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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 1 year ago

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Napoleonville [Chapter 6: The House Of Salt And Scales]

Series Summary: The year is 1988. The town is Napoleonville, Louisiana. You are a small business owner in need of some stress relief. Aemond is a stranger with a taste for domination. But as his secrets are revealed, this casual arrangement becomes something more volatile than either of you could have ever imagined.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sexual content (18+ readers only), dom/sub dynamics, smoking, infidelity, Evangelical Christians, kids, parenthood, Willis Warning, (Mis)Adventures With Aegon, Targ family dysfunction, bodily injury, blood, alligators, ANGST!!!

Word Count: 7.5k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

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“Did you hear that Willis is single again?”

Ugh. “Yes, Mama. I heard. You told me already.” You linger in the doorway with a white bakery box in your hands: your mother’s favorite, grasshopper pie, straight out of the 1960s. She allegedly ate through two a week when she was pregnant with you. Cadi has already dashed inside and made herself at home; she’s probably jamming the movie she got from Blockbuster—Predator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Amir recommended it—into the VHS player. “You told me, Willis told me, all his deputies told me, Cadi told me, my mailman told me, the checkout ladies at the Piggly Wiggly told me, literally every resident of Napoleonville has informed me in no uncertain terms that Willis is single again. And I could not possibly care less.”

Your mother sighs and presses a hand to her forehead, wounded and incredulous, like she’s just watched a 60 Minutes segments about a tsunami or a genocide. “I just don’t understand it. In my day, people married for life.”

You glance back longingly at your Chevy Celebrity. “Yeah. I know they did.”

“When your father, and God rest his soul, when he was young, he was a hellion,” your mother says, as if you don’t remember it, as if you weren’t there. “He’d get his paycheck every Friday and stay out all night with his buddies, sometimes he didn’t come home the whole weekend. I’d lay into him when he finally showed, I’d say, ‘Rene, how on earth am I supposed to put dinner on the table if I don’t have any fish in the icebox?!’ Once he punched a hole in the kitchen wall and I had to cover it up with a picture of President Eisenhower! And I never even thought about leaving. How could I have done that to you? Forcing you to grow up in a broken home? Mothers and fathers living apart, whoever heard of such a thing? It’s unnatural.”

You’re brainstorming recipes to distract yourself. Caramel pretzel cookies. Banana chiffon pie. Cheese Danish cupcakes with diced cherries and a hint of vanilla. “Everyone draws their own lines, Mama.”

“But it’s not just about you,” she implores, her eyes shimmering with sympathy she never had for other women. You remember what she said on the rare occasions you confided in her about your frustrations with Willis: Of course a man isn’t going to want you bothering him with your feelings when he’s had a hard day at work. Of course a man—after you’ve had his baby, after you almost died to do it—is going to be crossing off days on the calendar until you can have sex again. He keeps a roof over your head and he never hits you, what more could you ask for? “What about Cadi? What if she grows up thinking that her marriage vows don’t mean anything? It’s the foundation of society, marriage. If that goes, everything goes.”

It’s the foundation of a lot of coercion and unfairness and misery, that’s for sure. “I wouldn’t want Cadi to stay in a situation that makes her unhappy. Would you?”

Your mother throws her hands up, like you’ve told her you’re converting to communism and catching the next flight to the USSR. “Life isn’t just about happiness, sweetheart! It’s about commitment, it’s about responsibility! If everyone did what they wanted all the time, no one would stay married!”

“Maybe that speaks to the value of marriage as an institution.”

“And morality is already falling apart in this country,” your mother continues, ignoring you. That’s what she does when she can’t refute facts, logic, evidence. “Young people living together, women having babies with two or three different men, people doing drugs, people on Welfare, people shooting and stabbing each other, sex shops everywhere, naughty magazines at gas stations, men wanting to marry other men—”

“Okay, Mama. I really have to go now.”

“Alright, I’ll shut up. I will, I will, I swear.” She makes peace with a brisk kiss to your cheek like a stamp on an envelope. “Enjoy a nice quiet night to yourself. Do you have any plans?”

Well, Mama, I’m trying to resist the temptation to call my engaged dominant oil tycoon not-boyfriend and tell him to come over for kinky adulterous sex. “Not really. I’ll probably take a bubble bath and then watch something Cadi would think is boring, like 20/20.” You hand over the bakery box, and your mother’s face lights up.

“Grasshopper pie?!”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. You know it’s hard for me to make it myself anymore. This rheumatoid arthritis, it’s got me all twisted up.” She nods down to where her fingers grip the box, knobby and increasingly useless.

“When’s your next appointment?”

“I’ve got one in…oh…about three weeks, I think. I’d have to check my daybook. All the way over in New Orleans with some specialist that Dr. Cormier recommended.”

“Okay. Want me to go with you?”

“Yes, that’d be fine.” It would be more than fine; she wants you to go, though she won’t say it. You aren’t sure if she doesn’t want to impose or doesn’t want to admit how reliant she’s becoming upon you, like growing up in reverse.

“Mawmaw!” Cadi shouts from inside the house. “Hurry up! I want to watch Predator!”

“You quit your hollering, I’ll be right there!” Then your mother looks to you and offers one last piece of very unsolicited advice. “Just be kind to Willis, alright? Give him a chance. I don’t think he’ll ever find a woman he likes as much as you. That’s what everyone says.”

“Mama, he has no idea who I am.” And he’s not interested either.

“Sure he does. You’re the mother of his child, and you always will be. Maybe you’ll find your way back to each other.”

“I’ll think about it.” You definitely won’t. “Goodnight, Mama.”

“So long.” She shuffles into the house, and once she’s shut the door you hear her muffled voice: “Arcadia, come on over here and help me slice up this pie…”

You drive home with the windows down and blasting St. Elmo’s Fire. There’s still an hour or two of sunlight left; the world is painted in gold and blood orange, the soybeans, the sugarcane, the grass growing tall and wild, the Spanish moss swinging from the trees, the earth ripening as its revolution hurtles towards the apex of summer. Cadi is out of school until August. Amir will be announcing his looming departure to San Francisco. Aemond will be getting married.

The adolescent alligator that Aemond is so afraid of is in the far corner of the front yard, basking in the last of the daylight. You walk into your room, flop down on the bed, lie there staring longingly at the pink phone on your nightstand. You reach to pick it up, then stop yourself. Aemond hasn’t fucked you, hasn’t kissed you, has rarely touched you at all since you found out about Christabel. But he stops by your house and invites you to his; he stitches himself into your life like someone somewhere once sutured his face back together.

I can’t. It’s wrong. He’s engaged.

Aemond doesn’t know you’re home alone. It’s Friday, and usually Cadi would be here with you until tomorrow morning.

Maybe it’s not really cheating until he’s married. I mean, if Aemond and Christabel aren’t sleeping together, if they almost never see each other…is it even a real relationship?

Wistful thinking, yes, denial, yes; but with each passing minute your resolve not to pick up the phone weakens.

We don’t have much longer until the wedding. Our time is slipping away.

He’s a robber baron. He’s arrogant, he’s delusional.

And I want him. I still do, and I can’t stop.

The phone rings. You sit up, startled. It’s not Aemond, you tell yourself so you won’t be disappointed when it isn’t him. But it is.

“Hi,” Aemond says; he sounds out of breath. “I’m really sorry to bother you.”

“No, it’s okay, Cadi is actually having a sleepover with my mom. They’re watching Predator. My mom has no idea what it’s about, she’ll be clutching that Bible she got signed by Jerry Falwell a little extra hard tonight. What’s up?”

“This is going to sound random, but…you haven’t seen Aegon, have you? He hasn’t shown up at your house, he hasn’t called? You don’t know where he is?”

Aegon? Why would I know anything about what Aegon’s doing right now? “Um, no…?”

A long exhale, a lull that’s full of dread.

“Aemond, what’s going on?”

“He and my father got into it a few hours ago. They were screaming at each other, kicking furniture over, which isn’t all that unusual, honestly. But then Aegon ran away.”

“Wait, like, he’s gone…?”

“He stormed out the back door, went down to the lake, and then headed north into the trees. And I assumed he’d be back by now, but it’s getting dark and he’s not here. He never came home. His Porsche is still sitting in the driveway.” There is a pause. “I think he’s out there.”

“Out where?”

“In the woods,” Aemond says, shellshocked, terrified. “In the bayou.”

Your eyes dart to the window; the golden daylight is dwindling. “Aemond, he can’t be alone in the bayou. It’s dangerous. He could die. There aren’t just alligators, there are wild boars, cottonmouths, copperheads, snapping turtles, brown recluses, fire ants, I don’t think there are any black bears this far south but it’s always possible, he could drown, he could get trapped in quicksand, you cannot let Aegon spend the night out there.”

“I don’t know what to do.” You’re not used to hearing this in Aemond’s voice: the panic, the vulnerability. “No one else seems worried. They said he disappears all the time, and that’s true. They’re convinced he’s found his way to a strip club or a Waffle House or something and will drag himself home eventually. No one will listen to me. My father has forbidden me from getting anyone else involved. He doesn’t want gossip getting around town and overshadowing the new rig project or…you know. The wedding thing. My wedding. And I can go over his head, sure, I can make calls, but when investigators show up here to start searching my father is just going to tell them to leave. How is it even possible to find Aegon? At night in a fucking swamp? Is anyone going to be willing to go out there before morning? Do I need people with bloodhounds or a helicopter?”

No way, you think as soon as the idea hits you. But it’s the right thing to do. It’s the only thing to do. “I can think of someone who knows their way around the bayou.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s just after 7 p.m. when Willis arrives to pick you up: grinning smugly, mullet fluffed, Plymouth Gran Fury hauling his brand new 20-foot jon boat. He’s dressed for night fishing in boots, camo-colored waders, and a grey hoodie with SHERIFF printed across the front in black letters. You climb into the passenger seat wearing sneakers, denim shorts, and a blue raincoat over your Pepsi t-shirt. You haven’t been fishing since you were married to Willis, and you’ve never missed it. It’s a grisly business: hooks through lips, hooks through eyeballs, hooks swallowed and tangled up in some doomed creature’s guts.

Aemond is waiting at the mouth of the Targaryens’ driveway, just out of sight of the mansion they call The Last Desire. He gets in the back seat and sits there testily with his arms crossed, lips pressed into a thin line, glaring out the window as an indistinct blur of primeval vegetation passes by outside. He has on his Marlboro jacket, light-wash jeans, and Adidas sneakers. You hope he doesn’t ruin them; although you suppose he can always buy more. He could buy a hundred more, a thousand more, and it wouldn’t make a difference. You can’t fathom what it’s like to live that way. It seems to conflict with all the laws of man and nature.

Aemond speaks grudgingly to Willis, a quick flat statement that invites no conversation. He didn’t call Willis to explain the situation, you did. You’re afraid to leave them alone with each other. You aren’t sure who would be more likely to end up a corpse decomposing in the muddy silt at the bottom of Lake Verret. “Thank you for agreeing to help with this.”

Willis chuckles warmly, either oblivious to Aemond’s prickliness or unbothered by it. “Bien sur! It’s my job, son. We’ll hunt your brother down.” Then he glances over at you, smirking, prying. “So, sugar…how’d you two make each other’s acquaintance?”

“Amir and I baked the cakes for his engagement party.”

“Engagement party, huh?” Willis looks at Aemond in the rearview mirror. “You gettin’ married?”

Aemond is still staring out the window. “Obviously.”

“So you ain’t single?”

“Legally, I am in fact single until the day the marriage license is signed.”

Willis returns his attention to you. “So he ain’t the petit ami you’ve been so secretive about.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, Willis. I really can’t be more clear than that.”

“Oh, I know you got one. I know all your looks, sugar. Some days you come ‘round my office lookin’ lovesick, like you’re just a-floatin’ on a cloud. Other days you’re real mean, like you don’t want me takin’ none of your time, like you got somebody more important to spend it on. And then sometimes you just look…” He smiles, mischievous. “Well, how can I put it? Satisfied. The cat who ate the canary. And I recall exactly what that looks like on you. It’s been a while, sure. But I remember.”

From the back seat, Aemond sighs irritably. You say to Willis: “Can we please focus on finding Aegon?”

“Sois calme, sois calme. That’s why I’m here. We’ll be in the water in ten minutes.”

There is no more discussion; the only sound is the radio, Holding Out For A Hero by Bonnie Tyler. Willis turns onto a winding dirt road that leads to a boat launch about a mile from the Targaryens’ property. He spins his Plymouth Gran Fury around and backs it down the concrete ramp towards the rippling, slow-moving currents of Lake Verret. It’s difficult to see from the driver’s seat—most people would have someone get out to guide them—but Willis knows the way by heart. He’s been on boats since before he could walk; Willis’ daddy knew the bayou, and his daddy knew the bayou, and his daddy did too, all the way back to before the Louisiana Purchase. Your family are newer arrivals (relatively speaking), having only been in Napoleonville for about 100 years and keeping mostly to the town. You remember your 11th grade science teacher saying once that alligators have been around since before the dinosaurs went extinct. Maybe that’s what Willis is: a relic of a distant time and species, afflicted with a cunning ruggedness that won’t allow his kind to go extinct.

When the trailer is mostly underwater, Willis gets out of the car to unhook the straps that keep the boat moored to it. You go outside to help and Aemond follows, though he doesn’t know what to do. He’s never handled a boat this size and it shows; perhaps a yacht would be more his speed. He stands aside and watches, frowning, hands buried in the pockets of his Marlboro jacket. His lack of expertise riles him. He’s not used to being the incapable one. He hates not having control.

Willis already has a tow rope tied to a metal handle at the bow of the jon boat; he lifts it out and gives the free end to Aemond. “Hold onto that, will ya? Don’t let her get away.”

“Sure,” Aemond replies ungenerously. Willis returns to his Plymouth Gran Fury to finish backing the trailer into the lake until the boat floats. Standing on the shore together, you and Aemond stare at each other, unable to speak honestly, unable to decide what you’d say even if you could.

The jon boat bobs in the water, and you show Aemond how to pull it away from the trailer using the tow rope. Willis drives the trailer back onto dry land, parks his car in a flat area near the boat launch, and then joins you and Aemond by the water’s edge. He walks to where the boat is floating just to the right side of the concrete ramp and, with some difficulty, clambers inside as the boat rocks under his weight. Then he stands in the middle of it and gestures for you to approach. “Let’s get goin’, sugar.”

You take Willis’ hands when he reaches for you and let him help you into the jon boat. When you stumble over a bench seat, he steadies you with a hand on your waist, familiar but in no way erotic; not for you, at least. Still, from where he is standing on the lakeshore with the tow rope, Aemond glowers venomously.

“Your turn, son,” Willis calls to him, winking. “And I promise not to get too sweet with ya.”

But Aemond doesn’t need any assistance to board the vessel. He has long limbs, good balance, and an ironclad determination not to let Willis see him falter. Aemond sits at the bow of the boat. You claim a spot in the middle. Willis takes a seat at the stern, starts the outboard motor, and guides the boat into the treacherous swampland that lurks like a stalking animal at the edges of Lake Verret.

In the bayou, the water is sluggish, currentless, thick with vivid green salvinia and duckweed. Towering bald cypress trees grow out of the opaque depths and are adorned with greyish, anemic bundles of Spanish moss like spiderwebs. Mangrove trees with their myriad of semi-submerged roots are sanctuaries for catfish, turtles, baby alligators. Larger gators—as big as the female that lives in your yard, and some up to seven or eight feet—prowl with only their nostrils and ancient yellow eyes peeking out from under the water. Great blue herons tiptoe along the shallow shoreline and stab at fish that unknowingly flit between their long skeletal legs. Cicadas shriek in the trees so loudly they almost drown out the hum of the boat’s motor. When the last of the daylight vanishes, Willis tells Aemond to turn on the spotlight mounted to the bow, and the water becomes a soupy, greenish, primordial witch’s brew beneath its glow. Aemond lights a cigarette and puffs on it as he ponders this alien corner of the world that he’s found himself in.

Willis has a number of items stowed on the flat aluminum floor of the boat, you notice now: nets, paddles in case the motor fails, bottles of water, ropes, fishing poles, flashlights, hunting knives, a few sturdy wooden walking sticks. He’s wearing his sheriff’s pistol on a belt fastened over his waders. This makes you uneasy, though you can’t recall ever seeing him use it. It seems wrong to be able to end a life with so little effort.

“Aegon!” Aemond shouts from the bow, using a flashlight to look to the sides of the boat where the spotlight’s luminescence doesn’t shine so brightly. You grab your own flashlight to help him search. “Aegon! Where are you?!”

There’s something burning in your nose and throat as you lean over the side of the boat to peer into the shadowy wilderness. Salt, you realize, but that doesn’t make any sense. Lake Verret is a freshwater lake. You turn towards where Willis is steering the boat with the rumbling gas-powered motor. “Do you smell that?”

“Yup. Sure do.”

“But…how…?”

“One of the rigs mighta hit a salt dome while they were drillin’, I figure,” Willis says. “There’s been talk for years that we got salt domes under the lake. But that don’t stop these oil companies.” He stares meaningfully at Aemond. Aemond glances back, rather abashed. “And ya know what that means. If the water turns brackish, most of the fish’ll die. And who’s got to live with that for generations to come? Not the Targaryens or the Rockefellers, that’s for sure.”

Aemond resumes shouting for his wayward eldest brother. A dark snake, perhaps six feet long, slithers down the length of the boat through the murky water. “Aegon! Aegon!”

“What did he and Viserys argue about?” you ask.

Aemond is cagy. “It’s…kind of personal.”

“Personal like he got a stripper pregnant or personal like he murdered someone in a drunken hit-and-run?”

“Neither. But closer to the first option.” Then he roars into the darkness: “Aegon!”

“Maybe the bon a rien already found his way back home,” Willis says. “Maybe—”

And then there is an echo through the bayou, faint but vaguely human, a ghost, a phantom. “Aegon!” Aemond shouts back. “Where are you?!” Willis cuts the boat engine so you can hear the reply.

Faintly, very faintly, his disembodied voice drifts out of the trees. “Over here! Help me! Quickly! Seriously, really really quickly!!”

“Keep talking!” Aemond yells. Willis is listening intently, trying to pinpoint a direction. His thick, dark eyebrows are knit together in concentration that is rare for him.

Barely audible over the screams of the cicadas: “What the fuck am I supposed to say?! Just get over here and save me!”

“We’re trying to figure out where your voice is coming from, so don’t stop talking!”

“Help me! Come help me!! Right now!! My arms are getting tired!!”

“What? What are you doing with your arms?!”

“I got him,” Willis says. He restarts the motor and steers the boat down a narrow corridor of the swamp. The path is only about ten yards wide and bordered by mangrove trees with nests of exposed, labyrinthian roots. The water is probably relatively shallow: five feet, ten feet, just deep enough for secrets. The breeze is cool and wet, almost chilly. On the shore, you spy a snapping turtle the size of a golden retriever. Its long prehistoric claws are coated with mud and green blades of marsh grass. It ogles you as if to say: What are you doing here? You don’t belong here. This is where the dinosaurs that survived the asteroid live.

“Aegon?” Aemond calls.

“Here! Over here! I can see you, I see the lights! Oh my God, I’m not gonna die! Thank you Jesus!”

Aemond laughs in relief. “I didn’t think you two knew each other.”

“Shut up and save me, you muppet!”

And then you see Aegon—the spotlight hits him, he is illuminated in a stark white glow—and your stomach plummets, your blood goes cold. In an alcove of the bayou, right where the water meets the shore, Aegon is up in a bald cypress tree. He’s about five feet off the ground and standing on top of a branch just thick enough to hold his weight. It’s too narrow to balance comfortably on; he is hugging the trunk to ensure he doesn’t fall, and a fall would be catastrophic. Sprawled on the muck surrounding the base of the tree are a plethora of alligators, all approximately ten feet in length. That’s big enough to be lethal humans. That would be big enough to kill a bear, a horse, a shark. When the spotlight shines on them, the gators begin to squirm and hiss, glaring with soulless reptilian wrath at the boat. Willis shuts off the motor, and the boat bobs placidly.

“Oh, fuck,” Aemond says.

“Yeah, exactly!” Aegon pitches back. He’s wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and tiny turquoise blue shorts. He is barefoot. “So what’s the plan?! By the way, hey, cake lady.”

“Hi, Aegon.”

Aemond says: “How the hell did you get up there?”

“I was pissed off about the dad thing and I was walking for a long time, then I realized I was probably in the wrong neighborhood for someone with two legs and no desire to get eaten. I tried to find my way back but then these pig-looking things started chasing me and I freaked out and climbed up here to hide until they left. But as the sun went down, alligators started showing up. And the more time went by, the more alligators there were. And that’s the whole story, can you get me down now?!”

Aemond asks Willis, petrified: “How do we get him down?”

Willis surveys the scene for a moment, thinking. “Alright. Here’s what I reckon. We can toss him one end of a rope and he can tie it to the branch above him, right at the base where it’s real thick. Then we’ll hold the other end of the rope, and he can kinda shimmy on down it into the boat.”

Aegon says: “But what if right before I get to the boat, when I’m like four feet above the water, an alligator jumps out and bites me?”

“They don’t usually do that,” Willis replies.

“Usually?!”

“Look, we don’t have a lot of options,” Aemond tells his brother. “We can do the rope plan now, or we can leave you here, backtrack all the way to the boat launch, get the car, get some help, and hope they magically have a better solution for you. Or you can wait up there until morning to see if the alligators leave. You pick.”

“Isn’t that the hick sheriff guy? Can’t he shoot them?”

“Gators got brains ‘bout the size of a walnut, son,” Willis says. “And if I don’t hit ‘em where it counts, I’m just gonna make them angrier. That ain’t good for any of us.”

“Okay,” Aegon concedes. “Throw me a rope.”

Willis grabs one from the bottom of the jon boat, hands an end to Aemond, and tosses the other to Aegon. It takes the eldest Targaryen boy four attempts to catch it; the rope keeps falling and smacking the hissing alligators in the face before Willis lugs it back to the boat to try again. Once he finally obtains the rope, Aegon knots it—double, triple, quadruple—around where the branch above him, just barely within reach if he stretches as far as he can, meets the massive trunk of the bald cypress tree. Willis tells Aemond: “Now ya gotta hold the rope real tight. No slack at all, or it’ll dip and he’ll end up in a gator’s lap.”

“Yeah, Aemond!” Aegon says, his voice shaky. “No slack!”

“Got it.” Aemond loops his end of the rope around his waist, makes a knot, and then grips it with both hands and tugs it until it forms a straight diagonal line from the tree to the boat.

“Ya sure you wanna do that?” Willia says softly, nodding to Aemond’s waist. “If somethin’ goes wrong and he ends up in the water, you’ll be goin’ in with him.”

“I’m sure.”

“Alrighty.” Willis grabs one of the heavy wooden walking sticks from the aluminum floor of the boat. “If a gator tries to cause a problem, I’ll whack ‘em good. Don’t let ‘em get their jaws ‘round ya, not an arm or a leg or nothin’. If they get ahold of ya, they’ll roll and rip your bones right outta the sockets.”

“Awesome,” Aegon says from the tree. “I’m so glad you told me that. Yeah. Great. Any more super helpful alligator trivia, Sasquatch?”

“Yes sir. If one chomps down on ya, poke it in the eye with your fingers. A whack to the snout or a poke to the eye is the best way outta a gator’s mouth.”

Aegon gulps and clutches the rope, steeling himself.

“What should I do?” you ask Willis. “Should I get a stick too—?”

“Nothin’. You don’t do nothin’. You just sit down right in the middle and keep the boat steady. And if your petit ami starts goin’ overboard, maybe try to snatch him. But don’t ya fall in. Ya don’t want to be in that water. If there are gators above the water, there are gators below too. I guarantee it.”

You sit in the precise middle of the boat, using your weight to reinforce the vessel’s center of gravity as Aemond and Willis stand at opposing ends. Right before Aegon begins his descent, Aemond snags your attention. He makes a motion with one hand, a slicing, a prohibition. Don’t do anything insane, he means. Don’t risk trying to drag me back into the boat if I start going over.

“Whenever ya ready, bon a rien,” Willis says. And no one else but you knows that what he’s calling Aegon is a good-for-nothing.

Aegon begins scurrying down the length of the rope, rapidly closing the distance between himself and the bobbing jon boat. He passes above the hissing gators congregating at the base of the bald cypress tree and then over the water, where there are ripples that multiply out from epicenters and flashes of movement just beneath the surface but no homicidal alligator activity. When Aegon nears the boat, Willis seizes him and helps him into it; and then Aegon ruptures into hysterical giggles.

“I almost died, can you believe that?” he asks Aemond, who is untying the rope from his waist and beaming, the first real smile you’ve seen from him tonight. “Because I ran away from Viserys?! What an idiotic way to go. I’ll never let that bastard convince me to off myself. I gotta outlive him. I gotta do Jello shots on that motherfucker’s grave someday.”

“Yeah, you do,” Aemond agrees, squeezing Aegon’s shoulder.

“Goddammit,” Willis grumbles. He’s using his walking stick to jab at the water near the rear of the boat. “We’re hooked on a mangrove root or something.”

“Do you need help?” Aemond asks, headed towards him.

“Yes sir, if you’d be so kind. I don’t…I can’t see…what the hell is it stuck to?”

“The motor…? The blades of the motor?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, you’re right. Yup. There it is. We musta drifted into it while we were preoccupied. Okay, we gotta push the boat off the root and then we can get movin’ again. Grab a stick, let’s start pushin’.”

“Should I get a stick too?” Aegon says, joining them. “I can hit stuff with sticks. I really want to get out of here…”

There’s a bit of a commotion at the back of the boat as the men try to propel it away from the mangrove tree. Willis is complaining that the water is too deep to touch the bottom with his stick. Aemond’s stick keeps slipping off the mangrove roots when he tries to get leverage. You aren’t sure what Aegon is contributing, if anything. The boat has begun to rock.

You look to the tree where Aegon had been imprisoned. The alligators are fully awake now; they are headed into the water and disappearing there, unseen, unheard, and yet all around you.

“I think we need to go now,” you say, but no one is listening to you. They’re still wrestling with the mangrove root. You rise, taking a few steps to the left to offset the boat’s listing towards the right. “Guys, we need to—”

The boat is freed from its organic jailor and lurches sharply towards the left. As the men cheer triumphantly—completely unaware of what’s happening—you are jolted off your feet and tumble backwards over the side of the boat.

The shock of hitting the water stuns you. It is cold and impossibly dark; when you open your eyes to try to find the surface, the boat, you can’t see anything. You paddle blindly. Something brushes your leg, and you scream bubbles of mute terror. You can’t breathe, you can’t think, you are picturing those ten-foot gators slinking into the water that you’re now thrashing wildly through. You swim towards what you think is the surface and strike unyielding metal—the underbelly of the boat—hard enough to put stars in your skull like the flashes of lightning bugs. You get turned around and don’t know where you are again. Something glides past your arm, and you gasp before remembering that there’s no air. Dark water—salt and silt and decomposition—surges into your lungs, your stomach, sinking you like an anchor from within. There is a whirlpool of motion around you and muffled shouting. Then something closes around your wrist.

The eyes! you think frantically. I have to poke out its eyes!

But the vice around your flesh has no teeth. It’s not a reptilian jaw, you realize now, but a human hand. It leads you and you obey.

When you break the surface, you cough bayou water from your throat and blink it out of your eyes. Willis is leaning over the side of the boat and stabbing at gators with his stick, shrieking at them in French. One lunges at him from the water, jaws snapping. Willis whips the pistol off his belt, aims it squarely between the creature’s eyes, and fires. The boom is deafening; the bleeding gator sinks into the water. Aegon is kneeling in the boat and offering his arms to help you climb up.

You look beside you. Aemond is barely keeping his head above water. “Go!” he orders you. “Get in the boat!”

With Aegon’s help, you heave yourself over the side and collapse to the aluminum floor, lungs aching, skull pounding, heart thudding mercilessly, soaked to the skin. Then you force yourself to your hands and knees to see where Aemond is.

“Aemond?!” Aegon is yelling. “Aemond, where are you?!”

He’s gone; you don’t see him in the water. You try to scream for him too, but the water still in your throat strangles you. Your hands close around the edge of the boat, and Willis grabs your raincoat to yank you backwards. “Other side!” says, pointing. “We’re gonna capsize, we need weight on the other side, go there!”

You scramble to the opposite end of the boat, sobbing now, still hacking up muddy water. Where’s Aemond?? Where is he??

Both Willis and Aegon are grasping for something. They’re shouting and stabbing into the water with their walking sticks. And then they’re hauling him into the boat: Aemond, blood pouring down the left side of his face, a gash by his temple, another on his forehead; something bit him or clawed him. He’s wearing only his jeans and a white tank top; he ripped off his Marlboro jacket before diving in after you. You don’t see his Adidas sneakers anywhere. They must have been kicked off in the water. His glass eye has been knocked out and lost in the muck. What’s left in its place is a void, gaping, pink; it’s difficult to look at, you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t. It has the visceral, gory quality of organs never meant to be seen. His fingertips go to the socket to feel for his prosthetic. When he confirms it isn’t there, he covers his face with his hands and moans.

He saved me. He jumped in after me.

You crawl to him. “Aemond—”

“No!” He pushes you away, and you see that there’s blood and ancient silt from the bayou in his empty eye socket. It will have to be cleaned out. Willis watches, astonished, bewildered. For once, he is at a loss for words.

“Aemond, please…” You’d do anything to help him. You don’t know how to help him.

He saved me.

Aegon reaches for Aemond. “Hey, hey. It’s not that bad. Hey…” He drops to his knees, presses his forehead against Aemond’s, stains himself with his brother’s blood. And when Aemond tries to pull away, Aegon doesn’t let him; he’s got his fingers tangled in Aemond’s wet hair. “Thank you for saving me. I’m always almost getting myself killed and you’re always saving me. What would I do without you, huh? None of us would be okay without you. Thank you, Aemond. You hear me? You’re not gonna get this again anytime soon, so listen up. Thank you. Thank you.”

“I’m just so—”

“I know.”

“I hate that I’m like this.”

“It’s not a big deal. You’ll order a new one.”

“You know what he’s going to say.”

“Fuck him. Why do you care what he thinks? Because you think he’s the one who gets to decide what you’re worth? He isn’t. He’s not qualified.”

Aemond nods, but he doesn’t seem to be convinced. He still doesn’t look at you. He turns so the left side of his face—bloodied, eyeless—is angled towards the water and out of your view. Willis goes to the motor, starts it, and begins guiding the boat back towards the launch where he parked his Plymouth Gran Fury.

Aegon glances over at you. “You okay, cake lady?”

“Yeah.” But your voice shakes. The rest of you is shaking too; now that the adrenaline is wearing off, you can feel that you’re shivering in your wet clothes.

“Put it on,” Aemond says softly, and at first you don’t understand. Then you see that he’s pointing to his Marlboro jacket, left hurriedly flung on the floor of the boat. You unzip your dripping raincoat and don Aemond’s Marlboro jacket instead. It smells like him: smoke, cologne, effort, secrets.

“Thank you,” you tell him, wanting to say more. Aemond doesn’t answer. He stares into the murky water, greenish under the glare of the spotlight, and says nothing to anyone all the way back to the boat launch. Wordlessly, he helps Willis re-hitch the jon boat to the trailer. He remembers the steps. He’s a fast learner. The blood on his face is drying; his right eye won’t allow itself to look at you. The only sound on the drive to the Targaryens’ mansion is the radio of the Plymouth Gran Fury, which Willis turns up to cover the silence: In A Big Country.

At the end of the cobblestone driveway, lights are on in the vast house called The Last Desire. Everyone gets out of the car. Willis shakes a rather puzzled Aegon’s hand, then turns to Aemond, who ignores him. Willis chuckles, more curious than offended.

“So ya are the man who’s been givin’ her that satisfied look. I knew it. Yes, I knew what I saw. What’s your secret, son? Ya must really know your way around a woman if ya got her so mad about ya with a face like that. Ya look like the Rougarou got ahold of ya—”

Aemond grabs Willis by his hoodie, yanks him off his feet, jacks him up against the side of the sheriff’s vehicle. Immediately, you and Aegon are shouting and trying to break them apart.

You plead: “Aemond, don’t!”

“Aemond, he’s got a gun!” Aegon screeches.

Fortunately, Willis isn’t grappling for his pistol. He holds both palms in the air, open and empty, like he’s surrendering; but there’s still a smile on his face. Aemond doesn’t act like he’s heard anyone. He leans in close to Willis, his voice low and dark and snarling, his sole blue eye glinting. “You had so much in your filthy fucking hands and you just threw it away.” Then he slams Willis against the car one more time, tears away from him, and strides up the porch steps and into the house.

Aegon hurries after him, casting you a quick glance and a beckoning wave. It’s an invitation. You coming? Aegon mouths, and then vanishes inside.

Willis peers up at the house: stained glass windows, immense white columns. You don’t see any signs of Vhagar the Great Dane. Willis speaks calmly and without looking at you. “I think he’s in love with you, sugar.”

Improbable. Impossible. If he was, he couldn’t marry someone else. “He’s not.”

Now Willis’ eyes flick to you. “All I’m sayin’ is that I’ve been fishin’ on that lake since as long as I can remember, day, night, sun, storms, and nothin’ on earth would have gotten me to jump into that water. Not even Heather Locklear herself.”

“Just go, Willis,” you say, exhausted, heartsick. “Thank you for what you did tonight. But please go now.”

“How ya gonna get home?”

“I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about me.”

“Of that, I am incapable,” Willis drawls. Then he climbs into his Plymouth Gran Fury and is gone. You sprint up the porch steps in your soggy sneakers, searching for Aemond.

In the white-and-gold foyer, Viserys is just arriving. He struts across the marble floor until he is close enough to his two oldest sons to embrace them, to hit them, to extract their teeth with his knuckles. The others pour through the doorways—Alicent, Criston, Helaena, Daeron, Otto—but while they gape in horror and fascination, they don’t speak in anything more than murmurs amongst themselves. Viserys steals only a glimpse of Aegon, swift and disinterested, then examines Aemond: wet clothes, no shoes, grime and blood, dazed fury. When his cool, pale gaze reaches Aemond’s empty eye socket, Viserys flinches and looks away.

“So you lost another prosthetic,” is all he says. His face twists into a grimace. And you expect Aemond to do something, to jab back, but he doesn’t. He’s frozen, he’s paralyzed. His right eye is misty. He’s biting his lips so they don’t tremble. And suddenly you hate Viserys Targaryen, you hate him more than you can imagine hating anyone. You think that you could watch his entrails unspooled from his body without feeling a thing. The Targaryen family patriarch hasn’t spoken to you; you don’t register to him at all. You might as well be an oriental vase or a house plant.

“You’re the one who did it, Viserys,” Aegon says, stepping in front of Aemond seething and sharp like a blade. “You remember that part? I do. I remember. The North Sea, 1968. I remember him trotting around after you, always so desperate to prove himself, always doing anything you asked, anything you could dream up, worshipping you like you were God. And where were you when he was getting his eye socket debrided at Moorfields Hospital? In fact, where were you when he got his hands caught in a winch when he was eleven? Where were you when he fell off a pipe deck and broke six ribs because one of your idiot employees forgot to close a safety gate and he couldn’t see it? Where were you then? Where are you now?”

Viserys scowls down at him—revolted, repelled—but he doesn’t reply. He feels no instinct to defend himself. He is unable to internalize shame; it rolls off him like raindrops.

“You’d love me so much if I was dead,” Aegon says, grinning, baring his teeth like an animal. “How sick is that? You can love bones in a box, but not someone standing right in front of you. You love Aemma, a ghost. You love Baelon, and you never even knew him. You’ve got nothing for me. That’s fine, I don’t care, I’ll be alright without you.” He points to Aemond. “But you’ve got nothing for him either, and he’s everything you always wanted. You’re disgusting, you’re broken. You belong in a box too. The part of you that was human is gone. I don’t give a fuck about what’s left.”

Aegon shoves Viserys, hard, and then storms past him. As he crosses into the kitchen, Helaena grabs for his wrist. You can hear her whisper: “What the hell happened?!”

Then Aegon remembers one last thing. He whirls around and bellows at Viserys, his voice reverberating off the vaulted ceilings: “And I’m not getting my vasectomy reversed! You can’t make me! It’s bioethics! I asked the lawyer!” He stomps off and disappears, Helaena in tow.

Alicent shoots Viserys a hateful glare and then flees from the foyer, her long auburn ringlets streaming out behind her. Viserys goes in the opposite direction. Daeron and Otto share an awkward glance and then depart as well. Only you, Criston, and Aemond remain in the room, surrounded by treasures that might as well be handfuls of earth, flour, swamp water, salt.

Cautiously, Criston lays a hand on Aemond’s shoulder, on his right side where he can see it. “Aemond…”

“Don’t touch me,” Aemond says as he wrenches away. He leaves like a hurricane, like a flood, receding until there remains only wreckage and memory.

Criston sighs deeply, and then he asks you: “Do you need a ride home?”

You don’t respond. You haven’t decided how to yet. You stare at the place where Aemond stood, a void like a star that died out. Do I follow him upstairs? you think.

Do I?

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #aemond x you #aemond one eye #aemond x reader #aemond fanfiction #aemond

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apalapucian · 3 months ago

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always you, definitely you

lily knows that she’ll say yes for sure when she finds him outside when her shift ends, and, yeah, he’s always there, but it’s been a while since she’s properly appreciated it.

she knows because yes just suddenly sits sure and content on her tongue at the sight of him, because her heart skips when he jumps off the high cement balusters enclosing the kids’ playground across lily’s building, the one with the sign not five yards away that says “no sitting”. that sign’s for the kids, lil, he always told her, and besides i haven’t fallen once - sirius pushing me doesn't count. he’s in his faded gryffindor hoodie and his hair is stuck at 6 AM and it’s hot as hell. he has two chuckskates iced whites, a giant sea salt chocolate chip cookie, and all of lily’s heart. truly.

she grins and skips to him like some kindergartener.

“where’s yours?” she asks, taking her cookie, relishing in the first sip of coffee. actually her third today now, but coffee is all day round. it is. in fact, there’s a neon sign that says exactly that, installed in the flat - their flat, soon - a gift from remus a couple of birthdays ago.

“you took so long,” he says. “i already ate it.”

“how dare you have dinner without me.”

“how dare you assume this is dinner.”

she takes a bite of the pastry and hands it to him. he takes it, munches on, and holds her hand. natural. easy. she feels so happy with him, and nothing’s even technically happening. she’s so stupidly in love. she’s not sure why she’s especially aware today.

“how was work?” he asks.

“slow. nothing eventful. how was yours?”

“same. do you have extras this week?”

“no, why?”

“i’m swinging by the bookshop to see remus. wanna come with?”

“sure.”

[read the whole thing on ao3]

#jily #jily au #jily fic #james potter #lily evans #james x lily #jple #listen #the opening theme of flame of recca came on shuffle on my way home today and it made me think of this one #it's a fic about nothing as usual #also lol fun fact i'm now dating the girl i gifted this to jkdshfdsifhj #i wrote this a straight person. wow #also omg i was writing a jily pac rim au at the time #i wonder where the draft for that is now?????#anyway bye enjoy #<3 #fic tag

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alien-girl-21 · 4 months ago

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Since I won't see my friends until next year, I thought it would be a perfect time to do this again

Joker out and käärijä as random shit my friends say!!

(+ sneaky joost in one entry)

Under the cut because it's LONG

Kris: I actually miss Bojan, i'm going to tell him to come back from New York... but don't tell him I said that, it might get to his head that I actually like him

Bojan: writes on the board

Jan: is that arabic?

-Bojan's first time taking money out of the atm-

Bojan: what do I do now?

The screen of the atm: please select the language of your transaction

Martin: choose Slovenian, idiot

-at the airport-

Bojan: I'm going to get a pamphlet real quick

Jan: sure, I'll wait here

Bojan, coming back empty handed: I think I fell in love

Kris: in bojan's defense —not to defend him— but in his defense

Nace: hey, you wanna share this cookie?

Jan: sure

Nace: it doesn't break though, I already ate my half

Jan: you're an idiot, of course it can break, here, see? I broke it

Bojan: I ship you guys

Jan: -breaks a chair-

Jan: fuck, let me fix it -breaks the chair even more-

Jure: try to put the thing in that hole

Jan: -fixes the chair- Bob the builder 😎

(In the gc)

Jere: you want go party?

Bojan: I can't

Bojan: i'm sick and don't want to get worse

Kris: if Bojan isn't going, I'm not going

Jure: no fucking way 🤣

Bojan: I had to read that twice

Bojan: I was about to call him a bitch

Allu: if someone was killed while we were together, I think that Jesse, Jukka, and Jere would be the most level headed one's

Jesse: I think that Jere would be the one in charge to calm us

Jere: I would be making jokes like "at least we're better than that guy" and pointing at tommi's dead body

Jure: might go to this -shows a flyer for a singles only cruise-

Nace: only 99 euros? That's cheap... when is it?

Bojan: aren't you taken?

Nace: Oh fuck, I am

Bojan: apologize now

Nace, taking his phone out: I'm so sorry, babe

-during esc-

Bojan: okay, we're next, we can do this

Nace: -starts doing push ups for some fucking reason-

Jere: i go on stage now

Bojan: NOOO— i mean, YESSS

Jere: ?

Bojan: i'm just used to you leaving me alone :(

Jure and bojan: playfighting

Jure: now it's your turn, jan!

Bojan: jan wouldn't do that to me because he respects me 😌

Jan, getting ready to slap bojan:

(In spanish because there is no way to translate this dad joke)

Bojan: antes de que se me olvide, les quería contar un chiste: donde nacen las computadoras?

Jure: no sé

Bojan: en el mar

Nace: por qué?

Jan: porque navegan

Bojan: porque son peces

Kris: miren a los tremendos payasos que nos cargamos en esta banda

Bojan: 🥰

Host: for this, we're going to need groups of 6

Joker out: does a group hug

Bojan, tapping jere's arm: jere, jere

Jere: what?

Bojan: join us

Jere: really? Me? 🥰

Bojan: yes, you, you're part of the group 🥰

Kris: can you two stop?

Kris: do you have a pen?

Bojan, handing him a rainbow pen: yeah

Kris: gay pen

Bojan: at least it works

Kris: faggot

Bojan: I am! You have a problem with that?

Kris: I was talking to the pen! Not you!

Interviewer: Who would survive the longest in a deserted island?

Everyone: Jure

Bojan: I could survive, I think

Kris: I think that a coconut would fall on your head and you would die

Jesse: if a girl asked to peg you, what would you say?

Häärijä: no

Jere: skill issue

While watching a football game, in the gc:

Jan: well, i'm going to wait for the game to start while eating my cereal

Bojan: now I want some

Jan: the small box costs 2 euros in the supermarket

Bojan: you know what? I'm going to the supermarket now, i'm going to spend money because of you

Jan, sending a pic of the cereal box: here it is for reference 👍🏻

Bojan, after turning the washing machine on and somehow there was a power outage in the whole floor at the same time: ☹

Martin: hey, don't worry, it wasn't your fault, bojč

The electrician, a couple of days later: yeah, so, the outage was caused because someone used too much electricity in this apartment while someone was showering in the unit next to this one

Martin: so it was your fucking fault

Jan: I photoshopped us into some world cup images

Nace: it looks like Messi is kissing you, Bojan

Bojan: yeah

Jure: that's your dream right? Messi kissing you?

Bojan: yeah 🥰

Someone: yeah, so I spoke with the director, and he asked me if I spoke dutch and I said yeah

Jure: can you speak duch to us?

Someone, in dutch: I can, but what can I say? I just learned it to learn it, not because I liked it

Jan: okay, okay, Kris, it's your turn, reply in Dutch!

Jure: like we practiced

Bojan: literally jumping up and down like an excited puppy

Kris: this is bullshit, stupid fucking coordinators, they have shit in the fucking head instead of a stupid brain!

Jan: said the princess

-while playing volleyball-

Jure: just imagine the ball is your ex!

Bojan, cradling the ball in his arms: i'm so sorry, it was all my fault, I miss you everyday

Jan: great job, idiot

Nace: you look really good today, Bojan

Kris: yeah, your outfit is really well color coordinated

Bojan: thank you, krisko

Nace: and what about me?

Bojan: it's because Kris only bullies me, so a compliment from him matters more

Jure: idk if I'll be able to go out this Saturday, my parents are starting to make milk, and because of that I need to close their shop that night

Kris: making milk?

Jure: soy milk, yeah

Kris: Oh, I was about to ask since when did your parents have cows

Nace: moo

Jan: moo

^ they proceed to moo at each other for the next five minutes while the conversation carries on

Jere, just minding his business:

Häärijä, handing him a paper crown: you are now the queen of this realm

Jere: ❓

Häärijä: you will be the queen until we vote on who will be coronated next

Jere: thanks?

Häärijä: my pleasure, your majesty

Kris: I actually didn't call any of my exes while I was drunk last night, that's a great achievement!

Jere: hey guys, sorry if you hear me swearing, i'm playing a videogame..... FUCKING BULLSHIT

Jesse, after jere got the piña colada tattoo: hey can I see your prision tattoo?

Nace: remember to participate in the meeting

Bojan: i'm watching football

Nace: they're asking you a question bojč

Bojan: GOAAALLL!!!!!

Bojere, sitting chest to back in a bench:

Jan:

Bojan: Oh Jan, sorry that we're facing away from you

Jere: you want to hug me too? Join train?

Jan: yeah sure, let me just—

Jere: no! Don't touch me!

Kris: I would like to go back in time to meet Jesus and smoke weed with him

Käärijä: so, I'm walking to get to work, and I see a line of police cars and I'm thinking "I fucking hope that they don't want to do spontaneous searching because my bag is 90% weed, 10% my actual stuff"

Someone: yeah, this is my daughter, she's 4 and learning how to play drums

Bojan: that's your daughter? Oh my gosh 🥺

Kris: Bojan, you have a severe case of baby fever

Jere: where are the bathrooms?

Jukka, craning jere's head up to see the giant "TOILET" sign above them: over here

Kris: would you be with a guy?

Bojan: I'm bisexual, of course

Kris: what? 😱

Bojan: I already told you, you know this!

Kris: WHAT??

Joost, in the middle of having sex: babe wait, codnom broked :(

Kris: do you guys think the bouncer will let me in? I'm kind of tipsy

Jan: just go in confidently, he won't suspect a thing

Bojan: the last time he went in confidently he was banned from the club

Jan: so, how'd you sleep last night?

Kris: good

Jan: you don't seem so convinced

Kris: I slept in late

Jan: how late?

Kris: midnight

Jan: Oh, how blasphemous, how late

Kris, anytime they go to a new city: look at this door! I'm too tall to fit in it... look at this other door! I'm also too tall to fit in it... look at this door!

Bojan, about stephanie: she's the world cup and i'm bolivia.... but hopefully I'll be bolivia in '94 and she will still be the world cup

Jan: I'm not like Jesus, at all

Bojan: well, you kind of are in some ways

Kris: yeah, you only hang out with fags and prostitutes

Bojan, pointing at them: here you have three fags

Bojan, pointing at jure: and there's a prostitute

Jesse: why are you leaving everything for last minute?

Jere: because I fucking want to and I fucking can 😝

Häärijä, holding up the printed meme: 🐴🤝🏻🐴 no pelien

During a post-barcelona pre-party meeting:

Kris: I think that's all for today

Bojan: typing very loudly

Jan: who are you talking to?

Bojan: with someone 🥰 you know him already

Nace: ohhh the lovebirds 😏

Bojan: raising his hand up repeatedly

Kris: yes, Bojan?

Bojan: I'm really happy 🥰🥰 -instantly goes back to typing-

Kris: I'm happy for you, man

Jere after inflating five balloons for a party: well, my job here is done, time for my very well deserved rest

Jesse: get back up, you fuck, we need to move these chairs

Häärijä: bartender! Bartender! Bartender!!

Jere: I'm here, what do you want?

Häärijä: hi :) -leaves-

Bojan: sometimes I feel like I am batman and žare is the riddler

Jukka: you guys would be the worst clowns at a kid's birthday party. They would ask you for swords, and you would give them snakes

Kris, after seeing Jure having a sugar crash: someone give him a fucking celery or something, he's fucking melting on the couch!

Jere: you live life like it's last day, say sorry to people, hug people, even punch if you have to punch!

All of joker out: raising their fists to punch bojan

Jere: we only had a 5 euro budget for this secret santa so I bought one chocolate bar

Allu: it's not even wrapped!

Jere: wrapping paper is expensive!

During the secret santa:

Allu: I'm so fucking scared of seeing who jere got

Jere: so I had to buy something for...... Jesse!

Jesse: FUCK!

#yes i do think they're all fucking clowns and i love them for it 💕#main tagging because this was a 6 month effort #joker out #käärijä #joost klein #<- he makes a special guest appearance in the quote that made me laugh the hardest so.....

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inawickedlittletown · 4 months ago

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All I Want For Christmas Is You (BuckTommy) - 6/8

Summary: When Buck and Tommy pick each other for the 118's Secret Santa, they both realize they know nothing about each other. That changes very quickly. Words: 3.1k Rating: M Read on Ao3 Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five

Chapter Six

The next week was different. Buck wasn’t sure if anyone even noticed, because Tommy had just reverted back to just kind of ignoring Buck unless it was work related. They were never alone despite Buck trying to catch him on his own. When Buck had tried sending him a text it sat unread for days and then when Tommy did respond it was just to decline Buck asking if he’d want to go see a movie together.

Buck knew when he wasn’t wanted. He knew when it was better to just cut his losses and move on. It happened to him often enough. There was just something about him that made people think they could do better, or that he just wasn’t worth all the trouble after a romp in the sheets. Tommy had come to that conclusion and Buck couldn’t fault him. So, he stayed away. There were more fishes in the sea and all that.

At the very least, the time they’d spent together had given Buck a few options when it came to Secret Santa. Although, a part of him — a petty part — wanted to just go out of his way to make the present as mundane and useless as anything.

He couldn’t quite convince himself to go that route. But, it wasn’t like Buck knew what he would get him. The one thing he was certain of was that once Christmas had come and gone that would be the end of it and he would stop letting his mind drift to thinking about Tommy yet again. Buck would go out and find someone else and just move on. It was what he did and it was what he was good at.

When the week was over, Buck gave in to the impulse to just go out to a bar and see if he could do something to get Tommy out of his mind. He was barely there a few minutes before he left and wound up at the mall instead.

Buck had a little over a week left and at least being as alone as he was did mean that Buck really only had to worry about getting something for Tommy. The worst of it was walking into a store and pinpointing things that would have worked perfectly to give to Chim or Hen or Bobby. Not so much for Tommy.

Eventually, Buck wound up just going into a cafe to pick up some coffee and a snack. It reminded him of Tommy’s excitement for the cookies the other day. He had a feeling he was going to wind up just getting one of those chocolate gift sets as impersonal as it felt. At least Tommy would like that for sure which was something.

When he pushed the door to the cafe open on his way out, he almost ran right into Karen.

“Oh. Karen, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said with a smile. “Fancy seeing you out and about.”

“Secret Santa,” Buck said. “I still haven’t even figured out what to get so I’ve been browsing the mall.”

Karen chuckled. “That’s right. Hen already has hers ready to go. Actually, I’m pretty sure she finished all her shopping. Clearly, I’m not done. I was thinking of going into the bookstore to see if I could find something for Hen. Want to join me?”

“Yeah. Sure. Maybe something will pop out for me there,” Buck said.

He ate the muffin he’d picked up at the cafe on the way, but was still holding his coffee when they arrived at the bookstore.

The whole place had been decorated for the holidays. The window had a display with a small ceramic village complete with a tree and a train that went around the whole thing on a track. Lights and garland covered the shelves and on the door was a wreath made out of tiny felt books.

At first he and Karen perused together. The store was not just books. They had a stationary area and a shelf full of travel mugs with quotes that probably came from books and next to that a rack that held tote bags.

The shelves were arranged with signs and Buck wound up heading in the direction of the nonfiction. His first thought was to see if there was anything on art. Or, flying. He pulled out his phone to look at the picture he’d taken of Tommy’s bookshelf. No books on art, but a lot about flying. On closer inspection it looked like they were flight manuals rather than books on planes or helicopters.

The bookstore did have a few books on different famous artists. DaVinci. Van Gogh. Picasso. Monet. Khalo. Buck couldn’t have been able to say much about any of them and he didn’t think that Tommy would actually have any use for biographies. So, Buck wandered the shelves. A LGBTQ+ section caught his eye.

Buck had always considered himself an ally. He’d gone to LA Pride the year before. He never had a problem with anyone that identified differently be it their gender or sexual preferences, he just had never looked at himself and thought he could be more than the default.

On the LGBTQ+ shelf there were plenty of novels, but some non-fiction as well. Self-help and essays and history.

“Hey,” Karen said suddenly at his elbow. “Find anything?”

“Oh. No. I don’t think a book is the right way to go.”

“But these caught your eye?” Karen asked. “Wait, did you get Hen as your Secret Santa? No, don’t tell me. I can’t know.”

“I don’t have Hen,” Buck said. “I just—”

Buck had told Connor. Tommy knew, obviously. He hadn’t told anyone else. Karen though...she seemed like a safe bet to tell and yeah it might make it back to Hen, but Buck didn’t even really care about that. It might mean he didn’t have to say anything to Hen outright.

“I’m bi, Karen,” Buck said. “It’s…um, it’s new.”

Karen’s smile didn’t falter. “Wow. Thank you for telling me.”

Buck took a breath. “I kissed a guy and it was like…like I realized I hadn’t been whole my entire life until then. I’ve always been an ally and now it’s…I guess I’m more. I’m bi.”

“You certainly are, Buck,” Karen said. “Does that mean you’re seeing someone, then?”

Tommy flashed in his mind. After that date and the glorious afternoon spent in Tommy’s bed they hadn’t spoken outside of work and Buck knew it was over before anything had even begun. Buck felt dumb for thinking that it could be more and that Tommy might give them a chance. He should have known better.

“No,” Buck said and then grabbed a book at random.

The cover was pink and it was apparently a romance novel. He put it back. He could feel Karen watching him.

“I kissed a guy and we had sex a few times and I never told him that he was the first guy I was with and he basically ghosted me after that,” Buck said.

It was mostly the truth.

“Oh, you jumped right on in, then. Hen’s told me stories, but most people don’t do things at your pace.”

Buck hummed. “I guess not. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s over and I don’t think I’ll find anything in here for him.”

Karen made a noise, but she started coughing.

“I’ll pay for these,” she said.

Karen paid for the four books she’d picked up and Buck waited for her.

“Hey, Buck, this does get easier and less confusing.”

“I hope so.”

He’d sketched Evan into the better half of a sketchbook. His hands. His face. A very rough one of his body while Tommy had been riding him. Other things too, Evan’s smile. His birthmark. Abstract things that were a reminder of Evan. He was clearly well rooted in Tommy in a way that would be hard to shake. Shake him, he would.

The days following their date had been a little awkward. Tommy had even seen Chim and Hen sharing glances because Tommy had gone from talking to Evan a bit more and including him more to ignoring him again.

“Did Buck do something to you?” Hen had asked one afternoon between calls.

“No. He’s still the same impulsive kid.”

“He’s definitely grown a bit,” Hen said.

Tommy was glad when they had a call to get to. He wound up sitting next to Evan and was stiff the whole ride there. When they arrived on the scene Bobby paired them together he didn’t even blink. Evan had caught on by that point, at least, that Tommy wouldn’t talk to him. So, he didn’t try though his baleful glances struck Tommy to the heart.

He and Evan went up the ladder that was extended out to the roof of the house, neither said a word and it felt like a blanket of tension had been laid atop them both. The man they were helping had injured his leg while putting lights on his roof. Even he seemed to sense the tension in the air as they helped to get him on a backboard to transport him down.

Maybe it was unfair to freeze Evan out, but Tommy didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t get attached to Evan. He couldn’t be what Evan needed and there were already too many complications that would arise most because they worked side by side. It was better this way. He did hate the kicked puppy look that Evan got when Tommy pointedly ignored him, but Evan would get over it. Evan would go out and find himself some younger guy to get his rocks off with. That or some girl. Maybe a whole plethora of them if that was what he wanted. Tommy would always be the guy that helped him realize that he wasn’t straight, but that was about it.

One day, they might even laugh and talk about it. Not any time soon though.

Tommy did still call the guy with the wood carvings and asked about seeing his pieces again. Apparently the Christmas Market was still going, so Tommy drove over on his next day off.

“Hey, I’m Tommy. We spoke on the phone.”

“Right. Right. You were interested in something for a friend?”

Tommy nodded and took a look around. A lot of the bigger pieces were way past the $50 limit but he did find a carving of a dog with a firefighter’s helmet. It was perfect.

“This one,” Tommy said.

It wouldn’t be enough, but Tommy had the start of a plan for the rest of Evan’s present. It might even serve as a way to break the ice between them again and put them on a path to being friends. He hoped. Otherwise, it might be awkward at work forever.

“Thank you,” Tommy said when he was handed the wrapped package.

“No problem. Hope your friend likes it.”

He took a quick walk around the rest of the market, found himself buying cookies and this time a hot chocolate at that booth and then he found a tent that he and Evan hadn’t gotten to the last time or that hadn’t been there at all. A rainbow flag stuck out and Tommy found himself smiling a little.

At one point in his life, he’d abhorred rainbows and everything they represented for him. He’d never wanted to be attached to it, to claim it for his own. Had believed for the longest time that he didn’t deserve the community it provided. Hell, Tommy had never even gone to a pride parade. It happened sometime when he started painting again, where a rainbow had snuck into a painting and then he was adding them where they worked, especially in a painting that was devoid of other color. It felt like finally allowing himself to be more open about himself, a way to accept that he was gay and nothing and no one could change that.

He approached the tent and found a smiling man behind a small table that served as a counter. There was a display of different colored flags that Tommy couldn’t begin to assign, books on a small bookshelf and novelty t-shirts and tote bags and mugs.

“Hello,” the man on the other side of the table said. “Looking for anything specific?”

“Huh, not really. I’m buying for a Secret Santa. The guy I got just recently realized he’s bi.”

“Oh,” the man said. “Well we don’t have a welcome to being queer pack or anything, but you could give him one of our mugs or a book on queer history. There’s some informative ones, some funny ones. But, you know, just because he’s bi doesn’t mean his gift has to be about that.”

Tommy could tell that there was a level of condescension in the tone and Tommy got it. He got what he looked like and how he passed for straight easily, that he’d leaned on that for a while, maybe so much that he never could be perceived otherwise.

He picked up one of the mugs. It was cute and a quote he’d seen in a few places, “Harold, they’re lesbians”. Tommy chuckled and put it down again. A few just had a big rainbow going around them, some with gay or lesbian or bi or queer or trans written on them. Then, he saw one with each line in pink, purple, and blue: “Both. Both Is. Good”. On the other side it said: “Chaotic Bisexual”

“This is perfect for him,” Tommy said with a smile.

Then, he spotted one with a cartoonish rainbow and “Yup, woke up GAY again”.

“I’ll take this too,” Tommy said.

The guy raised an eyebrow.

“For myself,” Tommy said.

He saw the man behind the counter nod, lips pressed tight. He was the type of guy that fit the stereotype. Someone that could never have hid his sexuality unless he was really trying and maybe he never had found himself in an environment where hiding was the best option. Some people were that lucky.

He went to the books next. Several of the titles caught his eye including the flashy looking The LGBTQ+ History that told him Evan would have a kick reading. Then, he saw Bi The Way. He wound up picking both. Over the time he’d known Evan, he knew that Evan liked to deep dive into research about pretty random topics. He mostly did that online. The likelihood was that he’d already gone through every possible site on the internet, but these books would be quirky and fun.

“These too,” Tommy said.

The man nodded. The mugs he’d put in individual boxes. He added everything into a small bag, but didn’t hand it over.

“What?” Tommy asked.

“I’m sorry. I just…I assumed you were just—”

“Just some cis straight guy,” Tommy said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I forget sometimes that the queer experience looks different for everyone. I hope your friend who just came out is glad he has you to help him along the way.”

Except that Evan hadn’t actually needed that much help from him when it came to the discovery of his sexuality. He hadn’t asked Tommy a single question about being queer or about Tommy’s own history. It was a little unusual, that was for sure.

He bought a gift bag at another tent and then when he got back home put every component of Evan’s gift inside. He left it right by his tree and he was almost sad to be done with it. His own mug he took into the kitchen. He placed it inside his cabinet and it looked out of place, but Tommy loved it. Maybe one day he would have another mug in there that belonged to someone that fit into Tommy’s life. He didn’t think it would happen, but it was possible. Maybe.

He tried hard not to picture the mug he’d gotten Evan. That was definitely not going to happen.

“Looks like someone was up all night,” Chim said.

Buck didn’t even realize Chim was talking to him, but of course he was. And Buck had been up all night. He’d gone down a research spiral. It had started with him looking a little bit further into bisexuality and what it meant for him, but he’d started thinking about Tommy and then that had led straight into Buck just researching art supplies.

Apparently there was a lot to learn. Not all paints and colored pencils were created equal. That went for brushes and pigments and clay and so many other things. Buck had seen Tommy’s art room twice and he’d noticed that Tommy had a lot of acrylic paint, brushes, and a cup that held pencils. Considering his sketches were all done in pencil, he didn’t think it’d be a bad idea to get him a set of good colored pencils. And so, Buck had gone on a research spiral, but he’d also managed to order some colored pencils and a few different sketchbooks.

It didn’t seem like enough, but Buck figured with Christmas drawing closer it was better to have something ready to go than not.

“You do have bags under your eyes, Buck,” Hen said. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Some,” Buck said. “I’ll get a nap later.”

Chim nudged his shoulder. “How hot was she to keep you up all night?”

Buck felt his cheeks go warm. “There was no girl.”

“Sure,” Chim said.

“There wasn’t,” Buck said again.

Tommy walked into the locker room. “What’s happening?” He asked and didn’t look in Buck’s direction.

Buck felt the avoidance down to his bones. The worst of it was that Buck had never gotten stuck on someone the way he’d gotten stuck on Tommy and they hadn’t even gone on more than a single date. For a second Buck had thought maybe it was that it was a guy and new, but he knew deep down that it was Tommy.

“Buck is being surprisingly mum about what he got up to last night,” Chim said.

“Oh,” Tommy said.

“Nothing. I got up to nothing but shopping for my Secret Santa,” Buck said and he turned so he could look directly at Tommy. “That and a bit of research. That’s all.”

Tommy turned away. “We all know we would know all the details if Buck did hook up with anyone, wouldn’t we.”

“I did hook up with someone last week. Really hot,” Buck offered.

“Yeah, I don’t want to hear about that,” Hen said.

Buck caught Tommy’s eye and he saw Tommy roll his eyes. Buck turned away and finished getting dressed. He didn’t say anything to any of them as he left the locker room and made his way up the stairs hoping that he could actually get a nap on the couch before a call came in.

#bucktommy #tevan #kinley #tommy kinard #evan buckley #911 abc #bucktommy fic #christmas fic

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kamiko1234 · 10 months ago

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Okay yeah done with chapter 6 and YIKES. So first off, idk what's going on with that River, and I do not like it. Love Hestia tho, only god that isn't a total fail so far. I sort of love how Hestia, godess of the home and hearth, is the last olympian. With the book diving into Luke's past and shows his home also being called The Last Olympian. 10/10 symbolism, love it. The real meat of the chapter I cared about was May tho. And well,

Ouchie. Doubly, triple OUCHIE. Like fuck my life you guys no WONDER did that poor boy go off the deep end! I'd do that same if that's what my home life looked like!

But also, poor May????? LIKE- omfg, imagine what that sort of life must be like. I already said I knew her fate before, I knew she wanted to take the oracle of Delphi which was cursed by Hades (fuck him btw). And that Luke was a baby still when it happened. But reading her truly brought a whole new perspective. What do you think her first vision was like? The first ever time she saw what would happen to Luke. What her son would live through- what he'd become. What she'd become.

What would it be like to know that you'd be going insane, sooner or later. That your little baby boy would run away from you 'cause he couldn't take it anymore? That your little baby boy would start to carry so much anger and hurt and hatred in his heart partially because of what happened to you. Did May attempt to fight against it? Did she try to keep herself grounded? Herself sane? Thinking that all she had to do to avoid her baby's fate would be to stay strong? Do you think she blamed herself? Do you think that May, looking down at her sleeping baby son, would blame herself for what he'd become? What must it have been like those first few days, weeks, maybe even months when her mind wasn't fully gone? Hermes never visited, and Luke was a baby when it happened. Surely May must have been mentally well enough to take care of Luke for at least a bit.

Do you think she realized it? That she was slowly driven mad? Do you think some part of her knew that her mind was crumbling, and despaired over it all coming true? Only for the despair to have her go insane even faster in a hopeless attempt to deny the truth? Has Luke stopped liking PB&J sandwhiches and cookies and Kool-Aid? After all this time or running and changing and growing, do you think that he still likes the lunch his mother keeps making for him ? Made for him every day even if he never returned? Do you think he ate a sandwich and cookies and drank Kool-Aid when he visited May? Do you think he hugged her, and called her Mum? Told her he was going to be safe, when part of him always knew he wasn't?

Do you think May cried, seeing Luke again? All grown up? With a scar and with his weapons? Do you think part of her shattered mind realized that it was her son's fate afterall? Even if she'd never accept it as the truth?

(As always, I ask everyone to please not spoil me!)

#luke castellan #may castellan #percy jackson #pjo books #the last olympian

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dutifullyshamelessearthquake · 1 year ago

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food for thought 💭

I wonder what foods the characters would never eat again after being sick after eating it 👀 like which character is like meh who cares I’ll eat this food again and who is like I will wait 6-8 months before I have it anywhere near me lol. I like to think it depends too- like Cyno would go back to eating apples not long after he recovered from the last fic but he didn’t THINK about the cookies nari made and didn’t touch one the rest of the time. Heizou also would be sensitive to foods he was sick from? But again maybe it depends! I’m curious for your thoughts 👀 also hope you’re doing well !!

Ohh, I love thinking about this!

It definitely differs between characters, but I also think it really changes based on the scenario. Was it the food that made them sick? Or were they sick and that food just happened to be what they ate? Maybe it was the only food they could stomach at the time?

I definitely agree with you, Cyno didn't want to look at those cookies again. They were very much what made him nauseous and definitely the vast majority of what he tasted when it came back up. So yeah, big no, he didn't touch 'em. But like you said the apple he threw up in the recent fic, probably not that much of a deal! He was feeling sick before he even ate it, and I think over all the apple was just. Not that significant.

So it varies a lot depending on the situation! But I do think some characters are more sensitive to it than others! Heizou, hard agree on that. I already headcanon that tastes easily trigger his gag reflex, I think the taste of whatever he throws up would be ingrained in his mind. He wouldn't be able to eat it for months without associating the taste with sickness.

Gorou too, he's a squeamish guy. He's the type who would look at a food and think about how it tasted/felt throwing it up. Immediately no no, he's not touching that.

#earthquake author's note #sickfic #genshin sickfic #genshin emeto #emeto #nausea #sickfic headcanons

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juanabaloo · 2 years ago

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3, 20, 12 violent asks for Buffy!

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

I tend to quickly forget any bad takes I see. I have a hazy memory of the obligatory "Dawn was so annoying and a brat" comment a while back. I wouldn't call that the worst take but I'm not a fan of it. (violence level: none, haha. Really this is an answer to 25: common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing) Reddit has WAY more bad takes than my tumblr dash.

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

Sorry any Bangel fans but I felt a little bored for Angel's return in S7, mostly the kissing and the cookie dough speech. It felt tedious to me, they wanted him to return for a cameo but he couldn't stay. (violence level: mild)

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

easy answer: If you don't like FAITH awkwardly reappearing in S7, you should watch her 6 eps on ATS. it's not perfect, but it's a helluva redemption arc. But if you follow me you already know I'm obsessed with Faith AND she's not really an unpopular character to most.

bold answer: KENNEDY! Kennedy should def get more love. As much as Tara's death hurts, if Willow has a new girlfriend it makes sense that she NOT be like Tara. I liked her attitude! And yeah, agree with your take about relating to her more than Tara or Willow. If there had been fewer Potentials maybe Kennedy would get more screen time and people would learn to appreciate her.

bolder answer: RONA! Rona was a jerk sometimes but I still liked her. I think Rona avoided Kennedy-level hate only because she had a smaller role / fewer lines. Like Kennedy she deserved more screen time.

(violence level: medium to high?)

#ask game #ask answered #btvs #thank you for the asks!#kennedy #rona #kennedy thoughts #rona thoughts

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supersabbatical2024 · 1 year ago

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4/20/24: Pastries tasted to date… Un Brioche de sucre, deux cookies au chocolat 🍪 🍪, trois Palmiers, trois crèpes et beaucoup des croissants 🥐 🥐 🥐 🥐 🥐 🥐 🥐 🥐 Très bien pour cinq jours? Ok, that basically means that eating pastry has been one of our top priorities since we got here 5 days ago. Bien sur, some of my middle and high school French is coming back to me, dans mon 🧠, mais je ne parle Francais avec ma bouche… I can read and get the gist of the words, I can listen and understand the gist of the words, but speaking aloud is just a mental block for me. I just freeze and go blank. Meanwhile, Claude learned some French from his Japanese mom some 40+ years ago, and he is better than I am at ordering lunch! Maybe when I come back and live here for 6 months, I will have a break-through… 👀

We heard good news about Oreo yesterday, and my son is taking great care of mom, so all is holding steady on the home front, knock wood…😬

Today, we walked through several street markets of fresh flowers, spices, as well as fruit and produce. We have passed through a different street market pretty much every day, in one spot or another here in Aix. We have enjoyed buying boxes of gorgeous shiny fraises 🍓and framboises to eat while we walk around and around this town… At my request, we are trying another Thing on this sabbatical…I always liked the idea of traveling and staying put in one place rather than moving every few days or so—the idea is to feel like I am getting to know “my neighborhood.” I thought it could make us feel more like we’re living here than if we popped around hotel to hotel. We are only 3 weeks, so it’s LIKE we are living here, but without having to actually figure out too many real life things except Where and What to Eat. But also Where to Go for Groceries, and whether I can actually buy French Onion Dip here (not that I can see!). BUT part of “kind of like” living here is also cooking at home, so I was on a mission at the street market today.

Here’s how it went: We were people-watching this morning as we ate our croissant and cinnamon roll at a tiny cafe table outside at Weibel Patisserie (a pretty famous place I’m told). We each sipped a “cafe luong” (deux, actually—I guess I drink strong black coffee now. Bzzzzz), while we sat practically in the street (trucks and older ladie’s roller grocery bags were millimeters apart and nobody but us gasped!). It’s Saturday (Samedi), and everyone was holding their big shopping baskets or trailing their rollie bags behind them. Older couples seemed to be out shopping together, sharing the load, and EVERYONE had giant LEEKS sticking out of their bags!! Perhaps there was a sale at the street market, or perhaps Leeks are very French, which I did not really know. But now I wanted to achèter les poireaux…I wanted to buy the leeks! Claude unwittingly threw down a challenge, noting that he has always LOVED Potato/Leek soup…I’m not sure he believed I could/would actually follow through, but I grabbed the leeks, potato, et bien sur, l’herbes de Provence!!! We stopped at the Casino supermarchè for chicken broth (another item Not to Be Found in two grocery stores we checked, only vegetale ou bouillon…what is that about??). We got home and Claude went off to read on the back patio in the sun ☀️ while I cooked up Le Soup De Jour: Potato et Poireaux…Voila, Je suis une chef Francaise!!! (Yeah No). I even made a cooking video (not my first if you must know! Just NOT widely distributed due to their silliness). You can find it posted…NOWHERE 😝

We will see how this whole “hanging out in one place” works out…It’s only been 5 days, and I feel like I have already found my favorite Palmier. I’ve also been to the snazzy automated Nespresso store several times (I get it, Europe! I really doo!) So much more to master, though, and tomorrow is a travel day. We are actually getting up early to drive to an antique market about an hour away, in Isle Sur La Sourgue. Et maintenant, and now, Claude is cooking at home! Reheating my soup de jour and making his famous salad dressing for a salade avec our last few slices of délicieux jambon 🥗 🍖 Bon soir!! ❤️ 🌙

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axels-corner · 2 years ago

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Chapter 6 of the coffee shop au

Summary: Kenric, Kesler, and Terik bake cookies while trying to sort things out

Notes: We're halfway through! I hope you enjoy the chapter

You can find chapter 5 here

Characters: Terik, Kenric, Kesler

Words: 1,782

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48995623/chapters/125896006

There was a sugary sweet smell in the air that made Kenric's mouth water, they had finally finished the chaotic adventure of getting the cookies into shape and prepping them for the oven. But after many failed attempts, and several runs to grab more chocolate and caramel chips, notable failures included the first time when they went to add the salt and one of the triplets had loosened the salt shaker at dinner that night, and well things got a little salty as Terik would put it. Though he would've much prepared the chaos over the discussion he knew they where about to have that he was dreading.

“So,” Kesler starts while hopping up on the counter, “Oralie huh, I thought she hated your guts? You know after the whole Blackswan thing”

“Me too.” Terik added leaning back against the counter eating some of the cookie dough from the bowl

“That makes three of us.” Kenric says, “Also Terik I would advise against eating raw cookie dough remember what happened last time.” Terik sighs

“So let me get this straight, you don't like it when I eat charred toast, but you don't want me to eat raw cookie dough either.” he dipped his finger in the leftover batch again “Also you sound like Bronte.” Kesler snorted at that

“Seriously? Charred toast?”

“It's got a nice crunch, don't judge it until you try it.” Kenric hides his smile by rubbing his forehead

“Fine, but when you get food poisoning I'm telling Emery and Bronte it's because you ate raw cookie dough.”

“I'm fine with that.” They all lapsed into a nice silence, Kenric wondered if he willed time to stop, if it would, but of course it doesn't work like that. As Terik put the bowl in the sink, Kesler crossed his legs on the counter.

“I suppose we should talk about Oralie now.” Kenric hung his head and sighed

“Yeah, probably.” Terik cut him off

“Wait, before we do I never got the whole story of the Black swan just bits and pieces. What happened? I mean you and Oralie where close.”

“Well we where in our senior year of Foxfire High school when Prentice approached me,

“So we still on for Saturday movie night?” Oralie asked smiling as she hugged him, he hugged her back

“We so are, what do you want to watch tonight?” She shrugged

“I'm not sure, we'll figure it out.”

“Or fall asleep surfing through what to watch.” They both laughed, this was nice, Kenric thought spending time around Oralie was easy, it was fun, it felt like she lit up whatever room she walked in. There was a light tap on his arm, he turned to see who it was, it was Prentice, with a very unpleased looking Tiergan standing next to him. “Hey Prentice and Tiergan, what's up?”

“We where wondering if we could talk to you really quick?” Kenric squeezed Oralie's hand

“I'll be right back.” She nodded

“I'll go find Terik, Kesler and the others, and save you a seat.” He nodded and jogged after the other two who where already walking off. They walked quietly until they entered a classroom, Which he thought was empty, but when the lights flickered on he saw that it wasn't. Juline, the Forkle twins, and two other kids where already in there. Before he could ask what was going on one of the Forkle twins, Errol he thinks, asked

“Do you know what the Black Swan is Kenric?” He shrugged with one shoulder shaking his head

“A good place to go if you want coffee?” One of the kids he didn't know laughed, while Loki shook his head.

“Partially, you know how there's a superhero theme so nobody knows who the employees are?” He nodded “Well what if I told you that's because it's true that they're superheros.” He raised an eyebrow

“Really?” He had a strong feeling this was a prank , but he'd play along for now “What do they do then? And why are you telling me this.” Loki sighed

“Because we need your help, well you or Terik but he has significantly more eyes on him with him being considered for the council and all, with the rumors of Councilor Augustin stepping down in a couple of years.”

“And what exactly do you need my help for?”

“It's hard to explain just watch.”

When the video started Kenric recognized it immediately. It was the explosion from so many years ago. They had ruled it as a misfire of the canon from the school play but something always rubbed Kenric the wrong way about that story, the pieces just didn't fit. He was willing to let it slide because nobody had been hurt and the only damage there was, was too the stage curtain, but know he knew why it had seemed a tad suspicious. At the end of the video there was security footage of two people tampering with the fake canon.

“Do we know who they are.” Kenric asked, and as the words left his mouth everyone's shoulder start to droop

“We where hopping you would.” Errol said, Kenric looked closer they where both wearing dark cloaks that made it so they blended into the background but on one of them there was a small piece of hair sticking out, a golden blond piece of hair. He pulled out his phone and frantically started searching through his text messages till he found the right conversation with the last text sent around three and a half years ago that told him and Terik to stop searching. He held it out to them,

“Could this be anything?” They all gathered around, Errol was the first one to speak up

“Well it looks like we've got ourselves a lead.”

Over the next few days he helped the Blackswan search, they found out they called themselves Neverseen but that was it. Eventually days turned into weeks and weeks turned into a month than months. With only dead end after dead end, it was like Ruy and Gethen had disappeared. He could also feel his relationship with Oralie straining like a rubber band but he was so close he just needed some more time.

Until their rubber band finally snapped, he and Oralie had a big argument in which he said some things that he would always regret. After she confronted him about sneaking away all the time, missing classes, skipping lunches, forgetting about their dates and eventually just not responding to her texts at all. He ended up avoiding telling her about his suspicions about Gethen, since Gethen was her brother and how do you tell someone you think their brother sabotaged people, plus would she even believe him?

“I never found out if she would've believed me since well you both saw how the conversation ended. I did text her once trying to explain about Gethen but she blocked me as soon as she saw his name.” He was no longer looking at Kesler, and Terik but rather the tiles. He wondered if he could count them enough if it would stop the tears from falling, but alas water has a mind of it's own and he watched them fall down onto the tile floor. They stood there for a long moment before he felt an arm wrap around his shoulders and pull him into a hug, Kesler joined seconds later. He isn't sure how long they stayed there, could've been minutes could've been hours, but eventually the tears dried, as a river does with no rain. Terik still had his arm around his shoulder,

“Are you feeling better?” Kenric could hear the sincerity in his voice, as much as he and Terik liked to poke fun at each other they still cared for each other, was the others rock, the shoulder to lean on. He was that for Terik when he had torn his Achilles in their junior year, and Terik was that for him now, as he had been when he and Oralie first broke up. Kesler broke the silence one again with a small gasp that had Terik and Kenric's heads snapping towards him. Almost as if reading their minds asking him what he said in a quite voice, like he was scared to speak the thought into existence

“What if Oralie's apart of the Neverseen?”

Kenric felt like all the air had been punched out of his lungs. Like when he was a kid and would drink a Capri Sun and then suck all the air out, except this time he was the Capri Sun. he felt the cold tile on his knees from where his jeans had holes in them, he really needed to fix that.

“Hey, you still need to breathe man oxygen is not optional.” He laughs and as he does a little air rushes back through his lungs, he takes a couple deep breaths nodding at Terik to say he's fine, thought Terik doesn't look to believe him, before looking at Kesler.

“Anyone could be wearing the hood after all, since there was no voice,, or features except for the blond hair.” Kesler nodded seeming to be deep in thought. Kenric looked out the window the moon now high in the sky, and he slowly got to his feet, Terik holding his arm as if he would fall any minute, he appreciated it though. He glance at his phone that said 12:47 “Me and Terik should probably be getting home.” Kesler waved, as they left the timer for the cookies went off and he turned back towards the oven.

As Terik and Kenric grab their bikes from outside the store both of them ask,

“Is he going to be okay?” Kenric shrugs, because he didn't have an answer this time, and it appears neither did Terik.

The ride home was mostly uneventful, until they passed the Black swan cafe and, the new coffee shop, and they can hear arguing from inside one of them though Kenric's unsure of which, but the interesting part was the dialogue. He could make out bits of pieces as they drove up, and after they passed, but as they where passing a door or a window must've been open because he heard

"This isn't going to work I've already almost blown my cover like three times today! He's getting suspicious! We need to abort"

"That'll look even worse just stick out okay, trust me in a couple months we'll be home free."

"Fine, but I'm getting acting classes and sending you the bill."

Then he heard a door slam and both coffee shops, both the old and new fell silent.

Coffee Shop au taglist: (if you want to be added or removed just let me know)

@winterfireice @official-kenralie-fanbase @antisocialdork

#my writing #kotlc fanfiction #councillor kenric #kotlc kenric #kenric fathdon #councillor terik #kotlc terik #kotlc kesler #kesler dizznee #koralie coffee shop au

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5tar9litter · 2 years ago

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Things my mom said multiple times:

Partying:

“I don’t know why I don’t like it. I should like drinking and gambling. I should like talking to those thai girls even if they are hella rude. I should leave all of my kids alone at home while I go party past 12 at midnight. I guess I’m just weird like what they said. I don’t like talking to those people. They are so annoying, always boasting about how much money they make and then wasting it all away in the casino! Why don’t I like them? Why do I hate it so much??”

She’s said this exact topic at least 60 times this year of 2023. And I’d explain it’s because they are horrible ppl and it’s okay to have different hobbies from others. At least you are saving money, avoiding health risks, and just go find better ppl to be with. Plus I am the same way. I hate those ppl with the same passion but I just found better people who doesn't do those type of things.

Then she’d forget what I just said and start the same exact paragraph by next week or month.

And I start to interrupt when she is talking now because it’s annoying having them ask dumb ass questions esp if you just consulted them like 45x’s now. It’s just a waste of time and I noticed I’ve been either telling her she and I already talked about this or changing the subject completely.

Food:

“I wish we ate more sweets. As a family, nobody in this family likes it. I buy so much cookies, sodas, pizzas, apple pies, cakes, and candy but nobody eats all of it?”

I’d explain, “it’s too sweet. And there’s so much too. You buy like 26 apple pies and expect 4 of your kids to eat all of it in a week?? No thanks.”

“But why can’t we be like an american family? Why can’t we just eat all of the sweets like that?”

“But that’s why all of Americans are dying from cardiovascular diseases, Mom. Sweets kill u if you eat a lot, duh. What r u trying to do, kill us?”

“Haha, you are right but look at how good it looks.”

“Gross. It’s too sweet. Why did you buy so much sweets from the store again? You know 19 years of my life, none of us like cakes and stuff like that.”

“*attempts to eat all 26 apple pies by herself and stops eating by the 3rd apple pies* yuck! it’s so sweet! Why can’t I finish all of it?”

“Facepalms**”

SHE DOES THIS ALL THE TIME AHHH. She knows we don't like sweets. Period. Yet she buys it all the time and always complains that we never eat it even though none of us wanted it. If we were like, "Mom can we buy these cupcakes?" then we don't eat all of it. Then that makes sense that she'd be mad. But she's actually encouraging us to eat unhealthy on a daily basis. Like do you know how much pizzas we've had delivered to house on the daily basis? 6 BOXES for 4 KIDS AHHHH

This behavior did start my brother's food addictions though. Because she would encourage us to eat all of this and they would finish all 5 or 6 boxes by themselves. Now my brothers are having heart problems and stomach issues. Bruh.

Family in laws:

"When you date or get married, you are gonna have to sacrifice your whole life to your man's parents. You have to clean and cook for them 24/7. You will become a slave to them. Dating is never fun. It's only miserable"

I just nod my head and act like I'm listening every time she says this.

My job

"You shouldn't go to college and get a job. Just open a business. I'll support you."

She doesn't even have enough money to buy me food. I have to work to pay for it. It's so annoying because my dad told me the same thing but he can't even pay the bills so he's always stressing out.

"You should start a Youtube channel."

I respond with, "No thank you. I hate filming stuff. I don't even post 1 picture on my other social media so what makes you think I wanna?"

"Just saying. It'd be a good start."

"Yeah yeah."

She brings up this same topic of me starting a Youtube channel another 30x.

"Why do you keep telling me this, Mom!?"

Usually, I end up getting really pissed off. I hate when I get mad at anybody including my mom but she has a weird habit of repeating herself.

She really wants me to fucking start a youtube channel. I did start one at some point but then I got busy with school or other things and it was really boring for me so I just stopped. But it annoys me that she doesn't understand that I don't like making youtube videos especially at the moment. In the future, I can see it happening but not now. She still keeps suggesting it.

Another thing that annoys me is that she always tell me that my job sucks.

It took me 6 months to get my job and I love it to death. Even if it's minimal pay: Around 16$/hr where I live.

My coworkers are so nice. My managers are so kind and patient with me. The customers are so good to me and they treat me like family. The job is easy and fun. Sometimes I get yelled at by customers because I work at retail and I need an ID from them in order for them to purchase the cigarettes. 97% of them are pretty compliant. So it's fast and easy and if they argue, my coworkers always back me up. They are so kind compared to my old job where I had no support. So, I am always happy to come to work because for someone in my position and history, especially with a tight schedule, this job is like paradise for me. So every time I have a small issue like customers being an idiot or me being hit on at work which is all the time, my mom would say my job sucks.

I call her out on it because at least I am working and you know, compared to my old job at Petco, it's actually really good for a college student. It's close by and easy and relaxes me even if there's small mishaps.

She says she just meant all of that work for 17/hr. I tell her, "For now, this is what I just gotta work with it. But it doesn't suck. I'm just really grateful I have a job.

Babies:

"Do not have babies when you are young." Valid.

Boyfriends

"No dating until you finish school and get a career."

Valid.

"You can only dress like that around your boyfriend when you get one."

"You can only go watch movies or go out with your boyfriend when you get one."

"You can only get a house when you get a boyfriend."

"When you get a boyfriend, you'll have someone to hang out with all the time."

"WHY DO YOU WANT A BOYFRIEND SO MUCH I DONT UNDERSTAND WHAT'S SO GOOD ABOUT HAVING ONE?!!?"

Mom, ever since I was young. You instilled this mindset that I need a boyfriend to have freedom in life. You won't even let me go out without a guy accompanying me and every guy I am just friends with you think I am dating him. AHH WHY IS SHE LIKE THIS?

"OOoh, looks like you are ready for a boyfriend~" My mom would tease me all the time and at the same time she'd tell me, "No boyfriend! You are too young. Not until you are a doctor!"

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Casinos:

For 5 years, this is all she talks about. She hates it there with so much hatred that it's incomprehensible but she keeps coming back to work there. Her coworkers also got annoyed with how repetitive she can be and she's told me about this. They told her there's so much careers out there. Why does she keep coming back to the casino if she hates it so much then quits within 5 months??

This year in 2023. she just quit one casino and now she secretly applied to ANOTHER ONE this month in August and my dad found out and yelled at her. I remembered their argument. "YOU LIED TO ME! YOU TOLD ME YOU'LL NEVER GO BACK AND YOU WENT AND APPLIED WITHOUT TELLING ME? YOU KNOW YOU ARE GONNA QUIT AGAIN. YOU DID THIS 5 TIMES ALREADY. WHY DON'T YOU LEARN? YOU CAN'T DO GRAVEYARD SHIFTS. YOU KNOW HOW SICK YOU GET WHEN DEALING PAST 3AM. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO YOURSELF?!" I understand my mom wants to work again but doesn't know any other way to make lots of money with just a high school degree. But I agree this can't be healthy. When the other casino she applied see that she just quit 5 other major(popular) casinos within 3 years. They are gonna reject her applications because they know she likes to apply then quit after 5 months.

New business plans:

"I should buy those asian plants and sell it on facebook!"

I encourage her. She's been talking about this for a year now.

"I should cook food and sell it on facebook marketplace like those thai girls!"

I encourage her alot for this because I think she'd do well. She's been talking about this for 2 years now.

"I should work in another job that isn't the casino." *never does so*

"I wanna open an asian fast food shop with a drive through. I never seen one here in America."

I encourage her.

"I want to be a real estate agent. *Continues to explain how much money she'd make and swears she'll finish the classes to get the certificate.*"

This convinced me and my dad that she would actually do it. My dad is really hard to convince so I was surprised he let her. My dad said he'd support her until she gets a degree which is supposed to take 6 months only. She paid $1000, took the class for 5 months, then quit with no refunds.

She told me it's because the professor said she won't be able to become a millionaire until a year later because the economy is rocky right now so nobody's buying houses right now especially with the interest rates being so high for them.

I understood it but I told her like at least finish the last month and just take the exam. You get to cheat too like they do not care at all. Like just get the certificate and get it over with.

She explains she don't have the confidence to finish it. So she never finish the class or the exam. She ended up wasting $1000 even though I offered to cheat for her. ITS LITERALLY AN OPENED BOOK TEST. THE PROFESSOR LITERALLY TOLD HER THE ANSWERS FOR THE EXAM SO IT LITERALLY IS JUST FILLING IN THE BLANK.

After she did that, I've lost all hopes for her bro.

I don't encourage her to start a business because she's always quit or never make action. But you know what did she do? She bought this asian plant and gave it to some random mien woman to profit off of her for free :D R u fucking kidding me? Mom, why. That was your money right there. U bought that plant to make money on facebook but instead you gave it to some random asian lady. She was pretty disappointed in herself as well.

She always talk about: her Nightmares, hair loss, unhealthy eating, nutritional deficiencies, walking at the park, how much she hates my dad and how dirty the house is.

I don't really care and actually respond to her about it.

Things my dad always say:

"Always invest your money!"

"Just take easier classes."

Yeah sure let me just not graduate college by not taking my required Biology: Anatomy and physiology and statistics classes.

"You have to graduate with a bachelor!!"

Also refuses to support my education**

"You are gonna be a millionaire!"

"Why am I such a loser?" My dad always says that to himself.

He brags about me alot especially about how I won 2cd place on a contest and ended up being interviewed on tv.

I luv my parents but omg they are so dumb.

#family #parents #mother #rant post #personal rant #america #dessert #sweets #repetition #why #why are they like this #what the fuck

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aniron48 · 2 years ago

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Love Letters - Day 3

Omg, that last VOTE, you guys. ::Takes a drag of an imaginary cigarette:: You have no idea how frantically I was drafting a contingency conference call scene to try to cover a potential tie. But not today, chaos muppets. Not today.

Anyway, welcome to Day 3 of Love Letters, a 00q choose your own adventure! If you're joining for the first time, you can catch up here: Day 1 Day 2

As a reminder, there will be a post around this time (9pmish EST) every night through 2/14. Day 3 starts below the cut!

In fact, he might need to talk to Felix.

“James,” Felix said, answering the phone the following morning. “To what do I owe the singular pleasure of you waking me up an hour before my alarm goes off?”

Bond looked at his watch. “It’s 6:00 there.”

“Exactly.” There was a rustling sound as Felix got out of bed. “Espera un momento, mi cielo, ya regreso.”

“If you have company, Felix, I can phone you again later.”

“No, no, I’m up. I can give you five minutes.”

“Is that what she—“

“James, I will hang up on your ass.”

“Fine, all right, hang on. Look, it’s ah—it’s a bit personal.”

“Personal, huh? Don’t you have an entire medical unit for that sort of thing?”

“Christ, Felix, thank you for the vote of confidence. No, it’s nothing like that. I wanted to ask—let’s say, hypothetically, that you wanted to send a love letter to someone who had never received one before. Someone who didn’t seem to think they deserved one, despite the fact that they deserve one more than anyone you know. And suppose you wanted to remedy that. Romantically. What would you say to them?”

“Hypothetically.”

“Yes, obviously. Hypothetically.”

“Love letters,” Felix mused. “Brings back some memories. Look, if you really want my opinion, I think it comes down to honesty. You and me—we’re professional bullshitters, my friend. And anyone who loves us enough to stick around is going to know we’re bullshitters. ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ and that sort of flowery shit is for people who make an honest living. But giving the person you care about something true—something real—that’s the good stuff. Be honest about why you love him and why it’s important to you that he know. It is a ‘him,’ right? Because if it’s not Q, I’ll shoot you and throw your body in an Amsterdam canal with all the goddamn stolen bikes.”

“That’s oddly specific, Felix.”

“Yeah, well, two guesses where I just went on vacation. And another two guesses what happened to my fucking bike.”

“Noted. But for the record, yes, it’s Q.”

“Good. You two deserve each other. Be good to him. I like that snarky little shit.”

He could do honesty easily enough, Bond thought as he hung up the phone. Q already knew more true things about Bond than anyone else living, which, admittedly, was not something Bond had ever let himself examine too closely. But he needed more than honesty to work with, if he was going to write Q a love letter that rivaled Captain Wentworth’s. Significantly more.

**Partial authorial credit for this section goes to the entire sleeve of Girl Scout cookies I stress-ate while waiting for the poll to close! 😘

#Love Letters #Love Letters Day 3 #00q #choose your own adventure #00q choose your own adventure

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istanfluffycontent · 3 years ago

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Txt when they have a crush on you but tries to act cool and deny it (being a tsundere)

warnings: cursing Masterlist/wip list/things i might do later

Soobin:

not really a tsundere, but i guess he would act like a responsible adult

“it takes skills being a leader of 4, you know?”

but on the inside, he’s like a little boy who just got their crush

i mean, look at you though. who wouldn’t get a crush on you??

so.. he’s conflicted. He doesn’t know if he should stay away from you or get closer to you, ending in chaos

he values you so much he just doesn’t know how to express it

and it really shows, especially when you compliment him

“Hey.. y/n. Uh.. maybe shut up?”

panik

“Wait no! please don’t be upset, keep telling me how much you like my music! START TALKING”

Sends mixed signals and cant keep his muttering in

“y/n.. I love you pabo”

“What did you say?”

“Uh- UH- I sai, y/n! I’ll shove you pabo!”

Overall he’s a sweet but salty little shit who is 6′3 needs you around him badly but is scared to show it

Yeonjun:

runs his hands through his hair every time you’re near

he maintains eye contact on purpose with u just to tease you

this boi has high attack but weak defense

If you do the same, he’ll be satisfied but also get really flustered

“I knew it! They cant resist me.”

however, if you ignore it or act annoyed, he’ll be very scared that you might think he’s too cocky

give you nicknames and acts like it’s no big deal

“just because i called you baby girl doesn’t mean anything! why would you even think that, huh?”

prideful bastard cause he knows he’s hot, meaning he has a big ego and needs even more boosting from you

known as the best dancer in txt, he’ll go even above and beyond when you’re there (as if his moves were not perfect and sharp enough already)

when you hang out with others, he gets jealous

so he gets your attention by provoking you

constant resting bitch face around you to hide the fact that he’s head over heels for you

He also pulls risky behavior shits to be in the spotlight

Beomgyu:

He’s so bubbly! How can he be a tsundere? But if he was-

he would try to look extra good in front of you (if that possible)

LOTS of hair flips

he acts distant towards you.. But also wants your undivided attention at the same time

he’s scared he’s scared you won’t like him back

So when you hang out with others it just scares him more, making him wanting to know everything about you and what you did

uses sarcasm a lot with you

“Hey gyu! I saw this recipe for cookies you guys might like. Should i make some?

In his mind, he’s like “Uh- ‘you guys’?? They should be only for me. But yes. Now ask me to make it with you.”

And it comes out as “stop trying to kill me with your cooking”

when members ship you guys together, he’s going to throw a tantrum

“Gyuu, i didn’t know you liked me ;)”

“W-what? You too? No I don’t! I really don’t! WHY ARE YOU GUYS LAughINg?”

That leads to some overthinking and then to confession

Taehyun:

acts like he doesn’t have time for your shits, but secretly wants you to bother him

like- a lot

goes to the gym extra often and does more magic tricks just to impress you

And he pants, like, a lot with his sleeveless shirt during work outs or dance practices if your there

he acts unemotional around you unless you trigger him

Oh and i almost forgot- wet hair and licking his lips

all of a sudden, he’s not embarrassed to causally flex his muscles i wonder why

he’s also known for being a good cook

when you want a bite, he smirks and teases you

Of course you’ll tell him that it tastes amazing! and now he leaves food everywhere for you to eat

“What? You ate them? But they weren’t for you!”

But the members and you all know that Kang Tae Hyun would never just leave things around like that

“Who were they for then, terry? Your secret lover or something?”

“UH- no- i-.. yeah okay. BUT ITS NOT YOU THOUGH- no- you know what? give me back my food!”

Kai:

Cant really see him as a tsundere but..

Doesn’t want to bother you and doesn’t want to seem needy so he asks his hyungs for advice

They tell him you make you fall for him first, and pay it cool

well that’s not helpful at all

this baby is scared the others will outshine him by a thousand mile

so he acts cold in order to not all for you any deeper but he would literally die for your smiles and praises

actually, i think he would love your encouragements even more than his hyungs

And every time you do, he gives you charming eyes and a sweet smile.. And then attempts to cover his joy up (keyword: attempt)

“Kai! Do you wanna go get food with me?”

“um- no”

You cling to him arm “but.. Why noott??”

suddenly, he’s a bomb of emotions, stream’s coming out of his ears

“OKAY OKAY ILL GO JUST LET GO OF ME PLEASE”

A/n: Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! if you have any requests, please feel free to submit them also here’s some ideas i might do in the future <3

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mariaofdoranelle · 3 years ago

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Golden Tattoo — How They Met (Part 0?)

Rowaelin Month 2022 — Day 6: College/University AU

Parts 1-4 in my RM22 masterlist!

I have a fun story to distract you from the fact that part 4 is only coming out tomorrow. I’m posting this from my phone because I saw a scary lizard in my kitchen and ran for my life. Now I’m at my grandma’s gossiping at 1 am because we’re both insomniac girls, so I hope you don’t mind my poor editing of this draft.

Warnings: language, weed cookies, pizza mugger

Word count: 1,7k

. * ･｡ﾟ, (੭˘͈ᵕ˘͈)੭ <%) (%> ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶ . * ･｡ﾟ,

Aelin was having a staring contest with her cookies, trying to decide which one was higher.

Physically, it was her. The cookies were an inch tall. Aelin was lots of inches tall.

Chemically, it was the cookies. A weed cookie was 100% weed cookie. But when she ate them, she was only Aelin divided by cookies high.

A cookie could only contain a cookie. But Aelin? She could contain a multitude of cookies.

And pizza, she giggled at the thought.

As she opened the box containing the frozen pizza, Aelin noticed something incredibly odd.

Why in hell was the pizza green?

Aelin snapped a photo and sent to Elide, always the voice of reason

Aelin: It’s ruined

Aelin: I’m ruined

Ellie: Isn’t this the blue cheese?

Aelin: Ellie.

Aelin: This looks BAD

Ellie: Looks like blue cheese

Aelin: Looks like FUNGUS

Ellie: That’s the point of blue cheese

Tired of putting reason into Elide’s head, she packed the rotten pizza to return at the supermarket and left, only grabbing a small amount of money and another herb cookie on her way.

The closest supermarket wasn’t exactly close, but Aelin was glad she came by foot, even if it was already late. She loved to walk and see the traffic, street vendors, Doranelle’s awfully polluted river. Oh, the wonders of living in a big city.

Just like she watched the traffic lights reflect on a man’s red hair. God, why was his hair so shiny? And he was kinda hot too. Aelin tried not to stare, but it was a bit hard.

Hot Ginger approached, running to talk to her, and Aelin straightened her posture. She wished she didn’t leave the house in her pajamas now.

“Give me your phone. Now!”

He had the most mesmerizing gray eyes, so Aelin licked her lips and told him her phone number.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he shouted and grabbed a pocket knife.

Was Hot Ginger mugging her?

Before any of them could react, Aelin saw a frozen whole chicken flying through the air and hitting Hot Ginger’s head. The assailant staggered, but Aelin’s eyes didn’t notice it because she was too busy laughing and trying to figure out where that chicken had come from.

That’s when she noticed a smoking hot silver-haired man coming her way.

Dear Mala.

Was she a damsel in distress?

In the meanwhile, Hot Ginger took advantage of her distraction and snatched the bag with the pizza, running away immediately after.

Panting, the silver-haired guy asked, “Are you alright?”

“He stole my pizza,” Aelin mumbled, gaping the way the thief went.

He frowned and gently held her elbow, taking her somewhere safer. It turns out they were incredibly close to the supermarket, so it didn’t take long for them to find a safe bench to sit.

Aelin’s postured was slumped as she stared into the void. God, she missed the light weight of that rotten pizza in her hand.

“You’re really upset over that pizza, aren’t you?” A deep voice interrupted her thoughts.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yeah, and it was your fault.”

The stranger’s green eyes went wide. “Excuse me?”

“Well...” she trailed.

“Rowan.”

“Rowan. If you didn’t come all oh-look-how-good-I-am-at-chicken-throwing, I would have my pizza by now,” she slurred.

He ran a hand through his hair and muttered something to himself. And then sighed. “Could’ve been a lot worse.”

If she thought about it, he was actually right. Nodding, Aelin said, “Maybe. I don’t have my phone, but he could’ve taken my cookie.”

The stranger’s lips tightened to suppress a smile. “You’re walking around the city with just a frozen pizza and one single cookie?

Just like that, the mood shifted into something lighter. Aelin lifted her index finger. “A rotten pizza that I came to exchange, a magic cookie, and a bit of cash.”

He shook his head in either denial or amusement and laughed. “Are those a modern version of magic beans?”

She giggled, “No, it’s a pot cookie.”

Rowan’s eyes bulged. “Like in weed? You’re carrying weed around town?” he hurriedly whispered.

Grabbing the napkin-wrapped cookie from her pocket, she handed it to Rowan. She knew she’d need it sometime. Stoned Aelin always knew better. Getting down on one knee, she offered with both hands, “You shall eat my pot cookie, Hot Stranger.”

Rowan looked awfully cute with flushed cheeks, or so Aelin thought as he quickly looked around and hid the cookie in his pocket. “I thought you were mad at me for helping with the thief.”

She sat back and shrugged. “You’re taking this too seriously.” Why did he seem so nervous? Aelin tilted her head, trying to figure him out. “It’s safe, Ellie bought the good shit.”

He frowned. “You’re stoned now, aren’t you?”

Aelin’s huge grin was her only response. She didn’t know exactly what happened, but something about her face made Rowan’s expression soften. Probably the messy hair, but her mood had brightened enough for her to not care.

Chuckling a little, he eyed the cookie. “I can’t. I had plans to drop you off safely—“

“I got here by myself, didn’t I?”

“And nearly got killed—“

“Oh, come on! It’ll be fine. You’ve never done it before?”

Rowan sighed. “I smoked it once at a party. Nearly choked to death and gave up altogether.”

“The cookie takes at least one hour to hit. We’ll have enough time to buy the pizza and cook it.” She stood up and mentioned for him tag along.

He eyed her warily, but followed her lead. “You’re way too trusting. I could be an axe murderer.”

“Are you an axe murderer?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“No,” he blurted with widened eyes.

“Then relax, Buzzard,” Aelin slurred.

Chuckling at the nickname, he just twirled the cookie around his fingers, studying it, and took a bite. His face was unreadable, but then hummed in approval as he chewed. “This is really good. Tastes a bit bitter.”

Enveloping his elbow with one hand, she led him to the frozen food section. “Come on, I have a very bad case of the munchies.”

~~~~

Turns out there wasn’t enough time. They got to know each other a little at the supermarket — Rowan was a student from the same university as Aelin, and the frozen chicken was meant to be for a dinner with his parents in two days. But by the time they reached the subway, Rowan started laughing at the station’s mice, and the conversation became about the pros and cons of time traveling. According to him, riding the subway feels like going inside a time machine.

At her apartment, Aelin left Rowan completely horrified when he discovered she cooks in the microwave, so she sat on the counter while he dealt with the pizza.

After putting it in the oven, he laid on the kitchen floor and sighed. Aelin sat on his side, and they made deep, meaningful conversation while waiting for the pizza to cook.

“Are you a Cancer?”

“No, but I have anxiety.”

“I’m a Taurus.”

He frowned. “No, you’re Alien.”

“What?”

“What ‘what’?”

“You called me an E.T.” she pointed out, amused.

“I called you by your name.”

Aelin smiled. “Yeah, that’s a great movie.”

“We should watch a movie after the pizza.”

“Fuck yeah, you have the best ideas.”

The timer pinged, and Aelin decided to at least retrieve the pizza after Rowan did the hard job of putting their ready-to-go dinner in the oven. However, she underestimated the metal tray’s heat by wrapping her hand in a thin towel to retrieve it.

Aelin ran to the counter screaming curses, but her effort wasn’t enough. Her reflexes were stronger than her desire to keep the pizza safe.

Everything was in slow motion when the baking tray fell, Aelin’s heart beating so hard she felt it inside her throat. A loud clunk sealed their fate. The pizza was smashed on her kitchen floor, the toppings completely messy.

Trying to appease a petrified Rowan, she said, “Don’t worry, I cleaned the floor, like, this week.”

He slowly lift his head to her with widened eyes. “Was that supposed to soothe me?”

Aelin started laughing. It was hard not to when he looked this horrified. Sitting beside the crumbled pizza, she cheered, “Come on! Before it gets cold.”

That was enough to snap Rowan out of his shock. “By your reaction, I don’t think it’ll get cold anytime soon,” he teased.

They ate their slightly ruined pizza off the kitchen floor, sometimes humming between bites because even if it didn’t look good, the taste was amazing.

Too lazy to get up and walk the few steps to the couch, they decided to watch the movie on Aelin’s phone.

“I’m kinda going through an Anne Hathaway phase,” Aelin said when they were deciding what to watch.

Rowan rubbed his chin, considering his options. “I like The Intern.”

Aelin wrinkled her nose, disapproving.

“You don’t like cute old widowers?” he asked, a bit foggy.

She shook her head. “There’s very little romance, and it’s bad.” Rowan seemed deep in thought for a moment, but then something clicked and he nodded. “One Day?” she suggested.

Now it was his time to turn the offer down. “That movie is so bad.”

Aelin’s eyes went wide. “Explain yourself.”

“So.” Rowan straightened on his seat. “The guy meets the love of his life and spends years sitting around doing nothing.” He put a hand on his mouth, stifling a giggle. “It’s so stupid.”

Aelin raised her eyebrows. “Is that so, loverboy?”

He tsked, shaking his head. “Not loverboy yet.” Rowan pointed his index finger up for emphasis. “But when I become loverboy, I’ll loverboy the hell out of lovergirl.” Then he frowned and added, “Or loverboy #2, we never know.”

Aelin giggled. “Okay, then. What about The Princess Diaries?”

Rowan’s eye’s lit up. “Absolutely.”

The sight of that hunk of a man getting excited to see a teenage princess movie made Aelin laugh harder, and Rowan followed suit even though he probably didn’t know what she was laughing at.

When their mood subsided, they improvised something to hold the phone without getting up. Aelin rested her head on his shoulder without further notice, but Rowan didn’t bulge. He just drew a silly smile and pressed play.

TAG LIST

@autumnbabylon

@courtofjurdan

@elentiyawhitethorn

@leiawritesstories

@rowanaelinn

@thegreyj

#rowaelin #rowaelin month #rowaelinmonth #throne of glass #aelin galathynius #rowan whitethorn #golden tattoo

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arty-chase · 4 years ago

Text

Graveyard Siblings (7)

[Masterlist]

(Part 1)(Part 6)

Gina found out about Marinette about a year later.

Jason and Marinette were chilling and binging shows. Gina showed up unannounced to surprise Jason.

She nearly had a heart attack when she saw her supposedly dead ‘Little Fairy’ in the middle of a pillow fight with Jason.

“Uh...Surprise?”

Needless to say, Jason and Marinette had the lecture of their life after they sat her down and told her about Ladybug. (She already knew about Red Hood.)

“I am not mad at you, My Little Fairy. But why didn’t you tell me you were alive?”

“I.. er..forgot?” Maria tried hard not to wince.

“Well, at least I am the only one else who knows about you.”

“Yeah, About that…”

Good thing that they were in Gotham and Hawkmoth was out of commission.

Gina agreed to not let Tom and Sabine know about Marinette although she was mad that Marinette was actually killed and it was framed as suicide.

“It’s okay, Nonna. There are magic laws to deal out suitable punishments. They are paying for it.”

Jason looked at Maria with an incredulous look. Magic laws, my ass. (Technically, there are Miraculous laws and curses to deal out divine punishment on those who abuse the Miraculouses. Maria was just taking more creative liberties with Hawkmoth and everyone else involved.)

------

Never Have I Ever (Takes place a few weeks after Jason’s and Marinette’s trip from Paris)

“Never have I ever had to dig out of my own grave.” Tim said, pointedly looking at Jason.

“Damn you.” Jason took a shot nonetheless. He shot a look at Marinette. “You too.”

Marinette grumbled a bit but also took a shot.(I know that the American age limit is 21.)

“Wait, I thought you faked your death.”

“No. Not really. I actually did die. I went into that mansion, knowing it was a trap and that it was my one chance to get close to Hawkmoth and cast a spell that took away his miraculous. I am only here because there was a resurrection spell in the grimoire which I used as a back-up plan. Jason kidnapping me after I dug out of my own grave derailed it a bit.”

“The moment she crawled out of the dirt, I knew that I had to adopt her like B did for me. Best decision of my life.”

“That’s not what you said last week.”

“That was because you ate the last cookie.” “Well, I made them so I have the right to have the last cookie.”

Duke cut in, “Okay, okay. Stop, it’s my turn. Never have I ever met a rockstar.”

A few of them took a shot.

Marinette took a shot too, “I swear you guys are trying to get me drunk.”

“How?!”

“School stuff and we had jobs working at Chloe’s hotel. I was Jagged Stone’s gopher. I made him glasses shaped like the Eiffel Tower. Later, an album cover. Long story short, I became his personal designer/ honorary niece. Oh shit. I forgot to tell him. I knew I forgot something.”

TIm shouted in excitement after getting over his shock “Jagged Stone?! The rockstar, Jagged Stone?! The one with a pet crocodile, Jagged Stone?!. Oh Please, please, I have to meet him. So wait. Wait. That means that you are MDC. I mean was, since technically MDC is dead now. But it’s you. Wow.”

Tim had stars in his eyes or maybe it’s the alcohol.

“I am thinking of starting over with a new name. How does MT sound?”

“I will help. I mean, can I help? Your designs for his tours were amazing. Can I commission you? Then, I will be your first customer.” “Sure. But I will need some equipment. My parents took mine away and I will also need some materials and your measurements. Oh, where can I get some paper and a pencil?” Marinette rambled as she got up. The alcohol kicked in and she fell down.

Jason hugged her. “Easy. Easy. You can do it in the morning.”

“But I have some ideas. And I need to shop for stuff tomorrow. Can you drive me to the shopping district tomorrow?”

“Sure, Pixie. Come on. Let’s get you to bed.” Jason carried the now sleepy Marinette to her room.

“But what about the game?”

“You guys finish without us.” Jason replied as he left the living room they were playing in.

“She was a designer?”

“Yup. MDC. A pretty good one too. The jacket for Jagged’s last tour was awesome. He claims her as his honorary ‘niece’. They were pretty close too by the looks of it. Jagged even went on a break due to personal reasons. I bet that’s why.”

“Rockstar designer and superhero. Our new sister keeps surprising us more and more everyday.”

-----

There is of course temptation to use the Miraculous to help with crime and cases.

Bruce shut down the idea pretty early on and Maria agreed with his decision, stating that Miraculous are dangerous to be out in the open. Especially in a crime-ridden city and it would be best if no one knew that they were in Gotham.

The Kwamis were free to roam the manor and allowed to go with any of the Batfam as long as they informed Maria who they were going with. Alfred was happy to have some being as company and occasional help while the Waynes go about their day.

The Miraculous were used a total of 16 times in the past 3 years under special circumstances, including the Joker incident and rules were established after one memorable Easter.

They can only be used in life and death situations, mostly when facing new adversaries and threats.

Must have special approval of both Bruce and Maria to use one. (Behind Bruce’s back, the Miraculous are handed out like candy when the Bats want to play pranks on their fellow heroes. Bruce did use the Fox one time when Clark pissed him off and made the reporter think he had gone batty. And no one, except the Bats and maybe John Constantine, figured out the identity of the Tiger-themed costumed person who punched Superman out of the Solar System which took weeks for the Man of Steel to fly back and never to be seen again and why Batman looked too pleased with himself afterwards.)

Maria had threatened everyone to not lose them when the Miraculous were in their care and they know she has every intention of following through. Family or not.

Damian once went through every single trap Maria had set for the Miracle Box so he could wear every Miraculous after Maria told him about Kwami Buster.

He managed to wear 14 of them before he passed out and was later found by Dick, who was alerted by Wyazz about what Robin was up to.

Needless to say, Maria was not happy.

She and Lucius set better security for the Box and asked other magic users for help with the magic side of the security. The Batfam had a few fun attempts breaking into it. (Tim did not use the blueprints to the safe the Miracle box is in to better hide his coffee. And definitely not because Maria had given Alfred the key to originally hers his coffee box and he had been using it to empty out Tim’s stash every week.)

Bruce didn’t give any punishment to Damian, seeing as the boy wonder was sore and in pain all over from trying to wield all of the Miraculous was punishment enough and effectively benched until he recovered.

-----

(Possible OOC Bruce ahead. I hope I did him justice as fanon Bruce. This is set a few months after Maria starts living in the Manor. P.S: It’s a little angsty with some Tom and Sabine salt.)

Despite what everyone thinks, Bruce doesn’t hate magic. He just didn’t like magic. Like he keeps telling everyone, there’s a difference. He found its lack of logic and own set of warped rules unsettling. He knows when it is beyond his capabilities and calls in experts like John Constantine or Zatanna for help to deal with the arcane. But mostly, he didn’t want to deal with it.

The newest addition to the family, courtesy of Jason, was heavily involved in it which prompted everyone else, mostly Jason, to make sure he doesn’t drive the girl away. It did annoy him a little bit. Honestly, Duke was proof that he can make exceptions to his rules and he tolerates the other magic users of the Justice League. That however doesn’t satisfy his second son enough who had pulled his guns out and threatened him to not kick his ‘baby sister’ out of Gotham.

But that’s not what is important right now. He had gotten a not very severe injury with his last bout with Bane and it was thanks to Nightwing and Red Robin that he didn’t get anything worse. However, he was benched by Alfred and everyone else agreed so he was providing support and solving cases in the Batcave while Dick went out as Batman for the night. Babara was out with her father tonight so for the first time since her arrival, he was alone with Delphi aka Maria in the Batcave with Alfred periodically checking on him.

She was quiet, occasionally humming songs or muttering curses under her breath as she hacked into corporations to relay needed information. He has to admit that she was a fast learner, managing to decently hack past firewalls after a few months of tutoring from Oracle and Red Robin. He did have to help out a few times on particularly difficult companies with high security. It was a normal night in Gotham with a few lulls in activity. It was during one of those lulls that he first broke their comfortable silence.

“Are those your parents?” he asked, when he saw CCTV footage of a bakery she pulled up on one of the monitors. It was morning already in Paris with a couple bustling about and serving customers.

“Not anymore.” Her voice was thick as they watched the Asian woman at the register give a bright smile to the customer. A man as big as Bane carried a new batch of macarons to the front, cheer on his face. Perhaps it was looking at the happy couple that it struck him that the battle-hardened girl in front of him, had lived a normal life. An innocent bystander, painfully normal being a daughter of bakers, oblivious to a world of monsters, aliens and magic before being dragged into it by some madman hungry for power.

“You know, I thought that they would have cared more... After I...died. I mean they did raise me for 15 years and they should have... known me better. It hurts that...they had so little...faith in me.” Her voice was soft, nearly inaudible. Bruce wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to herself.

She didn’t look away from the footage but he saw a tear made its way down her cheek.

“They did support me at first,.... did their best to help me but the…. rumours and the lies got too much and they started to doubt me. It didn’t help that I kept disappearing a lot and I was never where I said I was. I supposed that it was a little bit my fault that I was...too scared of the consequences of telling them that I was Ladybug. Soon, they saw me as the villain that Lila painted me as.”

Bruce was surprised at the amount of hatred at the name. He mentally noted the name to find out if it was related to what caused Maria to be this jaded. He had turned off the comms, in case she didn’t want the others, especially Jason being an overprotective big brother who would kill Bruce if he thought he made her cry, hear her long-overdue breakdown.

“I didn’t believe it when Chloe said that they didn’t even come to…. my funeral…. or visit my grave. Jason told me…. that they were going to…. sell all of my things…. if Nonna ….didn’t take them…. and put them…. in storage. The….worst thing... is that…. I still love them.... After all…. the terrible things….they said to me, I…. still love them and…. it... hurts so much to see… their looks towards me ….before I...left.”

She tried to hold in her tears and control her sobs but they escaped. Bruce felt awkward with what to do. He put his hand on her back and rubbed in gentle circles.

“Hey, it’s okay. You can let it all out. It’s okay to be sad. Um…Shoot. Dick is usually the one doing the comforting.” She lets out a small laugh.

He turned her chair around so their eyes met, her blue eyes gleaming from unshed tears. He put a hand on her shoulder, rubbing it, trying to give some sort of comfort.

“You did what you thought was best with a lot of responsibilities on your shoulders. You did your best to protect them. Sometimes, trying to protect the people you love can end up hurting them whether you meant to or not.”

She leaned towards him, careful of his wound and cried. It was like a dam had broken down. All the emotions that she had repressed for so long bursted out of her. Bruce hugged her and whispered words of comfort, things Alfred had told him after another nightmare as a child, until her sobs calmed down. He wasn’t an entirely emotionless man like so many had believed. He was just bad at showing them.

Comfortable silence settled between them, the bats above them squeaking and the sounds of the others talking over the comms, coming from the Bat-computer.

After a while, Bruce spoke.

“I lost my parents to a man desperate for money. I spent a lot of time raging at the world. I felt the same thing again when I lost Jason. I became Batman to fight against crime so no one else can feel what I felt that night in the alley, so no one has to hold their child in their arms, bloody and broken. It’s okay to feel mad at the world after you lost everything you love and care about. And I can promise you that it will get better. It might take a long time before the pain is gone. Some days, it’s a dull ache. Some days, it would be so hard to breathe. Just remember that it will get better and we will be here to help you get there. Jason definitely will. Dick too. The others will probably be as bad as comforting as me but they will still do it. Except maybe Damian. But the point is, we are here for you. Okay?”

He felt her nod. They stayed like that with Bruce occasionally reporting to the others when something was happening. Maria later joined in and thankfully, they didn’t comment on the occasional crack in her voice although Jason sounded like he wanted to know what had happened.

“So...It’s okay if you don’t want to answer now but why couldn’t you tell anyone about your identity? Wouldn’t it have been better if someone knew your identity and provided support? I had Alfred when I started out and the kids had me.” Bruce asked as he looked through CCTV footage of a break-in.

She lets out a small tired sigh, a sound not meant to come from a teenage girl, “It started with the previous Guardian, Master Fu. He made the rule of not telling anyone. It was later because Hawkmoth could akumatized anyone and anyone who knew could lead him to us directly and he might threaten our friends and family for the Miraculous. He already did it to someone who ‘claimed’ to be Ladybug. Then, there was an alternate timeline where Chat Noir, my partner, found out my identity and dated my civilian self to get close to me. It nearly ended in the destruction of the entire world.”

Bruce scowled at what Maria had been through. Jason had told them about Hawkmoth, the betrayal of her partner and how she died. But today proved that they had barely scratched the surface of her tragic past.

“Why did Hawkmoth want the Miraculous so bad?” He said it, partly to change the subject and partly to get more information on what happened in Paris.

“He wanted the Ladybug and the Black Cat. Combining the two of them would grant him a wish, one that could alter reality as he sees fit. There is a catch though because the universe demands balance, something equally devastating would occur to counteract it. From what the Kwamis told me, Atlantis sinking was one of the results of a wish made by the Miraculous.”

“It doesn’t look like he is paying for it.”

“Oh he will.” Her tone made it sound like a fact.

“How are you so certain?” “Because the universe is all about balance and I have been tasked to right the scales.” The sharp grin she wore mildly worried Bruce. Her previous statements of not killing anyone echoed in his head and he wondered if she was going to hold to that promise.

-----

(I actually suck at writing angst.)

(Part 8)

Taglist: @local-witch-of-mn, @ladyqnoirr, @lolieg, @istoleyourcookies, @pale-lady-dreamer, @ichigorose,

#mlb x dc #maribat #some tom and sabine salt #my best try at angst #ml x dc #maribat bruce wayne #siblings jasonette #graveyard siblings

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