#I cannot express exactly how much Anger is a Gift is special to me

[piratefalls]

Top three queer books for sleepover Saturday? xoxo MJ/kiwiana-writes

MJ you have no idea the can of worms you've opened because my initial response was "but what genre" so i'm running with it because books are my most favorite topic.

adult

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

Conventionally Yours by Annabeth Albert

special mention: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (included because it's obvious, but also because it led me to reading more queer books and landed in my lap exactly when needed it)

young adult

Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli (i also enjoyed the movie adaptation)

Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro (not queer MC, but still queer rep & author is queer)

memoir

Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies by Michael Ausiello

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

let's do sleepover saturday!

[stardewsnail]

Can you write head cannons of how the bachelors would react when jealous? Perhaps they heard their farmer was giving gifts to other bachelors. Can be NSFW. K love you byeee

This is a bit inconsistent because of how familiar I am with them/how interesting I thought their reactions would be–some of these are head canons and some of them are drabbles. Somewhere along the way I realized I switched from they/them pronouns to she/her so I guess this is about a fem farmer now lol–hope you enjoy! 

Bachelors get jealous 

MINORS DNI; cw: sexual activity, jealousy, sad boi hours

Shane 

- very different if he’s with the farmer or not bc I feel like he’s used to being envious of others 

- When he sees the farmer bringing Elliot a bottle of wine or Sam a cactus fruit he feels like he has no valid reason to be jealous. He’s just embarrassed and ashamed of his own feelings.  

- Like, obviously the pretty, successful, kind farmer isn’t going to be interested in him? He’s working at the Joja mart and drinking away his money—he’s barely keeping it together and he comes with a kid. Not exactly the biggest catch

- After the cliffs he had come to terms with his crush and is just sort of leaving it because he cannot imagine her reciprocating his growing feelings. That’s fine, he loves having her in his life regardless. He doesn’t have the expectation that they’ll ever return his feelings and that’s okay. He gets a therapist and focuses on getting better for himself and the others in his life

But if they’re together it’s different

- He retreats into himself and has a bit of a mental spiral (ranging from “it was bound to happen eventually” to “oh god our chickens are going to come from a broken home”) 

- Fortunately he has a therapist to work through things with so he’s able to actually express himself to the farmer in a healthy way and receive the emotional validation that the farmer does in fact love them and their chickens will grow up with parents who love each other 

- He’ll pull her onto his lap or against his chest and if the vibe is right the cuddling might turn into a make out session which might get handsy—Shane is extra needy after all this, lingering through the motions. After sex he stays inside her for a minute, just sharing breath and being as close as possible

- Shane alternates being big and little spoon don’t @ me 

I feel like Shane having a therapist pulls a lot of the “drama” out of him being jealous because he’s so focused on developing healthier coping strategies so him talking about his feelings directly is a big step!

...

Sebastian 

Pre relationship

“Motherfucker-!” Sebastian snarled, watching his avatar die yet again. In his headset Sam groaned, quickly meeting a similar fate. Abigail, now left alone, didn’t fare much better. 

“Okay, it’s 4, I’m calling…” A yawn cut through Sam’s words, “….it.” 

Sebastian winced, glancing at the clock, “Damn—yeah. Night, guys.” It was stupid late. He was going to regret this tomorrow. No, actually, he was already regretting it. Now he was just pissed at the game and at—he shoved that thought down, feeling heat rise to his face. He dropped heavily onto the bed, arm thrown over his eyes. His head hurt. 

And he really didn’t want to deal with the bolt of anger that shocked him when he saw Alex throw his arm around the farmer. Her face was lit up with laughter as they shared some joke—the jock had only touched her for a moment and sure, it might not actually mean anything—but he was jealous. And even a solid nine hours of league had done nothing to subdue the feeling that boiled in his chest. It wasn’t even like the farmer didn’t talk to him either—and while she brought everyone little gifts, he’d had the thought that maybe his were special. A foolish, hopeful thought. Alex was outgoing, athletic, and only still lived at home to care for his grandparents. Sebastian was a twenty-four year old college dropout living in his mom’s basement filling his time with gaming. God, he really was a loser. Fortunately he was unconscious before he really had to deal with that. 

… 

Knock, knock, knock

Sebastian groaned, burrowing farther under his pillow. His mom always woke him up when she made breakfast even if he wasn’t actually required to get up. Maybe later he could ask her what she knew about the farmer. He was pretty sure she was still working on upgrading their coop anyway. It wouldn’t be an odd question. He rolled over, trying to relax back down into sleep. 

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when the second knock sounded. If he ignored it, chances are his mom would leave him be. But then she knocked again, a little harder this time. He swore under his breath as he hauled himself out of bed, not bothering to hit the lights before throwing open the door with more force than strictly necessary. 

The farmer’s hand was still raised to knock and she froze, looking up at him with raised eyebrows. 

Sebastian’s entire brain blue-screened. It crashed. It attempted to restart. It failed. It tried again but all that came up was how he must look—an old band t-shirt, unbrushed hair, stubbled chin, frog-print boxers—holy shit he wasn’t even wearing pants.  

“Good morning!” She said, cheeks pink. It certainly wasn’t morning, that much he knew.  Sebastian wished the floor would swallow him right then and there. “Sam said you guys were up late playing games so I brought you this,” she held up the coffee in her other hand, “Robin said I was fine to come down, I didn’t think you’d be asleep, sorry—“ 

“I needed to get up anyway,” he said, a bit too fast. He ran his hand over his hair, trying to judge its state and was quickly dismayed. Fuck, she was pretty. Great impression Sebastian. Great job. 

“Thank you,” he added, finally accepting the warm paper cup. 

“I started growing coffee beans a while ago,” she continued, fidgeting and definitely noticing his lack of pants, “This is the first of it. Let me know how it is, I’m still experimenting with roasting.”

“Oh wow,” he took a sip realizing not only was the coffee delightful, she’d also added cream and just a touch of sugar–exactly how he took it, “This is really good. Thank you.” 

She lit up, “Oh good! I was hoping you’d like it.” She was hoping he’d like it? Him specifically? The caffeine hadn’t hit him yet, but the taste of coffee still got his brain moving. He noticed the fishing pole sticking out of her pack.

“Are you headed to the lake?” he asked, before he could really think it through.

“Yeah–I wanted to do some fishing,” she rocked on her feet, “I’ll let you get back to it–”

Shit, that hadn’t been his intent.

“D’you want company?” he cut her off, flushing when she just looked up at him with a smile.

“That would be really nice–you can tell me about your game. It sounded fun but I didn’t quite understand when Sam was talking about it.” 

“Great,” he said, “I’ll uh…meet you out there?” He still wasn’t wearing pants.

 Dating 

Sebastian trusted his girlfriend. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that seeing her smile and shyly give Elliot a bottle of her mead had shaken the dust off his old companion, jealousy, and now he didn’t know what to do with the itch in his skin.

He’d spent the day working on his bike, music blasting, a scowl etched on his face. At some point Demetrius had come out to say something, but a glance at Sebastian’s face had him simply turning tail back to the house. 

It was better he got it all out of his system before he met up with the farmer at the saloon. 

Some time and a hot shower later he was entering the saloon, wondering if she had beat him there–and she had. 

And Elliot was there, fawning over the farmer who had a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles as the writer told some dramatic story, talking with animated hands. 

He was across the bar in a second, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her against his side. The lazy grin he gave Elliot was more a challenge than anything–he didn’t know where this sudden boldness was coming from–Elliot didn’t seem like the type to pull something but there was a primal need to mark his territory. The farmer was his.  

She flashed him a grin, her hand coming to rest in his back pocket, and finished what she was saying. 

“Hey, babe,” she said, pushing to her toes to press a quick kiss to his lips, “I got here early–want to get in some practice before Sam and Abby show up?”

“Need a warm up?” he teased, “Think that will help you beat me?”

“One of these days,” she bumped his hip with her own, “I’m gonna win. Talk to you later, Elliot!” she added. Elliot said something in response before slinking back to where Leah was sitting, watching as if this was her very own reality TV show.

...

Harvey

Harvey wasn’t jealous. The farmer was just a friend–she was kind and generous and liked giving gifts! Most mornings she popped by the clinic to bring him a coffee and chat for a few minutes between appointments. 

It was only natural for her to prefer someone less devoted to their work, younger and more aligned with the pop culture she was familiar with. Sam was a ray of sunshine, and seeing him light up when the farmer had offered him a cactus fruit had sent a spike of something that was not jealousy through his chest. 

He spends all his free time for the next few days pouring over his model planes, completing two kits in record time. Between that and the kids in town catching something nasty and viral, he hadn’t even seen her in a week. Which was fine. 

He hadn’t anticipated her to be waiting right outside the door of the clinic, swinging it open as soon as the lock turned. If he had been any slower, she probably would have hit him with it. Her eyes were piercing as she held out the coffee, a small frown on her face.

“Have you been avoiding me?” her words were blunt and heat rose to his face, hands raised as if that would be enough to convince her of his words. 

“No–no, I just–well–” he swallowed, looking anywhere but her face, “You just seemed busy and like you were spending time with Sam and–” She was giving him this small smile that had his stomach turn to jelly, and now he didn’t know what to do with his hands. She held out the coffee. 

“Want to meet up at the saloon later?”

“Yes!” His reply might have been a bit eager,  but he didn’t care because her face simply lit up. 

“Great, it’s a date.” and then she turned out the door, going on her merry way before he could even process her words. 

...

Alex

- to be honest before they’re dating I think he would just AGGRESSIVELY do push ups where the farmer could see 

- or he’ll make a comment about how hot Haley is looking to the farmer

- Either way he tells Haley about “how well he handled it” and she is so, so tired. 

Alex doesn’t care that the farmer went all the way into the mines to find that special rock for Sebastian. It wasn’t even Sebastian’s birthday or anything, she was just nice and he was not bothered. 

He wasn’t bothered when he was doing push-ups.

He wasn’t bothered when he was squating. 

He wasn’t even bothered while doing his deadlifts. 

And while he showered, he totally wasn’t thinking about how she looked so pleased when she showed him the gem, mentioning that it was Sebastian’s favorite.

Now they were sitting on her bed, watching some movie that he couldn’t quite parse over his churning thoughts. He’d been inching closer and closer without realizing, and now he shifted to rest his head in her lap watching her instead of the movie. 

Immediately her hands found their way to stroke through his hair. She smoothed his brow, and he realized he’d been frowning. 

“What’s up?” she asked, ever perceptive. 

“Nothing,” he replied reflexively, and she paused the movie, waiting for him to continue.

“You…like me, right?” His voice was quiet, and if it wasn’t her he would be too embarrassed to ask such a vulnerable question. 

“I love you, actually.” She said it so casually he took a second to process the confession. Her smile was soft. 

Never one for words over actions, he sat up, closing the distance between them with a kiss.

...

Sam 

- I feel like Sam would try to cover any jealousy with a smile and positive attitude but something about the farmer “doting” on Alex and making him baked salmon really bothered him 

- He asks Shane for advice because that’s his work dad/adult and Shane just looks up at the security camera like it’s the office but does try to give advice because he’s fond of the kid 

- His advice is literally just for Sam to make a move because so help him god if he has to head about the farmers eyes one more time 

...

Elliot 

- He’s in denial that he’s jealous 

- I feel like Elliot’s solution to every emotional problem is writing

- He would probably end up projecting it onto his characters writing a scene where somebody is jealous (because he’s not jealous nope. He’s not jealous at all) 

- He’s a little moodier, a little more sardonic and eventually the farmer asks what’s bugging him–he assures her that it’s just difficulty with his novel

- He doesn’t say he’s jealous nope

- He's just gonna go full Gomez Addams and make love to them in a bit of a frenzy—I’m talking a trail of clothes, fucking her right on his desk.

- He’s leaving hickies, the farmer is being claimed 

- The farmer is being RAVISHED 

- He probably won’t bring it up bc he does trust the farmer completely and knows it’s his own anxiety and the farmer more than reassured him on the reg and he can trust that

...

I’m hiding my dumbass notes waaaaaaay down here

I wrote this while zoinked and made up a whole ass bachelor named Mike and sat there for a good min wondering why I could remember anything about Mike, who the FUCK is Mike????

Am I writing Elliot ravishing the farmer on the desk? Yes, but this reply was getting a little long so it’s coming later

I’ve been a little slow on requests lately, but my spouse is going to be out of town for the next month so I should have a lot more time to working on these :) it brings me such joy every time I get that lil notification, thanks y’all <3

[sips-tea-cutely]

Congratulations for 800 dear!! It’s well deserved! For the event could I please get 14 and/or 19 with dear Fyodor? Female reader if you wouldn’t mind <3

Untitled

“I've lost all control of my heartbeat now, got caught in a romance with her somehow. I still feel a shock through every bone when I hear an, "I love you", 'cause now I've got someone to lose”

a/n: HI I WROTE THIS WITH 3 SHOTS OF COFFEE AT 2AM IN THE DARK I CANT FEEL MY HEART I CAN SEE BONES DAZAI IN FRONT OF ME SORRY IF OOC 😭😭😭 ALSO GOING PST ANONS CURFEW AHAHAHAHAHA

prompt: “You have to come back to me. Because I cannot do this without you.”, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” & “I can’t lose you again! Please, don’t make me lose you again.”

an accident. it was the reason fyodor was protective of you; being near him at all times, any stranger near you being ‘taken cared of’, and even him checking in on you (how kind of him, no?).

it is also one of the many reasons why he must get rid of abilities. their abilities hurt you— their carelessness hurt you.

fyodor never wanted to include you in any of his plans, you were all too valuable to him. but this— all of the rat members are all recognized criminals to the government, the decay as well are too special in the public eye, and he couldn’t do it himself. no, he needed someone who’d trust him— someone who isn’t special to the government nor the public. it wasnt the ideal situation but it was the one that would give the best results.

“well? will you do it or no?” fyodor’s eyes narrowed at you. he seems to think he looked uncaring but it was obvious with his unusually shaky fingers. “just cause a conflict? sure, it’s not that hard. as long as dazai isn’t near.” you mutter. “very well then, ill have father hawthorne lead him away.” fyodor subtly relaxed his muscles but even so, he seemed tense. “alright then, i’ll do it.”

discussing details took forever. going over the plan— sow rumors of the port mafia’s secrets, reveal the hidden crimes of the agency— they will assume the other had done it or perhaps the guild did it as a last resort to stay alive? a war between the gifted will happen without the decay lifting a single finger.

“alright, fedya, i understand already, no need to continue on…” you grumble. “right, you need to rest too— ah, just—” fyodor scrunched his face in irritation, desperately trying to express his affections for you. “you have to come back to me, i cannot do this without you— i cannot lose you again. so please, don’t make me lose you again.” fyodor’s eyes were often calculating yet at this moment, they had the look of sincerity. “of course, i’ll do my best to stay safe. no need to worry, fedya.”

“yes, now sleep well, my myshka.” he said as lead you to the bed, brushing the hair that lay on the pillows.

┉ˏ͛ ༝̩̩̥͙ ⑅͚˚　　 ҉　　⑅͚˚ ͛༝̩̩̥͙ ˎ┉

fyodor blacked out. he vaguely remembers someone reporting to him that you and hawthorne were arrested for conspiracy. a couple thousands were used to bail, that was no problem but, you were injured. sprained wrist, black eye, bruised body— did they take you tie you up after finding out the truth? perhaps he should really give dazai credit for his intelligence.

the pastor’s incompetence to just distract someone is laughable, the only thing he is good for is to kiss that ms. margaret’s boot. despite his anger, fyodor could feel himself relating to hawthorne— being so lovestruck for one that can’t comprehend just exactly how much he loves you, it’s a feeling that can make a man careless.

there isn’t much to do of what has happened. fyodor carefully disinfected your wounds as he lectured you about carefulness. “fedya, i swear it was just bad luck!.. it’s not really my fault that the agency’s detective was able to sniff me out so quickly...” you whine as he inspected your eye.

he carefully gripped your chin as he bandaged it. “myshka, i am not saying that— mr. edogawa is quite intelligent, you should’ve taken that into account as well.” fyodor wasn’t the best at advice… “well, either way, both of them were away long enough for gogol to find what we truly need. those secrets are barely the worst.”

“gh, then why are you so worried about this?” you scowled, sucking in your breath from the cold ice on your wrist. “do you really not get it? it’s because i want to spend the rest of my life with you. you’re someone who has seen me more than anyone else has before. i have not told most what i have told you— you’re special to me.”

“hm, it’s almost 11. both of us have quite an exciting day… i’ll join you for tonight, my angel.” fyodor looked at the clock before leading you to bed, much more affectionately than usual. if you could only see how love-struck he is.

[dat-town]

poison like you

Characters: princess!you & guard!Xukun feat. king!Yixing

Genre: historical, fantasy, royalty, bit of enemies to lovers, bit of childhood sweetheart to lovers, bit of i’d die for you, angst with hopeful open ending

Warnings: blood, violence, murder, poisoning and death

Summary: If you wanted to kill the last son of the Dragon Clan, first you needed to get through his right hand man. Too bad he knew you too well but it felt like you didn’t know him at all.

Words: 11.1k

Author’s note: please note that even though this historical fantasy is inspired by ancient China, it is not historically accurate because it isn’t set in any certain era or even at any existing place. the governor structure and politics might be confusing but this is basically about a lot of small kingdoms (called clans) having a never ending war for more power over the area. Chinese mythical creatures exist in this world but have gone almost extinct during the wars. to know how i imagine this world, watch Lay’s Lit mv!

for the one&only @lily-blue​ 💕

As the only daughter of the Jade Clan's head, you had your responsibilities. To your father, his men and all the people under them. Most importantly, you had to do everything in order to protect the Clan. When the Dragon Clan started expanding its territory, winning over more and more land, becoming more and more powerful, you knew that no army could fight theirs, so you had to go to the war with wits instead of swords.

When your father proposed the idea of a reunion between the two Clans by marrying you to the son of the Dragon, you hated it. The other Clan was everything you despised: ruthless, brutal, selfish and while you knew arranged marriage was your future, you didn't want to rule next to a tyrant. But when your father said that this would be the perfect chance for you to kill their leader and rule over the united clans yourself, it suddenly wasn't that bad of a plan. Although you never wanted a huge empire and you didn't want the responsibility over so many people, freeing them from a bloody rule sounded like the best you could do. Especially now that the man needed an heir to secure his bloodline and power.

It took ridiculously few letters between your father and Zhang Yixing before you were off, on the road with only a chest of your belongings and another one full of gold and other jewels as marriage gifts. You had your most trusted maids and soldiers with you but otherwise you were alone, alone with your plan to poison your husband-to-be. Surely, you didn't think it was going to be easy while being surrounded by his people in a palace but getting there, the dark monstrum of a building wasn't like how you imagined your future to be. Everything wore the pattern of dragon scales, the city burned in the colours of fire and ash, even the waters were dark. People wore black clothes and wore their hair down without many accessories but despite the grayness of the place, the men and women you ran into didn't seem unhappy or living in fear. They must not have known any other life, so you felt sorry for them.

You were escorted to a chamber right away and compared to the light flowery room you were used to at home, this was very different but you didn't complain. Instead you inquired about Zhang Yixing's whereabouts and when you could meet him but the maid told you that he had a meeting with his generals, so you couldn't see him until the next day when you were supposed to have lunch together. You thanked her for enlightening you and after blaming your fatigue on the long voyage, you requested to be left alone. Opening your box of accessories, you pulled out a small glass bottle with yellow liquid inside. A few drops of it was enough to put a man to sleep, a whole spoon was surely death, so your only job was to get time alone with your fiance. Until then, you needed to play your cards well.

You were quite restless and maybe a bit paranoid but you couldn’t sleep during the night fearing that someone might attack you. Even though you knew you were now under the protection of the ruler of the Clan just by being Zhang Yixing’s fiancée, it didn’t calm your traitorous heart. You have seen enemies in every corner and yet, you raised your chin high, confident and proud when you were called to that lunch with your man to be.

Followed by a bunch of maids, you walked to the room on which Yixing decided and you took your seat on the opposite end of the long table full of delicious goods. The young king was already there, his pitch black hair falling into his almond-shaped dark eyes as he looked up at you sternly, eyes narrowing as if he wanted to see through you. His skin was pale against his black clothes that were simpler than you would have thought of a tyrant. You had never met him before but you heard stories of him and you heard descriptions of his looks. However, he was younger than you had expected, only a few years older than you, but with his defined jawline and rigid expression you could imagine him being the one behind the destruction of your neighbours.

He didn’t greet you but signalled that you should start eating and tentatively you reached out for the rice, chopsticks freezing in your hold as soon as he spoke up in a raspy voice.

"It's quite unexpected, your father's wish to join hands," he said calmly and it sounded like a challenge or a test, you couldn’t tell but you didn’t like the tone he was using to talk about your father. As if he was a weakling crawling to his feet.

"Is it?” you raised an eyebrow, daring to look straight into his cold eyes, watching his every move, every twitch. “I think it's a very reasonable timing. After all, you just reached our borders," you explained because he must have known there were not many choices you could take: it was either seeking peace or a war and your nation was a peaceful one, hence you would have done anything to keep it that way.

“Is your father afraid of me?” Yixing questioned and you bet he wanted to believe that, that he could scare the Jade Clan’s head. But your father was a born strategist, he always had a plan.

“Isn’t that why you’re doing this? You want other nations to fear you?” you counterattacked with a question, knowing the lesson yourself as well: If you cannot be loved, you must be feared.

You were well aware that it was a reckless thing to challenge the king. He might have been your fiance on paper but he could have just lifted his hand and have you killed and everybody you had with you to make it look like you were attacked on the road, never reaching his palace. However, for the first time since you had seen him, the man ahead of you looked amused, the corners of his mouth curling upwards.

"You have a sharp tongue for a princess," he said and it almost sounded like a compliment. You took pride in that with a raise of your chin.

"I'm the only child of the Jade Clan's head. I have learned how to wield any kind of weapon," you answered confidently. You might not have been an undefeated warrior but you had learned how to protect yourself and you knew too well that spoken words could cause just as harm as knives sometimes. But still, it seemed to make the young king interested as he bobbed his head towards you, leaning forward with his elbows balancing on the table.

"We could test that. Are you good at archery?" he asked, probably with the intention to invite you for a game. But his smugness irked you because he made it sound like he expected you to lose no matter what. So you did the least princess-like and least wise thing you could have done in that moment: you pulled your hairpin out, letting your long locks fall onto your shoulders before swinging your arm forward and letting the pin fly forward.

In the next moment two interestings things happened. Not only Yixing’s guards weren’t by your side, forcing you down or even killing you for your brazen act but he himself didn’t move. He looked into your eyes without fear and without anger. At the same time, you saw a shadow move so fast you didn’t think it was possible for a human and his sword hit you hairpin out of its path before it could have landed in the painting behind Yixing’s throne, hitting the dragon on it in the eye. The soldier, guard or whoever he was, wore black just like his ruler but there was a textil mask in front of his face, so he must have been a special kind of warrior. Not that you cared, your attention was back on Yixing immediately.

"You tell me... do you think I would be good at it?" you asked, finding the silence a bit unsettling, it was almost like the calm before the storm. But then the king laughed and you were baffled.

“What a bride you will make,” he tilted his head and then finally, you started eating.

 You were aware that you were lucky that you hadn’t been executed for that bold move you had made but it only ensured you that Zhang Yixing needed you. Or at least what you represented: the peace deal with your nation and a secured future bloodline. He could have probably forgiven as much. Or was he really that sure that either you miss the target or his guard would save him? You weren't sure but since you needed to know about his most trusted men anyways, you asked your maids about the masked figure. They didn’t know much, so you gave them the task to ask around among the Dragon Clan’s servants. You needed to know who your enemies were and where they laid. You also needed to know the palace as best as you could in case you needed an escape route or a secret passage to get to Yixing faster than anyone.

Hence, your night escapades started: once night have fallen, you pulled out a dark, comfortable clothing usually men wore and tied your hair high to not get into your way as you climb out of your window, up to the roof from where you could see the U-shaped building complex, knowing exactly where you should go: towards the king’s quarters. Running from rooftop to rooftop reminded you of your childhood when you practiced hide and seek in the palace back home. Your father had taught you how important it was to remain invisible and his advice still stayed with you as you made sure to dissolve into the shadows as you jumped to the gardens: step lightly, breath lightly like air in the morning but listen well and open your eyes because the smallest sounds, the smallest movements can be your enemy’s.

There were two guards in front of what you thought was Yixing’s suite but you didn’t care about that. You were more interested in the room where he planned his strategies to see if he really wanted to march through your home and bring war there just to conquer your other neighbours too. But before you could reach for the wooden door, you heard a shush and you crouched down just in time for the dagger to land in the wood instead of you. You bolted immediately, making a run for it, stepping up on a barrel you jumped onto the roof, so you could find a hiding place. You were prepared for such a thing. If things went South, you just needed to sneak back to your room, under the blanket and act alarmed when they banged on your door. You might have been from another Clan but nobody would have disrespected a princess by checking what she wore while sleeping and none of your maids would have said anything against you.

But you didn’t reach your quarters. No matter how lightly and in the shadows you tried to step, the one who followed you must have been really good because from one moment to another you felt yourself being hauled down from the roof, onto the ground. You and the man (based on his build) fell down together and lucky for you, it was him whose back hit the grass first with you on top of him. It gave you a bit of advantage to get to your feet immediately but you didn’t get far away. Dodging the man’s attacks, you had to admit that his training was very good, no fighter made it so hard for you to get even one hit and you grunted in annoyance when your back hit the wall of the stable. It was a full moon, so it was dark, only some tinkling light illuminating the palace for which you were grateful but it also gave you disadvantage because unlike your attacker you didn’t know this place. You felt a sudden pressure on your chest as a strong arm was pressed against it, a blade close to your neck but you only saw a silhouette.

“Speak, are you just a thief or a spy?” he asked, his voice sounding younger, softer than you expected but there was something dangerous to it. You didn’t wait enough to find out what it  was. You tightened your grip around the ceramic cup you had picked up earlier and smashed it against his head. You had indeed learned how to use everything as a weapon.

For a moment, it looked as if the guard’s eyes flashed gold in the moonlight but you were too busy running away, into the stable, scaring the horses and hiding behind a straw pile, controlling your breathing until the man who had come after you gave up and left.

You hissed when you touched the wound on your fair skinned neck. It wasn’t deep and didn’t hurt a lot but it was obviously a blade wound, one that a princess shouldn’t have. So to hide it, you brushed your head over your shoulders before you left for your archery practice with Zhang Yixing who wished to see your skills for real. He greeted you with an expectant smile to which you bobbed your head politely.

You didn’t talk much while taking turns, shooting arrows but you carefully and discreetly eyed his guards when it was the king’s turn, wondering if one of them was the one from the day before. Not that you could have told with their masks on.

After practice (you lost but only because you didn’t try too hard), you went to eat fruits in the gardens and you learned that Yixing was about to leave to check on his Eastern borders. He would be away for at least a week but promised to get the wedding preparations started with his servants. You knew that was why you came but still, it made you nervous as it meant you had less time.

“Princess!” A sudden, unexpected voice called after you when you were ready to leave with your maids. Nobody other than Yixing had initiated a conversation with you since you arrived, everyone waited for you to step first. So you were curious what this man, one of the king’s closest guards, could have wanted from you. Turning around, you saw him holding out your hairpin, the one you had thrown towards Yixing the first time you had seen him, the one someone dodged, could it be…

You looked up at the young man, his hair, somewhat ruffled in his forehead, mask covering his face under his eyes. He didn’t look at you, he casted his eyes down like a good servant would.

“Thank you,” you spoke up, a bit uncertain and there was a flicker in the guard’s eyes the moment he glanced up at you after his gaze lingered on your neck: something familiar yet scary but you blinked and it was over. You took the hairpin and left, your dress sweeping the floor behind you. That guard made you feel uneasy for some reason.

The next day Yixing indeed left and when you didn’t bump into the man from the other night for the next three days you were starting to think that he went with the ruler as well. It was only after you managed to sneak into the king’s room and out when you had to realize just how wrong you had been. You knew something was off the moment you stepped into your quarters. Your guards weren’t outside of your doors and the candle you left there lit up burnt out. It was already cold to touch when you lit it again which meant it must have blown out when your intruder opened the door earlier. You pulled out your sword and pointed it ahead of you, alarmed. Your shadow danced on the walls as the candle light flickered.

“It’s been a while… Princess,” the intruder spoke up much too calmly for someone who broke into a royal’s room. You could have gotten him killed for that but you froze. Not only because he must have known about your night adventures but because the playful tint of his voice was somewhat familiar.

The shadow stepped out from the corner, hands held up, defensive, revealing the guard from earlier. You furrowed your brows, not lowering the sword, not until the other pulled down his mask and the man you faced made you gasp.

“Xukun...” you whispered, almost whimpered, and you felt your knees weaken. But he– you thought he was dead.

“I think we have a lot to talk about,” he suggested with a hint of a smile and you couldn’t agree more.

You could still barely believe that it was Cai Xukun in front of you, alive and grown up unlike the boy you had last seen him as. The boy you practiced fighting with, the son of your father’s general, your childish first love. He had never known, of course, you never had a future to begin with but still. You remembered being sixteen and so in love, secretly gushing everytime he had brought you wild roses saying they reminded him of you. But then at eighteen, he had gone off to a battle and never came back. You remembered the crinkle around his eyes as he joked, telling you not to worry, he wasn’t that easy to kill. Apparently, he was right but you didn’t understand what he was doing in the Royal Palace of the Dragon Clan as one of the high rank guards when he was supposed to be back at your home. If his father still lived, what would he have said about his son becoming a traitor?

“I knew it was you,” he spoke up, eyes a mixed colour, mouth in a thin line. You looked at him questioningly. Then he pointed at your neck without a word and you reached for the now scar on your throat. “Obviously, I didn’t know then. Sorry.”

“Why didn’t you report me then?” you asked directly, looking straight into his eyes and you let your gaze linger on the slope of his nose, the corners of his mouth, the sharp line of his jaw. He had grown up, he was more handsome than ever. “Or why didn’t you kill me during the past two days when you were following me?”

“So you knew,” Xukun nodded at you, impressed but you just raised an eyebrow. You had a guess. Everything was too easy, too quiet. When you didn’t answer, the once boy now man standing in front of you sighed as if he carried the weight of the world with him. “You should know I would never hurt you.”

You scoffed at him. You would have been naive to believe him and you weren’t a child anymore. Hell, you came here to kill the king.

“How could I be sure? It’s been years, Xukun, and you were nowhere! You gave no signs that you were alive and here you are, in an enemy clan serving their ruthless ruler?!” you spat at him and you knew that your words were harsh, that your tone was cold but honestly, you knew a barely 18 years old boy and not the young man who was in front of you. You were conflicted to say the least.

“Zhang Yixing isn’t ruthless,” Xukun corrected you. Of all things you said, he found this the most obnoxious thing you had told him out of all, he decided to correct that. You wondered why. Why was he loyal to him? Why when you had only known him to be a murderer and someone who dared you to show him her best shot?

“Isn’t he? Then how does he keep destroying these nations around us? He burnt the Moon Clan to the ground for the deities’ sake!” your voice rose by the end and you had to remind yourself to stay quiet. It would have been a scandal if someone knew you had a man in your room while your fiance was away. Your whole plan would have gone down the gutter if your reputation was ruined just like that. But you heard all the stories: the massacre in the West, the burnt towns in the South, the sunk ships at the sea. They were his doing or so people said.

“That… that wasn’t him,” Xukun objected, so sure of himself that it almost made you feel sick. “And it’s a war either way. There are no saints here. Your father isn’t one either.”

You knew how wars were fought, you knew that everybody including you was a sinner, you had both grown up in a world where you knew nothing but neverending fights, losing loved ones and never knowing safety. Yet, when the boy who your father thought of fondly dared to call him out, anger flared in you.

“My father sent his only daughter to marry a tyrant to save his people from suffering, so don’t talk about him like you knew him!”

Maybe it wasn’t what you said but how you said it, the sword you still hadn’t let go of trembling in your hand but Xukun paused, licked his lip in consideration and his voice was softer when he continued:

“I can prove that Zhang Yixing isn’t as ruthless as you think he is,” he claimed but you didn’t really care about that. You wanted to know why he was there, in the Dragon Clan instead at what you had known as a home.

“Does it have something to do with why you never came back? Like you promised,” you reminded him, sounding bitter at the memory. Gosh, you had been such a child. But who could have blamed you? He smiled and it tipped your whole world back then. But he just visibly gulped now, so you must have been right.

“I owe him my life,” he said curtly and you sucked in a breath, wondering whether he meant it figuratively or literally. You didn’t have to ask, Xukun kept talking as if now that he started, a river flood. “When the Phoenix Clan attacked us 5 years ago, I was captured. They must have known that my father was a general and they wanted to get to him. When they took me in front of their leader, Yixing was also there, barely a boy not much older than me, caught while sneaking into the tent while stealing maps on a mission for his father. They confused him for someone from the Jade Clan and thought he came for me. They let him go to pass a message to my father and then they left me in the desert far enough from the battlefield with an open wound. I was so sure I would die.”

You had imagined before how it happened. How he died, or so you had thought. You’d had nightmares about it. Seeing his beautiful eyes wide open in shock and pain. You’d imagined it on the battlefield but his body was never found. The nearby river had been red though, so you thought maybe… But it was all wrong. He was never really there.

Xukun unconsciously touched his abdomen with a grimace on his face and you wondered whether he felt the phantom pain of the stab but he kept talking without addressing that.

“The next thing I remember is waking up to being carried on horseback and Yixing yelling for a medic. I wouldn’t have thought he would come back for me, we didn’t even know each other after all,” he stopped short at that as if he was still dumbfounded that the heir of the Dragon Clan saved him then. Honestly, in his place you had been too. Maybe Yixing hadn’t had his reputation back then but you were still enemies. “When the royal medic told him I’m a lost case, he took me to a shaman and they made me drink something that cured my wound by the next day.”

“Dragon blood,” you whispered in shock when Xukun gave you a meaningful look.

There was no other way but the magical powers of dragons. Although there were more rumours than credible sources on that, nobody denied that any essence of the heavenly, snake-like creature could save lives. But there were too few of them, maybe exactly because humans dared to hunt them down for either their scales, antlers or their blood, you wouldn’t have thought it was still possible. Yixing must have paid a fortune to save someone whom he barely knew.

“See why I can’t go back home?” Xukun asked and mouth open in agapé, you casted your eyes down.

Such medication… such witchcraft was illegal in Jade nation. He would have been branded as a monster and exiled even if he went back. Dragons and creatures like that were considered sacred in your home.

“Where did they even get dragon blood from? Nobody has seen a dragon in years,” you took a shallow breath, trying to work through your messy thoughts.

“What do you think caused the fire at Moon nation?” Xukun asked knowingly and with hope in his eyes resembled the boy you had once known. He hoped you would believe him and you did but it wasn’t easy to digest all this new information.

The two of you just looked at each other in silence, a heavy one, before the sounds of the midnight patrol startled you. Hushed, you blew out the candle light, leaving you in the dark, speaking in hushed voices.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do but… please, don’t go against Yixing. I might not be able to save you then,” Xukun spoke up, his deep voice echoing in the room, you clenched your hands in fists. As if he was there to save you in the last years when you would have needed him.

“I don’t need you to save me,” you told him, hurt clear in your voice but he didn’t say anything. He left without saying a word, wind whizzing into your room as he became one with the shadows outside. His last words left you wondering. Would he have died for Yixing, even in his place even if the weapon was in your hands?

You told yourself it wasn’t because of Xukun but you didn’t sneak into the king’s quarters in the next few days. Instead you wrote a letter to your father telling him about recent events and what you have found out about the Dragon Clan’s plans based on what you had found in the strategy meeting room. You entrusted one of your best guards with the letter and sent him home.

Days had passed uneventfully then but only until Zhang Yixing and his men came back with news that knocked air out of your lungs: the Eagle Clan attacked the weakened eastern wing of your nation. You knew they had become daring lately no matter how your father wished to keep it a secret from you but it was still all too sudden. Your army wasn’t ready to not only stand guard in case you got attacked from the South but now from the sunrise side as well.

“You cannot tell me to just wait it out!” you rose from your chair at lunch when Yixing told you the news. You felt offended at how calm he was. It must have been just another attack for him, but for you, it was your home.

“What else could a princess do?” he raised an eyebrow at you challengingly and you would have liked to sneer at him.

“I’m not the type of princess you think I am,” you claimed, hating that he probably thought you were used to letting other people fight your battles for you. Just because your father didn’t let you go into the war because you were the sole heir of the clan, it didn’t mean you couldn’t have. But now, as Yixing’s fiancée you didn’t even have much choice. You knew you shouldn’t go against his words or he might dance back on his agreement with your father. But you panicked, so you did the only thing you could possibly do in such a situation. “What do you want? Do you want to marry immediately, so you would help? Or would you let them destroy my home even then?”

You were desperate, so you would have agreed to anything only if he sent a handful of soldiers to help your people. Hell, if you had become the queen you could have commanded them yourself. But the king seemed to have different ideas.

“I will help. On one condition,” he said slowly, tasting every word and you were holding your breath, waiting for him to reveal what he wished from you. “Show me what type of princess you are then. Let’s not lie to each other about these things, Princess.”

Well, you certainly did not expect that.

“What do you mean?” you stuttered and your heart skipped a beat when the man slid an overly familiar envelope onto the table. You were smart enough to not be obvious about what you wanted to discuss with your father but there were still hints in your letter about things you shouldn’t have known if you were just picking flowers and practicing embroidery like an ordinary princess would have.

“You don’t want to marry me,” the man said and even though it was an accusation, he didn’t make it sound like one. And yet…

“You don’t want to marry me either but it hardly matters what we desire. We come from the bloodline of royals, we have our responsibilities to our people. And my people need me,” you slammed your hand on the table, spilled rice wine pouring like melted snow. You caught one of the masked guards - probably Xukun - turning his head towards you at that.

“You don’t want to be a princess,” Yixing continued and it baffled you. As if you had a choice! “You have the heart of a warrior.”

Well, you couldn’t argue that, so you just gulped, looking over the table, at the man who was a mystery to you. What did he want you to say? You couldn’t possibly admit that you planned to kill him.

“Come with me,” the king said as if it was his ultimatum and there was something knowing in his dark eyes when he explained: “Come with me to the front. Fight with me and then I’ll help the Jade Clan.”

His offer was an interesting one, you didn’t quite get his reason but you nodded anyway. You were ready to fight alongside your people but you didn’t even have to look at Xukun to know he was frowning.

You left the next day, at dawn. You took all your guards with you and Yixing added his own as you departed towards the North… your home. You wore your comfortable man clothes, hair swirling in the air around you as you galloped on your horse next to the others. It took about two days to reach the endangered border, so on the night when you had to set up a tent you could be finally alone a bit. Since you were the only woman you got a separate place and nobody should have bothered you but the tent wasn’t empty when you got in there. Gosh, were your guards so imcompetent or how?

“Reckless of you to sneak into my tent. What would your king say?” you asked, words a bit biting. You didn’t have a chance to talk with Xukun ever since that night in your room and you knew, it could have been indecent to exchange words in front of others even if you explained that you knew each other from before.

“I came exactly because of that,” the once boy explained, sitting near your small table as if you had invited him over for tea. Only because you had known him before you noticed his fidgety fingers as a sign of nervousness. “Did you write about me in the letter he got his hands on?”

Oh. So that was what he was worried about. Disappointment made you taste bile in your mouth. You hated this feeling.

“I’m not stupid,” you told him curtly and turned your back on him to indeed pour some boiled water over tea leaves to soothe your nerves. Honestly, you thought about telling your father about Xukun but then you realized you didn’t know what to write. You weren’t sure what you should have. It wasn’t your place to decide and maybe it was for the better if your father still thought that he was dead.

“He… he has a man watching you. He told me he can’t trust me with that,” Xukun who once had jumped to hover above you when a wooden house fell upon the two of you during a heavy storm sounded pained admitting that. You gulped hearing his words and the worry lacing through them. You didn’t want to think of him caring. He disappeared from your life years ago, he didn’t get to worry about you now.

“Why are you telling me this?” you asked, slowly, tentative as you sat by the table across him, putting cups of tea between you. Xukun waited until you looked up, into his deep brown eyes that had the most beautiful golden specks in them you had ever seen. Maybe it was just the lights’ doing but he still took your breath away, unfairly so.

“You need to be careful. He knows you’re up to something,” he pressed, desperate and you forced a smile, a charming, confident one. Oh, Zhang Yixing had no idea what was coming for him if he betrayed you.

“If he helped my people, our people, I wouldn’t have a reason to plot against him, would I?” you voiced out your thoughts, the decision you made on your own. If the king proved to be not as ruthless, just as your old friend claimed, maybe he deserved another chance. So you meant it but Xukun didn’t look convinced.

“Princess, I have something to discuss,” the cold, authoritative voice of the Dragon Clan’s head could be heard from outside and the pace of your heartbeats picked up, whipping your head towards the entrance of your tent then back to Xukun… or where he had been just before. Now, nothing but a smell of smoke lingered after him. You had no idea how he did that.

As it turned out Yixing wanted to discuss the reports he had gotten from the battle and if he had noticed the two cups of steamy tea, he didn’t make a comment on it. The situation was quite bad, the enemy had already gotten over the walls you had pulled up all those years ago. He had already had a man of his own let the Jade Clan general there know that Dragon soldiers were coming to rescue and not to attack, so if things worked out, you could crowd out the attackers from two sides. If you were lucky enough you could bait them towards the river where they were more vulnerable. It didn’t sound like a bad plan at all and hearing Yixing’s strategies, you understood why he had won so many battles but what surprised you was that he didn’t intend to drown everyone in the river or kill them on the spot, he sounded like he hoped they would give up and retreat. You wouldn’t have thought that of the ruthless Zhang Yixing.

Knowing how wars worked was different than being there, in the middle of a battle, sweaty, limbs tired, blood dripping from the end of your sword and a painful bruise blossoming on your left shoulder. You saw red and adrenaline carried you as you shouted and attacked the next man with mace in his hand coming at you.

“Princess!” Someone screamed and you dodged the sword aiming at you just in time but its owner stepped closer, pushing you backwards on the slippery ground. You weren’t strong enough to push him back.

“Princess, huh? How interesting,” the man, covered in dirt and blood not his own, grinned at you, a hand clasping his hand around your throat, squeezing hard. You gasped, clawing at his arm with your free hand because he pushed the one that held the sword close to your chest with his. For the first time in your life, you felt powerless even with a weapon in your hand. You tried to kick and get away from the soldier but you couldn’t and felt disgusted by the names this disgusting leech called you.

You didn’t know how long you had fought back but the noises of the battle started to fade out when suddenly the man was yanked away from you but you still felt his blood splatter across your cheek as a sword pierced through his chest. Panting, gasping for air, you stared at Xukun behind the fallen soldier and he stared back at you, eyes glowing dark and golden. You smelled something burning...

You heard the screams before you had seen the source of sudden panic and shock.

You looked up to where everybody was pointing while running and you had seen a huge dragon appearing above the walls of Jade. Its fur and scales were dark like the night sky except a few gilded ones that looked like burning fire from afar while his antlers were long and ivory. It was terrifying yet beautiful. Its honey-coloured eyes gazed down upon you mere humans and it seemed to have a concrete target in its mind as it flew above you rippling the water and air behind.

Xukun grabbed your arm, trying to pull you away but his touch felt burning too and you couldn’t take your eyes off the dragon that halted in the air, levitating just above the ground, its huge head merely an arm away from Zhang Yixing who stood there alone, unmoving. It reminded you of the day when you threw your hairpin at him, how calm he was and you still couldn’t believe what you saw when the Dragon Clan’s leader lifted a hand and put it on its head as if he was trying to discipline a dog.

Thunder roared above and Xukun managed to pull you away now that everyone had scattered all over hell's half-acre. He took you farther, inside the wall of your nation and you only noticed that he must have been hurt when he stumbled and you had to catch him before he fell.

“Kun!” you shrieked, scared, the old nickname slipping naturally as you put his arm around your shoulder and pulled him inside of a half-destroyed house nearby. Your hands trembled as you let him sit down and then looked around to look for a lantern to light it.

In the dim lit room you kneeled next to the guard, his clothing soaked with his blood and you could see sweat forming on his forehead. How did it happen, you questioned, but it wasn’t the important thing. With a shaky breath, you reached out to peel off the bloody material from his chest to see the sword cut across one shoulder. You hissed seeing the fresh wound and all that blood. You cursed in frustration.

“Shh… it’s okay,” the boy whispered with droopy eyes, taking your hand, weakly pushing it away from the cut.

“It’s not okay,” you argued and you could feel tears in the corner of your eyes. Did he get hurt while trying to get to you? Did he forget to pay attention to himself because he saw you? You felt guilty and you hated that, you didn’t want to be the reason why he was hurt.

“There’s something you should know…” Kun coughed and grunted at the pain flashing through him. He had his eyes shut, teeth clenched and it hurt to look at him. “I– I heal faster than normal… The dragon blood that saved me…”

“I know,” you cut him off, not wanting him to exhaust himself with speaking. You could see him struggle, his eyes bright gold when he opened them briefly. His blood was working its magic.

To be honest, you didn’t know, you just had a guess up until now. His golden flashing eyes, the warmth radiating off him, how fast and soundless he could move or disappear leaving only smoke behind… It was because of the dragon inside of him.

There were legends saying that if a person spared a dragon, it would be bound to him for life and the blood of an alive dragon in a human would create a connection between the two. A connection that could call the other half if one felt threatened. Although it was just a theory, with the intensity of Kun’s eyes on you, the beautiful burning fire in his pupils made you believe you were right, that the dragon appeared because he feared for you.

There was a short cut growl leaving the boy’s mouth and you grabbed his hand, letting him squeeze yours while you could see his skin basically knitting itself back together, the wound closing in as if it had never been there. It might have been only a few minutes but it felt too long with how much it seemed to hurt the boy you had just saved your life. When it was over and he opened his eyes, they were plain brown again – your favourite though – and he looked tired.

Oh, thank the deities, you let out a relieved choked sound and you didn’t even notice you had been crying until Xukun didn’t wipe your tears off your cheek. He looked at you as if he had seen you for the first time, properly at least and you felt your lips tremble. Heavens, you had mourned him once and now you almost lost him again. Suddenly, a rush of emotions rippled through your body, your fingers tentatively touching the freshly healed skin.

“You’re so warm,” you whispered in awe since his skin was hotter than expected and you knew it wasn’t fever caused by the wound.

“Princess...” he muttered oh so gently and his hand, wet with your tears, slipping from your cheek to your neck, caressed your skin just like his voice caressed your soul.

“No,” you stopped him firmly and when confusion flashed in his orbs you told him to call you by your own name. It was a command, a request, a plea. It was everything and a sweet little nothing at the same time.

Kun’s eyes widened at the permission but pushed himself away from the wall to lean closer and he sighed your name into the seam of your mouth. You closed your eyes feeling his hot breath tingling on your lips and when he kissed you, you melted against him like wax melted near fire.

Once the storm passed, you could still feel Kun’s touch on you. It was like a vivid memory and it tasted sweet on your tongue even if you knew you were being naive.

You didn’t talk about it. About what it meant because you both knew you couldn’t. But you were stupid enough to forget about your other problems when you had seen the retreating army. Your people could be a bit more safe at least for a little while.

“Cai Xukun!” Another guard called out when he caught sight of his comrade next to you. He looked panicked and it scared you. What now? The man walking up to your duo looked at you warily before answering the question about his worried expression. “The king is injured.”

Oh. Interesting how it was what you had wanted since you had left home but now that Zhang Yixing was bedridden, you found yourself worrying and by the looks of it Kun too. The two of you were escorted to the king who lay on a makeshift bed, chest wrapped with a cloth that he had already bled through.

“What happened?” you questioned, looking from one soldier to another. This didn’t look like something caused by the dragon’s claws or teeth, it was definitely a human-caused injury and your guess was confirmed when one of the men told you that while he was trying to calm the dragon, someone from afar shot an arrow through him. It made you anxious because what if they captured the dragon? What would that have meant to your people, to Kun?

“And the dragon?”

“It chased them away and is probably in the mountains,” the man said and that made you a bit relieved even though you weren’t sure you were allowed to feel that while your fiance was bleeding out only a few steps from you. You nodded in acknowledgement and made a hand movement to excuse the soldiers. Soon, you were left with only Xukun in the room.

“Why isn’t he healing? Doesn’t he...” you looked at the boy, not understanding why the injury took its toll on the king when Xukun healed within an hour. Was it some kind of special arrow damped in poisonous liquid? Was it...

“No,” The guard cut your words off but you could already tell by the look on his face that it wasn’t how you thought. “He saved the dragon and it now serves him but he never got its blood and I… I think the dragon is hurt, too.”

“What?” you were dumbfounded how he could tell something like that when you had left the field together, so he couldn’t have known about this. Not by seeing it happen. But as Xukun clenched his hand in front of his chest as if he was hurting, you started to understand. They were indeed connected after all.

“I can feel it. I can’t explain but its energy...”

A hurt dragon in the mountains. A hurt king in the desert. Gosh, things really weren’t on the path you hoped them to be. You suddenly weren't sure what worried you more.

“Do you think the dragon is in danger?” you turned to Kun, fingers fidgeting with the handle of your sword by your side. If those from before knew that they managed to wound the creature, were they looking for it? Anyone who got control over a dragon could have immense power, you didn’t even want to think about it. Especially the dragon that had this special connection with the boy beside you.  “Go then. Help the dragon!”

He seemed surprised and conflicted at your nudging. He didn’t move, eyes flickering to the bed behind you.

“But Yixing...” His protest fell short when you quickly explained:

“I will stay with him and wait for the medic,” you promised but weren’t sure Xukun trusted you with something like this until he reached out to take your hands in his. His palm was warm like every other part of him too, his fingers felt nice against your dirtied, dry skin. He squeezed your hand gently in agreement.  

“Call for a shaman, too,” he added and you nodded with a lump in your throat. You needed to get prepared for any kind of situation.

You could have been called a loyal fiancée based on how you spent day and night next to Yixing, watching over his recovery. However, he didn’t get much better over the course of days and you didn’t hear about Xukun either. The only reassuring thing was that you weren’t attacked there, at the border of three Clans. You couldn’t leave either way because the king wasn’t well enough for such a long voyage and you wanted to be as close as the mountains anyway.

The medic said the arrow hit Yixing so close to his heart that it was a miracle that he was still breathing and it scared you more than you had expected. You let him change the bandage and stayed by the unconscious man, putting fresh wet cloth over his feverish forehead.

That night, marking the third without Xukun, the king stirred awake.

You looked up from your place beside his bed, startled. It was the first time he seemed more conscious than just to drink a bit of water or ginger soup because his eyes looked alert. For the first time since you had met him, he seemed scared.

“The dragon...” he croaked out with a hoarse voice due to not speaking for days.

“Xukun is looking after it,” you told him reassuringly and held a metal cup to the king’s chin, urging him to drink a bit. He gulped down the fresh water as if it was healing potion and once he finished with the entire cup, he fell back onto the sheets with a painful sigh. Closing his eyes, he traced his ribs until he reached the bloody bandage over his wound and hissed. He must have suffered more than he showed.

“I would have never thought I would have my fiancée look after me after a battle,” the man whispered, deep voice weak and uncertain, a little playful though. Although his words were conveying the truth, it made you feel like someone who committed adultery. You knew you didn’t swear either loyalty nor love to each other with the king but after learning how he had saved your first love from certain death, you didn’t want to do something like this to him. You needed to come clean even if the timing was quite off. 

“With all due respect, Zhang Yixing, I’m afraid I can't marry you,” you said quietly, expecting a frown or a scolding but none of it came. Maybe because he was injured but he didn’t react at all and for a moment you thought he had fallen back asleep but then he slowly opened his eyes again and turned his head to be able to look you in the eye.

“I had a feeling,” he nodded calmly. He didn’t seem angry nor disappointed. He had already said your father’s proposal was an odd one, one with interesting timing. There was nothing interesting about it, it was just a strategy, a plan you didn’t want to follow anymore. But before you could have spoken up, to apologize, to ask whether it meant your alliance was off, Yixing continued: “Xukun treasures you too much. He was the one who urged me to trust your father.”

“He… Did he tell you about me before we met?” Words stumbled out of your mouth before you could have stopped them. You were more than dumbfounded to know that. Had Xukun known about your father’s wish to marry you to Zhang Yixing even before he agreed? Was it him because of whom the king agreed at all? And here you thought that he had been just another guard, loyal to his king until death.

“He talked about you all the time,” the man reminisced with a faint smile on his lips as he stared at the ceiling. “He always says how I saved his life back then but with him here, not being able to return home, I feel like I have taken his life instead. Taking you from him would have been even worse.”

You cast your eyes down bashfully as you listen to him talk. Yixing’s side of the story was an interesting one as well. Learning how he didn’t save Xukun out of the kindness of his heart but because he wanted intelligence was something you could understand, something you could relate to as you lived in a world like that after all. You couldn’t even be angry, not when he told you how they had become friends over the years. As the king drifted back to sleep, you thought that maybe you could become friends as well, maybe you could still be allies. You didn’t necessarily have to be enemies.

But once being enemies, it was hard to forget and not everybody had the same insights as you.

You woke up to a small noise, only to open your eyes to see one of your own soldiers from Jade Clan stepping inside the tent. You had always felt safe next to your guards but this time, something was off.

“What are you doing here?” you questioned as you sprang to your feet from the seat you accidentally fell asleep in.

“Princess,” the guard bowed with respect. Though, he was clearly surprised to see you still there and you could see the hint of hesitation in his eyes before he answered. “I am here as per your father’s wish.”

You furrowed your brows. You hadn’t been notified of anything like this.

“My father’s wish?” you raised a brow, looking at the man expectantly but he didn’t reply, not with words at least. Instead he took out a small glass bottle with familiar yellow-ish liquid inside. It made the blood freeze in your veins.

“That wasn’t the plan,” you reminded the man even though you hadn’t even known your father told anybody else about it. Didn’t he trust you or… 

“It wasn’t your plan but your father had doubts whether you could do it with a cold heart. That’s why he sent me,” your guard informed you dutifully and your brain kept coming up with reasons why this was a terrible idea. It would have been much easier if Zhang Yixing was indeed the tyrant you had imagined him but after learning about his personality and starting to form an amicable acquaintance with him, it just didn’t make sense.

“I’m not the queen yet,” you objected but the guard didn’t seem to care.

He explained how the public sentiment had changed in your favour just because you stayed with the injured king in the last few days and there was something in his explanation that was quite logical: if Yixing passed away now, nobody would have looked for a murderer because he was already on his deathbed. Nobody would have known he didn’t die from the arrow. Nobody needed to know. But… it wasn’t the plan. If he died then, without a queen or heir, the Dragon Clan would remain without a leader and neighbouring nations would all want their pieces of it. If they got to know about the dragon too…

“It’s a chance we can’t waste. We need to prioritize the safety of Jade Clan,” your guard reminded you and for a moment you were stuck. If it hadn’t been for Xukun, you might have done it within a heartbeat, not even considering other options because Zhang Yixing was a dangerous man but now… you were torn, unsure what to believe. Your uncertainty must have been written on your face because your guard pushed the bottle into your hands, encouraging you to make a move and you gulped, too busy with your internal turmoil to react fast enough when you got company.

Four of the masked guards of Yixing stepped into the tent, one of them immediately slicing the throat of your man which made you scream. Two guards held you back from behind, not letting you move, to get any weapon while another one walked up to you, his dark eyes trained on you, his bloody dagger aimed at your throat. He forced the little glass bottle out of your hands.

“There was always something off with you, Princess. You should have been hung the moment you dared to fling your hairpin at the king,” he said, disgusted and you couldn't quite blame him. You raised your chin though, proud because as a royal it was expected of you even when you looked into the eyes of death. You weren't afraid of dying, you had walked out to the battlefield earlier with that mindset too, it was just… you wished you could have said goodbye to Kun.

You knew that the only reason the guard didn't kill you off like he did with your man was because you were a royal. If you died by a hand of a guard of the Dragon Clan, you knew your father would have gone to war against them and you also knew he would have lost which broke your heart even more. 

"So what now? Will you kill me too, in the name of justice because one of my men blabbered? You have no idea what we even talked about!" you accused the guard of making a scene over nothing because as of now prolonging the conversation was your best chance. Either Yixing could wake up and stop them, if he believed you didn't want to hurt him any more, or your other guards could show up as well.

"I have a good enough guess, Princess, but of course, you can prove your innocence by drinking this. If it isn't poison, you have nothing to lose, am I right?" the man turned the small glass bottle between his fingers. You didn't show reaction to that even though you knew you were going to die if you drank it all. But at least it was said to be a fast killer. You were contemplating whether you should have taken it and then spit it out saying it was bitter for your 'princess taste' because he wouldn't have been able to prove anything then. He could still kill you though but maybe it was worth a chance.

However, before you could have decided the tent's entrance flew open and a very dishevelled looking Xukun showed up. He looked like he was running and hadn't slept properly in days. The presence of guards, his comrades, seemed to surprise him, the dagger at your throat even more.

"What's going on here?" he asked in an authoritative voice even though you weren't sure he had a bigger rank just because he was friends with Yixing.

"The princess and her guard were caught trying to poison the king."

"That's not true!" You protested heavily looking for eye contact with Xukun, hoping he would believe you. It was all just a terrible misunderstanding. Once you might have wanted to cause harm but you had no reason anymore, not if you signed the Lotus pact with Yixing like you had agreed. When you met Kun's gaze, it was confused but not unkind.

"Then prove it, Princess," the older man said and pushed the blade closer to your neck where your earlier scar was still visible. The situation seemed to scare Xukun but you didn't want him to save you again, you only needed him to believe you. He seemed to think differently though.

"Let her go and lower your weapon, we don't have time for this," he stood in front of you pushing the man's hand away and flashing his golden eyes at the guards you kept you caged. Their hands immediately loosened their hold as Kun lifted his bag. "I have the dragon blood. Where is the shaman?"

One of the guards ran off with the bag to fetch the shaman but you could only breathe peacefully for a moment. Then the masked man with a slit across his eye crowded you and Xukun into a corner.

"My bad. Why would I have thought that you of all people can be rational? Do you think you were so discreet about disappearing, just the two of you? Are you maybe in it too? Did the two of you, Jade bastards, plan to get rid of our king to take over?" With each of his words, he poked Kun's chest with his index finger until the younger swatted his hand away. His voice didn't waver as he answered:

"If you really think that after all the fights we fought together, I feel very distraught," he said with his voice so cold like you never heard it before. Xukun's pride must have been on the line with his loyalty being questioned just because of his connection – maybe affection? – to you because the next thing you knew was him grabbing the glass bottle out of the other man's hand. "You know what? I'll prove it to you!" 

“Kun, no!” You grabbed his hands in panic, closing your fingers around his, so he couldn't lift the poison to his lips. Was he crazy? Did he want to die just for you to follow?

Or oh… he believed you. He really believed you and that it wasn't poison in the first place or maybe he believed you had nothing to do with it and knew nothing of it because when his eyes locked with yours, he seemed surprised that you stopped him.

You were both startled when the shaman arrived with the finished potion but before he could have stepped to the injured king, the man in front of you lifted his hand. Although you couldn't see his mouth, you would have bet he pulled it into a malicious smirk.

"Ah look at that, trying to save him from harm, how touching," he tsked, mocking before he pointed at the potion in the shaman hands and then at the bottle in Xukun's. “How about this? One cup has dragon blood that could save the Dragon Clan’s last son. The other which you claim isn't poison was retrieved from your room by your own guard. Choose wisely, Princess, what to give our king because your hero will drink the other one.”

“Why are you doing this?” you shrieked, having enough of this mind game of his. You knew he was just a loyal guard of Yixing and you couldn't blame him for not trusting you but did he have to go this far to make you suffer?

“I cannot let the filthy Jade Clan take over the Dragon Clan. So you either save him or be executed for killing him which was your original plan, wasn’t it?”

"Save the king, Princess," Xukun told you, determined and maybe he had a plan, a better one than you or at least you hoped. You looked him in the eyes mouthing Please don't at him but he just smiled. How could he act so nonchalant? "Trust me," he whispered.

You let go of his hands and maybe it was a mistake because he had told you: he owed Yixing his life. You barely stepped to the bed of the king, lifting his head to help the shaman give him the potion when you heard glass breaking. When you lifted your head you saw Xukun swaying, barely grabbing on a chair to stop him from falling and the broken glass was by his feet. The liquid from inside was nowhere which meant…

"Kun!" you screamed trying to run up to him, to help, to do anything but the guards turned towards you with their sword out and you could only do one thing, listen to the boy who had once saved you when the stable's roof collapsed onto you, he hovered over your body with his to save you from the impacts of the falling pieces. He always did.

So when Kun told you to run, you ran. Back to your own tent to get your sword to be able to fight off and it was ridiculous how only a few days ago you fought alongside these men but now they wanted to kill you. Oh, how fast the tables turn but maybe you deserved this, maybe you deserved to die for killing the boy you loved since you had been 16 and had given him your first kiss under the stars. You might not have a future but you wanted to believe nevertheless, but you ruined it all.

You felt tears running down on your cheeks as you dodged the daggers and swords coming your way, hissing when one managed to cut your arm. You ran, you didn't look where, you just wanted to get away. If you killed Yixing's men, peace wouldn't have been an option, so you needed to escape, that was the only way to stop another war.

You stumbled when a huge shadow overtowered you and heard the scared muffled sounds of the soldiers following you as well. Gulping, you looked up at the majestic dragon in front of you, its nostrils flaring and smoke coming out of its mouth as it huffed. It stood above you, staring at the soldiers behind you as if… as if it was protecting you. It made you feel safe, like Xukun, and gosh, you just cried harder because he was trying to save you even now. You fell onto your knees, not knowing what to do with this information and then…

"It isn't nice of you to chase my fiancée away from me, is it?" Yixing roared in a forever calm voice and through your tears you could barely believe your eyes when you saw him walk towards you. And not just him, it was Xukun who helped him move because he must have still been in pain. But how?

The masked guards seemed just as flabbergasted as you were. But Kun, oh the deities, Kun looked almost smug as he passed by them after Yixing pushed him towards you. Then he ran, ran until he knelt next to you, taking your face into his hands. You touched him as if you didn't believe he was real.

"I didn't want to…"

"I know," he assured you with a stupid smile on his stupid face like he did back in that ruined house where he kissed you like you were his life line.

"I can't believe you drank the poison! How could you be sure your blood would fight it off?" you whisper-yelled at him, hitting his chest all too weakly and he laughed, too. The nerve of him!

"I wasn't but Princess, I would drink poison over and over again if it tasted like you," he said with a smirk and you would have bet Yixing told him about your agreement because otherwise he wouldn't have been so daring. Or was it the near death experience? Or the thought of losing each other all over again? The wars might have been still messy, politics stressing, but in that moment, you didn't care, you just closed your eyes and kissed Kun back when he pressed his lips against yours, happily burning with him.

[westallenfun]

Two's Company (3/3)

Westallen secret santa gift

For: Lauren (@backtothestart02) (Happy holidays! I hope you like this fic!)

From: Lina (@cheryls-blossomed)

A/N: A special thank you to my beta, Caroline (@ginandweas).

Inspired by Jane Austen’s Emma and the blissfulness and hardship of tumbling into true love.  On the eve of publication of the most important article of her professional career thus far, Iris West realizes that she is head over heels in love with her best friend Barry Allen, but she grapples with revealing her feelings, for fear of ruining their friendship. But a weekend trip to Metropolis sets in motion a series of events, romantic mishaps and conundrums abound, that may force Barry and Iris to face some long-awaited, romantic truths.

Rating: T (Warning: Mild Language)

The mezzanine just above the ballroom of the Time Metropolis is a well-furnished carpeted landing with at least seven chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and a wide, glass balcony supposedly for onlookers to look upon the dancing masses below. There are refreshment stalls, serving a variety of beverages, and waiters carrying platters of an assortment of appetizers, including chili lime shrimp cups, fried okra, and goat cheese bites.

When the elevator arrives at the floor of the mezzanine, Iris steps out alongside her father and Cecile and sees that most people are milling around, chatting with one another. It would seem that no one has yet headed down the stairs to the ballroom, which holds the promise of a night of dancing. Furthermore, nobody seems to have noticed Joe, Cecile, and Iris’s arrival yet, as they are several feet away from everyone, which comes as somewhat of a relief for Iris, as she scans the room quickly, her eyes searching for one person only. Sure enough, she finds him, seated at a table, head pressed into his palm, a glass of wine before him, and wearing a distinctly melancholy expression. He is seated beside Cisco and Cynthia, who are conversing with one another, but looking over at him every few seconds, worryingly. Iris swallows, twisting her fingers behind her back, as she feels her sadness and anger dissipate, upon seeing how utterly torn up he looks, and she knows she must speak with Barry. She feels a hand on her shoulder and looks up to see her father giving her a reassuring smile, which she returns. When she looks back, she sees that Barry has seen her, as have Cisco and Cynthia. Cynthia appears jovial, leaving the table to come greet them, followed by Cisco, just as other guests begin noticing the new arrivals and start walking over to congratulate Joe and Cecile.

But Iris cannot tear her gaze away from Barry.

Because he’s regarding her like he never has before, as if the wind has been knocked out of him, as if he’s been rendered utterly speechless by her mere presence, gazing at her utterly wide-eyed, and the sheer intensity of the number of emotions his look conveys is too much for Iris, so she looks down at the floor, breathing deeply.

“Hi, Iris,” someone says, and Iris glances to her left and smiles politely when she sees Patty approaching towards her. She appears to be alone, which strikes Iris as odd, but perhaps what is even stranger, now that she thinks about it, is that Eddie is nowhere to be found.

“Hey, Patty,” Iris replies. “How are you?”

“I’m alright. Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, thank you. I think I just needed to get some rest. Between traveling and then going out last night, I think I was just over tired.”

“Yeah, of course. I’m glad you’re feeling better now.” An awkward silence descends upon them, and Iris is unsure how to progress the conversation, but she can sense that Patty wants to say something further.

“Are you here by yourself?” Iris queries, intuitively determining that perhaps Patty’s odd behavior might have to do with Eddie’s conspicuous absence.

“You noticed, huh,” Patty bites out sardonically. “I’m supposed to be here with Eddie. In fact, Eddie is literally supposed to be here, because he’s hosting the night. But I waited for him for like thirty minutes in the lobby, and he never showed up, so I came here, thinking perhaps he’d forgotten to meet me— wouldn’t be the first time he’s done that —but he’s not here either. I’ve been calling him and texting him, but he’s being absolutely unresponsive.”

“You’re not worried, are you? Because I’m sure he’ll turn up. As you said, he is hosting this.”

“Oh, I’m not worried,” Patty says. “I asked at the concierge if they’d seen him, and they said he had stepped out earlier today. And that Katie was with him.” Iris’s eyebrows raise, as she takes in this information. For she now realizes that Katie is also not present, and after she and Eddie had acted so bizarrely around each other yesterday, it is not particularly surprising that there is more to that story.

“So, they’re likely not coming here tonight,” Iris concludes, and Patty shrugs,

“So much for being a great host. Anyways, how am I supposed to tell Cecile that her god son might not be attending the gala he’s throwing in her and her husband’s honor?”

“Just tell her the truth, but don’t make it seem like Eddie abandoned her. I mean, we honestly don’t know where he is or why he is so delayed, but he could still make an appearance later tonight, after all.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Iris.” Iris nods, smiling reassuringly, as Patty heads over to Cecile who is standing a few feet away, chatting with one of the other guests. For a few moments, Iris is alone, as she mulls over Eddie and Katie’s absence, wondering what was so urgent that they had to leave right before Eddie was meant to begin hosting this gala for Joe and Cecile. Apart from his apparent inability to be a good host, it just seems so sudden, especially since Katie had been clearly trying to goad Eddie last night, by paying him no attention, and he had taken the bait with all his fuming and glowering.

A proffered glass of champagne enters her line of vision, and when Iris looks up, she sees Barry, handsome as ever in his tuxedo, holding the glass in front of her. His eyes are warm, conveying an abundance of emotions, and he’s smiling at her softly.

“Hi,” he says, almost a whisper.

“Hi,” she breathes, her voice also very quiet. They’re both gazing at each other, neither saying a word, before Barry lets out a small laugh, remembering himself.

“You look incredible,” he murmurs, as if in absolute awe, and the way he says it, with such reverence, makes her heart soar.

“Thank you, Barry. You look very handsome.”

He blushes, ducking his head, slightly, before continuing, “Uh, this is… this for you. I wanted to save a glass for you, because it’s elderflower and… you know, I realize now that there’s a bar, which I’m sure is probably stocked, now that I think about it… yeah, I’m sure it is, but at the time, I thought they might run out of glasses of champagne, because it didn’t seem like they had too many left being passed around. But I definitely wasn’t thinking about the bar. So, well, this is… for you, if you want it, of course. Do you want it? Because I can take it back and then…”

“Yes, I want it,” Iris chuckles, interrupting his rambling, which she finds utterly endearing, as Barry nervously runs a hand through his hair. “Thank you, Barry. I do love elderflower champagne.”

“Yeah, I know,” he answers softly. There’s something in his voice at that moment… an emotion that Iris cannot quite pinpoint, but it nonetheless ignites an intense warmth within her, and when she glances up at him, he’s regarding her almost sadly, like he wants so very much to tell her something, but he is unable to. She wants to tell him that it’s okay, that he can tell her anything and everything that he wants, but before she can, he whispers, “You’re wearing the necklace.” Her hand comes up to touch the wedding band, and she nods, smiling,

“Of course, I am. My best friend gave it to me.” He breathes out harshly, taking a step closer towards her, reaching his hand towards hers, almost as if by instinct.

“Iris, I need—,” he begins, but he is cut off by Cisco and Cynthia racing up to the both of them, having just congratulated Joe and Cecile and chattering about Eddie Thawne’s absence, of all things. Iris has half a mind to stare them both down for interrupting her moment with Barry, but decides against it, because she knows they didn’t exactly mean to tumble in on a private moment. Barry, on the other hand, does not seem to agree with this sentiment, for he is shooting Cisco a dark look, although Cisco, thankfully, seems oblivious.

“Can you believe Eddie isn’t even here?” Cisco asks immediately, shaking his head in apparent disbelief.

“I’m actually very surprised by him not turning up on time,” Cynthia replies. “I cannot imagine Eddie Thawne missing a gala that he, himself, is hosting. This is completely and utterly his element.”

“Katie isn’t here either. Apparently, she and Eddie went off somewhere earlier today and didn’t return. Patty told me,” Iris says, and Barry’s brow furrows at that, before he adds,

“I knew something was off between those two yesterday. It would maybe explain why the vibe was just completely off last night, like something just wasn’t adding up.” Iris catches Barry’s eye at that moment, and she feels her pulse race, upon the realization that Barry was apparently as completely befuddled and equally bemused about what was going on with Katie and Eddie as they all were. And that could only mean one thing, right?

“I think that much was obvious to all of us,” Cynthia replies, rolling her eyes. “Those two are a pair of absolute paragons of etiquette and normalcy when they’re around each other, aren’t they?” Everyone laughs at that, likely recalling the rather odd behavior both Katie and Eddie engaged in the previous night, which strengthens Iris’s resolve that perhaps she had been completely mistaken about what she had witnessed between Barry and Katie, although that betraying voice reminds her of the dinner at Marano’s, much to her chagrin. She is aware, though, that that is a question that needed answering. Eventually. Because at the moment she is certain that she wants to find that equilibrium again with Barry, before diving headlong into conversations that would likely change everything.  

Quiet orchestral music begins to play, and a man steps up onto the mezzanine, gesturing with his hands towards Joe, Cecile, and the rest of the guests.

“I am the manager of the Time Metropolis. Mr. Thawne is unfortunately detained tonight, although he hopes to make an appearance later on. He asks that we host this night in his absence, and so if I could invite the guests of honor, Mr. West and Ms. Horton, and everyone else to please head to the ballroom, then we can officially commence the festivities.”

“Thank you,” Joe says, holding out his hand to Cecile. After she takes his hand, and the two of them begin to head down the double staircase to the rather ornate ballroom, apparently modeled after some Baroque-style palace, the rest of the guests follow. Iris can feel Barry’s eyes on her as they walk down the stairs, even though she is a few feet in front of him, and a feeling of great anticipation washes over her, as she ponders how the night might unfold.

As they reach the bottom of the staircase, Cynthia stumbles on the second to last step, and Iris lurches forward to steady her friend, but in doing so, she too loses her footing momentarily, and she thinks they might both end up tumbling down together, but just as she catches Cynthia’s arm, one hand comes around her waist, the other on the small of her back, preventing her from falling. Indeed, Cynthia is able to catch her balance, with Iris steadying her then, and she smiles gratefully up at Iris.

“Thanks,” she says, and Iris nods with a smile,

“Of course.” But her concentration is on the two hands holding her, for they’re Barry’s hands, and she is extremely aware of his touch against her bare back, his fingers gripping her gently, but firmly. She turns to look at him, just as he asks,

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks, Bear. You saved both of us from tumbling down stairs in our gowns,” she replies, chuckling slightly, as Cynthia smirks, watching both of them closely,

“Yes, of course Barry did.” Noticing Cynthia’s knowing look, Barry and Iris smile sheepishly, seemingly embarrassed, but Barry does not step away from Iris, still holding her, the imprint of his hands hot against her.

The live orchestra is situated near the end of the large ballroom, and the conductor raises her baton, signaling that the musicians are about to begin performing a piece. Cynthia quickly says,

“I’m going to go see if Cisco wants to dance. Bye!” Before she walks away towards Cisco who is already near the center of the room. Iris shakes her head fondly, before Barry asks,

“Do you… would you like to dance, Iris?” His tone is soft and full of longing, and Iris recognizes the gravity of this moment.

“I would love to,” she replies, her face shining with a number of emotions, and she is uninterested in attempting to mask everything that she is feeling. She wants Barry to know. He smiles, releasing his grasp around her waist and back, and holding out his hand to her, which she takes in her own. As his fingers enclose around hers, she shivers for a moment, not of any cold air, but rather because of the intensity with which she knows that she loves him.

They make their way slowly into the ballroom, where the orchestra is playing a sultry musical piece, and Barry’s left arm comes around Iris, his hand settling at her waist, while he holds her left hand in his right. Her free arm goes around his neck and for a few moments they simply sway in each other’s arms, gazing at each other. Barry leads her around the other couples, but Iris barely realizes that they are in a ballroom full of other people, for she feels, within his arms, as if they are the only two people in the world. His eyes do not leave hers for even a moment, and it is hard not to mistake what he’s feeling in that moment, for his emotions are visibly ablaze upon his face. She wonders then how she possibly could have misread one night, when there had been so many signs telling her that he feels in their most intense moments all that she feels, but she supposes that the tricky thing about loving her best friend was the debilitating fear that he may not feel the same way. The fear that if she voiced her feelings, she could lose the safe harbor of their friendship forever. But change is sometimes not only good, but imperative. And perhaps that is the most integral part of what they shared; their need to trust each other in order to fully realize that their friendship was perhaps never simply platonic ever.

Iris moves closer to Barry in his arms, as they continue to dance, laying her head against his chest, feeling the comforting rhythm of his heartbeat against her ear. She closes her eyes, savoring his touch, while Barry’s arm tightens around her, his lips brushing against the crown of her head in a soft kiss. The music crescendos as they dance, coming to a natural end, and applause from the other couples erupt around them, but Barry and Iris, break apart only slightly, both of his hands now holding her waist, while his forehead comes to rest against her own. Iris’s hands slide up his chest, resting just below his bowtie, and they both breathe deeply, trying to mentally navigate what they are supposed to do next. It is apparent to Iris now that they cannot possibly put off the inevitable any further.

“We should talk,” she says, brushing her nose against his.

“Yeah, yeah,” he replies, dazed. She smiles, feeling his breath fanning against her lips, and realizes then just how physically proximate they are to one another.

“Privately, Bear,” she urges softly. He nods, seemingly coming back to his senses and registering that they are currently in a room full of other people. They move apart, slowly, his hands caressing her as he backs away, and Iris immediately misses the warmth of his arms around her.

“Right. I’m sure we can find somewhere private away from all of this. It’s a hotel after all.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” she replies, raising her eyebrows. He grins lopsidedly at her, and without another word, he takes her hand and leads her out of the ballroom, and she wonders if anyone has noticed them, but finds herself not particularly caring if everyone is indeed watching their abrupt exit. Once they climb up the stairs and reach the mezzanine again, nodding politely towards a few members of the hotel staff milling about there, Barry looks around searchingly, and Iris is aware that he is trying to determine where they ought to go. She squeezes his hand, before saying, “Let’s just go to my room. Otherwise we’re going to be running around this whole hotel searching for a quiet place.” Barry lets out a breathy chuckle,

“Yeah, good idea, otherwise we’d be something like a pair of high school teenagers at prom, running around the venue for somewhere private.”

“We did miss out on prom, though. Together, I mean,” she replies wistfully. Perhaps there’s something distinctly poignant about her tone, because Barry pulls Iris closer to him, his hand settling gently at the base of her neck, and he’s regarding her, adoringly.

“But we did get our dance, even if it is thirteen years later.” She smiles, her eyes glistening with unshed tears,

“Yes, we did.” At that Barry drops his hand to hold hers once more, and he presses the call button for the elevator, and as they await the lift, all Iris can feel is both deep contentment and love.

*

            When Iris enters her hotel room with Barry, it is with an internal sigh of relief, for the short journey from the mezzanine to the third floor of the Time Metropolis felt torturous, as they both were jittery with anticipation, but unable to truly voice anything until they were within the safety of a private room. Upon entering the room, Barry immediately begins pacing, while Iris busies herself by pouring them both glasses of water from a jug situated on the bedside table. She proffers one to Barry, and he stops fidgeting for a moment to take it.

            “Thank you,” he says, gratefully, and they both sip from their glasses. Iris figures that she ought to convince Barry not to resume walking around the room, so she sits down on the edge of the bed and kicks off her heels. “You make it looks so graceful,” he sighs, coming to sit next to her, clutching his glass tightly.

            “What do you mean?” she asks, and he turns, so that he’s facing her fully. Iris carefully places her hand over his, loosening his hold on his glass, hoping to help alleviate some of his nervous energy.

            “Everything you do. It’s so graceful. So beautiful. I just…”

            “Bear,” Iris starts, but Barry shakes his head quickly,

            “You don’t have to say anything, Iris. I know that I messed up yesterday, but the truth is I’ve been messing things up for years now.”

            “No, Barry, you haven’t,” Iris counters, while Barry puts his glass down on the floor beside his feet. Determining that they have now arrived at the point where all their cards are about to be laid out before them, Iris does the same with her own glass. When she places her now empty hands back on her lap, one of Barry’s hands encloses one of hers, gently prying her fingers open, so that her right palm is facing upwards, resting on her knee, before he interlocks her fingers with his. He brings their joined hands to his lips and kisses her knuckles, slowly, reverently. “Bear…” she whispers, but she is unsure what to say, recognizing that they are on a precipice of change.

            “I owe you an explanation. I owe you so much more than that, but perhaps I can start with an explanation. But first, I am so sorry, Iris. About last night. I didn’t… I obviously was taken aback when I saw Katie again, and her over-friendliness was a source of confusion for me, but I guess I didn’t have the wherewithal to deal with everything she was saying, but I shouldn’t have even let her say anything. And if I’d been unable to stop her, I should have shut down all of the absurd insinuations she was clearly trying to make. I was put on the spot, not that that’s an excuse, but when I saw you… when I saw your face, I knew I’d screwed up really badly. Because to see you look so upset and to know that I was the reason for it, I don’t… god, Iris, it felt like a knife to my chest, and all I could think about was how much of an absolute idiot I am,” Barry begins, speaking rapidly, voice trailing off at the end, and he’s looking at her so earnestly, as if the worst thing in the world to him is being the cause of even an ounce of her sadness, and goodness she just wants to take his face in her hands and tell him that he is her happiness. But she stops herself, because she knows they have to get through this conversation.

            “Bear, I’m not upset or angry with you now. But I was, especially right after Katie said what she said, when we had had that moment in my room just hours before, when you came to give me this.” And here she picks up the wedding band sitting between her collar bones to emphasize her point. “It just felt like everything we had shared had been rendered insignificant in that moment. Like it was nothing. And then I thought I had maybe read the moment wrong, but whenever I go over what happened in my head, I know that you were feeling what I was in that moment.”

            “You weren’t reading that moment wrong, Iris. Not for a second,” Barry says, using his free hand to cup her cheek. She leans into his touch, closing her eyes for just a moment. “We almost kissed in your room, and I… there is nothing more that I wanted to do than kiss you. And then Cynthia interrupted, which wasn’t her fault, obviously, but I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t extremely frustrated, especially because we seem to have been interrupted throughout our lives a countless number of times.” He chuckles ruefully then, but Iris’s breath hitches, as she mulls over his words, particularly, there is nothing more that I wanted to do than kiss you. If only she could ask him then how he truly feels about her. If only she could tell him how she truly feels about him.

            “But what about the dinner at Marano’s?” she queries, instead, for that betraying voice in her head refuses to let her move past that. Surely, Katie did not completely make that up, for even if she was simply saying all that she did to get a rise out of Eddie, telling complete falsities seemed a step too far. And there was the added anxiety that Barry had not corrected her then.

            “Yeah, yeah, that was… Katie completely mischaracterized that dinner. I know it was dinner at Marano’s, but what she failed to mention is that Matt, who’s her cousin, as you know, was there as well, and the whole thing came about, because Katie showed up when I was tutoring Matt, and Old Mrs. Rogers was adamant that we all go out to dinner. But she was feeling unwell, and nonetheless insisted that we go, and it was impossible to say no, especially because Matt really wanted to go. I’m… I should have set the record straight last night, because I knew what Katie was trying to imply, and she was completely wrong on that account,” Barry replies, all in one breath, and he looks so pained that he’d let this fester, without correcting Katie’s white lie immediately, but Iris lets out a soft laugh, then,

            “If you could have seen the scenarios I’d somehow managed to cook up in my head… Looking back, I realize they were probably irrational, and I should have just asked you, myself, but I was devastated and angry, and I think I just needed time to myself at that moment.”

            “Iris, I am so, so sorry. Just the thought that you’d been in any kind of pain, because of me… god, I’m such an idiot,” he says, his fists clenched on his lap, and his tense form causes Iris worry. She frames his face with her hands, caressing his cheek with her thumb, hoping to soothe him. She leans in to rest her forehead against his, and for a few moments, all Iris can hear is their breathing, as she feels some of the tension in Barry’s muscles dissipate.

            “It’s okay, Barry. This is not your fault. We just both stumbled into a series of romantic mishaps, because of someone else’s lies. But we’re here now,” Iris soothes. Barry grins at that, fully relaxing then.

            “Romantic mishaps, huh?” he teases gently. She moves away from him just slightly to look at him properly, chuckling,

            “Would you characterize it otherwise?”

            “Not at all. Especially because Cisco said that you and I have been constantly tumbling into romantic mishaps throughout our entire adult lives. I was so mad at him, both last night and today, because he kept saying that I couldn’t call you or text you… and you should have seen me today. I was oscillating between walking around like a zombie and ranting at Cisco about how he could put me through this. He wouldn’t budge, though, repeatedly telling me that I needed to give you a day’s worth of space and that I’d see you at the gala. And I was going out of my mind the entire day. But now,” he says, bringing his hands to her waist, slowly, tentatively. “I think maybe he was right.” Iris silently agrees, because despite her initial frustrations over Barry having not reached out to her today, Cisco was probably right in refusing to allow him to call or text her. They both clearly needed the day to work through their emotions by themselves.

            “Well, Cisco is quite wise,” she remarks in response.

            “Drove me insane today, but yeah, he has his moments,” Barry jokes, and Iris laughs. “God, I love your laugh.” Iris raises an eyebrow at that, as she simultaneously runs her fingers through his hair. He closes his eyes for a moment, as if relishing her touch.

            “You love my laugh?” she asks in jest, but his expression becomes solemn, and he pulls her closer to him, his hands remaining on her waist.

            “Always have. I remember,” he begins, slowly, carefully. “…When we first met. My mom had brought me to the playground when I was ten, and I’m pretty sure I was upset about the new move to Central City, so she probably took me there, so that I could blow off some steam. And I’d somehow managed to swing myself so aggressively that I’d tumbled headfirst into the dirt. I was so angry and annoyed, and I’m pretty sure about to start crying, but then there was this small hand…” At this, one of his hands release her waist, and he grasps her hand, intertwining their fingers. “…Reaching out to me. That was when I’d first met you, and you were smiling and asking if I was okay, and I’m sure I said something stupid, because I was kind of in awe. But you laughed and told me that I was funny, and I’m quite sure… no, I know that that was the moment that I fell absolutely in love with you, Iris. Or maybe it was a year later when my dad died, and you found me crying in a corner, hours after everyone had left, after they’d all come by to pay their condolences, and you stayed up all night with me, holding me. Looking back, I knew I loved you then. But when you’re a kid, you can’t truly fathom love, but I knew I had a total crush on you, and when I was about sixteen years old, I identified that what I felt for you was love. I was in love with my best friend, but I didn’t know how to tell you, because I was so afraid that I would completely ruin our friendship. And yet, the years that have past since our childhood and young adulthood just strengthened my feelings. I’m more in love with you today than I was when we were children.” As Barry speaks, he holds absolutely nothing back, wearing his heart on his sleeve, and Iris tells herself to steady her breathing. Because she is aware that if she is completely honest with herself, she has known that Barry reciprocates her feelings for a long time, but to have him tell her, to have him say that he’s in love with her… there is nothing that could prepare her for this moment.

“You’re incredible, Iris,” Barry continues. “I don’t think you even realize how amazing you are. You jump headlong into seeking the truth, with little care to your own safety, because you so innately believe in the importance of preserving justice and saving lives. You see the best in people, no matter what, but most of all you inspire people. I’ve told you time and again that you’re my hero, Iris West. But more than that, whenever I see you, it’s akin to coming home for me. I’ve struggled with the concept of home and where that might be for me, especially after my dad died when I was a kid, but I’ve realized that home is not a place. It never has been for me. Instead, it’s a person. It’s you. Whenever I need to get away from the rest of the world, my safety net is you. You’re whom I always run to. Because you’re my home, Iris, and you always have been. I love you deeply. And I promise that I’ll dedicate every day to loving you… if you’ll have me of course.” Tears spill from Iris’s eyes then, which Barry immediately catches with his thumbs, gently brushing them aside, as he cups her face. He’s smiling so widely at her, his own eyes glistening, and she finds herself contemplating how surreal this moment truly is.

“You really have quite a way with words, Barry Allen,” she says, her voice shaking, slightly.

“Only for you. You’re the storyteller, after all. I’m just the boy luck enough to love you,” he replies, and Iris’s heart soars, completely overwhelmed with love for the man sitting before her.

Then she begins,

“Well, I suppose I should tell you about the day that I am quite sure was a moment of exceptional clarity for me. We were in the eighth grade, and I was overworked as Editor of the Central City Junior High Gazette, because none of my fellow cub reporters were completing their articles on time. Unfortunately, not all fourteen-year-olds took their responsibilities as junior reporters in training as seriously as I did mine. It was nearing the end of the day, and I still was short two articles, and I was nearly in tears over the stress of the realization that I was going to need to cover two stories, myself, in a matter of twenty-four hours, because we needed to fill the page quota necessary for publication. The door of the classroom opened, and you enter, and I didn’t know what it was about seeing you then, but the moment I saw you, the dam broke, and I was sobbing. And you raced over and hugged me and asked me what was wrong, and when I told you, you simply said that we were going to find two stories to cover together and that you’d stay over at my place for the entire night, if you had to, helping me. And in that moment, I knew everything was going to be okay.

Because the truth is Barry, you are my rock. You’re always there for me no matter what, and I didn’t know then why I finally cried only when I saw you, but I know now. I felt safe to fully release my frustrations and anxieties, despite still being in school, because you were with me. Whether you’re entering Jitters to meet me or racing through the doors of the Citizen with Big Belly Burger take-out, I’m home the moment I see you. I love you, Barry. I love you so, so much, and I’m completely yours. I always have been, and I always will be.” At the end of her declaration, Barry is gazing at her both lovingly and ardently, and he says,

“And I am totally yours.” With his hands still cupping her face, he surges forward and captures her lips with his, kissing her hungrily and passionately. This kiss is years in the making, and there is no easing into it, as Iris gasps into Barry’s mouth, her hands climbing up his chest, until one hand settles at the nape of his neck, while the other remains near his heart. She presses herself even closer, wanting to be as physically proximate to him as she can, and he evidently wants the same, for he secures one arm around her back, pulling her smoothly into his lap, until she’s straddling him underneath her long gown. There are vague warning bells in her head, reminding her that she might tear her dress, but she is hardly concerned about that, figuring that her dress can certainly weather a night of her finally kissing the love of her life.

Meanwhile, Barry’s hands have bunched up the skirt of Iris’s dress to her hips and are roaming the smooth skin of her now bare legs, and his mouth leaves hers and moves to the skin below her earlobe, before slowly kissing the side of her jaw and then her neck.

“Have I told you how gorgeous you look?” he murmurs huskily, then.

“I think you might have,” she chuckles, breathlessly.

“Well you look absolutely beautiful,” he responds, before kissing her again, this time more languidly, taking his time to really explore her mouth. Iris responds, cupping his chin with one hand, equally enjoying his more relaxed kisses as she did his passionate kisses moments ago.

She then pulls away for a moment, and Barry groans, chasing her mouth, but instead she undoes his bowtie, with nimble fingers, and takes in his flushed lips, dilated pupils, and mussed up hair, and she’s sure she has never been more content than in this very moment.

“I love you,” she says, as he buries his head in her chest and mumbles something incoherent. “Bear?”

He turns his head to the side, so that she can hear him when he states, rather hoarsely,

“Iris, when I said I was yours, I meant it. Seriously, I���d literally do anything for you.” Iris smirks at that, maneuvering his head gently away from her chest, so that they were eye to eye, before replying,

“That could turn out to be a very dangerous statement, Barry Allen.” Barry grins, rising to the challenge.

“I’d be more than happy to indulge in a little danger where it involves Iris West,” he responds. Iris raises her eyebrows at that and brings her lips to Barry’s, coaxing his mouth open with hers. He wraps his arm tightly around her lower back, while his free hand dips under the hem of her gown, bunched up at her waist, brushing his fingers teasingly against the soft skin of her abdomen, while she runs one hand through his hair, as the other unbuttons his dress shirt. Her hips buck against his, as she caresses his bare chest with her thumb, soliciting a moan from him, which she quietens by deepening their kiss.

Barry lifts Iris, then, and in one movement lays her on the bed, as he hovers over her, before gently moving his lips from hers to trail soft kisses down the length of her neck. Just as he reaches her collarbone, there is a loud banging on their door, and Barry groans loudly, dropping his head to her chest. Iris sighs, running a hand through his hair, when a voice that most definitely belongs to Cisco yells out,

“Barry? Iris?”

“If we ignore him, do you think he’ll go away?” Barry mumbles, just as Cynthia says rather loudly,

“We know you two are in there, so don’t pretend you can’t hear us.” Barry audibly grumbles, while Iris chuckles,

“Baby, I admire you wanting to ignore those two, but I really don’t think they’re going to leave.” Barry lets out a puff of breath that fans against Iris’s skin, and he slowly rolls away from her, sitting up and placing a pillow in his lap, perhaps in an attempt to be discrete, although privately Iris knows that Cisco is absolutely going to comment gleefully on his friend’s state of disarray. Meanwhile, she gets up and adjusts her dress, so that it falls back over her legs and walks over to the vanity mirror, grabbing a make-up cloth to wipe off her now smudged lipstick. She’s quite sure that she’s already sporting love bites on her neck and shoulders, but she cannot seem to bring herself to care about concealing them.

Once she’s satisfied that she’s as presentable as she can possibly be, given the circumstances, she opens the door of her hotel room and sees Cisco and Cynthia standing by the threshold, both wearing similarly smug expressions.

“Iris!” Cisco says, clapping his hands together, dramatically, while Cynthia scrutinizes her, before asking,

“What’s that on your neck?” Although her tone suggests that this is no innocent question, and she’s simply trying to put Iris on the spot, Iris refuses to take the bait, instead querying,

“Are you two going to come in? I imagine you’re here to deliver urgent news.”

“Patience,” Cisco replies, jovially, as he enters the room and spots Barry, sitting on the edge of the bed. At this sight, Cisco seems positively gleeful. “Nice pillow, Barry.”

“You are an ass,” Barry mutters darkly, not bothering to greet his friend.

“Love you too, man. And by the way,” Cisco chuckles, throwing his arm around Iris. “It’s because of me that this happened.” He gestures between Barry and Iris. “Without me apparently putting Barry through absolute misery today, the two of you would have continued your decades long song and dance of refusing to acknowledge that you are madly in love with each other.” Iris shrugs off Cisco’s arm, rolling her eyes, fondly.

“Yeah, yeah, thank you, Cisco,” she says.

“Mmhmm, forget West-Allen Matchmakers. I think Ramon and Sons, Experts in Match-Making is the real success story.”

“Is that so? Because I’m pretty sure the two of you have been clearly enjoying each other’s company, and Barry and I can definitely take some credit there,” Iris replies, raising an eyebrow, and Cisco blushes at that, tucking his shoulder-length hair behind his ears.

“Well, for two people who apparently are champions at setting everyone else up, you sure took a ridiculously long time getting your respective acts together,” Cynthia retorts. At this, Iris saunters over to the edge of the bed, sitting next to Barry and leaning her chin on his shoulder, while he takes one of her hands in one of his.

“Maybe. But we’re here now,” Iris replies, as Barry kisses her forehead.

“Y’all are cute, I’ll admit,” Cisco says, and Cynthia smiles at the sight of them together.

“So why are you here?” Barry asks, stroking Iris’s knuckles with his thumb. In response, Cisco grabs a chair near the vanity and sits down, while Cynthia seats herself in a cushioned armchair by a round coffee table.

“So…,” Cisco begins, pausing for dramatic effect, although his anticipation is not reciprocated by either Barry and Iris, who do not prompt him. “Alright, so, guess who showed up just now, roughly halfway through the ball?” Cisco does not wait for an answer, however, the question apparently rhetorical. “That’s right. Eddie Thawne, accompanied by Katie Rogers. Their appearance so late in the game is not even the real crazy thing, because you’ll never guess what happened when they arrived. Okay, so the two of them show up, and they’re dressed for the occasion, and they head over to Cecile and Joe, where Eddie apologizes profusely, naturally, but then seems to reveal something to Cecile which makes her absolutely ecstatic. And she’s crying and hugging Eddie. Needless to say, we were all quite curious as to what could possibly be going on, but Eddie dispels the suspense quite quickly, when he and Katie head over towards the orchestra, and he abruptly stops the musicians and conductor, before taking a mic and claiming he has a big announcement.

He apologizes sincerely for being so late, but explains that he has a reason for being late, and this reason is that he has big news that will bring everyone at this ball great pleasure. And he proceeds to announce that he and Katie just eloped and got married.” At this, Barry and Iris exchange flabbergasted looks, before turning back to Cisco.

“Excuse me?” Iris says, as Barry’s brow furrows contemplatively.

“They got married,” Cisco repeats, shrugging his shoulders. “I know, I know. But that’s where they were today, apparently. Getting married. I’m ninety percent sure, though, that this was a decision made on the fly.”

“But they clearly were having some sort of argument yesterday that we all were not privy to.”

“Yep. I still don’t know what that’s all about, but I have a theory from talking to Katie afterwards. I obviously went up to congratulate them, because what the hell else are we supposed to do, and I was like, ‘Oh this is very nice and all, but this seems sudden.’ She was really cagey, but kind of let it slip that she was pissed that Eddie was keeping their romance a secret from his family, who wouldn’t approve of his involvement with her or some crap, so Katie had given him an ultimatum of her own that if he didn’t get serious with her, she was going to leave him. Guess that kicked his ass into gear.” Iris notices Barry watching Cisco closely, as he takes this in, nodding along. Cisco’s explanation appears to have given him some clarity on the situation.

“That makes sense,” Barry sighs, shaking his head. “I think I may have somehow ended up as the scapegoat, while Katie was trying to make a point to Eddie. But it’s just… god I’m such an idiot, because all the while, Iris was hurt by all this mess, and that is on me… I should have been clear about setting the record straight.”

“Hey, Bear, it’s okay,” Iris soothes. “It really doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” Barry exclaims. “It does matter, because all of that hurt you, Iris. And it’s just… god, this is my fault, and…” But Iris has heard enough, and she grasps both his hands in her own.

“Barry,” she says firmly. “We’ve been over this. What happened last night was not your fault. None of this is your fault. You couldn’t possibly have known about Katie and Eddie’s romantic drama. It seems like nobody knew that they were secretly dating.”

“You’re right,” Barry replies. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten so angry, but just the mere thought of Katie’s callousness, by trying to insinuate what she did about me and her, all because she was trying to make Eddie jealous, having hurt you is so infuriating.”

“I love you,” Iris whispers, brushing her lips against Barry’s jaw, just as Cisco clears his throat loudly,

“Hey, I know y’all are in that insufferable, just got together officially phase and all, but we’re still here, and I haven’t even gotten to the best part of the story.”

“Yeah,” Cynthia interrupts, clearly fed up with Cisco’s prolonging. “Patty dumped a glass of wine over Eddie’s head.” Barry and Iris turn to each other, sharing a surprised look, as Iris observes,

“And here Barry and I were thinking that we’ve had our fair share of romantic mishaps. Seems as if we don’t really know what actual romantic mishaps encompass, after all.” Cisco, however, is clearly affronted that Cynthia had botched his story-telling,

“That’s not how you tell a story, Cyn. You have to ease into the best part to build up the anticipation.”

“Please, there’s no building up anticipation with Barry and Iris, other than them anticipating our departure.”

“True,” Barry says, chuckling. “And also, I know Eddie definitely didn’t deserve to get wine poured all over him, but that’s undoubtedly a sight that I’d have liked to witness.” Thus, Iris is reminded of one remaining mystery, namely the prickly nature of all of Barry and Eddie’s interactions that she has witnessed, so she inquires accordingly,

“By the way, Bear. Why do you dislike Eddie so much? I don’t recall you two having spent all that much time together to have developed animosity towards each other.” Barry’s eyes widen at that, and he resembles a deer caught in the headlights, which Iris, naturally, finds incredibly endearing.

“Oh my god, you never told her?” Cisco cuts in, looking positively maniacal at this discovery. Barry begins shaking his head frantically at Cisco, but his attempts at preventing his friend from talking are of no avail. “So, the first time Barry and Eddie crossed paths was at some garden party Cecile hosted, and you took Barry as your guest or something. I don’t know the details, because I only have secondhand information from Barry, but basically Eddie tried to insinuate that he might be interested in you to goad Barry, probably, because he, like everyone else except for you two, knew how you both felt about each other. Anyways, Barry had some really harsh words for Eddie, and since then the two of them can’t stand the sight of each other. Talk about the world’s fastest rivalry for no real, concrete reason.”

“I hate you,” Barry groans, burying his face in his hands, but Iris refuses to let Barry wallow in embarrassment, so she nudges him with her shoulder, leaning into him.

“I think you having… how did it Cisco put it?… Harsh words… is hot, Bear,” she says. He turns to her, with a small smile,

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He cups her cheek with one hand, his fingers burying into her hair, and kisses her soundly.

“Ugh, okay, okay,” Cynthia interrupts, getting up. “We’re leaving. Have fun, you two.”

“See ya!” Cisco yells, as Cynthia takes his arm and pulls him to the door. “And remember, this is because of me. I’m the real matchmaker around here.” Once they exit the room, Cisco still chattering away, Barry releases an audible sigh of relief and mumbles,

“Thank god.” Iris laughs, leaning her forehead against his, closing her eyes, before stating,

“You do know that I was never interested in anyone but you, right? I could never really make it work with anyone else, because I was so in love with you. I am so in love with you.”

“I know. And I never could be interested in any other person other than you, not when you have always had my heart,” Barry replies, before continuing, “Also, just to clarify, Eddie and I don’t despise each other or anything; we’re just never going to be friends.”

“Mm, well, I don’t think you two will be seeing each other very often outside of occasional social gatherings.”

“Yeah.” They stay like that, foreheads resting together, taking comfort in each other’s arms, before Iris says,

“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I am in this moment.” Barry smiles widely at that, adjusting so that he’s holding her face in both of his hands.

“Iris, you have no idea how deeply happy you make me,” he whispers against her lips, his tone reverent as he acknowledges the depth of his love for her. “I love you. I love you so, very much.” A tear escapes him then, which Iris wipes away gently with her thumb, before pressing her lips to his, as she delights in the knowledge that he is hers to love and she is his to love for the rest of their lives.

*

One and a half years later

            Iris sighs contentedly, leaning back against Barry’s chest, his arm wrapped around her waist. She is seated in his lap, like a bride (which, in fact, she is), her white tulle skirt fanning around both of them. All around her there seems to be a flurry of activity, as she assesses the myriad of guests in attendance at her wedding reception.

            Wally and Linda are attempting to feed their baby twins, and despite their bemoaning that they cannot quite get this parenting thing down, they seem to be doing a wonderful job at soothing their agitated twins and getting them to eat some mashed foods, which they had brought with them in portable Tupperware. Every time Linda manages to feed a twin, Wally gives her an exaggerated kiss on the cheek, which seems to highly amuse the babies, who giggle uncontrollably at this.

Her father, with whom she had recently danced the father-daughter dance, is regaling some folks with stories about when she was young and how he always knew she was going to grow into an absolute journalistic star. Usually, Iris would be embarrassed by her father’s bragging, but today she lets him sing her praises, for it is her big day after all. Cecile is chatting with friends at a table, and seated near her are Eddie and Katie Thawne, whom Cecile requested be invited, much to Barry’s chagrin, and who are also expecting a baby, as Katie is already sporting a baby bump. Patty is also in attendance, which Iris had initially worried might be awkward, given that there is a good chance that Patty would run into Eddie, but Patty recently reconnected with an old boyfriend, and she brought him as her date. Plus, Patty has managed to completely ignore the Thawnes, at least thus far. Cisco and Cynthia, who have been dating for over a year now, appear to be in their own little world together, heavily flirting with each other at their table. Caitlin and Ronnie are sitting next to Cisco and Cynthia, but they don’t seem particularly concerned with the other couple’s flirting, for they are preoccupied with entertaining their two-year-old daughter.

Allegra, Kamilla, and James are all laughing about something, and Iris is glad that they are enjoying themselves, for she knows that last week was a highly stressful time at the Citizen, because they had finally published a piece, on which all the Citizen’s reporters worked for weeks on end (now a team of nearly fifty reporters, for the amount of positive publicity that had resulted from the McCulloch Tech exposé had catapulted the Citizen into journalistic stardom, particularly after Iris had been awarded a Peabody Award and Kamilla a World Press Photo Award for their work on the article), exposing a massive eviction scam, which implicated three local politicians. So, Iris is grateful that the three reporters seem to be relaxed and happy, the stresses of last week hopefully dissipating. As for Kara, she appears to have discovered the scrumptious doughnut display near the dessert buffet and is evidently in heaven. 

Iris’s Great-Aunt Esther sits at the head of the West family table, friendly, but reserved and still ever so beautiful. Barry and Iris are seated one table down from her, and when Great-Aunt Esther catches Iris’s eye, she winks at her favorite grand-niece, perhaps reinforcing the sentiment that she had voiced to Iris earlier that day that she is the happiest she could ever be to see her dearest grand-niece marry the love of her life.

“Your Mama, My Francine… she would be so proud of the woman you have become,” Great-Aunt Esther tells Iris right before Joe arrives to walk her down the aisle. Tears roll down Iris’s cheeks, as her Great-Aunt gathers her into her arms. “I know, sweetheart. I know.”

“I miss her so, so much. Every single day,” Iris whispers.

“She is always, always with you.”

The memory from this morning is one Iris knows she will cherish deeply, but while she relives that moment, she notices that there now appears to be trouble, for Barry’s mother, Nora, joins Joe, and they both start telling the tale of how they knew Barry and Iris were always going to get married from the moment they witnessed the two interact as young children. Surely, the two of them would somehow manage to recount the numerous occasions on which Barry and Iris play-acted getting married as children, usually with a stuffed dinosaur presiding.

“When Barry came home from the playground that day after meeting Iris,” Nora says loudly, “He went running up to his dad and said, ‘Dad! I met the most beautiful girl in the world today. I think I want to marry her.’ And my late husband said, ‘Well, slugger, love is about reciprocity. Focus on getting to know her. And who knows, maybe one day, we’ll be attending yours and Iris’s wedding.’ And here we are.” Upon hearing his mother retell this particular story, Barry drops his forehead to Iris’s shoulder, groaning quietly, so that only she can here.

“It’s bad already, and they’re just getting started,” Barry mutters, kissing his wife’s shoulder. “I think we should make our great escape right about now.” Iris smiles, running a hand through Barry’s hair, as she feels Barry’s lips move upward, slowly beginning to trail kisses from her shoulder to her neck. 

“Bear, if you’re trying to get me to agree to leave with you right now…” Iris whispers, attempting to maneuver herself discreetly so that the guests cannot see her husband kissing her neck.

“Is it working?” Barry asks, looking up at her and smiling.

“You know it is,” she sighs, and he appears supremely smug at that. “But we do have to stick around for a while longer, after all this is our wedding reception. We can’t just cut out early.” Barry mumbles his half-hearted assent, although he seems unconvinced, before caressing his fingers against Iris’s arm, gazing at her, suddenly contemplative. “What is it?” she queries, softly.

“I just can’t believe it. I can’t believe we’re here, finally, at our wedding reception. I think it really only hit me that I’m marrying you when I saw you walk down the aisle, and you are so, so beautiful and amazing and wonderful, and I realized that I’m truly lucky enough to marry the girl of my dreams,” Barry replies, and Iris frames his face with her hands, leaning forward gently, so her forehead rests against his.

“Those tears were real huh?” she teases, gently. Barry chuckles, and because they are so closely pressed together, she feels the reverberations of his laugh against her own chest.

“Completely real.”

“So were mine,” Iris says, her lips just a hair’s length away from his. “Because just as it was overwhelming for you to watch me walking down the aisle, I was incredibly overwhelmed with happiness and love seeing you standing at the end of the aisle, looking so dapper, and knowing that I finally get to marry the love of my life, who is the most amazing man that I know.” Barry’s eyes glisten with unshed tears, touched by her words, and he brushes his nose against Iris’s, murmuring against her lips,

“I love you, Mrs. West-Allen.” Iris responds by kissing him once gently, and they are silent for a few moments, foreheads still touching, and contemplating the depth of their love for one another. Then, Barry shakes his head fondly and remarks, jokingly,

“You and I are complete saps.”

“Eloquent saps,” Iris corrects, laughing. “But that’s why we’re perfect for each other.”

“Mm, true,” Barry says, taking her hand in his own and bringing their joined hands to his lips and kissing her fingers one by one. “I love you so much, Iris.”

“I love you,” Iris replies, before her expression becomes more mischievous. “It’s a shame we don’t have balloons at our reception.”

“Why? Were you planning on wrangling some into our car? Personally, I’d be game. I only got to witness you successfully fit those balloons into your car last time, an admirable feat, I might add.” Iris shakes her head fondly, feigning mild exasperation, while Barry laughs.

“Spoken like someone who has never had the view from his rear mirror constantly marred by inflated balloons,” Iris sighs. “And so no, I do not want to attempt to take any inflated balloons with us in a car, but I guess I was just feeling slightly nostalgic, because it was at my dad and Cecile’s wedding reception that I think I realized that I’ve always been in love with you.” Iris looks down at their intertwined hands, while Barry’s gaze becomes solemn, then, as he tucks an errant strand of hair that had come undone from her elaborate bun behind her ear.

“Well, that was also the night I first really told you how I felt,” Barry replies, and Iris glances up at him, surprised. “Yeah. Do you remember when I said that something incredible has always been in front of me, and I just really should throw caution to the wind?”

“I remember. You were talking about me. About us,” Iris whispers, and Barry nods, caressing her cheek gently, his touch warm and comforting against her skin.

“Yeah. I guess that was one of the many times I really came close to spilling my heart out to you, but Linda was also there, and I figured your dad’s wedding reception probably wasn’t a good place to tell you how I feel. Although I do think the spirit of weddings prompted that particular confession that night.”

“It’s silly now, looking back, but I remember thinking that you were talking about someone else at the time, and that’s when I truly realized that I am absolutely in love with you and have been for years.”

“I know that was all cleared up quite quickly, but I could never have been ever talking about anyone else,” Barry says, and Iris smiles, turning her face into his hand and placing a soft kiss on his palm.

“I know, Bear,” she replies, but from his expression, she can sense his adamancy about providing abundant clarity.

“It only has ever been you, Iris. It only has ever been you,” he whispers, and she lays her head against his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat underneath her palm, before murmuring,

“And you’re the only one. You’ve always been the only one. And you and I have the rest of our lives to tell each other every day.” Barry adjusts, so that she is completely encircled by his arms, while he presses his lips to the crown of her head, as she, in turn, wraps her arm snugly around his waist.

“The rest of our lives,” he echoes, as his arms tighten around her. Iris smiles, glancing up at Barry, and remarks,

“Sounds pretty amazing, doesn’t it?” And he grins widely, bending his head towards hers and whispering,

“Absolutely incredible,” against her lips, before kissing her soundly.

[todaydreambelieversfic]

Author Spotlight : Blurglesmurfklaine Day 2

Author: @Blurglesmurfklaine  (@spookyklaine​)

Share one of your strengths.

I didn’t notice this until my friend pointed it out to me, but I do think I’m quite good at incorporating secondary characters. I also like to think I’m funny sometimes

Share one of your weaknesses.

Consistency, lol. Just ask Adri lol! There was this whole issue where I kept referring to Kurt’s car when it had been destroyed the previous chapter and she was like... “hey uh... isn’t his car sitting at the bottom of a lake somewhere?” And I was like “DAMMIT, AGAIN??”

Which fic has been the hardest to write?

My Glee Potluck Big Bang fic, “If Music Be” was flowing pretty consistently until corona hit. I lost my job as a music tutor with the high school I had been working at, and trying to write it just really bummed me out and made me miss my students. But I finished it! so all is well :)

Which fic has been the easiest to write?

I think my Heartbreakers!AU came out pretty easily for me! And all the one shots in that universe, for whatever reason, have just poured out of me in record time. I am a notoriously slow writer, but I really surprised myself how quickly I wrote that fic, and how easy all the plot and dialogue came to me. I struggle with filling in the blanks sometimes, but that was never an issue for this story, and I think that’s why it holds a special place in my heart!

Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

I think it can be both (is that a cop out? Lol). I think I’m passionate about writing and sometimes I get sucked in and bogged down, but I try to keep in mind that I’m supposed to just... have fun and not take it too seriously

Is there an episode or character or arc above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

Kurt Kurt Kurt Kurt Kurt Kurt Elizabeth Hummel!!!!!!!!! 

I just. Words cannot express my love? For him???? He’s just so kind and compassionate and I think he sees the best in people. Sometimes I don’t get all the pop culture parts of his personality, but I love writing him being soft and sweet and a good friend and wow I’m very Overwhelmed I love him.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

I think I saw a post once that was like “Write what you want.” And it was basically something along the lines of write something you’d like to read. Don’t try to mimic other’s styles and just. Be yourself, I guess!

What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

I actually don’t know if I’ve ever come across *bad* writing advice, to be honest.

If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

Ooooooh! A comment I got quite a bit on the There From The Start series was that people would go back and watch season one of Glee, and forget that Blaine wasn’t introduced until season two lol. So I guess I’d say that series, because I feel like I’d be watching Glee Slightly To The Left

What’s your process? Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order? Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines? What are the perfect writing conditions for you?

Process? What process??? Lol

I definitely start writing (or at least outlining) from whichever scene or line came to me fist, or I felt the strongest pull of. The first chapter I wrote for Here We Go Again was Special Education because I suddenly the itch to write some Blanger (Blaine Anger I’m dumb I know). 

My “outlines” (if they can even be called that) usually just consist of lines of dialogue that come to me, shorthand of what’s happening, and little blurbs if what the character is feeling. Sometimes, though, I’ll plan something a certain way, and the scene will just ~take~ me somewhere else.

I think the environment of where I write doesn’t matter much, as long as I’m isolated. If I could somehow write in the shower without getting my clothes or device wet, that would be perfect!

***

Check out Blurglesmurfklaine’s Fic

Christmas Eve With You (Let It Snow) :  It's Christmas Eve in Lima Ohio, and Kurt has a lot to do: find the perfect gift for his dad, make a life changing decision, and--after an unexpected turn of events--escort pop star Blaine Anderson around town. You know, the usual...

nightbird mentioned you in a post! :  Blaine has a blog and can’t stop replaying a certain video over and over again. Season 2 AU

French Fries and Milkshakes :  Cheerio!Kurt and Nerd!Blaine don't exactly get along. So what happens when they get paired for a glee club assignment? They're polar opposites. They're voices shouldn't work together, neither should their personalities. Or their chemistry, for that matter. They're two very different things that shouldn't blend together, but do. Kind of like French Fries and Milkshakes.

[queer-acacia-archive]

Fire, Fear, and Fight

Summary: The knight of hell has time to reflect. Memories return and plans arise to fight back.

Words: 1650

Characters: Helsknight, Evil Xisuma, BadTimesWithScar

Tags: n/a

Helsknight could feel the Nether around him begin to change. Strange trees were beginning to grow, colored in a strange pink and blue. They were entangled with odd vines, and they seemed to give off a small amount of light that put him on edge, though he didn’t know why. The Pigmen were now more pig-like, their faces sprouting tusks and growing long ears. They spoke in strange grunts and snorts that only they could understand. The only word he could slightly make out was “Piglin,” so that’s what he began to call them. The fire that usually consumed the world now glowed blue when it hit soul sand, which itself had started to spread miles and miles through the Nether, creating valleys that were a pain to trudge through. When he breathed, the air felt heavy, and he found it more useful to cover his mouth with a scrap of cloth than risk getting whatever was in the air in his lungs. 

He looked out over the horizon, where a fortress had been built, seemingly overnight, by the Piglins. It was made out of a gray material that looked like cobblestone, but was much heavier and had a different texture. He kept his sword in his hand, just in case some strange creature tried to jump him; he had found that being defenseless when being around the Piglin’s horrible beasts was not a very good idea.

The place he had known for so long was beginning to morph and change around him, and he was powerless to do anything about it.

He closed his eyes, gripping tightly at the hilt of his iron sword. The sword had been a gift from his friend. He could still remember the two of them running through the barren wasteland of the Nether, scrounging around for any food they could find and digging through the loot of the many Nether fortresses that littered the landscape every so often. 

He couldn’t remember when the Nether portal appeared, or how they found it. Ex decided to test it out, and when Hels tried to go in after him, he found that he couldn’t. Ex was gone for what felt like months, and when he came back, Hels was subjected to him babbling on about someone not liking his gifts, and about there being a doppelganger to him that wore green— Hels had to console him for some time after that, and even managed to convince BadTimes to help him out. 

He began to leave every now and again, and would come back telling the two about his adventures in the Overworld and the many ways he was messing with his double, who they discovered was named Xisuma. One time he came back in pink clothing, going on about a “Worm Man” that he thought was really cool because he was a superhero and wanted to be just like him. He even brought back a few interesting characters: a robot he called “NPC Grian” who he had found in a storage room, and a man with gray skin and a ponytail dressed in black robes who had separated from another Hermit after he’d been revived after death. Hels didn’t mind the company— rather, he enjoyed the company the two brought. NPCG always talked about making rustic houses, and Grim was always talking about the fragile mortality of humanity, but they were fun to be around nonetheless. 

One day, Ex went through the portal.

And he never came back through. 

Hels tried to go through the portal again, but he would only step through the purple fog without going anywhere. He only realized that Ex was truly gone when the portal one day mysteriously disappeared. He sat down where the portal was for days, taking naps every so often and eating the food that the others would bring out to him. Nothing ever changed. The portal never reappeared. He had to accept that Ex truly was gone. 

It had been months when the second portal appeared. Hels had been out exploring the strange forest that had seemingly appeared overnight when he came across a decimated portal that suddenly lit up in that oh-so familiar purple. He stepped closer, feeling like the portal was somehow… calling him. He drew his sword as he stepped through. 

The sudden sunlight blinded him, so he squinted, trying to let his eyes adjust. The sky above him was a bright blue, a glowing orb above his head. Nearby, a house stood, built with a yellow-ish material. He knew exactly where he was. The Overworld. 

He heard footsteps nearby, and he quickly ran for cover behind a small tree. The figure that entered his vision looked like him, but with blue eyes instead of red, blond hair instead of brown, and unstained iron armor unlike his own that was covered in soot that refused to come out no matter how hard he scrubbed. It had to be his doppleganger, he just knew it. 

Then the anger began to settle in. He was one of them. Those stupid Hermits that pulled his best friend out of his arms without a second thought. The very notion of the idea made his insides burn with a fire he had never felt before. He had to make them pay. He didn’t care who he hurt. He would make them all pay for what they did. 

Hels shifted, and the sudden pain that spiked up near his shoulder was enough to bring him back to reality. The fight hadn’t gone as planned, and he was forced to retreat back to the Nether. It had taken him time for him to find BadTimes and listen to his scolding as he bandaged Hels’s battle wounds. NPC had asked him if he saw any rustic houses while he was out. Grim had stayed silent, instead eyeing the blue blood that stained the knight’s armor before leaving for his room. 

Hels turned his head when he heard footprints approaching him, his grip at his sword tightening in case he needed to prepare for a fight; his grip loosened again when he realized it was only BadTimes. The older man stopped next to Hels, watching the particles from the ceiling float down the ground. Neither of them spoke for the time being, just letting the comfortable silence sit between them. 

“Those piglins sure do enjoy the soot, don’t they?” BadTimes commented, breaking the silence between them. Hels noticed a smaller piglin that was sitting in a pile of soot and playing in it like a child playing in the sand. “Almost like they were born from the fire. Odd, isn’t it? So much can change in such little time.”

Hels nodded, his armor clanking a little with his movement. “Felt like it happened overnight, honestly. Those forests, and the soul sand valleys, and these bastions… it’s weird. Didn’t there used to just be netherrack here?”

BadTimes nodded, turning his head to look at Hels. His bad eye stayed dormant, while his good eye stared thoughtfully at Hels’s expression. “You might need a better sword if you go back, you know. Iron doesn’t do much against diamond.”

Hels glanced over to BadTimes, pursing his lips together. “Where would I—”

“Ex wanted me to give you this,” BadTimes said, holding out his usually free hand to Hels. His hand gripped a sword made out of pure diamond, the blue glow casting a strange light against the red under their feet. “He said to save this for a special occasion. I figured getting revenge is important to you.”

Hels put away his own sword before taking the diamond one in his hand. It felt surprisingly light in his hand, and when he gave it a few test swings, he found it to be easy to handle. 

“Also, I’ve heard some rumor about there being a mineral somewhere in this world that’s stronger than diamond. You may want to go looking for it. I don’t want you coming back with more wounds than before.” The older man went back to staring out into the horizon in front of him, a small sigh leaving him. “You do that fighting them won’t—”

“I know it won’t,” Hels interrupted, a sudden anger in his voice. “I’m doing this in his name, not for him. There’s a difference.” 

BadTimes shook his head a little. “I know I cannot stop you. So I might as well do my best to keep you safe. You know as well as I do that death for us is different than for those who hail from the Overworld. There’s no guarantee that you’ll come back the same, if you come back at all.”

Hels said nothing for a moment, then closed his eyes. “I know. But I’m going to do what I can to bring justice for my friend.”

He heard BadTimes sigh once again before turning to leave. “Oh, one more thing— NPC wants your help with building a rustic house. Says he’s gotten inspiration with all of the newfound wood. I’d help, but I can’t do much besides the planning.” With that, he left Hels alone, the sound of his footsteps along with his cane assisting him echoing until Hels couldn’t hear it anymore. 

The silence was just what he needed, he told himself. His mind had to be sharp as ever if he were to go back for a second fight against his double. He was the only thing standing in his way; getting rid of him would assure him victory. Then, he would make everyone else pay. He’d kill whoever took Ex away. He’d make sure every single one of them felt even a fraction of the pain he had felt when he had realized that the only friend he’d ever had would never return. 

Finally, he opened his eyes, and turned to return to his abode. Even knights needed their rest, after all.

[englass]

Hold Her Tight (And Don’t Let Go)

Pairing(s): John Seed X F!Deputy

Warning(s): Yandere, possessive/obsessive behaviour, soft but unstable John; he has a very warped idea of things; mentions of blood and physical wounds.

Word Count: 2,963

Gifted To: @seedlingsinner

A/N(s): A gift for my darling Sinner; I really hope you enjoy this, hun. I tried to keep it soft, but... well, you know me haha. I can’t quite help myself sometimes. And look! I finally found a fic for that title; I knew I was saving it for something special haha. But seriously, I hope I got this right; and that I did her justice. Thank you by the way hun, for not only allowing me to write this for you, but for putting up with me and being an amazing friend. You really are a blessing hun, I hope you know that; and, before I forget: Merry Christmas, poppet! 💖 💖 💖

- - -

There is a hush over the land, a chilled lull that hints to the ending autumn just as much as it does the falling night. Early rays of tired light making the still dark sky blush with the faintest dusting of pink, colours catching in the reflection of crystal-clear dew drops as the night steadily inches towards the dawn. A new day quite literally on the horizon.

It’s peaceful, the yawning night slowly being sung to sleep by the bird’s melodic hymns, as many continue to wander dreamily within the landscape of their own minds. Unconcerned and unaware of the many battles that will no doubt erupt once the dawn finally breaks and this day officially begins; the same as any other, yet different nonetheless.

Deputy Rook knows this routine better than any; always the first to rise, to shed and spill blood in the name of her chosen faction – to drown her conscious deep below the water's surface as she fights in the name of a tarnished and frail justice, morals abandoned under the bodies she recklessly leaves behind – and the last to put her rifle down and let the temptations of sleep snare her into a fitful slumber. Yes, Rook knows her daily routine rather well.

Yet the days are still different, and on those rare days where the mould has been broken Rook would typically revel in the change of pace. Would let herself get lost in empty thoughts as the morning fog rolled in, taking in the sights of ghostly meadows and mist-drowned woodland as she slipped free from the collar of her obligations. The world an enclosure where she was the only occupant; a beautifully lonely solitude.

Today, however, is far from such a day.

There is a tension in the air; a wire worn thin by bitter exchanges and pulled too tight by vengeful encounters. Fear turned aggressive on the precipice of its snap, battlefield dusted as the two that tug and stress the wire to its fullest foam and snap like rabid dogs. Cruel jabs and nasty words constantly exchanged like devoted love letters over shifting radio waves.

Really if she was in a better condition Rook would continue this little game of theirs, reflecting every petty snark he threw at her right back like an ever-present mirror; would help to demolish this suffocating pressure and that infernal wire that strangles the Valley with a flourish. Or maybe even a good punch to the bastard’s face. That would be something; but sadly, you can’t have everything.

Especially when you are in Rook’s position.

“How are you feeling?” John asks, a sea of troubled blue staring intently at the injured deputy. Gaze occasionally flicking down to her exposed bandages, fingers twitching restlessly in his lap. “You’ve been out for a while now…”

Rook shifts uncomfortably, hand pressed loosely over her side as she weakly moves up the bed and away from John. Jaw aching as she grits her teeth against the sharp twist in her side at every wrong move or too deep a breath.

At her silence John swallows thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the movement. He hesitates, lets the silence carry as one of his hands comes up to lay habitually against his chest, absently smoothing over the lettering of his displayed sin. A soft concern lighting his ocean eyes, strangely aglow under the lamplight.

“I was honestly starting to fear the worst. You should really take better care of yourself, Deputy.”

Despite his touching, if not completely unexpected, worry Rook finds it easier to keep quiet. To rebel by denying him her words and, by extension, her compliance.

Admittedly, a part of her wants to question him – ask why she’s here, in his home and a bed, instead of incarcerated within his bunker, but she refrains. The fear of his answer holds her tongue; keeps the bravado muzzled and the curiosity leashed. Her self-preservation a blaring warning that on this occasion she cannot afford to ignore or misread.

John can be a loose cannon, unpredictable at the best of times; feathers easily ruffled and fangs quickly bared; and Rook is vulnerable, at his mercy even. It’s a match made in hell; a pairing far out of her favour; and sadly, this time there’s no wheelie-chair to be her saviour, nor no gun-wielding priest to come to her rescue.

She’d be surprised if anyone thought she was still alive after what had happened; she could only imagine the wreckage that had become of her plane after that crash. Hell, even she was surprised she was still alive; impalement was definitely not the way she envisioned dying, least of all to a piece of stray shrapnel, let her tell you that.

Although, she guessed she had John to thank for not making that a reality. For what it was worth anyway.

A sigh taps at the tension, the soft sound of shifting fabric trailing it as The Baptist shifts; turns to better face her and move a sly inch closer. Free hand gripping at the duvet beside her leg, just shy of touching her through the cover. Although she has no doubt that he’s likely considering it anyway.

“You know, this could have easily been avoided if you had just taken me up on my offer. If you had just listened to me and put that filthy pride of yours aside then you wouldn’t be here-” his eyes narrow, expression tightening as he amends his words with a strained, but hushed, “you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

For some bizarre and completely unexplainable reason, not at all brought about by past and recent experiences, Rook sincerely doubted that. If it hadn’t of been that plane crash then one of his men would have hurt her instead; shot her like a poor doe during the hunting season no less. Which, considering the way they address and mock her over the radio, is a rather disturbingly accurate way of putting it.

Regardless of his offer, of what he had attempted to try and promise her, Rook didn’t believe for a second that her blood wouldn’t be spilt in some way or another.

She was the enemy – she is the enemy. She needs to atone, as he so likes to continuously remind her. And if she had learnt anything from her last little rendezvous with the man it was that atonement wasn’t without pain. She hadn’t swam across that ocean yet; she wasn’t free from the burdens of her apparent sins without braving those dark waters first; without being courageous and giving him that ‘yes’ that he so desperately craves and thirsts after.

And she didn’t plan to.

So, forgive her for not exactly having faith in him when he says that she wouldn’t be hurt. When he promises her sweet, pointless salvation all for the measly price of her freedom and subjugation and… and something else she wouldn’t give him.

Rook didn’t trust his words then, didn’t believe them even, and she definitely didn’t trust them now.

John takes a steadying breath, finally giving into the urge to touch her as his hand finds purchase just below her knee. Pressing his weight onto her as he moves closer, swallows and pulls away the hand at his chest to reach over and grab her own smaller hand; the one pressed delicately against her injured side.

Despite Rook’s protest, a ‘don't you dare’ hissing scathingly between her teeth, the seething threat that it’s intended to be wavers. Her voice weakened by the pain that throbs through her like a second heartbeat; composure fraying under the stress like a noose with too much weight to bear.

John hardly pays her words any attention as he pries her hand away from the bandages as gently as he can, fingers lacing between her own and squeezing. A sweet act of reassurance; a sour display of dominance. A sharp inhale following at the sight of the vivid red that has started to bleed through the once clean bandages again; a muttered beration on his tongue.

The hand at her knee moves, practically skims up her leg until it’s hovering over her side, absently fiddling with the partially unbuttoned shirt that she had woken up in. That he had changed her into while she was out cold; while he took care of her. Pools of ocean blue glazing in contemplation as he eyes the covered wound; critical and thoughtful.

The hand behind her, vainly supporting Rook’s weight and efforts to create some form of distance between the two of them, claws into the sheets; grips them savagely as the anger clashes with fear and festers with audacity. The nerve of this man; what on Earth is he playing at…

“I know you don't exactly think highly of me, Deputy. That you don’t trust me,” John starts carefully, eyes briefly – shyly meeting Rook’s, “or anything I may say or do for that matter. But I need you to understand just how serious I was being, the last time we spoke. That my offer was serious. I meant what I said, you would be safe here with me, dear. No harm would come to you, I wouldn’t allow for harm to come to you. I wouldn’t…”

There’s a shakiness in his voice, an urgent fragility that has Rook leaning back ever so slightly; brow furrowed and eyes wide.

“I can protect you; I know I can. I can give you a life outside of the barbarism that is your so-called Resistance. I could give you anything you ever wanted, anything – name it and it’ll be yours. It’ll be ours.” There’s an upturn to his lips, small and hopeful as his eyes sparkle up at her through his lashes, blue impossibly bright and innocent and-

And then it’s gone. Erased by a quick swallow; eyes ducking back down to her bandaged waist with a new veil cast over them. Something indescribable, unreadable shifting the colours of his eyes in ways Rook can’t understand; the lamplight casting shadows that make the ripples in the water of his eyes all the more sinister; all the more focused.

“I know I was perhaps a little… forward in my intentions when I proposed, a little hasty even,” he laughs nervously, almost boyishly, “but I meant it. I would never lie to you about such a thing, darling. When I asked you to be mine, I meant every word. I’d do anything within my power to keep you safe. You have to believe me when I say that.

“You believe me, don’t you, Eleanor?”

Rook – Eleanor – doesn’t respond. She doesn’t know how to respond. She knew John to be a bit off the rails, what with the things she’s heard and seen herself, but this… this definitely wasn’t what she expected. She didn’t even know he knew her name, let alone that he was so serious about that deal of his; that poorly described ‘proposal’ as he called it. She thought he was joking, that it was just another ploy to try and lure her in, no matter how stupid it sounded. She thought he was joking…

She wishes he was joking.

Her silence is answer enough and John fidgets, knee coming up onto the bed as his other knee comes over his ankle. The hand playing with the corner of her shirt – his shirt, twisting the fabric anxiously between his fingers.

“I… I don’t understand, dear. I don’t…” There’s a sudden distance in his eyes, a strange vacantness that turns the water darker. Thoughts lost as he searches her; eyes darting between her own before they fall back to her bandages, expression twisting; a realised emotion, an acquired answer, dulling the shine in his vibrant eyes.

“Am I so void of love,” he reaches out then, eyes lost in the ocean of a newfound vulnerability, “am I…,” he hesitates, the pads of his fingers brushing against her skin, lingering over the apple of her cheek, “will I ever be good enough? Would you ever want me?”

The question rings like a bad omen, air bitter as Eleanor stares speechlessly back at him. His hand falling back down to the corner of her shirt as she silently shakes her head at him; a muttered ‘you’re insane’ slipping heavily off her tongue.

“… That’s not a ‘no’.”

‘That’s not a’- oh, for fuck sake, “Then what the hell do you want me to say?”

John laughs, a broken sound that fractures like glass.

“Isn’t it obvious? I want you to say ‘yes’. I want you to take me up on my offer. I want you to want me; just like I want you.”

There’s a weighted pause.

A slow and drawn out: “That’s never going to happen.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” John counters with something soft in his tone; something free and teasing; something dangerous. “Tell me, have you ever heard of co-dependency, Deputy? I know our relationship isn’t quite to that degree yet, what with how you constantly refuse my help and affections, but you have to admit it comes awfully close. We both rely on each other so much as it is. Our jobs, our lives, revolve around each other. So why not make it a bit more permanent, hm?

“Take me up on my offer, Eleanor. Accept it, accept me, and I will happily take care of everything. Rely on me, just as much as I rely on you, and I promise that you will never have to raise a weapon again. Depend on me and I promise you that you will be kept safe. Love me, and I swear on God himself that I will do anything for you; anything. I vow it to you, love.”

Eleanor can do nothing but stare at him, skin pale in the wake of this warped confession. A moment passing by far quicker than it feels before she tenses, winces at the pain her physical resolve causes, before she replies with a daring, but avoidant, “I will never depend on you for anything.”

“On the contrary, darling,” he says with a blooming smile, “you’re about to depend on me for everything. For you see…” he licks his lips, the hand holding hers pressing lightly into the bed, stroking over her pulse point, “I’ve wanted you for a while now. It’s why I made you that offer. Why I asked for you to stay with me, by my side.

“You denied me, yes, but that’s because you couldn’t see. Because you were scared of the truth, of what you would find if you were to stay with me. If you were to stay and explore this connection we have. But now…” he stops fiddling with the corner of the shirt Eleanor’s wearing, fingers gliding sweetly over her bandages with an absent caress, “now I have a way to make you stay.”

Just as dread chills Eleanor’s spine, a question crawling fearfully on her tongue, there’s a striking pressure and she chokes – gasps as John’s palm comes down harsh against her wound, fingers pushing and digging violently into her until it bleeds.

Her hand buckles under her; body falling, back arching on the bed as John rears up and over her, following so his hand keeps pressure against her bleeding wound as she screams. Head thrown back and vision blurred, tears cascading quickly down her cheeks and onto the bed as she frantically grabs and claws at his wrist with her free hand; the other still pinned and helpless against his assault.

Her legs kick out and then seize, the pain paralysing as she wails brokenly into the early morning. It’s sharp and it burns and she desperately wants to curl up into herself, to roll over and huddle into as small a ball as she possibly can to protect herself; but John is still hanging over her. His face right over her own, peppering her wet cheeks with chaste kisses and gentle hums and coos.

The hand pressing into her wound, now covered with the blood that quickly bled through the bandages, pulls away. Stops applying pressure only to stroke lightly over the sullied bandages and reopened wound; rubbing her stomach gently like one would while comforting a sick lover.

It’s a disgusting imitation of intimacy.

“Y-you,” she stutters with a sob, body shivering and stomach twitching as raw ice floods her veins, her teeth bared in a snarling grimace as a vile curse tumbles free; a vain and pitiful act of defiance.

“Oh sweetheart,” John coos airily, cruel and mocking, until a delirious laugh scratches at the edges of his words; an unseen frenzy colouring his eyes and rattling within his voice. A bloody thumb coming to swipe shakily, but affectionately against Eleanor’s tear-stricken cheek; the final jab in this long-played game of theirs, “it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I've got you. I’ve got you. It’ll hurt for a while – I know, I know; shh, shh – but it’s okay, that’s fine. That’s good. It means you can stay. It means you can’t get into trouble anymore. It means you’re away from those, those heathens and blasphemers.

“It means you’re mine.

“Oh, I promise, I am going to take such good care of you, darling. I honestly can’t wait. I am going to be so, so careful with you. I wouldn’t want for you to misbehave and make this wound of yours worse after all, now would I? It would be an awful shame if it wasn’t to heal correctly because of your needless resistance…

“Hm? Now, what is that look for? There’s no need to look so frightened, my darling. You don’t have to worry about a thing, I’ll look after you. I’ll take very, very good care of you…”

[lacertae-dreamscape]

Gonna hit you with that "Genyatta, but Zenyatta is a famous model and Genji is his photographer." >:D

hello there babbu! i hope you enjoy this :D

Pairing: Genji/Zenyatta

Rating: T

Behind the lens, Genji feels powerful.

There is something intrinsically beautiful in being able tocapture something in a photo –the perfect angle, the perfect expression, theway light falls in a certain way, and the shadows pool just like that, a stolen moment that can look asreal or as prepared as he wants.

He enjoys the soft sound of lens recalibrating and zoomingon his target, he enjoys the whirr and the click when he finally picks the rightpose and takes a photo. He enjoys, most of all, the feeling of accomplishment,of being able to do something with his own life that at the end of the day hecan feel good about… even when his family still doesn’t understand.

It doesn’t matter if they don’t –Genji Shimada, 35, is happywith his job and his life.

He moved from a nobody to someone respected, not the onechasing celebrities hoping for a jib but the one being chased, the one who canturn even the most lacklustre setting into something glamorous, the most boringattire into a winning look.

Of course, the best photos always happen when the model isjust right.

Tekhartha Zenyatta, 20, relatively unknown but rising star, isprobably the most beautiful omnic Genji has ever met –and his photos prove it,enough that Zenyatta’s manager, a burly man with an almost constant frown, has contractedGenji for a hefty sum to make sure he is Genji’s main priority, and… Genji wouldn’tmind making Zenyatta his priority at any time.

It’s not just his beauty, because Genji has worked with himnow long enough to be able to say everything of Zenyatta shines like a brightstar.

Standing near the buffet, cradling a cup of hot cocoa in hishands, Zenyatta makes such a simple, everyday action look special. And yes,maybe it’s Genji being a little biased, but…

He snaps a photo before he can think about it, catching theway the light shines on Zenyatta’s chrome faceplate, on his naked shoulders,and hums, pleased, when the preview turns out exactly as he’d wanted it–

Before he catches himself, startled, and Zenyatta turnsaround, equally surprised.

“Ah, forgive me!” Genji fumbles with his camera, fingersliding towards the ‘erase’ button. “I had not meant to take a photo!”

“That,” Zenyatta says, though his voice holds no contemptnor anger, “is a lie.”

Chastised, Genji flinches.

He cannot begin to explain the complex mix of feelings hefelt just staring at Zenyatta’s frame, the way he looks so easily detached fromeverything yet a part of it all, how even holding a mug makes him appear unreachablebut also welcoming, how he couldn’t help wanting to steal that moment, captureit in a photo and hold on it, how intimate and personal it seems, expressingall of Zenyatta’s being into a single picture, +but he knows he’s oversteppedhis boundaries, even then.

The photoshoot has ended, he cannot–

“May I see?”

Surprised, Genji moves before he can stop himself, hands hiscamera to Zenyatta and waits, feeling jittery, as the omnic looks at thepreview and hums deep in his synth.

“You truly have a beautiful gift,” Zenyatta tells him, andsomething in his voice is almost muted. If Genji didn’t know better, he’d callit shyness, or perhaps bashfulness, but Zenyatta is a model and surely knowshow he looks in front of the cameras. “Though I would say, there are muchbetter subjects to focus on.”

“I don’t think so,” Genji says, before his brain catches upwith his mouth and he feels his cheeks burn. “I mean–” he fumbles a little,inwardly ashamed of his faux-pas, and clears his throat. “You are…” and then,he nods to himself, finishing the thought he’d so long kept to himself, “…fascinating.”

It surprises him to see Zenyatta’s shoulders jolt, and it isonly because he’s attentive to details that he notices the soft but continuoussound of fans spinning that grows just a little bit stronger then.

“Do you not think so?” Genji should learn to keep his mouthshut, but their previous interactions have been nothing but polite talk and Genjidirecting Zenyatta during photoshoots, so he feels elated now, and when Zenyattagives him his camera back, their fingers brush, leaving Genji with a tinglingfeeling in his hand.

“I enjoy watching people,” Zenyatta says, tone warm, “but I’venever thought of including myself among them.”

There, again –Genji catches Zenyatta looking away, fingerscurling together in front of him, shoulders hitching up just a fraction, andthe truth that worms its way in his mind leaves him almost giddy.

“Well, that’s my job,” Genji feels emboldened, “I enjoyworking with you.”

“I can say the same.” Zenyatta’s voice is happy, cheerful,and when he links his fingers together in front of his face, Genji feels hisheart do a traitorous flip in his chest. After a beat, Zenyatta hums and adds, “I’vealways admired your work.”

It sounds like a confession.

The fact that Zenyatta has heard of him before his managerhad employed him makes the giddiness inside Genji bubble to the surface, but hekeeps his tone neutral when he answers, “I’ve worked with enough models to knowwhat I am doing.”

“Oh, I did not mean that.”

Zenyatta holds his phone out for him to take, the tilt ofhis head making him appear almost shy, and when Genji glances down, he’ssurprised to see that the phone’s wallpaper is, in fact, one of Genji’s photos.Not one of his modelling works, nor his most famous shots at the red carpet…no. it’s one of Genji’s scenery pieces, a view of Nepal, the sky a sharp contrastwith the snow-tipped mountains, and a monastery barely visible in the fardistance.

Genji remembers that trip, hiking solo across the mountains,only armed with a small backpack and his camera, the way air had been cold inhis lungs and on his face, the way he’d felt so free and unburdened.

The way everything had seemed so beautiful.

It feels so long ago, yet the memories are fresh in hismind.

“… oh.”

“I have lived there, before coming here.” The wistful tonein Zenyatta’s voice makes Genji look up at him, surprised at the confidence. Littleis known of his life before, and that he would confide in him now… “that photofelt like home. I have been following your work since then, though… I admit, I appreciateyour scenery sets a lot more.”

Genji feels his throat constrict, and his heart flips again,but before he can think about anything he wants to say, Zenyatta’s managercalls for him.

“Forgive me, it appears Gabriel wants us to go, now.” Zenyattainclines his head towards him. “But… we’ll see each other soon, yes?”

“Yes!” Genji would never miss one of their photoshoots. Then,he stops. “The photo…?” he wants to keep it, but he will never disrespect Zenyattaif he asks for it to be deleted. “Can I keep it?”

Zenyatta hesitates. “Do you wish to… publish it?”

“Of course not!” Genji has a surge of protectiveness thatbubbles up his chest, and at that, Zenyatta makes a soft, chittering sound thatsounds a bit like a laugh.

“Then… it is alright.” Zenyatta looks down at his phone,then tilts his head to look at Genji one last time before he says his finalgoodbye and leaves.

Belatedly, Genji realises he’s basically asked Zenyatta tokeep a personal, almost intimate photo of him.

He’s glad Zenyatta’s gone, because the surge of hope andembarrassment he feels make his knees weak.

He looks forwards to their next photoshoot.

[zefyre]

Excuse me? How could I miss any of your updates xD?!? Cheking in regulary and the new pfk one s just so swoon worthy! I love how you wrote the whole thing, And you are ofc right, the jelly thing would be more like James (maybe at first just teasing her how he is jelly, then really becoming jelly and last stage would be scared that she does leave dumb him? lol now I want a fic with james becoming jelly! *pretty pls?*). Ugh I loved how you wrote it so much! Cant wait for raising the stakes tbh

aksjhdfd i’m!! so sorry!!! / cries/ this has been sitting in my inbox for almost a year and i started it back when you sent this but couldn’t manage to finish until today when i stumbled onto it in my docs and decided to try again. thank you for your sweet words btw haha, i hope you see this and enjoy~

.

It started when James found Kagome muttering almost furiously one day, a letter in hand and a flush across her face. 

She hadn’t noticed his approach, so distracted by her letter she was, and he felt his curiosity grow to a point where he couldn’t help himself. He casually strode past her, a growing smile on his face when he did so undetected, before he backtracked to sneak up on her. 

Once close enough, James hooked his chin over her shoulder as he simultaneously grabbed onto her hips to hold her steady, so he didn’t get clipped in the chin if she jolted. 

A chuckle escaped him when not only did Kagome jump as he predicted, but she also let out the most adorable squeak, slapping the letter against her chest – an act that piqued his curiosity even more, as if she had something to hide.

“Wotcha reading?” he drawled, resting his head against the side of her own, only to draw back when he saw the flush on her face darken out of the corner of his eyes. His grin grew, a trickle of giddiness trickling up his spine at the sight of it spreading all the way down her neck. “Oh ho ho,” he said with a breathy laugh, “This wouldn’t be from a secret admirer now, would it?

He laughed in earnest when her face twisted in an expression of mortification, a whine escaping her throat. “Well that’s a yes,” he sniggered. He raised a hand, wiggling his fingers pleading. “Are you gonna let me see it?”

With a long-suffering sigh and a reluctance that one would think she was signing over her life, Kagome surrendered the letter, holding it out for James to read. Unable to witness the deed with her own eyes, she shut them and leaned her head back against James’ shoulder to save herself from the grief.

James eagerly scoured the letter and soon realized with a bubble of delight that Kagome’s reaction wasn’t an overreaction – the bloke actually opened the letter with some of the cheesiest poetry he’d ever laid his eyes upon. 

“To my dearest angel, with eyes so faire, even the stars cannot match the luster of your stare,” James tried reciting with somber flair – he managed up until the word “luster", breaking out into pained wheezes trying to hold back his mirth. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, no more reading aloud,” he choked out when he saw the tell-tale twitch of her eyebrow and the tightening grip she held the letter,  and knew if he kept it up she would looked ball up the parchment without hesitation. “Okay, okay, phew.” As he read on, his smile diminished once he got past the cheesy poetry and the letter took a more earnest turn. “You know him well?” he wondered absently as he continued to read, not knowing why that surprised him so much, and not wanting to know why that idea..  niggled at him, either.

He thought it was just some anonymous, star-struck underclassman writing her, to be honest, but the letter was now talking about a meeting they had in the summer. 

Kagome let out a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a hum. “For a few years now, yeah… He’s a good friend of Inuyasha’s brother. We met over… the summer after fourth year, I think it was, when we happened visit them at the same time.”

He glanced at her, blinking owlishly. “I didn’t even realize Inuyasha had a brother.”

Kagome snorted. “Half brother,” she explained,  “He’s a couple years older and they get on like cats and dogs. He also went to Durmstrang, where he met Kouga.”

“And he’s been sending you these things ever since?” James asked, taking her hand and waving the letter in the air before stopping short, mouth dropping open as realization hit him. He sputtered, laughter bubbling in his chest, “No, no, no, this isn’t the same guy that sent you that singing howler on Valentine’s day in fifth year, is it?

James all but exploded in laughter when Kagome groaned and buried her face in her hands. “You got detention for a week for setting that thing on fire in the middle of the hall!” he crowed, hugging her tightly to his chest in lieu of clutching his stomach, his head folding over her shoulder.

Kagome began to bang her head back against his chest, repeatedly. “That was so embarrassing,” she groaned, sinking against him. “The detention was worth it to get it to stop.”

“Merlin,” he muttered, still laughing, “I think I might be a little jealous,” he teased, pouting his lips at her.

“Don’t be.” Kagome said it so bluntly that it made him laugh again. “I tried telling him I’m not interested but he never really listened. I think he was hanging on in the hopes that I’ll give in one day.”

Now that made him frown. “Not bloody likely,” he muttered, unconsciously pulling her snugger against his chest. 

Kagome grinned and reached up to give him a little pat on his cheek in reassurance. “He’s harmless, if a little pushy maybe,  but I think he does it mostly to get on Inuyasha’s nerves. Now they really hate each other.“ Instead of pulling her hand away, she used it to cup his cheek, sweeping her thumb along the curve of his cheekbone. “Since he found out about you, it’s now like a jokey tradition kind of thing,” she explained, rolling her eyes to add, “Still bloody embarrassing though.”

James felt something in his chest settle then. “Oh,” he said a a small laugh, perhaps a little too relieved, and his chest puffed out a bit. “You told him about me?” he cheesed, feeling smug.

Kagome burst out into a bout of snickering. “More like Inuyasha gloated in Kouga’s face first thing that he lost his chance when we both visited this past summer.”

James was pleasantly surprised Inuyasha did that for him – after all, they got off on the wrong foot last year and things had been awkward around each other ever since, which made the moment’s they crossed paths in the tower uncomfortable to be sure. “He did that?” The ‘For me?’ unspoken, only to have his spirits dampened when Kagome snorted and shot him a look of pity. 

Not for him then.

“They really, really don’t get along,” Kagome explained, laughing once more.

.

.

Kagome continued to receive the letters, but after some time she began to keep the correspondence to herself. They weren’t cheesy love letters, she’d tell him, but more personal in nature and as such it didn’t feel right to share with others. 

James completely understood of course, didn’t mind, but he would be lying if he said there wasn’t a… discomfiting feeling that took to stirring inside his chest whenever he witnessed a certain owl delivering letters to Kagome, one that only grew over time when the letters increased in frequency – when he’d spied the soft smile blossoming along her lips upon reading said letters. 

It got worse when Valentine’s came and she received a package – a gift, more sincere than the obnoxious ones of the singing variety she’d gotten in the past: her favorite flowers and special chocolate truffles imported from France along with another letter that made her smile bright and laugh a flattered sort of laugh and even blush the faintest shade of pink.

The burning in his chest only eased slightly when a Howler came three days later and Kagome immediately panicked, arm whipping out, wand in hand, and lighting it up into flame before the owl could even properly take off from the table – causing a chain reaction of the owl shitting in fright on a fifth year, the tablecloth catching fire, and three sixth years getting drenched with pumpkin juice in a failed attempt to put it out.

Fifty points were deducted that night from Hufflepuff, and Kagome earned herself two weeks worth of detention for the spectacular display.

.

.

It all eventually came to a head one day in the middle of Hogsmeade when James stopped short at the sight of a handsome man with long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and striking blue eyes down on one knee in front of Kagome, one hand cradling her left while his other held out something that glinted bright in the rare sunlight.

“Holy shite, is that guy proposing to Kagome?” Sirius choked out from beside him, equally rendered stunned at the scene, but James could barely hear him over the roar in his head, over the heavy, rapid beat of his heart in his ears, over the monster that grew in his chest at the sight of someone proposing to Kagome.

Over the deafening thought that he wanted to be the one to propose to her, and the… the anger he was taken aback to find simmering hot and foul at the bottom his belly at the simple, and yet mind-blowing fact that he wasn’t the one do it first.

He was just about to turn on his heel and run away, afraid of the scene before him and even more terrified of the turn his thoughts had taken, when a sharp smack echoed out loud the street. His head snapped up to stare wide-eyed at Kagome’s hand still raised and the man’s head turned at an exact ninety degree angle.

“This is not funny!” James heard her shout, her voice strangled and frantic, tinged with disgust as she went on to say, “Put that thing away!”

And to his utmost shock, the man threw his head back in laughter and did as she asked, snapping the velvet box shut and shoving it back into his trouser pockets as he clambered back up onto his feet. 

And, to his ever mounting surprise, pull Kagome into a bear hug that while she didn’t completely accept, she didn’t exactly fight him off like he thought she would either.

Now, James found himself striding closer to the pair, unable to ignore the growing, curiosity gnawing his chest. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, old habits die hard,” James overheard the man say, still laughing. “Couldn’t help myself.”

“You’re as bad as Miroku proposing to Sango every weekend.”

“Hey, she gave in eventually didn’t she?”

Kagome refused to deign that remark with an answer. “Now get off me you big oaf, you know I have a boyfriend. He’s gonna have a heart attack if he hears about some strange bloke proposing to me in the middle of Hogsmeade!”

Striking blue eyes caught James’s and he was startled to see a hint of fang in the smirk the other man flashed.  “Oh,” he chortled, not even bothering to keep his voice quiet. In fact, he projected it so James could clearly hear him. “I don’t think you have to worry about the rumors getting to him first – he wouldn’t happen to be the tall bloke with the glasses coming just now would he? Cause he’s giving me quite the evil eye.”

Instantly, Kagome’s hand snapped out to start wrapping him against the arms to release her, which he did a chuckle, arms steering wide.

Once free, Kagome whipped around, the familiar look of mortification whenever it came to a certain Durmstrang graduate clear on her face, and he already knew what she was going to say.

“James!” she said, a little breathless and on a nervous laugh. “This is, haha, this is Kouga. I’ve told you about him.” She sounded honest-to-Merlin at her wit’s end at that last part.

James crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Am I going to have to duel him for your hand in marriage?” He looked over Kagome’s head to lock stares with Kouga as she suddenly choked. Despite his snarking tone, his gaze was uncharacteristically serious. “Cause I will.”

“What is this, the dark ages?” she sputtered, before waving her hands hastily between them, “And there will be no dueling because that was just his idea of. Of a Joke.” She turned to give Kouga a filthy glare when he shifted a little uneasily behind her, adding in a much darker tone, “A bad one.”

James broke out in an easy smile that still held a bit of edge. “Oh I know,” he said pleasantly, sounding all light-hearted now, even as he smile turned a little smug. “I could tell by the slap. I think even kids in Hogwarts could hear it, it was a beautiful one, love.”

Kagome’s head tipped to the side to study him, and it was the uncertain look that crossed her face that had him inwardly sighing and backing down. He strode over, dropping a reassuring kiss on her temple as he passed her before offering his hand to the older man. “James Potter,” he introduced himself. He also offered a half grin, “I’d say nice to meet you, but, I just saw you propose to my girlfriend.”

“Kouga,” he introduced himself laughing a little, a little nervous. “It, uh, it really was a joke,” he said, taking James’s hand and shaking it. “The ring’s actually for my girlfriend. Fiancé. Hopefully, if she accepts that is.”

“And she will,” Kagome chimed in, giving Kouga another stink eye, “So long as she doesn’t murder us both if she ever hears of this.”

Kouga waved her off with a robust laugh. “She’s in Japan visiting family, she won’t know a thing!”

“She always knows,” he heard Kagome mutter, watching as Kouga suddenly gave a deep wince when she continued to say, “She knew about Valentine’s,” which was when James realized the Howler from back then must’ve been from his girlfriend instead of Kouga and… and that Kouga must have been dating her even that far back. 

Louder, Kagome went on to say something about how Kouga started writing to her about this Ayame, his hopeful fiancé to be, asking for advice and sharing about his ideas to propose, all which James heard but didn’t quite take in completely as he was slipping back into his thoughts.

This meant, that this whole time, the growing… growing jealousy that he’d felt – he couldn’t deny what it was now that he knew – seeing Kagome with the letters… all that worry had been for nothing…

Merlin, he felt like a bloody idiot. 

.

.

It wasn’t until after Kouga left, treating them all to lunch – Sirius included, who had hung back, fists at the ready for the moment James needed him to jump in to help kick the arse of the bloke trying to propose to his best mate’s girl – for his self-admitted “dumbarse stunt” before taking the Floo back to his flat, that Kagome confronted him. 

“James?” he heard her quietly prod, felt her nudge him gently against his side. He turned to see her looking up at her, “Everything alright?”

James sighed, managed a small smile to reassure her, before turning to Sirius to ask for a moment alone with Kagome. He caught on quick, clapping him on the shoulder before getting up and making his way to the bar. 

When he turned back to face Kagome again, he found her worrying her bottom lip. With another sigh, this one fond, he reached up with his thumb to gently tug her lip away from her teeth to save it from further abuse. “It’s not your fault,” he told her with genuine honesty, taking her hand and intertwining their fingers, “I’ve just been a bit thick lately and hadn’t realize it until today.”

“Kouga,” Kagome guessed, and correctly at that. James nodded, squeezing her hand. “I never realized the letters upset you, I’m sorry, James, if I did…”

She trailed off when he shook his head, squeezing her hand more insistently this time. “No, no, this was all me, getting into my own head, seeing things that wasn’t there and never… speaking up about it. I’d thought…” he trailed off, with a rueful, self-deprecating laugh as he confessed, “I’d thought the letters were working on you, I guess. I saw you get them, and how you’d… laugh, or even blush, and built it up to something it clearly wasn’t.” 

James reached up with his free hand to tuck a fallen curl out of Kagome’s face and behind her ear, pressing a kiss against her furrowed brow to smooth it out  smiling when it worked and Kagome leaned into his touch. “Never once realized I was jealous until I saw the bloke today, down on one knee in front of you and a pretty impressive rock in his hand,” he said with a wry laugh.

“Gods,” Kagome breathed out, laughing along with him. “All this time I was helping him with Ayame, it scared the shite out of me when he did it.” Quietly, more hesitantly, she added to say, a pretty flush rising to her cheeks, “Definitely, uh, definitely not the one I thought about… about proposing to me.”

James was not ashamed to admit how breathless her admission made him, the sight of Kagome shyly averting her gaze, her blush darkening further, as he whispered, “Yeah?” and she nodded, biting her lip once again to hide her flustered smile. 

Nor was he ashamed at how eagerly he quietly confessed in return, “I think what upset me the most was the fact that I wasn’t the one to propose to you first, joke or not.” 

Stunned, Kagome steered a wide eyed gaze back up at him, silently mouthing “Really?” and he laughed, a little giddy, and pressed his forehead against hers. 

“Trust me on this, Kagome, I was not kidding about dueling that prat for your hand. And I’d’ve kicked his arse, you know I would.” At her breathless, snorting laugh, James grinned a foolish grin, before he sobered and slipped his hand free of hers to cup the sides of her face instead. 

“One day, I’m gonna propose,” he promised, and watched with rapt attention how her blush returned in full force, mingling with the freckles smattered across her cheeks, and the roundness, the misty sheen her gorgeous blue eyes took on in response.

James felt his heart flutter, so incredibly entranced right then and there, and swallowed down the nerves that was building up in his throat. 

“Not now,” he ruefully muttered, “And certainly not in middle of The Three Broomsticks where all you can smell is the butterbeer and stale fish and chips, but…” 

James trailed off and gazed warmly at Kagome with gentle grin. “But one day it’s gonna be me getting down on one knee, offering you up a ring, riding on the hope you’d grant me the incredible honor of becoming your husband, because as sure as I knew it the day you threatened me with your bat that you were something special,” and James paused, grinning wider as Kagome burst out in a watery chuckle, her eyes way past misty now and almost spilling with tears, before he told her so solemn, so empathetically, with as much emotion and confidence that he could summon, “I know you’re it for me, and there’s not a chance I’ll let you slip away, not if I can help it.”

[mybukz]

Fiction : The Queen and the Parrot by Satya Misra

Image by Ilona Frey on Unsplash

This had happened in Chandrateep, a kingdom in the state of Malaba, during the reign of King Brushaketu.

A smart and handsome youth came with a cage, with a parrot inside it, which he wanted to personally present to the king. He was not allowed to see the king, but his persistent entreaty moved a couple of guards to go into the palace and inform the king about this visitor. The king was told that a young man had brought a parrot, which, he claimed, was a very special bird with extraordinary qualities. He refused to demonstrate its qualities to anyone other than the king, although he was prepared to leave if the king declined to see him. The youth looked polite and cultured. Would the king be pleased to permit him?

“What is so special about that parrot?” asked the king, and even before his query was answered, continued “What exactly does this man expect from me?”

“Maharaj, this beautiful green parrot with a bright red beak can sing and talk. His songs are melodious and speech is musical. The young man believes that only our noble king can appreciate the qualities of his bird. He has trained the bird with great dedication and affection exclusively for the king. He doesn’t expect anything in return, as the bird is meant to be a gift. He appears sincere and polished.”

“Is he a subject of my kingdom? What is his name?”

“Yes, Maharaj, he says he is a citizen of Chandrateep. His name is Sumedh.”

“Guards, go back and tell him that the king is pleased with his loyalty. But it is improper for a subject to call on the king and offer him a gift. This goes against our royal custom.”

“But our youngest queen Malabika is very fond of birds. She believes that there is no sound sweeter on this earth than infants babbling and birds chirping. You take that man to the chamber of my consort Malabika. The queen can keep the bird as her pet if she likes. Ask our treasurer to pay Sumedh appropriate cost of the bird. It is against my policy to accept free gift from a subject. “

The guards left the place after paying obeisance to their King.

*******

King Brushaketu had a discerning eye for beautiful women. He already had five wives and there was no saying how many more could come. Malabika, the most recent addition to the line, was the youngest and dearest to the king. The latest arrival always remained closest to the king’s heart, a status that continued till the arrival of his next bride. Though not from any royal lineage, Malabika outshone any princess or queen by virtue of her dazzling beauty and magnetic persona.

The king never had to compete with other suitors for winning the hand of a woman. Nor did he have to woo any woman or seek a bride by sending messengers to other kingdoms. He chose his queens from his own kingdom, mostly during customary rounds in his kingdom, sometimes even from carnivals or public places. Occasionally his messengers brought information about some young lady whom they deemed suitable to be a queen. Brushaketu firmly believed that the first right over a lady of marriageable age vested with the king of the land. Hence any woman on whom the king set his eyes promptly became his queen. All his five queens had come through this process.

This method was believed to please all parties. While the brides were elated to surrender their lowly lives to become queens, their parents were equally eager to install their daughters in the palace. The king himself had asserted many times that the practice of elevating a girl from among his subjects to the status of a queen vindicated his superior, citizen-friendly administration. He didn’t believe in importing a princess from another royal family.

Whenever the king left his palace for a tour outside, his roving eyes searched for pretty women. There were of course whispers about decent young women hiding themselves during the king’s outings, to escape from the king’s lascivious eyes. But most citizens dismissed this as pure canard and believed that the nubile virgins of Chandrateep, decked in finery, tried to attract the king’s attention at every available opportunity. Which girl would not love to be queen of a powerful king?

******

The generous reward Sumedh got from queen Malabika in return for his favourite bird was far beyond the realm of his modest living. When the friendly guards enquired about his meeting with the queen, he replied their queries truthfully, but in the process uttered something which made the guards see red. The queen had asked him to bring her more such birds if available. The guards wanted to know when that would be. ‘Never,’ said Sumedh curtly and dismissed the question. The curious guards wanted to know why, but Sumedh remained reticent. On persistent prodding, Sumedh told his reason which enraged them so much that they promptly took him to the chief of army, Senapati, who was also the protector of the palace.

Senapati heard him out and counselled him,’ Young man, you are young and immature. You get easily blinded by your impulse, which might be disastrous for you in the long run. Watch your words .You may lose your life, should the king come to know this. So shut your mouth and run away fast.’

Sumedh’s response was polite but bold, “I have spoken nothing but the truth .Had I not been asked I would not have opened my mouth? I don’t regret my words.”

Sumedh’s last sentence convinced Senapati that the youth with an innocent boyish expression could indeed be an obstinate and irksome rascal. Leaving him free might be dangerous. Sensing a threat to the image of royalty, he took him to the king. The wise minister of Chandrateep, the chief counsellor to the king and principal strategist of the kingdom, was also present at the moment.

“Who is this young man?” asked the king. ‘Why have you brought him here?”

“Maharaj, this is the same youth who had come to meet you with a talking parrot. He has handed over the parrot to the queen as ordered by your noble self. But on his way back from the queen’s palace, this lad has uttered words which are disgraceful and insulting to the palace, especially to the queen. He doesn’t show any remorse or regret for his irresponsible conduct. So I brought him here, Maharaj.”

“What offending words did this fellow speak?” asked the king with a mixture of anger and curiosity.

Maharaj, I am unable to utter those audacious words. Let your highness hear from the culprit himself. Please allow me to leave now.”

But the King didn’t allow Senapati to leave. He cast an angry look at Sumedh and demanded to know what the fuss was about.

“Maharaj, I have committed no crime. I have only told what was in my heart, which angered your guards. Permit me to leave the palace. Punish me if I ever set my foot in your kingdom. Whatever has caused such turmoil today will be wiped out forever. I pray your majesty to kindly set me free without asking any further questions. I swear that nobody will see me here during my lifetime.”

His words and demeanour were very polite; but the king was not satisfied. Sumedh was rudely made aware of the dangerous consequence of defying the king’s orders.

“Maharaj, the moment I saw the queen, I was struck by something like lightning. The dazzling smile with which she welcomed a lowly bird seller like me made me quiver like jelly. I fulfilled my duty and surrendered the parrot to her. I also explained to her how the bird had to be commanded to get from it the sweetest songs and words. Then I hurried back as soon as I could. I was so much enamoured of the queen’s magnetic beauty and electrifying personality that I could not bear to spend more time with her . I was nervous, fidgety and perhaps trembling too. Her angelic charm, soft tender voice and gentle behaviour cast a spell on me and generated such deep feelings, to describe which I find only one word; which I dare not utter here. I know my feelings are forbidden, one-sided and extremely dangerous. So I am guilty for my thoughts.”

The king, his minister and the Senapati were listening intently without looking at each other. After a brief pause, Sumedh continued, “I didn’t know how long I remained under such trance. With some effort I somehow recovered and came to myself; but it would be impossible for me to stand again before the queen even for one moment in this life. Hence I cannot bring any more bird for the queen. I told this to your guards and explained the reason. That’s my only crime. I spoke from my heart.”

The king, with an inscrutable demeanour and raised eyebrows, asked “And how did the queen react? She is sharp enough to read your base thoughts, you scoundrel .She must have made out your filthy character and shooed you away; Didn’t she?”

“No Your Majesty; nothing of that sort happened. She didn’t get any inkling of my weakness. Only for a moment did I see her face. That single glance shattered me so ruthlessly that I completed my task as quickly as possible to leave the place fast. I cannot entangle myself again in such a situation. So I cannot bring any more birds, Maharaj. That’s my only prayer.”

Brushaketu’s simmering anger grew into a tornado which hit Sumedh with savage fury. The swear words heaped on the hapless bird seller surprised the bystanders, especially the minister, as those words were never known to be part of the noble king’s vocabulary. He ordered for Sumedh to be thrown immediately in the prison. Then he announced that the appropriate punishment for this lecherous villain could only be death, to protect the prestige of the royal family and the kingdom.

Total absence of any fear or remorse on the accused’s face angered the king even more. He was about to release a further dose of scalding lava when the minister intervened. “Maharaj, it is grossly inappropriate and audacious for this boy to open up his heart in this manner. He is certainly guilty. He is also immature. It is not easy to keep one’s feelings under control. Execution will of course annihilate the culprit, but nothing else will change. Even if he remains alive, it will have no impact on you or the queen or the kingdom. You can continue to spend your days of conjugal bliss with the queen. So please do not tarnish your name by executing this lad. Let him be banished from our kingdom instead. Order him not to set foot in our land during his lifetime.”

The king could not accept his minister’s suggestion. He would decide Sumedh’s fate after more consultations and wanted him to be held in a prison cell till then.

******

When queen Malabika heard about the daring confessions of Sumedh, she was livid with anger. She cast such a venomous look at Sumedh’s parrot that her maid in attendance wondered whether she would order the poor bird to be killed instantly. The bird, unable to read the queen’s reaction, promptly recited few verses from its memory with gusto and enthusiasm. The maids remained silent, but the parrot, incapable of regulating its own behaviour according to its owner’s mood, went on twittering more verses and sentences with greater vigour. This must have further infuriated the queen, as she immediately proclaimed death sentence on Sumedh. An ordinary subject had the audacity to confess his infatuation for the queen of the land! And he would tell it in so many words before the king, the minister and the Senapati! It was unpardonable. She could not approve the way the king and his minister handled the matter. They ought to have ordered Senapati to behead the rascal on the spot. That barbarian did not deserve to live. His shameless existence was an insult to the dignity of the queen as well as the entire kingdom. “That man named Sumedh is a blot on humanity. A poisonous plant. Uproot him. Burn him. Hang him. I cannot live in peace as long as that lecherous rascal is alive. This is my desire, my demand. Go and convey this to the king forthwith, my maids.”

The king happily accepted his dearest queen’s verdict, which pacified the queen a bit. But she was suspicious that Sumedh might have taught some vile, vulgar things to the parrot. She carefully listened to every syllable and note uttered by the bird repeatedly, trying to understand.

After careful consideration, the queen sent specific instructions for Sumedh’s execution. He would be beheaded as a human sacrifice before the goddess Kaali, the presiding deity of the kingdom. Kaali ruled the universe from her temple located inside the palace, at the southern corner. She had appeared more than once in the queen’s dreams, demanding human sacrifice. Malabika normally did not encourage human sacrifice, but this case was different. The expressed desire of the mighty goddess, followed by the appearance of a sinner like Sumedh in the kingdom, clearly indicated that Kaali herself had arranged fulfilment of her own wish. This created an opportunity to kill two birds in one shot: destruction of evil and propitiating the goddess. Non-compliance of the divine dictum would be disastrous. The queen ordered that Sumedh be decapitated at midnight of the next new moon, which was the hour of goddess Kaali.

There was no way the combined will of the goddess as well as the queen would remain unfulfilled. Sumedh lost the right to retain his head on his shoulder.

********

As the new moon was drawing close, preparation for the rare human sacrifice was in full swing. The temple priest was happy that the ceremony would be different from the routine monthly rituals of other moonless nights. For too long Kaali had been thirsting for human blood. The fierce goddess could not be sated with an animal sacrificed every month on new moon night. Sinister things would happen if the goddess of power, death and destruction was prevented from drinking human blood at least once a year. The priest’s earlier warnings about an urgent need for human sacrifice were not heeded. He was grateful to the young queen who ordered the sacrifice of a man.

Ever since the sacrifice was announced, the priest had noticed a rare glow on the menacing face of the deity. Surely she was waiting eagerly for the forthcoming event to quench her thirst. Her fearsome dark blue body, the ten hands with sharp weapons in each hand, eyes burning like embers, lolling blood-red tongue, garlands of severed human heads and stark red hibiscus flowers dazzled with such ferocity that even the priest felt an eerie fear. Kaali stood with one foot placed on the chest of Shiva, her husband, who was lying prostrate on the ground, face upwards, eyes staring at the hungry face of his consort.

The priest was waiting for the dark night of the new moon with great excitement. The heavy, shining sword, used many times for beheading lambs and heifers, was now polished and kept ready for Sumedh’s neck. The headsman would sever the head from the torso in a single stroke. As the head would roll down from the wooden altar, with the body wriggling on the ground, the priest himself would carry the severed head to the deity, offering her fresh warm human blood. That would satisfy Kaali and bring good fortune to their state.

With only five days left for his big day, the priest had to remain fully prepared for the special midnight worship. He was happy that the queen herself was personally involved in the preparations. She had even instructed the jailors, on advice from the priest, to keep the sacrificial man free from any injury on his body, because Goddess Kaali would reject an offering with any scratch or defect.

The priest dipped his fingers in a bowl of bright red vermilion paste placed before the deity. Smearing his forehead with a thick layer of this paste, he closed his eyes in reverential prayer, muttering under his breath “May your desire be fulfilled, O divine mother Kaali”.

********

On the new moon, the eldest queen Ambika called the youngest queen before midnight and asked her with apprehension “Sister Malabika, You are young and sometimes impetuous .You are also wise and rational. I trust that you have carefully considered effects of whatever you have decided to do. It is never too late to withdraw. Even now you can undo everything if there is even a trace of trepidation or hesitation in your mind.”

But Malabika replied calmly, “I regard and respect you like my own elder sister. I always treat your expressed wishes as commands. But today I request you not to nurture any apprehension in your mind. All arrangements are in place. With only about an hour left for midnight, the world has turned dark and black. We need your prayers and blessings for the big event.”

Ambika gently touched Malabika’s head and said softly “May Goddess Kaali fulfil all your wishes, my dear Malabika.”

******

Shortly after sunrise on the following day, King Brushaketu frowned at a messenger. He had come to take the king’s permission to allow some visitors into his private chamber. It was very urgent, he was told.

“Why can’t they wait till I am ready to meet people?” the king demanded, but changed his mind when the messenger told who had come to meet.

His minister, Senapati, the temple priest and two maids of queen Malabika were ushered in.

“I may be forgiven for bringing bad news at this time of day, Maharaj, but the matter is so urgent that it cannot wait.” The minister began.

“I am ready to listen. What is the matter?”

After a brief and uneasy silence, the minister prodded the priest to speak.

“I beg your pardon, Maharaj. The youth who was to be sacrificed at the altar disappeared before midnight.”

“That means …” the king said tentatively.

“That means there was no sacrifice last night, Maharaj.”

“Has this news reached queen Malabika?” there was a hint of anxiety in the king’s voice.

Principal maid of the queen replied “The queen too is missing, Maharaj.”

“What do you mean?”

Nobody told the king what was meant. The maid said hesitatingly “Just before midnight yesterday….”

She had to stop abruptly as the king released a mighty roar which seemed to shake the entire kingdom.

After few more minutes of silence, the second maid blurted, “Queen’s parrot is also missing, Maharaj. The cage is open. It’s empty.”

As the king was trying to collate and make sense of these nuggets, the wise minister said in a grave voice “Maharaj, I seek your permission to tell something.”

“What more is left now?”

“I smell conspiracy in your palace.”

“Who?” roared the king?

“You have to find out, Maharaj.”

******

Almost at the same time, a different scene was playing out at a different location beyond the limits of Chandrateep. Sitting under a mango tree in a thicket, an enchanted youth told his companion “I was ready for my execution. When I knew that my sacrifice was desired by my adored queen, I had no remorse or fear. I didn’t hope to see this morning.”

His companion, once the queen of Chandrateep, Malabika said “I know that, dear. Now everybody knows what happened to you after meeting me, but nobody knows what impact that meeting had on me. Not even you.”

“What impact?” Sumedh asked, surprised.

“Your unsteady hands, your hesitant eyes, your fear, your shame and your inability to look straight at my face, even as you were parting from your precious parrot, did not go unnoticed by me. I could read your mind and dismiss it as a momentary infatuation. But when news of your imprisonment and its reason spread around; there was only one thought which ruled my mind. If ever there was anyone who could give me unconditional love, it was only you. I knew instinctively that you were the only man who would give me a life of happiness and bliss. “

“But to abandon the luxury and comfort of the palace …”

“What comfort? What luxury? The king had never given due space in his heart either to me or to any of his queens. He is incapable of that. He may pick up a few more queens like me in future too. He will not miss me. I have always led a humble life; will do so in future too. Who wanted the trappings of a palace?”

Sumedh asked with apprehension “Can we stand against the mighty king and survive?’

“You have seen only his might, not his feet of clay. The news of my elopement will never come out of the palace. In his own interest, the king will ensure total secrecy, to protect his image and to fulfil his future needs. We shall soon be forgotten. I have erased myself from the king’s life, soon someone else will come along. Absence of a fifth queen between the fourth and the sixth will not raise any eyebrow.”

“Our escape from a heavily guarded palace is nothing short of a miracle.”

“There is no miracle, my dear. There are few other hapless women like me spending their unhappy days in the palace. They have helped me. We owe our escape to their help. I have also released your parrot.”

“The parrot knows only my home. You will find it there when we reach my home.”

Malabika lazily looked at the birds flying in the sky, trying to remember when she last saw vastness of the sky in an open place. Sumedh asked “Can I ask one more question? Why the other women trapped in the palace are not seeking freedom? As you did.”

“Simple. No Sumedh appeared in their lives.”

*

Satya Misra writes short fiction in Odia, a regional language of India, and his mother tongue. He has two volumes of short stories published in Odia. He has also written a few stories in English, which are published in Mirror (India) , Borderless journal and Contemporary Odia Short Stories (an anthology).

[dfroza]

“And I am fully certain that He has the ability to protect what I have placed in His care until that day.

Remember the words that you heard from me. Retain them as the model for healthy and sound teaching in the faith and love that are available in Jesus the Anointed. As for the precious thing entrusted to you, protect it with the help of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.”

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 1st chapter of the Letter of 2nd Timothy:

Paul, an emissary of Jesus the Anointed commissioned by God’s will according to the promise of life found only in Jesus the Anointed, to you, my dear child Timothy.

May grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus the Anointed be yours.

Timothy, you are constantly in my prayers. Day and night I remember you before God and give thanks to Him whom I serve with a clean conscience, as did my ancestors. I really want to see you, especially when I remember how you cried the last time we were together. Yes, I know it would make me joyful to see you again. What strikes me most is how natural and sincere your faith is. I am convinced that the same faith that dwelt in your grandmother, Lois, and your mother, Eunice, abides in you as well. This is why I write to remind you to stir up the gift of God that was conveyed to you when I laid my hands upon you. You see, God did not give us a cowardly spirit but a powerful, loving, and disciplined spirit.

So don’t be embarrassed to testify about our Lord or for me, His prisoner. Join us in suffering for the good news by the strength and power of God. God has already saved us and called us to this holy calling—not because of any good works we may have done, but because of His own intention and because eons and eons ago (before time itself existed), He gave us this grace in Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King. And now, the time has come! That grace was revealed when our Savior, Jesus the Anointed, appeared; and through His resurrection He has wiped out death and brought to light life and immortality by way of this good news. I was appointed a preacher, emissary, and teacher of this message. This is exactly why I am suffering. But I am not ashamed because I know Him and I have put my trust in Him. And I am fully certain that He has the ability to protect what I have placed in His care until that day.

Remember the words that you heard from me. Retain them as the model for healthy and sound teaching in the faith and love that are available in Jesus the Anointed. As for the precious thing entrusted to you, protect it with the help of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

You may know by now that all those in Asia have turned their backs on me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes. But Onesiphorus was not ashamed of my chains. So when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me and found me. May the Lord show mercy to his house because he has often stopped by to refresh my weary soul. And may the Lord shower him with divine mercy on the last day. You are well aware of all he did to serve me in Ephesus.

The Letter of 2nd Timothy, Chapter 1 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 33rd chapter of the book of Jeremiah that points to the coming King of kings:

For a second time the message of the Eternal came to Jeremiah as he was being held in the court of the guard. The Eternal who made the earth, who formed and fashioned it, the One whose name is the Eternal, has this to say:

Eternal One: Call to Me, and I will answer you. I will tell you of great things, things beyond what you can imagine, things you could never have known. I, the Eternal God of Israel, tell you that all these public buildings and royal palaces have been dismantled in vain. You thought you could strengthen the city walls with the scraps of those buildings, but it is a useless defense against the siege ramps and swords of the Chaldeans. In this fight, the city will be filled with the dead whom I will destroy in My anger and wrath, for I have hidden My face from this city because of their wickedness. Nevertheless, keep watching! I will restore this city and heal the wounds of My people. I will lavish them with peace and stability. I will bring both Judah and Israel back from captivity, and I will rebuild their land to what it was before. I will cleanse them from all the sins they committed against Me and forgive all the wrongs they have done and all the ways they rebelled against Me. Jerusalem will have a sweet-sounding name once again. The good I do for her will bring Me joy, praise, and honor among all nations of the earth, for they will be in awe and tremble at the peace and prosperity I give to this city.

Listen to Me, Jeremiah. You say this place will become a desolate wasteland with no people and no animals, but it will not always be so. The towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem may indeed become lifeless, but I, the Eternal One, promise you the silence will be broken. Once again you will hear the sounds of laughter and joy, the sweet words of the bride and bridegroom at a wedding, and voices of those who bring thank offerings to the temple singing,

Give thanks to the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies,

for He is good. His faithful love endures forever.

All of this will happen because I will restore the riches of this land to what they once were.

I, the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, promise: even this desolate place—with no people and no animals—and all of its ruined cities will once again have pastures where shepherds will rest their flocks. In the towns of the hill country, in the villages of the western hills, in the cities of the Negev, in the territory of Benjamin, in the vicinity around Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, once again flocks will be cared for by a faithful shepherd who will count each and every one of his sheep.

Look! The days are coming when I will fulfill the promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah. In those days, when the time is right, I will cause a righteous Branch to sprout from the old stump of David’s lineage; He will do what is right and just in the land. In those days, Judah will be liberated, and Jerusalem will live in safety. And the city will be called by His name, The Eternal Is Our Righteousness. I tell you, the royal dynasty of David will not cease; the throne of Israel still belongs to his family. Remember this, even as other kings rule over you. Remember also that the line of Levitical priests will not cease; for all time they will stand before Me offering burnt offerings, grain offerings, and making sacrifices.

Again, the word of the Eternal came to Jeremiah.

Eternal One: If you can figure out a way to break My covenant with the day and with the night so they do not always arrive on schedule, the very rhythm of life on this earth, only then will My covenant with My servant David be broken and his son not rule from his throne. Only then will My covenant with the Levitical priests who minister before Me be null and void. I will make David’s descendants, along with the Levitical priests who minister before Me, so numerous they will seem like the stars of the skies that cannot be counted and the sands of the seashore that can never be measured.

The word of the Eternal came to Jeremiah again.

Eternal One: Have you noticed what some people are saying? “The Eternal chose these two families, Israel and Judah, but He has now rejected them.” They clearly despise My people—they don’t even consider them a nation any longer! But again, this is what the Eternal promises: “Just as I am not about to stop ruling the universe with fixed laws so that the day and the night become confused, I will likewise keep My promise to the descendants of Jacob and David, My servant; I will not reject them. I will not forget the covenant I made with David that one of his descendants will rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will restore their fortunes and have mercy on them.

The Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 33 (The Voice)

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for Wednesday, September 15 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A set of posts by John Parsons about the Day of Atonement that is recognized this evening until tomorrow evening:

Most of our deepest anxieties come from the fear of death, whether we are conscious of this or not... Death represents fear of the unknown, fear of being abandoned, fear of being rejected, fear of being separated from others, and so on. I am so glad Yeshua gives us eternal life, which for me is not so much about immortality of the soul as it is being loved and accepted by God... That is what "at-one-ment" means, after all (John 17:22-23). Because God loves and accepts us, we trust Him to be present for us, even in the darkest of hours, on the other side of the veil, where he there “prepares a place for us” (John 14:2). As Yeshua said, "I tell you the solemn truth, the one who hears my message and believes the One who sent me has eternal life (חַיֵּי עוֹלָם) and will not be condemned, but has passed (i.e., μετά + βαίνω, lit., "crossed over" [עָבַר]) from death to life" (John 5:24). God's love “crosses over” from death to life and now forever sustains me.

The Torah (in parashat Acharei Mot) provides details about Yom Kippur, or the "Day of Atonement," a special service that gave ritual expression of God's love by making purification for our sins. As I’ve explained before, the word for love (i.e., ahavah: אהבה) equals the number thirteen (1+5+2+5=13), but when shared it is multiplied: 13 x 2 = 26, which is the same value for the Sacred Name (יהוה), i.e., (10+5+6+5=26). Likewise the Hebrew word for "life" is chayim (חַיִּים), is written in the plural to emphasize that life cannot be lived alone but must be shared. Notice that within the word chayim are embedded two consecutive Yods (יי), representing unity in plurality (Yod-Yod is an abbreviation for YHVH, also indicating the “deep Akedah” of Father and Son). God gave up His life so that we can be in relationship with Him, that is, so that we can be "at-one" with His heart for us. Whatever else it may mean, then, the Hebrew word for “atonement” (i.e., kapparah, “covering,” “protection,” “purification,” “cleansing,” “forgiveness,” and so on) is about accepting God’s heart for you - being unified in his love - and if you miss that, you’ve missed the point of the Torah's teaching.. Thank God we are "sealed" in the book of life by the love of Yeshua! [Hebrew for Christians]

9.14.21 • Facebook

Some people might feel a certain amount of ambivalence about the holiday of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) since it focuses on the purification for the sanctuary of the Temple, and this seems to have little to do with Yeshua and His sacrifice for our sins. After all, the Levitical system of worship is described in the New Covenant as “a shadow (σκιά) of the good things to come, instead of the true form (εἰκών) of these matters, and it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near” (Heb. 10:1). Since the blood of bulls and goats cannot truly take away sins (Heb. 10:3), the sacrificial system was intended to foreshadow the coming work of Messiah, who was born to die, in accordance with God’s will, and to offer his own body as a sacrifice for sin “once for all” (Heb. 10:5-10). “For by a single offering (μιᾷ γὰρ προσφορᾷ τετελείωκεν) he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb. 10:14).

Now while it is indeed true that Yeshua served as our great High priest after the order of Malki-Tzedek by offering his blood upon the heavenly "kapporet" (cover of the Ark) in the holy of holies “made without hands,” there still is a prophetic component to this holiday that applies to ethnic Israel regarding the prophesied End of Days. After all, the realm of “shadows” still applies in the case of unbelieving Israel, who has yet to behold the unveiled glory that awaits her... Therefore the psalmist prophetically cries out, "Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your Name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for the sake of your Name” (Psalm 79:9), and this refers to the hour when Israel will call upon the LORD for salvation during the End of Days, otherwise called the great Day of the LORD. This event is prefigured in the blast of the “great shofar” which will be sounded to announce Yeshua as Israel’s true Redeemer and King. Indeed, our the Messiah will one day return to Israel, cleanse her Temple, restore her to Himself, and set up His glorious kingdom.

Since prophetically speaking Yom Kippur signifies ethnic Israel's atonement secured through Yeshua's sacrificial avodah as Israel's true High Priest and King, there is still a sense of longing and affliction connected to this holiday that will not be removed until finally "all Israel is saved" (Rom. 11:26). So, on the one hand we celebrate Yom Kippur because it acknowledges Yeshua as our High Priest of the New Covenant, but on the other hand, we "have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in our hearts" for the redemption of the Jewish people and the atonement of their sins (Rom. 9:1-5; 10:1-4; 11:1-2, 11-15, 25-27). In the meantime, we are in a period of "mysterious grace" wherein we have opportunity to offer the terms of the New Covenant to people of every nation, tribe and tongue. After the "fullness of the Gentiles" is come in, however, God will turn His full attention to fulfilling His promises given to ethnic Israel. May that great Day of the LORD come soon, chaverim... [Hebrew for Christians]

9.15.21 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

September 15, 2021

The Riches of His Grace

“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” (Ephesians 1:7)

The attributes of God are characterized by the “riches of His grace.” This amazing grace led Him to shed His blood as the price of our redemption.

No wonder men have developed the familiar acrostic for GRACE—“God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense.” “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Paul seems again and again to try to find descriptions for these riches. To the Romans he wrote of “the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering” (Romans 2:4) and of His plan to “make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of [his] mercy” (Romans 9:23). Speaking of God’s mercy, he exclaims, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33).

The inexhaustibility of these infinite depths of grace and mercy led Paul to call these attributes “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). Desiring that all believers might learn to appreciate the tremendous future they have in Christ, he prayed that “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened,” somehow we might come to appreciate even now “the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18).

Yet, marvelously rich and full though His grace is now, there is much more to come. “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,...That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-5, 7). HMM

[leonawriter]

Numbers (pt. 2)

Read it on AO3

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII

Characters: Sephiroth, Cloud, Genesis, Barret, others.

Notes: Follows on from the first part, and has the same warnings (clones, amnesia, PTSD, references to violence).

A few things are clarified, both for Sephiroth and also the reader. And yet, as is evident because of these things, he continues to be an unreliable narrator.

...

Cloud comes by another couple of times - both times bearing small amounts of simple, easy to eat food - and perhaps it's due to the fact that the room that he is in has neither windows nor a timepiece, but his internal clock is still unable to tell if it happens to be day or night or anywhere in between.

Then again, with what he was told, what he had known was true from the moment he had heard the words from Cloud's mouth, the possibility remained that this body had no internal clock system yet, that it would need to be trained into understanding such simple things as if for the first time.

Every so often, he heard voices coming from outside, sometimes ones that had him sure that he should know them, others that he had no familiarity with whatsoever. All were muffled by walls and distance, even with his naturally enhanced hearing.

Solitude brings about the ability to take apart what has been happening to him, done to him, which memories he can access without the pain threatening to split him apart, spots dancing across his vision.

Cloud hadn't exactly talked to him, much less spent very long at all in his presence, since the first visit. He'd said a few words, and on the second time he was graced with the blond's presence he'd been gifted clothes. Nothing special, or familiar, but better than what he'd had, which was all that he'd had.

Footsteps were now coming steadily but confidently toward the room he was being detained in, and then stopped outside of the door. The lock was undone, and then, the door swung inward.

The person who came in had wild, waist-length red hair that seemed to sometimes only be obeying gravity due to length, and was wearing a threadbare, obviously patched up coat. Other than that, the general look of him seemed to suggest SOLDIER in some way, much the same way that Cloud had.

He noticed a rip, a tear in the fabric of the coat that hadn't been mended but rather had seemed to have had the edges softened off somehow, when his new visitor turned to close the door behind him.

Something about the hole in the coat set him on edge, but other than that and a faint feeling of unease as though he was forgetting something, he felt nothing else.

"My, my... so Cloud really was telling the truth. The great Sephiroth, laid low at the whims of scientists. Although I suppose that wasn't new even before, was it?"

The voice.

He glared at the man's features, noting the way that his eyes glowed a steely blue, the nose, the cheekbones, the single earring that glinted off of the light when it moved-

"Genesis."

He remembered Cloud's words, the first time they'd spoken, after he'd woken up here.

"Ah, yeah. He was going to come down here anyway, sooner or later. I'll tell him you asked, though."

His mouth went dry.

"I- remember. The last time I saw you, I told you to rot."

And then... nothing. Or rather, if he tried to push further, past that one glimpse, his mind punished him and made him relieved that he had been able to move around at least somewhat, so that he by now had the strength to find a bucket or, if that failed, make his way to the bathroom before his bed was covered in vomit.

"As you can see," Genesis said, now coldly compared to the mocking tones from before, "that is far from the case. I am no longer even degrading, no thanks to you."

Degrading... something about that was important. 

His frustration over his inability to remember, and his inability to do anything, made him wish that there was something he could do, some way he could relieve his stress. 

Memories formed more of emotions than anything told him of kata that he had once danced to with the weight of his sword in his hand. Masamune, however, was not here, and he doubted that they would give him access to it.

"You seem to be under a mistaken assumption. I may have some memories, I may look as you expect I should... and yet, according to Cloud, I am nothing more than a clone." He paused, focusing on making his message known, clearly. Not paying attention to the shocked and disturbed expression on Genesis' face, that seemed to border on disgust. If that was how it was to be, then so be it. "I therefore cannot be anything more than an inferior copy that you found."

"You think you know anything about copies, Sephiroth? You think that is all that you are?" No, not just disgust. There was anger there, too. He always did get angry easily.  "Copies... clones  -those are things that are controlled by the original. They might look the same, but they have their own idiosyncrasies, their own quirks. You can't make someone into a Copy who works best with an axe and expect them to fight as well with a sword. It simply won't happen. Trust me, I know."

Something about the information felt true, but no matter how much hope he had for another sliver of memory to surface, nothing came.

"Then what am I? I can remember- I shouldn't be alive, and yet, here I am."

Genesis snorted, sending several strands of red hair flying upwards before falling back over his nose at a more sedate pace, eyes going half-lidded.

"That would make both of us, then. My soul, corrupted by vengeance, hath found salvation at the end of my journey... and your eternal slumber. I suppose that could ring true for either of us, now."

For a single moment, the air was still.

"LOVELESS, Act Four."

Genesis' eyes snapped open, fixing him under their gaze and seeming to search him for - something. 

"You remember."

It felt almost as though he were re-enacting something, rather than conversing, letting his mouth run by reflex.

"How can I not, when you've beaten it into my head." Genesis' eyes, now wide, continued to watch him. He frowned, as flashes of... something... ran through his mind. "We fought. But I didn't want you dead." He tilted his head, picking at something that wouldn't let go of him until he had addressed it. "You shoulder. Is it...?"

A gloved hand went to the shoulder that he remembered having been injured - almost an unconscious action. 

"Cured, now. So, you really do have memory issues. But you're definitely Sephiroth." Disgust and shock had both faded, and in their place was an odd sense of shared discomfort, although he wondered if it were for the same reasons. As well, Genesis seemed suddenly uncomfortable, needing to move, as though the room was too small.

"Some things are easier than others," he allowed. "Although it is easier if I am not... actively trying to remember. Also, most of the time it feels more like they're things that happened to someone else, rather than... me."

The sensation of cold steel biting into him, not just once but countless times in countless places but always the same blades and always the same face with blue eyes and blond hair delivering the blows-

Those, were harder to feel a disconnect from.

Genesis stopped the agitated movements he'd been caught up in, and then leaned his back against the wall.

"I'd hardly say that's proof that they belong to someone else," he said airily. "From what I can see, you're different from how you were. Or at least, looking at things differently... context is important." He gave Sephiroth an odd look, one he didn't know how to decipher. "We aren't confined to one role, no matter what we may wish."

Sephiroth looked away, feeling unable to match what Genesis was seeing - just as as he had felt an imposter before, now he simply felt reduced.

"Somehow... I don't think that I did very well at being the hero everyone seemed to think I was."

Genesis stared at him for a moment, and then started to laugh.

"Perhaps neither of us were much better than the other, then," he said, with a smile still on his face, full of teeth and nostalgia. "I have it on high authority that I wasn't the hero I seemed to think I was, either."

Sephiroth looked back, considering what he knew of Genesis from the few clear memories he had, and the man before him now.

"You really have changed."

He was given a sharp look, and the restless energy that had dissipated before seemed to have returned, a red glove finding the door handle.

"All of us have," was all the response he got before the door swung open, and he was left alone again.

...

He dreamed of villages burning, when he could no longer stay awake. Fear and pain and loss and heartbreak and pure rage enough to keep the fires burning coursed through him, mixing emotions that he was able to recognise as having possibly been his, sometimes definitely his, and ones that could easily have come from someone else.

The fire burned, smoke was in his lungs, and somehow - impossibly - he was holding the sword that had impaled him.

I will never be a memory-

He woke up drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, blank grey walls looking back at him, and the only light coming from the hallway, shining through the underneath and window of the door.

...

Cloud came by again some time later, recognisable by the steady steps and the distinct sense of it being Cloud. He brought with him several notebooks - some with plain paper, some with lined.

"The Reno made sure he got all the files and data from that place he could before we burned it down. Your medical files included. From the looks of things, you're... in late stage mako addiction. Your cells were built for it, pretty much, but it's still a shock to the system, no matter how adjusted you should be. That'll be why your head's such a mess, if I had to guess." He nodded at the notebooks. "Using those might help. Sort things out."

"Why."

"Last thing any of us wants is you mixing up who you were. And if we know what you remember, we can tell you if you've got things wrong."

That made sense. But it didn't give him the answers he wanted - that he needed.

"You could have let me burn," he said, eyeing Cloud while not fully looking at him straight on, images of burning villages flickering in his mind. "Is it pity? Because of my fear? Or foolishness, because I was unarmed and too weak to have made a fair fight?"

"That..." Cloud hesitated for just an instance, torn with indecision over something. "Neither. If anything, I just didn't want to turn into you."

Ah, came the thought as he closed his eyes. I see.

Spite, then. Perhaps. Or some other goal.

"I don't think you get it," Cloud said, voice level. "Back then, I was... like this. My head was a mess. And you... you took advantage of that. Made me do things. When I walked in there, I realised that for once, I had the upper hand. I could have... I still could. But I won't, because I don't think I'd have been able to look myself in the eye again after, even if no one blamed me for it."

Sephiroth didn't realise that he had tensed until he felt the pain in his muscles, the sensation of his nails digging into the palms of his hands. 

Something about what Cloud had just said made him feel the same as he had when he had first come to, opening his eyes to doctors and scientists in lab coats, a needle in his arm.

"And so, you are keeping me."

"We don't trust you," Cloud said bluntly. "Plus, even if we wanted to get rid of you, we couldn't. You're still sick." He shook his head. "Besides, like I said before. Aerith thinks you're worth the effort, and I trust her. I figure, if you can prove her right... that'd mean something. So - don't let her down."

...

"It's damn creepy, is what it is," Barret says. They're in Seventh Heaven, but the bar is closed, because everyone's together - or most of them are, at least - and they're having lunch. "Don't get me wrong, but every time I remember he's in there, I just wonder why we took him outta that place alive and not in a body bag."

Cloud sighs. it takes two of the normal tables together to fit them all - he's next to Tifa, who's got Vincent next to her, and Yuffie's on his other side. Barret's the other side of Tifa, with Genesis opposite him and Nanaki sat up on the chair next to Barret.

Cid's one of the few who's not here, but that's just because he's busy working for Reeve, and Reeve's in his offices with Cait watching over the place where they'd left Sephiroth.

Sephiroth. Alive, though suffering from mako addiction due to having been plucked out of the lifestream by ghosts and given some kind of second chance. He sometimes wondered why just like Barret himself, before reminding himself that leaving the man to die or worse at the mercies of the scientists not much better than Hojo, or killing him himself... 

He hadn't just made his promises to the others. He had promises he'd made to himself, as well. 

The air is awkward and tense. Even more so, after those words. At least the kids are out, so they didn't have to hear the adults talking like this. 

Genesis looks at him, glowing blue eye to glowing blue eye, and there's a sort of understanding, in the way that only two people who've known Sephiroth in such an intimate - compared to the rest of the world - way, could ever have.

It only lasts a moment, and then Tifa's hand is on his shoulder, potatoes forgotten.

"You've been there more often than you've been home, the past week," she says, and it's true. "He shouldn't have to be your responsibility."

He pushes his fork on his plate, keenly aware of everyone's eyes on him, and wishes he could look away, somewhere that didn't mean he'd bee looking at someone else he didn't want to answer to.

"But if he isn't mine," he says at last, quietly, "who'd do it? No one wants to, and I don't blame them. It is creepy... 'cause he's a clone, and he's so damn human." He shrugged. Not knowing what else to say. Shovelled food into his mouth.

He didn't want to admit the rest to the others yet. Not the fact that he was afraid, not the fact that the other day he'd woken up in a sweat from nightmares of Nibelheim and things he can't possibly have been through or felt because they weren't his-

It had just reinforced how opposite their situations were. How much control he had. That he didn't want.

"He said that he remembers telling me to rot," came Genesis' lilting tones, making even the disturbing words seem poetic.

The redheaded ex-SOLDIER smiles behind his glass of Banora White apple juice, and Cloud can recognise the mixture of bitterness and resentment and confusion.

"Should've known you'd go visit," Barret says gruffly, and Cloud knew that his old friend was still often unsure where he stood with Genesis. Though Genesis bringing up his past as a friend of Sephiroth's did tend to make things tense, even at the best of times. "See?"

"And then," Genesis continued, "he later recognised which Act of LOVELESS I was referring to, and practically re-enacted an old conversation that I'd almost forgotten."

Barret stared, dumbfounded, and then started choking. Yuffie snorted, and began to laugh herself, because the idea of Sephiroth reacting in any way other than as the monster they'd known him as enough to act like that was, he had to admit, more than a it ridiculous.

Cloud shook his head, bemused.

It wasn't like he knew all that much about who Sephiroth had been before Nibelheim; perhaps he ha, before Hojo, but now most of what he knew was from afterwards, in the wake of swords and blood and mako and lifestream and wings and more blood. 

Whoever it was that he had been before, that wasn't the Sephiroth who had nearly killed him and Zack, and it wasn't the Sephiroth who'd called down Meteor and killed Aerith, and it wasn't the Sephiroth who'd come out of the lifestream and taken over his Remnant. 

But then, it looked like the Sephiroth who'd somehow come back - Aerith had suggested that Lucrecia had something to do with that, but she probably wasn't acting alone, either - probably wasn't going to end up being either of the two men who'd come before him.

He stole a glance at Vincent, who had been more quiet than even his usual in all of this, only to find him eyeing everything vacantly, an expression of distant longing on what little he could see of the ex-Turk's face, of the kind he hadn't seen since they'd found Lucrecia's cave.

It wasn't the first time he thought, this would've been so much simpler if he'd just acted like we'd expected him to, and had to kill him back there to defend ourselves.

[ohscorbus]

Which actor is your favourite Albus, Scorpius and Harry?

Ooooh anon. That’s cruel. You know I love them all for different reasons, right?

Albus

This is the most difficult one because he’s my favourite so Sam and Theo (I haven’t seen Mackley’s Albus so I’ll leave him out of this equation) are automatically my favourites too. You’re making me feel like I’m betraying one by saying the other here… : (

If I had to chose though, I’d chose Sam Clemmett. For two reasons, neither of which are Theo’s fault! The first, while Sam and Theo play the same character, the two play him very differently. The reason I grew so attached to Albus in the first place was because I saw a lot of myself in Sam’s Abus, I don’t feel that as much with Theo’s Albus. So it’s more of a personal thing? Like… okay. Let me explain this with an example.

The blanket scene with Harry and Albus has always a favourite of mine. I would get goosebumps in anticipation for this scene and then later sob my way through it. But with this current cast? I’ve never had that same, overwhelming reaction to it. It’s got nothing to do with talent though. It’s all down to their choices for their character, and it’s here where the difference between Sam’s Albus and Theo’s Albus really comes through. Sam’s Albus was full of anger, it drove him throughout the entire play. Whereas Theo’s Albus is just lost in his pain. He’s crying where Sam would only tense his jaw and glare. Both valid reactions for their Albus, but it alters your interpretation of the character and the feel of the play itself. The blanket scene is an explosion of anger, it works best when it’s loud and in your face. Compare that with the Albus and Harry dorm scene and you get the complete opposite. That scene works best when it’s quieter, more emotional. It’s about honesty. Theo is so heartbreakingly good at expressing that open vulnerability. It’s meant that’s now become the scene that leaves me with tears streaming down my face. That’s why for me, Sam does the blanket scene better and Theo does the dorm scene better. Sorry, ‘better’ isn’t the right word. Their version of Albus is more suited for those scenes, is what I mean. So when I say I prefer Sam’s Albus, it has nothing to do with Sam or Theo’s abilities as actors, but more to do with their version of the character. If that makes sense? Again, personal reasons. I’m just more like Sam’s Albus than Theo’s. That’s all. That’s where my deeper connection lies and it’s that connection that really made me fall in love with the play. That will always be special to me. But that’s not to say I don’t absolutely love Theo’s Albus with all my heart too because I do. I see him as Albus as much as I do Sam.

My second point, Sam was my first and only Albus until Theo. I properly ‘met’ Albus through him so he’ll always have a place in my heart for that reason too.

Scorpius

This one’s easy. Samuel. 1000% Samuel Blenkin. He’s just that good. I believe the only other person to rival that level of emotion and commitment to their character is Jamie Parker. Samuel has captured exactly who Scorpius Malfoy is. From his awkward geekiness to his internalised pain and fears. Samuel gives so much on stage. That argument with Albus in the library is an obvious example. I cannot express enough how much of a gift that boy is to us, the character, and the play itself. 

Harry

Jamie Glover’s Harry has grown on me a lot and just like how I felt with Sam and Theo, there are choices Jamie G has made that I prefer over Jamie P’s and vice versa. But… Jamie Parker was closer to the Harry I have in my head so again, personal choice but it’s got to be Jamie Parker.  Harry has never been a favourite of mine and I don’t know whether it’s because I got old (*cries forever*) but I understand him more now than I ever did. How could I not love Jamie P for that?

[theadmiringbog]

*wakes up and looks at phone* ah let’s see what fresh horrors await me on the fresh horrors device 

–@MISSOKISTIC IN A TWEET ON NOVEMBER 10, 2016

--

A more recent project that acts in a similar spirit is Scott Polach’s Applause Encouraged, which happened at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego in 2015. On a cliff overlooking the sea, forty-five minutes before the sunset, a greeter checked guests in to an area of foldout seats formally cordoned off with red rope. They were ushered to their seats and reminded not to take photos. They watched the sunset, and when it finished, they applauded. Refreshments were served afterward. 

—                 

Bird-watching is the opposite of looking something up online.                 

--

They write: If you can have your time and work and live and be a person, then the question you’re faced with every day isn’t, Do I really have to go to work today? but, How do I contribute to this thing called life? What can I do today to benefit my family, my company, myself? 

To me, “company” doesn’t belong in that sentence. Even if you love your job! Unless there’s something specifically about you or your job that requires it, there is nothing to be admired about being constantly connected, constantly potentially productive the second you open your eyes in the morning—and in my opinion, no one should accept this, not now, not ever.                 

--

Audre Lorde meant it in the 1980s, when she said that “[c]aring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”                

--

As Gabrielle Moss, author of Glop: Nontoxic, Expensive Ideas That Will Make You Look Ridiculous and Feel Pretentious (a book parodying goop, Gwyneth Paltrow’s high-priced wellness empire), put it: self-care “is poised to be wrenched away from activists and turned into an excuse to buy an expensive bath oil.”                

--

Thinking about sensitivity reminds me of a monthlong artist residency I once attended with two other artists in an extremely remote location in the Sierra Nevada. There wasn’t much to do at night, so one of the artists and I would sometimes sit on the roof and watch the sunset. She was Catholic and from the Midwest; I’m sort of the quintessential California atheist. I have really fond memories of the languid, meandering conversations we had up there about science and religion. And what strikes me is that neither of us ever convinced the other—that wasn’t the point—but we listened to each other, and we did each come away different, with a more nuanced understanding of the other person’s position.                

--

The life force is concerned with cyclicality, care, and regeneration; the death force sounds to me a lot like “disrupt.” Obviously, some amount of both is necessary, but one is routinely valorized, not to mention masculinized, while the other goes unrecognized because it has no part in “progress.”                

--

Certain people would like to use technology to live longer, or forever. Ironically, this desire perfectly illustrates the death drive at play in the “Manifesto of Maintenance Art” (“separation, individuality, Avant-Garde par excellence; to follow one’s own path—do your own thing; dynamic change”)30. To such people I humbly propose a far more parsimonious way to live forever: to exit the trajectory of productive time, so that a single moment might open almost to infinity. As John Muir once said, “Longest is the life that contains the largest amount of time-effacing enjoyment.”               

--

Poswolsky writes of their initial discovery: “I think we also found the answer to the universe, which was, quite simply: just spend more time with your friends.”                

--

... he said, with an epiphany he had while accompanying a fellow clergyman on a trip to Louisville: 

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness.       

--

My most-liked Facebook post of all time was an anti-Trump screed. In my opinion, this kind of hyper-accelerated expression on social media is not exactly helpful (not to mention the huge amount of value it produces for Facebook). It’s not a form of communication driven by reflection and reason, but rather a reaction driven by fear and anger. 

Obviously these feelings are warranted, but their expression on social media so often feels like firecrackers setting off other firecrackers in a very small room that soon gets filled with smoke.                

--

Our aimless and desperate expressions on these platforms don’t do much for us, but they are hugely lucrative for advertisers and social media companies, since what drives the machine is not the content of information but the rate of engagement. Meanwhile, media companies continue churning out deliberately incendiary takes, and we’re so quickly outraged by their headlines that we can’t even consider the option of not reading and sharing them.                

--

To stand apart is to take the view of the outsider without leaving, always oriented toward what it is you would have left. It means not fleeing your enemy, but knowing your enemy, which turns out not to be the world—contemptus mundi—but the channels through which you encounter it day to day. It also means giving yourself the critical break that media cycles and narratives will not, allowing yourself to believe in another world while living in this one.                

--

Standing apart represents the moment in which the desperate desire to leave (forever!) matures into a commitment to live in permanent refusal, where one already is, and to meet others in the common space of that refusal. This kind of resistance still manifests as participating, but participating in the “wrong way”: a way that undermines the authority of the hegemonic game and creates possibilities outside of it.                

--

A crowded sidewalk is a good example: everyone is expected to continue moving forward. Tom Green poked at this convention when he performed “the Dead Guy,” on his Canadian public access TV show in the 1990s. Slowing his walk to a halt, he carefully lowered himself to the ground and lay facedown and stick-straight for an uncomfortable period of time. After quite a crowd had amassed, he got up, looked around, and nonchalantly walked away.                

--

So to a question like “Will you or will you not participate as asked?” Diogenes would have answered something else entirely: “I will participate, but not as asked,” or, “I will stay, but I will be your gadfly.” This answer (or non-answer) is something I think of as producing what I’ll call a “third space”—an almost magical exit to another frame of reference. For someone who cannot otherwise live with the terms of her society, the third space can provide an important if unexpected harbor.                

--

Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” Bartleby, the clerk famous for repeating the phrase, “I would prefer not to,” uses a linguistic strategy to invalidate the requests of his boss. Not only does he not comply; he refuses the terms of the question itself.                

--

Facebook abstention, like telling someone you grew up in a house with no TV, can all too easily appear to be taste or class related.                

--

We need to be able to think across different time scales when the mediascape would have us think in twenty-four-hour (or shorter) cycles, to pause for consideration when clickbait would have us click, to risk unpopularity by searching for context when our Facebook feed is an outpouring of unchecked outrage and scapegoating, to closely study the ways that media and advertising play upon our emotions, to understand the algorithmic versions of ourselves that such forces have learned to manipulate, and to know when we are being guilted, threatened, and gaslighted into reactions that come not from will and reflection but from fear and anxiety.                

--

“In short, when the inattention stimulus falls outside the area to which attention is paid, it is much less likely to capture attention and be seen,” the researchers write. That’s intuitive enough, but it gets more complicated. If the briefly flashing stimulus was outside the area of visual attention, but was something distinct like a smiley face or the person’s name, the subject would notice it after all.                

--

As an artist interested in using art to influence and widen attention, I couldn’t help extrapolating the implications from visual attention to attention at large.                

--

In a post about ad blockers on the University of Oxford’s “Practical Ethics” blog, the technology ethicist James Williams (of Time Well Spent) lays out the stakes: We experience the externalities of the attention economy in little drips, so we tend to describe them with words of mild bemusement like “annoying” or “distracting.” But this is a grave misreading of their nature. In the short term, distractions can keep us from doing the things we want to do. In the longer term, however, they can accumulate and keep us from living the lives we want to live, or, even worse, undermine our capacities for reflection and self-regulation, making it harder, in the words of Harry Frankfurt, to “want what we want to want.” Thus there are deep ethical implications lurking here for freedom, wellbeing, and even the integrity of the self.

--

In an effort to make the user aware of persuasive design, Nudget used overlays to call out and describe several of the persuasive design elements in the Facebook interface as the user encountered them. But the thesis is also useful simply as a catalog of the many forms of persuasive design—the kinds that behavioral scientists have been studying in advertising since the mid-twentieth century.                

--

Vivrekar lists the strategies identified by researchers Marwell and Schmitt in 1967: “reward, punishment, positive expertise, negative expertise, liking/ingratiation, gifting/pre-giving, debt, aversive stimulation, moral appeal, positive self-feeling, negative self-feeling, positive altercasting, negative altercasting, positive esteem of others, and negative esteem of others.” 

Vivrekar herself has study participants identify instances of persuasive design on the LinkedIn site and compiles a staggering list of 171 persuasive design techniques.                

--

“knowing your enemy” when it comes to the attention economy. For example, one could draw parallels between the Nudget system, which teaches users to see the ways in which they are being persuaded, and the Prejudice Lab, which shows participants how bias guides their behavior.                

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Or that the woman in front of you in line who just screamed at you is maybe not usually like this; maybe she’s going through a rough time. Whether this is actually true isn’t the point. Just considering the possibility makes room for the lived realities of other people, whose depths are the same as your own. This is a marked departure from the self-centered “default setting,”                

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Last week, after a meeting, I took the F streetcar from Civic Center to the Ferry Building in San Francisco. It’s a notoriously slow, crowded, and halting route, especially in the middle of the day. This pace, added to my window seat, gave me a chance to look at the many faces of the people on Market Street with the same alienation as the slow scroll of Hockney’s Yorkshire Landscapes. Once I accepted the fact that each face I looked at (and I tried to look at each of them) was associated with an entire life—of birth, of childhood, of dreams and disappointments, of a universe of anxieties, hopes, grudges, and regrets totally distinct from mine—this slow scene became almost impossibly absorbing. As Hockney said: “There’s a lot to look at.” Even though I’ve lived in a city most of my adult life, in that moment I was floored by the density of life experience folded into a single city street.                

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When the language of advertising and personal branding enjoins you to “be yourself,” what it really means is “be more yourself,” where “yourself” is a consistent and recognizable pattern of habits, desires, and drives that can be more easily advertised to and appropriated, like units of capital.                

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In fact, I don’t know what a personal brand is other than a reliable, unchanging pattern of snap judgments: “I like this” and “I don’t like this,” with little room for ambiguity or contradiction.                

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The fact that commenting on the weather is a cliché of small talk is actually a profound reminder of this, since the weather is one of the only things we each know any other person must pay attention to.                

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(“bland enough to offend no one”)                

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The professional social media star, a person reverse-engineered from a formula of what is most palatable to everyone all the time.                

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Everybody says that there is no censorship on the internet, or at least only in part. But that is not true. Online censorship is applied through the excess of banal content that distracts people from serious or collective issues.                

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Our interactions become data collected by a company, and engagement goals are driven by advertising.                

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Mastodon... They allow more granular control of one’s intended audience; when you post to Mastodon, you can have the content’s visibility restricted to a single person, your followers, or your instance—or it can be public.                

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... forming any idea requires a combination of privacy and sharing. But this restraint is difficult when it comes to commercial social media, whose persuasive design collapses context within our very thought processes themselves by assuming we should share our thoughts right now—indeed, that we have an obligation to form our thoughts in public!                

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A counterexample would be the sparse UX of Patchwork, a social networking platform that runs on Scuttlebutt. Scuttlebutt is a sort of global mesh network that can go without servers, ISPs, or even Internet connection (if you have a USB stick handy). It can do that because it relies on individual users’ computers as the servers, similar to local mesh networks, and because your “account” on a Scuttlebutt-powered social media platform is simply an encrypted block of data that you keep on your computer.                

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In #NeverAgain, David Hogg writes that “[a]nger will get you started but it won’t keep you going.”                

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Before long, the conference would be over, and I would have missed most of it. A lot of things would have happened there that are important and useful. For my part, I wouldn’t have much to show for my “time well spent”—no pithy lines to tweet, no new connections, no new followers. I might only tell one or two other people about my observations and the things I learned. Otherwise, I’d simply store them away, like seeds that might grow some other day if I’m lucky.                

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Seen from the point of view of forward-pressing, productive time, this behavior would appear delinquent. I’d look like a dropout. But from the point of view of the place, I’d look like someone who was finally paying it attention. And from the point of view of myself, the person actually experiencing my life, and to whom I will ultimately answer when I die—I would know that I spent that day on Earth.                

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“I would prefer not to.”

[dcnativegal]

Compulsion & Identity

Ruminations of a Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor--Intern

I’m sitting in one of the group therapy sessions with clients who have kept sober from a variety of substances for months or perhaps only days. They pee into a cup or suck on a saliva stick to prove their sobriety to me and their probation officers. They are biding their time and showing up and jumping through hoops that include community service, visits to Treatment Court, and paying off probation fines. Each one of them has harrowing stories. I have so much respect for them. Even when I know for sure they are flat out lying.

I’m trying to understand what it’s like, mentally, emotionally, and socially as they maneuver through their lives and all their important relationships as a sober person. We talk about it. One person admitted, I still don’t know who I am, sober.  I know I was funnier when I was high…

I’m learning all about “Substance use disorder” which is the newest term. (No longer abuse, and less use of the term ‘addiction.’) I have a stack of books with titles like “Buzzed” and “Uppers and Downers.” I remember from my early social work training that there is a stunting of brain maturation when a person starts using a substance regularly. Each of these people starting using as young teenagers. The growing human learns to navigate through life with the help of the mellowing effects of pot, the mania and energy of meth, the disinhibitions of alcohol. There are supremely stupid choices that are made under the influences.  They don’t know how to deal with frustration, with a broken heart, with the moments included under the umbrella: ‘shit happens.’

I don’t know anyone who deals with ‘shit happens’ perfectly.  Well, maybe the Dalai Lama, and the late great Maya Angelou.

My personal drugs of choice are carbs and yarn. Carbs may kill me in the end. I’ve developed pancreatitis, in large part because it’s a side effect of an injectable drug that worked well for me for a couple of years. The other part of why is, simply, gluttony. (Noun. Habitual greed or excess in eating. Ouch. Literally.) My side started hurting in December, and I self-diagnosed kidney stones, so upped the liquids. Didn’t get into see my family nurse practitioner until mid-January. NOT kidney stones but pancreatitis. What the…?  Clear liquids for me. Who knew that there are dozens of kinds of broth.  Although the pain did not disappear, it lessened, and the lipase and other lab values went down to normal when I stuck to liquids. When I eat solids again, the pain and labs worsen. So I’ve been off and on solid food for a while. Every one to two weeks, I give a couple of vials of blood and 3 hours later, my nurse scolds me. Kinda like peeing into a cup, or sucking a saliva test strip. Clean UA? Good labs? It depends on behavior.

Humbling.

A client ‘bangs’ (injects) meth. I indulge in a cookie, or three. Not equivalent, exactly. But pancreatitis is dangerous. Meth is, too.

When ‘shit happens’ to me, which includes simply a bad day, I realized some time ago that I have  a sense of entitlement, of somehow ‘deserving’ the special treat of new yarn, or a Peppermint Patty. Because…. Insert self justification here….  I can imagine that some of the same justification goes on in the mind of people who use meth or pot or beer compulsively.  “I’ve been good… It was a shitty day… Fuck you, bossy bitch, I’m going out… “  As I stand in the checkout line at Safeway, I’m like, I’m tired, just one Peppermint Patty won’t kill me…

Dark chocolate, ice cream, cookies. I’ve heard alcoholics say that if there’s alcohol in the house, it calls to them. Same for me with chocolate. Valerie hides it. At the moment, I think we are totally out. Which is good. (I found her stash. ‘Bye, ‘bye stash. I am a gluttonous theif.)  I’ve been keeping a pile of tiny chocolates in my office for my clients. I give up. They’re all gone now. I couldn’t resist them. I’ll put stress balls in the box that held the mini-snickers and Twix. The Twix were very popular. I was especially fond of the mini-Milky Ways with dark chocolate. Val discovered Russell Stover’s sugar free peppermint patties. Oh. My. God. They are now on the banned list, even though they are sugar free. Even after I start feeling sick, I can eat 10 at a sitting. Like the rat hitting the cocaine water until he dies.

I knew someone who had a compulsion to use pornography. The idea would take root and next thing, that person would be walking into a strip club. Feeling disgusted later, dirty and depressed, the urge would diminish for a while, until the next time. My basic feeling about this whole arena is: tip the sex worker very well and be respectful. But, the compulsion, if it harms relationships with real live humans outside the club, is a problem. Not to mention how porn distorts what men think women actually enjoy.

Cravings.

Chocolate or yarn doesn’t HAVE to be a problem, but for me it is. Everything in moderation, except for me with sugar or yarn. I can ignore a wine bottle. No interest in illegal drugs. But keep sugar away from me. And no more yarn… hm… until I hit the new Willows store in Christmas Valley again.  Seed planted, insert rationalization: I’m supporting an independent local business! (I think this is called ‘stinkin’ thinking’. )

What is your ‘self medication’ of choice, dear reader?

Weed, which seems to be the drug of choice for teens in Lake County is a mixed bag. Pun intended. It made me paranoid and more anxious than I already was when I used it in college. It’s legal in some states but federally illegal. The medical marijuana card is a great thing for those who need it. I’ve seen the videos with people who have Parkinson’s go from violent tremors to graceful movement. For young people, though, I’ve seen it among my kids’ friends, how all motivation seems to vanish. It is the slacker’s drug of choice. I have teenaged clients who are mandated to see me because of weed, and they pee into a cup. I want for them every ounce of motivation to get them out of poverty and do well in school, find a trade, make a better living than their parents.

Our group discussion gave me a chance to revisit my own struggles with identity, as well as my own compulsive behavior.  Perhaps there is a parallel between my deep discovery in my early 40s that I am really and truly gay and my clients’ growing familiarity with their sober selves. For me, it was 2003. My husband had given me permission to figure out whether or not I was gay, bi, whatever. He’d had a serious heart attack, and earnestly pointed out that life is short. What a gift. What insanity.  This journey led to the end of our marriage, which was a hard and painful process but also, to lives lived with authenticity. Thank goddess for therapists. The kids survived and thrived, and he has been with a lovely, gifted, hilarious and STRAIGHT woman for something like 10 years. I have been with the cowhand for nearly 6.

What made that part of my history relevant, perhaps, to the path of the newly sober, is that I had to regroup my identity. As my children’s father put it, I’d changed teams. Not only was I on a different team, that team had a culture, a lingo, a look and feel that was perceptible by something called ‘gaydar’ which I had the beginnings of but really needed to step up. I rented every classic lesbian movie I could find, and some of them were terrible, but all of them taught me something. As a feminine-appearing gay woman, I needed to learn about femmes and femme culture since I am so not a butch. I read Joan Nestle, founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and the hilarious Leslea Newman who wrote, ‘Out of the Closet with Nothing to Wear’, and the classic, “Heather has two Mommies.” I watched lesbians, especially in lesbian spaces. I learned about my own body, my own range of gender expression.

I moved to the Oregon Outback to be with my sweetie full time instead of half the year, and out here, I miss gay space (like a gay bar, community center, or Pride event), other gay people, any tiny glimpse of a gender bending queer sensibility.

We all feel this way, in each of our identities. Jewish people feel more comfortable when surrounded by other Jews. Women feel relaxed when there are no men present, and vice versa. Alcoholics can avoid the stigma when they are with other alcoholics. Ranchers enjoy the company of other ranchers.

Just this past week I met, FINALLY, another gay person who lives in Lake County. This person is married, and so now I know there are FOUR GAY PEOPLE IN LAKE COUNTY.  We’ll have a tiny gay pride parade in our living room come June, with a very large rainbow flag.

For my newly sober clients, it’s an adventure to learn who they are with their families, with their wives or husbands or girlfriends or boyfriends, with their employers, at their church. To say to their children, “yes, I have messed up, and I’m getting it together. No need to be sarcastic with me. I am still your parent.” They seek out the company of others in recovery to survive. There are several twelve step meetings in the county, thank goodness.  Since all of my clients started using in their early teens, there is a lot of growing up to do, all the while they have very real and heavy adult responsibility. It’s a lot to manage, in a punitive and financially strapped environment.  

For the sober, a hot bath has to take the place of a beer, or a bowl. All of those strong emotions cannot be mediated by a substance. Frustration? Anger? Sadness? How does one deal with those without an upper or a downer?  And if I have a rough day, I do not have to buy a Peppermint Patty.

I seek to relate to them and their stories, even while I immerse myself in online courses about substance use disorder. It’s a bit narcissistic, I know, to search for my own parallel struggle to humanize theirs. But as Anne Lamott once so wisely said, I am the turd around which the world revolves.

On New Year’s Eve, I went to Soul Collage at Toni’s house in Paisley, and made a New Year’s mandala (which I shared a picture of, two posts ago.)  In the center is a primate surrounded by bananas, and around the primate were examples of embodiment, words of encouragement, and healthy foods. It was shortly into 2017 that I was diagnosed with pancreatitis. I am now FORCED by my side pain and bad labs to get my eating act together, out of the realm of gluttony. Be careful what you wish for.

I went to Soul Collage again recently, and created two cards to help me tell the story of my clients, and also my own story. They depict the journey from serious faces to happy faces, with stops at

·        Know thine enemy and maybe befriend them, (the man and the skunk, the user and the dealer, the lesbian and the Trumpette)

·        Find your people and cuddle up to them to rest (like a pile of kittens)

·        Be creative in all things, with colored pencils or your new sense of who you can be now

·        Get used to feeling your feelings including the negative ones. They will not kill you. Smoking or ‘banging’ them away is procrastination. So are Peppermint Patties.

·        Do the work. No way to short cut the work. Carry the water that needs carrying and don’t be a whiney child about it. I know it’s a bitch to be a grownup and exercise self-control when other people are allowed to be such pains in the asses!!! Remember: sometimes, I AM THAT BITCH.

·        Allow time for joy, for running free, for deeply enjoying pleasure that doesn’t carry guilt. Find that joy if it’s new to you, the guilt-free kind! (Salad? Sigh. Knitting with the yarn I already own? YES.)

·        Make a home within yourself if not in the outside world. Make that home cozy and full of love. Beautiful and familiar. Full of life and healing. (I’m ALWAYS working at this, the finding and maintenance of home…)

The journey to sobriety, to a whole and generous life, is not a straight line, more like a circle or a spiral, hopefully forward. All the same, as Proust said,

The real voyage of discovery consists in not seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.