#Fic: Swift Wings and a Brave Heart

[whoismartianfox]

Sleepy werewolf and werebat Steddie based on @paperbackribs fic (Absolutely beautiful fic, do yourself a favor and read it)

[paperbackribs]

werewolf steve, werebat eddie (ch2)

🦇🧥🦇

Eddie’s knee bounces in the stationary van parked outside the Harrington house; he stares down at the open Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual clutched between his arms, flipping between the werewolf and the dire wolf. A drawing of the former has it standing upright, muscled and snarling with outstretched claws; his eyes are drawn to chaotic evil.

He knows that Steve isn’t evil. He does. The man who had spent hours next to Eddie at his hospital bedside showed an honour and trustworthiness that had drawn Eddie in even before he’d recognised it.

No, the caring guy he’s come to know is about as far from an alignment that lacks compassion and kills for sport as someone could get. That Steve is capable of wielding a nail-bat against the monsters of the Upside Down only lends an appealingly chaotic feel to the man Eddie had begun to think of as a rogue knight.

Sighing, he flips to the other page held open by his spare hand: dire wolf. Unaligned and a beast advantaged by its pack, this seems like Steve’s speed. Resembling his transformed self more acutely with its simple, albeit large wolf appearance. His finger stops on the bloodied maw, but the idea of it is still terrifying.

Reluctantly, he turns to the page he’s now memorised by heart. Man-shaped, this monster growls with open fangs too; sharp tapered ears are fixed on a figure draped in an aristocratic overcoat and cape. Finger trembling, he traces undead and lawful evil before pausing over bat polymorph as one of the vampire’s characteristics.

A loud bang smacks against the side of the van and Eddie jumps high enough to hit his head on the Chevrolet’s roof. “Ow, Christ!” He hisses, rubbing the sore spot and glaring at Dustin grinning at him through the closed window.

“Come on,” he shouts, “Everyone’s here!”

Eddie scowls, leaving behind the manual to tumble out of the van. Dustin immediately starts pushing him from behind and Eddie whacks at him with his hands, “Lay off, man. I’m coming, okay.”

Dustin hums doubtfully, “Yeah, but I watched you sit in the van for the last ten minutes and that was only after I noticed you’d arrived. Who knows how long it was going to take you?”

He quickly opens the front door before Dustin pushes him right smack into it, but the younger boy continues shoving at Eddie until he stumbles into Steve’s living room. In a similar configuration to yesterday’s intervention, the party sits, lounges, or stands about the room, quietly talking.

On the couch, Robin sits cross-legged with Steve who’s flipping through a magazine. Eddie’s relieved to see that all four limbs are human-shaped, and mouth only curved into a soft pout as he contemplates the article in front of him.

Everyone pauses to look over at their loud entrance. Steve glances up and, meeting his calm expression, Eddie almost blushes at how uncoordinated he must have looked falling through the door. He averts his gaze to El who approaches him with an outstretched palm, “Are you ready?”

Eddie sighs but takes her hand; she leads him to the open floor and they sit across from each other, “Yeah, we might as well do this. So, you’re going to force the bat out or something?”

“There’s no guarantee that you can shift,” Lucas leans back against the wall next to Will with casually folded arms. “You could be a normal human with bat scars and that’s it.”

“Or I could be a vampire of the night,” Eddie counters darkly. “I’ve been craving meat lately.”

Max rolls her eyes, “You have not, you big liar. I saw you scoffing down Honey Crunch on your front porch only two days ago.”

“Yeah, well, I was high. Maybe weed mellows out the beast.”

Eddie’s gaze flies to Steve when he snorts, but Steve looks away, concentrating on the magazine that Eddie suddenly suspects he’s not actually reading.

The thought that he’s avoiding Eddie stirs a familiar sense of guilt, giving rise to the niggle that he’d tried to forget after the wolf left yesterday, further punctuated by Robin’s distinct stink-eye. Even amidst the fear that had gripped him, he’d been able to see a sad, dejected version of Steve in the down-turned tail and slow trudge away.

“I'm going to take you into the void,” El says, holding out both her hands over her knees and Eddie takes them at her urging. “When I visit Steve there, he is able to feel the wolf and communicate with him.”

“I sort of see him next to me, if it helps,” Steve finally pipes up, watching Eddie warily like he’s expecting him to reject the advice, but Eddie only nods grimly. He’s going to need all the tips he can get he suspects. “Do I let it possess me or something?”

Steve frowns, a hint of reproach about him, “My wolf doesn’t posses me, he is me. Just like I’m him.” He shakes his head at Eddie’s confusion, “If you have a bat or a vampire or, I don’t know, maybe you’ll have a wolf too, then just reach out to him. He wants to be a part of you and you’ll both figure it out from there.”

Eddie looks into the steady gaze of Steve’s hazel eyes and feels it like a hand over his own: Steve has done this before, and successfully. He just needs to trust in the rogue knight one more time. “Okay,” he says, closing his eyes and following El’s lead.

🐺🐺🐺

Steve throws his Fine Gardening magazine onto the coffee table and leans against Robin’s shoulder, she presses back. “Does it usually take this long with me,” he murmurs, trying to keep quiet for the two sitting silently in the middle of the room. Both El and Eddie have their eyes closed and hands clasped with the other. Max had turned the television to a snowy channel to help channel El’s concentration with the static sound.

She hums a negative, “But then, you two only did it to play around and see if there was more you could learn about yourself. This is Eddie trying to find out whether he even has another version to turn into.”

She grabs his arm suddenly, “Wait.” Steve blinks, unsure of what he’d seen other than to describe it as a pulse around Eddie. A long beat passes before the trick of the eye flickers again, so quickly that Steve can’t be sure of what he’s seeing.

In one rapid swoop, the air around Eddie contracts, pulling abruptly inwards until Eddie the human disappears to be replaced with a bat standing unsteadily in front of El. He blinks wide eyes, faltering on tiny feet before stumbling over to land on his back.

Eddie squawks in what Steve thinks is shock before frantically flapping his extended wings and tossing over to push up into the air, erratically darting around the suddenly panicking humans.

With one wing beating harder than the other, he drunkenly tilts and rolls into Mike’s long hair. Shrieking, Mike pulls Eddie out and flings him away even while crying out, “Shit! Sorry, Eddie! Sorry!”

Eddie cries out himself and flutters, gaining his momentum only to slam into the wall with a thump next to Dustin who leaps forward trying to catch him, but Eddie desperately twists before leaping higher, aiming for the peak of the ceiling.

“Catch him,” Will yells as Lucas runs out of the room.

“I’m trying,” Dustin shrieks in a tone that matches the high screeches of Eddie above them.

Robin shrugs off her boxy jacket, “Wait, I’ve got this.” She advances on Eddie as he zig zags against the wall again, but he must see her as a large threatening animal because he chitters wildly before smacking his wings at her face. Robin yelps and falls, only narrowly avoiding hitting her head on the ground by Max urgently jumping underneath to stop her rapid descent.

Lucas skids into the living room, triumphantly holding aloft the large pool skimmer usually stored in the garden shed. “Steve,” he yells before throwing it across the room.

Steve deftly catches the long handle in the air and, with a twist of his wrist, scoops Eddie mid-flight. Quickly flipping the pole, he entangles his small body in the net.

Panting or, in Mike’s case, holding down his hair, the group silently gather around the squirming bat version of Eddie as he shrieks and tries to bite his way out of the thin rope.

Steve thinks of his first fumbling and panicked steps: the distinct difference between having two legs extended to four, not even at the right height, let alone the terror of suddenly having a completely different way of looking and feeling the world had been indescribable. There are still scratches in the wooden floorboards from how hard he had dug his claws in to stop his legs from skidding in all directions.

“Back up, guys,” he says softly, keeping his tone low and soothing. “Hey, Eddie, hey,” he shushes, positioning the net against his torso so he can roll Eddie out of the mesh without letting him escape. Everyone steps back or sits in a chair, and Steve brings Eddie higher up to his chest so he can meet the eyes of the little guy.

Although his thinking or way of interpreting his surroundings may be a little different, Steve is always aware of the world as he would be as a human, and he can see that it’s the same for Eddie. The big wet eyes of his bat form aren’t that different from his human ones, Steve thinks, a little amused even while worried at how hard Eddie is panting.

“It’s okay,” Steve says, “You’re okay, you’re with friends, and this isn’t permanent. You’re just a bat for a little bit, Eddie, and you’ll be human in no time. Okay? You’re okay.” He keeps repeating reassuring nonsense, keeping his fingers firmly wrapped around squirming wings and resting Eddie against his heart.

As a wolf, Steve likes to lay his head over Robin’s heart, likes the proof that she is alive and well under him, and often finds himself calming under her steady thump, thump, thump.

Under his fingers, he can feel the frantic thrumming of Eddie’s heart start to calm too.

“That’s good,” he croons softly, stroking his thumb over the soft down of Eddie’s head. He takes stock of the little body in front of him: over Eddie’s nose the bridge is one long stripe of white, the rest of him covered in a deep brown while the ruff of his neck is almost golden, his ears are tapered as is the long tip of his pink tongue.

They all watch while Steve successfully calms Eddie as if he is a baby cradled to him. “Do you think that’s a were thing?” Asks Lucas, peering at Eddie as his breathing slows down, he blinks back up at him.

“I don’t know,” Will says thoughtfully, “Steve is pretty soothing to have around.” El nods while Mike shoots his friend a look of betrayal.

Steve rolls his eyes, “He was just scared. Look, now he’s had a moment to chill he’s with us again.” And, sure enough, little Eddie’s eyes are drooping as Steve continues to lightly pat him, clearly relaxing into the comforting gesture. He loosens his hold, still keeping a firm grip but not so tightly in fear of Eddie struggling again.

Max snorts as she peers down, “Oh yeah, there’s the big bad metalhead everyone fears.”

Eddie’s closing eyes snap open with a glare and he squeaks at her. Unfortunately, Steve thinks, the cuteness of it all only supports Max’s teasing. Robin meets his eyes over the kids’ heads and silently laughs in agreement.

“Okay,” Steve orders, “I think the lot of us in the same room may be too much for him right now. You guys skedaddle and we’ll let you know when he’s back to rights.”

Dustin looks doubtful, “What can you do that we can’t?”

Robin snorts, “Uh, Dusty-bun, Steve is literally the expert in this room when it comes to were-changes. You can’t research your way out of this one.”

Dustin grumps, “I could. If we didn’t have Steve, I could absolutely be the one to help him get back to normal.” He turns to the backpack shoved against the table. “Here,” he says, pulling out two books with photos of bats across the covers. Steve peers further into the bag and can see back-ups that apparently didn’t pass muster. “These are the books I brought on bats. If he starts craving blood, let me know — I have more on vampires when he needs them.”

Max takes them from his hands while Lucas steers Dustin towards the front door, where they’d left their bikes outside. Mike mutters a mocking noise that sounds like skedaddle and, with that, the room falls silent once more.

Robin and Steve look over at Max as she falls back onto the couch with El quickly following behind. She stares back belligerently, “What? Mom dropped me off and Eddie was our ride back.” El crosses her arms with a serene smile.

Steve sighs, “Okay, but we’re not doing anything exciting and you guys are making dinner.” The girls readily agree, heating leftovers from Steve’s fridge and serving the four of them as they sit in the living room, eating while watching a Bewitched marathon. At Steve’s instruction, Robin had brought down his blue hoodie with its tunnel-like pocket over his belly.

Little Eddie had curled up inside of it and Steve keeps one hand over him to provide what he hopes feels like shelter and comfort; under it, he can feel the heat of his small body and the steady rhythm of his breathing.

“You look like you’re pregnant,” Robin acerbically observes from the other end of the couch, feet crossed into her lap for the lotus position.

“Does that mean that I can finally eat butterscotch ice cream without you making that face?” He counters with a bitchy expression back.

“What face?” She protests even as she makes The Face. Max rises her brow to Steve, “Why does she look like that?”

“That summer at Scoops maybe put her off some flavours for life,” he shares. El ignores them all in favour of watching Samantha wiggling her nose to float Darrin out of a tree.

“If I have to smell USS Butterscotch one more time, I’m going to puke — lack of pregnancy be damned,” Robin warns.

The commercials blares once Samantha finishes rescuing her husband, and El moves to peek inside the hoodie, tentatively extending a finger and gasping when Eddie’s little bat foot comes out to grip it. “He feels so soft.”

Steve snickers at Robin and he thinks he feels what’s supposed to be a bat bite through the cotton in retaliation, but it’s hard to tell with the lack of sharp fangs behind it. He sobers for the younger members of the room, “Yeah, but he can’t stay this way forever. Can you sense anything from him, El?”

She closes her eyes while continuing to hold Eddie’s foot, “He is not upset like earlier, but I don’t think he is ready to come back to being human-Eddie yet either.”

Steve looks worriedly down at the bump over his stomach, “Is he okay? I ran around a lot at first too, but once I figured out what was happening I tried to turn human again as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, but you also didn’t know that it was possible to turn back to human,” Robin points out. “He could be chilling ‘cause he knows that everything is going to be okay.”

El hums, “No, I do not think that’s it.” She shrugs, gently untangling Eddie’s clawed toes to lean back into Max who shifts an arm and drapes it over El’s shoulders comfortingly. “But he is not willing to share either. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Robin reassures her as she peeks into the other end of the pocket, smirking as she waggles a playful finger at him. Steve can see the wide, wet eyes of Eddie peeking out at her in curiosity. “Maybe he knows that he’s cuter as a bat than as a stinky human boy.”

Eddie glares and snaps his small teeth in the air before sullenly turning, curling up and facing the other way. Once again, a small hidden lump in the hoodie. Steve sighs, “We’ll give him the night and, if he’s not back tomorrow, maybe you can look for him in the void, El? Ask him what’s going on or guide him back to being human again. Whatever it is that he needs since it’s not working for him right now.”

He glances at the stairs, “Do you guys want to stay over? You can sleep in one of the spare rooms?”

“I call third bedroom,” Robin calls, standing up decisively, “Second bedroom has a weird smell.” She points her finger at Steve’s opening mouth, “I don’t care if you can’t smell anything, which, weird. Since you’re the one with the super nose these days.”

She grimaces and says more quietly, “I don’t think I can bunk up tonight, all the screaming got me…” She waggles her hand around her ears and Steve nods, knowing that she needs some quiet time after a lot of stimulation.

Max smirks and takes El by the hand, “That’s cool, we can’t smell whatever weirdo smell your nose is picking up. Night guys.” The girls wave before heading upstairs and Steve shuts off the television.

Picking his way through the house he double checks that the windows and doors are locked before turning off the lights and heading to bed. Lying down, he snuggles little Eddie to him, the small body already curled on top of his chest and asleep.

If you enjoyed anything of this I hope you'll consider leaving a comment over on Ao3 - it would make my day! 💖🦇🐺💖

[steddieunderdogfics]

Swift Wings and a Brave Heart by PaperBackRibs

recommended by @viviseawrites on this previous ask!

@paperbackribs

Rating: Teens and Up

29,472 words, 12/12 chapters

Archive Warning: No Warnings

Tags: Werewolf Steve Harrington, Bat Eddie Munson, Werewolves, Shapeshifting, Eddie Munson Lives, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Steve Harrington Has a Crush on Eddie Munson, POV Eddie Munson, POV Steve Harrington

Summary:

The beast stops, gaze narrowing at the pulse pounding in Eddie’s neck, and he quickly slaps a hand over it, trying to limit the temptation of the tasty-blood slash fresh-meat vibe he must be giving off. Robin scowls at Eddie, stepping forward to bury her hand comfortingly into the plush of its furry neck. “Don’t listen to him, Steve. He’s just being a big baby." - Eddie has never been a normal type of guy, but he's owned it: he's a gay metalhead in the heart of small-town America and nothing's going to phase him. Nothing except being told that his recent demo-bat injuries might turn him into a shapeshifter like Steve Harrington.

Thanks for the rec!

This rec is a part of Challenge Monday. The challenge this week was Bat!Eddie.

Know a fic that deserves extra love? Submit through our asks or the submission box!

[cinnabunwanda]

kinktober day one - the angel and the ghost stu macher !wxm!

summary

-> yn goes to a party with her sister and friends, when she asks where the bathroom is only to be faced with a ma in a ghost face costume. confused she follows his demands only to find out that it isn't the person she thought it was.

⚠︎ disclaimer; this is 18+, so mdni.. I will be keeping an aye out on everything but again I dont care if you read this and you are underage you are the only one responsible for reading shit you aren't supposed too.

content warnings - knife play, swearing, underage drinking, alcohol, underage partying.

pairing - young!stumacher x young!reader (please note that consent was given!)

word count - 662

authors note - welcome to the first kinktober, please be kind to me! if you have a request please send them in I know that my requests are closed for normal fics but!!! I will open them for KINKTOBER REQUESTS ONLY! anyways please enjoy and let me know what you think xx

I stand in front of the full-length mirror, my bedroom a chaotic mess around me. The scattered clothes and makeup bottles are a reflection of my indecisive state. Outside, the faint sounds of music and laughter can be heard, tempting me to give in and attend Stu's infamous Halloween party.

My sister Sidney barges into my room, dressed as a seductive devil and looking stunning as ever. She tries to convince me to come with her, offering to lend me her spare wings. But I can't shake the feeling that I look terrible in my planned costume - a sexy angel.

"I don't think I'm going," I sigh, glancing at myself critically in the mirror.

"Don't be ridiculous," Sidney says, coming closer and placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "You look absolutely amazing, don't let your own insecurities hold you back."

Reluctantly, I agree to go and quickly change into my costume. As we arrive at Stu's house, the sight of drunk teenagers stumbling around fills me with unease. But I put on a brave face and join in the festivities, grabbing a drink from the overcrowded kitchen.

As I wander through the crowded house, trying to avoid the rowdy party-goers, I find myself accidentally stumbling into Stu's bedroom. And there, standing in front of me is someone wearing Billy's iconic ghost face costume. My sister's boyfriend.

"Billy? This isn't funny," I try to laugh it off, but he doesn't respond.

He steps closer to me, his eyes filled with primal desire. My heart races as he runs his hand down my face and then down to my breasts, where he stops and looks back up at me with hunger in his eyes. In a moment of recklessness, I give him a nod of approval.

With one swift motion, he grabs me and throws me onto his messy bed, pulling out a knife and teasingly tracing it down my body as he slowly strips me of my angel costume. My heart pounds with fear and excitement as he takes control, leaving me vulnerable and exposed in only my white dress and heels.

He rips my dress off in a frenzy, his eyes wild with lust as he exposes my soaked panties. With a glinting knife in hand, he cuts them off with a sharp motion, sending shivers down my spine. My head falls back in submission as I see the throbbing outline of his cock and feel a surge of desire course through me.

In a low, commanding voice, I tell him to put it in and he obeys without hesitation. His rough hands guide himself to my wetness and he slowly pushes inside, filling me completely. A guttural moan escapes my lips as he starts moving with powerful thrusts, each one eliciting primal grunts from under his mask. Our bodies merge into one, our moans and heavy breathing filling the room.

Suddenly, he pulls out and roughly flips me onto my hands and knees. Without warning, he slams back into me, his movements becoming faster and more intense. Our cries of pleasure echo off the walls as we reach our peak together, collapsing in a tangled mess on the bed.

As he pulls up his pants and leaves me alone in the room, I can't help but smile at the rush of adrenaline and satisfaction coursing through my body. Adjusting my dress and fixing my appearance, I confidently make my way downstairs to rejoin my sister and friends.

Curiosity burning in her eyes, Sidney asks where I went. With a sly smirk, I reply that I got caught up talking with some girls from the cheer team in the bathroom. Stu hands me drink and thanks me for the quickie before adding with a knowing wink that it was amazing. My stunned expression reveals that I had no idea it was him until now, but the memory of our intense encounter lingers in my mind as the night continues on.

do not translate, copy, publish or edit my works without permission. © bunnie 2024-25

[phoebe-delia]

Not that anyone cares that much lol but after a lot of consideration and conversations with the microfic server and taking this quiz over and over, I have realized I'm a Hufflepuff.

I'll always have a special place in my heart for Ravenclaw, but I think I'm ultimately a Hufflepuff.

The reason I make this post is that Jet, @ginnyxdarling, you asked me a while back why I most identified with my Hogwarts house, and since I've now changed (and I'm nothing if not self-indulgent), I'm going to re-answer.

Although everything I said in my previous post is true, and part of me is genuinely so sad that I no longer share a house with my favorite character Luna Lovegood, I think Hufflepuff really represents me best.

Hufflepuffs value:

hard work

dedication

patience

loyalty

fair play

One of the qualities I value most about myself is my sense of justice, which is something I admire in both Luna and Hermione, neither of whom is in my house. But I think that connects with the idea of fair play because I have little tolerance for ill-intentioned and selfish dishonesty, as well as cheating. Taking a shortcut is one thing, but cheating is another.

I also believe in hard work, which is difficult for me sometimes when my ADHD and/or mental health cause me to struggle with my responsibilities. But when I'm focused, and I'm in the right headspace, I'm definitely a hard worker. Those of you who are kind enough to follow me might know that I write almost every day; that is a result of my hyper-fixation on this fandom/Drarry, my love of writing, and yes, hard work. Part of me wishes I was able to channel that into writing a longfic, rather than a ton of short ones, but I'm trying to remember that this is for fun, and short stories have just as much of a place here as the incredible longfics out there. But I digress.

I'm also very loyal. I will stick with and love my friends almost unconditionally—the only one really being that they treat me well, of course. There is very little I'd refuse to do for my friends.

I'll be honest, part of me is a little irrationally sad that I'm not a Ravenclaw, though I truly think Hufflepuff is right for me; but changing my house doesn't mean that I lack the Ravenclaw traits; it means that the things that make me a Hufflepuff are more central to who I am at my core than perhaps my Ravenclaw characteristics. I still love to be creative—as is everyone else in this fandom, regardless of house—and I still value acceptance, wit, knowledge and intelligence. I can also be brave like a Gryffindor and ambitious like a Slytherin.

I'm trying to remember that my house doesn't completely define me. If shipping and writing Drarry has taught me anything, it's that we're more than just one or five traits; we're too complex to be restricted like that.

It's why there are hatstalls, why Harry was almost a Slytherin, and why Zacharias Smith can be an asshole and a Hufflepuff, and why Peter Pettigrew can be a coward and a Gryffindor. And it's why Hermione can be the "brightest witch of her age" and not in Ravenclaw.

As I write this, I'm reminded of the paintings by @avenueofesc that are almost as gorgeous as their artist. My painting would be yellow, with swirls of blue and a hint of red, maybe even a trace of green somewhere.

This post turned out to be longer and more rambling than I intended, but the point is: allowing yourself to recognize all of the different traits you possess will cause you to see more beauty in yourself than you might've before, because the colors of your canvas are as vivid and bright as you.

My ask box is empty!! Send me an ask about Harry Potter, broadway/musicals, The West Wing, and/or Taylor Swift! Or just about life in general :).

Also, I have a playlist of my 99 most listened-to songs of the year so far. Pick a number 1--99 and send me an ask and I'll write you a fic based on it.

[sprnklersplashes]

songwriter!janis fic (unrequited crush, no-very-happy-ending) 

also on ao3

It all started because she loved Taylor Swift when she was in middle school. Who is she kidding, she still loves Taylor Swift, but that’s where all this began. A middle school girl’s obsession with Taylor Swift. A confused, sad girl with a broken heart and smudged black eyeliner, finding refuge in lyrics about loneliness and anger and revenge. They became anthems for her, mantras to mutter when the warzone of middle school became too much for her.

“Someday, I’ll be living in a big old city, and all you’re ever gonna be is mean.”

“Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in.”

“I can still see you, this ain’t the best view.”

It amazes her. It’s honestly as if Taylor Swift has managed to look into her life and given her a bundle of songs for whatever she needs. For when Regina has thrown her one too many snide looks, for when she’s standing at the door of North Shore High on her first day, for when she eats lunch alone, for when her mom is the best mom she could have asked for, for when she and Damian are lying on the grass in her backyard, staring up at the sky, laughing at absolutely nothing. The songs become the soundtrack to her life, the chords and those raw, honest lyrics an emotional outlet she so desperately craves. Taylor, and her songs, become a confidant, almost a close friend who always knows what to say.

With all that in mind, perhaps it was only a matter of time before she asks for a guitar for Christmas. She’s fourteen, braces and a slight lisp, and jumps up and down like a mad woman when she sees it under the tree.

She practices for three days straight, until her fingers bleed, but Should’ve Said No is the first song she learns off by heart. She yells the lyrics with maybe a little too much passion, but her parents applaud her nonetheless.

Like she said, that’s how it all started.

Because that same Christmas, she realises that screaming her feelings while playing guitar actually feels pretty cathartic. And that if it worked for Taylor Swift, it could work for her. So she writes stuff down, plays around with chords and strumming until the beat on the guitar matches the one in her head. She grabs a page and a pencil and writes and re-writes her innermost thoughts and feelings on the page until they sound the way she wants them to. She plays around with rhyme schemes and structure and everything she’s been taught about in English class, and a thrill runs through her as she does so. It’s the same breathless high she feels when she paints or draws, the rush that comes from creating something.

Her parents sit on the other side of her bedroom door, no doubt exchanging worried glances as she repeats the same verse, same chorus, with only a word changed. She watches them when they think she can’t see, peering through the crack in her door. The conclusion they seem to come to is ‘well, as coping mechanisms go, it’s pretty good, and she’s happy, so who are we to stop it?’.

It takes her four days to finish her first song. And it sucks. But she keeps it, writes down the lyrics and chords in one of the few empty notebooks she has, and there’s no going back from it now. She writes, and she writes, and she writes, near enough every day. She likes to think she gets better with each one. She learns more chords, buys a cheap ukulele the summer after freshman year, tries her hand at piano during a particularly difficult few weeks. She doesn’t plan on doing anything with them. They’re just her little pieces to hold on to. Her therapy sessions outside the carpeted office.

No-one knows about it. She has a reputation to keep up, after all. The loner-by-choice, too-cool-for-school, aloof art freak. Everyone has their roles to play in the ecosystem that is high school and, much as she hates the entire system, that is hers to play. And she plays it well, if she may say so. The fact that hardly anyone knows her past that facade suits her just fine. After all, if people think she doesn’t care, she can’t get hurt. No-one needs to know that Janis Sarkisian actually has feelings.

Even less need to know that she writes songs about said feelings.

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

By the time she reaches her junior year, she’s onto her third notebook. She keeps them tucked away in her sock drawer, expertly hidden so only she can find them. Damian teases her about it, calling her “the protagonist of a Disney Channel Original Movie”. She just rolls her eyes and reminds him that “if either of us is gonna be Disney’s first openly gay character, it’ll be you”. He can’t argue with that.

It should be noted that when Janis said that no-one knows about her songwriting, Damian was the obvious exception. He found out just weeks after she started. There’s no keeping secrets from him.

Between all her notebooks, she’s written around forty songs.

Then she meets Cady Heron one day. The human embodiment of a labrador puppy, complete with wide, lost eyes. She likes her instantly, decides to take her under her wing because Lord knows the girl needs it. Cady’s smile is infectious, her laugh like a summer breeze. She has dimples and caramel-coloured hair and really likes maths.

She meets Cady on a Monday.

By that Saturday, song number 41-titled “Dimples and Curls” is more or less complete.

She plays it for Damian, hands only slightly shaking as she changes chords, the strumming short and upbeat, the melody strangely happy for such a bittersweet song.

He applauds her, but the subject of the song hangs in the air even after she’s played the last chord and the music fades. Unsaid, but not unknown. Just like her songwriting, Janis couldn’t keep a crush from Damian if she tried.

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“Hey, check it out.”

Cady drops onto the seat across from Janis, the whole table shaking as she does so. Like a small meteor just hit Earth. Janis looks up from her lunch, pretending like she had been doing her own thing and not watching the door until Cady came in. Pretending like her stomach doesn’t do little flips at the sight of her crossing the cafeteria. She pulls the flyer towards her and hums in amusement.

“The winter talent show,” she reads before chomping off a carrot stick. “Oh, is it that time of year already?”

“Seems like only yesterday we was welcoming the young’uns into this brave new world during the harvest season,” Damian sighs, putting on a delightfully over the top Southern Belle accent, no doubt influenced by their reading of Streetcar Named Desire in English class. Janis cackles, and nearly chokes on her lunch as she does.

“And now the cold winds of winter are descending upon us,” she replies, her accent equally heavy. She bats her eyes for good measure, because she can and because it makes Cady laugh. “Oh but I pray the children will survive this season, it is often rough for them.”

“I am never showing you two anything winter related ever again,” Cady says.

Janis just shrugs and runs her hand through her hair before her eyes go back to the flyer. Clearly, whatever sophomore they got to design it this year did their best; found the prettiest looking snowflakes on Google Images to put on the cartoon stage, decided to write in some swirling, slanted font rather than the start-studded block lettering they usually went for. It’s still the same as it is every year, meaning just as mockable, but she’ll give them points for tying.

“Well, anyone here going for it?” she asks. She looks from Damian to Cady and back again, a teasing smirk on her lips. “Last year and all that.”

“Not sure I can,” Damian sighs. “I mean, I’m booked up with Spelling Bee rehearsals and spring cabaret auditions happening next semester.” He drums his fingers against his throat. “Gotta give the little vocal chords some rest, you know?”

Janis’ response is to sing the lowest note she possibly can before turning to Cady and giving her a pointed look, the corner of her mouth quirked up.

“Who? Me?” Cady’s cheeks turned crimson and she shakes her head so much that the caramel curls bounced around her shoulders. “No way. Damian can take the stage, I’m fine with my calculators and textbooks.”

“You could always solve equations in front of everyone,” Janis says. “I could call out college-level questions from the audience and you solve them in under 30 seconds.”

“I think I’ll pass,” she giggles. She leans forward slightly, eyes glittering, and Janis does her best not to squirm. The effect Cady Heron’s eyes have on her should be studied by scientists. “What about you, Janis?”

“I don’t know.” She thinks back to when she helped on stage crew last year, as well as helping out (or taking over) with the set design. It had been fun, the kind of challenge she needed to keep her mind off the slowly-going-off-the-rails plan. And she was told it looked good on her college applications, because all people can think about apparently is college, college, college. “Maybe. They might need another genius stage manager.”

“And you’ll step in if they can’t find one?” She digs Damian in the ribs for that comment.

“But not performing?” Cady asks, and Janis freezes. Performing had never even crossed her mind before. She’s used to backstage, hell, she likes backstage. It’s not that she has stage fright or anything, and if she had, her stunt at Ms Norbury’s little healing session would have squished it. She had just never thought about it.

But Cady had, apparently.

“I-No, I-I don’t think so,” she stammers out. “Um, I might do backstage again, but not actually doing something, you know, talent related.” She bites her tongue and clamps her lips shut before anything else can come out.

“Okay then,” Cady replies slowly. She gets up from the table, her little empty water bottle in her hands. “I’m going to go for a refill, save my seat.”

“No problem,” Janis says, but Cady’s already jogging away.

She doesn’t know if it’s good or bad that Cady’s known her too long to think of her as cool, and so this kind of awkward babbling isn’t really surprising to her. Instead of thinking about it, she just sets her head on the table and lets Damian rub her back.

“You were nowhere near as bad as you think you were,” he assures her.

“Title of your sex tape,” comes her murmured reply. Damian chuckles and runs his fingers through her hair, like she’s his pet cat. It helps.

“So you’re definitely not going for the talent show then?” he asks.

Her first instinct is to say no, because of course she isn’t, because she never has before and she sees no point in breaking a three-year streak, but the answer catches in her throat. At the same time, something begins forming in her brain, pieces of a melody she’s already known, words filling in blank spots in her brain, and her fingers twitch involuntarily, playing the chords on an invisible guitar. Without a word, she grabs a notepad and pen from her bag and scribbles the words down before she forgets them, quickly becoming breathless just by sitting there. She forgets, for a moment, everything else, the talent show, Cady, even Damian next to her, and just revels in the task and the quick buzz she gets just from writing. Just like that she has one eye on the clock, itching to get home and put her notes into the rest of the song.

But with those notes came an idea, an idea so completely out of left field she almost laughs at it.

“Janis?” Damian asks, just slightly unnerved by her. If anyone else were at this table, even Cady (especially Cady), she would have had to excuse herself and run to the bathroom, or just hope the words stayed in her head long enough for her to get a quiet moment. “Did the Goddess of Music just possess you again?”

“Maybe,” is her response. He doesn’t know it, but she answered both the questions he asked in the past minute.

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She sits on her bed that night, her homework half-done and strewn across the desk, abandoned in favour of the guitar sitting in her lap and notebook open on her bed. She’s been working on his song for the better part of a week, inspiration and motivation seemingly striking and then fading whenever she gets a free moment. Abandoning it has crossed her mind-she’s no stranger to abandoning things that aren’t working-but for some reason she hasn’t quite been able to shake this particular song off.

Maybe it is Euterpe, the Goddess of Music, descending upon her because this song has to be finished, it has to be, Olympus willing it so.

Or maybe it’s because this song is one of the most personal things she’s ever written, a love letter she’ll never send, and the idea of it sitting unfinished drives her crazy.

She plays another chord and sings the line again, changing the ending slightly, and makes the adjustment in her notes.

She’s crazy. This is already crazy, her secret double life as a wannabe T-Swift, but now she’s gone beyond that. Thinking of actually playing it. On a stage. In front of people. She doesn’t care what people think of her, she stopped caring about that a long, long time ago, but holy shit what will people think of her after she does this? Life isn’t like the movies, she knows that much. It won’t be some pretty, softly-lit moment where the crowd sits with teary eyes, Cady runs onstage and kisses her and she’s offered a deal by some big shot producer, and they all live happily ever after the end. What could happen is people think she’s even more of a weirdo than they do now.

Or she gets tomatoes thrown at her head and she’s booed off the stage. That’s a possibility.

She calls Damian, because that’s the only way she sees out of her little thought cul-de-sac. She puts the phone on speaker and props it up against a pillow, keeping her hands free for her guitar and her pen. He picks up on the third ring, just as she’s strumming out a G chord.

“Oh, is someone prepping for her Grammy?” he asks. “You’re still taking me as your date, right?”

“Only if my dog can’t go,” she replies. She taps her nails against the wood, the rhythm too fast and frantic to just be a habit. Yes, she can tell Damian anything, and being nervous in front of him is laughable, but sometimes her body forgets that. “So, I was thinking about the talent show.”

“Oh? You’re going for stage crew again? Cool.”

“No-not exactly.” She knows he can’t see the smile creeping across her face, but she’d wager he can hear it through the phone. A small swarm of butterflies flutters in her chest, leaving her just slightly out of breath. “I… I. think I’m going to try performing in it.”

A burst of laughter comes through the phone, slightly tinged with static, and Janis wishes he were here so she could slap him. Even if it’s not malicious in intent at all, and she’s laughing right along with him. Slapping is kind of a love language for them.

“Okay, okay cool. What’re you going to do?”

“I’ll give you a hint,” she says, and then she plays the opening chords to her latest experiment. She doesn’t add in the lyrics, not yet. Still, she sits back and basks in his applause when she finishes, cackling into her hand. He might be one person, but he’s got enough enthusiasm to match a packed auditorium. “What do you think?”

“I’m into it,” he tells her. “So… that’s the one you’re doing?”

“Think so.” She tosses the pick between her fingers. Like he could feel her smile, she can feel his raised eyebrow through the phone, the elephant in the room poking her with its trunk. “Yes, I know.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it,” she tells him, and he doesn’t deny it. She looks back over the lyrics she’s written and re-written. Despite some adjustments, it’s still in essence the same. Still about a girl with pretty hair who smells like vanilla and cinnamon, who has a boyfriend and is unknowingly breaking the heart of a girl with black eyeliner and paint stained fingers. Because her boyfriend is pretty and clean and smells like soap and can do math, and how is the poor art girl even meant to compare to that?

“Yes,” she says after a while. “It is about Cady.”

“Aw, my poor lovestruck songstress,” he sighs. He shifts then, and the air shifts with him. “You sure that’s the one you want to sing? I mean you have dozens of other non-Cady related songs. I’m sure Mr Duvall would love to hear Angry Teenage Lesbian Anthem.”

“First off, I gave that one a title, it’s called Shattered,” she reminds him. “And-” She freezes, the rest of her sentence catching in her throat. He’s right. She could perform one of her other songs, that are already finished and therefore removing the pressure to have this one finished, polished and stage-ready. And of course, it would mean she wouldn’t be standing in front of her entire grade and telling them all how badly she’s in love with her best friend. Showing her deepest secret to the people who have already driven her out of school once. It’s a far safer, potentially less traumatic option for her.

But…

“No,” she says. “I know it sounds crazy but I feel like… I feel like I need to do this.” She swallows thickly and picks softly at the guitar strings. “It’s like… like this way at least I’m telling her, you know? Even if she doesn’t know it.”

Of course, Damian gets it.

“That’s beautiful, babe,” he tells her. “So you’re actually doing this?”

“I’m actually doing this,” she replies firmly. “And tomorrow, I need you to make sure I don’t chicken out before I sign up.”

“Got it. I’ll just order you to do it as Senior Co-Chair of the Student Activities Committee.”

“That’s an abuse of power.”

“Then consider yourself abused baby.” He laughs and she laughs with him, and then she hears something on Damian’s end. “I have to go. A certain little sister of mine has a princess costume that needs attending to. See you later.”

“See you later,” she replies before he clicks off the call. She looks down at her paper, then at her guitar, and thinks about what she just committed to. “I’ve got some work to do.”

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The song goes through four rewrites in the weeks leading up to the talent show. The whole first verse is changed, the chorus scrapped and replaced with a new one, then that one is scrapped and she goes back to the old one. She sits hunched on her floor with a pencil in her mouth, wondering if what she’s written is too personal or not personal enough. If it’s too obvious that Cady, smart cookie that she is, will work it out and that’ll lead them down a new, scary path. She cuts some lyrics that give the game away, opting to replace one about love for numbers with love for learning, because that opens up the pool to half their grade. She writes about Cady’s blue eyes rather than specifically those double dimples that make her melt. Maybe she’s compromising her artistic vision, but it might be worth it if it’ll keep her crush a secret. She keeps the old lyrics tucked in the back of her notebook, just to have them.

Meanwhile, she’s also dealing with the fact that people know she has signed up for the talent show. That Miss Too Cool For School Loner Art Freak Janis is actually performing at a school event. And she doesn’t even get extra credit for it. They’re surprised, and curious, and none more so than Cady. The other girl appears at her side almost instantly after first period, skinny little arms wrapped around her bicep and blue eyes alight.

Oh, the things those eyes do to her.

“Janis!” she squeaks. “I saw-on the sign up sheet-your name! Oh my God, is this a joke? Did Damian put you up to it?”

“No, no, I signed up of my own accord,” Janis tells her. That only makes Cady bounce more, ponytail bobbing up and down.

“Oh wow, that’s amazing!” she says. She stops then, her mouth freezing in its place and her cheeks turning pink. Slowly, she comes down to Earth, like a balloon that had the air let out of it. Janis can almost hear the wheeze. “I mean um, it’s pretty cool, I guess.”

“It’s pretty grool,” Janis replies, and just like that Cady bounces back up again.

“Oh my gosh, what are you going to do?” she asks. “Or do you want it to be a surprise?”

“You think I have some secret knife-throwing talent?” she grins. She hesitates for a moment, looking down at Cady’s excited face, because even if this isn’t telling her… it’s telling her. “I’m… I’m going to sing.” She pulls on the strap of her backpack and avoids Cady’s eyes. “Something I wrote.”

“Okay,” Cady says. “Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

“Hey!” she laughs. “I can write stuff. I can be deep.”

“Oh, I have no doubt about it,” Cady says, bumping her arm against Janis’. “But for real, Janis, I can’t wait to see it. I know you’ll be amazing.”

Warmth spreads across her pale cheeks, a pink blush no doubt colouring her face, and she somehow manages to choke out a “thanks” as her brain turns to static. Her only thought is ‘Cady thinks I’m going to be good’, and it’s written in glitter pen across her brain.

“This is going to be great,” she goes on. “Oh, wait until I tell Aaron. He’s got a break in his schedule that week so he’s coming up to see the talent show! Isn’t that great?”

And just like that, Janis’ good mood falls. Her face stays the same, because she’s trained to do it, but everything behind it crumbles.

“Yeah, that’s great,” she replies. Cady squeezes her hand, oblivious, and drags her along the hallway, chatting away about some lion documentary she had watched last night.

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She finishes the song that night. She arrives home with a heavy chest, so full of complicated, messy feelings, and her conversation with Cady still so fresh in her mind, her ears still ringing from the emotional whiplash. Her parents barely get a ‘hello’ as she enters and bolts up to her room, her hands shaking, the thoughts swirling around her brain desperate to be let out.

And let them out she does. She writes so quickly they look more like smudges than words, her fingers flying over rapidly changing chords, her voice broken and panting as she sings. The words almost write themselves, like the song has taken on a life of its own and she’s just along for the ride. She barely remembers to pause, to breathe, so wrapped up in the storm she’s created with just her guitar and pen.

It’s only when she finishes and falls back on her bed that she notices the tears in her eyes. She blinks them away and pulls herself up, her notebook in her hand. It’s done. The perfect blend of her own honest feelings and just enough smokescreen to keep people from knowing who it’s really about.

There’s no backing out now, she thinks. Her stomach drops, like she’s on the top of a roller coaster about to go down. A laugh bubbles up in her throat and leaves her breathless, her head spinning while she’s still laying there.

If holy shit were am adjective, she'd use it to describe how she feels. Because holy shit.

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Being backstage when she’s not on crew is a strange experience. She stands with her guitar slung around her body, in the middle of a current of students moving around her, half with the clunky microphones and walkie-talkies she’s used so many times before. She asks five of them if she can do anything to help-because they’re her people and she needs to do something to occupy her time-until she finally takes the hint and leaves them to it. Stagehands are the most efficient parts of any production, as she told Damian once. They’re a well-oiled machine at this point.

“Yo!” For a second, Janis thinks she imagined the whisper, just one in a jumble of backstage noises, until Damian appears at her side. A tiny ‘shit’ escapes her mouth, her body jerking. Barely anyone bats an eye at her, except him. “Sorry, didn’t mean to spook you.”

“Don’t worry. I think at this point a small breeze could knock into me and I’d crumble.”

“The great Janis Sarkisian gets nervous?” he asks, eyebrow raised.

“Only when she’s doing something incredibly personal and scary in front of her entire grade,” she whispers back. She swallows past the lump in her throat. “Aside from that I’m a beacon of confidence and unshakable will.”

“Hey.” He taps his knuckles against hers. “Remember how scared you were at Norbury’s assembly?”

“You mean after I had my picture all over the school with the d-slur written underneath it?” she mutters. “Yeah, I was shitting myself.”

“And yet, look what you did there,” he reminds her. “You were amazing. And you’re going to be amazing here too. Once you get on that stage, all those butterflies are going to make you fly, kid.”

She smiles, her heart warm, and pressed her face into the crook of Damian’s neck.

She doesn’t know how she got so lucky to have him, but she knows better than to tempt fate.

“Janis Sarkisian?” She lifts her head to find a freshman girl with a headset around her neck looking at her. “You’re up next.”

“Okay.” It’s only now she becomes aware that the last minute of Fairytale Of New York is playing, the notes will soon fade out, and that’s her cue. She turns to Damian and lets him straighten her black cardigan and fiddle with the collar of her shirt. “Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need it.” He drops a whisper of a kiss to her nose. “But good luck.”

She holds her half-heart necklace as he goes, the twin to the one around his neck. It’s as close as she can get to having him with her. Her chest tightens as she makes her way to the stage and she tries to breathe through it, because the next thign she knows, Mr Duvall is announcing her name, and she’s being greeted by a blinding spotlight that thankfully obscures most of her peers’ faces.

“Uh, hi,” she says into the microphone placed out for her. It’s just people , she reminds herself. Somewhere in that crowd, second row, seat 14, is Damian, and she breathes easier. And next to him is Cady, the girl this song is about, and for some reason that straightens her spine and irons out the shaking in her voice. She takes the pick out of its holder and tosses her hair back. “This is a song I wrote about being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back.” She blinks and hopes no-one sees the tears in her eyes. “So sing along if you get into it, because we all know it’s a shitty ass feeling.”

She plays the first chord, and then any and all doubts she had about this flee her. As cliche as it sounds, the song takes over her, and she blows through the nerves in the first verse. The experience becomes cathartic instead, like releasing a pressure valve on her soul. Even with the little diversions she threw in, she hasn’t felt this open and god damn free since last year, paraded on her peers’ shoulders with both middle fingers up. Except now she’s not flipping anyone off, or proving a point, she’s just finally telling someone how she feels, and holy shit, it’s amazing. Whatever the aftermath of this is, she won’t care, it’s worth it just for this feeling.

As she sings the last word, and that final note rings in the auditorium, her hands are shaking, her cheeks wet with tears and her hair sticky with sweat. She touches beneath her eye and her fingers come away stained black.  She hasn’t cried in front of people since middle school. She doesn’t care.

The cheers of her classmates ring in her ears, Damian’s whooping the loudest of all, and as she takes her bow, she hopes she’ll remember this moment for a long time.

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“Oh my God!” she’s barely into the auditorium when Cady launches herself at her, arms wrapped around her neck and legs circling her waist. Janis nearly topples over, digging her back leg into the ground just in time, and hugs Cady with the same ferocity. “You were amazing!” she yells into her shoulder, the sound muffled by Janis’ hair.

“Really?”

“Absolutely.” She sets Cady down, but the other girl keeps a tight grip on both her arms. Janis wonders if it’s to keep herself from flying away, given the amount of bouncing up and down she’s doing. “I can’t believe you wrote that! It was so good! You need to record it, Jan. Do you have any other songs?”

“Just a few,” she says. “And I don’t know if I’m in the business of making an album any time soon.” She swings her guitar case a little. “This might have been a one-time thing.”

“Well, even if it was, it was awesome,” she says.

“Thank you, Caddy,” Janis replies. “That means a lot.”

Her mouth runs dry as Cady smiles, all baby pink lipgloss and sparkling eyes and full cheeks. If this were a movie, she thinks, this would be the part where they kiss. No need for talking, or an explanation. Because Cady would have just known. The music would turn soft and twinkly, and the lighting would match it and it would look like they’re in a dream and they’d just kiss, and it will fix all of Janis’ problems. Maybe a single tear will run down her cheek. And then they’ll run off into their new lives as the end credits roll.

How sweet that would be.

But her life isn’t a movie. If she wants anything, she has to go for it herself.

And that includes-

“Caddy.” Her name is delicate on her lips, handled with care. Cady looks at her, giving a simple ‘mm-hm’ in response, and Janis’ heart beats out of control. “That song I just sang, it-”

“Hey, guys.”

Also if this was a movie, Cady’s sweet, lovely, nice boyfriend would not be barging in right now. He’d either be a douchebag who she doesn’t feel bad about hurting, or he’d be nonexistent.

Unfortunately, this is not a movie, and Aaron Samuels exists and is the human equivalent of a squishmallow.

“Hey Aaron.” He slings his arm around Cady’s shoulders, and she leans into his touch almost instinctively. “Janis, you were great up there. I didn’t know you wrote songs.”

“It’s a bit of a new hobby,” she says, her voice hoarse. She clears her throat, and finds a bottle of water being handed to-thrown at-her.

“Hydrate those chords,” is Damian’s greeting.

“This is what I get for being friends with a theatre kid,” she sighs before she takes a drink. She hadn’t realised how dry her throat was until now.

“Okay, so we’re all going for pancakes,” Aaron says. “I take it you two are coming?”

“How can I say no to pancakes?” Janis asks. “Uh, you guys go ahead, I have to get my stuff from the green room.”

“Okay, we’ll wait for you,” Cady says. “Aaron brought his car so he can drive us.”

“Grool.” Cady and Aaron turn around together, Aaron spinning his eyes around his finger and Cady lacing her fingers through his, talking about something she can’t hear. It’s like watching them through a sheet of glass.

Not a movie. Not unless it’s one of those really, really sad movies. Sad homophobic movies.

“You okay?” Damian asks. She snorts at the question. Nothing has changed, so of course she’s okay. But then, nothing has changed, so she’s not really okay.

“I did it,” she sighs. “It’s out there. I told her, unofficially. Whether or not she works it out…” She runs her hand through her tangled hair. “That’s something else entirely.” Damian hums in agreement, a sympathetic look on his face that soon morphs into a grin.

“Hey,” he says. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks Mom.” They snort, Janis caught between a laugh and a sob, and squeezes Damian’s hand. She’s not optimistic about any romance in her future, at least where Cady is concerned. She and Aaron are still rock-solid and she’s happy for them, whenever she isn’t angsting about it. It’s a weird combination to have.

And at least she’s done this now. Despite a future for her and Cady not being in the cards for now, she’s glad she did it. The secret isn’t out, not entirely. Just written on the walls in invisible ink.

“Come on,” she tells Damian. “I actually do have to get my bag, and you can use this as an opportunity to double check the ghost light is on.”

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Cady and Aaron keep their promise and wait for them, waving off their apologies as they jog across the parking lot. Cady lets Damian take the front seat with Aaron and slides into the back with Janis instead. Janis frowns, confused as to why she isn’t taking her normal seat up front, and Cady rolls her eyes.

“There was a draw on the way here, and we lost,” she explains. “And now Damian has control of the aux chord,” She gestures with her head to the passenger seat, and Janis turns just in time to see him open his Spotify and scroll through his playlists. As the opening notes to Waving Through A Window fill the car, it’s met with three loud groans. Damian only turns it up louder, and adds in his own backing vocals.

“So, that song you sang,” Cady asks, leaning back in the seat. “Was it about anyone in particular?”

Janis looks down, her hands pressed together in her lap. If this is the moment the universe decided to give her, it’s a really terrible moment. Not only is Cady’s whole boyfriend sitting an arm’s length away from her, but she left her nerve back in the auditorium. Clearly, her and fate aren’t on each other’s wavelength.

“You wouldn’t know her,” she says. “She doesn't even go here.”

“Oh,” Cady replies. Her face falls, but she’s not too put out by it. Why would she be? She nudges Janis’ shoulder, a proud smile on her face, and squeezes Janis’ hand. “Well, if she has someone like you into her and she hasn’t taken the chance yet, then she doesn’t know what she’s missing.”

Janis only thanks her, and quickly changes the subject.

Someday she might tell her for real, but for now she'll stick to the songs.

[houseofhurricane]

ACOTAR Fic: the pilgrim soul in you (1/1) | Lucien x Vassa

Summary: A missing-moments Vassien fic covering ACOWAR, ACOFAS, and ACOSF, in which, after a while, Lucien and Vassa fall in love.

A/N: I teased this for a while, and it's finally here. Additional notes and tag list at the end. I hope you enjoy 🧡

Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire.

-- T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

The best story: that Lucien first sees Vassa at the lake, swooping over the water. That he’s entranced by her at this first glance, dazzled by the bird of fire, that he can sense the woman within nearly bursting to get free. Even in the form she was cursed with, Lucien might say, something about Vassa beckoned him from the first glance.

But Vassa would never let Lucien tell this story, because it is untrue. They first meet as the evening darkens, when Lucien has found the fire made by the Prince of Merchants. Before he spots the father of the Archeron sisters, he sees the strands of Vassa’s hair glowing red and golden in the firelight, generously curled and falling to the middle of her back. Then there’s the blue of her eyes, as bright and dangerous as the center of a flame. Her golden-brown skin, a shade or two darker than his own, luminous in the combined light of the fire and the stars, so that he can’t help but imagine how it would feel under his fingers.

His breath catches in his throat at what wells up in him, a feeling that is bright and dangerous.

Of course, she spots him seconds later, and then there’s a dagger at his neck, and Lucien is mercifully distracted. Vassa might be a young queen, but she’s clearly had experience with would-be assassins.

“I was sent by friends at the Night Court to try and break your enchantment,” he says, trying to keep his voice calm, but not so calm that she’s suspicious.

“I didn’t need faeries to set me free.” Her voice is lower than he’d expect, a rich alto, the words lilting with a musical accent. She does not growl the words, only tucks his hair behind his ears with her free hand, revealing the delicate arches, a gesture that lays him bare. But he does not think about his vulnerability. To do so would only increase the possibility of pain. Instead, he thinks that he’s surprised to feel callouses on her fingertips, decides to ask what would roughen a queen’s fingers at the nearest opportunity. Even then, he’s planning for a long string of moments with Vassa. “You aren’t the only beings who care about the saving of this world.”

At this point, Gabriel Archeron steps into the circle of light, and the resemblance to Feyre and Elain and Nesta is strong enough that Lucien blurts out their names, claiming he has news, and eventually the knife is removed from his neck.

Lucien makes himself a mix of charming and sorrowful as he tells the Prince of Merchants all that has happened to his daughters, trying to find a sufficient level of honesty that will not provoke unpleasant revelations later, while still convincing them to let him travel in their group. When he has finished and Gabriel has blinked away tears, which Lucien pretends not to see, he turns to Vassa.

“I was sent to make an entreaty to you,” he says. “My land will soon be at war, and the situation is grave. Hybern has been massing its armies for decades, and their spells are as formidable as the magic that binds this world together.”

“If your faerie armies can hardly withstand this onslaught,” she asks, in that thrilling tone that seems to emerge from deeper within her body than ordinary speech, the perfect ideal of a queen’s voice, “why do you expect that my human armies should go willingly to their own slaughter?”

“In my country, the High Lords and generals do not lead from the back of their armies. They fight on the front lines.”

“They have their own power to shield them.”

“Your armies would not battle on the front lines, majesty.”

She smirks at him, her teeth little moons in the firelight. “You sound quite naive when you speak on the workings of battle, emissary. You’re lucky that I have already promised my armies to your friends’ father. We ride to meet them at the coast.”

Lucien shoots a glare at Gabriel, who is smiling at the glow of the dimming fire.

“Queen Vassa flies by day, of course,” he says, the dry humor in his voice so perfectly balanced with graciousness that Lucien understands the reasons for his reputation. “Her wings are swift.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Lucien sees Vassa’s shoulders stiffen ever so slightly. Surely as a queen she is used to adulation.

“Perhaps you’d prefer to keep the enchantment?” Lucien asks the queen, as he turns back to the fire, trying to rile her a little further. Let her know what sort of journey this will be.

The change in Vassa, though, is apparent even to his half-gaze. The sudden tension in her muscles, a readiness that isn’t training but sheer terror. Her golden-brown face, a shade or two darker than his own, goes pale.

“You said your people could free me,” she says, and though she tries to make her voice commanding, Lucien has politicked in every court in Prythian and cannot miss the terror laced into every word.

Against all his better instincts, he tells her: “We’ll free you.”

She turns his head so he can’t see it, but still Lucien can vividly imagine her smile, brilliant and sparkling in the night.

&

&

&

At first, Vassa thinks she will hate Lucien, the way he smirks and teases and generally makes it clear to everyone that he’s full of the arrogance of the High Fae. Then she realizes that, as much as she hates to admit it, Lucien is the most intelligent creature she’s ever met. His mind simply spins faster than any of her court advisors. He sees a thousand possible futures so clearly that her astrologers, famed on the continent for the accuracy of their predictions, would gnash their teeth in jealousy at his seeming clairvoyance.

It’s when Vassa begins considering his gaze with respect instead of annoyance that she knows her feelings have well and truly changed. Because Lucien’s gaze is unnerving in its omniscience: his russet eye sees everything visible, and his gold eye seems to pierce into an unseen world.

Sometimes, in the little sleep she snatches every night, Vassa dreams that Lucien Vanserra, emissary of the High Fae, can see straight into her heart. And though she begins these dreams afraid of what he’ll see, her weakness and fear and failure, at some point his lips quirk into the smallest smile, and Vassa wakes up feeling rested for the first time in months.

By day, it’s all Vassa can do to force the firebird to follow Lucien and Gabriel on the journey toward the coast and her army. The firebird’s mind is so different from her own, easily distracted and unable to parse experience into human comprehension. But the firebird’s eyes turn the world into a jewel box, and the firebird spends too much time staring at the glint of Lucien’s hair in the sunlight, sparkling every shade of red and orange and gold.

In the evenings, by the fire, Lucien’s gaze is not so piercing as it is in her dreams, and though she can admit to his masculine beauty, to her human eyes it is not as overwhelming as what the firebird sees by day.

By the fire, he makes sarcastic remarks that punctuate Gabriel’s stories, insisting that his daughter Feyre is even more brave and kind and stupid than her father lets on, that Nesta is a holy terror. Lucien does not say anything when Gabriel mentions the other daughter, Elain, only clutches his cup or fork a little tighter, makes his breathing too steady.

At a thousand endless state dinners, Vassa has learned to observe the tells of royals and ambassadors. She’s barely had a chance to use this skill outside of card games with her ladies-in-waiting, but now she’s sure that Lucien has met and desired this Elain.

It’s better this way, she tells herself. They are wartime allies. He will likely end up married to Elain Archeron and Vassa will get her curse broken by someone among the High Fae and she’ll reclaim Scythia and her rightful throne. Eventually, she’ll find a politically advantageous consort. Perhaps, once her rule is secure, she will take a lover.

Still, as they draw near to the coast, she finds herself laughing at Lucien’s remarks. He ducks his head towards her in little asides, explaining Prythian politics or making jokes so dry that her laughter nearly startles her. She realizes that, as much as she will always love Gabriel Archeron for finding her, for leading her away from Koschei, her eyes will always go first to Lucien.

Vassa tries not to think about what it means. A young queen cannot afford an ill-considered love affair. Still, when Lucien’s eyes, russet and gold, land on hers, she cannot force herself to look away.

&

&

&

For their first three days at sea, Lucien worries that Vassa will fall into the ocean when she transforms from firebird to woman. The minute the sun begins to kiss the horizon, he watches her flame-bright wings and braces himself to winnow if she cannot position herself safely over the boat.

Always, Vassa manages to land safely on the deck, and Lucien swallows his anxiety. In spite of all his good intentions, the fact that she’s surrounded by the Scythian generals who adore her, Lucien can’t help seeking her gaze, can’t help scanning the length of her body for any hint of harm. All he finds is Koschei’s curse wrapped tight around her, and then Vassa’s sapphire gaze on him, the flash of her bright smile.

He thinks of Elain and he does not think of Elain. Elain, the mate who does not want him.

One day soon, before they’re reunited, Lucien will have to tell Gabriel that his middle daughter is mated to the male he’s crossed the continent with. But instead he listens to the stories the Prince of Merchants weaves about his adventures, basks in the glow of his regard. Gabriel Archeron was born when Lucien was already centuries old and tired of this world, and still Lucien catches himself basking in his fatherly countenance.

He thinks, maybe even a miserable life with Elain would be better if he had such a father-in-law.

Then Vassa catches his eye, ducks her chin to whisper that Gabriel is certainly exaggerating, she’s been to the town he speaks of and the river is not nearly as terrifying as he’s making it out to be. In fact, she says, her voice low and lilting in his ear, she and her ladies-in-waiting crossed it with skirts in hand. Then, her whisper going so soft it’s barely audible, she makes a vulgar speculation about Gabriel’s virility, the kind of phrase that would make her generals shout with laughter.

Lucien can almost feel her full, soft lips against his ear, so that he has to force himself to let out a quiet laugh. The skin of his body feels too tight. His blood thrums inside him. Somehow he makes himself turn back to the meal, laugh again when she repeats her aside to Gabriel, now at full volume, her speculation now even more elaborate and ribald. As Lucien predicted, the generals roar their approval at their queen, and Gabriel flashes her an approving smile.

For just a second, Lucien finds himself wishing that Vassa had told him a different story, which would belong only two of the two of them, not a mere rehearsal of what she’d say to everyone dining with them. He pushes the thought away quickly, focuses on the plate in front of him, lifting the spoon to his lips.

Later, when Gabriel and the generals have retreated to their rooms, Lucien finds Vassa on deck, her head thrown back as she stares at the stars.

He should go to his room, cramped and dank as it is, but instead he stays watching Vassa. Despite the dark, he can see her bright eyes considering each constellation. He can hear the beat of her heart, louder than the waves.

He considers approaching her, asking her what she sees in the stars, if it’s beauty or some vision of the future that draws her. But Lucien is a mated male now, and although he’s sure the conversation would be innocent, increasingly, closer proximity to Vassa feels like a betrayal.

Finally, he forces himself to turn away, to walk to his room and bolt the door.

Elain could take a hundred years to want him. It doesn’t mean he can be in bed with another female (another woman) for that century of purgatory.

Still, maybe it’s the distance from Elain, maybe the sea itself has bewitched him, but even as he falls into sleep, he can’t stop seeing Vassa, luminous and sarcastic and brilliant, behind his eyelids. Imagining how she might feel if she were tangled up in this narrow bed with him.

&

&

&

They arrive in Prythian just in time, Vassa realizes later, once the sun has dipped below the horizon and she’s human again. She can only vaguely recall the sound of screaming, the iron scent of blood, the feeling of flesh under her talons. She had not known the firebird could attack.

Gabriel died at the hands of the King of Hybern, her generals tell her, and though she still walks through the ranks of her soldiers as she’d planned, she hardly registers the faces of the men and women who have guarded this world. She does not remember what she says to the wounded or to those who came out unscatched.

Afterwards, her hands are covered in blood.

She finds herself walking in the forest, not caring if she could be attacked. Surely any monsters have enough sense to fear the magic she witnessed on the battlefield.

Still, she startles when she hears the footsteps behind her. She whips around and there is Lucien, scratched but whole, golden even in the night, no matter the dark leather armor that covers his body like scales.

“You’re all right,” Lucien says, the relief in his voice so deep it’s practically a sob.

Vassa forgets all her reasons for keeping her distance as she launches herself into his arms, presses herself so tight against him that she can smell his citrus and sandalwood scent, hear the beating of his heart. So that the armor he wears digs into her cheek, her ear.

“There’s blood on your hands,” he says, reaching for her fingers, running his thumb over each digit. She tries not to shiver at the contact.

“I needed to visit the wounded. It’s a custom among Scythian queens, to thank their warriors personally. To grieve with them. But I have no idea what I told them. My people have not been at war since well before my reign.” Still, she was trained for this moment. She should have known.

He releases her fingers, his hands working up her arms, until he’s pulling her against him, his cheek resting on her head, the place where her crown belongs.

“No wonder your people love you,” he says.

A dozen sarcastic comments rise in her mind, but they are all wrong for this moment, when all she wants is to stay this close to him, held so tight that death and despair cannot come between them.

Eventually he says, “Your people will think that you were kidnapped by faeries.”

“If only they knew,” she tells him. “Do you think that I could speak with Feyre Cursebreaker tonight?”

Instantly he looks guarded, and then she remembers Elain, the faerie female who Lucien loves. She pulls herself away from him, just enough that she could step away if anybody found them in the woods.

“I think Feyre has been asleep for hours. Nobody is awake but the wounded and the healers and the guards.”

“Which one are you, then?”

“I could ask you the same question,” he says, and when he smirks at her, that flash of the teeth that mark him as High Fae, a thrill runs through her entire body.

Elain, she thinks, then says primly, “It is a queen’s prerogative to be wherever she likes, is it not?”

“There have been no queens in Prythian for thousands of years.” His hands are still on her back. His fingers are tangled in her hair, and if he wanted, Lucien could tug it, angle her mouth so as to be easily kissed. Instead he looks at her as if it’s the last time he’ll ever see her face. Maybe it is.

“You are quite a new thing, Vassa,” he says, after a moment or an eternity. She’s not sure.

It would be so easy to kiss him, she thinks, and Lucien is clearly honorable, more than even he realizes. He would never harm her, never leave her to be ashamed. If he accepted her kiss, surely something wonderful would begin between them.

But then she thinks of Gabriel Archeron, his warm gaze like a benediction on her, the kindness and bravery he showed when he rescued her from Koschei. The way he spoke of his daughter, Elain, the love that filled his voice when he spoke of her, the daughter he would never see again.

She finds that although it is easy to imagine kissing Lucien, his lips on hers, the opening of their mouths and her fingers searching for a gap in his armor, she cannot ask her body to make any of the required motions. Once, not so very long ago, she was well-schooled in honor.

“We should go back to camp. I’m tired.” It is the first lie that Vassa has ever told to Lucien. It will not be the last.

&

&

&

At political functions, much is made of conversations, tone and gesture. Even a too-long look can be made fodder for months of court gossip.

Even knowing this, even knowing he needs to make inroads with Tamlin, that at minimum all his emissary posts require him to converse with the members of the assembled courts, knowing the Night Court watches him, wondering when he will finally try and speak with Elain, Lucien cannot stop looking at Vassa.

Someone has provided her with a dress of sapphire silk and a diadem of gold and sapphire, has brushed her hair until it is practically a living flame falling riotous down her back. He has never seen anyone more radiant. No matter the ruined estate, the tense conversations, even if the whole world goes to hell in this meeting, it will have been worth it to see Vassa every inch a queen in this moment.

When he spots her talking with Jurian, Lucien can hardly contain his fury. He does not trust the man, no matter that he saved Feyre. Sometimes he barely trusts Feyre.

And when Jurian bends to press a kiss to the back of Vassa’s hand, Lucien has to acknowledge the feeling that’s hot inside him: jealousy.

It’s wrong, he knows, when his whole body shouts whenever Elain is near, his heart practically thumping out her name. Far from her, he was able to forget the effects of the mating bond, only the coldness inside him whenever she would not meet his eye.

Still, no matter how close Elain lets him get, he has never felt himself alight the way he did last night, when Vassa stood in his arms and let him pull her close. He has never scanned the horizon with worry that she will fall into the sea, never laughed at a single thing she’s said.

So although Lucien forces himself to let the conversation between Vassa and Jurian play out, tells himself over and over he might be good for her as if repetition will make him believe the sentiment, the moment Jurian steps away, Lucien strides directly to her side.

“I spoke with Feyre,” Vassa says, by way of hello. “She does not know how to break my curse.”

“Feyre has barely learned her powers.”

“Oh? Are you saying you can do better, One True Faerie?” She swats at him, fingers barely grazing his jacket. Still, he warms at the contact.

Smiling in spite of himself, he taps his temple, indicating his golden eye, the scars surrounding it. “I’ve been told I can see what others can’t, Your Majesty.”

“Don’t tell me that line has worked on a single woman.”

“Lucky for me that the females of my species are much more credulous than human queens.” He allows himself to bask in Vassa’s laughter, too loud to be dignified. “But now that we are in Prythian, there are others with the necessary skills. There are whole libraries that might be of assistance.”

He thinks, but does not speak of Helion as he summons his powers and takes another look at the curse, which is fashioned like a harness on her shoulders, crossing her clavicle and looping around her shoulderblades, Vassa’s heart surrounded by the trip of Koschei’s magic. The magical signature is foreign to him, a long and complicated sentence in a language not spoken in a thousand lifetimes.

“Jurian said there was a place for me in the human realms, if I wanted to take it,” she is saying, snapping him back to the present, the physics of the known world. “Do you think those faerie experts will remember me across the wall?”

“There is no wall anymore,” he says, rewards her with a low laugh when she rolls her eyes at him.

“You’re full of fairytales today, but I suppose that’s appropriate,” she shoots back.

“They won’t forget about you because I will constantly be reminding them that the human queen who saved their sorry selves is still bound by an enchantment.”

“For a moment I forgot how self-important you were.” In spite of her words, Vassa’s smile is sweet and hopeful, the kind of expression only humans wear. In all his long and miserable life, Lucien has never seen such a lovely smile. He hates himself for thinking it but cannot bring himself to turn away from her the way he should.

“There’s more I can do,” he says, breathing deep, letting the imminent mistake wash over him, like dangling his foot off a cliff. “I could stay with you and Jurian, if you wanted. If I wouldn’t be interrupting the two of you.”

She reaches for his hand and squeezes it, a squeal muffled between bitten lips.

“Jurian is a terrific ass and you’ll have to keep me from slicing him to ribbons.”

He’s so dazzled by the feeling of her fingers on his that he doesn’t even bother to look and see if anyone’s watching. For the first time he can remember, every thought leaves his mind.

&

&

&

Jurian would be the perfect man to marry, Vassa realizes within the first three days of their living together. An ancient warrior would not be a strange consort to a firebird queen. True, their arguments shake the walls, and his ideas are old-fashioned to an idiotic extent, and of course there’s the fact that Vassa cannot imagine herself ever falling in love with him. Still, he would be the right choice.

Far better, to be certain, than Greyson, Lord Nolan’s son, who at Vassa’s arrival is paraded with the pomp that would befit a king, not a minor aristocrat. She can tell that there was a sweetness to him once, but that it’s curdled, and what’s left to the boy seems now beneath her regard. She does not know how Elain Archeron once loved him. This fact alone makes her think less of the girl.

Then again, Vassa knows that she is inclined to judge Elain more harshly than she deserves. She tells herself that this is because of the dejected expression on Lucien’s face when he first returned from Velaris after the war, the way he goes quiet when she’s mentioned.

But in her secret heart, when she’s the only one awake in the Nolan manor, Vassa can admit that she’s jealous of Elain Archeron. She hates this emotion. It is not fair, it is not honorable, and yet Vassa feels jealousy wrapping its tendrils around her.

So when Lucien appears in the manor in between visits to the courts of Prythian, she is cordial. She is friendly. Sometimes she even allows her smile to break free, but only if he is telling her about progress towards the breaking of her curse. Only if the implication is that she could be free, and therefore far away from him.

More and more when she’s around him, Vassa feels as if her human self has merged with the firebird: unable to speak freely, bound by invisible chains.

If her arguments with Jurian grow a bit sharper and she smiles more wickedly when she bests him, well, between the curse that makes her a firebird and the heart that longs so furiously for what it cannot have, she cannot possibly be expected to have perfect forbearance.

&

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&

Finally, there is an evening where Jurian goes to bed early and it’s only Lucien and Vassa in Nolan’s shockingly ample library, the last of the wine between them. Vassa’s cheeks are flushed from another argument with Jurian. Lucien had tried to read through it, but the history he’d selected was inaccurate and every time he looked up, Vassa and Jurian seemed to be grinning in spite of the heat and clamor of their words. They argue like lovers now, he kept thinking, the words spinning before him, turning nonsensical.

“Do you still think that Jurian is a terrific ass?” he asks, before he can stop himself, the wine stretching his words into a drawl. As if the question is unimportant. As if it is not dangerous.

“He’s exactly the kind of man my advisors would tell me to marry. Even my mother would have approved.” Her fingers, on the glass, have gone yellow-white from the strength of her grip. He cannot tell what she’s nervous about.

“I suppose he is miraculous, in his own way. As long as you enjoy going to battle every night.” A hint of the old smirk. Maybe it will unsettle her into revealing the truth.

For a few seconds, the room is still, so quiet he can hear the quickening thump of Vassa’s heartbeat. Weeks or months ago, maybe, Lucien would have been smug over his ability to rile her. Now he only waits to see what she will say.

“At least he’s not in love with someone else.” Vassa does not look at him, and for the first time since he’s known her, her blue eyes do not sparkle.

“I’m not--that is--” Already he has revealed too much. He can feel the heat of her gaze on him and now it’s he who cannot meet her eyes.

“I know about Elain. And I cannot...her father rescued me from Koschei. I will not dishonor his memory by stealing you away from her. No matter what I want.”

He thinks about saying, you have a high opinion of yourself, Queen of Scythia, the kind of thing he’d usually say to her, which would rob the moment of its tension, send them off to their separate beds. Likely, the usual jibe would set everything right. But Lucien has tried to play the dutiful suitor to his mate, has found her thoughtful gifts and has waited until her (their) heart warms, and still she cannot wait until he leaves her behind. Still his thoughts stray to Vassa. And the very thought of her with Jurian is worse than the guilt of leaving his mate for another. Let Elain take a thousand years to come around to the idea of him, let her break the mating bond itself, Lucien thinks, gulping down the last of his wine. She is not the problem. Probably she never was.

“I’m not in love with her,” he says, finally, the words like tumbling off a cliff. “She’s my mate. Chosen for me by the Cauldron. And if I could choose, Queen of Scythia, believe me that I would choose a woman who can win any argument, whose beauty is only eclipsed by her fierce intelligence, and who still has not told me how her hands, the hands of a queen, came to be so calloused.”

“In Scythia, women can be warriors. I’ve trained with a sword since I was seven.” The words are hardly a breath.

He rises from his chair. The book falls from his lap, lands on the carpet with a muffled thump, but he does not turn. He only looks at Vassa’s eyes, the blue deep and sparkling as the middle of the ocean, lit by the noonday sun. Vast and lovely and alive.

He waits for her to look away, but instead she stands up so that she’s right in front of him, the silk of her dress sighing against the toes of hits boots. He always forgets, until they stand close, that she’s nearly as tall as he is. How hard it has been to keep from kissing her, when her lips, the color of ripe berries, have been right in front of him for all these months.

Now, finally, his mouth is on hers, hot and sweet, her lips opening to his tongue, a groan escaping him because Vassa, lithe and lovely, is in his arms, so quick and urgent that he can’t remember whether he reached for her or if she embraced him first. Her calloused fingertips are on his wrists, his neck, working the buttons of his jacket until it falls to the ground.

“I do not want to ruin you,” he says, too far gone with need to blunt the words, trying not to think about the way his cock strains at the seams of his pants. Only the woman in his arms, flushed and disheveled and smiling as she rolls her eyes at him.

“I am the Queen of Scythia by birth and by my own desire. I cannot be ruined by anyone.”

He wants to believe her, and so he kisses her, stops only long enough to undo each button that fastens her gown, take a long look at her lean body, her small breasts that fit so perfectly in his palm, her muscles visible with each movement. Her golden brown skin is scattered with freckles, and he presses a kiss to each one until she tugs at his hair, hissing her frustration.

Between her legs, she’s molten velvet. He strokes her until her little sighs become moans, until her fingers scrabble to reach him, pull him even closer.

“Get inside me, Vanserra.” He nearly laughs at her approximation of a fierce growl, unraveled by the keening sound of desire, a mirror of his own. Still he holds himself apart from her, quirks a brow.

“Need I remind you how bastards are made, Your Majesty?”

“I’ve heard the tales about your contraceptive potions. If you want me tonight, stop stalling.” She crosses her arms over her breasts, and Lucien dearly wants to kiss the smug look off her face.

“I’m glad you’ve been studying our customs,” he says instead, pulling her down to the thick rug that covers the library floor.

At first, he tries to be gentle, but she pulls him closer, her eyes set on his, so that when he enters her with that first desperate stroke, he can see the moment of pain. He cups his hand around her chin, kisses her as he moves in and out, until she begins to pant against his mouth, saying please and yes until she goes stiff and ecstatic, and he follows her, need giving way to a roaring pleasure.

Later, she’s curled up next to him, weaving braids into his hair, and she says, “I know this is only for a little while.”

Before she can continue, Lucien scoops her up so that her body covers his, until he can’t see anything but Vassa’s face, the pensive look she can nearly hide behind her drooping eyelids, a languid smile.

“This is for as long as you’ll have me,” he says, pressing a kiss to her lips. “You are the one I choose, Vassa.”

They do not sleep for a moment of the night, and when she goes to meet the dawn, to become the firebird, Lucien holds tight to her hand.

&

&

&

In her dream, Vassa has fallen into the ocean and she cannot breathe. She tries to inhale the ocean water, she’s become that desperate, but her throat is closed, as if her drowning body has been filled with stones.

When she opens her eyes, the ocean is gone but she cannot breathe, and Lucien works frantically over her body, his eyes moving in every direction, his fingers moving through the air as if guiding a miniscule orchestra.

There’s a burning, raging and deep, where Koschei’s spell binds her. She feels the burning in her blood, as if the nature of her curse has changed and now she will remain a human queen, with the firebird doing battle inside her.

And the world is full of air she cannot breathe.

She thinks, looking up at Lucien, his face now revealing a bit more terror but his hands as sure as ever, that this was always going to be the way that she died: curled up in her bed, looking up at Lucien. Only, she’d always thought that she would be old and wheezing, perhaps a little bored of even their great love, ready for a new adventure.

Now all she can think is that she should have kissed him the first day they met. That she’ll die so far away from Scythia. That she’d never thought her lungs, deprived of air, could burn quite like this, as if she’d inhaled fire instead of air.

She reaches for Lucien just as whatever binds her falls away, and despite the relief that overwhelms her, the air that floods her, Vassa realizes with horror that it was her own hair that coiled around her neck, long and thick enough to form a rope.

“It took so long to find the right unbinding spell,” Lucien says, holding her hand tight in his own. His voice is small, the voice of a lost child. “I thought--”

“I need you to cut my hair short,” Vassa says, her voice rough. Each word burns her throat. “Or Koschei will kill me with it eventually.”

There are others who want to kill her, of course. There are always rivals and assassins and foreign rulers who worry that she will conquer the world with her will alone. But no one other than Koschei could activate the curse, could transform her blood into fire. The rope of hair was only the visible manifestation of his powers.

“I know the unbinding spell now.” He dips to kiss her cheek, her temple, and she’s grateful he knows that he cannot kiss her mouth, rest his body on hers, nothing that impedes her breathing. “I can keep you safe.”

“One day you will have court business that keeps you away overnight.”

“And what if Koschei uses a blanket?” His voice is rough over the question and she realizes that he’s imagining the scene.

“If you’re away, I will sleep on an empty bed and Jurian will watch over me all night long. Now go fetch your sword,” she says, trying to make her voice sound imperious, to make him sarcastic and smirking again, her own Lucien.

One flash and the mass of her hair falls to the floor. What remains hovers an inch over her shoulders, revealing her freckled clavicles, the half-wings of her shoulderblades.

“You are lovely,” Lucien says, laying the sword on the ground.

Normally she would take advantage of his position, guide his mouth to all the places that make her go wordless, but now she only catches his gaze, lets him see the fear on her face. It’s one of the expressions she never lets anybody see.

“This curse will kill me soon,” she tells him.

“I will go to every court in Prythian until we figure out how to unbind you from the death-lord. I swear it to you.”

“Every court in Prythian has forgotten me. And why should they remember? In their eyes, my life will go past in a blink.”

“I will never let them forget you,” he says, smoothing her newly shorn hair away from her face, pulling her close beside him, so that she can hear each breath and thump of his heart. “I will make sure that you are free.”

She does not tell him that it’s no longer freedom she craves, exactly. That she wants to be bound to him the way she is bound to her country, to her people, tied by blood and right and strength of will.

Instead she presses her mouth to his and allows herself to forget, just for a second, how to breathe.

&

&

&

Because humans do not celebrate the old Fae holidays, Vassa did not mind his spending the Solstice at the Night Court, but in spite of this, Lucien spent each minute calculating the earliest moment he could return to her.

She’s still awake, curled up on a sofa in the library, when he returns from Feyre and Rhysand’s estate, bearing a piece of cake he’d secreted away in a heavy cloth napkin.

“I didn’t think you would return before tomorrow,” she says, looking up from her book of history, thick with politics and deception and warring.

Always, he is surprised by the bright blue of her eyes, even in candlelight. Always, he knows, deep in his bones, this woman will enchant him.

“I wouldn’t miss a single night with you if it could be helped. And I have not given you your Solstice gift.”

“I thought we weren’t exchanging gifts,” she says, her mouth puckering into a frown.

“You should know better than to always take me at my word,” he says, raising a brow, watching the indignation rise on her face. He lets the napkin fall into her lap, and then a smaller package, which he’d wrapped carefully this morning, while she wheeled over the manor grounds, wings aflame.

She lets out a little gasp at the sapphire earrings which will turn each ear into a lattice of sparkling flowers, bright against the red-gold curls of her hair. He’d contracted a master jeweler months ago, measured Vassa’s ears when she lay sleeping, so that the fit is exact. It’s the kind of jewelry a queen would wear, he thought, when he gave the earrings their final inspection.

One day soon, Lucien knows, Vassa will be free of the curse that binds her. She’ll go back to Scythia and reclaim her rightful throne, earn and accept and enjoy the love of her people.

“I will follow you, ” he says, watching her smile grow as she studies each flawless sapphire, not a single one as brilliant as her eyes, “when you go back to Scythia.”

“You do not have to lie to me,” she says, and her voice catches in her throat with an emotion too complex to name. “These earrings are enough.”

“I will follow you,” he says again, and kisses her before she can argue, pulls her close.

In the morning, he wakes before the sunrise, walks hand in hand with her through the forest, the silence between them comfortable as their bodies move themselves from sleep.

The moment before the sun passes the horizon, Vassa lets go of Lucien’s hand, and turns toward him. An instant later, the firebird circles near his head, swooping around the trees. Lucien almost thinks there is a spark of recognition in those blue eyes, as if he’s managed to lodge inside that animal brain, wedge himself inside the curse, the first step to destroying it all together.

When the wing of the firebird passes over him, he is startled to realize he feels no pain at the heat of the flame.

“You’ve realized, of course, that I love you,” he says, feeling foolish at speaking into the snow-muffled silence, knowing that the animal before him cannot speak, likely does not understand.

But the firebird extends her wings and, with a great cry, shoots up into the air, keening over the forest, her own sun, before returning to the place where Lucien stands, beholding her glory.

For the rest of the day, she will not leave his side.

.

.

.

A/N 2: I've been a Vassien shipper ever since I watched Lucien light up while talking to Vassa in ACOWAR, and I love how this ship has everything: intelligence, beauty, mutual snark, and no problem standing up to the Night Court. Though I have no idea if this ship will sail in the next ACOTAR books, I can't help but root for these truly immaculate vibes.

Tag List: @vassiensupremacy @vassienweek @lucienvassa @lantsov-vanserra @bookstaninthesoul @fireborne6 @flowerbirdsblog (I tagged you if you previously reblogged my preview of this fic -- please let me know if you'd like to stay on or be removed from my Vassien tag list.)

[skyyneverlookedsoblue]

✨tag 9 people to learn more about their interest

Thanks @itsjustaboathome @nico-cab for tagging me, ilyyy 💜💜💜

MUSIC

fav genre? i always listen to pop, indie, some pop rock and a little of rap

fav artist? besides my 5 fav boys i love Yungblud, Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Arctic Monkeys, The NBHD and a thousand more

fav song? of all time it's Iris - goo goo dolls

most listened song recently? Beggin' - Måneskin, for sure

song currently stuck in your head? fOoL fOr YoU - Zayn

5 fav lyrics?

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming or the moment of truth in your lies. When everything feels like the movies, yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive. - Iris - goo goo dolls

If the truth tell, darling, you'd feel like there ain't enough dying stars in your sky. It's a tall tale, and it's only hello hello, no goodbye. - Only the brave - Louis Tomlinson

For your eyes only, i'll show you my heart for when you're lonely and forget who you are. I'm missing half of me when we're apart. Now you know me, for your eyes only. - If I could fly - One direction

Dear patience, if i pour my heart out, can you keep a promise? 'Cause the situation is like a mountain that's been weighing on my conscious if i'm being honest. Feels like you don't even know me, just me and the stars can get lonely. - Dear patience - Niall Horan

If I'm a pagan of the good times, my lover is the sunlight, to keep the goddess on my side she demands a sacrifice, drain the whole sea, get something shiny. - Take me to church - Hozier

radio or your own playlist | solo artists or bands | pop or indie | loud or silent volume I slow or fast songs | music video or lyrics video | speakers or headset | riding a bus in silence or while listening to music | driving in silence or with radio on

BOOKS

fav book genre? I only read novels and fantasy, it's my escape from reality.

fav writer? I don't have any fav

fav book series? Twilight (was the first one i read)

comfort book? any sweet novel

perfect book to read on a rainy day? My favs fics

fav characters? Augustus Waters - The fault in our stars.

5 quotes from your fav book that you know by heart?

"He's more myself than i am, whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." - Wuthering heights.

"No fundo todos nós precisamos de um abrigo para fugirmos de nós mesmos ocasionalmente." / "Deep down we all need a shelter to escape from ourselves occasionally." - Fanfic - How to wear a crown.

"Ele faz o quebrado parecer belo e o forte parecer invencionices. Ele anda com o universo sob seus ombros. Fazendo-o parecer como um par de asas." / "He makes the broken look beautiful and the strong look invincible. He walks with the universe on his shoulders. Making him look like a pair of wings." - Fanfic - How to wear a crown

"I fall in love the way you fall asleep slowly and then all at once." - The fault in our stars.

"The best love is the kind that awakens the soul; that makes us reach for more; that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds." - The notebook.

hardcover or paperback | buy or rent | standalone novels or book series | ebook or physical copy | reading at night or during the day | reading at home or in nature | listening to music while reading or reading in silence | reading in order or reading the ending first | reliable or unreliable narrator | realism or fantasy | one or multiple POVS | judging by the covers or by the summary | rereading or reading just once

TV AND MOVIES

fav tv/movie genre? Rom com, drama, fiction, fantasy

fav movie? Pretty woman

comfort movie? Dear John

movie you watch every year? 10 things I hate about you

fav tv show? Grey's anatomy

comfort tv show? The big bang theory

most rewatched tv show? Gossip girl

ultimate otp? Morticia and Gomez - Adams family

5 fav characters?

Christina Yang - Grey's anatomy

Monica - Friends

Iron man

Blair Waldorf

Princess Merida

tv shows or movies | short seasons (8-13 episodes) or full seasons (22 episodes or more) | one episode a week or binging | one season or multiple seasons | one part or saga | half hour or one hour long episodes | subtitles on or off | rewatching or watching just once | downloads or watches online

I'm tagging @zouis-exes-to-lovers @chrisltomlinson @ftdtvapor @quickpauseinconversations @thecolorsthaticantchange @hearyouhowling @louisnewera @thelarrielouie @louzier

[wylanvnneck]

Age Rating: T for Troglodyte

Summary:  Hunger Games modern day AU, Peeta is a policeman and Katniss just broke the law. Kinda. Whoops. 'Tis a oneshot. 

(Also, mentions of nudity in relation to streaking, so if you’re not comfortable with that kinda stuff this isn’t the fic for you.)

On AO3 | Can you spot all the references?

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

It was all Johanna’s fault. Against Johanna Mason and alcohol, I never stood a chance.

‘District 12’ was a pretty popular nightclub, famous for its signature drink ‘The Nightlock’, so that’s where Johanna, Madge and I had decided to take Annie for her Bachelorette party, she’d just wanted a small get together with ‘The Girls’ so there we were.

The night began when we all met up at Annie’s apartment to get ready together and ‘pre-drink’, ‘cus there was no way in hell we could afford to buy that many drinks at such a fancy place. We dress up, do each other’s makeup, paint our nails, exchange gossip, tease Annie about her upcoming marriage and take lots and lots of shots in between.

By the time we head out to walk the few blocks to the nearby club we’re decked in the sexiest clothes we own, which for me equates to a little black dress with a lacy feather design on the back that Jo’d forced me to buy on a rare trip to H&M, which apparently made my bod look fab, her words not mine. Madge has gone crazy with the makeup on my face, with black wing tip eyeshadow to match the dress.

She herself is looking elegant as usual in her midnight blue catsuit and heels, while Jo is in a dangerous looking pair of black fishnet tights and a leather top that threatened to slip off and reveal its secrets at any minute. Annie is in her skirt and top, rocking a shiny pair of silver stilettos which for me would have spelt out ‘death trap’, but she pulls it off.

The club is loud and noisy, strobe lights switching colours every few moments, dizzying my senses. While I’m still recovering Jo’s grabbed us all by the hands and dragged us to the bar, even though we’re all pretty tipsy already. Looks like I’m getting smashed tonight, but hey, what better occasion to get drunk at than your best friend’s bachelorette party?

We order our drinks from the hot brown eyed bartender, who’s smoothly mixing beverages and flirting with us as he prepares our drinks, cocktails for Madge and Annie, a Nightlock for me and a Jack and Coke for Johanna.

Annie is blushing and I’m surprised that Annie even recognizes flirting at this point, she and her groom-to-be Finnick having been attached at the hip since freshman year in high school.

Madge is more receptive but we all know that she’s irrevocably devoted to my childhood best friend Gale and that she’d never go further than casual flirting. Johanna of course has no such qualms as she shamelessly responds, with me as an unwilling witness as she chats the guy up and I impatiently wait for my Nightlock.

It’s worth the wait though, the dusky blue liquid is enticing, drawing you in like a sweet poison. This was definitely worth the long queue at the entrance and the rather steep pricing.

Now that I’ve sufficiently imbibed in enough alcohol I’m feeling brave enough to hit the dance floor with my friends and Madge, Annie and I leave Johanna to her conquest and find our way to the middle of the room where the space is packed with sweaty, writhing bodies.

I’m not much of a dancer, but the Nightlock seems to have taken effect and I’m filled with a delightful buzzing sensation so I just give myself up to the music, following along to the seductive rhythm.

My surroundings blur, as people dance around us, couples play tonsil hockey, my friends and I do the macarena and bump hips and I barely notice when Jo returns after having secured brown eyes’ phone number and carrying a fresh supply of drinks.

I’m feeling adrenalized and the buzzing sensation increases with this next round and we’re laughing and panting and the music drowns out everything and the lights are shining and it’s the most exhilarated I’ve felt in a while, considering how run down I am each day after my college classes and part time job at the clinic.

For tonight, I’m just Katniss Everdeen, a free unrestrained rebel.

Hours pass and it’s 2.00 am and we’re staggering out the door, blurry-eyed and red faced. The deserted sidewalk is so pretty and black. The trees are so brilliantly green. Trees. Lights. Life.

I’m definitely hammered.

The rest of the girls don’t seem too sober either, but I’m the biggest lightweight out of all of us so it’s no surprise that I’m so far gone.

We’re giggling and talking and I hear Annie start up a game of Truth or Dare. It’s a teenager’s game but who cares and besides, it’s her night.

Madge starts us off. “Alright Bridesy, Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

“Ok, what’s your least favorite thing about Finnick?”

She contemplates this for a while before replying, “I suppose he can be a little too proud of his looks,” she blushes.

The rest of us let out a collective snort. It’s certainly true that Finnick could be more than a little vain, but it was also true that being around Annie made him less so. Besides, when he wasn’t busy preening his blond hair in front of a mirror he was a pretty intelligent and loyal friend.

“I’ll say,” Jo smirks. “Now, ask me one, a Dare.”

Annie dares her to give a 3 minute lecture on safe sex, which ends up with us guffawing as Jo proceeds to explain the science of birth control pills and the mechanics of a condom in a posh British voice that sounds vaguely Australian.

When she’s done and we’ve finally recovered our breath she turns to me, “Alright brainless, Truth or Dare?”

Her black eyes are challenging me, and the alcohol makes me stupid.  

“Dare.”

It’s a testament to how drunk I am that I don’t immediately panic at the devilish gleam in her eyes. We’ve made it about 2 blocks from the club and we’ve still got a few more to go to get back to Annie’s apartment where we’re all spending the night. The streets are mostly deserted but the occasional car cruises along.

“Alright Kitkat, here’s what you gotta do. I dare you to streak around this block.”

At first, my alcohol hazed brain doesn’t comprehend what she’s saying. And then it hits me. Annie and Madge are doubled over with laughter and cheering, the traitors.

My cheeks are red, “You want me to...to strip and run around this entire block?” I ask, just to make sure.

“Yup,” the she-devil responds. “Come on, Everdeen, live a little.”

Easy for her to say, she’d done this millions of times, the worst that had happened was that she’d gotten off with just a warning from a mall security officer that she’d managed to charm. I, on the other hand, have always been extremely private about my body, not that I thought there was anything wrong with it but I preferred not to flaunt it. The dress I was wearing tonight is the most daring clothing I own.

However, tonight, I’m feeling daring. Or stupid. Probably very stupid. But it’s 2.15 in the morning, the streets are practically deserted, no pedestrians are around to see me other than my friends. And after all tonight I had been letting go, throwing off my constraints. Besides, when I’m 80 these’ll be the stories I tell my grandkids, right?

Well if I’m drunk enough to think about being 80 and having grandkids, plural, I’m drunk enough to run around a block naked.

So I do it. I take a quick glance at our surroundings to make sure no one’s around before I reach down and peel off my dress, while my treacherous friends let out ridiculous wolf whistles. I hand the black garment to Madge along with my black boots. The chilly night air hits my body and goosebumps erupt on my skin, pale in the dimly lit street lights as I cover my chest with my arms. I feel the blood rushing to my face.

“Well?” Jo raises an eyebrow at me, as if to say go on then, do it .

I take a deep breath and break off into a run. I feel as swift as lightning. I’m unstoppable. I’m running around the streets of the city in my lacy underwear and no bra as my dress was backless. I’m practically as naked as the day I was born as I race along the sidewalk and I’m burning up and I feel like a girl on fire.

I quickly circle the short distance and I’m just about to make it back to where my friends are standing, howling with amusement at the sight of me. The end is in sight.

And that’s when I hear it. The sound of a car approaching. Oh hell.

The situation gets ten times worse when I catch sight of the vehicle that’s just turned into the street. It’s a police patrol car.

Oh, the universe was a cruel, cruel place.

                                                    * * *

There’s no place to run and no place to hide in the open street. There’s no escape for me, the lone policeman behind the wheel knows it and I know it. So, heart pounding and with a sinking feeling in my chest I simply walk the rest of the way to my now silent group of friends and stretch my hand out for my dress while he stops the car by the pavement and steps out of it to approach me.

I manage to slip on my dress before resignedly turning around to face him, and when I do I’m struck speechless. In front of me is the most handsome policeman I’ve ever seen. Scratch that, one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen.  

Ordinarily I’d be disgusted at myself for internally drooling so much over a cute guy, but this isn’t ordinary Katniss. So I stare to my heart’s content. His eyes are the first thing I notice, a stark blue, standing out in the dark early morning light. His ashy blonde hair falls in waves over his forehead, and his skin is pale. He also looks pretty muscular, no doubt as a result of regular training. Shoot me now.

I’m so absorbed in staring at him that I almost don’t notice what he’s saying, “Excuse me ma’am, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you in for being drunk and disorderly.” He sounds almost apologetic, despite his formal tone and his cheeks are tinged slightly red but that’s probably nothing compared to the embarrassed blush on my face.

“Don’t worry Katniss, I’ll call Gale, he’ll know what to do,” I hear Madge squeak from the side while Officer Blue Eyes attaches a pair of cuffs on me.

I turn my head and give her a quick nod before I’m gently ushered into the backseat of the patrol car. The drive is silent and I’m almost completely sober now. No more liquid courage for me, and I’m left feeling disoriented and anxious, starting to panic a little as I resolutely look outside the window as we drive to the station, unseeing of my surroundings.

“So, wild night, huh?” His voice is a slightly husky one. I could listen to it all day. And night. All day and night. Maybe I’m still a little intoxicated.

I let out a dry laugh that sounds rather high pitched, “You could say that.”

“I remember what that was like, you know, back when I wasn’t a cop yet. Highschool seems like a million years ago” He has an easy smile on his face that I can see from the rearview mirror.

“Doesn’t it. Although, I’ve never really been a huge party person. Tonight was an exception.” I wish I could cover my face with my cuffed hands.

I see him look at me through the mirror, blue eyes filled with sympathy. “Whoops, looks like it just wasn’t your night then.”

We’ve pulled up to the Police Station and he’s reversing the car into a parking spot around the back. “I guess not,’ I agree with a wry half-smile on my face.

I’m escorted into the building and it’s practically deserted, the sound of the ceiling fans working filling up the silence as two officers sit hunched around a desk examining a computer screen while sipping on what looks to be mugs of coffee.

Caffeine. I’m jealous.

Officer Blue Eyes exchanges a quick word with one of them and she simply waves back with her hand. He takes me to the back of the room through a short passage that leads to a holding cell, a small square room with barred walls through which I can peek at the corridor that leads to the main office we just walked through. There's a small bench attached to the wall, with a rolled up mat and a pillow on it where he indicates for me to sit. My hands are released from the cuffs and I rub at my wrists.

We haven’t spoken since we got out of the car, but now he says, “Alright then...ma’am, I’m gonna need to ask you some questions.”

“Hit me with it.” I slump against the wall. Might as well get comfy, this was gonna be a long night.

“Ok, well first off what’s your name?”

“Katniss Everdeen.”

“Age?”

“22”

“Are you in college?”

“Yep. But I don’t live within campus grounds.” I give him my address as well.

“Any part time jobs?”

“I’m a part time assistant at Paw Prints Veterinary Clinic.”

‘’Ok great, thank you,” he’s been writing my replies down on a plain spiral notepad. “Give me a minute, I’ll be right back.”

He turns and walks away and as he does a question pops, unbidden, out of my mouth, “Wait. What’s your name?” I’d been trying to read his name tag since we reached the cell but I couldn’t seem to make it out.

“Peeta. Peeta Mellark.” His smile is breathtaking.

I scrunch my eyes closed and let out a soft groan the moment he’s out of sight. Stupid, stupid Katniss. Why didn’t I just say no to that idiotic dare? Why did I drink so much? Why were cops allowed to be hot?

What was wrong with me?

My eyes are still closed and I’m leaning against the cell wall, contemplating my life decisions that had brought me to this moment, when I hear footsteps approaching.

Peeta was back and he was carrying what looked to be a steaming paper cup and a brown paper bag.

“Here, this should help with a hangover,” he hands me the cup through the bars. It’s steaming hot coffee and the aroma reminds me of Heaven.

I’m ravenous and thirsty and I gulp the brown liquid down, relishing the invigorating feeling despite the fact that I’ve almost certainly burnt my tongue.

When I look up again he’s leaning against the bars, watching me with those intense baby blue eyes. I would feel abashed by how impatiently I drank my coffee but I seemed to have reached my quota of embarrassment for the day. Probably even my quota for the year, forget a day.

“So Katniss, what’s gonna happen now is that you’ll be held here overnight until you’re sober and discharged tomorrow morning, most probably you’ll just be given an official warning as this looks to be your first offense.” His tone is calming and helps to slow my racing heartbeat. He’s still clutching that brown paper bag in his hand.

I nod slowly in response. That wasn’t too bad. I could live with just a few more hours in this claustrophobic space.

He hands me the bag. “Here, in case you’re hungry.”

I look at the bag and there seems to be something soft and circular inside. I think of that old cop cliché and I’m almost certain it’s a doughnut. Instead, it’s a soft looking bun and as I’m opening up the bag further the smell of...cheese? Reaches my nose. My stomach gives a low rumble. I really hope it wasn’t audible.

“It’s a uh...a cheese bun. I make them myself,” his voice sounds a little shy and my heart gives a lurch. Who was this man and why had I been deemed worthy of meeting him? Granted, not in the most ideal circumstances, but still.

“You bake?” The question comes out sounding almost accusatory. “I mean, you- you have the time to bake, you know, being a policeman?” and do it really well, judging from the scents wafting my way.

“My dad actually owns a bakery so he lets me come in after hours and do some baking. It’s surprisingly therapeutic after a hard day at work,” his lips quirk upwards on the left side.

“Wow. That’s...wow. The best that I can cook is a pretty mean mac and cheese,” I confess.

He lets out a soft laugh, “Well, that’s a very useful dish. You can go ahead and eat you know, don’t mind me.”

So I do. It’s delicious. The first bite melts me. It’s soft and salty and creamy and absolutely delectable. I involuntarily let out a long, low moan.

He’s looking at me with that quirked mouth and it almost looks like he’s smirking.  “That good, huh?”

“Mhngmm” I garble out. I sound like a chipmunk with food in its mouth but I couldn’t care less.

I force myself to pace my eating this time and manage to intelligibly speak. “So you’re a policeman and a full time baker. Any other super powers?”

“Ah, no. I’m afraid not. Being a policeman doesn’t offer much downtime. I love it though, it’s a pretty fulfilling job.”

But perhaps enough downtime for a girlfriend? I’m tempted to ask, which is ridiculous. It’s none of my business if he's dating anyone. I’m just the drunken girl he’s arrested and taken pity on, enough pity to keep me company for the moment and even share the best baked treat I’ve had in my life with me.

But who cared what motivated him as long as he was here, right? So we talk and we talk and we talk, exchanging questions then jokes then stories. I tell him about my college classes and Environmental Science course and my part time job at the vet.

I tell him about the little girl with plaited blond hair who’d recently brought in an ill-tempered stray cat named Buttercup who for some reason had instantly hated me and proceeded to scratch me a grand total of 18 times.

He laughs and tells me about his little brother Rye and his first time making bread on his own, which ended up in a charred block of dough. He tells me about a recent case of his where this woman named Effie had sent threatening letters to the wrong lady, a distinguished corporate lawyer, rather than the Starbucks cashier that was actually her husband’s mistress and the hilarity that ensued after she found out.

The conversation is so easy and I’m enamoured by this man and the last thought to enter my head before he eventually gets called away and has to leave and I finally succumb to my alcohol induced mini-coma is of a pair of striking blue eyes.

                                                           * * *

A few hours later I wake up to the sunlight streaming through the bars of my cell. I’m groggy and my mouth is dry. My hair feels matted with sweat and the dark strands are probably still forming the remnants of a long gone fancy braid. My lacy black dress is wrinkled beyond saving.

“Morning!” Says a male voice that is entirely too chipper.

I blink a few times before I can finally focus on Peeta who’s standing in the now open doorway of my cell.

“Morning…” I reply, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

“So, you’re in luck Miss Everdeen, someone’s already come to take you home.”

“Katniss. You can call me Katniss.” I pause. “Wait, someone’s here for me? Must be Gale.”

“That’s the one...a Gale Hawthorne?”

“Oh thank god he’s here. I did not relish having to stay here any longer than I needed to.”

Peeta’s face looks more guarded than it had last night. Or rather, earlier this morning.

‘Yes, well, he’s here, so we can process you out.”

“Great.”

I’m taken to a desk at the front of the office where a middle-aged officer with lengthy dirty blonde hair sits behind the counter, looking bored with the world. He eyes me uninterestedly and as Peeta and I get closer I see that his name tag reads ‘Officer Abernathy’.

Officer Abernathy sluggishly carries out all the formalities and issues me an official warning. There's nothing for me to collect as the only thing I had with me when I was arrested were my clothes. It’d be a long time before I decided to take those off anywhere that wasn’t in the privacy of my apartment.

Peeta accompanies me to the entrance, he is strangely silent but he looks like he is thinking a million thoughts.

I can spot Gale’s Volvo in the parking lot from here, and I can see him walking up to the station entrance to come and get me.

“So, that’s your boyfriend I’m assuming?” Peeta finally speaks as we stand in the doorway waiting for him.

The idea shocks me, although it makes sense that he’d come to that conclusion. Madge used to think that Gale and I were an item too, but he’s always been more like my protective older brother rather than a lover.

“What? Gale? Ew no, that’d be like incest, it’d be almost illegal.”

He raises a lone eyebrow at me, smiling.

Right. I hadn’t exactly shown the greatest sense of distinguishment between what was legal and what was not. I blush in his presence yet again.

Gale comes up to us and his brown eyes are twinkling. “Well, Catnip, I gotta say, when Madge called and said one of you had gotten arrested I thought for sure it’d be Johanna. Guess I was wrong.”

I narrow my eyes at him, “Yes, well, Johanna’s got a worse punishment than getting arrested coming her way when I get my hands on her." I remember the officer standing next to me. “In the most innocent way of course.”

The quirked lip is back. I swear, for me, it was a weapon more lethal than the gun he carries in his holster. I blame that thought on the headache that I am currently dealing with.

‘Right..so uh, I guess this is it.” There’s a sinking feeling in my gut. I would probably never see Peeta Mellark ever again. Unless I decided to get arrested in this area again and hope to spend an hour or two in his company. The idea had merit. But no, I was already on my first official warning and I probably shouldn’t push the legal system.

I stick out my hand to him. He takes it and shakes it gently, his eyes seem to see inside me as they meet mine.

Almost reluctantly I turn away and start following Gale to his car.

“Hey, Katniss.” That husky voice suddenly calls out from behind me. “I’ll be picking you up at 8.00 tomorrow, just so you know. It’s a date."

I whirl around. He’s grinning and he’s got an annoyingly attractive cocky look on his face.

“Oh really? And how would you know where to pick me up from?”

He brings out his spiral bound notepad from his uniform pocket. “In here, remember?”

I flush yet again and this time I know that it’s definitely not the last time I’d be doing it in front of him. Oh no. If I had my way, this sweet, funny, intelligent and handsome officer and baker would be seeing that blush on my face for years to come.

“On one condition. There have to be cheese buns.”

“You got it,” he salutes me, beaming.

I’m walking on sunshine as I quicken my stride to catch up with Gale who’s already started up the car and as I do I hear a voice that sounds suspiciously like Officer Abernathy’s yelling from the station, “Good on you, sonny boy, you don’t see a girl like that everyday.”

                                                       * * *

A couple years later and I’m in a lacy dress once more, white this time, with the added accessory of a bouquet of Primroses. Next to me stands the man who arrested me all those years ago and won me over with a combination of his personality and his insanely good cheese buns. I like to tell him that it’s the buns that were really the deciding factor for me, but we both know that’s a lie.

He leans down and presses his lips to my ear as the photographer stops to reposition his camera.

“You know Katniss, you should have just walked up that aisle in your underwear, it’s my favourite look of yours.”

I glare at him. At least, I try to, but it’s hard with those blue eyes looking back at me.

“Keep up the jokes, mister, and you might not see that look again for a while,” I threaten him.

The smug look on his face is immediately wiped off.

                                                          * * *

I’m not yet 80, just a couple more years to go, but as I look at that familiar pair of periwinkle eyes gazing back at me with love in them, I feel like a young woman again. I turn back to the tiny toddlers playing on the ground in front of me.

Someday I’ll tell them, I’ll tell them the story of how their grandparents met. I’d tell them how Peeta likes to say that the only moral of the story is that you shouldn’t break the law, but I’d say that it was really that you probably shouldn’t play such a high stakes game of Truth or Dare, or simply ‘don’t accept stupid dares.’

And yet, when I look at where it got me, I suppose I should also say that there are certainly much worse games to play.

[ivanshatov]

trespasser

wc: 2.7k

i wrote this in january so it’s kinda bad and stilted and a bit ooc for the character development i’ve done </3 but it also comes slightly after the fic i just posted and i feel brave so i’m posting both xoxo gossip girl

Sujani knew the theatre like the back of her hand. After all, it had been her home for the last few years, and she’d grown accustomed to Edel’s labyrinths and corridors littered throughout the seemingly endless building. She knew every exit, entrance, nook, cranny, and section, the patterns and details burned into her mind. Just proper for a stage manager, even moreso for a familiar. Through her familiarity with the theatre, however, she had been acquainted with their newest trespasser rather quickly. It was Mia who had first spotted him lurking around the grounds in the weeks prior, just as dusk settled in. “Friend of yours? Friend of Luca’s?” she asked, masking the last hours of daylight with a paper fan.

“Certainly not,” Sujani insisted, peering out through the intricate windowpane at the suspicious figure. “I’ve never seen that man in my life.”

“Engländer,” Mia muttered. “A Briton. It must be. Donning his tourist fare and all. See?”

That was the first incident with the trespasser, until he became one frequent arrival on the security cameras and outer sidewalks. He had evaded interaction with Sujani, keeping his distance from the realm of the theatre, and she kept his lingering presence to the back of her mind.

During the daylight hours, Sujani took the liberty of drawing the curtains, allowing brilliant sunlight to enter through the theatre’s majestic windows. Edel often griped over open curtains and loosened blinds, but as Sujani was busy tending to the theatre’s auditorium and proscenium, the extra light was of use to her. It was also much more useful in exposing any pesky breathers trying to enter where they were not invited. The stray tourist or pedestrian could be turned away easily and handed a pamphlet with a gleeful smile, but it was seldom a breather entered the theatre with bad intent. After all, the theatre’s always been a place to relax and unwind. The new trespasser was certainly not a theatregoer, though, as his ruckus could be heard from the lighting booth where Sujani sat.

Finding her pocketknife and hiding it drawn behind her back, she crawled over the pit and glided over the stage, skirt bouncing behind as she pulled back the curtains. She hummed a light tune, scanning the dark area of the wings and backstage for any movement. Drawing her eyes from the fly weights to theq leftover debris from the last season’s closer, she at last spotted the trespasser.

He was staring at the portrait of Edel. Her symmetrical face, round cheeks, hypnotic stare. His hands were folded behind his back, crucifix held loose in one. It reminded Sujani of her own personal souvenir, and she unsheathed her pocketknife. Then, taking a silent step closer, she cleared her throat. “Excuse me.”

The trespasser flinched, remaining in his position for a fleeting moment before turning to meet Sujani’s eyes, crucifix raised. “I-It’s daytime.” 

Despite hiding behind sunglasses and heavy clothes in the peak of summertime, like a true coward would, Sujani recognized the trespasser. Mia’s Engländer, the one on the cameras, the one with the hat. He had evaded capture those last two times, narrowly escaping a meeting with Sujani as she observed the security cameras from her vantage point in the mezzanine. But, at last, she had caught him red-handed, in the midst of his favorite and only activity. She smiled, eyes shimmering with irony. “You’re mistaken.” This was no theatregoer and certainly no tourist, if the sharpened crucifix and silver rosaries told her anything. 

Sujani held her forced smile. Keeping one hand behind her back, she drew a hand up to her face, pulled back her lips, revealing two sets of straight and dull human teeth. “See?”

The trespasser didn’t relent, keeping his grip on his homemade crucifix. “A daywalker.”

“You amuse me, but no. I’m a breather like you. After all...” Sujani began, stretching out a hand to the crucifix and clutching the intersection. She released her hand, holding it up with a growing smile. “You see? No injury in sight. Not the smell of smoke, either. Proof enough for you? Good. Now.” Sujani waved a hand, waiting for him to lower his arm, and then continued. “I know who you are. You’ve been sniffing around for the past week. Not very subtly, might I add. If you don’t want to give away your penchant to destroy all vampirekind, perhaps don’t carry around wooden stakes and crucifixes everywhere. It alienates the locals, no?” she tilted her head to the crux.

“You are American,” he said, in a tone somewhere in between a question and a statement. His expression had not trembled or changed once, and he kept the look of utter disinterest firm, exacerbated by his shaded eyes. Yes, Sujani thought, this man is certainly suspicious. Undoubtedly up to no good.

“Yes, yes, I am. And you must be from some obscure bit of the United Kingdom nobody’s ever heard of. Rest assured, I do not care from where you hail. Rather, I’m graciously extending you the offer to leave, you know, before my boss flies down and shreds you to utter pieces,” Sujani continued, pausing to observe her nails. “I know what you are here to do. I don’t know your reasons, but I’ll politely ask you to leave under threat you may become drained of your blood and left a cold corpse in the bottom of this theatre.”

The trespasser— no, the Engländer, the Englishman— let out a sullen sigh. “A familiar,” he said in that deadpan tone.

“Yes, that is I. Now, will you accept my other? Kindly leave us alone? Return to whence you came from, and never disgrace us with your presence yet again?” She gestured to the door to the balcony, still ajar and weighted by a flyweight.

The Englishman glanced at the floor, then back at the portrait. Edel, in their ballgown, cheeks red with dye and falsified life. He turned back to Sujani and said, “I can’t do that.”

She scoffed. “Sure you can. What’s your name, young man? Don’t you have a life? A family? People you care for in this world? You’ve really chosen to resign your life to the slaughtering of beings you know nothing of?” She frowned, shifting her weight and waiting for another deadpan response from the trespasser.

“I know much of vampires,” he replied before turning his back once again, scanning the portrait. “My name is none of your business. If you allow me to do mine, you can be free from her bidding,” he declared, lifting a finger to the portrait.

“I am not looking to be freed by the likes of you,” Sujani snapped, running a finger over the blade of the knife. “I quite like my life, and my overseer.” He lowered his gaze, but did not turn to look at her. “You must go,” she pleaded. “For your own safety. You are still young. Why are you out here, concerning yourself with affairs of other people?”

“You are not people,” he snarled, whipping around with the crucifix in hand. “You’re the farthest thing from a person.”

Sujani stared at his cold expression and heaved another exasperated sigh, then pointed the pocketknife. “I suppose I’m going to have to force you to leave, then? You wouldn’t dare hurt another human being, now, would you? A breathing, bleeding, living human being.” She stepped forward, attempting to look menacing as she could in her frilly shirt and buckled shoes, knife drawn and eyes narrowed. “Much like yourself, young man.”

He scoffed and began to walk backwards, crucifix still dangling from the tips of his fingers. Sujani continued forward, knife drawn as he lifted his free hand, searching in the darkness for an exit into the corridors of the theatre. Between them, in the silence of the backstage, she could hear only the frantic pounding of her heart in her ears and the short  breathing of the trespasser as he searched for an egress.

Above them, a catwalk creaked, and then, descending from the second floor of the stage, still tying her corset, appeared Edel. “Do we have a trespasser on our hands?”

The Englishman stumbled forward, crucifix outstretched, before Sujani grabbed his arm, pulling him backwards, further into the darkness of the theatre’s left wing.

“You should be sleeping, Ms. Veice!” Sujani exclaimed, surprise evident. The Englishman’s glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose to reveal two olive eyes filled with dread.

Edel’s haughty laughter filled the stage, and she appeared above Sujani’s head, red eyes piercing the darkness of the wings. “Nonsense. He’s been bothering you, hasn’t he? No longer. Come on, now, I could use a midday snack.”

It only took a few words and a swift movement to break him from his trance. Sujani grabbed both his arms, slamming him against a door leading to one of the many corridors of the theatre, and it swung open. “Left, right, first door to your left. Run,” Sujani hissed, releasing him and watching as he stumbled out into the darkness. Edel landed on her feet and streaked past Sujani down the corridor, leaving behind a homemade crucifix clattering on the floor. The sound of panicked footsteps continued down the hall, and Sujani followed, leaving the door to the wings ajar. As she stepped across the resistant hardwood, she heard the familiar sound of a creaking door swinging open, followed by a light hiss and a fearful set of feet exiting down a fire escape. Edel appeared back in the hall, glum and undoing their corset as they floated above the floorboards. 

“Well, you just scared the living daylights out of the man,” Sujani commented, hiding the homemade crucifix behind her back. 

“That was but the intention, my darling Sujani.” Edel rolled their eyes, returning to the floor and picking up the edges of their petticoat as their corset went slack. “I gave him quite a fright! He won’t be coming back for a while now. That’s the one, is it not?”

Sujani peered over Edel’s shoulder, as if he would appear again in the hall as they talked, stake drawn. She blinked, averting her gaze back to a gloomy Edel. “Yes. Yes, I believe so. But, I must say, I do have a feeling we will not be seeing the last of him for quite some time.”

Edel bobbed her head and then raised a delicate hand to mask her yawn. “Why say you such things?”

“Suspicion,” she replied, offering a placid smile. “Do not worry, he will get nowhere near you, nor any of the others, let me say,” Sujani insisted, allowing the crucifix to clatter to the ground as she took Edel’s hand. “You must head back now. I wouldn’t want you to grow weak. Why were you out anyways? It’s unsafe these hours, especially in...”

With a wave of her hand, Edel cut Sujani off. “No need. I had a feeling. This theatre is but an extension of myself, my darling Sujani, and I know when there is something afoot.” They relaxed their shoulders, pressing their hands to their chest with a sigh. “And you must dispose of that, my darling, before someone is to be harmed.” Edel’s eyes touched the crucifix, burdened with nostalgia, before she lifted a hand to her face. “I do feel rather weakened by the light. I don’t suppose you will escort me back, and then do draw those curtains in the auditorium?” Edel folded their hands, turning their nose up as they continued. “I would rather my entire cast not be incinerated by sunlight.”

Sujani pursed her lips and held out her hand to Edel, kicking the crucifix to the side. “Certainly, Ms. Veice. I’ll attend to that right away.” 

Leading Edel through the dimly lit halls, then down the staircase to the hideaway, Sujani’s rising anxiety melted away and the corridors and patterns returned to her mind. “Goodnight, my darling Sujani,” Edel said as they disappeared into the shadows of the room, a faint candlelight outlining the cover of their coffin.

“Goodnight, Ms. Veice.”

The crucifix remained where Sujani had left it, right beside the open door back to the stage. Sujani sucked in a breath as she lifted it up, twirled it in her hands, and smashed it upon the floor. The wood buckled and split as she slammed it again, again, and once more for good measure, until her palms were streaked red and she had received a splinter in her index. Splintered pieces of wood now decorated the floor, and nobody on would ever be aware there was a crucifix to begin with, Sujani thought, as she swept away the pieces. Crossing the stage to the disposal and feeling the warmth of the summer light on her face, Sujani watched as it disappeared among the broken sets and discarded scripts.

[paperbackribs]

My Ao3 fics were locked down before, but I've followed some really smart people here and decided to open my stuff up to guests 💚 Here's my steddie and chenford fics.

Steddie

🌓The Rising Sun (20 chapters, updating) - Eddie learns what it is to be a monster and faces the decision of how far he'll need to embrace it to protect the ones he loves. (Explicit)

💫A Tarnished Copper Boy (180K, complete) - Eddie is flabbergasted, yet intrigued, when Steve Harrington keeps falling through time to land on his trailer floor. (Explicit)

🧙The Gift (41K/complete) - Steve is a secret witch and saves Eddie from death in the Upside Down, forging an uncanny connection between them that Steve struggles to explain away. (Explicit)

🦇Swift Wings and a Brave Heart (29K/complete) - The gang have some odd news for Eddie: a bite from the demodogs turned Steve into a werewolf and he might face something similar from his bat bites! (Teen)

💚A Gardener's Devotion (8K /series complete) - Steve courts Eddie through the gift of flowers. (General)

💞Steddie short stories (ongoing) - Insights into the worlds where Steve and Eddie will always end up SteveandEddie.

Chenford

🦭A Selkie Story: The Rookie Edition (27K/complete) - A season 4 retelling if Tim were a selkie and Lucy accidentally became his magical bride. (Mature)

[steddieunderdogfics]

for bat!eddie challenge:

out of hell by rabbitinrain

https://archiveofourown.org/works/40314015/chapters/100980549

and also

swift wings and a brave heart by paperbackribs

https://archiveofourown.org/works/53280298/chapters/134835148

out of hell by rabbitinrain

@stargazersteddie

Rating: Teens and Up

36,156 words, 5/5 chapters

Archive Warning: Creator chose not to use

Tags: Post-Season/Series 04, Temporary Character Death, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Animal Transformation, Blood and Injury, Mild Gore, Blind Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Disabled Maxine "Max" Mayfield, steve harrington is everyone's big brother because i said so, some elements of body horror, Light Angst, Eddie Munson Lives, Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Scars

Summary:

Later, he’ll wonder why he even bothers to talk to the bat. It’s not as if it can understand him. But it’s comforting, he thinks, to hear someone assuring you that everything will be okay even when you’re moments away from death. Sometimes, hope is the only difference between holding on and letting go. And the bat? It holds on. - After the ground opens up and Vecna disappears, the last thing that Steve Harrington needs is an injured bat on his doorstep. Apparently, that won't stop him from doing everything in his power to keep it alive. And if the bat reminds him of a certain someone, then that's just his mind playing tricks on him… right?

Thanks for the rec!

This rec is a part of Challenge Monday. The challenge this week was Bat!Eddie.

Know a fic that deserves extra love? Submit through our asks or the submission box!

[elesianne]

A Silmarillion fanfic, chapter two of seven

Story summary: Life is made up of small moments and ordinary, wonderful days for the first few years of Caranthir and Tuilindien’s marriage. Most of those days are full of love and happiness, and the worse ones are at least eased by love. A continuation of Caranthir and Tuilindien’s story in the form of a collection of ficlets.

Chapter length: ~1,700 words; Story rating: Teenage audiences

Some keywords for the whole fic: romance, marriage, family, some fluff, some angst, implied sex, years of the trees

A/N: Disclaimer: I don’t see Fëanor as an asshole all the time. But he is one in certain situations.

AO3 link

*

Chapter II //  Family dinner

Since the first days of their marriage they make a tradition of dining often at Carnistir's parents' house. Nerdanel invites them even more often: they do not always accept, because they like dining quietly at home, too. But they accept more often than Carnistir feels really comfortable with, and he grumbles about it sometimes.

'My family is best in very small doses per week', he says.

'I have no family here', Tuilindien reminds him. 'Your family is mine and I want to be a part of it, even when there is a risk of your father saying something rude.'

'There is always a risk of him saying something cruel', Carnistir grumbles, and by the look he sees in her eyes, Tuilindien agrees with him.

But she says, 'Do not be so protective of me, Carnistir, that you insulate me from things I need.'

So they ride through the city to Carnistir's old home at least twice a week. Carnistir remains ever vigilant, and is comforted – as is Tuilindien – by the knowledge that they have more allies in his family than there are people who would rather that Tuilindien weren't there.

Nerdanel has taken Tuilindien under her maternal wing; Maitimo is as reliably kind to her as he is to everyone who deserves it; Makalaurë and Tinweriel are, when they are there, very welcoming; and Ambarussar have yet to tire of vying for Tuilindien's attention.

And if Findekáno is visiting, as he often is, he appears to be happy to talk of Vanyarin things with Tuilindien every time, earning less-than-approving looks from Fëanáro and pretending to not notice them at all.

Tuilindien has been teaching some lessons to two groups of royal's and noble's children at the palace, including Nolofinwë's youngest child. One night only a few weeks after Carnistir and Tuilindien's wedding, Nerdanel asks her how she likes it.

'I like it very much.' Tuilindien smiles. 'There are some, but not many, differences between children of the Noldor and Vanyar. Two years ago I taught a group on Taniquetil who were only a little younger than my younger students here.'

'It does not take as much education and scholarship as you've achieved to teach children that young', Fëanáro says. He looks at his food rather than Tuilindien when he speaks, and his brows speak of a storm brewing.

Carnistir puts down his cutlery and steels himself.

Fëanáro somehow notices it for he says, irritated, 'Don't glower at me, Carnistir, I meant it as a compliment to your learned wife.'

'I'm sure', Carnistir replies, his voice as irritatingly sarcastic as he can make it.

Tuilindien slips her hand on his knee under the table and squeezes it. 'I enjoy teaching children', she says mildly. It is not the first time she has had to defend teaching.

'And do you intend to continue teaching young children for the foreseeable future, or do you have other plans?'

'For the foreseeable future, yes.'

Fëanáro sips his wine and purses his lips. 'You have a fine mind for language but you will never make much of a name for yourself if you keep straying from scholarship to pursuits that you enjoy but which are of little prestige.'

Carnistir stands up, sending his heavy chair crashing back. While everyone's ears ring with the loud sound, and Nerdanel and Maitimo reproach Fëanáro, Carnistir shouts, 'After all the damned conversations we've had about this, and you and mother too, and your promises –'

He closes his eyes, draws a deep breath, and continues, less loud but cold as glittering ice, 'Father. If you speak to Tuilindien with disrespect, we will leave, and we won't' come back for another dinner. We will host dinner at our house and invite everyone but you. I dare say that several members of the family will come.

'Do you want that to happen?' he asks baldly. He is after all better at straightforwardness than sarcasm.

Fëanáro has stood up too. Gaze and voice level, he says, 'I do not', and, 'You had that neat little speech planned, didn't you?'

'I did.'

Fëanáro sits down and picks up his knife and fork, avoiding Nerdanel's disappointed gaze. Carnistir doesn't sit until Fëanáro says to Tuilindien, cool but polite, 'I meant no disrespect. Only an observation of how things are here in Tirion, in case they are otherwise among your people. I am sorry if I caused offence.'

'The Noldor are my people now as much of the Vanyar', Tuilindien says, her eyes on her plate and hands in the folds of her dress. She says nothing of the offence obviously caused.

(Her dress is another Vanyarin confection of many wisp-thin layers of light blue fabric. Carnistir has come to love her floaty dresses; Fëanáro's face twitches every time he sees Tuilindien wearing one of them.)

'Let me speak, Carnistir', she whispers to him when she notices that he would defend her again.

She adds, 'It is the same with fame and prestige among the Vanyar. But I do not seek either, prince Fëanáro.'

(Tuilindien uses formal titles like tools and weapons, as signs of both respect and disapproval.)

'As you once said to me, I am of noble enough birth – and made more so by my marriage, I might add – that I can move between pursuits as pleases me. It pleases me now, as it often does, to spend my days teaching children, and to work with Carnistir on our house and garden that are still far from what they can be, and to learn more about Tirion and its people.'

'Few newlyweds who have just moved to a new place think of gaining renown above anything else', Nerdanel says, smiling at Tuilindien though there is still a pinched look around her eyes.

'We did', Fëanáro replies.

'Few people do', Nerdanel repeats.

'It is simply a difference of priorities', Tuilindien says, finally looking at Fëanáro.

'It must be', Fëanáro says with a tight-lipped smile.

Tuilindien picks up the conversation again after an awkward pause during which Nerdanel and Maitimo seemed to be looking for something to say, too. 'I have actually found that teaching children of the court is a good way of getting to know their parents too', Tuilindien remarks. 'I spoke with Comyarë today, Rúmil's daughter – I believe you know her well, Maitimo. She has been gathering words for comparison from the Falmari…'

And she actually manages to have a pleasant conversation with Fëanáro, Maitimo and Curufinwë about linguistics, though the tension in her body does not ease until they ride home.

'I am sorry for my reprobate of a father –' Carnistir begins as soon as they dismount. He feels exhausted.

'Do not apologise for him, my darling', Tuilindien sighs as she leads Mirwannë into the stable and to her stall. 'It is not your task. You did your utmost to protect me from his sharp tongue, and for that I am grateful. It worked.'

'It always feels that I do too little and too late', he says unhappily, but Tuilindien's eyes that meet his over the low wall between Mirwannë and Varnë's stalls are clear of unhappiness.

'You do enough', she assures him.

'Where do you find your patience and courage to keep trying with him?' Carnistir asks. 'Answering his prodding questions, and then sparking up a conversation about something you know he'll be interested to talk about.'

Tuilindien pats Mirwannë's neck and leaves her to the groom's care since she is dressed nicely for dinner, not horse-grooming.

Carnistir is dressed for somewhere between those two activities but he unsaddles, brushes and feeds Varnë himself anyway because he has yet to find a groom to employ that Varnë tolerates or who is brave enough to go near her hooves and teeth even though she doesn't.

(He'd tried to poach the bravest one his father employs, but the man proved too loyal to his long-time employer to accept any of Carnistir's increasingly generous offers.)

Tuilindien waits outside Varnë's stall and answers his question after a moment of thinking. 'I find my courage and confidence in being yours', she tells him, her liquid-green-blue gaze on his. Carnistir leans against Varnë's warm flank and listens. 'In the knowledge and security that no matter what you father says, he cannot tear us apart.' She puts her hand on the stall door, her right hand bearing the golden ring Carnistir gave her at their wedding feast.

What can Carnistir do at that but go and kiss her over the chest-high stall door? It is one of the most uncomfortable kisses they have shared.

'Things will keep getting better', he promises to her, and kisses her once more for good measure, and then goes to groom Varnë because that simply has to be done before they can go inside and kiss properly. 'Even my father cannot help but warm to you. Or get used to you, at the very least.'

He brushes Varnë down with the swift, long motions that she prefers, and keeps talking himself down from the remnants of rage that still smoulder in his heart. 'My father is learned and clever but he cannot understand people different from himself. My mother told me so once. I couldn't see it before that myself.

'At least Tyelko and Curvo are no longer rude about you. Well, Curvo is still childish sometimes, but he is still a child, just an overgrown one.'

Tuilindien bursts into laughter. As always it makes warmth bloom inside Carnistir's chest. 'Overgrown in height and in years, too, Carnistir! He is several years past being of age.'

'Well, he doesn't behave like it', Carnistir grumbles, but smiles at her as he switches from brush to hoof-pick and begins his daily struggle to clean Varnë's hooves while the mare pretends that it is the worst thing in the world.

'Looking at you doing that, you know, I think that half your strength is built up from fighting Varnë', Tuilindien remarks teasingly.

Carnistir would laugh if his hands shaking would not lose him this particular fight with his horse. 'Perhaps it is', he says, wresting another hoof up to be cleaned. 'I have had her since I was still growing. If it is, well, is she not a worthy opponent, since she weighs several times as much as I do?'

Tuilindien does laugh again, and the night continues like that, and they do not spare Fëanáro one more thought.

*

A/N: In the next chapter, it is the turn for Tuilindien's family to make an appearance. The chapter will be posted on Thursday.

[anistarrose]

Ford in Amphibia - Chapter 2

Summary: Ford is subjected to mild bullying, and the gang decides to hunt an endangered species but makes an unexpected new friend along the way.

Warnings: none

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19375102/chapters/47328493

The Beginning

This chapter references a few more episodes of Amphibia than the last one, but doesn’t spoil any overarching plot details past the first episode, so it should be possible to read even if you’re not caught up. This is starting to look like it’ll eventually wind up as four-chapter fic, so stay tuned for more!

***

Ford sat on the couch next to Anne, watching intently as she flicked through albums of photos on her phone.

“Here’s my cat, Domino — oh, and here she is again, in my parents’ kitchen! What a little troublemaker!”

“She’s quite precious,” Ford agreed. “You say you have music on this device too?”

“Of course!” Anne answered. “I’ve got all the best tunes — stuff to dance to, stuff you can sing along with, stuff to listen to as you think about how far you are from home and regret your life choices —”

“Do you have anything by Eurythmics? Or Talking Heads?”

Anne stared at Ford blankly.

“Or do you prefer classical? The Planets by Holst, maybe?”

“Uh, I’ve got All Star by Smash Mouth —”

“Mention that song again and you’re dead to me,” Ford growled.

There was an awkward pause, and then Ford sighed. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be surprised that we appreciate different aspects of human culture. You’re young, and I… left my dimension a very long time ago.”

“That’s, um — that’s too bad,” Anne stammered, not really knowing what to say. “Uh… do you want to keep looking at pictures?” she finally asked.

Ford didn’t say no, so she opened a new album. “Here’s some of me and Sprig, and of some wildlife we saw the other day — oh, and here’s where I tried to teach Sprig how to use the camera! You can tell because it’s all blurry and —”

“Wait!” Ford interrupted. “Go back! To the one with the caterpillar — er, the cat-erpillar, rather!”

“This one?” Anne pulled up a picture of a black, orange, and red cat-erpillar glimpsed from across a meadow.

“That’s it! See the flame pattern, and those prominent tufts on the neck? That’s the endangered Sunburst Mountain Cat-erpillar!”

“Whoa, are you like a conservation expert?” Sprig asked, springing onto the couch. “Do you need to capture it and get it to breed with others of its kind to save the species?”

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Ford told them. “I need a sample of its chrysalis for my own use — and ideally I won’t seriously harm any specimens, but you never know!”

Noticing Anne and Sprig’s mildly horrified looks, he went on: “Let me explain. For years now, I’ve planning a mission to a very dangerous dimension, of which the atmosphere is contaminated with just about every pollutant imaginable. There will be zero margin for error on this mission, but if I inhale too many of those pollutants, they’ll almost certainly hamper my performance. So for the past few weeks, I’ve been searching for a solution…”

He pulled a carefully rolled-up piece of paper from his pocket, and spread it out in his lap to reveal a detailed scientific drawing of the cat-erpillar and its cocoon, along with a sketch of a mountain with wisps of smoke emanating from the peak.

“Every generation of the Sunburst Mountain Cat-erpillar pupates near volcanic vents, and as a result, they’ve evolved so that their chrysalides absorb and break down a wide variety of toxins. I learned of their existence shortly after coming to your world, and I’ve been trying to track one down ever since in the hope that harvesting some of that chrysalis material would help me design an air filter to get around that pollution problem — but unfortunately, the location of Sunburst Mountain has been lost to time, since those vents are dormant most of the year. The whole time I’ve been here in the valley, I’ve just been stumbling around blindly without glimpsing hide nor hair of any of the right cat-erpillar species.”

He flipped his paper over, and pulled out a pen. “The period of vent activity should only last another week or two this year, and at this rate I’m probably going to miss it — but if you could tell me where you saw that specimen the other day, then I’d have my best lead yet!”

“Cool!” Sprig exclaimed, at the same time that Anne spoke up:

“I gotta admit, tracking down a lost volcano sounds like loads of fun, but… cat-erpillars are a lot more dangerous than they look. Sprig can tell you about the Domino Two incident — did not end well for anyone, except maybe Domino Two herself.”

“Oh, I know how to handle myself, don’t worry! I’ve conquered many foes more deadly than a mere —”

They were interrupted by a yelp as Hop Pop jumped straight up, slamming into the ceiling.

“Darn it, Ford, I know you mean us no harm, but every time I walk by here I think there’s an owl perched on our couch and my heart skips a beat!” He rubbed his head, and began collecting the books he’d dropped.

Sprig snapped his fingers. “That’s it, an owl! I knew he reminded me of something predatory!”

“What?” Ford scowled. “I do not look like an owl!”

“Uh, except you kinda do!” Polly chimed in, bouncing into the living room behind Hop Pop. “There’s your big wide eyes, and the way your eyebrows jump up and your head whirls right around whenever you hear something behind you — oh, and the way your cloak billows behind you like giant wings!”

“You’ve got to be joking! I —”

“Such a majestic and terrifying creature!” Polly went on, tugging on Ford’s cloak. “You are the swift and deadly hunter I wish to emulate! Will you teach me your ways?”

Ford’s mouth opened and then closed, at a loss for words, but Anne cut in.

“Hey, that’s enough. Owls are supposed to be wise, remember? Ford set his face on fire less than five minutes after we met him. I think that instantly disqualifies him from owl resemblance.”

Ford just shook his head as Anne and Hop Pop cackled.

“And did you see how he slept on the couch last night?” Sprig added. “His face was buried in a whole stack of pillows and his feet were practically out the window! No majestic old owl would sleep like that!”

“I still want to see him in action, though,” Polly declared. “What do you hunt, old man? Tell me so that I may watch you and learn your ways of stealth and dismemberment!”

“I’m not planning to dismember any endangered species if I can avoid it,” Ford corrected her. “But you’re welcome to come with me anyways. The more eyes who know this area, the better!”

“Ooh, can we take Bessie?” Sprig asked. “Anne can drive us!”

Hop Pop’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. I’ve got errands to run, and I’m not sure how I feel about letting you all run off without a chaperone…”

Ford stifled a laugh. “Hopediah, I’ve earned degrees in everything from cryptobiology to quantum physics — I’m basically the best chaperone these kids could hope for. Think of it as an educational outing!”

“Oh, well why didn’t you say so? That’s fine, then — just be sure to be back before nightfall!”

“Woo-hoo!” Anne cheered. “Time for an adventure with the weird hobo scientist from outer space that we adopted!”

“Adventure! Adventure! Adventure!” Sprig and Polly chanted. Anne joined in almost immediately, and after a moment, Ford did too.

***

“Okay, I think this is where we saw it,” Anne announced as Bessie the snail slowed to a halt at the edge of a clearing. The meadow was dotted with patches of mud, and seemed devoid of any life besides a lone chickfly that squawked and flew off as the gang dismounted.

“It looks… swampier than last time,” Sprig mused. “Did it rain over here or something?”

Ford knelt down in front of one of the patches of exposed mud, removing his glove to run a finger along the edge. “If anything, it looks like a creature tore up the grass at the surface while hunting here, revealing the damp earth underneath.”

“But these claw markings are huge! Whatever made them must be bigger than me!” Anne shuddered. “Ford, do you know why everything is so giant here?”

“Not for sure, but I can certainly speculate!” Ford’s face lit up. “For one thing, my preliminary scans have shown that there’s more oxygen in the atmosphere of this dimension than there is in the environment either you or I would’ve came from, which paleontology suggests may allow for life to grow larger.”

“Ugh, forget I asked,” Anne muttered, but Sprig bounded over to Ford’s side, eyes wide.

“Wow, really? If you and Anne keep breathing our air, will you get bigger too?”

“Not necessarily due to the oxygen concentrations,” Ford told him, “but that’s not the only difference between our dimensions! Gravity is slightly weaker here too, which most importantly means that it’ll be easier for the skeletons of megafauna to support their body mass, but also could cause Anne and I to pick up a few extra millimeters when our spinal columns expand. The effect should be subtle, but less weight pressing our vertebrae together means we’ll stand a little taller.”

“You’re not a majestic owlish hunter after all,” Polly groaned. “You’re just a nerd.”

“He’s a brave adventurer and he knows all about everything!” Sprig told her. “I want to be just like him when I grow up!”

“Two nerds,” Polly grumbled.

“Hey, guys?” Anne poked Sprig in the shoulder with a stick. “There’s something coming this way, and it’s kinda… on fire?”

“Where?” Ford leapt to his feet. “Is it a cat-erpillar?”

“No, it’s more like… an amorphous blob.” Anne pointed towards the creature, which had made its way almost halfway across the clearing. “I’d stay back, in case it explodes in our faces… oh, or you could just walk right up to it! That too!”

“Would you look at that!” Ford exclaimed, kneeling at the creature’s side. “I hadn’t expected to find any cryptozoological oddities I was familiar with here!”

“Cryptozoological?” Sprig tilted his head. “I thought that stuff was all bogus.”

“As in, like, cryptids?” Anne asked. “I saw a Moss-Man here once, does that count?”

Ford plucked a twig from the ground and placed it in the palm of his hand, which he then slowly extended towards the anomaly. The mass of its body seemed to be concentrated in a blob of mud that spilled across the ground with a radius of about half a foot and a height of about five inches at its highest point, from which several plumes of glowing green gas extended.

Two small, dark eyes blinked within the largest plume, and a muddy tendril extended from the creature’s base. For a moment, the mud began to pool in Ford’s hand, but then it pulled the twig back to its main body with a sudden slurp, leaving almost no dirt or moisture behind whatsoever. The twig vanished inside the muddy blob, and the creature gurgled in satisfaction.

Ford ran a hand through the fiery-looking plumes and Anne cringed, but he didn’t get burned. The creature’s flickering eyes widened as it responded with some semblance of a purr, apparently eager for more petting.

“Fascinating! I’ve encountered Scampfires back home, but I think this individual might be better referred to as a ‘Swampfire!’ Although technically speaking, there doesn’t seem to be any actual fire involved — I suspect it’s fueled by phosphorus and hydrocarbon compounds from that muddy blob of biomass, which undergo some form chemiluminescence to produce light without a substantial amount of heat.”

“Is it dangerous?” Polly asked. “Or will it help us on our quest?”

“Neither, I think,” Ford replied. “It seems perfectly content to just ooze along here and keep absorbing plant matter while we head on our way — although, I should really get a quick sketch first!” He pulled out a pen and notebook, adjusted his sitting position, and set to work.

“What happened to finding the cat-erpillar?” Anne groaned. “I thought that was some critically vital mission or something!”

“Oh, it is!” Ford told her. “But it’s not every day one gets to discover and catalog a new anomaly! You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if Swampfires exist in my dimension too, but are endangered due to habitat loss… Humanity really needs to do a better job of preserving wetlands and all the biodiversity they contain…”

Sprig peered over Ford’s shoulder at his work — a set of simple drawings, cartoonish yet detailed enough to capture all the details of the Swampfire’s form in multiple poses. “Wow! You drew that so fast!”

“Thank you, I’ve been doing this for quite a while! Now, Swampy, if you could hold that pose for just a moment…”

Swampy, naturally, chose that moment to bolt, darting back between the trees with surprising speed as its lights dimmed.

“Drat. Well, what I’ve got down here is still better than nothing —”

“Hey, guys?” Anne asked. “Is it just me, or did a really big shadow just pass over us?”

In unison, the four of them looked up. Above, a massive shape blocked out the sun — a shape with wide eyes, a pointed beak, and long, silently flapping wings.

“Scatter!” Ford shouted as the owl dove towards the clearing, and the children bolted as its talons raked the ground.

***

End notes:

Thanks for reading, feedback/reblogs are appreciated as always!

This was very fun to write, as fics with Ford often are, because I got to use him as an excuse to ramble about science! Since Sprig showed an interest in science in “Family Shrub,” I figured he’d be pretty inquisitive, and look up to the whole adventurer-scientist deal Ford has going on.

Swampy the Swampfire, also known as the best character I’ve ever written about, is based partly off the Scampfires from Journal 3, and partly off of the “will-o-the-wisp” ghost lights, which are believed to be a result of gases produced in wetlands by decaying plants. (The endangered due to habitat loss detail Ford mentions isn’t a joke, either — according to Wikipedia, will-o-the-wisp sightings are rarer nowadays, and it’s probably because wetlands keep getting destroyed. We need to save the Swampfires!)

[pengiesama]

Pharos of My Soul: Dragon Tales (Fic, Sorey/Mikleo, Dragon/Fantasy AU)

Title: Pharos of My Soul: Dragon Tales (Chapter 1 of 3) Series: Tales of Zestiria Pairing: Sorey/Mikleo

Summary: Tales of a man-eating dragon, a prince, and their growing family.

A collection of shorts from Pharos of My Soul / Dragon Bride AU.

CHAPTER ONE: PUPS VS. PUPS

Mikleo squares off against a hoard of slavering Beasts that invade his peaceful home.

(CONTENT WARNING: mpreg, xenophilia, and generally weird biology.)

Link: AO3

This is a joint collaboration between me, Ali (@eachainn), and Nami (@shamingcows)! Ali and I wrote a dual AU very loosely based on the 2015 Russian movie “He’s a Dragon.” Ali’s version, as well as her short stories in the universe, are available here in the AO3 collection. Mine are there too I guess.

Read on Tumblr!

Mikleo had defended this island for centuries. What the befuddling mist did not keep out, Mikleo was sure to drive off with tooth and claw. It was the only home he had ever known; the resting place of his mother’s bones. He knew every inch of the sandy shore, every winding path through the mountain caves – he had paced them, years without end, lost in a book he was struggling to read, lost in thoughts, lost in idle loneliness. Now, it was all that and so much more – it was a place of precious memories, and a bower for his pups.

But after hundreds of years of tireless duty, Mikleo had a fatal lack of judgement. No, it wasn’t in the doing of capturing Sorey from his home, it wasn’t in the doing of – doing Sorey, it wasn’t in the duty of allowing him to stay, or allowing him to return.

Beasts had invaded their home, and Mikleo was powerless to stop them.

“Mikleo…”

Mikleo stayed, stiff and unmoving, crouched over his pups. He could feel them trembling underneath his belly, hidden by his feathers; their soft whimpers piercing his heart with guilt. He would protect them. He would keep them safe. But he was terrified as well; terrified of the Beast, terrified for his children, terrified for Sorey.

Sorey took a slow, careful step forward, and placed one of the Beasts down in front of them.

“Mikleo. This is Elize.”

The tiny Pomeranian puppy blinked at her surroundings. She clearly wasn’t able to see terribly well over the purple plushie held gently but firmly in her wee jaws, especially considering it was almost as big as she was. All the same, she did not seem interested in putting it down any time soon. Sorey stroked a hand over Elize’s pale golden fuzzball fluff to try and smooth it out a bit, then scratched the top of her head with a single finger. Elize made a tiny peep, and raised herself up onto wobbly hind legs in an attempt to chase the feeling of Sorey’s petting hand. Her front paws swam in the air for a moment before she toppled over with an audible puff! to the ground.

It was in Sorey’s nature, Mikleo suspected, to try and befriend things that could kill him in a matter of seconds. That was how this whole – this whole everything started, after all. Sorey staying here, Sorey making himself a precious and irreplaceable part of Mikleo’s life. Mikleo had thought Sorey’s parents could be trusted – they were odd, just as Sorey himself was odd, but upon their second visit to the island they had brought these Beasts, claiming them to be playmates for the pups. Playmates. The idea that they considered those dangerous creatures proper playmates for his sweet children was insult enough, even if the horror of their very presence had not gripped him from the start. The moment the Beasts had poured off the ship, snapping and snarling and howling, Mikleo had gathered up his pups and fled in a flurry of feathers to a secluded outcropping at the mountain’s top. And there they had stayed for the past few hours, and there he intended to remain until those humans contained the horror they had unleashed on his home.

His husband’s behavior today was – indecipherable. Instead of demanding that his parents rein in their Beasts and remove them from the island, Sorey had climbed up to their stronghold almost immediately; to plead his parents’ case, to claim that the creatures were harmless. He had even brought one with him – a Beast with a coat as black as the maw of an open throat. It was dressed in a little outfit and Sorey called it “Jude”, and asked the Beast to do a few tricks. It could rise up onto its back legs and do a tiny dance, and could offer its paw in some sort of perversion of human social niceties. Mikleo dared not move an inch, dared not allow this creature a step closer to his children.

Eventually, Sorey shook his head, gathered the Beast, and carried it back down to the beach. Mikleo thought that he’d finally gotten his point across – he’d give Sorey a piece of his mind once those Beasts were gone, and Sorey would find himself not welcome to sleep in their nest for a few days, but as long as he did his part in atoning for his lapse in judgement, Mikleo could find it in his heart to forgive him…

Or at least he thought he could, until Sorey brought up another Beast. And then another. And another.

This Beast that Sorey had brought up was smaller than the rest, this much was true. Mikleo was fairly sure that he could best it in single combat, if it decided to make its move. Even if he had little chance of escaping without grave injuries, he had little choice in the matter – he would place his life on the line to save his pups, and would give his everything to ensure Sorey’s safety, even if he had endangered himself through his naiveté and innocence. For in truth, that was just one more thing that Mikleo loved about him – one more thing that he wanted to protect, always. The Beast had finally wriggled to its feet, with effort, and stared at Mikleo with its terrifying predatory gaze. Mikleo fluffed up the crest around his neck and head, raised his hackles; tried to make himself look as menacing as possible, even as he tried to control the shaking of his limbs.

He was a dragon. He was an unstoppable force of nature, as swift on land as he was in air, and deadlier still when underneath the waves. He was the protector of this island and the surrounding seas; ruler of the misted isles. He was the father of these innocent pups, the husband of that – that frustratingly simple man, and he would no longer cower in a corner. He would stand tall, and face this battle with courage.

He could not control the undignified squawk of terror as one of the other invading Beasts barreled into the cave; breaching their last bastion of safety. It was fast as lightning, darting in and out of the shafts of light filtering through the cave openings. Mikleo saw the flash of its teeth, the glint of its awful claws. The Beast pounced, lunged –

Sorey groaned. “Oh, Milla, honestly…you act like mom doesn’t feed you.”

Milla looked over her shoulder at Sorey as she munched on the bug she had been chasing. The green iridescent shine of the insect’s body and the half-buzzing wing still hanging out of her mouth identified it as one of the species of dragonflies that lived on the isle. This particular species were terrible pests, and aggressively swarmed the island’s shaded pools during their breeding season; crowding out the less loathsome breeds of dragonflies, and multiplying so quickly during their peak that the fish and birds that fed on them couldn’t keep up. When walking by the water at night, it was all one could do to avoid getting stung, and their swooping and buzzing spooked the pups so. This one’s demise, as gruesome as it was, was hardly a loss. Milla held her fluffy tail up high and proud over her haunches, and gave it a cheerful little wag as she swallowed down her prey. She shook out her coat, then pressed her snout to the ground; snuffling about to see if she had missed any bits and pieces of her mid-morning snack.

“Just please, don’t puke that up in the boat on the way back,” Sorey asked her, as if the Beasts could understand anything but the language of violence and terror. He had picked up Elize again, and she was perched in the crook of his arm. She blinked her eyes, slowly, as if she was about to fall asleep. “And don’t try to eat it again afterwards.”

The Beast known as Milla yipped, and trotted out of the cave; her body language easy and confident, as if she already knew the caves like the back of her paw. Mikleo bristled at the very idea – in offense, and in horror. If the invaders had already mapped out the cave system, what hope did they have?

Mikleo was too busy fretting to feel Aster squirming out from under his belly, too distracted to see him poke his head out from underneath his feathers, watching the scene before them. Aster was a shy, quiet boy; cautious, and not prone to the recklessness of his sisters. But what Mikleo failed to recall was that Aster was still his parents’ child, and thus, was possessed of an insatiable curiosity. Had Mikleo remembered this fact, even in such a stressful time, perhaps Mikleo would have kept a closer eye on him – or at least, a more firm seat on him.

Mikleo let out a panicked, desperate cry as he saw Aster dart out, out of the corner of his eye – his claws gripped at air as he tried to reach out and snag him back. He was too small, too quick, too determined to see the new “friend” that his papa was promising him. Sorey smiled as he saw his son approach, and knelt to the ground to put the Beast in his arms at eye level with Aster.

“There we go, that’s my brave little boy. Say hi to Elize.”

Mikleo was absolutely certain that he was about to see his precious baby boy eaten alive. Little Aster, who he’d had to coax out of his egg; gently calling to him to encourage him to break out. Little Aster, who loved nothing more than being held and read to, who always let Mikleo groom him without complaint (or kicking), who always needed his papa’s lullabies to fall asleep after a nightmare. He had to move quickly, before the Beast struck – but if he moved, he would leave his daughters unprotected, and the Beasts had already proven that they knew the caves. What if more were lying in wait, biding their time until they could descend and make off with his sweet little babes? He was gripped by this agonizing, impossible decision.

Aster rose up on his hind legs, and drew in his arms politely as he gave Elize a delicate sniff. Elize squirmed, whimpered, and began to tremble. Sorey made a soothing noise, and stroked his hand over her fluff once more.

“Aster’s just a little baby like you, Elize. No need to be scared.”

He couldn’t imagine what Aster had smelled on the creature, but it made Aster twitch his tail, fluff his coat, and let out a joyful (and loud) squawk. The noise made the Beast yelp, and its panicked thrashing caused Sorey to lose his grip. It fell to the ground, and fled out the cave entrance; its nails scrabbling for purchase on the rock as it went. Aster seemed to deflate at the departure of the creature, but Mikleo could not have been more proud of him. He wanted to weep in relief. His precious, brave baby boy. He had stared death in the face, squawked at it, and saved them all.

Sorey darted after the creature, and yelled over his shoulder as he went:

“Sorry, just – she’s too little to run around on her own! I’ll be back in a minute, stay here.”

As long as Sorey was finishing the job of driving the creature out of their home, Mikleo was willing to be ordered around. He was just…too relieved. He found himself transforming into his smaller form, and bundled Aster into his arms; nuzzling and cooing to him. It was unlike Aster to turn down cuddles – Sorey liked to call him a “love bug” for it. Strangely, though, Aster was having none of his father’s affections today. He squirmed and wriggled until Mikleo put him down, and sat almost sullenly as his sisters closed in on him; sniffing at him suspiciously, as if they weren’t sure he was still alive after that encounter.

Mikleo made a questioning noise, and Aster turned his gaze to him, his eyes soulful and sad.

“Papa said she was a little baby. I scared her.”

Mikleo was baffled. “That’s…Aster, it was dangerous. It’s good you scared it off.”

“Didja see how the one ate that big nasty bug whole?” Anemone whispered in clear awe.

“I liked the first one’s dance,” said Allium, before she briefly, and shakily, tried to imitate it on her own hind legs. “And his jacket. I bet Grandma made it, just like the clothes she makes for us.”

His children clearly did not understand the gravity of the situation. But they were innocent, just like Sorey. Mikleo gathered the three of them up – two under one arm, one under the other, and carted them through the cave and up to the nest room. It wasn’t easy, and wasn’t entirely quick. They were growing bigger every day, it seemed – soon he wouldn’t be able to do this, and so, he indulged himself whenever he could.

“Can we play with those things when papa comes back?” asked Anemone. “Please?”

“You were scared of them,” Allium accused. “Just like daddy.”

“Was not! And you were too!”

“Yes you were! You were crying like a little baby and all puffed up—”

Mikleo made a warning noise, and the girls quieted down. Aster still stared at him; stared at him with those eyes, so hopeful and sweet, so much like Sorey’s.

“I’m going to go find your father,” Mikleo said. “The three of you are going to stay in the nest, and not move until I get back. Or else no bedtime stories for a week.”

Mikleo knew his children – and more than that, he knew their parents. As insurance against the inevitable escape, he murmured a spell at the nest room’s entrance; activating the protective charms there, creating a barrier that kept things in place – nothing out, and nothing in. He felt the magic thrum in his veins. It was a spell that drew from his own life-force, and would stay in place until he dispelled it or died. Whichever came first.

Mikleo could remember that awful day, so long ago: when he cowered under his mother as that human stalked their home, when she had hidden him away in a secluded spot (too far away from their nest to make a break for it) and told him not to move until she came to get him. He’d waited hours for her to come back; too scared to move, too scared to make a sound.

Hours became days. He was hungry, and terrified, and desperate for his mother to return…but she never did. When he finally gathered the courage and desperation, he crept out of hiding to search for her. And find her he did – most of her.

Sometimes he idly wondered what would have become of him if Lailah hadn’t decided to come calling that day, if she had been less willing to care for him. If, when she saw him slowly digging a grave, she had simply turned around and left. But, she didn’t. She stayed, and comforted him, and raised him. He was forever in her debt.

Now that Mikleo had…given himself some time to think, perhaps his children had a point. Perhaps he could grant that these Beasts were not deadly threats – certainly not as deadly as the human that had taken his mother away from him, at least. But what he could say about them was that they were loud, and messy, and were traipsing all over his island as if they owned the place. Now that he was confident that he did not have to fear never returning to his little ones in the nursery, he could march himself back down to…wherever his in-laws were lurking around, and tell them firmly to gather the Beasts and leave. But he supposed that would be easier said than done. Mikleo had read books on marriage that emphasized the importance of boundaries with in-laws, but there was also the matter of respect, and marital harmony, and…

A dragon’s senses were sharp; far sharper than a human’s. Moreover, the cave system was like a sprawling spider’s web – it carried sound and vibration from all over the island. He could detect Sorey’s heavy footsteps toward the northern end of the system, and could confidently state that he was nowhere near where that one Beast – “Elize” – had run off to. And as for Elize…he could hear faint, frantic little whimpers, and the scratching of claws on stone.

Mikleo hesitated. They were frightful little Beasts, and messy, and annoying. But those whimpers were so plaintive, and so like those of his own pups that he found himself drawn in to them, driven by parental instinct.

It was no trouble navigating the cave system to find her. Mikleo watched, cautiously, hidden behind an outcropping. The Beast was scratching frantically at a crack at the intersection of wall and floor, and whimpering as she did. The purple stuffed toy that she had previously held in her jaws was absent; and, perhaps due to its absence, the Beast appeared to be quite distressed. Mikleo felt that it was a safe assumption that, in the process of fleeing from Aster and Sorey’s pursuit, the Beast had skidded into this room and lost her grip on her toy, sending it tumbling into the crack in the stone that she was now clawing at.

The Beast, engrossed in her mission to save her toy, did not seem to notice Mikleo’s slow, cautious approach. It was not until he was standing over her that she noticed his shadow. She froze in place, and then, began to tremble once more.

The stuffed toy had not fallen too far into the crack – it was beyond the reach of a Beast, perhaps, but Mikleo had thumbs in his current form. It was a small and painless task to retrieve it. He placed it on the ground in front of the Beast, and watched as she carefully, gently picked it back up.

She had stopped trembling, and stopped whimpering. Those eyes of hers were just like Aster’s and Sorey’s.

…There was no more time to focus on this. He needed to discuss things with Sorey’s family, now. Mikleo rose out of his crouch, and continued on his way down to the nearest exit. He heard the tip-tip-tap of Elize’s claws on the stone floor; following him as he went. He sighed, and bent down again. If it was as Sorey indicated, and she was no older than the pups, she surely was already exhausted from running blindly through the caves. She was quite light, at least – certainly lighter than his children were now.

In no time at all, they emerged into the afternoon sun. Mikleo squinted and looked around, until he spotted—

“Mikleo! You found her!”

Sorey jogged up, with his mother Selene not far behind. Selene tearfully held out her arms, and Mikleo – perhaps more hesitantly than he expected of himself – handed her Elize.

“Thank you,” she said. “Oh, goodness, Elize, you gave me quite a scare…”

Mikleo looked at Sorey, expectantly. Sorey scratched at his head.

“We’re…rounding up the rest. It probably wasn’t a good idea to bring everyone at once.”

“No,” Mikleo said. “No, it was not.”

Sorey gave him those Eyes, and Mikleo looked away with a huff before he was drawn in.

“So? The rest of them?”

“We’ve got most everyone rounded up,” Sorey said, gesturing behind him. There was a little yellow Beast barking repeatedly at a fish in a pool, a gray-muzzled Beast sunning itself on a rock, and a reddish-black Beast gazing dramatically into the horizon; perched on a rock, backed by a waterfall. “I sent Jude off to look for Milla, and dad went off to look for…”

Mikleo felt the brush of something on his leg, and jumped a mile. It was the doing of a new Beast, who appeared to be undeterred by Mikleo’s rejection, or his scream of terror. It closed in and tried rubbing on his legs again; giving him what could only be described as…an extremely fake and off-putting attempt at puppy eyes. Sorey sighed and grabbed the Beast before it could dart away into the brush.

“That’s Alvin. We’ve been chasing him all over the island. Don’t let his act fool you; he just doesn’t want us to put his leash on him.”

Selene tsked and shifted to hold Alvin under her other arm. “You naughty thing, always running off to cause mischief. It’s time for the harness of penitence again…”

She ignored Alvin’s mournful howl, and carried him and Elize off to the pool to be supervised. Sorey offered his arms to Mikleo, and Mikleo decided he would grant it. Sorey’s arms were so strong, and held him so tightly. He tucked his face against Sorey’s chest, against the warm skin revealed by his open shirt, and sighed.

“Are you doing okay?” Sorey asked quietly. “You seemed…really rattled up there.”

“It’s fine,” Mikleo whispered. “I’ll talk about it later, maybe. Once these creatures are rounded up and off the island.”

Sorey kissed his head, right at the base of his horns, and Mikleo couldn’t help but purr. Sorey was all too aware of his weak spots: kisses to his horns, kisses to the scales at the nape of his neck, stroking fingers through his feathers, ticklish touches to his ribs and sides. Sorey himself, in general. It really was hard to stay upset with him, even when he brought chaos in his wake.

They were interrupted, then – politely interrupted, but still interrupted. The Beast known as Jude was shifting back and forth, stretching out his paw and trying to get Sorey’s attention without spooking Mikleo by barking. Once he had gotten their attention, Jude whimpered, spun in place, and trotted to point out the path through the brush and trees that he’d taken.

“Did you find Milla?” Sorey asked. “Come on, let’s go get her.”

Jude led them along, and they eventually emerged near an island pool – to a scene of utter destruction. The thing was, it was mostly destruction revolving around those nasty pest dragonflies. At this time of year, the air should have been thick with them…but the pool had apparently been cleansed of their reign of terror. Half-eaten dragonfly bodies littered the ground and water. The birds and fish were enjoying a feast, and the other insects that made the area their home – the butterflies, the bees, the colorful little beetles – were able to go about their day in peace. It was…idyllic, and Mikleo didn’t know what to think. (Except to be thankful that those fucking dragonflies were dead. He was sure to kick one of their corpses into the water for a fish to eat as they walked.)

Continuing to follow Jude, the trail of insect corpses slowed. Mikleo recognized the area as a prime spot to gather melons from the fruit trees, and recognized the carnage on the ground as the remains of many melons. Finally, they spotted their target: Milla, passed out in a half-eaten melon rind. Her tongue lolled almost completely out of her mouth, and she breathed slow and heavy. Her body was sluggish with bug meat and melon, and she barely reacted when Jude came up to her to lick at her face.

“Come on, Milla, let’s get you back to mom,” Sorey said soothingly. He bent down to pick her up. “Hey – hey! No more!”

Milla weakly tried to take another bite of the melon as Sorey tried to move her. Thwarted in her gourmet quest, Milla tried to howl to the heavens, but it came out as more of a fat gurgle. Jude picked up the half-eaten melon in his jaws, and brought it along with them as they travelled back to the waterfall where the rest of the Beasts awaited. Mikleo could respect his dutifulness.

Selene did not seem entirely surprised at the state that Milla was returned in, and graciously accepted the gift of slightly-eaten melon from Jude. Although the Beasts were now…under control, Mikleo was clearly quite through with having visitors for the day, and it was late in any case. While Georg set about carting the Beasts back to their main ship via rowboat, Selene stayed ashore. She bowed her head to Mikleo.

“I…I must apologize for the commotion today,” she said. “Please don’t blame Sorey. He told me that I should only bring one, maybe two of my pups for the grandchildren to play with. I thought I knew better, but I clearly didn’t.”

Mikleo gathered his thoughts before he responded.

“…It’s not that they’re unwelcome,” Mikleo explained. “Perhaps I wouldn’t mind them again. The children were interested in them. And the one’s appetite, you see, could be useful for a problem we’ve had for some time—”

As the saying goes, when one speaks of the devil, the devil is called to appear. A lone dragonfly, apparently seeking revenge, buzzed ominously towards them – more specifically, it was targeting Milla’s bloated, prone body on the sand. Jude stood in front of her, ready to defend her in her time of digestive need. The dragonfly was not impressed, and divebombed the both of them – stinger out, ready to give Jude the welt of a lifetime.

The reddish-black Beast, Gaius, walked in front of Jude with a dominating and absolute sort of confidence. He locked eyes with the dragonfly. The dragonfly skidded to complete stop, mere centimeters in front of Gaius’ unflinching muzzle, and – after a long, tense moment – dropped completely dead to the sand. Gaius snorted dismissively, then turned and kicked sand over its corpse with his hind legs. He then trotted to Selene, and permitted her to scoop him up for kissy-kissies.

Sorey and Mikleo bade their guests farewell, and retired to the nursery to free their own pups from confinement. The pups swirled around their legs, chittering at them in accusing tones – you were playing with those fluffy things without us! – and were only soothed by the promise that yes, grandma and grandpa would be visiting again soon. Yes, you can sleep in the big nest with daddy and papa tonight. And yes, you can have an extra story before bed.

Mikleo couldn’t help but worry, sometimes. Old wounds seemed to rip open at the most inconvenient times. He brushed his lips over Sorey’s forehead, and leaned to put out the lantern. But Sorey’s arms were so warm, and his pups’ purring was so soothing. It grounded him in the present, and kept him in the moment – and kept him hopeful for their future, together.

[tegary-blog]

32 and 97 please :)

You must know me well ;) oh, also, any fans of the Bottled Star series should probably gather some tissues.

32 + 97: Pregnancy fic & time travel

“We found her trying to sneak into the East wing.”

The girl that stands in chains before him looks oddly familiar to Loki, but he can’t quite place where he seems to know her from. She’s a tall thing, lithe, with rivulets of midnight-black curls that cascade down her back and the brightest green eyes Loki thinks he’s ever seen. When a guard jostles her by the shoulder, the girl bares her teeth in a furious snarl.

“Enough of that,” Loki says, slowly rising from his seat on the throne. He prefers to sit more than stand, now, as he’s passing into his fifth month of pregnancy and his stomach has become quite the cumbersome weight. 

“But your majesty–” 

“We are not brutes,” Loki reminds the guard, comfortably settling one hand atop the curve of his belly. “The days of Odin’s Asgard are long gone, Aevar. Need I remind you which king you now serve?”

“No, Majesty,” Aevar mutters, and Loki waves a hand in dismissal.

“Leave us,” He says, and both of the kingsguard look up in alarm.

“You can’t be serious. Leave our Queen alone with a prisoner? The King would have our heads,” Tori, the youngest and most junior of Thor’s personal guard, balks. 

“She could have been sent here to assassinate you or his Majesty!” Aevar adds, and Loki casts an unimpressed eye over the pair.

“Thor, were he here today and not off negotiating peace with the leaders of the Nine Realms, would trust and respect my judgment.” Drumming his fingers over his swollen stomach irritably, Loki again waves a hand in dismissal, this time accentuating his point with a flick of the wrist. “Now, shoo.”

Aevar and Tori look to each other, have a momentary conversation consisting of the raising of eyebrows and shrugging of shoulders, before they deem this argument a lost cause and turn to exit the throne room. Clasping his hands behind his back, Loki calls one of his favorite daggers to his fist, studying the young girl before him.

Since she’s entered the room, her eyes have not left Loki’s face. Their brilliant green is now obscured by a mist of tears, and her lips are slightly parted, lower lip quavering with an emotion that looks strangely akin to grief.

“What is your name, young one?”

Surprised at being addressed, the girl seems to snap out of her reverie, lifting her eyes to meet Loki’s. A singular tear slides down her pale cheek. “My name is Brynhild, mo–your majesty.”

Brynhild. Loki’s always been particularly fond of that name. “And why have you come here today, Brynhild?” The girl’s fists clench and unclench in their bindings, and Loki frowns. “Did someone put you up to this? If you tell us of their plan, you will not be–”

“Brynhild Lokidottir.”

Blinking harshly, Loki’s hands tighten on the hilt of the dagger behind his back. “I’m sorry?”

“You asked for my name,” Brynhild says quietly, face full of such sorrow that Loki’s heart gives an odd lurch in his chest. “My name is Brynhild Lokidottir.”

The cogs in Loki’s brain, usually swift and efficient, seem to have been doused in a vat of grease. His thoughts grind to a halt for a moment, and all Loki can do is blink dumbly at the young woman who stands before him. Now that he thinks of it, she does look strikingly similar to himself. The hair, the eyes, the moonlit-pale skin…but there’s no way he’d have a child without his knowledge. The babe that gestates within him now, made of his and Thor’s finally-recognized love, is without a doubt Loki’s first-born.

“I don’t know if this is some kind of jest–” Loki begins, but the girl interrupts him again. Brave little thing, having the gall to interrupt the All-Mother not once, but twice.

“It’s not a joke. I know this is probably hard to believe, but…” And Brynhild shifts from foot-to-foot uncomfortably. “Unchain me and I can prove it.”

Loki’s self-preservation instincts and curiosity have a short-lived battle before his need to know more comes out the victor, and he speaks a spell that unlocks the manacles around Brynhild’s wrists. She rubs them appreciatively before slowly approaching, palms out and open in a show of benign intentions.

“I’m going to reach into my back pocket, now,” She says, and Loki’s eyes track her hands as she slowly does so, retrieving what looks like a small square of paper. 

Taking a careful step forward, Loki accepts the shape from Brynhild’s outstretched hands. It takes a moment for his mind to register what he’s seeing, but, as soon as it does, Loki’s heart stops for a moment.

He’s holding a picture in his hands, one that seems a little dulled by age and torn at the edges by loving fingers. Depicted on the surface is a family, seemingly at some sort of celebration. But it’s not just any family–Loki’s own visage smiles back at him from the snapshot. Thor sits next to him, one arm around Loki’s shoulders, beaming his signature sunny grin. Cradled in Loki’s arms is a bundled babe with dark hair, fast asleep against his chest, and three other children seem to be climbing over Thor’s shoulders and arms: two boys, one dark-headed and one light-headed, and a blonde little girl perched in Thor’s lap.

“What’s this?” Loki chokes out after he regains some semblance of voice.

“This is my family,” Brynhild responds softly. 

When Loki looks back up, Brynhild is in tears, face buried in her hands and shoulders shaking something fierce. Moving as quickly as he can, Loki descends the stairs from the throne and gathers her close, letting her bury her face in his neck and cry.

“Why the tears, little one?” He asks when Brynhild looks up again, eyes rimmed red. 

“I-I…I come from the future,” Brynhild explains, hands still fisted in Loki’s robes like if she lets go, he’ll disappear. “But not exactly your future, as it seems. In my reality, this place was destroyed long ago. I’d only ever heard of it in tales you or Papa told me. Noma must have executed the spell wrong…” 

“Asgard was destroyed?” Loki asks incredulously, and Brynhild sniffles, nods.

“It’s a long story. It involves your sister, Hela.”

Stiffening at the mention of the Queen of Hel, Loki’s hand goes protectively to his bump. Hela had nearly killed them all, not so long ago. She claimed it her right, after apparently defeating some being called “Thanos” that no-one had ever heard of. It had taken all of Asgard’s combined power, but Thor and Loki had managed to seal her back in the realm from whence she came.

“In my reality…” And Brynhild’s hands tighten in Loki’s robes. “In my reality, you die two years after my birth.”

Loki freezes, chest constricting painfully. His alternate-world daughter looks up at him with wide, sad eyes, carefully bringing a palm up to touch Loki’s cheek.

“I couldn’t remember,” She says weakly. “Noma and Audun and Jari could remember, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t fair. They told me stories of you, and Papa told me stories of you, but it wasn’t enough. I–I didn’t mean to get caught. I just wanted to see you in person, if even from afar. I wanted to know…” And her lower lip trembles again. Loki gathers her up against his chest, rests his chin on her forehead.

“Sh, little one,” He murmurs. “All will be okay.”

Interested in the universe Brynhild comes from? ;)

https://archiveofourown.org/series/908835