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idkthisisjustforfanfic · 4 years ago

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that makes four.

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PART 1

Your feet dangled down from the stool, elbows on the granite counter when Jeff turned around. “Alright,” he said, lips in a thin smile when he revealed the plate of reheated lasagna that someone dropped off in the last few days. “Smells good.”

You looked up at him with an unimpressed stare. “It looks a little disgusting.”

“It’s vegan, I think.”

“Jesus,” you rolled your eyes. “You start one all natural skincare line and people think you only eat plant-based shit.”

He let out a small laugh, set the plate down and watched as you picked up the fork. One bite--mediocre. Not exactly hot enough, but after all Jeff had done for you the last few days, you didn’t have the heart to demand he put it in for another minute.

“So--do you think it went well?”

You laughed around the food in your mouth, picked up a paper napkin and let your head tilt to the side. “As good as a funeral could be.”

The lights in your kitchen were dim and the sun had already faded behind the trees, the house quiet after people finally filed out. Friends, extended family, strangers you’d never met had flocked to Los Angeles for the funeral of your famous father.

It’d been coming from a mile away. His health declined, an obvious result of the cocaine and the cigarettes and whatever else he’d ingested regularly in the 70s. A heart attack a year ago put him on a fast track to the afterlife, but he always joked that he’d probably end up in hell.

Being in the music industry ruined him, in a way--it ruined your parents’ marriage and it ruined a lot of the relationships your father had. Blow outs and big fights that left him exiled from a lot of social circles, sometimes never speaking to people again after one bad phone call. But it was never like that with Irv.

“Well, I’ve never seen my dad cry so hard,” Jeff smiled. “He really loved him.”

Another bite of the soggy noodles and fake cheese. “I know.”

A comfortable silence, the doors off the kitchen were open, a breeze from the backyard let the southern California warmth blow through the sheer curtains when you sipped at your left over wine.

Jeff was the closest thing you had to a sibling, his family was all you had left at this point. You were tossed in the bathtub with him and his siblings as a baby, shoved into family photos and tagged along for vacations.

Being closest in age to Jeff meant people always hoped it would be the two of you that would end up together. Happily ever after or having babies of your own. But when you saw Jeff wolf down a whole pizza at his bar mitzvah, any hope of a spark between the two of you had been permanently extinguished.

His older sister was the one who told you what it meant to have sex, and after your mom died, his mom helped you pick out a dress for your Sweet Sixteen.

She was the one who talked you off the ledge when you found out you were pregnant only a few years later, she was the one who threw you both baby showers and she was the one who helped you through your divorce only six months earlier.

So now that your dad was gone, too, you wondered where you fit into their family and what your definition of family even was.

Before the thought could cross your mind, the front door was pushed open and the sound of high pitched giggles floated in from the foyer.

CeCe’s tiny voice echoed down the hall. “Uncle Jeff?”

“Is that my CeCe?” He took a few steps forward and she ran straight into his legs, he hoisted her up onto his hip when Maeve rounded the corner with Tristan in tow.

“Hi honey,” you opened an arm so your ten-year-old could fit into the side of you. She leaned her head on her shoulder. “How was ice cream?”

The easiest ploy to get them out of the house while you hosted some kind of awkward afterparty.

“Fine,” she sighed. “But Tristan said that funerals are a selfish attempt by the living to hold on to someone after they’re dead.”

You blinked a few times and looked down at her, shocked by the words and apparently, her ability to understand them. You looked over at Tristan, arched eyebrows to communicate how displeased you were.

His eyes went wide when Jeff choked down a laugh. “I didn’t--I don’t know what you’re talking about Maeve.”

You kissed Maeve on the head. “Well, Tristan is wrong about a lot of things, trust me. But you two should go get ready for bed, it’s been a long day.”

You looked over at him again--younger by two years and easily one of the most important people in your life. You met him only a year after you started your business, he had a knack for brand management and eye for design that you couldn’t pass up. He was way too sarcastic and cynical to be your regular babysitter, but Jeff and his family were basically in the receiving line beside you.

Jeff let CeCe climb down and Maeve took her by the hand as they headed for the kitchen stairs to the second floor, leaving you alone at the island with two of your closest friends.

He waited until he heard the water turn on from their bathroom sink, then whispered in Tristan’s direction. “Great idea to say that to a ten-year-old and a six-year-old after their grandpa dies.”

Tristan rolled his eyes theatrically, “she asked why so many people came and why she’d never met any of them if they loved her grandpa so much.”

“Well, you can expect a bill for their therapy in a few years,” you laughed, forking more lasagna into your mouth.

Tristan made his way over to the fridge and pulled out the glass dish, helping himself to a piece when Jeff took a seat beside you. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine,” you glanced at him sideways, suspicious about any ulterior motive he might have.

“Okay, Y/N,” Jeff laughed, Tristan eyed you from over his shoulder like he didn’t believe you. “Let me try again. How are you feeling emotionally?”

You cleared your throat and swallowed the most recent bite of dinner. “Oh, you mean cause my husband left me six months ago and my dad just died and now I’m a single mom with two fiesty daughters who just inherited a giant house aaaaaand,” you drew out the word for dramatic effect. “I’m a business owner who barely gets any sleep?”

“That’s what I was getting at, yes,” Jeff nodded and fought a smirk.

“I’m alright,” you sighed. “Tired. Kind of freaked out about what the fuck is going on in my life, but, I’ll survive. I always survive."

You knew you would--in fact, you’d been waiting for this moment for the last few weeks. When Jeff’s mom called to tell you your dad needed to be put in hospice, you prepared. You talked to Maeve and CeCe and explained it all in a way they’d understand. His life on earth is over, but we can still talk to him and visit a pretty garden to remember him.

It was a lot to deal with only a few months after your high school sweetheart turned husband admitted he’d been having an affair and moved out, you saw on Facebook that he’d since bought a motorcycle and was spending most of his time at bars along the coast. That whole fiasco was harder to explain to your children.

And now suddenly everyone wanted to make sure you were okay. Frozen dinners, offers to drive your kids to and from their extracurriculars, a lot of attention was suddenly thrust onto you and your family, as if you hadn’t always hated that growing up.

But you knew the time would come when life would settle back down. Cousins and aunts and uncles would fly home, people would stop asking how you were doing post divorce. Dust would settle and the sun would set on this chapter and frankly, it couldn’t happen soon enough.

So here you were, the funeral was over, the dinner in his honor at Jeff’s parents, the media coverage was starting to die down and life could return to normal. Or, at least, a new normal.

Your dad had been a fixture in your life--weekly dinner dates with grandpa gave you a minute to yourself after working long days and answering endless phone calls. A glass of wine on the couch or even dinner with Tristan and Zoey was a nice escape from breaking up fights or figuring out how to reattach the head of a Barbie doll after someone shoved someone into a closet and tears and screaming ensued.

“You will definitely survive,” Jeff nodded.

Tristan came and sat, forked into the lasagna and made a face when he realized how bad it was. “Is this fake cheese?”

“Unfortunately,” you nodded.

Tristan made a face and then cleared his throat. “I, for one, think this is the start of a new chapter for you. New opportunities, new love,” he smirked.

A quick retort: “Yeah, that’s obviously the first priority right now.”

“He’s right, though,” Jeff said. “You have a fresh start, a totally new chapter.”

You nodded--they were right, but easing into a new chapter felt a lot better than trying to dive right in.

“Speaking of a fresh start, you know, changing things up,” Jeff forced a grin in your direction. “Can we actually talk for a second?”

You eyed him suspiciously, put your fork down to bow out from eating the world’s worst lasagna. “Yeah?”

“I have kind of a weird favor to ask. And--I know it’s kind of bad timing, with everything going on, but--just hear me out, okay?”

Instead of replying, you watched him, lifted your brows to encourage him to continue and tread carefully.

“So I have a client who isn’t from here, he bought a house but it’s in the middle of getting renovated. There’s kind of been a lot going on, it’s a long story.”

“Okay,” you nodded, unsure where he was going with it.

“He needs a place to stay, and I was wondering if maybe he could stay here for a little.”

“Here, like, here here?” You pointed to the floor of your kitchen, an elegant upgrade from the more modest house in Woodland Hills you’d occupied before the divorce.

Along with the death of your father came the inheritance of his Bel Air estate and all of the bedrooms, the four car garage, the manicured lawn and the pool out back. Some people thought you should sell it, use the cash to make trusts for the girls or save for college.

Selling it didn’t feel right, though. It was the house he worked so hard for, the house you called home for the later half of your teen years and the place you always came back to when things got hard. So instead of putting it on the market and closing that chapter, once again, you returned to the safe haven in the hills when you didn’t know where else to turn.

“Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but you have the room and it might be fun to have someone else around and--”

“I have two daughters, Jeff, I can’t just let a stranger live with us.”

“He’s not a stranger, Y/N, he’s my friend. We’re really close.”

“Who is he?” Tristan asked, waving his fork in the air to remind us that he was still present.

“Harry Styles.”

Tristan’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “The kid from the boyband?”

“No way,” you shook your head, dismissing it before you could even let his name register. “I’m not having a pop star boy band kid stay in my house.”

“Okay,” Jeff held up a hand to get Tristan to relax, then moved to point at you. “He’s 24, number one. He’s not a kid, he’s, like, only a few years younger than us.”

“Yes,” you nodded, “exactly. I don’t need a 24-year-old living with my daughters.”

“He’s not like that, though. He’s responsible and he’s a family friendly dude, and--”

“Then why can’t he live with you? Or with your parents?”

“I don’t have the room,” he said. “And my dad hates house guests.”

You rolled your eyes, it was obnoxious, but it was true. Irv hated having people stay over almost as much as he hated it when your dad beat him in golf.

Jeff took your silence as an opportunity to continue selling you on the idea. “He just finished his tour, he’s working on his second album. He’s probably going to be in the studio a lot, Y/N. Do you really think I would let some crazy party animal live with my nieces?”

Another eye roll from both you and Tristan.

“Is this like, just a few nights?” You asked.

“Like, two weeks. Tops.”

“Two weeks?!” You shook your head. “No--I can’t put them through that after all the shit that’s been going on this year. Why can’t he just stay in a hotel?”

“Cause that’s lonely and he’s a people person and--I don’t know, it might be good for you to have someone around.”

You rolled your eyes that, was it a jab at your new status as a single mom or new status as a fatherless daughter? Unsure.

Jeff stood from the counter and grabbed for his phone on the far end of the island. “Just think about it, okay? I’ve gotta run. A few weeks, built in babysitting, maybe--he’s great with kids.”

“I’ve already thought about it,” you told him, resting your chin in your hand and offering a sugary sweet smile. “No fucking way.”

“Mommy!” CeCe’s voice called from upstairs, you hoisted yourself up, ready to tuck them in and forget that Jeff had ever asked such a ludicrous question.

“I would owe you big time--it might be fun! You’ve got the room, he could be a positive male influence on the girls.” He wiggled his eyebrows at the end of his sentence--like that would really sway you.

“And I’m not that?” Tristan pulled his head back, offended.

“You’re the one who told them funerals are stupid,” Jeff said with a sarcastic smirk.

“And you’re the crazy one trying to let a stranger move in here like it’s an AirBnB,” you shot back at Jeff. “So maybe they do need a better male influence than both of you.”

“Mommy!” CeCe called again, more impatient this time.

“I’m coming!” You shouted. “You, let yourself out when you’re finished eating this terrible meal,” you pointed at Tristan and the lasagna. “And you,” you pointed at Jeff with a smirk. “Please never speak to me again.”

He was already heading for the door, keys in hand when he blew you a kiss. “Love you, see you soon!”

“Love you,” you called back, bounding up the stairs, mom mode activated.

A text message the next day when you were at work:

Jeff Azoff (1:43pm): 🙏😇🙏😇

You blew air from your lips, Zoey sat across from you at a conference table when you took a late lunch. She was the first friend you made when you started high school, your long time confidant aside from Tristan and Jeff and a sure bet to tell it like it is.

Now she regularly popped into the Luna offices and she loved nothing more than acting like she was a higher up at your business. She’d rather be doing that than admit she was a new mom with no clue what the next chapter of her life would look like. You had that in common.

Her two-month-old son, Benny, sat in a carrier on the ground, his eyelashes fluttered when Zoey put her feet up on the chair beside her.

“What’s the sigh for?”

“Jeff is being annoying.”

“What’d he do now?”

You looked over at her, nose deep in her phone when you took another bite of the burrito bowl she’d picked up for you. You didn’t know if it was worth it to explain it all. Zoey was excitable, never one to turn down an adventure and her aptly timed identity crisis that came with becoming a mom was sure to make her encourage bad decisions even more.

She looked up at you, suddenly aware of the wheels spinning in your mind.

“Spill it,” she instructed. She put her phone down and let out a breath, clasped her hands and waited for you to fill her in.

“He asked me to let a friend of his stay with us in my dad’s house.”

“Your house,” she corrected. “Deed’s in your name now.”

“My house,” you nodded. “And I feel weird about it.”

“Who’s the friend?”

“Some client of his,” you tried to wave it off as if the name didn’t matter.

It didn’t, really. You’d long been exposed to the rich and famous just because of the nature of your father’s work. He was one of the biggest managers in the music industry in partnership with Jeff’s dad, so you were no stranger to beautiful people with beautiful cars and beautiful homes. When Jeff took on the family business, you only grew more accustomed to it.

“So a celebrity?” she shimmied her shoulders in excitement. “Which one?”

“Harry Styles,” you said the name slowly, quietly, even though it was just the two of you in the second floor conference room and even though this was your office that you bought and you owned and you ran.

“He’s hot,” she nodded casually, less impressed than you’d expected.

“He’s also like twenty-something, so it's disgusting for you to say that.”

“Oh relax,” she dismissed your concern. “He could be your pool boy.”

Zoey--who also grew up in Southern California and spent plenty of time at your house as a kid--hadn’t yet grown so accustomed to the coming and going of celebrities. Her parents owned a florist shop in Santa Monica and in high school you had to tell her she could only come to a Britney Spears concert if she didn’t cry when you inevitably met her in the green room thanks to your dad.

“I have children,” you reminded her. “A ten-year-old who might as well be fifteen and a six-year-old who would think I literally bought her a human playmate.”

“But if he’s friends with Jeff I highly doubt he’s a serial killer,” she reasoned.

“Wow, you are completely missing the point.”

“What’s the point, then?”

“It’s weird--I can’t have a stranger move in with my kids.”

“Why not?”

“Because first their dad left us and now their grandpa died.”

“Sounds like they need a new man in their life.”

You ignored the similarity of her words with Jeff’s from the other night. “I just think it’s crazy.”

“Okay,” she sat up straight and suddenly looked like this was morphing into a business conversation. “How long?”

“Two weeks.”

“Oh my god,” she turned her palms towards the sky. “Just do it.”

“What? No!”

“It’s two weeks--it’ll take your mind off of all the shit that’s been going on, it’ll be a fun distraction for the girls. You have so much space in that house you will never even know he’s there. And you’re helping a friend.”

She wasn’t wrong: Harry could likely stay in the bedroom all the way on the other end of the hall from where the girls slept. Maeve was thrilled to get her own room in the move and CeCe would occasionally run into your room after a nightmare, so the space was a plus.

He’d have his own room, his own bathroom. Hell, he could even park in the extra garage and enter from the back of the house. Maybe you wouldn’t even notice he existed.

You sighed, tugged at your necklace when you met her gaze. “I just feel really protective over them right now. I feel like Luke ruined their sense of family and now with my dad gone--”

She stuck her tongue out in disgust at the sound of your ex’s name. “I get that--but they have you. They have Jeff and his family and they have me and Shawn and now Benny.”

You offered a small smile at her reassurance. She was right in a lot of ways. The Azoffs were as much a family to your daughters as they had been to you. Shelli and Irv were like grandparents, they offered to babysit plenty of times and they always managed to get the girls the most amazing birthday presents.

But something in you knew it wasn’t the same. You’d dreamed of giving your daughters the sense of family you never had: a mom and a dad who loved each other. One house, not two that had two different beds and sets of books or toys.

Luckily and unluckily, your ex hadn’t made a huge deal about custody. Visits here and there were outlined in your divorce papers, but at this point in time he didn’t seem the most interested in maintaining a relationship with his daughters, even though he promised way back when that he’d never leave.

Getting pregnant with him during college wasn’t planned, but he swore you’d make it work and you tied the knot only a few months before Maeve was born. Things were good at first, you always knew you’d have more than one--if only to combat your own only-child loneliness--and then CeCe came five years later when you felt a little more prepared.

“I don’t think it’s going to traumatize them, Y/N. I mean, the least you could do is meet the guy.”

You watched her for a minute, blew air from your nose in a huff before you picked up your phone.

Y/N L/N (1:56pm): Fine. I’ll meet him.

Three days later you pulled up to a cafe in Brentwood and took a deep breath in the parking lot. If he was creepy, you wouldn’t go for it. If you got even the slightest weird vibe from him, you’d ex-communicate Jeff and only go over to visit his parents with the girls when he wasn’t around.

You’d already been leaning towards just doing it, especially once Tristan got a glass of wine in you and reminded you what your dad would have said: he who helps is one who prospers.

A few sleepless nights left you staring at the ceiling and wondering if you were crazy. You just now had the chance to let life settle down and here you were, mourning the loss of your biggest supporter, trying to piece yourself back together post divorce, and considering letting a stranger move in? Grief really did do strange things to people.

But when you walked in and found them sitting at a table in the back, something clicked.

Your dad was already fond of your possible houseguest, which you only knew from overhearing previous conversations between him and Irv about how proud they were of Jeff for picking up the family business, and now it all made sense.

A small part of you--probably the stupidest part of you--wondered if there was something cosmic about it. Your dad was always one to let his artists stay in the house, if they weren’t creepy, of course. You grew up with bands rehearsing in the backyard and going to shows at the Troubadour before you were old enough to drive, and you turned out fine.

“Hi,” Harry stood, offered a hand and introduced himself after Jeff gave you a kiss on the cheek. “Harry, pleasure to meet you.” Polite, maybe a bit of a kiss ass. Your dad must have loved him.

“Y/N,” you nodded, sat down when Jeff tugged out a chair for you. “Thanks for--uh--meeting with me, I guess.”

“Thanks for maybe letting me stay at your house,” he offered a sheepish smile, held your gaze for a second when Jeff adjusted the sunglasses clipped to his shirt.

“I’m actually surprised you guys haven’t met before,” he said.

“I’ve been a little busy this year,” you reminded him with a nod. “But--nice to finally meet you.”

Harry nodded, a dimple in his left cheek ignited a tiny spark in your chest, but you pushed Zoey’s words out of your mind. Two weeks, it wasn’t a big deal. He’d be in and out and this would be a blip on the radar.

“We can order coffee or something, but Y/N, I’m assuming you have like, a whole interrogation mapped out?”

You pretended to laugh at Jeff’s joke, turned to Harry and offered a no-nonsense smile. “I have two children, I got divorced earlier this year and my dad just died. So I don’t need any drama or anything. This is temporary and I’m doing this to help out a friend. Jeff, that is, not you.”

He laughed at your clarification and nodded. “Right. This is just me living in your house. No drama. Short-term.”

“And obviously my children will be there, so no guests.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Okay I’m not that much older than you,” you said it quickly, offered a small smile when he looked a little scared.

“Sorry--no, I didn’t mean that in a rude way.”

“No ma’am,” you added a rule, pulling a laugh from both of them when you lifted another finger in the air to count them off. “No drugs or alcohol, unless it’s like a glass of wine at dinner or something,” you shrugged.

“Look,” Jeff leaned forward. “Y/N’s kids are great, she’s got a great skincare company and she’s a kickass human. And you need a place to stay, so don’t fuck this up.”

“You both have my word. No drugs, no alcohol, no guests, no ma’am,” he smirked in your direction. “I’ve lived alone for a while, so, it’ll be nice to have some roommates.”

You nodded slowly and watched him for a second. A hoodie with the name of the management firm your dad and Irv had started, a backwards baseball hat and simple Ray-Bans. You ignored the fluttering in your veins from just looking at him, your own words echoed against the walls of your skull: he’s also like twenty-something, so that’s disgusting.

This was his brand, you were sure. Something Jeff had worked hard on--the looks, the smile, the exact formula that management firms drooled over was playing out in front of you. You sipped your drink once the waiter delivered three cappuccinos. Two weeks, tops.

Los Angeles afternoons were meant for playing outside, which is what your daughters did best if they weren’t busy pulling each other’s hair. You had dinner on the stove--enough for five--and a knot of nerves in your stomach when the wheels of his fancy car crunched atop the gravel.

The girls ran to greet him and Jeff showed him around the house. Now, Harry sat across from you at the table, Maeve to his left with an unimpressed look on her face when you cleared your throat. “Okay, gratitude time.”

Jeff set his fork back down, a guilty look on his face to admit he’d forgotten about your pre-dinner ritual.

CeCe squirmed in her seat, let out a sigh when Maeve protested with a flutter of her eyelashes. “I don’t have anything to be thankful for,” she informed you.

“That feels a little hard to believe,” you nodded, losing patience for her attitude over the last few days. “CeCe, do you want to go?”

Your younger daughter looked up at you, scrunched her mouth and thought about it. “I don’t have anything either.”

You tried not to groan aloud. After the week you’d had and the sudden changes in your life, disciplining your daughters felt like the last thing you wanted to do, if only they’d just behave.

“I can go,” Harry lifted his hand sheepishly as if he was sitting in a classroom and not in your dining room, a dimple on his cheek when he smiled sheepishly.

“Take it away,” you motioned towards him.

“M’thankful for being here, having a place to stay--and what looks like it will be a delicious meal.” By now he had a bit of smug look on his face, maybe proud of the fact that he’d broken the ice and stepped up to the pre-dinner prompt.

“Mom’s cooking is a solid six out of ten on a good day,” Maeve looked over at him, her fork now in her hand as if she was ready to dig in.

“Okay,” you leaned in and caught her gaze. “Drop the attitude or go to your room.”

“I’m thankful for Emma,” she named her friend, her quick submission after she rolled her eyes told you she just wanted to eat and get this over with. “She warned me today that Hayley was wearing a shirt I wore last week so I think she’s copying me.”

“Okay,” you nodded, you’d accept anything at this point. “CeCe? Last chance.”

“I’m grateful for pudding.”

Harry let out a quiet laugh, you nodded and said: “Great. I’m thankful for you two,” you smiled at them, hopeful that this nightly tradition would hold some type of meaning, more than just eye rolls and pre-pubescent angst from Maeve.

Jeff looked over at the girls, “I’m thankful for my friend Harry getting to meet my other friends, CeCe and Maeve.”

“Aww,” Harry smiled, a hand clutched to his heart when he looked between them.

“Alright,” you were annoyed by how good your daughters were at turning on their charm for anyone but you. Jeff was often the fun uncle, just like your ex had been the fun dad, which left you forcing them to play this gratitude game every night after they finished their homework.

CeCe wasted no time digging into the spaghetti on her plate, leaving Jeff to ask Maeve: “so what are you going to do about Hayley?”

“I don’t know,” Maeve sighed. “She’ll die when she finds out that you’re sleeping over,” she pointed her fork at Harry.

“He’s not sleeping over,” you corrected. “He’s staying in one of the guest rooms, remember?” You’d already explained it a few times to them. A few weeks, he’s working on more music, he’ll be busy, he’s not here to play with you.

“Whatever,” Maeve said. “Maybe I’ll hold it over her.”

“Maeve,” you looked over, unsure what had gotten into her. “I thought we talked about this stuff with Hayley?”

“I know--but she just keeps annoying me,” Maeve explained.

“Dump pasta on her head,” CeCe suggested with a giggle.

“Don’t do that,” you looked at CeCe and poked her in the stomach.

“I personally am a big fan of that idea,” Jeff smiled over at CeCe. “But it’d probably be better to just forget about it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

“Or the sincerest form of annoying,” she retorted.

Harry let out a laugh at that, caught your gaze when you wondered how soon it’d take him to get annoyed with your kids.

They were great--smart, funny, clever, definitely witty and sometimes dramatic. But they were good kids.

You remembered how tough it was to adapt to motherhood, even though they were your own. Something told you that Harry, no matter how short his stay would be, was not in the chapter of his life that entailed finding joy in playdates and pillow fights.

But he made it through dinner, quiet but friendly and as soon as Maeve was finished, she begged him to play squishball outside before sunset.

“Squishball?” his eyebrows dipped together. “Never heard of it.”

“It’s basically just baseball but with a softer bat and a foam ball cause mom doesn’t want us to break our skulls,” Maeve informed.

“I never said break your skulls,” you argued.

“But it’s what you meant,” she shrugged.

“I would love to play,” Harry laughed, unbelievably entertained by the back and forth he’d already witnessed. They yanked him outside and set up their tiny diamond, CeCe pulled on a tutu just for flair and you and Jeff were left to handle the aftermath of a family dinner.

Jeff put the final plate into the dishwasher after a little bit and offered a hesitant smile when he turned around. “So?”

“So what? It’s been like an hour and a half of him being here.”

Their laughter from outside was audible, CeCe shrieked when Maeve made contact with the bat and sent the ball soaring into the air. “The girls clearly love him.”

“Of course they do--they love anyone for the first two hours.”

“I think he’ll be good for you guys.”

You rolled your eyes, wiped the counter with the sponge when he continued.

“And you guys will be good for him.”

This got your attention. “How so?”

“He’s a people-person, never likes being on his own too much. Some structure and responsibility is good for him.”

“So I’m babysitting him?”

“Oh my god,” he laughed. “Relax, will you? This could be a mutually beneficial thing if you let it, that’s all I’m saying.”

You didn’t read too much into it, you figured Jeff was peppering you with reassurance only to calm your nerves or quell your concerns. When he was finished helping you clean, he hugged the girls goodbye and waved over his shoulder, leaving Harry alone in your house with you and your daughters and nothing but good intentions.

You left him downstairs at first, helped CeCe brush her hair and sat on the floor when Maeve picked out her clothes for the next day: hopefully Hayley doesn’t own this dress.

When you headed back downstairs an hour later, the girls were tucked in, the lights were off, and your usual plan would have been to check your work emails if it weren’t for the dimpled guy in your living room.

He stood at the bookcase, hands clasped behind his back when you found him.

“Hi, sorry--bedtime is always a--” you paused, not even knowing the right label. “A shit show. But thanks for playing with them earlier.”

He laughed, turned around and offered a smile. “No worries--they seem like great kids.”

“They are,” you assured. “Maeve’s been a bit snarky lately but I think that’s just the whole beginning of puberty thing.” You cringed a little when the words left your mouth, wondering if it was too much information for someone who likely had cooler things to do than talk about ten-year-olds and training bras.

But he smiled, shoved his hands in his pockets when you said: let me show you around.

He’d arrived at the worst time. Homework, dinner prep, CeCe crying because Maeve finished her homework first. You didn’t have the chance to give him a tour and you figured it would be better coming from you than from Jeff, that way you could remind him of all the rules.

You showed him the ground floor first. The library, the family room, the two offices and the three different remotes that all worked different TVs or speakers or lamps. He marveled at the pictures on the wall in your dad’s old office space, he was a legend, he told you.

He climbed the stairs behind you and whispered in response when you pointed out what was behind each door. Bathroom, Maeve’s room, CeCe’s room, guest room, another bathroom, master suite, guest room, his room.

You pushed the door open and stepped aside to let him in. Gray walls, a wooden four-post king-sized bed. Throw pillows you’d picked out when you moved in a few weeks ago, a dresser to the left. He looked around and nodded. “S’perfect.”

“Good,” you said, walking over to a small linen closet in his attached bath. “Towels are in here, should be soap and stuff in the shower--had our housekeeper stock it.”

“Thanks,” he nodded again.

“I don’t know where you parked, but there’s a garage in the back that my dad used to keep some of his sports cars in--there’s definitely room and that way you don’t have to leave yours out if it rains.”

Were you talking too much? You just wanted him to feel at home or at least welcomed.

“Amazing,” he said. “Thank you.”

A repetitive answer but it didn't stop you from rambling.

“Keurig’s on the counter--creamer in the fridge. Should be plenty of food but obviously feel free to stock what you like. Except like, weed.”

“Weed doesn’t go in the fridge...” he eyed you suspiciously, the same dimple appeared on his cheek and you rolled your eyes.

“I know--I know weed doesn’t go in the fridge.”

“Just the no drug policy,” he nodded.

“Right. Am I forgetting anything?”

He shifted his weight on his feet and shrugged his shoulders, a subtle shake of his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay,” you nodded, one final look around the room to make sure he had what he needed. His duffle bag was already in the corner, you’d told Jeff to put it upstairs and out of the way so CeCe and Maeve didn’t get nosy.

“I just have a question actually, if that’s alright.”

“Yeah?”

“When did you move in here?”

“Uh, beginning of August, so like, almost a month ago.”

He nodded, his eyes curious despite the fact that he didn’t ask more.

“We had to put my dad in hospice, I was looking for a place anyway after,” a quick motion over your shoulder to gesture to the girls. “My divorce, so--a lot of change, but it’s been nice to be home.”

He nodded thoughtfully, the quiet of the bedroom suddenly felt heavy. “S’a beautiful house.”

“Thank you,” you looked around the room again, if only to put your eyes somewhere other than his face. “I felt shitty about redecorating it at first, but--it was a little too much of a 70s bachelor pad.”

“Leave it to Walt,” he joked.

That piqued your interest. “Did you know my dad? Like, did you spend any time with him?”

He pushed his lips out in thought but shook his head when he sat down on the bed. “Not really--met him a few times at events with Jeff, but I never spent any quality time with him.”

You nodded--he was a busy guy, popular and well respected in his industry. “He was a good person, good grandfather, too.”

Harry smiled at that. “Always heard that Irv was the balls but your dad was the heart.”

You laughed, scrunched your nose at the saying you’d heard a hundred times. The two of them were partners in crime, two peas in a pod, yet they couldn’t be more different. He spoke again before you could reply, voice soft in the sleepy house.

“I mean, if you're his daughter he obviously did something right.”

He held your gaze just long enough for you to feel something, something you pushed out of your mind so quickly that your hand was on the door knob before he could even say goodnight.

Two weeks, tops.

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qqueenofhades · 5 years ago

Note

Re: the post you reblogged about Bush. I'm 21 and tbh feel like I can only vote for Bernie, can you explain if/why I shouldn't? Thanks and sorry if this is dumb or anything.

Oh boy. Okay, I’ll do my best here. Note that a) this will get long, and b) I’m old, Tired, and I‘m pretty sure my brain tried to kill me last night. Since by nature I am sure I will say something Controversial ™, if anyone reads this and feels a deep urge to inform me that I am Wrong, just… mark it down as me being Wrong and move on with your life. But also, really, you should read this and hopefully think about it. Because while I’m glad you asked this question, it feels like there’s a lot in your cohort who won’t, and that worries me. A lot.

First, not to sound utterly old-woman-in-a-rocking-chair ancient, people who came of age/are only old enough to have Obama be the first president that they really remember have no idea how good they had it. The world was falling the fuck apart in 2008 (not coincidentally, after 8 years of Bush). We came within a flicker of the permanent collapse of the global economy. The War on Terror was in full roar, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were at their height, we had Dick Cheney as the cartoon supervillain before we had any of Trump’s cohort, and this was before Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden had exposed the extent of NSA/CIA intelligence-gathering/American excesses or there was any kind of public debate around the fact that we were all surveilled all the time. And the fact that a brown guy named Barack Hussein Obama was elected in this climate seems, and still seems tbh, kind of amazing. And Obama was certainly not a Perfect President ™. He had to scale back a lot of planned initiatives, he is notorious for expanding the drone strike/extrajudicial assassination program, he still subscribed to the overall principles of neoliberalism and American exceptionalism, etc etc. There is valid criticism to be made as to how the hopey-changey optimistic rhetoric stacked up against the hard realities of political office. And yet…. at this point, given what we’re seeing from the White House on a daily basis, the depth of the parallel universe/double standards is absurd.

Because here’s the thing. Obama, his entire family, and his entire administration had to be personally/ethically flawless the whole time (and they managed that – not one scandal or arrest in eight years, against the legions of Trumpistas now being convicted) because of the absolute frothing depths of Republican hatred, racial conspiracy theories, and obstruction against him. (Remember Merrick Garland and how Mitch McConnell got away with that, and now we have Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court? Because I remember that). If Obama had pulled one-tenth of the shit, one-twentieth of the shit that the Trump administration does every day, he would be gone. It also meant that people who only remember Obama think he was typical for an American president, and he wasn’t. Since about… Jimmy Carter, and definitely since Ronald Reagan, the American people have gone for the Trump model a lot more than the Obama model. Whatever your opinion on his politics or character, Obama was a constitutional law professor, a community activist, a neighborhood organizer and brilliant Ivy League intellectual who used to randomly lie awake at night thinking about income inequality. Americans don’t value intellectualism in their politicians; they just don’t. They don’t like thinking that “the elites” are smarter than them. They like the folksy populist who seems fun to have a beer with, and Reagan/Bush Senior/Clinton/Bush Junior sold this persona as hard as they possibly could. As noted in said post, Bush Junior (or Shrub as the late, great Molly Ivins memorably dubbed him) was Trump Lite but from a long-established political family who could operate like an outwardly civilized human.

The point is: when you think Obama was relatively normal (which, again, he wasn’t, for any number of reasons) and not the outlier in a much larger pattern of catastrophic damage that has been accelerated since, again, the 1980s (oh Ronnie Raygun, how you lastingly fucked us!), you miss the overall context in which this, and which Trump, happened. Like most left-wingers, I don’t agree with Obama’s recent and baffling decision to insert himself into the 2020 race and warn the Democratic candidates against being too progressive or whatever he was on about. I think he was giving into the same fear that appears to be motivating the remaining chunk of Joe Biden’s support: that middle/working-class white America won’t go for anything too wild or that might sniff of Socialism, and that Uncle Joe, recalled fondly as said folksy populist and the internet’s favorite meme grandfather from his time as VP, could pick up the votes that went to Trump last time. And that by nature, no one else can.

The underlying belief is that these white voters just can’t support anything too “un-American,” and that by pushing too hard left, Democratic candidates risk handing Trump a second term. Again: I don’t agree and I think he was mistaken in saying it. But I also can’t say that Obama of all people doesn’t know exactly the strength of the political machine operating against the Democratic Party and the progressive agenda as a whole, because he ran headfirst into it for eight years. The fact that he managed to pass any of his legislative agenda, usually before the Tea Party became a thing in 2010, is because Democrats controlled the House and Senate for the first two years of his first term. He was not perfect, but it was clear that he really did care (just look up the pictures of him with kids). He installed smart, efficient, and scandal-free people to do jobs they were qualified for. He gave us Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to join RBG on the Supreme Court. All of this seems… like a dream.

That said: here we are in a place where Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren are the front-runners for the Democratic nomination (and apparently Pete Buttigieg is getting some airplay as a dark horse candidate, which… whatever). The appeal of Biden is discussed above, and he sure as hell is not my favored candidate (frankly, I wish he’d just quit). But Sanders and Warren are 85% - 95% similar in their policy platforms. The fact that Michael “50 Billion Dollar Fortune” Bloomberg started rattling his chains about running for president is because either a Sanders or Warren presidency terrifies the outrageously exploitative billionaire capitalist oligarchy that runs this country and has been allowed to proceed essentially however the fuck they like since… you guessed it, the 1980s, the era of voodoo economics, deregulation, and the free market above all. Warren just happens to be ten years younger than Sanders and female, and Sanders’ age is not insignificant. He’s 80 years old and just had a heart attack, and there’s still a year to go to the election. It’s also more than a little eye-rolling to describe him as the only progressive candidate in the race, when he’s an old white man (however much we like and approve of his policy positions). And here’s the thing, which I think is a big part of the reason why this polarized ideological purity internet leftist culture mistrusts Warren:

She may have changed her mind on things in the past.

Scary, right? I sound like I’m being facetious, but I’m not. An argument I had to read with my own two eyes on this godforsaken hellsite was that since Warren became a Democrat around the time Clinton signed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, she sekritly hated gay people and might still be a corporate sellout, so on and etcetera. (And don’t even get me STARTED on the fact that DADT, coming a few years after the height of the AIDS crisis which was considered God’s Judgment of the Icky Gays, was the best Clinton could realistically hope to achieve, but this smacks of White Gay Syndrome anyway and that is a whole other kettle of fish.) Bernie has always demonstrably been a democratic socialist, and: good for him. I’m serious. But because there’s the chance that Warren might not have thought exactly as she does now at any point in her life, the hysterical and paranoid left-wing elements don’t trust that she might not still secretly do so. (Zomgz!) It’s the same element that’s feeding cancel culture and “wokeness.” Nobody can be allowed to have shifted or grown in their opinions or, like a functional, thoughtful, non-insane adult, changed their beliefs when presented with compelling evidence to the contrary. To the ideological hordes, any hint of uncertainty or past failure to completely toe the line is tantamount to heresy. Any evidence of any other belief except The Correct One means that this person is functionally as bad as Trump. And frankly, it’s only the Sanders supporters who, just as in 2016, are threatening to withhold their vote in the general election if their preferred candidate doesn’t win the primary, and indeed seem weirdly proud about it.

OK, boomer Bernie or Buster.

Here’s the thing, the thing, the thing: there is never going to be an American president free of the deeply toxic elements of American ideology. There just won’t be. This country has been built how it has for 250 years, and it’s not gonna change. You are never going to have, at least not in the current system, some dream candidate who gets up there and parrots the left-wing talking points and attacks American imperialism, exceptionalism, ravaging global capitalism, military and oil addiction, etc. They want to be elected as leader of a country that has deeply internalized and taken these things to heart for its entire existence, and most of them believe it to some degree themselves. So this groupthink white liberal mentality where the only acceptable candidate is this Perfect Non-Problematic robot who has only ever had one belief their entire lives and has never ever wavered in their devotion to doctrine has really gotten bad. The Democratic Party would be considered… maybe center/mild left in most other developed countries. It’s not even really left-wing by general standards, and Sanders and Warren are the only two candidates for the nomination who are even willing to go there and explicitly put out policy proposals that challenge the systematic structure of power, oppression, and exploitation of the late-stage capitalist 21st century. Warren has the billionaires fussed, and instead of backing down, she’s doubling down. That’s part of why they’re so scared of her. (And also misogyny, because the world is depressing like that.) She is going head-on after picking a fight with some of the worst people on the planet, who are actively killing the rest of us, and I don’t know about you, but I like that.

Of course: none of this will mean squat if she (or the eventual Democratic winner, who I will vote for regardless of who it is, but as you can probably tell, she’s my ride or die) don’t a) win the White House and then do as they promised on the campaign trail, and b) don’t have a Democratic House and Senate willing to have a backbone and pass the laws. Even Nancy Pelosi, much as she’s otherwise a badass, held off on opening a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump for months out of fear it would benefit him, until the Ukraine thing fell into everyone’s laps. The Democrats are really horrible at sticking together and voting the party line the way Republicans do consistently, because Democrats are big-tent people who like to think of themselves as accepting and tolerant of other views and unwilling to force their members’ hands. The Republicans have no such qualms (and indeed, judging by their enabling of Trump, have no qualms at all).

The modern American Republican party has become a vehicle for no-holds-barred power for rich white men at the expense of absolutely everything and everyone else, and if your rationale is that you can’t vote for the person opposing Donald Goddamn Trump is that you’re just not vibing with them on the language of that one policy proposal… well, I’m glad that you, White Middle Class Liberal, feel relatively safe that the consequences of that decision won’t affect you personally. Even if we’re due to be out of the Paris Climate Accords one day after the 2020 election, and the issue of climate change now has the most visibility it’s ever had after years of big-business, Republican-led efforts to deny and discredit the science, hey, Secret Corporate Shill, am I right? Can’t trust ‘er. Let’s go have a craft beer.

As has been said before: vote as far left as you want in the primary. Vote your ideology, vote whatever candidate you want, because the only way to make actual, real-world change is to do that. The huge, embedded, all-consuming and horrible system in which we operate is not just going to suddenly be run by fairy dust and happy thoughts overnight. Select candidates that reflect your values exactly, be as picky and ideologically militant as you want. That’s the time to do that! Then when it comes to the general election:

America is a two-party system. It sucks, but that’s the case. Third-party votes, or refraining from voting because “it doesn’t matter” are functionally useless at best and actively harmful at worst.

Either the Democratic candidate or Donald Trump will win the 2020 election.

There is absolutely no length that the Republican/GOP machine, and its malevolent allies elsewhere, will not go to in order to secure a Trump victory. None.

Any talk whatsoever about “progressive values” or any kind of liberal activism, coupled with a course of action that increases the possibility of a Trump victory, is hypocritical at best and actively malicious at worst.

This is why I found the Democratic response to Obama’s “don’t go too wild” comments interesting. Bernie doubled down on the fact that his plans have widespread public support, and he’s right. (Frankly, the fact that Sanders and Warren are polling at the top, and the fact that they’re politicians and would not be crafting these campaign messages if they didn’t know that they were being positively received, says plenty on its own). Warren cleverly highlighted and praised Obama’s accomplishments in office (i.e. the Affordable Care Act) and didn’t say squat about whether she agreed or disagreed with him, then went right back to campaigning about why billionaires suck. And some guy named Julian Castro basically blew Obama off and claimed that “any Democrat” could beat Trump in 2020, just by nature of existing and being non-insane.

This is very dangerous! Do not be Julian Castro!

As I said in my tags on the Bush post: everyone assumed that sensible people would vote for Kerry in 2004. Guess what happened? Yeah, he got Swift Boated. The race between Obama and McCain in 2008, even after those said nightmare years of Bush, was very close until the global crash broke it open in Obama’s favor, and Sarah Palin was an actual disqualifier for a politician being brazenly incompetent and unprepared. (Then again, she was a woman from a remote backwater state, not a billionaire businessman.) In 2012, we thought Corporate MormonBot Mitt Fuggin’ Romney was somehow the worst and most dangerous candidate the Republicans could offer. In 2016, up until Election Day itself, everyone assumed that HRC was a badly flawed candidate but would win anyway. And… we saw how that worked out. Complacency is literally deadly.

I was born when Reagan was still president. I’m just old enough to remember the efforts to impeach Clinton over forcing an intern to give him a BJ in the Oval Office (This led by the same Republicans making Donald Trump into a darling of the evangelical Christian right wing.) I’m definitely old enough to remember 9/11 and how America lost its mind after that, and I remember the Bush years. And, obviously, the contrast with Obama, the swing back toward Trump, and everything that has happened since. We can’t afford to do this again. We’re hanging by a thread as it is, and not just America, but the entire planet.

So yes. By all means, vote for Sanders in the primary. Then when November 3, 2020 rolls around, if you care about literally any of this at all, hold your nose if necessary and vote straight-ticket Democrat, from the president, to the House and Senate, to the state and local offices. I cannot put it more strongly than that.

#politics for ts #long post #anonymous #ask

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chicksung · 3 years ago

Text

Can’t You See Me? || Choi Chanhee

part of @ficscafe fic exchange event!

Genre: angst, little bit of fluff, ghost!au

Pairing: ghost!chanhee x reader (ft. younghoon)

Word Count: 2.4k

Warning/s: death, depictions of depression, dealing with death, mentions of a car accident

Synopsis: You loved Chanhee, with your whole being. You didn’t what you would do without him. However, it seems like life intended for you to be without him for the rest of your days

A/N: this fic is for rani @letteredwings please enjoy lovely. sorry that it’s a little late :/ this is unedited. please ignore any mistakes

any and all feedback is appreciated

Choi Chanhee promised you that he would love you until the day he would inevitably stop breathing and cease to exist. You always laughed off the comment, thinking it was just a stupid saying he would be saying into old age. You wished you had taken it as a sign, maybe you would’ve been more cautious, maybe this whole situation could’ve been avoided. What you didn’t know is that he had died a liar when he said those ridiculous words. He loved you after he passed too.

Chanhee stood helplessly in the kitchen, watching you stand there with an aching heart. You were wide eyed, shocked and frozen from the news.

“I’m…sorry?” You stammered, hoping, praying, that your ears were deceiving you with mean elementary school tricks.

“Is your partner Choi Chanhee?” The man’s voice seemed down, like he was scared to tell you again.

“Yes, he is. We’ve been together since high school,” You informed him, trying to push down the sickening churning in your stomach.

“I regret to inform you that your partner has passed away. We received a call this morning of an accident. A truck had collided with a car. The truck driver seemed to be okay, but your partner’s injuries seemed to be more serious.” Every word pricked your heart, which was as fragile as a balloon being poked with a needle, “We tried everything, but he eventually passed away. I’m very sorry for your loss.” You nodded, your chest tightened painfully, your vision blurry from the tears in your eyes.

“Alright, thank you for letting me know. Have a good afternoon, sir,” You signed off, trying to keep your voice from cracking.

“You too, and again, I’m sorry for your loss,” The line went dead and you placed the phone on the kitchen counter. Chanhee? Dead? No, he can’t be. He had specifically said he would be careful on the road. Tears slipped down your cheeks like sweet raindrops, your knees pathetically giving out as you wailed, yelling out obscenities and curses. Chanhee ran behind you.

“No, I’m right here! Can’t you see-” He went to place his hand on your shoulder when he realised how pale, almost transparent, he was. He sat beside you on the floor, a million thoughts passing through his mind. He couldn’t comfort you, only able to listen to you cry his name in a desperate plea to bring him back to you. Chanhee’s heartstrings tugged harshly, but he was helpless. He was nothing but a memory now, a missing part of your shared apartment, a ghost.

You stood amongst crowds of familiar faces, his friends, family, distant relatives, colleagues, the list goes on. Who they were didn’t really matter to you, what mattered was the casket being carried away from the church doors and out into the miserable weather. Fitting, you supposed, that it was pouring with rain on the day of his funeral. Attendees moved outside, umbrellas creating a dismal cloud of sorrow above them. It had been two weeks since Chanhee had passed away now, but for some reason you could not bring yourself to cry. No matter how many times you felt his absence, not even after looking in his open casket, no tear stung your eye. You watched emotionlessly as his coffin was slowly dropped into the rectangular hole just beneath his headstone.

Here lies Choi Chanhee

Loving son, brother and friend

April 26 1998 - August 17 2021

Until we meet again, my love

You felt a hand slide across your shoulder comfortingly, Chanhee’s best friend, Younghoon’s. You didn’t react, didn’t flinch, didn’t move. You remained stone cold and kept your face void of expression. A different feeling settled in the pit of your stomach. Irritation? Anxiety? Frustration? It was hard to describe, which typically meant it was complicated, and you didn’t really like complicated feelings. You could sense a storm coming, and judging from the storm clouds of emotion in your mind, it didn’t look like it would be clearing up any time soon.

A distance away from the gathering of mourners, a pale figure stood solemnly. Sure, watching his own funeral felt weird, but Chanhee could only think of you, and how you stood there, in a similar way to him, unable to display your emotions. He wished for one second, just one, that he could understand what you were thinking, feeling, praying. Maybe there would be a way to ease the pain you felt in your heart? He was technically responsible for said pain, so shouldn’t he try and fix it?

Younghoon had been coming over more, Chanhee would notice when he would be sitting on the foot of your bed, which you had not made the effort to get out of. Everyday, the time you would eventually get up would be pushed back. Before, it was only an hour later, then it was two, then three, then four, until one day, he noticed that you only got up to go to the toilet. He would listen to you cry, sniffle, send the occasional text to someone. Younghoon had seemed to notice, so had made it routine that he would come over at exactly 1:09pm every day to help you get out of bed and try to create a productive day together. Chanhee had memorised the sound of Younghoon’s footsteps, the sound of his keys jingling in the door’s lock, the way he would hum as he made his way to the bedroom. Younghoon had become the life inside of the dead quiet house. Chanhee noticed the way that his best friend would look at you, the sad sigh that would escape his lips when he saw you, sprawled out and weeping.

“Come on. You can’t keep moping in here,” Younghoon sauntered over to your bedside, crouching down to get a better view of your face.

“I can do whatever the fuck I want. Go away,” you hissed, pulling the covers over your head, childishly pretending that if you couldn’t see him, he would simply fade from existence.

“Bubba,” he called out sweetly, tugging the covers out of your grasps, “you’re running low on food. I don’t want you going hungry, and besides, it’s a nice day outside. Whaddya say?” With a low groan, you slowly rose from the safety of your sheets, loose hairs sticking up in wild directions. Chanhee rushed to your side, his cold touch to your cheek sending a cold shiver down your spine. He sighed somewhat sadly as he watched Younghoon help you out of bed. It should be him helping you out of bed every morning, it should be him trying to motivate you with small activities. However, deep down he knew that if it were him, you wouldn’t even be struggling to get out of bed in the morning. He was the cause of your lack of motivation, he was the cause of your pain, your suffering. Every emotion you were feeling right now was because of him, and somehow, in some way, he wished he was still there. He wished he was Younghoon.

“Where’s Uncle Chanhee?” Your young nephew looked up at you with big eyes, confusedly looking around to find his favourite uncle. You sighed softly. You knew you would have to have this discussion with him sooner or later.

“Uncle Chanhee...isn’t going to be coming today,” you explained, kneeling down to the four year old’s level. Chanwoo’s bottom lip quivered slightly, “Why not?” He asked with glossy eyes. He had been really looking forward to playing with Uncle Chanhee, and couldn’t understand why he didn’t wanna play with him. You knew Chanwoo was too young to understand death, but he had seemingly noticed Chanhee’s absence. You chewed the inside of your cheek, trying to think of some sort of acceptable lie to tell a child.

“He’s not well today. He says he really wish he could play today, but he had to stay home,” You pet the boy’s head softly, hoping he would understand. The little boy nodded, seeming to understand.

“Can I make Uncle Chanhee a get well soon card?” He asked with wonder in his eyes, and you would have to be a monster to have said no.

“Of course, Woo. Go get your craft things.”

You helped your nephew decorate his ‘card’ which was really just a folded sheet of printer paper, but you weren’t about to rain on his innocent parade.

“I’m still sad that I can’t play with Uncle Chanhee. I wish he was here,” Chanwoo admitted, writing a sweet message in lopsided messy handwriting.

“Just because he’s not here in person, doesn’t mean he’s not here in spirit,” you explained, drawing a sun in the corner of the card for the youngster to colour in.

“What do you mean?”

“It's kind of like magic,” you pondered aloud, “like a hug you can feel from someone who is not there.” The child nodded.

“Yeah! Like it still feels like mommy is hugging me even when she’s not there,” it was your turn to nod.

“Exactly, Woo! You’re such a clever boy,” you ruffled his soft hair, making him giggle uncontrollably.

You were right, in a way. Chanhee was there, as a literal spirit. He felt a warm surge crash over his pale body, knowing that Chanwoo wanted to make him a card without fully understanding what was going on. A child too sweet for this world. However, it wasn’t Chanwoo he was focusing on. It was you. You weren’t crying, you weren’t wailing his name in agony. You seemed peaceful, collected, like you were watching the sunset over the sea. You were starting to come to terms with no longer having your boyfriend there. Sure, it pained you every morning to roll over and say good morning to someone who never even got into bed that night, but it didn’t hurt as much as it used to. He was unsure how long you would stay in this peaceful mindframe, but only the best storyteller will tell, time.

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Younghoon asked softly, eyes just as gentle as his words. You nodded, confident in your decision. You were a little unsure when you first brought up the idea to him, but it had to be done. The both of you walked up the hill in the cemetery, hands intertwined. You two had been dating for some time now, but you always had this lingering feeling that Chanhee wouldn’t like what you were doing. You loved Chanhee dearly, but you felt the same about Younghoon. It had been almost seven months since you received that phone call, but slowly everything in your life was piecing itself back together, formerly shattered after the tsunami of emotions that wiped out everything that made you feel human. You stood at the face of his gravestone, his name etched prettily into the cool rock.

“Hey,” you greeted, your hand slipping out of your boyfriend’s. Chanhee displayed an invisible smile.

Hey.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” The sentence felt awkward and heavy on your tongue.

It has. How have you been?

“I’ve been doing well. Just trying to get by, you get it.”

Yeah, I get it. Is that Younghoon?

“I was getting to that. I’m not sure how it happened, but it did. He helped me a lot after you passed. I owe him a lot. Mainly ice cream,” You laughed at yourself, partially because of your bad joke, and partially because of how ridiculous you must sound to anyone passing by.

You’re dating now?

“Yeah. I just...I wanted to say thank you,” you blurted, playing with the tips of your fingers.

Why are you thanking me?

“You taught me a lot, Chanhee. How to cook ramen properly, how to make the best oven baked pizza anyone has ever had, but most of all, you taught me how to love. And while I love you so much, my god, you can’t even believe to comprehend it, I’ve found someone else that I love,” You felt tears spring to your eyes. You were the only one talking, so why did it sound like you were saying goodbye? You glanced at Younghoon, who only smiled weakly.

“Can I say a few words?” Younghoon stepped forward, placing his hand on your shoulder, the same way he had done the dismal day of Chanhee’s funeral. You nodded wordlessly, watching your boyfriend stride towards the grave of his best friend. Younghoon traced the etched marks of his friend’s name before giving a small smile.

“You’ve been gone too long,” he started, giving a sad chuckle, “and a lot has happened during that time.” Chanhee laughed silently at his friend’s words, slumping against the cold headboard of his resting place.

“But I will promise you this. I will look after them for you. I will care for, and nurture and love them for you. It’s what best friends are for, right?”

Chanhee nodded, a friendly smile finally adorning his features. He felt something new, something he hadn’t felt in a long time, peace. His body felt as light as a feather, as if it was drifting through the breeze. He dropped his gaze to his hands, only to see that the aforementioned body part wasn’t there. He was fading, an experience he had thought about many times before, but somehow, it wasn’t as scary as he thought it would be. Chanhee looked to you, and he could’ve sworn that for a moment, just one moment, you could see him, slowly dematerialising out of existence. He wasn’t scared anymore, scared of how you would cope without him. You had Younghoon, the only person other than you that he trusted his life with.

“Until we meet again, my love,” Chanhee bade his final farewell to this world, taking a small bow and with a slight change in the wind’s direction, he was gone.

You felt light, like the weight of an entire urbanised city had been lifted off your shoulders. Younghoon took his place by your side once more.

“Should we go home?” He suggested, earning a relaxed smile from you.

“Yeah. Besides, it’ll be dark soon,” you squeezed his hand, your eyes glowing in the reddened flare of the sunset. Hand in hand, you walked down the stone path and out of the overly large rusted gate. It was never easy letting go, not by any stretch of the imagination. You would always carry a piece of Chanhee with you, and even without him by your side, you felt closer to him than ever.

#ficscafe #kpopscape #kpop #fanfiction #kpop fanfiction #kpop fluff #kpop angst #the boyz drabbles #the boyz scenarios #the boyz fanfiction #the boyz new #choi chanhee #the boyz chanhee #the boyz fluff #the boyz angst #the boyz

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jadelotusflower · 4 years ago

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It’s Cold in that Fridge: The Case of Nakari Kelen

Since The Case of Mara Jade has been doing the rounds again, I’ve finally gone back to this post that has been sitting in my drafts for literally years. So let’s honour this absolute badass who deserved better:

Once upon a time, the Star Wars universe was but six films (and a tv series) in the story of the Skywalker family. But beyond George Lucas’ story was an absolute boatload of books, comics, games, and other materials that made up the Expanded Universe. When Disney purchased Lucasfilm and the rights to the Star Wars saga, everything in this universe was decanonised and deemed “Legends” - some aspects of this universe were retained or re-purposed, others sit in Disney’s figurative vault and will likely never see the light of day (and seeing how the ST turned out, maybe that’s for the best).

But this transition between Legends canon and Disney canon was not so simple, because the nature of publishing meant that there were novels approved during the time of Legends canon that would be released in the time of Disney canon. In particular, there had been the planned trilogy “Empire and Rebellion”, set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, with each novel from the perspective of one of The Big Three.

Razor’s Edge (Leia) and Honor Among Thieves (Han) were released prior to the Great Canon Split of 2014. But while the Luke-centric novel had been planned, it was not due to be released until well after the Split. So Heir to the Jedi (so called as an homage to the Legends progenitor Heir to the Empire) became one of the first books of the Disney canon.

What does this background have to do with Nakari Kelen? Perhaps nothing, but I do wonder how the writing process was affected by the shift from Legends to Disney - was the novel a relic of the old EU with any reference the LFL storygroup didn’t like excised during editing, or was it a trendsetter for the new EU, a Sign of Things to Come?

The most salient point being, of course, that Nakari Kelen - like so many love interests before her - was not allowed to go along her merry way at the conclusion of the novel, but was shoved into the fridge.

If there was one constant of the Legends EU, it was that Luke Skywalker’s love interests couldn’t catch a break. Mara Jade naturally lasted the longest relationship-wise, with almost twenty years of marriage to Luke before some bright spark decided she had to go (as per the aforementioned case study). But before Mara there was Jem, Shira Brie, and Gaeriel Captison (who came close to escaping the curse), and in the Legacy of the Force series they brought back sole survivors Akanah and Callista, only to kill them off for good too (and rather brutally, if I may add).

So perhaps when Kevin Hearne began writing HttJ within the confines of the Legends continuity, he was merely sticking to the status quo, or perhaps once subsumed by Disney they needed to make sure Luke's slate was clean (so to speak). And I can’t put all the blame on Hearne since I don’t know whether it was his idea, or LFL mandated - but regardless it was a poor decision.

The root cause of fridging, imo, is limited imagination. How best to cause your male protagonist pain if not kill off someone they love, or at least have strong feelings for? The answer is of course, easily. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Luke Skywalker of HttJ is fresh from his victory in ANH, a lieutenant in the Rebellion: young, not dumb, and full of...

Nakari Kalen is an absolute Queen a civilian volunteer and crack-shot sniper who loans her ship Desert Jewel to the Alliance. Luke is immediately attracted to her, they bond over a mutual love of fast ships and leaving behind desert home planets, and engage in the inexpert flirting of two nineteen year olds while also risking their lives several times over.

I want to make it clear: I actually really like this book. It's a breezy read, almost serialised as The Early Adventures of Luke Skywalker, and is ofttimes genuinely funny. And credit where it’s due to Hearne, many of of the supporting roles in the novel are female. Other than Nakari, there's Soonta, the Rodian who gives Luke her uncle’s lightsaber, Sakhet the Kupohan spy, and the Givin cryptographer/math genius Drusil Bephorin. In a genre where male characters are often the default for these kind of roles, it was nice to see, but makes the regressive fridging of Nakari even more egregious.

Luke and Nakari make a good team fighting brain-sucking monsters and Imperials, but more importantly they have fun together - she encourages him to work on his Force skills, and he successfully moves objects with his mind for the first time (leading to Nakari adorably dub him "a little noddle scooter"). It's a very sweet, if brief, relationship, and a respite from the danger of the mission. They spend the night together (leaving the reader to decide exactly what happened behind closed doors), and share a kiss before splitting up to try and escape bounty hunters. No prizes for guessing what happens to Nakari immediately after she received the Skywalker Kiss of Death.

I assume there were two motivating factors for why Hearne and/or LFL couldn't let Nakari live:

1. If she survived, fans would wonder why she doesn't appear in ESB/subsequent material.

I recall this bandied about on forums back at the time of the book's release, and to that I say - so what? Fans are always going to wonder, and try to paper over the gaps in canon, to make up their own headcanons to explain any any perceived inconsistencies. It's certainly no reason to kill someone off.

It is in fact possible for two young people to have a romance that just fizzles, or doesn’t work out for whatever reason - it should not require great maneuvering or explanation. If Nakari doesn’t show up in the next book in the timeline, what about it? The reader is smart enough to assume she and Luke broke up, decided to just remain friends, whatever. But it seems that the only way for a female character to exit stage left is for her to die, which is bullshit.

And actually, there's no reason why she couldn't have shown up again. ESB and RoTJ cover a month and a few days, respectively, of Luke's life - just because there was no mention of Nakari doesn't mean she didn't exist at that time, whether or not she and Luke were an item. She could have made an appearance in a subsequent novel, or Rebels, or the comics - she could have become a recurring character, showing up when the Rebellion needed her, or - heaven forbid - even have her own comic/book/show! Her existence in Star Wars canon didn't need to begin and end with Luke Skywalker, merely to service his plotline and backstory and abandoning the richness of her own.

No, the only reason Nakari had to die was to facilitate this:

It was a blow to the gut, realizing what that sudden absence meant. I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but I had felt Nakari's life snuffed out through the Force, and into that void where she had shone anger rushed in - anger, and a cold sense of raw power and invincibility...I took a step to join in the hunt but stopped, breathing heavily, unaccountably sweating even though I felt so cold inside and the power of the Force roiled within me... I shook with emotion and power, and none of it felt the way the Force had before...I saw what kind of space it was , a black hole that would always be hungry no matter how much I fed it. I might never feel warm again if I didn't get myself under control.

Luke feels the dark side and is tempted by the boost of power it offers him, but immediately identifies it as dangerous and unnatural. I can understand why Hearne wanted to include this - it is a book of firsts after all: Luke's first solo mission, his first time using telekenisis, and ending with story with his first experience of the dark side makes sense. But it wasn't necessary, which leads to:

2. How to push Luke to touch the dark side without killing someone he has romantic feelings for?

Also, obviously, shite of the bull (or nerf, if you prefer). Even if this brush with the dark side was absolutely necessary for the novel's climax, there's any number of ways it could be achieved. At this point, Luke is fresh from losing important people in his life - Owen and Beru, Ben, and Biggs - lumping another death on top of that a narrative trick for Luke to react not only to losing Nakari, but the others as well. But it's cheap, the first card in the deck, and why not show a bit of imagination? Luke is young and inexperienced enough at this point that any number of things could be the catalyst - the whole book he's struggling with his growing powers, why not try and reach too far in the firefight with the bounty hunters, his anger and frustration with himself in not doing enough trigger the dark side temptation? It would work thematically and doesn't involve a fridging that ultimately has very little payoff.

Because Nakari is killed less than ten pages from the end of the book - afterwards Luke grieves, but ultimately chooses to honour her memory and be grateful for what he learned with her, recommitting to becoming a Jedi. It's all very surface level, and once again a female character's death facilitates a male character's development. Was it so imperative that Luke lost someone he cared about as part of this story? Sure, this was a time of galactic civil war, and it's far from unrealistic that these stories have a high body count, but who to make collateral damage remains an authorial choice, and in this case Nakari Kelen was (a) a female character of color, (b) a love interest of the protagonist - not just of this book, but the entire Original Trilogy.

I don't know to what extent (if any) race had to play in the decision. I'm sure there was a segment of the fandom absolutely livid that Luke Skywalker kissed (and maybe had sex with) a black woman. Was her death LFL hedging its bets, or demonstrative of the general lack of attention/respect they show their characters of colour?

In any case this was a chance to stand out from the old EU and it's fridge full of Luke's dead girlfriends, but instead they chose to introduce and kill off Nakari for the sole purpose of Luke's manpain and character development, and that's gross.

And then there's this:

A grisly yet reliable fact about custom bounty hunter ships is that you can always count on them to have body bags stashed somewhere for the easy transport of their kills. They often have built-in refrigerated storage, too.

NAKARI IS KILLED AND LITERALLY STORED IN THE FUCKING FRIDGE I COULDN'T BELIEVE WHAT I WAS READING.

I really hope this was unintentional on Hearne's part, because yikes. He was halfway there, this book was full of interesting female characters who had agency - Drusil in particular was a delight with her super math and inability to understand human interaction. Nakari was full of life and fun - capable but relatable, showing a different side of the Rebellion and those that suffered under the Empire's rule. Fridging her in her first appearance is considerably more vile, because it reduces her to a footnote of Luke's story, a plot device to Help Him Grow, rather than a springboard to tell more of her own story.

Because Nakari was a compelling character ripe for spinoff potential. I would absolutely have read or watched her continued adventures, juggling missions for her father's Biolabs company and trying to aid the Rebellion, shooting her slug rifle and cracking wise, maybe even finding a way to amplify her mother's song Vader's Many Prosthetic Parts to really stick it to the Empire, or try and free the political prisoners on Kessel.

The old EU was made great by allies and enemies of Our Heroes showing up again to help or hinder them, and/or branching out into their own material. We fell in love with them, and followed their stories even as they diverged from the main saga, eager to read more about their lives.

Nakari Kelen never got that chance. In many ways, she exemplified what Disney Star Wars was to become: an exercise in wasted potential.

#star wars #star wars meta #heir to the jedi #nakari kelen #luke skywalker #fridging #it's cold in that fridge #star wars expanded universe #nucanon

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djmarinizelablog · 3 years ago

Note

Hello! It's me again, your fellow Katipunera. Thank you so much for actually doing a short of my request and omg tibak Hange is just so fitting! 🥺 I hope you actually turn it into a full-length fic eventually, I can just imagine Hange teaching Levi different constellations as they stargaze at the PAG-ASA observatory lol. Again, many thanks and stay safe always! 🌻

Felt some sort of motivation to continue this fic, and since it's @levihanweek, I wanted to write something in a college setting, so here we go:

Day 1: School

(Read the first part here.)

He doesn’t know when it all started, how it happened. Hange draws him towards her by inviting him to more of these gatherings. The non-rallies. The post- or pre-processing for the protests. It’s informational, she says, something that classes could never teach them. And all he can do is listen and follow along.

They reserve a room on campus, one hidden from plain view, and Hange stands there in front in her plain black tee and baggy jeans, her flip flops a signature element to her outfit. A small crowd has gathered beforehand, waiting for what she has to say. Going up the small platform in the room, she balls her right hand into a fist in front of her audience, raises it up high, and begins her talk.

“The March for Science is a protest on behalf of the scientific and the marginalized community,” she says, reminding everyone that “no farmers, no food,” and “just the facts, bitches.” She elicits a few giggles from the younger audience, and that’s how Levi knows Hange’s got them hooked.

The people are intrigued by her speech, and there is a certain curiosity in their eyes with the way they burn bright. For Levi, politics was always something he didn't dare venture into and would rather leave things to his uncle who had a seat in the government. He wonders if there really is something worth fighting for in these kinds of issues. If there’s something worth standing up for. Or if it’s merely just Hange being Hange that sparks the interest of people.

When the meeting is over, he’s about to head for the exit, but Hange comes up to him. “What do you think?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Could go a little bit softer with the dissent, but shit, you do you.”

Hange laughs, thinks it’s a joke. It’s only the two of them left in the room now. She puts her hands in her pockets. “Wanna have lunch with me?”

“Why?”

"I just feel like having some company right now. Besides, it’s National Resilience Day."

"I don't give a shit about the date," he says, making a mental note to remember that it is, indeed, National Resilience Day. He really doesn’t know how Hange has an inkling to know these kinds of obscure events. In the silence, his stomach betrays him with a gurgling sound, much to Hange’s amusement. “I guess I don’t mind grabbing something to eat.”

Truth be told he doesn’t like eating at the public cafeteria. It’s too open, too messy, and the busboys who collect the empty plates from the tables are terrible when it comes to waiting—last time he stayed there, Levi was still finishing up his meal when someone swiped his plate from him. Now he’d rather dine elsewhere. Perhaps in fancier restaurants that he can somehow afford with the weekly allowance that his uncle provides him.

But Hange doesn’t take him there.

She takes it a notch above his expectations when she brings him to the public food carts where vendors are selling street food of all kinds. Levi can hear the sizzling of fish balls getting deep-fried in a wok, the crackling of hot oil, the clinking of coins being exchanged in transaction. One of the vendors is basting the meat sticks in sweet sauce, flipping the skewers once in a while, the smell of barbeque wafting through the air.

“I go here ‘cause it’s cheap and it helps the small business owners,” Hange explains as she orders them the so-called combo meals. He offers to pay nevertheless, but Hange dismisses it, saying it’s her treat—for tagging him along to these talks. She continues to explain the plight of the vendors: “Some days they need assistance, so they allow students to take over the stalls and sell their food on behalf of them for a day or two.”

“What kind of students would do that? It’s disgusting to be under the heat of the sun all day.” He blurts out without really thinking, but thankfully, Hange’s not the slightest offended.

In fact, she seems to understand where he’s coming from. “One day, maybe you’ll see.”

When their meals are ready, Hange shoves one of the plates into his hands. He frowns. “You don’t eat cheese sticks?” she asks him.

“Never tried.”

“Oh, boy.” Hange smirks at him. “This will change your life.”

Instead of heading to the cafeteria, she proposes to take him someplace else. They’re sitting cross-legged on a bench in front of the academic oval, watching people run across the grassy field. Hange waves a hand at someone and Levi recognizes Moblit from their other class. He has never really done this before, just watching, observing from a distance. Except when he’s with her.

Hange takes another piece of cheese stick from the paper plate of instant stir-fry noodles. They’re running out of fish balls on the side. He likes what he’s had so far, even the sauce that goes along with their meals.

"So what are you taking?" Hange asks him while munching on her food.

He twirls his fork on the plate so he can scoop the remaining noodles. "Communications." Hange guffaws, and he’s offended. "What's so funny?"

Hange tries to compose herself and proceeds to dip her cheese stick into the honey mustard. "No, it's just that… for someone who's so awfully high-strung and silent and, uh, non politically-involved, you don't strike me as the type of person who would be… communicative."

Her conclusion does make sense. Most students studying Communication are lively, energetic, and talkative. Needless to say, he’s none of those.

"I don't imagine myself to be a reporter. I imagine myself writing articles for print. Editing. Proofreading. Stuff like that."

"I see.” She stares into the sunset, and Levi does the same. There are trees all around them, the honking of cars on the main road, the clamor of barkers and passengers alighting the public vehicles, the nuances of their campus life.

Somehow, it makes him feel safe.

Hange proceeds to tell him about how she likes to stargaze at night, because the constellations are so much clearer from this point of view in their university field. He has an inkling that it’s her way of inviting him to stargaze with him some other time. He already likes the idea a lot, but he feels like he still wants to get to know her even better.

“Why are you into all of this?” he can’t help but ask her. “What makes you think your anger can solve the nation's problems?”

It’s a very loaded question, one that really makes Hange think. She doesn’t speak for a while and proceeds to finish her food. He allows her the silence between them. Maybe he should have been a little bit nicer. A little less aggressive.

"Our very own Father President refuses to put medical science before politics. Everyone should be a supporter of science, you know? We all should listen to the scientists."

He scoffs. “Easy for you to say. It’s hard to believe what’s true and what isn’t nowadays.”

Their plates are now empty, and Levi takes hers so he can throw it in the nearest trash can. When he comes back, he sits beside her once again, this time, closer.

"I care about science and evidence-based policies, not the nonsense that politicians say,” Hange tells him while staring at the sunset. After a few seconds of silence, she faces him. “What about you?"

Levi finds the strength to hold her gaze. "I care about the untarnished truth."

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agent-cupcake · 4 years ago

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Beastie and the Bard

Fire Emblem Three Houses - Dimitri x Reader - Chapter 9

Word Count: 11,631

I bet you thought I’d forgotten about this. Nope, not yet. I actually have a fully fleshed out framework for where this story is going with a scene by scene breakdown. You can read the previous chapters on my blog or on AO3

This chapter takes place during the first part of the month before the Battle of Garreg Mach.

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 1

There was something surreal about sitting in the classroom again, the desks arranged in their neat rows and Professor Byleth facing you all from his usual place. Not even a week had passed since your last class, since your last private conversation with Dimitri, but everything had changed. Peace, whatever dregs had been left of it after everything that had happened, was utterly destroyed. Any illusion of safety behind the old stone walls of the monastery was waved away into smoke. No more laughter, no more fun. The monastery swarmed with word of Emperor Edelgard’s treasonous claims and threats, words weaponized to spread disquiet.

It was almost a relief when Professor Byleth said it, confirming something that everybody already knew. “There is going to be a battle,” he told you all, his voice striking the silent room without any particular cadence. “Scouts report that the Imperial army led by Emperor Edelgard will be here by the end of the moon.”

By the end of the moon. You tried to calculate the days but knew that it wasn’t any more than three weeks. Less, actually.

“So soon?” Ingrid asked, her voice breathy with the shock you felt echoed within yourself.

“This plan has been underway for longer than we could have guessed,” Professor Byleth said. He winced, an odd tick of an expression. “I’m sorry for not seeing this sooner.”

“We don’t blame you, Professor,” Annette said. “Who could have known, right? We all thought...” she trailed off, but there was no point in continuing. You had all thought, you had all been so distracted.

“We can’t let ourselves get caught up on that, Annie,” Mercedes chided.

“You’re right,” Professor Byleth said. “Now, we must prepare for what is to come. Before we begin, does anybody have any questions?”

Nobody said anything. You scanned the faces of those you could see. Dimitri and Dedue sat in front of you, giving you only a profile glimpse of drawn expressions of exhaustion. Of those sitting in your row, nerves cast a sickly pallor over Ashe’s freckled cheeks, painted shadows beneath Annette and Mercedes’ eyes. You wondered how you looked. Tired, probably. You felt as if you hadn’t slept all week.

“Right,” Professor Byleth called, folding his hands behind his back in something akin to parade rest. It was interesting how quickly he had traded a mercenary’s unrefined motions for the more commanding stances of a general. “Dimitri, have you heard any word about what’s happening in Fhirdiad? Seteth’s reports indicate that they’re hesitating in committing any troops to defend Garreg Mach.”

“My uncle is blind,” Dimitri responded with obvious distaste. “He rejects reality. Foolish man.” Although nearly everyone knew of Rufus’s incompetence, Dimitri’s genuine and open scorn for the man, his uncle, was shocking.

“According to my father,” Felix added from behind you, his tone far more measured, “there is opposition within that prevents the regent from committing any men. Not to mention, the Kingdom troops are already spread thin along the western border.”

“Um, excuse me,” Ashe said, nervously raising his hand as if this were a normal class. “There is good reason for that. Professor, may I?”

“Please,” Professor Byleth said, motioning Ashe to continue. He looked from face to face nervously, fidgeting awkwardly in his seat. You were close enough to see the red rimming his eyes, the white skin on his chapped lips. But he spoke and his voice was steady enough, his gaze even as he addressed the class.

“Lord Lonato named me as his heir,” Ashe said, “although I have not yet claimed the title, the Church has allowed me to remain informed about what is happening in his territory. I am… I’m afraid there seems to be some conflict over how the western lords intend to act. After what happened, many of them have been actively rejecting Church aid. Should this become an all-out war-”

“They intend to betray the Church,” Dimitri said, turning and narrowing his eyes at Ashe. “No—to betray their country, is that it?”

“There could be another explanation,” Ashe said.

“I’m sure there is,” Professor Byleth said, motioning to calm them. “What you’re saying is that we can’t count on the western lords for help.”

“Yes,” Ashe answered, his shoulders slumping somewhat. “I’m sorry.”

“I cannot help but wonder if that was the intention,” Dedue said.

“What do you mean?” Byleth asked.

“It is merely speculation,” Dedue began hesitantly, like he was unsure if he should be voicing his opinion. “However, it seemed strange that Lord Lonato would raise a rebellion in the manner he did when he did. Unless he had outside support with considerable sway-”

“You think the Empire is behind Lord Lonato’s betrayal?” Mercedes asked.

“As I said,” Dedue told her, his expression unreadable, “it is merely speculation. But it would explain a great many things. Faerghus is more divided now than ever, it is difficult to believe that is a simple coincidence.”

“Duscur, Lonato, the Church,” Dimitri said, “the infection of the Flame Emperor’s touch has been festering in the Kingdom for far too long. And they would choose to ignore it rather than fighting for their country. Have they no honor?”

“Does any of this matter?” Felix interjected, clearly annoyed. “Even if the Empire did have something to do with the failed rebellion, Lonato is dead now. We can’t waste our time wondering about the motives of a dead man. We need to focus on the problems at hand.”

Dimitri raised his chin imperiously in reaction to that statement, although he didn’t object, turning to face the front again. Ashe sunk back in his chair, pressing his shaking hands flat against the table. Felix’s cruelty was expected at this point, but Dimitri’s was still a fresh wound. You could understand that. You put your hand over Ashe’s, pleased at how steady it was. Your eyes met and you nodded to him, hoping the show of support was enough. His lips quirked in what could almost be counted as a grateful smile.

“About that,” Sylvain said, breaking the tension somewhat with his easy tone. “I received word from my father. He said that he’d send men, but they still won’t get here in time. It’ll take an entire moon for any sizable force to get here. Best case scenario, the Empire forces are delayed, and we can bolster our numbers.” He didn’t continue with the worst-case scenario, but he didn’t need to. The little helpless shrug was more than enough.

Byleth nodded thoughtfully. “This will be a decisive battle, but we’ll be in need of fresh soldiers after the fact no matter which way it goes.”

“Win or lose, you mean,” Felix said dryly.

“We won’t lose,” Annette said. “With the Professor on our side, we’re definitely going to win. Right?” Her blue eyes jumped from face to face, searching desperately for confirmation of her plea.

“Right,” you agreed, trying to unravel the knot of fear and dread tangling in your stomach. You had to work past that, to remain strong. “No matter what, we can’t let the Empire scare us into submission. If we do that, we might as well give up before the battle even starts.” Could they hear past the conviction in your voice to the weak wobble that laid beneath? At the very least, Annette smiled in return. That was enough.

“We will win,” Dimitri said. “When I have her head in my hands, there will be peace. For all of us.” Even in profile, you could see the sickly smile he wore as he considered that. Compared to any regular expression of joy or pleasure, this was a ghastly, inhuman expression. One you had seen before.

“Dimitri, when was the last time you slept?” Professor Byleth asked, tilting his chin up as he considered the prince.

“Slept? I...” Dimitri replied, his eyes snapping upward and the smile dropping. A moment later, his expression froze over. “That is unimportant.” Even for Professor Byleth, this was dangerous territory.

“What about your last meal?” Professor Byleth pushed.

“That is no concern of yours,” Dimitri said, meeting his eyes evenly. “And assuming it was… I have no appetite.”

“Oh, so is that your plan?” Felix called, his voice dripping scorn. “You’re going to kill yourself before that girl can do it for you?”

“Felix,” Dedue said, a warning in his voice as he turned to scowl at him.

“Shut up, dog. I’m tired of your sycophantic denial,” Felix snapped. “Wake up, boar. If you want to lose your mind, do it on your own time. Right now, there are more important things to worry about.”

“Hm,” Dimitri said in response.

“Felix, calm down,” Ingrid said, her worry clearly etched into a frown.

“You’re telling me to calm down?” Felix asked her. “Am I the only one who understands what’s at stake here? You want me to spare the feelings of a mad boar… For what? How is pity for him going to save the lives of the people here? What good is compassion against an upcoming war? This is a farce.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Dimitri said, standing with the sharp scraping of wood on stone. “I recommend you all prepare yourselves. We will crush the enemy as soon as they dare to enter through the gates. And as soon as Edelgard draws near... I will have my revenge.”

Dimitri let that ominous threat hold in the still air. Dust motes played in the light streaming in through the windows, disturbing into a frantic swirl of a dance as he left the room with a swish of his blue cape. Dedue followed with a hurried, “Pardon me.” The doors shut behind them, but not before allowing in a chilly draft of cold wintery air. You didn’t even think about it, pushing away from the table with dread settling like ice in your heart.

“You’re going to go after him, aren’t you?” Felix accused, pinning you in place with his glare.

“What?” you asked, feeling the attention settling on you.

“Give me a break,” Felix said, his lip curling back in outright disdain, “you’re not fooling anybody. You’re as bad as that boar’s lapdog, constantly following him around as you do.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” you said slowly, carefully.

Felix scoffed. “Anybody with a set of eyes can see the truth. If he’s the boar’s lapdog,” he said, nodding towards the door Dedue had just departed through, “then you’re his bitch.”

You recoiled as if he’d physically struck you. It felt like it, almost. Heat built up urgently behind your eyes, ringing with the pulsing stream of blood in your ears. Like the first time you’d been punched in the face, you just felt stunned.

Did he know the extent of your feelings? You supposed they had been transparent from the start; you were an idiot to believe you’d ever fool anyone. All the same, thick shame began to congeal in your gut, rising up like bile. “That’s a terrible thing to say,” you said into the ensuing shocked silence, your voice soft with pained shock, light and airy in order to get past the swell of tears in your throat.

“Felix, that’s enough,” Sylvain said in warning, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. Felix shook off Sylvain’s hand by standing up, glaring at him, too.

“You’re all fools. You think you’re being kind, but all you’re doing is enabling him to destroy himself,” Felix said. “We don’t have a chance of winning if we spend all of our time worrying about a mad boar. Tell me when we’re actually going to discuss something important. Until then, I’ll be training.” He turned on his heel and left without any further objection.

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 2

There weren’t enough knights to do everything that needed to be done in preparing Garreg Mach for the impending battle. That meant that many of the less intensive tasks fell to the students to complete, including evacuation of civilians.

Those who had the resources to do so were able to get out practically on the day of Edelgard’s betrayal, like wildlife that could smell a storm before it broke, people scattered away from the encroaching doom. Others weren’t so fortunate. They were poor, they had families, they had settled their lives in Garreg Mach as surely and firmly as the old stone walls.

Getting those people to safety was absolutely essential and important, but the reality of the matter was grim. The friendly territories of the western kingdom and along the Alliance and Faerghus border were quickly becoming packed with refugees. Not just from Garreg Mach, but from the northern Empire. Asylum seekers from the Imperial recruitment and cruelty.

Most of those people were used to the mild winters in Central Fódlan, so those who were forced further north into the kingdom weren’t accustomed to the harsh conditions. Already, there were rumors of entire camps of refugees left dead from exposure. Or bandits, the Kingdom was still rife with lowlife thugs like Miklan. And that wasn’t even to mention the fact that the civil unrest had already left Faerghus without enough resources over the winter months.

The Alliance wasn’t much better, most of their energy was put into fortifying their own defenses and the little wars of internal conflict. You had never paid much attention to how divided the Alliance was after Duke Riegan’s death. Claude insisted he could get a handle on it, but there was only so much he could do for the time being.

That was the general feeling in Garreg Mach. There was only so much you could do. Only so much anyone could do.

You helped load another family onto an overpacked cart with only the most essential of their possessions. Families of the soldiers got priority, and this caravan was thick with children. Despite the hapless sounds of crying children and soft weeping, there was a hush over the once lively square. A somber farewell.

Having done all you could, you stepped back. You couldn’t help but focus on a young girl towards the back. She had a ghostly white face and clutched a doll to her chest with hands still round and dimpled with baby fat, her mother’s arm draped across those tiny shoulders to keep her from bumping into the strangers they would be traveling with. Tears glazed those sweet baby blues, exhaustion ringed the young mother’s eyes. Her husband, a young soldier who had hung around to say goodbye, would be staying and risking his life. He kissed both girls with the desperate fervor of a man who knew, on some level, that this was goodbye forever.

You wanted to believe that this was the best thing, and it was, but you knew what it was to be displaced at such a young age. You knew what it did to people. You knew what goodbye forever felt like. Selfish as it was, you felt almost as if you could see yourself in those glassy young eyes. It was just all too familiar.

Thinking of your mother, as always, was a painful thing. After realizing the magnitude of the situation, you had sent several letters to her nurses and the man you had left in charge of your Fhirdiad estate to warn them of what was coming. Right now, you held onto the belief that the battle at Garreg Mach would stop the war from invading into Faerghus, which meant that your mother was fine to stay in the country mansion. Besides, you worried about what the city would do to her system, she was already in such a poor state.

But that was a worry for another time.

The horses were kicked into motion and the cart rolled over the smooth cobblestones to the great somewhere else. You hoped the goddess went with them, keeping them safe. When they fully disappeared through the gate into the cloudy winter sunrise, you turned on your heel to return to the monastery. After such a long night of patrolling and a morning of packing up civilians, this was the last thing you wanted to do, but you had already put it off too long.

If you were a good person, or even a good leader, you would have visited your company the moment you had any solid news about what was happening. But you weren’t. You didn’t.

Not all of the soldiers employed by the Church stayed in the monastery, which was reserved primarily for the knights and those with high standing in the militaries of the three countries. In a section wedged between the monastery proper and the town of Garreg Mach, a large camp of barracks had been laid out for all of the other soldiers. The organization of it was a bit strange, considering most of them had separate allegiances and very few of them reported to the same generals. Lady Rhea would be considered their High Marshal in theory, but that was just about the only unifying force. Each battalion of soldiers was employed to serve whichever student Officer they had been assigned, so they worked both as an independent, almost mercenary-like group as well as military personnel.

You had always felt awkward with your own battalion, unsure of how to command or treat them. Lieutenant Avery was basically the leader of your company. There was no question of the men’s loyalty, your authority wasn’t the highest to those men, even if they were technically yours to lead. That had never bothered you, not in the way it should have. Only recently had you begun to feel shame about the fact. So many other students had been found to have traitorous Imperial soldiers under their command, a massive embarrassment to the Church as well as cause for distrust of the students themselves.

The vacancy of the empty barracks segmented for the Imperially sourced companies was hostile. Urgent intensity passed between the men who were still hanging around in thinning groups, performing the first of the day’s chores or hanging around in hunched clusters, creating an atmosphere so oppressive you almost found it hard to breathe. They were in a strange place. Staying pitted them against their country, but to leave would be a betrayal against the Church. Nobody trusted them either way, forcing them to congregate only among themselves. That was what Edelgard had done. Verbal poison, the warfare of the mind, turning everybody against one another. Unifying a country, it seemed, required mass division first.

Your men were placed in the no man’s land at the outside of the Kingdom barracks. Professor Byleth had offered you several companies of Kingdom patriots, but you hadn’t felt drawn to them like you were to Avery’s Wyvern Co. They were fresh soldiers among the large array of companies out for the Church to hire, only having arrived shortly before the year began. In truth, you weren’t even completely certain that they were soldiers to begin with. Avery was a strange person with a mysterious background and you truly believed he was a good man, but there was something about him that lacked the shine and polish of a soldier.

Not that it mattered much to you. You liked him; you liked the men. Amidst the dark and oppressive atmosphere of the barracks camp, he and his men sat around a fire, eating breakfast, and chatting among themselves.

“Fancy this!” Avery called as you approached, his grin lit up in brushed orange and distorted by the smoke of the dancing flames. “And here I was just wondered what had happened of our dearest Captain.” The complete disregard of proprietary and respect was utterly inappropriate, but it was clear that Avery never meant anything strange by it. What was strange to you was how easy-going he sounded. Compared to the rest of the Garreg Mach, it was like laughter at a funeral. You didn’t mind it. This task was dour enough without a bad atmosphere. “Why don’t you sit?” Avery offered, gesturing to the bench seat by him. “Have you eaten? I’m sure there’s still more...”

“I’m fine, thank you,” you told him, sitting. “I’m… sorry to not have visited sooner. You’re all doing well?”

“Better than you, it looks like,” Wendell, one of the men who had been wounded in the Sealed Forest, told you. After your concern for his injuries following the battle, he seemed just as loyal to you as Avery. “If you don’t mind me saying, of course.”

“Wen,” another man, Euston, scolded dryly. “You can’t say things like that to a young lady.”

“She’s our Captain,” Avery said, lightly hitting Euston across the back of the head. “Show some respect.”

Euston laughed, undeterred. “You’re one to talk, worrying about her like some kind of mother hen.”

“Is it wrong to care? This past moon has been difficult,” Avery said. Everyone sobered up at the reminder. Difficult was probably an understatement. “You were there when the Emperor revealed herself, weren’t you?” Avery asked you. “I heard what happened. The prince-”

“Dimitri’s fine,” you said, avoiding his eyes. “And I…” You meant to say that you were fine, to reassure them that their captain was steady and sure. But you couldn’t. “That’s actually what I’ve come to talk to you all about. As I’m sure you’re all well aware of by now, there is going to be a battle. The rumors are true. Imperial troops are estimated to arrive by the end of the moon.”

Avery whistled, a quiet rumble of dissent waving over the men. “That soon? She must have been planning this awhile.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, hating to think of it. While you were carelessly training and falling in love and having your heart broken, she was sowing chaos, arranging a war. “And I’m sorry for neglecting you all. I should have done this sooner.”

“That doesn’t bode well,” Euston said.

“If you wish to leave, you’re free to do so,” you told them, your voice raised as you forced yourself to look from face to face, to not shy away from this task. Every expression you acknowledged was set in various degrees of stony to bemused, as if they couldn’t believe what you were saying. “I’ll personally pay you three moons’ wages… More if you act as an escort for the civilians leaving Garreg Mach. You’ll also get a glowing recommendation for your service thus far.”

“The odds are that grim, eh?” Avery asked. Everyone was watching you, waiting for your answer.

“Um…” you began forcing yourself not to clam up under the pressure. “Yes. A-and no. The chances of victory are… Well, nobody really knows at this point. But even if we win, this is a full… a full-on military assault. Edelgard… Emperor Edelgard means all-out war. The Church is just the beginning. I won’t force anyone to fight, I know that none of you ever signed on for allegiance to the Kingdom, or even the Church.”

That began another wave of grumbling, words you couldn’t quite make out as that information was digested. The fire was dying, but the rising sun illuminated enough for you to see the uncertainty on every face, the doubt. You were confirming things they already knew.

“If there’s going to be a war anyway, where would we go?” Lester asked loudly. He was the other one who was wounded in the Sealed Forest. You didn’t like to think of yourself as buying forgiveness to assuage your guilt for his injury, but you did know he had an affinity for chocolate. “Seems like a victory here is our best bet to avoid that.”

“Yeah,” Euston agreed. “War seems like it would be… annoying. We came to the Church because they give us the easy life. Or, they did before this mess all started.” General assent followed his words, heads nodding.

“I’d never forgive myself if I left you here, Captain,” Wendell said. “I may not care that much for the Kingdom or the Church or anything, but I like you. Never known a noble who was so...” He waved his hand, at a loss for words. “You know… The point is, I’m staying.”

“Wendell…” you said, your voice half choked. “Thank you.”

“So, does anyone want to take up our generous Captain on her offer?” Avery asked. Silence met his question, a resounding answer in its own right. You swallowed down the lump in your throat, hating to feel the pressure of tears at the back of your eyes.

“Thank you. It is… my greatest honor to lead you all,” you said, feeling that the words weren’t enough but knowing it was the best you could do. To them, a company of seasoned men, what were you? A slip of a girl pretending to lead them. And yet, they would follow you.

“When this is all over, you’re gonna owe us all a drink,” Euston said. “I’ve always wanted to try that plum liquor they make in Morfis.”

“When this is over, I’ll owe you all a hundred drinks,” you said. “So you’d better all make it, okay?”

“Yessir,” most of them said in unison, touching forefingers to their brows or giving you half-salutes. You let out a heavy breath, glad to be done with that and feeling far better than you had upon arrival.

“I’ll be off, then,” you said, standing up and stretching. The sun had risen, but the sky was miserably gray and cloudy. One of those days. It seemed like all days were one of those days.

“I’ll walk you back,” Avery said, standing.

“You don’t need t-”

“Come on,” he said without waiting. You waved to the rest, even getting some smiles in return, before hurrying to match his stride.

In a way, you were glad for the company. The tension among the battalion camp was just as uncomfortable now as it had been on the way in, but now people were moving around. There was an endless supply of jobs anymore, always something for someone to do.

“It was good of you to offer that,” Avery said.

“Do you think any of them will accept?” you asked. Nobody had spoken up at the moment, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t in private. You didn’t fault that.

“No, we stick together. No matter what.”

“They’re very loyal to you.”

“Like I said, we stick together,” Avery said. “You never asked what we did before we came to Garreg Mach, or why.”

“I didn’t think it was important,” you responded.

“I can’t tell if you’re too naive or too kind,” Avery said, shooting you a sideways smile. “When you picked us, I was braced for the worst type of brat, that’s what we signed up for. But you’re not that. Sure, you’re incompetent, but I know you mean well.”

The casual jab hurt, but the praise leveled it out. Somewhat. Besides, he was right.

“Even if you were the worst of them, we’d have taken it. It’s like… penance. But you’re not, so I figure I should give you a chance to decide you want men like us following you.”

“I don’t care about your past,” you said.

“We were criminals,” Avery said, acting as if he hadn’t heard you. He wasn’t looking at you anymore, his eyes forward and expression schooled into a serious mask. “Damned good ones, too. We all came from villages near the Almyran border, grew up on the backs of wyverns, always dreamed of being accepted into Gonerill’s army. I got my own company before I really realized it; the fight with the Almyrans is pointless. Fighting for fighting’s sake. You lose limbs and lives in what amounts to little more than a game, there’s nothing respectable or sane about it. So, we, my men and I, deserted.”

“Oh,” you said, stunned by the confession.

“After that, we terrorized people, thinking we had some sort of right to do it because at least we weren’t liars like all of the nobility who toss lives away like trash. We only took from the rich and called it justice.” Avery sighed regretfully. “The things we did… the things I did... “

“It couldn’t have been that bad,” you said doubtfully, trying to imagine somebody like smiling Wendell doing what Avery was describing.

“I destroyed people’s lives,” Avery said. “Because of me, children lost their fathers, women lost their husbands... One day I looked at what I had done, what we were doing, and knew that I was damned. I came to the monastery to beg forgiveness, to serve the children who I might have ruined.”

The two of you were approaching the front gate. Cold shivers had crept up your spine, over your arms. Bandits had killed your father, ruined your mother. Ruined you, in a way, even if it was liberation.

But Avery didn’t know that. Besides, it couldn’t have been Avery. To believe in such a coincidence was too awful, too cruel. Avery was a good man, you believed that.

“Now you know who it is that serves you, Captain,” he said, stopping and facing you. He didn’t have the face of a bad man. His skin was leathery and crinkled from too many years in the sun and the line of his nose was an uneven mess from being broken a time or two. He surveyed you with a neutral expression, waiting for your judgment.

“Thank you for telling me,” you said carefully, willing yourself to not become emotional. “I think… I’m not the person to forgive you, but… But it would be really hypocritical of me to judge you. A man I lo―care about quite a bit is in a similar position, looking to the goddess for help and forgiveness, and I… What else is there? As long as you keep trying to be a better person and… Um… I don’t think any less of you. I’m grateful that you trust me.”

Avery measured that response for a long moment before he finally spoke. “Then it is my genuine pleasure to serve under your command.”

“And I’m going to be better,” you told him. “I know I’ve been a poor captain. Most of the time I feel like a child, but I… We can both be better, right?”

“I’d like to think so.” Avery smiled, encouraging you to do the same. “Have a good day, captain. And consider getting some rest”

“I will,” you said. Consider it, at least. Sleep was evasive these days. Besides, there was so much to do. Still, after Avery left, you did take a moment to breathe, to consider what he told you. It didn’t change anything, did it? Yet somehow, you felt more hopeful. And distraught. It seemed the world was insistent that you not let go of your past, throwing it back in your face like this.

But there wasn’t much time for contemplation like that. You hurried back to the monastery, determined to make the most of this ugly gray day.

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 3

Six days had passed since Professor Byleth had called you all together to discuss the state of things. You felt the passing of each hour acutely, the countdown dragging the monastery closer and closer to uncertain ruin. Yet, at the same time, it seemed as if the clock was crawling along, prolonging the nightmare-ish state.

Felix hadn’t so much as looked at you since that disastrous last confrontation.

Dimitri only occasionally showed up when he was summoned.

And you were silly. Stupid, even. Why you felt the need to volunteer yourself to go get him to come to the meeting today, you didn’t know. He was more likely to listen to Professor Byleth anyway. But you did. Of course you did.

The vaulted space of the cathedral was nearly always filled with those who thought to pray for aid from the Goddess. Devoted and questioning alike gathered up to pray for their souls, to pray for their loved ones, to pray for some measure of comfort. Everywhere buzzed with word of Emperor Edelgard’s proclamations and the size of her forces and the fearsome strength of her military, whispered rumors dripping in like poison along with the prayers.

Dimitri spent a great deal of time in the cathedral. Nobody really knew why, people whispered about it like it was some great mystery that a man half mad would think to reach out to the goddess for guidance, but you thought you understood. Avery’s desire for penance was fresh in your head, and you could remember Dimitri’s words that night in the Goddess Tower, almost like a melody you couldn’t quite shake from your head.

“The goddess just watches over us from above… That is all. No matter how hard someone begs to be saved, she would never so much as offer her hand. And even if she did, we lack the means to reach out and grasp it. That’s how I feel about her.”

And you knew that he was the one most affected by Edelgard’s betrayal, the one suffering the most pain. You kept your promise that you wouldn’t tell anybody of his true connection to the Emperor, but it haunted you. The moment of her mask falling away had cut some integral thread of forced composure that Dimitri had been clinging to as a lifeline, and without it he’d fallen victim to the very worst parts of himself. He spent so much of his time reaching towards the goddess for a lifeline because, despite the brutal killings you had seen him commit, he was weak.

You were weak, too. Although you had a reason to seek him out, your feet took you to him because they always did, they always brought you to him. You were so, terribly weak.

Upon passing through the gate of the cathedral, it was impossible to miss Dimitri. Everybody gave him a wide berth of space when passing, casting him nervous side glances, and whispering to their companions in hushed tones. He stood alone like an exhibit in a museum. Rumors had spread about Dimitri just as quickly as they had about Edelgard. Rumors of madness, of insanity. It was upsetting to hear, heartbreaking that he was viewed as little more than a spectacle, but you shrugged them off. It didn’t matter what people thought, or at least you couldn’t blame them. They were ignorant and afraid, and while Edelgard was still far away, Dimitri was right in front of them.

He, as had become usual, stood in his grand stage of empty space. A position he could occupy for hours without break. Dimitri’s uniform wasn’t as neat as he had usually kept it, and his hair needed to be cut. Your heart softened upon seeing him. A foolish, stupid feeling. Unwanted entirely. You knew that things had changed and could keenly remember the many times he’d snapped at you for doing what you were about to do. Whatever tenderness that had been cultivated within him before now was gone. Withered away like flowers in the frost, a sweet melody played sour on an out of tune lyre.

But you refused to stop, and you especially refused to be frightened of Dimitri, or believe that he would do anything to hurt you.

It was better to stick only to present concerns. Such as the fact that he was muttering to himself again. Words you couldn’t quite hear over the hushed noise of the devout. Dimitri’s lips moved with a rhythm that made it seem like he was speaking to something, someone. The dead, his dead. You had heard him use their names once, addressing people who were long gone and buried. Glenn, father, stepmother. He stopped whenever someone was close enough to pick out details, but you heard them all the same.

Melancholy intermingled with a deep, bone-grinding fear at seeing him like this. Many poems or songs you knew spoke of insanity, but none of their descriptions truly matched the broken man in front of you. They saw the afflicted through the eyes of a romantic. In other words, a lovely lyrical lie. What most of them had in common, however, was an eventual tragedy. With every fiber of your being, you swore to not allow him to become victim to such a fate.

You had failed once. You couldn’t handle another. You were weak.

“Dimitri?” you asked, striding up to him with a level of cheery confidence you weren’t so sure you felt. The eyes of a crowd of outsiders followed you now that you had broken the bubble of space surrounding the prince that frightened them so, watching as if you were approaching a beast in the woods unarmed.

Dimitri didn’t respond, either ignoring you or lost in thought of whatever he’d been muttering about. You would have preferred the former, because at least then he’d still be with you, not sunken down into some dark void that you couldn’t possibly reach him in. Unfortunately, you suspected it was the latter, what with the way his blue eyes were ringed with deep shadow and glazed over. You couldn’t even imagine the last time he must have slept. According to Dedue’s careful vigilance, he spent his days in the cathedral and his nights on the training grounds, throwing himself into combat practice so intensely nobody dared intervene. Not even you.

“Dimitri?” you asked again, a bit louder, daring to reach out a hand to get his attention. The touch startled him, and for a moment you were almost afraid that he was going to strike out. He didn’t, although you could tell by the way his body was coiled and poised that it had been a close thing. But he didn’t, and that was all that mattered.

“What is it?” Dimitri asked in the clipped and cold tone of an accusation. The familiar blue of his eyes was flat when they found focus on your face, his stare without any recognition for your feelings or softness for who you wished you were to him. It hurt, it still hurt. Maybe it would always hurt when he looked at you like that, maybe your heart would never scar over and allow you to recognize that this version of him wasn’t truly who he was. You began to rack your brain for a proper verse about the pain of looking in the eyes of someone you loved and seeing nothing in return but stopped yourself. There was no song or lyric that could explain the piercing ache of such a feeling. With him, with your mother, you knew that so very well.

“The dining hall is serving cheesy Verona stew,” you said.

Dimitri grunted dismissively, turning his face from you. That, of course, was not nearly enough to actually stop you.

“See, I asked, and nobody seemed to know if you’ve eaten in the past few days,” you continued.

He said nothing.

“And I know for a fact that you like cheesy Verona stew.”

Nothing.

“Plus, you won’t be able to fight or anything if you’re starving, so-”

“What, exactly, is it that you want?” Dimitri abruptly snapped, fixing you again with a look you refused to believe was a glare of murderous intent. Despite that firm belief, the expression was threatening enough to push you into taking an unconscious half-step away in physical recoil.

“I was worried-”

“I’m fine,” he insisted in a raised voice. Not shouting, just authoritative. It made your stomach drop anyway. At your reaction, he lowered his voice, shaking his head in a jittery way as his eyes cast downwards, a hand raising so he could press a finger against his temple. The headaches he had once told you of must have reached a new level of agonizing. “As soon as her blood is drained from that treacherous heart, everything will be fine… We’ll be fine... So leave me be.”

Overexposure drained those muttered words of much of the power they used to hold but hearing the man you’d seen nearly break down over death speak so casually of gratuitous violence created its own type of deep-set horror. Not to say that was unexpected. You’d heard him say much worse since he learned of the Flame Emperor’s true identity.

“Okay, I-I’m sorry. The Professor is calling for a council and requests that we all attend. I was thinking that you should eat something beforehand. It might make you feel better, you know?” you explained. “But if you’re not hungry, th-that’s fine. The meeting’s in an hour.”

“I understand,” he snapped, cutting you off.

“We could go together, if you wanted,” you offered.

Dimitri gave you a flat look and for a moment you were sure he was going to shout at you. But he didn’t, which was somehow worse. “I’d rather you leave me alone.”

“You don’t need to be alone. It’s not healthy,” you told him quietly. “Before, you told me that you would talk to someone, that you would… Don’t you remember?”

For a long moment, Dimitri didn’t respond. You had no idea what was going on behind the storm of his eyes, the conflicted dance of anger and pain. “Why must you continue to torture me?” Dimitri finally asked, his voice low and throaty. “None of it meant anything, don’t you understand that? It was not my place to tell you those things. I have but a single purpose, to be distracted was my most grievous error. So leave me be.”

He turned away, once again facing the front of the cathedral.

“Okay,” you agreed, almost inaudible with the way your throat had swollen up. “I’m sorry.” Dimitri’s eyes closed, but he didn’t respond. That might have been for the best. You turned on your heel and left the cathedral, feeling the dozens of eyes track each step, whispering. Always whispering, talking, lying, always, always-

On the bridge, you faced the harsh wintery wind, hoping that the sharp bite of its touch would hide the true reason for your watering eyes and red cheeks. Because you were weak. Because you were in love with a man who was fated for tragedy. Because you knew goodbye forever and there was nothing that you could do about it.

Time ticked on, seconds became minutes, minutes you didn’t have the luxury of wasting. You turned you back to the cathedral and the wind and acknowledged that you had at least done as you were told. Just like a soldier would. Just like a knight.

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 4

Even with war hanging heavy on the horizon, even with your heart heavy and breaking, the mundane chores still had to be done. Until coming to Garreg Mach, you had never so much as thought about doing the dishes. It left your fingers pruning and hands chapped and dry, but the ritual of it felt satisfying. Taking something dirty and making it clean. You and Ingrid stood above the sudsy, steaming basin; your uniform sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

The two of you made some small talk at first, but it was clear to see that she was preoccupied. You’d have loved a distraction from your Dimitri-centered thoughts―and under different circumstances, you might have tried anyway―but there was really nothing to say. Dimitri’s harsh rejection the day prior still burned hot and horrible in your chest. If you thought about it, you’d probably start crying again.

“I feel as if I owe you an apology,” Ingrid finally said as you worked a particularly tough bit of grime from a plate. That brought you up short, looking at the blonde to try and figure out what she was thinking to say that so suddenly.

“An apology?” you repeated after a moment.

“For what Felix said,” Ingrid clarified, her eyes casting down towards the water.

You stiffened at the reminder. Out of everything that had been happening lately, you had almost forgotten about that incident. No, you had willfully been trying to forget about it. “You don’t have to apologize for that,” you told her.

She sighed. “It’s always been up to me to clean up after them. His Highness, Sylvain, and Felix... I tried to talk to him, but he won’t hear it.” Ingrid paused. “He doesn’t mean it. I doubt that’s any consolation, but-”

“I know,” you said, cutting her off.

The Boar’s bitch. Goddess, that was cruel. But it wasn’t even entirely untrue. That was the worst of it, to have something you held as holy pulled out from your heart and exposed for the appraisal of eyes that would defile its sanctity.

“I don’t know the details of what happened between Felix and Dimitri to make him so angry, but it changed him,” Ingrid said, picking up a tin mug to begin washing. “After Duscur… Well, everything changed. Felix used to adore Dimitri. He followed them everywhere like a lost puppy.”

“Them?”

“Dimitri and… And Glenn.” Pain twisted Ingrid’s voice with the name. “He is… was Felix’s older brother.”

“Dimitri’s mentioned him,” you said. Dimitri talked to him, actually. Glenn was one of the dead, a victim of the Duscur Tragedy. From what you had gathered, Glenn had been the knight ideal. And, if you weren’t mistaken, Ingrid’s betrothed. You tried to imagine the girl you knew being promised to any man, but the image just didn’t compute. It was almost as strange as trying to imagine a younger, softer version of Felix.

“Losing him was hard on all of us,” Ingrid continued. “I can’t say I don’t sympathize with Felix’s pain... but that doesn’t excuse what he said.”

“It’s fine,” you said, focusing especially hard on the plate you were scrubbing.

Ingrid didn’t respond to that, although you could feel her eyes jump up to watch you every so often, her mouth opening before closing again. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of waiting, she said, “I don’t mean to pry, but you and Dimitri…” Your entire body tensed up, shoulders hunching and the silverware you’d been washing slipping back into the basin with a splash. Of course, you’d been waiting for a question like that. But you hadn’t been ready, either. “I know the two of you were close,” Ingrid said, as if she hadn’t noticed your reaction. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I… Well, I suppose I know what it feels like to have your heart broken. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”

“Thank you,” you told her stiffly, fishing the fork out of the murky water. There was more to be said, the words piling and pooling up on your tongue and ready to spill out, but before you could speak, the pantry door was flung open, a tiny figure emerging.

"Counting all the way up to numbers I don't even know. And more! Flour and sugar and rice and grain galooore-"

"Annette?" you asked, watching her spin on her toes as she closed the door behind her.

"GAH!" With a graceless turn, Annette whirled around, a hand clasped over her mouth and the notepad she was holding crashing to the floor. Recognition flashed through her wide blue eyes after a moment of horrified shock and she lowered that hand to her chest. “Oh, it’s you!” she exclaimed. “You scared me!”

“Sorry...” you responded, exchanging a glance with the equally bewildered Ingrid.

"Oh, well, it’s fine,” she said, trying to play it off. “You didn't… hear anything, did you?"

You were about to lie, mostly to avoid upsetting her, but Ingrid beat you to it. "You were... singing?”

Annette winced, "I can explain! I was taking inventory for Seteth and got very focused and the song just sort of came to me and… and…" She deflated. "I don't suppose you would pretend that you didn't hear that, would you?"

"Why?" Ingrid asked.

"Because… because…" Annette said, flustered. "Because if everyone finds out that I sing to myself they're all going to think I'm that weird girl who makes up stupid songs about counting and food and then they’ll all whisper about me behind my back about how weird and stupid I am!"

"It's not that weird to sing while you work,” you told her.

"Do you?" Ingrid asked, looking at you curiously.

"Well… not around people…" you answered. Everybody in your class knew about your affinity for music on account of that day Sylvain stole your book of songs, but you didn’t advertise the fact that you enjoyed making music, too. Especially not to the knight ideal like Ingrid. Music was impractical.

"See! It is weird!" Annette exclaimed. "Now you're going to tell everyone, and they'll all think I'm a total freak who sings about flour and sugar and-"

"Annette…" Ingrid cut in, frowning in concern.

Annette continued on like she hadn’t heard, her rant getting progressively more distracted, "And they're gonna look at me and laugh and never take me seriously because of the stupid childish songs and-"

"I didn't know you liked music," you said, interrupting her.

Annette blinked, focusing on you. "I don’t really tell people. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

"If it makes you happy, I don't think it's embarrassing," you told her.

"She's right," Ingrid said seriously. "I don't have any interest in music, but the song wasn't that bad."

"That bad…" Annette said, frowning. "So it was still bad. I knew it. Oh, this is just the worst!"

"It wasn't!" you told her quickly. "I liked the melody; did you compose it?"

"Well, yeah," she said, fidgeting with her notepad.

"That's really amazing, Annette,” you said enthusiastically. “I'm no good at writing music."

"Oh, it's not that impressive," she said, waving her hand.

"I'd love it if you could teach me some time," you said. "It might be a nice break from-" you waved your hand around generally, your voice trailing off.

“Well, if you really want to, I guess I wouldn’t mind,” Annette said. “As long as you promise to never, ever tell anybody what you heard today.”

“I promise,” you vowed.

“As do I,” Ingrid said.

“That’s a relief,” Annette said, finally picking up her dropped notepad. “Are you free tonight?”

“I have patrol duty with Ashe,” you replied, frowning. ��Maybe tomorrow?”

“Sure! I’ll have to let you know when, though. There’s so much to do.” Annette sighed. “Speaking of which, what was I doing…?”

“Inventory?” Ingrid offered helpfully.

“Oh, right! That!” Annette responded, her trademark bounce returning. “Well, I’d better go, then. I’ll see you tomorrow!”

You and Ingrid said goodbye, but Annette was already out of the kitchen. Seconds later, there was a loud crash right outside the door and Annette’s muffled voice demanded to know why there was a box in the way where people were walking. It left your heart feeling oddly light. Everything else could change, but Annette was still a whirlwind mess of drive, clumsiness, and quirk.

“If you have patrol, you should probably get going,” Ingrid said. “I don’t mind finishing up here.”

“Oh, right,” you said, quickly drying off your hands. “I hate being out in the town these days, it’s so empty and creepy.”

“Do you want to switch?” Ingrid asked, raising an eyebrow. “I have guard duty tomorrow at dawn.”

“As enticing as that sounds, I think I’ll pass,” you told her, your face scrunching up at the very idea of it. It was one thing to be cold and miserable at night but being cold and miserable with the memory of your soft, warm bed fresh in your mind was worse.

“I suppose it was worth a try. Be on your guard,” Ingrid told you. “And be safe.”

“Thanks,” you said. “I’ll try.”

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 5

“Ansel’s stories are great!” you insisted, walking side by side with Ashe on your nighttime patrols. With the curfew, there were no other people wandering around, but that wasn’t the only reason for the uncomfortably hollow feeling in Garreg Mach. With each passing day, the small towns that littered the outskirts became ghostly haunts, shops closing up and merchants who sold anything other than weapons and supplies packing up. Outside the realm of his torch, the once lively was a depressing and frightening place. But having company helped. It helped a lot. “I love the characters.”

“I didn’t say they’re bad,” Ashe responded quickly. “But... they’re mostly romance. They shouldn’t be shelved by the stories about knights, someone could accidentally pick one up and have no idea what they’re in for.”

“There are knights and heroes, too,” you pointed out. “Besides, romance is integral to the plots of most hero stories. What’s worth fighting for more than love?”

“You’re starting to sound like Sylvain,” Ashe told you, laughing.

“Don’t you fight for love?” you asked, only slightly defensively. “Love for your country, your family, your friends… Isn’t that why people fight? We’re all driven by passion, don’t you think?”

“Huh… I guess that’s true. But... wait, that wasn’t my point! I-” Ashe’s words abruptly cut off as you turned a corner. This street, a main thoroughfare with some of the few remaining open establishments, was well lit. A crowd of people congregated at the far end. “What’s going on over there?”

You blinked, caught off guard by the sight. “Is there some sort of event?” you asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Ashe said. “Besides, the curfew...”

“We should go check it out,” you said, all amusement from your conversation going stale and cold. You had a very bad feeling about this.

Ashe quickly put out the torch, following after you as you approached the crowd. There was a sense of dread in the air. There was a crowd, sure, but their voices weren’t loud enough, no laugher could be heard. It was just tension and raw, crackling energy. Most of the people were soldiers, men and women from other battalions. Some villagers. The entire crowd smelled of urine and liquor and the desperate vinegar of excited sweat. You tried to cut your way into the group, standing on your toes to see what they were all circled around. Nobody paid you any mind, too focused on what was happening to make way.

“Is that… His Highness?” Ashe asked, his voice loud above the noise.

And it was. Standing in the impromptu ring created by the surrounding crowd, Dimitri faced off against five other men. One of them was wearing Imperial fatigues. Another wore clothes you recognized as being an unkempt and dirty Faerghus soldier uniform. All of them had a wild, drunken look and anger and bloodlust.

“-known that your association with that Duscur beast would rub off on you,” the Faerghus soldier was saying. “I refuse to follow a monster into battle, let alone lead my country.”

“I see,” Dimitri replied. Despite the many voices rumbling around the square, his was easy to make out. “You have betrayed your country, trading one monster for another. How does that feel?”

That made the other man wince, but his fury was far more potent. They were ganging up on him, this was an ambush.

“Ashe go get help. Professor Byleth… Guards… anyone! Hurry!” you told him, your voice quivering with urgency. He blinked, his eyes wide and frightened, but nodded.

“I’ll be quick.”

With Ashe running off, you tried to steady yourself with a deep breath, forcing your hands to stop shaking. “Let me through!” you demanded, trying once more to cut your way through the crowd. People shifted, although you took more than one elbow to the ribs, bodies pushing back against you. “On behalf of the Church of Seiros, I demand that you let me through!” That finally worked. Sort of. You broke out into the front of the group, a hand on your sword hilt. “This i-is… an illegal act of violence against the crown prince of Faerghus… Disperse now!” Jumbled and nervous, your words were still able to get the attention of the group of men. Dimitri turned, meeting your eyes for a half-second with a look of surprise. And then his face darkened, his jaw clenching as he looked away.

“What is this?” the Imperial asked mockingly, “Another student? Maybe a friend of yours, crown prince?”

Dimitri said nothing, not even looking at you.

“The guards will be arriving soon!” you threatened.

“Faerghus law allows any Faerghus soldier challenge his superior, nobility and royalty, to a fight,” the soldier said. “It’s up to him if he wishes to accept the terms.”

“What do you say, beast prince?” the Imperial asked. “Do you have any honor left, or have you abandoned that with your humanity?”

“Honor?” Dimitri asked, sounding amused. “Coming from one who wears the colors of the Empire? Tell me, do you act on behalf of that woman?”

“I act for myself,” he responded. “And for justice. My brother was one of the men you slaughtered in the Holy Tomb. I saw his body, creature. You’re no prince, you’re not even a soldier. You’re a monster.”

“And your gang of traitorous vermin?” Dimitri asked. “They agree?”

“Faerghus is better off without you,” the Faerghus soldier said, eliciting sounds of agreement from the others.

“Fine,” Dimitri said. “I accept your challenge.”

“No!” you shouted, lunging forward. Or, attempting to. A man you hadn’t even noticed shot an arm out to keep you from entering the informal circle, pulling you back.

“Don’t interfere,” he said, holding your arms pinned so you couldn’t go for your weapon. His breath was hot and sour on your ear, making you shudder in disgust. “I have money on this fight, girl. Five to one… the pretty boy’s ‘bout to learn a lesson he won’t forget.”

“Dimitri, stop!” you begged. It didn’t even occur to you to be worried for him. Only about what he would do.

The Faerghus soldier went for him first, pulling a knife from his stained coat and lunging at Dimitri with wavering, drunken posture. He was a large guy, the type that expected to win fights based purely on his size and raw strength. Dimitri sidestepped the attack, grabbing the man’s beefy arm as he did to misdirect his momentum and contort the arm behind his back, twisting him around and sending him staggering to the ground.

Dimitri had gotten hold of the knife during the exchange, but he didn’t bother using it. When the large man made to grab Dimitri’s legs, Dimitri kicked him in the chest. Bones crunched. Loudly. Dimitri kicked him again, the choppy strands of his blond hair flipping and falling with the motion.

Despite the shocking display of efficient brutality, the Imperial went into attack. His knuckles glinted with metal as he drew back his fist.

“Watch out!” you called, but the warning was unnecessary. Dimitri whirled around, grabbing the Imperial’s hand before it could make contact and slamming it flat against the side of the building. He drove the knife right below the band of metal ringing the Imperials fingers, pushing it into the grout between brick until the handle was flush to the man’s skin. The Imperial screamed, immediately trying to pull the knife free, but it was stuck. He tried to lash out at Dimitri, but the prince easily ducked beneath the attack.

The other three men bunched in a group, ganging up on Dimitri together. The tallest stood in the center, a short man on his right and a heavy looking guy who’d picked up a broom as a makeshift weapon on his left. All you could see of Dimitri the back of his uniform and the fluttering cape on his shoulder, so brilliant and vividly blue.

Ducking out of the way of the broom’s handle, Dimitri took a fist to the face from the shortest man. Despite the successful blow, the short man was immediately rewarded with a brutal backhand that sent him to the ground with a fleshy kind of crack.

Dimitri didn’t hesitate, throwing his body at the man holding the broom. The wooden handle split into two pieces beneath Dimitri’s gauntleted left hand, his right elbow slamming against the heavy guy’s face while he was distracted by the loss of his weapon. The heavy man’s face immediately exploded in a bright spray of blood, sending him stumbling back and tripping onto the ground, clutching his face desperately.

The tall one tried to attack with a straight right, but Dimitri spun out of the way, swinging the broken piece of broomstick handle in an arc at his head. The wood broke on impact with the guy’s skull. While he was stunned, Dimitri’s fist easily connected with his stomach. He dropped with a heavy “umph” of a groan.

Breathing heavily, Dimitri turned from them, dropping the short length of broomstick handle with a clatter of wood on stone and tossing his sweaty hair from his brow. Blood dripped from his nose, staining the ashy pale of his complexion, dribbling over his chapped lips.

The Imperial was the only one standing, having managed to free himself. You hadn’t seen what he’d done to get out of the trap, but the knife remained in the wall and his hand was in a ruined state, too covered in blood for you to see.

Dimitri faced him, his chest heaving and a gruesome smile on his face. Blood dripped into his mouth, staining his teeth red. With wild eyes, he surveyed his final opponent.

Had Dimitri done this on purpose? Ensured that the Imperial would be the last to face him so he could savor it? Something about the expression on his face made you think that sickening thought. Taking advantage of the way the grip keeping you still had slackened in horror, you stumbled forward.

“Dimitri stop!” you shouted.

He ignored you, moving towards the last man with the predatory gait of a killer. You didn’t even think about it, lunging at him and wrapping your arms around his middle. Doing that could have killed you, you knew that. His reflexes were faster than you could ever hope to move. But your blood pounded steadily in your ears and your pulse made your throat feel swollen and men you hoped weren’t dead littered the ground. You needed to make him stop.

Somehow, it worked.

“Unhand me,” Dimitri demanded, prying you off of him despite your attempts to hold fast. The violence of it pushed you back several steps, but you managed not to fall. “This Imperial traitor asked for a fair fight. Have I not granted him his wish?”

“You’ve won!” You looked at the glowering Imperial who was wrapping his hand with a ripped piece of shirt. “Yield, please. You can’t fight, your men are down… Please, stop this.”

“No,” he said, pulling the fabric tight with a wince. With that, he swung, his arm arcing clumsily towards Dimitri who easily caught the fist, twisting it with enough force to make the main shout in pain. The movement forced the Imperial to fall forward, but Dimitri caught him with a grip on the front of his uniform, pulling him close.

“Dimitri,” you pled. “You can’t kill him. Please.”

“No? Even though he follows that wretched woman?” Dimitri asked. “Even when he would have gleefully killed me in an honorless fight?”

“Please, just yield and leave. Please,” you begged of the other man. “Dimitri, you’d let him go if he yielded, right?

“This foul creature does not deserve your pity,” he said.

“Please?” you begged again.

“Fine,” Dimitri allowed, his lip curled as he looked at the man. “I’ll let you go free. Provided you deliver a message to your master.”

The Imperial sneered, answering by screwing up his mouth for a second and then spitting. The glob of saliva landed squarely on Dimitri’s cheek. Dimitri accepted it with a cold, empty patience, letting it slide down his face without any reaction. “I’ll accept death before I do something for a beast like you,” the Imperial said.

“Very well, I shall be glad to deliver,” Dimitri responded. “You and your gang of cowards are not the first men I have sent to the Eternal Flames. But you already know that, don’t you? Your face is not even worth remembering. Just as I have forgotten your brother, you too will die a meaningless death.”

A strangled sound of rage left the Imperial’s mouth, his face twisting in genuine hatred as he fought the hold Dimitri had on his uniform. Blood had already soaked through the makeshift bandage on his hand. And Dimitri was going to kill him. That sickening smile was gone, all emotion sapped out. His expression was cold and cruel. The act of killing made him dark. Empty.

“Dimitri!” a familiar voice called, breaking the tense scene apart. The crowd, whatever remained of it, parted for Professor Byleth’s confident stride, his green eyes focused solely on the prince. Ashe hurried behind him; his cheeks colored with a flush of exertion. Dimitri’s grip on the Imperial slackened, some awareness seeping into his eyes. Finally, he wiped the spit from his cheek, catching some of the blood from his nose. It left a rusty streak on his pale skin.

The Imperial took advantage of Dimitri’s distraction. His nails made contact with Dimitri’s face for a second before the prince reacted, throwing him away with unnerving ease. What was left was four distinct and angry short trails of red high on Dimitri’s cheekbone.

“It seems you’ve been spared,” Dimitri called as the man scrambled to get upright. But he had landed poorly, swaying dizzily like he hit his head. “This time.”

“What happened?” Professor Byleth asked you, forcing your attention away from the horrific scene. You cleared your throat, trying to calm your mind.

“They challenged him to a fight,” you said. Byleth’s lips formed a line, but he nodded. “And he accepted.”

“These men were Imperial vermin and traitors,” Dimitri added. “They wished for a chance to take me out and failed.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Vengeance… Vengeance is for the strong. They were too weak to attain it.”

“You didn’t need to accept their challenge,” you told him, belatedly realizing that you were crying. Shaking, too. Trembling so hard you felt it in your bones. “You’re… you’re better than that.”

“Am I?” Dimitri asked. “Tell me, would it be honorable to keep another man from his revenge? I allowed him a fair chance, and he was unable to follow through.”

“Still…” you muttered, looking around at the carnage. Already, guards were surveying the downed men. Checking for pulses. Killing men in battle was one thing but killing them here in the dark and dingy streets of a nearly abandoned town. A place that was supposed to be a refuge, to be sacred. It was like you couldn’t breathe, like the world was closing in on you.

This wasn’t Dimitri, was it? The man who had kissed you, who had held you, who had made you laugh. The man you were in love with.

“If you can’t stomach reality, you have no place here,” Dimitri said, stalking past you. Professor Byleth attempted to stop him, but that didn’t matter. Dimitri was a force of nature, like a storm or a fire, without reason or restraint.

Besides, the guards for calling for Professor Byleth’s help, likely asking for advice on how to handle this situation. How were you supposed to handle this situation? What were you supposed to do?

“Are you all right?” Ashe asked, peering at you with a look of concern. “Let’s go back to the monastery, the guards can take care of this.”

“Okay,” you agreed. Your ears were ringing. It sounded like screaming. It smelled like blood and fire and the tangy, sour, stale sweat that reeked of pain and fear. Was this any more or less horrific than what you had already seen? You already knew the violence Dimitri was capable of, you already knew the depths to which he had descended.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You look really pale…” Ashe said.

You felt a little numb. Empty, cold, like everything had been drained out and replaced with cotton.

“Ashe?” you asked, but your voice sounded far away.

“Yes?” He looked so concerned, so earnestly worried for you. That was good, nice. You could hold on to that.

“What do you think it is to be honorable?”

Ashe blinked, clearly confused, but his answer was quick. “Honor is doing what’s right.”

“Who defines what’s right?” you asked.

“I’m not so sure this is important right now,” Ashe said, looking around. You ignored it all, the noise and the people and the carnage and the fear and the disgust, focused only on the one question. “Perhaps we should wait until we’re-”

“Please?” you asked. That word was etched into your tongue.

He looked like he was about to argue but relented after a moment. “I suppose the goddess defines what’s right, so do those who lead us,” Ashe said. “But knights also must follow their hearts. To follow all of those things… that’s honorable.”

You closed your eyes, trying to comprehend exactly what he said. That definition definitely made sense. Honor both was and wasn’t. Nebulous and strict. If you doubted what you knew, you’d lose it entirely. It was better to let it be, you decided that long ago.

Letting out a shaky breath, you nodded. “You’re right.”

“Are you okay?” Ashe asked again.

“Yeah,” you said, nodding. It wasn’t a lie, exactly. You just had to ignore this, shove it from your mind. Focus on other things. “Let’s go back to the monastery.”

#dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #fe dimitri #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd x reader #fe dimitri x reader #fe3h #fire emblem three houses #beastie and the bard #my writing #i say its dimitri z reader but really it's more of an ensamble piece #like who even knows anymore #mercedes is a better bf at this point #wowzers i put the wrong chapter number how embarrassing

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blushing-starker · 4 years ago

Text

Anon asked for alpha Peter and omega Tony for a baby announcement. Thank you to the wonderful @vaguekiwi for motivating me and sharing her thoughts on the story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, anon.

"Tony, Tony? Are you up? It's 7:30am already, you have a meeting with Miss Potts in forty minutes. Tony?"

Soft hands curl into already silver hair, scratching at the strands in an attempt to wake him up gently. Butterfly kisses on a cold nape, a ridiculously hot nose nuzzling everywhere. Peter knows scenting the billionaire is basically the only way one can ensure a calm morning.

Not today. And not for the next few months either.

He loves his husband, appreciates the nearly romantic demeanor, he does. But "unless you have a cup of coffee for me, there is no way in hell i am gonna leave this bed. your child has kept me up with nausea the entire night. I wanna hurl my guts out more than that time Rhodes found Dad's liquor cabinet. please, tell me you have coffee."

"..." Tony is severely displeased by the fact he can read Peter like a book even with half his mind shut off because fine, he's right and dammit all.

"I want that weird drink you make. The one with milk, cinnamon and chunks of brownie. And French toast with waffles. No jam, not too much butter, as much sugar as possible. Now, go before I scream at you for having the only dick that could get a hormone fucked forty something omega pregnant. "

The kid scrambles from bed, practically face plants with all the covers tangling long legs and yup, this is the person that the universe designated as his soulmate. Because Tony Stark can never have a partner with a reasonable, normal amount of enthusiasm, stamina and a sense of balance.

That sounds like he's ungrateful, he's not. But it turns out being three months pregnant gives him plenty of perspective to peer at life in a whole new way that does not include caffeine, alcohol or sex.

Would he kill and die for this amazing human being that makes Tony's heart race no matter the day, that inspires him to be a better version of himself? Yes, no questions asked. No hesitation and no regret.

Would he clobber Peter for doing the impossible and technically causing Tony incredible discomfort on a daily basis thanks to what his doctors can only assume is a superhuman baby he already loves and adores more than life itself? Also yes.

Things aren't mutually exclusive in this household.

Pep, bless her, has yet to find out about their future mini Parker so there's been no respite on the whole 'running a multi billion dollar industry ' thing. And yeah, while it's not exactly easy, he can focus on other things and not fall into a panicky state of mind — because him? A father? Of a super baby? Tony Stark, infamous playboy with a hedonistic streak, a dad?

Just thinking along those lines makes shame and self doubt slither over a metallic plate. Working, dealing with innovative scientists, crafting the new world of tomorrow, guaranteeing the safety of their planet, shapeshifting into a role model, a mentor (for the interns and school kids he visits, not Peter, of course, thank God they left that dynamic ages ago), loyal friend, reluctant errand boy (fuck the assholes in charge of the Accords), great husband, good man, it all distracts a fearful child from thinking, what if I turn into Howard?

"I couldn't find brownies, so cookies it is! Aunt May had a few boxes sent in when I told her work was keeping you on your feet all the time. Said it'd be a good idea to snack along the day in case you—" Peter freezes, tenses with a not-so-narrow back held ramrod straight. Oh, his husband brought him breakfast in bed.

How could he ever think to clobber such a nice, wonderful—

"Your scent is odd."

"Yeah, well fuck you too then."

Five seconds of silence.

"I'm bringing you one cup of coffee and the hormone pills."

" Yup, that's a great idea. "

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

Tony’s mumbo jumbo with self loathing is firmly put on the back burner after inhaling a delicious breakfast and chugging that one glorious cup of coffee. Until they go to the bathroom and he sees himself in the mirror.

"We gotta tell them."

"You said you wanted to wait a while before saying anything."

Peter strips, ducks into the warm shower, lets out a pleased little sigh and Tony wants to rip his fingernails off. Is it bad, having sex while pregnant? No! The doctors, every single one of them, said it's a perfectly normal thing to do. It'd be bad if they didn't have sex because Tony, thanks to his crazy hormone production, needs the extra attention for his body to understand this is a happy process that shouldn't include sad pheromones or stressed out moments. Will Peter put him out of his misery and allow a quickie in the mornings? No.

"Take more than five minutes in that shower and I'm joining you."

Listen, he grew up in the 80's and 90's, Tony wasn't immune to peer pressure. Did he cave and eventually do so many squat competitions with Rhodey his butt turned into a duck's butt? There's no evidence, he's made sure, but yes. And Starks have always turned out to be beautiful, doesn't matter your gender or age. Finding a companion for the night has never been a problem for anyone in his family tree.

That, and his work as Iron Man has kept him — well, not ripped like Cap, certainly not as lean and (God help him) athletic as Peter, but fit. Sturdy. Firm. Solid. (Peter once muttered the words 'daddy-like' in regards to his body and he nearly choked on water.)

The passage of time has made him a bit slower, dusted once black hair with, as his husband says, stardust and the corners of his eyes now show how much time Tony spends laughing or frowning. All in all, he looks fucking spectacular for his age and experience as a villain-punching-bag. Thing is, he has a belly. A bump. A curve where it was once, well. Less curvy. Is it a problem for Peter? Nope, as acknowledged every time his alpha tackles him if he so much as looks oddly in the mirror. Is it a problem for him? He'll get back to you on that.

The point is, there's a belly when just a few months ago there wasn't such a pronounced belly. It's great, of course. Proof their child is growing steadily and Tony's body is adjusting to it accordingly. A small part of him, the omega part he actually lets live, is fascinated and proud. He's doing that, Tony's the one growing a human being, creating life out of nothing in his own body. That child, although not the only physical embodiment of their relationship, is a result of his love for Peter. Of how much his husband loves him. They love each other so much they're gonna start another family together. That chokes him up a bit, reminds him how grateful he is for Peter and for the other Avengers. If they hadn't been so accepting of his status, would he have ever considered going through with this?

Anyway, he's not gonna start sobbing this early in the morning when there's no alcohol involved. It's fantastic seeing his child develop, good, warm and fuzzy feelings, yada yada yada, it's also not very easy to hide. And Tony...Tony wanted to hide it from his family because.

Because Peter hasn't been the only partner in all his life that has wondered about a future with a white picket fence. Because when he was Peter's age, in his goddamn prime, a doctor, ten doctors, all the doctors told him the same thing, smashed his dream into a million pieces. Tony was nearly infertile. There was a one in a million chances of him getting pregnant. If he did, they couldn't be sure his body would be able to maintain two hearts. And then the cave happened.

So yeah. It happened to his cousins, his aunt, a few uncles, his grandmother. Tony would do a baby announcement, but only the second that baby was outside of him and safely in his arms. Now there are still several months left and nothing certain. But time is a bitch and beginning to show the world, maybe those extra pounds aren't from eating the Parker's amazing breakfasts.

"Tony, you know I don't wanna risk-" Losing control of my strength. They've been together long enough that Tony can see quite clearly between the lines.

"Hurting us, yeah, I know, I understand. I'm getting too wide, we're gonna have to tell them or Natasha will take one look at me and whoops, impromptu announcement from someone else. It's a miracle she was out on those missions when we found out." Thank God for renegade troops.

He's still looking at himself in the mirror when Peter comes out, barely dries up and slides behind him. His husband is slightly taller now, can easily hook a curved jaw on Tony's shoulder to peer at the image they make. Contrasts, he supposes, have always enthralled Tony. The study of light and shadow. Variations of the same basic components. Where his body is aging, showing signs of wear and tear, Peter's is evolving into something beautiful, majestic. Silver hair, chestnut brown. Scarred canvas, silky smooth and sunkissed skin. Soft, fragile curves, chiseled lines that deserve to be revered more than Michelangelo’s David. But their eyes, their eyes are equally tired.

“We can tell them if you want, have dinner together and just, just say it. Like that -”

“No. It's our kid, we're not gonna act like it's ripping off a band aid. This is special, unique. Dinner is good. Fantastic, actually. Wait for dessert, and announce it. “ Peter comes ever closer, wraps arms that could carry the world around him and how did he get so lucky?

They've lied to each other in the past. Mostly in the beginning, when they were too worried about hurting their new relationship to show their desires and wants. Tony didn't explain the Training Wheels Protocol. Peter tried to fight high level crime on his own. Things got hard to understand, like being in the right place at the wrong time. Puzzle pieces that didn't quite fit together, an extra inch of space prohibiting them from seeing all the possibilities that the truth could bring. They were walking the same path, just in parallel lines that never crossed.

But then he'd been rejected, thrown away and able to realize how fucking stupid it was to let Peter go when being near the kid, it felt like finally breathing after residing in the deep end of a pool for a thousand years. So Tony ran after him one day, crashed into his AP English class, half assed an excuse for the baffled teacher, yanked Peter out of the room and proceeded to have the best make out session of his life with his back against the kid's locker. And now they don't lie, ever.

Which is why it's so hard to accept Peter's, “You're beautiful, Tony. The handsomest man I've ever seen in my life. I loved you before, I love you now, I'll love you forever, Anthony Stark. You carrying our kid doesn't change that, how could it, Tony? It's going to be ok. The three of us will be ok and I won't stop thanking whoever decided I'd get to marry my wet dream.”

Scorching kisses trace his pulse point slowly, sharp nails start dragging against a too thin shirt, but it's the fact that Peter hasn't looked away from him, is confidently holding his gaze through the glass, that makes Tony shudder and stop breathing.

The bathroom is flooded with pheromones, cinnamon and honey assaulting an unprepared billionaire, and he'll die if they stay like this, can't function properly, brain switching gears, trying valiantly to remember baseball stats, past wounds, May's cooking because Peter's gonna wreck his sanity if those hands keep winding down, if those lips don't stop unraveling him like a Christmas present.

“If I'd known you'd get this handsy and romantic, I would have complained about how I look earlier." It's a gasp, half murmur, half plea as Peter grins at him shamelessly. “I know it's rude and wrong and sexist, but I like comforting my omega, acting like a stereotypical alpha. Makes me feel like I'm doing my job of making you happy. “

He quirks an eyebrow, is glad Peter can be comfortable enough to take the reins every once in a while. “You're telling me that assuring me I'm still drop dead gorgeous, “ his husband snorts, nips at Tony's shoulder for that quip, “ makes you horny because you feel like an alpha comforting, and I quote, ‘your omega’? “

Peter reverts back to the shy teenager who could barely ask a girl out to the homecoming dance, ducks his head into Tony’s neck with a blush quickly spreading over damp skin. “Well, I've got news for you, sweetheart. Your wet dream also thoroughly enjoys it so you better break tradition and have sex with me to remind me I'm the hottest man you've ever seen. "

He's actually serious about this, his self esteem hasn't exactly been, you know, the best and Tony's mood always improves significantly after playing around in bed with Peter. Besides, it's a sign of trust. Peter won't hurt him or their child, will be able to hold back his strength. He always does.

Listen, it's not exactly moral, but he has more than enough problems to go ahead and analyze his attraction and dependency on Peter while pregnant.

“So, I can distract you from your bad thoughts by acting sort of possessive and taking you to bed? " Oh, he adores when his husband is afraid of showing a new side of himself and asks for permission ever so sweetly.

“Babe, if you don't, I'll kick you out of the apartment. Give me possessive Peter Parker any day you want, like I'm gonna complain about a gorgeous, brilliant twenty something year old all over me. Now what's it gonna be, alpha dear, bathroom or bedroom? I wouldn't mind the tile but, oh God, I forgot you could pick me up." Tony clings to broad shoulders, can't help but laugh because aren't they a pair?

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

After having what he's sure was the best sex of his life, Tony stumbles out of the bedroom with torn clothes, a dazed look in his eyes and several bruises blossoming around his neck. Peter's halfway out the doorway when Tony whistles, makes sure all their family is paying attention, blurts out, “Peter and I are having a kid. I'm pregnant, woohoo, it's great, it's amazing, save your congratulations for later. We'll do a proper thing soon, if anyone interrupts and they're not dying, I'll kill you myself. See you in a few hours, " and yanks him back in while Friday activates Sock on the Doorknob Protocol.

Rhodey and Nat clink glasses while waiting on the others to pay up on their bets regarding Tony and Peter's odd behavior.

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

Later, much later, like, two days later, they have a proper dinner with their family in the tower. There are balloons and streamers, cake and ice cream, warm hugs and gentle cheek kisses, subtle tears and full on weeping (Happy had to borrow a box of Kleenex), pictures and videos and a pile of gifts taller than Tony.

The most important thing, though, is that the A.I recorded the reaction after Clint asked about baby names. He's grateful they went to the doctor before tonight. The visit revealed a treasure Tony thought he'd never have. Now it's time to reveal it to their pack.

His husband snuggles up to him, is so ecstatic the whole dining room smells like cinnamon and honey, like joyous love he'll never get enough of. Tony grins at him, curls their hands together and repeats the same thing over and over again in his head.

It'll be ok. They'll be ok. If the universe keeps giving Tony the greatest gifts he could ever want, maybe it's time he stopped looking at the horse's mouth. That's how it goes, right? Right.

He turns to look at Peter, loves him so much it aches, feels tiny feet pressing against his stomach. Guesses he's not the only one smitten with this incredible human being.

“We were thinking Marie,” Peter smiles at him, eyes lit up and lovely.

Tony is never going to forget this moment, this warmth in his chest.

“And Benjamin Parker-Stark.”

Their family loses their shit and both Friday and Karen have ample proof.

(@puppypeter look, omega tones! @tonystarkisaslut thank you so much for allowing me to use the prompt board! I am still accepting prompts! Although I can't guarantee getting them ready within a few days, I'll try to finish them on the one week mark depending on how long the fic is!)

#tony stark #peter parker #starker #peter parker x tony stark #ironspider #peter x tony #soft!starker #lovely anon #prompt fill #my writing #baby announcement #alpha!peter #omega!tony #omegaverse starker #did i love writing this?#yes i did #mpreg #a/b/o

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ibijau · 4 years ago

Note

“I’ve got a sick sense of justice, but you knew that.” 3zun fic? Where things work out between them, somehow, and yet JGY still kills JGS the same way and defends that choice to LXC and NMJ (Or JZX, if he's alive)? Can go full on JGS was stealing his women's energy, hence their sickness/deaths!

warning for mentions of death, rape and murder. Yay, it’s a happy one :D

Nie Mingjue storms into the cell, only for Jin Guangyao to look up and smile at him, as if he were welcoming him into his quarters, rather than locked up and in chains. He smiles just as peacefully to Lan Xichen when he follows their lover inside, pretending not to notice the other man's obvious distress.

"I hope Da-ge and Er-ge will forgive me if I do not stand and bow to them," Jin Guangyao calmly says, rattling his chains.

Nie Mingjue stares at him, taken aback.

Even though they have reached a tentative peace between them, and Jin Guangyao often makes efforts to be more open with them than he is with anyone else, he still is the same person he always was. When he gets in trouble, he makes himself pathetic before them, almost on instinct. Sometimes it annoys Nie Mingjue, but other times it feels almost like a joke between them, as long as Jin Guangyao has that twinkle in his eye to show he knows he won't be taken seriously.

To see him this calm and detached is unsettling. Nie Mingjue can only wonder if it has something to do with that large bruise on the side of his head. Going by the colour it is at least a day old. No cultivator of Jin Guangyao's level should have let this last this long.

"Ah, this," Jin Guangyao notes, feeling their gaze. "Zixun was not very happy and let it be known. I am sorry to present myself before you in such a state, but my powers have been sealed, and I could not do anything about it. Please, just avoid looking at it."

That makes Nie Mingjue frown. If Jin Zixun is behind one bruise, he's ready to bet there are more, hidden under Jin Guangyao’s clothes. He forces his mind to drift away from the worry he feels, because the real problem today is…

"Did you do it?" Lan Xichen asks, something wavering in his usually calm voice.

Jin Guangyao placidly looks up at him.

"What do you think, Er-ge?"

Lan Xichen trades a glance with Nie Mingjue.

What they think is that Jin Zixun, who uncovered the plot against his late uncle, is not the most reliable man in the world, and holds a grudge against Jin Guangyao since that near fiasco with Wei Wuxian at Jin Ling's hundredth day party.

They think also that he did bring convincing evidence. The most critical one is the testimony of a woman who took part in the murder of Jin Guangshan. She says she did not see the man who paid for her services, but she would recognise his voice. She also did see Xue Yang, and they all know the little creep respects no one except Jin Guangyao.

They think that Jin Zixuan is desperately trying to prove his half brother's innocence, but finding it difficult.

They think that Jin Guangyao has killed his superiors before.

They think he promised he wouldn't again, and they both made the choice to trust him.

And Nie Mingjue thinks, also, that although they've disagreed on means and motives, Jin Guangyao never strikes unprovoked, which he says out loud.

The tenderness in Jin Guangyao’s eyes as he hears this is nearly unbearable.

“Da-ge, are you really asking for my side of the story?” he asks in disbelief.

It might be sincere. It might be feigned. Nie Mingjue never knows with him, just as he suspects Jin Guangyao never knows what to expect from him.

“We know your father was not… the kindest of men,” Lan Xichen says gently, kneeling down next to Jin Guangyao to send some spiritual energy into him and help him heal. Jin Guangyao sighs in relief, but keeps his eyes on Nie Mingjue even as Lan Xichen continues speaking. “You have let us know about some of the things he’s done, A-Yao, and I’ve long suspected there’s more you never told us. If he did anything to deserve such an end…”

“Of course he deserved it,” Jin Guangyao cuts him, still looking at Nie Mingjue. “You both know it as well as I do. He deserved it whether I had a hand in it or not. He was a selfish man. He only joined the Sunshot Campaign because he hoped to become what Wen Ruohan had been. He only took me in because his true son, forcefully kept from the heat of the action, failed to garner glory for Lanling Jin. And I won't get into the details of everything that happened with Wei Wuxian."

"But none of these things are why you killed him," Nie Mingjue retorts, suddenly convinced that Jik Guangyao really did it.

Once, it would have filled him with rage to realise this. Back when he first understood what sort of a person his efficient and soft spoken friend was, when he saw Jin Guangyao murder his own captain… But since then, Nie Mingjue has learned to forgive, at least somewhat. Because when Jin Guangyao killed Nie Mingjue’s men in Nightless City, he took care to only murder those who once derided him for his background, to lightly wound the ones who never mocked him.

It was still wrong, those were still good men, but Nie Mingjue, who had been burning for years with his hatred of the Wens, understood that better than he ought to have done.

So there is no anger as Nie Mingjue too kneels down next to their lover. Only disappointment. In himself, for wanting to excuse this most awful crime. In Jin Guangyao, for not coming to them this time, when he thought something was wrong. They had listened about Wei Wuxian, they would have listened about this too.

"Some brothels offer specialised services," Jin Guangyao says, the smile on his face shifting from loving to cold and polite, the way it used to be around his father. "I suppose this doesn't surprise you. Someone with money can always get what they want in this world."

Both Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen nod uncomfortably.

"Some of those services offered are of a rather different nature," Jin Guangyao goes on, his eyes growing distant. "They are difficult to perform, cannot be repeated, and cost an obscene amount of money… not to speak of the moral cost. It takes a certain kind of man to purchase such services. Believe it or not, even Xue Yang found it distasteful. For all the wrong reasons, but still, I think Da-ge and Er-ge will agree that it takes a lot to shock someone like Xue Yang."

Lan Xichen takes their lover's hand, trying to comfort him, but Nie Mingjue freezes. He is suddenly reminded of certain rumours, gossip so foul that it had to be exaggerated. He's always refused to pay it any mind, knowing well there were horror stories about him as well, as there always are against powerful men.

He can't escape it now.

“It’s not hard to find human cauldrons, if you know how to look for them,” Jin Guangyao states in a voice devoid of any emotion, staring somewhere in the distance. “And some men will always look for an easy way to improve their cultivation, even if it means raping and killing a girl for it. There are addresses, and certain euphemisms. These days, you would ask to see a Wen girl. I’ve learned that a few years ago, people called them educated women.”

Nie Mingjue only frowns at that comment, but next to him Lan Xichen gasps in horror, squeezing Jin Guangayo’s hand.

“Your mother…”

Jin Guangyao blinks a few times, and forces himself to look at Lan Xichen. It appears to take him great effort. Nie Mingjue wonders if it is the topic that causes this, or if the blow to his head caused more damage than is visible.

“No, don’t worry. She was just actually educated. It didn’t mean the same thing in Yunping as it did in Lanling, but my father found her attractive enough for his other purposes, I suppose.” Jin Guangyao looks away again, his face growing harder. “Others were not as lucky. It is all too easy to get what you want, with enough money.”

“You should have told us,” Nie Mingjue says. “If you had come to us with proof…”

“My father is not so stupid that he would have left proof,” Jin Guangyao hisses between clenched teeth, still staring at the wall. “Even he would have had trouble justifying doing such a thing to augment his power. I only found out because I went to fetch him with Xue Yang at a brothel one day, and heard him discussing in detail his next… purchase. Xue Yang happened to be knowledgeable about certain euphemisms we were hearing, and thought it entertaining to explain to me. After this I started looking. It’s funny what you find, when you look for it. It wasn’t proof enough to openly attack him, not with my background. But it was enough to be sure. And then…”

Jin Guangyao chuckles darkly, his eyes finally meeting Nie Mingjue’s.

“I’ve got a sick sense of justice, but you knew that,” he says with unnerving calm. “Xue Yang was on board because he thinks that sort of thing is cheating. Torturing the dead and cutting them from their reincarnation doesn’t phase him, but he knows it could have been him, if he’d been born a girl. And so we did what had to be done. My father died the way he lived.”

He pauses a moment, taking in the expression on his lovers’ faces, from Lan Xichen’s horror at that confession to Nie Mingjue’s anger that once again, this took clever man made all the wrong choices.

“Nobody else would have dared to stand against him,” Jin Guangyao adds, smiling feverishly, his gaze on Nie Mingjue. “But I’ve always been one to do what others wouldn’t. Someone has to get their hands dirty, Da-ge. I’ve never minded doing it when my turn came. I wonder if you will, now that you know the truth? You’ve always been such a champion of justice, always telling others to be righteous. Let’s see what choice you make, now that justice isn’t such an easy thing to decide.”

#jin guangyao #nie mingjue #lan xichen #3zun #mdzs #not super happy with this one #I think jgy is probably pretty ooc here oops?#jau writes #today sucks I just needed to get something done #Anonymous

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

Text

Strange Creatures Brothers Be (aka WWX & NMJ sworn brothers) - part 1, part 2, part 3

“Not in a million years,” Wei Wuxian said flatly. “We could all reincarnate a thousand times over, and the answer will still be no.”

Lan Xichen seemed surprised by his refusal, or perhaps merely the vehemence of it. “Is there a reason you won’t consider it, Wei-gongzi? As you know, sworn brotherhood has many advantages for both sides –”

“No. You wanted to ask me: I answered. No.”

“It’s bad luck to have a brotherhood of four,” Nie Mingjue opined, offering up a face-saving reason when it was clear to anyone who had eyes that Wei Wuxian wasn’t the sort of person to be deterred by superstition, especially superstition around death and dying. He would be a very poor demonic cultivator if he were. “Besides, Xichen, even if we aren’t sworn brothers, we are friends who went through life and death together – that’s a bond in itself, a well-respected one.”

Friends of life and death was, in fact, a well-recognized bond between men. It just wasn’t as good as being sworn brothers.

Take that, Meng Yao.

…in reflection, Wei Wuxian will admit that his motives to reject Lan Xichen’s proposal were, perhaps, somewhat petty.

Lan Xichen clearly wanted to establish a close tie between them, to balance his old friendship with Nie Mingjue with his new closeness with Meng Yao, to help Nie Mingjue repair his relationship with his old deputy. Just as clearly, Nie Mingjue was halfway seduced by Lan Xichen’s arguments that being sworn brothers would give him the ability to act as a guide and check to Meng Yao, to help him the way he had previously (and still) helped Wei Wuxian.

And Meng Yao –

Meng Yao probably just wanted to leverage it for his own personal promotion, the rotten snake. Scheming fox.

Dog.

Wei Wuxian was aware that his hatred for the other man might be a little irrational.

After all, Meng Yao had explained, and oh so very earnestly, too, how he had had no choice but to take certain actions necessary to lead to Wen Ruohan’s demise: the bodies of the Nie cultivators he’d killed, the cruel words and vicious strikes he’d subjected Nie Mingjue to, even citing as necessary that Wen Ruohan be distracted by the joy of Nie Mingjue’s capture, which obviously he’d arranged himself by sending false information through Lan Xichen.

Three days and nights of torture, Wei Wuxian growled in his heart, no matter that Nie Mingjue was already shrugging it off – he really would do anything if it helped the war, and while that may have benefited Wei Wuxian once before, such blatant disregard for his own well-being was no longer acceptable now that they were sworn brothers themselves. Mark your words, da-ge; if you want me to care for myself, you’d better do the same!

And of course Lan Xichen took the dog’s side, arguing that he knew Meng Yao, that Nie Mingjue knew Meng Yao, that his motives were just even if the actions were questionable –

“What about his actions in Langya?” Nie Mingjue had shouted when Lan Xichen had first raised the idea to him. Wei Wuxian had overheard him from the next room over, still in bed and recovering the way Nie Mingjue should have been doing - but Wei Wuxian wasn’t a sect leader, with all the obligations and duties that came with it; Nie Mingjue had had to drag himself out of bed far too early to deal with it all, and now he had to deal with this, too. “The premeditated murder of his own superior…!”

Wei Wuxian hadn’t heard Lan Xichen’s defense to that, too low to be listened in on, but whatever he’d said, it had been convincing enough to get through Nie Mingjue’s defenses, to wiggle in through the cracks created by old affection –

That was the worst of it, in Wei Wuxian’s opinion.

Nie Mingjue liked Meng Yao.

He had liked him very much once, and still did: Wei Wuxian was painfully aware of that, even though Nie Mingjue had never talked to him about it. It had been obvious even before from the way Nie Mingjue had continued to search for him, clearly hoping to find him safe even as he claimed he wanted to kill him or break his legs, and it was even more obvious now, when the newly dubbed Lianfeng-zun was trying very hard to get back into his good graces.

The chance to help someone he had once cared for, someone he believed needed the help desperately, someone who had wandered off the road of righteousness but could still come back if only someone held out a hand in trust…yes, that was the right way to appeal to someone like Nie Mingjue.

Pity there was a roadblock there, name of Wei Wuxian.

Sometimes Wei Wuxian wondered if his hatred of Meng Yao was truly justified, the way he thought it was. Was the man truly as vile and conniving as he thought? Or was he just drinking vinegar, filled to the brim with petty jealousy that his adored big brother liked someone else too? Spying meant doing things you didn’t like, after all, and the reasons were so seductively convincing…

But Wei Wuxian was petty where Nie Mingjue was not: even if the motive for his refusal was just jealousy, the answer was still��no.

It was a good thing that Nie Mingjue was a good brother to those he already had first, willing to help others second: even though he’d been clearly tempted by Lan Xichen’s forthright words and Meng Yao’s slippery arguments, he insisted on consulting Wei Wuxian for his views, since he would be at minimum affected if not explicitly involved.

Wei Wuxian had never once doubted that when he refused, Nie Mingjue would back him entirely.

“Four isn’t always a bad number,” Meng Yao said, and his voice was as pleasant as a rippling brook, his entire demeanor friendly and harmless, as if he only think he wanted or could ever want was to be of service. “After all, with the four of us bound together, we would have a representative from each of the sects: Nie, Lan, Jiang, and Jin.”

“Jin? Has your father accepted you, then?” Lan Xichen asked, attention distracted, and he smiled broadly when Meng Yao inclined his head with a shy smile that Wei Wuxian desperately wanted to punch off his face. “A-Yao! That’s wonderful!”

“There will be a formal ceremony later this week, to which you are all invited,” Meng Yao said. “But he has already recognized me before his attendants, and has even given me the name ‘Jin Guangyao’.”

“Great name,” Wei Wuxian said. “So thoughtful of him to make you part of the older generation, rather than the inheriting one.”

Nie Mingjue somehow managed to make stamping on Wei Wuxian’s foot look as if he were merely shifting his weight from one side to the other. “Congratulations,” he said, and even managed to sound mostly sincere. “I wish you much happiness for having obtained the result you have been striving for.”

Mostly sincere.

Lan Xichen looked a little disappointed in them both.

(It wasn’t nearly as effective as Lan Wangji’s disappointed look, though, so Wei Wuxian considered himself immune.)

“Sadly, we’ve already promised Jiang Cheng that we’d go with him to the Lotus Pier for the second half of the week,” Wei Wuxian said, lying through his teeth with a smile. “With the Nightless City having finally fallen, I need to go light incense for Uncle Jiang and Madame Yu, and I invited da-ge. I need to introduce him, after all.”

There was a flicker of irritation on Meng Yao’s face, quickly suppressed. He was going to say something, probably a suggestion of rescheduling since the dead wouldn’t mind but phrased in a nice pretty neat way that would almost not sound like an insult to Wei Wuxian’s intelligence, when Nie Mingjue nodded.

“And after the Lotus Pier, we must return to the Unclean Realm,” he said. “For much the same purpose. Those who died at Wen Ruohan’s hand or by his order deserve to know that their deaths have been avenged.”

Whatever argument Meng Yao might have been able to muster died at once; Wei Wuixan gleefully hoped he would choke on it. He didn’t even mind the fact that he was now (apparently) committed to going to the Unclean Realm – if anything, that was a good thing, since it’d get him away from the work of rebuilding the Jiang sect.

Something he still hadn’t found a good excuse to avoid.

“I will of course write a letter to Sect Leader Jin congratulating you both on the event,” Nie Mingjue continued, because he was a better person than Wei Wuxian and far too kindly disposed towards Meng Yao. “It will formally recognize you as being my friend of life and death – you can have it read aloud, if that would help.”

If even Nie Mingjue could figure out that their presence was being requested to bolster Meng Yao’s political standing, Meng Yao had clearly been too obvious – he immediately demurred, insisting that he had only wanted to share the joy of the day with them, and only Lan Xichen pretended to believe him.

Maybe he did. More fool he, if so.

After they left, Nie Mingjue turned and leveled Wei Wuxian with a look.

Wei Wuxian grinned shamelessly back. “Next time, ask before announcing changes to your schedule?”

Nie Mingjue looked as though he was on the verge of rolling his eyes. “You’re my sworn brother; if you need me to lie for you, I will do so without requiring explanation,” he said dismissively, as if it was nothing, as if it was obvious, and that was why Wei Wuxian had used the Stygian Tiger Seal for this man. “What I want to know is – why do you dislike Meng Yao?”

Wei Wuxian crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Why are you asking me? You don’t like him, either.”

“I mistrust him,” Nie Mingjue corrected him. “I believe he’s gone down the wrong path – that he’s still focused on glory instead of righteousness, on what people can do for him rather than what he can do for them. Moreover, I’m concerned that the Jin sect will only aggravate those tendencies, and I hope to see him return instead to the man I know he can be. You, on the other hand, actively dislike him. Why?”

There were plenty of reasons, most of them childish – Wei Wuxian would rather die than say it was because Nie Mingjue liked him so much, he felt like Jiang Cheng just thinking it – but the first one, the foremost one, was simple.

“He shouldn’t have said what he said to you,” Wei Wuxian said. “In the Sun Palace. You shared your weakness with him, and he used it against you – it doesn’t matter if it was to keep up his identity or not, he shouldn’t have done it.”

Personally, Wei Wuxian suspected the answer was not. Even before he’d known who Meng Yao was and what he’d done before, he’d heard – as Nie Mingjue, injured, blinded by blood and deafened by pain, had not – the shades of real pleasure in Meng Yao’s voice as he’d mocked Nie Mingjue.

When later, he found that Meng Yao had castigated Nie Mingjue for not understanding him, portraying his lust for glory and power as if it were something virtuous, when he’d heard the full story of Langya, he’d become certain of his conclusion: Meng Yao might have needed to say such cruel things in order to keep his cover, but he’d enjoyed doing it, too.

He’d liked seeing Nie Mingjue at his feet.

Wei Wuxian would never trust someone like that. Not ever, even if Nie Mingjue eventually did.

Nie Mingjue’s harsh features relaxed a little, something almost like a smile curling his lips. “You remember I’m the older brother, right? You don’t need to be offended in my defense.”

Wei Wuxian sniffed and turned his head away, suddenly (belatedly) sympathetic to Jiang Cheng for all the times he’d made a similar argument: that he was older, that he was born a servant, that he wasn’t as important in the great scheme of things…

No wonder it had always sent Jiang Cheng straight into a fury every time without fail. It was, in fact, incredibly irritating to be told that you could only ever be the protected one, never the protector.

“Well, as you know, I’m not very orthodox,” he said lightly. “You’ll just have to put up with it, I’m afraid.”

Nie Mingjue huffed, clearly amused. “Very well. Now that you’ve implicated me, go tell Jiang Cheng about the invitation you issued on his behalf before someone catches you out on your lie.”

Wei Wuxian grinned and sauntered off – Jiang Cheng would be among those helping purify the Nightless City of all the fierce corpses there, same as always.

They’d finally gotten it to the point that it no longer felt like fighting an uncontrollable forest fire and more like a normal night-hunt. Jiang Cheng had volunteered for practically every shift that was available, using it as informal training for his new disciples, and he went up there with them more often than not.

He hadn’t yet asked Wei Wuxian to join him, though it was only a matter of time – Suibian had been rather pointedly left on Wei Wuxian’s bedside, and it was only the fact that he’d been injured in the attack on the Nightless City that had served as an excuse. An excuse that wouldn’t last much longer.

That was a later problem, though.

“Lighting incense to let them know we’ve avenged them?” Jiang Cheng said when Wei Wuxian informed him of the plan. “Yes, that’s a good idea. We should bring jiejie, too; she hasn’t had an opportunity to go back to the Lotus Pier at all since – since before, anyway. I’ll go pick her up from the Jin camp, if you’ll stay and organize the training shifts for the next few rounds of night-hunting…will you and Sect Leader Nie meet us there when you’re done here?”

Arranging shifts was little more than paperwork. Wei Wuxian could do that, and Nie Mingjue would certainly assist with anything else that might need to be done, if it came to that.

It was good to have a big brother.

“Sounds good to me,” he said with a grin. “Tell shijie I’m looking forward to seeing her.”

“More like eating her soup, you pig,” Jiang Cheng said, rolling his eyes. “Tell Sect Leader Nie that he’s in for a treat…you’ll be going to Qinghe after, you said? For how long?”

“Da-ge didn’t say,” Wei Wuxian said, temporizing. It was a really good excuse to get out of the Lotus Pier, actually. “And we’re going to be friends of life and death with Sect Leader Lan and that dog Meng Yao, though now he’s going to start going by Jin Guangyao; we may need to visit them, too, to solidify it. Though hopefully not.”

Hopefully yes.

“Well, don’t be away too long,” Jiang Cheng said. “I need your help back home. Besides, the Jins have already started talking about setting up some sort of celebration – a hunt at Phoenix Mountain, I think. You have to join us there.”

“Oh, I’ll be there,” Wei Wuxian said. A hunt at Phoenix Mountain – he’d wager Meng Yao would be involved in setting it up, and it’d be a shame to miss that. Besides, it’d be a good opportunity to see some of the people he hadn’t seen in a while, like Lan Wangji.

He wondered if Lan Wangji would be happier now that Wei Wuxian, who’d been scared straight by his close encounter with disaster at the Nightless City, had started practicing some of the Nie sect techniques designed to help temper resentful energy in their saber spirits.

It helped. He hoped Lan Wangji would find comfort in that – maybe even be proud of him.

“I’ll definitely be there.”

#mdzs #wei wuxian #lan xichen #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #jiang cheng #my fic #my fics #strange creatures brothers be

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torikengel · 4 years ago

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Thomas Hewitt x Reader (Part 5)

You were watching the sunset from the window; Thomas was nowhere to be found. You got used to the silence, so you jumped up a bit when you heard a female voice. “Good evenin’ darlin’, how are ya doin’?” Luda Mae asked as she stepped into the room. You turned around to look at her.

“Oh, I am a little bit bored, I guess, but otherwise I am fine.” You mumbled.

“I see, Thomas mentioned that he wants me to check your wounds.” She smiled at you and came even closer. You noticed she was holding a bottle of alcohol and bandages. She gently disinfected all your wounds on ankles, wrists, arm, and cheek. “It seems that everything is slowly healing, so don’t worry, m’dear. If anything hurts, just tell me.”

“Thank you, I am okay now… but do you mind me asking about Thomas?” your curiosity got the best out of you.

“Oh, dear, that’s a long story.” She sighed, “How ‘bout I bring some tea, and we have a talk?” she asked without giving you enough time to respond as she hurried downstairs. She looked troubled, and you wondered if it was impolite to ask her so suddenly. * She came back with two cups of tea and placed them on the nightstand. She also noticed the empty plate and glass from breakfast. “I am sorry, dear. I’ll take those to the kitchen later. We don’t want you to have a messy room.” She sat next to you on the bed.

“You know, I always wanted a daughter.” She chuckled before she started sipping the hot tea. After contemplating for a bit, you answered, “Me too…” You didn’t mean to be rude, but you couldn’t help but feel saddened by the fact that you will never have a family of your own. However, Luda lightened up, “I always dreamed of being a grandma too.” You could feel the heat moving to your cheeks as you turned completely red at what Luda was instigating. “Isn’t it- “you couldn’t finish the sentence, because you didn’t want to upset her.

“You are absolutely right, darling, it’s still a bit early to be talking about this. First, Uncle Charlie has to give you his blessing.” She smiled and continued sipping the tea. Well, the blessing of that pervert really wasn’t what you meant by that. But this might be your opportunity to get to know this Hewitt family a bit more. You remembered Hoyt screaming at Thomas using both names and surname the other day. “So, Luda, before thinking about grandchildren, maybe you could tell me a bit more about your son.” You smiled at her and took your cup of tea.

“Adopted son.” She clarified with a small frown on her face. “I found him when he was just a baby, his mother didn’t want him, because he was, well, is different.” She explained as her hands started shaking. She decided to put the cup back on the table to stop it from spilling.

“I am so sorry, that must’ve been really hard for you…” you placed your hand on her knee to show sympathy.

“It was hard, and it still is challenging for me; however, you can’t even imagine what my poor boy went through.” Her eyes were glassy as she looked at you. There was so much motherly care and pain in them.

“Since he was just a small innocent kid, everyone bullied him. So much that he had to stop attending school, it was very hurtful for all of us, but especially for ma Tommy.” She paused for a few seconds before she was able to continue. “Please understand that it ain’t easy to talk about as you ain’t our kin. But ma boy seems to enjoy your company, and I want the best for him.”

“Why me?” you asked as she grabbed your free hand. “Darlin’, there’s somethin’ different about you. I can tell you, don’t see Tommy as a monster. Even he believes that he’s one, so he never imagined someone would think otherwise, even I couldn’t help him after what happened.” Tears formed in her eyes, and her grip on your hand tightened. “What was it? Mrs. Luda, please tell me.” You felt your heart sink at her words. No wonder you could see how pained Thomas’s eyes were when you crawled away from him this morning in fear.

She smiled with tears in her eyes. “If you’re goin’ to stay, please call me Luda, or ma if ya feel like it.” She let you go and wiped her cheeks. “When they closed the meat factory, our family lost everything… Thomas killed, but it wasn’t his fault… they abused him until he snapped. Charlie got rid of the sheriff, and no one else was here to stop him because everyone moved out of this town. But it’s our birthplace, so we ain’t leavin’. It’s important to remember where you come from, m’dear.”

“Charlie?” you asked, very confused. “Thomas’s uncle Charlie, he wants us to call him Sheriff Hoyt, he came up with the idea of eatin’ this kind of meat. Before he was a soldier, he’s been through a lot too.” Luda confessed.

You frowned a bit, thinking about their current lifestyle. You couldn’t help but feel that Hoyt had a terrible influence on this family. * After the conversation with Luda, you felt a bit closer to Thomas. You had to remind yourself that you were kidnapped because you had the urge to feel sorry for him and his family more than you should.

However, you promised Luda that you would be nice to Thomas as you clung to the hope of staying alive if you comply. Even though you never felt like being mad at him or hurting him. You primarily blamed yourself and Hoyt for your misfortune. * It was already dark outside when you heard loud footsteps echoing in the hallway. “Thomas, you are back!” you turned away from the window and smiled at the tall man standing in the doorway.

Thomas, surprised by your reaction, gasped. He looked unsure as he was reminded of Hoyt’s blabbering when he came to lecture him in the basement. Thomas just needed to think, but that man never let him have time for himself. He was too cruel to let him be content for once, and just annoyed him by talking shit about how you would stab him when you get the chance.

“Tommy… come here, you look tired.” you reached out your bandaged arms to him. Such a sweet voice you had, Thomas thought for himself. The way you used his nickname gave him goosebumps.

He hastily approached you, seemingly unsure of his actions. You stood up and looked up in his eyes. He was so tall and big compared to you. Surely, he could crush you with one hand if he wanted. You knew he couldn’t tell you how he felt, so you tried to inspect his eyes for any useful information. You noticed how stiff he was, so you gently pushed him onto the bed. He complied. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to move him at all.

“May I?” you touched his shoulder as you sat behind him. He nodded, his heart racing when he felt your warmth. You slowly started rubbing his shoulders and back, giving him a massage. “I bet you don’t have much time to rest… you are so tense.” You whispered in his ear. Thomas grunted as you increased the pressure. He was over the moon; never in his life, he imagined that a beautiful girl like y/n would touch him and care for him.

“Thomas, I don’t blame you for anything…” you let your hands slide on his waist and hugged him from behind. “You don’t deserve being treated like shit.” You rested your head on his back. You needed to gain his trust to be able to get out of your current position. You weren’t sure if your acting skills were that good or if you were just honest about your feelings.

Unable to move a muscle, Thomas let out a sad groan. He couldn’t explain the way you made him feel. You gave him such tender moments amid his rough life. He felt like crying when he heard your kind words.

The tingling that lingered on his skin wherever you touched him.

When you realized you’ve been already hugging him for a few minutes, you pulled away. “I am sorry if I overstepped this morning. It just felt right at that moment.”

Thomas just shook his head; he didn’t understand why you bothered apologizing for making him feel good about himself.

You nervously bit your lip.

Thomas’s heart raced as he finally gained the courage to turn to you and look at your perfect face.

Your lips curved into a gentle smile. “I bet you are really handsome under that mask…” you tenderly caressed his cheek. He pulled away a bit, but when you didn’t try to take his mask off, he leaned back towards you and let you explore every crevice of it.

You were creeped out by the fact that this face once belonged to another man, but you shook off that feeling by perceiving it as a piece of art. Thomas searched for any sign that you were mocking him when you called him handsome, but he couldn’t find it in your honest expression as you ran your fingers through his hair.

“Don’t worry about it. You can show me when you are ready.” You nervously looked down and let your hands fall in your lap. You weren’t scared of this man, he was your sanctuary, your wait out. You knew you had to behave yourself. However, the voice in the back of your mind made you unsure of your plan. After hearing about his past, you were yet another person who would stab him in the back, which didn’t make you feel good about yourself.

“Dinner’s ready!” came from downstairs as Luda cheerfully announced.

Thomas took out the key to your cuff, and when your leg was free, he rose to his full height and offered you his hand. You sheepishly smiled as you let him help you stand up and lead you to the dining room.

a/n: Thank you all so much for reading aliking my story <3 It makes me super motivated to keep writing every day.

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saladejin · 4 years ago

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Admire | 05

Seokjin x Fem!Reader | arranged marriage!au, husband!Seokjin | Strangers to lovers, angst, self discovery, loneliness in luxury, touch starvation (eventual smut), eventual domestic fluff

Summary: You’d never needed anyone else. Growing up alone, living alone, existing alone. It all came naturally and effortlessly, quite like breathing. That was until your somewhat distant parents finally decided it was time to make good on a promise. One they’d made before you were even born.

Warnings: Some depressing and painful talk but nothing crazy, a few fluffy and domestic-ish moments for u all, and oh ... there’s only one bed? O_o

Word Count: 3.8k

A/N: This is so different from what it used to be, wow. I was out here changing entire paragraphs lol, but anyway sorry if there are any mistakes! Let me know your thoughts at the end :)

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The road fell away in front of you as you scrolled mindlessly on your phone. After a round of brusque insistence on his behalf, you'd finally given in and let Seokjin convince you into relinquishing the driver's seat after a couple of hours on the road. You made sure to grumble in protest before plonking yourself down on the passenger side, him brushing you off easily.

You’d put the memory of the thoughtless kiss to the back of your mind, hoping that he’d forgotten just as swiftly. You were here to enjoy your trip, not to overthink about what had happened in the past. Thinking back on the past 24 hours, you sighed in defeat.

Let’s hope we don’t crash.

*hours earlier*

You both arrived at the meeting place after countless attempts of stuttering out the most confusing directions to the driver. At this point, you almost wanted to pass out and it was still relatively early.

Managing to greet all your aunties, uncles, and cousins as a couple of lovebirds came effortlessly enough. It was nothing but a way of life for you and Seokjin these days.

“(Y/n) you’ve grown so much. Oh, I’m going to cry!”

You tried to calm one of your more eccentric aunties while your husband stood awkwardly to the side, looking around at the gathered group of people in contemplation. Dressed casually again, he hadn’t been prepared for the sheer number of everyday individuals preparing to depart. All beside a line of large black and white motorhomes which were currently fuelling up under the shade of nearby woodland.

Once the two of you finally managed to break away from the introductions and reunions, you let out a sigh of relief. You were finally alone, sinking into the refurbished leather seats of the vehicle to regain your composure. Dealing with a horde of chipper relatives can deplete one’s energy like a starved leech if it continues for too long.

“Sorry, they’re just excited.” You laughed airily, leaning forward to switch on the air conditioner. The temperature outside was already heating up from the unforgiving sun, and you were going to positively drown in sweat if you didn’t get some cold air blasting on you lickety-split.

“They’re…lively. But it’s okay, I signed up for it anyway,” the tall man replied with a smirk of his own. He seemed amused at how quickly you'd been swamped, but he also seemed to notice how happy you were at receiving all the attention.

“The first one will probably leave soon. I’ll start driving and then if you want you can switch with me later. We won’t make it to the first stop today, but it’ll most likely end up being late tomorrow morning,” you explained while readying yourself at the wheel of the vehicle. Seokjin hummed in acknowledgement and craned his long neck backwards to ensure your bags were all safe a secure.

You admired how comfortable he looked in his simple travelling clothes. How he could pull off such a simple but effective appearance that highlighted his handsome features, such as his dusky brown eyes and midnight coloured locks of hair - hair that had grown out and gotten nicely longer, you might add - was a complete and utter mystery to you.

“By the way, we don’t have to put on as much of an act here with these people,” you began on a weirdly sombre note, trying not to look over at him for a reaction. “The whole relationship thing doesn’t matter to them as much. They won’t get suspicious or question us, so don’t stress too much about going all out, alright?”

“Okay,” came his simple reply, void of much emotion.

You didn’t know why you expected anything else, but a small part of you longed to continue pretending. You wanted to be with him, wanted to feel his hands on your skin again. It was almost too much for you to handle. You couldn’t imagine anyone else ever feeling so conflicted about their own lover, not to mention having hands on your arms of all places.

Absurd. Right?

Suddenly, the motorhome in front of you began rolling forward and you pressed down slowly on the gas pedal to follow suit. Seokjin twisted his broad shoulders back around to face the front, blinking harshly as the sunlight shone through the windscreen and hit him forcefully in the face.

Your lips quirked up in an amused smirk. What a goof.

*present*

Your eyes drooped with a heavy sleepiness as Seokjin finally pulled the truck into the site where everyone would be camping. The drive had been quite lengthy, but you’d been swapping every few hours or so until you’d become too tired to go on. Being the husband-material he was, Seokjin gladly took the burden of getting you both through the rest of the way.

“Hey wake up, everyone’s getting out for some reason.”

You blinked the sleep out of your eyes and groaned, feeling slightly more energised from your nap but still groggy. You slowly made your way down the steps and outside into the humid air, nostalgic memories finally flowing into your mind as you watched the members of your family collecting around several bright vans.

“Oh, this is the food truck stop,” you rasped out in a matter-of-factly tone, causing Seokjin to eye you in confusion. It was luckily still light enough to catch his dumbfounded expression.

“There are food trucks in this parkland area, so we can go and buy some hot-dogs or something if we want. It’s always the first dinner stop,” you tried to explain mid-yawn. The sky was blending into darkness as the sun began to set below the horizon.

“You’re so sleepy.” Seokjin snorted lowly, almost chuckling when you looked up at him through glaring watery eyes from the yawn, as if it weren’t obvious enough. He looked fairly relaxed, and you gently smiled at the sight of his beautiful eyes lighting up with wonder at the view of the campsite around him.

It was enthralling, how fascinated he was with absolutely everything. Even though the red cap sitting atop his black mop of hair cast a shadow over his face, it was still easy to spot just how eager he was to just enjoy life normally for once. To be a commoner and forget about all the pressed suits he had hanging up at home, the bucket loads of cash sitting in his bank account, the disapproving parents.

Now was the time he could finally taste the sweetness of freedom.

All of a sudden, the tall man left a tap on your shoulder and leaned in close once you faced him curiously. The stuffy fog of sleep was immediately chased away from your whirring mind, and you widened your eyes in shock when one of his hands pulled you closer, indicating what he wanted you to do with a simple touch.

Is he initiating a kiss, for once?

You reacted almost instantly to his subtle body language, everything coming naturally as you stepped in closer and raised your lips to peck his plump ones sweetly. Your whole body was buzzing with eruptions of joy, heat and surprise at the impulse; hands curling into his shirt so that you could feel the warmth of his body even more…for just a little bit longer. It was so rare for him to be bold like this.

For a single second, you forgot what your relationship truly was and felt - for the first time - what it was like to pour your heart into loving another person.

An older man cackled with his friend as they shared a beer together. “My, you young ones are just so passionate, aren’t you?” You swept some hair back behind your ear and ducked your head to hide the embarrassed flush. Or maybe you were trying to hide the stupid smile sitting on your face.

“I’ll get some food for us,” Seokjin said after another few moments of observing the place. You inwardly gaped at him as he moved towards one of the colourful food trucks, wondering if he was going to actually cover you for food.

What's gotten into him? Maybe it’s just because he’s used to putting on a performance, and that it’s such a different setting on top of that.

You shook your head to rid yourself of the fluffy feelings and jogged up to where your dark-haired partner was lining up for hot dogs.

“Do you want me to give you some cash for mine?” you asked hesitantly, gaze imploring for his attention again.

“No, go find a table to sit at,” he murmured, flicking his head upwards to point out a group of empty wooden tables nearby. You were pleasantly surprised at his motive and couldn’t help the way your jaw went slightly slack, simply stunned. Eventually, you complied and headed over towards the seats.

He'd looked so refreshed and so pleased with himself. Even with the weariness brought on by the long and tiresome journey.

The whole area was illuminated by a few atmospheric park lamps, but everyone knew that it would soon grow too dark to stay outside for much longer. Plus, you’d all need a good night’s sleep if you were going to make it to your stop tomorrow. You almost groaned again at the thought of driving so early.

“Here, I forgot to ask what drink you wanted, but you usually like bubbly stuff so I got a soft drink.”

Bit different from champagne, you surmised, but it was cute that he thought like that.

Seokjin placed a can next to where your arm was resting on the tabletop. Then, he held out a delicious looking hot dog sprinkled with fried onion rings, and you couldn’t stop the way your stomach grumbled and growled at the sight.

“I’m a starved woman, thank you.’’

He sat down and glanced around at the groups of people chatting, the strange but somehow never misplaced glimmer of interest never faltering in his eyes. On the other hand, you essentially inhaled the meal in front of you despite how weird it felt to ingest such cheap and fattening food. After months of high-class dining, it was more peculiar than one would think. Even something as unfamiliar as eating such a messy meal didn’t bother either one of you after the day you'd had.

“So, you don’t go around and talk to them much?” Seokjin questioned in a light tone of voice, picking his long and slightly curved fingers clean of any crumbs. The man was picturesque in how calm and concentrated he was. You decided that you liked that look of determination on him, even if it was for something so insignificant.

“I do, but I’m not really in the mood right now.” You sighed, resting your face into your palm so that you could ease the tension in your sore neck. You cast your gaze downwards and hoped that you wouldn’t regret your next words.

“Plus, I kind of want to spend most of my time on this trip with you.”

His eyes stared into yours from across the table, unblinking as he was thrown into one of his strange thoughtful silences.

You rushed to elaborate in a panic. “I-I … well I’ve done this trip many times and I thought it’d be nice to get to know each other a little bit more. We haven’t really asked many questions during the past few months, and I already feel so peaceful travelling together that I thought it’d be cool to just spend some time away from all the parties and shit to really relax and talk, you know?”

Cool? Did I really just say it'd be cool if we talked? Fuck you (Y/n).

You took a rickety breath and clasped both your hands together to try and hide your flustered appearance. With pursed lips and a slight cringe from the ranting accompanying your nerves, you searched his gaze with your own to try your best at reading him.

“Yeah, I know. It would make everything easier if we knew more about each other, so I don’t have to make up more lies,” he eventually spoke after clearing his throat quietly.

You thought he would’ve been more uncomfortable, or rather less than willing to take you up on the suggestion, but you were surprised yet again at his almost enthusiastic response. Was he finally letting you see past the high and sturdy walls he’d built up at the beginning of your relationship? If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he was coming out of his shell a little as well, but then again it wasn’t as if you knew enough to make that observation in any kind of confidence.

Maybe he's always been more open like this to people he was close with, and you were only just beginning to see this side. Even if that was the case, it made you happy to think that he was starting to trust you enough to change the way he acted. You were content enough to be considered as something close to a friend, at least.

“It’s late. We should head in,” his familiar voice snapped you out of your rampant thoughts, causing your feelings of bewilderment to skyrocket.

I need to keep my shit together!

“Yeah, sorry for spacing out.” You laughed, trying to shrug off the mortification at failing to keep your wits about you. Maybe if he stopped being so oddly charming with his perfect lips and enigmatic eyes, you’d be able to focus a little better.

You made your way to the last motorhome in the line. Seokjin had parked it a little ways from the others, almost as if he’d sensed your need for privacy and solitude. You were somewhat introverted at the best of times, so after a whole day of socialising you really wanted nothing more than to retreat back to your own little space to recuperate.

Had he figured that out, or was it just a lucky guess? Maybe he was just the same…

You followed him into the portable house and weaved yourself around the table and sofa lounges, eventually coming to stop by the comfy looking queen bed at the very back. This was where things would get weird again. You’d never shared a bed before tonight, and the couches weren’t large enough to allow anyone space to sleep either.

“Ah, I guess we don’t have a choice. You don’t mind, do you?” you remarked reluctantly, knowing that you were more than happy to have company in your bed, but he might not feel the same.

“Well what else can I do?” He shrugged with indifference. “I would’ve taken the couch if I could’ve already.”

“Right, sorry I didn’t tell you before we left.”

You sighed, more embarrassment clouding your vision as you hurriedly searched the inside of your suitcase for a flimsy shirt. It was way too hot during the summertime to wear a full set of pyjamas, so you hoped Seokjin wouldn’t feel even more uncomfortable by your choice of clothing.

Better than being naked.

You shuddered with heat at the thought but pushed it all away quickly. This was already bad enough as it was.

“It’s fine, I honestly don’t mind if you don’t,” he grunted while beginning to unbutton his shirt. You swallowed thickly at the sight of his broad chest and collarbone slowly getting revealed the lower he went. That, paired with the way his hair had become messy and rugged after driving and running his hands through it, was a dangerous combination you were enjoying way too much.

“Well, I don’t. Never did." You smiled nervously before moving to the bathroom to get changed.

You knew that sharing a bed with him after so many months was never going to be an easy feat. It was awkward at best, with you trying your best to ignore the thoughts of him being so close - thanks to your fear of doing something unpredictable - and him having no trouble forgetting you were there altogether. It was nothing for him. Somehow, he could just sleep the night away and not think about the presence of other people constantly.

The sound of soft breathing, the occasional movement of a foot or arm, the slight rise of the duvet with every deep inhale, or even the dreamy mumbling slipping past lips every now and again. You envied the peaceful way he drifted off, knowing that living with siblings most likely allowed him to factor these things right out.

For you, they were things that kept your eyes wide open, mind running a million miles a minute.

The next morning brought you to the first town on the itinerary. The sleepless night faded away as you parked the large vehicle next to the others, legs already bouncing with excitement at the thought of finally visiting some of your old childhood pastimes.

You all spent the day traipsing through the streets while some of the older family members greeted the shopkeepers and residents heartily. You could feel your heart bursting at the sight of Seokjin looking around the place with wide eyes, obvious amazement lighting up his face as he regarded the interactions of those around him. There was a growing fondness there you never thought you’d see.

One parkland picnic later, and the two of you found yourselves mingling with the crowd. You surprisingly found it easy to talk about your married life together. Even though he was quiet and unsure of how to act, everyone loved Seokjin and found great amusement in teasing and joking around with him. Many times you had to bite your tongue to hold back a snort of laughter. The old uncles and aunties never did hold back their rowdy banter.

“I remember when I was first married, son,” your eldest cousin said and clapped a hand firmly onto Seokjin’s shoulder, “It’s always magical at first, but soon you’ll want to chew your own ear off!”

You all laughed at his sardonic humour. Everyone, even the hopeless romantics, knew that marriage was never supposed to be perfect.

“It can’t be magical the whole time?” Seokjin asked thoughtfully, the tone of his voice light-hearted but the nature of the question way too innocent for your boisterous family to bypass.

Okay, maybe not everyone knew.

You almost choked on your sandwich when the people around you burst into loud laughter, feeling sorry for your husband. He just didn’t know the group of people he was dealing with yet.

The older men clinked their beers together. “Look at this guy, he wants a life-long honeymoon phase!”

“Nah, I think he’s looking for an early grave instead.”

You furrowed your brows and yelled through a smile, “Hey! What do you take me for, a monster?”

They exchanged wide-eyed looks and chuckled again before waving you off and tousling your hair affectionately.

“Be careful or I’ll tell Aunty what you said.” You giggled, trying to fix your messy tresses.

The loud and harmless jesting continued amongst the rest of the group while you turned to see how Seokjin was going with his food. A smile curved your lips again when you spotted the slight crinkle appearing at the corners of his eyes. He was amused, and the way the beaming sunlight streamed down through the tree branches to light up his grinning face was breathtakingly perfect.

His eyes shifted to meet yours suddenly, and you were glad it didn’t cause his expression to change. His gaze, irrevocably beautiful, was so warm and lively. If you could, you would want to see him this happy for the rest of his life.

“Son,” he mouthed quietly after shifting his gaze away from your awestruck scrutiny, “I’m still waiting for my own father to call me that.”

A ruthless stab to your chest. Not only from his words, but rather the lack of emotion he expressed while speaking them.

You didn’t know the kind of relationships he’d had, or how he’d lived his life so far, but trying to find out was like trying to connect with a brick wall. This simple statement about his father had you swallowing back sympathy, and it was upsetting to think that you’d never even once thought to ask him about it.

You wanted – no, you needed him to open up to you.

Quickly sifting through one of the cute picnic baskets led you to find a bundle of sweet packaged snacks. You would do anything to wipe that distantly forlorn look off his face, and universal law stated that candy was sure-fire way to lift anyone’s spirits. You personally loved them, but it was tough to determine if his tastes would match.

“Want a jelly?”

“Wait, you mean-” he started, but cut himself off when you finally fished out a specific packet and let out a small ‘ah!’ of triumph. His eyes shone with recognition, and you became confused at his unexpected reaction.

“I haven’t had these since I was young. They were my favourite, but my mother wanted us to stop eating too many sugary things…” Seokjin revealed, his lips pulling up into a smirk as he recalled his childhood memories.

“Well, you’re on your own now, and I’m not going to stop you. So here.” You chuckled and waited until he’d grabbed a handful of jellies before popping one into your own mouth.

Seokjin shook his head with a huff. He obviously found it stupid how he’d followed the strict rules of his parents for so long, not allowing himself to rebel in the slightest. It had never been an option before, but now here he was – living in a motorhome, eating hot dogs and jellies, basically hitchhiking through old weary towns rather than having his head down working for a big-time business firm.

You watched his eyes trail over you again, almost picking up his phantom of a voice saying, “So this is the life I could have lived.”

It brought a smile to your face as you thought about the way his gaze had lit up and drank everything in with such fervour. His cold and masquerade-like world was changing, he was seeing life from a different perspective, and knowing that you’d played a part in that brought you immense joy.

It was a warm glow of happiness you’d never felt or known before.

Night fell once more. Everyone filtered away to their beds, eyes drooping and bellies full of the various baked goods of the town. It had been an amazing day, and you knew you couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to help Seokjin emerge from his shell.

He seemed to be enjoying the trip for the exact same reasons you always had. Except now, you had another.

#seokjin x reader #btsghostie #seokjin scenarios #seokjin smut #seokjin imagines #seokjin series #jin smut #seokjin angst #seokjin fluff #arranged marriage au #husband jin #bts jin #bts smut #jin angst #admire #saladejin

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