#DEIGNING TO BE PATRONIZED BY THE LITTLE PEOPLE WHEN YOU KNOW IT ALL ALREADY

[qqueenofhades]

I'm an undergraduate and had a professor last semester who was new. At one point, he asked us for feedback about the readings and his teaching style. One student said with the utmost confidence despite being wrong most of the time, "I don't do any of the readings. I already understand the material completely." I went to a public high school during covid and have still never seen light drain from a teacher's eyes so quickly. Peak white boy behavior

And yet, there is a 99% chance that said entitled idiot white boy will then fail constantly upward and end up with a great job and ton of money he did absolutely nothing to deserve, so.... 🙃

[galedekarios]

what was i after all but a mortal plaything in sacred hands?

out of all the little glimpses into our companions' lives after the game events, i think i like this bit about shadowheart and gale, and the friendship they've seemingly retained after the game's events, the most:

Player: Tell me what you've been up to. Shadowheart: Wandering, mostly. The adventuring life is almost a tonic when you're not constantly threatened by brain monsters and cultists. I can finally see the world beyond the Cloister. Player: I thought you might crave a little peace and quiet, after all that happened. Shadowheart: Peace and quiet will still be there waiting once I've lived a little. Though don't get me wrong - I've got a little cottage with a garden and animals in mind already. Shadowheart: One of my first stops was the House of the Moon, in Waterdeep. It's the largest temple of Selûne in existence. Shadowheart: It seemed like the perfect spot to reflect on my parents, on where they came from - and where I came from too, I suppose. Shadowheart: Hard to imagine, isn't it? Me, of all people, in the lair of the 'Moon Witch' herself. Gods, your truest act of heroism was putting up with all that Sharran drivel I was spouting for so long. Player: Waterdeep you say? Did you bump into Gale? Shadowheart: We had tea on his balcony - Tara even deigned to sit on my lap for a while. You know, I think entire forests must have been felled to quench that man's thirst for books. Shadowheart: He seems to be doing well. In his element.

it's one of the few (if not the only) instance we have of companions keeping in touch with each other after the game ends and i love this for both for shadowheart and for gale.

both of their stories remind me of gale's early access line "what was i after all but a mortal plaything in sacred hands?" and i think they can understand and emphasise what the other went through before and during the game's events in ways the others simply cannot with the added layer of their abuser being a deity and their patron deity.

one taken from her family as a child, indoctrinated, weaponised and isolated, trying to take everything from her, but unable to erase the goodness of her heart. the other contacted by a god's chosen as a child, the very thing he loved for as long as he remembers governed and represented by her, the goddes who was first a mentor, then a teacher and finally a lover.

Shadowheart: Poor Gale. I hope he knows that a goddess abandoning him needn't be the end - I know from experience.

Gale: Poor Shadowheart. The gods are nothing if not vincdictive in their vengeance. devnote: Sympathetic - Gale feels the gods have also punished him

the idea of them helping each other, supporting each other to take another step towards healing old and new wounds through their shared understanding, is something i like a lot.

on a lighter note:

we know that gale values those he calls friends immensely and shadowheart does, despite her aloofness, crave connection, (re-)discovering who she is and what makes her her.

i like to imagine them sharing not only tea, but a glass of wine:

Gale: Sembian wine, Cormyrian ball, Waterdhavian conversation. It's the little things you miss while on the road. - Shadowheart: So Gale just consumes magical items like I do wine?

perhaps sharing the latest chapbook with her since he likely overheard wyll and shadowheart talking about 'the salty mermaid':

A chapbook was a short book which could contain about any content, from political opinions to crafting guides. In Waterdeep, chapbooks often contained memoirs or romantic stories. [x]

(thank you for reading my gale + shadowheart friendship propaganda post! 🖤)

[goblinshork]

Ok so what abaut Bodyguard and Agony whith a a naga prince that just hates the royal life and dreams of just having a simple life living in a cottage and selling homemade jewelry, so Reader his childhood best friend, personal bodyguard and person who he feel in love whith decides to make his dream come true (bonus if the prince has a sister so the kingdown whont stay whiout a ruler and she helps Reader whith the plan, bonus+ if the prince is kinda huge and scary to other people but he is just a chill dude that likes to make rings and necklaces)

Short scenario please! (Also sorry if its too long, feel free to just ignore this if you whant)

Not too long at all and I think it's an extremely charming idea! Thank you for sharing; big gruff, undercover sweeties are one of the most Choice(tm) archetypes.

This also got super long, but the vibes were singing to me.

Features: Slight angst, happy ending, kissing

Bodyguard + Agony (Monster Ask Meme)

Hands, Touching Hands (m!Naga x gn!Reader) [3.7k]

“Don’t lie, how many names do you remember?”

Alok yawned, curved fangs peaking out from almost-lips.

“None, thankfully,” he said, scratching at his curls, cut short enough that they barely formed.

“Impressive.”

“Oh—no, you won’t distract me. You agree with me don’t you?”

The book Alok had toyed the entire briefing slammed shut, the many bracelets at his wrist clinking for emphasis when you did not answer.

Watching him unfurl his tense length of tail, broad shoulders rising far above you as he 'stood', there was little to say but, "It’s not my place."

"Then it’s not mine, either."

He slunk toward the door and you picked up the book--the monstrous thing--with your arms rather than your hands before following him.

"Just give it time," you said in a reassurance that was too shallow to drown his mood.

Every move forward looked painful as he slithered forward like a child first learning to move against stone rather than soft grass. Unlike when he was a child, he was stilted by frustration rather than inexperience.

The conversation was left dropped, burning like the weight of the tome in your arms. If you were alone, you'd tell him to carry it. But servants, nobles, and royals passed frequently, all low bows and murmurs, moving on a touch quicker than polite.

When you first arrived to the kingdom, a slave dressed sweetly and presented as a gift, you'd marveled at how anyone could find the royal family intimidating when removed from their wealth and status.

Baby yellow skin and soft pink dapples painted everyone of them. Alok, himself, was more pink than yellow, and it reminded you of those delicate, painted dolls you'd press your face against glass to get a closer look at before being shooed away by the shop-keep.

You supposed little had changed since then, except now you were simply stared at, expected to keep your fingers off the pretty pink glass always, always in front of you.

The hallway Alok stopped moving forward in was empty, private; his. Without a word, you tossed the horrible book toward his crossed arms and swept the windows, floors, and ceiling for anything strange. His fumbling for the book, fingers audibly skimming against pages, made you smile.

"It's clear," you nodded. "Workshop, right?"

Alok deflated a bit, too caught between the mention of his workshop and pretending to have perfectly caught the book to keep his anger stoked.

"You're asking now," he said flat, looking from the book to you.

Putting up your hands in mock defeat, you turned, alert enough.

@

"I'm not angry at you.” The slits that served for his pupils, deep red and small in their focus on the gem he was cutting, turned to you when you said nothing in response.

“Sorry, I--” was dazzled by your eyes? Was enamored by how passionate you are for perfecting that sparkling little gem? “I know.”

“I just wanted to say it.”

You stretched from your place beside the door, perched on one of the few chairs at your disposal in the entire castle, “Thank you.”

“Don’t be patronizing,” Alok grumbled, pausing in his work. “I know...I know very well you must be tired of this, even if you won’t say it.”

The window was suddenly so interesting, your throat burning as you swallowed down the feeling kindling there.

“This is my home,” you said after hearing the scales of his tail shift closer. “There’s nothing to be tired of.”

Slowly, his hand rose to hover over yours, where it lay on your lap, “But you should be. I’d give you anything you needed. They couldn’t stop me.”

Everything you wanted to say was tucked in the patch of air that separated his touch from yours.

Any person, bought and raised to be singularly loyal would hesitate at the offer of freedom, wouldn’t they?

They’d want to grab his hand, wouldn’t they?

You could only guess as a love for a prince was not something to be said aloud unless you were allowed.

And you, a slave turned body guard, were not.

Standing, you scattered the almost-moment with a shake of your head, “I don’t care about freedom half as much as you think I do.”

His hand fell limp to his side, the slits that served as his nose flaring wide, as you continued.

“I’m your bodyguard and I’ll be your children’s bodyguard and I’ll be the same to whoever you choose from that book,” you finished, thoroughly shooing yourself away, wanting so much to run out the door.

Alok said your name quietly, but you remained silent.

And everything was still until it wasn’t.

In one smooth motion propelled by his sheer size, Alok stretched to the book and hurled it out the open window.

“No, you won’t. I’ll be their prince,” he said low, body suddenly too large for the room. “But I won’t be their king.”

You did run, then.

@

Perhaps the only place off-limits for a would-be king allergic to potential suitors was his sister’s drawing room.

Adur payed you no attention as she demanded entertainment from the brightly colored darlings and dark patterned beauties of the upper echelon.

“Did you know, I simply adore the pattern of your bangles lately,” she cooed, pointing to a decorated tail. “So perfectly in style.”

She continued on, picking this and that to sigh over, as you stood against the corner that provided the best view of the room, next to the door. 

You recognized each piece she fawned over as being similar to something Alok had on display or nearly-done in his workshop. Ah, to know a magician’s tricks.

Melting into a squat, you let their voices wash over you. No heart could hurt for long listening to women enjoy court gossip as much as this bunch did...from a distance.

When you, Alok, and Adur were younger, the rules seemed less stone and more like blades of grass, flexible and beneath you. Adur set you in front of her always revolving group of friends and tried to fit tail bangles around your thighs and waist. Alok insisted you sit side-by-side while studying geography, arithmetic, and etiquette. You lay between them on sunny afternoons, napping, legs touching tails.

But everything golden goes grey eventually.

“Well, do tell me. Did he throw it in the fire?”

You turned from the window, swapping red, setting sun for sharp, red eyes, “Out of the window.”

The room was empty but for you and her now. Adur pacing around, tail making quick work of circling the room as she read from her collection of letters.

“Still the amount of melodrama I expected so,” she shrugged, raising shoulders toward her pleased mouth as a silent finish to her sentence. “I, on the other hand, did pick.”

You rose, legs tingling from the sudden change. “Who?”

“Prince Talsa,” she said after cutting open a letter with her claw, “I’ve already decided on a short engagement and a respectable wedding down south. Perhaps closer to his kingdom than ours.”

“Talsa? Not rare one who everyone’s after?”

Adur looked at you as though you should know better before deigning to explain, “Prince Talsa is rather plain looking for a naga, yes, but that’s just the point.”

“Go on,” you said, wanting so much to be distracted.

“Think about it,” Adur scoffed. “Rare, beautiful babies create wonder amongst people, but children who look as though they could be born anywhere....don’t you see the appeal?”

She leaned against the window, long black hair obscuring her pink and yellow face, “They would be royalty that even the most common of folk could feel familiar to--feel endeared to. Even someone as devoid of charm or pretense as Alok could gain some favor. From their birth, I’ll have them attend every little festival and celebration. Their bond with the people will be unshakable.”

“You’ll make the best queen,” you said, unthinking to the implication.

“Has something happened to Alok?”

“No, you ju--”

Adur turned to you, delicate face empty, “It doesn’t matter what we know. He’s the eldest and alive and destroying a book won’t change that.”

Your hands shook as you laced them together, risking at least your life, by asking:

“What if we could change it?”

@

Everything in the little room lacked splendor, save the jewelry that her brother displayed to no one but himself, built only to separate Alok from his mentor. A failed attempt to elevate a man too gargantuan to grow further.

Even the flooring was rough on the tail, not smooth stone but brick for retaining heat. Only care for function within these four walls.

Adur noted her brother’s tail was bare as she swept over the lacking room, only his leather work belt draped over the apex where tail met torso. Every bit of jewelry he wore crowded his wrists and fingers, noisy as he worked on some large bangle unfamiliar to her.

He looked haggard, frown too ugly and deep to be a mere product of concentration. Grey tickled the roots of his bangs, pronounced enough to shine in the lamplight. Alok was getting too old to be a prince with only time for his hobby.

“Sometimes I think it would be kinder to simply put you out of your misery,” Adur said, closing the door behind her.

Alok’s back tensed, but he did not pause his work, “I’m surprised you said it out loud, but don’t say it like a joke.”

“Don’t be so serious,” Adur sighed, “of course it was a joke.”

“Where is--”

“Your human delight? Running errands for me.”

Alok did turn then, face flickering through emotions too fast to name, “They’re just as much your dear friend as mine, you little viper.”

“Forgive my callousness, but I find you respond to little else,” Adur said, picking at the sheer fabric of her top so it draped correctly against her arm again. “And perhaps they are my friend. But they are not just yours.”

“I won’t be king...even if they weren’t here.”

Adur laughed in a sizzling tone, forked tongue dancing with humor, “Oh? And I suppose your little fantasies of running away involve you doing so alone?”

Only the flames licking back and forth in the small forge answered her.

“You’re too old to be deluding yourself like this,” she went on, dropping a bottle and a sheer robe on Alok’s work desk. “It’s time to make choices once and for all, brother.”

“I’m not--”

“I’m not asking you to rule. You’d be pathetic at it, yes, I know. If not for our dear human friend, you’d have flunked every tutor save for your precious jewelry maker.”

Alok curled back over his tail, fingers picking at the fabric of the robe his sister had dropped. “Then what are you asking?”

Hand on the doorknob, Adur smiled, “if you had your way and left to live like a common man with your human, would you really never come back?”

“Never.”

Adur opened the door. “Good.”

@

The drider--Woodnet? Woodne? Wodner?--stayed near the the door as you did, but unlike you his sleek, black legs rested on a few thin lines of webbing where wall met ceiling.

Slowly, Alok raised his face to address the bodyguard, entirely unused to being the short one. Worse still was the struggle to match sights with the correct pair of the drider’s many blinking eyes. If you were here, you’d have nudged him to follow your lead already.

If you were here...this wouldn’t be happening in the first place. Just another wishful thought to swallow down as Alok struggled to stay polite in the face of his father’s prime bodyguard.

“Outside the room is fine,” Alok said in a clipped tone, turning as he did to avoid dealing with anymore niceties.

“Forgive me for questioning, Prince Alok,” the drider said, voice drifting down like floating silk. “But bathing is when you are most vulnerable. I can not help but object to the risk.”

The drider polished each word, in no hurry to finish his sentence and Alok’s eyes rolled once--twice--thrice by the time there was silence. If only this were any guard other than his father’s favorite.

“I understand,” Alok said. “But, the windows are trapped and you will be guarding the only entrance.”

The sound of burdened legs skittering down stone, followed by the opening and closing of the lone, stone door was his answer.

Driders were generally no longer friends of Alok’s kingdom. Wodnel....no, Wodni perhaps, was a relic of a time long gone, when his father was just proving himself a leader of a nation. That Wodnir--that was it, Wodnir--was so protective of Alok, having sparsely been involved with him and having been enslaved through ruthless, warmongering means made Alok’s shoulders bunch, the muscles between protruding over scales.

Is that how it was between you and he? Did you feign fondness and care or was it true? Was it true but maligned of him to hope for it due to how you came to be near him? Because of he was?

Alok disrobed and slunk into the hot water, hoping to drown his pithy doubts that crowded so large in his mind.

Flakes of shed rose to the top the longer he soaked, proof of a difficult shed. There was sure to be more bits to come as he scrubbed himself with the, apparently, ‘to die for’ body scrub his sister had left last week.

You were usually the one to soothe his bubbling stress in a life of constant politics and decorum, but the bits of dead skin were proof enough that Alok truly was getting too old for delusions. You’d only been away for a week and a spare number of days and here he was, so tense that not even a hot bath could unfurl him.

Ugh.

Politics and decorum. How would he survive tonight without you? Adur was announcing her engagement tonight, in tandem with the nobles emerging from their collective sheds at the tail end of the Harvest Festival.

Alok scrubbed himself raw, hoping to emerge a new man who could weather life half as well as everyone around him. But the harder he lathed himself in soap, the clearer the truth rang.

If only he could have you.

@

You had relieved Wodnier of his duties, thanking him with a bow, and standing stiff beside the door for precious minutes, waiting for his delicate range of hearing to wane.

As an apprentice, you had met Wodnier often enough to know he wished you well as much as any spider did a fly.

Hammering against your chest, you feared the vibration of your heart was loud enough for him to hear. And there was always a chance the door shutting at the end of the curved hallway was a trap; that Wodnier still stood in Alok’s quarters and was not making his way back to the King.

But you didn’t have time to be safe, only quick.

Jittered by adrenaline, you sprinted to Alok’s room---toe first, heel last--and back, holding your breath once you made it back to the door of the bath.

Sweat pooled against your forehead, but nothing sprang toward you sans the faint sounds of Alok bathing.

You slipped past the door, the pack in your hands bulky enough that the door opened wider than you’d wanted, the hinge creaking.

“Alok?”

The figure behind the curtain froze before calling back your name.

“We don’t have much time, Alok,” you pressed in a sure voice, but your legs wobbled as you neared the curtain. “I’m....I’m running away and I’m taking you with me.”

“What?”

Coming past the curtain, your chest could barely contain your quick breathing. His hair was devoid of any gray, blacker than pitch as it fell just above his ear holes and forehead. Muddy brown and maroon scales were sleek and wet, droplets rolling down his body, even near his---

You looked back up quickly, away from where his belt always covered. “I mean, I want us to run away and we need to go now.”

Having followed your wandering gaze toward the apex of his stomach and tail, Alok frantically looked toward his arms, the muddy water, “What in the fuck is this?”

“Adur is helping us,” is all you said and it was all Alok seemed to need as he picked up the bottle the dye had been in, nodding. “She said it’ll only last until your next shed but, by then, hopefully....”

“She wants to be queen very much,” he murmured.

You tore open the pack, reminding yourself that time was short, and held them out. “Yes. So, we need to go.”

“You have no idea--,” Alok started, before interrupting himself. “I need something from the workshop.”

“We don’t have time.”

He shook his head as he took what you offered, dressing himself in plain leather and thick, scratchy wool. “It will be quick.”

You opened your mouth--- “Please.” --but couldn’t keep firm in the face of his pleading.

“Okay.”

@

Alok threw a few rings, bangles, and tools into the bag.

“Only enough to sell and get started again,” he assured.

But as you turned to leave the room, his hand was on your arm, pulling you back.

“We--”

“I love you,” he breathed, holding two thick, ornate bangles in his free hand. Both were decorated, from the side you could see, with marigolds, jewels gleaming in the center of their petals. You recognized each one.

One was the size to fit a large tail while the other...

“Alok.”

“I want us to leave belonging to one another.”

Your shaking hands dropped the large bag and his slid to hold both yours in his large one. “If we leave together, we’ll live together too won’t we?”

Even your head shook now, from side to side, hoping to discern the moment as waking or dreaming. “Alok. Of course, because...Of course we will.”

“Oh, please say it,” he said, tugging you nearer still.

He repeated your name and like a spell, you found your words, “We’ll live together because I love you, too.”

His thin mouth, soft and bloodless, fell to yours from his full height, his body curling over you as he pressed against your lips again.

“Let me put it on you,” he whispered, mouth moving against yours as you clung to him.

“Hurry and then we can....Just the bangles and then we must go before it’s too late.”

Careful of his claws, he lifted you to sit on his work table before slipping his own bangle over the small tip of his tail and up further, until it stuck in place under his belt.

There was no time to remove your pants, to mold the bangle against your bare thigh as was intended, but Alok’s thick hands skimming around the metal the entire way up burned as though he were doing just that.

You slid off the table, when the bangle was snug, to melt against him for one brief moment of loving calm, your face rubbing against his neck.

You didn’t have time for more.

After disentangling from his tight hold, you threw the bag at him, near tears as he scrambled to catch it. “I know it’s selfish, but I’m so glad you’re going to be mine instead of a king.”

And then you ran, hand in hand.

@

“Hey! Heeeeey,” one of the children yelled as the whole group of five ran toward you, kicking up dust on the dirt-packed road. “My momma said that snake man eats kids who don’t do chores!”

“My papa said he can’t help with the festival because he’s growing more arms!”

“That’s dumb, Brittany. My papa is smarter and he said the same thing as Corey’s momma. He’s a kid eater!”

The group shrieked in delighted horror as they squabbled on the specifics of what was really, truly going on in their village.

You hiked the basket in your arms higher after several attempts to respond, loudly telling them to pay attention or you’d leave.

As though pulled forward by strings, they straightened as still as a child could, a few even holding their hands over their mouths to keep silent.

“All of your parents are right,” you nodded, “Every two months he must curb his huge appetite and force back his new, child-grabbing arms so he doesn’t hurt the very naughty children of this village.”

They all clamored to stress their innocence in a cacophony of babbling that soon grew into questions.

“Is that why you live with him? ‘Cause you protect the village?”

“And him,” you said.

“At the same time?!”

“Of course, it’s my job. Now go back toward the smithy before you find out just how many arms he has.”

Lunging forward in jest was enough to urge the children away, all of them teasing the other that they would be last to get there and a snake man’s lunch.

@

“You’re horrible,” Alok groaned, scales pale pink and yellow from a successful shed. “Soon, they’ll be grown-ups, running us off.”

Hefting the basket onto the dining table, you laughed, “they adore you in secret.”

The cottages here were baked of mud, hay, and a few supportive beams of wood and yours was no different. There was no splendor in the room-less house, but it was truly yours and his. And that was luxury enough.

“They had enough this time?”

You shook the canteen of dye, moving to stand next to him on the low hammock that served as bed, “And the next shipment of birch will contain enough to last us three months or more.”

Alok smoothed his claw down your face, his own expression wistful, “I feel too content to explain.”

You pressed your nose against the pink of his jaw, letting him raise you to straddle him.

“Then show me.”

[gukyi]

tattoos together | kth

summary: you aren’t necessarily terribly particular when it comes to tattoos, and when you arrive at your favorite tattoo parlor one day in search of a new addition, one in particular catches your eye, but more importantly, so does the artist behind its creation. and slowly, you come to realize that art does not need sentimental value to be meaningful—it just needs to be loved.

{tattoo artist!au}

pairing: kim taehyung x female reader genre: fluff word count: 5k warnings: mention of tattoo needles a/n: a huge huge huge thank you to @guksflavor for commissioning me for this piece, and thank you for contributing to the blm movement !!!! for anyone wondering--this was commissioned prior to my drabble commissions post, which is why it’s longer. hope that you enjoy!!!! 

When you go to a new city, your favorite thing to do is explore. 

Unpacking has never really been your forte, because it takes forever and it’s not as if any of the packages contain a surprise. You already know what’s in every single cardboard box strewn around your apartment, from the old clothes you never wear to the single set of nice dinnerware that you never use because you don’t ever have guests fancy enough to require usage of them. 

The beauty of the world is that it has so many hidden corners. So many hole-in-the-wall stores and secret alleyways shielded from street lights. Secrets unknown to even some of the locals. 

So yes, the boxes against the barren walls of your apartment can wait. 

They have been for the past couple of years, at least. What’s one more day?

Besides, if you hadn’t prioritized exploring over unpacking, you never would have found that little tattoo shop on the corner of South and Brooks, the one that looks more like a cottage-turned-overgrown-flower shop than a place where you go to get permanently inked. The walls are a pastel neutral shade, accented by exposed brick near the back and lined with drawings after drawings, new designs tacked over old ones, pages curling in on themselves after years of being hung up. 

From the inside or the outside, it doesn’t at all read like a stereotypical tattoo parlor. No black walls, no leather, no gothic lettering on the door. 

And that’s really the beauty of it all. That you would never know of this place if you hadn’t gone wandering, hadn’t decided that your unpacking of boxes could wait another couple of days (and maybe months, too). That there are secrets blanketing the city, and that you can learn them all, if only you keep your eyes peeled. 

Also, the tattoo parlor is right next to what you happily designate as the best bakery in the entire town, but that’s just a bonus. 

Still, Jungkook doesn’t ever seem to mind when you show up to a session with two coffees and a bag with two muffins inside of it. 

The bell above the door rings when you open it, stepping onto the beige welcome mat onto the tile. It’s been raining the past couple of days, and you can make out damp spots on the fabric where people have wiped their shoes. It’s busier than normal, today, several of the artists fielding requests and questions from eager clients, pointing at the designs on the wall or handing them their own sketches. 

But as always, Jungkook is free, loitering in the back corner with his hands tucked into the pockets of the dark jeans he’s wearing, as if he’d been expecting you all afternoon. 

Considering you are pretty much confidants after so many years of seeing him, you suppose that he’s picked up on your predictability—if only just a little. 

“What, don’t you have a job to be doing?” You ask instead of a hello, catching Jungkook’s attention immediately as you walk in, a bag of two scones in your hand. 

“Don’t have a job if you’re not here,” he quips back, strolling over casually and happily taking the napkin-wrapped baked good from your hand. He eats approximately half of it in a single bite as you settle down by his station, a vintage vanity that Jungkook says that the owner found at a thrift store. It’s awfully beat up as is, but looks more at home inside here, little succulents sitting, pressed up against the wall, and ink stains covering the countertop. 

“Touché,” you concede with a nod. 

“What are you here for today?” Jungkook asks over a mouthful of scone. “You got an actual design in mind or just want me to wing it?” 

“Am I not allowed to just say hello to one of my favorite people in the city?” You tease. 

Jungkook frowns. “‘One of’? Who else is there?” 

“Me, of course,” you tell him happily. “You got any new designs I can take a peek at?”

“See for yourself,” Jungkook says, motioning to the wall beside him as you giddily skirt over to take a look. You’re in here so often that Jungkook’s long foregone showing you which ones were recently added—deigning to sit at his table while you pick out the new ones from the old, which sketches weren’t tacked to the wall the last time you were in. 

There’s a couple of ones that you don’t recognize taped along the wall, or peeking out of the open binders that they have spread out on spare shelves and countertops, new designs of birds and flowers and snakes. But the one that really catches your eye is a small one, drawn on a piece of paper the size of a Post-it note. You almost miss it, half-hidden behind a much bigger sketch of an old grandfather clock, lines dark and heavy. It’s a simple line drawing, really, of the sun rising or setting along the horizon, its reflection shakily echoed in the water it stands above. It could almost be straight out of a scrapbook, a Polaroid of a real moment in time, a real sight someone saw. 

“This one’s new,” you say, fingers reaching up to page at the edges. 

Jungkook gets up to see what all of the fuss is about. “Oh, yeah, just added yesterday. You like it?”

“It’s pretty,” you say, unable to tear your eyes away from it. It’s so simple, so modest. Like a doodle that someone would draw in the margins of a textbook, like the start of a flipbook design in an old library book. “Looks almost like it was printed from offline.”

“You know everything in here is usually hand-drawn,” Jungkook chides. 

“Reminds me of a photograph,” you say as Jungkook reaches out with his hands to take the design down. “You know, like some really picturesque scene on a beach. With the sun reflected against the water.”

“Can’t tell if it’s rising or setting,” Jungkook comments, holding it out in front of him. 

“I think that’s the point.”

“So, where do you want it?” Jungkook asks. “And don’t say the bottom of your foot. I know you’re joking.”

You laugh, reminded of the time you had teasingly told him that you wanted a flock of birds tattooed beneath your feet, and he almost believed you before you burst into a fit of giggles. Pausing, you think. Where would you want something like that? Not your back, surely. To you, the whole point of a tattoo is to be able to see it. And not on your torso, either. You’ve grown rather accustomed to the feeling of a needle on skin, so the pain isn’t the issue, but a drawing like that isn’t meant to be kept secret. Not supposed to be hidden by your clothes. 

You can’t say that you’ve ever kept tattoos particularly serious, plotting out exactly what you’ll get inked and which part of your body will make it the most meaningful. Tattoos are but another art form, one that uses the skin as its canvas, and not all art is supposed to be perfect and purposeful and mean something. Art is in the eye of the beholder. It is, above all, supposed to make you happy. 

You love every single thing that Jungkook has drawn on your skin, and every single thing that was drawn before you met him. But this one is special. 

“Here,” you say, pulling up the sleeve of your shirt so it rests on your shoulders, tapping the empty space on your upper left arm. It’s surrounded with tattoos, with flowers and words and pictures, but there has always been an open space. One that you were saving for something extraordinary. 

“You sure? You know I can’t undo this as fast as I can do it,” Jungkook says, not to mock you but to make sure you aren’t making a mistake. 

Perhaps it’s your impulsive nature, the part of you that doesn’t really care about making mistakes so long as you can recognize that they happened, that makes you shrug. That isn’t terribly particular over where Jungkook places the needle. Tattoos are for fun. Taking everything serious is boring, anyway. 

“I’m sure,” you tell him, and Jungkook nods. He goes to transfer the design to a tattoo stencil as you wait, finishing up your scone. It’s a little harder now that you’ve waited a bit to eat it, not as soft as it was when Jungkook tore through his, but it’s delicious nonetheless. 

As you’re waiting, you hear the bell above the door ring. You turn around to look at the latest patron out of habit, that instinctual people-watching urge that bubbles up inside of you. 

You don’t recognize him. 

Which isn’t a first, per se, but you are in here rather often and have come to know most of the regulars, at least on a first-name basis. You wonder if he had just wandered in after strolling down the street, noticed the flowerpots hanging from the ceiling or the walls littered with designs or the cracking white paint that makes this place look like an old-timey ice cream store. His eyes, dark and brown and mysterious, go straight to the designs on the wall beside you, as if he knows exactly what he’s looking for. 

He looks down at you and the two of you meet eyes, his partially hidden by his caramel brown hair, yours looking up at him because it feels like you can’t turn away. There is something about him that makes you want to ask him to come here more often. Just so you can see him again. 

“Oh, Taehyung!” 

You turn back to see Jungkook returning with the design on a stencil, toothy smile widening when he sees the boy in question, a wave of familiarity rushing over his features. 

“Jungkook,” Taehyung says, and the two of them greet each other the way that all men do, with that unspoken hand grab-turned-back pat. “Was in this part of the city and thought I’d stop by. See how my favorite skin artist is doing.”

“Ugh,” Jungkook says with a roll of his eyes, “I hate when you call me that. It’s weird and makes me sound like I make art with skin.”

“Don’t you?” Taehyung poses teasingly, making Jungkook shove him playfully. 

“Shut up,” Jungkook responds, heading over to where you’re seated and placing the stencil down on the table. “Y/N here is getting one of your designs on her arm.”

That has you engaged. 

“You drew this?” You ask, picking the stencil back up and holding it out to him. 

Taehyung takes a couple of steps forward and reaches a hand out to look at the drawing in closer detail, before nodding. “Sketched it a couple of days ago. Jungkook said that it might make a nice tattoo.”

“Jungkook has terribly good judgement,” you agree. “I didn’t know you drew for Jungkook.”

“Eh, it’s not a job or anything,” Taehyung says with a shrug. “I like doodling things on the side. Jungkook being a tattoo artist is just a bonus.”

“I’ll say,” Jungkook says with a forced cough. “Y/N’s got a couple of your drawings actually, Tae. That one of the cherry blossoms, and the one with the teddy bear.”

“You did those, too?” You ask, getting more and more pleasantly surprised with every minute that passes. 

“You kidding?” Jungkook scoffs. “Taehyung’s art is all over this place. My boss is actually getting kind of annoyed with how much real estate his drawings take up, but clients seem to really like them, so they stay.”

“So you’re saying it’s not my infectious personality?” Taehyung quips, making you laugh. He and Jungkook seem to go well together. 

Jungkook sighs, a smile tugging loosely at his lips. “Get out of here, I’ve got a client,” he says fondly, motioning to you. 

“Kicking me out after five minutes? I think that’s a new record,” Taehyung says, peering at the old clock on the wall. 

“Don’t get used to it,” Jungkook says, even though it’s obvious that the both of them already are. Jungkook’s too kind, too sweet, too wonderful to ever turn away a friend. Even if he does have a client. 

“Nice to meet you, Y/N,” Taehyung says with a tip of an imaginary hat. His smile makes the blood rush to your cheeks, charming and for some reason, irresistible. “Hope that we see each other again soon. I’d love to see your tattoos.”

“I hope so too,” you say, positively enchanted, as he exits, the bell ringing on his way out. 

You wonder why you hadn’t met him before. You suppose that you just always missed each other. 

You sort of hope that, after this, you never do.

You run into Taehyung a couple of days afterwards in the bakery next door to the tattoo parlor. You’re standing by the coffee counter, chatting to one of the baristas who always teases you for buying two of everything whenever you’re there, when you spot him wandering in, the same curious look on his face. He doesn’t notice you at first but you see him straight away, recognize him instantly. It looks like he just accidentally stumbled upon this place, like he had been walking and walking and walking and when he looked up, he was inside. 

You wonder if Taehyung comes here as often as you do. Wonder if he makes an effort to always stop in since he drops by the parlor on a regular basis. Wonder how long you’ve gone, cruelly so, just missing each other. 

“Y/N?”

You look up to see him gazing at you, a lopsided smile tugging at his features. Next to you, the barista hands you your bag of baked goods, two as always, and winks before getting back to work. 

“Hey, I didn’t see you come in,” you lie, hoping that he didn’t catch you ogling him as he walked inside. “You stop by often?”

“Whenever I get the chance to,” Taehyung says back. “I like carbs and coffee.”

“Then I suppose you’ve found the perfect place to be,” you say. And then, in a blaze of courage, you ask, “Are you just popping in, or do you want to sit down for a little?”

Taehyung smiles, warm and wonderful. “I’d be happy to.”

You snag a table in the corner, facing away from the barista who keeps sending you nonsensical and exaggerated facial expressions and gestures, because this is not a movie, and he is not your beautiful love interest who waltzes into your life and sweeps you off your feet. Even if he is rather beautiful. 

“I got two pastries,” you say, tugging them out of the bag, still wrapped in napkins. “Want one?”

Taehyung chuckles as you hand one to him. “Do you always get two of what you order?”

“Hey, I like carbs too,” you tell him defensively, making Taehyung nod in agreement. Seeing as you bought them just a few minutes ago, they’re still warm, soft between your fingers as you pull apart the dough and slowly take a bite. It tastes even sweeter than usual. 

“Do you come here often?” Taehyung poses. 

“Anytime I drop by the parlor,” you add cheerfully. “And sometimes even when I don’t.”

“We seem to always be missing each other, then,” Taehyung muses. 

“Hopefully that will change,” you add with a grin. “Jungkook finished my tattoo a couple of days ago. Do you want to see?”

“The one of my drawing?” Taehyung asks, even though he already knows the answer. 

“What else would there be?” You say, pulling up the sleeve of your shirt to reveal the design. It’s only been a few days, so the tattoo hasn’t had nearly enough time to fully heal, but the sketch is just as prominent as it was when it was first pressed into your skin. It fits perfectly in the empty space that was there before, the lines filling out the blanks between the other pictures. Almost as if that spot had been waiting for the right thing to fill it. Almost as if it had always belonged there. 

Taehyung’s mouth opens in awe as you show him, the skin still raised where the needle had pressed against it. You have to say you don’t really mind showing off your tattoos to others, especially when they bring you so much joy yourself, and people are usually more appreciative than disapproving, but watching the way Taehyung’s face lights up when he sees his design, his sketch, his art on your skin makes your heart beat something terribly fierce. 

The beauty of tattoos is that it is permanent art. Art on the wall of a museum will need to be constantly restored, will be moved from place to place as people bid hundreds of thousands of dollars on owning it. But tattoos follow you wherever you go, will keep you company no matter what the circumstances are. It is art that is permanent, because it will never leave you. 

It seems that Taehyung has realized that as well. 

“Wow, I—” Taehyung says, rubbing at the bottom of his lip, unable to tear his eyes away from the dark ink decorating your body. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I’ll let Jungkook know that you really like it,” you say, pleased. “He did an excellent job, as always.”

“Why?” Taehyung asks, the simple question being the only word he’s able to form, the only thing he’s able to think. 

“‘Why?’” You repeat, an eyebrow raised. “Why did I get it?”

“Why did you get that one?” Taehyung says for emphasis, pointing to the design laced along your upper arm. “Out of the millions of possibilities, why choose mine?”

“Oh,” you say, at a loss for words. It’s difficult to pinpoint why. It doesn’t have a terribly sentimental meaning to you. No long-lasting symbolism that has followed you throughout your life. You chose it because it was simple and easy and beautiful. Because you thought that it would be the perfect fit. “Well, I don’t have a great reason.”

“It’s permanent ink on your body,” Taehyung says. “You must have thought it meant something.”

“I just liked the way it looked,” you say. “It was so plain and modest, but it looks like a scene out of a movie. Like a moment captured in time. I don’t know—” you shrug, “—it sort of reminds me of a Polaroid picture. The sun halfway above the horizon. Its reflection on the water.”

Taehyung is speechless, a soft grin slowly inching its way across his face. He looks fond, looks grateful and honored. Like what you told him was the perfect answer. 

“Is the sun rising or setting, Taehyung?” You ask, curious. You suppose that no matter what he chooses, it’ll be the right answer. That the sun can either be rising or setting, so long as you know that it will always return. If it’s rising, it is but a reminder that there is a whole day ahead of you. That you have so much to do and so much to look forward to. And if it’s setting, it’s to let you know that you made it another day, another twenty-four hours. The sun may be saying goodbye, but you can never lose faith that it will come back to say hello. 

Taehyung seems to ponder for a moment, eyes tilting upwards as he thinks, lets the question weigh on his heart. And then he turns to you, a glint in his eye, and he says, “You think it’s the sun?”

And truth be told, you had never considered that it might be the moon. 

In the stark black-and-white of a single-color tattoo, it could be anything you wanted. It could be a massive planet in another galaxy, could be a sweet chocolate ball sinking into a warm cup of milk. But Taehyung thinks it’s the moon. He sees the absent sky as dark, sees the circle in the center as the one that watches over you when you sleep. 

The sun and the moon are the only two constants in everybody’s life. One will never be without the other. And they will always chase after each other, circling the sky every day and every night, eternally unable to stay together. 

Perhaps it is the moon. Or the sun. Perhaps it is rising, or setting. 

And perhaps that is why you chose this design. Because of its ambiguity. Because it can mean so much despite being so little, which is what art is for, isn’t it? To see something and make it beautiful in your eyes? To always look at the world through rose-colored glasses?

No matter what it is, it will remind you that you are never alone. No, even when you have nothing left, the sun and the moon will always stand by you, watch over you. They will light up the path in front of you and guard you on your journey. 

“Well,” you ask Taehyung, smiling. You wonder briefly if that was the whole point of his design. For it to represent whatever the viewer wanted it to. And then you realize that of course that was the point. That Taehyung drew it like this on purpose. Tattoos will follow you for the rest of your days. So will the sun and the moon.“What do you think it is?”

You don’t see Taehyung for a while after that. 

Not that you had been expecting to inexplicably bump into him on the street, or anything, but you were secretly hoping that your luck had changed. That you were slowly beginning to make up for all of the moments you missed each other, all of the times you were just five minutes away from meeting, always just a little too early or a little too late. 

Still, you wish that you could see him more, or at least more often than you currently do, which is never. You know so little about him and yet there is something that draws you closer, makes you want to sift through the layers of dust between his bones, find out what makes his brain tick and his heart beat.

Ever since he walked into the tattoo parlor that day, strolling in with his hands on his pockets and witty comeback on the tip of his tongue, you haven’t been able to stop thinking about him. About how his art is etched onto your skin eternally. About how he does everything with purpose. 

Meeting him was no accident. 

Is it possible that you were always meant to know each other?

After a month, you return to the parlor, half in search of another design to add to the collection and half hoping that maybe your luck will change and you’ll be able to see him again. And if not, at least there’s always Jungkook to keep you company. 

You drop by the bakery and pick up a very optimistic three scones, just on the off chance that Taehyung may be there when you arrive. Besides, you can’t imagine Jungkook complaining about free food, let alone extra of it. 

But when you arrive, you’re shocked to see that Jungkook is busy working on someone. 

“Taehyung?” You ask, his name the first word to come out of your mouth when you enter. He’s sitting at the same stained white vanity sleeve rolled up as Jungkook presses the needle against his skin. He’s wincing, in that way that people who are getting their first tattoo do, not necessarily from pain but simply from the feeling. 

Jungkook pulls the needle away from Taehyung’s arm before the two of them both turn to look at you, equally as shocked by your presence. 

“Y/N,” Taehyung says back, almost as if your very existence has taken his breath away. 

“You weren’t supposed to come for another hour or so,” Jungkook says, checking the clock on the wall. 

“Are you complaining to the person who brings you free baked goods?” You ask, making Jungkook shake his head in a guilty no. You saunter over to the table to pull out the scones, giddy about having rightly purchased a third, when you notice the design slowly being imprinted onto Taehyung’s skin. 

It’s the same one you have. 

“Hey, what’s this?” You ask, not necessarily looking for an actual response so much as wondering aloud. Taehyung’s getting it in the same place as yours, the upper arm, a single drawing of ink on bare, untouched skin. It must mean something rather special to be his first. “Is that—?”

“Don’t be mad at me for copying you,” Taehyung says sheepishly. “The more I thought about it the more I liked it.”

“I’m not mad at you,” you tell him. 

“I don’t know,” Taehyung says with a sigh as Jungkook motions towards the needle, a silent question to see if Taehyung’s still alright with him continuing. Taehyung nods, letting only his eyes drift upwards to yours as Jungkook goes back in. “I mean, I guess it’s kind of impulsive, isn’t it? Getting a tattoo after seeing what it looked like on someone else. But when we were talking about it, I just thought about how detailed it really was. How it said so much despite being so little.”

“That’s what I thought about it, too,” you say with a grin. “It’s special. I mean, every tattoo is special, but this one is because it can mean whatever you want it to mean. Whether it’s the sun or the moon, rising or setting. And the beauty of it is that you can change your mind about it, too.” 

If one day, you would rather the moon watch over you, keep the waves calm on a quiet night, where your thoughts are loud and heavy, then it will. But if, the next day, you want some light to shine down upon the field of daisies and wildflowers in your heart, then the sun will come out. No matter which it is, it will stand guard over you, protect you from what the rest of the world will try to throw at you. 

“What do you think it is, Jungkook?” Taehyung asks, making Jungkook stop. 

Jungkook looks down at the drawing, at what he is pressing into Taehyung’s skin, and he says, “I think it’s the rising sun. Telling all of us to look forward to a brand new day.”

You smile. “And what do you think it is, Taehyung?”

Taehyung doesn’t skip a beat. “I think it can be all four all at once—the sun rising, the sun setting, the moon rising, the moon setting. It just depends on what you want it to be.”

“You know,” you say with a grin. “We’re going to have matching tattoos now.”

“Oh, are we?” Taehyung asks cheekily, even though nothing he ever does is accidental. Not the sketch, not the tattoo, and certainly not its placement. 

“We are,” you say, pulling up your sleeve for good measure. “They could be buddies. Hang out and take pictures together.”

“What about us?” Taehyung asks. “Can we hang out and take pictures together too?”

“Are you asking me out on a date?” You pose, even though you already know the answer. 

“That depends,” Taehyung quips back. “Are you saying yes to one?”

“I think I am,” you say, pleased smiles lacing their way across your faces. Taehyung is beaming, the discomfort of a needle barely even registering, as he grins at you, charming and brilliant and bright. “And I look forward to it.”

“Me too.” Taehyung nods. 

“I’m here to hopefully get another tattoo,” you tell him, raising your eyebrows. “If you want, you can stick around and maybe we can get tattoos together.”

“Isn’t that a bit impulsive?” Taehyung smirks. 

“Aren’t you?”

And you think that, even though the universe kept you apart for so long—separated by minutes, perhaps even seconds—it sort of always knows what it’s doing. You were never not going to meet. It was just a matter of when. 

And the sun and moon will never not protect you. It is just a matter of which. 

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

[alyss-spazz-penedo]

@w1lmutt So tbh I probably could’ve had this ninth part of the unedited v!Wind fic out earlier; I already had it mostly written. But on the flip side, I’m sure you’ll be happy know that the whole story's going to be a bit longer than previously expected!

I only took my eyes off them for like a DAY, where did all these new plunnies come from aiieeee 

I don’t want to promise the next part will also be out soon bc that feels too much like jinxing it, but, um. *side-eyes the pages and pages of Stuff I've already scribbled for the next few parts*

TW: The ending scene made me cackle evily when I first thought of it. That's it that's the warning

<<First Part 8 Next>>

Twilight climbs the ladder to the lookout post the newest Link first greeted the traveling heroes from. The kid’s perched there now, kicking his heels in the open air, head resting on arms folded against the railing—just like the first time they’d met.

Such a difference a single day makes.

“Food’s ready,” he announces himself, though there’s no way Phantom hadn’t heard him making his way up. The boy doesn’t respond. Twilight musters up his patience, makes an effort to keep his voice even and nonconfrontational. “Wild made enough stew for everyone. He’s a pretty darn good cook; you’re missing out.”

Phantom doesn’t move. “Don’t need it.”

Twilight frowns. He climbs all the way into the lookout and approaches the slumped form, stopping just outside of striking distance. “You haven’t had anything all day. You need to eat, kid,” he coaxes.

“Fuck off. Don’t patronize me.” There’s no bite to the words. Twilight folds his arms, trying to project sternness. Phantom lackadaisically flips him off without even looking his way.

Twilight sighs. “...Enjoying the view?” He prods instead, changing tack.

“...A little. I’m mostly listening. I’d... forgotten what it sounded like.” A stilted pause. Phantom sighs, so quiet it’s nearly lost on the breeze. “The village, I mean. While it was awake.” 

Twilight, who hadn’t meant to provoke such honesty with his offhand comment, finds himself momentarily derailed. Phantom seems to take his silence as an invitation to continue—or perhaps he’s not talking to the other man at all, anymore.

“Aryll hugged me back today,” he says, blank. “And. Everyone’s awake. I... don’t need to sweep the porches, or trim the grass, or make sure the water in the rainbarrels is still fresh. I...”

One of the seagulls hops closer. Link holds out a hand to it automatically, but it flaps away. He stares down at his empty hand for a long moment before he seems to realize there’s no bait in it.

“It shouldn’t be this hard. It’s not anything new—I should be able to do this, greet my friends and talk to my sister and help out where I’m needed. I used to. I know I used to.”

The silence stretches.

Twilight finally sighs, breaking through the tension that had settled gauzy and ill-defined over them. “I came up here for a reason. I need to talk to you.”

Phantom finally deigns to look at him, giving the other a droll look from the corner of his eye. “Of course you do. You wouldn’t be here alone otherwise; you guys have been paired off all day.”

Smartass. Twilight hisses a breath through his teeth. “Look, it’s about Time.”

Phantom tenses.

“You’ve been hurting him. You’re going to stop doing that,” he informs the kid.

Phantom’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m not going to attack you guys again. And I apologized for the-”

“I’m not,” Twilight grits out, “talking about a physical wound.”

The boy doesn’t understand. How can the boy not understand? Twilight wants to pick him up and shake him.

“As far as I can tell, your only impressions of him come from legends that reverie him, and memories that hate him. He’s not whoever it is you’ve built up in your head, Phantom. Try opening your damn eyes for a change.”

Twilight stares the younger boy down. He needs the kid to understand: he is deadly serious about this.

The little hero is wide-eyed with confusion, uncertainty grinding away his usual guard. Phantom visibly chews over his words, slow, like they might make sense the third time where they didn’t the first. Skepticism paints his face. He still doesn’t get it. 

But he nods. Agreement, however reluctant. Twilight will take it.

"Now come on," Twilight huffs. He stalks away. "Wild's made food; the least you could do is not let it go to waste."

~o0o~

Phantom picks at his dinner. Like he'd told the Hero of Twilight, he doesn't need it—hasn't bothered with food for a long time, frankly—but refusing to eat after it'd already been doled out to him would be terribly rude. He's not so far gone that he's forgotten all his manners.

He and Aryll sit back-to-back in a ring of people, surrounding the roaring beach fire one of the visitors had made to cook with. It's still odd, feeling something moving and breathing so close to him, but... it’s not so bad when no one’s trying to grab him. He’s fine as long as nothing's moving too quickly in his personal space.

Pressed against his sister now, he remembers the times he'd hug the statues or lean on them for comfort. He throws a few token comments into the soft evening conversation, just to hear those real, actual voices respond to him, and this alone is leagues better than relying on his memory and imagination to fill the silence.

Listening to Aryll’s excited chatter, to the gentle shifting of over a dozen living bodies gathered on the same beach... he realizes how much he’d missed this.

It’s not perfect. But for the first time in a very long while, Phantom finds himself held in the grip of a feeling that could almost pass for peace.

~o0o~

They send Grandma out to sea that night.

Dusk is not the appropriate time for someone to set sail on a long journey. But for her last voyage... the darkness will see her safely to her destination. That’s what the villagers say, at least.

Phantom’s lost his share of people over the years. He hates that he should be used to goodbyes—hates hates hates that this time is different.

(It’s not even that she’s family; he was old enough to remember his parents, after all. No, the difference between Grandma and everyone else he's lost is that he is so much more directly responsible for her death.

He might've loved and missed some of those others comparably, but Grandma... Grandma is one of his mistakes.)

~o0o~

Tetra finally comes to him in the morning.

She’d been avoiding him, and he’d been letting her have her space—no matter how much he ached to have her back again. She had every right to be angry at him, after all.

(He’d failed her. In every way that mattered, he’d failed her.

All that strength and he still couldn’t keep her safe; all that resolve and he still couldn’t get her back before Bellum had dug it’s claws in deeper than he could pry out of her; all that time, and still no Hyrule to show for it. He couldn’t even avenge her, in the end; the traveling heroes had robbed him of that killing blow.)

So of course she’s angry. Of course she’s disappointed in him, of course she's been avoiding him, of course of course.

There is a time and place for regrets, Phantom knows. That time is not now; that place is not here. Not when he’s shoulder-to-shoulder with Tetra—his best friend, his partner, his anchor—finally, finally awake.

And yet. And yet.

She stands next to him without a word. They watch the dawn like that—together, with neither able to bear looking at each other.

~o0o~

The sun is fully up by the time her idiot speaks.

He fingers the mark on the back of his hand in lieu of looking her in the eye. “Do you think the power of the gods could bring her back?” He asks. He doesn’t look at her as he says this, gaze fixed on the distant horizon. “Not forever. Just... just for a little longer.”

She feels cold. “I thought we’d agreed never to make a wish.”

“...Yeah.”

Tetra scowls. “How seriously are you asking? Is this the grief or the insanity talking right now?”

“I... I don’t know.” His eyes belie this—calculating, intent. He’s looking out at the ocean, but she can’t tell what it is he's actually seeing.

“I heard the story from those other heroes. How long?” She grabs him by the arm, yanks him around until he’s forced to look at her. “How long has it been?” She demands.

Link rips himself away from her touch. “I don’t know,” he lies.

She punches him on the arm for that. He winces but she can tell it’s entirely for her benefit; he’s not hurt at all. Her blows don’t reach him anymore.

She probably hasn’t reached him for a long time, now.

“Give it to me,” she demands—suddenly, inexplicably furious. He regards her warily. She barely recognizes him anymore. “This has gone on for long enough. I never should’ve let you try to carry this power alone. Give me the Triforce, Link.”

Link’s eyes narrow. For a moment, Tetra is convinced he’s going to refuse—that she’s going to have to enlist her crew and maybe those outside heroes to hold the idiot down so she can pry the corruption from his hand. 

But no. Link deflates and, for once in his life, makes things easy for her. “Okay,” he agrees, all wilted and sad and nothing like the spunky kid who once demanded a ride to the Forsaken Fortress from her on this very shore.

She lets him twine their hands together, goddess marked to goddess marked. The symbols glow together, synchronized in a way their bearers used to be, and when they open their eyes Tetra has an extra golden triangle on her hand.

The Triforce of Power is a trip. Link’s eyes are blue again, and they widen in alarm when she pins his wrist, when she seizes him by the collar and drags him around like it’s nothing. “That’s not enough,” she growls. “I said, give me the Triforce. All of it, Link.”

“Tetra- what are you-”

“Give it to me!” She shakes him a little. “Now!”

“No! Have you lost your mind-”

She backhands him. It's the easiest thing in the world.

He goes staggering, one hand flying to his cheek and the other reflexively dragging that terribly familiar sword from thin air. He freezes before he can raise it against her. "Tetra...?"

"Fine." She cracks her knuckles. "The hard way, then."

"What are you doing?"

He looks frightened. Of her. Is this what they've come to, now? Tetra could almost laugh, could almost cry. She draws her blade instead of doing either.

"Making sure something like this never happens again," she vows, eyes burning gold, and strikes without holding back.

[chews-erotically]

Waxing Gibbous 

Pairing: Ezra + femNurse! Reader

Rating: Hard M / 18+ ONLY

       * Warnings: Angst, violence, SMUT/ threesome mmf/ fingering/ oral (m/f, f/f), assault, PTSD, Very Dark Thoughts

      * Summary: Negotiation, implementation, consternation, consequences

      * Word Count: ~2500k

PART FOURTEEN

    You tread your new dynamic with care and consideration. Ezra asked you, again and again, if you were sure. He knew people got jealous, no matter how open they may seem to experimentation at the outset. Ezra has been around, of that he’s made no qualms of reminding you. He’d seen arrangements blown up in both the heat of passion and in the dry planning stages. He professed to you in a million different ways that he would sooner lose a limb than jeopardize your partnership.

    “If this is to have even a whisper of eventual occurrence, Dovie, the channels of communication must remain patent and our exchanges honest. There must be not one shred of doubt and uncertainty. I have seen the strongest of unions crumble to dust through the mismanaged impropriety of baser desires.”

    His eyes were warm, yet somber. The uptick at the corner of his mouth belied the serious set of his features. You knew he had concerns. His hands grasped yours, your knees canted toward one another as you sat on your couch.

    You trusted him implicitly. You had never been in a situation such as the hypothetical you were now navigating. Your past dalliances had not lacked variety, however they had not been frequent. Indeed, before Ezra you had been without physical intimacy for well over two years. 

    From the beginning, you had discussed ground rules. Ezra relayed and reinforced to you, during each careful conversation, that you must be in agreement with one another for every step of this new equation. 

    “I will ask you ad nauseum for your explicit consent in all doings, Dove,” his hand caught your wrist and stroked a broad thumb over your pulse point. “We must ask the same of whomever we entwine ourselves with. It truly is the crux of all pleasure, of the give and take of Eros. To know that what all parties deign to both imbibe and impart is agreed upon and accepted.”

    “I understand, Ez.”

    Perhaps at least as important as the concept of consent to Ezra was the unity with which you were to approach any and all potential arrangements. 

    “There must be no part of this endeavor in which we are not together,” his voice was calm and even, filled with soft affection as he rubbed your fingers between his palms. His eyes enveloped you, drawing your own gaze into deep and hypnotic pools. “I will do nothing, my gaze will not linger on another without you beside me. I will ask the same of you. Nothing is to transpire without each of our individual presences within one another’s orbit.”

    You both further discussed your terms over the course of the next several days. Ezra wanted your absolute certainty; the faintest doubt in your mind must be immediately and honestly expressed the moment it arose. You discussed your limits, safe words. Your frank conversation often left you both inflamed, tearing at clothing and gasping into each other’s hungry mouths as he impaled you on his cock, whispering a continuance of your plans that left you groaning and grunting like a desperate animal against any surface he’d seen fit to take you against. 

    You had initially brought up the idea of another couple; Ezra had immediately vetoed. He explained that the dynamics would be too touchy, perhaps volatile. Involving another couple may lend complications to what could be construed as an already precarious adventure. 

    “Not for the first time, Dove. Men in love, even in lust often house a primal directive to possess and claim. I will not place you or any other in such a position, at least for our first time.”

    It did not matter to Ezra whether your first partner was male, female or elsewhere on the gender continuum; he relayed he’d had pleasurable encounters with all persuasions. He left it up to you.

    After some careful consideration you’d settled on engaging with a female for your first time. You loved Ezra more than the moon and stars, but there was something about the curves and soft, pillowy flesh of a willing and open woman that brought heat to your chest and caused a buzzing in your brain that left your blood rushing in your ears and your mouth dry.

    He’d flashed his Cheshire smile at your declaration and enveloped you in a crushing embrace, whispering devotionals against the crook of your neck.

 ******

     The girl you’d found was tall, nearly Ezra’s height. She wore a sequined dress that glittered like a garnet against the light of the soft Edison bulbs on your end tables. Her laugh was musical, it reminded you of wind chimes made of hollow bone. She laughed often; this was what had drawn you to her.

    She’d been leaning back on the bar of the club you’d spent weeks visiting. It was a small, intimate location festooned with antique rococo furniture draped in tapestries of purple and scarlet. You’d taken your time, easing into the sophisticated atmosphere, acquainting yourselves with staff and regular patrons. The rhythm of the location was languid, sensuous. You could almost picture nude, rubenesque concubines reclining against the velvet couches while old-world Jazz plucked tinkling notes in the incensed air. It was perfect, and the intimate setting was ripe for measuring the potential of the various patrons who walked through its doors.

    So, it was the joyous, full-bodied laughter that had drawn you to her. Ezra let you take the lead, staying back to watch you. You ingratiated yourself to her easily, offering her a drink that she gladly accepted. As you both made your way to the ornate couch upon which Ezra perched, you noted him watching intently, lids hooded, finger idly stroking the lip of the glass in his hand. His eyes were tide pools, drawing you to him, hypnotizing.

    Predatory.

    And so the girl, named Andra, sat betwixt you as you began your dance. You flirted shamelessly, throwing your head back, leaning forward to give her a glimpse of what was underneath. You noticed her gaze linger there, and felt your adrenaline spike. You took a chance and brushed the knuckles of one hand against the side of her knee as you reached for your drink. The knee moved to press against yours.

    Ezra was much quieter than usual, allowing you to steer the conversation. He’d chime in occasionally, but for the most part his gaze lingered on your animated face. His eyes smoldered, his arm extended down the length of the back of the couch.

    At one point you stood, excusing yourself to the restroom. Andra excused herself as well. You entered the unisex fresher and before you had time to react Andra had you pressed against a stall door, her hands in your hair, her tongue curling into your startled gasp. You froze only momentarily before returning her kiss, framing her own soft face with your hands.

    Your lips tangled for endless moments before you came back to yourself, forcing a break as you reluctantly pulled away. You both panted in silence, chests rising and falling in rapid succession, before Andra spoke.

    “I like you.” her smile was small, shy. The brazenness had melted away with interruption of affection.

    You huffed out a laugh.

    “I like you too,” you paused, considering. “Do you like him as well?”

    Her soft chuckle was an echo of yours.

    “He’s very handsome.”

    “I agree.” You grasped her hand in yours, meeting her gaze. Your eyes became serious, your words measured like sordid currency.

    “Would you like to come home with us, Andra?”

    She would be delighted to, she replied. She really never did things like this, she said. She kept mostly to herself, but she had just received word that she had been approved for a loan to open a private art gallery. She felt like celebrating.

    “She feels like celebrating, Ezra,” you quipped when you returned. He immediately stood, nodded once, paid the tab. He pulled you aside briefly before you left to walk home.

    “Sweet girl, I cannot help but notice your lips are swollen, almost as if from some form of vigorous contact…” he whispered, his expression unreadable.

    You shrugged. “She kissed me in the bathroom. It took me by surprise.”

    His gaze darkened, lips set in a grim line. Your heart jumped into your throat.

    “Always together, remember? Rule one.”

    You found it difficult to meet his eyes when they burned into you like hot ash.

    “I’m...sorry, Ezra. It won’t happen again. I lost myself.”

    “It’s okay to lose yourself, Dovie, just don’t jeopardize the trust we’ve agreed upon so ardently.” his hand grasped your chin, tilting your face to his as his lips ghosted over yours.

    “I love you so fucking much.”

 ******

     “Look what you’re doing to our lovely conquest, Dove,” Ezra cooed, his chest slicked with sweat, one hand slowly pumping up and down his engorged cock. He knelt behind you, fingers in your quivering cunt as you lapped at Andra spread out and eager while your mouth worked her. You flattened your tongue and alternated long, slow licks with wrapping your lips around her hard little bud. Andra was keening, sobbing, canting her hips up toward you as you desperately worked to take in the flood of slick that poured out of her.

    You thrust your hips back forcefully as you came up for air. Your mouth and chin was drenched in her come, it was intoxicating and made you feel feral. You were working toward your third orgasm of the night, having already come twice just from the friction of your grinding clit on the surface of the blanket beneath you. Ezra leaned forward to capture your mouth, moaning at the taste of your eager lover.

    “See how she falls apart so easily for you, legs quivering uncontrollably? She’s soaking the sheets beneath her. She cannot begin to keep those gorgeous noises from spilling, much like the slick from her twitching hole..”

    You cried out, lost in the feeling of being tugged so deliciously both forward and backward between warring sensations. 

    You felt the blunt head of Ezra’s cock at your trembling entrance, and you pushed back one again, desperate for him to fill you as the head of his cock nudged against your clit, then notched at your tight, soaked entrance.

    You groaned loudly into the weeping slit before you as he sheathed himself inside of you and when his hips finally made contact with the backs of your legs, you bucked against him.

    “Fuck, Ezra,” you sobbed. “So fucking good oh my fucking gods….”

    He remained still as you fucked yourself back onto his turgid length once, twice, three times and then the wire pulled tight within you was snapped again, your arms trembling violently before you collapsed forward, gasping and screaming into the soaked blankets beneath you. Andra scrambled up the mattress and shuffled back to where you were connected. You felt her hands on your hitching ass as you spasmed uncontrollably around Ezra’s hard, slick cock.

    Ezra was moaning as he went deeper, grinding his hips up and down against your spasming cunt as your come flooded out around where he speared into you.

    “Ooooooooh yes, oh yes beautiful girl, let it out for me, soak this fucking cock, you feel so fucking good, you get so fucking tight when you come on my dick like this..”

    As you came down from your high, your hips dropped and you lay almost motionless except for the aftershocks that coursed through you.

    You heard Ezra moan again and turned with dazed interest to glance over your shoulder, where you observed Andra taking Ezra’s cock down her throat. She bobbed on it, taking down an impressive amount of his length as her hand massaged his balls. 

    Ezra’s expression was one of concentration, his eyes squeezed shut, mouth hanging open as he gasped as he was drawn, again and again, into her mouth.

    You watched the scene in front of you, and it occurred to you that there was a complete stranger giving Ezra pleasure, that it was someone other than you. You felt confused. Why did it feel like this so suddenly, when only moments before you’d enthusiastically had your entire mouth on her clit, your tongue inside of her?

    It didn’t bother you then, so why now?

    The longer you lay there, the more discomfort you felt. You didn’t like it. Wordlessly, you extricated yourself from the bed and silently donned your silk robe. You stood at the foot of the bed and observed what was happening before you, your skin growing tighter and tighter the longer you stared.

    What is wrong with me? This is okay, it was what you’d agreed upon.

    The longer you tried to deny it, the stronger the waves of deep, red tumult built and crashed around your foggy mind.

    “....Dove?” a hesitant question, unsure. Ezra had stilled, almost frozen on the bed. His eyes were dilated, blown black, but there was a very specific brand of concern etching his features. Andra watched you warily, as if suddenly aware that she’d waded into some unspoken, uncertain territory. You watched her begin to back off the bed slowly, as if distancing herself from an apex predator.

    You felt storms building; you struggled to steady your breath, chest heaving. You felt control slip from your tenuous grasp.

    You felt rage.

    Ezra had talked about the dark force of possession, of needing to own and claim among men in such arrangements as this.

    You realized this applied to women just as well.

    Ezra was yours, this woman had him in her mouth, your cock was inside of her, this strange woman you’d just met who dared to give him pleasure while you were RIGHT. THERE.

    Your mind was blank, your perception of movement coming to you like frames in an old slide projector.

    Click.

    You stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed and expression blank.

    Click.

    You vaguely saw Ezra move from the bed and grab his pants. He was confused, eerily silent.

    Click.

    You had just a moment to process the sudden look of shock and panic that crossed Andra’s face as your hands wrapped around her neck.

    There was shouting, Andra’s face was red, turning purple, her hands scrabbling desperately to break the vice-like grip of your fingers pressing into her throat, her eyes bulging. Her heartbeat was a fluttering bird beneath you, a pitiful animal caught in a snare.

    Larger hands were grabbing at you, the shouting continued. You could not make out the words, so hypnotized were you by the sight of panicked, waning consciousness before you.

    You were flung backward, your hands pried roughly off of yielding flesh, your grip faltering.

    Your back hit the wall. Ezra was staring at you with wide eyes. He looked terrified.

    Andra was just to the left of numb terror, gasping and sobbing the breath back into her burning lungs.

    You looked down at your hands, clenched and shaking. Your whole body shaking.

    You were a monster.

    You turned, stumbling desperately through the doorway and into the hall.

    You pulled the robe tight around you and rushed out, out of everything, attempting to leave yourself behind.

    Running.

Tags:     @ifimayhaveaword, @rzrcrst, @absurdthirst, @cinewhore, @hopelikethesun, @yespolkadotkitty, @sin-djarin, @lackofhonor, @din-damn-djarin, @mrpascals, @theocatkov, @thefineandnobleartofavoidance, @hellojustheretolookatmeemees, @cyaredindjarin, @im-like-reallythirsty, @mstgsmy, @goldafterglow, @givemethatgold, @shaqbutt, @sirianisrock, @artemiseamoon, @thatreclusewriter, @scribbledghost, @f0rever15elf, @opheliaelysia, @qveenbvtch, @hdlynn, @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa, @spacegayofficial, @ezraslittlebirdie, @ezrasarm, @ezraslittleblondestreak, @tintinwrites, @kindablackenedsuperhero, @darthadeline, @alexisinorbit, @knittingqueen13, @lueurnotes, @xakilicious, @keeper0fthestars, @huliabitch, @di-kut, @zombieaurora, @corrupt-fvcker, @cryptkeepersoul, @teaofpeach, @thestreamergirl, @frannyzooey, @mndalorians, @sistasarah-sallysaidso, @autumnleaves1991-blog, @heatherbel, @the-feckless-wonder, @millllenniawrites, @revolution-starter, @melon-eyes, @kiwi-the-first

[ineloqueent]

angel of lies | one

Brian x Fem!Reader / Roger x Fem!Reader

synopsis: welcome to the opera populaire. be careful what you wish for.

warnings: tw; mention of blood

word count: 5.3k

a/n: in honour of my birthday (i flatter myself), the much-procrastinated, long-awaited (?) saga begins! a massive thank you to jess ( @brianmays-hair​ ) and pearl ( @deacyblues​ ), the masterminds behind the premise of this fic. if you have not already guessed, this is most definitely a phantom of the opera au.

~⚘~

The stage was alive with sound.

With movement it crawled, such that from a distance it appeared to be shimmering, for the headdresses of the dancers sparkled like mirrorballs, casting flecks of light throughout the theatre like stars.

In the grand foyer, glittering crystals dripped from the ceiling, and shadows chased the balustrade statues that raised candelabras above their marble heads.

The place hummed with life, typical of the pre-show hustle and bustle, where every inch of floor was populated by activity, each person more frantic than the next, and the frenzy was only building by the minute.

The theatre became louder as the shouts grew more frequent, and the poor conductor was struggling to raise his voice over the clamour, the prima donna of the production now doing the most orchestration, in terms of chaos.

You sighed, and Meg rolled her eyes. This was going to be a long night.

Meg’s brother shot her a warning look.

We cannot afford to lose our leading lady, his look said.

“Yes, Monsieur Giry,” Meg mocked, but only when his back was turned.

“I heard that,” John hissed as he passed his sister.

But Meg only laughed.

You shook your head at her. “You really oughtn’t annoy your brother like that. He has the power to fire you from here, you know.”

“Oh, but it’s so funny when he gets like that,” Meg said. “His hair always bounces whenever he leaves in a huff.”

You stared after John, whose mound of hair really did bounce when he walked. You smiled.

Then, one of the owners of the opera, a man with dark hair and dark irises to match, made a grand gesture, and all eyes followed his hand. “Darlings, may I present the Vicomte de Chagny.”

Your heart caught in your throat, and you found that you couldn’t remember as to why Meg was giggling by your side.

It couldn’t be.

It couldn’t be him.

Could it?

In your disbelief, your mouth fell open, because there, at centre stage, being introduced as the new patron of the Opera Populaire, was Roger.

Golden-haired, blue-eyed Roger, sweet and silly, who, in your childhood, had been a companion closer to you than your own shadow. You had no fonder memories than those in which he made an appearance, laughing happily as the two of you traded stories of goblins and the rain lashed against the windows of the attic, as your father, long passed, played his violin by candlelight, as Roger shared with you the last of the chocolate.

There would never be a day when you did not think of him.

“Y/N?” Meg intoned.

“Roger,” you whispered, unable to do anything but watch him and his smiling eyes, as he shook hands with the opera personnel.

Meg frowned, standing on her tiptoes in an attempt to see above the gathering crowd, but she was unsuccessful. “The Vicomte? What of him?”

A smile flickered across your face as you murmured, “I guess we could say we were childhood sweethearts.”

Meg’s eyes widened in your peripheral vision. “Y/N, he’s so handsome,” she said.

“What,” you laughed, “do you think he’s too good for me?”

Meg pushed you lightly. “No, of course not. If anything, I’m just surprised that there are still attractive people left in the world. And god, you’re lucky to have had one of them.”

You flushed, “Meg! I have not had him, as you so indelicately put it. And he was never mine.”

“I believe I am keeping you for rehearsal, Signor,” Roger told the owner of the opera in his airy manner. He spoke rather like a prince, you thought, with his long vowels and sharp consonants, and the way his voice hummed with a cadence, as though his words were meant to be a song.

“Oh please, with the formalities,” the opera director waved a hand. “Freddie.”

“Freddie,” Roger nodded. “Well, I’ll be here this evening, to share in your great triumph!”

He shook hands with the company once more, and then departed through the wings on the opposite side of the stage.

Your heart sank a little as he left. But then again, it had been many years ago that you had seen him last, and so much had changed since then.

“Y/N?” Meg asked.

You shook your head. “He wouldn’t recognise me.”

“Of course he would,” Meg assured you, a hand on your sleeve. “He didn’t see you, that’s all.”

You weren’t so sure.

“I have a message, sir,” John was saying to the owners of the Opera Populaire. “From the Opera Ghost.”

“Oh god in heaven!” cried Freddie. “You’re all obsessed.”

John blinked, irritated at being interrupted, but deigning to continue nonetheless. “He welcomes you to his opera—”

Freddie snorted indignantly, “His opera?”

“And commands that you continue to leave Box Five empty for his use, and reminds you that his salary is due.”

The discussion continued, with an outrage on Freddie’s part, concerning the paying of a salary for someone who was not even real, and your thoughts wandered back to Roger.

He had scarcely returned to your life for a handful of minutes, and yet, your infatuation had already taken ahold once more. You wondered faintly if he had ever thought of you the way you still thought of him.

But then you were thrown from your reverie, as a cry erupted from the crowded stage.

“He’s here!”

“Who?” you said, alongside everyone else in the theatre.

Meg clutched at your arm as a hush fell over the room.

“The Phantom of the Opera,” another person shouted. “Up in the rafters!”

Gasps and whispers sparked all around, and you whirled in the same direction as your companions, each of you straining your eyes in an attempt to see past the darkness of the rigging.

One of the opera directors called for silence.

“There’s no one there,” he said, and the masses fell calmer again, turning away from the rear of the stage and grumbling about making a fuss over nothing.

But you didn’t turn away; you stared into the abyss.

And then a shadow swept across the scaffolding, like dark fabric tossed in a wind, like a cloak, or a cape, and you gave a shout.

“There!” you said, your heart thudding with adrenaline, and Meg whirled in the direction of your raised arm.

“Where, where?!” she cried, but the longer she looked, the more obvious it became that whatever had previously been there was no longer.

You lowered your arm, a little dejectedly.

“Never mind,” you murmured, a crease forming between your eyes. “I thought I saw something, but I suppose I didn’t.”

“Oh,” Meg frowned, looking as disappointed as you felt.

But even as she turned away, you couldn’t tear your eyes from what you’d seen.

Because you knew what you’d seen.

You’d seen eyes— hazel— staring right back at you.

~⚘~

The darkness came so easily these days. He did not even have to turn to the shadows for it to eclipse the light. It was there at the corner of his eye, a soft whisper at his ear, a constant presence that was as calming to him as it would have been unsettling to any other.

The darkness had never drawn back in fear at the countenance of his face. The darkness had never told him that he was unloved and would forever remain unloved. The darkness had never cast him from his home, and forced him to cower in the cold when the snow bit at his skin, exposed by the coat he could not afford to own.

The darkness had always been there.

And yet, it was darkness, and so by definition, it was never really there at all. It was the absence of all things, and nothing can come from nothing.

But she was not nothing.

The light she carried in her voice, in her shoes. She was as light on her feet as she was in her spirits, and it made him want to change.

But he knew naught of change, and so it would not come.

Not without her.

But with her… Perhaps.

~⚘~

The production had barely begun, and yet Roger was already leaning over the banister to bring himself closer to the stage, as close as he dared to go without tumbling into the audience on the lower level.

He had hardly been able to believe his eyes, his ears, when she had taken to the stage. For all he could tell, her shimmering gown might well have been made from the waters of a moonlit river, and her eyes bore the same gentle glow they had always borne, and her voice was as beautiful as ever. Roger wondered if she would deny her talent still, if he were to tell her of it again, this day.

He could not deny the warmth which spread through him at the sight of her, and nor did he wish to. He would bring her flowers after the performance and tell her again of her talent.

And maybe, he would tell his Little Lotte what he had never been able to tell her all those years ago.

Maybe he would tell her that he loved her.

The production had barely ended before Roger had left his place on the balcony, in favour of hurrying down the stairs to where he would not miss seeing her.

Her. The only one who mattered.

~⚘~

Their calls echoed, praise upon praise where none before had existed, where previously you had lived in an echo chamber of your own mind, where you had been forced to endure the clamour of every voice that hissed— not good enough, not good enough, you’ll never be good enough.

Where had they been when the desperation had settled into the hot blood that coursed through your veins, painted your toes in horrible hue when you had danced for too many nights without a penny to show for it? Where had they been when your father had died and you’d have given your voice itself to have him back, to feel once more the touch of hand upon your shoulder, assuring you that he was there, that you were there?

Where had they been?

Their affectations you would have wished to endure as little as you wished to endure the echo chamber inside your head, for they would have shouted if a man had ridden a horse across the wooden framework of the stage.

But there was another sound. There had always been another sound.

In the darkness there was a solace— a comfort, almost— and a low, steady hum.

A voice.

An angel. Your father had always promised you that there would be an angel.

And he had been right.

An angel of music, to light the quiet moments between your thoughts, when friends were few and the cold grew monstrous teeth.

There had always been music in your ears— a tune to be hummed, a dance to be danced— and you could not quell the urge to sing when it came to you. That was how you had found your way to the Opera. It had called to you, far stronger than anything you had felt since your father had passed, since Roger had left.

Roger.

He was here. And he was here tonight. What had he thought of the show? Of you? Or were your fears to be realised, that he had not recognised you at all?

The candle in your peripheral vision flickered, subject to the whims of a draft.

The wind does not whisper indoors.

A shiver ran down your back, as sure there had been fingers to skim down your spine, the softness of the action turned sinister by the anonymity of the hand.

And then— again— a voice.

It bristled on the air like electricity, like a live wire simply waiting for the right person to make contact and ignite a fire.

It prickled on the back of your neck.

You turned, your movements slowed by a strange sort of fear, and yet, you wanted to know whose voice it was. You intended to make that contact, for so long had you lived without any sort of fire at all, and you were tired of being burned out.

“Where in the world have you been hiding?”

You nearly jumped out of your skin when Meg’s call reached your ears, the sound of her dainty footsteps growing more distinct as she approached. The shadow at the corner of your eye was snuffed out as surely as any flame.

You felt your shoulders lower ever so slightly, half in relief, half in disappointment.

You had been so close to knowing that the lack of knowledge was now almost too much to bear.

“Really,” she went on, with a little huff. “You were perfect. I only wish I knew your secret.”

“Meg,” you said, and she tilted her head like a curious fawn. “When your brother brought me here to live… whenever I come down here alone to light a candle for my father, a voice from above and in my dreams…” You trailed off, thinking of the soft baritone you could call to mind at will, it was so frequently present. “He was always there,” you murmured. The memories lulled you, quieted your senses, as though you were walking in a dream. “You see, when my father lay dying, he told me I will be protected by an angel. An angel of music. I used to dream he’d appear…”

You were quite sure that Meg had made a response to your musings, but you were not well aware of what that response had been, and nor could you find it in you to care. There remained suddenly only a singular thought within your head, and that was who? Who was the voice? He was the darkness, you were sure of it. He was the comfort, the peace amidst the chaos of the world, but he was evasive, the unseen genius. You longed to know the face of such an angel. You did not know for how much longer you could go on not knowing.

You blinked, and became conscious of the fact that you were no longer in the chapel. Meg had led you from it, and the two of you now weaved behind the screen, in the space between the stage and its rigging, your friend leading you by the hand.

“Y/N, your hands are cold,” she whispered, and her own face was pale, a mask of terror.

You wriggled your fingers slightly in her grasp. She was right; you felt as though the warmth had left your very blood. But though your skin was cold, you were not. You burned brighter than ever, as bright as the candle you lit, night after night, in the memory of your father.

“I know,” you answered. “But I am not frightened.”

~⚘~

It was John whom you saw first, following the show.

He placed a hand on your shoulder, and when he smiled, you thought that perhaps he considered you family as much as he did Meg. It made you feel a little less alone in the world.

“You did well, Y/N,” he said.

Then, to your puzzlement, he handed you a single red rose, upon the stem of which was tied a silk ribbon, in a pretty bow which shimmered onyx black in the dimly lit dressing room.

You had the strangest feeling, looking at that bow. An overwhelming sense of déjà vu, as though you’d somehow seen that exact shade of black before. In a dream, perhaps. Or in another life, if there were such things.

A shadow stirred at the corner of your eye, but when you turned to confront it, there was nothing but light bouncing off of the walls, and John nowhere to be found.

And Roger, standing in the doorway, with his familiar half-smile and eyes that glinted with mischief, a bouquet of flowers over one arm.

“Little Lotte thought,” he began, his smile growing as he made his way toward you, “am I fonder of dolls, or of goblins of shoes, or of riddles or frocks—”

“Those picnics in the attic,” you said, and your smile mirrored his.

“Or of chocolates,” Roger continued with a wink, setting down the flowers.

They surfaced in your mind, those memories. Bathed in golden light as though the sun shone upon them through stained glass windows, their images rendered divine in their innocence, their happiness. “Father playing the violin…”

“As we read to each other dark stories of the North,” Roger reached you and sank to his knees, his tone soft and playful and all those things you’d missed about him since before you’d known he’d be gone.

“No,” you whispered, and you thought that his eyes had never been as blue as this. Wider than the sky and bluer than the deepest of seas, cerulean and sapphire and everything in between. Every shoal and reef one could have imagined to exist shimmered in his irises, a whole other world, and it belonged to him.

And it belonged to you, when you looked at him.

“What I love best, Little Lotte said, is when I’m asleep in my bed…”

A tingle rushed down your spine as he drifted closer to you, so exquisite in his stillness, the prettiness of his being that suddenly assaulted your senses like the smell of roses.

Roses. A rose. With a black ribbon.

A gift—

“And the angel of music sings songs in my head.”

His smile grew until you thought it would take over his face entirely, and then he embraced you, tightly.

Oh, how you’d missed him and the feeling of being held in his arms, the way your chin fit perfectly on his shoulder and his cheek rested against your cheek.

“You sang like an angel tonight,” he murmured, and you sighed into the crook of his neck.

He pulled back again, and you relished the way his gaze lingered on your own, as though he could not look away, and even had he been able to, would have had no mind to do so either.

“Father said, when I'm in heaven, child, I will send the Angel of Music to you.” Roger blinked, as though resurfacing from the depths of a dream, and you perceived a change in him. “Well, father is dead, Roger, and I have been visited by the Angel of Music.”

He gave a little laugh, and there it was at once, that which had hurt you so much in the past, and still stung you now. You had thought you had grown, but really, you were still that little girl, no more grown than you had been when you were shorter than your father’s music stand, as sensitive as you’d always been.

He didn’t believe you.

He thought you were telling stories, as usual, and his skepticism was grating; it tore at your heart.

“Oh, no doubt,” he said, clearly in doubt. He stood up, brushed off the front of his coat. “And now we'll go to supper!”

You fought to make him believe you, anything to have that warmth return to his eyes once more, to turn away his disbelief. “Roger, no—”

“Change, sweetheart, and I’ll order my carriage,” he waved a hand as he strode toward the door.

“No, Roger, wait!”

The door had shut. And he had shut you out, again.

You were still those children, haunted by your losses and warned not to believe that which was strange, even if it was true.

But there was no magic in this form of youth, because it was not youth so much as the turning of a blind eye to that which one did not understand.

And Roger did not understand you. You couldn’t help but wonder if he has ever.

The lock of the door clicked, and you tensed.

The room felt suddenly cold, and you would not have been surprised if cobwebs had begun to spiral down from the ceiling, if ice had formed on the door handle and the mirror, if the flowers all around you had withered in an unbidden frost.

Then a rush of that strange wind that could not possibly exist within the walls of the Opera, and every candle in sight was extinguished. You imagined that it was not only the candles in this room, but all of the candles, everywhere, snuffed out in their prime, one by one, until the Opera turned shadowy and grey.

The frost settled on your skin as a voice rose from the shadows to greet you in the silence left in the wake of Roger’s departure.

A familiar voice.

“Ignorant fool,” came the whisper, quiet but condemning in manner, resolute in assessment.

It was close. He was close.

The angel, he was here.

“Angel,” you murmured, your eyes flitting between the shapes of the world in darkness, trying to discern the living from the inanimate, but entirely without luck. You whirled, anything to catch a glimpse, yet still there was nothing. “I hear you— speak, I listen…”

Your plea was met with silence, but his presence was not gone, so you began again. “Stay by my side... Guide me.”

You reached out your hands in the darkness, and there again was that rush of cool air, like someone moving past.

“You shall know me,” he answered. “See why in shadow I hide.” His voice lowered to that whisper again, and you felt the cold reach your very bones. “Look in the mirror.”

Toward the mirror you wandered, on some invisible path, like staring at something so horrible that one cannot look away, only this was not horror you felt, but a sort of gravitation in favour of the unknown.

Curiosity.

And there, in the looking glass, was a face, or part of one— high-cheeked and fine boned, severe in beauty, yet cold in the stare of those hazel eyes which should rightfully have been warm as a summer’s day.

But they were not.

Had the mirror been any less pristine, you would have thought it damaged, for you could see little cracks there, in his eyes. But the cracks were not part of the mirror. In fact, they were part of nothing at all, no more than a figment of your imagination. But you perceived in him a brokenness, and so that was how he appeared to you.

His skin shone like porcelain, almost blended with the half of his face covered by some fashion of mask.

And curls.

His hair was so curly that you thought there would have been curls for miles if they had all been uncoiled and the ends spun together.

Such beauty did not often hide behind a mask. You wondered why this one did.

You drew nearer to the mirror and it rippled like water. You imagined the figure reaching out his hand to you. Or maybe you were not imagining it. Maybe it was real.

And it was.

His fingertips skimmed the palm of your hand and you gasped at the touch.

There was a tremble in his hand, and you longed to still it. You curled your fingers around his wrist.

He pulled you closer to the mirror and sharply, the air left your lungs.

You felt his eyes skim down from your temples, to your jaw, until he lifted his gaze to meet your eyes. You could not breathe beneath that gaze.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.

And the darkness— it finally had a face.

“I am not afraid of you,” you whispered, feeling a heaviness like relief take over your senses, dousing you in drowsiness.

“Perhaps you should be,” he replied, and his exhale touched your lips. The blood in your veins which had been cold was now hot, and the pace of your heart made your head spin.

Then his grasp fell stronger upon your own, and he pulled you through the mirror.

Someone was calling your name, somewhere, but you found suddenly that you could not look away from the one who grasped your hand, the one whose eyes remained upon your own, even as he led you.

Where he was leading you, you did not know, but this mystery was one that had existed for far too long already, and you were desperate for answers, for a glimpse of truth in this world of shadows, where you had been blind for too long to remember what truth looked like.

So perhaps it was not the truth that you were chasing, but rather a dream, in which you would slip farther and farther from reality until the fantasy consumed you.

But what was there to miss from this place? You had no family to speak of, and the opera would surely go on as it always did. After all, the show must go on.

The walls seemed to bow inwards, and the candles mounted there danced in the hands that held them, because indeed, the candelabras were golden hands.

But you were not concerned by the swaying walls or the golden hands. All you could think of was the hand which rested lightly in yours, the eyes that gleamed softly, far more beautiful than any candle.

It soon became dark once more, as the candelabras became fewer and fewer in number, as you descended with the face of the darkness, until at last you found yourself within a small boat, which sailed swiftly across the waters of a river you had never known the existence of.

Perhaps it was the river Styx, of which you had always heard in stories. You did not spare the thought doubt, for nothing would surprise you anymore. It would seem there was an entire world beneath the Opera Populaire, and this was the first that you were seeing of it.

How many more hidden corners of the world had passed you by?

The thought struck in you a sadness, and awash with a heady loneliness, you glanced over your shoulder.

But of course, he was still there— the tall, dark shadow that had always been there, and you hoped he would always be there. The darkness still called to you, even now.

You felt a smile curve your mouth.

Then the boat crested a shore, and you turned back to the prow of the vessel, to find the walls of a spacious cavern decorated in swaths of red velvet, similar to that of the Grand Drape of the opera. All around were those candles, sparkling like supernovas in the darkness, the light glancing of off hundreds of odd trinkets, from mirrors to chandeliers, to more candelabras, and it impressed you as strange that there should be so many agents of light in a place of such darkness.

And then he was stepping from the boat and extending his hand to you again, though you could not remember letting go.

His gaze was sharp and it challenged you, dared you deny him your hand.

You did not deny him your hand.

Wordless still, he drew you forward, led you on a path amongst the candles, to the music of the night— of the river water lapping against the shore, of the sound of the velvet drapes which fluttered in that impossible wind which seemed to breathe life into every forgotten corner of the Opera Populaire, including this cavern.

You came to a stop where the ground was raised, and you at once lifted your eyes to that masked face.

“Who are you?” you murmured.

“The same as I have always been,” he replied, with a dip of his head.

“And who is that?”

“The angel, of course.” His voice was low, smooth as caramel, and enraptured by the sound, you gazed up at him. “Yours.”

“Mine?”

“Am I not your angel?” he asked, and you thought he drew closer. “Have you not always spoken to me amongst the whispers of the night? Have you not fallen asleep many a time with my name on your lips?” He was definitely closer now, for you were almost chest-to-chest, and he grasped your hands between the two of you, lifted them to his lips.

He ghosted your fingers with a kiss, and heat spread through you at the tender touch.

“I do not know your name,” you said.

He lowered your hands but did not release them, instead running one long forefinger over the underside of your wrist, a gesture behind which shivers followed.

“May, some used to call me.”

“May?” you whispered, and felt the intimacy of the name of your eternal protector hum across your lips. “An uncommon name.”

“I once had another. But none remember it.”

“Except you,” you said. “You remember.”

His eyes flickered. “I can hardly call it mine.”

This was dangerous ground. His jaw and his grip upon your hands had tightened, and though the change in demeanour was subtle, it was significant.

But you pushed back, because you had come here for answers.

“Tell me,” you said.

You took your hands from his grasp and raised them instead to either side of his face, to the cool porcelain of the mask, to the burning skin which told of fire beneath— a fire to his soul, as there was to your own.

His eyes fluttered closed at your touch and he leaned his cheek into your palm, his breath a caress across your skin.

“Brian May.”

He gifted the words to you with a shudder, and you knew in your heart that you were the first in a long time to hear them. His lips brushed your palm, and his fingers skimmed your hips, to which you leaned in closer, now almost in an embrace.

“Return my name to me,” he whispered.

To your toes you lifted yourself, and his name flooded your lips as ambrosia, everlasting, binding, but though your blood turned to fire, your bones did not become dust, unless by dust, stardust was meant.

“Brian May,” you said, and slipped your fingers beneath the mask.

With a cry, he pushed you away, roughly, and you fell to the ground as the mask fell from his face.

A tremor began in the surface beneath your feet, before it spread to the entirety of the floor and spiralled up the walls, shaking the cavern and everything within it with such force you feared the breaking apart of the very Earth.

Candles toppled from all around, and you gave a shout as one narrowly missed lighting your dress aflame, again when a mirror nearly crushed you, and hot tears of mortal fear pricked your eyes.

Until a hand pulled yours and a body shielded your own, as glass shattered and waves swelled within the winding river.

Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the earthquake receded, and your protector disentangled himself from you.

Sitting up, you wiped tears from your face, ashamed of the fear which had plagued you, and you found that the cavern was all but completely dark. Only a single candle had survived the shaking of the cavern, and its light now seemed almost garish.

Then eyes met your own in the dark, and your gaze fell upon the right side of his face, to find—

Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing but the second half of a man’s face, equal in beauty to the first half, for but a slightly over-dilated pupil which obscured the hazel of its iris.

But then again, perhaps you did not see a man at all, but a boy.

Because for all the terror in his expression, you could not see past his youth.

When he spoke this time, his voice was gravel, and a coldness settled within you at the condemnation in his tone, for it was clear that he was no protector here.

“What have you done?”

~⚘~

[xyliane]

the many lies of kanzaki hitomi to her long-suffering best friend uchida yukari

summary: when hitomi is on time to their weekend coffee time, yukari knows something is up.

notes: because I utterly adore escaflowne in ways that I don’t know if I can truly describe, and the wonderful @wuzzyletoastermac​ recently finished the show, I couldn’t not attempt a post-series write-up about...the best friend who’s only in four episodes. (I just love van and hitomi so much). G, hitomi and yukari friendship, van/hitomi mention. 1450 words.

---

Yukari knows it’s something big when Hitomi makes time to meet for coffee on a Saturday. Normally, Hitomi—best friend since forever, national track star at the age of 18, certified social worker, truly wonderful person, etc. etc.—is off with her long-distance boyfriend, or coaching track, or coaching track with her long-distance boyfriend looking pleasantly befuddled at the whole proceedings. On a rare occasion, she’ll ask Yukari for help getting Van into what can politely be termed “normal people clothes,” and Yukari can spend most of the afternoon puzzling over Van’s absolutely bizarre accent and failing to get either of them to tell her where exactly in Greece she can find someone as hot as Van Fanel.

Hitomi swears up and down that they started dating while she was doing a study abroad in Australia her second year of uni, but that doesn’t explain why the poor man 1: doesn’t speak English at least on par with an average high schooler’s cram school classes, and 2: doesn’t own a single pair of jeans not currently in residence in Hitomi’s closet. The Greeks aren’t that weird. Besides, half of Yukari’s architecture clients are based in America. She knows weird. And even by those standards, Van is weird.

Not to mention there’s some nagging part of Yukari’s brain that seems to recognize Van. It’s bothered her since they first met, and the last three years have done nothing to assuage that feeling. How silly to believe that they met in a dream or a vision. That is certainly more Hitomi’s realm.

But he loves Hitomi. It’s impossible to unsee that deep unending well of affection in his dark eyes, the soft smile that makes him look ages younger whenever she’s around, how patient he is even when she’s determined to find the perfect sweater for a job interview or the exact right cafe she claims was there the last time she was in this part of Asakusa. Occasionally, he’ll even catch her before she wanders too far afield, hand tight on her wrist in a way that speaks both to his own nerves wandering around in a crowded city (again, Hitomi went to uni in Sydney, why is Tokyo that much different) and to the way Hitomi turns back to him like a flower blooming in sunshine, all blushing cheeks and bright smile and alive in ways Yukari only wishes she could feel.

So Yukari’s a little jealous. It’s hard not to be. If it weren’t for the occasional argument blowing Hitomi’s temper sky high and Van’s own anger coming out in blistering tension, or the way that Hitomi will sometimes spend more time complaining about the weekend she’d had with him than bothering to answer any of Yukari’s questions about where exactly they’d met up, she’d worry that Van actually was perfect.

Okay well, no one she has to force into jeans against their will is perfect. Especially someone who looks like that.

So Yukari has kindly deigned to meet with her best friend at their favorite cafe on a beautiful Saturday morning, despite everything (Hitomi’s boyfriend and Yukari’s desire to sleep until 3pm respectively). Something’s off.

And when she rounds the corner at 10am on the dot, Kanzaki Hitomi is already there sipping a latte with Yukari’s favorite sitting there, still steaming. Hitomi is never on time. For anything. Ever. If she is, it’s because of her long legs and bizarre luck.

Something is definitely off.

“Yukari! I got you coffee,” she says, bright guileless grin on her face.

Yukari sits and sips. Sweet, caffeinated bliss. She almost forgives Hitomi the hour.

Not enough to loosen her suspicions, though. “Hitomi, what are you up to?” she says once her brain is active.

“Ah, well.” Hitomi casually brushes non-existent lint off her jacket sleeves. “I wanted to tell you something.”

“Is it about Van?” When her best friend’s face turns a bright pink, Yukari’s eyebrows rise. “Is he moving here?”

Head shake no. Hm.

“Did he finally take his jeans home?”

Deeper flush.

“Are you pregnant?”

“Yukari!” Hitomi screeches, face luminescent and voice far too loud for the little cafe. A few of the other patrons, including some who clearly have had as much sleep as Yukari, turn and glare at them, and Hitomi clasps hands over her own face. Yukari tries to not laugh, really. “I’m—no. And if you’re gonna be a jerk, I won’t invite you to my wedding.”

Any and all feelings of malicious annoyance vanish in an instant. “You’re—Hitomi! Congrats! That’s amazing, when are you getting married? Where are you getting married? If Van’s not moving here, does that mean you’re—where is he these days, is it going to be big or small? What should my dress look like? Do you have the colors picked out?”

Hitomi giggles through her fingers, a little on edge and clearly overwhelmed. “That’s too many questions!”

“I can write them out in a list and email them if you’d rather.”

A high-pitched whine more like a tea kettle than a woman in her mid-20s erupts out of Hitomi, and she drops her face to the table in her best impression of a puddle of melted ice cream. “I wanted to tell you properly, you know,” she mutters.

“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t let it slip on accident,” Yukari says. As much fun as it is to mercilessly toy with her best friend who completely deserves it, there are more pressing matters, particularly Yukari’s own calendar that she is going to completely shuffle around. “But before I spend the next three hours getting you to spill every detail, at least tell me when and where.”

Without moving her face off the table, Hitomi rustles in her purse, pushing a pair of envelopes at Yukari. The first is a classic wedding invitation, cream colored envelope brushed with elegant black kanji. It’s exactly what Yukari would have expected from Hitomi’s mom, who has handled the years after her husband’s death with astonishing grace. But the second…

The parchment—it’s too thick to be paper, fibrous and off-white and flecked with gold—is about as wide as Yukari’s hands spread apart, and covered in a mix of runes and curling symbols that spread across the top of the invitation like wings. In the center of the whole thing is burnt a diamond-shaped emblem with a winged dragon. It doesn’t look like any Greek Yukari has ever seen.

“Would you be the host for my reception? It’s in a month and a half,” Hitomi is asking, which under any other circumstance would send Yukari into delighted peals of laughter. She’s a planner by nature, and organizing something as momentous as Hitomi’s small wedding will be worth every moment of her best friend and her boyfriend making sappy eyes at each other.

“Of course I will,” Yukari says, distracted. Social work doesn’t pay enough for an invitation this fancy, and Van can’t even afford his own clothes. And it’s not in Japanese, or English, and is that real gold? “What is this?”

Hitomi rubs nervous circles around her latte mug. “Since Van’s not from here, and the only person who can travel is his sister, we thought, you know. One wedding here for me, one there for him.”

“Sounds great,” Yukari says, turning the parchment upside down and over onto its back, hoping that the meaning will magically appear. “Hitomi, I can’t read this.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, Yukari.” Hitomi passes a hand over the parchment, the ring on her hand glimmering bright pink in the sun, and the runes curl and shift before Yukari’s eyes like…like magic. Yukari resists the urge to rub her eyes. Magic isn’t real. Just like dragons aren’t, or friends vanishing into pillars of light.

Your presence is requested at The marriage of Van of Fanelia and Hitomi Kanzaki White, 12th Moon Present invitation upon arrival

“It’s almost like a destination wedding!” Hitomi says. “Will you come? Please? Only Mom and my brother can come, and you know Sota hates this sort of thing.”

The things Yukari does for Hitomi. “Of course I will,” she says. But before Hitomi can relax too much, she reaches across the table and grabs her best friend’s hands, digging in just a little too hard. “But Hitomi, for once, don’t lie to me about this: where on earth is Van even from?”

Hitomi gives a little hiccup of a laugh and refuses to meet Yukari’s eyes. “So, funny story…”

——

“You owe me so much cake, Kanzaki Hitomi.”

“I promise, at least one at the wedding!”

“Each wedding.”

[thisentertaining]

Instinctual - The Instincts of the Airwalkers- pt 1

Zuko wasn't sure what to think about the tales of modern day figures living and flying in the Northen Air Temple. His people are... thorough. He doesn't want to let Aang down, but he finds it hard to believe that anyone not stuck in an iceberg had escaped the eradication.

When he got to the temple, he hated being proven right. What's more, he hated seeing Earth Kingdom strangers destroying what little of Aang's heritage survived the attack of his people. But the day that the Fire Nation launches a second attack on this once idyllic temple, Zuko hates the most that he has to finally make a clear choice.

He'd thought he'd made this choice already, thought he'd made it several times over, but the question remains when he'd least like it to: Is he willing to fight against his Nation?

Read on Ao3

Read from Beginning

Azula had never been shy about calling him insulting names. In fact, he was almost certain that casual insults had been more common than ‘Zuzu’, and she certainly never deigned to call him Zuko. She’d had a lot of fodder to create the names, centering on how he clung to Mother, his inability to please the tutors, his abysmal fire bending progress, the innate weakness that she and Father saw and he’d never been able to identify to change. Most of them bothered him, and he wasn’t good at hiding it, which only encouraged her to keep using them.

The only one that hadn’t bothered him was when she called him a Theatre Nerd. Ursa had been an actress, bringing life to even their bedtime stories before Azule got ‘too old’ for them. Zuko hadn’t felt too old, but he was older than Azula, and so he’d been too embarrassed to request that they continue. Regardless, he’d loved trips with his mother to see the theatre, and even Azula had enjoyed when they went to the Ember Island Players together, if only because Ursa eviscerated the poor quality shows with a viciousness that the prodigy could appreciate.  

After Mother disappeared they never went to another play, but Azula would use the insult every time she caught Zuko cramming a theatre scroll in his homework pile or humming the notes to the overture in ‘Love Amongst the Dragons’. Zuko hadn’t minded. If anything, it had made him feel closer to his mother, as if this was a part of her that remained even though she was gone. Additionally, he didn’t really think there was anything wrong with enjoying good storytelling.

This was not good storytelling.

The man at the fire had told a story that was winding, without a clear plot or purpose. Even his terminology was off, he called airbendenders ‘airwalkers’, and acted as though it was reasonable for the main character to think it was a human-sized parrot. He only really got artistic with it at the end, and by then Zuko was as bored as Aang was enthralled. The Fire Nation teen was mentally going through the Airbender-featuring plays he’d read to give Aang a proper story when the man stopped talking.

(Technically, scrolls with non-Fire-Nation main characters were illegal unless the foreigners were the villains, but Ursa had a cache of scrolls that even Ozai had never known existed.)

(They’d disappeared the night she did; all but one. Zuko’s favorite, a biography of Avatar Kyoshi, had appeared under the turtleduck tree. Mom used to joke that she regretted letting Zuko read that one because he’d learned to be stubborn from a woman renown for her will even among a nation who took pride in their tenacity.)

“Aren’t airbender stories the best?” Aang asked happily, and Zuko felt some of his annoyance at the subpar story ease. This was important for Aang, it was good that he got the reminder that his people were not forgotten.

“Was it realistic?” Katara asked. “Is that how it was back then?”

“I laugh at gravity all the time!” Aang said immediately, referencing the man’s ending line.

Zuko snorted. “You laugh at everything all the time, Aang.”

“Well, so did the other airbenders. There used to be a running tab to see how many times you could get a pie to land on someone’s head! But it only worked if they actually got pied, if they spotted it and deflected, you didn’t get the points. Monk Gyastso won every week.”

That… hadn’t been in any of the plays Zuko was thinking of. Except… maybe that one scene in ‘As the Wind Follows’… that had been a pudding, but maybe it had been inspired by the pie thing.  Zuko was just about to ask when the man showed up with his hat, obnoxiously shaking it in front of a half-dozing Sokka. The teen scrambled in his pockets, but all of them knew exactly what he would find. Or wouldn’t find. They’d spent the last of their money at the Fire Nation Festival, and had been too busy running from Zhao since to try and pick up odd jobs.

Anything but fishing.

The man walked away with a disgusted grumble and Zuko couldn’t help but a feel a pang of guilt. Mom had campaigned for funding to be channeled to the dramatic arts back home, knowing first hand how hard it was to make a living. Here, they didn’t even charge tickets, relying wholly on the tips of their listeners. Zuko wished he could give something, but he owned almost nothing, and could not spare anything he did.

Aang jumped up and followed the man, thanking him for the story. Zuko watched as Katara and Sokka bickered about their nonexistent funds. It should be fine, they should be able to survive off of what they had until they reached the Northern Water Tribe, and hopefully they would be generous to their tribesmen and the Avatar… and Zuko would get stuff by association.

Suddenly Aang was there, moving so quickly that Zuko hadn’t seen him shift, eyes wide and smile so huge that it seemed to split his face like a alli-pelican. “Guys, they say the airbenders last week. They must have- some of my people survived! I’m not the last airbender after all! WOO HOO!”

In his excitement, the boy created a tornado under him and shot into the sky, cheering all the while.

One of the other story patrons gasped. “A giant parrot!”

______________________

“We’re almost to the Northern Air Temple!” Aang said as Appa floated past yet another identical mountaintop. Excitement threaded every syllable the boy spoke, and he was practically vibrating in his seat. “This is where they had the championships!”

Zuko squinted, though he was always squinting now. Aang had never pushed Appa to go this fast before, and as they got closer the air bison seemed to just keep going faster, the wind on their ride was much more intense than the risers were prepared for after weeks or months of fairly sedate flying with occasional bursts of speed. “The… pie throwing championships?”

“No!” Aang laughed. “For sky bison polo.” The boy launched into a well-detailed explanation that was ignored by all of his passengers.

“Do you think we’ll really find airbenders?” Katara asked Sokka, but her face was filled with hope rather than the concern and dread filling Zuko’s stomach.

“You want me to be like you, or totally honest?” Sokka asked.

“Are you saying I’m a liar?” Katara asked, affronted.

“I’m saying you’re an optimist. Same thing basically.”

She huffed and turned to the boy who had said hardly a word since Aang had made his announcement. “What do you think Zuko?” She asked, as though expecting him to be on her side.

He wished he could be. “My people are very… thorough, Katara. If Fire Lord Sozin saw them as a threat… well, neither he nor any Firelord after him were known for doing things part way.” Nor for showing mercy.

The girl cast an anxious look at Aang, pain creasing her face. In attempt to just, get rid of that look, Zuko allowed. “Although… they were nomads. How can I say that they didn’t miss a couple who were off… doing couple things. In a hundred years you could have as many as four or five generations easily. There uh, there’s a chance.”

Sokka sent him a look while Katara’s smile returned. Zuko scowled in response and looked down. Nothing that he’d said was false. It was just that… well his people were very thorough. They’d killed the last of the dragons, spiritual creatures blessed to be the first Fire Benders. If they’d managed to hunt down each and every one of them, Zuko feared that the Air Nomads hadn’t been much trouble. He shouldn’t have said anything. He’d spent too long with dwindling-nonexistent hope, he’d forgotten how much it hurt to be disappointed.

Except, maybe they wouldn’t be disappointed.

“Hey guys, look!” Aang shouted, and gleefully pointed at an impossibility.

They could see the air temple in the distance, and it was absolutely surrounded by flying figures, figures larger than any giant parrot. People. Airbenders.

His people had failed.

If Zuko hadn’t become so much a traitor, that thought wouldn’t be bringing him so much job, but looking at Aang’s face he couldn’t find it in himself to feel anything else.

Katara gasped in wonder. “They really are airbenders!”

“No they’re not.” Aang argued, his excitement having drained with starling speed. The boy crossed his arms and settled petulantly against the Bison’s head.

“What do you mean?” Sokka demanded. “Those guys are flying!”

“Gliding maybe.” Aang said angrily. “But not flying. You can tell by the way they move.”

Zuko squinted at the figures and could kind of see what Aang was talking about. “They’re all going the same paths.” He realized suddenly.  “They’re riding air currents.”

“Riding them, not creating them.” Aang agreed. “They’re not airbending. Those people have no spirit.”

Zuko caught movement out of the corner of his eye and hit the deck, grabbing a protesting Sokka and dragging his with him, though Katara was too far away at the front of the saddle. The pair had barely hit the ground when suddenly  cart glided inches from where there heads had been, a boy in green laughing merrily as he flew past. Zuko popped up with a scowl, punching out a firebending move that should have served as a warning shot just as close as the strangers dive had been. It would have, at least, if he could produce anything more than a weak-looking puff of smoke.

Sokka pat Zuko on the back awkwardly as Katara turned back to the Avatar. “I don’t know, Aang. That kid seems pretty spirited to me.”

The kid swung back up by Appa’s head, sending Aang a look, and suddenly Aang’s face morphed into a competitive smirk the likes of which Zuko had never seen on the boy’s face, and he immediately jumped off the bison, his staff growing it’s sails as he chased after the glider.

“Great. Yeah, just, go after the stranger, Aang. Great idea.” Zuko grumbled, and Sokka laughed at him.

“You’re just grumpy cause the guy didn’t notice your fire-poof.”

“It’s a good thing he didn’t notice my bending. He’s Earth Kingdom, it would have been bad for us. I shouldn’t have even tried.” Zuko grumbled, and looked away so that he didn’t have to acknowledge that it wasn’t the bending that had upset him. It’s was Aang’s face just before he jumped into the sky. It was an expression that Zuko had never seen before, but one that fit the child so well. How many times had he made it in the past? Flown circles around the other child-monks in the temples, played games with people who could actually keep up.

How much had his people actually taken from him.

Luckily, the teen was momentarily broken from his thoughts when two close-flying gliders got too close to Appa’s nose and the bison jerked back, jolting the trio in the saddle.

"We need to get to some land before it get’s to us first." Sokka said once they’d settled, and Zuko happily jumped to steer the bison to the temple, anything to keep his mind focused on anything else. Anything beyond how good it looked to see Aang racing the glider.

It wasn’t much of a race. Aang had a freedom of movement that the glider simply couldn’t accomplish, running along walls and using is air sphere where the earth kingdom boy was much more restricted. Though, using smoke to create a caricature of Aang was a decent comeback. Still, when Aang landed beside Katara and Sokka there was something impossible to decipher in his expression.

The earth kingdom teen landed shortly after, skidding halfway across the platform before stopping, and immediately other children came forward to remove the wings and tops of the cart, though it became clear that the boy wouldn’t be getting out of the cart itself as he expertly wheeled himself over to the trio.

What followed was a lot of geeking out. The kid, Teo apparently, geeked out about the airbending and Avatar-ness, Sokka geeked out about the gliding chair. Zuko geeked out about nothing and tried very hard not to see ghosts in every corner. Teo led them through the temple, and Zuko had to fight to keep his face from screwing up. It wasn’t bad, per say, but with the plays and Uncle’s teachings, he’d pictured the nomad’s temples as things of beauty, clean and simple. This was… not that. There were pipes filling so much space that the lines were hard to follow with his eyes, and the walls had become an odd off-grey color. Some of the pipes even bisected reliefs and carvings and sculptures, creating ugly holes and cracks in the likely once-beautiful designs.

It was… sad.

Probably a lot sadder for Aang. Zuko realized when the boy flatly refused to share in Teo' pride and Sokka’s wonder. Zuko followed when Aang walked away, placing a hand on the younger boy’s shoulder. Aang cast him a weak attempt at a smile as he walked him over to a large mural that had probably been stunning before it was stained with soot and marred by piping. Katara came on the boy’s other side and offered her silent support as well. “This is supposed to be the history of my people.” Aang said mournfully, gesturing at the images on monks and bison still faintly visible. One figure had even been decapitated by an extremely disrespectful pipe placement.

He wandered over to a stylized statue of a bison, the fountain now filled with disgusting polluted refuse. A plume of dark, sick looking smog burst from the statues mouth, making Aang jump back in disgust.

Zuko twitched awkwardly. “Do you want me to yell at someone? I’m really really good at it.” He offered.

Aang’s answering smile was a little less weak this time. “No, it… you don’t have to do that.”

“If that changes, let me know.”

“I will. Thanks.”

Katara, still on this bizzarely-nice kick, sent Zuko a wide smile before turning back to Aang. “I’m sure some parts of the temple are still the same.”

“Maybe. Hey, Teo! Are there any parts of the temple that haven’t been… changed like this?”

The boy, who had been deeply entrenched with Sokka about… something, scrunched his face in thought  before brightening. “Yeah! There are some platforms in the east side of the temple that are kinda tricky to get to so we haven’t done much with them! I can show you the way if you want.”

Zuko sneered, anger and guilt melting in his stomach uncomfortably. That mural was just as stained with smoke dust and ash as it was ruined by pipes. His people had brought this pain to Aang just as much as these squatters did. He’d already realized that this war was wrong, that they shouldn’t be fighting, be decimating like they were. Was it so much of a leap to think that it had never been right? It was hard to think anything else at the moment. He was furious that Aang had lost so much, and felt horrendous guilt knowing that his people had a part to play. But Sozin wasn’t here. This kid, this trespasser was. “I’m sure Aang knows this place far better than you. We don’t need a guide.”

Sokka cast him a surprised, reproachful look as Teo flinched back physically from the vitriol in Zuko’s voice, the venom in his words. The look Aang sent was understanding, almost grateful, but he shook his head. “It’s okay, Zuko. I’m- I’m upset but this isn’t Teo’s fault.” No, it was the Fire Nations’. His peoples’. His. “We would be honored if you could show us the way.”

Teo sent a hesitant smile at the boy, but still watched Zuko carefully until Katara cut in. “Sorry about Zuko. He’s just really protective of Aang.”

“I am not!” Zuko protested hotly.

“No, of course not.” Sokka mocked, having gotten over his shock. “You just singlehandedly snuck into a Fire Nation stronghold for him.”

“I mean, that-“

“And risked getting arrested by the Fire Nation to get him a teacher.”

“I just wanted Fire Flakes.”

“And you-“

“Enough! I get it.” He grumbled, and Teo laughed.

“It’s okay.” The boy said with a easy casualness. “I can understand being protective of someone. It isn’t a big deal, I forgive you. I don’t like to be mad at people anyway.”

Zuko squinted at him. “Are you sure you’re not an airbender?”

Aang laughed. “Maybe some of our philosophies have rubbed off on you just by living here.”

Teo grinned back. "Well, I wouldn’t mind that. The airbenders seemed awesome. How about this, you can tell me all about them on our way to the eastern platforms.”

“Only if you tell me how you guys ended up here in the first place.”

____________

Zuko trailed slightly behind the group and tried very hard to look as not-Fire-Nation as possible as Teo led them through the winding corridors. They were refugees, of course they were refugees. Every time you see Earth Kingdom people in weird places, it was because they were refugees fleeing the war. Which meant that his people were not only the whole reason this place got abandoned, it was also the reason why it had gotten reinhabited, why even this last spot of the Air Nomads was being changed and destroyed.

“It’s nice to see at least one part of the temple that isn’t ruined." Aang said happily as they made their way into a courtyard.

There were wooden doors surrounding the area, likely dorms, and a few noble and peaceful statues acting as guardians. Aang stared at one of the statues with the first hint of peace that had crossed his face since they’d landed. Zuko was about to ask Aang about the figure’s history when suddenly a loud voice yelled lookout, and the statue was destroyed right in front of Aang’s eyes.

Out of the dust stepped a man with the worst haircut Zuko had ever seen (and he’d tried to do a bald phoenix plume after his injury). “What the doodle?” The man asked, and Zuko was even more certain that he did not like him. “Don’t you know better than to be in an active construction zone? We have to make room for the bathhouse.”

“Do you know what you just did?” Aang asked, voice filled with a passionate fury that sent shivers down Zuko’s spine. “You just destroyed something sacred. For a stupid bathhouse!” He cried, anger so intense that his voice broke.

The man seemed entirely oblivious, “Well, people around here are starting to stink.” As though that was the important point.

“This whole place stinks!” Aang shrieked, sending a gust of wind to push the destruction machine off the mountain face. “This is a sacred temple. You can’t treat it this way. I know what it’s supposed to be like.”

“The monks?” The man asked. “But, you’re twelve.”

“Dad, he’s the Avatar.” Teo responded. “He used to be here a hundred years ago.”

“What are you doing? Who said you could do this?” Aang asked, his fury not abated in the least. “Just because you’re refugees, doesn’t mean you can destroy something sacred. Destroy history.”

The man wove a tale that would have been heart rendering, had he not said it in such a ridiculous way, and had he not been completely oblivious to the anger that was only building in Aang as he spoke of ‘improvement’ and ‘progress’. The distracted man soon had his attention pulled away as he realized the time, dismissing his conversation with Aang as though that would clear him of the repercussions.

Zuko attempted to smile at Aang. “Looks like I’m not the only one whose good at yelling.”

The boy grimaced. “Yeah, I kind of lost my temper.”

“That isn’t always a bad thing, Aang. Maybe he’ll be more careful with this place now that he knows how important it is.”

The airbender perked. “Yeah, maybe!”

Teo rolled up to them. “Hey, Aang, I want to show you something.”

The boy looked hesitant, but nodded. Zuko looked up, but Sokka had already wandered off with weird dude so he shrugged. Might as well stick with the airbender. Aang needed all of the help that he could get.  

[malachite-isms]

Your Kiss is on Their List Pt 5: Yang Xiao Long

This was familiar. This mental soup of lingering ecstacy and satisfactory subordination, she hadn’t always known it, but it was normal for her now. It wasn’t overly often that this would happen, all parties involved had things to do of course, but it was common enough that there was a sequence of events she was used to going through. As were they.

First, she would go to the club, that fateful club where she had made an impressive, if a bit unnecessary, show of force on the establishment’s security detail and owner in lieu of getting the information she needed. There, she would do some drinking, maybe a bit of dancing, or even, more recently, shoot some pool in that newly renovated nook beside the bar. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing one couldn’t find in most other nightclubs in cities like Vale. Great music though.

Then, the odd dance would begin. They would approach her, those bedeviling women, and they would flirt like they’d only met once or twice before and hit it off. They’d give her an opening line, she’d shoot something charming back and they’d go back and forth like that for a while. Then they’d invite her to the back, she’d push through the cool rush in her chest and say yes at an appropriate volume. They’d then escort her to the back, and she would positively relish the jealous looks she’d get from charmless men. Very few got the honor of meeting up with the twins in private regularly, save for Yang Xiao Long and one other.

Then they’d lead her to their room, lavishly furbished with leather furniture, modern art, and the most well-stuffed bed she’d ever been on. It was always just a little chilly in there; not cold enough for an additional layer, but you’d always be doing the little things to warm up ever so slightly. Things like crossing your arms, or being close to someone else. Part of their setup, no doubt. There, one of them would sit her on the couch and heap compliments on her while the other sat on an adjacent chair and methodically apply vibrant red lipstick. She’d catch her staring, she’d always catch her staring, and the other would know exactly when to stop talking and redden her own lips as Yang was caught in a suggestive gaze. They were frighteningly good at what they did.

Then, with gentle tugs, they’d pull her from the couch to the bed and begin the main event. They’d lean on either side of her and start with her cheeks. Gentle, lingering kisses that let her relish in the contact and warmth. They’d refresh the kiss-shaped stamp they had on her brain. They would work their way to her nose, and her forehead, and her temples, and her jaw, and her neck. Then they’d help her remove her jacket and scarf, she’d often already in a trance at that point. With only her tube top remaining on her torso, they’d kiss her neck, then her shoulders, then they’d let her slowly fall to the bed as they worked their way down her arms and to her hands.

At that point, they would ask her the question; how far would they go tonight? Yang would have to tell them, with a please. They never demanded one, never even asked for one, but she’d always say please. They’d always oblige her, if she asked for a full coat, they paint her red from head to toe. Sometimes,  when she was in the mood, she’d ask for something along the lines of “the full package,” and they’d oblige her.

Finally, they’d be done, and she’d be speechless. It had been a long time since the first occurrence of this, but she would always be speechless, staring at the ceiling, and simply plastered in impressions of lips, residue of blissful kisses that would put her firmly on cloud nine, regardless of whether or not her pants stayed on. They’d leave to the adjoining bathroom and clean themselves up.

Recently, if they hadn’t gone all that far, another step would occasionally come up. She would, without cleaning herself up, pick herself off the bed and wobble her way to the bar. She would be too love-drunk to care about the bewildered stares she’d get from the jealous and the envious, and order herself a lite beer, or even a water. Something simple to revitalize her system. There, she’d be joined by the only one to be able to truly sympathize with her, the only one who could claim to be in her shoes more often than Yang herself.

Tonight was one of those nights, and Cody Baxter was that individual.

Cody was, in many ways, Yang’s polar opposite. A passive pacifist who never looked to instigate anything aside from chill vibes. He was a writer by trade, and wouldn’t consider himself charming. Which made it as baffling to him as it was to many others when the infamously seductive Malachite Twins rented out a space in the club for the guy and showered him with affection whenever they got the chance. The only one more often covered in lipstick from the twins than Yang was Cody.

Though tonight, he was clean and Yang was the recent target.

“Y’know,” he started “,we gotta stop meeting like this.” 

“What,” she shot back, words slightly slurred “,you think you could hold up any better?”

They both chuckled like old war veterans, warmly recalling what others would consider nightmares.

“I take it this was your way of getting a ‘lightened sentence’ as it were?” he asked with a glance at the blonde.

“Yyyyyyou could say that I guess.” She took a swig of beer. “If what they did to my team was their version of going easy, I’d rather this,” she gestured to her marked self “,than whatever they were planning for an old vet like me.”

“Y’know, you say that,” he said, melancholy slowly entering his voice “,but I don’t think either of us handle them better now than when we got got for the first time.”

“Oum, the first time...”

-----------------------------

That club was so nice on her first visit, and cleaned up so nice the second, why not go again just for fun?

She was owed a drink, after all. Yang strutted into the club, the music was back, the patrons were back, and Junior was back. Back, too, were those twins who she never got to be properly introduced to.

With strawberry sunrise in hand, Yang took a seat between them at the bar. This place was worth being a regular at, best to ingratiate herself with the staff, especially the boss’s right hand girls.

But there was two of them so... right and left hand? Anyway.

“W’hey there!” she opened “So, I’m not so great at apologies, so how about I just buy you ladies a round?”

The two haughty women rolled their eyes and nodded in acquiescence.

Yang signaled to the bartender who promptly slid some fancy drinks to the twins, their favorites, Yang presumed.

“So, dunno if you’re cool enough with me for this, but would you mind if I got your names?”

A heavy pause followed.

“Melanie.”

“Miltiades.”

Yang was thoroughly surprised. She would’ve bet her bike that, no, they were not cool enough with her yet. Might as well strengthen her advantage then.

“Well, I gotta say, Melanie, Miltiades,” holy shit, did she just nail the red one’s name on the first try? “you girls are pretty damn good fighters.

Apparently, the praise was enough for the twins to deign her with their gazes instead of cold shoulders.

“I mean, most people have to fall back on their semblances when I go on the attack, but you two? Correct me if I’m wrong, but you guys didn’t even raise your aura when I hit you, did you?”

Another heavy silence.

“Knowledge is power,” Melanie said plainly.

“Uhhh... huh?”

“If we used our semblance for every punk with their head in their ass,” Miltiades clarified “,people could scout us for planned attacks.”

“Not that you’d know anything about that.” They scoffed in unison.

Ouch.

“W-well,” Yang tried to get back on balance “,I’ll be the first to tell you, I have a lot of muscles that might be the strongest,” she flexed her arms to drive the point home “,but my brain ain’t in the running!”

Self-deprecating humor, she didn’t use it often, but this seemed like a good time to bust it out. Some humility never hurt when trying to earn some forgiveness, right?

*chu*

Yang felt what happened, heard what happened, but her brain needed some time to process it. she looked to each of her biceps and found a red lipstick-imprint on each of them and a twin caressing an arm each.

Yang’s face lit up like a traffic light, but no words came out. Noises escaped her mouth for sure, but they were most definitely not words.

“You know, for as hot-headed as you are,” Melanie said, pausing to kiss Yang’s forearm “,you definitely have a charm about you.”

More noises, no words.

A soft hand cupped her cheek and turned her toward its owner; Miltiades, who had closed the distance and was inches away from her face.

“Y’know, you’re so cute, we can’t stay mad at you. How about we get away from the crowds so we can... get to know you better?”

There was a heavy silence.

Without taking her eyes off Miltiades, Yang picked up her strawberry sunrise, downed it in one go and croaked out “Sure.”

------------------------------

“Well if it isn’t our two favorite patrons!”

Melanie’s peppy arrival snapped Yang out of her recollection.

“Heyo, Mel,” Cody greeted the twin “,to what do we owe the honor?”

“Just a quick bit of correspondence we would like our blonde friend to deliver.”

Curious, Yang turned to the pair fully to find Miltiades holding out a business card. She took it, read it, and her eyes widened.

“Uhh... girls?” she said with trepidation in her voice “,I don’t wanna tell you how to go about your business, but this... this might not be the best idea.”

“Yang, for real, we appreciate the concern,” Miltiades said with uncharacteristic bluntness given their recent escapades “,but we’ve done our research. Trust us, we’ve planned this one out thoroughly. We know what we’re doing.”

“If you say so.” Yang looked down at the lipstick-stained card. “Better brace yourself, vomit-boy.”

[executive-geneticist]

Anonymous asked: Could Archer ever forgive Giovanni?

{The short answer is, “maybe.”}

{The long answer is under the cut.}

-The surprising thing wasn’t that Giovanni had found him after all these years. Going by nothing more than his own personal experience, Archer was convinced that a man like Giovanni Sakaki could find anyone he wanted to with ease. Even without the long arm of Team Rocket at his disposal, the former Boss was a man of resources, of cunning, of means. Finding Archer the way he had– sitting in a dimly lit dive drowning his failures in a short, squat glass of amber liquid– must surely have come easy to him. So when a startlingly familiar gait waltzed its way up to Archer’s table and took an unspoken seat, it really hadn’t come as a surprise.

-If Giovanni had deigned to ask for an audience instead of simply showing up, that wouldn’t have been surprising either. The truth of the matter was this: Archer had been expecting the man for over six years now. After all, Archer had taken what scattered remains there were of Team Rocket and claimed them for his own. He’d half-expected to find a crow’s feather waiting from him on his desk one afternoon– a sign that his days were numbered for his treachery. When none came, he’d begun to wonder if his former employer would simply show up and try to reclaim what was his.

-This, of the lot of them, was the bloodiest possibility Archer had ever considered. He had no intention of giving Rocket’s leadership up to the man who’d betrayed and abandoned them. However, while he knew there were those who followed that line of thinking, he also knew there were many who waited with bated breath for their leader’s return. He knew the rift could only end in bloodshed and that was the last thing he wanted, regardless of how he felt about Giovanni’s actions.

-Archer had wondered, briefly, what he might have done if Giovanni had asked to see him. Whether he would laugh in the messenger’s face or send a reply only to refuse to actually show. In the years he’d given it thought, he’d come to the conclusion that yes, he would meet with the man, if only to throw a drink in his face, warn him never to show his cowardly face again, and leave in a stormy rush. So, really, the fact that these two men were sitting across from one another did not come as much of a surprise to Archer Apollo.

-What did surprise him was the complete and utter lack of animosity.

-He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t bitter. He had no intention of storming off in an indignant show of pride. He was just… tired. After losing everything, after failing once again, Archer had little room for his usual flashiness. Right now, at the end of everything, he only had enough left in him for the long-suffered sigh of resignation which left him as he lifted his head to address the man across from him.-

You’re here.

I am.

What do you want?

-Giovanni’s silence belied nothing of what the man was thinking and it was a trait Archer had found both admirable and infuriating.-

Don’t you remember. You called me.

-Archer made no effort to hide the wince that answered that reminder. It was true, of course. He had called for Giovanni. It had gone against everything he’d ever believed– indeed, it went against everything he’d ever wanted– but he’d made that call in Rocket’s eleventh hour, desperate for help when everything was crashing down around them. Now, with his resounding defeat still bitterly licking his heels, Archer realized he regretted none of it.-

So I did. I’m afraid you’re a little late, though. It’s already over.

Is it?

-Archer frowned, uncomfortable with where this line of questioning was going. Either he would have to detail every failure– and therefore relive every failure– or, and he wasn’t sure what was worse, Giovanni was going to suggest they try again. The mere thought of it only added to the exhaustion he felt, to the heavy weight which had settled on his shoulders the moment he’d laid eyes on that dark-haired trainer as they stepped into the observation floor of the Radio Tower. He didn’t know if he could stomach even hearing the suggestion right now, let alone consider it.-

It is. I ended it myself. It was the necessary thing to do.

So tell me. Do you know now why I did what I did?

-That stung and Archer couldn’t deny it. He thought about how it had felt to withdraw, to make a tactical retreat to try and salvage what little of Rocket was still holding together. He tried to imagine how it must have felt when Giovanni had done the same thing. He tried, really, to reconcile those two moments but the longer he thought about it, the more his face twisted in anger.-

What you did was cowardly and unforgivable. You turned tail and ran after you were beaten by a child and you did it all without consulting me, or anyone else for that matter. You fled from your people, your family, without so much as a word to anyone. I at least had the decency to prepare those in my employ for any eventuality. They knew the end would be decided by that battle and when I lost, they were the first to know what was happening. You simply vanished.

-There it was. The indignant, righteous anger he’d felt all these years. He sat up straighter, sure in his assessment. It burned in his gullet hotter than the alcohol and cleared his head, wiped the exhaustion from his brow which turned downward in the boiling heat of his rage. Every time I look at you I don’t understand, why you let the things you did get so out of hand. You’d have managed better if you’d had it planned…-

Archer. Please.

Don’t patronize me, Giovanni. You know damn well what you did and if you came here thinking you could apologize and everything would be the way it was–

I turned myself in, Archer.

-A stunned silence came over him and Archer simply stared, unable to form words for several moments.-

You what?

I turned myself in after our defeat in Silph Co. I realized that if we continued down that path, not only would I be taken but so would you and everyone else who was loyal to me. So, I turned myself in to the League and confessed everything. I’ll spare you the details, but I was given a choice: flee or the entirety of my organization would be turned over to Interpol.

I have… well, had sympathetic ties to the League and throughout Kanto and they were all that stood between me and the chopping block. I was told that if I left the country and swore never to return those in my employ would be given the chance to disappear so long as they stopped all Rocket-related activity. So, to save my family, to save you, I took the fall and disappeared.

-Again Archer found himself unable to speak. He took in what Giovanni had said, tried to process it, and struggled. Some part of him– some petulant, childish part of him– refused to believe it. These were nothing but empty words coming from a washed up old man who wanted desperately to save his own skin. But Archer knew, with every fiber of his being, that Giovanni was many things– many horrible, wonderful things– but a liar was not one of them.-

…I see.

-It was all he could muster, all he could divulge in that strange and unknowable moment. In all his time envisioning this exact moment, none of it had prepared him for this. Even when he’d entertained the possibility that there was some excusable explanation for what he’d done, Archer had still always been the indignant, self-righteous man condemning Giovanni for what he’d done and banishing him from his sight forevermore. But this? To actually hear such words from the man he’d once respected and served so many years ago? Now, when he had nothing left to lose? He simply didn’t know how to feel.-

You were right, Archer. All those times you warned me that we were going too far, that we were getting too loud. All of it. You tried to tell me and I didn’t listen. I let my ambitions get the better of me and because of it, we lost. That was my fault and that’s precisely why it had to be me who took the fall.

-That was the moment Archer was certain he was dreaming. He could accept the explanation was fact, he could accept that his losses were real, he could even accept that Giovanni had sought him out of his own accord to lay it all at his feet. But this? This apology, so very unlike and yet perfectly in character for a man like him, was where he drew the line. Perhaps he’d had too much to drink after all.-

It doesn’t matter, though, does it? What we did and why. It’s over. We both lost and we both ended up with nothing. Team Rocket is over. For good this time.

-An all too-familiar grin slid across the other man’s face and Archer felt his chest tighten. He knew that look and if it had come ten minutes ago, it’s likely Archer would have stood up and walked away without another word. He’d been tired, then, too tired to waste effort on this ghost who’d been haunting him since Kanto. But now? With the rush of sweet, burning alcohol still singing in his head and the air clearer between them than it had been in almost a decade? With the man sitting across from him emerging from the shadows like the dead in some gory horror film? Now he felt invigorated, like the weight of inevitability had been lifted from his shoulders.-

I’ll ask you again. Is it, Archer? Is it really over?

-Despite himself and all the selves that he’d imagined being in this very moment, Archer felt himself s m i l e to damn the devil.-

That depends. What did you have in mind?

[incoherentbabblings]

Take Back the Cake, Burn the Shoes, and Boil the Rice (2/11)

Within two months there have been two murders of Gotham newlyweds moments after the ceremony. The only connecting factor was both brides wore the same designer’s work. Needing to establish who exactly is behind the crimes, Bruce enlists Tim and Stephanie to have the biggest wedding Gotham high society has seen in decades, putting a target on their heads not just for the killer, but Gotham society too. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

Ao3 Link Here!

Tim’s Thursday began well – a morning at work which had ended with his lunch break going into one of Gotham’s nicest department stores. He had pulled some strings, using Wayne “clout”, to get an appointment with the jewellers there.

Bruce had said no budget, and Tim was going to take him at his word.

Now he was sat, glass of bubbly champagne sitting untouched, at the desk of a man with a thinner moustache than Alfred, but a belly three times the size. Tim rubbed his knees, more than a little uncomfortable.

“I need an engagement ring, a promise ring, and wedding bands.”

He had a plan, of sorts. The engagement and wedding rings were all for show – the more expensive, the better. He didn’t want them to be ugly – he wasn’t going to make Stephanie wear something she loathed on her finger for two months, and he wasn’t that frivolous with money – but they had to be ostentatious enough to catch people’s attention. The fact that he was even here would be enough, but let it be said that the Bats knew drama like no other.

The promise ring was… well it was part of a plan that Tim had no proof would ever reach the stage of being offered, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared. That one, he would buy with nothing but Stephanie in mind.

The man at the table blinked, gears in his head turning, and he became ever more effusive. He leaned forward, clasping his hands together.

“Any ideas for these rings?”

Tim raised his chin, trying to appear confident. “Purple and white for the engagement, plain wedding band for me but diamonds for hers.”

“Budget?”

Tim scoffed, and the man smiled widely.

“It’s such a moment for me, to have a Wayne be a patron once more. Mr Wayne’s father used to frequent here, or so I’m told. You’re in good company.”

The endless cabinets that circled the room were suddenly emptied by a small army of assistants, each laying out more diamonds and sapphires and amethysts than Tim would ever know what to do with. The amount of money in this room… no wonder people hated him and his family.

Trying not to appear overwhelmed, Tim quickly chose the wedding bands. White gold, Stephanie’s with embedded diamonds that circled the entire ring, his a chunky thing that felt weighty on his finger. A constant reminder of the promise he would make. Tim smiled tightly at the thought. With a little luck, he would make that promise to be faithful and true and in sickness and in health... With a lot of luck, he’d be able to fulfil those promises, and she for him.

For now though, he was stuck buying rings that he knew neither of them truly wanted.

He and Steph both didn’t like white gold… though how Tim knew this, he didn’t know. It just lacked a warmth. Stephanie didn’t wear much jewellery anyway. The odd set of earrings here and there, one or two necklaces… no rings. No bracelets. No watches.

He wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t like to, or she just couldn’t afford to.

Resting his chin on an arm on the table, Tim mused over a shortlisted row of rings. The man across the table licked his lips and leaned in closer. Tim moved backwards, a little put out. The man seemed undeterred.

“May I enquire… the lady you are buying these for?

Oh boy. And with that it started. He told the truth, for whatever it was worth. He smiled in a way that didn’t quite reach his eyes, but it would fool the overly curious seller.

“I’ve known her since I was fourteen.” True. “Childhood sweetheart, I guess?” Half true. False. For now.

Down boy. Focus.

Tim finally settled on a sapphire ring that was almost lilac in shade. Twelve carats, whatever that meant, surrounded by oval shaped diamonds and smaller, glimmering purple and pink stones. It was huge, with no price given, and was sure to make Stephanie cringe.

“David Morris…” The man nodded approvingly, like Tim was supposed to know or care who that was. “His son continues to do very good work. That ring is a beauty no?”

It would do.

“And the promise ring? For the same lady?”

Tim tried not to read into much about the implication that he kept multiple women.

“Yeah… Rose gold for this one.”

The man’s nose twitched, and with a wave of his hand more rings appeared, though the selection was much smaller.

Tim didn’t like any of them, however. Too granny-ish. Rose gold wasn’t popular with the younger crowd apparently. The sales manager sighed sadly, tapping his fingers on the table, thinking of a solution. Tim knew he was acting exaggeratedly, as what Tim wanted wasn’t impossible to provide. Especially not at the price he was about to pay.

“Is there one perhaps, you do like, that we could refit? We could make something entirely bespoke, if you wished, but if there is one design –”

“The pink sapphire – the one that looks like a flower.” With a jerk of his jaw, Tim drew the man’s attention to a smaller set of rings. Still much more expensive than what 90% of Gotham’s population would be willing to pay for a ring, but more manageable for Tim.

The man patted his belly. “Are you sure Mr Wayne? It is only two carats. There are other—”

“Drake-Wayne.” Tim interrupted quietly, still looking at the ring. “And yes. I’m sure.”

A diamond shaped pink sapphire sat surrounded by eight pear shaped diamonds, with the gaps between the points filled with more pink sapphires. The band also had embedded diamonds, but they stopped part of the way round. It was currently in white gold, but Tim thought it would look better in the softer pink shaded gold. It was utterly girly, and he wanted it for Stephanie.

Before he signed an agreement which contained too many zeroes, Tim threw in a bracelet for good measure with carved rubies. Birds were engraved in the deep red, and Tim wanted Stephanie to have something that was shamelessly meant to make her think of him whenever she saw it.

In the back of his head he could hear Stephanie’s discomfort, but he had a date to attend to. Hiding in one of the department store’s bathroom cubicles, he threw off his suit in a way that would have Alfred disappointed in him, switching for a t-shirt and a plaid over-shirt with dark jeans. Ramming his dress shoes into his backpack, he fled the store, high on excitement and the knowledge that he had just spent a million dollars on jewellery. Hopping in his red car and tossing his bag towards the trunk, Tim patted himself on the back, then set off for the college campus.

Stephanie was waiting for him, at the steps of one of the medical buildings. Tim was laughing before she even got in the car.

“What?” She said, collapsing in a heap. “What’s so funny?”

“We match.”

Stephanie recoiled, noticing that she was wearing a thin plaid hoodie, green t-shirt and jeans. Looking at Tim’s clothes, she cursed quietly.

A moment’s pause followed, Tim laughing to himself against the wheel of the redbird. It had been some time since he had laughed just because something was funny, and not from an occasion calling for a fake smile or laughing in derision at himself or others.

It was enough to make her want to tease him.

Wordlessly, she went to leave the car, reopening the door. Tim squeaked, reaching across her and shutting it.

“No! It’s cute! Come on, I got my skateboards in the back. Gonna have you riding by the end of the day.”

“Right.” She threw on her seatbelt. Tim set off. They sat in happy silence for a while as they moved from one Gotham island to another. Growing more comfortable, the radio playing quietly, barely above the sound of the engine, Stephanie smiled.

“Dare I ask how was work this morning?”

Tim gave such a sigh that signalled that he was happy, albeit a little stressed. “It’s okay actually!” He confirmed. “Getting started with a couple new projects, so lots to plan.”

“Bruce helping you?”

“Yeah, actually he’s…” He turned into the multi-storey, getting through the barrier. “I think he’s pulling back on a bunch of stuff.”

“Getting ready to retire at the ripe age of forty-seven? Tragic.”

Tim laughed again, backing the car into a tight space expertly. “Well, not like Dick is in a hurry to join the board.”

“No, he’s busy preparing to cover the other job I think.”

“Right.” Handbrake on. Engine off. “Dick will do the Gotham night job; I’ll do the Gotham day.”

He sounded content with that routine. Stephanie thought he was lying.

“Cass?”

“International night job.”

“Damian?”

Tim shrugged, opening the door and getting out. Before Stephanie could get out on her own, Tim was already at her side, opening the door for her. She clambered out, the redbird sat pretty low compared to her own little car.

It was cloudy, but dry, spring well under way. Robinson park was filled with lines and lines of blooming flowers, little lakes with bobbing ducks, and large open spaces to lay out and snooze. Plenty of space to practice her balance and roll in a straight line.

Stephanie put on her backpack and tried not to look clumsy when Tim handed her one of his boards.

She gasped when he slapped a helmet on her head. Slapping it repeatedly, he laughed.

“Safety first.”

And so began their ‘dates’. Two weeks of what would have been considered beforehand just a regular day of them hanging out, now had different connotations. She took a step by holding his hand everywhere. He took a step by taking many photos of her to post online, either alone or with Cassandra when she deigned to join them. Steph would frequently grow embarrassed by the attention, and insist he be in half of the photos with her.

Honestly, it was not as bad as she feared, however that was largely because of how shallow the interactions felt. Not much of substance was spoken, largely because they couldn’t, being in such public spaces. She could feel people doing double takes at them, and every now and then someone would take photographs, but it was never enough to disorient her.

So far so good. Except she suspected the reason they were being left to their own devices was that they had been seen together in the past, Cassandra usually in tow, so she was nothing more than a family friend. They were going to have to up the ante a little.

Stephanie met Tim one night at the base of Wayne Tower. He had changed again for her, out of his suit.

“You look handsome.” She teased. Tim burned red. He said nothing, only staring at her, then went to lean forward for a greeting kiss.

Stephanie leaped back. She didn’t mean to, and she tried not to think too much of how vulnerable Tim looked from her rejection. Gulping, she buried herself into his chest, tugging his left arm around her waist.

“Where are we heading?” She asked, desperate to move on from that awkward moment.

Tim’s coat pocket buzzed aggressively. When he looked, he swore.

“What?”

“It’s a text… from Dick?”

Stephanie grabbed his arm.

There’s a festival on Amusement Mile tonight! Could be fun wink wink.

Stephanie was flabbergasted. “I thought he was in space? Like fifty light years away?”

Tim stared at the screen. “He is…”

He looked down at her, and the two exchanged confused glances.

“You mean he—”

“Found a way to text me across time and space only for the message to be to take you to the fair? Sure. Let’s go with that.”

Tim sighed, dragging a laughing Stephanie off with him in the direction of Amusement Mile.

“Wingman to the rescue!” Chortling to herself, Tim couldn’t help but join in.

Amusement mile was lit up bright when they arrived, music blasting and lots of young families crowding in. Dick had done good in pouring half his inheritance into the strip, despite it being an obvious target for people like the Joker. The Wayne’s had stubbornly continued to fund it alongside the city council, allowing for entertainment beyond shopping in Gotham.

It had a certain charm about it – well maintained, but still old fashioned. The lighting was warm, oranges and yellows and reds, and each ride and stall was blasting out its own variety of generic trance and dance music. It was so busy that it felt private, as everyone was absorbed with their own fun.

“Want a snack?” Stephanie asked, pulling Tim over to one of the vans. “I have a hankering for nachos.”

“I dunno. Kind of want something sweet.” And then he nudged her.

She made a face, brain now focusing on the prospect of salty fried food. “Urr no. Sweets is for after.” She joined the queue, rummaging through her little bag for her purse.

Tim groaned dramatically, throwing his head back. “You missed my clever flirt!”

She rotated to stare, feet fixed in place. “Huh?”

Suddenly Tim was bashful. He couldn’t say it again. She had rejected him twice now, and so decisively too.

“Doesn’t matter.” He said.

Eyebrows drawn into a frown, Stephanie watched as Tim smiled awkwardly. He would do it when hurt, but not willing to admit it. The next step would be shuffling his feet, jamming his hands in his pocket, and directing his gaze elsewhere, anywhere but the person who had hurt him.

Stephanie watched as he proceeded to do exactly that.

She hated seeing him sad, even if she didn’t understand why. Reaching up, she cradled the back of his neck, fingers in his black hair, trying to provide some sort of physical comfort. She felt how tense his muscles were, and Tim sighed when she squeezed and rubbed at the base of his skull. Closing his eyes, he enjoyed her touch, making do with what she could offer him.

“Tim?”

“Mm.”

“What’s wrong?” He blinked, expression freezing.

“Nothing.”

“No, there is.” They stepped forward in the queue. “Tell me?”

Quietly pleading, Stephanie resumed her strokes. Tim tilted his head, allowing her better access.

“Nightmares.” Tim answered. Cooing, she curled closer. Neither of them knew how genuine the other was being, but Tim played along regardless. “It… they aren’t of anything specific, but I just wake up with like…this pressure on my chest and I don’t sleep well.”

“Honey, you’ve never slept well.” Pet names. Tim’s heart stuttered a little. He missed her sweethearts and honeys, more than he realised. He lied to himself and believed she was saying them sincerely, and not just playing the role of the concerned girlfriend. Her thumb found the bone behind his ear, rubbing it therapeutically. “When did these kind start?”

Another step forward in the queue. As the pair spoke, they had moved closer and closer, and Tim’s arm had begun to wrap around her waist. Stephanie distantly heard people behind them muttering, and could feel others staring at the overt pda, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Couple of months ago.”

The comfort that Tim felt at her miserable look was indescribable. That wasn’t faked, she wasn’t capable of lying with that level of sincerity. It wasn’t that he enjoyed her being sad at his expense, not even close, but the confirmation that she still cared deeply was heartening. Whether it was people in general or specifically directed at himself, Tim didn’t care. Being Batgirl hadn’t dampened her kindness.

Not for the first time, Tim was struck at how much she had grown, and how much he had seemingly regressed. Paralleled journeys, but Tim couldn’t bring himself to accept that he was destined to be as lonely and as miserable as he felt on his worst nights. He hadn’t completely given up hope. Neither had Steph, because after a moment of thought, she reassuringly tugged on his earlobe.

“We’ll figure it out.” She said. And then, unable to help herself, she pressed a kiss to his cheek. It could have been read as platonic, as it was so quick and chaste to be seen as anything but, however when he turned to look at her, expression a little desperate, hand on her hip twitching, it seemed she finally understood what he wanted.

They kissed, once, twice, three times before a flash of light, the flash of a phone, made Stephanie break away. Tim turned his head, noticing a group of teens trying to hide their phones.

Bingo. He couldn’t help it, he smiled smugly.

Stephanie seemed to catch it and became stiff in his hold. They were called forward to the van, and Stephanie stepped away from Tim in a vain attempt to move forward and distract herself.

Kissing him was a mistake. She had avoided it then and she should have avoided it now, but he had played her like a piano and… it had felt right.

Breath shaking, she paid for her food. Tim put his arm back around her, and she cursed herself for relaxing back into it. Her body and mind were of two different opinions for Tim, and it was making her miserable.

She continued to play the game, feeding Tim chips, making him take photos of her on the merry-go-round, clinging close to his side, but as the night went on, she felt increasingly hollow. It would almost have been easier to pretend to be in love with someone she loathed, but being there with Tim, knowing that his smiles were genuine when the circumstances were forced... It was emotionally taxing.

She couldn’t tell, not anymore, what was real and what was just to grab folk’s attention, and it was eating at her. What made it more intolerable was that her and Tim were spending no time together in private. And how could they? College was kicking her ass more than normal and Tim had a high-flying job that required so much of his time. When they were free, they were out together.

She craved alone time with him.

Tim meanwhile saw Stephanie was faltering and tried to think of a way to end the evening on a high note.

“You ever won one of those arcade games?”

Stephanie, whose face was half hidden behind a giant ball of cotton candy, was quiet when she responded, “I thought they were rigged.”

“Oh sure. There’s a knack to them though.”

He looked around at one he could win at.

The shooting range was closest. The prizes ranged from mediocre to crass, but Stephanie didn’t miss the childish glee that sparked in his eyes at the sight of a ridiculously large plush duck. Like a rubber duck for the bathtub, but the size of a toddler. It was the kind of thing she could have straddled and bounced along the road on if she was determined enough.

“Tim please don’t win me that duck.”

“You don’t want it?”

“I do not need a giant duck.”

“Not asking if you need it.” He took a large chunk of her cotton candy, shivering in delight when it dissolved in his mouth. “Asking if you wanted it.”

Still hidden behind the sugar, she looked down. “My answer doesn’t matter does it? You’re gonna show off?”

“Oh yeah. You want a go too?”

“No… no I’ll watch you.”

And over they wandered to the stall. They had to wait until a young father and his daughter finished their turn before Tim could step forward. Stephanie watched them, the father encouraging his little girl. She wasn’t very good, as to be expected of a seven-year-old, and so won nothing. She got upset for a moment, distraught that she wasn’t good enough to get a prize. Her father got down next to her for a hug, muttering reassurances.

Impulsively, Stephanie butted in.

“Excuse me?” Both the girl and father looked up. The dad’s suspicious look turned friendly when he saw it was Stephanie’s unthreatening form. She held out her cotton candy. “I’m full. Do you think she’d want this?” A pause, as both parties processed what she was offering. “Is she allowed candy? I just… I just…”

She trailed off awkwardly, regretting having spoken. The little girl released Stephanie from the emotional turmoil and turned to her father.

“Can I?”

The father took the stick from Stephanie. He looked a little bamboozled by the abruptness of the offer. He nodded his thanks, then nudged the little girl, who squealed.

“Thank you!”

“Welcome.”

As the father and daughter walked away, the dad caught Stephanie staring at his little girl. Stephanie tried to smile in a way that was endearing at the man, and not like she was thinking of twelve different ways to stuff the little girl in the boot of her car. The father smiled back, so Stephanie supposed it worked.

She turned back to the stall, to see Tim smiling dopily at her. He kissed her temple, and she sighed, tension leaving her as he did so. He walked towards the vendor, calling out over his shoulder,

“You’re too good for this city sometimes… you know that, right?”

“Tim…” She wandered back to his side. “Just win me that duck, would you?”

And win her the ridiculous duck he did. Stephanie knew the entire family were pretty handy with guns. She herself was good with them, though she loathed their weight in her hands. Jason aside, Dick was the best shot she’d ever seen, and of course Kate knew her way around a firearm too, so she should have expected it from Tim.

He shot the row of ducks quickly and smoothly, definitely showing off, but Stephanie couldn’t really find it in her to pretend to be impressed. The rifle was old, the pellets were harmless, and Tim was shooting yellow plastic ducks on a rotating bicycle chain... But still. She didn’t like seeing Tim with a gun.

The duck seemed larger off the hanger, and she struggled to hold it without it tripping her up or completely unbalancing her.

As they walked away, Stephanie resorted to pulling it up, resting on her head like a basket filled with goods for the local market.

“Very nice.” Tim teased. He nudged her, making her stumble to the side, completely off kilter with such a weight on her head. She laughed breathlessly, then threw herself back at him. He caught her, hands in intimate places, and pulled her round. She quickly got the idea, and hopped on his back, resting her chin on his shoulder. She placed the duck on top of them both, and Tim stumbled out the fair, deliriously happy that her mood had been lifted.

They barely noticed the stares and photos that were taken. The following morning Stephanie saw she had been tagged in a few Instagram posts, and on twitter the pair were mildly trending, though not enough to cause her alarm. She continued to attend her classes and not speak to Tim until he would message her, asking when she was next free.

It was a Friday, three weeks into their ‘dating’ when he asked her out to dinner.

A nice dinner.

A really nice dinner.

“Alfred bought you some clothes.” Tim had said when he came to pick her up that night. Crystal had answered the door to glower at Tim, only to find him holding four hangers with dresses on them. Stephanie, pushing in front of her mother, was wearing a basic pink dress. The ones in Tim’s arms were blue or green. No babyish pink to be found.

“What I’m wearing isn’t good enough for you?”

Faced with two potentially angry Browns, Tim shook his head.

“No! No, you look beautiful! You always look beautiful.”

Crystal snorted; Stephanie looked like she was going to cry. She was wearing her hair up in a bun, tiny earrings hanging from her lobes. She peered at the choices.

“Alfred bought them?”

“He was shopping for Cassandra and saw these. Said they made him think of you.”

“Somehow I don’t find that reassuring.” She took them from his grip and turned back around, stomping back inside. If Tim had been expecting to be allowed back in the house, he was denied. Crystal remained in the doorway, wearing a faded blue dressing gown. Her slippers were grey and fluffy. She was one of the most intimidating things he had ever looked at.

He tried to smile at her, but she wouldn’t have it.

“You are ruining her life.”

The sentence was short, sharp, and honest. Tim’s breathing stopped, and he said nothing in response. Thoroughly shamed, he stared at his feet.

Not me. He wanted to beg. Bruce. Bruce was the one who failed her.

But he knew that Crystal was referring to them all, the whole lot of them, when she said “you”. He also knew that Crystal knew what they were about to go through, and was not happy about it.

There was a part of him, out of anger for Steph, and maybe he was projecting a little after his own parents, that wanted nothing more to snap at her: Oh? Now you care about your daughter’s wellbeing?

Tim had taken care of Steph years before Crystal had gotten her act together. Heck, it had taken Steph dying for Crystal to truly pull herself together. No drugs, no emotional unavailability, no shitty husbands and brothers and friends hanging around the house on her watch.

Tim bit his tongue. Stephanie was trying so hard to have a functional relationship with her mother, but Tim couldn’t let go of the disappointment on her behalf.

Not that Tim had much better examples to go off of, Dana more than anyone tried the hardest, and whilst Bruce tried...

No. Not going down that rabbit hole.

Tim said nothing, knowing no words would help the situation, and cowered under Crystal’s stare. The ring in his blazer pocket weighed heavier and heavier with each passing moment. He had kept the engagement ring on his person since he had taken it home, not knowing when he would have to whip it out.

His other pocket buzzed then. His phone. Pulling it out, thankful for a distraction from the silent tower of a future “mother-in-law”, he saw that Bruce was phoning.

Caught between not wanting to appear rude to Crystal and potentially missing important information from Bruce, Tim decided that Crystal’s opinion of him was already shot, and answered the phone, still avoiding her stare.

“Hey Bruce. Just about to take Steph out. What’s up?”

“Another couple have died.”

Tim finally looked upwards at Crystal, seeing that she could sense something had gone wrong.

“…Same connection?”

“Yes.”

The ring felt a thousand tonnes.

“We’ll… we’ll speed it up.”

“I will speak to the designer tonight. See how she’s doing. If she knows anything. There’s still no public suspicion of her. Both of you come back home after you’re done at the restaurant.”

“Okay.” Crystal had stepped closer, out onto the little step that granted access to the front door. She was blatantly eavesdropping. Tim remained frozen on the spot. “Thanks for… thanks.” He ended lamely, hanging up. Crystal looked very pale.

“I…” Tim started. How could he convince Stephanie’s mother that all would work out? No words would do the job.

Stephanie interrupted them. Her voice drifting closer as she tripped down the main staircase, blissfully ignorant.

“I went with the dark green. I like green. Dark green.” She paused when two pale faces stared back at her. Tim struggled to reconcile how beautiful she was with the fact that the pair’s mortality was staring them in the face. Tim’s death was always something he accepted as part of his job. Stephanie’s was out of the question.

Her smile tightened; teeth clenched. “What’s wrong?”

Crystal sniffed in a way that indicated she was going to cry, and left the two alone, slamming the door shut on her daughter in a manner that made Stephanie baffled. She turned back to Tim, who seemed to grow more upset by the moment.

“What’s going on?”

Tim absentmindedly tugged on the little cap sleeve of the dress, admiring it on her.

“I’ll tell you on the way.” As Stephanie followed him to the car, she looked back at her house, worried for her mother.

It was a silent drive to the restaurant, this time with the radio off and the engine in general being quiet in the drive through the city. It was awful, tense and uncomfortable. Stephanie watched as Tim’s eyes flittered everywhere, the windows, the mirrors, the road and her. He was panicking a little.

She kept quiet until they approached the restaurant. Then Tim spoke unprompted.

“We’ll have to go back to the manor after this. Bruce called me, says another couple has died. Same designer.”

Slowly, Stephanie turned to look at Tim. He was trying to stay focused, as if pulling up to valet parking involved particularly difficult manoeuvres.

“Three times isn’t a coincidence.” She stated.

“No.” His knuckles were white from gripping the wheel so tightly.

“Those poor people.”

Tim let the air come out of his chest in a woosh whilst Steph stared at her palms resting in her lap. He reached across with one hand and took hers. Intertwining the fingers, she observed his beautiful but scarred hands. Another moment of thoughtful silence ensued.

“You okay to keep going?”

She forced a smile. “Bruce’ll solve it in no time.”

It was only part of the way through their soup did Tim drop his little spoon with a clatter. They had been trying to do small talk, being aggressively cutesy in sight of the other restaurant patrons and staff, but it was difficult, as neither of their moods were particularly lending themselves to lying.

“…Tim?”

He looked at her, pale blue eyes wide from fear. His adams apple bobbed in his thin neck.

“Stephanie.” He said, standing up so quickly his chair fell back, and the table rattled. The crystal champagne glasses shuddered, and the china made an awful clang. Stephanie made an oopf noise and rested her hand over the glasses to prevent spillage.

“Sweetie, what’s wron…” She trailed off as Tim moved to her side of the table and knelt down in front of her. She began to hiss. “No! Now?”

Tim reached into his inner jacket pocket, pulling out a little black box. “We have to speed it up.”

Stephanie felt she was close to hyperventilating, eyes flitting to the other customers surrounding their central table.

“You should have warned me! Not in public…”

“It had to be.” Tim retorted. He knew how much she hated it. He did also. If he ever did propose, it would be in private, because no-one else mattered for that moment. Only he and the person he proposed to should matter, not faceless people voyeuristically watching them. But neither of them were going to get what they wanted. Not for now at least.

Stephanie did not need to dig for her surprised face, as she burst into tears the moment Tim popped open the box. Sat inside was possibly the largest ring she had ever seen.

It was hideous.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” She screeched, slapping the table. People who were already staring from the proposal dropped their food in their lap at the swearing woman.

Blowing her nose extra hard on the fancy serviette, she tried to bring her emotions back to dignified. However, every time she caught sight of the hunking stones glittering in the dim light, she lost it.

Six dead people were hanging over her head she was stuck in a dress she didn’t buy there were more cutlery pieces on the table than ordered courses and he had dropped this on her with no warning and okay fine she knew in the back of her head it was coming but still –

Tim leaned back slightly, not sure what to make of it, if her shock and rage was directed at him or herself. Heavily hinting at her, he tried to get the proposal back on track and smiled lopsidedly. “That’s a yes, right?”

The bastard…

“Fuck! You stupid shit, fuck!” She caught glances of neighbouring tables and tried to smile, though she couldn’t see much clearly from her stinging eyes. There was no point trying to verbalise that she was insulting herself, not the poor boy on the floor in front of her.

God, her eyes just wouldn’t stop watering and she couldn’t feel any more like the kind of women she made fun of on reality tv shows. “Yes, I will marry you! Yes, yes, yes!”

There was a painfully awkward pause as she didn’t know what to do next. Entering panic mode, Tim punched her leg, making her spasm down off the chair into his arms. He hoped her outburst would be read in an eccentric relatable manner, and not the freak out of a woman who could really do with an acting class or two.

A few tables were clapping politely, probably more miffed than endeared to the couple. Tim rocked Steph from side to side.

“Okay?” He whispered, conscious of the fact that she may have genuinely gone into shock.

“That ring is hideous, Tim.” She blubbered into his ear.

“Well, it’s only for two months.” He muttered, more than a little dejected. God, he hoped – if he got the chance to offer it – that she would like the promise ring more.

“Hoo!” She leaned back from the embrace, head facing the ceiling. Her cat eyeliner look that she had painstakingly applied had flooded down her cheeks. Tim’s collar felt a little wet, and would no doubt be stained black. She smiled in a way that reminded Tim of a hyena. “Oh, wow! What a ring. Oh sweetheart...”

Tim nodded and nodded and nodded like a ventriloquist doll and pulled it out of its case, flinging aside the box with exaggerated disinterest.

“All yours! For as long as you’ll have me.”

She looked down as he slid it on. It weighed heavily on her finger.

She tugged Tim closer to her, bumping their foreheads together. She clung tight to his hair, and he could feel her trembling.

“Fuck.” She whispered.

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No. Steph…”

“Love you.” She said. The suddenness of it seemed to surprise them both, and to cover it up she kissed Tim. Actions were easier than words, they always had been with him.

The reality of what they had undertaken came crashing down on her, and she dreaded the morning to come.

[aveaugvstus]

❛ You made a mistake. Everybody makes them. Even me. I’ve made many. It’s only fair that you made one. ❜

it’s strange how the passage of time warps and bends around the shape of the people in your life, the silhouettes they carve from the liminal space of your soul — it’s like that thing about stars and how when you’re looking up at the night sky, you’re actually looking at stars that could be already be dead a hundred years ago, their fading requiem only just now reaching earth’s stratosphere, a thousand light years away. 

this is what it feels like to see vladimir standing in the door frame of his childhood bedroom looking like the ghost of fuck-ups past.  (  he has no lock now, which is mildly insulting and excruciatingly patronising; he’s an addict, not bloody suicidal, but to his family the distinction might as well be non-existent.  )  he looks different, and also like nothing has changed at all in a way that august can’t quite pinpoint. it’s as if he’s lost his ability to translate him; the myriad tiny, insignificant nuances and habits he used to obsessively decrypt with his very own rosetta stone, a whole stele for the vladimir yamatov script, forgotten like a dead language. or maybe he no longer cares to. he doesn’t know if that should make him feel nostalgic, or furious, or bittersweet. feeling particularly strongly about anything these days is a herculean task in and of itself. which, he supposes, was the original sin that instigated everything to begin with.

he thinks he can remember asking vladimir to come home.

he thinks he can almost remember begging, knees in the dirt and gravel scraping his flesh raw, over voicemail like a needy fling who had accidentally gone and done the thing you and every other idiot knows you’re not supposed to do, and fallen. 

he thinks he might have begged for absolution. 

but that could have also been the sixth line of blow cut with ketamine and procaine and only god and the devil knows what else  (  he’d been desperate, it was three a.m. in camden  )  and he’s composed text messages nay, goddamn fucking letters, ad nauseam, ad infinitum, like he’s on the receiving end of some dear john bullshit, and he’s never been sure which of them actually made it to the send button. he’s smashed, or lost, or misplaced, half a dozen phones, for all the futile effort to replace them. collateral damage in the dawning realisation that vladimir wasn’t replying because he was mercilessly leaving him on read, but because he wasn’t receiving them at all, and judging by his infrequent instagram updates, was doing absolutely fine / fuck him, happy / having the time of his fucking life on his primitive anti-tech detox.

for a moment, he entertains the fleeting, whimsical distraction that this could be yet another delusion. after all, he’s conjured vladimir enough times that this wouldn’t be unusual.  (  why, sometimes i’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.  )  he has imagined vladimir heartsick, wretchedly beside himself with guilt. he has painted him alabastrine, cold and immovable, patron saint raphael of the lost and the meek indifferent to august’s self-inflicted torment. he has envisioned him lit with madness, seized in catastrophic rage, gripping him by the jaw and rattling his bones till he might see reason. there were other imaginings, too, steeped in the unspeakable, tauntings of an uninhibited mind free to conceptualise the reality of its most ludicrous desire. in the worst dream, the most terrible, most fantastical one, vladimir comes home because of him. for him. it plays out like the final scene of a cult romantic comedy, or the odyssey, maybe, much-enduring odysseus returning home to penelope at last. two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk, their hands meeting as light spills in a flood, the sky pouring out the sun. and he would take his other-soul’s face in his hands and kiss him and say the words this lifetime’s vladimir would never say.

there is, of course, a singular difference in this one. this vladimir. the vladimir he filled his dreams with never looked at him like this. with this curious amalgamation of horror and — most tellingly so; am i not what you expected, vladimir? how did you imagine you would find me? beatific? flourishing? — disgust. 

august knows what he looks like. five shades too pale and ashen, like the vivacity has been drained right out of him. a layer of grease shines in his hair, the fade he alway maintains with meticulous care and precision grown out into his natural, unruly curls. he’s not quite skeletal, his frame was always too lean and muscular for that, but he seems perilously thin for his height. it shows in his face, he knows even though he’s been avoiding mirrors and isn’t allowed one anyway, because a) addicts use those to cut their coke, and b) suicidal ones might be inclined to break them, he knows because of the way his mum looks at him when she comes into his room to bring him his meals three times a day like a convict. it hurts him a little, more than the physical pain of looking at vladimir, of hearing his voice, that he sees him like this. he had not been informed in advance that vladimir would come calling. if he had, he would’ve — he doesn’t know what he would’ve done  (  attempted an escape, maybe; broken his twelve-day sobriety, maybe  )  but he might’ve. cleaned up a little. tried to look less like a shell of himself. augustus has always been vain, has always been a gilded, preening thing who took great pride in being pretty and well-loved for it. it pains him. not to be even that anymore. he is rusted. tarnished.

if he had known, maybe he would have told vladimir not to come. 

now that he is here, he is split in two, cleaved in half by the urge to tell him to go and the more pressing compulsion to make him stay to never go never leave again never go anywhere that is out of his sight out of his life out of him. 

his ambivalence makes him poor company and a poorer conversationalist. not that this is entirely his fault — what are they supposed to do? chat about the weather and trade perfunctory banter just to fill the air? he’d rather do a line right here in front of vladimir. 

your hair is longer, august had said. the only thing other than what are you doing here, which had come out of his mouth, part-shock and part-petulance, when his mother had opened the door and presented vladimir like some screwed-up surprise gift for reaching a whopping week and a half of not being a fucking disappointment to everyone around him. so, now he can disappoint the person that matters most fundamentally, tortuously, to him in the world, too. how delightful.

vladimir’s hair being longer is the only thing he can think to say that doesn’t make him want to give in to the pulverising sensation in his head, in his bones, in his chest, screaming for a deus ex machina reprieve. if this is what they have come to — the two of them, who had spent their entire lives talking about nothing and everything till they could anticipate exactly what the other’s response would be — augustus is glad he didn’t come home sooner. he looks handsome, which feels like another slight against august’s pride. rugged and sun-soaked like a male model cum travel influencer, but one that actually does something meaningful with his life. time, and sunlight, and the kind of hard labour that builds muscle definition and character, has certainly been kinder to him than it has been to august. he doesn’t say you look good because that would sound like he has any remotely positive feelings towards this interaction, and, indeed, the cause of vladimir’s looking like a golden, newly-anointed demi-god. it seems they have traded places. or maybe vladimir is exactly who he was always supposed to be. and august is, too.

august supposes it’s the silence, and the reality that vladimir cannot abide it either, that prompts him to say what he does.

what happened?

he doesn’t say anything for a long moment, he drifts in the absence of an answer because he is allowed to, because he is technically, partially an invalid now, and people who are sick are allowed to be not altogether there. 

(  sick. malaised. he likes this word for it. he likes that there is a scientific explanation for what he is. a brain disease. a diagnosable mental illness. see, vladimir, he almost wants to say, a little deranged part of him finally gleeful at not having a pedestal to stand on anymore, you aren’t special. i’m fucked up now, too.  )

well, vladimir. it’s a very long story that i don’t care to repeat as i’ve recounted the tales to you so many times through missives you were never inclined to respond to. there was angel, and bennie, there was emmy, and good old molly. ah, and charlie, my favourite of the lot. ours was a whirldwind love affair. but it turns out i loved him more than he loved me. seems like i have a nasty little habit of doing that. it’s one i haven’t learned to kick yet.

god — august...

it’s the look of wrenching disgust, again. the thing that twists and snakes across vladimir’s face and awakes something snarling and animal shackled to august’s throat, something that slams into him chest-first and doesn’t stop until it’s gone right through him, left him raw, all bloodied edge and teeth.

what happened? what happened? what’s the point of asking now when it’s all been said and done. how long am i supposed to carry this black mark? until everyone around me deigns to let me bury it? i’m not a fucking child.

it’s not an explanation, which is what vladimir is after. he would know, however, if he had bothered to answer august any of those times. he would know, he would have known, if he hadn’t left august in their bed that morning at the warwickshire summer palace and run from everything they’d ever touched. they’d had the world world in their hands in that bed, in that room, in that place of stolen summer outside of time, outside of life itself. they could have had — everything. everything august had to give. and he gave it, and vladimir looked him in the eye and decided it was not for him.

you made a mistake. everybody makes them. even me. i’ve made many. it’s only fair that you made one.

he feels each word grate right through him, each syllable catching on his skin like little knives, the thin strand keeping him tethered to the present grinding down into dust and bone. he doesn’t blame vladimir for what happened to him. he blames him for leaving. but it’s a mistake that vladimir won’t — can’t acknowledge because to do that, he would have to admit to the thing he doesn’t want to say, or can’t say, and august can’t make him say it. that’s what made him do it, the first night at that grimy, filthy club in the berlin underground. that’s what made him want to trade his soul for just a night of rapture so euphoric he wouldn’t have to remember how fucking miserable it was to be unloved by the one person you thought you were meant for. but then, it’s never just one night is it? it couldn’t have been. you don’t get over something like that with one goddamn night.

(  if august were honest, and his heart not surrendered, he would say it was this, too: that vladimir could walk away from them, has always been able to walk away, and think nothing of it. him. that vladimir had found purpose and higher meaning in something other than themselves and the stupid, foolish, boyish dreams they used to talk about like they might someday happen. that august had disappointed him somehow by, what, not being enough? not living up to the unearned greatness that vladimir saw in him and was supposedly the only person in the world who could? that vladimir would forge a path for himself in life that diverged from august and not feel his soul rending itself in half to be half a world away from him, and survive it. — it was enough to ruin him then, it still ruins him now.  )

“if you’ve come all this way just to lecture to me, you can sod the fuck off back to phuket or hanoi or fucking antarctica if that’s what you want. maybe there’s some disease-riddled penguins out there that you can save to sate your saviour complex. saint francis of assisi. a non-shitty mother teresa. malala.”

he’s exhausted before the first word leaves his mouth, strung out just with the effort of starting, but he can’t stop them now any more than he can stop the hunger and thirst clawing at his head howling for a drop of blood, a pound of flesh, any part of him that it can cannibalise in retribution for starving. it’s easier to be cruel than to be wounded, better to be the conqueror than the fallen — but right now it just feels like he is going through his twelfth or two hundredth day of withdrawal and the boy he loves has come back but not the way august wanted and not the way he wants to be wanted. it hurts just to look at him, it hurts to have him looking back. every part of his body aches with dependence, codependence. they’re the definition of it. see what happens to me when you are not in my life?

alexander lay on hephaestion’s bed for three days. but you are not him. you are just a spoiled, arrogant, silver-spooned nothing who will never amount to greatness, glory, or anything at all. it is no wonder he would not have you.

his rage breaks, like sea foam crashing against cliffs; it rends and shatters down the fault line mapped throughout his body, the one that winds from his throat to his sternum, down to his thighs and feet, and aches forever mostly at his heel. helpless to the unbidden trembling of his hands as he curls them around the sheets of his bed, unmoored. he looks small and disarmed, more lost than he’s ever been with vladimir by his side. it doesn’t mean the same thing anymore, does it? not if he cannot make vladimir stay. whatever they had between them — is it damaged, now. they could rebuild it, but the foundations would still bear the memory of where the cracks lie. he would still remember this look on vladimir’s face.

he has looked at him a thousand times, and there has always been an echo reverberating between them. the wavelength of an elegy he knows the words to like they are writ upon heartbeat, upon headstone. there have been other faces, but vladimir’s eyes have always been the same. fathomless as distant stars in an entire universe light years away and yet close enough to touch if he dared to. if it is fate, or circumstance, or a reiteration of the immortality that stands between them and their freedom, then he already knows how this ends. vladimir knows it, too. it doesn’t make him want it any less. it doesn’t make him suffer for it any less. this ache he has spent an eternity chasing after, this feeling of being so incandescently alive that even death cannot keep them apart, this is what vladimir ran from. augustus cannot blame him. if he was not the one who always outlived him, he’d do the same.

“is this why you came back? because you think you can save me, too?”

[nancywheelxr]

oh i have sweet little tua prompt! okay so five is mouthing off to the others bc ya know ,,, he’s Five and the others are like “how can a small body contain so much rage” and they make comments about how small he is and eventually Five is like ,, “watch me fight luther” so then a wrestling match ensues with five vs his brothers while vanya and allison make bets and five tries to hide he’s having a good time bc he missed his siblings!! sorry it’s a lot lol but yeah! i love your blog/work!💖💖💖

Hey, there! Thank you so much!! Sorry, it took a while, but I hope you like this one!

Sometimes, Five wonders if the apocalypse wouldn’t have been a better option.

Sure, it ended all life on Earth and god knows how the missing moon affected the planet’s orbit, but sometimes, Five looks around and realizes his family is a bunch of idiots.

“Why would you do that?” He asks out loudly, more rhetorically than anything. His hopes of receiving a satisfying answer have long since been snuffed out. Still, the bricks and pieces of drywall at their feet feel like the kind of thing that warrant some questions.

“It’s not like anyone was using this room,” Klaus shrugs, leaning against the surviving wall and spinning the hammer lazily on his hands. “And it’s not like the whole house is gonna fall down ‘cause I tore down one little old wall.”

“It could if you took down something important,” he sighs, closing his eyes. For a second, Five just works on taking deep breaths. The fact that he’s the only one who bothered to go investigate what was causing the loud noises earlier is really beginning to get to him; surely they all heard them, but how come Five is the only one hear to stop Klaus from destroying the Academy? “Or, more likely, cause structural damage on this floor, since you have no idea what you’re doing.”

Klaus waves him off, unpreoccupied. “Don’t be so prickly,” he gestures the giant hole he already managed to tear down. “It’s not rocket science. Though, I’ll give you this– I am getting tired.”

“You know what, I don’t care,” Five gives him a fake, sugary smile, and smoothes out his clothes. “I’m going to go get coffee and you can bring the Academy down. Again.”

“Why are you so grumpy?” Klaus pushes himself off and– to Five’s horror and uttermost shock– reaches to ruffle his hair. “Go play outside, eat ice cream until you get brain freeze, be a kid!”

It takes Five a few seconds to believe his brother would be dumb enough to do that, would have the gall to do that, would– it’s infuriating, and–

“What’s going on?” Vanya asks, stopping at the doorway and looking at them strangely. It probably has to do with the murderous look Five is sure must be bleeding in his eyes and the fact that Klaus is still holding a hammer in front of his half-collapsed wall. “Is– are you guys okay?”

“Perfectly fine,” Klaus grins, presenting his handwork proudly, “although, this is taking longer than I thought it would.”

“I, for one,” Five says placidly, “will feel better once I’m finished murdering Klaus.”

“Huh,” Vanya blinks, her eyes darting between them and around the room like she’s afraid Five might produce a gun from somewhere. “Maybe not?”

“Oh my god,” Klaus snickers, ducking out of the way when Five throws a piece of debris at his head, “you’re like, so small, how can you be so full of rage?”

Even Vanya, the absolute traitor, laughs quietly behind her hand, “he’s tiny, so it’s all concentrated.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Five punctuates each word with a small rock.

“Like a tiny, little ball of anger,” his brother giggles, tugging Vanya out of the room to escape Five’s attempts at hitting him with the drywall. “Help,” he calls, making a commotion in the hallway, “a chihuahua is trying to kill me!”

Five hears Vanya’s laughter and when he follows them out, he sees Diego and Allison have finally deigned to check what was going on. “Do you know how many people I killed before?” He narrows his eyes, pointing a threatening finger at him. “Countless.”

“I know, I know,” Klaus struggles to keep a serious face long enough to speak in a very patronizing tone, the asshole, “you are the world’s littlest assassin, we all heard the story.”

Then, as his annoyance bubbles over and spills all over the place, Five catches sight of Luther buttoning up his overcoat as he approaches them from the end of the hall. An idea lights up his face. “You don’t believe?” He glares at them all, “then watch me fight Luther.”

There’s a collective, panicked no! And a few of them try to lunge for him, but Five is quicker, smirking at them before whisking himself away from this circus.

*

When Five disappears in a blue flash, Vanya still stares at the spot he had just been for another minute, just like all of the others, until they hear Luther’s surprised gasp.

“Five, what– ouch!” They all turn in time to see Luther sway in the hall, doubled over, and Five teleports to his back, trapping Luther in a headlock. The look of shock and disbelief in Luther’s eyes is clear even from all the way from the end of the hallway as he shrieks, “he kicked my kneecaps!”

“I’ll break them the next time!” Five bellows, firmly perched on Luther’s back as they stumble forward, colliding with the walls and nearly falling over to the floor. “Yield, coward!”

Luther makes a face, coughing a little, and Vanya looks at Allison beside her, biting her lip to stifle a giggle. “Do you think Luther stands a chance?”

“Not at all,” Allison grins, elbowing Klaus beside her, “hey, wanna bet on how long until Five tires him out?”

Klaus laughs unashamedly, nodding happily. “20 bucks says it will be before the one hour mark.”

“Okay. I’ll give Luther an hour and a half,” she allows, glancing at the bumbling duo and the dents they leave behind in the walls. “Do you want in, Diego?”

“30 dollars on half an hour,” he grins, clearly pleased to see Luther making a fool of himself in front of them. And in front of the security cameras, Vanya notes amusedly.

“I think I’m with Diego,” Vanya decides, “but put me as 45 minutes.”

“Alright,” Allison checks her clock, “let’s see how long they will be at it.”

Beside her, Vanya hears Klaus cheering them on loudly, but her attention is caught elsewhere. She tilts her head, watching Five tugs at Luther’s ears and she doesn’t miss the way his lips quirk up every once in a while like he’s fighting off a smile and when he looks at them, she could swear his eyes are lighter, brighter, fuller then it’s been in weeks.

We missed you, too, she thinks with melancholy pulling at the edges of her smile.

[starcunning]

25. Trust

I knew her for a little ghost

For @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast’s FFXIVWrite 2019. [Title] [AO3 mirror]

Perhaps even Fray’s judgment was not infallible. After all, he had bridled at the idea of doing favors for the Ondo, but when she had returned to the Tempest and seen the spires reaching up from the seabed, she had wept. She had remained there long after, and returned there too often. Whatever aetherial anchor the Crystarium offered her, she had rejected it, and found it easier to return to the sea.

Perhaps she was waiting for something. The second end to this lost world, maybe; she had expected it to vanish like morning dew or a dream upon waking. But Amaurot stood, and its people with it. And perhaps she was searching for something. The shades were happy enough to tell an eager child some histories and lecture her on a few customs, but invariably she reached the bounds of their knowledge.

Hythlodaeus would know the truth.

That thought circled the bounds of her skull like an eager predator, and every time it resounded she could not help but be reminded of the last man to think it. But Hythlodaeus did not appear and offer her answers, and even if she created a shade of Hades to walk this city—after all, she’d done such a thing before, and wasn’t that chilling?—he would have no knowledge she was not already possessed of.

Sitting atop the archway crowning the capital building, Shasi considered it anyway. There was always the possibility that she was choosing to ignore such things as she already knew, and the technique would bring her subconscious to the fore. It was a dangerous gambit, of course, and she wrestled with it, and with the binary decision to tell Urianger of her plans or to tell no one. It was Urianger, after all, who was most familiar with the technique, though she had never owned her part in it. To tell him would require an accounting for Myste and a confession that she was responsible—and in some way eager to do it again. Urianger had been patient with the impulses her grief had driven her to, being more than familiar himself, but she was not at all certain his trust extended so far.

There was a flicker of white in the streets below. It startled Shasi from her thoughts, and she tracked it with her eyes a long few moments—just a white point upon stone streets, little different from the black figures of the Amaurotines.

She came down the same way she had come up—by hand, feeling the grit of the facade beneath her fingertips. It was a long climb, and her heart was in her throat all the while, but it was not really the fall she feared. The last time she had seen him, after all, he had tried to kill her. And still she scrambled down the side of the building, pausing on the balcony over the portico to scan the streets again. The white figure—there—smaller than the titans who walked these streets in their robes of black.

She could have just gone back inside and taken the elevator back down to the ground floor, but it felt dangerous to take her eyes off him even for a moment, so when she climbed down onto one of the pillars, she pulled herself around it so that she climbed its inside, looking out over the city.

It’s dangerous to climb so high, little one! one of the shades admonished. “I’m coming down,” Shasi protested, and vaulted herself back to the street. Her bootheels hit the stone, and she hustled away, black robe fluttering behind her.

Shasi had never been much a rogue, but discretion was better than haste now, lest more of those well-meaning shades henpeck her on the approach and give her away. To the Polyleritae District, then—which Shasi could not help but think an oddity. He had never been so concerned with such things before. But a fluttering of white in a sea of black robes was not hard to track, even if the lion’s share of her experience had come from tailing beasts for the hunt clans and not Echo-blessed emissaries.

The figure rounded a corner, and Shasi hustled to catch up, but when she came around the edge of the building she found the white-robed figure staring back at her. She stopped short, hands frozen at her sides.

“I thought you were …” “Elidibus?” Lensha asked. “Yes. If I were, what would you have sought? Answers or the fight?” Shasi frowned. “I know which I am likelier to get.” Lensha’s gaze swept over her, scrutiny sharp as knives. She smoothed a hand over her own white robes. “But it does not stop you trying, does it.” Shasi lifted a hand to her chest, rubbing lightly at her breastbone. Whatever fragile hope of peace the Emissary had offered once had broken like her rib cage beneath the force of his blade stroke. “What are you doing here?” Lensha only looked at her flatly. “This is my city,” she said. “As you well know.”

Shasi shook her head. “How could I have known that?” “Because it was yours once, Menelaus.” The name was unfamiliar to her, and yet it resonated. “Menelaus,” she repeated, feeling the shape of it in her mouth. “Or shall I call you by your title instead? You did abdicate,” she said, testily. “What are—what do you mean? How could you know all this?” Lensha looked at her a while longer, and Shasi understood then the expression that all those masks hid. It was patronizing and a little discomforting, to be looked upon as an ignorant child. “Sappho told me,” she said, as though it were obvious. “Though if you do not recognize your own name, I doubt you would recognize hers. Let us call her, instead, Igeyorhm.”

Shasi only stared at Lensha in return. It was quite the admission, especially given this was the very first time Lensha had deigned to tell her about herself. “What should I call you?” Shasi wondered. “Lensha Hathaar,” replied the other woman. “But you know my name!” Lensha only tilted her head briefly. “Be grateful for that,” she said. “Why did you come to this city of ghosts?” “For answers,” Shasi said. “So that is why your hand never went to your blade. I see. Well, hero, I wish you the joy of finding a satisfactory end.” Shasi’s expression turned dubious, the mirror to Lensha’s own. “I doubt that.” “Nothing ever ends,” Lensha said instead. “We walk the same circles, lifetime after lifetime. We think the same thoughts. All that we have done we will do over and over again. You will seek closure until your breath leaves your lungs, leaving others to seek it after you.” “You came here the same as I,” Shasi said. “Yes,” Lensha said. “To lose it later, I must have it now. Do you see?”

She didn’t, not at all, but that was always the way of things with Lensha. “Tell me everything you know,” Shasi said, not a demand but a gentle request. Lensha regarded her a long moment. “Not yet,” she said. “There are things you must see first.” “And then will you trust me?” “No,” Lensha said. “But perhaps I will answer you. If you listen.”

[punkscowardschampions]

Amber & Cosmo

Amber: [okay so what if like he finds her in Dash's room obvs he's not there like lowkey ransacking it and he can either help her or walk off whatever you think he'd do and then we can do a convo after that of her being like I'm not a burglar or a bunny boiler just for your info] Cosmo: [I like it, he'd more than likely just walk-off like 😏 okay so] Amber: [that works for us cos they've seen each other so they know each other is hot but haven't spoken] Cosmo: [exactly and just set up he's not gonna deign to get involved with anything his brother/you] Amber: not a stalker but realise getting in your inbox to claim that is a defeat.... Cosmo: you either got the wrong room or wrong inbox Amber: right room to get my zip back, right inbox because you saw me hunting for it Cosmo: I'm glad Cosmo: your efforts to stop him being entirely useless are appreciated Amber: I don't rate highly for him besides 🎯 Amber: but easy mark for theft isn't a sweet identifier Cosmo: Exactly, no need to get upset Cosmo: you've got your shit back and you didn't have to interact with him again, take your wins Amber: control your emotion? is that how you're gonna talk to a girl you've just (not) met? Amber: take your chance at less....THAT....first impression Cosmo: we met Cosmo: I was the tall, athletic guy Cosmo: you were up to your waist in all the crap he has lying about, but I could just about see you over it Amber: you looked at me, you didn't meet me Amber: it would involve not keeping walking Cosmo: I'm sorry, I didn't know there was etiquette surrounding girls who just so happen to be taking back what was there's, NOT stalking and NOT stealing Cosmo: should I have offered assistance? Amber: if the idea of meeting me horrifies you more than the prospect of me leaving quicker thrills you, no help required Cosmo: I'm not part of the turndown service, sadly Cosmo: again, nothing personal Cosmo: I just have somewhere to be Amber: I didn't know it was a real hotel Cosmo: He didn't tell you? Cosmo: practically the marmont but no one cool has died here yet Amber: the in depth conversation you're picturing us having didn't happen Amber: not to make you more uncomfortable than my sudden appearance Cosmo: rest easy, I'm not picturing anything Cosmo: as I said, busy Amber: 😴👶 Cosmo: What's that meant to mean Amber: I'll sleep like a newborn, you can rest easy knowing it Amber: when you're not busy Cosmo: 😏 alright Cosmo: would hate to have you keeping me up at night, honestly, so thanks Amber: if I wake up screaming for milk I won't come & find you Cosmo: If you wake up 9 months down the like with a screaming 👶 Cosmo: I'll redirect you to the right room, free of charge Amber: can you not put a hex on me please Amber: I'm too busy myself to be carrying any 👶s Cosmo: I can promise you I wouldn't know how should I want to Cosmo: but I don't and you seem smart enough to have put your faith in something beyond magik Amber: what do those people seem like to you? Amber: I can talk in riddles all day Amber: give you a reading Cosmo: I've been assured we're both too busy for that Cosmo: but I get it, I know where you're from Amber: you know where I live Amber: that makes two of us Cosmo: I don't need to know any more than that Cosmo: do you? Amber: if you don't, I don't Amber: you don't work at the hotel and I'm not the official spokesperson for this place Cosmo: we can both agree to give the guided tour a miss Cosmo: go on then, what's your name Amber: that's a quick turnaround Amber: you didn't need to know anything because you had an idea where to leave 💌 Amber: you wanna give them the personal touch, addressed to me and signed? Cosmo: You might be used to being the hottest girl in the commune or whatever but that ain't it Cosmo: you don't wanna be spokesperson, who are you then? Amber: 😂 we don't spend our days having beauty and talent contests but if I do speak out I'll suggest it over the campfire Amber: my name isn't who I am, is yours? 🚀🌠 Cosmo: Sure being humble and selfless is in the indoctrination but give it a go Cosmo: those 20s won will all add up for you Cosmo: and I go by my last name Amber: flattery & letters, you're a patron of all the dying arts, boy Cosmo: Someone's got to Amber: valiant Cosmo: If you like Cosmo: you won't be getting the letters though, this rate Amber: don't you like compliments back? Amber: I'll use a 🖋 if you prefer Cosmo: Genuine ones, perhaps Amber: you're not too busy for genuine connection? Cosmo: awfully presumptuous for someone who only knows where I live Cosmo: touche Amber: I know your name too Amber: & what you look like Cosmo: You won't tell me yours Cosmo: it can't be much worse Amber: It's Amber and up to you how you rate it Amber: some of my roommates have it worse, or better, subjectively Cosmo: Its normal Cosmo: you won the hippie lottery Amber: but maybe I'd commit more fully if I was called Acorn Amber: love my life Cosmo: maybe you'd resent it even harder and change it to something really dull just to spite them Amber: Or go by my last name, little 🐦 told me some people do that 😏 Cosmo: Long as any siblings you've got love their stupid name Cosmo: why not, eh Amber: I don't have any Amber: officially Cosmo: Piss off Cosmo: why are you like princess of that place Amber: I have no idea what you mean Amber: if anyone is,  Lux is Cosmo: You get a normal name AND you don't have 17 brothers and sisters Cosmo: you're one of the murderers on the run then, yeah? Amber: we covered that I'm no crazy ex Amber: my dad's a teacher, he teaches the ones who don't go to school Cosmo: figures Amber: what's the equation? you haven't shown any of your working out Cosmo: exactly Cosmo: that's why you're not exactly like the others I've 👀 Cosmo: 🍎📚 Amber: are you 'not like other girls' ing me or calling me a 🤓? Cosmo: You can have 'not like other girls I've met on the landing' Amber: am I supposed to want that? Amber: maybe this is a 'ask me how many other girls I've met on the landing' lead in Cosmo: Why would you need to ask? Cosmo: compare notes around the campfire Amber: it doesn't interest me Cosmo: Gutted for him Amber: how much more flattery can I take Cosmo: Maybe a question for yourself Cosmo: definitely not for me Amber: you're offering it up Amber: you're not gonna question that? Cosmo: I've got manners Cosmo: you can question why that's so shocking to you but I ain't gonna put a downer on your day now you got your bag of sunshine back Amber: the answer is because if you had manners you wouldn't have run away from me when I was going feral on your brothers belongings Cosmo: I don't owe his stuff any more than I owe you Cosmo: there's manners then there's involving yourself in business that ain't yours Cosmo: which is rude, btw Amber: I was upset & you ignored it, that's ruder btw Cosmo: He upsets lots of people Cosmo: I can't console you all Cosmo: I'm sure he'll be at yours if you need to talk it out Cosmo: or just smack him, better yet Amber: we aren't allowed to resort to violence to resolve our conflicts Amber: I came to Hotel Calfornia looking for him for that precise reason Cosmo: you're welcome to wait Cosmo: can never leave that one, yeah Cosmo: he'll be back for snacks at some point Amber: I got a better resolution, my shit back Cosmo: like I said, I am genuinely glad for you Cosmo: and I also said, you shouldn't bother being upset about him Amber: I'm not upset about him, that's why I'm not waiting for him Cosmo: What's wrong Amber: I don't like being stolen from, we share, we don't just take Cosmo: He's not from there Cosmo: and he's also a prick Cosmo: just tell all your other hippie mates and they'll not feel like sharing with him any time soon, easy Amber: he's there more than I am, he knows how things are Amber: & I'm not a teacher Cosmo: bold of you to assume he cares Cosmo: this ain't actually a hotel either, let you in on that shocker Cosmo: just treats it as such Amber: I'm not so high I see more dots than there are to connect Amber: you're easy to follow Amber: so is he Cosmo: If that's riddle for normie Cosmo: I've never been less offended, sorry Amber: if I wanted to offend you I'd have looked through your room after his Cosmo: what do you want Amber: something to do Cosmo: Do you wanna get back at him or no Amber: are you gonna out me to the hippies if I say yes? Cosmo: You've never seen me there Cosmo: you don't need to worry Amber: not worried, I'm curious Cosmo: right answer Cosmo: come back here and I'll help you this time, alright Cosmo: but not now, I have training Cosmo: later Amber: call my name when you're done Amber: now you know it Cosmo: alright Cosmo: if 12 other girls come out too, not my fault Amber: 😂 Amber: they won't look anything like me if they do Amber: we'll track each other down Cosmo: Hottest girl in the commune, I remember Cosmo: don't need to kick it that old school and insist on glass slippers Amber: what you should remember is I won the hippie lottery Amber: only Amber at the commune Amber: so if you find any others they'll be 'normal' Cosmo: quote unquote Cosmo: anyone who willingly spends their time there without reason is weirder than being born there Amber: I wasn't born there Amber: & you're being a bigger prick than your brother Cosmo: dragged there by your parents, same difference Amber: that's their reason for being there, they don't make me stay Amber: they don't make me do anything Cosmo: sure Amber: it's not the horriblest place I've lived, why is that so 👽 to you? Cosmo: Kids don't have free will when it comes to their parents Cosmo: mine don't MAKE me live here but where else Amber: I have more than most Cosmo: I already said sure Amber: but it's heavy with disbelief Cosmo: because its not real Amber: I'll send you a postcard as tangible proof when I go back to travelling & they stay here Cosmo: I'll pretend I'm impressed Amber: are we trying to impress each other now? Cosmo: Do you think you're being impressive Amber: no Cosmo: Good Amber: what are you training for? Cosmo: football Cosmo: I'm a footballer Amber: let me guess, you're the one who scores all the goals Amber: whatever that's called Cosmo: 😂 Cosmo: girls don't fuck with the goalie Cosmo: but I ain't ours Cosmo: even though its equally as important, if you ask him 😏 Amber: plenty more girls don't care what position a boy plays in Amber: or if he plays Cosmo: girls you know Cosmo: not ones I need to Amber: girls existing all over the world Amber: because there is a 🌏 beyond the commune, in spite of how obsessed you are with it Cosmo: called the world cup, look it up Cosmo: nothing unites the world more than football, fact Cosmo: ain't peace and love Amber: research football hooligans Amber: 👶s are made but domestic violence spikes if you lose Cosmo: part of it Cosmo: war is the other great equalizer, fightings the good bit of, obviously Amber: conversion to your way of thinking isn't necessary Cosmo: I'm right Cosmo: its irrelevant what you think Amber: I'm not looking for deprogramming & reprogramming Cosmo: Your loss Amber: 🙃 Cosmo: 👍 Cosmo: later Amber: call me, Cosmo 💫 Cosmo: don't call me that, like Amber: this is where if I was you, I'd say don't get upset Cosmo: I told you that's not my name Amber: what do you want me to call you? Cosmo: You seriously don't know his last name Cosmo: Christ Amber: why would I? he wasn't offering to give it to me Cosmo: 🙄 Cosmo: its Haynes Amber: 👌 Cosmo: [however long you have to train for, probably a full day] Cosmo: you about, Amber Amber: I thought you'd forgotten about me Cosmo: How could I Cosmo: how bad do you wanna mess with him then, what's the level here Amber: I don't want him to think I'm 💔 Cosmo: 'Course Cosmo: I've got an idea then Cosmo: you want to come back or you want me to 📬 you the goods Amber: are you gonna also send me 💌 with it? Cosmo: does that change your answer? Amber: yes Cosmo: I thought you'd had enough flattery for one day Amber: that was before you ignored me for a really long time Cosmo: 😂 Cosmo: you're funny Amber: 🤭 Cosmo: do you know what this is? Cosmo: [sends her a picture of a small ass/specialist spanner used for skateboard wheels] Amber: 🛹🔧 Cosmo: exactly Cosmo: so its just a case of if you wanna do the honours or not really Amber: I'll be there Cosmo: I won't start without you Cosmo: you can be more creative with your hiding places than he was too, not hard Amber: considerate Amber: I won't make you wait as long as you did me Cosmo: do most girls not like to be kept waiting too then Amber: it was you who singled me out as different Amber: 🕊☮️✌👽 Cosmo: comes with the territory Cosmo: but I could be beating women and rioting so you know Amber: 🌟 for not Cosmo: backatcha for being the only Amber Amber: I didn't choose my name, you know Amber: you'll have to give my mama that one Cosmo: 💔 so much for freedom Cosmo: take your wins, remember Amber: nobody can walk when they're a 👶 Amber: remember your manners Cosmo: you bringing her with then Cosmo: bit weird but fine Amber: you gonna flatter her too? Cosmo: 🌟 all 'round Amber: then no because her committed relationship would crumble & it'd be my fault for bringing her to the hotel Cosmo: hardly, I'm a prick, right Cosmo: and define committed whilst you're at it Amber: it's not up to me to define what she means by committed or to judge if she's into pricks young enough to be her son Cosmo: considerate Amber: 🤫 because I don't have 17 siblings or 4 fathers doesn't mean my mama is for you, boy Cosmo: the MILF thing is played out Cosmo: not for me Amber: 🌟🌟 Cosmo: cheers Amber: I understand why when he's at the commune, he stays Amber: it's a long way back to the hotel Cosmo: you reckon that's it Amber: do you have a pool? Cosmo: why would we Amber: he can't skate on water so that's another negative Amber: if you did Amber: & most hotels do Cosmo: yeah, for the 2 days a year the sun's out Cosmo: he'll have to learn to snowboard on it 'cos more likely Amber: you don't have to wait for the sun to come out to go swimming Cosmo: stitch that one on a pillow Amber: I'll leave it on your bed for you when I'm done Cosmo: you just that fast or you make a habit of breaking in? Amber: you don't want me in your pool or your room Amber: unfriendly Cosmo: 😏 Cosmo: gutted, obviously Cosmo: come in the front door this time, let's start there Amber: if you insist Cosmo: just thinking of my parents guttering Amber: are you calling me fat now? Cosmo: Oh yeah Cosmo: you're tiny, don't be dumb Amber: maybe you're playing blind football, I don't know your life Cosmo: I ignored you, I still 👀 you Cosmo: sorry to break it to you Amber: do you want that on the other side of the pillow? Cosmo: go on Amber: I'll just stitch some 👀s and freak you out Amber: the stalker in me Cosmo: 😍 more appropriate Amber: after you go swimming with me maybe Cosmo: got nothing more than a bathtub here, I weren't lying Amber: how big is it? Cosmo: you won't be able to do laps Amber: we'll have to float instead Cosmo: alright 😂 Amber: how long can you hold your breath for? Cosmo: I dunno Cosmo: but probably ages, my cardio is top Cosmo: how 'bout you Amber: we'll find out Cosmo: after floating Cosmo: gotcha Amber: or before Amber: I'm not setting a strict routine Cosmo: 😶 Cosmo: that's hippie talk Amber: that's what I am, boy Amber: more or less Cosmo: it don't matter what you are Cosmo: we've just got a common enemy Amber: you're being unfriendly again Cosmo: how am I? Amber: don't say I don't matter Cosmo: you understood what I meant Cosmo: just to each other Amber: that's not being stitched anywhere Cosmo: I will need another pillow like Cosmo: can't just have one Cosmo: but take your time Amber: 😏 Amber: what do you want on pillow 2? sequels are never as good Cosmo: I know, I'm the original Cosmo: does your wisdom start and end with the one quote then Cosmo: got the eyes, you may as well give me the rest Amber: my whole face isn't what you wanna be looking at every night before you go to sleep Amber: you never would Cosmo: come off it Amber: I'm an original too Amber: & the commune's hottest unless you're gonna take that back suddenly Cosmo: Not met everyone but I'd happily bet on it Amber: come meet everyone Cosmo: why Cosmo: didn't actually put a 💸 on that, if you're hiding some supermodel there for ransom Amber: because you won't find out if you don't Cosmo: I'll live, like Cosmo: tah for the offer Amber: what's your hang up with the place? Cosmo: anywhere my brother, or people like him, is, is not a place I need to be Amber: it's big enough that you can exist on opposite ends Cosmo: still Cosmo: not my scene Amber: when did you last go? Cosmo: I dunno, whenever I was last forced for some family birthday Amber: give it another 🎯 now you've been invited Cosmo: I still don't get what it is to you Cosmo: I like clubs Cosmo: and drinking over weed any day but not every day 'cos I have to stay in regime all week at least Amber: I don't get why you're so 🚫 Amber: Dash isn't gonna stop me being there Cosmo: I don't get why you care Cosmo: not the spokesperson you said Cosmo: I'm not ripe for indoctrinating, I'm good Amber: because don't you think you're too old for sibling rivalry Cosmo: There's no rivalry Cosmo: we don't like each other Cosmo: he's a loser and happy being it Amber: whatever you wanna call it, more played out than milfs Amber: it's like the kids here who draw a line down their section of the room Cosmo: I didn't ask for you opinion Amber: you don't have to be mad about it because you didn't ask for it Cosmo: I can be mad because its unwarranted and you have no idea what you're giving your opinion on Amber: I'll give you an apology if you'll take it Cosmo: whatever Cosmo: just come do what you need to do Amber: I just wanted to see you around, I didn't mean to go hard into prying into your shit Amber: sorry Cosmo: no harm done Cosmo: don't worry Amber: it's not been a typical day Amber: I know I wear stalker well but not my usual colours Cosmo: I get it Cosmo: I do know him even if I'd prefer not to Cosmo: and even if I don't know you Cosmo: no biggie Amber: that unites us if ⚽ never will Cosmo: Right 😏 Cosmo: I weren't taking the piss when I said you were different to the rest Cosmo: even if I didn't mean it as lame as it sounded Cosmo: don't feel bad, yeah Amber: shouldn't I? if I'm different then why didn't I act different Cosmo: We all make mistakes Cosmo: you don't have to be a repeat offender, you know Amber: that's less likely than the skateboarding on water trick Amber: he wouldn't offer & I wouldn't accept Cosmo: Good to know but bit TMI Amber: sorry again Cosmo: don't mention it Cosmo: seriously, like Amber: 😶 Cosmo: 👍 Cosmo: he's an idiot Amber: the way everyone talks about him, I thought Amber: we'd click Cosmo: Didn't you Cosmo: nah Cosmo: well, there's plenty other people 'round to be mates with instead Cosmo: one plus of living there, surely Amber: it's the best thing about living there Cosmo: there you go then Cosmo: and you clearly don't need any help with lads Cosmo: forget him Amber: after this Cosmo: well, of course Cosmo: not even stalker moves, just fair Amber: if you'd let me use the window it could be both Cosmo: would you like it to be both Cosmo: won't tell but I can't vouch for the neighbours Amber: you don't want your neighbours thinking I'm sleeping my way through the family Amber: understandable because you'd be 2nd Cosmo: Hilarious Cosmo: and you wouldn't want to break up my parent's stable committed relationship would you Amber: no Cosmo: I wouldn't recommend either of them and all so fairplay Amber: it'd be bizarre if you did Cosmo: you got limits then Cosmo: good to know Amber: because I consent to live with a big group of hippies you assume I don't? Amber: some of them are very limited Amber: or is it because I slept with your brother once? Cosmo: I'm not assuming anything Cosmo: that's why I said, always handy to know Cosmo: and you said you'd shut up so do Amber: have another go at asking me to & I will Cosmo: you don't get it, 'cos you're an only child Cosmo: but there's nothing I'd like to talk about less Amber: you still don't get to tell me to shut up Cosmo: If you wanna talk about him piping you, go literally anywhere else, I don't care Cosmo: I don't wanna hear it Amber: I don't wanna talk about it but I don't want you to talk to me like that either Cosmo: You stop, I'll stop Cosmo: that works in both our favours Amber: agreed Cosmo: sorted Amber: let me in & it soon can be Cosmo: 👌 Amber: [just gonna walk up in your house like she owns it] Cosmo: [doing the after you motion like 'you know where it is'] Amber: [going there cos she do] Cosmo: [following 'cos you've committed now not gonna bail, assumedly found all boards he has so more of a fuck you moment, just sitting on his bed like awks] Amber: [sitting on the floor because doesn't wanna sit on his bed for obvs reasons even if he hadn't already claimed it and getting to work but lbr she'd struggle to get some of the wheels off cos you can't tell me she's got any strength at all, look at her, so just looking at him like help] Cosmo: [shaking his head like lol but lowers himself to the floor too to get the rest off] Amber: [kissing him on the cheek when he's done it like thanks] Cosmo: [😳 and pushing her away, gently lol, like get off and just focusing on their handiwork like well 'what you gonna do with 'em all?'] Amber: [is genuinely thinking 'other than putting one on a necklace, you mean?'] Cosmo: [🙄 but not so severe 'you know they cost loads, for what they are, not joking, probably some other stoner kids you can sell 'em to'] Amber: ['there's plenty of younger skaters I know I can give them to' because what does she need money for tbh] Cosmo: ['cute' but 😒 on the low 'maybe someone can use them in a fucking, what's the word- installation'] Amber: [just nodding because another good idea thanks even if you're being salty] Cosmo: [on his phone a bit 'cos what else, also how else are you casually gonna add 'so you DON'T want me to punch him?'] Amber: [gathering up all the wheels to put in her bag because let's assume there's loads 'you said you're not assuming shit, I only said I'll get in it if I do at home'] Cosmo: [nods 😏 and hands her one that rolled away 'so what is part two of the plan?'] Amber: [shrugs like I'm not gonna tell you what to do about your brother again, lesson learned, but then looks at him for confusion because why do they need a part two 'a theft for a theft makes me and Dash even'] Cosmo: ['boring' and getting up like well if you're not gonna hit him] Amber: [gets up herself 'which door's the bathroom? we've still got plans' and does the swimming arms thing like come on] Cosmo: [laughs 'cos obviously didn't and doesn't think she's serious] Amber: [goes to find it herself because we know she is] Cosmo: [following and directing her away from his room like nope wrong way] Amber: [finds that 🛁 and sets it running and casually strips to her undies like it's no thing cos how she's been raised its not] Cosmo: [just turning so fast like horrified lmao 'what are you doing?!'] Amber: [sitting on the edge waiting for that fill like 'I spelled it out' looking at him like what's confusing you here we discussed it] Cosmo: [just looking back but only at her face to be like wtf] Amber: [goes to put her head under all 😏 but more amused than that emoji ever is 'time me' and then does holding her breath for however long she can] Cosmo: [is all 'for god's sake' under his breath but does still, also shutting the door though I assume they aren't in lol] Amber: [accidentally flicking so much water at him when she comes back up cos her braids are long af and loling like oh soz but obvs not] Cosmo: [so 😑 'are you done now or what?'] Amber: ['how long was it?' looking at him genuinely curious to know] Cosmo: [whatever number 'round about makes sense 'cos idk 'you need a baseline to know if its good or bad otherwise its meaningless data'] Amber: ['I wanna know if I'm better or worse than you, so have your go'] Cosmo: [a face like seriously but does 'cos competitive and 'I'm obviously going to be better, you could've saved yourself the effort' whilst taking whatever clothes he has on off] Amber: [just smiling cos what effort we're having a lovely time you rude hoe] Cosmo: [shakes his head but less mad than before 'don't cheat' and going under] Amber: [we all know he's gonna be better but that's hardly the point actually] Cosmo: [casually staying under 'til you nearly die, a mood, not even asking just like 😏 at her] Amber: [getting in the tub and lying down on her back stretched out like boy I am not bothered] Cosmo: ['if you just wanted to use the facilities, like...' and getting a towel to dry his face and hair] Amber: ['it's a hotel if I want, is it?' just being a mermaid over here like don't mind her] Cosmo: ['wait 'til I give you the bill' and taking the chance to look at her via the mirror] Amber: ['let me guess, am I gonna have to sell the wheels to afford it?' just loling] Cosmo: ['not in the market for a shit ton of squashes so you can't barter your way out'] Amber: [splashes him like rude but not actually offended obvs] Cosmo: ['oi' and drying himself some more like 'scuse me 'offer something better if you have it'] Amber: ['if it's too cold for you, I can add some more hot water' and does 'you've got plenty of that on offer, unlike the farm and plenty of other places I've lived'] Cosmo: ['you should've just asked if you needed a bath, like'] Amber: [splashes him harder than before like stop being mean to me] Cosmo: [a look like you said it and dropping the towel he was holding to mop the floor pointedly] Amber: [a look back like don't kill my vibe I'm having fun here] Cosmo: ['manners'] Amber: [gestures like his 'after you' one he did earlier for him to get in with her] Cosmo: [shakes his head 'small as you are, I barely fit on my own'] Amber: [looks him up and down like she's not even considered that he might not fit with a small lil pouty lip moment for half a sec before smiling 'is that a pro or a con for footballers?'] Cosmo: [just looking at her lips like can you not 'cos obviously wants to but is not going to, good distraction with football chat 'not essential but I'm faster than any short lad obviously, so that helps whatever position they wanna put me in'] Amber: ['but are you a scorer, officially?' when you think that's what they are called bye] Cosmo: [laughing but not at 'cos cute 'yeah, basically its me and the centre-forward, so his job is to just score the goals, which is mine too, but I also set him up with goals and do more attack midfielding too, like the go-between, s'more interesting' shrugs 'cos you know you're gonna have lost her and you're used to that 'cos WAGs don't actually care about the game either lol 'I'm fast, so I can be in two places at once, better than lads that only know one position and then are fucked if the formation is changed'] Amber: ['why can't every player help each other on the team how you do instead of having specific roles that they're really zoned into?'] Cosmo: [when you ain't expecting a follow-up question like oh okay 👀 'well, if we all do our role, then we work as a team like a whole, one being, so I can't fully go into midfield and do their defending side of it, and if I'm with the defenders I ain't where I need to be to pass the ball to goal, right? Like if the goalie decided he wanted to score, if we lose the ball, who's stopping it? If we all tried to do all of it, you've got 22 lads on a ball, the game falls apart, like. If everyone gets their one part down perfect, then the game is ours' pauses, trying to think of an example of his limited knowledge of her atm 'like your dad's the teacher, yeah? if he goes and does a half-arsed job of something else, then someone else has to half-arse the teaching whilst he's gone and then you end up with a shitter result than if you'd all done what you was meant to...you get brought to a team for a specific thing, so if you ain't bringing it, they'll bench you, but the more positions you're capable in, the more they can move you around...' stops sheepishly like sorry] Amber: [when you're buzzing cos he didn't make fun of you and that actually made sense and he'd be able to tell 'do they ever ask you where you wanna play though? when you start, or does the manager just decide for everyone?'] Cosmo: ['sort of. see, when you play proper, not just a local five-a-side, you work out when you're really young what position you're best in, or at least the area, even if you move about a bit within that area, like I've always been more attack than defense since I could walk- s'like any career honestly, so if your da was a maths teacher at one school, he'd more likely go to his next and do the same, you can change but you've built up a rep for that positon, you aren't gonna just waltz in and say you want a different one just 'cos, you have to prove yourself, like anything' when you feel like you're talking about yourself so much 'cos not allowed unless its with other boys at school/on the team so that's basically like work chat with colleagues 'you go same school as Dash and that then?'] Amber: [genuinely interested because wouldn't have thought about it like a career before and again it'd be obvious she's not just nodding along bored or whatever 'my dad doesn't like to let the class sizes get too big' because in my head there's lowkey too many peeps living at the commune full time never mind the peeps who come and go 'so when we got here I enrolled myself same day, takes the pressure off'] Cosmo: [that feels real to me as a vibe right before it all goes downhill 'that's good, though I'm sure it don't feel like you get much more attention' 'cos schools are always rammed esp. in cities] Amber: ['I don't want it' because I feel like she's not that academic soz father] Cosmo: ['what do you wanna do after?'] Amber: [shrugs because probably wouldn't know at this point 'undecided'] Cosmo: [wouldn't wanna sound salty about it 'cos that's most people but ultimately is 'cos not an option when you need to start as a toddler if you wanna do footie 'must be nice' half-smiles to show he's not being the rudest] Amber: ['I could become a referee, run into you again that way' also smiling but fully because obvs not gonna do that but like boy I wanna see you take the hint] Cosmo: [😏 'I reckon the songs the hippie boys write for you are more favourable than what you'd get as a ref but you'd suit the stripes'] Amber: [another pout that quickly turns into a smile because ultimately true] Cosmo: [a LOOK that's like stop doing that] Amber: [a look back because there will never be a time when I don't] Cosmo: ['you ever getting out or what, Ariel?' and running his hands through the water, making a point of getting SO close to touching her but not quite] Amber: [when you shiver but we can pretend it's because you're in the tub even though we all know you put hot water in not long ago] Cosmo: [but its more noticeable 'cos you didn't reply so another 😏 moment, going to his room without saying anything like bye but coming back with a dressing gown like there you go] Amber: [getting out immediately and putting it on like he might take it away again if I don't and I wanna wear it cos it's his so] Cosmo: [gonna drown in fabric and look so cute bye] Amber: [taking off those wet undergarments like you can't see anything but I'm now naked under this so think about that but also because it's necessary or you'll never dry] Cosmo: [just dying 'cos what are you gonna do with this obvious moment like umm] Amber: [walking out of the bathroom like it's so casual and throwing the words over your shoulder as you go downstairs to explore like 'where's the hotel bar?'] Cosmo: [let's assume you've got a few bottles of something decent in your top cupboard, when you don't need a chair 'cos tol boy, just getting out some vodka like ?] Amber: [going to the fridge to get something to mix it with cos there's no need to drink it straight we're not going that hard] Cosmo: [just leaning casually watching like okay, go off] Amber: [handing it to him as if he's the barman and walking away to go get comfy on their sofa, put music on and generally act like you live here] Cosmo: [bemused af 'how often do you do this then?' and getting himself some of whatever mixer she used] Amber: ['I never stay in hotels' because true tbh] Cosmo: ['well yeah but I could be anyone, you know' makes a face like 🤪] Amber: ['you could be someone too' and a look cos we all know what she means by that flirty nonsense] Cosmo: ['you gonna stay 'til you work it out?' and coming over to sit down 'cos just been hovering in the kitchen] Amber: [stretching out and putting her feet on him even though she's smol cos there's the answer she's going nowhere any time soon] Cosmo: [just looking down at them then looking back up at her, not saying anything but not not saying nothing you know] Amber: [drinking her drink but in a contented way and lowkey grooving to whatever music she put on] Cosmo: [when she's so cute in a way you are not used to 'cos girls you are like never get comfortable around you never let their guard down get up before you to reapply makeup types so you feel so outta your depth but not mad about it either] Amber: ['thank you, by the way' cos you remember you haven't actually said anything about him helping you earlier] Cosmo: [when you're a bit ? 'cos not sure what she's referring to at first but then you realize and shrug 'he deserves it, no big'] Amber: [nudging him with your foot like oi don't downplay it cos it means something to you even if he didn't do it for you] Cosmo: [grabbing her foot and tickling it to see if she is] Amber: [isn't so just raising her eyebrow at him like oh really] Cosmo: ['you're definitely an alien'] Amber: [laughs at that though 'plenty of people aren't ticklish, you know'] Cosmo: [shakes head 'sounds fake, hippie'] Amber: ['it'd be bogus if I did this-' reacts like a ticklish bitch how he obvs wanted her to] Cosmo: ['sometimes its polite to fake it, you know' throwing a pillow or something at her] Amber: ['whatever girl told you she was doing it to be polite...' throws it back 'that was not the real vibe'] Cosmo: ['shut up, that's not what I meant' purposefully throwing it out of her reach] Amber: [such a pout so offended] Cosmo: ['boys can fake it too, you with your assumptions'] Amber: ['I didn't realise we were waiting on your really polite boyfriend to come home, but I'll let you two be alone for the awkward discussion of why he really faked it'] Cosmo: [pushes her feet off him and gets up to go back upstairs] Amber: [just looking at him like what?] Cosmo: ['you know where the door is when you're done then' looks back 'or the window, whatever'] Amber: ['why are you so angry about anything I said that you want me to be done?'] Cosmo: ['I'm just bored of the jokes, you don't know me like that- like this' gestures between them and then does a 'forget about it' motion] Amber: [finishes her drink and goes into the kitchen to wash and dry the glass like fine I'm getting ready to go] Cosmo: [in his room, I guess] Amber: [shall I get Dash back rn or do we wanna coax him back first?] Cosmo: [whatever feels realer to you tbh] Amber: [let's get him back then fuck it, bonus points if there's a back door in the kitchen he comes through and she's just there washing up in a dressing gown like #ohhey] Cosmo: [how hilariously domestic, and you can't think she's waiting for you in your brother's dressing gown so bye] Amber: [I'm cackling but I'm not cos he'd be such a dick] Cosmo: [now I'm like, hmm, he's probably loud enough for you to hear, do you come down and diffuse/detract attention, I say yes] Amber: [just don't punch him cos then it will look like you're a couple lol] Cosmo: [just be your usual fighty selves and run girl run I say] Amber: [she'd have literally just been like I came back to get my stash and the rest is none of your business which doesn't exactly help so go back to the bathroom and put your clothes on girl] Cosmo: [just doing your best to not start a brawl here] Amber: [coming back clothed after a hot sec and giving him his dressing gown back with a genuine smile because you had fun and you're not sorry]