#(and peeling his orange that's very important to me)

[lisbonsteresa]

thinking about this a lot lately

[obae-me]

Would He Peel The Orange?

(I hope this hasn't been done too much already, but I really wanted to do it) So, if you've been in the same internet circle as I've been in, you probably know about this trend that's going around right now where people ask their partner to peel an orange for them. It's supposed to kind of signify your partner's willingness to do something important to you, even if it seems mundane or even inconvenient for them. So of course, I wanted to imagine what our favorite boys would do in this scenario.

Note: This is just for silly goofy times. A little ha-ha funny jape, if you will. Meaning not serious. If I think a character would not peel an orange, I don't think they're suddenly toxic or would not love the MC or anything.

"Could you peel an orange for me?"

Lucifer

To those of you who say he is too prideful to peel an orange for you, do I need to point out that he is the eldest sibling? Not only that, but he's practically a single mom. He has Sloth as the baby brother of the family. Do you think Belphie peels his own oranges? No! Lucifer probably cuts the crusts off of his brother's sandwiches for heaven sakes.

Is it heaven sakes or heaven's sake?... I actually don't know

However, I do think he would get suspicious, especially if you're trying to film his reaction. He would raise an eyebrow and know that there's something more to you just wanting an orange. Is this orange cursed? Is this a prank? You'll have to convince him it's perfectly normal before he straight up refuses.

Is he going to get up from his desk or move away from work to go grab you an orange? Probably not. But if you bring it to him, he will peel it for you, giving you a weird- and maybe slightly judging- look the entire time.

He will peel it very nicely, but you would have to take the peel back to toss yourself all while demanding to know why you have such a smirk on your face.

If you explain it to him, he'll definitely get a bit smug. "Who knew all it would take to prove my love to you was peeling an orange? If you needed some assurance, I would've gladly provided more for you."

He wins this one. He peeled the orange.

But...he might be asking his own favor from you later. So, minus one point for that, but they do say the devil dances in dealings, so...

7/10

Mammon

"Huh? Why do you need me to peel it for you, your hands broken or somethin'? I'm not your damn maid."

He is already peeling the orange. He is somehow managing to grumble and act like he's not doing it while he is in the process of doing it.

And if you don't have oranges on hand? Just give him any excuse to go shopping and he will take it. And not only will he peel those oranges, he'll buy them for you too.

And sure maybe he's a little ditsy and might not know what the difference between an orange, a tangerine, and a clementine is (they're all orange, dammit), but he will be buying you ALL of them just in case.

Listen, he's a man with impulse problems and an intense desire to be your number one demon.

Did he probably spend the next few hours in the store getting himself stuff as well? Probably, yeah. He see shiny, he get shiny.

But don't worry. He will peel you that orange.

And you will be eating an assortment of orange colored fruits for the next few days.

Is...this a peach?

9/10

Levi

If he's gaming, probably not. Some games can't be paused. And it's not even that he doesn't want to, he'll probably be glad to do so, but he'll do it once this round is over.

And then he'll probably forget. Which, fair, I do it too. You get into the zone and then six hours have passed. Sometimes the measure of love can't always be held behind an orange.

However!

If a controller is not in his hand and his mind is not occupied by several random colorful flashes, he might peel the orange.

BUT

If too many other people are around, he might get anxiety.

You know when you somehow manage to fumble peeling an orange? You can't manage to break the peel properly or you end up dropping it and looking like a fool?

If you've never had performance anxiety over peeling an orange, you... well that's actually really good, you must have a much more peaceful mind-- but it exists for us anxious people, okay?! It's too much pressure!

In the end, he's very situational! But that doesn't mean he refuses to peel you an orange! It would actually make him very happy to do that for you...

5/10

Satan

Very confused. Will ask too many questions before he does anything.

Are you hurt? Is the peel too tough for human fingers? If you're having a hard time using your fingers, why not get a knife or a tool to assist you? Why are you in his room rather than the kitchen? Is that not a waste of energy? What if he'd not been here, would you have wandered around?

He doesn't get it. He means well though.

He might get a little irritated, not so much at you as at himself. He feels like he's missing something.

Is this some form of human bonding? Are you afraid of the orange? What secrets does it hold?

He will peel it for you. He'll even put his book down to do so.

But please answer his questions, he can't find the logic in seeking him out just to peel a fruit for you. He can list off several other more efficient methods.

If you explain it to him, you'll see him visibly relax. So there was some deeper meaning.

Although now he might think that this form of act is some sort of love declaration. Prepare to have him peel and/or cut all your fruits from now on. Which... is actually kind of sweet. What a gentleman.

8/10

Asmo

No... with his nails?! Please. I've only worn fake nails like twice in my entire life, and doing anything like that with those little suckers hurts like hell. Why?? Tried to open a can once and thought my real nail would peel right off.

And even if he's not wearing fake nails, getting that pulpy orange peel underneath your fingernails?! Having the juice make your fingers all sticky? No. Awful. Bad texture. I've always headcanoned Asmo with texture issues, and if his are even close to being like mine, it's gonna be a no.

BUT

If you want an orange so badly, I can guarantee he knows all these cute little places around town that make delicious fruit selections! He'd probably go out and get you one of those beautiful and decorative edible fruit arrangements and make sure they somehow include lots of orange.

Or, if you don't want that and you just want a normal orange right NOW, he'll charm someone else to peel it for you, hon. Don't even worry.

And once it's peeled, to make up for not doing it himself, he'll be all to happy to feed it to you if you want him to. ~

Never underestimate the lengths he'll go to provide for you and himself at the same time.

6.5/10 I appreciate the hustle.

Beel

I... I mean... he's gonna eat it.

Love the man to death, but if you hand him an orange before you fully preface that it's yours and you just want it peeled, it's gone. He probably didn't even peel it before he ate it too. Probably just eats it like an apple.

But, but, but, he'll get you a new one. So please don't look so sad...

It might be best if you accompany him just in case, but he'll absolutely get you another one. Besides, he wants more himself now, that first one was delicious.

He'll gather a whole basket of oranges and you can share them together.

One slice for you...five for him. Another slice for you...

It make take a minute to get a full orange's worth, but it's about the attempt and the time spent. And he's technically actually peeling SO many oranges for you.

I'd also like to point out that I have actually written out a scene in one of my stories where Beel actually EXACTLY peels an orange FOR MC. WAY before this trend was a thing.

--Eventually he came across an orange, peeling off the wax shell meant to serve as extra preservation. Citrus flooded your nose. Your mouth actually watered at the scent, watching Beel strip the fruit before peeling it apart. A sniff, and then it was actually handed to you.

So he would! 100 times over! Even in my silly little side story where everyone is nearly on the brink of death and in a freezing wasteland, he would still peel an orange for you!

10/10 Minus one point for eating your orange first, plus one point for peeling you an orange in another universe.

Belphie

Y...yeah, no. No, he won't.

Or there's at least a very slim chance he will. He does get in weird moods sometimes where he wants to pamper you, but that's on his own terms and his own time.

He doesn't even peel his own oranges, as I previously stated in Lucifer's section.

If you just waltz up to him and ask him to peel it for you...there's a 95% chance he will not. Most of it being due to him being asleep. You would probably have a better chance trying to train him to peel an orange while sleepwalking. That might work. Would also probably make a good party trick.

But, he's weird at remembering details like this. Even if he doesn't act on it right now, it will be logged in his memory. You could mention something briefly once seven months ago and he'll bring it up to you and remember the conversation completely like it happened yesterday.

So, even if he doesn't peel the orange now, when he's in the mood, maybe after his nap, maybe the next day, maybe two weeks after in which you had forgotten it, he will bring you a peeled orange.

Either that or he'll do what Asmo does and make someone else peel it for you.

3/10

Diavolo

You want him to peel your orange for you? You mean... he gets to treat someone like that for once?! ABSOLUTELY.

He is all too happy to peel you an orange! This is like, groundbreaking for him. He gets to provide! Gets to hand you a tiny fruit, broken and prepared with his own two hands! Is this how Barbatos feels when he cooks?

How does one exactly peel an orange, though?... He's seen them whole like this before, but they're typically already in strips when he gets around to eating them.

Break the skin? What, like an egg?

Well...there goes your orange.

On the bright side, it seems he's very good at making orange juice.

But fear not! He'll have Barbatos bring another one!

Wait...look, see, they come pre-peeled. Oh...you mean Barbatos has been peeling all his fruits for him this entire time? He's never known the joyful luxury of unveiling and working for the literal fruits of his labor?! This will change today.

Get another orange, unpeeled, and he will do it himself this time!

It might take some personal discovery and some patience before he peels you an orange, but it will get done, he swears it!

11/10 Plus one point for wholesome life lessons and sheer determination.

Barbatos

An orange? Just a plain orange? If you wait just a moment, he could have an orange chiffon cake, or would you perhaps prefer some orange panna cotta? Orange Merengue pie? Pound cake? Made into a buttercream? A pudding? A sorbet? A sherbet? Served as a juice? Main flavor or just as a zest? Would you like a meal before dessert? Or he could always find healthier options for oranges? Would you like him to list of those options as well?

Okay, so... he overcorrects a little bit.

Bottom line is, he'd peel you an orange. He'd make an entire seven course meal based around oranges. Make it all the color orange if you'd prefer.

Like I said though, he tends to overdo it.

He falls into his royal butlery habits and misses the fact that this is supposed to be so important to you because it's so simple. Although it's cute the way an ever powerful ever perfect being can miss such a detail.

You might have to put your foot down a bit and not let yourself get carried away in the splendor. You just want this orange. This one orange, and if he could just peel it for you, that's all you want.

So he'll take his gloves off and peel it for you. He'll make sure all the extra little white strands are plucked off as well. And he double checks it for seeds.

Are you sure this is all you want? "I guess something so simple can often be taken for granted. I forget that sometimes."

12/10 He'll probably still end up making you several other orange treats and he learned a valuable lesson today. It's a win for everyone.

Simeon

Are you kidding me?

This man probably brought the orange with him. You probably didn't even need to bring it up! He's single dad with two one kid and a sorcerer. He's like that sweet mom who always has certain things on hand. Medicine? Bandages? Spare cash? Candy? Gum? He's got it. He puts the Guardian in guardian angel.

You want that orange? He'll peel that orange, you just hold on. Let's make sure your hands are clean. Use this hand sanitizer he brought with him. Here, have a granola bar while you're at it. Are you hungry? You didn't skip lunch, did you? Here, take this water bottle, you look a bit dehydrated.

Oh dear, and your hands feel so dry! Here, he brought some lotion.

This angel is 100% fully here for you. You are about to be so taken care of.

Not even oranges. You want your apples fully peeled and sliced? Got it. Want something pitted? He can do that too. He'd be willing to stain his fingers and clothes on a pomegranate for you. How is he doing this even outside of the house? Magic or something probably.

He'd pack you an orange in a cute little bag with a hand written note and a short poem.

This man is a real one.

100/10 He definitely thinks that LOL means lots of love.

Solomon

Are...you sure you know what you're doing? He will absolutely peel you an orange, but at what cost?

If you're not careful, not only will he peel you an orange, but he'll add some of his Special Solomon Spices to make your experience all the more... thrilling.

Quite like how thrilling bungee jumping in the dark could be...

Also, he might just try to peel it with magic, which, while nice of him, defeats the purpose of the entire test.

You'll have to specify he's to do it by hand, and keep an unblinking, ever-careful eye on him to make sure he doesn't 'enhance' the flavor.

But, all in all, he does it. Quite happily too, one might add.

Are you sure you just want an orange? He'd be glad to whip something up for you if you're feeling peckish!

You kind of... tempt fate with this one.

2/10 One point for wanting to peel the orange, one point for trying to go the extra mile. But... well... Will you survive is the thing? You might want to try to measure his love for you using different non-edible methods.

[luveline]

also if you’re still taking requests for some established relationship criminal minds fics…

could i possibly get spencer and his bombshell when she’s having issues with not getting as hungry as she usually does? like she eats her fill but her fill is less food than she normally eats? this is very self indulgent so feel free to skip 🙏

thank you for requesting <3 bombshell, fem

“Spencer, lovely?” 

Spencer believes that only occasionally do you use your powers of seduction against him. This stringing of words, Spencer, his name, rolling off of your tongue, and lovely, so quaint and said so nicely, how you’ve called out, that’s unintentional. That’s pure niceness. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, getting up to find you. 

The point of you staying at Spencer’s apartment is to see you, why isn’t he seeing you? (Dramatic. He invites you to spend time here because you want to and he wants you, and whatever you do while you’re here is fine by him.) 

You’re in the kitchen peeling fruits. A whole fruit salad, green and red apples cut in small slices like prep for an apple-sugar crumble, peeled tangerine, strawberries, pear, grapes. “Nothing is wrong,” you sing-song. “Wait, why do you think that?” 

“No reason.” He sweeps as much of your mountain of peels and off cuts into his hand as he can and carries it to his mini compost bin. This’ll take some time. “You did call me, though?” 

“Yeah, I want your opinion.” You slice through another strawberry.

Spencer cleans the last of the peels away, rinses his hands, and creeps up on you. “Why are you drawing this out? Is it an important question? Don’t be nervous,” he says, wrapping his arms around you from behind. Your shoulder is soft where he presses his nose. 

“It’s not important, I just wanna know if you think it’s okay to melt some chocolate and drizzle it over the fruit. Is that greedy? Am I gonna go into a sugar overload?” 

“That’s not greedy.” Spencer laughs softly, kissing your cheek. 

You pull away from him, but only to look at him with your own smile. It’s one he’s starting to know rather well, the I love you smile, fond and indulgent at once. It makes you look like you’re gonna pinch his cheeks. 

“You’re hungry, right?” you ask. 

“Yeah, I am.” It’s a lot of fruit. Spencer doesn’t know exactly why he says it at that very moment, but he suggests, “How about we make a little pot for fondue instead. That way if we don’t eat it all now we can put the fruit back in the fridge.” 

“You just want me to feed you,” you tease. 

Spencer hadn’t thought about it, but the image is a pleasant one. “Fondue was invented purely for dessert purposes at first, no seduction involved.” 

“Let’s involve it anyway.” 

He grins. “Before or after we eat?” he asks lightly. 

You tell him before in a way that reminds him that you aren’t just his best friend but his twin flame, drawing him close to you, your hands fragrant with orange rind and the sweet strawberry juice staining your fingertips. You take his face into your hands as he holds your waist, and when you kiss him, he smiles the entire time. 

“It wasn’t just chocolate,” he says, pulling away. “It was cream and cherry liquor, too.” 

“We should try it one day.” 

Spencer resists the urge to grab your face and squeeze your cheeks. “Yeah, we will.” 

He melts some chocolate and heats a small round dish in the oven. He pours the chocolate into the dish and you, impressed, sing his praises as you make some lemonade slush in the blender. It’s a fresh, cold snack for a warmer day. You take it in the living room with the window wide open and the drapes drawn back, sunshine at your feet. 

Spencer pulls you into his lap as much as you’ll allow him on the couch, the coffee table dragged to be in front of you, the TV remote held hostage under your arm. You dip a slice of apple into chocolate and offer it to him.

Spencer accepts it. He finds, as the bowl empties, the chocolate cools, that you don’t seem to eat very much. He slows his grazing in case he’s being greedy, but after what could only be a handful of fruit you’re done, curling into his side and hugging his leg. Your attention is on the TV but your legs wiggle restlessly.

“Is something on your mind?” he asks. 

“I don’t feel very hungry.” 

“That’s okay. It was a lot of fruit, angel, we can wrap it up.” 

“I feel like my appetite is awful lately,” you lament, sitting up to tip back across his lap, your shoulders to his thighs, looking up at him with a frown. “Do I look like I’ve lost weight to you?” 

Spencer holds your cheek. “I haven’t noticed anything, are you worried?” he asks, rubbing the softest part of your cheek with his thumb. 

“I guess it’s not a bad thing?” You wince. 

“It’s not a bad thing if you don’t feel hungry, but you need to eat. Maybe we can just switch to some dense food for a while. Protein bars and nuts, stuff like that.” Spencer leans down to tap your noses together. You laugh under your breath. “Do you want to lose weight?” he asks, frowning. 

“Not really. I’d prefer not to.” 

“Okay, good. You’re perfect like this,” he says. “We can just make sure you get your intake through whatever means necessary until we figure out what’s changed. Maybe you’re just changing. We can start having smaller meals throughout the day. It’s better for digestion.” 

You reach for a curl, twisting it around your fingers. “I have an appetite for you, at least.” 

“That’s corny,” he says. 

“You love it, though.” 

Spencer pushes the ‘diminishing appetite’ search results from his head. He can worry later, when you’ve been well and thoroughly kissed. 

[moonstruckme]

Hey! I know you wanted more requests for people besides the marauders so you can do this for anyone you like but maybe reader who is just soooo in love with them that anytime they do something nice for her she starts crying? Like happy tears because she's just so in love and she doesn't know how to express that. If you don't want to that's fine!

Hi, thank you! I decided to go with Sirius anyway because I felt like he'd be the most fun. (This is gonna be me btw, the first time I experience romantic love there's no way I'm gonna be able to handle it)

Sirius Black x fem!reader ♡ 1k words

“Do you think it’s a bad idea to show off my tattoos on the first day?”

“Mm, maybe,” you muse, looking longingly at the way Sirius’ inked-up forearms pair with his black dress shirt. “I feel like after the interview it won’t matter, but today you probably want to present your straightest-laced self.” 

“Gross,” he grunts, but starts rolling down his sleeves. 

It’s a rare sight, Sirius up before noon, but his job interview is scheduled for ten and he doesn’t feel in a position to negotiate. The frail morning light bounces off the full length mirror he’s standing in front of and illuminates the room as he purses his lips and starts unbuttoning his shirt. You’re lying on the bed watching him get ready, trying your very best not to look enthralled and wanton (it is a constant effort). 

“My most gorgeous, radiant angel, could I ask you for a favor?” 

You grin, warmth flooding your chest. “You don’t have to butter me up. What is it?” 

“Grab the bigger version of this shirt? I think I may want a baggier tuck.” 

You hum and get up, padding into the closet. Sirius’ clothes are all strewn over the floor and dresser, but miraculously the shirt you’re looking for is on a hanger. As you reach for it, you nearly trip over a small box on the floor. It looks like the shell of something Sirius was sent in the mail, plain cardboard with the shipping label torn off. You bring it back out with you. 

“Thanks, lovely,” Sirius says as he takes the hanger from you. 

“No problem,” you reply. “Want me to recycle this for you?” 

He turns to look, blinks, then looks harder. “No. Where’d you find that?” 

“On the floor.” 

“Must have fallen off its shelf.” He discards the smaller shirt on the bed and starts doing up the buttons of this new one, smirking when your eyes track the deft movements of his fingers. “Don’t throw it out, it’s got important stuff in it.” 

You weigh the box in your hand. “It feels empty.” 

“It’s got important, lightweight stuff in it.” 

You eye the barely-open flap of the box, intrigued. “Can I look inside?” 

You think you catch a flicker of hesitation across Sirius’ features, but it’s quickly schooled into insouciance. A vine of nervousness winds around your gut. “Sure,” he says, “go ahead.” 

You look at him a bit longer before slowly peeling back the cardboard flap. Inside is a mishmash of things. Paper, mostly, but you recognize one item immediately. It’s a flimsy, neon orange paper wristband, a venue’s name stamped haphazardly onto one side. At the first concert you’d gone to together, Sirius had griped endlessly about how the orange contrasted with his outfit horribly and brought out all the ugliest hues of his skin (there aren’t any, but you were too timid to tell him that at the time). He’d seemed desperate to be rid of it. But here it is, carefully clipped off instead of torn and preserved like something special. Something warm and weighty blooms in your chest. 

You take out one of the pieces of paper, unfolding it. It’s your handwriting, thoughtless scribbling you’d left for him to find on the fridge one day after you’d left for work. Have a great day, love you. 

Another is a bar napkin, containing a whole back-and-forth exchange between you and Sirius from the first time you’d met his friends. You’d kept passing it to him under the table, asking Do they like me? Are they just being nice? Is Remus always so frowny? and he’d passed it back saying Yes. Yes, they love you. James is this nice to everyone, but I can tell he likes you. Remus is being a sourpuss because he hasn’t eaten yet. You’re perfect. 

By the time you come upon a polaroid you’d forgotten he’d taken of you in his kitchen, you’re pressing your lips together to keep them from wobbling and your entire being feels warmed by incandescent, aching fondness. Your heart feels so big you can’t breathe around it. You’re not sure you have room for this much love, but you’ll happily carry it around like a weight in your chest for the rest of your life. 

You’re all too aware that Sirius is watching you now, so you try to keep it together for his sake, but when you blink a tear slides down the side of your nose. 

“Hey,” he chides lightly, amusement inlaid with a bit of panic. “Don’t.” 

You sniffle, then laugh wetly. “Can I hug you?” 

Normally he might make a joke (Not if you’re going to get snot all over my interview shirt) but something in your expression must sway him, because Sirius’ eyes go soft. “Yeah, baby. Of course.” 

He doesn’t make you get up, crossing the distance to the bed and wrapping you up in his arms. You let out a little sob at the contact. 

“I’m gonna clean off your shirt once we’re done,” you promise, gripping his shoulders. 

“Okay.” He sounds amused. 

“I just—I didn’t know you kept this stuff.” 

“It’s cheesy.” 

“It’s not,” you insist, hugging him tighter. It makes you happy beyond words, to know you’re bringing this out in him. To see, with your own eyes, how much he loves you back. You can check in with yourself at any time and know you’re happy in your relationship with Sirius, but you never could have imagined how spectacular it would feel to know that you make him this happy in return. “It’s special, Sirius. You’re special.” 

“James’ mum used to tell me the same thing.” 

“Oh, shut up.” You smack his arm, pulling back with a huff. You’re smiling, though, and he sees, taking your wet, blotchy face between his palms and grinning at you. Honestly, if he weren’t Sirius Black, he’d be such a dork. 

“I love you,” he says, a significance in his tone that contradicts the playfulness in his expression. “Do I let you forget it?” 

“No,” you tell him. “You don’t, it’s just…I just really love you too, you know?” 

His smile spreads, flashing canines the second before he pulls you in for a kiss. It’s firm and spirited, and Sirius holds you there until you’re laughing into his mouth. 

“I know,” he says, pecking you once more on the lips before letting you go with a swipe of his thumbs across your cheeks. “Alright, gorgeous, clean me up, would you? I’ve got other people to go impress.”

[tojisun]

you're breaking my heart with him who we love and i absolutely adore it!!!! (っ◔︣◡◔᷅)っ ❤

may i ask what johnny (and maybe even simon?) would do if reader - after feeling left out for so long - finally decided to move on and/or find someone else? maybe she gravitated towards kyle and/or john bc they’re sweet and gentle with her and her affection is finally being reciprocated?

and please feel free to ignore this if it doesn't interest you. no pressure at all!

ohn my god no bc im so so glad so many of u are brainrotting w me again about 'him who we love' <33 i could not stop thinking about it on our way home yesterday

!! vague descriptions of an injury and an attack; mentioned callsign for reader but its not important!!; and its so so rambly so do forgive me ): // divider by @/plutism <3

id love to see this happen after that mission mishap with simon and the reader. it takes an explosion; an acrid burn peeling his flesh from his back and you sewing him together with such vitriolic desperation that ghost almost, almost, felt bad for the way he’s treated you; and an apology murmured from the softest lips he’s never really noticed for simon to—

feel his chest twinge.

the denial sits on the tip of his tongue, razor-sharp and blisteringly sour. it waxes, and simon heaves from something more than the pain burrowing deep into his being. he trembles from something that isn’t the agony he feels for returning to johnny as more of a ruined man who is unable to bury the fear of anything that is set ablazed.

(he remembered the day when he finally came to, groggy eyes peeling open before snagging a fracture of liquid orange—fire, his mind screamed, pulsing because: i’m not gonna be able to come back—and lurching out of the bed only for his body to collapse, and he fell with a choked yell, pain blooming from all of his synapses almost like a beast coiled deep into the fabrics of his very existence.

you ran into the room, yelling his name, and something about the way your voice was so raw with worry and anguish, simon was able to calm down. almost like a part of him realized he was safe now, with you; like it knew that you wouldn’t let anything happen to him, not then and not ever.

while you helped him back on the bed, he turned his head to try and see what it was that set him off—

simon’s breath hitched, his eyes straining as a lump lodged itself into his throat because it was—

the fire was—

it wasn’t fire.

there, bouncing off a glass vase, were serpentine rays of the afternoon sun rippling across the walls and bathing him in warm light.

“is there, uh, something you need?” you asked, trying not to hover but unable to truly leave him be.

simon swallowed, running his tongue on the back of his teeth, before murmuring, “shut the curtains.”

you turned to the windows, your brows furrowed, and simon clenched his teeth, bulldozing through the shame curling in the pit of his stomach and added, “please.”

you did what he asked without prodding, and simon swallowed down the rawness of his vulnerability, watching you with something pretty fluttering in his chest but he tried to stomp it down because—

he despises you, remember? so why…)

but the feeling bloats and simon spends the rest of the exfil in silence, watching you—he’s always been watching—but this time it’s without malice. instead, it’s with bubbling interest, pushing at the back of his mind, and rising ever so slightly like a tide.

he thinks of johnny, of the way mactavish had danced around the idea of something more with the three of you, and finds that he’s not too opposed to it anymore. instead, he looks forward to the change.

-

no sooner after the bird touches down on the base, price pulls you into his office. simon’s been wheeled into the sick bay and was stranded there, doctor’s orders, so he only learns about what happened later into the night when mactavish finds him, sorrow so heavily etched on his face.

“tavish?” he asks, ignoring the way his voice comes out as a croak. “what happened?”

“hyde’s gone,” johnny says, slumping into the seat beside simon’s bed and burrowing his head into his palms. “they apparently requested to be assigned somewhere else. cap’n won’t say where.”

“when?” he asks although simon can’t even feel himself move, his mind trying to reconcile the events that happened because there’s no way this occurred in the fly; not when, he remembers, you looked so resolute on the way back like you knew what was going to happen the moment you two returned.

like you had planned this for a while now—

“when’d they ask?”

johnny shifts, meeting his eyes, and simon’s heart crumbles at seeing the weight of johnny’s anguish painted on his face. he sniffles, and rasps out, “probably two months ago, s’what garrick said.”

two months ago—the same night when you managed to find a way to contact the base. the same night when simon’s realized what it must be that he feels for you.

(the same night when you’ve shyly asked him what about mactavish did he like.

“the six inches that you so intimately know,” he replied, cheeky and teasing.

you rolled your eyes, groaning at how disgusting he was, and he piped back how he’s a patient and has all rights to be as gross as he could.

you laughed, chucking a balled paper towel at him and simon remembers the way you looked so…at peace bantering with him that he couldn’t even fathom you were thinking of leaving.

what changed for you? what was it? why couldn’t you have waited—

why didn’t he realize sooner—

whywhywhy?)

notes: tbh i dont think hyde would gravitate towards price n gaz bc their affections for ghoap, particularly for ghost, was so intense. also, even before this ask ive always planned for hyde to leave. their feelings could potentially risk the team morale, which price even talked to them about in the prev works (mentioned in passing)!

[hannieehaee]

Seventeen and the orange peel theory

orange peel theory

content: established relationship, fluff, etc.

wc: 860

a/n: it was fun trying to get a read on them for this hehe some of them were hard though 😭

masterlist

seungcheol -

he takes care of any and every single thing for you. even the most ridiculous of tasks, he does for you. you have a tiny little bit of coffee still on your lip? he wipes it with a napkin. missing a straw on your drink? goes back to the counter and gets one for you. you ask for an orange? that's child's play to him. the orange would be peeled without even so much as one look from you.

jeonghan -

he didnt know about the theory, nor would he think too much into a simple request of being handed an orange, so he wouldnt really think of peeling it for you. however, he loved sharing food with you, so he would probably peel it knowing the two of you would share it as you usually shared every meal. would technically have peeled it for you, but not entirely.

joshua -

he'd know you were testing him the moment you asked for an orange. he's seen the tiktoks. he knows about the metrics he needs to meet to qualify as a good boyfriend. yet he would play dumb just to see you pout at him as you believed him to fail the test. wouldn't let it go for too long before letting you in on the joke and promising to even plant you a whole orange tree if necessary.

jun -

would peel it without even realize he was peeling it. blissfully unaware of the trend, so he'd be kinda confused as to why you looked so happy as he handed you a peeled orange. when you explained it to him he'd roll his eyes at the thought of any boyfriend whose first instinct wasnt to peel the orange for their s/o.

soonyoung -

he wouldn't think of peeling it at first, simply handing it to you as you asked and thinking nothing of it. only a few seconds later would the thought snap into his head, causing him to snag the orange right from your hand and going 'oh! let me peel it for you!', rushedly peeling the orange before placing it back in your hands.

wonwoo -

also would not peel it, not thinking anything of it (also, you didnt ask, so it didnt come to mind). if you asked him to peel it, though, he'd do it without question, which would lead to a habit of peeling any and every peelable fruit for you from then on.

jihoon -

wouldn't even think of peeling it for you, but not in a malicious way. he just wouldnt think of it as an important detail. if you explained the theory to him, he'd roll his eyes and claim it was a stupid measure of love. he's written far too many love songs about you for a stupid orange to put his love for you into question.

seokmin -

you want an orange? how about a peeled orange? how about a mouth-fed, peeled orange? he'd even do lil sound effects as he guided every piece into your mouth and encouraged you to eat. would ask you afterwards if you wanted another orange. bc he can get you one if you want. unless you want some other fruit? he can get you any snack you want, you dont even have to ask.

mingyu -

not only did he get you the orange and peel it for you, but he proceeded to buy you oranges every once in a while, assuming you must enjoy oranges. he'd be unaware of the theory, simply being a natural at taking care of his loved ones and babying them in every possible instance.

minghao -

he's seen the tiktoks and knows about the trend (which he found kinda silly), so he'd give you a knowing smile as he went to grab the orange you asked for, peeling it as he walked back to you. would call you silly and give you a kiss on the forehead while you happily ate your orange.

seungkwan -

you wouldnt even have to ask for the orange in the first place. he would hand feed you pieces of tangerine every day, arguing that he needed to make sure you ate your daily dosage of fruits every single day. whoever invented this theory did not take boo seungkwan's existence into consideration.

vernon -

very similarly to wonwoo, he would not peel it unless you asked, not wanting to assume that you wanted something you did not ask for. if you asked him, though, he would peel it and ask if you wanted him to peel your fruits from now on. you'd have to remind him about it once or twice in the future, but he'd always do it without complaint.

chan -

he'd consider peeling the orange for you, but would think that maybe you wouldnt want him touching the fruit. i mean, if he asked someone for a banana he'd expect to be handed a banana with its peel intact. this was kinda the same, right? well, no. he would notice your dejected look immediately and ask you what was wrong. when you explained, he'd apologize and explain his logic, showing himself to have passed the test on a technicality.

[eightdoctor]

my eda recs :) for anyone interested in getting into this series

i am prefacing this post with the note that i am an avid completionist and generally dislike telling people to skip certain books unless it's a john peel novel or placebo effect. however i understand telling people to read 74 novels is not at all accessible and i need you all to read. these books. please. please

this post is going to be long as shit i know it so i'm putting it ↓ here. books that can be skipped because theyre a bit shit will be colored red, ones that you Can Skip but are good/have some important character or plot bits in will be orange, and ones that are sooo good and necessary and the best books ever will be green. unfortunately i think a lot of the ones colored orange should be colored green but i know restraint. i can stay my hand. kind of

also i should say that i primarily read these for the characters - the plots themselves come second. so lots of my opinions come from the standpoint of which books have good characterizations. basically some of the ones that i color green would probably be skippable if any normal person were reading them but i'm insane!! and this is my list so fuck you!!!

The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks: ah my color trichotomy has bitten me in the ass on the first book. because truth be told i still haven't finished this one (nor have i really felt the need to yet), yet it introduces the first companion in the series, sam jones, and contains some other entertaining parts like the doctor getting caught with cocaine. as far as introductory books go it's meh

Vampire Science by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum: this book. i truly can't sing my praises any louder than i already have. orman & blum took the character of the eighth doctor as portrayed by paul mcgann in a few measly minutes of screen time into a fully fleshed out, compelling and complex character. if you're a fan of the eighth doctor but aren't interested in reading all of the EDAs you have to read this one at the Very Least. it begins, as all good stories do, in a gay bar. it features vampire squirrels, the doctor with kittens, and the doctor infodumping on the beauty of science in a speech? conversation? that still touches me to this day, four years after i first read it.

The Bodysnatchers by Mark Morris: this book is Gross, and i mean that positively. mark morris held nothing back when describing how disgusting and putrid london was in the 1800s (he's primarily a horror writer, and that comes through rather clearly in this book). i genuinely enjoyed this novel a lot, but i know it's not for everyone because again, it's quite gory and disgusting

Genocide by Paul Leonard: don't you just want to see the doctor in a sun hat? being tortured for weeks on end? don't you want to examine his morality in termsof what species he thinks needs to be saved or doomed? jo grant is there

War of the Daleks by John Peel: fuck john peel all my homies hate john peel. for some reason all his books in this range contain daleks and it’s like…why. get some creativity. everyone else did. bitch

Alien Bodies by Lawrence Miles: this novel is So Good. it introduces faction paradox, the war in heaven plotline, humanoid tardises, and a couple of the most interesting & fun side characters in the whole range (homunculette and marieeee <3 cousin justineeee… aaaaaaahh). I shan’t spoil the entire conceit of the story but just know it’s. insane and fucked up and so so funny

Kursaal by Peter Anghelides: this is just a solid doctor who story, really. i wouldn’t call it imperative to the overarching plot of the novels (as tenuous as it is early on), but it’s an enjoyable enough read. it’s about an ancient race of alien werewolves underneath a theme park. what more can i say

Option Lock by Justin Richards: i recall enjoying the doctor and sam’s characterization in this one, and the story is like doctor strangelove meets, well, doctor who. it’s skippable, but i had fun reading it, and that’s really all you can ask for

Longest Day by Michael Collier: this is the start of the arc where sam gets separated from the doctor. actually the most tense and stressed i’ve been reading the edas was reading this and the next three books. it’s so dire, but it’s so so good, with incredible character moments from sam and the doctor. plus you have anstaar, nashaad with his metal legs, and some really fucked up body horror involving Time messing with people’s existences and driving ppl mad and stuff. people tend to either love this one or hate it from what i’ve seen, and i’m solidly in the former category. would definitely recommend 

Legacy of the Daleks by John Peel: ughhhhhhhh… ughhhhjhhhhhh i guess you have to read this one. i guess you have to. it’s definitely an improvement on his last book but still. daleks again john? really? whateverrrrr.. some important stuff happens to susan is in this one though. and the master as well. so if you care about either of those characters you should read this i suppose

Dreamstone Moon by Paul Leonard: a general rule of the edas is paul leonard always writes excellent books (in my opinion, anyway), and this is not the exception. sam and the doctor are still separated, but they’re in the same place and keep missing each other and its like UGGHHHH!!! UGHHH!!! but you have interesting commentary on capitalism’s exploitation and effective revolutionary action and all that stuff. also aloisse is an incredible character and i love her

Seeing I by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum: HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOOD LIRD!!!!!!!!!!! kate and jon do it again, those crazy bastards. you know how every author loves torturing the shit out of eight? these guys take that and run with it in the opposite direction, asking the question what if the worst thing the doctor could go through isn’t agonizing torture, but rather just a lack of enrichment in his enclosure? what if he had to stay locked up in one building for three years and couldn’t escape for the life of him? meanwhile sam, now a refugee with no social support (as she technically shouldn’t exist in this time and location), has to deal with homelessness, and has to decide whether it’s better to have a stable, yet soulless corporate job - or do something that’s meaningful and benefits society. she’s at her best in this book for sure

Placebo Effect by Gary Russell: throws up. don’t read this because it is actually rhe worst book in the whole range and i’m not joking. sorry gary you’re a nice guy but i thought the arguments against evolution that went on for like 3 pages were extremely egregious and also plain wrong. you may look at this book and think “oh cool! Stacy and ssard from the comics are in this one!” well they’re there for like a paragraph and don’t do shit. so

Vanderdeken's Children by Christopher Bulis: really fun novel that’s pretty much the epitome of the classic doctor who question “wouldn’t that be really fucked up and crazy?” it also established the fact that the doctor told sam his real name which is really fun and awesome

The Scarlet Empress by Paul Magrs: much like paul leonard, paul magrs Never disappoints. this book is just so fucking fun. in essence, it’s a road trip story. they drive across a planet listening to abba and visiting lots of kooky places and picking up lots of wacky characters. it also deconstructs gender and self-identity and what it means to be an individual. a cyborg and a giant spider get lesbian married. aewsome 👍

The Janus Conjunction by Trevor Baxendale: i really debated on making this one skippable, i did. because while it doesn’t continue any of the established plots or themes or whatever, it does show the doctor breaking the laws of time to save his companion’s life, and that’s really cool we love that. there’s a lot of fun body horror too if you go for that sort of thing. and more giant spiders but these ones are different 

Beltempest by Jim Mortimore: ok honestly? i didn’t vibe with this one. i know some people really liked it but i felt as if the characterization was Off. some wacky wild stuff happens to sam though

The Face-Eater by Simon Messingham: <-doesn’t remember much of this one cuz i was high while reading it. i think it was a solid story though? 

The Taint by Michael Collier: yayyyyyyyy fitz is hereeeee my babyboy… lots of people don’t vibe with this one but i do. because i love fitz and everything he’s in and him and the doctor are such bastards to each other in the beginning it’s great. their repartee is genuinely so entertaining and really elevates the book for me, even if the plot itself is a bit mediocre. either way even if you don’t like it you have to read it because it introduces fitz. so there

Demontage by Justin Richards: telling you to skip this one would be a disservice. because technically it Is skippable, but it has some absolutely hilarious moments that really drive home the fact that fitz is Cringe. they’re on a space casino called vega in the far future and fitz dresses in a (from everyone else's perspective) old-fashioned tuxedo. he smokes indoors and everyone gives him nasty looks because he’s in the future and no one smokes inside. he asks for his cocktails shaken not stirred and the bartender fucking hates him. and he also accidentally gets involved in an assassination plot. but i suppose if you must skip it then go ahead… 

Revolution Man by Paul Leonard: mr leonard does it again. this is an excellent novel for both companions that begins with sam and the doctor engaging in leftist discourse with an anarchist and ends with the world almost ending. it happens.

Dominion by Nick Walters: you have to read this one just for the doctor’s first gay kiss. sorry i don’t make the rules. also it  just features a neat concept imo and has a great moment where the doctor punches a pillow in frustration and then sadly apologizes to it

Unnatural History by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum: this book is one that i think every doctor who fan who’s ever gotten mad about canon not making sense should be forced at gunpoint to read. it’s a novel that’s essentially one big metacommentary on doctor who canon & why it Doesn’t Matter At All, Actually; the doctor was birthed and he was loomed and both are equally true and untrue. also features the iconic paragraph calling the doctor a (verbatim) “backrub slut”, as well as wrapping up the ongoing arc with sam jones hinted at in alien bodies and a few other books in a way that’ll have you side eyeing moffat very suspiciously

Autumn Mist by David A. McIntee: this one’s pretty good and has a couple great moments (fitz calling himself james bond, for one), but is, i think, ultimately skippable unless youre a world war 2 buff

Interference Books 1 & 2 by Lawrence Miles: nothing i can say will adequately put into words what these two novels made me feel, you hear me? absolutely nothing. good fucking god. jesus christ. holy fuck.. if i sat here listsing all the important and iconic moments in these books we’d be here all shitting day and this post is already obscenely long. read these 2 books. then read them again. 

The Blue Angel by Paul Magrs: ok i know i just said this but HOOOOOO..WHOA NELLY! the blue angel is easily in my top 5 edas. it literally heavily features a canon domestic au wherein the doctor is a “middle-aged gay man”. fitz says he wants to get laid by the doctor. the doctor’s mother is a mermaid. there’s off-brand spirk. someone turns into a giant squid. literally this book is so good they wrote a screenplay adaptation of it and a spinoff short story that you should also read

The Taking of Planet 5 by Simon Bucher-Jones and Mark Clapham: you’re going to be hearing this a lot from me but we Are entering the part of the series where it really takes off and gets sooo fucking good. anyway this novel is sooo fucking good and quite important to the plot and establishes stuff about the war in heaven and gallifrey so. read it. also there's ELDRITCH BEASTS!

Frontier Worlds by Peter Anghelides: i can’t tell you to skip this one because it’s so good. fitz goes by the alias frank sinatra & also talks like him for a solid portion of the book. we get excellent compassion moments. great doctor moments (including that Hot and Sexy dream he has about the tardis!) and all in all it’s a wonderful story

Parallel 59 by Stephen Cole and Natalie Dallaire: lots of stuff happens in this one, especially to fitz. by that i mean it gets referenced quite a bit later so i would recommend if you want to catch all the references. also a woman worked on this one so you already know eight is going to be written phenomenally and very sensually. 

The Shadows of Avalon by Paul Cornell: rather important development happens to compassion in this book (understatement). but it’s also a really good story in general with lots of memorable bits - paul cornell wrote one EDA and did a great job and then vanished from the range. it also has the BRIGADIER and his ROMANCE with MAB the BIG BOSOMED CELTIC QUEEN so like.. read it?? 

The Fall of Yquatine by Nick Walters: a pretty important thing happens to compassion in this one too (another understatement). also withnail & i references galore, fitz has a bad time (has he had a Good time for the past few books? questionable!), and the doctor spends time with a gay baker/contraband parts dealer

Coldheart by Trevor Baxendale: you could skip this one but why would you even want to? it’s literally one of compassion’s best stories and has plenty of excellent doctor and companion moments. it’s just fun and engaging and an outstanding doctor who story. and, as always, fitz is effortlessly cringe as ever <3

The Space Age by Steve Lyons: this one’s just boring and kinda stupid. nothing big or important happens and you can tell steve lyons didn’t care for writing compassion at all. skip it

The Banquo Legacy by Andy Lane and Justin Richards: Big Plot Developments in this one - mostly in the beginning and end. also the only (?) mention of irving braxiatel in the whole run! it’s written from the POV of two Normal people not on the tardis so it’s interesting to see how they perceive the doctor and fitz, and how this contradicts the way they define themselves in other books where we’re privy to their internal monologue 

The Ancestor Cell by Peter Anghelides and Stephen Cole: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH AAAAGHHHH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU HFHOA8U8OIA AOUIY4P98 YT39 7UGHYIB3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this one drives me insane and there are parts of it i reread nearly every day. because i’m CRAZY. it’s a controversial novel in the doctor who fandom because of how it handles gallifrey and faction paradox lore but WHO FUCKING CARES? FATHER KREINER IS BACK BABY

The Burning by Justin Richards: this is the start of the Earth Arc, so it’s the first portrayal of the doctor stuck on earth without any of his memories. it’s a bit slow at the beginning, and as a normal doctor who story i would consider it subpar, but the characterization of the doctor really carries it i think. you see how losing his memory impacted his restraint with things such as hypnosis and Other Stuff I Shan’t Spoil

Casualties of War by Steve Emmerson: this has the first appearance of the Note, so it’s especially important for that reason. but it’s also just a neat story that has way more elements of a fantasy than a sci fi and again, seeing how the doctor acts now, stuck on earth without his memories, and juxtaposing that with how he acted before, super fun and neat

The Turing Test by Paul Leonard: if i could graft this book onto my DNA i would. i already KNEW the circumstances surrounding alan turing’s death and yet i still cried about it while reading this!! paul leonard’s portrayal of turing as both a gay and autistic man (though the latter is never explicitly stated) is INCREDIBLE and i really can’t recommend it enough just based on that. but the story itself is amazing and really delves into the doctor’s Differences and his desperation to leave earth after being stuck there for decades. 

Endgame by Terrance Dicks: people really like this one and i guess i had fun with it but i just can’t really get into terrence dicks’ writing style. that being said it features the doctor listless and just so sad and depressed so you kind of have to read it. if that’s not reason enough there’s a fat gay alcoholic spy who absolutely rocks

Father Time by Lance Parkin: i hate that this is green. i hate it. i hate this fucking book. i hate lance parkin also. but this is where miranda (the doctor’s adopted daughter) is introduced so alas, you must read it and imagine a version of this book thats infinitely better in your head. sorry! 

Escape Velocity by Colin Brake: this one’s mid but it’s the end of the earth arc and fitz and the doctor reunite and ANJI KAPOOR IS HERE!!!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!! so if you read this and get a lil bored just know it’s about to get so fucking good you guys

EarthWorld by Jacqueline Rayner: genuinely can’t say enough good things about this one. it’s funny. it’s angsty. it’s all in all just a really fun book. and it’s the shortest one i think so like you have no excuse to not read it

Fear Itself by Nick Wallace: this is technically a PDA because it was written after nine was announced, thereby making 8 technically a “past doctor”, but who give a shit. read this one are yoyu kidding me. read it read it read it read it READ IT. there’s a twist in it that rendered me absolutely catatonic for about a week 

Vanishing Point by Stephen Cole: don’t skip this one even though it’s orange. are you listening to me? don’t fucking skip it ok!!! steve cole is the #1 fitz/eight shipper and this really shines through here. also maybe i’m just easily entertained by reasonably accurate science in my doctor who books but i liked all the genetics references

Eater of Wasps by Trevor Baxendale: trevor you sly dog you did it again. you mad bastard. not only is the storyline in this one soo gripping and also Quite horrifying but the characterization?? hoooooo boy. this is the book where “you really love him, don’t you?” “well, i like to think we’re just good friends.” comes from and so even if it was dogshit you’d have to read it just for that like cmon

The Year of Intelligent Tigers by Kate Orman: holy. fucking. shit. good grief. the doctor has a boyfriend and they go on picnics and drink chocolate martinis together. the doctor becomes a catboy for a few months. this story takes place on a colony world whose culture is predominantly centered around music, so you have the doctor playing his violin (hot). you have scientifically accurate zoology/xenobiology. you have a Mysterious lost civilization. most importantly you have fitz’s song he wrote for the doctor

The Slow Empire by Dave Stone: this one’s just FUNNY okay. dave stone has such a characteristic way of writing prose it’s just kind of a joy to read. if you get the hard copy all of the bits from a side character’s pov is written in comic sans. while some of the characterization is a bit meh and anji didn’t Really live up to her full potential in a couple scenes i’d still recommend it. there’s footnotes

Dark Progeny by Steve Emmerson: this is another one i colored orange even though i whole-heartedly recommend it.. it’s a commentary on corporate apathy and greed and how it destroys entire planets and just a really engaging story besides. not to mention we get a “fitz fitz fitz fitz fitz!” bit from 8 <3

The City of the Dead by Lloyd Rose: i can’t even talk about this oine lest i lose my mind… not joking when i say lloyd rose writes some of the best and juiciest angst in the whole series like some of the scenes in there made me feel like i was being helplessly entrapped in flowing grain for a month

Grimm Reality by Simon Bucher-Jones and Kelly Hale: i really do sound like a broken record at this point but this is another one of those books i could never say enough positive things about. there are two novels in this series that genre-hop and this is one of them. the tardis lands on a world where everything runs on logic straight out of the brother’s grimm (hence the title). there’s magic cloaks and evil stepsisters and giants, and the doctor, fitz, and anji all have their own separate adventures so it’s super interesting to see how each character deals with being in a fairytale. not only that but there are parts of the book written in the style of those old fairytales and i really do get a good kick out of  gimmicky stuff like that 

The Adventuress of Henrietta Street by Lawrence Miles: buckle the fuck up everyone and get out your highlighters and sticky notes because this one is so fucking dense you’ll have no choice but to annotate and take notes, sorry! it’s written in the style of a historical nonfiction which occasionally falls flat (where’s the fucking works cited, lawrence???), but the story is fucking crazy. you got arcane rituals, prostitutes doing sex magic that summon great apes, sabbath is here, the doctor is weak and sickly (always awesome), sabbath is here, the doctor gets married so he can save the earth, sabbath is here,

Mad Dogs and Englishmen by Paul Leonard: this is the petplay book featuring multicolored poodles that have human hands. need i say more? 

Hope by Mark Clapham: not the best book but it’s got some pretty crucial anji moments in, and we all love love love anji so much so we’ll read mediocre novels just for her!! (but we also see the doctor struggle with only having one heart so that’s fun too)

Anachrophobia by Jonathan Morris: literally my top 3 book in the series EASY. it takes place on a planet ravaged by a time war (as in a war that fights with weapons that fuck with time. not like That time war), yet despite that particular futuristic conceit the entire atmosphere of the book feels like something out of the 40s or 50s  - almost like the aesthetics of fallout, but instead of nuclear radiation it’s Time. most of the story takes place in this sealed off bunker that’s doing experiments to try and develop time travel, and while they’re successful in going back in time the guinea pigs who volunteered for the trial develop an illness that fucks up their personal timelines so bad they literally turn into clock zombies. and it’s contagious. but no one can leave because theres fucked up time outside uh oh!!! if you liked the themes of war profiteering from boom in the new season you’ll LOVE this book

Trading Futures by Lance Parkin: fuck you lance parkin i can’t stand your ass! you can’t fucking write for shit!!! i’d recommend this book if you want to see anji referred to as ‘the asian woman’ more than her actual name :) and a southeast asian character with a name that might as well have been taken right out of a book written by  jk rowling. really the only good part of this book is when anji almost calls the doctor an otter-fucker

The Book of the Still by Paul Ebbs: this book is a WILD fucking ride. this book is fucking insane in the most positive of ways. paul ebbs writes an absolutely top tier eight that manages to encapsulate all the development he went through in the series as well as evoking the characterization from the 1996 movie

The Crooked World by Steve Lyons: this is the second book that does a genre-swap, but instead of fairytales this time the tardis lands on a planet dominated by saturday morning cartoon physics and logic. but the doctor & co being there begins to introduce Real Life concepts such as death and sex and swearing, so all these wacky cartoon characters who’ve spent their whole lives doing wacky cartoon things like blowing each other up with sticks of dynamite or hitting each other with big hammers suddenly find that these actions actually have very very serious consequences, which really kicks off when this story’s equivalent of tom rips off this story’s equivalent of jerry’s head, killing him instantly. idk i just watched a lot of saturday morning cartoons as a kid so seeing the parodies of wacky races and scooby doo was very enjoyable. to me

History 101 by Mags L Halliday: to put it simply this book is about leftist infighting. to put it more complexly this book is about the spanish civil war and how differing opinions and principles can alter one’s perception of history - and what happens when history actually starts being changed in accordance to these differing principles. there’s also the subplot featuring fitz’s homoerotic, yet very traumatizing, travels with a guy named sasha as they journey to guernica so they can watch it be bombed

Camera Obscura by Lloyd Rose: this is where sabbath and the doctor’s relationship really reaches it’s peak. this is The Esteemed Toxic Old Man Yaoi Novel. but also remember when i said lloyd rose writes the best angst? this holds especially true here. i won’t spoil it for you but Something Crazy Happens to the Doctor! haha. haha

Time Zero by Justine Richards: this is just quantum physics: the novel. while fitz goes on his doomed siberia expedition with the geologist boytoy george in the 19th century, the doctor investigates some strange readings in siberia like a hundred years later, and some crazy confusing hijinks ensue! the events in this book kick off the arc that’ll continue for the next few books until sometime never where the multiverse is collapsing and the doctor has to fix it. even though he doesn’t know how. ALSO TRIX INTRODUCTIONNNNNN!!!!!!!!

The Infinity Race by Simon Messingham: this one’s whatever. the sabbath characterization is wack but there are a few good moments. you think it’s going to be mostly about a cool boat race but sadly that comes secondary -_-

The Domino Effect by David Bishop: this book is ASS, both plot-wise and characterization-wise. it also just seems like the author was trying to be needlessly edgy when he developed the setting, and there are just some baffling moments where characters say and do things i frankly think they would never say 

Reckless Engineering by Nick Walters: the events in this one center around a tragedy that is fucking batshit insane. the universe this takes place in features a post-apocalyptic earth. i shan’t say what this apocalypse was because finding out what happened is all apart of the fun guys. i can’t spoil everything for you

The Last Resort by Paul Leonard: what if a corporation discovered TIME TRAVEL and set up RESORTS all across human history? what if there was a mcdonalds in ancient egypt and advertisements for microsoft in the original version of the bible? also what if something just soooo fucked up happens so many times <3

Timeless by Stephen Cole: anji’s last book. sobs.

Emotional Chemistry by Simon A. Forward: idk what it was but i just didn’t really vibe with this one. it’s not awful by any means and there’s a bit of plot carried in from the last novel that continues into the next but the actions that surround it don’t really matter i think. honestly i’d just read a summary of this one and continue on 

Sometime Never... by Justin Richards: the culmination of the multiverse stuff. i liked it - miranda makes a reappearance, and the fact she’s written by someone other than lance parkin is already a plus. my only qualm is i don’t really like how it handled sabbath but that’s sort of how i felt about all the books post camera obscura… sigh

Halflife by Mark Michalowski: ANOTHER EASY TOP 3. i’m simply obsessed with all of the concepts and tropes in this book, not to mention it’s where fitz’s infamous Ass Dream can be found. there’s commentary on racism, colonialism, and religion, and it also features cannibalism as a metaphor for love :D

The Tomorrow Windows by Jonathan Morris: another case of me coloring a book orange even though i think you should read it anyway. it’s positively saturated with so many interesting alien planets and creatures and societies you’d be missing out if you didn’t read this one tbh. it’s also the first novel ever to feature the ninth doctor!

The Sleep of Reason by Martin Day: this one ok. it’s another book written from the pov of an outsider and her insights into the doctor, fitz, and trix are interesting (and their characterization when they show up is outstanding!) but it feels like they’re rarely in it & this close to the end of the series i just want to see more of my guys you know...

The Deadstone Memorial by Trevor Baxendale: i loved the atmosphere in this one. it’s more of a ghost story with sci fi elements, and the stakes involved aren’t Bigger Than Ever like they tend to be nowadays, but instead surround the wellbeing of a family of a single mom and her two kids which i appreciate - the doctor isn’t saving the Whole Universe and World; just a family from a small town; it’s effective in getting the point across that the doctor thinks everyone’s important and worth saving 

To the Slaughter by Stephen Cole: this one’s fun and goofy and steve cole wrote it solely so he could fix an error from a fourth doctor serial in which the doctor got the number of jupiter’s moons wrong. that being said the reason it’s not colored orange is because the last book of the series is written by lance parkin and i want to help you procrastinate reading his godawful prose for as long as possible. your welcome

The Gallifrey Chronicles by Lance Parkin: fuck you lance parkin

[most-datable-datable-bracket]

ROUND 4 MATCH 7

Chrom propaganda:

“Chrobin (Chrom x player character) is so many tropes in one oml. You have friends-to-lovers (Chrom and Robin are canonically best friends according to Nintendo), enemies-to-lovers (Robin is heir to the Grimleal cult, the enemy of the Halidom of Ylisse which Chrom is the prince, and later king, of), there's amnesia, time travel, official next-gen AUs, changed dialogue to lore important events in the game if you marry Chrom, and Nintendo keeps teasing us with the ship. Cheery prince who knows when to be serious, very strategically smart but very bad at communicating, a guy that can comfort you when you're down, make a fool of himself when you're not around, and he's just generally a very sweet guy. Also please consider the fact that you get to watch a cutscene of him dying in the prologue and despite the horrors he's just so supportive of the protagonist. Chrom doesn't care about where you came from or who you're related to, he cares for YOU. He gets KILLED by the protag and he reassures them that they did nothing wrong and pleads with them to get out, to a safe place. I lost my soul to Chrom, I physically can't play this game without romancing him.”

“He eats oranges with the peel still on, he's an absolute himbo. Also the writers accidentally made his daughter canonically trans so he definitely supports trans rights. And technically you can only marry him if you play as female Robin but their dynamic is still just as romantic if you play as male Robin (they literally call each other their other half and m!Robin and Chrom have a valentine's day duo unit in the gatcha, and in the anthology manga m!Robin asks Chrom to make polygamy legal so he can also marry Chrom's wife and they can be a family) so most people play the game with the gay mod so they can still marry him as a guy. He's incredibly stupid ("yeah, let's set all our ships on fire then walk through a volcano, you're so smart, Robin" "I know you've had prophetic visions about killing me and our daughter came from the future to warn us it would happen but I'm sure THIS TIME it won't because of the power of our bonds") but also really sweet. In the summer DLC they're fighting on a beach and when he sees Robin get excited over a weird creature they found he immediately forgets about the battle and starts trying to make a bunch of crafts (and failing) and cooking food (and failing again) and writing "Chrom and Robin were here" in the sand so that Robin could have some nice beach memories. I'm obsessed with this man”

Asra propaganda:

“He GIVES AWAY HALF HIS HEART TO REVIVE YOU okay but like. He's the MCs roommate and they were together for a few years before the MC caught a plague and died and he obsesses over a way to bring them back before succeeding by making a deal with a god to trade half his heart for MC and betraying the emperor. And then when MC comes back but without any of their memories, he takes care of them and teaches them how to live all over again and he never asks for anything in return. On all the routes where you don't choose him he's really supportive and helps you out despite your history and overall he's just really nice and supportive of the MC and is their rock no matter what route you go down. Also he has a pet snake named Faust and I love her she's so <33 

Idk I just appreciate him so much”

"He gave you half his HEART!! He would literally go to hell and back for you!! He wants to take you on adventures all around the world—doesn’t matter where, as long as he’s by your side!! AND he’s nonbinary!!!"

[crazylittlejester]

For the fic requests, maybe the first time Wolfie tries to warn Wars about his blood sugar getting too low? or when Wars finally figures out what Wolfie's trying to do? I'm obsessed with this headcanon now. Thanks!!

- hero-of-the-wolf

It makes me so happy that people like this headcanon, it’s one that’s really important to me :)

Here you go!! (627 words)

Warriors grumbled a curse under his breath, dragging his feet and trying to keep up with the rest of the group. It was hot, too hot, and for some reason he seemed to be the only one who was bothered by the temperature, although that was nothing new. He overheated faster than the others, this was something he was well aware of, but it seemed the others didn’t even find it to be warm out at all. His head was also pounding, which could’ve been from lack of sleep, but it was really starting to suck.

A ‘boof’ sounded from behind him suddenly, and he whipped around to find Wolfie padding up to him from out of the woods. The sharp movement caused his vision to swim, and he let out an involuntary noise of discomfort. He really didn’t want to have to ask to take a break, but if he didn’t start feeling better soon he might have to.

The wolf jumped up on him, swatting at him with big fluffy paws and huffing.

“Wild!!” The captain called to where the champion was at the front of the group. “Wolfie wants something!! He’s acting weird!”

The wolf growled, jumping up at him again. The wild animal usually behaved much better than this, Warriors didn’t know what had gotten into him. Having known the wolf prior to the group meeting, Wild was the best and figuring out what Wolfie was trying to say, but the now champion just stared at him and shrugged.

“He’s never jumped up on me like that before,” Wild told him.

Wolfie let out a high pitch whine, so loud the rest of the group stopped to look at him. The wolf smacked his head into Warriors’s hip, and the captain stumbled back. With as dizzy as he was starting to feel, Wolfie was going to knock him over if he kept this up.

“Wolfie, stop it.”

The wolf gave him an oddly determined look, and pushed his head firmly into Warriors’s thigh, and it forced him to sit down hard. He let out a startled yell as he went down, and tried to get up but Wolfie went and laid across his legs.

“Captain? Are you okay?” Time called as he walked over.

Warriors was going to answer when a wave of nausea slammed into him and his eyes widened in realization when everything clicked into place. Headache, heat flashes, nausea…

He forgot to eat breakfast….

“You don’t look to good, Wars.” Four frowned, looking at him in concern.

“Did you eat this morning?” Time asked, pulling an orange out of his bag and starting to peel it for him.

Warriors shook his head very slowly, laying down when he suddenly felt worse. Realizing the captain had no plan to get up any time soon, Wolfie got off his legs and came to sit by his head, pressing a cold nose to his neck to check on him.

“You knew,” he narrowed his eyes at the wolf, and Wolfie just sneezed at him, wagging his tail slowly.

Time handed him orange slices one by one, and he ate them carefully, waiting for the sugar to hit him. When he could finally sit upright again, he slung an arm over the wolf to steady himself. Wolfie’s tongue lolled out of his mouth and his tail thumped against the grass.

“Thanks buddy,” Warriors smiled at him groggily, patting him on the head.

“You’re so smart,” Wind cooed, petting the wolf, and the captain laughed at how irritated the animal looked.

After a thirty minute break, they were up and ready to go again, although Wolfie stuck close by the captain’s side until he eventually bounded off into the woods, leaving them for the day.

[the-fandom-is-now-my-life]

Masterlist

"Masterlist? What is that?"

"it's mostly a record of the writings here, feel welcome to have a look and see if something catches your eye" she turns around and points to the the book detailing where every book or pages should

"last time I updated it was june 21, so it can get a bit behind but usually everything is in here"

"a magical land where people are able to handle elements as they please, a bit too fantastical for my liking but she seems to enjoy writing them"

Tokyo debunker

There is a separate section for this subject, best visit it for the list.

Genshin impact

There is a folder on the table and named with perfect cursive handwriting "Holy offsprings". It seems it's a collection of small works

A bouquet of feelings

Sometimes actions have unexpected consequences. Good thing Aether knows how to fix this one.

Ancient language au

A long forgotten tongue slips away from their lips to the ears of people who believe it's their god's language

Read my lips

"to suddenly be left in a world where I couldn't read anything... Such a torture"

Universal language

After alhaitham found your ability you were almost forced to work for the academia translating works, some misunderstandings arise

Great sage au

A foreign face settles as a country's sage and tries to help, even when it isn't all that easy

Prologue

As a former player the new great sage had a nice base of knowledge to stand on plus some new tools

Such a backstabber

His duty with sumeru has gotten him into a trail leading to you and believes you to be a danger. For some reason the proof he has reminds you of something… wait a minute.

Over tea

Luckily after cyno recognized them as not guilty they were allowed to return to their position and enjoy their new found love for tea. Seemingly the nation's calmness has lead to people allowing themselves to fantasize about their bosses’ love life

Everything feels so beautiful

"this one fits in the timeline but I'm not sure if even the writer knows how or when..."

Secret husband timeline

Be it because of secretiveness or nobody believing it was possible nobody found out about your marriage with the iudex until someone says it straight up. Oops

The first two are two different beginnings

How the iudex sleeps

"why did she choose for him to have a resemblance with otters? Even then it's a really sweet domestic piece"

Melusines say the darndest things

sometimes children can slip up and accidentally say more than desired. In this case the journalists are very happy about that.

Drabbles

Would they peel an orange for you?

"mhmm... I wonder why she chose oranges, I think she likes better pomegranate. Wouldn't it be more fitting 'would they open a pomegranate for you?' but I guess at the end it's the same intention"

Do they know if you wear silver or gold?

"I only ever wear this uniform, I'm not really sure how important that kind of stuff is"

Types of baby daddy

"my father has been a 'baby daddy' many times, including my and my sisters' conception and many of our half siblings. Despicable man. He even runs as fast as the thunders he throws so he is hard to catch"

Your ex in my body or me in their body

"seemingly this question is used to pick a fight with your lover, I'm not sure why would you, though"

Ideas

"some blurbs or unrefined concepts, maybe in the future they can become something more polished"

Npc sagau

"suddenly strangers and your loved ones start acting as mindless zombies and only certain people seem to wake up but you are unable to know when... It sounds stressful doesn't it?"

Living together (npc sagau)

Obey me

"it would make sense for them to live close by the only people you can speak with"

"It's a kind of undefined academic environment in hell? I heard from other visitors that highschool and university are difficult and sometimes unenjoyable but isn't this a bit too on the nose? Either way seemingly she could romance demons, angels and a... Regular human? I'm sure she did not... My goodness"

Night bringer saga

All this happen during night bringer but aren't particularly connected or in a particular timeline!

Love language: acts of service

After being temporarily transformed into a demon you find that there are some gaps in your knowledge of demon features care but Solomon is very happy to help

With the firstborn's ring I made you mine

A before bed chat with Solomon leads to you showing some concerns about wearing the ring of light so openly and he offers himself as a scapegoat

Love language, gift giving

He is old enough and famous enough that he can spend some money on superfluous gift and extra candies as long as you smile at him

The sorcerer's demonic firstborn

Nobody is exempt from Mother nature's cruel whims, not even the all powerful sorcerer that defied death. Some friends of yours help you with your dream

Twisted wonderland

"another fantasy setting that happens in a world where people can use Magic and a school? I'm seeing a pattern with her likings. Just tell me she wrote for a prince or a future king or- it's just a guy with white hair again? No just because he is sleepy doesn't make him different, writer..."

Forced fairytale

The tale of the sleeping beauty is one he holds dear, be it because it's related to his great grandmother or his dorm, malleus can't help but feel like silver and the prefect would be such a perfect modern retelling.

[glassrowboat]

Orange Ribbon. Itto.

Summary: Dressing up animals is therapeutic, no matter what anyone says. To see them in cute little clothes, in top hats, maybe even bow ties never fails to put a smile on your face. A hobby. It's a silly one, but a hobby nonetheless. And, of course, Itto (under his own insistence) needs to be decked out by his girl, too!

Word count: 1000+

Authors note: mentions of the reader being short, but to be fair when I think of Itto I still imagine that one photo of him next to Zhongli back before he was released. Itto is seven foot in my heart damnit-

Perhaps this is the perfect hiding spot, tucked behind grandma Oni's house with a stray slab of wood leaned against the wall to cover a few boxes from the rain whenever a storm comes crawling through, and currently yourself too. The treated otogi wood had a familiar smell that filled your senses. Though admiring some lumber wasn't your prime objective of this little game of hide and seek.

Not that you really needed to bother. Shinobu said the boys would be busy today helping put up posters for one of the many odd jobs they tend to pick up just to rake in some cash. Meaning you had all the time in the world to-

And the safe haven shook, the wood peeling back from this old paneled wall of the hut to reveal red horns and wide eyes right on you. A wide smile with pointed teeth that could only belong to one man, or in this case oni. “Look what I got for us!” He called out, hand holding up a small bag that, knowing him, was undoubtedly full of snacks.

So, no time in the world then.

Heh….

Taking a lid to the box you had set the onikabuto in to keep him all nice and secure as you subjected him to dress up time you slowly tried to slide it over the little guy as Itto excitedly talked. “Well my favorite sweetie pie, my bro, I got some strawberry daifuku, melon pan, and I even scored dorayaki!”

Dropping his bag on the box you were slowly sliding the lid over with a nice, hefty thud you couldn't help but jump. Itto was right about the snacks, they were something to get excited over, but not so much so when the little bug inside made a noise from the fright he was unwillingly given. You couldn't even fully click the lid over the box in time as Itto's black nails were poking the lid off as he made a small huh?

“What are you doing to my little buddy?”

The real answer to that? Well, the stray cats in the village have taken to running away from you everything they even caught a sight of your presence. Fully self done, but it still hurt as they turned away from you, fleeing from the person who would snatch them up and cover them in bow ties, little sweaters, or on the rare occasion a top hat for the less squeamish ones. It seems that you've completely lost every cats good graces after treating them like dress up dolls so you were stuck with no choice but to turn to a creature that reasonably couldn't run away. So now there's Crimson Staff being revealed to both your eyes as a bright orange ribbon was wrapped In a neat bow around his horn.

Deflect. Deflect. 

“What have I told you about calling me bro?”

“Don't call you bro when I've had my tongue in your mouth? Sorry, babe.” As he spoke, an awkward laugh slipped out of him, sharp fangs on show as he tried to brush it off with a smile. “But what are you doing to my star onikabuto beetle battler?”

Can't have his little champion getting distracted from the ring and all that. 

Okay, the first deflection didn't work.

“It's actually for your beetle battles!” You claimed, eyes flicking down to the bright orange fabric. “It's a warning. You know how in nature the most colorful animals are the dangerous ones, right? So this is just like war paint.”

Poison dart frogs are characterized by one very important feature that could only help solidify your point, so clearly, this claim has some backing. Backing Itto only seemed to nod at as he raised a hand to pat the little guy on the back, always so careful to make sure he wouldn't do any actual harm as he did so. “Interesting way to see it.”

Not at all….

“Though I'm not sure an orange ribbon would look more menacing than the bright red color he already has. Or what about that badass looking scar? But I respect the decision.” 

“Why thank you for your approval, I'm honored.”

Teasing him didn't work well though when he moved his hand over to pinch at your cheeks, pulling and squishing them at his leisure. “You’re a goof, you know that?”

“Says the town idiot.” A little uncalled for? Yes. Did you care when he was still trying to egg a reaction out of you? No. You didn't even feel bad as your tongue stuck out to point at him.

“Who you callin’ an idiot, short stuff?” How you could see his eyes flicking down to your tongue, or maybe even your lips as he leaned in closer, towering frame crouching down to where you were kneeling close enough to kiss. 

So how could you help yourself from pressing a quick smooch to his nose, trying not to giggle outwardly as his eyes crossed to watch your actions. So cute. “You, tall stuff.”

“Oh now you're asking for it, babe.” Reaching his hands out you didn't even have time to squeal as he picked you up, raising you up and into the air as Itto stood back up. There would be no freedom for you to have like this. Especially not when he had such easy access to grab at your ass. “Alright, so let's play a guessing game, yeah?”

Without even bothering to wait for you to say yes, you're down for this, Itto kept talking. “This is because you can't dress up the cats anymore, isn't it?”

Ah…you've been figured out.

“No. Maybe. Okay, yes.”

“Then I volunteer.” Katniss? “Why bother the onikabuto when I'm right here, babe? You can tie all the ribbons you want in my hair. Get some clips too if you want. I'm down for it all.”

“Is-”

“Better yet!” Itto started, cutting you off as he jostled you in his arms to keep you from falling. Mother fucker could've given a warning. “We can get the entire gang in on it. You could make us look all cool and stuff with all sorts of things. So let's get you some ribbons so then I can be the manliest oni on the block.”

“You're…ridiculous.”

“No, I'm all yours.”

Fair. “Yeah, you are.” Grabbing a tussle of his white hair you twirl it around your finger, unable to help yourself from thinking about tying it in all sorts of ways with all the little hair accessories you have back home. Maybe the ones with little skulls, more ribbons, or that one charm Itto had got you after first becoming official. (Shinobu had only told you later Itto had worked for a week straight to get it for you). “Then you're my dress up doll for the next hour, mister. No backsies?”

“None at all. Do to me as you wish, I'm so ready for a makeover!”

Oh, you're gonna make sure he'll regret saying that.

“Challenge accepted.”

Sucker.

[romana-after-dark]

"Can you peel my orange" with ROF boys.

There's a social media trend where you ask your boyfriend to peel an orange for you and see they react. Some are super cute, some the boyfriends are dicks.

I thought it would be a good way to explore a lot of fics and characters to see how they react vs others

This is for Rooms on Fire, my Triple Frontier cult fic, and will include the TF boys but also a few OC's

This will be as Madonna stands after chapter 3, where she's settled into a routine with Pope, Francisco, William and Benny, but also with Jonah, Reyansh and Iris that we will see more of in chapter 4

Relationships will change grow, become damaged and morph throughout the series so its not permanant canon.

Warnings: NSFW, implied sexual acts involving fruit...

Madonna

"Could you please peel my orange?"

Pope

Of course, baby." Pope smiles, beckoning you over to him. He pulls you onto his lap and your pretty dress spills all over his legs. With his arms wrapped around you, he peels the orange in front of your stomach. When all the peel was off, Pope slowly slides a middle finger into the hole of the orange, in and out, then two fingers before pulling a slice off and bringing it to your mouth.

William

It's after Will has fucked you into the mattress, filling you up and leaving you dripping on the bed. After several sessions, you were drenched and your core sopping, so Will decided it was time for a break. Grabbing you some fruit from the fruit bowl, he agrees to peel it for you, saying you should save your energy for more important things. After peeling it, he even takes out as man of the stringy white parts as he can in a reasonable time. After plopping a piece in your mouth, he asks how it tastes.

You smile at him, sweaty still and complete naked knelt before you. "Good, thank you." "Wanna know how it can taste even better?" He eyes his cum dripping out of your pussy with a hungry look in his eyes, taking apart another slice.

Ben

Ben is struggling to peel his own orange. You do not ask him.

Francisco

"No." *Peels Benny's orange*

Reyansh

"Sure" He pucks it out of your hands, prodding at it. He's not very good. In fact, by the time he gets a lead going on it there's orange juice on the table he's wiping up with his sleeve. It's just a little mangled by the time you get it back, but you smile sweetly at Reyansh and thank him. He grins back at you.

Jonah

Jonah holds out a hand and you toss the orange over. With his legs propped up and crossed on the table, Jonah easily catches it and wipes out his knife. He cuts off the peel and finishes peeling it for you and it back with a relaxed smile.

"I'm pretty good with a knife. If you toss me the apple, I can peel it all in one spiral."

Iris

"No." But she grabs it and makes the beginnings of a peal with her nails, giving you a starting point.

****************************

I'll be for fucking real, I just wanted content with Jonah using a knife....

If you have wanna see how any other characters in my series, dark or not, would react, just send an ask!

[aerynwrites]

Freckles

Rolan x GN!Reader

A/N: based off this request - i hope you have a very Happy Bday nonny!

Word Count: 988

Warnings: none

*this is meant to be gender neutral so please let me know if you notice anything that has slipped by in my editing!*

It took you longer than expected to settle into the tower at Socerers Sundries. Mainly because the thought of staying in a place that caused Rolan so much pain and suffering made you so angry your blood boiled. But after a few mornings waking up to the sun filtering in through the windows…You started to love it.

Now you relish going to sleep beside Rolan in your chambers on the top most floor of the building, knowing you’ll wake up to a most perfect sight each morning. 

The sun always manages to creep in the window above your bed, rays turning from orange to soft pink and then eventually the gentle morning yellow light that manages to wake you most mornings. 

The sunlight kisses your skin in a warm caress, wrapping both you and Rolan in its gentle embrace as the day begins. You’re almost always the first to wake, Rolan only beating you when he has important tasks to take care of. 

Today is one of the days he does not, allowing him to sleep peacefully beside you as your eyes peel open to greet the warm rays of sun. Slowly, as not to wake your partner, you stretch your arms above your head, yawning wide as a cat basking in a pool of light before settling back into the soft sheets.

You roll over to your side just as Rolan mumbles something unintelligible in his sleep, one of his arms reaching out to slip around your waist as he pulls you subconsciously closer to him before settling once more.

He’s laying on his side, hair loose from its usual hair tie, allowing the chestnut locks to lay errant on the pillow, some strands even falling haphazardly across his face and around his horns. Gently, you reach up to tuck the hair behind his ear, revealing more of his face to you. 

Rolan is one of those people that always has a look of worry or thought seemingly permanently stuck on his face. His brows drawn together, lips pulled tight, nose scrunched adorably. When he sleeps, however, all of those things slip away, leaving his face blissfully smooth. 

You’ve always told him he actually looks his age when he sleeps, his youth coming out when he isn’t constantly worried about one thing or another. You always take a moment to admire him when he sleeps, the moment allowing you to see him truly at peace. It also allows you to take in one of your favorite features of your partner. 

His freckles. 

It was one of the first things you noticed about him when you met, immediately finding them curious as you hadn't seen many other tiefling with the same markings. You’d always fantasized about tracing over them before you both confessed your feelings, and now it was something you did more often than Rolan liked. 

Although as much as he complains when you do it, he never stops you, and you never mention the way his lips twitch upwards ever so slightly at your ministrations. 

Slowly, your fingers trail down from his ear to his cheek following the faint trail of freckles across the bridge of his nose. Your eyes and fingers trail lower then to where they travel down his neck to his chest. 

That was another pleasant surprise. That Rolan has freckles other than on his face. They’re pretty much everywhere on his body, darker in some places like his cheeks and shoulder and lighter in places like his chest and belly. 

But you love them all the same. 

Finally, after you’ve completed your roaming, your eyes flick back up to his face, still peaceful in his undisturbed sleep. And you can’t help but lean in to press a kiss to his cheek and the smattering of freckles there. 

Then you press a kiss to his nose. Then his forehead, before dropping down to his other cheek. 

You plan to travel lower, following the trail down to his jaw and neck, but another arm sliding beneath you and a soft groan stops you in your tracks, a smile splitting your lips. 

“ Hmm… ” Rolan hums tiredly. “What are you doing, my love?”

His words are thick with sleep, voice deeper than usual as he turns to brush his lips against your own before moving to nuzzle into the crook of your neck, eliciting a small sigh from you as he presses featherlight kisses there.

“I was admiring you,” you say simply, smiling as Rolan pulls away to look at you, eyes fluttering sleepily.

“Admiring me?” He repeats. “I should be flattered, a beautiful partner waking me up like that…”

You raise an eyebrow. “But…?”

Rolan smiles, wrapping his arms tighter around you until he rolls you both so he’s lying on his back and you lay atop him on his chest. 

“But I was up late last night working on research, and I would very much like to keep sleeping with said beautiful partner in my arms. If that’s amenable?”

You roll your eyes and give a dramatic sigh before settling against his chest, pressing one last kiss there before wrapping your arms around his waist.

“ Fine,” you say in mock annoyance. “I suppose if I have to stay here my admiration can wait.”

Rolan chuckles, eyes slipping closed again. “Oh, feel free to admire all you want, my love. Just don’t wake me up this time.”

You scoff, hitting his chest playfully as he tugs you closer to him. “You’re a jerk sometimes, you know that?”

Rolan hums contentedly before sitting up just enough to capture your lips in a quick kiss before settling back against the pillows once more. 

“You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

You smile, shaking your head before finally settling against him as sleep tugs lazily at your eyes. 

“I love you, Rolan,” you murmur. 

And as sleep finally pulls you both back under, you hear Rolan respond in kind.

[captain-n-crunchies]

Oranges 🍊

Yuuta x Black Reader

Selling oranges wasn't a hard job, wasn't easy either. Oranges are a fruit that you won't pick out willingly but if you're in the mood an orange would be a quick choice; it was hot out today so anyone and everyone would be outside simply to enjoy the summer's weather, it was also a good day for a tiny pop-up festival to happen! Since it's the summertime they held a market pop-up event where people selling jewelry, hair care, and the most important part of any event food was out and about selling their fruits of leisure to the public. Every year it would held by the beach with people from all over Japan meeting by the shore, I was setting up my booth ' Everythingz Orange' from oranges, to mandarins, tangerines and sometimes depending on fruits of green like limes and things were litter across these shelves and tables; I had orange accessories too to earring, bracelets, even hair pieces and body products all handmade from your truly, reader!

As I put things around everywhere I see the crowd rushing in like the waves, I see them walk over to the people closer to the entrance which isn't very smart then, to people by good scenery who gets all the pictures the get people to buy anything they want, and then you have people like me who's placed by the shore for a nice watering breeze; people who come by this part stays longer and come back for more that's why I had to start selling orange drinks, snacks, ever finger foods. I make pretty god profit off these people every year, people came by to looks and see what orange things I could have it pretty surprising to see the looks on people's faces when they see I can make orange scented paper, cloth, even ting orange themed plushies.

" Wow!, You must love oranges to make a store out of it?"

" Yep! I grew up on an orange farm so, it practically in my blood now."

To the kids I make tiny crafts like pinwheels, orange peel dolls, etc. Today though would be the best pop-up year for me though when a boy with sad eyes disrespected oranges.

" Hm, oranges?"

A boy with curious eyes looks onto my sack or mandarins with a confused look.

" Well not exactly these are mandarins' kind of like oranges but, smaller and sweeter"

He looks between me and the mandarins with a quirked brow.

" But aren't they apart of the orange family?"

" Yes, but-"

" So, they are oranges."

I know sometimes the heat messes with people's brains but this right here, this is something else! I just looked at the boy with a tilted head and explains while yes, they are in the citrus family they are not like oranges they mostly like the little sister of an orange and not it's twin; he looks at me with those big eyes and just nods. He asked how much for three and I said $5, he buys the three and walks to a group of people by the ice cream shop...it's huge panda by them also I wonder if it's a cosplay?

*10 mintues later*

The sells today been pretty good! A nice older woman bought a pair of earrings and some clementines, a girl with a funky sense of style bought an orange plushie and a bunch of jewelry, and people bought the mandarins and oranges up! The boy walked by my both a few times to see other products or to show his friends the orange themed headphone cases I made in spare time. The sun started to set, and people died out slowly and the cool air settled in, I take a break to shop around seeing shops with different selling points was always my favorite part buying beads, flower seeds, and tiny toys was something I couldn't grow out of; as I walked I saw the boy again we brushed shoulders and I sent him a apologetic smile and continued walking without looking at him back, standing in line for a funnel cake order he comes back with a sheepish look.

" Oh hello, can I help you?"

" Oh yea! um...can I ask you a question?"

" Oh sure! What's up?"

" I couldn't get this off my mind but, what the difference between a clementine and a regular orange?"

To a normal person this is a regular question but when you've had people tell you that clementines are just oranges with a different growing method the topic is very bittersweet but, I tell him all the various differences between shape, taste, texture and etc. and by the time I'm done his eyes are bright and wide; he asks me why would I know all of these things and I tell him I grew up on an citrus farm growing oranges, clementines, limes and everything citrus. We walked along the boardwalk talking about our hobbies and how we are similar, he told me he goes to Tokyo Jujutsu High school just a few blocks down, I ask about the school, and he goes into how they just learn basic high school stuff but, with all the magical wizard stuff I didn't really get.

We walked back to my booth, and I handed him an clementine.

" Here, just so you know the difference."

His warm hand grabbed the fruit, and he peeled it, I took the peeling and within in a few seconds I made him a pinwheel, his eyes shined at the flavor of the fruit and tiny toy I just smiled and told him how to make one. I pulled him a chair and for what seems like minutes but really almost an hour we talked and ate some oranges and when his friends came over, we finished a whole sack full. Yuuta and I laughed over that, and exchange numbers and he went with his friends with a wave.

After a few more people came by to check things out I started to pack up my things when a peel of an ornage fell down from the table, and it read:

' I'm clemmy glad I've met you today. xoxo Yuuta'

With a smile on my face I texted him a pic of the orange peel with the caption

' Orange you glad you've met me? 😊'

Oranges, the fruit of heart.

[cowboylament]

“But you have your…things, and I’ll get in the way and I don’t want to be in the way.”

Lucien’s brows furrowed, “I don’t understand. If I’m inviting you then I want you in my way.”

“Yes, but this is something else.” 

“What is it?”

“I remember,” I swallowed, clenching my jaw and closing my eyes with immense pressure so the skin around them wrinkled, until closing them made a hushed sound in my ear— like a breath, like sand falling in an hourglass. “How it is to have dinner with your friends, I remember how it's supposed to feel and I know it’s not like that with me. That I’m laborious.”

“Maybe I like the labor.”

The simplicity of his admission peeled my eyes open like an orange skin. Fragrant with my not understanding, Lucien could tell the way such a scent, like citrus, is immediately identifiable. He stepped forward, “When I called us friends I knew what I was doing. I’m not careless, I picked that word on purpose.”

Or

Y/N is still very tired and Lucien only wants to help. Dawn!reader x Lucien

Part One, Part Two, Part Three (AO3)

“Nesta volunteered to go to the Little City.”

We’d been in the Riverhouse when Rhysand had announced it early that morning. The sun had barely broken the horizon before there'd been a knock at my door. Nesta appearing as she had the day before, had asked me to follow. 

“What?” I’d said, but the High Lord had crossed his arms and the gesture, the way he stood before his desk, seemed more the picture of authority than I had ever seen of him. The female was poised at the other end of the room, two packs at her feet. 

“After seeing the legion flying I suspect Thesan had put them there to ward off Ilyrians. I just need you to go for the morning festivities, see if you hear anything, any talk.”

“What about the library?”

“What about it?”

“If someone sees—”

“It’s no glamour,” Rhysand began, “But my wraiths will dress you. You’ll look like any other market goer but you’ll have to make it believable. Whatever it takes, but listen carefully and avoid the library.”

 I’d slept. Less than one ought to, but more than I’d been. Three hours asleep, three hours waking, then one more hour before up again for the day. Four entire hours. It was distributed evenly over my body, bearing some of its weight, returning everything to an appropriately vivid vision. Even feelings had become brighter, more obvious. Such as my skepticism. 

“Did something happen?” I asked, curious at the newfound need to know what the High Lord of Dawn and his court might believe of him. 

“No. But I learned during the last war what consequences awaited my people when I was careless with myself. What he thinks of me is his business, but if he is patrolling, looking for Illyrians, then I believe I’ve let our indifference fester too long. I’ve been able to count on Thesan to make the right decision when it’s needed, I’d like still to be able to count on him.”  

“Why me?” I asked, knowing Lucien likely more than capable. Knowing that his eye had come from those streets, probably from the hands of a friend. “It seems rather official, this business.”

“Consider it…an errand, or more a favor,” Rhysand said and a casual tired smile appeared on his face though it seemed more like a loophole. An opening to a different conversation, one where I said I wouldn’t go. “I need your help. You know that city and those people better than us. It could prove to be crucial.”

I narrowed my eyes. I couldn’t quite work out if his reasoning was too flimsy or too pristine. I was not technically in his court, so he had no reason to tell me the true purpose of such a task, but I wondered why he didn’t. If perhaps he didn’t trust me, and behind the curtain of meaning there was some greater reason I had to go. To leave me there maybe. Shame coiled more pronounced than ever. The whole thought was sour. I reconsidered. 

Truthfully, I thought, if there were some other more important reason, I don’t think I’d be the person he asked. He’d already told me a lot, things that could prove consequential, with personal devastation. So maybe he was telling the truth then. The unblemished report. Maybe, having gotten more sleep, having had a quieter more focused mind, had me overcompensating. All the holes in his reasoning at once seemed to vanish when I considered it, that maybe I was afraid to go and was looking for a reason that I couldn’t help. That my mind was applying a skepticism, now that it was more clearly able, because it didn’t want to go but had no good reason. 

The wind warped the windows, pushing against the glass. My eyes flicked over Rhysand’s shoulders. Not a week, or even a few days, just a couple hours and the bitterness above had slithered down from above when no one had been looking, while the eyes had been shut and the bed had been warmed. There were things that were needed, as Rhysand had said, things that couldn’t be replicated or replaced. I then found Nesta, who had stood with me in the archivist's office, who had walked with me into the past, to a life I no longer had. She was already dressed. Light was breaking, the blue of the world dissolving.

“Where are the wraiths?”

Such confidence, I realized now, perhaps undeserved. Wondering if I’d been right to be unsure, to have believed this city over, to have said my final goodbye. Behind us Rhysand waited in the brush, lounging by our bags unperturbed. 

“It’ll be just like the library,” Nesta said, sensing my reluctance. “If you want to go just say so.”

I gave her a sidelong glance, her unknowing posture, the ease with which she faced this challenge. Over the wall, one could hear the clamor growing louder as the morning's worship had ended, as people came from houses and temples in search of things they needed. 

As a reply, I just said, “I meant to say thank you. For yesterday.”

“You were doing me a favor. I should thank you.”

I mimicked her casualness, the nonchalance, the both of us acknowledging that a thank you should be in order without ever saying it aloud. And I trusted too that, like myself, she’d understood despite her words that I really did mean it, that it was a task great enough for thanking. Greater than perhaps that which met the naked eye. 

I dropped my chin. Bodies moving, rummaging through old trunks, a hilly slope, red-tiled rooves climbing up and, there, the manor house—Thesan and his court. Though I could not feel the presence of Rhysand I guessed he was probably looking, probably waiting. I’d been dressed in fine, albeit regular clothes. Clothes made for anyone, for someone to easily emerge into visibility and disappear back into obscurity again. I took a long breath. 

I remembered the rain.  It felt like enough. 

So I began to walk. 

If those first mornings in Day court I resembled an animal, I was aware that it was even more apparent now. Some wild thing reverting in me when facing this place. My legs wobbled, my head outstretched, nose pointed, as I tentatively found the boundary of the forest from the city. Nesta’s attention did not leave me, though it was smarter for her to have been focusing ahead. How strange I thought we must look. And yet no one looked. 

It wasn’t until, after great effort, I crossed the threshold, the invisible line, that something within me righted just a bit. The noises clearer, the words articulated, the laughter sharpening, and smells. Smells that seemingly had slipped under the doorway of the past to find their way into the present. The way some rain is so clearly from childhood, some spring mornings belonging to a very far away version of yourself. But here now, with me, curling at my ankle and rising to my face was sweet bread, butter cakes, jams, clean vegetables, and cooked meats. A dormant area of my mind blinked awake and turned its face toward the light.

Nesta approached me more gracefully, though her mouth remained slightly agape. For all Velaris’ worth and beauty, The Little City too held, in the light of morning, a poignant wonder. Promise and possibility, soft at the edges and vibrant at its center, a whirring thought, this small contained place. From this new vantage, the library was a beacon, and the temple fell in perfect position for the piercing morning light that came through the thinning pink clouds. By this afternoon you could tell the weather would be entirely different. On clotheslines hung sheets and quilts, their designs tedious and complex, while families passed, on the same balconies, pots of food. The cycle of it, community worship and worship as community. 

Like calls to like Bryaxis had said, and briefly, I felt it there, something pulling in my chest, leading me inward, leading me on and away. Rhysand was right, I was biased. All I mean to say is, it held its own in any competition of beauty. Those who loved Velaris nights I didn’t doubt would find some familiarity when stepping into the flow of morning market.

I turned toward her, already failing to pay close attention as Rhysand had asked, “Shall we?”

The dominant current of the river of people was not difficult to enter or find. All we had to do was walk right into it and other shoppers made space. The stream would end dwindle to a trickle and then likely turn round at the other end of the city. Stalls were strategically positioned to create in certain popular spaces alleyways. Those who knew the market, knew what they wanted and where it was, could switch to the other side. I spent the first ten minutes of our walk hardly paying attention at all, but getting used to the place again. To the overlapping conversations and the speed with which everyone walked which was decided in early morning and impossible to change by this time. Some mornings I recalled having a lazier urgency to them, the people speaking almost with a drawl too. My hands brushed against raw fabrics, stopping to stand between patrons rubbing the soft materials between their fingers. 

“Can this be used for pants?” someone asked and the stall keeper began to explain in detail the thinness of the fabric, what one could do with it, what might be better, asking a handful of questions, getting precise answers. Two experts met each other, and at once the morning became collaborative. 

We did not stop, but it occurred to me that there was an entirely new feeling in being here. One without the same agonies, the suffering I thought I’d find. Yes, things were different, but they were also the same, and what was remembered spoke very lowly, reached very far, for what remained. And what I had believed to be an enormous undertaking, a heavyweight, was easy to manage. So easy that I wondered if ever I would come back. Not for too long and maybe alone. So that perhaps I too would look like Lucien, or Nesta, the dropping of a mask. 

“You’ll have to show me,” Nesta said as we continued to walk. Good that she did that, I realized. There was not a single couple in the procession that was silent. Rhysand’s words range in my mind, it’s up to you. I was tired of not being able to do that which was up to me. 

“Show you what?” I asked, moving closer to her. 

She gestured toward the market, “Velaris has the rainbow, what about Dawn?”

We stopped and I moved onto my tiptoes, turning this way and that, over whatever heads I could manage. It was not difficult to know the answer to her question, to know where to look, and to choose the physical world instead of words. There was no way for me to give her the answer that she wanted. Not at least by explanation. There was only the very real thing, the totality of the place itself. Through the curtain of a stall I saw it, the reflection of light against the stony world. Dropping flat again I turned back to Nesta, put a hand out between us.

She looked down, then, grabbed it in her calloused hands.

Though I’d been in the midst of turning to lead the way I looked back. It made her laugh.

“From training,” She said. “With the Valkyries.”

“I didn’t realize,” I said or maybe I had, maybe I’d forgotten. Maybe everything was always forgotten once your back was turned. “That you called yourself that.”

“You know of them?”

I nodded, “There was a female, she hoped to study them once she passed the defense but…”

“I see,” Nesta said and then we were quiet. We walked a few paces and then Nesta said, leaning in, “If you know anything, or remember, I’d love to hear it.”

“Of course,” I said swallowing then repeating but more for myself. “Of course.”

The crowd thickened like sap near the narrows where you were meant to turn. The natural order, the disruption leading to more disruption. But despite that, everyone remained polite, even kind. People gestured for others to go first, put arms out to warn others of muddy puddles, and held hands out to save someone’s balance. A broken bag was replaced and the contents put back inside of it. That if anything were true about this place, was that it was kind. And sure, I thought, maybe you’d find cruelty as you would in any place find cruelty, but that there was kindness too, that was what I knew. That was what I thought often about.

We ducked between bodies, Nesta’s hand in mine, and made down the short ally it created until we were on the other side of it. There was no order to the stalls themselves, but it worked out that this part contained more food than trinkets. The smells and sizzles passing by overhead, occasionally dipping low so that the market goers might be enticed, might stop and smell them.

But we did not stop. 

The namesake in sight, how it looked like liquid sun. Molten and forged and new, worked by hand, from the mind, thoughts made real. Nesta dropped my hand as we got closer, slowing her approach, the section of the market known formally as The Copper Market. I turned, letting people pass by, and saw her face scanning the contents. It was always hard to know what they were exactly, just from sight. You could guess, but the many possibilities felt endless, and much like the number of days spent awake, to land on a theory always felt a little wrong. 

“What is this?” She asked.

My mouth flinched with a smile, and I let it bloom, voice soft in tenderness, “It’s what we’re known for.” Much like the weeks before I felt the present sensation, the newness, of the smile that pulled on my face, that became difficult to contain. “The creation and tinkering of things I suppose. You can find, here, what is being made, what ideas are being explored.”

“So you’re all just this clever?”

I knew what she was doing so I gave no answer. A smirk stretched, casual, before she began again to walk, all power and grace. Her shoulders back, gaze set, I saw a little of who she’d said she was once. How cutting she might’ve been, the sharpness of her features, the coldness of her eyes. Though now she didn’t seem that way, just a matter of tweaking, of tinkering like the fae here, and suddenly something new and very real was in its place. Nesta, yes, multifaceted, both versions here with me now, and so comforting she was. Which meant even Lady Death could, when deserved, reach out with gentle hands. 

We took our time, squinting often as we passed bright stalls—the reflection of the sun in all the metals. The name for the market came from the abundance of copper at one time, but now any number of material was used. But still, in the morning sunrise, it was beautiful, the orange set against the orange, how it burned and warmed like flame.

I scanned across the fuss looking for gathered crowds, looking for places to stop and listen, while Nesta kept her eyes on the tables. One in particular where, stopping, she lifted something in her hand

“That’s a symphonia,” A male said appearing before us. He was young, no more than 40, his face unshaven and his eyes bright. I could tell it had lost no novelty, coming here, talking about and sharing his work.

“I own one,” Nesta said. 

His eyes widened, “Really! And?”

She smiled, her voice taking on a range that came, most particularly concerning Cassian. Not the fierceness, the teasing, but something else, vulnerable and chosen with care. A kind I imagined she used more often when they were alone. I knew it only on accident, when she thought no one could hear. She said, “I use it often. To dance. I love music and dancing.”

The two began to speak in detail, he explaining that was why he made it. That his wife loved going to the theater, but when they left there the music had no tangible place. That she’d hum and hum and hum until they could afford to go again, but even so sometimes by the time they made it back, the theater or orchestra had put on something else. 

Nesta asked what else he made. The Symphonia was his most popular creation, and his biggest project. He said it by no means as a confession or with any shame. His life work was tangled up with the pleasure of making something useful for his wife. The rest were, by his standard, small trinkets, exercises in thought while he perfected something infinitely more precious. He had a glass bulb that, when exposed to darkness, began to glow. An unextinguishable flame, though he naturally wouldn’t tell us what was inside it. He’d made a cup you could carry with you that never cooled or warmed. Whatever you put inside it remained the same temperature. The smallest and most interesting to me was a pen. He opened it up to reveal a ribbon inside, that, somehow, with each stroke, recorded a double of what you had written. 

“How much?” I asked and bought two.

Nesta bought a cup, and smiled in such a way that I knew this too was meant for Cassian. As we walked away she placed a hand on her stomach. 

“Hungry?” I asked, realizing it was now well into morning and we’d had no food. 

She nodded, “Everything smells so good.”

“I’ll get us something.”

In line, my stomach growled. All those flavors. Memories. Memories clear enough to taste as I waited. The urgency now, to eat. I ordered us each all my favorites. In hindsight, I thought the flavors together might not mingle well, but I had ordered entirely for myself in a way. And to Nesta later I’d be sorry. Honeyed ham, shredded potatoes crisped and served with peppers and onions, butter cakes, sweetbread, syrup, all of it very crucial that morning to have and be had. The order had spilled out naturally though I had not said those words for five decades. The strange closing of a distance, returning of things, things I hadn’t even thought to want when I’d gotten back but had once craved so badly and so often. Notes on survival maybe, of what the mind forgets, of what it lets you forget, so you remain sane. And now, before I had a chance to really miss them, they were in my hand. The once-sated stomach, keen to devour. 

I dropped Nesta’s plate before her though she did not immediately take to it. It occurred to me that the past feelings, the sensations of familiarity and places you’d been to before, might not be so endearing to her. That some things were better left to ourselves because even when they are physically present, there are things about them that cannot be understood. Her gaze settled onto my plate.

“You’re going to eat all that?”

I shifted a little, turned away from her, tucked my hands under my thighs. It was impolite to eat before someone else. Being here, I remembered that too.

“Yes,” I said uneasily.

“Good,” She said, and picked up her fork.

The pair of us finished everything. I didn’t know there’d been room for it all, but the more I ate the more I found space waiting. I couldn’t recall ever being so full. The kind of satisfaction that requires you to sit a while within it until it isn’t so large. I liked this, that some good things demand to be felt. The idea curled softly at my ribs. I wanted to say yes I notice you. I’m sorry for letting you get away. 

“We still need to get you clothes,” Nesta said faintly, the wind pushing back her hair. 

“That’ll be at the other end of the market.”

She dropped her head back, the angle awkward, and I knew unsustainable, but she was reaching for the sun. 

“Feyre mentioned she brought you to the seamstress. But you don’t wear those clothes.”

Off the hub of the market, in the streets of the city, a couple broke off from a group. The mass of bodies had been huddling around a restaurant, and the two moving away now down the street. The male, dressed finely, threw a hand over the shoulder of the female beside him, one hand in his pocket, and they began to talk. It was a common thing I could tell, just by the way they moved their hands in sync, aware of how the other would be, knowing which direction to go so as not to hit, and the wideness of their mouth with the need to get words out of it. That this was who they wanted to tell things to, that they would leave places and immediately turn. I thought of Lucien. The only one who’d been in Dawn with me, Dawn as it had once been. Which is to say, my home. Now that word meant something else. It meant some place I’d come from but no longer really belonged. 

“I returned them,” I said absently. 

Nesta’s head propped up again, “Why?” 

I didn’t have a good answer. Not then. I simply didn’t want them—the dresses. A thinness about them, a premonition that they couldn’t do what I needed and wanted them to do. That there wasn’t enough there, some missing thing, but also because they weren’t mine. And I knew no amount of wearing them would ever make them be. But you cannot say these kinds of things. Mostly because it was hard to understand but also because to understand meant recognizing the selfishness I’d had. Handmade custom clothes, and I gave them back. The return of a life so much finer than the one I’d been living, how shameful. 

“It’s hard to explain,” I said and I hoped she’d leave it at that. And to her credit she mostly did. 

“My sister is kind. She gives what has made her happy but it doesn’t always work.” 

I smiled, “Yeah. I couldn’t blame her. Her life…I’d want to re-gift it to others too.” 

“Is it a life you see for yourself?”

I thought a moment, “No.”

“Do you know?”

“Yes and no.”

I looked at Nesta and she turned to me expectantly. 

“Whenever I picture it, I see the things I didn’t have. A library. Food. Time. More time. The Cottage was hard, I worked all day to keep it going. So I picture something…more sustaining. Then I’d have time then to learn. To learn just for myself and for no one else. And then maybe I could have the birds and a cat there with me. Just me and them, thats what I picture at least. It’s all I really need.”

“Just you?” She asked, her voice a little higher than normal.

I nodded, looking about the dream for anyone else, but came up empty-handed, “Yes, just me. Maybe a cat. And birds. That’s all I need.” 

“And what of your wants?”

Flashes came and went, wants, aching wants, to see them, to think them so clearly clamped my throat and my face worked to hide its despair. The way my nostrils flared, my skin turned red, all the blood and tears rising to the surface. 

“You have time to figure that out,” Nesta said but I knew she knew I had an answer. I knew she could tell it was very much real and able to be said but she did not ask anymore about it. 

We exchanged no words to recover the conversation of before. It was clear that it was over, and we’d veiled what had happened enough that after a few minutes, something in me resolved. I imagined the needs, imagined the weight of a warm cat on a cold bed, and closed my eyes. After another few minutes of quiet a group of people passed by and they spoke low, too low to hear. It occurred to me that we were doing a terrible job of having any information to come back with.

“Have you heard anything?” I asked, leaning toward Nesta. 

“Heard what?” She asked, then it struck her. Her face neutral as she gave me a once-over. “Aren’t you supposed to be clever?” 

“What?” 

“You thought we were just going to let you live as you were?”

I grappled with the words to explain, opened my mouth, but the idea did not yet seem fully formed. Yet I knew that one day I would have to answer it, to explain the absence, to say why I had done anything as I had done it. But I wasn’t ready. I was not ready. I needed more time. I wanted to say, please, give me just a little more time. But Nesta did not notice, or if she had, mistook the panic for something more minor and unworthy of fixing. 

“Rhysand didn’t send us here to listen at market. We came here to get you proper clothes.”

My mouth shut. 

“Yes if you can believe it we’ve worked out a few things about you. Things we hoped to remedy by getting you to come here.”

It was not the answer I’d imagined, not even the question I thought being asked. A silent gratitude passed through me, for the time to figure it out, to find the words. But just as soon as it happened confusion washed away the remnants of relief, “How’d you know I’d say yes?”

“If I told you you’d never let us help you again.” 

A light scowl graced my features and it felt good. To have new feelings. Feelings that had been gone a long time, feelings from the displeasure and annoyance of someone being very close to you. If it weren’t so ridiculous I’d have smiled surely. Nesta laughed and made to stare, looking out across the market. That I had gotten to know them had been a given, but the reverse being true did not occur to me. Not in this way, in the way that required my not telling them, that came only from being around. The intensity of my words, their weight, the particularity, I’d labored over many answers to ensure that I was understood, totally unaware that this very thing was already happening, whether I said anything or not.

Nesta turned to me and the humor subtly lifted from her face to reveal that of the warrior. I could see the command she could wield, could see how people would follow, “What else?”

“What?”

“What else do you need?”

I thought a moment, many things when living I’d thought about needing but now when prompted couldn’t name. 

“I won’t be offended. And Rhysand is here to get it back to Velaris.”

I blinked, tentatively, to see what she’d say, “Maybe a small bookshelf.” 

She nodded, “Alright. Anything else?”

I weighed the options. To reveal the deception, to allow the possibility of such a thing, to be seen very fully for what I was, and risk even what I was becoming. The other possibility, which was goodness, which was to feel the sense of homely goodness. It was hard to know, strange as it sounds, the other ending feeling too great, allowing them, who had just known me enough, to know something else. To not be the one that told them. If it was my choice, then there was no choice at all.

“No.”

“Let's go then.”

In mid-morning the market had already lost some of its bulk. Late bloomers and last-minute purchases scuttled about, quickly, the way crabs did when we’d lift their rocks from overhead as children. Fabrics blew in a breeze, a cloud passed over the sun, and I grabbed a hold of myself.

“What will you buy?” Nesta asked.

“A jacket,” I thought, the weight of my money at my side. “A sweater.” 

“That’s it?”

“No, but, I want to see first.”

Nesta nodded and we strolled, stopping just before the market at a stall. The female grabbed in her hand a silver fabric, and I realized quickly it wasn’t meant for sewing. 

“Oh!” 

Nesta turned, withdrawing her hand, “What?”

“These are robes.”

“Robes.”

I nodded, “Robes. It’s a more…traditional garment. The court wears them sometimes, on big holidays or visits. There are different kinds, it all depends. The scholars have their own.” 

Nesta turned, studying the colors and materials now with greater context and consideration. She felt each one, twisting it between her fingers, found out how they felt.

“Do you have any?”

I shook my head, “I don’t have reason to own any. Not anymore.”

“What about just to have?”

“They’d be wasted, and these are particularly beautiful,” I said holding up a sheer white set, how it draped over the fabric, pleated, the edges lettuced, looking like water. The sleeves sunk to the ground nearly, they’d drag. If you weren’t anywhere nice then it would ruin them entirely. I placed it down and Nesta watched me keenly.

“Maybe another time,” I said. “But for now, I just wanted warm clothes.”

And with those words, she conceded. 

“You could get some,” I said as we walked away, toward the boarder of the town square. Her face turned back skeptical, unsure, a slight wrinkle in her nose. It was nothing like what she wore in Velaris. For all the beauty that I saw, there was something particularly nice too, that this word denoted different things for everyone. That I was living a life now where I might know for myself what they meant. 

“It is…nice for you,” She said.

With that something inside me fractured. Not even in a bad way, but, actually in a good way. A rhythm interrupted, and for as long as it had been since, I laughed. Laughed real and jovially, the kind that makes your neck crane. And it felt so good I never wanted to forget it. The belief then and there that there was nothing singular about the act. That it would happen again. And what had been undoable before no longer was. 

Nesta, to my left smiled, laughing too, and added, “For a moment I thought I might’ve said the wrong thing.”

I shook my head, “Never.”

We’d not made it past the square before, but in the same instant, we realized music was playing. Nesta’s head was already turned at its attention. I didn’t have to ask if she wanted to see, instead I simply approached, the symphonia a distant acknowledged thought. A crowd had begun to form, but it was not so large that we couldn’t break through it, moving to the front with shifting bodies, shoulders rubbing. 

I realized then, the song that was playing. An old wedding march. 

“What’s going on?” Nesta said, leaning toward me without taking her eyes off the band. Briefly, I wondered if she could see it, the music, how some people are. 

“Someone’s been married.”

Nesta turned toward me and we shared an appreciative soft smile. A kind between lovers. A kind for people who love. I recognized it in her. And then she, I saw her recognize it in me. The couple appeared through the crowd. 

“What are they doing?” 

“It’s a belief similar to that of Calanmai. Couples, in the morning light, share a dance. Privately or not, the dance is meant to be an offering. The idea that what happens, the energy or the feeling, is fed then back into the earth, for the mother.”

“Why do it here?” She asked. 

“The more people who partake the better it is. For the community, but also for the couple.

Nesta’s brows lifted and she turned back, shifting a little with some antsy feeling. The family of both parties had gathered at the edges of the circle, controlling the crowd, probably knowing of the craze. 

The couple, beaming, took each other's hands and began to step in time. I knew it. What they were doing. I remembered it from times a long time ago, when festivals and joy seemed to be happening all the time in Aurora. The steps coming naturally, like a shadow, like a second skin. Some memories so strangely palpable, more so than others. They turned about the square, smiling in a way that said it couldn’t be helped, their happiness. The verse ended and the next began and they separated only to go about it all more traditionally, the female pulling more females and the male more males. 

“What are they doing now?”

“This is a dance you’re meant to do with your community.” 

Nesta's eyes watched her body swaying, leaning toward it, uncertain, not knowing, knowing as I had known and recognized the first steps.

“Do you want to join in?” 

She whipped around, “What?” 

“You’re meant to join. That’s the point. It’s like…a prayer. And it’s fun.”

“I don’t know it.” 

“I do.” 

She smiled a little, looking back in thought, but the answer seemed decided long before that, now there was just the matter of courage. But I was there. And I could help her. So I hoped she’d say yes, hoped that maybe I could do this one thing. Nesta shook her head tentatively and I grabbed her hand, “It’s only a few steps. You said you danced.” 

I pulled her toward the females side, which was giddy and alight with laughter. They spotted us before we’d gotten too close, after only a few steps, and began to frantically wave us over. 

I smiled, “She wants to learn.”

The bride beamed, “It’s good luck to teach someone this dance.”

I’d forgotten that. Forgot what it all meant. 

The group opened their arms and we found a place in the gap. They explained the four steps to Nesta who nodded, smiling, softly but still with that brightness the couple had. A pure kind of joy. Of being where you wanted to be. Such feelings spread through everyone who got near it. The light of love and of goodness, a fine magic, capable of wielding by any hand. 

I held to Nesta tightly and we all moved around the circle. More people ran and joined and when she messed up once or twice we all laughed, adjusted for her, then caught up to where we’d needed to be. The music increased in tempo, the moves remained the same. Bolstered by the joy we all kept on faster and faster with one more always joining. The crowd was clapping with us if not scurrying to choose a side. The numbers felt immense and eventually it was hard to see over the many heads who were there. Close to bursting, a cry lept out of joy, and I turned to Nesta. 

“Get ready,” I said. 

“For what?”

“To find a partner.”

“What?”

But the crescendo crashed. Every arm, once together tight, became unlinked. The throng of people was denser than that of the market. Nesta surging forward with it, the rest moving around me, like I wasn’t even there. But I smiled, following her, ensuring she made it to the other side. Partners sought out other partners, there were shrieks of young females and the rowdy cheering of males, and Nesta just turned helplessly about. I laughed as I watched her. She too far now to reach, the partners chosen. But I didn’t mind. I wanted to see her do it, wanted to watch such things give happiness to someone else. 

Someone eventually approached her and I watched her shake her head. The words lost in the commotion, I went on my tip toes to try and see. But the movements were too much, the vantage point too obscured. 

“I’ve never done this dance before,” I heard her yell. 

A lull allowed for an “I’ll help.” 

And for a moment, for a very brief and impossible moment, it felt familiar. It felt the same as it had ever been. The band loud again, my thoughts very still and very quiet. Nesta turned about the small space and I watched with, not horror. No. That wasn’t the word. Something divine. Not good or bad, but all-consuming. Rector robes around those hands, yes that made all the sense in the world. The tinkering of memories and moving parts turned like gears, whirred with creation, and time, which until then had been a great distance, caught up to itself. The world that was left utterly vanishing and replaced entirely only by what was. They danced well together. But that made sense. He’d been the one who taught me. 

Nesta turned to see if I was looking and I was. My face had paled. Her own dropping. I knew she’d seen it.  

“Your friend has stolen my husband,” a voice said, light with laughter. She turned toward me. Her mouth opened slightly, tasting it, tasting a past. And with it a tiny unknowing face, but achingly familiar to one from many many years before. Sure as memory, surer, like being back from where I came. So I knew. And she, a mother, knew. 

I turned back to Nesta who’d stopped. There he was. Oh, he was so perfectly the same. As if I’d just pulled him from the water, howling over his ankle. His smile the same. The only tell was a thin streak of grey. But the face shifted from the familiar happiness, to that of concern. The happiness of before had looked so good on him, looked precisely like love. Over Nesta’s shoulder, he caught me. And I him. And we were in some strange net that seemed to tangle threads together. The old world and this new one. The pain and pleasure. What we’d done. What we’d failed to do. My name played in his mouth, moving around it, but it was too slight a sound. I didn’t hear him say it. As if I could only exist a certain amount and this was capacity, that saying it would be too much. What had once been broken had been unbroken, profoundly whole, now palpable between us. Bile rose, at the thought. That he knew now. That they both knew what I hadn’t done. 

Nesta reached me and I grabbed her shoulder before I winnowed us to the clearing we’d come from. 

I fell to my knees. 

Retching. 

Expelled it all. And with the food came any goodness I’d felt. Any happiness. Any sense of knowing what could be. Before I fell onto my side and if anything had ever been there, inside of me, then now there really was nothing at all.

***

Sleep, with what little it had come before, seemed to disappear altogether. Rhysand, thinking there had been danger, had immediately winnowed us back to the River House where the pair of them asked me what had happened. But I remained there, trapped in an interminable silence. The room warm, my body was warmer, and the shadows growing long jutting out around me as if time was passing very fast before me. Staring at the place between my hands, the carpet, the absence, I thought only of each inhale. Of the way my body seemed to fill with it despite nothing really being there. And then when I exhaled, how I could feel more palpably the act of loss. 

Then there was a hand at my back.

“Y/N?” 

Feyre. She knelt beside me. I looked up at her. There was a halo about her, the world bright, and I realized that it permeated all around us. I realized, actually, I had done it. I had encased myself in light. She’d somehow gotten in.

“Are you hurt?” She asked. 

I blinked, hurt. The word itself strange, becoming more abstract the longer I thought. Less in the body, less in any particular place, but sure yes, in a way. But I knew also that the loosening boundaries of these things was not what she’d meant. That we were, for a moment, using the same language, but in entirely different ways. So I shook my head.

“Good,” she said, smiling gently. Her face all kindness. I thought she’d ask after if something had happened, if she’d reiterate what they’d wanted to know when we’d got back, but she did no such things. Her hand not leaving the space between my shoulder blades. “Do you want to go home?”

“I don’t have a home.”

“Do you—” she stuttered, “Do you want me to get Lucien?”

I recoiled, “No.”

“Azriel?”

I shook my head, “I want to leave.” 

She withdrew her hand, sat up a little, swallowing, “You can leave. You can leave whenever you want.” Her voice had gone a little strange, a little different. But she had not lost any of her gentleness. It just seemed actually deeper, connected to some finer emotion that I didn’t know. 

I dropped my head again, couldn’t bear to look at her anymore, took a few more breaths, found words where there hadn’t been before, “I thought we were friends.”

“We are.”

I shook my head, “He left me there.”

“Who?”

But the light flicked then guttered out. If anyone else said something to me I didn’t hear it. I walked home, shut the door, and did not come out again. Did not sleep. Did not dream. When, the following week, Azriel took me to Dawn. Even in the woods, even in the place that had once been such a relief, it had stopped giving what I needed. Velaris was worse. There were only brief half hours where I slipped more totally away from life before jolting awake again. A kind of sleep, the kind you know you’re having which means you’re not having it. I could hear the world outside, could feel my thoughts even then. Life was one tortiously long uninterruptions of consciousness, if you could call it that. 

We’d been meant to search the woods for four days but made only half when Azriel took us back. We flew the whole way. But I didn’t see. It was hard to explain how it was, being there but not being there, like sitting in a house with the lights off. There was simply nothing everywhere all the time. I didn’t feel sad, just tired and removed. 

So it was easy in a way, to do whatever they asked. When someone showed up at my door to take me to dinner I went. And when they took me home I followed. Dragging the past behind me like dead weight, my body feeling utterly lifeless, drained of all things. My existence had become even thinner than before. Rarely ever speaking, rarely ever offering the eye contact that had one being spoken to. Even Lucien, who could reach through the haze seemed to get further, seemed to me totally out of reach. In the margin of my sight, or just outside of it. Lingering but not closing in. I was, again, a rabid animal, something of the woods. The void had touched nearly everything, and it only had to take me completely by placing the veil of itself over my eyes. I hadn’t done what I was supposed to. Time was out. So I waited. 

"There's a mountain range here," Rhysand said, pointing to a map of Dawn in his office. That night, Azriel had come and taken me silently to the meeting I didn’t know we were supposed to have. Now he was standing near the window. I watched Rhysand’s finger circle an area, watched his mouth move, but nothing came out. The weight of my head slowly grew heavier, the glass on the window shook with wind. The leaves outside that brushed the glass were a deep green, an aged green, and I couldn’t tell if it meant they were living fully or dying. I didn’t understand why anything was noticed, if it meant something to me, or if at times the emotional shield around me dropped to let things in at random.  

“—path this way,” Rhysand added the first half of his sentence cut off. Memory fading, not able to pull what he’d said, finding in my immediate memory nothing. 

“And you’re sure?” Azriel asked. 

“No,” Rhysand said. “The cover isn’t as good and we’d be blind. Mor was there but she had nothing of significance.”

Name, had heard it. In conversations I wasn’t part of and now, not part of it. I blinked, turned my head, and realized I’d been staring unflinchingly at the corner of a frame for too long. Snagging again, eyes glazed a table, round and wide in the corner with papers. Like a dining table, like words forgotten. It will work. Then a strange sense of guilt. Unused to it—with him, not at all used to it. But intimacy, but promises of freedom, vows. We will not worry or want for each other. You will have your life and I mine. The sea that afternoon, duplicit, his lips and then our bed. And suddenly not so strange. Love but a different way. I cannot help you anymore. I understand. I get it. What I can give you must accept. But I who always wanted more. Leave, please. And close the door. That night we hadn’t thought. Feeling him gone, feeling it all ruined. But at the kitchen table, it had seemed good. At the kitchen table, he held me and at least then, for a moment, it was real.

“What?”

I looked heavy toward Rhysand who’d spoken, eyes on me, waiting. 

I didn’t even have the strength to ask what back. 

Rhysand continued, “You said something?”

Reality and dream we blending. So I couldn’t let it come back, those thoughts. I had to be here exclusively. I couldn’t slip away in front of other people. I shook my head, did not voice no with dormant vocal cords. Shifted a little higher in my seat, and put my hair up so the chill in the air would keep me there. 

Azriel spoke again, "Near the weaver.”

"I've heard that before," I said. 

"Helion mentioned it," Rhysand said, his mind halfway gone, his eyes settling on me.

"I don't understand the significance."

The Illyrians both let their eyes flick up to one another. My head lulled to the side in the silence and with no stimulation to focus on, I forced it back upright. Yet in doing so it seemed my body wanted a trade. If it could not make my tired obvious by the resting of my head on the arm of the couch, then it would excessively announce itself with yawns. 

Azriel spoke in a kind voice. One too kind to offer any ease, "The weaver is a creature of another world. We believe Bryaxis might be going to places of that sort of significance."

"And the caves?"

"Plenty of places in Prythian host some sort of anomaly. The caves might be part of a string of activity in that regard. They probably have secrets we have yet to discover."

My brows furrowed, understanding was not easy to come by. The caves were simply the caves, nothing more. My mother had never mentioned it. Never even a theory. But I nodded anyway. Like a real person would. How real people do. 

Rhysand continued, “Despite being ransacked, the cottage is still there. It could be what Bryaxis mistook your cottage for. Or just another hiding spot.”

Still no sense. Bryaxis has followed me. But we continued. 

“I don’t think anything would go near that place. Let alone take anything.”

“High lords have kept things there for centuries. Who knows what’s still in there, what they don’t know they could get back.” 

“What makes it so wretched?” I asked. 

“It’s made of skin,” Azriel said coolly which was enough to wake me a little. 

“Did we pick a date to go?”

“You said you were going to check with Nesta? Something about her wanting to go but having training.”

I pressed my fingers into my forehead. Right yes. She’d said so at dinner once.  

“Sorry I haven’t seen her,” I said and I realized it was a lie too late. We’d had dinner now all together three times. I had not intended to lie, it was true. Which is often different from what factually happened. I hadn’t seen her, not really. I went and haunted the room before going back to my apartment, lying down, and staring at the jacket hung on the doorknob which did not belong to me. There was no other reason of why I wouldn’t have asked yet, having wanted her to come since before, since the caves, besides not seeing her. I would’ve told them what had happened, that the false truth had been so palpable. Enough that, now, not having it hurt. 

But there weren’t words. 

The two males were too polite to say what we all knew. To point out the obvious which was since our visit to the city I was not the same.

"Why don't we pick this up next week," Rhysand said.

"I'll be in Illyria."

"Y/N and I can then. I'll fill you in."

Rhysand bid us goodnight with a tight-lipped smile. I wanted to say I’m sorry, but the door was already shut. When I turned in the foyer Azriel was already outside. The front entrance clicked into place and I swallowed, waiting a few minutes, so I knew he was really gone. 

I walked to my apartment with a sense of finality. That if they’d ever trusted me at all then it was probably thinning fast. If we did go back to Dawn, and Bryaxis wasn’t there, we probably wouldn’t go looking again. Which was better. I didn’t want anyone hurt and it was becoming increasingly obvious I couldn’t be counted on. A feeling reached me then, the first in a long time, a familiar sense of bittersweetness. I used it, carried myself through the streets. Failed again, but Autumn was here. The equinox had passed and now it was cool more often than not.

Velaris, with the elongating nights, was joyful. People, despite the darkness, were bright with it. And so the whole city regardless didn’t seem dark at all. The opposite. It was all alive. Restaurants were busier than they’d ever been. People stood around in the street, cups in hand, talking with one another. It occurred to me that no one was walking me home this time. No one had picked me up. I didn’t have to go back to my apartment where I’d close the windows and wait for another day. I could, instead go into the life itself, the buzz, where it was less miserable now that the heat was gone. 

But to do so would require interactions I appeared to be incapable of giving. There was a wanting I couldn’t provide. So I swayed home more than I walked, bumping into someone once or twice and mumbling an apology. Climbing the stairs with feet a hundred pounds I went to grab my key but a male was in the way. 

“Ah,” Lucien said. “I’ve been knocking.” 

The door closed and locked behind him. A familiar feeling, one that made me softer at the edge. I didn’t think he’d come back. Didn’t think he’d ever again get this close.

“We had a meeting.”

He nodded with a hum, “I was just coming to ask if you wanted to have dinner with me.”

A blush rose to my cheeks, a furious kind, the kind that in a dark room would make itself known. The heat radiated from all around my body into the small space. I wondered, briefly, if this was how he existed all the time, near a permeating and perpetual warmth. And now, did he feel, as I felt, the closeness of it? Something in him soothed at the presence of such a temperature. 

“I’m not cooking this time. So if there are any objections due to my last meal then you’re safe.”

“No,” I said shaking my head. “It’s not that.” 

“Then what is it? You won’t hurt my feelings.” 

“Nothing like that.” 

Lucien waited, face bright, hands in his pocket. Expecting no wound tonight. Not even thinking I would do so. Oh yes, a joke. His charm. He didn’t really believe me to be the thing I was to become. He didn’t know yet. Words were hard tonight, rising up in my throat as if wading through gravel. Nothing direct, no straight line, everything hard. Even looking at him, my body was so tired my eyes held a painful dryness to them. So tired it made you want to cry. I rubbed at my eyes, a sense of wetness about to occur that I wanted at once to banish, and still, he waited.

“I don’t feel like talking tonight.”

Lucien nodded, “Then let’s not talk. Let's eat.”

Quiet crept between us. Immediately he put into place a vow of silence if it meant I would go, if it would make me feel better. He cast his attention back and forth some small distance. What he was looking for in my face I couldn’t say and what I was showing on my face I couldn’t say either. I was nothing. A vacant memory, a hollow thought of a female. More conceptual than real, something you’d think about reaching for but never would. And yet, I knew my reasons alone would not be enough to deter him, but it surprised me still, his willingness.

“I don’t want to bother you.”

“You won’t be. I want you there, that's why I came.”

“Yes, I know,” I said, my fists clenched. “But you have your…things, and I’ll get in the way and I don’t want to be in the way.”

Lucien’s brows furrowed, “I don’t understand. If I’m inviting you then I want you in my way.”

“Yes, but this is something else.” 

“What is it?”

“I remember,” I swallowed, clenching my jaw and closing my eyes with immense pressure so the skin around them wrinkled, until closing them made a hushed sound in my ear— like a breath, like sand falling in an hourglass. “How it is to have dinner with your friends, I remember how it's supposed to feel and I know it’s not like that with me. That I’m laborious.”

“Maybe I like the labor.”

The simplicity of his admission peeled my eyes open like an orange skin. Fragrant with my not understanding, Lucien could tell the way such a scent, like citrus, is immediately identifiable. He stepped forward, “When I called us friends I knew what I was doing. I’m not careless, I picked that word on purpose.”

Relief was the word, but with it there was something also painful about it. How what I could give was always what he wanted. No matter how little it was, how much it weighed. How this in and of itself was one of those plain and miraculous moments where real friendship shows up not asked for and unannounced. Now, though, it had been announced. I could only lean into it, my eyes stinging with the more complete exhaustion. The sensation became more legitimate now that there was somewhere to put it down, slumping my shoulders, dragging the skin under my eyes, purpling them more darkly. Lucien was there so my body was giving up. My friend then, revealed briefly a private anguish before he drew over it with a curtain of manners. 

“I don’t mind going alone but your company would be a great improvement to me.”

The window at the end of the hall was open and I settled back on the noise that came with it, the life and the ease of it, the light. All polite illusions fell away and I turned back, existence heavy as a stone. He was in trousers, I realized, with their fine hem, the finer shoe beneath. I closed my eyes, just a moment and it stung.

“Alright,” I said eventually, between long tedious breaths. A thin wisp of a voice became me. So hollow was everything that even I think words had lost meaning. I couldn’t put anything out that wasn’t flimsy, wasn’t falling in on itself, proving to be nothing, in the end. "Wait right here."

And he did. He made not a sound as I slipped inside. Finding the other clothes I had, finding the nicest, which seemed cheap and ratty by comparison to him, but it became too difficult really to care about any of it. And anyway, in his presence, everything existed in much less a way. He was very there, very real, very sturdy, and it offset most things. I knew I leaned toward him, was drawn to that very thing about him, with a feeling at times that it would solidify instead of diminish me. That in some ways, by the nature of our meeting and chance, in each other's presence there was something given, some bolstering that I needed so badly. So I put it on, letting the old more casual clothes drape off my hips then pool on the floor. 

In the hall again I found him gazing out the window. Hands hidden in his pockets, life outside, a life that we were to join. Did he want it too, as badly as I did? I wondered briefly too if it might help, going out there. If maybe I’d get something back to me, that there was enough inside me still, for life would cling back instead of going away the way it seemed everyone, everything, was always going away. The door clicked into place and Lucien turned.

"Ready?" I waited to hear him say, but he did no such thing. He approached on feet quietly as if they too had promised silence, and held a hand out toward the stairs. As I passed the tips of his fingers caught the silk on my clothes. And for a moment, I thought, but couldn't tell, couldn't know, that he had closed them around the fabric. As if he were trying to hold onto me. As if he were worried I was going to drift away. 

We’d been inside only a little, but in so short a time, the streets of Velaris had begun to buzz. The feel skittered along my arms, the back of my neck, this vibration. Like being near a beehive before, it was now as if we’d gone inside it. Drifting through the commotion, groups laughed rambunctiously, gesticulated largely, with an energy I never remembered possessing. Even before. In windows, people peered out at the ruckus the way I had weeks ago when Lucien first reappeared. Which was a comfort. Sometimes we are within and sometimes we are without. Even when we remain far, there is intimacy in seeing, in being seen. 

My eyes found the corner of my gaze and watched Lucien who, upon my joining him in the street, had moved just a little closer to me. Our shoulders overlapped, he a step behind me so we didn’t touch. It was the way that you walked with someone you knew. 

Overhead the moon poked through the rich blue cloth of sky, shining down on this world. Intimacy too, to be beside something. Even at a distance. Half visible, yes. Disappearing. But it would be back. Another comfort, those cyclical promises. Life and death. Waning waxing. I turned over my shoulder to the light in the window, to the window figure ghostly, wondering if they felt as I had felt the night Lucien came back. If not everything had been as it seemed, a world that did not understand me really a city where people did. That such people had really been closer than I thought. 

The walk was not far and it wasn’t particularly laborious, but in my tired, wading through the city felt a little like walking in chest-deep water. Lucien didn’t seem to notice, he remained content, revealed no impatience. Matching my pace in silent devotion to me his head lolled from each side of the street watching each scene we happened upon. He was focused then on a mother holding their hand out for their child. He followed the child’s toss of a coin over its shoulder, the strange poorly coordinated arc, a coin let go of too late. The spell cast as it sunk into a fountain and the same throwing hand reached for its mother’s to leave. In the presence of the wish, he closed his eyes. 

At a converging of streets into a square Lucien pointed in advance, as he had all night, the direction we were to take. Just across the street was a tavern. We’d made it. My shoes scraped against the cobble. It was impossible to imagine lifting those hard heavy legs enough, to have the stamina now that we’d come all this way. But it was not hard to imagine a different cycle. One made clearer, made possible, by the presence of this male beside me. That for as tired as I was, I could make it to dinner and back again.

The tavern on the outside looked no different than any other I had seen, even if that number was few. But I trusted that he, like a river, would take me where I was meant to go, would show me in that serendipitous way that I liked, what I had not planned on ever seeing, had not known I wanted to see. He turned looking both ways before beckoning with a nod. At the door, I passed again under that archway of intimacy, where Lucien held the heavy slab overhead. The heat of him swept across my back as he walked toward the female by the bar. I waited, turning around the room. 

The inside was warm, comfortable. The tall benches were devoid of life despite the abundant noise of it from other restaurants outside, and it was even cool enough that they had started a fire. The walls were decorated, and I could imagine the light of day easily in this place. How bright it would be, and warm. The vibrant earthy tones. The thought of sinking into the warm wood was instantly appealing. The smooth dark finish, the high tables, the muffled sounds of the city paired with a fire in the hearth, and the smell of cooking, it would be easy to relax. Maybe even to sleep.

I wrapped my hands around my waist searching for warmth but unlike Lucien, the absence of heat seeped through my clothes. My eyes flicked to the fire. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. Looking back it seemed obvious, how cold it had really been. But I’d been too tired to notice. Too tired to fully worry about the fact that my body seemed to be separating from my consciousness. That what I felt could be lost in the slim cracks between thoughts of heavy limbs and children’s wishes. I rubbed at the skin between my brows, an attempt to soothe the mind beneath, to prevent further unraveling. Unlike the moon, once gone, such precious things didn’t get to come back. 

When I opened my eyes I found Lucien waiting across the bar, two menus in hand. He used them to point toward the back door. The obscuring glass revealed traces of movement, but what was beyond it I couldn’t yet tell. I looked at him, reluctant for reasons I couldn't express. He bowed his head as if to say, it's fine. And I believed him. Weaving through the empty tables it seemed not everything was as it appeared. That the life outside belonged to this place as well, that it was not apart or absent of it at all. Lucien close behind, a cold draft pushed up my arm. I longed for the hearth momentarily. Wanted to ask that maybe we stay here, where no one would have to be subjected to the weight of me. But my palm had reached the knob and was already pulling, Lucien close, warm.

Not quite a patio, or a back room, but a converging. 

At one time it was probably a road. A dead end, the Sidra not far, a railing blocking its lethargic waters that lapped at the stone. Free tables were few, space limited, and even with all that was in their way skilled waiters and waitresses sprung out of doors carrying steaming plates, placing them swiftly onto tables before disappearing back inside again. If there were a pattern of where people sat I didn’t see it. The boundaries of where one restaurant began and another ended were hard to make out, in fact, there weren't any at all I soon realized. A female walked arbitrarily, dumping food onto tables near and far from one another. Pure skill and memory, to work here.

Overhead some lanterns were lit. A perfect glow. Another hidden world. Everything like those sets of dolls, where a smaller identical version was contained within it. That was what returning had felt like to me. A constant opening at the center to reveal a smaller equally precious thing.

A knuckle down the underside of my arm drew me back from thought. Just above the elbow it ceased. Stopped knowingly before the place where a few years previous a small cut had once been, I turned and Lucien was watching where he’d touched. He didn’t say anything even then, just nodded again, his hand lingering, before he dropped it and brought us to a table. Though his hands were gone, a phantom caress remained on the underside of my arm. I grabbed for it, like I might keep it there, pressing it into the skin, even if it weren’t real. 

He chose a spot near the river, a little far from everyone, despite the intermingling. Enough to be in the atmosphere, but not so close to be overwhelmed or watched by it. He pulled my chair out for me, something my father did for my mother. The female from inside appeared behind us. Her following I hadn’t felt either. 

“Water?”

Lucien gave a single nod. Ever the emissary, habitually representative, he going forth into this world to reveal my desires and my spirit—to give what I could not then give. There was hope then that, as the chasm within and around me seemed to grow, that a part of me, despite history, was represented somewhere else. The thought made whatever I was becoming easier to bear. I ran my hand along the void, felt for that profound absence, its strange impossible weight inside of me. The tide of it was coming in. Whatever I was to become, I was very close I knew. Lucien scanned the menu, if he noticed my becoming he’d said nothing. Remember me as I am now I wanted to say, please. But even if we’d not promised silence I wouldn’t of. Such promises I’d learned were meaningless.

I rested the heavy weight of my head in my palm, perusing my choices, and strategically blinking for long intervals of time where no one, not even Lucien, could’ve noticed. Tiny rests. That would save me. The cool air, the ancientness of it, washed over me with its familiarity from a hundred autumns before. I kept my eyes closed, took stock of the feeling, didn’t want not to notice. Even the cold, because it seemed wherever I was going, whatever was happening, was making me feel less and less. And if I became a beast, I think I would miss feeling most of all. The way things, even intangible things, could touch you in their own way. I’d miss being cold just for the sake of having again to get warm. I’d miss the way some mornings you could wake and know the ineffable difference in the air between winter and spring. I’d miss the innocence of children, how they always wished to show you something. I’d miss the hole in my brain that formed when I didn’t understand something, and the sense that I’d stitched it together when I looked something up. Feeling. That everything, even things that don’t really touch you in a physical way, have feeling, it was a wonder of the world. And I would miss it. 

A loud slap hit table and I flinched toward it. Two places away a group of friends were playing cards. The buoyancy of their joy reminded me of similar nights, under a clay-tiled roof, when I believed everyone would be there all the time. So I couldn’t be mad.

When I turned back, it might’ve been easily imagined, but Lucien’s hand looked closer to my own, like I caught him mid-reach. I gave a quick flick of the mouth, not quite a smile, but something close, something that said, I’m okay. And I was. Really. Despite everything, I was okay. Because I’d known at the very least I’d make it back tonight.  

The waitress brought fresh bread and took our order. Even then Lucien didn’t speak, and for a moment I wished he would, that his dedication would cease momentarily, just so I could hear his voice. I missed it, even as it was there in my memory, even if the quiet was what I wanted. She nodded. I did the same, pointing toward a soup. 

After she left I clutched a warm slice from what she’d laid down. Lucien couldn’t have known, could not ward everything off despite his choice in tables that seemed to suggest he would like to. Yes, people were at a comfortable distance, their noise abated, his voice snugly in his throat, but the wind as the dark settled onto the starlight city was harsh from the weeks of rain. I attempted to balance it, the acknowledgment of the cold with muted shudders, but when I tried to point to the soup my finger unfurled slowly in its chilled state, and my arms were scattered in goosebumps. 

Lucien tore his bread and bit into it quickly, holding it in his teeth. He looked almost like an animal, I could almost see the old fae, their wildness in it. That lingering trait that carried over the centuries, the thousands of years. I could nearly see the beginning. But his kindness was too well founded, his gentleness too innate. He shrugged off the sweater he was wearing, ducking the bread carefully away from the collar, then one arm at a time he withdrew, lifting it over his head and holding it out to me. I didn’t immediately take it, his jacket still hanging in my apartment, but he lifted it a little higher as if to say for you. Chewing he shrugged before I could let my body decline it for me, offering it a third time, really, I could hear him. I’m hot under these lights. It was easy to understand, even without words, that he would have it no other way. That on this he would not give in. I took the material in my hands and threw it over my head. His warmth immediately replenished what had been lost. What had seemed lost for a long time. A heat that summer hadn’t even managed to touch. 

I bowed my head in thanks but he barely acknowledged it. As if it were an act not worthy or in need of thanks at all. A natural inclination, something we’d always done and would always do, despite it having happened only one other time. But there was more that I wanted to say, about the clothes, about the feeling of wearing something that belonged to someone else. The presence of things and of life and of others, history. But the words were not available. The silence remained unbroken.

When I rested my head on my fist again, I concealed my mouth behind my hand, and let the rough sleeve run over my lips as a secret. 

Thereafter Lucien’s attention fell on me, but he didn’t hover, or even look overly often the way someone who is worried about you does. And I knew that much. That I worried everyone all the time. But everything he gave was easy to hold. Momentarily on our walk there, I’d thought it would’ve been wise to take a book, but it didn’t seem we needed one. The pair of us watched the night in its perpetual motion. Two couples at a table began to sing in harmony, raising their glasses when a table joined in. Behind Lucien, a Heron landed on the railing. In Dawn, they were regarded as bridges of the realms. Of the natural realms, earth and water and sky. Lucien followed my eye but as soon as he’d met its stare it flew off. Catching an updraft, we followed until it was out of sight. 

When the waitress brought our food my eyes widened. The soup was carefully served in a hunk of bread. The bowl had been carved out of its loaf and now sat idle beside the dish in a heaping portion. When I caught Lucien’s eye he was watching me, his own spoon in his hand, waiting. Steam wafted as I rose the vibrant red warmth to my mouth, blowing, then in testing careful tastes, ate. Lucien waited for my reaction. The soup rich. Rich like his apartment. Containing many things that layered over each other. Like it was an old recipe. Like it had been made and taught many many times.

I sighed. 

And he sighed back though he’d taken not a single bite. 

The fullness of the food made it hard to hide the long closing of my eyes. I let him see it, the new tired, the one that came with being full of nurturing good things. After a moment he placed his cutlery on his plate and stood, tossing his napkin onto the table. His spine straight, he cast his attention outward. There was no sign of chill to him, not even now having risen into the atmosphere, into the dark night that settled all around us. The firelight overhead cast his stoic face in orange glow. 

That he was beautiful had been true, had remained a factual part of life itself. Like all knowing, it changed nothing about my existence. But it was a comfort, this consistency with which he existed and could be depended upon. That, in all iterations, hanging from a snare or on a loveseat or cooking in his kitchen, this fact had never changed. And that this made me want to be close, to reach for him, to be reached for by him, when in the presence of his interior and exterior beauty. The interior harder to see, but felt all the same. Even as he seemed to cut through the night, with that glow reaching his face, more succinctly, more gracefully than anyone else, I knew the gentleness was there, and trusted him with myself. A quiet settled over the space as he stood before it. He didn't seem to notice, which made me want to laugh, that he could be so unaware of the effect he had not only on me but on everyone else. 

But then he turned toward me and placed a hand out to help me up and I no longer wanted to laugh. It was the kind of holding a male would use to lead a female to a dance, the kind where the palms don't touch, just the pressure of his thumb against my knuckles, the interlocking of cupped hands. It was the kind of hold where, had he wanted to, he could've leaned down, brought my hand close, closed that small distance, and pressed his lips to the thin skin between my knuckles and wrist. I stared at him as if he were about to, waiting almost, thinking it would come. It seemed natural, the way his shrugging off the sweater had seemed natural. I expected it though with some sense of precious banality. Life's little pleasures, but he was waiting too. I stood and he took my chair in his other hand and placed it carefully back. 

He began to lead me from the table but I set my feet into the stone, stubborn like a mule would, and grabbed the hunk of bread they’d brought me before turning back. He asked no questions, waited, the slack in our arms returning when I took a step toward him. He let me get a little closer than we’d been, before he continued on. 

At the bar, he paid silently, and our bodies brushed more often than they didn’t. Like now that we’d touched it was wrong not to, in some place, be overlapping. Some knowing had been set in motion that could not be undone, and I thought of the retracted hand those years ago, when I’d made to heal behind his ear, and was glad I had decided not to. So that I did not have to go without. So I didn’t have to know what I would go without. 

Lucien signed the bill, and the place behind my ear, the same place he’d been injured, brushed against his bicep. I straightened, not realizing it, how severe the pull had become. How careful I would have to be now. He turned toward me, his lids half open in soft satisfaction. 

I’d noticed it before. 

When he’d sighed after me. The potent and profound pleasure that had seemed to derive from the act of giving care. More than just the way Helion had seemed glad in general to care and be useful. Some different extension of our togetherness. It permeated between us, like a storm cloud, like the many that summer that had despite their presence relieved the humidity, that came as a welcome, that left something good behind. 

He nodded his head toward the door and I noted offhandedly, repeating it over and over again so I wouldn’t forget as I had forgotten all manner of important things, that I would pay him back. If not in coin then in equal action. I wanted him to know that I felt the same. That for all I lacked, for all I couldn’t do more often than not, that though this body was absent, my care was not.

We were slower back. Thought this time it wasn’t my fault. Lucien set the pace. I matched it, as he had me. But despite our ease, everything was just as I thought. One step at a time, one street, one breath, following another, until we made it back again. To the apartment. So why, I wondered, was I so sad?

We approached the steps and I knew what would happen. That Lucien would bring me up to my door just as I’d asked. And he wouldn’t even say goodnight. He’d say it in the way he’d spoken at dinner, with a look or a nod that I would know meant goodnight. Just because that was what I’d asked for from the start. Then he’d be upstairs and I would be downstairs. But that I would not hear his voice again, that I wouldn’t know when I’d hear it again, filled me with such disappointment it hurt my stomach. So I paused with my toes against the stone stairs and he noticed right away that I was not following.

“Can I…” I paused, head peered up at him as he turned, returning to the world of the speaking. My voice I think stronger than it had been, even if words seemed difficult to obtain, if questions were hard to ask aloud. “Is it okay if I come back to your apartment? I won’t get in your way. Or stay too long. I just want to give this.” 

I extended the hand with the bread. I wanted to hear him say it, say something, even if that something was no.

“Yes!” He said quickly before he slowed himself brows raised a little in surprise, “Yes. Of course.” 

His words had been slightly rasped as mine were when we’d set out. I fought the urge to close my eyes, to stand in them a moment. Instead, we climbed the stairs, opened the door, found only more stairs, climbed again. Passing the empty apartment that belonged to me, and clustered into the other apartment, which despite how little I’d been, felt more familiar than the one below. I took my shoes off, placed them beside Lucien’s as he had done once before, and followed him into the living room.

From the windows, it was too dark now to see if any birds were on the tree. But I had to try. And if not then the bread would always be there for those that were hungry in the morning. The cool frame bit into my fingers but as soon as I’d made to pull up I understood the illusion. I couldn’t do it alone. I was even more tired than I thought. For as nurturing the food had been, my body remained its exhaustive self. Of course, that's how it goes, reliefs, though small, often feel large, often give so very much.

I tried again, but swayed a little under the pressure, losing my footing. In reply Lucien moved like ribbon weed, bending and turning with the push and pull of the current of my ambition. His hand ghosted my back as he passed, but pressed no more, not changing my drifting, simply there, to catch, to release. On the other side, he grabbed the window, and with my efforts, lifted it. The cool air immediate, the burden of the glass easier when we’d come at it together. 

I nodded in thanks, then grabbed the bread off the low table, pulling it apart in five hunks to place on the sill. Lucien watched over my shoulder. I tucked my hair behind my ear so I could see him better. Just a little more of him. Excruciating, to want like that, but nice that the remedy, for now, was so close. 

Upon my withdrawal, he closed the window for me without my asking, before I could help. The five pieces sat precariously on the ledge, but even with the graze of the glass, did not fall. At the thought of those birds, something within me opened. A touch of light, like a star. The way at dawn sometimes there weren't many, but even just one might be left. I sat on the floor and rested my head against the window's ledge.

"You can sit," Lucien said, gesturing to the couch. "If you want."

I sighed, out of breath, “There's a glare."

Lucien looked around the brightly lit room, mumbling more to himself, "We can do something about that."

He stepped past me and, one by one, went through every room, and smothered the flames. With each, the world grew a little dimmer, a little less warm, but it seemed worth it. To see those familiar faces, those long-lost friends. Not the same as the ones out there, but relatives, and that was enough to soothe something that had been hurt by the departure. That wondered if they wanted to know where I had been. Hope filled me quietly, trickling like a leak, that somehow my old friends would learn, that whatever lived here, would tell them. 

"C'mon," He said, once all the lights were out. With a hand, he did most of the work to lift me from my place. I fell onto the sofa and he followed with an identical heaviness. I wouldn’t stay long. If he was tired then I would let him sleep. I understood that feeling. I didn’t want to be the reason he was denied anything. A small flame blossomed in the hearth and, in unison, we both hummed a satisfied note as the warmth reached us. Against the deep blue backdrop of the courtyard, the bread looked as if it had dropped from the moon. Silence settled, but it was different. To be in the possibility of hearing him again. Even a little was better than nothing at all. A half-hour passed, and as the room grew in warmth the lethargy settled along my bones, under my skin. I’d leave soon. I’d work up the energy to leave soon. 

From my peripheral Lucien opened his mouth before shutting it again. I realized what he’d thought. Why we’d reverted to the quiet we’d taken when the night had begun. 

"We can talk again," I said. "If you want."

“I’d like that,” he said pausing a moment. "Are you looking for anything specific?'

I shook my head, "No. It's just something I missed doing."

"Feeding birds?"

"Yeah. Watching them. Taking care of them."

"Will any come at this hour?"

"That is the question isn't it?" I said looking toward him, letting my neck go lazy, my eyelids droop, releasing myself further of mannerly obligation. My tired was now wholly in the open, no longer hidden from view. 

Lucien looked at me a long time after, his own head falling sideways in a laze before his voice was softening, "Do you want a blanket?"

I shook my head, but remembered it was nice to answer out loud too, because I could, because for a long time out there I had wanted to have reason again to say these words aloud, "No thank you."

A little discomfort must remain. A little discomfort always good, makes for want of change. The kind that can take a lonely person to an empty apartment. So he turned back toward the window, toward the birds that had yet to come. 

We returned to not speaking but now the room contained an ambiguous quality. Maybe it was the fact that we were sitting still, the night draining like a tub with the plug pulled, or just the returning to life. Like what Lucien and I had done that night had been removed briefly from the story I was living, from the fate I knew would happen. Like a footnote or a reference to some other book that I couldn’t have and didn’t know. I felt for the void and it stirred. Still there. But for now, I was okay. I was somewhere else. 

My hands balled the sweater, the sleeves too long, “I still have your jacket.”

“Do you,” Lucien said, but it was not a question. “I forgot. You can give it back to me at your leisure.”

Though I was tired I had not forgotten Neata’s words. Aren’t you supposed to be clever? And the strings pulled that happened behind my back, beyond those closed doors I was so often finding. Lucien just before one that very night. 

“Did Rhysand ask you to take me to dinner?”

Lucien’s jaw set in my peripheral and I understood immediately I had misstepped. 

“Please don’t misunderstand me,” he said his voice changed, unfamiliar to me, sounding so much the calculated gentleman I was almost taken aback, blushing, a sense of feeling very safe but out of my depth. Like I was dropped in a quarry but not too far from land, from an outstretched hand. His words sunk into me, the seriousness of what I’d suggested and his desire to put an end to it immediately. “Maybe in the past, it wouldn’t be so shocking a thought, but I’m not so anymore. I’d prefer you didn’t think of me that way. Any desire I’ve shown, curiosity, friendliness, has entirely been my own. ”

“I don’t,” I said turning quickly. I took a breath, soothed what could be soothed. “Everything seems to mean something else. It’s hard for me to know what is real.”

“I know,” Lucien said his cool exterior melting back to what it had been, the charm, the warmth, and I recognized the gesture and grace he now had, the same as the night he’d come back, when I’d misunderstood him before. No offense had been laid. Just a need for clarity. Just the tension then subsequent relief of clarity. “I just don’t like being reminded of what I once was.”

Quietly, from a place that produced yawns, the words appeared in my throat and before the premonition of them registered my mouth had already opened, “When we met the first time, I liked how you were. If you mean then. I liked you then.” 

His mouth pulled into a natural thing, like the same crescent of the moon that then waned. Growing and yet his lips became something total and complete. A thought fully formed, an entirety in and of themselves, but of what it was unclear, some interior thing that I knew by how he looked at me across the couch had come to be understood and acknowledged by him. 

I settled my gaze forward again. The night seemed both endless and entirely unmoving, and those things seemed to play in on each other, creating a darkness that couldn’t be broken. 

“If I had any ulterior motive,” Lucien said suddenly, “it is only that I was worried about you. And I felt a little helpless. I don’t often feel that way.”

I blinked, unsure what to say, but for reasons entirely different from these weeks before. A nothingness that came from all else being swept clean away, like a wave. 

“You do not have to worry for me. I am capable,” I said eventually, but of what I didn’t say and I don’t think I even knew. It was incredibly clear to me, as my clothes got looser, as my face had more pallor, that caring for myself was something too I had forgotten, had left behind, once I’d come here. 

“I know,” Lucien said but with some disbelief for which I could not blame. I had not exactly shown him this to be true. “But Nesta told me.”

“Did she,” I said with equal lack of question as he had before. I was not surprised. They, the two of them, seemed to have a correspondence with which I could not explain or understand. And I was too tired anyway to try, to make sense of things with too many factors missing.

Lucien’s voice took on a faraway sound, like it had when I’d first come here and he was in another room, but this time it was not so indifferent, this time it seemed even a little serene. 

“She said that you laughed.”

“I did.”

“I haven’t heard you laugh.”

I hummed, “Did she tell you about the wedding?”

Lucien nodded, his hands folded over his lap now, such strange contentment between us and I wondered if we were allowed to have it. If such topics and such bodies were capable of those two things at the same time, “They have lovely traditions there.”

“You know Dawn?”

“Yes,” He said. “A friend of mine is in the Little City actually. She made me this.”

Lucien pointed to his eye. 

“I thought so,” I said.

“Clever.”

“Is it…special?”

He nodded, “It allows me to see spells, glamors, even wards.”

I swallowed the thought that came most immediately. That he always had the ability to find me. That there was no chance, in our universe, with such an eye, that he wouldn’t have seen a cottage in an open field, wouldn’t have seen the person inside it. Brief hopeless longing came, but then I remembered and it was gone. 

“You danced too?” Lucien said, the pair of us having almost two conversations at once. That duality I’d noticed, of everything having two or more meanings, but a little different now. Even in my tired I realized I could keep these two things straight, and it made me sink into the couch a little more.

“I taught her a dance, yes. The couples first dance.”

“Your court has always been one of my favorites. The community, that they are always thought of and involved in everything. It’s nice.”

I nodded with a hum, “It almost makes me want to get married again.”

Nothing changed. Or if it did, I was too tired then to notice. The same too tired that had not been careful, had been careless with words. But if I thought about it, Lucien must’ve straightened his mouth, furrowed his brows, shown some sort of beginning of a thought that wrinkled his face. Because even though it was quiet, even though we sat there for what seemed like a long time, Lucien had a question. A very good question.

“Again?”

And then whatever silence I missed, whatever change, seemed obvious. But there was nowhere to go. He’d asked, so I knew then I’d tell him.

“Yes,” I said, wishing that sleep would take him. Wishing it had not happened this way. Wishing for many things and knowing they would not come. “Again.”

Lucien turned, “You were an archivist.”

“I was,” I said treading carefully, hand outstretched, not wanting to startle. 

“Unmarried females couldn’t study,” Lucien said trying to find the seam of reason, to find what had been missed. But I had been careful. It was true. To study one had to be married. And to work there. It had not been an omission, this fact. That one needed to be married to be an archivist, because no one had asked. If they’d asked I’d have said. 

“To work there too.”

“I see.”

Yes, I thought. Now things would be said. Even if the question had not been asked aloud, it was being asked nonetheless. 

“We grew up together,” I said first. “My friend, and my family, we tried to find a way to get me back into the Library, but the rector, he was unwilling. He wanted his son to receive the large stipend they offer and this, to him, was the only way. He made no exceptions. So we married.”

Lucien took a sharp inhale.”

“We tried not to. We thought maybe if we just stayed engaged it would be enough, but it wasn’t. Not at least to study. But. I had a good memory. Had always had a good memory, and the rector knew it. So I was made the archivist,” I said blinking a few times. It seemed natural, the story, and I wondered if not speaking before had worked up something in me, some endurance, to say this thing at last. If it weren’t accidental, the telling him, but needed now to be said. “And when the defense was coming up we’d tried everything else by then and we had hoped that maybe…but no. So we drank. And we sat at his kitchen table. And all was decided.”

“Did it work?”

I shook my head, “The rector didn’t like us, didn’t like my husband to begin with. We did at least a dozen things slightly wrong so we might nullify the marriage. If ever…if either of us…” I swallowed again even though nothing was there. “But he seemed to know this. And then the defense came and went and my husband got the award, and there wasn’t really any hope at all.”

Lucien’s throat bobbed, looking at me, “And the marriage?”

“The night at the kitchen table, when we realized what had to be done, it had been bittersweet. We loved each other. We’d been inseparable our whole lives. When the rule was implemented I’d gone to him and he’d been the first to challenge. He tried to get the rest of the library too, but people felt it was a lost cause. I’d cried and cried that day and he’d held me and we’d fallen asleep in his bed. But we were only that. There had never been…” 

Lucien nodded, understanding.

“So the night we decided to marry we made vows. Different vows than we shared at the wedding. We were both very ambitious, had not married because of the confines we thought marriage would bring. So it seemed almost perfect. We said, if it were ever going to be anyone, and that was true. But while we had love that could endure, it was not the type made for a marriage. And the award meant he was needed even more than we’d once thought. And I…missed him. I missed him all the time. Missed what we used to be, but we’d promised one thing and I did not wish to burden him with my needs. So I adapted as you’ve put it.”

I turned toward Lucien at last, and I knew that my eyes betrayed plenty of things. Told him that this story was far more complex than could be said. That some things maybe could never be said, like the feelings between us, the intertwining of friendship and love, and then later the physicality of trying to make it something else. The deterioration of transformation that affects what had been from which we cannot reverse or go back. That we’d done it for all the right reasons, that it should’ve worked, which was why it didn’t. Because plenty of things shouldn’t work and mostly do and that is how life is—unpredictable and difficult to expect. 

But there were things not there too. Like how he’d said that night at the table I can save only one person. And that person is you. And knowledge should never work this way. You have something to give. I want you to give it. Or later when I’d asked him to come to bed, asked him if we might go to the tavern, or the caves, asked him if we might do as we had once done, so that we might find a way, figure out how I could take the next defense, he’d said I cannot help you anymore. What I can give you must accept. Leave, please. He’d said and I did, And close the door.

“I love him,” I said simply. “No one knew what would come of Prythian in those days. We thought we’d had time. I thought we had time. That it would work itself out, that the tide would change as it always did. But she came. And the night I ran he told me he’d come for me if he made it out. If the curse broke. When I saw you, I knew what that meant. And that he had not come I knew too. But the other day in Dawn, Nesta went to dance, and there he was.”

Lucien, who had seemed to be taking all of the news better than I expected visibly recoiled at this revelation. And I knew that, for as much as I loved him, for all that existed between us, Lucien would never forgive him. That it was an irrevocable blow.

“He has a wife now, one of our friends, who’d been studying growth and medicine, who had taught me about plants and their medical purposes. She’d been married before, but she must’ve lost him under the mountain. They have a daughter. I know that the love between us wasn’t what they had, but he’d always told me he didn’t want children. But that meant simply not with me. Which is good actually, for how everything turned out. But I don’t know why he didn’t come back. I don’t know why I became someone he didn’t want to come back for,” I said turning back at the dark window dotted by those slices of moon. The world deepening in some way that I couldn’t explain but felt within myself. “I suppose things happened there, in those years, things I wouldn’t understand. And that changes you. And suddenly you can’t help it, that you’re someone else who wants different things, and going back seems impossible, seems like returning to a life you are no longer capable of living. And it's uncomfortable. So you do things maybe you wouldn’t otherwise do to survive. Because surviving is sometimes the only thing you can do and when you’ve made it you turn around and see that things you hadn’t realized you’d lose have slipped through your fingers. And they resent you. Even though it’s so understandable. So in our nature, to go on.” 

“You’re not angry?”

I smiled faintly, “That is not the word. I do not think it will ever be that word. Not after seeing him so happy. The happiness we used to share when we were young. I didn’t give him that as his wife. He deserves it.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because I am not a victim of my life. I am its participant and because I love him. I’m capable of holding many things at once. That I wish he did come, that I wish he’d wanted to come, but that also I had never married him to cage him, I did it so he could be free. And he is. So I’ve done what I was meant to and not everyone is capable of what they set out to do, and that’s okay.”

“He failed you.”

“And I him, more than you know. More than I can explain tonight. I’ve thought a long time about this Lucien you will not change my mind.”

Lucien sighed, a flush against his cheeks, the room I realized was very warm suddenly, almost unbearable if you’d been as dressed as he. But in this sweater and thin dress, I was content. I was content in a way that I had not been in a while. 

The autumn male in his beauty dropped his shoulders. And there was something to be said, something he had wanted to say but had yet to and I would let him do it. Would give him time as he had always given me time. 

“I’m sorry,” Lucien said. “That I was another person who failed you.” 

The anger, his anger, now better understood. It was not with my husband that he fought this battle, but with himself. I’d been foolish that afternoon. I had not taken proper care, had not said before I’d gone downstairs, that it was okay. That it had not been his job to come back to me. 

I shook my head, to begin the words I had long forgotten to say,“No—”

“Even if it was unintentional. I did fail. I just…I didn’t know. I thought. I hoped you weren’t alone. And I regret that—that I didn’t check. But I thought about you a lot. More than I maybe should’ve. At solstice and in spring When I passed that way or spotted a particularly beautiful river in the sun. Maybe it wasn’t all the time but I thought of you enough. Enough that I could’ve gone back and been sure.”

“You’d never have found me,” I said though I knew this wasn’t true. That he felt even this guilt was already too much. I would spare him this. It would be crucial for as long as we were together that he never learned this fact. 

“But maybe I would’ve.”

“Maybe yes. But isn’t it nice, how it happened? That is enough for me.”

“I do not find your suffering particularly moving.” 

“Azriel said that hope and despair can look like the same thing,” I said. “So you mistake me now. You think I didn’t have happy days out there? That I didn’t laugh, or smile? Six more years I was there after you left, six springs, six first snowfalls, six first swims. I watched cloudless night skies, I nurtured flowers, fed birds. I saw it bloom and die and come back again. It is this, living in spite of suffering, that I find so beautiful. So I cannot be mad. I was never mad.”

Lucien was quiet and I closed my eyes. He would sleep soon and maybe then it would be enough to get away, to slip into my apartment and think of the dinner I had before everything was forgotten, before all was lost. The chasm wider all the time, all doors shut, dreams having long since left altogether. I rested my head against the arm of the couch. There was still no reply. His unease and guilt a heavy weight between us. And I wanted to remove it, would do anything to offer him relief, as he had to me all the time. So I chose my words carefully. 

“I know I don’t know how to show it, Lucien,” I said, a heaviness growing in my limbs. The kind before death. “But I am glad to see you. However it happened, I’m happy you came back. I knew you would the whole time.” 

And death did not arrive, but his brother. Yet with the same surprise that the other can find us, I was suddenly, without warning or prelude, asleep. 

[five-crows-in-a-trenchcoat]

hi silver sorry to bother you but have you defeated pressure yet? do you have any advice im struggling ( ＞Д＜；)

I have defeated pressure! last time I beat it was my 6th win; and I was inconsolably mad because I was aiming for a damageless run and then misclicked a single cable at the very end of the game (so finished w 95 health) so, here are my ‘pro’ gamer tips:

Don’t use light sources unless it’s a blacklight. It leaves you both at risk of squiddles attacks, and makes you dependent on light sources in general. I’ve legitimately ONLY been attacked by squiddles when I wanted to get the document on it. Turn your brightness up instead

Pay attention to the sounds more than your sight. Each version of the angler + pandemonium and a60 all have different sounds and gimmicks. It’s important to be able to distinguish which is which. Here’s my guide for the monsters:

Anglers/rush-based monsters

Regular angler: regular scream, regular rush time. pretty basic stuff. Wait until you hear its actual high pitched scream before getting in a locker.

Pinkie (pink. duh): doesn’t flick the lights, but scream is a higher pitch and can be heard from much further away. try not to panic, but it’s important to keep an ear out always.

Blitz (black): extremely fast, but the lights flicker twice. Beeline to the nearest locker and get in pretty much as soon as you reach it.

Chainsmoker (green one): very, very slow, and sounds a little like a single-toned scream with rattling chains. You have to wait until it’s practically on top of you to get into a locker bc it forces you out of the locker much faster than usual.

Froger (orange): angry kinda scream. Like william afton it comes back. Upon the first rush, wait until it doubles back, then get out of the locker but stay next to it. It will come back again. Get back in the locker. After that it should be gone.

Pandemonium: it kinda ‘sings’ ig, it’s not a regular scream. Slower than most of the angler variants but not quite as slow as chainsmoker. If you struggle with its minigame, side rooms, vents under the floor, or making your window smaller are your new best friend. These work for the other anglers too, of course.

A-60: kinda has this faint ‘pixely’ scream, very easy to miss. Get to a locker or side room. When its message appears you’ve got like, 4 seconds? To get out of sight. It’s probably the hardest to see coming which is why it’s the rarest.

Other monsters

Void mass: also pretty easy. Makes a bubbling sound when you’re nearby, has a puddle underneath it, and also, the obvious glowing eyes. When you approach a locker, look up through the slots to check if it’s empty. I recommend multiplayer bc someone can still get you out.

Wall dwellers: controversial opinion but they’re also pretty easy. If you do struggle with them you can turn around midway through each room, but they have audible squelchy footsteps and you can hear them peeling out of the wall as well. If you’re really paying attention you can even see them in the walls while you’re passing through, they have these weird stretch marks to outline them. Theres this one room especially with that weird green and black mould that you can see a fantastic example of. Also benefits with multiplayer bc there’s more eyes to scare it off. Same with squiddles, I’ve only died to them when I wanted the documents.

Eyefestation: often in an eyefestation room there’s a short period where you can see a little flash of it, or the door locking behind you if it’s a gauntlet. Run as far as you can in that window. Other than that just beeline for the door the best you can.

Good people: there’s the sparks, of course, but press your ear to the wall next to it and listen for growling. If you hear water or some other ambiance like the fans, it means it’s safe, however, so not all noise is bad. In a dark room or after an angler, the real door’s lights will also be out while the fakes remain lit up.

Turrets: “If you see me, no u didn’t :<“ wait to check their patterns before anything else. Hide where you can of course, and try to follow its sweep where you can. And flip the lever to disable them if you can, of course. Even if pai insults you, better to be berated by your worstie than to be dead.

Searchlights: do not rush it. In the warehouse, follow after it to give you more time. You can hide underneath piles of boxes, the forklifts and in shipping containers (as well as the lockers). In the final searchlights encounter, go for the most risky cables FIRST and the underground ones LAST. Go underground as few times as possible, as it makes it more dangerous by cutting off a lot of your view. Trying to go for the one right in the middle with three of them right on top of you is rough. This usually saves you with the remaining cables being in safer places the further you go to cancel out the difficulty as best as possible. In the final manoeuvre, do NOT hide in the submarine as it makes it even riskier by cutting off your peripheral. Watch the light patterns and then go for it. Wait in the middle underneath it bc it only kills you if you go in the actual light. Always works for me. Another controversial opinion but the warehouse is harder than the final fight.

Sebastian: don’t flashbang or climb on him. it’s rude. Also, make sure he’s happy when you leave. I don’t think there’s any real change but I find its bad luck to leave when he’s pissed at you. Buy his medkit and code breaker if you can.

Other dangers

The Ridge: there’ll be an angler or pandemonium in almost every room. Open the door to the next room and then wait by a locker in the previous one until the threat has passed. Do not panic, and BE PATIENT. Sometimes it takes a while when it passes through. Also, any good people will have light spilling out from under the door. With the music, wait for the angler to leave and then kinda just avoid it or speed through it as best you can. If you’ve got code breakers, save them for either the ridge (or paranoia’s box if you manage to come across it.) As long as you stay careful and make sure you know where the lockers are, it’s not as daunting as it may seem.

Parasites: just stay in the light, you’ll be fine. It’s pretty forgiving

Hazards: just avoid them. Don’t jump in holes you can’t see the bottom of. Dont walk into the fire. Don’t swim in lava. Don’t touch the electrified water, there’s a way to disable it/go around it. Wait for the right time between the fans. Ask @revenyance bc they’re an expert on how not to do that last part.

The pipe puzzle: try to go from the end rather than just the start.

Vent/pipe maze: always take a left turn and eventually you’ll find your way out.

major, all-round tip summary:

-keep sound high and preferably play with headphones. Turn on deaf mode if you have hearing issues.

-fuck light sources, I hate those guys. Go max brightness instead.

-try try and try again. You’re never a bad gamer so long as you’re having fun and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise :>

-try to keep at least two code breakers with you until the end for paranoia’s box or the ridge

-if you’re still learning the ropes, play multiplayer or with your friends! If you die first it’s still good experience seeing them and getting practice for further rooms. Also helps with some of the monsters in general.

Hope all of this is helpful! (Sorry that its a bit wordy) 6.:}