#*shamefully adds it to the Au library*

[cryptid-called-ash]

Just thought of a way to make the kishin awakening fight so much angstier.

(Spoilers for soul eater, but…)

Have Kid be totally immune to Asura’s madness. But…. Everyone is actively gunning for him. Free, Eruka, and when the madness gets to them; Maka and Black*star.

Just picture it…

Kid slowly realizes that Asura is another fragment, and he feels betrayed by his father for keeping this world shattering secret from him all these years.

the seal only truly undone by the blood of a reaper.

Kid is forced to duel both of his friends, desperately trying to reason with them, while simultaneously defend himself without hurting the people he cares for the most.

But Maka get a good hit in, slashing Kid across his lower back, covering Soul with the reaper’s blood.

That snaps Soul out of his crazed delusion and he’s horrified by what just happened. But it’s far too late. The seal is broken, the black blood infused and the kishin is awake.

And once he’s truly awakened, Asura should completely obsess over Kid.

Revenge is his first major goal, and torturing and killing his little brother would be the ultimate revenge against lord death.

[tysonrunningfox]

Ripped: Part 3

Hey so this is the best AU and also fight me if you disagree, I’ll PM you my address

Ao3 | Ripped Tag

“Astrid, come on, you know you could just come stay with me and Tuff until you figure this out,” Ruffnut perches on the arm of Astrid’s single chair, reaching out and threatening to close her laptop’s lid on the legal search that is going nowhere, “I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn about this.”  

“You don’t know why I’m being so stubborn about this?” Astrid scoffs, checking her phone again to see if her disappointingly useless landlord has texted back yet.  He said he’d talk to Hiccup, if that’s even his real name, but the lack of response doesn’t have her particularly hopeful. “Do you even know me?”  

“Yes, I do, and I’m still offering your type-A ass my couch, think about it.”  

“That’s not the point.  When I signed this lease, it was a statement.  I’m done with roommates, I can afford it, and I shouldn’t have to leave it just because there was some gruesome murder here and a bunch of tone deaf weirdos want to see it.”  As much as she threatened it, she doesn’t really want to go to the cops. She’s not someone who lets other people handle her problems, but the more she looks at local tenant laws, the more it seems like her only option if her landlord won’t get involved.  

The knock at the door doesn’t quite break her focus and she elbows Ruffnut in the leg, silently asking her to get it.  If it is her landlord, he can wait a minute, he wasn’t in a hurry so she might as well finish her thought.  

“So I’m just your butler now, or something, I get it.” Ruffnut sulks to the door, shaking her head.  

“Thanks, you’re the best.”  

The old door opens on creaky hinges that Astrid tries not to imagine it revealing a dark shadow with a sharp knife, because getting herself scared over a hundred year old murder isn’t going to help anything. Ruffnut pauses at the door for a second before looking back over her shoulder at Astrid, confused but delighted, like she couldn’t help but showing every time Hiccup stuck his foot further in his mouth on that stupid tour.  

“You didn’t have to get a stripper to thank me for dealing with your weird issues.”  Ruffnut laughs, “it’s like a Thursday.”  

“What?”  Astrid looks up, focus broken by the bizarre suggestion, and sees a fully uniformed police officer on the other side of her open front door.  “Ruff, no—”

“You think I’m a stripper?”  The cop smiles, surprisingly delighted by the comment, but Ruffnut hasn’t ever been one to stop while she’s ahead.  

“You’re way too pretty to be an actual cop,” she reaches out and grabs the badge on his chest, “that’s obviously not real.”  

It doesn’t detach.  Astrid jumps to her feet, rushing to the door to grab Ruff’s arm and pull it back.  

“My apologies, Sir, what can we do for you?” She puts on her most reasonable smile, hoping that if he’s here to help with her harassment issues in some way that Ruffnut didn’t just ruin it.  

“It’s fine,” he winks at Ruffnut, “I’m flattered, I’ve been working out.”  

“I’m assuming you didn’t come here for my friend,” Astrid turns the word into an insult as she pushes Ruffnut back a step, “to insult you.  Do you need something?”  

“Officer Jorgenson,” he holds his hand out and Astrid shakes it as he looks at Ruffnut, “you can call me Snotlout.”  

“Astrid Hofferson,” she makes the introduction, dropping his hand and pointing at Ruffnut.  “That’s Ruffnut, she doesn’t actually live here though.  I just moved in this week.”  

“Yes, I heard about that, can I come in?”  

“Yeah, sure,” Astrid steps out of the way and shuts the door behind him.  She’d offer him a place to sit, but she still only has the one chair and given Ruffnut’s behavior, she doesn’t exactly trust her friend to not make herself welcome on the officer’s lap.  

Ok, that’s a slight exaggeration, but she still elbows Ruffnut to remind her to at least pretend to be respectful.  

“Ok,” Officer Jorgenson deflates slightly, holding his arms out in front of himself, “so I’m not actually here on official business, so let the record show that you invited me in without actually receiving an official answer as to why—”

“Hey!”  Astrid takes a step towards the door and he doesn’t block her, but something in his apologetic expression is enough to make her pause.  “If it isn’t official, why the hell are you here?”  

“Because Hiccup Haddock is my cousin,” he sighs, “and he told me that someone moved into the apartment that he does his creepy tours to and that he really freaked you out—”

“I am not freaked out!”  

“She called me so scared her first night I thought she’d accidentally killed a guy or something,” Ruffnut snickers and Astrid smacks her on the arm.  

“And I just wanted to come let you know that he’s actually a really harmless weirdo and I talked to him about being creepy and he said that you said something about filing a harassment claim—”

“What?  If I did you’d throw it out for him?  No wonder he goes around shining lights into people’s apartments if he has a cop covering for him—”

“Look, Miss Hofferson—”

“Since this is so unofficial, Astrid is probably more appropriate, Snotlout.”  She spits his name, feeling impossibly more trapped than she did a minute ago.  If going to the cops isn’t even an option and her landlord still isn’t answering, she doesn’t know what’s left.  

“I’m a traffic cop, I don’t see harassment claims and if I did, I couldn’t do anything about them.  And maybe I should have ditched the uniform—”

“You still could,” Ruffnut adds, taking the only chair and playing her favorite role as audience to this nonsensical drama.  

Astrid is supposed to be finishing out her grad degree in peace.  She has a job at Berk’s archival library for God’s sake, she made every boring decision that she possibly could have.  

“Look, I get that he can be creepy, but I’m just asking you to trust me that he’s mortified.  And as his cousin, I think it’s hilarious how hot you are, because he’s awkward around hot girls when he’s not creeping them out, but I’m taking this seriously.”  

“Are you hitting on me?”  Astrid can’t help half raising her voice and Snotlout shakes his head.

“No, not at all, I’m just asking to give you my number—”

“Dude!” She’s not afraid of a murderer breaking in anymore, since she’s perilously close to unlocking her long sought after ability to shoot fire from her eyes.  

“So that if Hiccup keeps freaking you out, you will maybe consider telling me first before reporting him.  I’ll be the one to shut down his tax-evading weirdo tour, if I have to—”

“And he’s evading taxes, great, that really makes me feel like I should help him.”  

“I’m just asking you to consider it,” he takes a business card out of his chest pocket and crosses out the ‘Officer’, scribbling Snotlout in its place and writing another number on the back of it. “That’s my personal cell, if he doesn’t knock this shit off, let me know.”  

Astrid takes the card and stares at it silently, jaw working.  

“Just theoretically, could I use that personal number for things other than your cousin being creepy?”  Ruffnut asks and Astrid’s heart sinks.  

She gets what it’s like to love someone who can’t be trusted to act normal without reminding and suddenly the loneliness she’s felt since moving back, surrounded by drama and files and flailing, makes her want to trust Snotlout.  Or at least not add another person to the long list of people she distrusts.  

“I’ll think about it,” she pockets the card and nods.

“All I’m asking.”  He says goodbye then and leaves and Ruffnut pouts as Astrid gets ready to head to class.  

“You know, I was asking more, you could have let him answer.”  

“You’re a wreck.”  Astrid doesn’t add that it’s why they’re such good friends.  She hates it, but she’s feeling like a wreck too.  

She goes to class and tries not to think about it. Any of it.  She listens to Fishlegs wax poetic about applying the Dewey Decimal System to primary sources and she tries not to think about it.  She reluctantly responds to her landlord’s shamefully late response that he’s handling it with something like ‘it’s fine’, and she tries not to dread eight o’clock.  

It’s eight fifteen and her background music is loud enough that she almost doesn’t hear the knock at the door.  Fearing having to deal with another less than official visit from Officer Jorgenson, she turns the music off to get the door, startled for the second time today, this time by a teenager holding a large pizza box. The smell of cheese and pepperoni reminds her that she hasn’t eaten since breakfast and it’s lucky for her own record that she’s confused enough to stutter instead of just taking it.  

“I didn’t order pizza.”  

“324 Harbor street, apartment 2?”  The kid frowns at his receipt and then holds it out to her. “Oh, there’s a note.”  

The slip of paper has a sentence along the bottom in blocky register print: From someone who is not actually a dead prostitute hair fetishist, hoping to welcome you to the neighborhood in a more normal way.  No one delivers toothbrushes this last minute.

“I guess it’s for me,” she takes the box, tipping the kid for having to deal with this and being thankful that he doesn’t expect a stripper.  She’s just cracking the box open when she hears a voice in the courtyard, loud and nasal enough to reverberate in the closed pane.  She sneaks over, cracking it a careful inch open and bending down to listen.  

“Right there, in the second floor apartment, is where Elizabeth Smith died.  I used to point out the light fixture above the actual place where a fellow tenant found her body in the morning, but someone just moved in and um, they weren’t a fan of that as you can see by this lovely sign they made me.”  

Astrid winces at that.  It had been a momentary impulse to hang a piece of paper that says ‘Fuck Off Peeping Toms’ on the window last night, and she’d almost forgotten about it, especially with the lack of commentary in later tours.  Maybe it’s only legible when the streetlights are still on, and they go out around ten here.  

“But, they should be receiving an apology pizza right about now with an explanation that I am not personally a dead prostitute hair fetishist, I am only very interested in the actions of one Viggo Grimborn who might have been described with at least two of those adjectives.  Now, onto site two…”  

The pizza is delicious.  It helps that Astrid is so hungry and so righteously victorious that she made a crazy person believe her anger was deserved, but she puts the page of coupons on her fridge with a magnet she stole from her last roommate after the whole dishes debacle.  That was petty of her, wasn’t it?  Petty like the sign in the window.  

Then again, when she put the sign in the window, she didn’t have any reason to believe that Hiccup felt any kind of remorse, but she does now.  

Getting her a pizza was a pretty decent thing to do, and Snotlout did say, repeatedly, that he’s a harmless weirdo.  Maybe that’s where she’s stuck.  She’s a criminology major, she knows all about harmful weirdos. She knows how malice lets people break social barriers and commit to dangerous behaviors.  She understands that people go on killing sprees and mutilate their victims, but she doesn’t understand the locations where they did so becoming landmarks.  

It was easy to believe Hiccup was malicious, but now that all signs are pointing to him being odd and awkward and obsessive, she can’t help the bubble of curiosity in her chest.  He’s in her courtyard three times a night, always followed by a gaggle of interested people.  There was that guy in the tour she ended up crashing referencing a beat up book and asking a million questions.  More than that, Hiccup had strong opinions about those questions, shutting them down with markedly flat green eyes that lit up whenever he talked about walls and letters and slums.  

She cracks the window leading up to the second tour. She’s not sure why, maybe it’s to see if he mentions the pizza again or the sign or if he’ll say that he thinks he got one over her.  But it’s the same as the last tour, if a bit quieter, the group around him a little more involved.  

“The apartment is occupied now, but it was approximately under the living room light fixture, which used to be the hallway in front of the door before a series of modernizing renovations in the nineteen eighties, that a fellow tenant found Elizabeth Smith’s body in the early hours of the morning.”  

That’s a relief.  No murderer came through her front door to kill anyone, apparently, and she lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding in, shivering at a gust of winter breeze through the blinds.  The sign she made flaps and she almost reaches out to pull it down.  

“Now, we’ll move to site two next, where two weeks after the discovery of Elizabeth Smith, a night guardsman found the body of Caroline Pike murdered in a similar fashion.”  

Astrid peeks outside and sees a couple of girls a few years younger than herself clinging to each other like they’re watching a live action horror movie proceed and giggling, holding onto Hiccup’s every word. There’s a woman taking notes and a few dark, shivering forms made faceless by the angle of the light, leaning into the story.  And Hiccup’s stupid toothpaste stained top hat bobbling slowly towards the gate as he draws them along behind him, the pied piper of murder-obsessed tourists.  

She throws open the window and leans out, tossing the blinds over her head, onto her back, “hey!”  

“Did you get the pizza?”  He whisper-shouts back up at her and she sighs, reaching through the window to pull her sign down.  He tries to catch it when she crumples it into a ball and throws it at him, but it bounces off of his chest and lands in the snow.  

“Who did it?”  

“I did,” he laughs, awkward, shoving his hands in his pockets, “I was the one coming out as not a prostitute hair fetishist, if that wasn’t clear.”  

“No, I mean who was Viggo Grimborn?  Who killed those women?”  She leans her elbows on the windowsill, “I’ve heard this part of the tour about half a dozen times now, spoil the end for me.  Who did it?”  

“Oh, no one knows.”  He shrugs.  

“I get that it’s unsolved,” she shivers, rubbing her bare arms and trying not to feel the tour group’s eyes taking her in as part of the spectacle she didn’t sign up for.  “But there has to be an answer.”  

“There really isn’t, the crimes were committed before fingerprinting, witnesses were unreliable, police were understaffed.” He remembers to direct the last phrase at the group and he must know that his cousin came to talk to her.  “Not that much has changed.”  

“Yeah, nothing much has changed and we still solve things.”  She doesn’t know why she’s pushing.  Maybe it’s because she understands being crazy for a reason, for a conclusion, for something solid, and she has to believe that applies here.  “So no one even has a theory?”  

“Everyone has a theory,” he laughs, the same tired, dismissive laugh he gave the guy with the book full of wrong answers, “that doesn’t mean anyone has an answer.”  

She grits her teeth.  It shouldn’t be this hard to get a clear answer out of someone and when it is, she should give up, but she’s never been good at that and she keeps pushing.

“Ok, do you have a theory?  You’re out here shining laser pointers into people’s apartments and droning on and on about the guy every night.  You must have a theory.”  

“I don’t,” he laughs, “I like the mystery.”  He waves at her like that was an actual answer and she’s furious as well as cold when she shuts her window and looks around her sparse apartment.  

Harmless is just a synonym for useless, apparently.  

She catches herself looking up Viggo Grimborn at work three times the next day before Fishlegs is the one to notice, glancing at her screen over her shoulder and tutting.  She closes the window faster than if she’d been caught ordering deviously sourced hair and spins to face him, arms crossed.  

“What?”  

“I thought you said you weren’t one of those…Grimborn-ologists,” he shakes his head and she sighs, teeth gritting together.  

“I’m not.”  

“You’re researching Viggo Grimborn at work.”  

“Yes,” she swallows hard.  She doesn’t like mixing work and personal drama.  More than that she doesn’t like having drama, but the more she thinks about it, there’s only one way to fix this and the chances of keeping it quiet under Fishlegs’s eagle eyes are impossibly small.  “Apparently my apartment was really cheap because it’s where the first Grimborn murder took place.”  

“Oh,” he frowns, “how’d you learn that?”  

“Well, to be honest, there’s a tour that comes by three times a night to point out my living room light fixture.”  She doesn’t expect to laugh, and more than that she doesn’t expect Fishlegs to follow, a wheezy little chuckle falling out of his mouth. He’s out of practice and it makes her a little more comfortable being so righteously irritated about the entire situation.  

“I can see how that might spark your curiosity.”  

She bites her lip, thinking for a second before speaking, “so, you get a lot of people coming in here about it, don’t you?”  

“Every other person, at a minimum,” he sits down at his desk across from hers and starts sorting through the box of papers he’d been carrying, “it doesn’t matter that we have the most Civil War maritime shipping manifestos of any library in the world.  All anyone cares about is Viggo Grimborn.”  

“I didn’t know the case wasn’t solved,” she adds carefully, reopening her search and skimming through names that are starting to sound familiar.  Experts and suspects and victims, all carrying equal heft in a conversation that should be about one more than others.  “Is that why it’s such a thing?”  

“While I won’t claim to be a Grimborn expert,” he looks up, a bit sheepish, confident in a way that’s been called arrogant so many times he tried and failed to dial it back in the shy direction, “I’ve spent long enough trying to figure out why it’s so captivating that if there was an answer, I would have found it by now.”  

“I’ve been thinking,” she looks around at the stacks of dense, shapeless information around them.  Newspapers and journals and notebooks.  Files and files of receipts and notes and pieces of paper that people stored away in awkward places or forgot about entirely.  “Maybe it’s the mystery.  Maybe that’s why some guy is leading tours to my apartment complex courtyard every night, and if it wasn’t a mystery anymore…”

“Astrid,” Fishlegs laughs, comfortable with her name when he’s telling her what he feels is an indisputable truth instead of telling her what to do, “hundreds, if not thousands of people have tried to solve the Grimborn murders.  There are dozens of books published, forcing the facts in order—”

“Hear me out,” she feels like Snotlout must have, asking her not to call the cops, “all of those people have wanted to be right more than they’ve wanted this ridiculous thing to end.  You want people to appreciate this collection and I want my apartment to be off of the must-see locations list at the Berk tourism center.”

“Again, if detectives within hours of the crime couldn’t solve the case, what makes you think you can?”  

She smiles, looking admiringly at the collection, “you know, none of those detectives had yourhelp.  There’s a reason I chose the records collection as my work-study.  I knew there was a lot I could learn here.”  

“Are you appealing to my vanity?”  Fishlegs asks like someone who denies having any vanity at all.  Astrid forces her smile brighter.  “We’ll have to be systematic about this, and quiet, I’ve been fending off requests for years to start a Grimborn-ology research group here.  I’ll start with the Gazette, you can take the Berk Enquirer, it’s notable for being on the forefront of alien conspiracy theories, but I can’t deal with those again.”  

The Berk Enquirer is a trove of theories, but Fishlegs finds a conclusive narrative in the Gazette.  The order of murders, the detectives researching them, and the letters sent to the press are all soon settled into a rough narrative that they stick to, testing out suspects and looking for more.  Astrid largely ignores the tours outside her apartment at night, hearing the same few snippets on rotation until it becomes like an alarm, the third tour serving as her reminder to go to bed before the next day.  

After about a week of research, Fishlegs finds a journal written by a prominent free mason at the time of the murders, questioning someone who recently failed to ascend into the order.  She means to keep it a secret, but Hiccup is outside, talking about mystery and she opens her bedroom window this time, leaning out to interrupt him.

“What about the masonic connection?”  She shouts down and he does a double take before signaling that the group pause.  

“Referring to the mutilation of the second and fourth victims?”  He takes his hat off and scratches his head before putting it back on, slightly crooked.

“Yeah.”  

“Doesn’t explain how Richard Miller could have committed the third murder in March eighteen eighty four, since he was in Paris and all.”  

“How’d you know I was talking about Richard Miller?” She never expected him to know the name and can’t help but feel halfway dismissed.  

“Who else had openly decried the masons?”  He smiles and points towards the gate, “now, onto site two.”  

“Hold on, how do you know he was in Paris?”  

“Records from the cargo ship Thebes that frequently made the Berk to Normandy route in the eighteen eighties, he travelled with a family load of wool cargo.”  He leaves before she can ask more about it and she spends the next day grumbling under her breath while asking Fishlegs for every eighteen-eighty dated cargo record out of Berk.  

“You’re getting too hung up on what one of these crazies said,” Fishlegs cautions her around five, “that’s the point, their facts don’t line up and they use it to frustrate you.”  

“Maybe you’re right,” she sighs, deciding to put the shipping manifestos away, “he just wants me to be wrong though, anything for the mystery.”  

“Then we find something conclusive.”  Fishlegs doesn’t dismiss the comment and she resolves to find the right window to thank him.  

The next week, Hiccup shuts down three full days of Drago Bludvist research with the fact that Drago couldn’t have committed the murders because his single arm would have forced him to find a surface to brace against, and the fourth murder was functionally in the middle of an alley. Hiccup deftly cuts across what Astrid thought was a decent supposition that the deputy detective Ryker had something to do with it, because Ryker was filling out an arrest report in the adjoining city of Freezing to Death at the time of the third murder.  

Worst of all, Astrid gets the feeling that he’s enjoying this.  He pauses his tour a moment too long, waiting for her to retort one night when he dismisses the Bludvist theory in the courtyard, even though it doesn’t make sense to bring up around the site of the first event.  She disproved it on her own after mentioning it to him, finding a manifesto stating he was on his way to Bucharest from Berlin on the date of the fourth murder, but Hiccup probably already knows that.  

Three weeks in, she asks him about the plausible connection between Grimborn and the travelling bible salesman Johann, who was selling in Berk at the time of all known Grimborn murders, and he shrugs, citing the same lack of evidence that frustrated her at work.  

“Is it still three times a night?”  Fishlegs asks at work, handing Astrid an aptly dated newspaper.

“As far as I know,” she shrugs, “I’ve been here late enough to miss the first tour a few times a week.  He’s respecting the blinds though.”  

“You could drop it, then.”  He suggests and she can tell he hopes she’ll do it only so he can have an excuse to do the same.  

Astrid is a lot of things.  Stubborn, hard-headed, and independent, sure, but a reason to quit just doesn’t fit.  

“So could you,” she challenges, pulling out a new box of Berk Enquirers.  Between theories about dragons disemboweling people on the streets of downtown Berk, there are actually some decently reported witness accounts.  Even if the witnesses aren’t necessarily sober, they’re earnest.  Lights in the sky could mean someone running across the rooftops.  They could mean…something.  

A fact she’s trying to pull from thin air to keep Hiccup from showing up under her windowsill every night.  

It’s early when she finds it, early because she couldn’t take multiple tours to her apartment on a Friday night.  A note scribbled in pencil on the back of a Berk Enquirer dated eleventh of November eighteen eighty four. She shows it to Fishlegs, who has an analogous report from the Gazette, and it’s not an answer, but maybe it’s enough.  

Enough to confront Hiccup in person, instead of sitting in her apartment, thinking about fixing this or ending it or she doesn’t even know.  She assembles her sources, the pictures of the notes she found and the dates of the papers on which they were written and then she waits.  

[thereluctantinquisitor]

New year prompts, 3 for Dorlen? :)

3. Person A and B are strangers and fight over the last bottle of champagne at the store. 

Pavellan. Dorian Pavus x Varlen Lavellan (modern AU). Approx 1800 words, most under the cut

Varlen hated New Year’s Eve. Not because it meant that thelast year, which had inevitably been crappy, was drawing to a close, but becauseit meant he was expected to start all over again. Get some resolutions. Puthimself out there. Meet people. Now,trudging down the aisle of the bottle shop in his sweatpants, all Varlen wanted to do was buy the mostexpensive bottle of champagne he could find, go home, and drink it through afunnel.

He sniffed, reaching up to rub his nose as he considered hisNew Year’s Eve plan. It had already been partially ruined the moment he steppedinto the store. Varlen had asked one of the staff where they kept their bestchampagne, but of course, it was eleven-thirty at night and they were all sold out. All that was left wascheap swill, and while Varlen supposed it was more fiscally responsible, it wasalso depressing.

Maybe I should justadd soda water to wine while I’m at it, he thought miserably as he arrivedat the correct aisle. Really lean intothe whole ‘alone on New Year’s Eve’ aesthetic.

Lost to his own dark musings, Varlen barely bothered toregister the naked shelves, already cleaned out by more discerning drinkers inthe earlier hours of the evening. But as he trudged, he did spot a lone bottle,standing proudly on the top shelf like a soldier who had survived the carnageof war. Joy. Moving towards it,Varlen squinted, attempted to make out the label. It was some strawberry-flavouredabomination, but he supposed it was better than nothing.

However, as he reached out and his hand closed around it, sodid someone else’s.

Varlen started, but did not release the bottle, insteadopting to clutch it tighter. He’d grabbed it around the body, while hisopponent had managed to snag it around the base of its long neck. Livid, Varlenfollowed the line of the stranger’s arm until he reached the source of hisirritation.

“Hey. Back off, I saw it first!”

The man, whose face had initially been one of surprise,furrowed his brow almost immediately, the expression darkening his handsomefeatures. “Oh I rather doubt that. Besides, I had it first.”

“Bullshit.” Varlen attempted to tug the bottle – carefully –but the man refused to let go. Inside, he felt his gut twist, bitter and frustrated.Just this one thing. I just wanted thisone fucking thing. Varlen let out a groan of irritation, reaching up to roughlyrake his free-hand through his hair. “Look, we obviously both grabbed it at thesame time. You didn’t have it first.”

The man gave a thoughtful hum, then Varlen felt somethingwarm wiggle beneath his palm, pressed tight to the bottle. He hadn’t noticedbefore; perhaps he would have if the champagne had not been sadly stewing atroom temperature. Glancing across, Varlen realised it was the stranger’s pinkiefinger, trapped between the palm of Varlen’s hand and the bottle.

Damn it! He really hadgrabbed it first.

The absolute bastard.

“I…” Varlen trailed off. He had lost. But still, he didn’tlet go. He needed this. If he actually did resort to wine and soda water whenthe year rolled over he might just roll himselfright out the window of his fifth-floor apartment. So instead, he looked overto the man, meeting his eyes for the first time. They were a startling palegrey; quartz-like. Brilliant. Feeling oddly warm, Varlen made a show of clearinghis throat. “Listen. I’ll… pay you whatever that bottle costs. Just let me walkout of here with it.”

The offer clearly came as a surprise to the man, and heraised his dark brows, regarding Varlen for a long, silent moment. “A… generousoffer,” he began hesitantly, eyes flicking to the champagne, “particularly forsuch a modest vintage. Although, it does leave me wondering what I might bemissing. Should I accept, that is.”

At that, Varlen let out a dry snort, rolling his eyes. “Nothingto write home about, trust me. There’s probably a reason it’s the only bottleleft. I bet dish-soap would leave a better aftertaste.”

The man chuckled, nodding in agreement. Clearly his mind hadarrived at a similar conclusion. But damn,he had a wonderful laugh. “Indeed. Tell me then; why the offer?”

Why offer to paydouble for something probably worth half its ticket price? It was a goodquestion, Varlen supposed. He hesitated, however, tongue absently sweepingacross his lower lip. This man was a complete stranger. He owed him nothing.

But then again, this man was a complete stranger.

So what did it matter if he toldhim everything?

“Just… figured it was the thing to do,” Varlen mumbled afteran extended, surprisingly uninterrupted pause. “Y’know. Because it’s New Year’sEve. You’re meant to celebrate, right?” He hesitated, but the man neither spokenor released the bottle. “I’ve… screwed up plenty of stuff this year already. Iguess I just… didn’t want to start the next one wrong too.” A dry laugh bubbledup the back of Varlen’s throat. “Figured I could at least get this right. But look at me now. Pouringmy heart out to some random guy in the bottle shop, fighting to pay ten dollarsfor a five dollar bottle of flavoured champagne.”

“Sparkling wine,actually,” the man corrected, reading the label of the bottle from betweenVarlen’s fingers, but the comment didn’t strike Varlen as mean-spirited. Ifanything, there was something akin to solidarity in it, and they both shared a bleaklyamused look. “Well… to be perfectly frank, this entire situation strikes me assomething of a failure for both of us. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Varlen winced at that, but couldn’t deny it. So he nodded,then let out a sigh, his grip loosening on the bottle. “Yeah. You’ve got apoint.” He started to let it go. “Sorry for… all of this. You’ve probably gotsomewhere to be.” Lucky him.

“Actually… I don’t.” To Varlen’s surprise, he felt thebottle being pushed back against the palm of his hand, and when Varlen’sfingers closed around it once more, the other man released it, a faint smiletinging his lips. I normally don’t likemoustaches. But I really like his. “As much as I would, ah, enjoy choking down that poison inpreface to another year of lost causes, I simply cannot bring myself to rob youof the pleasure.”

They both laughed at that, softly and a little shamefully,the way one laughs in a library when reading the back covers of D-grade romancenovels. But they held each other’s gaze through the moment, Varlen’s smilewidening in gratitude as he slid the bottle from the shelf and held it. His cheapskate trophy. Then, slowly, hedrew his lower lip between his teeth, pulling on it thoughtfully as he regardedthe sparkling wine in his hand.

“Would you…uh… like to suffer with me?”

The other man raised his brows, a distinctly amused gleam inhis eyes. “I must admit, I have been asked out many times, but never quite so honestly.”

“I’m an honest guy,” Varlen replied with a chuckle, thenwaved the bottle in the air; a mockery of enticement. “C’mon, what do you say?It’s eleven-thirty, and I live nearby. If we walk at a moderate pace, we mightjust make it in time to stare at the clock for fifteen minutes.”

The man barked a laugh and regarded the bottle, then Varlen.It took him the whole of three seconds to make his decision. “Very well, then!Consider myself persuaded. After all,I am never one to turn down a free drink in a questionable neighbourhood.” Hesmiled to show he meant to offense, then reached out, plucking the bottle fromVarlen’s grasp before he could even think to protest. “But if you are to host,then I will bring the poison. A fairtrade, yes?”

“Sure, I won’t argue with that.” Varlen shook his head,smiling as he fell into step beside the man, heading for the register. “Oh,right. I’m Varlen, by the way.”

“Dorian. A pleasure.” He glanced across, smirking slightlyas he raised the bottle. “I would shake your hand, but I fear mine are somewhatoccupied with precious cargo.” He paused when Varlen gave a dismissive wave – no harm done - then added, “I have tosay… this has been quite the unexpected turn of events.”

Well, no one was arguing that. “Yeah. Tell me about it. HereI thought I’d spend New Year’s drowning my sorrows and passing out on thebathroom floor. Now… well, looks like I’m going to have company doing it.”

“Do remind me to toast to that,” Dorian said as he paid forthe bottle, handing over a rumpled five to the miserable looking cashier… thenadding another as a token of sympathy. With their prize nestled safely in theembrace of a paper bag, Dorian turned and nodded towards the street. “Well, Varlen…lead the way.”

Smiling, Varlen gave a mock-bow and moved forward, the belldinging as he pushed open the door and held it for his new friend. “I hope you’reready for this,” Varlen said as Dorian moved past with a hum of thanks. “Youdon’t really strike me as the type to indulge in strawberry flavoured sparkling wine. No offense. Your shoes are waytoo expensive for that.”

“Come now, how else to you think I was able to afford them?”Dorian chuckled as Varlen grinned and began leading them back to his apartment.“Life is entirely made of compromises, I am afraid. But not to fear – you alreadygave me the perfect solution, should the taste be as terrible as promised.”

Varlen cocked his head, brow furrowing slightly. “I did?”

Dorian nodded. “Yes.” Then he smiled, his white teethflashing playfully against his dark skin. “I will simply chase it with dish-soap.”

Varlen let out a long, horrified groan. “Disgusting. Terrible.” Then he, too, succumbed to agrin. “I love it.”

They walked for a time, conversing with surprising ease,casting baleful looks at drunk revellers staggering down the road to their destinationsof choice for the big countdown. Eventually, they came to Varlen’s building; anarrow thing nestled meekly between two far nicer ones. Fishing his keys out ofhis coat pocket, Varlen headed up the stairs, Dorian close behind – almost nervouslyso. The jingling of keys and rustling of their paper liquor-bag provided theonly form of distraction from the sounds of dull music and carousing thatdrifted from the buildings nearby. But, for the first time, Varlen wasn’tenvious of everyone else. He glanced back and was greeted by a smile fromDorian, who raised the paper bag and wiggled it in mock-seduction.

Maybe this wouldn’t besuch a bad night after all…

[hamiltonschoolmusical]

Graphite and Ink (Alexander Hamilton x reader)

Summary: Reader is an art major and avid sketcher who loves nothing more than sketching Alexander Hamilton, the most talented person on campus. Let’s just hope and pray he never finds out. (University AU)

Genre: mostly fluff, with a bit of angst

Warnings: mentions of anxiety/insecurity

Word count: 1,138

Notes: this is my first ever reader-insert/imagine, and my first Hamilton fic! It’s pretty meh, so please leave comments on how I can improve! Request from @hamimagines document. ☺ (also apparently you don’t have joint honours in the U.S. It’s basically like a double major but to graduate you need an 85% average. Double majors for really smart people.)

Move, you willed him. Move your damn head! You had almost finished the sketch. All you needed was for him to tilt his head back away from you so you could do his hair. Alexander Hamilton had these amazingly luscious locks that somehow always looked better than yours. But it was times like these, when you were silently sketching him, that you cursed his hair for being so thick and shiny. You shimmied a little closer and picked up your pencil, trying (and failing) to capture the way the sunlight bounced off his chestnut mop. All of a sudden, he ran his hand through his hair, knocking you over with his elbow.

“Whoa! (Y/N)! Sorry! Are you okay?” Alex pulled you up and put a hand on your shoulder. You immediately pulled away from his touch and rubbed your head. “I–I’m fine. Thanks,” you replied, giving him a shy smile. “I’m really sorry,” he apologised. “I didn’t know we had gotten so close.” He winked at you as your heart stopped for a minute. You tried to stutter out a response, but were interrupted by Alex’s group of friends, all very good-looking and all very popular. A curly-haired, freckled boy plopped himself down next to you, out of breath. “Alex! This kid won’t stop talking about how he’s going to get together with his friends and start an All Lives Matter rally! We need you! ” John Laurens was Alex’s best friend and the leader of the university’s Social Equity club. “It can’t be that urgent, can it? I’ll be there in a min–” “He’s wearing a Trump for Prez t-shirt.” Alex jumped to his feet, his face turning scarlet. “The minute I see him, I swear–” John cleared his throat. “Um, the girl.” “Oh, of course.” Alex scratched the back of his neck. “Maybe, as an apology, I could take you out for coffee this evening?” Was Alexander Hamilton, maybe the most handsome, possibly the smartest, and definitely the guy you had a huge crush on, asking you out? No. This couldn’t be possible. He was a English and Poli Sci double major with offers from nearly every major law school in the country, and here you were, barely passing an arts course. This had to be some kind of prank. It had happened to you once before in high school, so why not now? No. You wouldn’t fall for this. “Uh, I can’t. Sorry. I have to, um, study.” You immediately felt dizzy. You had one shot, and you threw it away! “Rejected!” Hercules Mulligan, one of Alex’s best friends, called out, as he sauntered up. Alex turned away, clearly disgruntled. “Whatever. It’s no big deal. I had debate club anyway. Let’s go kick some white supremacist ass.”

If you couldn’t focus on your drawing before, there was no way in hell you could now. 

He had asked you out. Why had you said no? It was the same reason you hadn’t tried out for high school plays and never went to prom. Fear. Rejection. Anxiety. You had passed up too many good things because you were worried they wouldn’t work out. Just add Alexander Hamilton to the list. You let out a deep sigh. Maybe a change of scenery could do you some good. Your notebook went in your messenger bag, along with your phone and wallet. You were too poor to afford a car, so any place farther than two kilometres away was out of the question. The campus library would have to do. It wasn’t bad there–in fact, you volunteered in the mornings–but after 6 pm, it would get loud, crowded full of students who certainly weren’t there to study. After grabbing a coffee, you mad your way to your favourite spot, a quiet corner on the top floor that looked out over the city, only to find him sitting there. “Alex? What are you doing here? Don’t have you debate?” He barely looked up from his laptop. “You know you don’t own this corner, right? Just because you volunteer here doesn’t mean–never mind.” “How did you know I volunteer here? I don’t think I’ve ever told you.” A hundred thoughts raced through your head, but whenever Alex was around, you couldn’t process them. “I said forget it!” Alex slammed his laptop shut and walked into you, knocking you over for the second time today. This time, however, your sketchbook fell out of your hands and onto the floor, laying open on a drawing you had done of Alex the day you first saw him. To this day, it was still your best. “(Y/N), what is this?” He bent down and picked up the journal, thumbing through the pages before stopping on the tracing you had made this morning. “Did you do this?” You felt blood rushing to your head and a ringing in your ears. “It’s not what it looks like, I swear, I just–” “You’ve been watching me.  Drawing me. Since the day we first met.” By this point, you were on the verge of crying. “I know I’m awkward, okay? I know that I’m just an outcast, a weirdo, and you’re over there with your joint honours and three million scholarships. What can I do? Draw? Barely. I don’t even know if I’m gonna graduate! Look at you. You’re amazing. Intelligent, talented, gorgeous. You’re gonna go on to change the world. And I’m just… me.” You cast your head down shamefully, instantly regretting every word you said. Gently, slowly, Alex put two fingers under your chin and raised your eyes to meet his. “(Y/N)…You are just you. You, in your purest, brilliant form. You, maybe the only person on campus who works as much, as hard as I do. From the day I first saw you across campus, pencil in hand, I could see you were as driven as I was, as creative, as determined to strive for perfection, that you were going to be my equal. I was wrong. You are so much more than I’ll ever be.” Before you had a second to react, Alexander dropped one hand to the small of your back and cupped your cheek with the other, and pulled you against him as your lips met. It felt strange–heartbreakingly amazing, certainly, but different. All through life you’d been made of graphite; a little cold, a little hard, a little too much pressure and you’d snap. Now, with him, with Alexander, in this moment, you felt ink in your veins: strong, sure, powerful. The two of you kissed in front of the window, in your corner, in the library, at the university you both went to in the town you both loved. You were together and infinite. It was dark, only distant streetlights and skyscrapers illuminating your shared silhouette. It would have made for a pretty drawing.