#'what if that cold relationship actually TAKES TIME to slowly thaw?'

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

gues swhich idiot stayed up all night to write out a diverged fic idea

[1800titz]

something about tdiag harry and his and yns relationship after they know each other and it’s out in the open. domestic dominance. him domming her in her own house.

I did a little blurb on the coffee funishment thing I talked about a little bit here!! :D

WC: 896

>>>>>>>>>>

In one fist cradling a handle, fawn liquid with a plume of steam curling up out of the mug. It’s chalky— there’s too much creamer, and probably too much sugar. He knows the way she likes it. In the other—

Harry blinks. 

Isla gnaws into her cheek, the way she does when she’s trying to get a rise without outwardly chortling, like she’s trying to stifle a peal of laughter before executing the punchline of a joke. 

“Very funny,” he hums. 

The other mug is stuffed with unground coffee beans. The corners of her mouth twitch. She sticks it into his direction; an outstretched offering of an unbrewed, caffeinated concoction in its raw form. Her lips wobble. 

He’s awake. 

“It’s your coffee,” Isla murmurs. Clears her throat when the statement garbles over poorly cached mirth. 

He takes the mug, and her serious mien cracks like a heap of bedrock crumbling, giggling as his shoulders climb and fall on an exaggerated sigh. If she wasn’t so amused, something would probably itch in her guts at the sight of him denuded and exasperated, shirtless and sleep-soft under the eiderdown. 

The way he scrubs over his face and stares into the mug like he’ll miraculously discover actual coffee — based on his intended request — at the bottom if he just stares long enough, the edges of his mouth ticking in lopsided amusement (he abysmally masks), just has her laughing harder. 

“You’re a fucking brat,” Harry tells her, finally, bobbing his head, and her tummy swells with her hiccupy cackles— his head twists as he toggles over his phone— “It is— eight in the morning, you little menace. D’you just… plan these things the night before?”

Isla shrugs. 

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

He cocks his head. A soft come hither with a head of soft curls— she obliges, and he sweeps her mug from her hands, carefully, grappling over the top of the searing ceramic like it’s a balmy warmth to the pads of his fingers. Sets it onto the nightstand on a coaster. 

“Well. You can go ahead and eat one of these,” Harry tells her, cradling her close by the small of her back and nudging the cold cup of coffee beans between them. 

Isla sputters. “What?” 

“Well, what did you want me to do with it?” 

“It’s— your coffee,” Isla parrots, pointedly, muffling her speech with another snort. 

Harry hums. He blinks and tells her, slowly, “Eat one.” 

“No,” she squawks indignantly, wriggling reflexively in his hold when his forearm cinches. 

He loosens, the corners of his lips curling in a deceitfully sangfroid simper, “No?” And then—

Isla makes a little sound when he sets the coffee beans onto the nightstand beside her own confiscated beverage and manhandles her into pitching over onto the mattress, clambering up onto his knees with surprising speed for the hour on what’s meant to be a languorous weekend. 

“Did you just tell me no?” 

Isla laughs nervously, stuttery, and dim, and smothered against the comforter when he digs his knee into the small of her back, hiking up her sleep-shirt (an oversized keepsake borrowed to never be returned from his own collection) enough for her panties to peek. 

“…No?”

An indignant sound mottles her paroxysm when Harry pins her arm behind her back, slotting the bones in her wrist into a posture of filched obedience. 

“Hm?” 

A cry, then— something that starts sharp out of surprise and thaws into a soft hum when he swats over her backside with his free hand enough times to make her whine. Not enough to make it hurt. She twists her head over the duvet when he pauses, just enough to catch a glimpse of his torso stretching and his arm reaching—

She gasps, like a breath before letting a lapping salt chuck swallow her down, and contorts (with little leverage on account of the knee stapling her to the bed). Isla flails and squeals when he fingers a coffee bean past her lips. Pure sadism. It’s bitter — the amalgam of uncooked coffee and his cruel mirth, meshed with his skin stroking over her taste buds. She nearly bites—

She sputters as he tucks his fingers out, gauging her aim, and spits it back onto the blanket. He makes a disappointed hum, and she wriggles under him.

“You’ve made a mess, well done,” Harry sighs. He plucks the sloppy remnants from the sheets, “What have you done that for? …Perfectly good coffee.” and sets it onto the nightstand. 

Her face creases. He’s a mean, mean man. She lets him know as much, brows pinched, and Harry hums something amused in response, digging the weight of his knee back into her when he reaches over and culls her coffee. 

She gets just enough of a peer to note the way his nose scrunches before he clears his throat and tells her, “Fuck me, that’s sweet.” 

Isla groans. The mug returns to the nightstand with a clink. He presses a palm over her shoulder blade and murmurs, “Coffee. Black. You know the way I like it. Get it right this time. And,” his hand meanders from her back to her crown when he nudges her face into the soiled spot she’s left with her saliva, garbled with hints of a lax grin, “You’re going to clean this up, or I’m going to spank you raw.”

[melestasflight]

Fingon actually avoids traveling to Himring during the vast majority of the year.

He'll of course never journey during dead of winter, but nor would anyone else, so Maedhros understands it.

But Fingon also abuses his Princely station and reserves journeying to the Marches for the short season of mild warmth, when Himring resembles something like Norway in July, and things are vividly green along the hills.

Otherwise, Fingon insists on meeting somewhere in Dorthonion under the pretext of "maintaining a relationship with Arafinwean kin" (which is not a full lie at least), or "exercising discretion and not letting people think the Prince favors the Lord of Himring over anyone else" (even though everyone knows this as a fact already). Often he'll shamelessly demand that Maedhros ride all the way to Hithlum where he inevitably ends up trapped in Fingolfin's endless council meetings.

When Fingon does come to Himring, Maedhros is winter-worn and feels his limbs slowly re-learning how to move like a butterfly's wings in the shy sunlight. Fingon, on the other hand, is ecstatic, rambling endlessly about all the different species of birds and pollinators he's seen on the ride from Hithlum, complaining avidly about how Himring needs more gardens, and boasting to Maedhros about the incredible increase in harvest yields the Hadorians have achieved in Dor-lómin: "You really aren't taking advantage of the land, beloved. It is no bother to bring seeds from our fields, you just have to ask," or "This fortress needs more windows, this is frankly depressingly dark. You should consider stained glass at the least," or "My love, you are so pale, did you resort to living in your basement since we last saw one other?"

Maedhros puts up with it because he is already warmed on the inside from seeing Fingon alone, and deep down he cannot be angry at one who has crossed the Helcaraxë for despising the cold. But he cannot help but clench his teeth, especially when his beloved cousin tosses his clothes carelessly at midday and jumps into a barely-thawed lake nearby, screaming like a madman from euphoria and the endorphins that rush to his head, before threatening to splash Maedhros if he doesn't join.

Maedhros would rather go back inside and cajole Fingon's body into the hot springs that run beneath the fortress (in the basements, yes!) or trap him beneath a layer of pelts and his own self.

But then Fingon gets out of the water, gloriously naked and his skin deliciously reddened from the cold, and places a gentle hand on Maedhros' cheek before smiling that smile he knows Maedhros cannot resist. "Do you remember when we used to swim in the streams of the Pelóri, Rus? Nothing but Taniquetil above us, none else but the two of us, together."

And what can Maedhros do when those times have been summoned? When Fingon has called him by that name?

He smiles back at Fingon, brightly as summer's sunshine, and strips naked.

[chiropteracupola]

fic writer meme

tagged by @sanguinarysanguinity — thank you, this was an interesting one to ponder!

ao3 name: chiroptera_in_the_cupola

fandoms: as writing and interest generally goes, I think the major players currently are and have been Treasure Island, Hornblower, Flight of the Heron, and [one look at the work-in-progress spreadsheet later] uh, I guess Sharpe as well at the moment :]

I do like to pick up other things for a small thing or two, and plan to continue doing so, but I think those first three are the ones that have really captured my interest in a way that supports sustained writing, altho' we'll see how things shake out as time goes on.

number of works: 56, which is really quite a few for only a bit more than two years of actually posting work on ao3!

work I spent the most time on: 'well met, my dear one' went through revisions and periods of abandonment for nearly two years. it was one of the very first Treasure Island fics that I began, but needed to be entirely begun over again from scratch at one point, and so took rather a while even though it's not all that long.

works I spent the least time on: 'make my bed where the bodies lie', 'the king shall dress in gold', and 'the way was carved in ice' were all written in about four or five hours each. it's always lucky when inspiration strikes like that and can carry me all the way through a story in one go, but less lucky for any other things I might have planned on doing that day!

longest fic: 'Nane Shall Ken Where He Is Gane', or, as I've more frequently called it, the Wormsfic — and that's only a third of it so far! oh boy!

shortest fic: 'who's to blame', the very shortest of a series of a few very tiny little micro-fics done as part of a prompt game some years ago.

most hits: 'as in a mirror dimly', my one fic for The Mummy — hm, I think I'd say that that one is mostly on account of the movie itself being a much more well-known thing than many of the other areas I more frequently write in, altho' the central relationship is. shall I simply say unpopular.

most kudos: oddly enough, 'here in your arms is cured', my first Kidnapped fic — hopefully I will someday finish more, that they may be similarly well received!

total word count: 90,380

favorite work of my own: this is one question I can't really answer — a lot of stories are my favorites for very different reasons! but I'll take this space to mention 'Shaking Off Our Shadows', which, since it's for rather an obscure book, I've not discussed much, but I am nonetheless very proud of, among my recent work. Reading The Wolf and the Watchman left me feeling very cold and grimy and sad, and I'm very pleased with the results of attempting to spin a happier ending (and a not-entirely-joking beach vacation) for Cardell and Winge.

fic you want to rewrite / expand on: I've actually already done a rewrite of one that I felt particularly needed a second take with time (that being 'sleep in it slowly (if you can)' / 'Midwinter Thaw', my pair of winter-at-Graçay Hornblower fics) and am in the process of working on another — both of the fics getting done over in this way were written fairly quickly and mostly while I was sick, which left them with some oddnesses that I'm enjoying getting to smooth out in the later versions. and both of these also do happen to be things that I'd like more fic about in general, so I might as well write myself what I'd like to read. some of my earlier Treasure Island fic also could probably do with a revision, since I've grown a lot as a writer (and also as a Person!) in these few years, but that'd take time I don't really feel inclined to use for that right now.

when it comes to expansion and sequels and such, I'd really love to write more in the same continuity as my most recent Sharpe fic (giving the Chosen Men the Monstrous Regiment treatment certainly deserves more time than I've given it thus far!) and I've got a great many more Flintlock Fortress tales in the works as well.

share a bit of a wip or story idea you are planning on:

“Whatever it is is clever — my snares are sprung, but there’s nothing there.” “That’s a man done it then.” “No, there’s only paw-prints, no boot-marks at all. And big ones, too.” He spread his hand to indicate the size, fingers splayed nearly to their full extension. “There’s nothing got paws as big as that, Dan,” said Cooper, with a little less conviction than he’d aimed for.

here's another chunk of my Ladyhawke AU for Sharpe, which has been taking up quite a bit of space in the old braincase these past few days. hopefully I shall manage to make it to the actual meat of the plot soon, altho' I'm also enjoying the sort of shenaniganerous Lads' Miserable Camping Trip of it all thus far!

and hm, I see a lot of the usual suspects have been tagged already — @dxppercxdxver, @kigiom, @bishakespeares, @baronetcoins, @phoenixflames12, would you like to give this game a go?

[swampofiniquity]

Thanksgiving (Leon Kennedy x  Reader)

A spin-off of the Point /  Counterpoint series

Rated: Mature

Word Count: 1,547

Cross-posted from AO3

Summary: A thanksgiving holiday short from the Point / Counterpoint ‘universe.’ You find yourself in over your head hosting thanksgiving dinner and Leon does his best to help manage the stress. 

Not really canon to the main series, but I wanted to create a few holiday theme shorts as a thank you treat for you all. Especially since the main story is taking a little longer than I anticipated to update. 

Warnings/Contents: afab-reader, he does call you ‘gorgeous girl’ once, established relationship, not the most sanitary behavior for a kitchen, implied sexual content, brief under the bra action, thanksgiving related stress, a lifelong vegetarian (me) writing about preparing a turkey

Masterlist

Either the people on the Butterball Turkey Helpline weren’t actually all that helpful or you just sucked at cooking.

By the third call, you were sure that Stan, the lovely older sounding gentleman who had the misfortune of answering your desperate pleas, had given up all hope for your dinner and frankly, for you as a fully functioning person. Starting from 5:00am that morning, everything had been a struggle. The turkey was still partially frozen even after being left in the fridge to thaw, you had no idea what a brine was let alone how to accomplish one, the stuffing was somehow both overseasoned and bland, and you were nursing a decent sized burn to the back of your hand from when you almost dropped the heavy ass turkey when sliding it into the preheated oven. People would be over in less than four hours and you were fighting the urge to just set fire to everything in the kitchen and drag your exhausted, defeated ass back to bed.

It wasn’t until your cat, Monkey, jumped up onto the counter to dubiously sniff at the lumpy, cold bag of giblets in your sink that you had no earthly idea what to do with, and you had to scoop him up before he could add a cat hair seasoning to everything, that you realized what an overwhelming mess your kitchen was.

“Fuck,” you breathed, the sound turning into a heaving sigh deep in your chest. You buried your face into your cat’s soft fur in defeat.

“That bad, Gorgeous?”

The shriek that left you had Monkey scrambling out of your arms and bolting under the couch in your living room. Leon laughed annoyingly, brushing past you to put a grocery store pie and a bottle of wine down on the only space on the counter left untouched by the atom bomb that was your attempt at Thanksgiving dinner.

“I know you did not just barge into my house with a store bought pie!” You shoved at his frustratingly sturdy chest, feeling a little giddy at the scent of his woodsy cologne.

With a look that could only be described as “what the hell gave you the impression that I even remotely know how to bake a sweet potato pie,” Leon ducked to exaggeratedly peer into your eyes and pressed a late autumn chilled hand across your forehead. “You feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” you pouted, spinning away from him to face the mound of unpeeled potatoes that needed tackling next. As you reached for the peeler, your heart almost stopped. “Wait, what time is it? Please tell me you’re here early and it’s not four o’clock yet. Oh god-”

Two warm hands on your shoulders stopped your spiraling. “Relax, it’s only noon. I figured I’d come by early and see if you needed a hand. I tried calling, but it kept going straight to voicemail.”

Your face got hot as you remembered your series of panicked calls to the helpline and you busied yourself with the potatoes to hide the embarrassment. “Oh, uh yeah, I think my phone needs to be um charged.”

Leon’s presence behind you got closer and closer, crowding you until your hips were flush against the counter and you could feel his warmth just barely grazing the small of your back. The dexterous hands on your shoulders moved slowly up and down your spine, prodding and massaging the stiff muscles that had been plaguing you since you woke up ungodly early that morning. You had to bite your lip to stifle the moan that bubbled up in your throat.

“Jesus, you’re tense,” Leon spoke into your neck, sending shivers across your body. “If you need some help, all you have to do is ask.”

“Don’t,” you groaned in a warning, shrugging your shoulders up to your ears, but they melted back down once he hit a particularly difficult knot at the base of your spine. Your hands abandoned the vegetable peeler in favor of gripping the counter top. “I h-have six other people coming over for dinner."

He hummed, the sound rumbling against your back. “Exactly. That’s a lot of work for one person, must be very stressful.” Two warm lips lingered at your pulse point, not quite a kiss, but a promise.

You took in a shuddering breath. “It is,” you admitted, eyes falling closed at the unexpected pressure of tears forming behind your lids.

“I can help you with both the dinner and the stress, all you gotta do is ask, Gorgeous.”

“Leon,” it was meant to sound resolute, chiding, but instead his name escaped your lips in a whoosh of air when sharp teeth replaced the lips on your neck. Not biting hard, but enough to jolt your whole body, distracting you as his questing hands rucked up the back of your shirt to dig into your bare skin, his warmth leaching into you like the morning sun across cool stone.

“Come on, you can do it. Help me help you.” He mouthed at your pulse point, tongue dancing across the tendon. You could feel his lips pull into the barest ghost of a smile. “Just a few simple words.”

“Please,” you whispered, the word catching in your throat. Frustration, hot and muggy built up under your skin, dangerously close to the tipping point.

“Please, what gorgeous girl?” He suddenly spun you around, grabbing your hips and bullying you up onto the counter. About two dollars worth of potatoes rolled and tumbled to the floor, but you were too far gone to care. Finally, steel blue eyes met yours in a clear challenge as he parted your knees and stepped into the cradle of your thighs. Instinctively, you squeezed his hips between your legs like it was the only thing keeping you tethered to this earth. “Say it.”

Your mind was on the cusp of losing the war waged with your body, the need for relief overpowering your stubborn desire to keep a tight grasp on control. Still, it was almost painful to get the words out. “Help m-me. Please. ”

“Always.” Finally, he surged forward and caught your lips with his, the kiss tasting sweet and cool, like honeyed mint tea. Without any conscious input, your limbs wrapped themselves around him, hands meeting behind his strong back as you desperately tried to pull him impossibly closer. Your body had come to know his well, the way his muscles flexed and bunched with each movement, every freckle and scar that scattered across his skin like a constellation of tiny stars, the heat of him that warmed you from the inside out. It was all call and response, a well oiled routine so perfect that sometimes you swear you must have known each other in another life.

“Leon. ” You pulled away as far as you could bear, your breath mingling with his, lips just grazing his as you practically panted.

“I got you, just relax baby.” He knew what you wanted, what you needed before you even had a chance, leaning into you and resting his weight against your body until he eclipsed every other thought in your head. As he pressed against you, you felt this hollow sort of tugging in your gut that made you wrap your legs even closer around him.

While his hands traveled up from your hips, slowly peeling up your shirt to your chest, he dropped his face to your neck, using his teeth again to just gently scrape your sensitive skin, careful not to leave a mark to embarrass you in front your holiday guests. “I want to make you feel good, get you to release some of this tension-” he squeezed your sides suddenly, making you jump. “How does that sound?”

Before you could answer, Leon rucked your shirt up the last few inches and pressed his face into your cleavage, pressing hot kisses to every inch of skin he uncovered. You gasped as he nosed aside one cup of your bra and took a nipple into his mouth.

“Fuck.”

He laughed against you and the vibrations made you squirm. Mumbled into your heated flesh - “I was trying to be a little more delicate here, but that’s about the gist of the plan yeah.”

“God, you’re the worst,” you snorted, but burying your fingers in his soft hair all the same.

“You love me,” he accused with a smile, lifting his head up level to yours again. The movement caused his bangs to slip out of your grip and flop onto his forehead, and your heart clenched at the sight, suddenly transported back in time to when you first met, to his boyish charms and dogged instance on getting to know you, even after you rebuked his romantic advances enough to finally stick. Well, at least for a few years. Because if his presence in your kitchen right then proved anything, it was that your boyfriend wasn’t a quitter.

“I really do,” you said, reaching out to trace the faint line of the scar on his cheek with a not quite steady hand.

You watched, as if in slow motion, as the smile on his face slowly dropped and his eyes closed, and Leon leaned his cheek further into your touch. “I know. Me too.”

[prose-for-hire]

C-C-Cold Hearted

Pairing: Spike x reader [platonic]

Request: So glad your requests are open again!!! I have an idea for a platonic spike x reader, where reader's kind of a goody-two shoes with the Scoobies, but is actually punk in her personal life? I imagine Spike finding out after she drives everyone off home after a long fight and she swaps the music, forgetting Spike's still in the back (because he actually shut up for once, lol) but do it however the inspiration takes you. Thanks kindly! (Also no pressure if you don't wanna do it, it was just an idea I thought you'd be really good at.)Spik

Requested by: @cameo-greaves​

A/N: I haven’t written a platonic Spike fic in a long time !! He’s protective like a big brother kind of relationship with the reader. So this was nice (I hope this was okay love) 💖💖

You and your friends had all been driving around looking for a demon. You had decided since Sunnydale had decided to completely freeze over it was better to take the car. You were driving Buffy, Willow, Xander and Spike around. Spike had insisted he came and Buffy eventually gave in. This demon was supposed to be hard to defeat. 

Willow had cast a spell on your car so you wouldn’t slide around on the roads and you were all wearing coats in the car because no matter how much you tried you couldn’t warm up. The cold got everywhere.

The demon was named Jacque. He was large and ogre-like. With power that nobody knew the full extent of. He was somewhat of a myth, even according to Giles’ books. He had stretched light blue skin and he thrived in this weather.  He was ice cold, his heart was literally a block of ice, one that never thawed. He had an icicle constantly hanging from his nose.

He had appeared one summers evening, turning the entirety of Sunnydale into Lapland. Nobody had seen this much snow before and it was only continuing through the weeks. Buffy and the rest of your friend group had been stuck in researching rather than having snowball fights like you all wanted.

There was a demon freezing people to death and you needed to figure out what you were looking for and quickly. Which is what you had been doing this evening. But you had been driving everyone around for hours now and there had been no sightings.

The radio was on, some tinny song you didn’t recognise. You didn’t get to hear much of it anyway as everyone was talking and laughing around you. You grinned as Xander cracked another joke with Spike just rolling his eyes and slouching in his seat.

Spike had shut up while the others in your car had gotten louder. He was just staring out of the window, he had offered to drive but you and your friends had said no. He took a lot of risks and in the snow the Scoobies could all see him managing to wipe the entire group out and managing to walk away unscathed. He had wanted to make sure you were back home before he got in. You had forgotten that he was still in the back of the car with everyone else chatting.

He kind of positioned himself in his own head as your big brother. He was weirdly protective of you but he didn’t let it show very often. You were too kind, a total goody-two shoes. Everyone thought so anyway. He was convinced that you wouldn’t last a second if you were left on your own.

You dropped each off one by one. It took a while people walking to their houses, scared of sliding around. You paused, making sure everyone got to their doors safely – not that you would have been particularly much help if anyone had been attacked by a demon waiting in the snowy shadows.

When you thought your car was empty, you exhaled slightly and turned to root through the glovebox for your music. You didn’t realise that there was a vampire still slouched on your backseat. You leaned in putting a cassette tape in and playing the first track. The music started, pounding through the speakers. You couldn’t help a smile spreading on your face.

You slammed the steering wheel in time, ready to launch into song alongside your favourite punk song. You hit the first note before you were interrupted suddenly.

An arm reached from the backseat to turn the dial up. He happened to like this song too. You screamed (and not in time with the tune) near drowning out the music that was playing. You had forgotten he was there and almost skidded into a snow drift on the side of the road.

You slammed on the brake and turned back to look at him, horrified to see Spike still there. You had been caught out. You weren’t too embarrassed or anything, you were just shocked he was there. He had actually managed to stay quiet for once.

You kept this part of your life away from the others. Especially Spike, you didn’t want him to look at you and think you were a poser. On the weekends you would often frequent local punk venues, soaking up the music and meeting people with a shared interest. You even dressed slightly differently (your look was a lot more toned down usually).

You needed a hobby that you could separate from the reality you lived in. You and your friends saving the world all the time, it was kind of heavy. You needed this escape. And what better than the embracing arms of the punk genre?

The lyricality of it you felt within. The heavy music and the powerful voices just spoke to you. In a way that nothing else had.

It made you feel alive. It woke you up from the dreary hopelessness that could consume you in Sunnydale. You could just get lost, it lifted the spirits when you were just shouting along to the words.

You and Spike didn’t speak much, other than squabbling over petty stuff. He just sort of turned up when you ended up stumbling into trouble the way you usually would. He often grumbled at you that you would happily plant your neck into a vampire’s jaw given half the chance.

You knew he looked out for you but you didn’t realise why. You were the same age as the others but he had a soft spot for you. You reminded him of his sibling. From when he was human. Now he realised you were slightly more similar to him than he thought in music taste at least. You were still as sweet and unassuming as you always appeared to be despite this revelation.

“Spike!? I could have crashed!”

“Didn’t though, did you?” he maintained, “Since when did you get any taste anyway?”

“I have always been cool, thanks very much” You insisted, turning your nose up at him and he scoffed.

“Wouldn’t say so, platelet. Unless you mean ‘cause of the weather that is” He teased which made you roll your eyes at him. Though you ended up smiling at him, you couldn’t help it.

He was always good natured with you. Made sure you felt safe around him despite him always insisting he was oh so evil. The others would tease him for it. They had thought he had fallen for you at first but he had made it clear he felt a duty of care to you. Couldn’t explain it, decided he didn’t owe it to them anyway.

“Well, now you know I guess… don’t tell the others?” You asked and he nodded. You appeared relieved. He wouldn’t want the others discouraging your interest. Your hobbies. He knew how that could be.

“You go to any shows?” He asked after a moment of silence, looking outside as he asked. The snow had began to slowly fall again. It was unending at the moment. Bleak.

But he’d rather look outside than watch you pull faces at his interest in your life. You would pretend you found it lame. He cared and you made it difficult sometimes despite it being in your nature to be kind.

“I go to the Fishtank sometimes to see the local bands play” You answered matter-of-factly. This was another reason you didn’t tell the others – they’d try to make you stop going. That place had a bad reputation.

He thought on this for a moment and then looked at you in the reflection of the rearview mirror as you anticipated his reply being one of disdain for the bar. Even he only risked that place if he was desperate.

“Well, if you ever need someone to take you there and back…” he offered, his brow furrowed at the idea of you out on your own in the middle of the night on that side of town.

“You want to be my chaperone? That’s so punk, thanks Spike” Your reply dripping with sarcasm.

“Offer’s there” he shrugged. You were about to open your mouth, maybe thank him or something. He really didn’t have to offer and it was him appearing to be genuinely kind without ulterior motive which was wholly unlike spike. But you chose to see the good in him. You were one of the only ones that did.

Just as you were about to speak there was a massive thud on the roof of your car. The roof dipped in slightly under the weight of whatever had jumped on there. You shouted in surprise as the demon jumped onto the bonnet before turning and landing on the ground and turning to face you, squinting into your car.

It was Jacque. The frost demon. You had finally located him. Complete with the sharp icicle on the end of his nose. But now you had found him, were completely slayerless.

Your brain caught up with you and you rushed into action. You reversed the car, manoeuvring the best you could to turn around while the demon set its sights on you.

“Bloody step on it!” He shouted, slamming his hands on the headrest of the drivers side as if it would make you drive faster. You would have said something snide about backseat driving but you were too panicked.

As you started to drive at a much faster pace, Spike threw himself into the front passenger seat with some struggle. His goal, not only to help you, but to turn the music right up. You were blasting the punk song for all of Sunnydale to hear as you drove recklessly through the streets and away from the demon blasting shards of ice at your poor car.

You took your eye off the road for a split second and really did drive into a snow drift this time. You couldn’t get the car started again. You would have to try and run. In what felt like six feet of snow.

The demon was more than double Spike’s height. Still, he ran at it with full force. Landing offensive blows where he could. The large demon swiped at Spike and sent him flying into your car leaving another large dent in the side.

While Spike was recovering, you tried to step up but you knew straight away it was going to be no use. He stared at you hard, using your body heat against you. Turning your body entirely cold. Frozen solid. Blue ice began to slowly create a layer on the outside of your skin.

“You c-c-cold hearted son of a-” Your teeth chattered as you tried to finish your sentence, but it was too hard to speak. You were so cold. You were becoming a statue. An ice sculpture. It was slowly creeping up your neck onto your face.

“Bitch!” Spike finished for you, spinning into a kick that knocked the demon backwards from where he was walking towards you.

“You do not have a heart either, friend… let me take this one” He gestured at you as you shivered in the icy prison you were encapsulated in.

“Not on your life”

“Okay” He shrugged, running at Spike again. They fought hard against each other, but Spike managed to gain the upper hand.

You began to thaw now his attention wasn’t on you although you were still very cold. Shivering violently. You could only watch as you started to be able to feel your fingers again although they felt as if they were cramped up. They were still numb.

Spike landed several successive blows, blocking the shards of ice that the demon threw his way. His ice powers wouldn’t work on a vampire. Spike knocked his feet from under him and

He took out his stake, piercing the large demon’s heart and shattering the shard of ice where his heart lay. The demon just lay there before eventually turning to snow like its surroundings.

He nodded once, looking at where the demon had once lay. Before turning back to you and gesturing with his head for you to walk back with him.

Spike took you home, teasing you lightly as you walked about how punk you looked when you were stood like a cold fool while he was fighting the bad guy. You shoved him and he rolled his eyes having to catch you as you overbalanced on the ice. He should have let you fall and taught you a lesson but it was instinct.

Hopefully now the demon was taken care of, all of the ice and snow would thaw sooner than later.

[boytoykevinday]

best stucky fic recs pwease

Okay, disclaimer, these are all like five+ years old (which is the best Stucky era, imo) and definitely not the only ones I enjoy; these are just a few in my bookmarks on ao3.

In no particular order besides the order I bookmarked them and under a read more because there's a shit ton of them (really, it's a lot):

- hold me until we crumble; Not Rated, 23k

“Sam told me you were watching Antiques Roadshow,” Natasha says, shaking out her hair. “I assumed it was a national emergency.”

- despite the threatening sky and shuddering earth (they remained); Explicit, 72k

“They really didn’t want the mask to come off.” Hill thumbed through the scans, and pulled out a film that she then handed over to Sam, face mostly expressionless but for the flat line of her pursed lips.

Sam accepted the film and held it up to the light, angling so both he and Steve could see it, squinting at the outline of the Winter Soldier’s skull, and the blips of unnatural white that showed up, God, in his brain, not to mention about half his teeth, plus the mask, with its thin protrusions—

“Those are pins,” Steve realized. He looked over at Hill. “The mask—it’s nailed to his face.”

Hill’s face was as unmoved as ever. “Like I said. They really didn’t want it coming off.”

- family means no one gets left behind or forgotten; Teen, 11k

“Why did you think I wouldn’t like you for being gay?” Steve asks gently.

“You’re Captain America.” Eli’s got his teeth clenched and is resolutely looking ahead. “You stand for truth and justice and the American way. You stand for American morals. You stand for…” he shrugs awkwardly. “Not people like me.”

Steve blows the air out of his cheeks slowly, trying to figure out how to keep the anger out of his voice so Eli doesn’t think it’s at him.

Or, Steve comes to terms with his new world, and gains some children in the process.

- Mistake on the Part of Nature; Teen, 1.3k

Steve takes in Bucky's betrayed look and Sam's confusion, follows Sam's gaze to the pile of mangled fruit in the trash can. Sudden comprehension fills his face.

"Oh," he says. "Bucky found out about bananas."

In which an American icon is mourned. But probably not the one you're thinking of.

- Swear Jar; Teen, 1.5k

Bucky isn't the only troll in the future.

OR

Steve has a Swear Jar and he makes the Avengers pay up every time they cuss.

- Barnes & Rogers and the Goddamn Truth; Not Rated, 19k

There are three well-known facts at Shield High:

1. The history teacher Mr. Barnes is a stone-cold terror, and it’s not even because he only has one arm. 2. The other history teacher, Mr. Rogers, is a mysterious enigma, and it’s something to do with the body of a Greek God and contradicting stories of his past. (They’re all rumours, anyway.) 3. Mr Barnes and Mr Rogers hate each other.

Bucky wouldn’t have it any other way.

- perfectly right wrong number; Teen, 32k

It all starts because Steve is too dumb to handle his smartphone.

A wrong number AU in which Bucky Barnes doesn't enter Steve's life (meaning: Bucky wasn't born until the eighties, but Steve is still Captain America) until Steve accidentally dials the wrong number. Wherein there is a lot of texting, some advice via Natasha and Darcy, a bit of pining, and a first date in an amusement park. Oh, and on top of being a disabled veteran, Bucky is a professional catwalker. Literally.

- The power of the right shirt (a.k.a. God bless America); Teen, 1.2k

"He just…" Phil trails off, mouth gaping. He is staring at the field outside the house, eyes glazed.

Clint sighs. "Yeah, he just ripped a log in two with his bare hands."

- To fill it up with something; Teen, 21k

A fateful encounter with Dr. Strange leaves the Winter Soldier transformed, and Bucky Barnes reunites with Steve Rogers in a most unexpected way.

“Steve brings the puppy inside, into the apartment that doesn't quite feel like home no matter how much he's been trying. He isn't used to being alone. Before the war, he always had Bucky, and his mother until her death. During the war, Bucky was there, too—and the rest of the Howlers, of course—but Bucky always meant home. (And well, maybe Steve's already got a name for the puppy in mind)."

- build it bigger than the sun; Teen, 10k

“Yeah, because nothing says heteronormative like living in Dupont Circle for two years and wearing skin-tight shirts to hit on hot airmen when you go running in the morning.”

“Look, I know you’re being sarcastic but I really don’t get how no one picked up on that.”

Steve and Bucky try to work out their relationship. The Avengers keep getting in the way.

- Memories Circle (Like Birds of Prey), Teen, 32k

Everything seems to be going right, Steve's fighting with his Commandos, they've saving lives-- until Steve falls from a train, is taken prisoner, and turned into the Winter Soldier. Meanwhile, Bucky takes up Steve's mantle as Captain America, and thanks to Zola's experiments, he gets dropped into a whole new time, only to cross paths with a Steve who doesn't know who he is anymore.

Essentially, the events of CA:TFA, mild mentioning of Avengers, and CA:TWS but with Steve as the Winter Soldier and Bucky as Captain America

- The Gentleness That Comes; Mature, 9k

Steve Rogers never really views the things he had to do to get by before the War with any sort of shame or embarrassment. People ask him for his opinions on modern issues in interviews, but Steve has gotten good at talking around those types of questions. Fury insists that there's no way to answer them without casting a shadow of controversy across the reputation of the Avengers, and that's the last thing Steve wants.

But then a sex tape is released featuring Tony Stark in bed with another man, and Steve can't stay quiet any longer.

- salt for the sea; Mature, 7.5k

Natasha comes home with intel regarding the fate of the Winter Soldier; Steve leaves to go and avenge Bucky Barnes.

“It's a list of everyone who was involved in his death, and a rough timeline of everything that happened beforehand,” she tells him.

“And the notebook?”

“I explained what they did,” Natasha says, “The blank pages are for you to explain what you do to them.”

- Lone Cat and Samurai; Teen, 8.4k

"We lost Kitten America sir!" Junior Agent blurted out. Then turned an unlovely shade of purple. "I mean, Captain America. Who’s a kitten. Because magic. Sir."

- Waiting To Prove You're Not Alone; Explicit, 41k

Months after he woke up on the banks of the Potomac, when a reporter mistakenly assumes Steve would disapprove of homosexuality being as accepted as it is in the modern day, Steve accidentally snaps and unleashes his real opinion on the matter... and with that, a secret he's hidden for over eighty years.

When that secret comes looking for him in New York, Steve can only hope that he can get a second chance at saving his best friend, even if it means keeping his heart in check.

“Yeah, back in my day it wasn't tolerated, and because of that I knew from the minute I figured it out, that I’d never get to tell my best friend that I loved him, and sure enough, he died without knowing that I’d been in love with him for a decade."

- I'm Not Sick (But I'm Not Well); Mature, 30k

Steve Rogers doesn’t meet Bucky Barnes in the 1930’s. Instead, Steve meets him April 17th, 2012.

Well…sort of meets him.

In actuality, Bucky had almost hit him with his truck.

Or: The fic where millennial Bucky Barnes nearly runs over a freshly thawed national treasure, and what Steve Rogers did to adjust to modern NYC during those two weeks before the events of The Avengers.

- pure as the driven slush; Explicit, 11k

He should have worked it out sooner. But then, Steve always was a sneaky little bastard—had to have been, just to survive this long.

For the SteveBucky Fest prompt, "Steve is quite experienced while Bucky's never gone beyond second base with anyone".

- Let's Be Exposed and Unprotected, Explicit, 5k

Bucky’s pretty sure he should be into getting fucked through the floor while walls explode around him like in that Mr and Mrs Smith movie that Clint loves. But he likes it like this. He likes being on his back with Steve looming above him, big and naked, blocking out the rest of the world.

- Man of Steel; Explicit, 6.7k

It’s like Steve looked at his metal arm and thought ‘Challenge Accepted.’

- 5 Times Steve Got Arrested and 1 Time They All Did; Teen, 4.9k

What it says, 5 times Steve Rogers ended up in jail (with and without Bucky) + 1 time all of the Avengers got arrested with him.

- the best of you; Teen, 16k

Bucky is on a mission when he gets the call.

They tell him that Steve has been compromised.

[The story wherein Hydra captures Steve to create a new weapon. Bucky, alongside the rest of the Avengers, come together and work through the fallout.]

- pull apart the dark; Teen, 79k

Steve's unending faith in his best friend was beginning to look less like hope and more like fantasy. When they'd caught the Soldier – in a fire fight that still gave Sam nightmares – the only thing the man seemed to recall was how to hit exactly where it hurt.

Four months later, Barnes still refused to speak English. Refused to heed anything but Steve's voice.

So, all in all, it was not a great time for Hydra to attack New York. All in all, Sam really wished they'd just killed him, instead of turning Captain America into a baby.

- Not Another Supersoldier Fantasy; Explicit, 8.9k

Bucky finds a popular sex toy modeled on Captain America's own anatomy. Well, isn't this just perfect? Because even after all this time, he still hasn’t seen Steve’s supersoldier cock. But apparently in this day and age anyone with $29.95 can get a decent replica. The unfairness of this is of galactic proportions.

- the blood of the covenant; Teen, 7.5k

Steve has a "thing" for hot water.

Or, Sam Wilson adopts Steve Rogers.

- Mighty like Love, Mighty like Sorrow; Teen, 19k

After freeing himself from the Russians' mind control, Bucky is left at loose ends, drifting through the decades. Still, he's in no hurry to take up Nick Fury's offer to once again fight the good fight -- especially not when Fury has the nerve to put some imposter in his best friend's old suit and send him out to fight against Chitauri.

- Read Me Like a Book; Gen, 1.5k

In which Bucky accidentally becomes a book collector, because when the universe gives you a million biographies about your boyfriend, you go bookcase shopping. And then he finds out about The Grenade Incident, and the boys actually talk about it like actual adults. (Somewhere, Sam sheds a proud tear.)

- the broadest stroke of color; Gen, 16k

Sarah Rogers always loved Steve's hands.

"Your hands will do a lifetime's work," she'd say. "Remember to do the work you can for those you love."

Almost a century later, Steve does just that.

[The story wherein Steve draws comics for Bucky to help him recover his memory. Through a series of events, the issues are leaked, and Steve finds himself reviving the Captain America comics. He still isn't sure how that happened.]

- If You're Loved By Someone (You're Never Rejected); Teen, 9.4k

You’re fifteen when you realize why you stare at Bucky’s lips more than normal when he laughs and when he says your name. You lean into his shoulder when you walk next to him and when you’re sick you don’t fight off his soft hands. You tease him, he teases back and being around him is so easy you forget what it was like to live without him. You can’t remember life pre-Bucky and it scares you.

- Unusual Weather; Explicit, 8.7k

Bucky’s been at the Avengers Tower for three weeks before he finally gives in to Steve’s gentle coaxing and Stark’s cheerful waving of fistfuls of circuits, and lets them scan the arm.

It doesn’t go well.

- this city bleeds its aching heart; Explicit, 35k

The one where Steve and Bucky pose as a happily married couple while on a mission for SHIELD, to catch an international arms dealer hiding in a suburban neighbourhood.

- Good Boy; Explicit, 13k

Bucky is still adjusting to life with the Avengers, and Steve is willing to do whatever it takes to make him feel comfortable. Increasingly, though, what seems to make him comfortable is strangely intimate.

Surprise, Steve! You're a gentle dom and Bucky wants to be your pretty pet!

- Brooklyn; Teen, 8.8k

"Captain America, what's your stance on gay marriage?"

Everyone knows that, by now. Everyone but Bucky.

[pennylaneforthoughts]

Lokius Hogwarts AU

All right my dudes, hot take time:

I’ve seen a lot of Hogwarts AU headcanons floating around, and having thought waaaaaay too much about it, I’m here to add my two cents.

( @sortinghatchats has my favorite sorting system I’ve seen to date, since it goes so much in depth into themes throughout the HP series that good ol’ JK barely touches on in her pretty surface level commentary on the subject, so that’s the system I’m gonna use. Go to their blog to learn more about the way the system works bc I’m too lazy to go more in depth than I already have.)

This is gonna be Hella Long tho so I’m putting it under a cut.

Loki: Petrified Slytherin Primary/Slytherin Secondary - sorting: Slytherin House

Perhaps it may seem trite, but Loki really is a Slytherin Primary at heart. Yes he is ambitious and all that stereotypical stuff, but that’s not really what makes a Slytherin a Slytherin. Anyone can be ambitious. No, he’s a Slytherin because he unapologetically prioritizes himself and the people he cares about above all else. 

“Slytherin Primaries are fiercely loyal to the people they care for most. Slytherin is the place where “you’ll make your real friends”– they prioritize individual loyalties and find their moral core in protecting and caring for the people they are closest to. Slytherin’s reputation for ambition comes from the visibility of this promotion of the self and their important people– ambition is something you can find in all four Houses; Slytherin’s is just the one that looks most obviously selfish.”

However, Loki’s trauma has pushed him to something this system calls Petrifying.

“Whether through death, betrayal, abandonment (from either side), or through never having had any to begin with, the Petrified Slytherin has decided that having important people is too dangerous. Having those strong ties leaves you open to pain and weakness, and the pleasure of those connections aren’t worth the despair that comes from their seemingly inevitable loss. In this way, they close themselves off to meaningful connections out of what is ultimately fear (though from the inside, it’s far more likely to be experienced as a rational, sensible decision given the circumstances of the world), and gives them a stony exterior that seems impenetrable, resolute, and cold.” 

Loki wants love and acceptance so badly, but he is convinced that the kind of attachments and relationships that that comes from are far too dangerous and the risk isn’t worth the reward. He pushes people away, hides behind a mask of self-aggrandizement, and betrays others before they can betray him in an attempt to protect himself from potential pain.

In the series, however, we see him slowly unpetrify and move towards a more healthy style of attachment because of Mobius and Sylvie’s influence on him. Whereas his circle of priorities used to include only himself (and arguably Frigga and later, Thor, in the movie timeline), he proverbially “thaws” enough to let Mobius and Sylvie in, and tragically, because of that, the loss of them hurts him so deeply because by the end of season 1, they’re all he had.

His Slytherin Secondary, however, is obvious in his methodology. He’s the god of chaos. He loves improvisation, and plans only exist as long as another better idea doesn’t come along and usurp it. He’ll change and adapt (quite literally) to best fit the situation in front of him, and he takes joy in that. But beneath all the running and his many personas, he has his “neutral state” that he lets only a precious few see. Mobius gets to see it, and so does Sylvie, and as he progresses through the series, he starts to be more comfortable existing in that state where he’s no longer hiding behind everything he feels like the world expects him to be and he can just be himself. 

Mobius: Slytherin Primary (Hufflepuff Model)/Hufflepuff Secondary - sorting: Slytherin House

People like to put Mobius in Hufflepuff, but honestly? I don’t think that’s where he’d be most comfortable. Yes, he is kind and caring to basically everyone, and we see this over and over again in the series. The man radiates comfort. However, like it says in Inky and Kat’s description of the Slytherin Primary, 

“Wanting to help someone doesn’t mean you’re loyal to them. Wanting to help them at the expense of your comforts, your values, your commitments and sometimes even yourself–that does.”

Mobius is kind to a fault. But he is not kind at the expense of himself. Not to everyone at least. He is kind to the child in France, but he is not kind to the point of saving him from the resetting of the timeline, and he doesn’t feel guilty about that. He believes in a duty of care, but he does not believe he has any obligation to go beyond what he thinks that duty of care is. He unapologetically plays favorites, and this is mentioned on multiple occasions. Above all else, Mobius values loyalty as a virtue. Sure, he cares about the TVA and its accompanying morality, and he genuinely does believe it’s his duty to care about and be kind to others. He seems to vibe quite well with the Hufflepuff ideal of caring about people simply because they are people, but this is all secondary to his personal loyalties when push comes to shove. For Mobius,

“dropping that model in order to stand by someone you love, or in order to protect yourself, doesn’t feel like a failing. Sticking to that modelled morality at the expense of betraying or abandoning one of their own would make a Slytherin feel guilty and wrong. Being able to put the things and concepts you like aside for the sake of the people who need you feels more righteous than any moral posturing.”

It’s for this very reason that Mobius gets so angry and feels so betrayed when he thinks Loki has abandoned him for Sylvie, and when Ravonna lies to him and prunes him.

“Betraying your own is the worst kind of crime. Loyalty is precious and terrible; it makes you vulnerable. It’s given sparingly, deeply, and a Slytherin will stand by their loyalties through the same death and fire that a Gryffindor would brave for the sake of doing the right thing, or a Hufflepuff to help someone in need.”

Loki is Mobius’ own. Mobius prioritizes Loki over almost everything else, sticks his neck out for him over and over again, and is willing to sacrifice his own happiness for him. He’s even willing to abandon the whole of his former ideology and prior friendships for this relationship that has become closer to him than his own self, the highest tier of trust and loyalty a Slytherin can give.

“It’s an extreme Slytherin who would let the whole world burn for the sake of a friend, but every Slytherin Primary would be at the very least tempted.”

And Mobius very nearly does exactly that. Even says the words, “burn it to the ground” when Loki asks him what he’s going to do. And he doesn’t feel bad about it. Especially after realizing what the TVA has done to him and the people he cares about. He kicks the TVA out of his circle of care, and doesn’t look back. And he does it for Loki.

Mobius’ Secondary is where people get his Hufflepuff vibes from, I think. A Hufflepuff secondary is marked by “their consistency and the integrity of their method. They’re our hard workers. They build habits and systems for themselves and accomplish things by keeping at them. They have a steadiness that can make them the lynchpin (though not usually the leader) of a community.” And that is what Mobius is. It’s why he radiates that kindness and comfort. He quietly and carefully works at and invests in the relationships in his life to the point that people almost automatically trust him, and over time he has learned how to read people and figure out what makes them tick. 

He approaches new situations with a steady head and gentle hand that Loki is unused to, and it’s this approach that eases Loki into learning how to trust and rely on people. It’s an inherently Hufflepuff approach, and it’s the key to his success as an analyst for the TVA and an understanding friend for Lokis across the timelines.

Tl;dr - Application to an actual Hogwarts AU fic:

THEREFORE! There’s a compelling narrative to be had with a tiny, first-year Loki coming into Hogwarts. He comes from a pureblood family that’s very proud of their Gryffindor heritage (they don’t talk about Hela, and Loki and Thor don’t even know she exists until later in this story), and his brother had been sorted into Gryffindor a couple years prior, and Loki has heard very little other than contempt for Slytherin House and everyone in it. Loki doesn’t want to be sorted into Slytherin. He doesn’t want to deal with the disappointment and shame from his father and the sad eyes of his brother. But the sorting hat sorts him there almost immediately, and his heart sinks. He wanders over to the table miserably but determined. If he’s gonna be sorted into the “evil” house, might as well just run with it, right? Best not to get close to people though. It’s Slytherin. Who knows when someone will betray you.

Enter Mobius, the tiny muggleborn, bright eyed, bushy tailed, and having no clue about the prejudices between houses. The hat takes a hot minute sorting him, giving him the choice between Hufflepuff and Slytherin and telling him Hufflepuff would love a kindhearted and welcoming member like him. But Mobius has been eyeing the little black-haired kid who got sorted before him and is now sitting far apart from everyone, and he can’t help but feel like he needs to be this kid’s friend. And didn’t the hat just say Slytherin is where you’ll make your real friends? Friends are what Mobius cares about, so he’d like to go to Slytherin, thank you very much, so that’s where he goes, and he happily plunks himself down right next to Loki and sticks his hand out.

“I’m Mobius. What’s your name?”

 Loki looks at Mobius’ hand disdainfully and doesn’t shake it, but he does answer, “Loki.”

Mobius’ eyes go wide, and he smiles. “Loki? Like after the Norse god?”

Loki nods, eyeing Mobius suspiciously. People don’t often bat an eye at his name. Not in the wizarding world, anyway.

“Wow, that’s so cool! I loved reading about Norse mythology in school and Loki was always my favorite. Names have power, you know. If you’ve got the same name, then you must be just as awesome.”

Loki has no idea what to do with this kid, but he’s immediately aware of two things:

He’s absolutely sure that this Mobius kid is in the wrong house. No way a Slytherin can be this excited without a single hint of deception in his face.

He’s going to be eaten alive by the other students if Loki doesn’t protect him. What a pain.

Loki is completely wrong on both of these points.

[kumeko]

A/N: For @giyushinozine! I wanted to tangle with Shinobu’s growing feelings, the complicated mess of her not knowing how she feels only that their relationship isn’t the same as it was before.

…

…

…

…

It was raining. Standing on the threshold of an abandoned house, Shinobu breathed in the earthy air as she watched the steady downpour. Not even the birds and insects wanted to be caught in this weather, and Shinobu missed their usual song. Instead, she was serenaded by the soft plip as rain hit the hole-filled roof, the pitter-patter of droplets as they struck the earth.

This wasn’t the first storm that had caught her unawares. It probably wouldn’t be the last. If anything, a dilapidated building was better than the caves she’d hidden in before. There was no point in risking a cold by heading to the town proper and searching for an inn.

Well, there was one point. Shinobu grimaced as she looked over her shoulder. Barely visible in the gloom was Giyu. Suddenly she found herself longing for a damp cave. Maybe she could even just keep heading home; what was a feverish week in exchange for a couple of hours worth of peace? Getting trapped with Giyu was the worst luck. It had been off-putting running into him while returning from a mission, but spending the night with him?

The rain was looking more and more tempting. Shinobu stared at the dark clouds one last time before stepping back with a sigh. If she got sick and a demon attacked—she shook her head, refusing to entertain the idea any further. She could put up with Giyu until the rain stopped, at least.

Steeling herself, she turned around. The house was a small one with a simple layout. The biggest room was this first room, featuring a sunken hearth and space around for its occupants to huddle. Water leaked into the house from several sizeable holes in the ceiling, but luckily none were near the firepit. Unfortunately, while Giyu was sitting next to the hearth, he hadn’t actually started a fire. Hand on her hip, Shinobu tried to keep her irritation out of her voice as she asked, “Where’s the fire?”

He looked at her, a sleepy expression on his face, and shrugged. “It isn’t there.”

“I can see that.” Shinobu bit her cheek. This was just minute one. She had to at least make it to an hour before giving up. “Whyisn’t there a fire?”

“I didn’t start it,” he answered simply.

Maybe Kanao would visit her in jail. Shinobu gritted her teeth and quickly strode toward the center of the room. “This is why no one likes you. It’s common sense to start a fire when it’s cold.” Ignoring his surprised flinch—and honestly, why did that surprise him? He should know how everyone felt by now—, she knelt by the hearth and inspected the coal there. Oddly shaped and crumbly, they were at least dry and would hopefully kindle. “Otherwise we’ll get sick and the last thing I am doing is carrying you back.”

Giyu didn’t say anything, just watched as she pulled out her tinder. His eyes were barely visible in the half-light. At night, it would be impossible to see him at all. While that was preferable, she didn’t want to break her neck walking around this place in the dark. Luckily, it didn’t take long for the fire to take. The flames flickered to life, a thin curl of smoke rising to the roof. Immediately, the warmth hit her skin and she sat a little further back, letting the heat remove the chill from her bones. She sighed, “That’s better.”

He kept quiet. Soon, the crackling flames were the only sound in the room as they greedily gobbled up the remaining coal. Idly, Shinobu glanced at her companion. She could count the number of times she’d been alone with him with a single hand, maybe two. It was odd. They’d worked together for so long, but she’d never really thought of him before now. Maybe it was his lack of presence or the way he isolated himself. Even now, with no one around but the two of them, he kept to himself, his eyes trained on the fire.

Shinobu had never considered herself someone who needed conversation. She liked silence almost as much as she liked chatter, liked how doing nothing could sometimes be utterly comfortable. This was neither of those things. Feeling awkward and slightly unnerved, she wondered how she should break the silence. The shadows danced across his face in strange patterns. She kept adjusting her posture, her legs falling asleep as they waited, yet he hadn’t moved an inch.

In the end, she didn’t have to. Her stomach gurgled hungrily, and Shinobu immediately wrapped an arm around her waist as a mortified blush burned her neck. She snapped her attention to Giyu. Their eyes met and any hopes she had that he hadn’t noticed vanished. “I…” she mumbled, her brain running in circles as she tried to find an explanation that kept her dignity.

“Hungry?” Giyu asked.

“Yes,” she reluctantly admitted. Somehow, an hour had passed since they’d taken refuge. Even now, the rain didn’t let up, the droplets drumming on the roof as the night took over. Shinobu prided herself on her preparation, but she had planned on arriving home hours ago.

Something crinkled and she watched as Giyu pulled out a leaf-wrapped bundle. Holding it out, he offered, “You can have some.”

“I don’t need—” Her indignant response was immediately cut off as her stomach grumbled yet again. The hot blush on her neck crawled up her cheeks and there was no escaping this now. Flustered, she quickly got up and moved next to Giyu. As she sat down, her hand out to take the food, she growled, “You tell anyone about this and you’re dead.”

Confused, he cocked his head. “Why?”

She wasn’t sure if that was ‘Why would I tell anyone’ or ‘Why would I die’. She also didn’t care. How could she ever look anyone in the eye if they knew that Giyu of all people was more prepared than she was? Shaking her hand insistently, she snapped, “Does it matter?”

Giyu gave her a long, blank stare before slowly unwrapping his bundle, revealing three large onigiri. “No.”

Somehow, even when she got what she wanted, Giyu still frustrated her. What did he think of it all? Did he care? He had thawed since their last, but changes with him were as subtle as erosion on a rock. It didn’t help that he was as dense as one. Fighting down her irritation, she plucked one of the rice balls from his hand. The very round rice balls—Giyu took the ‘ball’ part literally it seemed. Still, maybe it tasted good.

A single bite dashed her hopes: the food was as tasteless as he was. Resisting the urge to gag at its blandness, she asked, “Do you know what salt is?”

“Yes.” Of course his expression remained utterly placid as he ate. Bite after bite, his face was as still as a lifeless pond. Maybe his taste buds had died long ago. Noticing her stare, he held out the last ball. “You want another?”

She couldn’t stop the grimace. “I can barely handle this one.” There was no point in nuance or tip-toeing around a matter with him. If Shinobu didn’t bluntly state it, he wouldn’t get it. “Did you make this? It’s terrible.”

“Terrible?” Shocked, he looked at the ball, then back at her. It was like kicking an ugly puppy.

“Yes, terrible. You can’t serve this to anyone.” Shinobu rolled her eyes. “How did you mess up something so simple? Even I can do this.”

“Oh.” Looking utterly devastated, he stared at the rice ball. It was impressive how broken he looked, even though his expression didn’t change much.

“Just add salt next time,” Shinobu relented, already tired of insulting him. Like this, he reminded her too much of Kanao when she’d first started learning things. Kanao. Her mind wandered to the Butterfly Estate, to the five girls waiting there. Well, perhaps four now that Kanao had her own duties. Aoi would be worried. She always worried too much. “She won’t like this,” she muttered, half to herself.

Still chewing on his riceball like a hamster, Giyu shot her an inquisitive look. “Who?”

She hadn’t intended to say that aloud. Another clumsy mistake in front of him. Maybe she should just bury him under the wisteria trees; they needed the nourishment. Reticently, she mumbled, “Aoi.”

He only looked at her, perplexed. Shinobu longed for the good old days when she didn’t care about anything. Louder now, she repeated, “Aoi. I’m late from the mission, she must be worried.”

“She isn’t,” Giyu replied immediately.

It took her a full minute to process his response. Gritting her teeth, she asked politely, “Why not?”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he stated flatly with the absolute assurance that only a complete moron had.

Last Shinobu had heard, there was another water pillar in training. They wouldn’t miss Giyu’s absence for long. Curling her hand into a fist, Shinobu glared at him. “This might be a foreign concept to you, but some people actually care about others.”

Honestly, she wasn’t sure what about him made her so angry. It couldn’t just be his rudeness—Sanemi was twice as rude and she didn’t want to murder him at every encounter. No, it had to be something deeper than that, but she didn’t want to waste her thoughts on it, on him. Focusing instead on her nails digging into her skin, she forced herself to calm down.

Now that her appetite was appeased, however badly, she listened to their surroundings once more. The rain tapped unevenly on the roof, the storm abating slightly. Unfortunately, it was still rain. She was still trapped here with him. Resigning herself to her fate, she shifted to get more comfortable one. “Even in this weather, a demon might come. We’ll have to take shifts,” she announced, rubbing the back of her neck.

Giyu nodded his agreement.

When he didn’t say anything else, Shinobu added irately, “I’ll take first watch.”

Once more, he merely nodded. Rude, lacking manners, utterly unreadable—Shinobu didn’t know how it was possible to find only new disappointments with a single person. The only thing he had going for him was his slightly above-average looks, and even that was ruined the second he did something. Fine, whatever, she thought. It wasn’t like she could sleep comfortably, knowing the only thing between her and death was him.

Leaning forward, she stoked the coals once more, embers flying as she gathered the broken rocks together. “Make sure this doesn’t disappear when it’s your turn.” Satisfied, Shinobu sat back and stretched her arms above her. Maybe she should take a walk after this and smooth out the crinks in her back. “I’ll wake you up in four hours.”

“Okay.” Crossing his arms, Giyu buried his hands in his sleeves. His eyes remained open.

“You know you can sleep, right?” she asked, just in case he didn’t understand what a ‘watch’ meant. The other pillars didn’t like him, after all. Maybe he’d never gone on a mission this long with someone other than her.

“Yes,” he nodded, his eyes still wide open. There was nothing about his stiff posture that looked like a man about to sleep.

It wasn’t worth pursuing it any further. She refused to go bald from the stress of dealing with him. And if he didn’t trust her abilities enough to rest, well, he was the one who wanted to pull an all-nighter.

Making herself comfortable, Shinobu rested her cheek on her hand as she watched the coals. It was going to be a long, uneventful night. Even demons didn’t like coming out on nights like these. In the distance, she heard an owl hoot, the rustling of leaves, the chirping of crickets. The rain almost washed it all out, a steady static noise. It had been too long since she’d had an uneventful night like this.

An hour passed. Then another. Glancing at him from the corner of her eye, she observed Giyu’s profile. He was just as hard to grasp from his side as he had been from the front. Maybe he’d be a mystery to her for her entire life. Tired as she was, that didn’t sound entirely bad.

“You’re strong,” he said, breaking the silence. She wasn’t sure if she was still in her watch or part way through his now.

Drowsy, she retorted, “Of course I am.”

“You’re strong,” he repeated, as though she hadn’t said anything. “So no one has to worry about you. The strong…” he paused. She could feel the weight of it. “The strong come back.”

She didn’t have to ask if that was personal experience. There was only one reason anyone joined the corps, after all. Still, Shinobu wished she was sitting across the fire, still able to see his expression. Or even just was more awake than she was now. His voice had a flavour to it. She could only imagine what he looked like.

Her eyes closed. Opened. Closed again. The next time Shinobu was aware of her surroundings, there was a warmth behind her head and a strong arm around her shoulders. Giyu’s, her fuzzy mind provided helpfully. She should be disgusted, but it was warm and comfortable, so she’d allow it just this once. His breathing was even, as always, and she fell asleep once more to the sound of his heartbeat.

When Shinobu woke up the next morning, she was alone. Curled up on the ground and a jacket covering her shoulders, but utterly alone. Rubbing her eyes, she slowly sat up and glanced around. Sunlight filtered through the holes in the roof, illuminating the place. There wasn’t hide nor hair of Giyu anywhere. It felt almost like a dream, though if it had him in it, it had to be a nightmare.

The only proof that any of it happened was his jacket on her shoulders, keeping her warm. It fell to her lap in a crumpled heap as she straightened up. Gingerly, she picked it up between two fingers, eyeing the fabric distastefully.

What, exactly, was she supposed to do with this? Returning it felt like a loss. Shinobu glanced at the hearth in front of her. She could still burn it in there; even if the coals were gone, there was plenty of dry wood in this house.

She bit her lip, studying the jacket once more. Part of her could still feel the warmth of his shoulder, hear his quiet voice. Shinobu couldn’t return it, couldn’t destroy it. Couldn’t figure out exactly what riled her up about this man. It’d be easier if she didn’t care or was truly as disgusted by him as she acted.

Sighing, she folded the damned fabric. If she couldn’t figure out what to do with it now, she’d just have to keep it until she did.

[apenapaperandadoofus]

Reverse Big Bang

This was a work for the reverse big bang ( @mysme-rbb ) and acollaboration with the lovely @sapphireicecream ! She made a beautiful piece that I am in LOVE with!

Life and death are one thread, The same line viewed from different sides.

-Lao Tzu

Some say life and death are on the opposite ends of a spectrum. But are they actually?

Some reply yes, they are enemies and loathe each other. Others claim that no, they are both the same thing in the end. 

One part is true, though. Life and death had been enemies for a while, with both of them trying to best each other. Life created humans, who were immortal until Death came to take them away from the Earth. Life wouldn’t stand for that, and so she kept trying to find someone who could live eternally, that could cheat death 

Death was trying to overpower her by trying to wipe out everything he could touch. 

Death was on a rampage. Everywhere you turned a life would be taken away. Meanwhile, Life kept trying her best to keep humans alive. 

This rivalry kept going for years and years, each generation of Life and Death trying to cheat each other, to be the most powerful one, to be the winner.

However, that would come to a change.

………

She quickly made her way through the garden, a plate on her hands filled with cheese, figs, and olives dripped in honey. 

No matter how much she abhorred him, she wasn’t heartless enough to leave him without eating. 

The gazebo where she held him prisoner coming into view. She grasped the plate tighter as she made her way closer. 

He had his back to her, looking at some flowers, but he rapidly spun around when he heard her clear her throat.

 “Here’s your food.” She said, still not meeting his gaze.

“...thank you.” He replied and sat down to enjoy his meal. 

While he was focused on eating, she stole a glance towards him and then felt her face burn. She had to admit he was very handsome, even if he was the god of Death. 

Jumin.

Even if his hair was messy, he still looked like a perfect statue, made by one of the finest artist in the world. 

She immediately cringed at the thought. Gosh, this guy was really making her think weird things, wasn’t he? Still….she wanted to touch him. To feel his soft skin, to run her fingers through his hair, and to even touch his horns. She would have if he hadn’t looked up at her at that exact moment. 

She immediately pulled her hand behind her back. 

Jumin stood up and handed her the plate. “Thank you for the food.” 

“No problem.”

There was a bit of awkward silence, and she thought about making an excuse and leaving, but Jumin opened his mouth to speak at that same moment.

"I have to-"

“This-“

They both said at the same time. She felt her face flush.

“Sorry, sorry, you go first.”

“No, I apologize, you were saying something, I’m sorry for interrupting,” Jumin said.

She shook her head. “It’s fine, it is nothing! What did you want to say?” 

Gosh, she was being way too polite to a guy she was supposed to hate. She assumed it was because of the unfair advantage that he was really cute.  

Jumin stared at her for a moment before clearing his throat. 

“I just wanted to say that...this is a beautiful garden.”

 She glanced up at him and nodded. “It is.”

“Did you grow it yourself?” 

“No. Life made it..the original one, I mean. The one from the very beginning. Throughout time, all the other generations have been taking care of it.”

“I see. It must be a very important place.”

She nodded. “It is. This is the garden that was made of Life’s tears as she mourned the death of humans. They were her proudest creations, and to see them being taken by death crushed her.” She said those last words with a hint of spite in her tone. 

Jumin looked the other way, but he could still feel her glare on him. He sighed. “I’m... I’m sorr-“

“Don’t apologize. Especially when you don’t mean it. You clearly don’t care about humans. You don’t care about anyone but yourself, just like the Death before you, and the Death before him, and so on and so forth. All you care is about destruction.”

Jumin clenched his fists, looking ashamed. “I am very sorry for what my ancestors did, I truly am. But let me assure you, I don’t share any of their beliefs. I don’t want to be anything like the-“

"Yeah right." She scoffed. How could he say that after taking...taking her away? He was trying to make her feel guilty, to trick her so he could leave this prison and go back to killing and destroying. And she wasn't going to let that happen.

She spun around and walked away, glancing back only to say she was going to bring him food later. She didn’t wait for his reply as she left the garden.

……

The god of Death paced around the small gazebo, every once in a while stopping to marvel at the flowers growing around him. He’d love to touch them, but he knew if he did they would immediately wither away. 

He closed his eyes as he tried to distract himself from the current situation. He had to admit; it was nice to take a break every once in a while, from the dark depths of the underworld, the only sound being the screams of the souls coming down. It wasn’t exactly a job he liked. 

It was kind of ironic; he thought. To be the god of death, but want to have the power to do the exact opposite. Instead of taking lives away, to create them. 

He wanted to escape that hellish place no matter what. So, when he found an opening in the cave, small rays of light streaming in, he left his throne and walked over to investigate. He should’ve known it was a trap. That it wouldn’t end well. 

Still, he wanted to leave so badly, he’d use any excuse, no matter how dumb. And so what if he suddenly got kidnapped by the goddess of life in her beautiful garden? He wasn’t complaining.

He didn’t know why the goddess would want to imprison him, but, he thought, why wouldn’t she? No one likes the god of death. They all despise him.

Still...he had to admit he wasn’t having an awful time. It was...interesting in a way.

He thought Life was a bit...confusing. Sometimes she would be so terrible to him, glowering and snapping at every small thing he did. But then other times she’d show this...this kindness that would make his chest feel warm. 

He’d never felt that way before, but he had to admit he didn’t mind.

 …….

At first, their relationship comprised only small conversations, saying here’s your food, and thank you for the food, and no problem. 

She was always stiff around him, not meeting his gaze. No matter how many times he’d tried to apologize, she still seemed to think of him as Death, destruction, chaos, everything he didn’t want to be seen as. 

At one point he had truly given up. It was obvious Life would not change her view of him, no matter what he did, so why bother?

He gazed at the chrysanthemums growing beside the gazebo. They were beautiful. He had only seen one part of the garden, and he couldn’t help but yearn to see all of it. The essence of life, all around him, without death hovering over his shoulder. 

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” A familiar voice said from behind him. Jumin jumped a bit and then turned to see….see her.  

He cleared his throat. “They are. This entire garden is. I’d love to see more of it.” 

She scoffed but then bit her lip as if debating whether to indulge him for a bit. She sighed. 

“Why are you so interested in flowers and plants? Shouldn’t you be focused on something else?” 

His mouth formed a thin smile. “I have always loved flowers. I love seeing them...grow and bloom. It’s amazing how full of life they are, how something so beautiful could exist.”

They stood in silence for a few seconds until the surrounding air seemed to change. When Jumin looked up, he noticed something. The door was open. He looked at her in confusion. 

“Well, c’mon. Get out of there. You said you wanted to see the rest of the garden, right?” She gestured for him to come over, and he strolled down the steps, feeling the grass beneath his feet and the sun hit his skin, hearing the birds sing, a gust of wind tangling his hair. 

And then….then he smiled and let out a small laugh. 

She couldn’t help but stare in awe at the beautiful sight. 

For the first time in weeks, she had seen him smile. An actual smile, one that lit up his entire face. And his laugh, god his laugh. She felt her heartbeat quicken once she heard that beautiful sound. 

She shook her head. What was with her?? He’s supposed to be her enemy, a man she despises, the one who took everything she loved. But...right now, he seemed like the exact opposite. 

Instead of the god of Death, something that everyone despised and feared, he appeared like a normal person….

Well, in reality, he looked like a kid who loves sweets that was just brought to a place full of candy, or like a puppy when you tell them you’re going on a walk, but he was so different from what she expected. 

Maybe...when he apologized, he truly meant it. Maybe he wasn’t the scary, cold god that everyone thought he was. 

She should give him a chance. 

She knows that’s what...what she would have wanted. Not for them to become enemies, but for them to slowly understand each other. 

Well….better late than never, right?

 …..

Their walks around the garden became a daily activity. She would come and open the door, letting Jumin out, and then they’d walk around the place. She’d tell him the meanings of each flower, and eventually, as she became more comfortable, she’d tell him stories about the names and how they came to be. 

As time passed, they became more comfortable around each other.

They’d have a pleasant picnic and talk about their lives, what they liked to do. The goddess of life found that Jumin had a very lonely life. He didn’t have many friends, just one that he had known since he was a kid, but wasn’t able to talk with much now. 

He never went out and always stayed at home. He knew no one really wanted to be with him, anyway. And so, the goddess of life felt her icy heart thawing the more time she spent with him. 

….

He could tell there was something bothering her, but whenever she asked she would brush it off. He had made it his personal goal, that if he wasn’t able to find out what was bothering her, then he’d try to at least make her feel better.

He wasn’t good at it, however. He had never really comforted someone before. 

Every once in a while, whenever Jumin found her smile falter a bit and her gaze shift down, he’d try to tell a joke.

He’d try.

The first time she looked at him as if he had spawned a third head. 

In the second one, she was a bit confused but seemed to calm down for a bit. 

Eventually, he made her laugh. 

He, of course, thought his joke-telling skills were getting better, so whenever he could he’d try to make up some in the gazebo instead of sleeping. 

He loved her laugh, her smile. It made his heart jump, and it couldn’t help but make him smile too.

He was...falling for her.

And what sealed the deal was one day as she was escorting him back to the gazebo, and after he told some other silly joke, she giggled and poked his nose.

“Haha, Jumin! I would’ve never thought the god of death could be so...so adorable. If you keep this up, I think I’m really going to fall for you.”

They both stopped in their tracks and looked at each other. Jumin felt his heart beat fast, and she blushed, her entire face, even her ears, turning red.

“Uh- uhmm... I’m...uh...well...goodnight!!” She quickly said and turned around on her heel as she walked away from the gazebo. 

A smile slowly spread out on Jumin’s face, becoming bigger and bigger every second.

Her words echoed in his head. 

If you keep this up, I think I’m really going to fall for you.

She was falling….for him.

Did she...did she feel the same way? 

He couldn’t stop shifting the entire night, unable to sleep. He was far too giddy and happy to do that. 

She might love him, just as much as he loves her.

Jumin couldn’t keep his dorkish smile off his face that night. And the morning after. 

He had to stop himself from kissing her right there as soon as he saw her.

He wanted to take things slow. If he wanted her to fall for him, then he’d gave to show her how much she mattered to him. 

.

.

.

A few days later, as the two of them ate in an unknown part of the garden that hadn’t been explored, Jumin noticed something. At the end of the garden, there was a small sort of...fountain. It had different flowers all around them, some he didn’t even think could grow this time of the year. 

She caught him staring, and when he noticed he flushed and cleared his throat, embarrassed.

“Sorry. Uhm, those flowers are very beautiful. I haven’t seen them in the garden before.”

She gave a small smile. “Yeah. I had them especially made for this place.”

This place? Jumin felt confused. What was different about this place from the others?

She let out an uncomfortable as she fidgeted with a flower in her braid, adjusting the ones that had become crooked or were about to fall. 

“This place was somewhere I used to go with a friend every day. A...very dear friend...I’ve known her since we were children. She...uhm...she passed away at the beginning of the year.” 

Jumin felt a chill run down his spine. 

Now it all made sense.

Why she kidnapped him. Why she was always so cold to him, why she loathed him. 

But….that was before. And now look at her, showing him places around the garden, bringing him food, telling him things about herself that no one else knew.

The only sound that could be heard was their breathing. The birds had stopped singing, and the wind had stopped blowing, making the air still around them.

Jumin eventually met her gaze, and as soon as he did, he felt his heartbreak.

She was crying. 

And that made him want to cry too. 

He hadn’t realized just how much he had cared about her, and this new wave of feelings to want to protect her, to hug her, and make all her problems go away. But then there was also this crushing guilt. It was his fault. The woman he loved was heartbroken, and it was because of him.

He could barely breathe.

In fact...he wasn’t really breathing at all. He couldn’t seem to.

A lot of things happened at once.

He felt a sort of darkness surrounding him, clouding his view. And then the next thing he remembers is her beautiful voice calling for him, and her warm arms wrap around his body. 

Even after what he did, she still cared about him. But why? 

He didn’t deserve any of her kindness.

 …..

“Jumin?” 

He woke up in a familiar field of flowers. The sky was darker now, the sun about to set. He looked up and felt his heart stop at the sight. She had laid him on her lap and was gently running her fingers through his hair. She looked beautiful, with the remaining rays of sun appearing to make a halo in her hair. Well, she was definitely an angel. 

He slowly sat up and kept his gaze on the ground. A small hand touched his shoulder, but he tensed up and moved it away. 

“Jumin...I’m... I’m…”

“You don’t have to say anything. It’s me who should apologize….why….why didn’t you tell me?” He looked up at her, finally, an icy glare in his eyes.

“I...well...I didn’t...it wasn’t supposed to go this way.” She whispered.

“You should have told me. All this time, the thing that was making you sad, that was causing you pain, was me. Me. Why have you even kept me around? Wait...no. I understand now. All of this...it was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Jumin, it wasn’t I-“

“I took away someone very dear from you, of course, you’d be mad. Of course, you would never forgive me...not after that. You...you made me care about you, grow fond of you, to...to love you. Just so at the end, you could crush my heart as I crushed yours…”

“That was not what I wanted to do, believe me-“ she sobbed.

He stood up and gave a dry laugh. “It makes sense. Why would you even care about me? I am the god of death, I destroy things, I am someone that takes things away from people. I am a...a monster. And who could ever love a monster?” He whispered.

“Jumin, you are not a monster! Listen to me!” She stood up and tried to grab his hands, but he pulled away. “Jumin…”

It had become nighttime now. Fireflies were flying around them, and the only source of light was the full moon in the sky. 

She took one step forward. And then another. And another, until she was close to him. She slowly moved her hands and touched his cheek, now wet from tears. He was crying. And to be honest, she was probably crying too.

She cupped his cheek and leaned closer.

“You are not a monster, Jumin. You are...you are the most caring, amazing, intelligent, beautiful man that I have ever met. I’m...I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I never thought it’d end like this. Gods, by now you should be... never mind....but...I am happy that...that I got to know you better, that I saw the real you. I had filled my heart with hate and wanted to take it out on you, which is something I should have never done. Jumin...I care about you so much and..and I’m so sorry I was so...so heatless towards you. I was cold and mean when you didn’t deserve any of it. It’s you who should be mad at me.”

They were now both sobbing, gripping each other’s hands tightly. Jumin gently took one hand and lead it towards her chest. She looked up at him, confused. 

“You are not heartless. Out of everyone in the world, I am sure you’re the one that has the biggest heart. You always bring love with you wherever you go. You’re kind, brave, compassionate, and beautiful. How could I ever be mad at you?” He gently lifted her chin to make her look up at him. “You are the first person who has shown me this amount of kindness...of love, even if I don’t deserve it.” 

She moved her face closer. “You deserve it, Jumin. More than anyone in the world.” 

He smiled as he caressed her cheek. Slowly, they closed the distance between each other with a gentle kiss. 

Their lips were soft against each other, and Jumin couldn’t help but yearn for her touch more. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer.

When they pulled away, leaning their foreheads against each other, they couldn’t help the big smile on their faces.

“I love you.” He whispered.

“I love you too.”

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew against them, and when they looked around them, they found fireflies dancing all around them. 

She laughed, and then gently pulled a very awed Jumin towards her. She placed both his hands on her waist and then wrapped her arms around his neck.

She giggled when he raised an eyebrow. 

“Have you never danced?” She asked.

He shook his head. “Isn’t there supposed to be music to dance?”

“No, not really. You can sometimes dance with the person you love with no music.”

They both blushed at her words, and Jumin smiled. 

“Then…let’s dance, my love.” 

And so they danced. 

Eventually, as the night ended, she led him to a small bed of flowers. They spent the rest of the night in each other’s heated embrace, whispering words of love to each other.

And that was how life and death became one.

 .

.

.

.

.

She woke up early. The sun wasn’t out yet. She couldn’t help but smile as she saw him sleeping beside her, his hair messy from the night before.

She slowly slipped from the bed and summoned a small robe, so she wouldn’t feel as cold. 

As she walked through the garden, she knew like the back of her hand, she couldn’t help but feel a shiver run down her spine. And this time it wasn’t because of the cold.

When she finally made it to a small clearing, she bit her lip and looked around. There was no one.

Perfect.

“Rika!!!” She called out. “Rika!! I know you’re here! Come out!!” 

She heard a bubbly laugh from behind her, and she spun around.

“That’s not a pleasant way to call someone over my dear~ I thought they had taught you better than that.” 

She bit her lip as she watched Rika slowly come out from the darkness, her cold green eyes making the hairs on the back of her neck stand. 

“Cut the crap. I’m here to call the deal off.” She seized out a large dagger and threw it at Rika’s feet. “You can have this back.”

Rika chuckled and walked towards the dagger, picking it up and then twirling it around her fingers. “How rude~ I’m guessing you weren’t able to kill him then? A shame, really, that would’ve made things easier for me. I thought you were perfect for the job, so I can’t say I’m not disappointed.”

“I want nothing to do with you or your stupid plan anymore. Don’t come here ever again, I want this to be the last time I see you.”

“Oh, dear. You have really fallen for him, haven’t you?” 

She felt a blush creep up her face as Rika walked closer to her. 

“Dear, let me give you a piece of advice, from someone who’s been in love before. Never give yourself to anyone. They will all betray you in the end.”

“Jumin is not like that.”

“Oh trust me, that’s what you think now. You will think his love is the most wonderful thing in the world, and you’ll want to be surrounded by it all the time. Although eventually, that love becomes too much and you’ll start suffocating, and no matter how much you try to let go, he will only drag you deeper and deeper, until you aren’t able to breathe, to think, to live.”

Rika was now closer, their noses about to touch. Her eyes filled with madness, and her grip on Life’s arms had become so tight, that blood was coming out. Life found at that moment, what genuine fear was like. 

She tried to pull away and took in a deep breath of air as Rika let go. 

“Rika, go! Away! I’m serious! It won’t be like that, it’ll never be like that. Our love is pure, it’s real. Jumin would do nothing to harm me, and I would never do anything to harm him. And...and I swear that if you ever lay so much as a finger on him, I will make you regret the day that you were born.” She said through gritted teeth.

Rika raised an eyebrow, her smile disappearing from her face. She quickly grabbed Life’s hand and slashed her palm open, making her let out a pained gasp.

“You will not threaten me,” Rika whispered. “You will help me with my plan, and you will get rid of Jumin. I command you to, and if you don’t, then I have a perfect spot for your dead body once I’m done ripping you to shreds.”

Life felt her blood run cold and she couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything.

“Now then, I do have to get going. These things will not get done by themselves, and I don’t think Ray is...capable enough to do the next step. I will come in two weeks and by then I hope you’ll have gotten over your silly crush and get me Death’s heart. I’m not asking, by the way, this is an order that you will carry out, one way or another. It’s up to you if you choose to do it the easy way or the hard way. Toodle-oo!”

 She laughed and vanished, leaving as quick as she came. 

Life panted, falling to her knees, the dagger still in her hand. Not only that, but a big, black scar had formed where Rika had cut her, sending the dark magic that came from it.

What was she going to do now?

Shit.

.

.

.

“Is everything alright love?” Jumin’s sleepy voice called out to her as she walked back to the flower bed. She felt her worries disappear for a second as she heard his nickname for her.

“I’m... I’m fine. I just... thought I heard something over there. It was just a snake though, nothing to worry about.”

Jumin hummed and motioned for her to come and lay down next to him. She took off her robe and laid beside him, their bare chests touching.

He hugged her tightly and kissed the top of her head, sighing happily. 

“I love you so much.” He whispered.

“I love you too, Jumin.” 

Eventually, he fell back asleep, his chest rising and falling with every breath and a small smile on his face.

Life, however, couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Her mind was repeating over and over what Rika had said. What in the world was she going to do now?

One thing she decided about though, as she hugged him tighter. She promised that no matter what, she would let no one come near the one she loved.

[elliethesuperfruitlover]

Midnight Snack

A/N: I can’t get enough of this man and I got an idea for a good smut fic and here it is.

Warnings: smut, oral sex (fem! receiving), fingering, dry humping, squirting, wet dreams, soft rob

  You and Robbie were tucked into your humble abode because of miss rona, and the two of you were quite comfortable. With him doing work for the Earth Locker ™ , and you trying to relax and not watch too much news, you’d been kept quite busy and the chinese takeout containers were stacking up day after day. Rob is a bit of a hippie, but even he was getting tired of the same old ass routine, and he’d started meditating more, and spending less time with you. You’d sleep together in your bed every night and mumble greetings every dawn and dusk, but you were growing apart. It wasn’t a problem with the relationship, it was a problem with the fucking world.

  However, you had a plan for that.

  You’d braved the outside world and went to the grocery store, avoiding the angry Karens and missing toilet paper aisles. You picked up some italian themed food because it was a comfort for the both of you, and you threw salad materials into the cart because eating broccoli with brown sauce for weeks on end can send anyone on a rampage of high blood pressure. You’d thought about buying condoms, but you had some at the house, and who wants to have sex while in a food coma? Back at the house, you cleaned all the ingredients and started prepping the food. The lettuce was taken apart leaf by leaf, rinsed, then thrown in the bowl, along with the sliced radishes, carrot, and you even made homemade croutons because why the fuck not. Robbie’s been quite busy, staying outside most of the day, having one of his longer meditating sessions. Soon enough, once the vinegar dressing had been poured heavily over the salad, you placed it in the fridge to chill.

   Next, you started prepping you chicken titties (im sorry i had to.). They got a quick thaw and rinse, and you seasoned them with salt, pepper, basil, and Italian seasoning, and tenderized them until they were ready. Those were also placed in the fridge to marinate until you were ready to cook them. After that ordeal was finished, you fetched a glass of red wine, as you were preparing to make a chocolate cake, and baking was not your forte. You got the eggs, milk, vanilla extract, and vegetable oil into one bowl, mixed well, and got the mixer out because the wooden spoon was not cutting it. The dry ingredients came together a little easier, and the flour decided to make its way into your hair and your face (like something else which is a lot less dry), but you gave it no mind as you were gonna shower for dinner later. Everything was poured into the pan, and put it in the oven to bake while you were getting the chicken ready to be sauteed. You were proud of the work you’d done, and you polished off your glass of wine.

 “Hi honey, whatcha cookin?” Robbie said, entering the kitchen, and hugging you from behind, as you inhaled his scent, masked by the sweat of his session.

“Dinner, I got really fucking tired of chinese takeout, so I got a little somethin’ somethin’ cooking in the oven, and chicken boobies.” you said, turning around to kiss his lips, him sighing against you. His arms wrapped around your waist, and yours lingered by the small of his back. His tongue glossed against yours, and you moaned lightly, letting him take over for the time being. You touched upon his back, and he arched into your touch, and he humped against you, turning you into the counter, deepening the kiss. You broke off the kiss when Robbie started moaning louder, getting closer to his climax. A line of saliva was between the two of you, and his eyes were blown wide with lust.

“Well, I’ll get the frosting together for the cake, and you cook the chicken and boil the noodles. We’ll be finishing this later.” you said, hopping off the counter, and swaying your hips while grabbing the fettuccine from the fridge.

  Robbie smirked at your comment, and turned the heat up on the skillet on the stove, ready to get the meal over and done with so that he could get his dessert early. The two of you worked quickly to get the food done, dumping the pesto in the noodles, then the chicken, frosting the cake with delicate precision. The two of you shared a bottle of wine, white this time, after taking a special shower together and steaming up all of the mirrors in the house. The two of you dressed modestly for dinner, the both of you in sarongs, only Robbie wore a shirt, and you decided to put on a bra because you were still hot from the earlier frolicking. The two of you ate slowly, savoring the meal, and your time together. Quiet, gentle jazz played in the background, and birds chirped to each other outside. 

  “I love you, I want you to know that.” Robbie whispered, stopping you from putting the chocolate cake in your awaiting mouth. He looked at you with endearment in his eyes, wanting, no, needing the same to be told to him.

“I love you too, Robbie. Just took me a while to say it, is all.” you stated back, looking into his eyes.

  Soon after that, the meal finished, and the two of your worked in comfortable silence while doing the dishes, working assembly style. You two watched some Queer Eye before bed, sparking you to think of possibly picking up repainting your house. The two of you fell asleep at around the same time, Rob’s arms wrapped around your torso, his chest to your back. His dreams actually were calm that night, but yours were not. You had the wettest dream of them all. Beautiful, erotic, hot wet dreams are rare. That one, though, you’d always remember.

  Robbie was touching you, just like in the kitchen, but it was much more real, oddly. He moaned in your ears, grinding his dick into your ass crack, humping you quickly and harshly. You both were loud, very loud, you could feel the counter shaking. Robbie turned you around, wrapping your legs around his waist, fucking you as hard as he did when he finished Season 2 filming. He came home with his pants already off, dick stretching his black boxer shorts. He got you against the wall that day, and the couch, and the kitchen island, and the pool, and the floor. He wanted to fuck you until you couldn’t walk or talk. 

You didn’t for two and a half days.

  Now, however, while dream Robbie was fucking you into the kitchen counter, actual you was having a nice self-love session in your sleep. You’d gotten the covers off your body, revealing your hand beneath your panties, rubbing along your clitoris, applying just the right amount of pressure. Along with that, your knees were bent, and legs were spread, and you humped the air, arching your back with each thrust. You also began to moan, but that didn’t wake Robbie. He woke from the change in the bed shape, you were moving slowly, but harshly at the same time, making quick work of yourself. He woke up to you grasping the sheets in your hand, pulling them. He smirked, but slowly moved until he was positioned in front of your pussy, your hand not giving him a clear view. He kissed along your thighs and legs, leaving little hickies in his wake. You convulsed in your sleep, getting closer, but he wouldn’t have you cumming before he tasted you. 

  He pulled your panties from your body, holding them against his nose, taking in your arousal, in peak condition. He placed those on the sheets he previously occupied, for future use. The cold air halted you, and Robbie blew cold air onto your sex, causing you to wake up and look down to see his curls touching upon your thighs so delicately. The very thought sent you flying, thrusting your hips to the air. Robbie watched as your clit pulsed, swollen, waiting for attention. His hands went around your legs, moving them apart, to reveal your beautiful, pink pussy, waiting to be eaten. He gave it a lick to test, the tip of his tongue barely brushing against you. Your breathing was quite heavy, and he went back in, ravenous.

  Robbie’s lips touched your pussy’s, forcing a strangled moan from you. His tongue moved to your clitoris, giving it kitten licks, knowing where you wanted the most pressure. You put your hands on his head, ready to send him in the right direction. He pushed you closer to him, his tongue meeting your hole, giving it quit a broad lick, sending you panting for air. Rob slurped what you’d freshly created for him, his chin already glistening with your juices. He dove in, his nose nuzzling your clit, his mouth right where you wanted it. He gave licks in quick succession, creating a very lewd, wet sound. He grunted against you, as you’d decided to push his head further, and he liked the pull on his curls each time he attacked your sex. You were thrusting lightly against his face, using him how you wished. His hair was against your pubic mound and your thighs, adding to the feeling of pure euphoria that he was giving you.

“Robbie, I- oh goodness!” you choked on your words, as he’d inserted a finger into your birth canal, and he thrusted it in and out, letting it gather on his finger while kissing and nibbling your clit, then taking it out to lick it off like frosting from a cupcake. He added two fingers, and began grunting against your vagina, sending vibrations through you. Robert started shaking his head against your pussy, urging you to moan loudly, pulling his hair, causing him to moan as well. Sending you over the edge. He still fingered you through that white hot pleasure, then bit your thigh.

What a mistake that was.

    You squirted. Hard. Right into his face and mouth, and hair. He almost came right then and there, as you groped your breast, pointing your toes, yelling his name in praise. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as you squirted onto his face, soaking him thoroughly. He started grinding against the bed, desperate for some type of release. The remaining liquid he licked off of your pussy, and he kissed your thigh, looking into eyes with his emerald orbs, wanting you to be okay before he proceeded with the next step. Robbie quickly got up, grabbed a condom from the side drawer, ripping it open with his teeth, then slid his boxers off. He quickly shoved it on his length, jerking it quickly for reassurance, then he slowly slid into you. You inhaled with him, and soon enough, you became one being.

  Robert thrusted gently into you, his face in front of yours, reaching down to grasp your lips in a beautiful kiss. He hit a spot that always sent him rolling, and broke away from the kiss, moaning and whimpering at the squeeze of your pussy against the intrusion. He started thrusting into your heat quicker, creating a wet squelching sound, one of which the both of you liked the feeling of very much. He hid his face in your neck, his nose pushing against your collarbone. His lips making small kisses underneath it. The pace was getting faster, and Rob was moaning in quicker succession, a sign that he was getting close. You looked past his head and saw his pert ass flexing, the muscle more defined when he pushed into you. That thought alone sent you for your second orgasm, him following you. Your wet tunnel tugged against his cock, causing him to explode into the condom, you seeing his face contort in pleasure, his eyes rolling again. His hair stuck to his forehead, his mouth open in appraisal. You felt his light bush press against you, pelvis meeting pelvis. His balls emptied themselves into the condom, and his toes were curling from the power of his orgasm.

   It took Robbie a while to come along this time. You’d no idea why other than the fact that he’d had a very hard orgasm. You wiped the tears from his face, and you sat him up as you took the ruined condom from his cock, tying it into a knot and throwing it into the trash. He was sniffling from the bed, clearly overwhelmed. You brought him a glass of water, which you had to help his drink, and he was curled into a ball on the bed while you cleaned him, breathing quietly. The sheets would have to wait for the morning, and you cuddled him as he nuzzled his way into your neck, a smile on his lips.

Masterlist

[bubblegum-writes]

quid pro quo

request:  Hello!! I was thinking if you could write something with Katsuki where his s/o is a healer / booster for him and his quirk - basically her healing and quirk boosting abilities work best with quirks that are associated with warm temperatures, she can boost his damage by 75% - in short he has to look after her and stuff because when she boosts his powers she gets weak and so after fights they snuggle with each-other in his dorm 🥺💗 sorry if this is too specific 🥺

A/N: IM SO SORYR LORD HAVE MERCY THIS IS LATE BUT LIFE IS SHIT YA KNOW!!!!! also dont u worry ur pretty little head no need to be sorry! im tryna explore new ways of storytelling so i apologize if this is shit lol. also the italics are gonna be semi-flashback things if that makes sense. AGAAAIIN bnha and katsuki bakugou aren’t mine so copyright go and eat my entire asshole lol. also this aint edited at allllll lol

       For having a quirk that works best with quirks that raise the surrounding temperature or warm temperatures in general, Japan wasn’t the best place for whatever god to put you at when you were born. The temperature could get decently hot during summer, that is true, but the winters can be equally, if not more, brutal. Not only did it affect your quirk, but your entire mood and aura. During these colder months, your classmates felt both the cold winter winds and your sour mood. No matter how hard they tried to cheer you up, they couldn’t help that your body simply wasn’t made for the cold.

      “C’mon, let’s go out and have a snowball fight!” Denki had suggested from his spot on the common room couch. Classes were over for the week and plenty of snow had fallen on the ground for there to be ample fun to be had within it. Mina, Sero,  and Kirishima all hollered in excitement, while the rest of those present either hummed in agreement or moaned in annoyed interest. You, however, didn’t say or even acknowledge the blonde’s suggestion, as you were too busy lying on the floor wrapped in a blanket with multiple heating pads on you. 

      “What about (Y/N)? We don’t want to exclude anyone due to health or quirk conditions!” Tenya nearly shouted as he lectured everyone about the importance of ‘never leaving a man behind’. You briefly smiled and thanked the universe for making Iida so considerate (and even more briefly entertained the idea of going out). You turned yourself and all the blankets around you towards the rest of the group and smiled slightly. It wasn’t lost on anyone that the cold was never kind to you, so they all started coming up with ways for you to enjoy the fun they had planned.

      “We could tape the blanket around you!” Said Tsuyu, pointing to a blushing Sero’s elbows.

      “No, we could get one of those hamster balls, heat it up, and put you in!” Izuku proposed.

      “You stupid fucking extras, I have the best idea,” came a voice that had yet to speak during the whole ordeal. Katsuki was leaning back in one of the couches, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed. Everyone turned silent as they looked towards the explosive man, even you raised your head from the ground to lend your ear to what he had to say. You had yet to notice that he had joined everyone in the common room, assuming he went to workout earlier. “(Y/N), you come out with us and have a good time,” his lips slowly turned into a light-hearted smirk, “Afterwards, I’ll take you to your favorite ramen shop to warm up.”

      Immediately, the room erupted in noises of confusion and elation. Confusion due to the fact that no one else was aware of yours and Katsuki’s certain… relationship and elation due to the fact that everyone could finally go out and play. What you and Katsuki had was a cute relationship, born out of necessity but had grown into something more. He knew that you despised the cold, and that your quirk didn’t work well in it either. He found this out when you two had been partnered one day in a tag-team sparring exercise.

      “Alright, (Y/N) and Bakugou, you guys are going against…” You didn’t bother paying attention to who you were going to battle; all you could focus on was the fact you had been paired with Katuski, your well-kept secret of a crush. You felt your body flush with heat as you searched the training grounds for him. You eventually found him with his eyes already burrowing into yours. You saw the fire within his eyes to be one of anger or maybe even hatred, but you couldn’t have been farther from the truth. You had also caught his eye; sure, you weren’t the most powerful person in the class, but your quirk had the ability to boost those that were at work around you. On top of that, you could also use the same quirk to heal those around you, at the cost of expending your energy and use it to restore another person’s body.

      “Oi, (Y/N), get your ass over here!” Katsuki yelled from across the small area as he waved you over. Shaking your head out of your haze, you jogged over to him with a nearly unnoticeable shyness on your face. “So, I have a strategy and you’d better listen to it!” Katsuki nearly spat in your face. You winced, but during the whole time he was talking, you had to focus everything you had on what he was actually saying, and not on his beautiful red eyes, or his soft-looking hair, or his toned muscles, or his plump li-

      “Did you get all of that?” He taunted with one perfect eyebrow raised. Despite your best efforts, you'd had completely and utterly failed to pay attention to his strategy.

      “Uh, could you give me the short version of it again?” You shyly asked, feeling heat rise to your cheeks.

      “Fine! Long story short, you stay behind me and make sure I don’t get too hurt and I’ll make sure they don’t touch you.” Katsuki started the sentence with a snarl, but by the end, his face had relaxed and his eyes almost held a tenderness to them. You told yourself you were seeing things as you peered into his eyes and just quickly nodded your head. The both of you took your spots on the field, and without noticing one another, you both were glancing out of your peripherals to make sure the other was okay. 

      This was also when you noticed your opponents for this fight.

      “Oh no,” you whispered under your breath. You and Katsuki were up against Shouto and Mina. You weren’t too worried about Mina and her quirk; as long as you could avoid her streams of acid, you were in the clear. Shouto, on the other hand, would be difficult for you to overpower or even avoid. If he hit you with his ice quirk just once, you were almost guaranteed to be done for, for at least the next couple hours. There was fear clearly written on your face as you noticed Shouto, and Katsuki didn’t ignore it. He knew the basics of your quirks and that the cold would inhibit you, and sometimes even harm you far more than a regular person.

      “I need to keep (Y/N) safe,” Katsuki thought as Aizawa started the sparring fight. Part of his mind told him that he thought that because if she went down, most likely, so did he. However, the majority of his conscience told him he thought that for far more romantic and loving reasons.

      “C’mon you fucking extras!” Katsuki yelled and teased as he blasted himself high in the sky, making sure you were moving far away from your guys’ opponents. He focused on Shouto and Mina and tried to decipher what their strategy was. Mina started excreting acid from her body as Shouto started to use his ice quirk to quickly strike you down. You were running as fast as you could from both of them to try to gain as much distance as you could before Katsuki could blow them to smithereens. However, that didn’t quite happen. Shouto had absolutely no ill feelings towards you, but this was a battle he planned on winning. Both he and Mina used as much power as they could muster to ensure that you were out of the fight so they could focus on Katsuki. However, Katsuki realized this too little too late. They would take you down, then focus on him

      “(Y/N)! Watch it!” Katsuki yelled as he lowered himself to the ground close to Shouto and Mina. Despite the short distance between Katsuki and the opposing team, they still focused on you. You only turned around in time to see Shouto’s ice start nearly grasping your feet and ankles; you ran even harder as you nearly hyperventilated trying to run away from him. Katsuki saw the absolute horror in your eyes, and launched himself to stand between you and Shouto and Mina.

      Despite all he had given, he was too late.

      Right after you turned around for the second time, you saw and felt the ice start to curl around your feet. A harsh scream left your lips, which made even Aizawa cringe and almost call off the whole battle. Mina had long stopped her acid attacks to ensure you weren’t hurt by her quirk, but she watched in horror as Shouto slowly encompassed you in ice. Your body convulsed in an almost demonic way, your feet facing outwards as you bent at the waist as the ice crept upwards. Your screams only increased in both volume and levels of anguish as tears started leaving your eyes. You turned towards Shouto to start pleading for him to stop, but he did as soon as he saw your red and teary eyes. The ice had reached your chest at this point and your arms were held by your sides. The pain you felt was extraordinary; your body felt as if it were cracking in every joint and bone it had. The pain was so horrible that as soon as you closed your eyes to blink away the tears, you had no choice but to finally pass out from the pain. 

      “(Y/N)!” Both Mina and Shouto yelled as your head went lip as your body was encased in ice. Shouto ran up to start thawing you, but Katsuki quickly landed and kicked him out of the way.

      “Get out of the way, fucking Half-n-Half!” He snarled at the Todoroki boy. Katsuki gave him one of the most evil looks he could muster before he turned around and put his hands on the ice around you. Hehastily went to work to get you out of the ice as Aizawa started walking (albeit quickly, as he was concerned for his students’ wellbeings) towards you all. The ice quickly melted before the teacher could get to the scene, and before Aizawa could put a word in, Katsuki declared, “I’m taking (Y/N) to Recovery Girl!”

      Before Aizawa or even Shouto or Mina could mouth their opinions, Katuski had melted your body from the ice, picked you up bridal-style, and started sprinting towards the nurses’ office. You were barely holding on to consciousness, but the last thing you saw was Katsuki’s face as he ran to get you help.

      After that terrifying incident, when Katsuki refused to leave your side even after Recovery Girl had given you the all-clear, it became clear to you and most of the class that there was something more to your guys’ relationship than classmates. No one would dare to comment on it for fear of being the object of Katsuki’s anger. Which led to this moment, where the class was gearing up to play in the snow with everyone stealing glances at Katsuki helping you into your snowgear. No one had ever seen him so gentle and the look of pure adoration in his eyes was hard to miss. 

      As soon as everyone was thick with layers and looked like plush, colored marshmallows, the class ran from the common room to the outside where the fluffy white flakes had created a plush playground for them. Small cheers and whoops erupted as everyone went their separate ways, with Momo and Ochako starting to build a snowman with Mezo using his multiple hands to grab as much snow as possible to add to the growing pile. Denki and Eijiro had started a snowball fight between them and Shouto and Izuku, and Fumikage and Toru had started building an igloo. 

      You, however, were shivering out of your socks. You and Katsuki had barely made it out of the doors before you stopped in your tracks.

      “Tch, come on, have some fun with these losers,”  Katsuki murmured in your ear, causing shivers to run up your spine, “and I’ll let you be the big spoon for once.”

      You immediately ran to join the nearest group of classmates faster than you could say, “Really?” Throughout the day, you spent quality time with most everyone in the class. Truth be told, they were happy to see you come out of your comfort zone and actually enjoy all the weather had to offer. You even forgot why you were out in the cold in the first place, you were having so much fun! However, as the sun flew threw the sky and evening became night, everyone finally tuckered out and retired back to the dorms. As everyone else went to their respective rooms, you and Katsuki gathered in his.

      He knew that spending time in the cold would make you tired and possibly even sore because of your quirk, but he always remembered how to make you feel better again. Usually, it was a bath that he had prepared, scorching hot with a bath bomb or two, take-out, and whatever was on Netflix that fit the mood. Today was no different; as you warmed up and chilled out in the bath, Katsuki called your favorite ramen shop and ordered your favorite item for delivery. After a while, you came out of the bathroom with your pajamas on and a face mask upon your face. He smiled, a smile only reserved for you, a soft and gentle smile he was, quite frankly, scared to show anyone else. You scuffled over to his bed and joined him under his blankets, and quickly wrapped yourself in his arms. Artificial heat didn’t compare to heat produced by a human, especially that of Katsuki. Quickly forgetting both the incoming ramen and your face mask, you fell asleep in his arms as he traced meaningless patterns over your back and scratched your scalp gently. Well, they might have been meaningless to you, but he was consciously drew the characters for “I love you” deep in your skin, just in case you would ever forget.  

[chasseurdeloup-retired]

Steady As She Goes || Bea and Kaden

TIMING: After Cabin in the Woods and before Kaden got shot LOCATION: The woods PARTIES: @beatrice-blaze and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: Kaden tries to teach Bea how to use a gun. It goes as well as all his other shooting lessons have gone.

Without her fire magic, Bea felt vulnerable. The weapons that Felix had given her helped ease some of the anxiety she had struggled with. While he was teaching her to use them, Bea was sure it couldn’t hurt to ask other people for help as well. Kaden had led her into the woods and Bea had to force down the anxiety building in her. She had once claimed these woods as a place of sanctuary and now she looked over her shoulders for monsters, human and otherwise. As she shook the tension out of her shoulders, she looked over to Kaden,“So where do we start?”

Kaden never had trouble picking through the woods to find the clearing in the woods by the outskirts. It was a near perfect spot for training, but it was becoming more and more loaded. Blanche, Mina, and now Bea. There was no way this was going to go smoothly and easily. At least this time he expected it to go poorly. He was ready to stop training and go get some food at any minute. But Bea asked him for help and as sure as he was that this would go south or derail, he was going to help her as best as he could. “Well first off, I think we start with a pistol. You know how to load it? All that? If not, that’s where we start.” Every part of him wanted to ask how she was, talk about… everything, but that’s not what she came here for. He could tap into hunter mode for her if that’s what she needed. It wouldn’t be like Blanche.

There was only so much in the world that Bea could control. For years she had clung to this false sense of control she had over people and the world. She had thought that nothing bad would happen if she was the one pulling the strings. And yet she had still died. Bea still struggled with that control, she still wanted it so badly. This was one of her ways to control things around her. She could control what she was able to do and had to hope that everything else worked out in her favor. “Felix showed me when he gave me my gun, yeah. I figured coming to you would be a good idea too.” Why not go to all the people she knew to help her when it came to protecting herself. “I haven’t gotten much practice though. Not with everything that’s been happening the last few months, Felix and I have been so busy.”

His brow raised when he heard that she already had her own gun. Kaden didn’t know a whole lot about Felix but he supposed it wasn’t too hard to imagine the man knew where to acquire a gun and had no qualms handing one to Bea. He had helped them blow up a restaurant and had easy enough access to supernatural (and likely non supernatural) drugs, made sense he was comfortable enough with firearms. “Good, guess we can skip those basics, then.” He led her over to the line up of bottles and got her set up to start. “Yeah, makes sense. Look, at least I know this can’t go as badly as when I was out here with Blanche. Right after--” The words caught in his throat. He’d almost forgotten why he crumbled the last time he had been out here teaching someone to shoot. It was almost easy to do so when part of the reason had seemingly been erased and was standing right next to him.

“Don’t make that face,” Bea laughed. “He gave me a knife too. It makes me feel safer when I’m out without him, my sisters, or you.” She couldn’t spend her whole life attached at the hip to one of them. She was far too independent for that and she refused to be a burden to her loved ones like that. Bea watched Kaden with rapt attention as he helped her set up. She had been taught some things, yes, but she wasn’t comfortable with a gun in her hand yet. She was sure that would come with time and practice. As he cut himself off, she turned to look at him,“Right after what?” Her chest tightened as she wondered if she had been the reason that things had gone poorly last time. It worsened when she thought that maybe he hadn’t been telling her things because he didn’t think she could handle them anymore.

“Sorry, I’m used to you requesting my weapons at the door and shit. This is new.” Kaden didn’t know if that meant it was worse. Hell, he was different than he was when they first met, there was no denying that. And he didn’t fucking know if that mad him better or worse yet. Guess they’d find out together. Kaden was prepared to get lost in training, just sink back into his old rhythm, no emotions, just everything he knew black and white. That was until she pressed him. He froze and clenched his jaw, trying to keep back the lump forming in his throat already. Maybe this clearing was bad luck. “You know,” he said. He didn’t want to say it aloud. But no, he had to. Because it wasn’t just her death, that wasn’t the only weight that had crushed him those few weeks and it came rushing back like a tidal wave. He let out a breath and elaborated. “Right after I had to banish my mother’s spirit. And then you died. And then Celeste died.” The words hung in the air a moment, nothing but silence around them. Not even the birds seemed to cut the quiet. “Come on. We came here to shoot things.” He refused to break down here a second time.

“I might still request that if you annoy me,” Bea replied with a smirk. She knew for a fact she wouldn’t. No, now weapons weren’t just annoyances that she wanted to avoid, they were security and a way to feel safe. She didn’t look at a blade with contempt any longer, now, as long as it was held by a trusted friend, she saw an out. She had come unprepared to that fight with the Hunter and if she had had a gun on her rather than relying on her magic solely she might have survived. She reached out to him, a hand softly placed on his arm. She hadn’t touched him so freely in months. It had felt unnatural to her then, but she had slowly started to come back into herself. “Right after you lost everyone,” She summarized after a moment. “Thank you for coming back here then.” She didn’t want to consider how much it took out of him to be here after all of that. She nodded, “Right, we’re here to shoot.” She made sure that everything was out of the way before going for her first shot. As the ring of the gun rolled through that clearing, Bea couldn’t help but think over Kaden’s words again. She had never considered owning a gun before. She had thought of them as loud, inelegant things. Now she clung to one as a lifeline. Blinking rapidly, Bea tried to ignore the burn in her eyes. She hadn’t come here to mourn over parts of herself she had lost.

“Sure. I think you just want to be the only one with a knife at dinner.” Kaden wasn’t sure the joke landed. Dinners at the Vural’s hadn’t happened since, well, since any of it. It made sense. But it was a clear line between before and after. That line that was always drawn between memories. Before and after loss. It was like the color was different in his mind every time. The memories before with Bea had been warm tinted, nothing but warmth. Things had changed. He thought he was just imagining it, simply remembering some moment until he noticed that her hand was actually on his shoulder. He felt tears pricking the corners of his eyes already. It was still strange to remember all the grief of when she was dead when she was standing there in front of him. Honestly, it made him feel  a little silly, like he’d wasted time being upset when-- “It’s the best place I’ve found to shoot,” he replied simply, swallowing it all back, the lump in his throat, any threat of tears, any uncomfortable emotion. Deep inhale, slow exhale as he watched her set up. Funny, she should be the one trying to clear her head, she was the one shooting. She squared up, took a decent shot. “Not bad. You need to watch your stance, though,” he said. All he could think of was his mother, her words and how she would shut down and mask any feeling when it came time to perfect hunting skills. And she did in fact expect perfection or something close to it. Did he really want to be that? He tried to roll his shoulders back, push it away. Then he saw Bea. Properly. “You alright? We can stop at any time.”

“Can you blame me for that?” Bea asked with a grin. She hadn’t had anyone over for dinner in months and at the mention of it, she missed it. She missed making their favorite foods and forcing them to take home leftovers so they didn’t have to cook the next day. “I should have people over for dinner soon,” She said quietly, half to herself. It would be nice to have people in the house again. Maybe it would get rid of the cold feeling that had taken over the house. If she was lucky, it would start thawing out the relationships she had too. She had noticed, of course, how people interacted with her now. How they saw her as someone new and didn’t know how to be around her anymore. Kaden had gotten better as they saw each other more, but she had felt it the first time they saw each other after everything. She felt it with so many people now, even those who didn’t know. She lowered the pistol, looking at the bottles she shot at. “I never wanted to shoot a gun before,” She said softly. “Now I own one and I didn’t even think about it until now.”

“You should,” Kaden replied. It rang a little hollow. The last time he’d been in her house was when Nell told him. He hadn’t believed it. Putain. He thought he was over it. He should be over it. She was back. It was fine. So why did the thought of stepping back into the Vural house, seeing her kitchen, hit him like a ton of bricks? He sniffed and brushed off his cheek. He knew it wasn’t raining, but he was going to pretend that was the reason for the drop there. “It’d be good to, uh, you know, reset or something. Replace all the negative moments that happened when you were gone.” He knew she’d been a ghost but he had no idea how much she had really been around, how much she had really seen. This was a bad idea. This whole endeavor. Everything was too emotionally charged. He should have known better. “Hey. It’s alright.” Kaden reached out and touched her shoulder, hoping to steady them both, ground them. “Things change.”

“It’s hard to know how to start with that. Blanche hasn’t seen me in months, we used to be close you know? Lots of people have these memories of mourning me and I don’t know how to stop that. I don’t know how to fix it anymore.” Hadn’t she always been able to find a way to fix things? Bea was stuck, not knowing where to begin when it came to reintroducing herself to people she loved. There was no handbook for dealing with the trauma of being dead for weeks, of mourning yourself. There was no road map for her friends and family to know how to deal with her being back. So instead of anything being better, they were all stuck stagnant hoping that one day things will feel better on its own. They all ignore the implication that these things took work and contact, unwilling to be the first to reach out and force something that was once natural.

It took cool, measured movements for Bea to place everything down safely. She wasn’t going to sacrifice gun safety just because she was feeling a little bit bluer than she anticipated. She had thought that this would make her feel powerful, make her feel better than she had walked in with. Yet, here she was, hands shaking as she realized just how charged the air had become after a single shot. She looked toward Kaden, one of the only people who knew and still tried to make this work. “Do they usually change this much? I know I’m like a different person. I know everyone’s been thinking it. I’m a stranger to everyone now,” Her lips pressed, eyes filling up again as she blinked angrily. “I used to be warm and alive.” How one sentence, thought but rarely spoken aloud, could make Bea feel like the world was pressing down on her shoulders was a mystery. She sniffed, trying to ignore the ache of her chest. “I thought I was getting better,” She whispered, sorrow pouring over each word as she looked down at her hands. She had been smiling more, laughing more, and a single shot brushed it away. It nearly brought her to her knees.

“She hasn’t?” Kaden couldn’t imagine. The first thing he wanted to do when he heard about Bea coming back was see her. Then again, he hadn’t seen her since before she died. And wasn’t there for the hard part. Of any of it. Maybe it did make some sense that Blanche needed time. “You can’t stop it, Bea. And it won’t--” The mourning had happened and it was confusing to have to step back, forget it. It couldn’t be erased. Standing where he had collapsed so soon after she-- It couldn’t be erased from his mind nor the pain scrubbed from his heart. Her sisters had to have felt it all, stronger and deeper. Still, the mourning hadn’t hit him as hard as one word, one singular word she’d said. The same stupid word he kept saying, kept promising. “Fix.” How did she fix this? “You don’t need to fix it, Bea. Sometimes you can’t--” Kaden wasn’t sure what pain was pooling up from the depths, which stupid shit was punching him in the gut. He told Regan he’d help fix her. He told Nadia he’d help fix her. Could he lie to Bea, too?

“I don’t know. Most times I lose people and they don’t come back.” It was meant to be a joke, but the tears burned his eyes almost instantly. He blinked them away as best he could. He shook his head and met her eyes. “I don’t give a shit if you’re the exact same person, Bea, I don’t. You’re here. You’re still here and, and--” Kaden reached out to take her hand, turning it over in his. It was shaking, he could feel it, but he also held his hand to her wrist and pressed against her pulse. “You feel that? You’re alive. You’re alive.” Something he could still barely believe. He could feel more stupid tears tumbling down his cheeks and he wished he could just look at her and see his friend and not have to be reminded of all the fucking trauma that they’d all gone through. “You’re not a stranger, Bea. You’re not. You-- you were there for me every time I asked. Sometimes when I fucking didn’t. So maybe now it doesn't show up the same.” Like her magic, it was changed, there was no denying it. “But I haven’t doubted that fact once. Not once. Tell me if I’m wrong. Fucking tell me if you don’t have my back anymore. But I have yours. I’m not walking away because shit’s a little different.”

“I can’t blame her for not wanting to see me. I asked way too much of her with everything. I promised to never be one of those people who put that much pressure on her, but I ended up breaking that promise.” Bea got flashbacks every once in a while of Blanche asking her not to do something as a ghost and Bea ignoring her. She knew that Blanche was under so much stress already and she had still pulled her into the mess. So many people had disappointed Blanche and Bea had never wanted to add her name to that list, but she had. She took in a staggering breath, “I have always been able to fix my mistakes. I’ve been able to fix how people look at me, how they see me, but I don’t know how to anymore and I’ve always had to.” How many times had her mother drilled it into her head that she had to be perfect to everyone? Bea’s entire life had been built upon always fixing the mistakes that made her appear weak or flawed. Now for months she had been that to everyone around her. It was easy to forget sometimes, easy to slip into this person that didn’t care. She couldn’t decide who she was anymore, between those people. Caring what they thought had shaped her entire life, but letting go of that and being someone that could be feared instead of loved had become something of an armor. There were days where it felt like there were two Beas, both trying to control her body and she didn’t know what to do or even who she was.

According to the Council, she never should have come back. To them, she should have moved on and never brought people into her plan. She didn’t know if that would have been easier for everyone, but there was no going back. She couldn’t fix the fracture she had created in her family. Her eyes squeezed shut as he held her wrist, tears slipping from between tightly held lids. She could feel it. She could feel her heart. She could feel his fingers pressed against her skin. “I’m alive. I can feel it.” She was alive, so why didn't she feel like it. Why did she feel so strange? This had gotten better in last month, but still there were some days that Bea felt as though she could fade away if no one was looking. She leaned her head forward as sobs started to shake her. “I have your back,” She told him, her voice choked. “I have everyone’s backs. I do.” She would do anything for the people she loved. She had always been willing to do anything for them. It was perhaps the only thing she had in common with the woman she was in May.

The words hit him like another gut punch, of a different variety this time. Kaden couldn’t argue with her. But he also couldn’t say he didn’t put too much on Blanche either. Hell the last time he was here, he’d put way too much on her. All his grief had come spilling out and she was left to pick up the pieces. “Maybe so but I doubt she’d ever take it back.” Kaden would have to remember just how much of a break Blanche needed, maybe force her to take it. For now, he had his friend in front of him, desperately hoping for a way to fix things, a feeling he knew all too well. But he didn’t have a clue where to start. He tried to let the words sink in. “Had to,” that’s what she’d said. All he could remember was her obsessing over what to wear to the Silver Bullet, how concerned she was about how people saw her, even just to go visit a hunter bar. “You don’t have to be perfect, Bea. You can make mistakes and let the cards fall.”

Kaden had every intention of dropping his hand from her wrist, but it lingered. Feeling her heartbeat beneath his fingers, pulsing through her skin, it was something so simple, but god it was unreal right then. He knew before it that she was alive and back, sure, he knew, Something so simple as a pulse pulled things into perspective. Reminded him that it wasn’t a dream. “Good. That’s good. You-- you believe it, right?” He gave her hand a squeeze before letting his own fall away. “You know if you fall, I’m going to be there as best as I can. I don’t know much, but I know that. Your sisters will be there, too. It doesn’t matter if you’re perfect as long as you’re here. It’s enough, Bea. You’re enough.” Kaden was damn sure she didn’t need to hear it from him of all people, if at all, but here he was in the middle of the woods telling her anyway like some big idiot. He’d be fucking lying if he said he didn’t wish he could go back to having the Bea who had never died, had never had to go through all that, come back from the dead, have his friend back. The one who was able to pull him off the edge, force him to see the bigger picture. But he didn’t honestly believe there was nothing left of her, nothing of her that wasn’t his friend before. If he was the one to have pull her off the edge for once, so be it.

Kaden was right and Bea knew it, no matter what had happened she was sure that Blanche wouldn’t take it back. The medium was the type of person who gave far too much of herself to the people around her. Blanche was far too good for a person who struggled like she did. Bea hated that she had put anymore weight onto Blanche’s shoulders. Her mouth tightened, flattening into a line. She had always needed to be perfect. Even as a child she had woken up hours before school just to perfect the way her hair fell, by twelve she had been using makeup. There had been little room for anything less than perfect. She had obsessed over it, just to make her mother happy. And even though she had been as perfect as she could be, there was nothing that stopped the way her life had gone. She had still died and she was still kicked out of her coven, even though she had tried to seem perfect. “I don’t just let things fall, Kaden. I’m meant to be the one who doesn’t make mistakes. I should be the one fixing things for my sisters, not the other way around.” She had never been the person who needed this much help and she could barely understand that she was the person she was. “My mistakes ruined my sisters’ lives. We were excommunicated because of the ritual.”

She nodded. She did believe she was alive, but she didn’t know how long that would last. She didn’t know what next would set her off or if anyone would be there to help ground her. As much as she tried to do it herself, without someone else it was so difficult to remind herself that she wasn’t going to fade away. But even when she knew that she wasn’t going to fade away, she felt like an imposter. Trying to fill your own shoes was much harder than anyone had ever said. Being enough didn’t sit right with her, not when she wanted to be more, but her options were limited, especially with how she was now. A comparison struck her and a watery, half-hearted laugh broke out, “I’m having a fucking mid life crisis right now, aren’t I?” The humor of the thought warmed her chest slightly and slowed her tears, but didn’t rid the field of the melancholy feel. She cast her eyes to the sky, humming softly in her throat. “There are these parts of myself that are broken apart and I don’t know how to bring them back together. I don’t know where the whole me is and for now all I have are these fragments of what I am.”

“Says fucking who? Who told you you can’t make mistakes? Fuck them. They don’t--” The words excommunicated cut through his tirade like a knife, the word hanging in the air, almost ringing through the silence of the forest surrounding them. Kaden had lost his family through unfortunate circumstances. They didn’t choose to leave him, not really. He knew that hunters stuck together through thick and thin, short lived as their lives may be. He couldn’t imagine choosing to cut ties, purposely giving up on someone for their choices, choices that seemed like the sole choice available. “You didn’t ruin their lives,” was all he could mumble. “I saw them when you were gone, Bea. They didn’t-- Coming back didn’t ruin their lives.” He wasn’t sure what it did ruin fully yet, it definitely disrupted things, but ruin? It was the wrong word, he felt that deep in his core. It was the wrong word. Bea being alive couldn’t ruin anything. “I’m sorry.” She didn't deserve this, not from family. None of the sisters did. They needed support, not abandonment.

Watching his friend break down, Kaden felt picks sting at the corner of his eyes. Shit like this he always wished he could be more helpful, say the right things, solve problems. He was never sure he quite managed. “I think technically speaking it’s a post-life crisis,” he added with a half hearted smile, glad for the momentary respite from the heaviness. Kaden reached out and gripped her shoulder, hoping to steady both of them a little more. He could feel the warmth of her skin, her pulse pumping through, much faster than Regan’s did now. Funny how despite dying, she felt more alive than his own girlfriend. And here she was questioning that fact. “I don’t think I’m the one to tell you how to solve all that,” he said with a sigh. Her words sounded all too familiar. “Hunting used to make sense. It’s, I mean everything is confusing now. And I feel like who I want to be isn’t who I was. Or am. Or wanted to be before or--” He shook his head, trying to find what he was even saying anymore. “My point is I’m fucking lost, too. I think-- I think that’s okay. Pick the pieces you like. Leave the rest.” He knew it was easier said than done, but it sure sounded nice.

Silence had become an unfortunate companion of Bea’s. As a ghost it had been the only thing that kept her company and now it stretched between her and the people she loved. There wasn’t much anyone could say when Bea talked about how far her life had crumbled. As Kaden’s silence sat between them, her heart began to ache for him. He was trying so hard to make her feel better about something that only she could fix. Laying her hand on his arm, she squeezed softly, knowing that it would do little to rid the sorrow she was sure he was feeling for her. She couldn’t agree that she didn’t ruin her sisters’ lives, but she decided not to argue now. Not when the energy she had left in her was waning. “They basically called me a monster at the trial and my mom let them.” Her mouth was dry,“She used to call me her star and she let go of me so easily. She wasn’t always good to my sisters, but she had always been good to me.”

It took her a moment, but Bea let out a loud, watery laugh. “Post-life crisis. Holy Hell, I’m having a post-life crisis,” She got out between her laughter. As heavy as she felt now, at least she knew that she wasn’t the only person who wasn’t sure what to do with their lives now. The unending loneliness she had felt when she was dead, and had carried on as she finally lived again, had slowly begun to peel away. “Well, at least we have good company for this. Good to know that neither of us are sure who we are anymore,” She tried to say it lightly, but the crack in her voice betrayed how hard that was to say. Leave the rest. She wasn’t sure she could do that, she hadn’t ever been good at just leaving things be. It felt impossible to admit that things would never be the same again, but maybe one day she would be able to. She had conquered the impossible before.

“I’m so sorry, Bea.” As she gave his arm a small squeeze, Kaden wished with everything he had that he wasn’t complete shit at comforting people. All he could manage was to place his own hand on top of hers and squeeze it back. He couldn’t think of his friend as a monster, not ever. The thought that her mother could even imply it was, it was unfathomable. For every piece of his parents that he had begun to pick at in his mind, he never once doubted that they loved him. Disappointment, that he could predict form them, even disowning him. But he felt deep in his bones they’d try to bring him back into the fold before abandoning him. Given the choice. “None of you deserve that. Not after--” Not after the harrows they went through. Her mother wasn’t even there to see it, to feel the pain and the loss. Maybe it was better she didn’t. He didn’t know. He supposed it didn’t matter much now how well or how little he knew her mother, she wasn’t going to be a huge part of their lives much anymore, was she? “Just because she-- I’m not letting go that easily, got it? I don’t have--” He couldn’t say it. He didn’t want to feel the sting of the words piercing through him, saying aloud that he didn’t really have any family left. And it felt almost cruel to bring up in comparison. But still, all the dinners at Bea’s house, it felt like so long ago now but some part of Bea felt like family. He couldn’t explain it. It didn’t matter if he could put it into words, though. He could feel it. “You’re just stuck with me, alright. You made the mistake of making me give a shit. No getting rid of me now.” One more squeeze before he let his hand drop.

“You sure are,” he said, laughing with her, drinking in the short lived moment of relief from the heaviness of the rest of their exchange. He knew damn well that if a younger version of himself saw who he was now, he’d be confused and shocked. No doubt it would be worse for her. “Guess so,” he said, exhaling, hoping it would mask the small pricks of terror in his voice at the thought of changing so much. “You think I can blame this on you?” he said, nudging her with his elbow. “I mean, you had me real confused in the beginning, thinking you were a werewolf. I don’t know, maybe this whole change shit is your fault. Ever think of that?” He played but honestly? She was part of it. Not as directly as some, but having people that he cared about it-- well it was different than his life had been before. He let out another deep sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. “What do you say we try this again another day and just go to Al’s or something? Blanche swears the milkshakes help. I think she just likes tormenting me.”

When thinking of her parents, Bea was getting used to disappointment staining the edges of good memories. If she had known that her life would lead up to this, she wasn’t sure she would have tried so hard to be perfect for her mother. She watched as Kaden tried to collect his thoughts and say something to her, sympathy and guilt mixing in her stomach. His parents were gone and she was sure it was hard for him to understand what was happening to her and her sisters. She let out a soft, surprised laugh,“I’m not sorry I forced you to be my friend.” Kaden and her, in some ways, became friends at the perfect time. They needed each other, to understand the path they walked and to call out the bullshit they tried. She was lucky he decided to stick around after everything. “You know, I’ll take the blame,” She answered, her voice finally losing it’s watery edge. She had certainly been blamed for worse things. The change he was going through wasn’t a bad one, but she understood how absolutely terrifying it was to feel yourself morph into something you never imagined. “Milkshakes do help, Blanche is right. Leah and I get milkshakes all the time.” She paused for a moment, a sad smile playing over her face once again,“Thanks, Kaden, for being here.” She had lost parts of her family, but she had so many people who never gave up on her. There was power in picking her own family, she just had to get used to it.

[lumikatdraws]

#2: Sway

(Heavenly bodies that held her in their influence.  “Let me help you.”  Rating changes to "E."  Multiple relationships, several snippets from pre-1.0 Calamity to [ShB spoilers] pre-patch 5.3.)

cw: 18+, consensual OCxOC relationship with [in other depictions, unhealthy] BDSM overtones; rough sex, mention of Zenos (scars and injury), Estinien & Samantha being actual animals. Otherwise fluff and feelings.  Many POV shifts, mostly wide third-person POV with eyes belonging to: Raphael, Minfilia, G'raha, Estinien, Aymeric, and Samantha (WoL).

- - - - - - - - - -

- ✧ ☄ ☽ - 

Rain pit-pattered the window.

She swallowed the breath of fragrant mist rising from her teacup—took a scalding, half-steeped sip.  Past the glass, out in the garden, the rosebushes hung their pretty red faces, the downpour making the blossoms gleaming and leaden.

A hum from his desk—that soft, commanding timbre—and she looked up as though summoned or beckoned.

Bewitched, bedazzled, besotted.  

He was thumbing through papers, grim-faced, unsmiling.  

“Come,” he murmured.  He sounded tired.  The word fell from thinned lips like a drop of cool water from storm-laden petals. She rose from the armchair; padded, barefoot, past polished wood floors.  Her long nightgown whispered behind her, a white, frothy slip of a thing—a gift from him.

He stirred at the sound of her subservience.

When Raphael Lemaitre lifted his eyes, Rosalyn Floravale was lost in them.  They were green and golden and haunted with hazel, arcane and enchanting as the aurum of his hair.  He wet his lips and tipped his quill in its stand; pushed his chair from the counter to allow her to perch in his lap.  “Sit.”

Her heart stuttered with butterfly flutters as she climbed astride.  He allowed her one rare moment of abandon, to stroke her hands through his long, flaxen hair.  She pulled it loose of its ribbon.  “You look tired,” she said, timid fingertips tracing his resplendent cheekbones.  She cupped the sharp angle of his jawline; kissed the side of his mouth.  “Let me help.”

He wrapped her wrist in his hand and closed his eyes.  Raphael turned his face to press the hard slash of his mouth against the lines of her palm, the arch of his regal nose caught between her fingers.

“You always do,” he whispered.  It was quiet enough to vanish—to disappear into the grumbling of the rainfall and the wind.  Whether she heard him or not, before he could intercept it, she snatched the bridge of his glasses.  Through his defenses slipped the first flicker of a grin; she cackled as he slipped very cold, very clinical fingertips up the front of her chemise, stiff against her skin.  

Thumbs stained by ink moved directly to her breasts, his feather-light touch nonetheless kindling.  She arched to fill his hands; to beg him, silently, to cast aside pretense.  But Raphael Lemaitre was stern as a statue and nothing could sway him.  As always, he looked up through bronze lashes, knowledge implacable, a stronghold unspeaking, unsmiling, unyielding.  

After long hours lecturing students, he preferred quiet.

She writhed, impatient, in his lap.  He watched a moment in silence.  Hands primed for reading and writing moved, very slowly, down the outline of her body—found her hips and eased into a calculated shift.  Their bodies moved together, and an ugly cry tore from her lips.

“Shh,” he hushed, unlatching his belt.

She held her lip between her teeth to stifle all sound as she watched him.  Unbuckled, unbuttoned, he pushed the immaculate press of his trousers down just low enough to—

Her hot, greedy fingers snatched his length into her fist.  Always so hungry to take him, she hitched herself up, and he hissed to see she was bare beneath the nightdress—completely unhindered.

They were practiced.  So rehearsed, now, she knew the best fits of their bodies; made the frantic struggle of sex into something graceful and efficient.  Her desperation always left him breathless, and in the midst of that rainstorm, his dignified lips fell soundlessly open as she sank to sheathe him inside in one stroke, riding him, unruly and ruthless.

Had her eyes been open in the blinding breath that he filled her—had they been open, not closed for the thrill—she would have seen incomprehensible adoration in his face; the brief, broken instant his chiseled façade collapsed.  But the mask of power clicked back just as quickly—the need to restrain her, outlast her, and conquer.

She clapped her own palm over her own mouth to stifle her ragged cries and he kissed the valleys of her knuckles; let his eyes glitter like sunbeams in springtime.

Good girl.

- ✧ ☄ ✧ -

The Antecedent’s laugh caught, half-through her throat, and she stifled it.  

“What?” Thancred’s scoff was both merry and biting.  He stumbled to a halt, dragging the flabbergasted Hero beside him.

“The two of you look so—” Warde cut herself off.  “Forgive me—” Her sky-pale eyes glittered, filled with bald amusement. The Warrior—Samantha—pushed her dark hair back with both hands, a fiery blush on her swarthy, sun-blemished cheeks.

“Are you laughing at us?”

A giggle escaped the Antecedent’s lips.  She coughed back the cascade that threatened; pinned Waters with a gentle stare.  “My dear Thancred—stand aside, if you please?”

Both of her sentinel's ash-blond eyebrows rose and he lifted both hands, play-acting a couerl-burglar at knifepoint.  “Fair lady,” he drawled, reversing three paces.

Samantha watched in some blend of horror and unabashed fascination as Minfilia swept into the center of the room, reaching for her with unassuming, outstretched hands. “Allow me,” she offered, keeping her voice soft and tranquil, hoping it offered some solace.  “Our friend here of course is an unrivaled tutor, but—” and she prayed her eyes, then, were soothing.  Floravale was full of fire, but skittish, so much promise, so much wild.  “Ascilia remembers the basics far better.”

From her guardian, she felt the heat of his exasperated affection—stern and probing cross-examination—and passed him a heartening glance.  

Stay.  

Samantha crept forward, still possessed of that caged-animal stare.  “Ascilia?”

“My name,” she said, very quiet.  A tiny smile curled her lips.  “The true one.”

“But,” came the instantaneous mutter from the watcher, “If you so much as breathe an onze beyond this chamber—”

His interruption was disrupted.  “I trust her,” said Minfilia, holding the Warrior in her eyes.  Samantha had a fierce and determined appearance—a woman, to be certain—but despite over two epochs of namedays, the sorceress yet moved with self-doubt; exuded a muted and hushed lack of confidence that Ascilia, for all her abundant misfortunes, comprehended very well.

“That would be the Blessing,” offered Thancred, benevolently unhelpful.  

“No.”  Warde beheld Floravale with tender evaluation. They stood close, now; close enough to twine hands.  “Somehow,” she wove fingertips together; locked eyes, light to dark, “I would trust her regardless.”  Minfilia’s voice came out small and wondering, like a child.  

Samantha responded in kind.  “You would?”

Thancred cocked a resigned hip against the well-worn desk and sighed; watched as two would-be schoolgirls burdened by the weight of the known world swung into silent metronome rhythm, the Antecedent’s surefooted actions rendered clumsy by the Warrior’s ineptness.

Ascilia had been told, from the first of her years—admittedly mostly by Thancred, Twelve bless him—that the shine of her grin held the warmth to melt winters; that, perhaps, if she met all of Coerthas with her gladness, she could thaw even Dalamud’s harshest aetherical chill.

She aimed her finest smile at Samantha.

“I would trust you in twelve thousand lifetimes.”  She used her chin to point to their toes, and Samantha tripped across the floor to follow. “Excepting yon loitering observer,” another admittedly unnecessary glance to reassure him, “Rarely have I met a soul I found—so suddenly familiar.”

Samantha’s complexion was olive, dark-freckled, but not deep enough to obscure the hot red of her blush.  “I feel the same,” she babbled.  “Familiar, I mean—as though I knew you long before we ever met.”

Warde spun the two of them to trace the empty Solar.  “Marvelous,” she said gently, and Thancred’s eyes followed them both, serene and tempered.  “We might make a proper friend of you yet.”

Minfilia pretended not to notice how her partner’s breath stoppered—looked away as Samantha cast a nervous glance to Waters.  Warde was aware of the role he assumed on her arrival in Ul’dah; camouflaged the elation she felt at his aura of pride and protection.  So you adopted her as well, my secret-keeper.

"Scion and associate,” he grunted, feigning indifference—though the look in his eyes was anything but.

The Warrior huffed. “I would love nothing more than your friendship,” she muttered, and the words were rough but honest.  She was catching on to one bar of the dance—Tataru would be delighted.  “But—” She laughed then, nervous.  “How can I presume to join in?”  

Her dark, delving stare flicked to Minfilia’s—smoldering and shy.

“Why,” and the Antecedent lifted both arms to guide her in a pirouette.  “You join in the same as this.”  The Warrior twirled and her uneven skirts whirled in tiers to hug her calves, catching on the buckles of her blonde spinner’s boots, tickling the trims of leather-embellished leggings.

Rosalyn and Ascilia met each other eye-to-eye, the hybrid mage no small margin taller—

And then the woman the Antecedent hoped might fill the old soles of an Archon tripped all over herself and they were entangled, slip to surcote.  With an exaggerated sigh, Thancred bustled over to unravel them. “So much for hoodwinking the Syndicate.”

Above their sudden, wild laughter, Samantha barked.  “I trained in natural magick, not parlor tricks.”

Minfilia was breathless.  “I’ve been cured of misgivings.”

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

His tail swayed back and forth as he looked at the Tower.

There in the distant yawn of that crystalline throne room, the Void yet stretched—and there beyond, through that rift in time and space and aether, Nero—

G’raha Tia balled his hands into fists and squared his center of gravity; felt the heft of eons past and future ghost to settle on his shoulders.  There was something, something—something he was missing.

Something he yet needed to finish.

Like Nero, he hungered for Allag.  For all G’raha knew that his colleagues might deride him—the lash of Scaevan sarcasm was, after all, something far harsher than biting—he almost, quite often, related to the defector; met cold eyes the color of midwinter mornings and saw something brittle tucked behind them.

Brittle, and bitter—substratum primed to crack.

“Raha?”

The barest sound of her voice pooled to tug at his navel.  He turned before she could see the way the dense hairs along his tailbone stood up; loosed a casual grin like a mockery of an arrow.  “You found me.”

“Of course I—” In the darkness, she almost looked frightened.  The plucking sensation dropped inconveniently lower as she trudged up to glare down at his face, a worry line creased between her brows.  “You—” She pursed her lips and spluttered.  “After all that happened—” She flicked one frustrated hand toward the looming, glittering spire.  “Tell me before you run off like that.”

Oh, she was furious—furious and terrified.

For him.

Pleasure stirred in his heart and down between his legs before he could ignore it.  He raised his eyebrows.  “Worrying after me?”

She scowled harder. “You—” Her hands were balled into fists so tight he could see every ridge of her knuckles and half-gloves. “Of course I worry after you, Raha.”

A tremor itched down his back and he ignored the sudden, feral urge he felt to pounce. “As you see,” he said instead, gesturing to himself.  “Whole and hale.”

“Uncharacteristic,” she muttered.  She thrust out one hand, flexing stiff fingers.

He had the choice, then, to continue to rile her—but he wove them palm to palm instead, following back to the outpost.  A thrill marched up his spine as she all but dragged him to camp, his deepest, most animal instincts ecstatic to be chased and claimed.

He supposed he should have known, somehow, that things would shift—change being the crux of existence, the eternal pendulum swing.  But had he known, even after; even granted the gift of both foresight and hindsight, would he have picked another way?

When he thought of it centuries after, he remembered a mirage.  For what else could it be but delirium imagined, delusions he dreamt in the lifetimes he slept in the Umbilicus, the haze of his waking besides?

But wherever it came from, in no past, present, or future would G’raha rob himself of one memory: Her legs, a cage to bind him as he moved, slowly and carefully, inside.

- ☾ ❅ ☽ -

His growl was furious.  “Let me help you.”

She squirmed away from him like an eel but Estinien chased her; pinned her down with the obstinate weight of his body.  He was scalding hot, the gift he stole from Nidhogg affecting his temperature.

“Let go of me,” she growled, trying to kick him, but he curled in a way that placed his long frame at the advantage.  His right hand was encrusted with scales of obsidian, vaguely monstrous, and where he touched her a tickling miasma of aether descended.  Warped crimson and violet levin tangled down her body in gossamer cobwebs, and each felt the other flicker within—that strange place they were blended from sharing the Eyes—however swiftly her tenure had ended.

“Let me look at you,” he snarled, and just as the smoke of his eldritch magick found a crack in the light of her blessings, seeping in, he snatched her wrist in his hand and used the secret she taught him against her.

A cry tore from her throat—arse—and she crumpled, limp, to the blankets.  

Then, with the skilled and ruthless fingers of a hunter, he stripped her bare of skirts and bodice and shucked her free of her chemise, much like he might clean an antelope carcass.

It was rare that Estinien was shocked, but his eyes went wide on reflex at the sight of the wounds on her body—fresh tracks and puckered scars, no few left by Ame-no-Habakiri.  His scale-flecked thumb stroked a path by the lines left by the katana and he shuddered with a convulsion, consumed at once by rage.  Again, both could feel it curl within, an actual, aetherical connection.

Death, came the inward rumble, not from her, but from Estinien.

I will kill him.

She coughed out a laugh.  “Who can kill the unkillable,” she croaked, increasingly convinced that the prince was akin to a demon.  “That man defies all rational definition.”

“Slag him,” Estinien spat, physically shaking.  His eyes were frozen on the places stained by Doma, by Galvus—her flawed and magnificent skin— “How could you allow him—"

“I let nothing,” she hissed, the command of her magick returning.  She huffed a breath to transpose the fire building in her chest and it came out an icy mist.  “How could you allow Nidhogg?”

Hard, dark eyes caught her glare.  They were locked for a handful of hot breaths and heartbeats.  Estinien lunged, pulling the blow just before their browbones cracked together; nestling gently instead.  

His voice rarely hitched, rarely fractured.  “He told me to protect you,” he whispered, and in the depths of it she heard something shatter; a glacier’s melting edge.

Aymeric.

“You are,” she rasped, both hands on his face.  “You do. You did.”

Thought evaporated. Tussle turned to whispers turned to snapping and biting.  His clothes were gone, saltwater on his face.  The source of the tears hardly mattered.

Samantha hooked her knee around his haunches, tossed her head back, and howled.  

- ☾ ✧ ☽ -

The canopy of the Twelveswood swayed above.  

He laughed, and a cackle of crowcall escaped her.  “And here I thought,” she rasped, hoarse, “The Lord Commander was not the type to be prevailed upon.”

A crooked grin twisted his lips.  He hooked his elbow to buttress her back; dipped her low so that the gleaming, star-white fringes of her blanched-bright hair swept almost to the ground.  “But you, my Hero,” he exhaled, “Are prevailing.”  He whorled her upright and was gratified to find her grinning, broad and breathless.  “And I of course admit a certain bias in the case of our affairs.”

She unfurled against his arm and tossed her head; barked another wine-drunk chortle at the stars that glittered far above the boughs.  The lamplight cast the stern angles of her face into shadows impossibly softer, framed by the intermittent pinprick-incandescence of fireflies.

Like them, her splendor shone foremost from within.

“Impolitic,” she teased him, “For a statesman to play favorites.”  And then, without warning, she was deadweight in his hands. The Warrior of Light dragged the Speaker of Ishgard down to dewy cushions of moss and leaf-litter; jerked her chin toward the bottle long abandoned.  “And to ply a weary Scion with drink, nonetheless.”  She quirked a brow.  “Are you trying to intoxicate me, Ser Aymeric?”

He was smiling down at her, beguiled—hers, helplessly, always.  “Not on drink,” he murmured, brushing the tips of their noses together.  “Though I concede I misjudged the—vigor of this vintage.”

She snorted and dissolved into guffaws, and he held her, amused and admiring.

His design was elaborate—ambitious and, to his horror, slightly extravagant—from aperitifs with her parents, to the banquet in the ballroom, to this tour of girlhood haunts and havens, he had plans.

But let her this moment, his skipping heart warbled.  This breath of freedom from Norvrandt.  

Your grandiose suggestions can wait.

- ☾ ☄ ✧ -

He held his frame at an angle away from her.

Distant.

“Close the door,” she begged again.  The Exarch met her stare through copper lashes, the side of shrewd, slitted eyes, and the Tower itself seemed to inhale.  There was a long, gravid pause.

Then, very sudden, very quiet, the access to the Ocular clicked shut.

And they were alone.

The Exarch—G’raha—gripped his right arm like it pained him.  She reached for it on impulse.  “Let me help you.”

It should have been easier, to look and see a friend.  But it was hard to reconcile—to dissect him from her trials in Norvrandt—to blend the ardent young scholar with the venerable, cryptic old man.  Even as he turned and opened his posture to her—even as she took him by the shoulder, the shape so familiar—he was something slightly else. “Samantha—” The richness of his very timbre was darkened, subtly altered, the Exarch ancient in ways that G’raha Tia only wished to understand.

“No.”  Her low voice echoed hoarsely in the room.  “Don’t dispute it.  Don’t speak to me of debts or death or some other damnation imagined.” His right shoulder was hard as granite. She dug in her fingertips.  “You don’t deserve to suffer, Raha,” she muttered. “You never did.”

His face was serene and impassive.  But as she watched—as she poured healing aether through his fractures, letting it slip between the tectonics of him and the Tower—something cracked.

Strong arms hooked the small of her back, his stature humble but packed, dense and deceptive, with power.  He crumpled with a breath and turned to crush his face against her shoulder.

“Say it again.”

Shocked from focus, her spell fizzled—but her grip on him tightened.  She hugged him, hard.  “You never deserved it,” she rasped, one hand cradling his neck.  “Not one bit.”

The hard tips of his crystallized fingers caught between the layers of her bodice.  The breath he took rattled his body.

How long they stood and swayed there was unknown.

- ☄ -

The spell to shield her aether was proving easier to weave, but whether it was effective was a question only Estinien could answer.

It was late by the time she reached the Manor.  Snow fell in flurries, all but stopped, and she took her time shedding her layers, sneaking into the foyer so as not to wake the—

A breathy laugh, far down the hallway.

She froze and craned her neck.  A dim glow from the direction of the parlor.  Sweeping back her hair, now damp with melted snowflakes, she tiptoed down the vaulted corridor, ears peeled for—

“Fury bless it.”

Aymeric’s laugh, again.  “You keep too much tension in your shoulders.”

A grin curled her lips in a reflex like breathing and she picked up her pace, keeping quiet. The heirlooms and artifacts stored on the walls seemed to watch and adjudicate as she crept to the archway, peeking in.

There in the parlor, limned by firelight, the two most eminent figures of her Ishgard were dancing.

Estinien swayed away from his partner, long torso bared to the hips, garbed in ash-colored slacks that hugged his thighs too tightly—a pair nicked from Aymeric, no doubt.  And the lender himself was dressed all in black, the high neck of his collar offering only the barest glimpse of alabaster throat.

Quiet and clandestine, she leaned against the frame, watching as the two of them simpered.

“Poor form,” crooned the lord of the house.

“My arse,” came the clapback.  

With lupine grace, Estinien slunk back, snatching Aymeric’s wrist.  A wicked smirk curved Borel’s beautiful mouth as he followed. “That, I assure you, is formed quite correctly.”

And then Estinien laughed.  It was a raw, candid sound—wide and rambling as the grin on his lips.  At the gleam of his teeth, a wild, uninhibited rapture surged through her, and she realized with a start—

It did not belong only to her.

Before she could think to escape, a hard, towering body barreled for impact.  “You little rat,” Estinien growled—and she caught a glittering wink in his right earlobe as she was lifted from the floor, hefted easily over his shoulder.

She slumped and twisted to find Aymeric watching, smiling bright.  “Ignore me,” she insisted.  “Keep bonding.  I have a mind to go to the—”

But Estinien was already carrying her up the stairs.  “You smell like—” She could hear his nose wrinkle.  “Too much of those damned Lakeland lilacs and not enough like me.”

She huffed. “Last I checked, the world was not, in fact, compelled to smell Wyrmbloodian.”

Trailing behind by several paces, Aymeric followed, laughter lighting the ice of his stare. He pushed the rook-black curl from his eyes and fixed her with earnest attention.  “Welcome home again, beloved.”

Home, again, to stay.

- ☾ ☄ ✧ -

[jazy3]

Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 16X15

Oh boy were there a lot of twists this episode! Wowza! I really loved Meredith’s voiceover in this episode! It feels like this season they’re getting back to expressing more of what Meredith is feeling through the voiceovers. In this one she talks about her childhood in Boston and about what snow days mean to different people. How her mother hated snow days, but that she loved them and would always run outside and how everything felt magical and new. 

But that as beautiful as snow is it does eventually start to melt and then you’re standing in slush frozen and unable to feel anything at all. But that after enough time the slush disappears too as the ground begins to thaw, the days get longer, and though you could never imagine it you start to feel again and how it surprises her every time. I kind of thought they might do a voiceover like that when introducing Meredith’s new love interest and it turns out I was right!

All the scenes with Meredith and Cormac were amazing! Oh my god I love them together! They fit so well! They have so much in common! I love that they’ve become friends first before jumping into anything. I also love the set up of Meredith helping Hayes move forward. I love that Meredith has found someone she can talk to about losing Derek, moving forward, being a widow young, and raising a bunch of kids as a single parent while running a department while being a world class surgeon and doctor.

I love that her and Cormac are friends and that they both know that there’s something more there, but they’re not ready to do anything about it and that’s okay. They’re friends and they’re getting to know one another and building a relationship over time. I loved the scene in the OR when they talked about Mer almost losing her medical licence and how Cormac said that he ran away with his boys to Switzerland after his wife died. Meredith laughed and he was all confused and then she explained that she did the same thing after Derek died when she moved her kids to San Diego for a year. They have so much in common and I love that.

I also love that they established that while they share a lot of firsts Meredith’s gone through something that Cormac hasn’t yet which is dating after death. Derek’s been gone for roughly 5 years now give or take and in that time Meredith has started dating again, had flings, had relationships, kissed, slept with, had sex with, and woken up next to other men that weren’t her husband. She’s been forced to have the talk with her kids about her about dating again and dealt with everything that comes along with that.

Cormac on the other hand hasn't kissed or dated anyone since his wife died two years ago after a slow, long, and painful battle with cancer. I’m excited to see this storyline play out and I really hope that we get to see Cormac and Mer work through some of the stuff she went through with Thorpe and Riggs when she first started dating again. I also like that they’re not pushing it with this relationship. They’re building it slowly. First they butted heads. Then they started over. Then they slowly gained a mutual respect and admiration for each other. Now they’re friends and colleagues.

They’re taking it slow and I love that. We’ve never actually seen Meredith ease into something. She always jumps in head first and it always crashes and burns as a result. I’m excited to see her try something new with someone whose been through some of the things she’s been through and can understand her perspective and experience and where she’s coming from. The scene at the end in the snow was my favourite. 

I love that little smile she gave him at the end like ‘I could do something about this now, but I really shouldn’t and I don’t trust myself so I’m going to go home and deal with this later.’ Love it! I loved how Cormac slowly came to the realization about who Cristina was talking about when she referred to Dr. Evil Spawn and her Twisted Sister. Hayes is figuring it out! Not everything is as it seems. Cristina didn’t hate him or Alex and she did talk about Meredith. He just didn’t realize it at the time. I loved the scene at the end where Cormac brought it up and Mer was like ‘That’s me!’ Haha!

I loved the scene at the end with Cormac and Meredith in the snow for so many reasons. I loved how Cormac asked her what DeLuca was to her and she said that he was one of her firsts. He was the first person she said ‘I love you’ too after her husband died and she wants to help him because he’s clearly suffering. Unfortunately, she can’t because you can’t help people who won’t help themselves or that don’t want your help and she has to let Carina take it from here. He was one of her firsts on the list of things you have to deal with after the love of your life dies. But now that’s over.

I said this before and I’ll say it again DeLuca was a transition point. Thorpe was the first person Meredith slept with and woke up next to after Derek died. Nathan was her first real relationship after he passed. Nick Marsh got her to open herself up to the possibility of love again. Her relationship with DeLuca forced her to move forward. She said ‘I love you’ and the situation forced her to have conversations with her kids about her dating again. All of those things and all of those experiences brought her to where she is now.

Cormac is still at a place where he’s working on all of that and that’s okay. Because Meredith will be there as a friend to help him through it and eventually they’ll wind up together. She’s at a place now where she’s ready to move on and move forward with her life and date someone who’s in it for the long haul and who understands her experience and with whom she can build and re-build her life. She’s come a long way. I’m glad that Meredith and DeLuca are really and truly over. I’m glad that Meredith can see that now and that Carina seems to have taken the lead with trying to get him some help.

At the very least the fact that he walked out into a blizzard without gloves or mittens like an idiot means he’ll be out of commission for the foreseeable future. Which means he’ll either disappear from the show altogether and then probably show up later to say goodbye or we’ll see Jackson treating him on and off over the next several episodes and then he’ll be written off. I thought they did a really good job in this episode of portraying DeLuca’s illness and the fact that he was unwell and not thinking clearly. 

Meredith and Carina are right to be concerned and DeLuca isn’t able to see it at all. His last comment to her about Alzheimer’s was cold, cruel, inappropriate, and uncalled for. I think there’s a really great parallel there between Derek and DeLuca in that Derek used to worry all the time about Meredith getting Alzheimer’s. The difference is Derek tried to do something about it. He tried to find a cure. There’s a line from an earlier season, I don’t remember which one, where Derek is talking to one of the other characters, I think it’s Owen or maybe Richard, and he says that every time Meredith forgets her keys he panics especially when they’re in her hand or her purse.

He worries about her and actively tries to help. Derek could be a real asshole sometimes, but he loved Meredith very much and that love always underpinned everything that they did. And that’s the difference between someone who truly loves you and someone who just thinks they love you. Derek would never accuse Meredith of having Alzheimer’s or say something like that because he understood what that meant. DeLuca on the other hand is lashing out. When someone really loves you they support you and try to find ways to help. They don’t just say they love you and then use your past and your family history and your concern against you to make you leave.

The most shocking part of the episode for me was Teddy! Wow! I did not see that coming! When someone knocked on Tom’s door I expected to be Owen wanting to talk about his friendship with Teddy or an upset Amelia wanting to talk about Link and Owen. I did not expect it to be Teddy and I did not expect her to kiss him. Twist! I loved the scene when Teddy walked up to Maggie at work and said she respected her loyalty to Amelia and wasn’t asking her to betray anyone or anything or to lie but that she couldn’t shake this feeling that Amelia’s baby was Owen’s and so she asked her if she was crazy for thinking that. Maggie was very measured and said that no she wasn’t crazy.

I liked this exchange because Teddy voiced her concerns in a way Maggie could understand and then as a result Maggie was able to answer her in a way that got to the truth but didn’t involve her lying or betraying anyone’s trust. Teddy basically asked her, ‘Am I barking up the wrong tree here?’ and Maggie’s answer was, ‘No girl. You’re not. Trust your intuition. It’s right.’ In other news Bailey asked Joey to move in with them!!! Him and Tuck seem to be getting along great which is awesome! What’s not so awesome is the fact that Bailey didn’t tell Ben before she brought a whole kid home to live in their house. Kidnapping/Adopting children/babies without telling your husband seems to be this season’s theme! I liked that she showed him around the hospital and talked about all of the possibilities for his future.

The twist with the new resident actually being a patient got me! I did not see that coming! I’m glad that she did actually have some medical training though. She wasn’t going in blind. But still wow! I also did not see the thing with Richard coming. He has a tremor in his hand that may prevent him from operating. I wonder when that started. If it’s been happening for a while that might explain the way he’s been feeling, the signs of depression, the feeling of defeat, and the breakdown in his relationship with Catherine. On the other hand, all of that could have just been what it was and he’s just noticing this now which is why he’s been so depressed and defeated lately.

This poor man. He married Adele who he loved, but constantly choose his work over her. He had an affair with Ellis and had a great love in his life, but chose his career over her out of professional jealously. She eventually got Alzheimer’s and died. Then Adele got Alzheimer’s and died. Then he got together with Catherine and they got married and then she got cancer. He’s almost lost his career multiple times due to his alcoholism, being a dry drunk, and relapsing. He found out he had a daughter he never knew he had. Meredith came back into his life and he was plagued with guilt over what happened and has tried ever since to make amends. Then he gets fired by his protégé from standing up for her while his wife sat by and did nothing.

He starts over and goes to work at Pac North and works hard to turn the place around with Alex and Owen. Then he loses his niece at Maggie’s hands. Then Catherine convinces herself he’s having an affair when he’s not and then just to spite him she buys Pac North out from under him and tries forces him to go back to work under her terms. And now that he’s finally back in the OR at Grey Sloan where he belongs on his own terms he’s developed a tremor in his hand. Which means he won’t be able to operate like he used to. This man never catches a break. Richard has screwed up in a lot of ways and made a lot of mistakes, but what I like about his character most is that he’ll go to any length to fix them and he has. If Catherine can’t see that it’s her loss.

I’ll be interested to see where they go with this storyline. I mean on the one hand Richard has been threatening to retire since Season 1 y’all! On the other hand a tremor is very serious and there’s no way after operating drunk and everything he’s been through that Richard would put his patients at risk like that again. I can see this going a number of ways. They might have him do a similar thing to what Ellis or Nicole Herman did which is continue to teach and train new doctors and lecture but not operate. Or they could have him straight up retire, but I feel like if they were going to do that they would wait until the end of the series. It’s possible this might be a set up for the end of Richard’s story next season.

I hope that he tells Meredith and Maggie what’s going on as they’ll definitely want to know and support him. I think Meredith will be devastated. Bailey will be too. I’ll be interested to see if that patient/resident shows up again. Maybe next season? No wonder Levi couldn't find her the whole episode. She was impersonating a doctor! On that note I think Levi and Nico are over. Levi wants more. He wants a relationship and Nico isn’t in a place to give him that right now. Levi back tracked because he panicked and didn’t want to lose him, but I think he knows deep down that they’re over. This is the beginning of the end.

We also got some more information on Alex in this episode. At the beginning Meredith texted him asking where he was and saying that she knew he wasn’t in Iowa. Later Hayes complained to Meredith about how his supposedly great co-chief had suddenly gone MIA and couldn’t even be bothered to show up for his former patient’s family. We find out that the little girl Cormac and Meredith are operating on is the sister of one of Alex’s old patients. Then at the end of the episode Jo is at home drinking alone when she hears someone at the door. Jo and the audience are made to think it’s Alex, but it’s not it’s Link.

We find out that Jo finally called Helen, Alex’s mother. It turns out he’s not there and he never was. Which means either he lied about where he was going or he was on his way to visit his Mom and something happened. Jo because of everything she’s been through panics. She tells Link that she thinks that Alex has left her. That he felt the need to escape his life and so he lied and just took off. But as everyone else has been telling her for weeks that’s not like Alex. Alex is not the kind of person who just walks away ever. And Meredith’s not buying it either which means something is definitely wrong.

There’s a lot of ways they could go with this storyline. I’ve been wondering why they didn’t do a big send off right away and I have a theory now. I’m thinking that maybe the reason they decided to draw it out was because they had to get a bunch of other storylines in place before writing him off. You can see very clearly where Alex was supposed to fit in the current storyline and in order to write him off they’ve had to adjust all of that and then set everything up for his departure. While we’ll never know for sure what those storylines would have been if Justin Chambers had stayed for the rest of the season here’s what I think would have happened. I think they wrote Alex being in Iowa to visit his Mom initially as a plot device.

Jo stealing that baby is only shocking if Alex isn’t there. I think the original plan was for Alex to come back and for them to adopt that baby or another child together. With Pac North being shut down we would have seen Alex come back to Grey Sloan with everyone else and Co-Chief with Hayes. We would have seen him join together with the rest of the gang and rise up against Koracick and join with Meredith and Richard to help Bailey through her miscarriage. I think he also would have been there for Maggie through what happened with Sabi and Amelia with what happened with Link.

I like to think that if Justin Chambers had stayed that Alex and Cormac would have become friends. Cristina sent him and Jo and Amelia like him and see a chemistry between him and Meredith. As Co-Chiefs they would spend a lot of time together and after an initial rocky start, I think they would have become friends. I’m sad that we’ll never get to see any of this, but I respect the right of an actor to move on. As for how they’re going to write Alex off I have a few theories. Theory 1, is that he was on his way to Iowa to visit his Mom when something happened. I’m guessing they might do something similar to Derek’s death where we’ll find out that he stopped at the scene of an accident to help people and died in the process.

Typically, when that happens the authorities would contact Jo or someone would have answered her or Meredith’s calls and texts by now. They could explain this by saying he got separated from his wallet and phone i.e. it was in the car that got wrecked or they found his body a distance away from the car. Theory 2, is that he did go visit his Mom in Iowa, but stopped on the way there to visit his siblings Aaron and Amber. Last we heard Alex had to have Aaron committed presumably to a facility somewhere in Iowa and Amber was doing okay and has a least one kid.

This could explain why he didn’t pick up Richard’s phone call but sent him an emoji response, but then went radio silent. That emoji text was the last in character response any of the characters got which makes me think that whatever happened to Alex happened after that. Maybe he was on a plane or driving so he was unable to pick up the call, but was able to send a quick text back. It’s also possible that one of his siblings has or had his phone. Maybe he went to visit Amber and he was in another room so she listened to the voicemail and responded for him. He talks about what a mess Pac North is all the time so it wouldn’t be that hard to respond for him.

Or maybe he set it down and Aaron picked it up. He was really unstable the last we heard so it makes sense that if he has or had the phone that the responses would be off. Of course, none of that explains why he hasn’t called the hospital or Meredith or Jo directly using someone else’s phone which leads me to believe that someone has happened. Last episode we saw Meredith text him and the ellipses text pop up and then disappear. It was implied that Alex started to respond, but then stopped. I think they’re faking us out here. Alex would never do that.

I’m guessing that someone else has his phone. It could be that something horrible has happened to him and that Amber has his phone and is trying to find the words to tell his wife and best friend that she’s never met that he’s gone. It could be no one has his phone and that it’s sitting in a plastic bag in a hospital or morgue somewhere and that someone hit it accidentally while transporting it. There are a lot of reasons why all of this could be the case, but Alex just abandoning his life after he called Meredith every day when she did the same thing is not one of them. There’s no way.

We find out in this episode that Link has apparently been sleeping in the Attending’s Lounge and forsaking hygiene as he’s worried about Amelia. Owen is still completely in the dark. Teddy realize that Amelia’s baby might be Owen’s and that a part of him will always be in love with Amelia and Cristina for that matter so decides to go back to Tom and make out with him in his hotel room instead. Maggie’s caught in the middle, but is handling it better than she did the first time around so that’s good!

And it looks like we are finally going to find out what happened to Alex next week! Oh my god! I’m not ready! I’m not ready people. Alex Karev is one of my favourite characters of all time! Right next to Cristina Yang! I love Cristina as a character because I identify with her so much. I love Alex as a character because he’s had the best most realistic growth and character development of any character ever! One of the things I love about him is that he stopped being an ass because he realized the women in his program were lapsing him and he needed to ditch the attitude if he wanted to succeed. In real life that’s how change actually happens and I love that they showed that.

The entire promo for next week is a clip show about Alex. It shows the opening scene from the pilot with Richard and all the interns. Meredith, Alex, Cristina, Izzie, and George AKA MAGIC hanging out in the tunnels. Alex becoming Interim Chief of Surgery of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. Scenes of Meredith and Alex and Cristina and Alex together. The disastrous dinner party where Penny showed up. Meredith helping Alex get ready for his trial. We see Meredith and Alex talking about being each other’s person after Cristina moved to Switzerland. Alex being there for Meredith after the attack. Alex being there for Bailey. Alex watching Jo go in for psychiatric treatment.

We hear Meredith’s phone call to Alex from Season 13, “They’re were five of us and now it’s just you and I and it can’t be just me.” The text reads ‘After 16 Seasons we’re saying goodbye to Dr. Alex Karev. See how his story ends.’ I’m not ready! The song that plays is ‘Say Something’ by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera. The lines they use for the promo are all about love and how they’re sorry they couldn’t get to someone or reach them. Oh my god. Good lord. I’m already upset. And now I have that song stuck in my head gosh darnit!

Until next time!

[vaultofqueenorion]

It is time to introduce you all to my favorite series of all time by my favorite author of all time, that is the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. 

This also means that the whole review will basically be one giant hype-train, even if I will keep spoilers to a minimum. 

So let’s take a deep dive into the story of Adarlan’s greatest assassin, Celaena Sardothien, the most sassy character that I have ever met, and one of the badass women in the series.

The Title

The title is dramatic, it’s got flair, and it also portrays something entirely terrible that had me actually getting chills when I started reading about the villain of the story. 

The castle is made completely of glass. That doesn’t seem particularly practical you say? Well you would be right, and Celaena would agree with you. It’s extravagant, just like the nobles of Adarlan who give no thought to the people that the King of Adarlan has oppressed for a while now. 

It’s also kind of the perfect metaphor for Celaena - extravagant and beautiful, but hiding a fragility, a fear that could bring it all crashing down. 

The Characters

See Celaena might be the Adarlan’s (and maybe even the world’s!) greatest assassin with blood on her teeth and a sharp tongue, but there are hints to her fear, to her utter self depreciation and escapism throughout the whole book.

She is, simply, a hero who doesn’t want to be one.

It’s quite aptly summed up in the picture above. She doesn’t believe that she’s fated for anything - not after having been through what she’s been through. 

But she puts on a mask and smiles through it all, ridiculing those around her and lavishing in the finer things in life. 

This was one of the things that made me connect so much with her (not the lashing out part, the hiding your true self part - the fear). Her past has left her so broken, so afraid of failure and of the world around her that she simply stopped trying to save it all. 

And yet.

Because as the above shows, she still does save people. She saves a puppy from being killed for being the ‘runt of the litter’, and she saves a man from falling to his death. She keeps saving those around her, keeps trying even after she says that she’s done.

Even though she has troubles surviving on her own as it is.

That’s also what’s so interesting about Celaena - she manages to be vibrant while hopeless, kind while self-preserving. She’s a full-blooded killer, but she doesn’t kill those who don’t deserve it. There are so many opposites within her, and they all serve to make her an incredibly fun character to follow. 

She’s also very flawed, and she’s got a horribly fiery temper that leaves her with thoughts such as the ones below.

See? That’s not the voice of a kind and soft spoken woman. That’s the voice of a fighter that has walked through hell and yet still manages to come out the other side. 

A Nehemia so aptly puts it:

Her spirit remains as it once was - she is scarred and she is hurt, but she kept her defiance going. She kept getting up after being knocked down.

I think that is one of the things that had me relating to her the most. All of those feelings, all of the despair and fear and pain and yet she still manages to get onto her feet one more time after she gets knocked down.

Celaena is a hero who had me getting back on my own two feet long after I finished her story. 

Nehemia is the second character that I want to talk about. The princess of Eyllwe, the land that the Kind of Adarlan has practically enslaved for their rebellion against his power, Nehemia Ytger is stuck in an enemy capital, walking around the torturer of her people at all times. And yet she still manages to keep her chin up, her spine erect.

She’s a powerful woman, the light of her people, and the dearest friend of Celaena. She’s fierce and Celaena has the idea that she’s fighting to free her people, even as she walks among her enemies, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 

She’s also the one to bail Celaena out at many points, their friendship deepening with each horrifying secret that they uncover. She’s clever enough to keep her things relatively hidden, but there’s also a hint of sadness to her whenever she talks about her people. As if she knows that she cannot ever do enough.

Chaol is the captain of the Royal Guard. He’s cold, he’s calculating and he’s suspicious of Celaena and her intentions. That is, until you get to know him. He can seem stand-offish - imagine an old grumpy man with a golden heart. The thing is that this old man’s heart (he’s young in the book btw, so don’t take the metaphor too seriously) has been encased in ice and it takes him a while to thaw.

He does, however, appreciate hard work, and I have the sneaking suspicion that he’s proud of Celaena after a while as she goes from hollowed out husk to powerhouse again.

The above is not a particularly nice part of the book, but it does signify their relationship at first. Chaol sort of tolerates her, he doesn’t really praise her, but he comes to care for her. A lot.

And it was really really nice to have a hero that had to be retrained again, because that is the most realistic thing that I’ve seen in regards to a hero who has come back from a long time of inactivity.

Dorian Havilliard, the Crown Prince of Adarlan, is a softie. At least he seems like that - naive, doesn’t go against his fathers wishes, womanizer. The standard douchey no-good straight guy who has it all.

It’s shown in the dumb question below (which makes Celaena have the most amazing response later on the page, but go read the book to see that one!).

Because Endovier is the Death camp. It’s been made to kill and to be unescapable. And yet he asks her the unthinkable. Celaena, with her sass and smart assery, gives the perfect response and her escape plan was almost perfect. 

Dorian learns, slowly, to stand up to his father. He learns what it means to care for someone other than himself and his best friend Chaol, and he actually seems to maybe not despise it, but at least rein back on the courtly stuff. But boy oh boy there’s a lot of character development here, and the potential is amazing.

The King of Adarlan was terrifying. He’s a peripheral character, most of the time, but he’s very much prevalent in all of their minds. Sort of a dark presence that never moves, never blinks, he seems to watch their every movement. 

He’s cruel, he’s dark and we have no clue how much he knows. That lack of knowledge is terrifying and it was nice to have a hero that actually feared their adversary rather than felt like they could defeat them, because Celaena, Dorian, everyone feels powerless against him. 

The quote below from Celaena is one that I am especially fond of.

Cain is ... wow. Don’t even get me started. He’s a brute and he’s just plain cruel for fun. I didn’t like him because he was a bully, but he was never that prominent for me. He was a villain like any other. 

Elena, who is another pretty good but also a bit meh character for me, warns Celaena of this regarding Cain and whatever is going on.

Elena is not a character that I will go into. She’s sort of the friendly ghost that hangs back and swoops in once in a while, and she seems to want to help Celaena, but you have to take a look at her for yourselves.

The Plot

Ever wanted to read a murder mystery slash assassing tournament slash love and friendship story that takes place in a fantasy world that once held magic but is now dried out? Then this is the one for you.

That is a huge simplification, of course, because reality is so much better. I was in suspense until the end - not about who was the evil one, but rather what is going on. There’s a whole level of suspense going on in figuring out what in the world is happening alongside Celaena, who needs to discover everything for herself.

And gosh. The whole retraining programme in which Celaena finally gets to eat like the noble she feels like, and the way she has her sassy spars with Chaol. 

Just everything.

Also the ball seen at the Yule ball is so worth it and her dress description gives me life.

Then we move on to the tournament. I was in love with the challenges and whenever one presented itself, my eyes were glued to the pages. The way Celaena can easily outmaneuver most of them, but she needs to keep it a secret is priceless.

Also the poison challenge in which the participants need to rank the poisons from the most deadly to the most harmless and then drink whatever they placed as ‘without poisons’ is amazing. Partly because Celaena actually doesn’t identify all of them, and partly because there is just so much confusion among everyone but one (who’s basically a poisoner) and when they drink it. Man did I enjoy watching all the characters that Celaena hated writhe on the ground before they could get the antidote.

Next comes the murders. They are gruesome and terribly well written, and the worst part is that no one can figure out what is doing it. Organs are removed, brains carved out and they are surrounded by strange marks. 

Of course Celaena finds out, which results in one of the most intense scenes in the book, which I very much loved.

The last part of the plot is the actual tournament. It is tense, and it is glorious. A hero who struggles so much at the end will always be appealing to me, and then the scene where she thinks I will not be afraid (below) is one of the most character defining moments for me.

Because that is who she is. She denies her fear room, she fights on through it, and she says that she is Celaena Sardothien, and she will not be afraid.

It gave me courage, too.

The Language

Gorgeous, stunning, fierce. Can I end the segment there? That’s not enough to convince you? Alright, then let’s take a deep dive.

This is my absolute favorite quote, so much so that I got a version of it tattooed, so the below is really the star of the book.

It’s got fate in it and it’s got power and it is so beautifully written that I am in awe. The fear part got me - that she is so powerful that she would be able to change the course of the world, but she is too afraid to do it, because of her past, because of the world around her.

Geez that hits right in the feels. 

The stars and darkness and unknown is a huge part of this book and there are so many beautiful quotes that it is hard to narrow it down. The thing is that while the characters carry the book, the language is paced perfectly with snippets of these gems hidden between the pages and it just makes you want to keep coming back, again and again and again.

I found myself trying to emulate her writing style after I had read it (I quickly dropped that again because I kept slipping back into my own style which is honestly the best), and it stuck with me long after I put down the book. 

In conclusion

Do you get the feeling that I could talk for days and days and days about this book? You are very much right. It is my all time favorite, and I devoured it whole in one sitting when I first got it. I simply couldn’t tear my eyes away from the pages and the wonderful world that Sarah J. Maas has built within. 

So do yourself a favor and check it out. I’ll be giving it five paws, in any case.