know you had to drain the gas out from the tank if you weren't planning on using them for a good, long while.

Maybe he'd find one though. He only needed her to limp to the convent, it didn't need to win no races.

“Good morning, Lieutenant.”

He had emerged from the church the next morning to Sisters Dymphna, Felicity Perpetua and Mary Claire standing around the steps in the cool shade of the north side.

“Good morning, ladies,” he returned. “Aren't y'all not supposed to talk to me?”

“Only when Mother Mena's not around,” Dymphna replied, her brown eyes sparkling. “Are you heading out?”

“I was planning on doing a little work on the wall today. Did you need me to head out for something?” He asked, coming to stand in the little clutch with them. So far he had found the younger nuns more receptive to his presence than the older ones.

Except for Sisters Gertrude and Boniface, he adored Gertrude and her cats and Sister Boniface was a Quebecois French woman, so he felt a sort of kindred spirit in her.

“Maybe we wanted to do something for you for once,” Sister Mary Claire said with a smile that could brighten a stormy day.

“Something for me?”

Sister Felicity Perpetua, who had been standing with her hands behind her back, produced a child's lunch kit and held it out to him proudly. “We made you a lunch if you're planning on leaving.”

“You have to stay strong,” Sister Mary Claire added. “An army marches on its stomach.”

“Plus, you know, we appreciate you being here for us.” Dymphna added.

There was something sincere in their eyes, something which made the Lieutenant give a slight, unsure pause, before he accepted the lunch kit.

“Thank you,” he said. “I'm going to be just outside the wall working on it today, but maybe at some point I might hike it into the nearby town, see if I can find a big enough truck or some kind of van maybe.”

“What for?” Felicity Perpetua asked.

He motioned for the nuns to follow him towards the gate. They all stopped before it and he motioned with the hand holding his lunch at the rusty gate. “She's solid enough, but old and if enough of those things out there pushed against her at once she could go. I'm going to back a heavy girl up against her and reinforce it.”

The nuns were quiet for a bit, before Dymphna said, “I'm going with you.”

“Nope,” he declared firmly.

“Yes,” she insisted. “You can't go into the town alone with those things out there.”

“I lived this long on my own, I'll be fine.” He stated. “You nuns don't go anywhere outside these walls without me. My job is to keep you safe, your job is to make my job easier by staying here and being your cute little selves.”

“What if something happened to you?” Felicity Perpetua whispered. “My soul would know no peace.”

“Don't you have chores?” Someone asked from behind them, causing a couple of the nuns to jump.

Sister Thomas Aquinas, a stern faced woman of about seventy stood behind them, her arms full of blankets.

The three nuns all ducked out quickly, but not before Dymphna grasped his forearm with a strong, small brown hand.

Looking at him with a hard, glittering stare, the older nun seemed to be sizing him up for a moment, before handing him the blankets.

“Here,” she said. “We found some of these to spare. I thought you might like to keep yourself warmer up in that bell tower.”

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” she said tersely, before turning and walking off, muttering to herself about a 'fox in the hen house'.

He missed the days when he could go out into the woods and just sit and enjoy the peace.

Now, whenever he was in the woods, he was vulnerable and on edge. Always prepared for something to stagger out of the underbrush.

There was a time, when he was a boy, he'd duck into the woods by his rural home near Eunice, what wasn't swampy bayou, was pretty little woods filled mostly with cypress and oak trees, the forest floor was always good and moist, carpeted with the soft needles that the bald cypress trees shed.

The smell of the forest was always the way he found peace. That scent of good, clean country air, with a little harmless stank from the bayou, coupled with the scent of the damp earth. It was home sure enough and he missed it.

Georgia had it's own smell. Less bayou, more fresh water on the air. Rivers and streams and creeks. Nothing like the stagnant scent of the swamp.

He supposed, it was perhaps a little more fresher air, though it just wasn't home and that made all the difference.

Georgia was True Love Ways compared to Louisiana's Oh Boy, if Buddy Holly songs could be used to compare the two. Both good songs, though one was a little more melodic and slow-paced, the other had a bit more get-up-and-go.

“Boy, what are you doing to my wall?”

The voice came from above him on the wall and he looked up to find a furious nun standing there, swaying a little unsteadily in her habit and the mild wind.

“Just reinforcing it, Missy,” he said.

Philomena sighed. “We look like an ancient castle with these sharp sticks poking out.”

Stepping back, he admired his work and nodded. “Yeah, palisades, that's where I got the idea. Figured if it kept them old Celt tribes out, it'd work for us.”

“It doesn't look very inviting,” she muttered.

“It's not supposed to be a welcome mat,” he replied.

“Well, I suppose that's fine, just please don't hoist yourself on your own petard,” she said after a moment of thought.

He wiped his hands off and dug through his pack for the lunch the nuns had packed him. “You up there for a reason?”

“Sister Mary Claire says some of the younger nuns expressed interest in helping you outside these walls.”

“And you want to slap my wrist for tempting them?” He used the gate to climb onto the wall and sat beside her to eat his lunch.

“Not entirely,” she admitted, easing down a little clumsily beside him. “I think...well maybe you could be permitted to teach those of us interested in a few ways to defend ourselves from the abominations.”

Plucking a half a carrot out of his mouth, he crunched on the other half for a good long while. It was so delicious. He had forgotten what fresh veggies tasted like.

“Really?” He finally asked.

She stared off down the cattle trail before them, and he followed her gaze. The path was hung over with oak branches and Spanish moss, pretty for the late summer, but it was tainted by the dead. Always and forever tainted now. Somewhere out there in those pretty trees and green shrubs they ambled and shuffled and staggered and crawled, gnashing and drooling for their next meal. And somehow it worried him more to think about them in the broad daylight, then at night where all the boogins and monsters belonged.

He supposed those uggies all had hopes and dreams and plans set aside now for one thing and one thing only. Same as him, same as the woman sitting beside him, same as all the nuns in the convent behind them.

“Our wills and fates do so contrary run,” he began with a sigh, reminded by something she had said earlier.

Beside him Missy was quiet still, eyes on the world beyond her walls. “You're well read, for a soldier.”

“I'm sure you had to read Hamlet in high school too,” he teased. “A lot of it just stuck with me, I suppose. Don't be fooled,” he went on with a grin, “I'm just a simple country boy from the bayou.”

“I grew up in Savannah,” she said. “Have you ever been?”

“No,” he admitted. “Didn't get a chance before all this and I damned well won't go now. It'll be overrun.”

“We've been so secluded here,” she admitted gently. “I thought though, that someday I would be transferred out to a school or a...missionary, but I suppose this is my life now.” She hurried to add, “not that I'm complaining. I will bear this with grace, only that I miss the outside world, God's real world out there. Art and books, beauty created by the hands of His creatures, so much lost now.”

The Lieutenant stared at the woman as she continued to gaze wistfully out at the trees. He was so struck by how easy she made being beautiful look. “Has anyone ever told you that you that you look like Vivian Leigh?” He asked.

For a moment, the woman's face read irritated, then puzzled, before she finally smiled sweetly and looked down. “Tell me, Mister Lieutenant, is it nature or force that compels you to flirt with every woman you meet?”

“Sometimes it's not just women,” he teased.

“Oh!” She offered him a scolding look, though her face was still mostly smiles and amusement.

He beamed.

[trojansblr]

#FightOn! (01) | ot7

Summary: The University of Southern California is a prestigious school - only the best or the richest can attend. That means there will be a lot of spoiled brats. Two groups start colliding and the entire college shift alongside them. What will happen when sparks starts to flow between them? Drama will certainly be there.

Pairing: BTS with -eventually- female characters

Genre: Fluff, Smut (future), Angst, CollegeAU! 

A/N: First chapter is finally here! For more intel about who the boys are or what they study in this college universe go to my page, there’s real twitter accounts!!! For more information feel free to message me :) ALSO if you want to appear in this fic (I’ll make it as interactive as possible) send me your name and zodiac sign + what you do or want to do in college and I’ll make it happen!!! I really hope you guys like it :) 

The Characters • Day 1  • Day 2

“Good morning South!” Yoongi’s voice echoed through the halls of the school and even though he should sound excited, his voice maintained in a monotone, a really, really, bored and sleepy one. Yoongi was the radio boy basically. Every morning he had to wake up extra early to be able to do all the announcements the university needed him to. It was his giant love for music that made him volunteer to take care of the station – that and he really enjoyed being alone, so he had a whole studio for himself. Plus, everyday the halls were filled with good music. “Today for lunch we will have pizza and don’t forget everyone, Saturday we have the volley’s male team game. You won’t want to miss it!”

He ended his morning announcements and started preparing the playlist that will play during the rest of the day when there was a knock on the door. He tiredly gets up to open the door that he usually locks to keep noisy and unwanted people out. When he sees Carolina, a smile immediately forms in his face.

“Oh my life saver!” He says tiredly as he swings an arm around her neck and pulls her inside, grabbing one of the coffees she’s holding with his other hand. “Good morning for you too.” She chuckles. “What’s good for today?” “Pizza for lunch.” He chuckles as well. “I’m getting too old to do this morning routine. Namjoon should put some pills on his dad’s coffee.” He complained. Every morning he had to talk with the director to receive the announcements and it was a headache every time. “You’re in your twenties Yoongs…” Carolina said rolling her eyes. “But yeah, that would be nice… maybe. I slept only three hours I think and I have volley practice yay!” She threw her arms in the air pretending to be cheerful but failing miserably. “So I really need the push.” “You’re also getting too old for that… see?!” He laughs when she yawns. “Do you wanna help me with the playlist? There’s still a couple of songs I can add and I always trust your taste.” “Team granddads always.” She smiles. “Sure! What vibe are we setting today?” “Well we have to go more ‘college vibes’” He said throwing air marks and mocking the director’s tone. “So help me out, no swear words either!” He jokes. “Oh god, we’ve gone preppy…” She let’s out a sigh and sits on the end of his lap, looking at the list he already had. “But ok, I’m here to help! What about cosmos midnight to cheer up our morning? Hmm the ‘Talk To Me’ one?” “Once again my lifesaver.” He squeezed her sides. Carolina and Yoongi would seem like boyfriend and girlfriend to everyone that passed by them. They were both crazy for each other, to the point where they would really take a bullet for the other, not just for the charm of Bruno Mars. But in reality, it was a genuine friendship. They were very similar and they were comfortable around each other to the point where not touching was weird – piggybacks, cuddling, hugs. The only thing that kept them from dating each other was the fact that they praised their friendship too much and Carolina now had her eye out to a mystery drawing guy. “Let me just add that one to the playlist and we are good to go.” “Where are we going and can you please take me on your back?” She asked making him let out a laugh. “We’re going to the cafeteria because I’m starving and yes, I’ll carry your lazy ass.” “Just kidding! You need to be in shape for your next game.” She said tapping on his back because he was already kneeling down for her to climb on.  “It’s your loss. Come on.” He said and once again swung his arm around her neck as he closed the door of the radio station and headed towards the cafeteria.

By this time of the morning, the halls of Southern California University were starting to get flowed by people who had morning classes, which was basically all the freshman and junior. There were two juniors in particular that always were theme of conversation and caught a lot of eyes everywhere they went. Kim Taehyung and Park Jimin. They were childhood friends that were inseparable. Taehyung is majoring in Fine Arts and was the most eccentric it could get. He had blue hair and looked like a god. But he was the kindest person on earth too so that made him have a lot of girls swooning over him. As for Jimin he was majoring in Performative Arts and was head of the football team, he was the quarterback since his first year and that made him be the most popular boy in the entire university in a glimpse of eyes. Now, despite the both of them being the best of friends, when it came to their social circles, they didn’t belong to the same areas and even thought their interest were almost the opposite, they would always talk and support each other on everything.

“And then!” Taehyung almost screamed from the excitement of the conversation. “The little seagull just flew right from the under the barrel and next to the bigger ones and I was getting so soft but then the video stopped and it switched to that meme from Nemo where all the seagulls are saying fish!” “Fish fish fish fish fish!” Both boys started singing like it had happened in the movie. “Why did you stop?” Taehyung asked after a couple of ‘fish’ when he realized he was doing it alone. “Look, there’s Deo. Let’s go to her.” Jimin said cheerfully walking to the girl that was stuffing a book in her locker. “Good morning baby!” “Morning!” She said smiling widely, giving him a tight hug. “Oh… hi.” Deo added once she noticed Taehyung standing behind the other boy. “Hey!” He smiled awkwardly. “Oh c’mon guys, you already know each other, no need to be shy!” Jimin chuckled lightly, pushing his friends a bit closer together. “Hmm… sure! How’s everything going?” “Good!” Deo said almost immediately, as she turned again to her locker to grab her book. “Well, I gotta get to class. See you.” She said after slamming her locker door and throwing a death glare to Jimin, she left. “Ooooook! So are we seeing that movie tonight or what?” "That was weird... She looked weird don't you think?" Jimin basically spoke to himself. "But yes! We are! What movie?" He smiled sheepish lost in the conversation. “I don’t know, you are the friend not me.” Taehyung said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Bro! I told you about it five times already- the vintage one, noir.” "Ohh! That's right! Yeah, we can watch it tonight!" “Ok then, but don’t forget!” He said with warning eyes. “Gotta go, I’m probably late again.” “I’ll be there!” Jimin screamed and his friend was already walking so he decided to also go to his class. For the popular boy, he was suddenly left abandoned by his two best friends and one of them was clearly mad at him but to him it wasn’t that clear so he still had to do something about that.

Nearby, Hyori, Jungkook and Hoseok were sitting in the lounge. The morning sun was so pleasing that the latter made them sit outside to enjoy some vitamin C. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for Jungkook to vent his problems. He knew he could talk to his friends whenever, but sometimes they were too hyped to listen.

“I just don't understand the need for her to call me virgin boy. What's her deal after all? She doesn't even know me." Jungkook let out frustrated. The day hadn't even started and the words ‘virgin boy’ had already hunted him in the halls. "I don't know Gguk, maybe you just need to let it go. Focus on something else?" Hobi suggested. "She just started it out without no apparent reason?" Hyori finally said something. "Apparently. We have some classes together and I know she lives in my building but I don't remember any interaction we may had? She just started calling me like that after a class and when I noticed, it was running the college." He said in a pout. "Ok either you did something and you're just not remembering because boys never pay attention enough or she just likes to rile you up and it's working." Hyori added. “I don’t think I did?” Jungkook basically asked thinking of their interactions. “Maybe she has a crush?” Hoseok shrugged and Jungkook looked to Hyori. He needed her girl intuition. "That's an option yes! Who is she anyway?" Hyori asked already super curious. She loved and lived for a good gossip. "I don't know how to explain it to you. She has purple hair." Jungkook said like it was impossible for Hyori not to know who the girl was by that description. "Here, this is her social media." Hobi passed her the phone. "Really good description." He teased to Jungkook who huffed. 

"Ok… isn't this the girl that dates that trouble maker? The radio guy? She seems bad news" Hyori said as she scrolls down Carolina’s posts. "I know for a fact they are always on that radio booth together, only God knows doing what." "So what should I do? About the whole virgin boy thing..." "I don't know… tell her to stop?" "He already tried that and failed..." Hobi sighed. "Maybe you just have to do the same. If she starts teasing you, tease back?" "That's a good option… I mean the worst that can happen is her boyfriend beating you up but he's way smaller than you so you have a chance. Or she will beat you up… either way, someone needs to teach them a lesson, it was about time" the girl said.  "He wouldn't have a chance. He is way smaller than me." Jungkook said emphasizing in the smaller. "If she kicks my ass you and Deo have to step in, I can't hit a girl." Jungkook laughed. "Listen I would throw my chemistry books at her for you but if she runs for my head please do something! I'm not good at one on one and just by her face she seems like she would break my neck" “Guys! What violent nonsense is this?” Hoseok said getting up front his chair. “Off to class the both of you!” "Wha-" Jungkook started but was immediately cut off by Hobi again. "I'll see you at lunch!" "Let's go virgin boy! Can't arrive late and ruin my perfect academy life." Hyori said also getting up and let out a laugh once she heard Jungkook complain behind her.

As the group parted ways, Hyori walked in a fast pace to her class. She hated being late but the conversation with Jungkook and Hoseok took more of her time than she was expecting and she couldn’t afford to lose any word that left the teacher’s mouth. When she got to her biology class, there were only a couple of seats vacant and she took the one that were nearest to the teacher’s table. That way she could still record the class and take her notes. She was in the middle of a way too long sentence when someone tapped on her shoulder. When she turned around, she saw Jeonghan, a boy from her class she wished she knew a lot better but never had the guts to go and talk to him.

“Sorry, can I take a peek of your notebook? I can’t keep up the pace with her.” He smiled sheepishly. “Sure! Can you see like this?” She said turning her notebook a little to his side but at the same time trying to hide how red her cheeks already were. “Yeah, that’s perfect!” He smiled sweetly. The class continued but now Hyori was a little out of focus. She could still catch some words but the fact that Jeonghan was almost breathing down her neck was making her lose her senses and the only thing on her mind was the smell of his cologne. “Hey, it’s Hyori right?” He asked leaning against the table as Hyori was packing her stuff. "Yes! That's right!" "Thanks for the help during class! You were a great help really." He smiled as he scratched the back of his neck. "I was thinking, if you aren't too busy maybe we could study together or something? After class?" "Oh it was nothing!" She smiled nervously "Sure, that would be great! Just say where and when." "Can I have your number? I have practice after class but we can check our schedules and set a date?" He said already taking his phone out of his pocket. "Of course! I have some tutoring to do as well, but sure, we'll manage" She laughs and he hands her his phone where she types her number. "I already gave you a ring so you can have my number as well. I'll text you later Hyori!" He said grabbing his backpack and smiling widely to her, walking towards the door. “Bye!” Hyori called out and then she let out a long sigh she didn’t even realized she was holding. Boy, she was starstruck.

As Hyori left her class she immediately spotted Jungkook in the crowd and walked up to him. Hobi was probably already waiting for them in the cafeteria. It was pizza day. No one could push them away from there. But unlike them, there were another group that preferred to eat outside. Not because of the fresh air but because they enjoyed the quietness of the bleachers. It was unusual for people to have lunch there so they had maybe half an hour to eat in peace before the field would be filled with youngsters that wanted to lay down or play some ball.

“Hey losers!” Carolina said coming by alongside Yoongi. The boy had this tired look on his face like he had gone to bed too late, and he probably did. “Where were you this morning? I didn’t even see you” Jin - the oldest of the group and also Carolina's house mate - said. “I have class at eight remember? I don’t have your easy senior life” She replied sitting down next to Taehyung. He was currently sketching something on his journal, not really paying attention to the conversation. “After all this years i deserve a break don’t you think?” The oldest said chuckling. “Not really” “Well, talk in two years about that and you’ll see” “Where’s Namjoon?” Yoongi asked for the first time making everyone even Taehyung look around for their friend. “Is he sick or something?” Carolina asked. “I gave him a ride this morning...” Yoongi added. “He’ll probably show up in a few” Jin said returning his attention to the sandwich he was eating. “I saw him in the cafeteria earlier” Taehyung said still drawing “I think his class ends a little after ours” “Oh there he is!” Carolina pointed looking behind Jin. Namjoon had a fast pace and his hands were full with large books. And although he was a little clumsy, he was a true catch. “Guys!!!” He called out with his dimple smile “Did you heard it?!” “What? What happened this time?” Yoongi asked a little uninterested drinking his coffee. “Did you hear that rumor about JK being a virgin? Do you think it’s true? Like- he’s a nice kid but who is still a virgin in college?!” Namjoon said sitting down and almost falling down of the bleachers if it wasn’t for Jin holding him. “Really? I though he had a girlfriend or something... I think Jimin mentioned it once” Taehyung added to the conversation. “Ya, why do we even care? Let the kid be” Yoongi said taking a bite of Carolina’s sandwich. “What would Jimin know though?” Carolina said to Taehyung “And besides, he uses this purity ring on his finger all the time” “Like the Jonas brothers?” Jin asked incredulous. “Yep, he’s the fourth member for sure” “That was even a thing?” Namjoon asked a little lost. “And you seem to know a lot about the subject” Yoongi said with a smirk looking to Carolina “Odd” “I know because he has some classes with me that’s all” “Let’s ask him today on the way home!” Jin suggested “Maybe his father is a preacher” “No, his father is a designer, I know him” Taehyung said casually. “Oh” Namjoon let out like he was disappointed with the outcome. “Ok but guys-“ Carolina said cutting the subject “Can we discuss the fact that Jin was caught trying to wear my bra yesterday?!” “I SAID I WAS JUST DOING AN EXPERIMENT!!!” Seokjin bursted. “He was probably trying to open it with one hand only... you know, for practice” Yoongi said in a monotone. “Dude, you could have said that, I would help” Taehyung offered. “Wow” Carolina said. “That’s some... kinky shit right there” Namjoon pointed out eating his lunch.

The group can seem a little odd to the outside viewers but they all had a lot in common. Carolina and Taehyung had practically been raised together, their parents were friends for a lifetime and to top that they were neighbours. When she came to college though, her schedule didn’t match his, so she wandered around in some clubs trying to spend some time and also to try and find someone to share her apartment with. She would share it with Taehyung, but unfortunately to her he was already doing so with Park Jimin, his best friend. Already on her first week she got lucky to somehow end in a vintage game conference and ended up meeting Jin, a senior in the college who was desperate to get out of the campus dorm and that somehow knew Taehyung. She didn’t have to think much about it to rent her spare room to him, and yes, he was a guy, but her parents were pretty open minded and if he knew Taehyung... well that was a major plus. On her second week she met Namjoon, a nice and shy guy that was friends with Seokjin and usually would sit with them to grab some lunch. She only discovered he was the son of the dean a month later when her group ended up in a mess (a thing they would do a lot!). Yoongi was a different case... she met him because fate once more moved to her favor. In the building she lived, there were more apartments and one of them belonged to Namjoon, Yoongi and Jungkook (the virgin boy according to Carolina who may or may not have spread that rumor out). How she discovered that? Well, Jin asked Namjoon for a ride but turned out that Yoongi was the driver. He was a tough one to crack at first but once she discovered they had the same music taste, they became really close. She would mostly spend her days skipping classes at the radio station of the college, where Yoongi was the main dj. In college they would mainly hangout in the bleachers, because it was sunny and pretty far of the rest of the college population. If it was a cold or rainy day, well, they would go to the lounge area to chill and eat something. If it was after classes, always Jin and Carolina’s apartment since they tried it once at Yoongi’s (he isn’t much of going out of the house) but Carolina arrived and Jungkook was casually eating cereals in his pajamas and well, let’s just say she didn’t understood why he was there in the first place. Despite them being super tired already, the day continued on and they still had a couple of classes in the afternoon. The sun made them feel sleepy so when they had to get up to go to class, it seemed more like a herd of zombies walking down the halls. The boys had this protective habit of walking Carolina to her class and once she entered the door they would all disperse, going on with their lives.

Carolina had decided to take her usual trip to the broom closet. She gained this habit in her first week and it became more and more regular when some sketches started to appear on the walls and on the door. It intrigued her. As far as she knew, she was the only habitant of the broom closet in the arts department and those drawings felt like gifts and the smell of cigarettes made it more appealing each time. She was dying to find whom it could be. Unfortunately for her, she had to return to her class of photography. She wasn’t really excited today. What was the point of having a class like that and not photograph? She didn’t need to know how many pixels there were in how many centimeters so, inspired by the sketches in the broom closet, she scribbled on her own notebook. And everything was fine until she heard 'pop quiz next week' coming out from the teacher's mouth. Her mind began racing and she looked around to see from whom she could manage to get some info for the quiz. She really had no choice.

“Psstt, virgin boy!” Carolina called out to Jungkook. Despite unfamiliar, he was the more familiar face she had in that class. Once he turned around, she continued. “Can you borrow me your notebook real quick?” She whispered to him. “Why?” He asked, genuinely confused. They weren’t friends and for what he remembered not even once she was nice to him. “Dude, just help me out. I have zero things written down.” He looked at her not following why she would care and he was about to speak but shut his mouth. “Fine, but you owe me one.” He passed her his notebook that she grabbed firmly, not letting go of his gaze. “That’s not how it works virgin boy.” He couldn’t help but snort. He was so tired of the virgin boy rumor and he was 100% sure she was the one spreading it. He just didn’t know why. “Uhuh, just hurry up.” “If I want to.” Carolina teased harder. “So what? You’re keeping my notebook?” He arched his eyebrow, a smirk showing in his lips. “Why? Is there something here I can’t see?” She asked, interest and curiosity rising from what secrets she could find in his book. “Browse away, but if you just want to keep something mine, I can bring you a sweater. At least is comfier.” He teased. “Is that you flirting with me, virgin boy?” She pressed on his new nickname, making him snort once again. “You wish. Just hurry,” he turned back to the board. “or neither of us will pass the pop quiz next week. I need to write down what she’s saying.” “Here.” She said taking the last picture and handing him the notebook. “And hurry up writing it down cause I need the rest of it!” Once the class was over, Jungkook gathered his things and left. He had volleyball practice tonight so he wanted to go home and rest but as he was about to leave the main hall he heard someone call his name. “Hey, virgin boy! You forgot the rest of the notes.” Carolina said almost skipping to catch him. “Really? I think I got everything she said.” He played dumb. “No dumbass, you forgot to pass them on to me.” “Oh, I don’t think I did.” “But you did.” Carolina pushed back and he smirked. “Nope.” “Seriously, can you just stop this... thing and give me the notes? I really need them and you’re the most organized one so far” “Well maybe if you were nicer and stopped calling me virgin boy…” “Oh so it affects you that much huh?” She narrowed her eyes looking at him, trying to figure out if he was a virgin or not. "You are the one losing here sweetheart. Anyway, you still have a week." He turned around ready to leave but was stopped. “Woah!” Carolina held his arm. “First of all, you should work on that pet name thing virgin boy, ‘sweetheart’ is a major turn off... but anyways! Just-“ She let out a long sigh. “Borrow me your notes, I swear I’ll be quick” “Not today.” He got loose of her hold and started walking towards the exit. “Fine. Just know that I’m kinda resentful sometimes.”

As Jungkook walked off, Carolina was ready to punch someone into a locker but she knew there was no use in getting in trouble over him. Instead she was planning on wasting all her rage at the volleyball practice later on. The halls were all empty and Namjoon found himself wandering through the corridor he already knew like the back of his hand. He wasn’t in the mood for how the rest of his day was about to end but he also knew there was no use in postponing this any further, so he walked into the dean’s office – or better yet, his dad’s office. 

“Son, you’re lat- what clothes are those?” Dean Kim frowned immediately as soon as he saw the clothes his son was wearing. “My going out clothes? Why? There’s something wrong?” He asked looking at himself, from head to toe. “I told you this dinner was important, I needed you in more formal attires.” He said sternly. “I don’t have anything more formal than this dad… I’m just in college.” Namjoon sighed, trying to contain his temper from coming out. “And besides, nobody will even notice me, I’m sure!” He added trying to lighten the mood. “Either way, we don’t have time to change now. Your mother is coming too so we’ll have to go pick her up.” He said without even looking at his son, already picking up his briefcase. “Mom is coming? Why?” “Because it looks better in the pictures if she’s there.” He paused. “You already know these stuff.” “No, I don’t. I don’t know why you two have to keep pretending… Don’t you see it’s a burden for mom?” Namjoon said sadly. It hurt his heart to see his mom sad and for a lot of years, that was the only look he seen in her face. “I don’t think this matter really concerns you.” He said in a cold tone. “Yes it does dad. God!” Namjoon let out frustrated, sitting down on one of the puffy chairs. “I’m your son and I have to see this act go on and how it hurts all of us… This is not right. Can’t we just- I don’t know… Let’s just go the two of us.” “I already said. This is not up for discussion. Since when do you stand up to my word? Those friends of yours…” The dean basically spat. He didn’t approve of his son’s friends ever since the first time they all came into his office for a prank they pulled and the hole cafeteria had to be evacuated. “This has nothing to do with my friends. I stand up for what is right and you would know that if you paid more attention to the real me, not the perfect son you created in your mind.” “Why can’t you just have a good record, study hard so that you have a bright future?! I just want what is best for you. One day you’ll realize that.” “And I do that. I study hard, I have great grades. The only thing lacking for you is appearances.” Namjoon spat, hurt by his father’s words. “You could dress better. You look like a delinquent in those baggy clothes. I’ll ask your mother to take you out shopping soon. Now we have to go.” “Sure thing… dad.” Namjoon said in a quitting tone, following his father to the car.

He just wanted this night to end but it hadn’t even started. Ever since he was little, he doesn’t remember a moment where his mother was truly happy with his father. Since early, she decided it would be best to be a stay-at-home mom and take care of Namjoon and his little sister. Mr. Kim was making more than enough money being an university dean to take care of the whole family so why work? But that made Namjoon's mom become more and more unhappy and she didn’t have the strength to get away from the depending relationship she had with her husband. When she finally managed to find herself a job and ask for divorce, Mr. Kim found a way to continue controlling her. After all, what kind of strong and powerful family is one that isn’t able to hold a marriage? Namjoon just wanted to see his mom happy but it was still far from being capable of such things.

As Namjoon's continued to go disastrously, Jungkook and Carolina were already at their volleyball practice and coach decided it would be a good idea to mix the teams up. Boys and girls all against each other. Unfortunately, Jungkook wasn’t lucky enough to be put in the same team as Carolina and she had a lot of anger inside that she needed to let out and what better way than smashing some balls? Coach even said he wished she could play with the boy’s team this Saturday due to how roughly and determinedly she was playing. That was until she finally managed to throw a ball directly into Jungkook's face, that made him go straight to the floor with a bloody nose. He didn’t thought he could have such an impact on the girl. It were just some stupid notes... how would she react like if she was dumped? He thought that to himself and decided it was better to do some peace offerings after practice. So when the time came to hit the lockers, he got ready as fast as he could and waited for her to get out. In all ways, he found the situation funny that she could be so uptight.

"So I guess practice wasn't good enough to unload your rage?" Jungkook asked with a grin on his face, grabbing Carolina's arm since she decided to pretend he didn't exist. “Better take your hands off if you don’t wanna see what’s left of that rage” "Oh c'mon are you seriously mad because I didn't give you my notes?" He almost snorted. "Yes I am” She said serious. "I can give them to you if it would stop your hulk mode." “No need” "I see you also have a big pride" He teased harder. “No I just have an intolerance to bitchy people. Now if you’ll excuse me” She said, starting to walk away. "I don't actually." He grabbed her arm once more, making her spin back to him. "I'm the bitchy one? Really?" "What do you even want, virgin boy? Tell me cause I’m kinda losing my patience here” Carolina said. She was close to losing her temper and even closer at punching him in the face. "You are the one acting like a child and you have the guts to say I'm bitchy. You need to swallow that temper of yours. If you want the notes just tell me instead of this." Jungkook said, done with her way of talking, making her laugh acidly. "Listen, sweetheart, i asked you once maybe twice for the notes, i won’t ask for them again. And the one being childish is clearly you. You came to offer your notes, I said no, but for some reason you don’t let me go” She never once lost eye contact, done with his behavior. “I call that childish behaviour. Either you state what you want or leave me be” "Fine." Jungkook snorts and leaves.

Jungkook was pissed off so as soon as he got home, he got inside his room and decided it was best to just sleep. On the other hand, on campus, Hyori was trying hard to study for one of her upcoming exams but her phone and a boy was keeping her unfocused.  Deo was on her bed, trying to read a book she had just bought but the constant beeping was making her stress and although she didn’t want to pry, she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“Why is your phone always beeping?” Deo asked. Hyori’s phone had been beeping for the past half hour nonstop and it wasn’t the usual routine the girl would do when she studied. “Oh!” She says turning around to face her roommate, a blush already creeping in her cheeks. “It’s just this boy from my bio class.” “A boy?” Deo asked putting down her book and crossing her legs in the bed, paying full attention to the conversation now. “It’s no big deal so don’t make a big deal out of it! But yes, he’s cute and his name is Jeonghan.” “How can I not make a big deal out of this when you say he’s cute and you’re putting your studies on pause to answer him?” Deo said overly excited. “What are you talking about?” “Seriously, it’s no big deal. He’s just super friendly that’s all.” Hyori let’s out a laugh, a nervous one. “If somehow it happens to be something more, I will let you know, don’t worry.” “Do you have a date yet?” The smaller girl wiggled her eyebrows teasingly making Hyori roll her eyes but laugh right after. “What’s up with you though? I could see you furrowing your brows and thinking hard on your bed.” She said more serious now. “It’s just this book… so intriguing.” “I’m sure it is…” Hyori said eyeing the girl to see if she could figure her out. “You know what’s funny? I have like a million texts of Jimin asking me why you won’t talk to him.” “He is such an annoying ass.” Deo whispered more to herself. “You know his friend, Taehyung?” “The artsy one?” Hyori asked raising her eyebrow. “Yeah, the one with blue hair. You know I can’t stand him and today Jimin just came to me with him like ‘oh hey guys you are best friends!’ No we’re not!!” Deo let out a long and hard sigh. “It pisses me off. He already knows I don’t like him but he keeps pushing.” “And why is that exactly? That you don’t like him?” "I can't believe you're going to analyze me now... I think you should drop out of psychology” Deo said trying to ease the mood but Hyori’s face stayed still. “Well, first of all, he's a weirdo. Just the other day he came to Jimin saying that the light bill was getting too high that he needed to watch out for the lights he forgot to turn off. Bro, we live in the dorms!" She rolled her eyes, annoyed of thinking back to that moment. "And the real reason I think it is because I'm jealous?" “Jealous of Jimin or… Taehyung?” Hyori asked in a suggesting tone and made Deo snort. “Why would I be jealous of Taehyung?!” She asked confused. “Of Taehyung… for no big deal. Now, of Jimin… well, the way I see it, maybe you’re having a moment of ‘why this loopy head guy is messing with my emotional’?” “I don’t see it… I just don’t understand why Jimin likes him so much. I mean, I’m his best friend too! I should be enough… I know it’s not fair.” “Yes, he’s a little- how can I say… weird? Out of the box? Anyways, he can be that but he is kinda funny in his own way… And Jimin speaks highly of him, he’s always saying he’s a great friend and moral support, so even if you don’t like the dude, just maybe tolerate him for Jimin? You know you love Jimin.” “I smiled at the dude today!” Deo said in defeat. “I won’t be disrespectful towards him because that wasn’t how I was raised but I can’t stand his face.” “That’s either called love or pure ‘I want to have sex with you’ you know?” Hyori said with a big smirk in her face. “How- I don- Ok you know what! Just go back to studying and texting the cute boy.” Deo said sticking her tongue out to her and picking back her book. “Ok scratch that, it’s more ‘I madly want to have sex with him’” She laughs lightly. “But hey, I’m not judging! The dude is weird but is super handsome!” “I DON’T WANT TO!” Deo protested, throwing a pillow at the other girl’s head. "And you know what? The girls I'm tutoring said pretty good stuff about him too… his hands are THAT big for a reason" Hyori continued teasing. “DUDE!” Deo hid her face in one of her pillows, flustered. “Do you think he’s good at it though? Because he has the fame but you never know.” “Oh I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s doing.” “I think you are the one who has a crush huh? Loopy is your type then?” “Loopy is super handsome yes, but I’m more of a smartass kind of girl.” Hyori said, slowly in the last part, thinking of what her type would be. “Loopy is more your type really.” “Just… don’t ok! And don’t give Jimin any ideas. And stop having ideas too!” “Will you start talking to Jimin again?” “Yes… you know I can’t stay mad for long.” “Then it’s a secret.” She winked and laughed hard right after because Deo pretended to throw her book to her head like she did with the pillow.

But that talk really made Deo think. It wouldn’t be fair for Jimin to wait until the next morning for them to talk again and it shouldn’t be something done by the phone either. So she decided to drop by their dorms. Hoseok was the hall security so that wouldn’t be a problem for her to reach their door. She put on some sweat pants and went out with her pj shirt. Who cared? She knocked on their door and soon it opened. It was Jimin.

“Hey, sorry to drop by this late…” Deo started and Jimin immediately involved her in a big hug. “I should be the one giving the hug you know.” She chuckled. “Why were you mad at me today?” Jimin asked with a pout. “Can you…” she pointed at the door signaling him to close it and he did so. “I just- I’m sorry. I was being childish just because I’m jealous of all the attention you give Taehyung. I promise I’ll work harder to be nice to your friend.” “You could’ve just stopped at the sorry but I’ll make you keep the last part!” He gave her a big smile when she rolled her eyes. “You are an ass.” She said trying to maintain a straight face but failed miserably. “Do you wanna come in? We were just watching a movie!” Jimin said already opening the door and turning to Taehyung. Somehow they managed to hang an old projector in one of the walls over the bed and were watching the movie like they were in the cinema. They had popcorn and everything. “Oh no! I look like shit! These are my pjs!” “Hey Taetae, look! Deo is here!” “Hey there!” Taehyung gives a little wave with his hand. “Bro can I press play already? I hate to pause it in the middle of an important dialogue.” He looked frustrated to Jimin. “Sorry!” He turned to Deo once more. “Do you wanna watch the move with us?” “Oh I don-“ “Effort remember?” Jimin almost whispered to her. “Sure. Do you mind?” Deo asked now to Taehyung. “It’s ok, but please don’t make me back up to the beginning of the movie.” “I won’t!” She said almost rising her hands up. “I’m clicking play already! Shut the lights Jimin!” Taehyung said turning his attention to the screen. “Go sit!” Jimin ordered Deo, pointing to the bed but she stood still. She didn’t want to have to sit in the middle of the boys. “C’mon!!” “Popcorn?” Taehyung asked, pushing the bowl towards her. All she could think about was that silly conversation she had with Hyori about his hand and she found herself blushing from the thoughts that crossed her mind with the boy right next to her. “No, I’m good…. But thanks.” As someone who didn’t care much about hands and their beauty, she had to admit, his hands were just something. “I want!” Jimin said breaking the imaginary tension and shoving his hand down the bowl and taking a hand full straight to his mouth. For the rest of the movie, Taehyung kept on making comments about the hole aesthetic of the movie while the other two remained in silence, watching. Once it ended, they decided they would enjoy the final credits and the music that came in, Jimin already had his head on Deo's lap and was close to falling asleep because she had been playing with his hair for the longest time. "See? This is the kind of movies that make me regret chosing performative arts." Deo said after a big sigh, with a frown in her face. “Why?” Taehyung turned his body so that he was facing her directly. "Oh well... there's a lot of things I like to do and it gets hard to having to choose only one to do. It's like choosing between kids you know? I like photography, but I also like dancing and singing and I also really like movies so how am I suppose to pick one?" “It’s not that hard if you are open minded enough to be a lot of people at the same time. I don’t think I want to do just one thing for the rest of my life...” "I don't think that either but I meant more like in learning. These majors are too expensive for me to take every single one I like." “Hm.. you just have to choose the one you identify yourself most, not thinking you will be giving up the others. That’s what I think” Taehyung said after a long time of looking at the ceiling, thinking. "That's a good way of thinking" “Why are you so quiet?” Taehyung asked curious to Jimin. It wasn't much like him to be quiet. "Oh no reason! I was just thinking along with your conversation! When I was little I used to get picked on a lot by my family because I liked to dance but I also like football so anything is possible. I'm having the best of both worlds." He chuckles. “Yeah, I remember” Taehyung laughs along with him, thinking about those moments from their childhood. "So yeah, anything is possible" Jimin said getting up from Deo's lap just to pinch her nose right after. "As long as you work hard for it!" "That's also a good way of thinking. Never knew you could be that wise Jimin." Deo said teasingly. "But anyway, it's getting late so I should get going." “Working hard remembers me of the review I have to write due tomorrow” Taehyung sighed, making the others laugh. “There’s never a chill out moment without paperworks to do after” "Do you need me to walk you to your dorm?" Jimin asked to Deo. He didn't like it when she would wander around campus late at night. "Oh no! Thanks for the popcorns" She said to Taehyung as she got out of the bed. "Sure, anytime!" Taehyung showed off his boxy smile. "See you tomorrow babe." Deo put herself on her tiptoes and gave Jimin a tight hug, walking to the door right after.

 > Day 2 <

[we-are-only-halfway-home93]

Come and Lay the Roses 3- Where Do We Begin?- [Ivar x OC]

Summary: Aaline moves. Ivar ignores Bjorn’s attempts to discuss the wedding.

Characters: Ivar x OC, Bjorn x Torvi, Ubbe x Margrethe, Hvitserk x Thora, Sigurd x OC, Ragnar, Lagertha

Warnings: Arranged marriage, language, violence, sex, and torture.

Word Count: 3503

Prologue Ch. 1 Ch. 2

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

~Plato

Aaline watched as the last box was carried out of what used to be her front door. She surveyed the space that was her living room and felt significantly smaller than she had a moment before. The high ceilings seemed darker now that her paintings and pillows were gone.

She had been living in the penthouse suite since she’d moved home from Oxford two years ago. It was a graduation gift from her father. He’d built the apartment complex four years before and used the penthouse as a coming home gift as well as a way to make amends for the things he hadn’t been around for. She’d had the freedom to decorate how she wanted and she used rich reds and yellows to paint the walls.

He still owned the building. Well, technically she owned it now. It was just yesterday that she met with her father to sign over the company. Hvitserk had accompanied her as the legal representation for Ragnar and her father had his own attorney present. He had tried to speak to her about matters outside of their business deal but she pointedly ignored him. Hvitserk tried to move everything along quickly but her father must’ve spoken to his lawyer before the meeting because he made things as tedious as possible.

They finally concluded their business after nearly three hours of discussion. Everything that was once owned by her father was now in her name. His shares, his buildings, his accounts, his company. Everything belonged to her. He was a member of the board in name only. He had no power over the company and any decisions that were made in its name. She agreed to give him a monthly stipend of twenty thousand dollars, five thousand a week, which was more than enough to support him. What he did with that money was his business. She would give him no more, no less. That was the only contact they would have for the rest of his life.

He tried to speak to her as they left but Hvitserk must’ve picked up on her mood and politely stepped between them as she made her way out. Ives Jensen was not easily deterred and managed to make the elevator. Hvitserk gave her an apologetic look but she ignored him. “Aaline, would you please say something?” She didn’t acknowledge him and instead watched the numbers change as they descended.

“How many times must I apologize?” Hvitserk snorted and tried to cover it up with a cough. Aaline rolled her eyes and sighed. “You’re my only child. I was trying to protect you.” Aaline brought her gaze down to the reflective silver doors and looked at her father. She watched him until she heard the ding that announced their arrival. The doors were opening when she finally spoke. “You didn’t do this for me.” She didn’t wait to see it Hvitserk was following her.

She had gone back to her apartment knowing that Ragnar’s private moving company would be there in the morning to take her personal possessions back to the estate.

She had decided to leave the basic furniture in the apartment and just take her personal items. Lagertha had told her that she could stay in one of the guest rooms until the wedding. It went unspoken that she and Ivar wouldn’t be made to share a room following their wedding ceremony. She would be moving into one of the guest rooms close to Ivar’s room. She ignored the reasons for that.

The moving company arrived at eight am that morning and was surprised by the number of things she wasn’t taking with her. She told them she was renting the penthouse out so she was leaving the furniture behind. They didn’t ask any questions and began moving boxes. Torvi, Sibylle, and Thora arrived shortly after and Ubbe dropped Margrethe off on his way to work. The four women were there mainly for moral support but Aaline could see them whispering together when they thought she wasn’t looking.

It was almost ten and the movers had taken her last box. She stood with her hands on her hips as she surveyed the apartment. It felt cold now that she couldn’t see her presence in the walls anymore.

She startled when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned and smiled at Sibylle. “The truck is loaded and ready to go. There’s a car here for us if you’d like to get brunch with us?” She phrased it as a question like she thought Aaline would say no.

Aaline had never had a lot of friends growing up but she needed to find someone to latch on to during this process. The next several months weren’t going to be easy for her and this group of women had more knowledge of this organization than she would ever hope for. She needed them not only as a line of information but as friends.

She figured out a long time ago that she didn’t do well on her own. When left to her own devices, people got hurt. She didn’t like the person that she was when she was alone. She needed people to care about, people to love. She needed a reason behind her anger and she felt that these women could be that for her. She could love them. Maybe it would lessen the blow of a loveless marriage.

She smiled and nodded, letting Sibylle lead her out the door. Aaline balked when she saw that they were riding in a limousine. “A limo?” She questioned. Sibylle laughed and opened the door. Torvi poked her head out of the door and smiled. “Come on you two! I’m starved!” Aaline sighed and followed Sibylle inside the car.

Thora had already opened a bottle of champagne and handed a flute to Aaline. She smiled and took a tentative sip. She saw Torvi glance at the other women before turning her body to face Aaline. She turned her eyes to the older woman and waited. She clearly had something on her mind.

“Aaline, we know this can’t be easy for you but, the four of us, we wanted you to know that we’re here for you. Whatever you need.” Aaline felt her throat get tight and swallowed several times. “I appreciate that.” She nodded and took a bigger sip of her champagne. The bubbles burned her throat but she sniffed and blinked the tears away. Torvi placed a gentle hand on her knew and Aaline had to tamp down her reflexes to pull away.

Thora leaned forward then and waited for Aaline to meet her eyes. “We know how this family can be and we’ve all struggled with something at one time or another. It’s normal to be overwhelmed in this family.” Aaline snorted and shook her head. The car was silent for several minutes. Aaline knew they were expecting her to speak but she didn’t know where to start. She swallowed thickly and opened her mouth.

“I spent most of my childhood alone. I still had the cliche dream of marrying someone that I love and having this perfect wedding. As I got older I thought about it less and less but I always thought I’d marry someone for love.” She finished her champagne and laughed humorlessly. “I guess that’s one more dream I can give up on.” The other women gave her looks of confusion but didn’t say anything.

“This might not be the best time but…” Thora started rifling through her purse and Aaline tensed when she saw a black box emerge from its depths. She looked up at Aaline and blushed at her incredulous look. She passed the velvet box to Torvi. “I know this is supposed to come from Ivar but...to say he hasn’t been receptive is an understatement so...we,” she gestured to the other women around her. Aaline looked apprehensively at the box resting in Torvi’s hands. “Decided that maybe we could do this for you. We wanted to find something elegant and simple but also stunning.”

Aaline took the box with shaky fingers and pulled it open. Inside there were two rings nestled together. One was a row of seven small teardrop diamonds arching in a clean line. The second ring was a large oval diamond on a simple gold band.

“The larger stone is the wedding ring that Iv...that you’ll get on the day of. The small stones will be your engagement ring. We figured you could wear it to all the appointments.” Thora wrung her hands together nervously as she watched Aaline stare at the rings. Aaline gently pulled the first ring out of the box and, with shaking fingers, slipped it on her ring finger. She took a deep breath and looked at it on her hand. She could almost believe that she was happy.

She closed the box on the other ring and smiled tightly at the other women. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.” Torvi smiled and rested her hand on Aaline’s knee. “We just want to make this transition easier for you. Ivar is difficult but he’s not all bad.” Margrethe snorted into her champagne flute and Aaline turned accusing eyes towards her. The other women didn’t seem to think too much of the outburst either. “Margrethe.” Sibylle scolded. Margrethe just tilted her head and kept her mouth shut.

Aaline may have had her own opinions about Ivar but for someone else to blatantly insult him when he wasn’t there rankled her.

One of her biggest irritants was people who talked badly about others behind their backs. She felt that honesty was the best way to go through life and for Margrethe to overtly display her dislike for Ivar in front of Aaline was bold.

Sibylle turned back to Aaline. “Ivar is a complicated man. There are many layers to him.” Aaline nodded and looked out the window. She watched as the buildings passed by.

Everything was a blur. She prided herself on her ability to get through tough situations. This situation, however, had no end in sight. She was going to have to spend the rest of her life with Ivar Lothbrok. At least the rest of her father’s life. She couldn’t imagine Ragnar would take to kindly to her divorcing his son during her father’s lifetime. Probably ever, if she was honest with herself.

She drew her eyebrows together when they passed the exit for the estate. She turned to look at the other women and none of them would meet her eyes. Sibylle looked guilty and Aaline felt a ball of dread grow in her stomach. “We passed the exit for the house.” She said. Torvi glanced at her sisters and, when none of them made a move to speak, she cleared her throat.

“Ragnar’s men know what to do. Lagertha is going to make sure everything gets where it needs to go. We need to start wedding preparations.” Aaline never wished more for a mother. She would have a confidant who could field these situations. Someone she knew that she could lean on right now.

The Lothbrok women were wonderful. They’d been very welcoming and were working hard to make things easy on her but, in the end, she didn’t know them. They were strangers who were loyal to their husbands. They had no ties to her other than the fact that she would one day be a part of their family. They owed her nothing.

Aaline sighed heavily and looked up at Torvi. She’d pulled out an iPad and was scrolling through it. She looked up when she heard Aaline sigh. She smiled and it was filled with pity. Aaline felt the irritation rising in her chest but she held her tongue. Of course, Torvi would pity her. She was marrying her brother-in-law whose reputation was widely regarded as difficult and violent. Anyone would pity her.

She took a deep breath and tried to smile. She was sure it looked more like a grimace. “What’s first?”

.

The gun jerked in his hands and he lowered it when he knew the clip was empty. He narrowed his eyes when the target came towards him. He tugged the headphones from his ears and draped them around his neck. He smiled when he saw the holes spaced close together at the head and chest. He tugged it down and set it aside, putting up another target. He shoved a fresh clip into his gun and took aim.

He lowered his hands when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked over his shoulder and sneered at Ubbe. His brother simply smiled and jerked his head over to the side. Ivar cleared his chamber and engaged the safety, slipping the piece back into its holster at the small of his back. He followed Ubbe towards the rest of his brothers at the entrance of the range.

Björn was finishing his conversation on the phone while Hvitserk and Sigurd spoke in hushed voices nearby. Hvitserk nodded to them as they approached and Ivar heard Björn say goodbye and hang up. He turned and looked up at them, sighing heavily. His shoulders were tense and Ivar could see the lines of tension by his mouth and eyes. He gestured his brothers closer and they huddled in a tight circle.

“That was Lagertha. They discovered which dock was hit.” Bjorn took a deep breath like he was bracing himself. “It was Kattegat.”

Ivar sucked in a sharp breath. Kattegat was their busiest, legal shipping dock. Both foreign and domestic trade come out of the dock. The hit this would bring to their organization, both legal and illegal, would be great.

The night that Ivar and Aaline met, the damage to the dock was what pulled Ragnar away from the meeting. Ragnar had gotten a call that there was smoke coming from one of the warehouses that was on the dock. By the time Ragnar and Lagertha had arrived, dozens of shipping containers were burning and billows of smoke were rising up over the dock.

“The damage has been tallied and we lost three million dollars worth of foreign goods and, roughly, two million worth of domestic product.” Ubbe cursed and Ivar watched Björn rub at his temples. “Do we know who’s responsible?” Hvitserk asked. Björn looked up and nodded, taking a deep breath through his nose. “Aelle, the head of the Northumbria chapter of The Saxons.” Ivar tensed and felt the heat rise up in his face.

Ever since his mother died the relationship between The Northmen and The Saxon’s had been shaky at best. Ecbert and Aelle claimed they knew nothing of Aslaug’s death but Ivar didn’t trust a Saxon as far as he could throw them. Aelle and Ecbert had made a deal with Ragnar before Aslaug’s death and the grounds it stood on had been precarious from the start. As soon as Aslaug died, any trust or deals between the two groups disintegrated and any hope of them finding new common ground died with Aslaug.

“How do we know it was Aelle?” Ubbe asked. Björn opened his phone and scrolled through it. Ivar saw him open up his pictures and pull up the most recent shot. He turned it around and showed his brothers. Ivar felt his blood rush and his fingers tingle. The adrenaline that raced through his veins was intoxicating. A vindictive smile graced his face and he moved the phone closer to his face.

It was of a man. An older man with dark hair and a dark beard. He was sitting on the ground with his hands behind his back. His eyes were filled with a scornful fire and his upper lip was pulled up in a snarl. There was blood and dirt on his face and neck and Ivar could see other dead Saxon’s strewn behind him. He had the same eyes as Aelle.

“Aethelwulf?” Hvitserk asked as he took the phone from Björn and held it between him and Sigurd. “Did he organize it?” Björn snorted and shook his head, taking his phone back. “Of course not. Aelle’s the brains behind everything. This was his idea. Aethelwulf has always done his brother’s bidding. He reaps the benefits without any of the fallout.”

Ivar licked his lips. “Now he’s ours.” Bjorn nodded and put his hands in his pockets. “We’re holding him at Hedeby until Ragnar decides what to do with him.” Bjorn jerked his head towards Ivar. “We need to talk about your wedding.” Ivar scowled and pulled his headphones back over his ears. He turned towards the range but jerked back when someone pulled his headphones from his head.

“Don’t touch me.” He snarled. Ubbe held his hands up, Ivar’s headphones clenched in his first. “It’s unavoidable, Ivar. There are things we need to discuss.” Björn continued. Ivar turned his back on his oldest brother and pulled his gun from its holster. “There’s nothing to discuss, brother.”

He turned to face Björn, his gun aimed at the target. “The women are handling it. I’ll be there on the day of, like the good son I am.” He sneered and fired one shot. “Then, I’ll take her, like the good husband that I am.” He fired another shot, never breaking eye contact with Björn. “Whether she’s alive the next morning, well…” He shrugged and turned back to the target, emptying his clip.

Björn scoffed and stalked up to Ivar. He stood in front of him, chest to chest, and spoke. “You won’t kill her. Do you know why? Because father has arranged this deal with her father. We benefit greatly from this deal. We get money, property, shares, and land. That’s more than what we would’ve gotten had Ragnar just killed her father and been done with it.

“As much as this pisses you off, you know as much I as I do that this is a good arrangement. You have her file. Why don’t you read it? Maybe you’ll learn something about her that you actually like.” Ivar glared up at his oldest brother.

Ivar loved all his brothers, he did, but he hardly ever liked them. Björn was the golden boy. He did everything Ragnar ever wanted or expected him to do. He figured it came with being the oldest and losing his sister at a young age. Björn never wanted to disappoint Ragnar and made it is own personal mission that the rest of them didn’t either.

Ivar had no plans to kill his future wife. He liked the color it brought to Björn’s face when he threatened to but he knew how important this business deal was for his father. He would marry her, like the dutiful son he was, no matter how angry this lack of free will made him. They would be married in name only. If Ragnar wanted grandchildren, he would have to look to the other four sons that the gods had gifted him for a blessing like that.

“I don’t think you’re nearly as angry about this as she is,” Hvitserk interjected. Ivar and Björn both turned to look at him.

Hvitserk smiled and shrugged. “Out of all of us, I’ve spent the most time with her thus far. I had to spend three hours in a room with her and her father to legalize the transfer of all of his assets in her name. She wouldn’t even look at him.”

Ivar quirked an eyebrow. He could admit to himself that he was angry with his father but they had a relationship built on much more than their business ventures. Ragnar loved all of his sons and always tried to do what was best for them. He had never been wrong and Ivar, begrudgingly, admitted to himself that Ragnar was probably right in his assumption that this marriage would be good for them.

He had spent very little time with his fiance to know her true feelings on the subject.

Hvitserk continued. “His lawyer kept trying to extend the meeting to include some rather ridiculous clauses and legal options but she was having none of it. Her father managed to slip onto the same elevator as us and kept trying to talk to her. The only thing she ever said to him was a response to his plea that he was trying to protect her.” Hvitserk snorted and shook his head. “She said, ‘You didn’t do this for me.’ and then walked out.”

Ivar digested that information. He may not have been happy with the arrangement but at least he knew that Ragnar would never put himself before his children. Ragnar had always made sure to tell his sons that he would die for them and nearly had on more than one occasion. In the case of his fiance, however, it looked like her father was willing to throw her to the proverbial wolves to keep his head on his shoulders.

[prosaicswirl]

Day five of @short-story-slam​! This one is one ending I played with for my WIP, From Within, but the entire story structure has changed since this. So, I wrote it out anyways for this event :) This one’s a little more fantasy. (but no direct mention of it i guess.)(~3.3k words)

Warnings: Death and corpses, grief, injuries, war/battlefield, mild gore (mostly blood)

It wasn’t quiet. That’s the first thought that came to Alia’s mind. When she had dreamed about the ending of the reign of terror that Pondare instilled upon them, she imagined what remained of her friends standing on the battlefield in silent jubilation. Instead, it was messy. Messier than she could ever imagine in her head. In fact, she was still in shock. 

Who had she lost? So many. Mr. Novus, Aquarius, Simon… poor Simon. The first of their class to fall. When someone from one family dies, there will always be a death on the opposite family. She wondered about which Ice Master died in the following battle.

She finally stopped zoning out when strong hands shook her awake.

“Alia!” Nico shouted. She scanned the field to find everyone anxiously looking at her. Nico seemed relieved “What should we do?”

It took all her willpower to not let the tears slip out. “I am not your leader,” she bitterly hissed.

“Alia, it was your thinking that got us out of that trap,” Nyo said, stressed out by the loss in his Myth family and worried by his friend’s unusual reaction.

“It was my thinking that put us in that position in the first place,” she muttered.

“We wait for your orders,” Nico told her. “We wait because you have earned all of our trust, and I know you can live up to it.”

Alia stared blankly at the battlefield. There was so much rubble. All of the sudden, a flash of fire caught her eye. She stalked over, shushing everyone watching. In one quick motion, she pinned down a flynx. Raising her hand to deal a deadly blow, she was surprised when someone stopped her.

“That’s Vevila’s pet,” it was Argon who stopped her. Funny, she remembers agreeing with him to oppose accepting this beast as a... pet.

Alia looked at the small flynx. It never managed to grow the size of an adult. It stared at her with a neutral expression. Awkwardly, she reached out her hand as Vevila did when she met this small creature. It gave her a dubious look, but then reached up to lick her knuckles. It crawled over to her, and Alia picked it up.

“Your name was Novus, wasn’t it,” Alia’s voice cracked at the mention of her mentor’s name. The flynx looked up at the call of his name.

Gathering the tiny form of life and trying to calm it down made Alia realize that she had a bigger problem to manage.

“Continue cleaning up. We need to gather everyone, dead or alive,” she said. The people around her seemed glad to have someone to follow again. “If you’re a Light user with wounds that don’t need immediate care, start healing the wounded.”

“If you aren’t cleaning up, find water, food, cloth, things that the healers need,” Alia commanded. “I want one person to keep track of those who have died and those that are missing.” Looking around at all the Dark users, she chose someone for the job, “Ryler, can you take care of it?”

He nodded and immediately left, as did everyone else. Novus seemed to realize was happening and climbed onto Alia’s shoulders, freeing her hands.

Alia started to visit large clumps of people working on specific parts of the field. She first went over to help some people who were trying to remove a body. She didn’t recognize the dead person, but helped nonetheless. There were some people crying as she helped lifted the person to the line of other dead Masters.

Vevila’s flynx sniffed the dead bodies. Alia paused to look at the line of deceased when something tugged her legs. It was Novus growling. He jerked his head in a certain direction. Alia had the feeling that it wanted to be followed, so she did. Novus stopped in front of a man who couldn’t have been much older than her. She was confused by why the flynx had brought her to him. Then she realized something.

“I need a healer!” Alia yelled to no one in particular. Not bothering to see if someone had come, she bent down and sure enough, she heard a faint breath. She ripped a part of her clothes off and started cleaning him. Another person was beside her soon enough, and the healer got right to work.

“Thank you,” a girl called after Alia as she walked away from the body. Why was she here? She was definitely younger than Alia. “My brother is my only family left. Thank you for saving him.”

“Just hope he can get better now,” Alia said in a reassuring tone. The girl nodded and Alia kept walking away.

“Alia!” someone called for her. She turned and saw Ryler walking towards her.

“Most people are accounted for, either dead or alive,” he grimly gave her his report. “I’ve checked with the lists of people who fought. There are very few people who are missing.”

“How many?” Alia asked.

“Four,” he said.

“Do we know them?”

“Yea. Hex, Aiden, Zachary, and Vevila,” he listed.

Alia froze.

“Has anyone seen Vevila?” She yelled. Everyone looked up for a brief moment before shaking their heads and returning to their tasks. “Where did she go?”

“She’s our main focus,” Alia thought. “Go get Kora, Jessamyn, and either Tia or Cecelia to search for her.”

Ryler hurried off. Aiden and Hex were the leaders of their families. They were technically more important than Zachary since the Water Family had no head, but Zachary was a water user like her, and she wanted to search for him first.

Alia scanned the battlefield again. Her thoughts began to clear up. There was one place that no one had thought of searching. She had ordered Zachary and Hex to go hold off a group of enemies emerging from caves. They were supposed to have gathered a few others, which may have included Aiden and fought there.

“I need three or four people to search the caves with me!” Alia called out to everyone. To her relief, the volunteers were people she knew. Nyo, Argon and Barry stepped forward.

“What do you think we’ll find?” Barry asked as they walked closer.

“If we’re lucky, we’ll find the only missing people: Aiden, Hex, and Zach,” Alia informed them.

“Why were they there?” Argon asked next.

“You guys might not know, but Novus the flynx was in charge of watching over the underground entrances. He came to Vevila during the battle, and she told me that there was a party of five coming that way,” Alia said, feeling worse and worse. “When we were driven back, there should’ve been an attacking group of enemies from the caves jumping down on us. I told Zach and Hex to find others and go defend.”

“But they only brought Aiden,” Nyo finished.

“That’s what I’m scared of,” Alia whispered as they neared the cave. Novus ran forward. There was a mew, and Alia walked forwards. To her horror, the three boys were unconscious and on the ground in pools of their own blood.

“We need to get them out of here,” Barry demanded, being the first one to leap into action. “Thank goodness they’re alive,” he sighed.

Argon tensed. “This cave’s unstable, stay as quiet as you can, and try not to disturb it.”

Alia only nodded and started lifting the closest one to the entrance, Hex. He was the smallest, or at least the lightest of the three, though not by much. Alia had a bit of trouble, but Argon helped her. Nyo carried Zach, and Barry picked up Aiden.

There were shocked gasps from her class when they got down to the healing stations. Three Light users immediately came over to evaluate the three unconscious boys. Barry was there as well, trying to save his friends.

“If one of them wakes, call for me. I have questions and I want a report of their conditions at that point,” Alia told the Light Masters. There were nods, which reassured Alia that they would be fine.

With that settled, Alia went around, checking on those who were helping the clean-up. Jayla and Byron forced her to eat at some point, but to Alia, it was all a blur. As she was picking at the rationed meat and bread, she noticed Novus staring at the food. Even after having the flynx rest on her shoulder for the entirety of this day, she was apprehensive of it. After a bit longer, Alia reasoned out that she should feed him. Vevila wouldn’t want her pet to starve, and although Alia didn’t want to believe it, Novus had helped her out throughout the aftermath.

“Here,” she murmured, tearing off half of her remaining meat and bread. Novus took the food and leapt down to the ground to eat it. After he finished, he looked back up at Alia and licked his lips. “I’m eating the rest,” Alia softly laughed at him. He looked confused, and Alia stared back at it, just as confused. When Alia finished her own portion of the food, Novus crawled onto her lap and nudged her hands.

Alia understood what he wanted. Carefully, so she wouldn’t scare the flynx, she created a small spout of water, and Novus drank from it. When he finished, Alia stopped and stood up, ready to go back to work.

“Alia!” Barry called out. Alia turned to answer him. He beckoned her over. Novus climbed up Alia and they walked towards the makeshift infirmary. “Hex woke up,” he said quietly, bring her to meet him. The flynx got off of her, and laid down by the tent as Alia entered.

“Alia is here,” Barry said to Hex. “There’ll be a full report on their conditions when you’re done,” he whispered as he left.

Alia nodded and took a seat beside Hex. They had as much privacy as they could get under the current situations, but she would’ve preferred the confines of the walls that she was used to.

“What happened after I sent you guys to the cave?” Alia asked. There was no point in dancing around the subject. And Hex was never a dancer either.

Hex looked away, and Alia pitied him for once. Hex was cold, in more ways than one. If anything, he was always the one looking down on others. This change in his character was one more truth Alia had to accept about the battle.

“I’m sorry for not organizing your own battle better,” Alia started to apologize. It was her that sent them to their possible deaths without a proper plan. “I know I should’ve given it more thought, but I-”

She stopped when Hex tried to sit up, wincing as he tried to get comfortable. Alia instinctively reached out to help him. To her surprise, he was ice cold.

“You’re so cold,” Alia gasped.

“I was frozen,” Hex explained. “When we first got there, there was soft talking, but when we went in, it stopped.” He took a deep breath before continuing, “Zachary and I rushed there, and we thought that three people would be enough, so we got Aiden, and went in. I led them.”

Alia noticed his eye twitch, and his hand seemed to reach for his chest, “You took the first blow, and they froze you?”

Hex didn’t seem surprised by the fact that Alia guessed exactly what happened. “Aiden immediately tried to help me and Zachary defended the two of us.”

“How many enemies were there?” Alia questioned. She expected around three or four when she first heard the news.

“Five, maybe six,” he said, grimly. He saw Alia’s expression and smirked. “There was no way you would’ve known. Stop apologizing.” He tilted his head back and winced as he felt another wave of pain.

Alia reached over to him by placing her hand on his clothed chest. His skin was cold, but the spot she touched was warm… and wet. He hissed as she placed pressure there. Alia had a feeling she knew what was really wrong with him. She took out her spare knife and cut his shirt open. Hex tried to stop her, but he was still in pain, and was weak. When Alia saw what was underneath, she stood up to get Barry, but Hex gripped her wrist hard enough to leave a bruise there.

“Where did you get that? You said you were frozen,” Alia demanded. On Hex’s chest, there were three holes, all with blood trickling from them.

“Icicles. They pierced me when I was frozen,” he looked at Barry’s figure walking about outside. “Don’t tell them. It’s not a fatal wound, but I will die from blood loss soon.”

“Then get it treated,” Alia glared at him, walking out again.

“No!” he shouted. Keeping control of his tone, he continued, “I heard someone say that Edgar was injured. His wound is possibly fatal.” Alia took a deep breath. She glared at him, but this time, behind his cold stare was warmth and sadness. She knew what he wanted to do. His eyes kept drifting outside the tent.

“No other Myth user was heavily injured,” Alia whispered to herself. Hex nodded. “It won’t guarantee Edgar’s survival, but it’ll give him a fighting chance.”

“I don’t care about the wellbeing of the Myth family,” he bluntly stated. “I only care about my own family, and I will help them by any means necessary. That includes letting myself die. If Edgar doesn’t survive, and kills another Myth user, then so be it, but I will give him that chance.”

After his speech, Alia just stood there, “I can’t let you do that.”

She pulled away and walked out to get Barry.

“Alia we have an agreement. Don’t turn your back on it now,” he said in a loud voice. Anyone else would’ve paid that statement no attention, but it made Alia freeze and turn to look at him.

“Hex I can’t let you do this. Don’t make me break that,” she pleaded. This was his trump card, and Alia knew she couldn’t fight against it.

“Our agreement was that I helped you protect Vevila by any means necessary to follow through with the wishes of your mentors. You could’ve done it on your own just fine, but you came to me. Do you remember your reasoning?” he asked, but both of them knew the answer already.

“I hate her,” she barely managed to whisper.

“Alia, Vevila is the reason why you’ve lost both your mentors, your parents, and many of your friends. You wanted to make sure that you would always do the right thing, what Aquarius wanted, and I helped you with that. All I wanted in return was your alliance and ability to protect my family. I knew you could do that. This is part of that protection; you can’t deny that. Don’t go back on your word,” he told her.

“I...” Alia couldn’t find a way to respond.

“Are you alright?” Barry asked, poking his head in the tent. When he saw the blood on Hex, his eyes widened.

“Why didn’t either of you tell me about this?” he yelled at the two of them. Turning to Alia, he angrily added, “I can’t believe you’d let him die! You… You-”

“I told her not to, Barry, don’t be mad at her,” Hex interrupted. Barry rushed over to examine the wound.

“Why? This wound could’ve been easily treated if you just told me when you woke! Now… You’ve lost too much blood, Hex,” he muttered, starting to dress the wound. Hex tore it off and gripped Barry’s shoulders.

“Listen to me. I know this is hard for you, but you have to let me die. Spend your efforts on Edgar. I need to die so he has a chance to live. Do you understand?” That voice was surprisingly strong for someone who had just sealed his own fate..

Barry’s mouth dropped, “That’s the best plan you have? Edgar is almost past the point of no return. You can’t just expect him to live just because you die, that’s not how the balancing works.”

“Until Edgar draws his last breath and I hear about it, I will not let you treat my wounds,” Hex said as forcefully as he could. “Don’t think that I’m not serious,” he added when Barry took a step closer to him.

“Look, I know we haven’t exactly been the best of friends, but I can’t just let you die like this, just let me heal you,” Barry begged him, taking a seat beside the bed.

“And what will happen to Edgar if I live?” he asked.

“What will happen to your family if you die?” countered Barry. “Surely helping your family is more important than helping one person.”

“Edgar has been through so much, you don’t understand. He has to live,” Hex said to the two people watching him. “Alia, you will still watch over my family, right?”

Barry stared at her in shock. “I’ll follow through… even when you’re gone,” the words stuck in her throat. Hex reached for her hand, and she let him bring her closer. He shifted around with a groan, and Alia bent over to help him. Before she could pull away, Hex kissed her.

“Thank you,” he said in a raspy voice.

“You just want me to wait and watch you die?” Barry interrupted the private moment. Hex looked at him sadly.

“Just stay with me until the end,” Hex told them. He stared out the tiny tent window at the mess of a battle ground. He laid back down and closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Barry, not just for forcing you to do this. For everything before too,” he murmured. They noticed that he was slowly starting to pale. His breathing slowed, like he was sleeping, and finally, Alia, who was still holding his hand, felt his body go cold.

She had to choke back a sob. As quickly as she could, she left the tent with tears in her eyes. Many people turned and stared at their leader stumble away from the tent. Finally, she collapsed on the ground and cried into her hands. Unbeknownst to everyone else, he became a close friend once that pact was made. His death hurt more than she expected it to. She wiped her tears and made the announcement.

“I need to see the other two,” she said, taking in deep breaths. A different person led her to a bigger tent. Both Zachary and Aiden were in there. The moment Alia saw Zachary on a bed, she walked over and held onto his hand while letting tears fall.

“I want you to check them for hidden wounds,” she finally managed to say. Life masters immediately stripped most of the clothes off the boys. Relief washed over Alia when no wounds were found.

“I’ll talk to them soon,” she told everyone in the tent. When she walked out again, she shouldn’t bring herself to do any more work. She sat down under a tree and moped. Novus the flynx didn’t try to move her, he just watched her, and growled at anyone who approached until they left again.

The end wasn’t quiet. It was clogged with the sounds of tears and grief. Sounds of swords and dull thuds as the bodies hit the ground still echoed. And it would echo forever in her head, but the war was over.

Just at the cost of everything and everyone she has managed to love.

Five years. In them, we fought in one of the biggest, deadliest battles in this kingdom’s history. We got the peace we dreamed of, but at the cost of blood. Blood that would forever haunt our memories and taint our views of the rest of the world. Screams echo in my dreams to this day, and probably forevermore. There is no remedy, but one day, we will all continue to learn, love and grow with scars on our hearts and shadows in our minds. May we never forget the price of our futures.

[makeste]

“Cool motive; still adultery” (or, ITP: makeste rants about Gokudera’s stupid dad)

@natashawogver Haha, so this reply ended up being so damn long that I ended up doing it as its own post so that I could add a cut.

First, I can’t speak for everyone, but I’ve always assumed “Gokudera” was his mother’s surname rather than his dad’s, and the parts of fandom I’ve interacted with seem to concur, I think? But since Gokudera’s father never got a canon name, I use “Gokupapa” at times just to make it clear who I’m referring to without having to type out “Gokudera’s father” every time.

Anyway! I said in my answer to your previous ask that I could go on for days about this topic, and I probably will, so! Just... be warned, lol.

The thing is, it’s absolutely possible to take Bianchi’s statement at 100% face value. It was a misunderstanding. His parents really did love each other. His mom was sick and didn’t want to get attached to him (and vice-versa), so she limited her contact with him. His father was heartbroken and wanted to marry his mother, but she refused, thinking it would be better for everyone that way. Somehow this all got twisted around, and rumors about Gokupapa’s infidelity spread, but the rumors all missed out on the crucial points that (1) he actually was in love with her, and (2) that she did from her illness rather than under any suspicious circumstances. Fine. It’s possible; it checks out; there are letters proving this; TYL!Bianchi says this is the case. So fine, let’s assume this is what actually happened.

The thing is that if this really was how the events actually played out, in my opinion it not only does not redeem Gokudera’s father, it actually kind of makes him a bigger asshole than ever. And on top of that, it makes his mom kind of an asshole too. The manga tries to play off this revelation like it’s supposed to redeem Hayato’s parents, but in actuality, if this is all true, both of them were pretty irredeemably selfish, and their actions came very close to ruining Hayato’s whole life. So okay, let’s get into all of the reasons why they, in fact, suck.

First and foremost: Gokudera’s father cheated on his wife. This is indisputable no matter which version of events we go with. He was married with a young daughter, he had a mistress, and he got his mistress pregnant. “Yes, but he was in love!” Okay! Cool motive; still adultery! “But he was going to marry her!” Sure, but then he didn’t. Nor did he divorce his previous wife. In the end he wound up pretending Hayato was her son instead. I can’t imagine she was very happy about that. Shades of Catelyn Stark and Jon Snow, most likely, except that Ned was actually a decent guy, whereas we have no evidence at all that Gokupapa was anything other than a big sack of shit.

Gokudera’s mom! Lavina! Let’s talk about her. First of all, it’s clear that whatever else, she genuinely did love her son dearly. She died before he was even three years old, and by all accounts only ever visited him a handful of times, and yet he still has deeply affecting memories of her more than a decade later. For her to have had that much of an impact on him in just that short amount of time, she must have been absolutely radiating love for him on each and every one of those visits. She’s a saint in his eyes. He loves her and misses her even though he barely knew her. I absolutely won’t argue that she didn’t love him, because all evidence says otherwise.

But -- she abandoned him. Because she thought it would be best for him, supposedly, but still. She left him with his father and basically surrendered all responsibility for him, and gave up the few short years that they could have spent together. She denied him the chance to get to know her, and minimized what seems to have been one of the few bright spots of his childhood. And by turning down Gokudera’s father (even though we’re led to believe they were in love), she ensured that her son would never have any hope of being seen as legitimate, something that ends up making his life fairly miserable later down the line.

So to sum, Gokudera’s mom = loving, but absent. As for Gokudera’s father, his infidelity is only one small aspect of his being a piece of shit! 

Let’s talk for a second about Gokudera’s childhood. By all accounts, he grew up desperately lonely. It’s clear that he and Bianchi were very isolated growing up. They don’t appear to have any friends, and they were tutored at home. It’s also fairly clear that Hayato was not receiving anything in the way of paternal affection, judging by how totally enamored he was of Shamal, idolizing him and seeking his approval and going so far as to imitate his hairstyle. Look, Shamal isn’t exactly a tender or affectionate guy. He’s mostly just an asshole! On the few occasions that he does show any type of caring toward Hayato, it’s always in the most gruff and indirect ways possible. So for this guy, as aloof as he is, to be receiving that level of reverence and admiration from this six or seven-year-old boy speaks volumes about just how starved Hayato was for any type of kindness or attention. It means that he had no one else. Maybe he wasn’t suffering from any physical abuse yet at this point, but there was absolutely neglect. And you can tell this left scars on him that he’s still struggling to deal with even as a teenager.

So now, let’s talk about the actual abuse. Poison cookies! All right, so before I start in with this, I just want to make it clear that I don’t blame Bianchi for any of it. As I’ve said before, I truly believe that she didn’t (and still doesn’t) understand the damage she actually did. She loves her little brother and her cooking was made with love; how could it possibly hurt him? There’s a lot of inherent tragedy there, because this ends up forcing the two of them apart, and up until that point, Bianchi had really been the only loving presence in Hayato’s life from what I can see. And she still doesn’t understand what caused the rift between them.

Because this was all first revealed back during the Daily Life arc, it was all played up for comedic effect, and so it wasn’t ever examined too closely. We’re not really meant to think on it too much. But later on when the manga does become serious, and more events from Hayato’s past are revealed that absolutely are serious and tragic and treated with gravity and solemnity, it gets harder to ignore the tonal whiplash. You kind of do have to go back and look at the whole poison cooking thing again, this time from a more serious standpoint. And when you do, it’s pretty damn fucked up.

Basically, Hayato was poisoned on a regular basis for two whole years. It was painful and traumatizing to the point where just the memory of it physically affects him years later. And the one responsible for making all this happen in the first place? Dear old dad. After the bizarre “success” of that first disastrous concert, Hayato is forced to eat his sister’s cookies before every single performance. His dad fucking forced him to eat poison for fucking entertainment! Like, it’s such an insanely over-the-top tragedy that that itself is the joke. It’s so absurd and so out of the blue that it’s hilarious. Or at least it is in the original context when we first get this reveal all the way back in chapter 10.

But as the manga’s tone gradually sobers up and matures, Gokudera’s role in the series shifts from “hotheaded whipping boy whose hypertragic past can be exploited for comedic purposes” to “deeply-insecure-yet-determined character whose genuinely awful past can be milked for lots of angst.” Conveniently enough, the series never revisits the whole poison cooking story once this shift takes place, but what we do get is a brand new backstory in which Gokudera despises his father because he believes that he had his mother killed. 

Let’s repeat that: Gokudera believes that his father murdered his mother. Whether or not this is actually true or not almost doesn’t matter, because the fact remains that Hayato believed this story without question from the moment he first heard it. It means there was absolutely no doubt in his eight-year-old mind that his father was capable of that. And small wonder that he wouldn’t doubt it, because this is a man who first neglected him and then later went on to abuse him. Because that’s what the poison cooking thing is, in this revised context: abuse. Full stop. There is absolutely no other way to look at it. 

So yeah! It’s pretty safe to say that a man who was capable of that would also have been capable of callously killing a woman just to cover up his own indiscretions. He doesn’t exactly have a lot going on that would make one want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But again, canon later swings around and says this was all just a misunderstanding. He didn’t kill Lavina, and Gokudera was in fact “born into this world loved by both of his parents.” To add onto that, TYL!Bianchi tells Gokudera all this while also observing that she “doesn’t expect him to understand right now.” The implication is almost that Gokudera is somehow the one who’s been in the wrong this whole time, and he’s been unfairly assuming the worst about his dad, and judging him without fully understanding the situation.

This. Is. Bullshit. And it’s where I take the most umbrage with regards to this entire thing. Because here’s the final bit of evidence that Gokudera’s dad is The Absolute Worst, and it’s probably the most damning of all: he lets Hayato run away. He lets him leave, and there is no evidence at all that he ever made any kind of attempt to go after him and bring him home. This is an eight-year-old child, who up until this point has grown up in a fucking castle, and who has absolutely no knowledge of the real world whatsoever. He went from fairy tale levels of wealth to literally living on the street. Anything could have happened to him. Probably a hell of a lot did happen to him that will never be fully examined, because this was a manga aimed at kids and young teenagers, and also it ended back in 2012 lol. But it’s not hard to imagine. Even assuming the most G-rated version of events possible -- say, in a world where drugs and human trafficking and violent street crime somehow aren’t a thing -- he’s still homeless, and all alone. We know from canon and from the light novels that he basically just drifted from place to place. 

In the opening section of his light novel story Bakudan Bambino, he wakes up after getting himself knocked out in a brawl to find that a good samaritan has taken him in and bandaged up his wounds. He is incredibly confused by all of this, but it’s not the fact that he was knocked out and woke up in a strange place that confuses him. It’s the fact that he didn’t wake up bleeding in an alley somewhere, but that instead some guy he didn’t even know helped him out for absolutely no reason without expecting anything in return. Hayato is at such a low point in his life at this stage that he literally can’t conceive of someone actually doing that, because he’s spent the past four years having it repeatedly hammered into his head that people aren’t like that, and the world isn’t like that. He has issues. He is miserable. Later in the novel, when he asks that same good samaritan guy why the hell he keeps helping him out, the man answers that it’s because Hayato’s eyes always seem to be saying ‘help me.’ Basically, in those four years he’s been through absolute hell, and the entire fucking time he’s been suffering through it completely and utterly on his own.

But here’s the thing -- he was eight years old when he left. He had no plan whatsoever, no fucking idea what the hell he was doing. You can’t tell me he could have possibly made it very far, at least at first. Where the hell could a stupid little eight-year-old kid with no money or transportation or anything possibly could have gone that his father, a man with a ton of resources and wealth, wouldn’t have been able to track him down? He wasn’t laying low; we know for a fact that he attempted to join a number of other mafia families, only to be turned down by all of them because they didn’t want a spoiled rich brat, or “a half-breed.”

This all goes to show that they knew who he was, though. It’s not a secret. All his father would have had to do was put the word out that Hayato had gone off on his own and that he would be very grateful (in the $$$ sense) to anyone who could aid him in tracking him down and returning him. This is assuming that he couldn’t have just had his own men do it. Basically, there’s no way that Hayato successfully manages to run away and not be found unless his father actually didn’t want to find him.

And when you think about it like that, then it does start to make more sense. From the start, Gokudera’s father never shows any kind of attachment to him, and is content first to ignore his existence, and then to later on actually have him poisoned for laughs. Best case scenario, he doesn’t care about him one way or the other. Worst case, Hayato is actually a thorn in his side and he’s happy to be rid of him. Because he is still illegitimate, after all, and who knows what kind of political troubles that could end up causing as he starts to get older. And there’s a good chance that Hayato’s stepmother, Bianchi’s mother (who is never once mentioned throughout the entire series but who does, one has to assume, exist) isn’t particularly fond of Hayato and never has been. So really, who even cares if he runs away, then? In the long run it’s probably for the best. So rather than showing even the slightest bit of concern over his son’s safety and well-being, he just lets him run away and apparently disregards the matter entirely. Just abandons him to whatever might happen out there, and good riddance.

And this -- this is why I can’t swallow the whole “your parents loved you and each other” thing at the end of the day. Because even supposing that the latter part is true, the former absolutely is not. It can’t be. And it bothers me so much, because it’s like, so are we supposed to get the impression that Gokudera’s dad is just a misunderstood guy who was only ever trying to do his best, then? Because if not, why even bring any of this up? Is this supposed to be a cathartic revelation for Gokudera, to realize that not only is his dad a dick who never gave a shit about him, but that his mom, too, played a part in how these events all turned out, and that it was her choice not to ever see him? How the fuck is that supposed to make him feel better about the whole situation? In the end it somehow just makes it all end up being even more of a huge clusterfuck.

Lol oh my god. So that’s pretty much all of my thoughts on the matter. As you can see, I still have very strong opinions about all this, and I still haven’t gotten over it after all this time, to the point where I actually wrote a fic that partially revised Gokudera’s backstory just so I could resolve it all in my own mind in a way that actually felt satisfying to me. (The link is here, incidentally, and I really have some nerve linking to that considering that I still haven’t finished the epilogue for it yet. But I guess I have no shame lol.) It’s probably the single most infuriating thing in the entire series for me. I should probably chill out just a little, but! He’s my goddamn son. It’s like you said: I love everything about him too, lol. So for his sake, I will always be mildly enraged over this two-page plot point that occurred ages and ages ago and then never came up again.  (︶▽︶)b

[regrettablewritings]

Bruce Wayne x Reader Ship Meme

Author’s Note: Super big thanks to @twisteddamselartwork for her kindly donation for not one, but two ship memes!! Here’s the first one!! Be on the lookout for the bonus question that I got too carried away with and thus had to create an entirely separate post for 😘 Happy reading!!

who is more likely to hurt the other?: Bruce, without a doubt. Not physically, but emotionally. It isn’t even like he intends to, but Bruce is already an emotionally stoic man. Frankly, it’s a trait that’s only gotten worse with time, alongside his emotional welfare. During the events following the Kryptonian attack, he became hypervigilant and  all the more bitter and suspicious towards people and less agreeable towards those who may hold a slightly more sympathetic view towards the Superman, so if you happened to be one of those people there was a decent chance that he might coldly insult you or scold you. Of course, being that you’re his significant other, he tries to be a bit more reasonable with you than he would with others but that doesn’t necessarily do much. Post-Doomsday Attack, however, as he works toward regaining his former principles, Bruce also is working toward controlling his temper far better. He owes you that much.

who is emotionally stronger?: You’d think it’d be Bruce, but it’s honestly most likely you. (For crying out loud, the man’s response to his parents getting gunned down in front of him was to put on a bat suit, play ninja, and beat the shit out of people who wear brazen makeup and ridiculous clothes!) All jokes aside, though, the circumstances surrounding Bruce’s emotional stability is complex. Because on one hand, the fact that he’s   withstood all that he has and more without collapsing in the traditional     sense is pretty astounding. But on the other, enduring all that he has at the frequency with which he has, coupled with his unhealthy coping mechanisms, makes for the chance of his emotional state being a true ticking time bomb. You may not be the scarily enduring soldier of sorts that Bruce has proven to be, but you’re at least more likely to confront and sort out your feelings.

who is physically stronger?: Oh, Bruce, without a shadow of a doubt. The man has been training for ages, pushing his body to its limits to assure himself as a commendable fighter for Gotham City. Even in his older age, he doesn’t show any sign of slowing down his intense regimens: He does chin-ups with heavy weights tied to his hips, he pulls bigass truck tires, he lifts dumbbells restrained by chains to produce resistance – his 6’3” ass had better be physically strong after all that!

who is more likely to break a bone?: Despite all of the coverage that armor gives him, Bruce always manages to find a way to get a broken finger, rib, toe, tailbone, etc.

who knows best what to say to upset the other?: As stated before, Bruce isn’t exactly the best when it comes to softness all the time. When he’s in business mode, he’s better at holding his tongue because it’s what the job demands. But a both good and bad thing about Bruce being able to be himself with you is just how easy it is for his more lax nature to let something slip out and frustrate you. That isn’t to say that you’re completely innocent, however: You can say some things that Bruce finds just as hurtful (i.e. that he’s being a complete asshole of a brute, that he’s being inconsiderate, nothing he’s doing is working, etc.)

who is most likely to apologize first after an argument?: Bruce is. Even though his image will always be associated with that of a playboy (it’s hard to scrub that image off even years after the fact), Bruce still knows the right and wrong ways to treat a lady, especially the one with whom he’s in a relationship. He can get fired up at you all he wants, but he’ll hear the voice of his father in his head scolding him for being “an uppity jackass” and begin to truly weigh in on just how unimportant the argument probably was in the grand scheme of things. After he’s taken some time to cool down and think up the right words, he’ll ask if you’ll listen and gently try and explain himself and ask for your forgiveness.

Of course . . . there are some arguments between the two of you that are, regardless of how minuscule in general, feel mighty big to you both. In which cases, apologizing becomes a lot more difficult to do, even with Bruce’s typical consideration for being the bigger man. The two of you can probably go for days just ignoring one another, with you tending to sleep at your old apartment or Bruce preferring to spend his nights in the Batcave or even patrolling way past his usual hours until the sun is coming up and you’re due to be on your way to work.

It’s moments like these that require a little “nudge.” That is, if Alfred threatening to strangle Bruce or drag him by the ear as though he were twelve again counts as a nudge. In which case, it’s still technically Bruce   apologizing, but it was kick-started by Alfred getting irritated by watching the both of you silently squabble like children. He’s done his     time raising wee ones: Unless you’re planning on bringing a Wayne heir into the mix, he’s not going to be dealing with two big children! He is firmly Done™.

who treats who’s wounds more often?: You barely do anything warranting wounds to begin with, so it’s easily you who treats Bruce’s wounds. Thankfully (though perhaps more worryingly), Bruce is so used to being busted up all over that he barely flinches through the entire ordeal, making him the perfect wound patient.

who is in constant need of comfort?: Don’t be fooled by his cold, independent exterior: Bruce is in desperate need of comfort, far more than he would ever readily let in on. He needs it on all three levels: Physical, mental, and emotional. While Bruce isn’t what many would consider touch-starved (after all, all those women who came before you sure were rather handsy with him), he’s been starved of touches that communicate genuine affection; an intimacy no one-night stand or even year-long fling could conjure up to the fullest extent that you can. Mentally, Bruce is canonically described as “morally bankrupt” – and who could blame him!? He’s been at this essentially thankless job for decades, becoming more and more exhausted to the point of cutting corners to assure that the people he puts away stay away (or, in the cases of those branded,     down). With the things he’s seen and done, the things he must live with the consequences of, it’s a surprise Bruce hasn’t had a complete mental breakdown at this point and forced himself to check into a rehabilitation center to calm down.

Linking with these things are his emotions: Bruce has trained himself to be a stoic of sorts, and isn’t too great at expressing emotions beyond collectiveness and anger. As a result, he tends to bottle up a lot of his real thoughts and feelings and it’s sort of corroded him from the inside out along with the passage of time. He desperately craves constant relief in the form of gentle touches or speaking his own truth to the fullest extent that he can. And you would gladly help him with those things – if only he would just admit to it more often.

who gets more jealous?: Honestly, the both of you tend to display traces of jealousy. Even though Bruce has put his playboy days behind him, labels are sticky and therefore are difficult to shake loose. As a result, some women still haven’t quite gotten the picture that he’s perfectly happy in a committed relationship with you. And honestly, you try to remember that last part. You really do. But when you accompany Bruce to a gala and see those socialites gathering around him, smiling with those pearly whites and fluttering their mascara-caked lashes as they press their breasts against his arm in ways so obvious that a person on the other side of the room could feel them . . . you just can’t help it! Thankfully, Bruce is pretty good at reading you and can essentially sense your frustration. He has no qualms with calmly excusing himself from the women’s presence to take you elsewhere.

This calm and collected appearance also accompanies Bruce when he’s the one experiencing jealousy, though it’s far less amicable. Unless you were originally a part of Gotham’s elite, it’s very unlikely that you’re familiar with these sorts of events. This sort of innocence coupled with how dolled up you look tends to make you catch the eyes of sleazy attendants whom Bruce is all too willing to keep you out of reach of. Unfortunately, with the crowds and people constantly stopping Bruce or pulling him to the side to talk or be interviewed or establish a business connection, it would only been a matter of time before the two of you became separated. Almost immediately, like piranhas to an unsuspecting animal, the previously mentioned sleazeballs would approach you, offering you drinks, eyeballing you as one eyeballs a tender porterhouse steak.

Thankfully, this predicament doesn’t last long – the shadow of your towering boyfriend is cast upon them, brightened by the glint of his smile (which you almost swear has a sort of menacing hint to it). Once the pests bug off, Bruce takes extra care to assure that you don’t venture too far away from where he can see you and make sure that you aren’t getting harassed.    

The truth of the matter is that while many may consider Bruce to be a catch, he places your value above his own. He’s grown too accustomed to your presence to suddenly be without it. And even though he knows you’d never go for any one of these creepy, arrogant asshats, some part of him still fears the possibility of you somehow uncovering somebody better than him. Which brings us to . . .

who’s most likely to walk out on the other?: All things considered, you. Bruce is a difficult man to be with, even without taking his moonlighting job into account. On his own, he’s an often aloof, very busy man who’s developed a bit of a drinking problem over the years. But then you add in the fact that he’s the Bat of Gotham and everything gets a lot more complex: The long hours, constantly keeping secrets “for your safety”, the fact that your life is now even more in danger than what it already was by just being with a billionaire . . . It could be overwhelming for anybody. Dating a vigilante, no matter their abilities or resources, is not for everybody. And the sad truth is that if it ever gets to a certain point, it may prove not to be for you.

who will propose?: Bruce does. Honestly, deep down he sort of wishes you would, but he also understands that he doesn’t exactly communicate “I want to genuinely settle down with somebody and I want that somebody to be you”, what with his philanderer past still wisping about on his association (plus, being a vigilante who honestly can die at any moment does little for your confidence in his desire to wed). However, you’d be surprised to find that marriage is something Bruce has thought about more than you assumed. Certainly, the two of you had discussed it before, but never to the extent that Bruce implies he’s been thinking on it for.

He wants to connect your name with his, to show the world who he’s with and vice-versa, but on a level that states commitment more than moving out to his place in the middle of nowhere could. On top of this, from a slightly more business standpoint, Bruce just wants to make sure that you’re taken care of in the event of his death. As soon as the events involving Steppenwolf have been settled, he wastes no time getting ready to pop the question. The only thing stopping him from marching right up to you, still damp from the much-needed shower, and bluntly going, “Marry me? I nearly died today and maybe it’s the adrenaline still in my system but I just really think now’s the time to tie this down” is that Alfred dragged him to the side for a talking to. (Though, if such a brusque proposal is more your bag, you can fuss at Alfred’s sabotage later.)

What he winds up going for is renting one of the finest restaurants on this side of the Gotham-Metropolis Bay just for the two of you. If we’re being perfectly frank here, a man with Bruce’s financial status could easily afford to do a lot more for his proposal. Sometimes showy like establishing an entire festival in your honor. But he doesn’t: He just wants to keep it as simple as possible, as intimate as he can. Besides, he’s honestly still a little sore from Russia; he can’t have the paparazzi or other prying eyes looking in on such a life-changing moment, now can he? You initially think that maybe this is a celebratory dinner, considering the mission was a success and he didn’t die. However, this makes you wonder why he’s not spending it with the newly found group; after all, all you were able to do was assist in the Batcave here and there, pose as a superior-than-Bruce host. Little things. So why was he spending this with you – Oh.

As Bruce lowered himself down to one knee before you, you finally understood why the only person he wanted to be with after the incident was you.

You’re not sure how the news was able to spread to fast (maybe somebody Snapchatted from the kitchen), but you frankly didn’t care. Not when a small group of cameramen and women gathered outside of the eatery and began barking questions at the two of you, not when the engagement was suggested as a rumor by that evening’s late-night talk show, not when your coworkers gathered around you asking if it was true the next time you came into work.

All you needed to show was the ring on your finger. Martha Wayne’s ring had been mangled in the heat of the fire that consumed Wayne Manor, but Bruce couldn’t bring himself to part with it. But luckily, by combining it with a newer metal and placing the newly conceived ring on the finger of his fiancée, it appeared he’d never have to part with neither the heirloom or you.

who has the most difficult parents?: Yikes.

who initiates hand-holding when they’re out in public?: You do. Bruce doesn’t mind light PDA, he just doesn’t really initiate it unless it’s at a gala (“Gotta feed the damn paparazzi,” he mutters, though he won’t deny enjoying the contact with you). You like holding his big, calloused hand. It makes you feel nice and safe.

who hogs the blankets?: You do. Bruce is a big, walking bag of heat and often sleeps in next to nothing – a ballsy move for somebody living in a house that’s 98% glass. As such, the covers are typically all yours, something which you take full advantage of.

who gets more sad?: Both of you do, but it’s easier to tell with you. You haven’t trained yourself to express an air of calm the way Bruce has; even when you try to hide the feelings of dread and worry that you bottle up every time Bruce goes out on patrols, or displays mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion, the man can tell that they’re there. But Bruce is the one actually enduring these things, and he’s been going through them for a long, long while. By the time of the events surrounding his battle with Superman, Bruce was essentially depressed at the notion that all of his work towards a better, brighter future had been for naught. However, he doesn’t translate his sadness very well; usually it comes out in the form of aggression, the most of which he takes out on perpetrators.

who is better at cheering the other up?: It’s kind of weird between the two of you but to anyone who knows Bruce, they would be able to tell that you make him feel a whole lot better than what he normally would be. He doesn’t smile a whole lot for one reason or another, but sometimes just hearing you talk about your day as though you belong to a normal relationship, or seeing you wiggle around in one of his button downs (of which you drown in) is enough to crack a smirk out of him. And let’s be real: A smirk to Bruce is like a huge grin on regular people.

who’s the one that playfully slaps the other all the time after they make silly jokes?: You don’t really slap him when he makes a joke, either because Bruce’s joke are silly but in a different way or just because it’s not really in your nature to. You prefer to squeeze his arm instead.

who is more streetwise?: Bruce. Don’t let his status as the Prince of Gotham fool you – this man has had to learn all that he could about seedy urban underbellies. The man attends underground fight rings for God’s sake!

who is more wise?: You are, at least in the way that you take more time to consider all the options or potential circumstances. Bruce is mighty gung-ho for a man his age.

who’s the shyest?: Definitely you! It was a wonder you were even able to talk when you first met Bruce. You’ve gotten a bit better, but you still have a slight tendency to cling close or even try to hide behind him whenever he’s approached by other high society figures. He doesn’t mind it much and actually finds it quite cute. He just worries that this will make you even more easy to be taken advantage of.

who boasts about the other more?: Bruce does, though not often. It’s not that he isn’t proud of you (far from it; the man simply adores you), it’s just that he prefers to keep his private life exactly that: Private. This may be ironic considering that the man has a history for flaunting himself and that his decision to reconstruct a home resulted in a house made out of glass but remember: That glass house is in the woods, way out of city limits. Even when being showy, there’s an air of limitation to how much people get. Plus, it’s not as though there are many opportunities for Bruce to bring you up within reasonable conversation: The League keeps in contact regularly (in fact, Arthur seems to prefer communicating with you than with Bruce, much to the latter’s ire), leaving no real reason for him to  bring you up to them. And Alfred already sees you as his daughter-in-law before marriage is even considered as a possibility; in short, he doesn’t need Bruce to boast about you, he’s practically trying to sell you to Bruce as a worthy mate.

At most, this sort of situation will likely pop up during conferences or when Bruce is meeting with CEOs from other companies looking to partner up with Wayne Enterprises. Maybe during lunch or dinner, some of the honchos will talk about their women at home, maybe jab a joke or two at her expense. But when Bruce is asked about you, he keeps it brief but makes it very clear that he has no intention of making jokes about you. How could he when he finds that there’s so much more to crow about? He’s got a devoted woman who loves him for him, who makes him smile, who makes coming home a lot easier and life less lonely.

“Plus, I’m pretty sure she could cook a better blackened catfish than this,” he chews thoughtfully before popping another piece into his mouth. And that was the end of that. If he had less control over himself, he just     might’ve gone on a bit more about you, but frankly he wants to be out of this thing and back home to you as soon as possible.

who sits on who’s lap?: Bruce is a 6’3” pile of muscle and meat: I sincerely hope you don’t plan on having this man basically terminate you lap by sitting on it. But in all seriousness, this man loves having you sit on his lap, especially after a long day at work when he can just wind down and breathe for a little while. (Plus, on a naughtier note, it really plays into his daddy kink if the mood is just right.)