#Alice is less likely to get mad at him

[draco-glacialis]

Jen: Alright Rio, Agatha. Let's go over this one more time.

Jen: If something breaks?

Rio: We try to fix it before Alice gets home.

Jen: If it doesn't work?

Agatha: We blame Billy.

Billy: Seriously guys, what the hell?!

[victorluvsalice]

Valicer In The Dark: "A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded" Outline!

Hello everyone -- I recently started work on the second Valicer In The Dark story, "A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded" (aka the one where they kill Bumby), and I thought it might be neat to share with you guys the outline I prepared for the story! Especially since I don't have any Sims 4 stuff to share on Wednesdays at the moment, thanks to the Chill Valicer Save file no longer functioning. :( I have plans for a successor, but it's going to take a little bit to get off the ground, so...

*shakes head* Anyway -- outline! My planning process for this story involved approaching it like it was an actual Blades In The Dark score -- complete with deciding on the type of plan the gang was going to use (and the detail they needed to provide), the loads they were going to have (and thus how much stuff they could actually carry), and doing actual rolls to figure out how the story would progress as they encountered various obstacles! (I, uh, may have purchased actual BITD-themed dice and a dice tray explicitly for this purpose. ^^;) However, I also took a moment to note down any "must-happen" moments in the fic first -- basically, any particularly important or cool bits that were going to occur no matter WHAT the dice said. Reason being, I've done some "rolling for something on the spot" fic-writing in the past with a friend, and I know how fucking frustrated I get whenever a dice roll ruins the cool thing that was supposed to happen in my head. Noting down the things I was DETERMINED to have happen and doing all the rolls BEFORE I actually started writing meant that I couldn't get angry at a good moment being ruined. Though actually, as you'll see, the dice were pretty kind to the trio in this score! I guess they wanted to make sure they succeeded in their task as much as I did. :) So, without further ado, here's the outline/score summary for "A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded!" Naturally, there will be spoilers for what happens in the fic, but I'll put most of it behind a cut, and you guys already know I have no care for spoiling my own stuff on here. XD

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Score: Infiltrate the Houndsditch Home For Wayward Youth in Charhollow, find proof of Bumby’s activities, and preferably kill the bastard

Plan Type: Stealth (I mean, there’s going to be an element of Assault, but first they have to get in)

Detail: Point of Infiltration – the back door into the basement kitchen of the house

Loads: Alice – Light; Victor – Light; Smiler – Light (each have three load slots)

Have To Happen Moments:

The gang successfully make it to Alice’s room so she can get her stuff; possible heartfelt moment when they see the picture of her family on her wall

The gang successfully finds Bumby’s ledger in his office (inside a safe stowed away in a hidden drawer of his desk; it’s generally opened via Lizzie’s key but can be picked)

Bumby shows up, and Alice reclaims Lizzie’s room key and blows him up

Gang successfully escapes with the ledger, and run into Smiler’s parents Matt and Carol as they head out of town; they’re taken back to the Ministry Of Joy for the Names (aka night)

Engagement Roll:

+1 d for sheer luck

+1 d for being bold or daring (they’re trying to expose a known philanthropist as a child pimp)

+1 d for exposing a vulnerability of the target (Dr. Bumby has written off Alice as lost in the city and hired a new dogsbody, AND he doesn’t think she’d ever get anyone to help her if she did tell anyone about his activities)

3d total

Result: 1, 2, 4 – Mixed result, risky position – they get in the back door without incident, but Alice’s replacement June comes into the kitchen as they’re preparing to head up the stairs

Score Rolls:

As per the above, trio encounters June coming into the kitchen shortly after their successful infiltration and have to get past her – Smiler immediately introduces themselves and explains that they were hoping to meet with Dr. Bumby to see if they could form a partnership, as they believe their alchemical prowess would help the man in his work (they are indeed cringing on the inside as they say this) – Sway, 2d – 6! June believes them and sends them up to see Dr. Bumby with the other two

Safely inside the house, Victor gets the idea for Alice to get her stuff from her room before they proceed further (having already suggested they grab it before they went); Alice agrees with this and they grab her things (1 load for Victor, who I picture as carrying the bag)

Head up the stairs to Bumby’s office, encounter one of the children (Abigail? Charlie?) in the upstairs hallway, who naturally recognizes Alice and wants to tell Dr. Bumby she’s back – Alice tries to tell them no, with Smiler backing her up by claiming they want to surprise him – Command, 3d (+1 for Smiler’s help, 1 stress for Smiler; +1 for pushing herself, 2 stress for Alice) – 5. The kid agrees not to go tell Dr. Bumby right now, but it’s clear that they will tell him the next time they see him… Start a “Bumby Shows Up” clock as a result, four pieces, none ticked so far

Into the office before Dr. Bumby shows up! Time to find that ledger… The trio split up – Alice examines the bookshelf, Victor checks Dr. Bumby’s desk, Smiler looks around for anything that might give them a clue as to where the ledger might be

Alice – Study, 2d (+1 for pushing herself, stress up to 4) – 6! She doesn’t find the ledger in the bookshelf, but she does find a book safe with some money in it – +1 Coin for the gang to take with them!

Victor: Study, 2d (+1 for pushing himself, 2 stress for Victor) – 5. Victor finds a secret drawer with a safe in it – but, well, unsurprisingly, it’s locked, and opening it will take a bit (+1 to the “Bumby Shows Up” clock, 3 segments left)

Smiler: Survey, 2d (+1 for pushing themselves, stress up to 3) – 6! While Victor finds the safe, Smiler notes the windows on the side of the office and determines that it would be safe for the group to exit via one of them if they had the appropriate means to do so – cue them going “good thing I brought some rope!” and setting it up for them to climb down (one load ticked for Smiler)

That safe looks like it’s important – shame it’s locked! Smiler offers to try and pick it (flashback to them finding some lockpicks in Elder Gutknecht’s library – as they have, or will have, the “Pack Rats” special ability as Shadows, I will let them squeak by with no stress for this – probably does count as load for them, so that’s a second slot ticked) as Alice and Victor keep watch for Bumby or other suspicious children – Tinker, 2d – 5. Smiler gets the safe open, but Alice hears what sounds like someone coming up the steps… (+1 to the “Bumby Shows Up” clock, 2 segments left)

However – safe is open, and there is indeed a ledger inside! A ledger that is very clearly about selling off children to pedos, and in fact contains some notes from Bumby about the work that he does...and how much Alice reminds him of Lizzie. Everyone is notably disgusted, and Alice angrily wishes that she could get that room key off him, but agrees that it’s better to try and escape. The ledger is thus shoved in the bag, and Victor closes up the safe and stores it back in the secret drawer, before the trio try to stealthily head down the rope leading outside –

Alice – Prowl, 1d – 6! Alice is shockingly stealthy and gets down like a fucking ghost

Victor – Prowl, 1d – 4. Victor is not so stealthy and hits the wall once – he doesn’t make THAT much noise, but it’s definitely noticeable… (+1 to the “Bumby Shows Up” clock, 1 segment left)

Smiler – Prowl, 1d (+1 for pushing themselves, stress up to 5) – 4. And Smiler is also not particularly stealthy, losing their balance as they get off the rope and falling over – just loud enough for someone to notice! (+1 to the “Bumby Shows Up” clock – full!)

And that someone is Bumby, who entered his office at just that moment, saw the rope hanging out of his window, and stuck his head outside to see Alice and two other people, one of whom is carrying a bag. He naturally assumes that she’s stolen SOMETHING from him (even if he doesn’t yet suspect it is his ledger) and starts yelling at her – Alice blasts him as an abomination and reveals that she knows exactly what he’s been doing. Bumby is first like “oh come on, who would believe–” And THEN it registers “wait, she’s here with two other people, SHIT SOMEONE BELIEVES HER” and scrambles out of the office himself on the rope. Fortune roll for how gracefully he gets down, 2d because I imagine he has decent Prowl to get kids to customers – 4. He gets down, but like Smiler he lands badly and is off-balance for a bit –

And Alice, seeing an opportunity, darts in and grabs his watch-chain, ripping Lizzie’s room key off it, while shoving the electroplasm bomb (tick one load for Alice) into his hands. As this is a must-win scene for the fanfic, this Skirmish, 2d roll is only to determine the consequences to her – 4. She gets the bomb in his hands before he can retaliate, and he goes up a treat...but unfortunately, poor June has come out of the kitchen, attracted by the noise, and promptly starts screaming as Bumby goes up, forcing the trio to flee VERY FAST (Smiler yelling “sorry!” behind them) – they are not a crew yet, but they will start being one with 1 Heat on their tracker as a result!

However, score is officially a SUCCESS! :D The trio run until they’re sure they’re not being pursued, then take a moment to celebrate their victory, with Alice being very happy that she was indeed able to kill the bastard (even if she accidentally traumatized her replacement – she’ll want to make up for that later if she can). Talk then turns to getting the ledger to someone who will be able to publicize Bumby’s misdeeds – And then someone says “Smiler?” nearby, and Smiler recognizes their parents! They run over for hugs and introduce Matt and Carol Alton to their new friends. Matt and Carol are very nice and warmly greet Victor and Alice – Alice, feeling a little guilty, apologizes for getting Smiler into some trouble and preventing them from coming home sooner. Matt and Carol are confused, so the trio explain the Barkis situation and the whole “turns out he was a Spirit Warden and the Bluecoats think we murdered him” thing – And Matt and Carol go, “Oh! No, the actual Spirit Wardens confirmed he was an imposter who killed one of their own and stole their kit, and that his corpse showed signs of being very recently possessed before it burned, so you’re in the clear!” Victor, Alice, and Smiler are a bit “…” over this, as you might imagine. Carol jokes that, “oh come on, it’s not like you killed anyone else, right?” [significant silence] “...right?” Fortunately, this is when Victor hands over the ledger, with Alice and Smiler explaining a bit more about what just happened – after a look inside, Matt and Carol are like, “Oh, yeah, that murder was TOTALLY justified, good job.” They tell them that they can send it onto a reporter of their acquaintance, the lady who runs Publick Occurrences, and that Victor and Alice can stay the night in the Ministry of Joy if they want. As the trio have spent two days since the end of “Start At The Beginning...Sort Of” living in a house with no running water or heat, in one set of clothes, they are more than amendable to this suggestion, and the story probably ends with them on the way to the MOJ.

Post-Score Summary And XP:

Alice:

Stress level before downtime actions – 4

+1 Coin

XP:

2 for addressing a challenge with violence or coercion (commanding the kid, killing Bumby)

2 for expressing her beliefs (protecting the children) and background (she was the former dogsbody at Houndsditch!)

1 for – less struggling with and more indulging her vice (Obligation to the children of Houndsditch!)

Total: 5 – put 3 in the Insight XP tracker, 2 in the Prowess XP tracker (Alice wants Hunt and Finesse)

Victor:

Stress level before downtime actions – 2

XP:

1 for expressing his background (trade, he was the one to know to look for a ledger in the first place)

Total: 1 – put it in the Playbook XP tracker

Smiler:

Stress level before downtime actions – 5

XP:

2 for addressing challenges both with deception (talking their way past June) and technical skill (picking the lock on the safe)

1 for expressing their beliefs (taking Bumby down makes the world a little bit happier)

Total: 3 – put 2 in the Insight XP tracker, 1 in the Prowess XP tracker (Smiler wants Study and Finesse)

Downtime Activities:

Alice:

House Rule – if a score serves as indulging a vice for a character, that character automatically gets 1 stress knocked off the tracker at the end – stress down to 3

Train Insight, +1 XP in that tracker (Alice is working toward Hunt – maybe she gets pulled into a game of tag with some of the younger members of the cult XD)

Train Prowess, +1 XP in that tracker (Alice is also working toward Finesse – does some drawing)

Victor:

Train Playbook, +1 XP (Victor talks to some of the Whispers in the cult, starts getting excited about being one despite himself)

Train Resolve, +1 XP (Victor might as well work toward another Attune dot)

Smiler:

Indulge Pleasure Vice – 4, stress down to 1 (entertains themselves and their new friends with some songs on their guitar)

Train Prowess, +1 XP in that tracker (Smiler is working toward Finesse, and playing the guitar works with THAT too)

[sirxlla]

You're A Villains Daughter + Them Falling In Love With You (Batboys)

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Dick: Being a police officer he had seen you in and out of the police station. Your hair had been bleached so many times to the point it was falling out. Your father was amazing when he was taking his medication, but the second he forgot, he slipped back into that other persona, the Mad Hatter. He would go crazy and start claiming that you were Alice, and any bit of hair that you had grown out would be bleached, you'd have to dress a certain way to appease him and calm him down.

Oftentimes, you could usually get him back on his medication, but there were days that he would put you in the most dangerous predicaments. Either the cops would be called or Batman and Nightwing would show up.

"I know you love him, and I know you want to take care of him, but the best thing for him is for him to be put in an institution. I'd hate to see the day that we don't show up in time." Dick spoke honestly with a clear sign of worry in his voice. He shrugged off his coat and put it upon your shoulders.

"You're a pretty woman and I hate to see pretty women cry, much less hurt..." He had such a warm smile on his face; when most of the cops tried to comfort you, they tended to sound creepy even though they said similar things, but there was something in the tonality of his voice that sounded genuine and sweet. His thumb gently brushed tears off your cheeks.

You had finally listened to Dick about putting your father into an institution where they could take care of him and make sure he takes his medication. It was expensive, but it was nothing like Arkham.

Dick found out easily that you had been forced to move into a really shitty small apartment in a not-so-good part of Gotham; when he looked up your father on his work computer, he found that he'd been put in an extremely nice institution and realized that you were probably struggling with money.

He found their phone number and called the institution. Dick made sure that every month he would be the one to pay for your father's treatment and stay, the institution wouldn't tell you who had put forth the money, but after a while, you wore them down and soon as you figured out who it was, it brought tears to your eyes. This sweet cop, the one that had put his jacket around your shoulders.

You found your way to his work and quickly offered him dinner, it was 'the least you could do' you had said. Dinner was lovely and the both of you clicked the same way you did every other time you two had met up. He gave you that same safe feeling and those same butterflies when he's compliment you.

Obviously, one date led to another. He was more than happy to take care of you and to make sure that you never had to take care of your father alone again.

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Jason: Bruce had requested that Jason join him on a mission to Simon Stagg's labs. The both of them follow down such a long path of what looks like abandoned laboratories and vacant cells.

"Bruce, there's clearly nothing here we should just split." Jason wasn't entirely happy with the fact that he had to look for paperwork and investigate around the old and what seemed to be a barren laboratory; he'd rather be kicking ass.

"I mean it looks like the goddamn Back Rooms in here." Jason huffed with obvious irritation.

That feeling just about vanished as he made it down a corridor where he saw a glass room with a woman inside. Her skin was green, and she looked so similar to a villain he had seen before, one that tended to prefer eco-terrorism to the safety of human beings.

"Bruce! Bruce, there's a girl! We have to get her out of here." His voice started shaking, he was suddenly extremely worried about her...maybe it was how skinny and malnourished she looked? The hunger and thirst, he had seen that quite often before Bruce took him off the streets.

Jason pushed away the chairs that were sitting in front of the glass. He dreaded to think what they were used for, but he pushed the thoughts away. He gently tapped on the glass, hoping you would answer him. He could see the monitors attached to you and see that you were still alive, but every monitor seemed exceedingly slow.

"Sweetheart, I need you to look at me." He asked before your eyes fluttered open with confusion, it had seemed like months since you even spotted a single fly.

"That's it. Good girl, that's all I need from you I just need you to stay awake. We're going to get you out of here, I promise." Jason looks through the folder that sat within the container on the wall; he's desperate to figure out a way to get you out of there. He finds out who your mother is, Poison Ivy... the rest of the things he finds are vile and disgusting, but he pushes past it trying to find a way to get you out of there.

Jason then handed the file to Bruce and punched the combination into the keypad on the wall before rushing into the room that contained you.

"Jason! No, she could be dangerous!"

"Look at her, Bruce, she's too exhausted to be even remotely dangerous. She's been left alone here for lord knows how long." Jason disregards any part of him that tells him not to pick you up. He scoops are up and gently guides you out of the hell hole she was residing in.

"It's all right now, Babygirl, I got you. Jason speaks almost as if in quiet whispers; Bruce had never seen him be so soft and gentle to a stranger unless it was a little kid or something.

Jason took on every single duty of taking care of you. He would help nurse you back to health, and he would change your saline drip as often as it needed to be. His eyes lit up the first time he got you outside and your skin started turning even more green as if thriving in even the most minuscule amount of sunlight. He was there for you in every sort of moment of need you had. You're beautiful, gentle and kind, and he be damned if he ever let anything happen to you. In his mind suffered more than enough.

He is extremely attentive to you and anytime you notice a shiver he would cover you with a blanket or his jacket. The second he heard your stomach growl or even the slightest indication that you were thirsty, he handled it immediately.

Dick wanted to introduce you to everyone and Jason made sure that you understood that you didn't have to if you didn't want to. They invited you to watch a movie, but considering how exhausted you were, you ended up falling asleep on Jason's chest, his fingers brushing through your hair like it was natural for him. Not a single person in that room couldn't see the fact that he was falling so deeply in love with you.

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Bruce: Bruce was running a few samples, he heard of what Scarecrow had done. Crane had been slipping a new version of fear toxin into several other drugs around Gotham.

Normally, he would go to Mr Freeze, but because his wife just recently got unfrozen and they were putting her through bouts of therapy for her case of Huntington's disease, he didn't want to bother him.

Victor had recommended a young doctor from Gotham General, Y/N Strange. The daughter of Hugo Strange, but from what he could tell, you didn't have much to do with your father anymore.

Bruce sent the samples over before he showed up several hours later. You had never seen Batman in person so it was a bit startling to see such a tall man clad in black, his blue eyes peaking out from under that black mask.

"Ah, Hello...Um, Mr. Batman." It was obvious you were nervous, and in a way, he thought it was really cute but he ignored tge feeling for now.

"Did you receive my package?" His voice deep and menacing.

"Oh, of course, I received everything. If I'm honest I never expected to receive a package from Batman but anyways..." In a way you were trying not to fangirl. 'Batman needs my help? Oh wow!' But you tried to pull it together.

"Yes, of course, Mr Batman, I cross-referenced the drugs that you sent me via the test tubes, and I...um, it would appear to be a Ecstasy, Heroin, and Weed... of course, they've been modified, so there's a component in here that looks to be Datura. Datura plants contain tropane alkaloids such as scopolamine, hyoscyamine, and atropine, which has led to their use in some cultures as a poison and as a hallucinogen for centuries. It would seem, from as far as I can tell, that this is what is also contained in these drugs. The hallucinations can be just downright terrifying."

He tries to look as if he understands but some of these words he's just not picking up on. Maybe it's because he's tired or maybe it's just that he doesn't understand or it could possibly be by the fact that he is distracted by how cute you look in that white lab coat but he's not going to let that show.

Even after Mr. Freeze is back in working order, has got a job at a very similar lab and has started to redeem himself for his past issues, Bruce still goes back to you for information everytime.

You find yourself in the elevator going from one level to another, and who pops in but Bruce Wayne? There wasn't a single person in Gotham who didn't know who Bruce Wayne was. In a bit of shock, you dropped all your papers all over the ground.

"Oh my god, Mr. Bruce. I am so sorry." You said as you kneeled down to pick up all of your papers. He joined you on his knees, helping you with all of the papers, his hand brushed against yours.

It was nice to be able to touch your skin and not have the barrier of a glove between the two of you, he thought.

"I- um, I usually don't ask out strangers, but if you would like to... I- I believe there's a connection between us." Bruce said as he gave you his card as he got out of the elevator, he knew what the connection was obviously, but you were none the wiser.

'Did that just happen? Did Bruce Wayne just ask me out? Oh my God. Oh my God!"

You didn't question it when you found your phone number. You had thought, 'Of course, he's got connections. He's Bruce Wayne.'

The date was lovely, and he found himself extremely entranced by the way that you talked about the things that you were passionate about, even if he didn't understand what you were saying. He also found it extremely adorable the way that you seemed to be so nervous around him but relaxed as the night went on. It didn't matter that you were Hugo Strange's daughter; you were adorable and he found himself completely enchanted by you.

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Tim: He had been hacked, which was really odd considering the fact that he had top-of-the-line security equipment on his computer, and not even he could hack it. The second that it happened, he knew he needed to figure out who did this, not only out of admiration but because someone with this skill could be a danger to Gotham or anyone they pleased really.

He found a really old way to track an IP address that most people didn't even use anymore so most hackers didn't protect themselves against it and you weren't an exception to that rule. He found your name and information, Y/N Nygma. The Riddler's Daughter?

It took a lot of time and doing, but he got the both of you sending messages back and forth, leaving little bread crumbs for each other to find like a little game, it was fun. He could sense you didn't have a desire to harm anyone so he talked to Bruce and offered you an opportunity to get away from your father and his dirty deeds.

You loved your father and of course you didn't want to have to leave him but recently he's been acting psychotic, controlling and dangerous so you lept at the opportunity.

"You must be DxrthSkywxlker." You said as the man approched.

"Only if you are ButtSniffler2000." He said jokingly, his voice was just as you imagined it, smooth and playful.

"Oh, my god. No, but I guess I got the right guy." You laughed, that was something that drew you to him was the fact that he made you laugh so easily with such the dumbest things.

"Yeah, That's me. Honest to God, I didnt expect you to be a girl." He was swooning as soon as he saw you in the dim lighting, your humor and now this? He was done for.

"You're gorgeous." He had meant to say in his brain and not out loud but as soon as he saw the blush on your cheeks he"d realized he didnt say it in his subconcious.

"Thank you." You said as you hid your smile behind your hands.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry I didn't mean to say that out loud." His cheeks were turning pink as well.

"It's okay, I believe that if you have a compliment to say someone, most of the time you should. It's just a good way to put goodness into the world especially in such a shitty city." The second those words came out of your mouth he knew he was done for, Tim's such a positive and optimistic person. Having someone else say something so similar to his outlook on life just makes him even more in love with you.

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Damian: Of course, it made sense after he pieced it all together the way that you were so skilled with a blade and the way you weren't scared of him when you first met him.

He wasn't mad, Damian just wished you'd've told him. He laid everything out there on the floor for you, him being in the League, his mother, him being Robin, his dad being Batman but you couldnt tell him this? It stung, it felt like you didn't trust him.

"You're Deathstroke's daughter?" He asked randomly while the two of you were eating dinner. It was out of the blue, he didnt want to give you a chance to lie to him or prepare to answer.

"Yeah...I- I am but I haven't talked to him in years." You wanted nothing more than to put your father in the past and act like he doesn't exist especially after what he did to your mother. Damian instantly saw the pain in your eyes as he pieced it all together.

"Was he... did he...that was him?" He knew the story of your mother and how she had passed away but you never had mentioned who did it. You looked down, not really wanting to find his beautiful green eyes. You knew the second that you peered into them you'd be a sobbing wet mess.

Understanding immediately falls across Damian's face. Unfortunately for him he understood that you may be your father's daughter but that doesn't mean you are your father.

When he initially did his search on the computer Damian was very judgemental but he realized he was being hypocritical because if everyone just saw him as his mother's son then he would be doomed.

"I get it, nothing makes you want to crawl out of your skin more than remembering that you share blood with someone so horrible. It's like that with me and my mother. She's done awful things and she wishes I would forget all of them but we can't forget such cruelty." He speaks from the heart because he knows exactly how you feel. His hand reaches across the table and he grabs yours in his.

"He did it cause he hsd another family and he didnt want my mom interfering. I found her after school one day."

The pain and cruelty of your parents was just another way the both of you bonded. Damian loves training with you it's one of his favorite things to do because most people can't keep up.

"Just admit it you've been defeated." You smiled as you sat on top of him having tripped him and then quickly pinned him onto the mat.

"Alright, Alright. I've been defeated." Damian smiled a mischievous smile before he quickly flipped you both over and pinned you down.

"Just admit it, you've been defeated." He mocked you with a shit eating grin before leaning down to kiss you, pushing his body between you thighs. He kissed your neck, his words causing you to giggle.

-> Masterlist <-

[thewritetofreespeech]

kinktober: frottage

tags: frottage, making out, secret relationship, targaryen incest [aemond/rhaenyra's daughter], immense pinning by aemond

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“Where is Aemond?”

“I do not know your grace,” Larys replied. Remaining calm in the Queens frustration. She had been hunting for her middle son for hours, and he was no where to be found. “I have checked with the guards and sentries, and no one has seen him leave by Vahgar or horse.”

“So, he must still be in the city.” Alicent deduced. Hoping he was still in the castle as well. “The conclave starts soon, and we need…a united front for the court.” The plan to weave her family’s place to the crown was to start today. First, but claiming Driftmark back from Rhaenyra's brood. Then, with them illegitimized, start making the case that Aegon should be king. “He knows how important today is. How could he do this to me?!”

“The prince is nothing but a servant to duty.” Larys assured her. He may not see eye-to-eye with the prince, at least with the one he had left, but the Lord did respect that he seemed committed to his family and their goal. “I’m sure he will come out of hiding eventually.”

In a further, deeper part of the castle, indeed hidden away from all those who had not truly explored it, Aemond laid sequestered with his maiden. Marveling at her beauty in the low light between kisses. Beads of sweat forming at the back of his neck from the warmth of the candles in the small space and their hot, panting breath. Bucking against each other with soft gasps & grunts in the nest he had built for them

“We have to go.” His lady insisted. For the umpteenth time, yet neither one of them had made a legitimate effort to move.

“No, no. Not yet.”

Aemond didn’t want to go back to the ‘real world’. A world where his family and hers were fighting. Where the rift between them seemed to grow every day. Separating them. Lines in the sand now a chasm that seemed impossible to overcome.

He also knew what was to happen today to Rhaenyra's bastards, and that she might not forgive him for his part in the plot of disinheriting her brothers. Aemond wanted to stay here a little longer, where she wouldn’t be mad at him.

“People will be looking for us.” She told him as he moved to her neck, which was freely given.

“They’ll never find us.” It had taken him years to find this place and even then it had been difficult to remember where the opening was until he had committed it to memory.

“Oh yes. Because you’re so clever. Ow!” His lady yipped but then moaned when he bit at her neck. A true Targaryen. Wanting a little pain with her pleasure.

“We should just leave and never come back.”

He’d made the offer before. To take their dragons and ride until they reach new land. Conquer it like their ancestors. Build a new kingdom, instead of being stuck in this conflicting one.

Yet, every time, she just laughed it off as a joke like she did now. Not realizing the seriousness of how much he wanted to leave, and never come back, and just be the two of them in the world. “You would miss the tarts too much if we left. Come on. Let’s get going.”

Aemond finally let her go, though disappointed about it, and let her right herself.

In the right light, her mused hair and clothes looked like she had been riding. No one would think where Rhaenyra's Targaryen jewel had truly been. In the arms of her scorned, much less beloved uncle. His cock throbbed in his breeches. Desperate to make her truly his, but he would not take such liberties. Aemond would not tarnish their jewel nor besmirch her honor. He loved her too much for that. That’s why he wanted her to run away with him, so they could be together. Growing up in a world beloved & adored, she does not see that her parents will never allow them to marry. Never allow them to be happy. Their jewel will be given to someone politically inclined to help secure her mother’s place on the throne, and Aemond would be unhappy & unfulfilled.

He would join the Watch before he call anyone but her wife.

Righted and upright, Aemond tucked a lock of silver behind her ear. Marveling at the affection reflected in her eyes. “Will you see me later? After the conclave?”

“Of course.” She told him. Her earnest something he wanted to hold on to. “Here, or somewhere else before dinner?”

“Here.” Where he could pretend. And if he spoke his words sweet enough maybe she would take him up on his offer to finally run away.

They exit their nook and depart. Her back to her family and Aemond to his. His mother found him readily enough, given how frantically at this point she had been looking for him, and asked where he had been.

“Day dreaming.” Was all he told her. It was a peculiarly enough answer that it halted all further questions from his mother and left him to get ready for the meeting.

After today, his daydreams where all he might have left. Let him keep them for a little while longer at least.

[lomlompurim]

I need to get this idea out of my system asap before the inspiration drains out of me but I have college tomorrow T~T

For now I only have these sketches of my idea of SVSSS X Alice in Wonderland BUT American McGee's Alice /Alice Madness Return route

Poor little bunhe was so happy pretending his family didn't die in that fire, but it couldn't last forever.

And a sketch of the Binghe of madness returns events, that I also plan to cover

still not fully convinced on this one but eh I'll roll with it until I make it better

The main plot of the AU will take place during Alice Madness Return, the parts with little Alice!Bunhe would be settled in American McGees. BUT a lot of the plot of American McGees' Alice kinda does not happens, since Shen Yuan transmigrates into Binghe's wonderland early and takes the responsability of keeping him safe and ignorant in a bliss bubble inside his realm, so Binghe won't be 100% aware of what was happening in the real world (he was in the huan hua psychiatrist facility and would stay there for 10 years in catatonia so yeah) until he can't keep him delusional anymore.

The drawback of this? Since bunhe didn't experience the journey of the first game, and only had sweet dreams with his queen♡ he couldn't care less about the real world. He does not want to know anything about it, and he is gonna be really upset when his queen has to cast him away.

I mean if I had to pick between being aware of people experimenting on me while being stuck in a psychiatrist, and a hot and kind milf feeding me cakes and singing lullabies, I would like to stay in my delulu wonderland too.

[ma1dita]

hiii can i have 1 ticket to the give em' a pumpkin to talk about starring luke castellan with popcorn and candy??

welcome to my nightmare

[STARRING: LUKE CASTELLAN x reader “Just forget you saw this happen.” “I’ve just never seen you this mad before.”] wc: 700+ a/n: no warnings this one's just dumb and goofy and inspired by sylus x mc's aether tie from LNDS if yall have ever played haha; title from the alice cooper song

monster mash-terlist

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For the past week, you and Luke Castellan have been stuck at the hip. Well, kinda…and definitely not by choice.

“I swear to the gods, when I get my hands on you Castellan…” 

“Sure, go ahead. Call on Nemesis again and maybe this time if I stay quiet, the goddess of retribution will keep me out of whatever stupid punishment you get next!” he spits, yanking at the invisible force that has your wrists linked together. You chew a guy out in the presence of a sacred temple once and now you’re stuck to him indefinitely. Perfect.

“We can’t go out like this,” you groan exasperatedly, “you’re messing with my game.” Luke’s eyes might roll to the back of his head if he tries any harder. Everything is always a game with you—and he’s about to lose it.

“You’re the only person I know that would pull the shit you do, y’know? He was being annoying,” Luke scoffs, remembering the barista who was trying to chat you up an hour earlier. He never thought he’d say this, but he absolutely cannot wait to get back to Camp Half-Blood. You stop in your tracks to protest, “He was being nice! And I was trying to score us a free lunch, but you had to be all macho, ‘Can’t you see she’s cuffed?’ CLEARLY NOT!” The invisible link between your wrists strengthens as you try to tug your arm away from him—the pull almost tightening around your skin as his arm follows the shape of yours with no dispute. 

“He was too nice. There was something wrong with his face.”

Your eye twitches as you snort, “I’ve just never seen you this mad before, is all.” Luke stops short in front of you, turning suddenly and it makes your arm jerk towards him. Standing toe to toe, he looks down at you with an unreadable expression, grumbling, “I’m not mad.”

“Jealous, then.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. I think it would be less painful to hack my arm off with a sword than be stuck to you,” he starts walking again, hoping that if you stop trying to start a fight you can make it back to camp by nightfall. It’s never that easy though— you start walking back towards the cafe, making his knees buckle at the force of the redirection, “Are you serious?”

“You won’t mind if I walk in there and get his number then?”

Luke’s bound hand catches yours so that the unfamiliar feeling in his stomach will settle. Actually, he does mind—and he thinks it wouldn’t be so bad to be stuck to you for the rest of eternity if it meant you don’t go back in there to get that guy’s number. 

There’s an unspoken tension that reverberates through the both of you as you stand there in the parking lot and neither of you can find the words.

“Don’t.”

Luke’s voice is soft under the flickering streetlights, “Not without me,” and you could’ve sworn he was going to say something else, but he doesn’t. 

“Not like I have a choice…” you start, and he bites his lip reluctantly—”Not like I would want to. Brighten up, Castellan. We still have to get home.” Your tone is less serious now, nudging your shoulder against his, and you’ve barely noticed he’s still holding your hand, or the fact that the pull between you two is less of a punishment and more of a surprising reward for this situation.

The gods do love a good joke.

Walking back into the cafe, you follow Luke towards the direction of the bathroom and he’s back in a goofy mood now that there’s an irrevocable understanding between you two. He pushes the door open slightly, smirking at you as you scan the area to see if anyone’s watching you follow him into the men’s bathroom. After a week of having no privacy due to your predicament, nothing is that awkward anymore.

“So…” he smirks, “You wanna hold it?”

You whack him across the chest. A glass clatters to the floor behind you and it’s the cute barista from earlier. Your face pales, “Just… forget you saw this happen.” 

With Luke’s eyes meeting his, he tugs you in by the hand anyway.

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ma1dita's monster mash is closed for requests but ongoing for the rest of october!

[wisteria-lodge]

Manipulative/Morally Grey Dumbledore? An In-Depth Canon Analysis

So when I look at Harry Potter, my goal is to separate what I think the books are intending to say, from what they actually say, from what the movies say… and what the common fan interpretation is. So today I’m interested in Dumbledore, and specifically in the common headcanon of  Manipulative/Morally Gray Dumbledore. Is that (intentionally or unintentionally) supported by the text?

PART I:  Omniscient Dumbledore

“I think he knows more or less everything that goes on here”

In Book 1, yes Dumbledore honestly does seem to know everything. He 100% arranged for Harry to find the Mirror of Erised, publicly left Hogwarts in order to nudge Quirrell into going after the Stone, and knew what Quirrell was doing the whole time. It is absolutely not a stretch, and kind of heavily implied, that the reason the Stone’s protections feel like a little-end-of-the-year exam designed to put Harry through his paces… is because they are. As the series goes on this interpretation only gets more plausible, when we see the kind of protections people can put up when they don’t want anyone getting through. 

Book 1 Dumbledore knows everything… but what he’s actually going to do about it is anyone’s guess. One of the first things we learn is that some of Dumbledore’s calls can be… questionable. McGonagall questions his choice to leave Harry with the Dursleys, Hermione questions his choice to give Harry the Cloak and let him go after the Stone, Percy and Ron both matter-of-factly call him “mad.” The “nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak” speech is a joke where Dumbledore says he’s going to say a few words, then literally does say a few (weird) words. I know there are theories that those particular words are supposed to be insulting the four houses, or referencing the Hogwarts house stereotypes, or that they’re some kind of warning. But within the text, this is pure Lewis Carroll British Nonsense Verse stuff (and people came up with answers to the impossible Alice in Wonderland “why is a raven like a writing desk” riddle too.) 

This characterization also explains a lot of Dumbledore’s decisions about how to run a school, locked in during Book 1. Presumably Binns, Peeves, Filch, Snape are all there because Dumbledore finds them funny, atmospheric, and/or character building. He's just kind of a weird guy.  He absolutely knew that Lockhart was a fraud in Book 2 (with that whole “Impaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy?” thing after Lockhart oblivates himself. ) So maybe he is also there to be funny/atmospheric/character building, or to teach Harry a lesson about fame, or because Dumbledore is using the cursed position to bump off people he doesn’t like. Who knows.

(I actually don’t think JKR had locked in “the DADA position is literally cursed by Voldemort” until Book 6. )

Dumbledore absolutely knows that Harry is listening in when Lucius Malfoy comes to take Hagrid to Azkaban, and it’s fun to speculate that maybe he let himself get fired in Book 2 as part of a larger plan to boot Lucius off the Board of Governors. So far, that’s the sort of thing he’d do.  But in Books 3 and 4, we are confronted with a number of important things that Dumbledore just missed. He doesn’t know any of the Marauders were animagi, he doesn’t know what really happened with the Potter’s Secret Keeper, doesn’t know Moody is Crouch, and doesn’t know the Marauders Map even exists. But in Books 5 and 6, his omniscience does seem to come back online. (In a flashback, Voldemort even comments that he is "omniscient as ever” when Dumbledore lists the specific Death Eaters he has in Hogsmeade as backup.) Dumbledore knows exactly what Draco and Voldemort are planning, and his word is taken as objective truth by the entire Order of the Phoenix - who apparently only tolerate Snape because Dumbledore vouches for him:

“Snape,” repeated McGonagall faintly, falling into the chair. “We all wondered . . . but he trusted . . . always . . . Snape . . . I can’t believe it. . . .”  “Snape was a highly accomplished Occlumens,” said Lupin, his voice uncharacteristically harsh. “We always knew that.”  “But Dumbledore swore he was on our side!” whispered Tonks. “I always thought Dumbledore must know something about Snape that we didn’t. . . .”  “He always hinted that he had an ironclad reason for trusting Snape,” muttered Professor McGonagall (...) “Wouldn’t hear a word against him!”

McGonagall questions Dumbledore about the Dursleys, but not about Snape. I see this as part of the larger trend of basically Dumbledore’s deification. In the beginning of the series, he’s treated as a clever, weird dude. By the end, he’s treated like a god. 

PART II: Chessmaster Dumbledore

“I prefer not to keep all my secrets in one basket.”

When Dumbledore solves problems, he likes to go very hands-off. He didn’t directly teach Harry about the Mirror of Erised - he gave him the Cloak, knew he would wander, and moved the Mirror so it would be in his path. He sends Snape to deal with Quirrell and Draco, rather than do it himself. He (or his portrait) tells Snape to confund Mundungus Fletcher and get him to suggest the Seven Potters strategy. He puts Mrs. Figg in place to watch Harry, then ups the protection in Book 5 - all without informing Harry. The situation with Slughorn is kind of a Dumbledore-manipulation master class - even the way he deliberately disappears into the bathroom so Harry will have enough solo time to charm Slughorn. Of course he only wants Slughorn under his roof in the first place to pick his brain about Voldemort… but again, instead of doing that himself, he gets Harry to do it for him. 

Dumbledore has a moment during Harry’s hearing in Book 5 (which he fakes evidence for) where he informs Fudge that Harry is not under the Ministry’s jurisdiction while at Hogwarts. Which has insane implications. It’s never explicitly stated, but as the story goes on, it at least makes sense that Dumbledore is deliberately obscuring how powerful he is, and how much influence he really has, by getting other people to do things for him. But the problem with that is because he is so powerful, it become really easy for a reader to look back after they get more information and say… well if Dumbledore was controlling the situation… why couldn’t he have done XYZ. Here are two easy examples from Harry’s time spent with the Dursleys:

1. Mrs. Figg is watching over Harry from day one, but she can’t tell him she’s a squib and also she has to keep him miserable on purpose:

“Dumbledore’s orders. I was to keep an eye on you but not say anything, you were too young. I’m sorry I gave you such a miserable time, but the Dursleys would never have let you come if they’d thought you enjoyed it. It wasn’t easy, you know…”

It’s pretty intense to think of Dumbledore saying “oh yes, invite this little child over and keep him unhappy on purpose.” But okay. It’s important to keep Harry ignorant of the magical world and vice versa. fine. But once he goes to Hogwarts… that doesn’t apply anymore?  I’m sure when Harry thinks he’s going to be imprisoned permanently in his bedroom during Book 2, it would’ve been comforting to know that Dumbledore was sending around someone to check on him. And when he literally runs away from home in Book 3… having the address of a trusted adult that he could easily get to would have been great for everybody. 

2. When Vernon is about to actually kick Harry out during Book 5, Dumbledore sends a howler which intimidates Petunia into insisting that Harry has to stay. Vernon folds and does exactly what she says. If Dumbledore could intimidate Petunia into doing this, then why couldn’t he intimidate her into, say - giving Harry the second bedroom instead of a cupboard. Or fixing Harry’s glasses. In Book 1, the Dursleys don’t bother Harry during the entire month of August because Hagrid gives Dudley a pig’s tail. In the summer between third and fourth year, the Dursleys back off because Harry is in correspondence with Sirius (a person they fear.) But the Dursleys are afraid of all wizards. Like at this point it doesn’t seem that hard to intimidate them into acting decently to Harry. 

PART III: Dumbledore and the Dursleys 

“Not a pampered little prince”

JKR wanted two contradictory things. She wanted Dumbledore to be a fundamentally good guy: a wise, if eccentric mentor figure. But she also wanted Harry to have a comedically horrible childhood being locked in a cupboard, denied food, given broken glasses and ill fitting/embarrassing clothes, and generally made into a little Cinderella. Then, it’s a bigger contrast when he goes to Hogwarts and expulsion can be used as an easy threat. (Although the only person we ever see expelled is Hagrid, and that was for murder.)

So, there are a couple of tricks she uses to make it okay that Dumbledore left Harry at the Dursleys.’ The first is that once Harry leaves…  nothing that happens there is given emotional weight. When he’s in the Wizarding World, he barely talks about Dursleys, barely thinks about them. They almost never come up in the narration (unless Harry’s worried about being expelled, or they’re sending him comedically awful presents.) They are completely cut from movies 4, 6, and 7 part 2 - and you do not notice. 

The second trick… is that Dumbledore himself clearly doesn’t think that the Dursleys are that bad. During the King’s Cross vision-quest, he describes 11-year-old Harry as “alive and healthy (...) as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well.”  

Now, this could have been really interesting. Like in a psychological way, I get it. Dumbledore had a rocky home life. Dad in prison, mom spending all her time taking care of his volatile and dangerous sister. Aberforth seems to have reacted to the situation by running completely wild, it’s implied that he never even had formal schooling… and Albus doubled down on being the Golden Child, making the family look good from the outside, and finding every means possible to escape. I would have believed it if Molly or Kingsley had a beat of being horrified by the way the Dursleys are treating Harry… but Dumbledore treats it as like, whatever. Business as usual. 

But that isn’t the framing that the books use. Dumbledore is correct that the Dursleys aren’t that bad, and I think it’s because JKR fundamentally does not take the Dursleys seriously as threats. I also think she has a fairly deeply held belief that suffering creates goodness, so possibly Harry suffering at the hands of the Dursleys… was necessary? To make him good? Dumbledore himself has an arc of ‘long period of suffering = increased goodness.’ So does Severus Snape, Dudley‘s experience with the Dementor kickstarts his character growth, etc. It’s a trope she likes.

It’s only in The Cursed Child that the Dursleys are given any kind of weight when it comes to Harry’s psyche. This is one of the things that makes me say Jack Thorne wrote that play, because it’s just not consistent with how JKR likes to write the Dursleys. It’s consistent with the way fanfiction likes to write the Dursleys. And look, The Cursed Child is fascinatingly bad, I have so many problems with it, but it does seem to be doing like … a dark reinterpretation of Harry Potter? And it’s interested in saying something about cycles of abuse. I can absolutely see how the way the play handles things is flattering to JKR. It retroactively frames the Dursleys’ abuse in a more negative way, and maybe that’s something she wanted after criticism that the Harry Potter books treat physical abuse kind of lightly. (i.e.  Harry at the hands of the Dursleys, and house-elves at the hands of everybody. Even Molly Weasley “wallops” Fred with a broomstick.) 

PART IV: Dumbledore and Harry

“The whole Potter–Dumbledore relationship. It’s been called unhealthy, even sinister”

So whenever Harry feels betrayed by Dumbledore in the books - and he absolutely does, it’s some of JKR’s best writing  - it’s not because he left him with the Dursleys. It’s because Dumbledore kept secrets from him, or lied to him, or didn’t confide in him on a personal level. 

“Look what he asked from me, Hermione! Risk your life, Harry! And again! And again! And don’t expect me to explain everything, just trust me blindly, trust that I know what I’m doing, trust me even though I don’t trust you! Never the whole truth! Never!” (...) I don’t know who he loved, Hermione, but it was never me. This isn’t love, the mess he’s left me in. He shared a damn sight more of what he was really thinking with Gellert Grindelwald than he ever shared with me.”

Eventually though, Harry falls in line with the rest of the Order, and treats Dumbledore as an all-knowing God. And this decision comes so close to being critiqued…  but the series never quite commits. Rufus Scrimgeour comments that, “Well, it is clear to me that [Dumbledore] has done a very good job on you” - implying that Harry is a product of a deliberate manipulation,  and that the way Harry feels about Dumbledore is a direct result of how he's been controlling the situation (and Harry.)  But Harry responds to “[You are] Dumbledore’s man through and through, aren’t you, Potter?” with “Yeah, I am. Glad we straightened that out,” and it’s treated as a badass, mic drop line. 

Ron goes on to say that Harry maybe shouldn’t be trusting Dumbledore and maybe his plan isn’t that great… but then he abandons his friends, regrets what he did, and is only able to come back because Dumbledore knew he would react this way? So that whole thing only makes Dumbledore seem more powerful? Aberforth  tells Harry (correctly) that Dumbledore is expecting too much of him and he’s not interested in making sure that he survives:

“How can you be sure, Potter, that my brother wasn’t more interested in the greater good than in you? How can you be sure you aren’t dispensable (...) Why didn’t he say… ‘Take care of yourself, here’s how to survive’? (...) You’re seventeen, boy!”

But, Aberforth is treated as this Hamish Abernathy type who has given up, and needs Harry to ignite his spark again. There’s a pretty dark line in the script of Deathly Hallows Part 2:

Which at least shows this was a possible  interpretation the creative team had in their heads… but then of course it isn’t actually in the movie. 

So in the end, insane trust in Dumbledore is only ever treated as proper and good. Then in Cursed Child they start using “Dumbledore” as an oath instead of “Merlin” and it’s weird and I don’t like it.

PART V: Dumbledore and his Strays

“I have known, for some time now, that you are the better man.”

So Dumbledore has this weird relationship pattern. He has a handful of people he pulled out of the fire at some point and (as a result) these people are insanely loyal to him.  They do his dirty work, and he completely controls them. This is an interesting pattern, because I think it helps explain why so many fans read Dumbledore’s relationship with Snape (and with Harry) as sinister. 

Let’s start with the first of Dumbledore’s “strays.” Dumbledore saves Hagrid's livelihood and probably life after he is accused of opening the Chamber of Secrets - and then he uses Hagrid to disappear Harry after the Potters' death, gets him to transport the Philosopher’s Stone, and he’s the one who he trusts to be Harry’s first point of contact with the Wizarding World.  Also, Hagrid's situation doesn’t change? Even after he is cleared of opening the Chamber of Secrets, he keeps using that pink flowered umbrella with his broken wand inside, a secret that he and Dumbledore seem to share. He could get a legal wand, he could continue his education. But he doesn’t seem to, and I don’t know why. 

So, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is a well known fix-it fic that basically asks “What if Harry Potter was a machiavellian little super genius who solves the plot in a year?” I enjoyed it when it was coming out, but the only thing I would call a cheat is the way McGonagall brings Harry to Diagon Alley instead of Hagrid. Because a Harry Potter who has spent a couple of days with McGonagall is going to be much better informed, better equipped and therefore more powerful than a Harry spending the same amount of time with Hagrid. McGonagall is both a lot more knowledgeable and a lot less loyal to Dumbledore. She is loyal, obviously, but she also questions his choices in a way that Hagrid never does. And as a result, Dumbledore does not trust her with the same kind of delicate jobs he trusts to Hagrid.

Mrs. Figg is another one of Dumbledore’s strays. She’s a squib, so we can imagine that she doesn’t really have a lot of other options, and he sets her up to keep tabs on (and be unpleasant to) little Harry. He also has her lie to the entire Wizangamot, which has got to present some risk. Within this framework, Snape is another very clear stray. Dumbledore kept him out of Azkaban, and is the only reason that the Order trusts him. He gets sent on on dangerous double-agent missions… but before that he’s sort of kept on hand, even though he’s clearly miserable at Hogwarts. Firenze is definitely a stray - he can't go back to the centaurs, and who other than Dumbledore is going to hire him? And I do wonder about Trelawney. We don’t know much about her relationship with Dumbledore, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she was a stray as well.

I think there was an attempt to turn Lupin into a stray that didn’t… quite work. He is clearly grateful to Dumbledore for letting him attend Hogwarts and then for hiring him, but Lupin doesn’t really hit that necessary level of trustworthy that the others do. Most of what Dumbledore doesn’t know in Book 3 are things that Lupin could have told him, and didn’t. If had to think of a Watsonsian reason why Remus is given all these solo missions away from the other Order members (that never end up mattering…) it’s because I don’t think Dumbledore trusts him that much. Lupin doubts him too much. 

“Dumbledore believed that?” said Lupin incredulously. “Dumbledore believed Snape was sorry James was dead? Snape hated James. . . .”

 We also see Dumbledore start the process of making Draco into a stray by promising to protect him and his parents. And with all of that… it’s kind of easy to see how Harry fits the profile. He has a very bleak existence (which Dumbledore knows about.) He is pulled out of it by Dumbledore’s proxies. It’s not surprising that Harry develops a Hagrid-level loyalty, especially after Dumbledore saves him from Barty, from his Ministry hearing, and then from Voldemort. Harry walks to his death because Dumbledore told him too. 

Just to be clear, I don’t think this pattern is deliberate. I think this is a side effect of JKR wanting to write Dumbledore as a nice guy, and specifically as a protector of the little guy. But Dumbledore doing that while also being so powerful creates a weird power dynamic, gives him a weird edit. It’s part of the reason people are happy to go one step farther and say that the Dursleys were mean to Harry… because Dumbledore actively wanted it that way.  I don’t think that’s true. I think Dumbledore loves his strays and if anything, the text supports the idea that he is collecting good people, because protecting them and observing them serves some psychological function for him. Dumbledore does not believe himself to be an intrinsically good person, or trustworthy when it comes to power. So, of course someone like that would be fascinated by how powerless people operate in the world, and by people like Hagrid and Lupin and Harry, who seem so intrinsically good. 

PART VI - Dumbledore and Grindelwald

“I was in love with you.” 

I honestly see “17-year-old Dumbledore was enamored with Grindelwald” as a smokescreen distracting from the actual moral grayness of the guy. He wrote some edgy letters when he was a teenager, at least partly because he thought his neighbor was hot. He thought he could move Ariana, but couldn’t - which led to the chaotic three-way duel that killed her. 

One thing I think J. K. Rowling does understand pretty well, and introduces into her books on purpose, is the concept of re-traumatization. Sirius in Book 5 is very obviously being re-traumatized by being in his childhood home and hearing the portrait of his mother screaming. It’s why he acts out, regresses, and does a number of unadvisable things. I think it’s also deliberate that Petunia’s unpleasant childhood is basically being re-created: her normal son next to her sister’s magical son. It's making her worse, or at the very least preventing her from getting better. We learn that Petunia has this sublimated interest in the magical world, and can even pull out vocab like “Azkaban” and “Dementor” when she needs to.   She wrote Dumbledore asking to go to Hogwarts, and I could see that in a universe where Petunia didn’t have to literally raise Harry, she wouldn’t be as psychotically into normalness, cleanliness, and order as she is when we meet her in the books. After all, JKR doesn’t like to write evil mothers. She will be bend over backwards so her mothers are never really framed as bad.

And I honestly think it’s possible that J. K. Rowling was playing with the concept of re-traumatiziation when she was fleshing out Dumbledore in Book 7. We learn all this backstory, that… honestly isn’t super necessary? All I’m saying is that the three-way duel at the top of the Astronomy Tower lines up really well with the three-way duel that killed Ariana. Harry is Ariana, helpless in the middle. Draco is Aberforth, well intentioned and protective of his family - but kind of useless, and kind of a liability. Severus is Grindelwald, dark and brilliant, and one of the closest relationships Dumbledore has. If this was intentional, it was probably only for reasons of narrative symmetry… but I think it's cool in a Gus Fring of Breaking Bad sort of way, that Dumbledore (either consciously or unconsciously) has been trying to re-create this one horrible moment in his life where he felt entirely out of control. But the second time it plays out… he can give it what he sees as the correct outcome. Grindelwald kills him and everyone else lives. That is how you solve the puzzle.

If you read between the lines, Dumbledore/Grindelwald is a fascinating love story. I like the detail that after Ariana’s death, Dumbledore returns to Hogwarts because it’s a place to hide and because he doesn’t feel like he can be trusted with power. I like that he sits there, refusing promotions, refusing requests to be the new Minister of Magic, refusing to go deal with the growing Grindelwald threat until he absolutely can’t hide anymore, at which point he defeats him (somehow.) I like reading his elaborate plan to break Elder Wand’s power as both a screw-you to Grindelwald, the wand’s previous master, but also as a weirdly romantic gesture. In Albus Dumbledore’s mind, there is only Grindelwald. Voldemort can’t even begin to compare. I like the detail that Grindelwald won’t give up Dumbledore, even under torture. And, Dumbledore doesn’t put him in Azkaban. He put him in this other separate prison, which always makes it seem like he’s there under Dumbledore authority specifically.  Maybe Dumbledore thinks that if he had died that day instead of Ariana…he wouldn’t have had to spend the rest of his life fighting and imprisoning the man he loves.

And then of course, Crimes of Grindelwald decided to take away Dumbledore's greatest weakness and say that no, actually he was a really good guy who never did anything wrong ever.  He went all that time without fighting Grindelwald because they made a magical friendship no-fight bracelet. Dumbledore is randomly grabbing Lupin’s iconography (his fashion sense, his lesson plans, his job) in order to feel more soft and gentle than the person the books have created. Now Dumbledore knows about the Room Requirement, even though in the books it’s a plot point that he's too much of a goody-two-shoes to have ever found it himself. He loved Grindelwald (past tense.) And Secrets of Dumbledore is mostly about him being an omniscient mastermind so that a magical deer can tell him that he was a super good and worthy guy, and any doubt that he’s ever felt about himself is just objectively wrong and incorrect. Also now Aberforth has a neglected son, so he’s reframed as a bit of a hypocrite for getting on his brother’s case for not protecting Harry. 

So to summarize, I think Dumbledore began the series as this very eccentric, unpredictable mentor, whose abilities took a hit in Books 3 and 4 in order to make the plot happen. He teetered on the edge of a ‘dark’ framing for like a second… but at the the end of the series he's written as basically infallible and godlike. I’ve heard people say that JKR’s  increased fame was the reason she added the Rita Skeeter plot line, and I don’t think that’s true. But I do think her fame may have affected the way she wrote Dumbledore. Because Dumbledore is JKR’s comment on power, and by Book 5 she had so much power. In her head, I don’t think that Dumbledore is handing off jobs in a manipulative way. She sees him as empowering other less powerful people. That is his job as someone in power (because remember - people who desire power shouldn't wield it.)

Dumbledore’s power makes him emotionally disconnected from the people in his life, it makes him disliked and distrusted by the Ministry, but it doesn’t make him wrong. That’s important. Dumbledore is never wrong. Dumbledore is always good. That’s why we get the Blood Pact that means he was never weak or procrastinating. That’s why we get the qilin saying he was a good person. It’s why we get the tragic backstory (because giving Snape a tragic backstory worked wonders when it came to rehabilitating him.) And that is why Harry names his son Albus Severus in the epilogue, to make us readers absolutely crystal clear that these two are good men. 

[mhsdatgo]

By the way, you can say you hate characters and STILL admit that they were abused or harassed. There's literally nothing wrong. Denying it or romanticizing it because of a strange kink of yours won't make your hate any less evident, trust me.

Rhaenyra was abused. She's continuously taken advantage of, and brushed away the moment she isn't needed anymore. And she experiences this first hand with her own father, who completely ruins motherhood for her when she grows up watching Aemma get impregnated and either miscarry or have the baby be stillborn or die in the cradle. If Viserys had been by her side as a supporter to her claim since the start, he wouldn't have gotten Aemma pregnant again and again in the pursuit of a male child. He wouldn't have married Alicent for the same reason. Even after, the only reason why he still stands by her side, and it's time the fandom accepts this, it's solely because of his grief and guilt, because Rhae is the only remnant of Aemma.

And there it starts. Firstly, groomed and left alone naked and alone by her uncle in a brothel. Secondly, slept with Criston Cole (although she did coerce him, that's still a literal TEENAGER) then she's married to a gay man and still approached super young by her new bodyguard and just one year later she's started giving birth to his children. (Side note: FUCK Rhaenyra x Harwin. FUCK with reverb. With hard K.)

And up to this point, most fan agree that she's had a shitty life, although I don't agree with some of her choices. (like her treatment of Criston Cole and the bastards, not because I'm some kind of bigot, but because passing bastards as trueborn in THAT precise world sets them up for failure, not being legally deserving of a thone DOES NOT mean me hating them. That's for another post.)

To top it all off, she meets her uncle again, and there starts the fanfic self insert. They have sex on a beach the day of Laena's funeral, the only one of the three wives he's ever been canonically loyal to (FUCK you writers) and fans think it's soulmates meeting again or sum shit. They subtly threaten Laenor to fake his death or actually die (that's what they were trying to do, cope harder) and marry mere days after the death of Laena.

Yes, all cute and romantic (for Dumbnyras twats) but literally, has it done anything good? For Rhaenyra or like, anyone else? It just brought Daemon closer to the line of succession. Literally. That's all the good it has done.

Fast forward to ep 10. How do I even start with this? Only Jace seems to be on Rhaenyra's side. It's clear he only obeys to Daemon out of fear and is scared to talk back to him. Meanwhile, he COMPLETELY disregards his wife's, and by his faction's loyalties, QUEEN's, orders, he ignores her wails of pain as she miscarries their daughter out of pure shock and grief for her father's death. He lashes out and chokes her on the same day and people still see him as the malewife to Rhaenyra's girlboss. They're always ready to do award-deserving mental gymnastic to justify this man.

"He was planning war because he wanted to distract himself!!!!" "He only choked Rhae because he was mad at Viserys, he'd never hurt her!!!!!!"

Fuck off. Coming from probably Rhaenyra's #1 hater. Fuck. Off. Don't say you care about her place in the view of men when you're ready to justify shit like this.

This is the same man who runs off and has an affair with a teenager, and then prefers going on and having a badass death instead of joining his wife and children who need him in King's Landing.

Do I like Rhaenyra? No. Do I think that, because of this, she's never been abused, or exploited in any way, in her life? ALSO no. My distaste for her character has NOTHING to do with Viserys, Criston, Daemon, Harwin or literally ANYONE ELSE in her life.

Alicent Hightower time, baby.

My mother, my aunt, my grandmother, my entire bloodline, my Roman Empire. And more. To anyone who thinks of her as nothing but a bitter/jealous girl, go read @feretrumdulcia 's post about this matter cuz there's literally no one I've seen that words it better. (And bub if you're reading, long live you and the way you think.)

https://www.tumblr.com/feretrumdulcia/720746371814195200/i-have-seen-quite-often-that-many-people-consider

Anyone who can read this and argue that Alicent is envious/jealous or bitter, honestly needs to take the heart shaped sunglasses off, get off tumblr and Ao3, learn what media literacy is and start learning how to possess a crumble of it. To us it makes sense to synpathize with both, because we've seen the big picture. To Alicent, Rhaenyra gave her virtue to the man that almost killed her brother, and chose to believe she did not out of trust and maybe nostalgia for her friendship and easier times, only to have her father be blamed and taken away from her as a result.

She has four kids in the span of, how much? Five, six years? Seven at best? Helaena and Aemond are NINE MONTHS APART. Viserys didn't even let her rest after she gave birth to her daughter. And I'm convinced 100% that he kept her as Idk some whore he didn't need to pay for because it's stated that he never wanted Aegon but the son he butchered Aemma for. Why keep on bedding her and forcing children on her when you'd never get what you want from her?

Throughout the series she's called bitter and downright a c*nt for this and that reason. She tries convincing Viserys that Rhae's children are CLEARLY bastards and she's setting herself and them up for failure by committing treason and putting them on the throne? Nah, power hungry, jealous, bitter. She marries Helaena to Aegon as a last resort because she's Valyrian and probably would've received proposals worse than the ones Rhaenyra made that would eventually convince Viserys to give her away? Hates her daughter, abuser, shitty mom. Rhae's sons slit her son's eye out instead of running when they had the chance and she rightfully lashes out? Nah, crazy ass, for the dungeons. She gives money and moon tea to her son's rape victim to ensure she gets a way out and isn't forced to have a baby she doesn't want? Bruh, rape apologist. She goes to Aegon and RIGHTFULLY disciplines him? Abuser. Forced to show her feet to a rancid filthy man to know where her son is? Upholds the patriarchy, hypocrite. She convinces Aegon to start fighting for her family because it's either them or the Blacks and he needs to start putting his life together and fight for them, so she crowns him and makes him King? Treason, deserves death, long live the brothel queens.

Somehow, it is ALWAYS HER FAULT. And those few that admit how wronged she was make fun of her.

CAN SHE FUCKING WIN?! Or y'all just hate her because she isn't Valyrian?

Btw almost all of these arguments are the same for Book!Alicent who I personally believe to be FAR MORE than just a bitter stepmom that hates her stepdaughter. She arguably has more reasons to start a coup against her in the books without that prophecy shit.

TLDR; It's OKAY to hate characters and admit they're abused and taken advantage of at the same time. You don't have a moral high-ground on no one because you hate or love a character instead of the other.

[itsss4t4n]

How long is Forever? - Harry Hook x daughter of alice in wonderland

Headcanons but the longer version of this post:

a/n: this is based more on tim burtons aiw adaptation as it is the only one that i know, and i might have misremembered some of the story/ characters so i apologize if its inaccurate to wonderland or its characters in any way. I got way to invested in creating the character and story and almost forgot that that wasnt the point. At some point i think the character just completely changes and i low key hate it. Im really bad at writing headcannons instead of full fledged fics.

Trigger warnings: fighting, she /her pronouns used, slight angst toward the end but happy ending, not proofread

-being alices daughter you are considered kind of weird by the aks, (think luna lovegood), you are kind of dreamy and constantly in your own thoughts but you still have a very strong own opinion on everything. You say what you think even if others might not like that. 

-You also have a very different sense of style than most girls in auradon. You played alot with different colours and textures always looking slightly crazy (you took inspiration from your godfather, the mad hatter). Your blonde hair was cut to a short messy bob with short bangs, and always changing coloured streaks throughout.

-you dont have the same view of good and bad as most others , and you dont think the vks should be judged by what their parents did and immediately try to befriend them and continuesly defend them

-when mal runs away to the isle you insist on joining the other vks and ben, as you do well in new and different invironments and later because you are an incredible sword fighter, your mother having thought you all she knows, just in case you ever needed to fight a jabberwookie type beast yourself.

-Due to your personal style not being very auradon, you didnt really have to disguise as much as ben when going to the isle. 

-On the isle you felt surprisingly comfortable, as you liked the weird and almost liminal athmosphere that it had 

-the first time you met harry was right after bens kidnapping, when harry came to tell you all about it.

-Harry has this theatrical almost a little eccentric way of talking and moving, which intruiged you pretty quickly. Of course , You didnt like or trust him, he did just kidnap one of your best friends, but you were intruiged non the less.

"And who is this little lassy?"

You told him your name with a glint of interest and mischif in your eyes. "Daughter of Alice in Wonderland."

"How interesting."

"I was just thinking the same thing. Whats your Name?"

"Harry Hook." He introduced himself with adramatic bow, before making fun of jay and barking at carlos.

- The other three had watched the interaction in confusion and wonder. They knew you were a little odd but seeming this confortable with harry after knowing what he did to ben?

"What was that?!" 

"What?" 

"Dont be nice to hook! He just kidnapped your best friend!"

"yea.. But he is quite interesting." And as an afterthougt: "and kind of pretty dont you think?"

"NO! Concentrate please. He is the enemie alright?!"

"Yea whatever, lets go tell mal about this shit."

-You go with Mal and evie to see dizzy, and instantly get along.

-Later while Mal and Uma are talking (singing), you cant help your eyes from glancing over at harry every few seconds. He did look good, with his red coat, the old silver jook on his left hand, and the messy black eyeshadow around his striking blue eyes.

"He is really beutiful dont you think?" That question was mostly directed towards evie who just shot you a dissapproving look. "I'm just saying. purely aesthetically."

-You simply shrugged and watched the situation continue to unfold, swordhand on the hilt of your sword at your side. When the fight breaks out you stand against harry. For better of for forse.

"Hello Pretty boy." You raise you swordand get into a defensive position.

"Wonderland girl."

-You kept making little comments about his looks and his sword fighting which he of course returned in his own flirty way. You quite enjoyed going back and forth like that. Witty comments, smirks and flirty smiles, and fighting more for show at this point instead of actually trying to beat each other. Trying to make this surprisingly pleasant moment last as long as possible.

-until you heard an urgend shout of your name from Mal.

"Sorry in advance." In a quick movement you snatched harrys hook and threw it down into the water. Before a shoked Harry can jump after it you catch his arm and talk to him in a slightly hushed voice.

"I really hope this wasnt our last meeting pretty boy." Before running off with the others.

-You dont see each other again until Audrey turns evil, but you do still think about harry. Is it stupid considering you met like twice and he was you enemy? Yea. Did you care? not really. He was georgeous, funny, good with a sword. Your dream guy. Except for the fact that he was supposedly your enemy. but then again when had you ever cared about that kinda stuff.

-His black lined blue piercing eyes were burned into your brain.

-In the six months until you saw him again you had become mal and bens unofficial bodyguard, spening most of your time with them or with evie, your sword has taken permanent residence at your side, only taking it of to sleep or shower and even then it was always in grabbing distance. Mals paranoia about uma had actually started to get to you.

-You are at evies house when audrey shows up and spells mal. You join them in going back to the isle to retrieve hades ember.

-When your bikes get stolen you cant help but smile at the sight. Yea its shitty but he is still beautiful.

"Pretty boy!"

He drawls you name in his scottish accent and you mentally swoon.

"Thats my bike!"

"Oh yea? Come and get it back then." Before driving of.

-You run after them (except mal and celia ofc),and at one point you split upbecause the boys on the bikes did so. You follow harry and when the others are out of sight he slows to a stop. You catch up to him with a grin.

"Nice to see you again Hook. I was hoping we would meet again."

"I was too Lassie."

-The next 10-ish minutes are filled with flirty banter and tales of what happened in the last six months. It felt like you've known each other for years (as clichee as that sounds). 

-You almost forgot why you were there until you heard jay shouting your name.

"Where are you, Mal got the thing come on."

You quickly turn to Harry again.

"Go! Before they see you and make it a whole thing."

"What bout your bike?"

"Keep it pretty boy, i doubt the others got theirs back so it would be weird if i did."

With a last sly grin harry leans towards you "I will see you again very soon." 

Before you could question what 'very soon' meant, he had already driven of. 

Just in time because Jay and the others turned the corner behind you.

"There you are! What are you doing? come on!"

"Sorry. Was chasing after the bike." You Give them a small smile before walking past them. "You coming?"

-To say you were surprised when harry and gil jumped through the barries after them would be an understatement.

"Pretty boy?!"

"'ello Darling. we're just coming for a wee visit" 

-You tried , just like evie, to get the two groups to work together. Harry mostly walked next to you or Uma. At some point you hung back so he culd walk in between you and doesnt have to kep switching. He caught up with uma but still kept the constant flirts towards you up.

-Everyone was really confused on why you two seemed so good and almost comfortable around each other, not to mention the flirting. Evie was the only one who knew of your little crush so she send you a few knowing smirks.

-During the knight fight you and harry fought as a team. Incedibly well might i say. 

-You were somewhat enthusiastic about evies icebreaker idea, enjoying the idea that the two groups could finally work together.

"Harry great accent."

"Shes right. It is a good accent."

-The flirting just wouldnt stop, comments thrown at each other, bumping shoulders while walking, even brushing your hands against each others on occasion. You had joined the boys in looking for ben.

"To make sure jay and harry dont kill each other."

-Gil doing the icebreaker and bonding with jay. 

meanwhile you and harry in the background:

"We should do that icebreaker pretty boy."

"oh yea?"

"Yea. You've got really pretty eyes."

"And you are really good with a sword lass." His hook just slightly gracing your cheek before something in gil and jays conversation sparks his interest.

-When finding ben you had immediately pushed harry behind you and unsheathed your sword out of instinct. Jay has to pull both of you out of bens way because both of you got distrcated by how close you were standing to each other. After making sure ben was alright you made sure harry was too.

(instead of flirting with jane he flirts with you)

"Well well well, thank you for trying to protect me there darling." The hook was under you chin this time.

"No problem pretty boy." You smirk back.

Ben had his little freak out. Jay and carlos had one too for slightly different reasons.

"when did this happen? you and hook?"

You just shrugged and started walking off.

The boys just looked at eachother thouroghly confused.

-After everyone reuniting and you secretely updating evie on the harry situation you all made your way to fairy cottage. When you found chad you had to half hide in harrys shoulder to hide your laughter because god was it good to see chad taken down a few pecks like that.

-Then Mal dropped the bomb. Closing the barrier forever. You couldnt believe it. You were always a firm believer in the vk programm. And you had honestly hoped that even if harry etc were send back, they would get out someday, or you might go visit them. You considered them freinds at that point. But now that wasnt possible.  You tried to comfort harry and uma in some way but it was to no avail.

"Im so sorry you guys... I didnt know." You had tears in your eyes yourself.

"Dont worry about it Darling. Its nae your fault." Placing his hand, his actual hand, on your cheek for a second, to wipe away the tear that had fallen. Before he walked of with uma.

"Harry....."

Mal was shocked to see your tears at the fact that harry was leaving. she had absolutely no idea this was a thing. It wasnt really. you didnt have enough time for it to actually become a thing. You watched harry and uma leave before evie walked up to you to hug you. 

She talked to mal but you didnt want to listen.

suddenly there was a bright light before it went dark for a bit. When you came to again, Mal was gone. It didnt take you guys long to piece together what must have happened. so you went to find mal.

-You and harry were both incredibly relieved to see that the other was okay. *cue big hug and an almost kiss that turned into a kind of awkward cheek kiss before another hug * 

-Harry announcing that he is actually going back to the isle felt like another punch in the gut. Again that sounds dumb considereing how little you actually knew each other but you didnt care. 

-Harry and you talked before he left. He gave you one of his rings "so you wont forget me darling". So you give him one of yours "then dont you forget me either". *cue more crying and hugs, between all of you *

-Mal announcing that the barrier will be taken down during the engagement party was the best thing that couldve happened to you at that point.

"Looks like you get a chance with your pretty boy after all." Evie.

Uma to harry on the isle: "Now you can get your pretty girl, pretty boy." While bumbing his shoulder.

As soon as you could spot eachother on the bridge you ran into each others arms.

-Kith

-like a lot of em

-Your friends from both sides were incredibly happy for both of you.

[worldofkuro]

Painted Smile

Painted Smile XXX

<- Previous Chapter I Next Chapter ->

Summary: You couldn't wait to meet new friends. What you didn't expect was this smiling little boy, only one year older than you, that would take such a big place in your life.

Notes: Hha... I have been waiting for this chapter since Chapter XI. This one is very hard, folks. I hope you will enjoy it, truly. Please, do tell me your thought about it. TW: Gore, Baby death, Death, Torture.

You were drying your hair after that… shower if you could call it like that.  Alastor was still cleaning his skin from all the blood that went on him… and came from him. You were watching his naked body but observed his torso. The cut wasn’t there anymore… but you could still picture it. You wondered how Alastor managed to stay conscient with the pain. When you healed him and you felt the pain, you couldn’t move, you couldn’t even breathe properly…

You touched your belly, the bad feeling inside you was still lingering. The couple was dead, you needed to get rid of John but… Did you hurt your baby when you healed your husband ? No… It couldn’t be… Baron Samedi told you, you were the one to hurt if you were to heal Alastor, so your child shouldn’t be hurt… And yet, you were anxious… Your baby was a part of you, right? Damn those spirits with their riddles of a deal!

“ Darling, why don’t you go to Alice’s right now? I’ll take care of the bodies.” Alastor whispered in your ear, his arms wrapping around you. “ You used a lot of your power today…”

“ What about you..?” You said, closing your eyes when you felt his lips against your cheek.

“ Me? Darling, I’m getting more powerful with each murder… I want to try those new powers on the corpses..” He purred darkly in your ear, squeezing your waist, his nails digging into your soft skin. You hummed when you felt his finger run on your skin before laughing as Alastor started to tickle your sides.

As your body twitched against his, you managed to catch his gaze. He was looking at you so fondly, so softly but there was still this glint, this madness that would appear when you were around him.

You kissed him to make him stop. He bit your lower lips with a smirk before stepping away from you. You smiled as your husband’s shadow gave you another dress. It seemed like Alastor could stock some stuff he needed inside his shadow… But it couldn’t be louder than himself, that’s what he told you.

You peeked at your own shadow, maybe you could do that too. You blinked when your shadow waves at you with its big horrible smile. You couldn’t help but laugh. You wondered how your shadow was going to act with the baby.

The baby…

The baby, the baby… 

You closed your eyes as you felt bad once more. You needed to calm down, Alastor was going to take care of the corpses, you were going to see Alice who could explain to you it was normal to feel this way when you were pregnant. She would hug you, laughing softly at you, saying you were getting worried for nothing. 

“ Darling?”

You turned toward Alastor with a relaxed smile. You kissed him, cupping his face between your palms. 

“ Then, I’ll wait for you at Alice.”

He nodded, staring at you until you left the room. You looked toward the area where you committed murder once again. You didn’t feel anything, you did what you had to do. Nothing more, nothing less. You walked back toward the hatch and opened it, watching as your shadow followed you happily. 

You left the church, looking at the beautiful architecture once more before walking toward Alice’s house. You knew your friend was the one to give you an alibi, so maybe you needed to find another way to enter her house..? Should you enter by her windows? But her windows were way too high for you to reach..

You turned your gaze toward the ground when you felt your shadow buzzing with energy. Now that you think about it, Alastor said he was being more powerful for each murders, but Papa Legba said you would end up with half of Alastor's power.. You knew Alastor would walk into the shadows and ‘teleport’ himself where he wanted… Maybe you could try? 

Your shadow smiled at you, matching your footsteps with eagerness. You smirked, well, you could always try. You walked until you could see Alice’s house. You walked into an alley and observed around to be sure you were alone. It was dark outside, when you left Alastor it was maybe around 3 am? The night was your ally even if it was during the day your powers were at their highest. 

“ Now… Do you think you could… Teleport me into Alice’s chamber?” you asked your shadow. It only tilted its head, and then pointed you to the house. “ Yes, I want to go inside.” You tried to grab it as it rushed toward the garden of the Richemont s family. You cursed as you ran after it, trying to be as subtle as possible.

You hid yourself behind a bush, almost falling on the dirty ground. You looked for your shadow and frowned when you saw it waving at you, against the wall of the house. You made sure no one was around before dashing toward your shadow, you wanted to strangle it. Why was it doing this?

You gasped as your shadow reached for you and tugged you toward the wall. You felt yourself fall toward the ground but when you fell on all four, you realized you didn't fall on the dirty ground.. But on Alice’s bedroom floor. 

Damn it, how were you going to explain that to her? You knew Alice had seen your eyes flashing red more than one time, but she never asked any questions. But right now, she would ask how you entered her room… Well, maybe you could come clean. She already knew you were killing people, working with spirits shouldn’t be hard to believe.. right? You giggled a little, you knew she would just stare at you and curse you because for that kind of conversation she would need a glass of wine, but because she was pregnant she couldn’t.

You raised your head and sighed in relief when you saw Alice’s form in her bed, under the blanket. You stood up quietly, if she was sleeping you could just sleep on her sofa.. But you needed to tell her she was safe and so was Alyzée. You walked toward her with a big smile, you wanted to scare her awake… You grabbed the blanket that was on her body before taking it off her.

You always thought Alice’s color was pink, she would dress in pink, her make up would always be pink. She was … in a way cute even if it contrasted with her behavior. She was snarky, intelligent, and patient… An amazing person dressed in pink. That’s why you froze when you saw all the red on her body.

You blinked one, two times. What… You clumsily asked your shadow to turn on the light and that’s when you saw it.

Alice had her body cut open, from her collarbone to her belly. She has been cut open.

You didn’t know what happened but you vomited on the floor next to the bed. You were breathing hard, trying to think clearly but you couldn’t.  You needed to call an ambulance. Someone hurted Alice. Someone hurted Alice. Someone hurted someone you cared about. You needed to heal her-! Yes, you could heal her!

You wiped your mouth before going on the bed, watching with horror as Alice’s womb was missing. Did the killer kill her and her baby? You almost vomited once more but you needed to heal her. You could do it.

You put your hand on her face, whispering her name as you felt power swirling inside of you. But unlike most of the time, the power didn’t leave your form to go inside the person you wanted to heal. You frowned, the power was just swirling inside you, being useless.

“ Baron Samedi, what is happening?” you whispered, not able to shout. You felt the spirit presence behind you as you kept trying to heal Alice. Her body was so cold.. Alice hated being cold…

“ You can’t heal her.”

“ We made a deal! I have your power to heal, so be useful!” You finally shouted, tears streaming down your face as fury took place inside you.

“ We made a deal you would be able to heal Alastor and yourself. Not someone else.”

You felt like you had been smacked upon the cheek. He was right. You did ask to heal Alastor. And only Alastor. Because you thought you would be able to protect your cherished one. And now, you have useless power… You couldn’t heal your friend.. The one who accepted you at your worst, the one who bought your wedding dress, the one who helped you with your relationship with Alastor…

You felt Baron Samedi’s hand on your shoulder as your body began to shake.

“ Furthermore, she is already gone. I saw her.”

You took Alice’s hand before breaking down. You sobbed so hard you didn’t know if you could breathe.  This couldn’t be reality. You must have been sleeping. You were still in the Church with Alastor and you fell asleep. It couldn't be real.  Not Alice, not your best friend, not her, not her baby, not her, not her , not Alice, not her.

You cried as you looked at her tortured body. Who was the bastard who killed her, who was the son of a bitch who took her womb with her baby? Who was the one you were going to slaughter? 

You tried to wipe your tears even if it was pointless, you couldn't stop. You tried to look at Alice’s face, she was so pale, but she looked so peaceful… Her lips were still with her usual pink lipstick.. 

“ Baron Samedi…”

“ Yes.”

“ Is Alice with you..?”

“ She is watching you, by my side.”

You cried harder when you heard his answer. Unlike usual, Baron Samedi was calm, his face seemed clearly affected by what you were experimenting with. You stroked your friend’s cheek. You couldn’t bear to see her in that state. 

“ Alice… I’m so sorry. I thought… I thought I managed to save you. To save your life, to be a protector like I wish I would be… And yet, you are de–” you sobbed. Those words weren’t meant for your best friend, Alice was a lively person, she couldn’t be… She couldn’t.. 

You held her cold hand between yours, sobbing. Why, why did it happen…? You didn’t move even when you heard footsteps getting closer to the door. You didn’t move even when you felt your shadow trying to make you stand up. You didn’t move when the door opened.

“ Alice, I’m back– Mrs. Sanglar?” You looked as Trey Felleur entered the room. You looked, your eyes hollow. He walked toward the bed and you watched as his face saddened. He kneeled next to the bed, kissing Alice’s hand. “ She didn’t make it, huh.”

…

What?

You stared at Trey who sighed, he seemed sad but that was it. He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t screaming in pain… He was patting Alice’s hand like nothing. He wasn’t asking why his wife was in that state with you by her side. He wasn’t puking on the floor. He wasn’t asking about the baby’s wellbeing, he was.. he was…

“ The fuck.”

You watched as the man lifted his head to watch you. 

“ Mr. Felleur, you have ten minutes to explain to me why you don’t seem surprised about Alice’s state.” you spoke darkly. You knew your eyes were red, you could feel your shadow buzzing with fury, snarling at the man in front of you.

“ Well, this is quite easy to explain. I waited long enough.” he said, talking to you like he was talking about the weather. You didn’t know how but you projected him on the wall in front of you, forcing him to let Alice’s hand go.

You stared as he winced, forcing on your power to push him strongly against the wall.

“ You waited long enough..?” You asked, you weren’t understanding anything but what you knew was that person would never touch Alice. Never again.

“ Oh dear, you still don’t understand? I had to save Alice from her madness.” Trey said calmly. “ I knew she could be saved, but she didn’t want to.”

“ What are you talking about, you crazy bastard!” you shouted, standing from the bed, the air around you becoming more agitated. Your hair was moving as you could feel the wind caressing your body, like an cold embrace.

“ Well, if you didn’t forget your bag that one time, we wouldn’t be in that situation.” Trey sighed, looking at you like you were the worst idiot of town. What was he talking about? When did you lose your bag? Was he just a crazy bastard that needed to be locked down? “ Don’t you remember? It might be 10 years ago..” he mused as he seemed to be recalling memories.

“ What…?” 

“ You were the one to be right, the stalker that time was after Alice, not you. But Alastor seemed to care only for you, so it was easy to enter Alice’s life.”

…

You felt like you were punched in the gut. Trey Felleur… Was the stalker from your teenagehood..? It couldn’t be … It just couldn’t be… You put your hand on your mouth, trying not to vomit once more. It couldn’t be… It couldn’t… 

“ Alice was so beautiful… I followed her home that day, thank god you forgot your bag, right? When I saw her I fell in love with her.”

“ Bastard… She was 15… You were almost 30 at the time…” you whispered, not being able to talk louder, you felt like if you screamed you would vomit on the floor once more.

“ Yes, that’s why I waited for her. I stayed in the shadow, I watched. Well, of course as I was watching her…  I began to watch you and Alastor much more. Your first kill was amazing, you should be proud.” He smiled at you. 

“ How..”You could feel your legs shaking but you didn’t want to appear weaker than you were right now. 

“ Oh, you still didn’t notice. You are really slow, unlike Alastor.” He nodded before tilting his head toward the side, looking at something. “ Well, you couldn’t see it when you were younger, but now I think you can see him.”

You turned your gaze away from the man and peeked where Trey was watching and then you froze.

A big eye staring at you. The  eye’s sclera was reddish , but the pupils of the eyes were yellow, almost gold like. It was the same eye you saw at the Church before being almost crushed by a rock. This eye… This eye was Trey’s?

“ Working with the fallen angel, Lucifer has its peak. But unlike you, with your spirits, I can’t speak with him. I can’t see him… I just have power.” He seemed almost down about this. What was this psycho? Has he been watching you since your younger years? “ You could be an ally for me, after all you took care of Larry when he wanted to marry Alice, right?” 

You felt like you were losing conscience with all the news information you were getting.

“ But then, you let Alice fancy this girl, Alyzée.” he frowned. “ So I had to get you out of the picture. John was perfect for that, I told him that I heard that Alastor had killed his father and buried him in the forest. I didn’t expect Alastor to bury a dead deer above his father, how clever.” He laughed before losing his smile and staring at you. “ And then, you awoke power, you little pest.”

You took a step back. He was the reason John tried to dig up Alastor’s father.

“ It was becoming more difficult to keep track of you, my eye couldn’t see you clearly. It was like you were… being protected by something or someone?” he looked at you before his feet touched the ground. You were so shocked you couldn’t keep him pinned on the wall with your powers.

“  But I still needed to get rid of you. You were encouraging Alice to keep her relationship with that gal. But then… I met with Alice, and she accepted my proposal… But she didn’t stop her love affair with that woman, I saw them, under the cover, kissing each other, caressing their bodies. Ugh, how disgusting. So I just had to find people to take care of her.”

You felt like your heart would burst because of how hard it was beating.

“ But once again, you were there. You began to pass more time with Alyzée, I could see in your eyes, you were looking for threats… So I sent John where you were, he could play the hero and my accomplices would be able to run away without you seeing them.” He inspected his nails before looking at you, his smile never appearing on his face.  “ If it was only you, I would be able to get rid of you… But then, there was Alastor. It seemed like you were more sensible to the energy around you, but Alastor was more powerful. Your duo was becoming more dangerous for me.” He took one step toward you.

You gasped, taking a step back toward the bed.

“ So, I explained to my little minions how your powers worked. I had time to watch you use them with all the killing you did with your husband. But what is messing with my mind is that.. I have no information.’ He spat at you. “ I know you use your shadow, or telekinesis… But each time you get stronger, I don’t know who you are working with. I know it's voodoo.. But when I tried to talk with one of those spirits… I just got attacked.”

Did he try to summon Papa Legba or Kalfu..? And did those spirits reject him?

“ But well, your fight in that Church was.. impressive.” He clapped slowly.

“ What have you done to Alice…?” you whispered.

“ Oh! I asked her to stop seeing Alyzée, I said she was a strange girl. But then Alice took my hand and said she was in love with that woman. She was in love with her. She was in love.. With someone that wasn’t me.” He stared at his own hands, his voice shaking. “ So I ask her to wait for me in bed. I strangled her, and then I cut open her body to take the baby. She was still alive, begging for her baby’s life..” 

You couldn’t speak, Alice was alive when that bastard cut her open to take her baby…

“ Where is the baby..?”

“ I burned it.”

You screamed before running toward the man and jumped on him, punching him in the face with so much strength you could hear bones breaking. You couldn’t stop screaming even when Trey pushed you from him. He stood up and took a gun from his pocket aiming at you.

“ I’ll destroy you! I’ll kill you !” You were screaming, wind raging around you. You could see Trey frowning as multiple objects were levitating from the floor and the wind making his clothes and hair move.

“ Mhn.. I don’t think so.” he smiled at you before holding his hand toward you. Your eyes widened as fire began to appear in the palm of his hand. 

I’m here, I’m with you little lady.

You nodded as Legba’s voice echoed in your mind. You threw the object levitating toward Trey, sending your shadow on the man. You wanted to torture him, you wanted to make him pay! 

You gasped as you saw his fire burning every object that was thrown at him. He smirked at you before sending his fire your way. You raised your shield around you and tried to hold it. The fire was burning your protection, you needed to act fast. You ordered your shadow to bind the man’s arms to stop his attack which worked! Tray spat at your shadow as it tried to strangle him at the same time.

You didn’t know what happened but you were levitating in the air. Trey’s eyes widened as he looked up to see you in the air. You knew it was Legba that was trying to help you.. You raised your hand and you could feel the wind bend to your will. You were… controlling the air..?

I won’t be able to make it last, use it wisely.

You stared at Trey. You could just steal all the air from his lungs..? As you raised your hand toward him, you felt a huge pain in your head. You groaned, it felt like someone was forcing you out of a trance. It was so painful! Damn it, why now!

“ Well, Mrs. Sanglar, travel safely to hell.”

“ Not without me.”

You gasped when you saw a green fire clashing against Trey’s fire. You turned your head toward the voice and teared up as you saw your husband, walking toward Trey, sending fire toward the man.

You went back on the ground.

“ What is going on?” Asked Alastor, coldly. He stared at you, trying to find an answer in your eyes but as you saw his face you wouldn’t help but fall into his arms, grabbing at his arms, screaming in pain. 

“ He took her from us! He is the one that made our life so difficult!” You shouted as tears fell from your eyes. You didn’t want to cry but being in Alastor’s safe arms made you vulnerable enough that you sobbed once more.

Alastor was caging you in his arms, looking at Alice’s corpse on the bed. You felt his body tense against yours. Was he.. affected by this? You knew Alice and Alastor often bickered but it was their way of showing they cared.. 

Trey wiped the blood from his nose, smiling at Alastor like usual.

“ Oh, Mr. Sanglar, what a pleasure to see you.”

You lifted your head as you heard police’s sirens, you could even see the sirens light from the windows. You looked at Alastor, confused. Was he the one who called for the cops? But he answered you by telepathic, saying he didn’t.

You heard footsteps running toward the door, Alastor was keeping you against him and then you saw them. Two policemen slammed the door open with their gun aiming at everybody in the room.

“ Police!”

You opened your mouth, you wanted to tell them to arrest the monster that took your friend away from you but you froze when you saw another man entering the room.

John.

“ Well, Alastor, why are you here– You..” John seemed surprised to see you there but he quickly collected himself. He walked toward Trey and then froze when he saw Alice’s body in her bed. He put his hand on his mouth, color draining from his face. “ A-Alice..?” he asked, his voice shaking, walking closer to her corpse.

When he saw her state he closed his eyes and turned his head away from the scene. He seemed really affected.

“ God… What happened here..?” He asked Trey, his voice firm.

“ I don’t know. I was away for business, but when I came back home, my wife was already in that state.” 

“ Check the house!” John asked his subordinates before looking at you and Alastor. “ What are you doing here?” He asked, his voice cold. “ Killing your father wasn’t enough, you had to kill Alice too?”

“ Oh, so, my father has been killed? I didn’t know. And for Alice, pray tell, why would I have done that?” Alastor spat at John, looking at him with vicious mockery. You walked toward John and took his hands, your voice shaking. You could see his cheeks turned red.

“ John… Trey was the one who killed her…” You said, your eyes wet. His eyes softened as he looked at you. Did he believe you?

“ Sweetie… I know.” You felt relief in your body. “ I know Alastor is forcing you to do things. He did voodoo stuff on you, right? Don’t worry, I’m going to protect you.” He stroked your cheek.

You felt like there wasn’t any escape. You slapped his hand away, frowning at him, your eyes shining with fury.

“ What are you talking about?” you spat at him, walking back toward Alastor.

“  You won’t go to jail, you might go into a hospital but–’’

“ Don’t talk about my wife. Don’t look at her. Don’t even think about putting her into a hospital because she is too clever for you to understand.” said Alastor as his arms went back around you. “ Call competent policemen to find Alice’s murderer.”

“ I will find them.”

“ Like you find my father’s?” spat Alastor with a mocking grin. “ Get out, John.” Alastor took your hand, watching as John was taken away by his subordinates because they found the butler of the home. You looked at Trey who was staring at Alastor with a calm smile.

“ I can’t wait to hear about my wife’s death in your next broadcast, Alastor.”

“ I can’t wait to speak about your death in my next broadcast, Trey.” said Alastor, full of himself like always. You closed your eyes, you were exhausted…  It couldn’t be real… right? You felt Alastor carried you in his arms before leaving the room. You looked at Alice one last time, your eyes getting wet once more.

Alastor walked down the stairs and stopped when he spotted the butler who was crying, sitting on the sofa. You left Alastor’s arms and walked toward the butler, the one who had taken care of Alice since she was a child, the one who opened to you and saw you like his own daughter…

The butler lifted his head when he saw you and before you couldn’t realize it, he was hugging you while sobbing. You cried with him, hiding your face in his shoulder. 

“ Please,” he begged, “ find the one who did this and make them pay.” He sobbed against you. “ Alice wasn’t perfect… But she was… she was…”

You crushed him against you as Alastor answered for you.

“ We will find them, and get rid of them.” He said to the butler. The man nodded before stepping back and giving you a letter. 

Alastor carried you in his arms and walked away from the house surrounded by police’s car. You closed your eyes, squeezing the letter in your fist. You felt like you were falling before Alastor asked you to open your eyes.

You looked around and you noticed you were home. Alastor must have used his shadow.. He put you on the sofa, carefully, never letting his eyes straight away from you.

“ I’m going to prepare a bath for you, okay, darling?” he asked.

You nodded slowly before looking at the letter. What was it..? You opened it under Alastor’s vigilant gaze. You took the paper and began to read.

My dearest friend,  As you know, I’m pregnant! Alyzée and myself are looking for a name, and of course, you know I’m the best for nicknames. But to name a baby is another situation! I want my girl, because I know it’s going to be a girl, to be proud of her name. So I frist thought, I should give her my name. But Alyzée said it was maybe a little too narcissistic of me… Bizarre, right?  So I thought a lot, and I wondered, as my baby godmother, as my best friend, would you accept if I named my baby after you?  Your best friend, Alice Richemont Ps: I know I made you read the letter in front of me, but I wanted to see your reaction ! I hope you will cry because I will! 

You cried once more, anguish enveloping you in a way that was way too painful to be real. You were squeezing the letter against your chest as Alastor hugged you against his torso. You couldn’t stop crying, even when Alastor was kissing your cheeks and eyes. He could only hold you as you were breaking down. 

Alice wanted to name her baby after you. Your best friend loved you so much she wanted to name her baby after you. Even with all your dark sides, she still wanted to give your name to her baby.

But this day would never come. The baby was dead just like your best friend. On this day, you lost two people that you cherished. You would grieve today, you would let yourself fall into despair with Alastor as your anchor. And then, you promised yourself, you promised to Alice, hoping she could hear you, you would avenge her. You would kill Trey Felleur.

But for now.. You could only imagine how the newspaper would spread the news.

6 March 1927,6 months pregnant Alice RicheMont was found, killed violently, in her room.

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[pelova4president]

Magic Euros II

Leah Williamson x Wife!Reader

Magic Euros I

summary~ Your kids are absolute menaces, but how could they not, they’re Williamson’s and are around your wife’s crazy teammates all the time.

Your kids are little monsters and there is nothing you could do about it. James seemed to be pretty sweet and shy but how older he got the more he acted like his naughty aunties. Alice really wasn’t any good from the moment she was born. Your daughter was just as naughty as Katie, Vic and Kyra. They tried to involve Alice in all their pranks in the hopes that no one would blame them but instead the innocent two year old.

There were times their plan would work and your daughter got put in time-out or nothing would happen because ‘you got no proof’. But other times, like when they had Alice to hide Lessi’s shoes, she told on them after you threatened to take the toddlers iPad away. “Alice! Why’d you have to tell on us?” Victoria crouched down to your daughter. “B-but iPad” the girl defended herself. You laughed at that and Kyra rolled her eyes annoyed. “Why did you bring an iPad addict into the world?” the Aussie sighed.

And while Alice was influenced by the bad kids, James loved his sweet auntie Lotte. They had a very special and cute bond. Lotte loved to babysit him whenever you had to make time for Alice’s swimming lessons. He always came back from Lotte’s house with so much to tell but is so tired he always falls asleep halfway through his story. The boy wanted to be just like her. He tried to play footie like her, wanted to cook like her and he even started to dress like her.

y/nwilliamson posted on their story

Beth and Viv loved to babysit them. They took the kids to all kinds of playgrounds and their dogs, Myle and Rona are their favourite. Myle was still very hyper and the mini Leah’s are too so they’d both end up asleep after a very busy day. Almost always James and Alice and up in Myle’s bed with Myle’s on the ground next to them.

Jamie and Al loved to watch their mummy play footie in the summer, the winter was less fun. You went to games as that is your job, you needed to be up to date and what better way to do that watching your wife play live. Taking the toddlers with you, you sat in the friends and family section. The kids were good almost the whole game. Well that was until it starting pouring down. The London weather decided to show up and everyone got absolutely soaked.

y/nwilliamson posted on their story

When the girls had to play friendlies in Portugal you took the kids with you. You would have a little vacation and free babysitters, why wouldn’t you go.

The flight to the sunny Portugal was hectic though. Arriving at the airport, James was asleep but the hyper girl you had in your arms definitely wasn’t. “Calm down Al, you’ll see your aunties in a bit.” Leah tried to calm her down but that only mad her more hyper. “Where’s auntie Vicky! And Kyky oh- and Katie and and Lessi?” she tried to wiggle her way out of your grasp. You put her on the ground and she ran around in search for the Arsenal girls.

“We should’ve just bought her that kidsbelt, that way she wouldn’t be running around like this.” Leah sighed already regretting the decision to bring the kids.

“Mommy, Mama! KyKy’s here!” you heard your little girl scream through the airport. “That’s awesome sweetie, can you find the others too?” you asked her, trying to distract her with something.

After a few minutes of Alice running around the airport in the hopes of getting her tired for the flight, she found the rest of the team. “Mama look! Auntie Vicky’s here too!” she dragged you to the Dutchie. “Oh god help me Vic, ze is al de hele dag zo en ze wordt maar niet moe” (Oh god help me Vic, she has been like this the whole day and she isn’t getting tired.) you hugged your friend. Vicky laughed at your tired state, “Dat had ik niet gedacht, je ziet er zo energiek uit!” (I wouldn’t of thought, you look so energetic!) she said sarcastically. You rolled your eyes at her and sighed.

You walked over to your wife and sleeping son. “Leah, i don’t know why we thought this was a good idea, Alice is already being a menace to society. Think of what she can do when she’s with those other devils for more than a few hours.” you whisper to her.

Lotte came walking over to the two of you. “How are the little monsters doing?” she asked looking at Alice who was being thrown into the air by Kyra. “Well one of the two is sleeping like an angel and the other is… well, not.” Leah told her. James woke up hearing his favourite auntie. “Lotte!” he said tiredly, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. “Hey grote jongen, you’re awake.” she took him out of the arms of your wife.

You tried to learn the kids some Dutch but that was hard since they were so young and they almost only spoke English. Vic, Viv and Lotte had tried to learn the kids some but it didn’t really stick. The only thing they really remembered was ‘stomkop’ which means stupid so it wasn’t really in your favour.

Walking into the plane, without kids since they chose their aunties over you and their other mom, you sat next to Leah. Kyra and Alice sat in front of you and Lotte and James next to you. You were not even off the ground when you heard the duo in front of you and your wife snore.

y/nwilliamson posted on their story

When the team finally landed both of your kids were awake. Leah took the suitcases and bags to the teambus and you kept your eyes on the kids. Vic placed Al on her big suitcase and rolled the toddler to the parking lot. She was trying to teach her some Dutch but her effort was futile. “So kleine, say ‘ik hou meer van tante Vic dan van mijn mama’s’” (So little one, say ‘i love auntie Vic more than my mommy’s’) the midfielder tried. But the only thing coming out of the toddlers mouth was some gibberish.

A blonde forward approached the girls, “You’ve had her for a while now, she needs some quality time with her favourite auntie now.” Alessia grabbed to girl from Victoria’s suitcase. “You love auntie Lessi more right Ali?” Alessia said tickling your daughter.

Walking into the bus the naughty toddler took Alessia’s Prada glasses and put them on. “Look! I’m auntie Less!” she said posing like Alessia. Katie looked over and began laughing. “She really does look like you now, face all serious. Alice you look just like grumpy Lessi!” the Irish woman commented.

alessiarusso99 posted on their story

Lina arrived later with her daughter Lo. Your kids loved to play together and try to trick Katie. Lo would tell Katie to walk her to the bathroom, where Alice and James would wait for her. “What can i help you with kid?” Katie asked the mini Lina. They would open the door and your kids attacked her. They threw water on her and the three of them ran away together.

“Lina Lina! Katie’s mad!” James ran towards the Swede. Lina would fake her confusion, “Why would Katie be angry pojke?”. The three kids looked at eachother, Alice pointed to Lo who had to explain everything.

Katie came running into the room with three buckets of water. “I’m gonna get ya!” she yelled chasing the screaming toddlers.

stinablackstenius posted on their story

leahwilliamsonn

liked by daniellevddonk and 318.827 others

chillin’ it out

comments

jillroord coolest kids out there 😎

lucybronze i’ll take the kids to the chillest place, next week they’re coming to barca

↳ keirawalsh i back that

lottewubbenmoy Jamie boy with the coolest sunnies

kyracooneyx yeahh the weirdooss

↳ victoriapelova you’re the biggest weirdo

alessiarusso99 ali looks too cute!!

↳ y/nwilliamson you out her in that dress and did her hair, how could she not

barcafemfam i love the arsenal family smm

W0s012 they’re literally mini Leah’s and y/n’s

When you got back from Portugal you went to dinner with your parents and Leah’s since they were in London for a few days. You had to leave the kids with Beth and Viv for the night but they didn’t mind, they loved kids.

Alice played with Myle and got her to play dead, well the toddler had to push her down to get her to play dead but it kind of worked. “Piew!” Alice yelled with her pistol fingers pointing at the puppy. “Myleee! You need to play dead! Lie downnn” she complained. The dog however had other plans and sprung on the little girl and started licking her face. “Bad doggy!” she giggled pushing Myle down on the couch and trying again. “Piew!” she yelled. Myle didn’t move a muscle so she just pushed the puppy down.

Viv saw the whole scene play out in front of her and laughed, having filmed the whole thing.

And while all of that was going on, James was vacuuming the couple’s house. “What’re you doing little guy?” Beth asked the boy. “Cleaning Auntie Viv and yours house!” he said excited. The vacuum wasn’t on but Beth didn’t have the heart to tell him that. “So sweet of you. Hard workers deserve a snack break right?” Beth ruffled his hair and placed a cookie in his hands.

viviannemiedema posted on their story

Keira and Lucy kept their promise and invited you, Leah and the kids to Barcelona. Keira drove to the airport to pick you up. Alice and James attacked Keira immediately. “Oh my god! Al, Jamie please, Auntie Kei still needs to drive us.” Leah took the kids off her bestfriend. “Well hello to you too.” the midfielder laughed.

Lucy awaited you at their door. “Lucy!” the kids yelled, running out of the car and into the defender’s arms. “Hey monsters!” she hugged them. “Silly Lucy, i’m not a monster.” James laughed at his auntie.

The kids got to see the Barcelona training ground and even got to watch a game. Ingrid and Mapi, who they already knew, were waiting for the kids. The kids ran onto the field and into the arms of the Barcelona couple. “We’ve missed you so much!” Ingrid yelled, picking both kids up and squeezing them. Mapi spun James around and played goalie when Alice was taking penalties. “You’re too good niña!” Mapi said picking your daughter up and placing her on her back and running around the field.

Leah and you always enjoy your time in Barcelona, the people there were like family and the city was beautiful. The weather was nice, well it mostly was and if it was raining it would clear up quickly.

Lucy and Keira made forts with the kids, danced with them in the rain, even though you said they shouldn’t because they’d get sick. And Lucy got James to hug a tree. “Trees deserve love too Jamie. It’s mean to kick them. You don’t like it when someone kicks you, go give the tree a hug.” the dark haired woman said after catching James kicking a tree in the park. “I’ll say sorry to the tree.” James said and ran through the park, giving the biggest hug as an apology. Lucy giggled at the scene in front of her. James really had a good heart and he did look like Lotte, like a lot.

lucybronze, keirawalsh

liked by aitanabonmati and 291.826 others

fun days with these kids

comments

lauren_hemp why is Jamie hugging a tree

ingrid_engen those samba’s are the cutest!

↳ marialeonn16 you bought them

↳ ingrid_engen they’re still cute though

victoriapelova why can they dance in the rain but i can’t?

↳ kyracooneyx yeah actually this is unfair

lj10 the coolest kids 😎

↳ lucybronze cooler than me?

↳ lj10 just a little bit

Coming back from the sunny Barcelona it was time for Alice’s first football training. James wasn’t really interested in football, only when auntie Lotte was playing. Alice loved to kick a ball around, she needed something to release all her energy.

Leah had been beyond excited to get her to play footie. They picked the shoes out together and bought her training kit. “You like these boots Ali?” Leah asked, picking out the shoes she liked the most. Alice just nodded. She wasn’t really interested in the boots, looking at the poster of one of her aunties in the store. “Look mummy, that’s auntie Lessi!” she pointed at the big poster next to the Adidas boots. “I want the same boots as Lessi!” the little girl insisted.

“Alice, that’s the wrong section. Look over here, you like these pink ones?” Leah said pointing towards the Nike boots. “No mummy! I want Lessi boots.” she stomped.

And that’s how your daughter came home with shiny silver Adidas boots.

Leah drove her to training, standing next to the field and watching your daughter play with other girls her age. Leah would never say it but seeing her little girl play football made her emotional. Alice was happy, making friends and even scoring. “She’s supposed to be a defender.” Leah sighed, hugging you from behind. “She’s an adidas girl and a striker but she plays football.” you said looking at your wife and kissing her on the lips. “You’re right, she’s a footballer.” Leah hummed.

leahwilliamsonn posted on their story

A/N not my best but i pulled through. I still have writers block though :(

[francixoxoxo]

Beautiful Girl

Billy the Kid X reader

Billy takes the day off to be with you and your daughter!

You gave Billy everything he resigned to never have.

He never thought he’d live to get married, much less find a woman willing to take such a controversial last name. Then he found you. And he was delighted to find that white was a beautiful color on you.

Billy also thought he’d never become a father. He often doubted he would be a good one, anyway. No child deserved a father with such an unsure line of work.

Until you two moved away from Lincoln, to a beautifully quaint cottage up in Colorado. And Billy found honest work. It was a no brainer, the two of you living together mixed with Billy’s constant want for you inevitably led to your belly rounding and baby names filling his brain.

And so here he was. Married. Making honest money. Sitting on his front porch in a rocking chair. Cooing at a two-year-old in his arms. A two year old with baby blues like his, but a nose and lips like her momma’s.

Billy knew she couldn’t understand him. But he couldn’t help it, telling his baby girl all about his day. Alice’d babble at a certain point and he’d hum in agreement, nodding seriously, “Oh, I know. I agree.” Even if it wasn’t a thing to agree to, even if it was simple as mentioning picking up some fruit for you on the way home.

Speaking of you, you were tending to your little garden on the side of the house. Wearing Billy’s trousers, on your hands and knees with a spade. The sight of you, with that silly gardening hat on your head, he could’ve sworn he was in the presence of an angel. Two, in fact.

“Isn’t momma pretty? Look at ‘er, playin’ in the dirt.” Billy’s lilted tone was purposefully loud enough for you to hear, lifting your head and putting your hands on your hips.

“You’re talking her ear off!” You jested, watching Billy shake his head and grin, turning back to your daughter. He scrunched his face at her, shaking his head and holding her close to his broad chest. “Momma’s in a bad mood. Dunno why.”

“I’m not!” You scoffed, making Billy raise a brow at you. He pressed a kiss to the top of Alice’s hair, rubbing a strong hand up and down her little back.

You caught him mumbling lowly to her with a cheeky smile, “She’s just mad that’cha don’t wanna garden. ‘Cause y’wanna be with your daddy, right?” You shook your head and snorted, turning back to the carrots you’d planted. Billy shouted to you with pride. “Hear that, baby? Ally’s a daddy’s girl.”

“How do you know?” You smiled down at your garden, wiggling an orange vegetable out from the dirt. You didn’t mind the dirt under your fingernails now, something about getting your hands dirty was gratifying.

There was a grin plastered on Billy’s face so big that you heard it in his words. “‘Cause she told me?” He shrugs, that smile growing at the sound of your laughter. When you shoot him a glance, he’s twirling some of Alice’s dark strands of hair around his finger. He was sickeningly sweet with your daughter, doting on her every chance got. Not to mention he was an honestly hot dad.

You saw his shadow loom over your work a minute later. You threw a look over your shoulder to see Billy, Alice on his hip, grinning down at you. “Hey, momma.”

A smile splits your lips before you realize it. Billy gently lets down Alice, watching as she wobbles around a bit before plopping herself beside one of the tomato stalks. She babbles and pulls on the leaves a little. Billy crouches beside you before you can worry too much about your daughter and the plant.

Your husband grasped your chin gently but firmly, turning your face to press a kiss to your lips. He meant for it to be quick, but then he’s giving another little peck, and another, and another, until you begin to giggle and push him away by the shoulder. Billy snorts a little, a large palm laying over your hand on him. He throws a look over his shoulder at Alice.

“She’s the coolest little girl.” Billy breathed, shaking his head in awe. Now it’s your turn to snort.

“She can’t talk, Billy.”

“N’ she’s already the damn coolest girl.”

You wound your hand around his arm, smiling fondly at Alice as she picked off one of the tomato plant’s leaves. Billy quickly picks it from her grip when she tries to put it in her mouth, a laugh rumbling from his chest. “We did good.”

You didn’t have to ask what he meant to know he meant you did a good job with making Ally. You leaned the crown of your head against Billy’s shoulder, humming in agreement.

He went on, his voice so soft and tender you thought he’d melt into the garden. “I think she’s the best thing I ever did.” Billy turned his face to you. He nosed your hair, a strong hand snaking around to hold the side of your head. “You n’ Ally.”

You watched your daughter as she stumbled to her little feet, waddling ‘round. As she tried to run past Billy, he stuck out a large arm and gently herded her back within eyesight. Seeing how gentle he was with her, you knew you’d ended up right where you were meant to.

“I think so too.”

A quick little one shot bc I’m twixt long fics!!

[im-a-mess-of-a-person]

the black sisters

i feel like the black brothers get so much attention in the fandom compared to the black sisters, so here are some headcanons i have!

————————————————————————

they were completely inseparable they were younger

andy and bella in particular. people would often mistake them for twins, to which they would giggle and play along

cissa hated this so much, because she didn’t look like them and she just wasn’t as close with them

she felt like she didn’t look enough like a black and was a disappointment for it

she even tried to dye it, but she still didn’t look right

there were some rumors about her true parentage, considering she looked nothing like the rest of her family

bella shot these down and threatened anywho me who dared to speak ill of her sweet baby sister

she was always very protective and kind to both of her sisters

she considered andy’s elopement the ultimate betrayal

they had been slowly growing apart anyway, but that solidified it

narcissa saw what happened when andy dared to follow her heart, so she shoved hers away and cut out the only person who it would ever belong to (alice)

she found lucius kind of repulsive, but he was a safe and secure husband

draco was the first thing that gave her life meaning since alice

when nymphadora was born, narcissa went to visit and meet her

bellatrix did not

narcissa loved both regulus and sirius equally

andromeda loved regulus a little less

bellattix loved sirius a lot less

bellatrix never wanted to marry

she wanted power, and marriage was essentially handing over her sovereignty

she refused to become a mother. it was her worst nightmare

she drank a potion that would make her infertile. she never told a soul and everyone assumed her barrenness was a terrible misfortune

it was one of the only choices she ever made for herself

she felt guilty about it for the rest of her because she felt she had disgraced her family with her selfishness

narcissa’s biggest hope was to become a mother, but sex with a man repulsed her

she considered asking lucius if they could do it a different way, but she decided it wasn't worth it

draco’s conception was the only time she ever slept with him

it was worth it, for a child

andromeda always wanted to have more kids, but she actually had a hard time getting pregnant

nymphadora was sort of a miracle baby

andromeda ended up the happiest of them all, but the abscence of her sisters left a hole in her heart

narcissa was happy enough, but she always regretted losing the two best people in her life, alice and andromeda

bellatrix was just…insane. there was nothing tying her down because she would never let anybody matter to her. andromeda, who had mattered the most to her, betrayed her and hurt her

she wouldn’t let it happen again, so she kept everyone at arms length. that combined with her time in azkaban drove her mad.

they all regretted the way things were left between them, but none of them knew how to fix it, so they never tried.

[flippinpancakes64]

Hey can I request the cullens x pop star reader who wrote a love song about them. Like do you think they would like it or find it embarrassing.

Thanks for your time❤️

The Cullens with a Pop Star! Reader

This ask is so cute I love it! I’m such a sucker for love songs it’s not even funny.

Aaaaaand…. My asks are back open! Send me requests! Go crazy!

Thank you for requesting and I hope you enjoy!

Edit: this is now day 3 of me writing this one… i have been so preoccupied reading Wolverine x Reader tics I completely forgot that I even had this in here. My sincerest apologies

Edward:

He’s a little hesitant to be with you publicly

It’s already sketchy enough for him to be in one place too long because people notice he doesn’t age

But being with you on tv or in magazines? Yeah no

So he doesn’t make public appearances with you

But he does support you unconditionally

He’s no stranger to writing a song for someone

So when he’s sitting at home, tuned in to a live show you’re having and you announce a new song that’s about a man that you love, he’s all ears

He LOVES it

Makes you sing it for him all the time

He wants it on vinyl, on cd, on a casette, on apple music, on spotify, and even on soundcloud

He wants this song etched behind his eyes so he can see it whenever he blinks

To him, it just proves that you love him without a shadow of a doubt

Alice:

She loves it

She doesn't really care about being seen on tv or anything

In fact, she loves being able to show off her outfits

It's her favorite thing to help you find stage outfits and outfits for red carpets or award events

She's backstage at one of your concerts, waiting for you to come back during a halfway break so she can touch up your makeup

When suddenly you announce that you have a new song that you wrote for your girlfriend

And obviously everyone in the audience knows who your girlfriend is

She could start crying

She loves the song so much

It could be one minute long or 6 minutes long and she would still want to listen to it on repeat

You better be prepared to sing all of the time because that's all she wants to hear now

When you do eventually go backstage you have to take a bit longer than a brief intermission because she kisses you so hard that all of your makeup comes off and your hair gets messed up

Jasper:

He's a bit camera shy

He doesn't really care about being seen with you because he's a vampire, it's moreso because he just doesn't want to be on camera

But he does his best to be supportive of you

He hates when you have to leave to go on tour or something

He likes to pose as a personal bodyguard so that he can still be close to you

He is a little embarrassed that you wrote a song about him

All of your fans already started speculating that you and your "bodyguard" were dating

But with this song it was definitely confirmed

He's not mad tho

He's just a lil bashful

He is happy though

It means that you're gonna get hit on a lot less since people know that you're in a relationship now

He loves the song though

When you sing it for him, he is never more at peace

He's still coming to terms with the fact that you love him so much you're willing to let the whole world know

Rosalie:

She's a little hesitant for the same reasons as Edward

As much as she hates being a vampire, she loves her family

Even if she doesn't let it show

She doesn't want to put them in jeopardy

And especially being in the age of the internet, it would be really easy for any of your fans to look her up and see that there's no record for her

It's just more risk than necessary

So she hangs back whenever you're out

She is super supportive of your career though, don't get me wrong

One night, you're on a late night talk show and it gets to the segment where you get to perform a song

You get out there and say that you made a new song for the love of your life, and she instantly perks up

It sounds heavenly

It's in the style of music that she adores, your voice sounds perfect, the song is filled with innuendos to things that only the two of you understand

To say she loves the song is an understatement

And no, she is not embarrassed at all by the song

She loves it too much

Emmett:

He's your biggest fan

He is at every concert, at every red carpet event, every awards ceremony, everything

All of your fans know his name

He might run a fan page on instagram who knows

He'll never tell

You're singing at an awards ceremony when you announce that you have a new song that you wrote for yours and Emmett's anniversary

The cameras capture his reaction too

His mouth is wide open the whole time

He starts crying

Afterwards he literally just holds you the whole night

He doesn't feel even one drop of embarrassment

In his eyes, this song just proves how much you love him and his reaction just proves how much he loves you

And yes you now have to sing this song for him for the rest of eternity

Esme:

She’s also hesitant to be seen with you publicly

She’s had to hide herself for so long, it’s just second nature

Not to mention that she doesn’t want to do anything that could put her family at risk

So she opts to support you from home

And support you she does

She loves your music

Even if it’s not what she would normally listen to, she loves it

You had a concert on her birthday, and you were super upset you couldn’t be there

Not that she celebrates her birthday anyway

But still

So you wrote her a song

And you played it

She didn’t even know about it until you texted her later

You had to walk her through how to pull up the video of it

But after she does she can’t stop listening to it

She loves it so much

Expect a cuddle tackle when you get home

Carlisle:

Also is not seen with you publicly

He’s okay with people knowing about him, but he has to put the safety and privacy of his family first

He loves how people are dying to know who your mysterious boyfriend is tho

He thinks it’s funny

And he’s super supportive of your career

You love music, he loves you, so he supports you no matter what

He has the receptionists play your music at the clinic

And he does his best to tune in to every performance you have

One night you come up to him and tell him you have a surprise

You play the recording of his song for him

He loves it

You’re not escaping the cuddle monster for the rest of the night

Sorry

And him being embarrassed is not even in his vocabulary

He loves the song, and he loves that you love him so much you wanted to write a song about it

Vampire! Bella:

Pop music’s not really her thing

But she loves you and she actually kinda likes your music so it’s not a problem for her

She doesn’t really want to be seen in public with you

Not necessarily because she’s scared of protecting her secret

But mostly just cause she’s awkward around cameras

The first time she hears the song, you dragged her out to your studio to listen to a new song you were working on

She didn’t know what she was in for

She gets a little embarrassed cause there are other people in the room

But other than that she doesn’t get embarrassed over the song

She loves it so much

She wants it burned onto a cd so she can listen to it all the time

[joelalorian]

Under False Pretenses - Chapter Five

Stepdad!Dave York x f!reader | wc: 5014 | masterlist

Summary: A challenging mission, whirlwind marriage, and an unexpected yet captivating stepdaughter push Dave York to the brink as secrets, feelings, and loyalties collide.

Warnings: Explicit, 18+ mdni. Stepdad trope. Unspecified age gap. More yearning. Feelings are acknowledged. Soft, sexy, and intense Dave. Domestic Dave. Good Dad kink. We like thick thighs in this house and so does Dave. Nicknames and terms of endearment. Mummy is a whole lotta bitch. No use of y/n. No smut in this chapter, but the plot is coming out to play.

Series Masterlist

Ranger became your shadow, watching over you in the basement suite overnight, riding shotgun in the car during the day when you’d drop off and pick up the girls from school. He lavished the girls with attention just as you did, running and yipping with delight through the backyard as they played.

Knowing that Ranger would be your and his girls' constant companion, Dave trained him to be a guard dog and a pet. He hoped Ranger would protect the three of you when he could not. After connecting with a K9 officer he knew from his military days, he worked with the pup daily, teaching him commands that he also taught you. Within a few months, Ranger transformed into a diligent yet playful dog twice the size of the little pup you found in the park.

Your mother hated all of it – having the dog in the house, the extra time Dave spent training the thing, and how he and the dog gravitated towards you. Yet Dave wasn’t bothered by it. In fact, he took joy in spending more and more time with the girls and you and Ranger, finding moments every day to dote over the four of you, almost like he was rubbing it into his wife’s face.

You didn’t know what to make of it, their relationship. It left you morally conflicted, the initial crush on your stepdad evolving with each passing week and growing into strong feelings for the man you came to learn more and more about after a few months. How could you be falling in love with your stepfather?

They had therapists for this sort of thing, right?

On the flip side of that, you watched your mom grasp harder, tighter to a man who seemed less and less interested by the day – and you began to wonder how they even got together in the first place. As curious as you were, you didn’t have the stomach to ask either of them, not with the deep feelings you had for Dave.

As the holiday season approached, Dave started traveling for work more and more as the couple’s outings lessened. Unfortunately, that left your mom home with nothing to do but work and nitpick your every move, driving you crazy. And the more Dave was away, the less your mom wanted to do with the girls.

“I don’t think your mom likes us much,” Alice told you quietly one morning while you helped her get ready for school.

Your heart clenched for the young girl, knowing how she felt. Your mom was never very good with children, not even her own. She was too selfish to put another’s needs first all the time as a good parent did. You thought it might be due to having you so young, but she never grew out of it.

“What makes you say that sweetie?” you inquired, needing to know exactly how much of a negative impact your mom was having on these sweet girls.

“I don’t know.” The little girl shrugged with a heavy sigh, staring at her feet while you brushed her brown locks.

“You can tell me anything. You know that, right? I will never get mad at you,” you promised, fingers working Alice’s hair into two neat braids once the tangles were gone.

“Promise?” Her eyes were sad yet hopeful, searching yours. You melted, holding out your pinky to Alice.

When she curled her small pinky around your larger one, you winked. “Pinky promise.” You finished tying off the braids and Alice climbed into your lap, Molly soon joining you on the bed. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Lisa got mad when we told Daddy we didn’t want to call her ‘Mommy’. He said we didn’t have to because she wasn’t our mom, but she yelled at us, saying we needed to respect our elders and call them what we’re told to call them.”

Mouth dropping open in shock, you hugged the girls tight. God, your mom could be such a bitch sometimes. What did Dave even see in her? Why did he put up with her bullshit?

“I’m sorry, sweeties. My mom can be… a lot, sometimes. But your dad is right. She’s not your mom and while you should be respectful, you don’t have to do everything she tells you. If you doubt something she asks or tells you to do or say, talk to your dad or come to me. Ok?”

Your hands ran over their heads soothingly and they clutched at your sides. Ranger whined at your feet as if supporting what you just told them.

“Ok,” Alice replied in a small voice, Molly nodding in agreement with her older sister.

After dropping them off at school, you texted Dave that you wanted to talk to him about the girls when he came home. He responded immediately, letting you know he’d be home that evening, and you could talk then.

You spent much of the morning and early afternoon tidying up the house and doing laundry, wanting there to be one less thing for Dave to worry about when he returned. Your mom came home from the office by early afternoon, and you immediately wanted a change of scenery just to get away from her after what Alice told you that morning. You weren’t in the mood for a confrontation, but you doubted you could keep your mouth shut if your mom provoked you.

Figuring you’d kill an hour at your favorite café before picking up the girls from school, you headed into town. It was a beautiful winter day, brisk yet the sun peeked through small breaks in the clouds as the scent of snow hung in the air. The kind of day you loved in the northeast.

The café was moderately busy with the late lunch crowd when you arrived, many of the tables occupied but no line at the counter. Placing an order, you glanced around for an open table when your eyes fell on a familiar broad form and the blood drained from your face.

His neighbor Roger setup this meeting then had the fucking audacity to not show up, leaving Dave sitting at a corner table of the café you told him about with a beautiful woman who was another major player in his team’s investigation.

On the one hand, Roger pissed him off flaking out like that – probably had a date with his mistress or some shit – but on the other? Who was Dave to complain about having a late lunch with a beautiful woman, even if she happened to be on the wrong side of the law.

As conversation went on, Dave flirted a little, ingratiating himself to the woman who served as the intermediary between the Russians and the traitorous military operator they were seeking to find with this operation. He wanted this mission done asap, so he’d do just about anything to get it over with.

The woman, Anna, made no attempt to hide her flirting, stretching forward across the table to run a long-nailed finger down his forearm before coyly sliding her chair around the table, closer to his side. A chill ran down his spine when she reached over, scraping those fire engine red nails through the thick hair at the base of his head. “Perhaps once our business is done, we could meet somewhere a little more… private.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Dave’s eyes catalogued her features – wavy, brunette hair artfully styled to flow around her shoulders, porcelain skin, lips painted ruby red, a small mole on her right cheek. Undisputedly pretty, yet he felt nothing but discomfort when she touched him. The idea of taking this somewhere private just to move the investigation along repulsed him. All he could think when he glanced between the ring on his left hand and this undeniably gorgeous woman was the fact that she wasn’t… you.

“Perhaps,” he finally replied, voice and brow pinched with confliction. Thoughts and feelings for you were beginning to interfere with his work. That was not good.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dave spotted a flash of something familiar, and his gaze slid past Anna toward the counter. He fought not to show any surprise on his face when your eyes met his across the busy café, momentarily forgetting about the woman’s hands still being on him. Fuck.

An inscrutable expression crossed your face, and you spun on your heels, clearly asking the barista for your order to go. Dave yearned to go to you, to insist that this wasn’t what it looked like, but he couldn’t risk it. He needed to gain Anna’s trust, to keep his focus on her for now. Even if he had zero plans of taking it any further than a business deal, he needed to give the woman the illusion that there could be more.

He watched, longing hidden behind his cold, dark chocolate eyes as you fled the café with hunched shoulders and coffee in hand, never looking back at him.

Anna noticed his distraction, tilting her head to search for whatever captured his attention. “Something more interesting than me?” she purred, her body matching her voice in the way she arched toward his side like a minx.

Swallowing down his thoughts of you, Dave returned his full attention to Anna. Forcing a chuckle, he shook his head. He couldn’t keep up the flirty banter, shifting back to business, solidifying plans for a meeting the following week.

The meeting came to its natural conclusion then, and Dave lifted Anna’s hand to his lips, placing a kiss on her knuckles to maintain the role he was meant to play. “I’ll see you soon.”

“I will have you in my bed this time next week, handsome. And once you’re there, you’ll never want to leave. I promise.” She glanced down at the ring on his left hand with a smirk while Dave fought back a shudder.

Once back in his SUV, Dave shed the mask and let the guilt wash over him for all the lies he had to keep hidden and the cover he had to maintain.

He arrived home expecting to find you there, yet your car was nowhere in sight. Dave groaned when he pulled into the garage next to Lisa’s parked car. She was home earlier than expected and he did not have the patience to deal with her right then.

He just really wanted to talk to you.

With your heart in your throat, you parked the car at the environmental park, relieved that you decided to bring Ranger as your wingman. He sniffed happily at the ground as you walked along the well-worn path trying to make sense of what you saw and how you felt about it.

That woman, with the body of a vixen, all glossy hair and painted lips… basically, sex on a god damned stick. Who was she? Why were her talons all over Dave?

Was he cheating on your mom?

It sure seemed like it. It also seemed like he wasn’t trying to hide it, letting the vixen paw all over him in public like that.

Why did it feel like a punch to your gut, like he was cheating on you?

Nausea bubbled in your stomach as Ranger led you along the path, and you gulped down a lung full of air to fight the feeling. As if the man could read your thoughts from miles away, your phone buzzed with an incoming text.

Dave: Where are you, Firecracker? We need to talk.

You left him on read, not yet sure how you wanted to respond or even what you’d say. Your emotions were all over the place.

All the strange things you noticed over the past few months started piling up, but you still couldn’t find logic in any of it. The only thing that made even a lick of sense to your mind was that Dave was a philandering asshole who just wanted to look like the good ol’ family man to his peers while doing whatever he wanted when no one was watching.

You worked yourself into a state by the time you picked the girls up and brought them home, having picked up pizza for dinner along the way. There was no way you were hanging out in the kitchen making dinner for everyone that evening. Fuck that. You didn’t even want to be in that damned house right now.

The girls were barely through the door when you dumped the pizza on the kitchen island and bolted with Ranger hot on your heels, skulking in your basement hideout as you heard Dave greet his daughters. His deep, rumbling voice – the one you got off to memories of just the night before – suddenly made you feel dirty. Like somehow, the thought of him cheating on your mom with some random woman seemed worse than the salacious thoughts you’ve entertained of him cheating on her with you.

For fucks sake. You were upset that your stepdad might be cheating on your mom with someone other than you. You wanted him to cheat on her with you, ached for it. What the fuck was wrong with you? You were an awful person.

Unable to sit still, you paced the below-grade living space under Ranger’s watchful eye, desperate for something to take your mind off the man upstairs… off your mother… and off the pitiful life you were currently leading. You needed to get out of that fucking house for the night, if not forever.

You heard the door from the hall upstairs open and rushed into the bathroom, knowing it was Dave headed down the stairs. You did not have the emotional bandwidth to deal with this situation. Feeling safer behind the locked door, you turned the shower on and picked some music on your phone, turning the volume up as loud as possible when you still heard the soft tap of his knuckles on the door.

On the other side of the door, Ranger whined, and Dave patted his head. Sighing when the music turned louder, he looked down at the dog. “Come on, bud. She doesn’t want to deal with us right now,” Dave told the pup. “Let’s go upstairs for dinner.”

He’d let you avoid him, for now.

An hour later, you slipped from the house using the private entrance. The crisp evening air made you glad you were dressed in jeans, boots, and a sweater beneath your winter coat as you walked the sleepy neighborhood streets toward the small downtown area. You’d get an app ride home if you drank too much, but for now, it was refreshing to walk. The movement helped to clear your mind of… well, everything.

You needed to make some friends in town, you decided. Too long since you last had a girls' night or even a close friend to bitch about things with. During your time together, your ex-boyfriend isolated you from your friends without you even realizing it until suddenly, you had no friends left and the only person you could turn to was him, or your mom. He at least allowed you to maintain that contact. Probably because he knew your relationship with her was tense at times. Once again single, and in control of your own life (well, mostly), you were eager for socialization.

Dave couldn’t stand it. He gave you some time to make sense of what you saw earlier, but a couple hours later he went in search of you, unwilling to give any more space or time. He needed to know what you thought you saw; what you thought you knew. And, whether or not you planned to speak to your mother or anyone else about it. He needed to speak with you ASAP.

Slipping from the living room where your mom sat watching some ridiculous reality show now that the girls were in bed, Dave ventured down to the basement. He searched the suite for you and came up empty.

You must have snuck out through the private entrance. Was it sneaking if you were an adult free to come and go as you pleased?

Frustrated with his wandering thoughts, Dave shook his head and pulled his phone from his pocket as his body sank onto your bed, laying back against your pillows. The scent of you enveloped him.

Using an app that he stealthily downloaded on your phone – you had a shit ton of apps, and he figured you’d hardly notice a new one in the mix – Dave tracked your location. It was for safety, his girls and yours, he rationalized at the time, that same rationale easing his guilt at tracking you down now.

In reality, he just liked being in control. And knowing where you were was one way of maintaining that control when he could do little else when it came to you.

The app showed you at McCready’s, a hip little pub in town Dave visited a few times. He could see you liking it there. Did you go alone? Were you there to meet someone? A man? Were you going to go home with whomever you met? Would you bring them here or go to their place?

Dave’s thoughts spiraled as your scent surrounded him until he finally jumped up from your bed. He couldn’t stay there, in your room, without your consent, not like this. He needed to see you, again he rationalized, as he rushed back up the stairs to change. Throwing on a pair of jeans and a henley, Dave slipped on a jacket and grabbed his keys.

From the kitchen, he called to Lisa, interrupting her focus on that ridiculous show. “I’m going to meet up with the boys for a bit. Keep an eye on the girls while I’m gone.”

Lisa’s expression transformed from annoyance to interest. “Where are you meeting them? Maybe I want to go too.”

“Nowhere you’d want to go. Besides, you can’t. You’re the only adult home.” Dave spun on his heels to avoid further discussion, ignoring Lisa’s demand to know where you were and why you couldn’t watch the girls as he slipped on his shoes and entered the garage.

Pulling out of the garage, he was surprised to see your car still in the driveway. Did you walk or catch a ride with someone? It didn’t matter. He knew where you were, and he was on his way.

The parking lot was full to bursting with the Friday night crowd, forcing Dave to circle the block before finding a spot a street or two away. He stepped out into the crisp night air, pulling his jacket tighter as a cold wind cut through the alleyway. The walk from the car to the bar was agonizing as his thoughts clamored about in his head. He hadn’t meant to track you down – at least, that’s what he tried to tell himself, but even he knew that was a lie – and now that he was outside the bar, there was no way in hell he’d turn back.

McCready’s pulsed with the low thrum of conversation and music playing from the overhead speakers, dimly lit by the warm glow of string lights. Dave’s gaze darted across the crowded area, homing in on you almost instantly.

Perched on a barstool, your body angled slightly away with an elbow resting on the counter as you twirled a half-empty glass of wine in your hand. The soft light of the bar illuminated your features, catching the faint sheen of makeup and the gloss on your lips as they moved in polite conversation with the man beside you.

Dave’s stomach twisted painfully. Was that a laugh? It was. He watched as your head tilted back, a smile lighting up your face, transforming the air around you.

The ache in his chest grew sharper. He longed to be the one, the only one, to make you laugh like that.

Dave froze just inside the doorway, his feet refusing to move for a moment. Forcing himself forward, Dave weaved through the crowd with practiced ease. As he approached your spot, he caught snippets of the man’s voice – a deep, gravelly tone trying too hard to sound charming.

You smiled again, soft and indulgent, but this time Dave caught the slight downturn of your eyes, the way your fingers tightened around your glass, knee bouncing. It wasn’t real, he realized. You weren’t charmed. You were merely entertaining the guy without any better options.

It didn’t matter. This guy didn’t matter.

But the knot in his stomach only grew as the man leant closer, his hand brushing yours on the counter. Every instinct in Dave’s body screamed at him to intervene; to stake a claim he had no right to make. Not yet.

Dave stepped closer, feeling a magnetized pull toward you, until he stood at your back, close enough to see the faint tension in your shoulders, to catch the faintest scent of your perfume over the haze of spilled beer and warm bodies. His chest tightened, the magnetism of your presence nearly overwhelming.

The man stood as tall as Dave, with a thicker build, light brown hair on his head, and facial hair shaggy and in need of a trim. Gray shot throughout it, along with crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. The guy was older than Dave by a handful of years, it seemed (and less attractive if Dave said so himself). Could that be the type of man you were attracted to? Unkempt jackasses with dad bods?

“Since you’re new in town, we should go out sometime. I could take you to dinner and show you all the popular spots.”

You hummed noncommittally in response, and the man kept trying. Dave didn’t catch his name.

“I have a sailboat,” the man said, his voice tinged with smugness. “I could take you out for a sunset cruise. Just us, the water, and a bottle of champagne.”

Dave’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding audibly. A fucking sailboat? Who was this guy, Captain looking for his Tennille?

“Oh, I love sailing!” Your voice was too bright, your laugh too easy. “My best friend from college raced competitively. I used to love watching the races!”

Dave barely heard the rest of the conversation, his vision narrowing as he fixated on the subtle tilt of your head, the way you played along, humoring the bastard. His fingers curled into fists, and for a brief, irrational moment, he imagined how satisfying it would be to plant one of them right in the guy’s smug face.

Then the man made his move.

“So,” he said, leaning closer still, “how about we get out of here?”

Fearing you would say yes, Dave lost all sense of reason. He moved before you could answer, his hand finding your arm, the firm grip startling you. “That won’t be happening,” Dave growled, his expression menacing.

You whipped around, wide-eyed and furious. “What are you doing?” you hissed at Dave, eyes burning holes through him.

The other man straightened, his brows furrowing as he glanced between you and Dave. “Is this guy bothering you?”

You couldn’t pull your eyes from the way Dave’s dark ones bored into you, pleading for you to speak to him.

Dave didn’t flinch under the other man’s glare. “No, I’m not bothering her. Nor is she leaving with you.” His tone left no room for argument.

Yanking your arm free of Dave’s iron grip, you heaved an exasperated sigh and shot Dave a glare before turning your attention back to the man you’d been talking to. “Sadly, no. He’s not bothering me. He’s… my stepdad.”

The word hit Dave like a physical blow, your tone drenched in bitterness. You were so much more than that if only you knew the truth.

The man blinked, clearly caught off guard. “So, you’re not—”

“Not a chance in hell,” Dave snapped, cutting him off. His gaze remained fixed on you, the weight of his dark chocolate stare unbearable.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Dave!” You slumped back against the bar as the other guy walked away, your voice trembling with barely contained anger, and maybe a hint of something else. “What is wrong with you? What are you even doing here?”

Stepping closer, Dave let his voice dip and soften. “Just looking for you… looking out for you,” he replied simply, the tension falling from his shoulders now that your focus was back on him. The cacophony of the bar faded to nothing, the only sound he cared about was your breathing, your sweet voice.

A pit of yearning grew in Dave’s stomach as your hooded gazes clashed. He never knew a feeling like this pull toward you and for all his reputed self-discipline, Dave was but a man powerless against a woman, when that woman was you. He knew how wrong it was given the circumstances, but nothing ever felt so right.

Dave York needed you like he never needed anyone before, not even his first wife. Visceral, this thing between you, and he thought – no, he knew – you felt it too. How could you not?

Giving in, refusing to question it any further, Dave slid his hand over yours, twining your smaller fingers with his larger ones, and ever so gently pulled you to stand next to him.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Mouth popping open slightly, a fire burned suddenly bright in your eyes, fingers curling tighter in his grasp. There was no mistaking it now. You felt it, too, this magnetized thing pulling the two of you together. A smirk crossed his lips when you nodded dazedly.

Now that he touched you, Dave could not bring himself to let go of your hand. He didn’t care who saw, not that he knew anyone in this crowd anyway. Skin soft and enticing, he wanted to touch more of it, more of you, until he mapped every square inch of your body.

The night air had grown colder while you were inside, sending a shiver down your body and Dave pulled you closer as he led the way to his SUV. Silence reigned during the walk across the parking lot and down the sidewalk, lingering during the length of the five-minute drive back to the house.

Mind whirring visibly behind your eyes, Dave glanced at you often. Finally, just as he pulled into the driveway, the house sitting dark as night as he eased the vehicle into the garage, Dave cracked.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he murmured once the ignition turned off.

“They’re hardly worth that.” Wide eyes met his, lips turned up at the sides into an almost smile. “I don’t even know where to start,” you admitted.

Nodding, Dave opened his door. “Come on, we’ll talk down in the basement.” Rushing out of the car before you even had a chance to move, he opened the passenger door and helped you out of the vehicle. Like magnets, your fingers entwined with his of their own accord as he led you through the private entrance to the basement.

“Are you cheating on my mom?” you blurted, body flopping down onto the couch and sinking back into the cushions, Dave beside you still grasping your hand. He refused to lessen his grip despite your gentle attempts to pull it away.

“No.”

A firm answer. A full sentence in one word.

You didn’t know whether to feel relieved or pissed off. His dark eyes darted back and forth between your own, searching for something, anything hidden in your gaze.

“Then what was all that,” you gestured wildly with your free hand, “at the café? That… woman… was all over you. Is that how you usually behave when no one’s around to catch you?”

Dave gazed at you with those big, brown, puppy eyes, yearning for you to see him, really see into the depths of him. “Of course not,” he insisted. “I can’t say much, but that was part of an assignment, a role I have to play to get this particular job done. Nothing has – or will – ever happen with that woman. I promise.”

You believed him, though you could tell there was more he wished he could say. “Ok.”

“Was that why you ran off and ignored me all day? Because you thought I was cheating on your mom?”

His voice was low, you shuddered at both his words and how they washed over you. Was that why you reacted so?

No, not really.

You couldn’t hold back the truth with the way he looked at you, his thumb caressing your knuckles drawing delightful chills to run down your spine. For a moment – just a brief moment – you allowed yourself to believe that he might feel the same way about you, might have a debilitating crush on you as well. That’s why you sputtered out the truth.

“N-no…” you stuttered, clearing your throat roughly. “No, that’s not why I ran.”

“Then why?” Eyes pleading, he squeezed your hand, encouraging you to explain.

“To be honest, I was hurt.” Pausing, your gaze dropped from his eyes to his lips, before darting back to meet the dark heat in his gaze again until you could no longer bear to look at him as you blurted out the dark truth. “Hurt that you would cheat with someone like that and not with… me. How fucked up is that?”

After a beat, then two of silence, you chanced a look at him. Your breath caught in your chest as his eyes widened impossibly further, pink tongue darting out to lick his plump bottom lip as he stared back at you, everything about him intense. Dave turned fully towards you on the couch, taking your other hand in his to pull you into his lap.

“That’s exactly why nothing will happen with that woman. She’s not you.” Dave leaned forward ever so slowly, placing the softest kiss upon your lips. It lasted only a second, but it changed everything.

tbc

Chapter Six

tag list: @imdrinkingpedro @lillaydee @ppascalrain @yorksgirl @missladym1981 @baronessvonglitter @slimybeth69 @mellymbee @untamedheart81 @inept-the-magnificent @wannab-urs @thundermartini @peelieblue @harriedandharassed @mysterious-moonstruck-musings @sunnytuliptime

[yayakoishii]

Picture This | Balam Shichirou x Reader

Fandom: Mairimashita Iruma-kun

Pairing: Balam Shichirou x GN! Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

Genre/Tags: Fluff

Summary: You find out about the kind and gentle Balam Shichirou and meet him with a proposition of your own.

A/n: I have known this demon for 3 episodes and I'm in LOVE;; so I basically got possessed by the sudden urge to write something for him. he's the kindest, the sweetest, the BEST TEACHER EVER 😭 I love teachers like him so much, this was very self-indulgent and kinda just me admiring him hehe... I hope you enjoy this short thing I wrote, even though there's a high chance that he might be slightly ooc since I haven't known him for longer than 3 episodes.

also available on ao3!

The chatter in the class was a low hum as everyone worked on their own worksheets that you had just printed out. The Apocalypse Test was close and as a new teacher at Babyls, you wanted your first results to reflect well. If the results were not good then that would mean you had to work harder as a teacher.

You were walking amongst the students, listening in on their discussions or aiding them in finding where the answer could be found in the textbook. It was an open book, open discussion worksheet solving session and you were pleased with how well the students seemed to be handling it without making too much noise. The abnormal class could be really serious about studying when they put their mind to it, huh?

The bobbing of a blue head caught your attention and you walked closer to Iruma's seat. As always, he was sitting between Alice and Clara but the three of them were referring to their own books. (Except for Clara; you were pretty sure the book in her hand had nothing to do with studying…) The book in Iruma's hand was one you had never seen before but it looked interesting.

"Iruma-kun?" You stopped in front of his desk and looked down at the book curiously. Said boy startled and looked up in panic until he realised it was just you. "Where did you get this book?"

"Oh!" He gave you a warm smile, the kind that always made you smile in return. "Balam-sensei gave it to me because I was… y'know… struggling to understand."

"Can I see it?" You asked, curiosity taking a hold of you. Iruma handed you the book and you leafed through it. Surprisingly, it was a picture book with really easy explanations. Whoever wrote it had your gratitude; these were the kind of books that made learning enjoyable and less daunting. You closed it and looked at the cover to check the author's name. "Huh? Balam Shichirou…? Balam-sensei wrote this book?"

"Yes!" Iruma beamed at you. "He made some of them especially for me."

"That's wonderful," you felt touched even though you had never met the man. When you had aspired to be a teacher, this was the kind of teacher you were aiming for. Somebody who helped even the students who were struggling to understand, from the basics so they could build a stronger structure of knowledge on it. "Is it easier for you to understand this way?"

"It is," Iruma admitted, shyly scratching the back of his neck. You smiled and lightly patted the top of his head, startling the boy a little.

"I'll keep that in mind for my next class," you said. "And while I'm grateful for Balam-sensei… Why didn't you tell me if you were struggling to understand my teaching, Iruma-kun? I would have adjusted for you."

You pouted at him so he knew you weren't seriously mad at him; just a little upset.

"No, no, no!" The boy panicked and shook his hands in a negating gesture. "That's not it, (y/n)-sensei!! I just didn't want to burden you because I was the only one struggling even with your easy explanations… I guess having it in written form like this just helps to remember what you've already taught."

"It's not a burden, Iruma-kun," you reminded him. "It's my job as a teacher to make sure you understand. If you don't understand something, that's my responsibility. If you're worried about being a bother to the rest of the class, you can always come to me after the classes are over to get a quick personalised lesson."

"Eh?" He looked surprised. "Wouldn't that take up your time, sensei?"

"If it helps my students then it's time well spent!"

•

After your classes for the day were done, you asked around the staffroom for where you could find Balam Shichirou. Kalego gave you the directions and you made your way to his office, curious about what kind of person he must be and how he would look. From whatever Iruma had told you, he already sounded like a kind person and a great teacher. You found the door and knocked on it before looking inside.

"Balam-sensei?" You asked. There was a demon with long white hair sitting on a table, writing something down, who startled at your voice. "Can I come in?"

"O- Oh, yes, please!" He seemed a little confused by your presence but you stepped in and closed the door behind yourself. There was an empty stool across the table so you sat down on it. "Um, (y/n)-sensei, would you like some Hell Grey Tea?"

"Oh!" You hadn't expected him to know your name. Suddenly, it felt embarrassing that you had never heard of him before this. "Yes, thank you for the offer, Balam-sensei."

He nodded and got up to make you some. He worked in silence so you took the time to look around his office. The shelves full of books were eye-catching and your hands were already itching to dig into them and read all the unfamiliar volumes. Your eyes drifted over to the book sitting in front of you that Balam was working on. Your eyes widened when you realised it was another picture book, this one on one of the battles that had occured some centuries ago. Your hands moved to check it before you could even think that it would be rude.

"Here you go– oh, you saw my book," Balam placed the tea just out of the way enough so that you wouldn't accidentally bump it. "Do you… like picture books, (y/n)-sensei?"

"Not particularly," you admitted as you skimmed through what was already drawn and written. "But I like to read so picture books are fun too! I suppose I never got much into them because my home was full of textual books and I liked those just fine so I never had any picture books as a kid. I may not know much about them, but this is really well-written, Balam-sensei! You draw so well too."

"Oh," the other demon pinked at your words as he took his seat. "Thank you. I'm glad you like it. I'm making this one for a student but you could borrow a different one if you're interested."

"Ah! That reminds me why I came here," you beamed at him, gently placing the book back where you had picked it up from. "I saw the picture book you gave Iruma-kun in my class today. Our subjects have a small section that overlaps so he was referring to the book you made for him and I couldn't help noticing it. It was truly so easy to understand and it gave me the idea that such a method would be helpful with other subjects too."

"Really?" He seemed surprised by your words but you could tell that he was also touched. "I would like to share them with all the students too, but for some reason, they keep running away when I try to show them my picture books."

"Ah," you leaned back when you realised that you had accidentally leaned over in your excitement. The other teachers in the staffroom had told you about Balam's reputation amongst the students. "I'm sure they would benefit from it. I could share your books with some of my students if that works for you, Balam-sensei. And, if you would be interested, I wanted to try making a picture book explaining my subject too. It's a huge task and I would compensate you accordingly for your time and efforts–"

"You…" If Balam had seemed shocked before, it was nothing compared to his face now. Although his mouth was covered by a metal mask, you could tell from how wide his eyes had gotten. "You want to… make a picture book… with me?"

"Only if you're interested!" You bit your bottom lip nervously. "I personally really liked your books and I thought it would be a great way to learn for the students who have a weaker or slower grasp of understanding. Since I'm not very familiar with the process, I thought it would be amazing if I could have the aid of your experience. I understand if it's a commitment that you don't have the time for, and there's no guarantee that it will work out but I would love to at least try it with you."

"I would love to," Balam uttered softly and even without seeing his mouth, you could tell that he was gently smiling at you with how his eyes curved just so. The sight made your heart unexpectedly quicken and you fidgeted in your seat, picking up the Hell Grey Tea you had forgotten about. "I didn't think any of the other teachers liked me much but I'm very happy that you thought of me when you wanted to try this out."

"I don't think they dislike you, Balam-sensei," you smiled from behind the cup of tea. "But I suppose people just get so caught up in appearances and assumptions. People who have much to hide seem dangerous at first glance and we don't take time to get to know them if we can help it. I admit I might have fallen prey to the same kind of thinking if I hadn't heard about you from Iruma-kun. I could tell you were a kind and wonderful teacher from the way he spoke about you."

Balam's eyes widened and for a second, you thought his eyes seemed glassy. You blinked and the light was gone but Balam's eyes were still the soft shape. Now that you took the time to study his face, you realised he was quite handsome. The thought made you accidentally slam your tea cup down on the table in panic and the ceramic broke, startling the both of you.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry!!" You were flustered but you hurriedly tried to collect the pieces together without hurting yourself. "I'm so clumsy…"

"It's okay," Balam reassured you, coming over to your side to help you pick up some of the pieces. "I'll take them to the trash. Are you hurt?"

"I don't– oh, just a little it seems," you had a very tiny cut from a sharper piece you had picked up. It didn't hurt. You waved it off as you carefully put the pieces you had collected in Balam's large gloved hands. "Nothing to worry about. It will be healed in a day or two. I really am sorry for troubling you, Balam-sensei!"

"I told you, it's fine."

He carefully threw away the trash then returned to you with an ointment from his desk drawer. You had stuck the finger into your mouth to suck at the blood and stop the flow but it felt embarrassing when you realised that Balam was watching you. You hurriedly removed the finger and tried to find a cloth to wipe it off but Balam crouched in front of you and asked for your hand silently. You ended up placing yours in his and watched him carefully pat it off before putting on the ointment.

"Thank you," you blushed fiercely when he was done and still hadn't let go of your hand. In fact, he was now standing up and holding both your arms in his own; the proximity was making your heart beat unnaturally fast. "Um, Balam-sensei..?"

"Yes?" He asked, blinking down at your comparatively smaller form in his arms.

"Y- You can let go of me now," you mumbled. Your words made him stutter and he let go in a panic.

"I- I'm so sorry, I just tend to do that without thinking!" He was blushing too, embarrassed. Balam didn't want to make you uncomfortable after you had been so nice to him. For once, he was actually getting along with someone new. For that matter, you were the one to approach him first! Not to mention, he had found you really beautiful when he had first seen you in the staffroom, laughing at Dali's joke. You hadn't seen him then, but that brief memory flashed in his mind when you softly giggled.

The sound of your laugh made his heart skip a beat. Balam stared at you as you flashed him a warm smile.

"If you wanted to hold me, you could have just asked, Balam-sensei!" You beamed and opened your arms for a hug. "I don't mind you touching me. I was just surprised."

Oh.

Balam's hands twitched for a second, the same nervousness he felt when Iruma tried to touch him popping up. But this time, it felt a bit different. The nervousness in his stomach felt like those fantastical creatures called butterflies that he had read about. His heart seemed to be thumping louder than usual too.

It was only when his larger frame swallowed yours into a gentle grip that he realised. He could feel the outline of your smile against his bicep.

Ah, this was what they called a crush, huh?

°•❀•°

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