#I kinda want to celebrate each new chapter with a small drawing

[mischiefandmedicine]

Very Full - Chapter 10: Lay Me Down

Summary: Melara gains some perspective as her powers grow.

Word Count: 2,860 words.

Chapter Warnings: Kinda fluffy, kinda angsty.

Soundtrack Link

This Chapter's Music Inspiration:

Lay Me Down by Sam Smith featuring John Legend

Very Full MASTERLIST

Previous Chapter

A/N: As per usual, I just want to say that I do not own the rights to the lyrics. I did, however, imagine that Melara wrote this song, because the lyrics fit so perfectly into hers and Loki's story.

Let me know if you would like to be added to the taglist!

Months had passed since Melara’s poignant encounter with Loki in the dim light of the studio. The world outside her window had subtly shifted; the once-distant dream of a music career was now blossoming into a vivid reality. Gone was the time when she felt like just a karaoke bar and a shower singer. Now, the songs she had poured her heart into, born from the depths of her experiences and encounters with a certain god of stories, were now resonating with a wider audience than she had ever imagined.

The first hint of change came quietly, almost unnoticeably, with local independent radio stations playing tracks from her demo. Then, like a ripple expanding across a still pond, her music began to reach further shores. One song, in particular, a haunting melody that spoke of love and loss in equal measure, caught the attention of a national radio network. Its lyrics, imbued with the pain and beauty of her time with Loki, seemed to strike a chord with listeners, drawing them into her world.

Each day, Melara found herself navigating this new reality with wonder and apprehension. Her once-routine visits to the local coffee shop turned into impromptu meet-and-greets with fans who recognized her voice from the radio. Invitations to play at larger venues and interviews with music journalists became a regular part of her schedule. Her world, once confined to the four walls of her apartment and the small stages of local bars, was expanding in ways she had not dared to hope for.

Yet, amidst the whirlwind of her budding career, Melara could not shake off a sense of solitude. The growing life inside her was a constant reminder of her connection to Loki; one that was both a source of strength and a wellspring of longing. Each night, as she lay in bed, the faint stirrings of her unborn brought thoughts of him – thoughts that were a bittersweet reminiscence and aching absence all at once.

The apartment, once her sanctuary, now felt too large, too quiet. Even with frequent visits from her friends or her mother. The walls, adorned with framed lyrics and photographs from her performances, echoed with memories. She would look at each fondly, often studying the photographs in the hopes that she would catch a glimpse of Loki in the audience watching her. The lyrics though were like a vocal manifestation of their complicated relationship – so close, yet an entire universe apart.

As Melara navigated the unfolding chapters of this new life, one aspect that continually left her in quiet amazement was the warm embrace she received from the public, not just as a musician but as a soon-to-be mother. It was a blend of identities she had worried might clash but instead harmonized beautifully in the public eye.

Fans and critics alike seemed to celebrate her pregnancy, viewing it as a symbol of authentic life experience, enriching her music with layers of depth and emotion. The way her growing belly was received as part of her artistic image, rather than a hindrance to it, felt like a refreshing departure from the norms she had anticipated. Each performance, interview, and public appearance where her pregnancy was not just accepted but celebrated, bolstered her confidence. It was as if her personal journey of love, creativity, and impending motherhood resonated with an audience far broader than she ever imagined.

But as her due date drew nearer, the reality of her situation became more pressing. The nights were longer now, filled with a restless energy that kept her awake, her mind racing with plans and worries for the future.

During the day, she would often find herself staring out the window, lost in thought. The cityscape, with its bustling streets and towering buildings, seemed both familiar and alien. It was as if she were viewing the world from the other side of a veil – a part of it, yet separate, caught between the life she had known and the one that was unfolding before her.

In these quiet moments of reflection, Melara found herself thinking about Loki’s projection. At first, it had been a source of frustration, a painful reminder of what could not be. But as time passed, she felt a shift. The projection, with its silent presence and watchful eyes, had become a comforting ethereal presence that was her link to Loki. Even though he had promised to keep his distance, Melara continued to experience passing moments where she could sense his presence, but could not physically see him around.

As the autumn leaves began to fall, painting the city in hues of orange and red, Melara felt a change within herself. There was a growing sense of acceptance, a realization that while her life was taking an unexpected path, it was one she was ready to embrace. The music, the pregnancy, the connection with Loki – they were all threads in the tapestry of her life, each one essential to the pattern that was emerging.

And so, as the season turned and the chill of winter began to creep into the air, Melara prepared herself mentally for the next chapter of her story. This particular evening’s air was cool, carrying the scent of the approaching night as Melara stepped into her apartment, her feet and back aching from the long day. The rehearsal, a duet she had been practicing for weeks, had drained her more than usual. Her body, adapting to the growing life within her, demanded rest, a plea she could no longer ignore.

Melara moved through her home with a familiar ease, shedding the layers of the day. The apartment, once a quaint vessel for her modest aspirations, had transformed along with her life. Where there had once been space for her to dance and sing without restraint, there were now stacks of fan mail and gifts from admirers, as well as a crib in the corner gifted to her by her mother. Her coffee table, once cluttered with lyric sheets and old guitar picks, now held glossy magazines with her face on the cover. It was all so surreal, like living within a dream she had conjured in some distant, hopeful night.

Melara stood by the window, her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of tea, watching as the streets below filled with passersby on their way to dates, dinners, and errands. She sipped slowly, the warmth of the liquid doing little to ward off the chill that seemed to have settled in her bones. The lights dimmed, casting soft shadows against the walls, as her phone dinged with a message from the studio technician she had worked with for the day. Checking the screen, she noted the words from the technician as they flashed across her screen:

Today’s session was magical! I’ve attached a file of what we got.

In her sanctuary of solitude, Melara’s fingers danced across her phone, connecting it to the Bluetooth speaker. The living room, a witness to her solitary evenings and silent tearful reveries, now hummed to life with the first tender strokes of a piano. She cradled her belly as the melody rose like a gentle tide, flooding the space with its calming presence. And then she heard her voice. It sounded hushed, yet passionate as it told of every sentiment held within her heart.

Yes, I do, I believe, That one day we will be where I was, Right there, right next to you. And it’s hard, the days just seem so dark. The moon, and the stars are nothing without you. Your touch, your skin, where do I begin? No words can explain the way I’m missing you. Deny this emptiness, This hole that I’m inside. These tears, they tell their own story. Told me not to cry when you were gone, But the feeling’s overwhelming, it’s much too strong. Can I lay by your side? Next to you? You. And make sure you’re alright. I’ll take care of you. You. I don’t want to be here if I can’t be with you tonight.

As the notes swirled around her, her eyelids grew heavy. A strange sensation, like a gentle tide pulling her under, overtook her. This was no ordinary fatigue; it felt as though the very essence of her being was being drawn into a realm beyond the confines of her apartment, beyond the constraints of time and space. While she lay there, it was not the voice of her song partner she heard, she pictured Loki on his throne projecting the next verse in her mind.

I’m reaching out to you, Can you hear my call? This hurt I have been through, I’m missing you. I’m missing you like crazy.

In the depths of her slumber, Melara found herself standing at the edge of infinity in a music-fueled haze. A vast, star-studded expanse stretched out before her, a cosmic ocean sparkling with the light of a billion distant suns. And there, amidst the celestial beauty, was Loki’s throne, a construct of unimaginable majesty and solitude.

The throne, a masterpiece as if wrought from the cosmic dust of bygone nebulas, perched regally upon a dais that commanded a view of the celestial infinity. There, enthroned in majesty, was Loki, the aura of his godhood undimmed by the eons. His eyes, those deep wells of enigma, once more held the starlit dance of the universe’s deepest secrets. Yet, in the gaze of Melara’s approach, the sharpness that so often underpinned his gaze melted into a tender warmth, a silently shocked recognition of her presence in this place beyond the march of time.

Melara stepped forward, her heart pounding in her chest. The air around them was alive with the whispers of the ages, voices of the past and future mingling in a symphony of eternity.

“Loki,” she whispered, her voice echoing in the void.

“Melara,” he replied, rising from his throne. His form, both imposing and graceful, moved towards her with a fluidity that defied imagination. “H-…how are you here?”

She reached out, her hand trembling as it met his. The contact was electric, a current of connection that transcended the timelines themselves. “I-…I don’t understand. Is this real?”

His hand cupped her face, moving to rest gently on her belly, and in that moment, a warmth spread through her, a sensation so real and profound that it bridged the gap between their present circumstances. Loki at the end of time and Melara resting on her timeline, yet somehow impossibly projecting herself outside reality as she knew it. She could feel his presence, his concern, his love. It was as if the very essence of her being was reaching out to him across the expanse of time and space.

“What is real anyway?” Loki said with a grin.

Melara looked down at Loki’s hand connected with her rounded abdomen wide-eyed with a gasp. “Loki,” she began, her voice laced with wonder and awe. “I can feel you. Like, I can really feel your touch. This isn’t a dream, is it?”

“No, ‘Lara,” he replied, his voice a blend of warmth and sadness. “You seem to have blurred the boundaries of the possible. We are both as real as the heart beating in your chest. The warmth of your skin.”

Tears welled in her eyes as the emotional weight of his words sank in. “How?! It’s so…real.” she rasped, emotion stealing her voice.

Loki brushed the hair from her face. “I just don’t know,” he said, shaking his head as if to wrack his brain for some explanation as to how a human being might have conjured this level of a projection without training. “It seems you had to experience it for yourself to understand.”

“I’ve missed you,” she smiled softly, her voice just as tender. “I’ve missed…us. I feel like I have been wrong…all wrong…about everything. I’m so sorry.”

They shared a warm embrace, both terrified to utter a word, lest it change the reality that existed before their eyes. As they stood there, at the very edge of eternity, Melara felt a peace she hadn’t known in months. The worries of her waking life, the uncertainty of her pregnancy, the loneliness of her success – it all faded into the background as she basked in the glow of their connection.

But as all dreams must, this one too began to fade. The stars flickered and dimmed as Melara felt as though she were falling. The grandeur of Loki and his throne at the end of time blurred into the soft darkness of sleep. As she faded out of Loki’s view she managed to reach out and speak the words, “Come find me.”

Melara awoke with a start, her body heavy and her mind foggy. The room was quiet and dark, the song having long since finished playing. She felt a dull ache in her bones, a physical reminder of the profound experience she had just lived through. The implications of the experience hit her all at once. As the realization came through to her conscious mind, Melara noticed a familiar face standing over her, smiling fondly. It was Loki.

***

“So fucking help me, Loki, do not…,” Saoirse warned.

Loki laughed. “I will spare you the details.”

***

The days that followed were a haze of exhaustion and recovery. Melara was pale, her movements slow and deliberate. Sleep came easily, but it was a deep, consuming slumber that left her feeling though as she were recovering from a great exertion. She spent those days wrapped in the arms of Loki’s avatar, fully understanding the strength it took for Loki to be present for her.

But as the cycle of seasons continued to turn and the birth drew near, a discernible change had woven itself into Melara’s very being. The vivacity that once danced in her eyes, the same spark that had captured Loki’s attention amidst the chaos of realms, had dimmed to a mere flicker. Her once robust strength, which had carried her voice to the heights of auditoriums and the intimacy of dimly lit bars, seemed to have been siphoned away, leaving her countenance hauntingly gray and her movements listless.

In the quiet moments, when the world slipped into slumber and left Melara alone with her thoughts, she could feel the vigor that had pulsed through her veins like a relentless river now trickling away to a sluggish stream. She looked upon her reflection, tracing the contours of her face, searching for the woman she recognized – the woman who had stood defiant and radiant before a god and mortals alike.

But the reflection that stared back at her was a shadow, a shell of the once fiery spirit that had drawn stories from the lips of Loki himself. This weary body housed a tiredness that seemed to reach into the marrow of her bones, a fatigue that whispered of more than just the physical toll of carrying a new life. Aware of the looming demands of new parenthood, Melara urged Loki to rest while she slept, echoing the precautions he was taking at the time she first learned his presence was only a projection.

As Saoirse Freyja Runa Lokisdottir made her entrance into the world, a new life forged from the old, it was not just the sleepless nights or the demands of motherhood that weighed heavily upon Melara. It was as if the very core that bound her to the earth and to the stars was slipping through her fingers. The connection to Loki, once a vibrant thread of gold in now felt like a gossamer strand, fragile and prone to breaking.

It was not lost on Melara that the timing of her decline had coincided with the burgeoning of her music career and the life that had grown within her. The songs that echoed on the airwaves, the verses that spoke of love eternal and hearts entwined, seemed to draw from her an unseen price – as if each note had carried away a piece of her soul.

There was a bittersweet irony that in giving life to her daughter and her music, she felt life ebbing from her. And in the depths of her heart, where fear and bravery waged a silent war, Melara wondered if the magic that had once seemed to bless her was, in truth, a curse in disguise, a star burning too brightly, destined to fade.

Even Loki, with his eyes that saw beyond horizons, watched helplessly, his projection a watchman to the unfolding tragedy. The woman who had burned so brilliantly, who had held the chaos of his nature in her steady gaze, was retreating inward, her light withdrawing into some secret, guarded place he could not follow.

It was a cruel twist of fate that as Saoirse’s life began with all the promise of dawn’s first light, Melara’s seemed to be approaching an untimely dusk. And all who watched from near and far, held their breath, waiting to see if the morrow would bring rebirth or the quiet close of a chapter that had only just begun. Little did anyone know that the future was to get brighter in ways that no one expected.

--- Tags: @mischief2sarawr

[lulupen2023]

My very first BellDom Fic 19/23

AWWW thanks a lot for the like, they mean a lot to me. Hope you're still having fun with this super crazy fic :)

Summary:

Do you want to meet a Matthew who sees conspiracy everywhere (oh wait, this is not big news!) and is so fond of his trolley that he treats it like a sort of puppy? Do you want to meet a Dominic in love with… himself (and with Matt, too, of course!)? And do you want to meet a Chris who wants to prove to the world he's the most masculine guy ever… but is unavoidably attracted by every… female hobby? This is what you'll find in this story, among lots of BellDom and… craziness!

Summary of the chapter: Matt and Dom put their plan into action and Chris lends a hand. Chapter XIX A: What If I Told You...

Matthew makes the last notes of his guitar echo, letting them ring, as small flames burst out from the edge of the stage, with some glistening lights, too.

It's the sign that that was really the last song of their show.

"Goodnight, Los Angeles, it was nice to have you here tonight!" Matt exclaims, greeting the crowd.

"Maybe are we gonna see some of you even at tomorrow's show?" Dominic wonders as he gets up from the drum-kit, happy when he hears the positive rumbling from some areas of the Forum.

"Awww, that's so nice from you." the blond grins as he waves his hand, before leaving.

< Too bad that we won't be that nice with you, tonight...> Matthew ponders, as he heads to the dressing room.

After a quick shower and changing of clothes, the trio is ready.

There's no need to tell that Dominic and Matthew have dressed properly for their celebration: the first wears black pants and a white jacket with a T-shirt with white and black straps under, which is an impeccable match; the second wears blue pants with a very particular shirt, not only for the very intricate white drawing on the collar, but mostly because, depending on light it oscillates between blue, black and purple, without making clear which the real colour is.

Dominic could spend hours trying to define it, if only he hadn't another priority, like to take that shirt off him as soon as possible.

Chris stands in a corner, all engrossed in thinking about what to say to their fans who inevitably will question him about their disappearance.

After establishing that they have stared at each other long enough, Matt and Dom think about what to do.

"Let's check if the coast is clear. I'm gonna look at the main exits, very carefully. You'll check the number fifty-seven and then we'll meet again here, ok?" Matt suggests and they part.

After something more than ten minutes Dom comes back and finds Matt who has been waiting for him.

"There you go, finally! So, were there fans at number fifty-seven? Because the main exits are so damn crowded, but lucky for me nobody saw me. Bloody Hell, aren't people supposed to stay here and listen to My Chemical No-Sense?" the brunette snorts.

"It's My Chemical *Romance*!" the blond corrects him, kinda annoyed. "Anyway, just like you supposed, number fifty-seven is deserted..." he informs him.

"So, why the hell did it take you so damn long?" Matt gets nervous.

"Well, on the way back, I found a couple of fans in the corridors and signed their CDs." Dom explains.

"But you weren't supposed to stop to talk with the fans, not even for a few minutes!" Matt scolds him.

"I know... but they said 'Please, Dom, come here, you are beautiful!'. I just had to stop!" the other justifies.

"So? I keep telling you that you're beautiful!" the brunette protests.

"So what? Do you want an autograph, too?" the blond teases him.

"Dom!" Matt snaps.

"Ok, ok, let's go." Dom takes him by the hand, crossing with him the very deserted number fifty-seven exit, totally undisturbed and reaching the taxi that is already waiting for them.

"It was even too easy!" Matt comments as he closes the car door.

"You're right. Let's go back and make things harder!" Dom jokes as he pretends to open the car door again.

"Very funny. Let's just go away from here. Please, driver, take us to the beach!" Matt asks politely, but the taxi-driver turns to him, looking at him puzzled, just like Dom does.

"Matthew, honey, do you have the slightest idea about how many beaches there are in this place?" Dom patiently tries to make him reason out.

"Uh! You're right. Well, I mean the one where we have already set everything up!" Matthew specifies, but the driver stares at him even more puzzled than before.

"Matthew, dear, let me guess. You don't remember the name of the beach anymore, do you?" Dom questions him and Matt goggles as he slowly shakes his head negatively, just like a child.

"What if I told you that I do?" Dom smiles at him.

"Oh, Dommie, what would I do without you?" the brunette murmurs.

"Probably you would get lost everywhere!" the blond chuckles, before giving the proper info to the driver, as he caresses his mate's left leg, taking advantage of the seat that hides them.

*********************************** (In the meantime)

Chris has finally decided to go out and face the crowd. The first groups of fans immediately catch sight of him, calling all the other fans and going towards him.

"Chris, please, Chris, come here!" the fans call him out loud and the bassist can't help pleasing them.

He poses for several pictures, signs CDs, rucksacks, T-shirts, books and every kind of stuff and then gets ready for the unavoidable question the fans are about to ask him.

"Hey, Chris, where are Matt and Dom? Why aren't they here with you?"

The bassist concentrates for some seconds, before answering as planned.

"I'm sorry, people, but Matt and Dom won't be here tonight." he announces, noticing the immediate change of mood in his listeners.

"Why?" some girls wonder. As the news spread, one by one the other fans leave, until only a limited group of girls remains.

"Because, you know, their girlfriends made a surprise to them and came here yesterday, at night. So, as you can imagine, now they want to spend with them as much time as possible. That's why they left earlier than usual." he explains, no matter how he hates telling lies.

"Oh. Well, that's so nice from their girlfriends!" a girl sighs.

"What about tomorrow? Are they gonna stop here after the show?" another girl wonders.

"Sure! Their girlfriends will leave tomorrow in the afternoon. So, Matt and Dom will stop here, after the show, to spend some time with you. This is a promise!" Chris assures.

"So, Chris, aren't you envious, at least a little bit?" a girl asks him.

"Why?" he narrows his eyes.

"I mean, Matt and Dom's girlfriends paid a visit to them. What about your wife? Isn't she here with you?" she questions him.

"Nope, she is at home, with the kids, you know..." he justifies her.

"Well, fresh news, buddy, there are people called baby-sitters!" the girl makes him notice.

"But..."

"Admit it, Chris, it seems that Matt and Dom's partners care about them more than your partner cares about you!" another girl states.

< Oh, c'mon, it's fake. They're not here for real. So, they don't care more than Kelly. So... why am I so unsure now? > the poor Chris wonders, as doubts overwhelm him.

"Excuse me, I'll be right back." he takes leave, coming back to his dressing room.

He dials the number that he uses to dial every single day, even more than once a day, and waits for the answer from the other side.

"Hello?"

"Kelly?" her husband whines.

It's enough to make her figure his mood out.

"C'mon, tell me, what happened this time?" she patiently asks him.

"Do you love me?" he questions her, almost crying.

"Nope, I don't. Truth is that we've been together for all these years just because I find extremely funny having babies from you!" she answers sardonically. "Of course I love you, you, ninny! What bloody kind of question is it?" she snaps immediately after.

"Just like that..." he mumbles.

"Christopher?" his wife questions him.

"What if I told you that Gaia and Jessica are here?"

"Ok, they are there. So?"

"Well, you're not..." he whimpers.

"Chris, do you really think that to be there with you would be the way to show you that I care?" she strikes back.

"N...no?" he answers so uncertainly that it becomes a question.

"Hell nope! It wouldn't prove you anything. I mean, it's nice to follow you on tour, but just once in a while, because I understand that you need some privacy and need to be left on your own, also to spend some time with your fans. So, to keep following you relentlessly as Gaia and Jess do, well... it's way too exaggerate. It's almost as if they didn't trust in their boyfriends, so they keep following them in order to control them constantly. But this can be so frustrating that if the girls keep acting this way... I'm afraid they'll end up losing them." she explains.

< Oh well, that has already happened, a month ago .> Chris thinks, being very careful not to say that out loud.

"Anyway, honey, since they're there, when you see them can you please say hello from me?" his wife adds.

"To whom?" her husband wonders, confused.

"To Jess and Gaia, you, ninny!" Kelly snorts.

"Oh, yeah, sure, of course; but... they're not here." he confesses.

"But you told me they were there!" his wife protests, puzzled.

"No, honey, I said 'What *if I told you* that Gaia and Jessica are here?'" her husband points out.

"So, let me see if I got it straight: you complained to me, even tried to make me feel guilty, for something that actually didn't happen?" she questions him, the volume of her voice increasing as she begins losing her patience.

"Exactly, but... why does it sound so awful described by you?" her husband wavers.

"Christopher Anthony Wolstenholme, you..." his wife roars.

Chris knows very well that whenever she uses his full name is never a good sign, as well as he knows that he can place the mobile on the table and gather all his stuff left in the dressing room, because once he's done he will find Kelly on the phone, still engrossed in insulting him good and proper.

This time not even his famous, providential book will help him make things right.

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

Once they arrive to the beach, not before giving a very generous tip to the taxi driver, mostly to reward him for his patience, Dominic and Matthew wander hand in hand along the isolated beach, lightened only by the moonlight, the stars and some candles on a table.

And just like they have said before, everything is already set up: on the table there are sandwiches, chips, pop-corns and several snacks, a mini-bar with beers, champagne and every kind of alcoholic stuff. And there is a cake, too.

"Is it just my imagination or when we ordered that cake it didn't have all this whipped cream?" Matthew wonders.

"You're right. Let's say that I personally asked to add some more." Dominic confesses as he dips his finger into the whipped cream.

"Why?" the other asks him naively as the blond unbuttons his iridescent shirt, placing the cream along the left side of his neck and licking it off his way, making the frontman moan.

"Here's the answer." Dominic whispers.

"Well, Mattie, are we going to have our toast or what?" he exclaims, walking towards the mini-bar and drawing out the champagne.

As soon as Matthew recovers, he helps him, taking two flute glasses.

Dom opens the bottle and fills the flute glasses with the precision of a maître and then they make them collide lightly.

"To our first month, the first one of a long series." Matthew murmurs as he leans closer to his boyfriend, until his forehead rests against his.

"A very, very, very long series..." the blond moans, crossing the flutes, to make each one drink from the others' flute.

Matthew is about to fill the second glass, but Dom stops him.

"Wait. I can't let the alcohol overwhelm you... at least, not yet!" he explains.

"Why?" the other wonders.

Dominic leaves and then he comes back, holding a deep blue, acoustic guitar.

"As you can see, clothes are not the only stuff I've bought today. This is for you!" he says, giving the guitar to him.

"Oh my, Dommie, it's wonderful, thank you so much. Plus, it matches my shirt, too!" Matt smiles as he analyzes the instrument, minutely.

"Well, that's only a coincidence. Anyway, if you think you're wearing that for long, you're such a poor ingénue, my dear!" Dom 'threatens' him.

"Shut up! You wear more clothes than I do. At least you could take off your jacket!" Matthew incites him and Dom pleases him, taking it off and folding it carefully, placing it on the bench close to the table.

"Now, that's better!" the brunette smiles satisfied, as he checks that all the guitar chords are perfectly tuned. "I like it a lot. How did you know that I would like it?" he asks him.

"It's a guitar. It works. You like it!" the drummer answers telegraphic, making the brunette laughs, but then he become serious again.

"Dominic, why did you buy a guitar for me? It's not that I lack them..." he questions the blond.

"What? Can't I buy a gift for my boyfriend?" the other shrugs, showing indifference.

"Dom?" Matt insists, as he tries not to think about the shiver running down his spine whenever Dom calls him 'his boyfriend '.

"Okay, okay. What if I told you that I want you to sing?" the other confesses.

"Dom, I've already done that not longer than one hour ago..." the guitarist comments, confused.

"Yep, but not for me. You've never sung for me so far. I mean, you even sang for Chris!" the blond protests.

"Don't get jealous now!" the brunette chuckles, placing the guitar on the sand, to get closer to him and caress his face with the back of his hand.

"Do you want me to sing for you, my Dommie?" he whispers as he skims his lips with his own.

"I don't want it. I expect it!" the other strikes back as he annihilates that minimal distance with a kiss that doesn't take long to become more demanding.

"Okay, I'll do it." Matt announces, as he's about to take his guitar, but Dom stops him.

"Not so fast, boy!" he exclaims, dragging him to himself to utterly unbutton his shirt, taking it off.

"Now, that's better!" he quotes Matt's previous sentence on purpose, with a satisfied expression, before folding the shirt with the same care he reserved to his jacket.

Sat on the sand, with is legs crossed, shirtless, holding the guitar on his lap as his sapphire eyes stare at the blond, his face brightened up by the moonlight and the stars.

Matthew has never seemed more beautiful to Dominic.

(End part A)

Since I'm evil, but mostly since the chapter would be really too long, this time I split it in two.

And in the next part you'll see our beloved guys having lots of fun... but not only!

[almondfeather]

[demenior]

Dem’s Big Post About The Spn Fics Part 1/2

aka The Wrap Up to celebrate To Exist Again and To Become a Man now being finished!

(This will be a long post. This is your only warning.)

Admittedly this is a bit of a weird thing to be doing, but I wanted to try it out for 3 reasons: 

I love talking about my own work and 

It functions really well as a self-reflective tool for me to improve on, and 

I can answer some big questions people might have because there was a LOT of worldbuilding in these stories. 

We’ll start off with reflective stuff, and move into the juicier world-building focused stuff later into the post. There will be major spoilers for both fics to come!

To begin with a funny anecdote, Why Did I Write These Stories?

I was beginning to write and work out the story that I wanted to write for Spn (what will now be To Destroy a Man. As I was writing the scene, I realized I had a LOT of ideas and while I was trying to avoid as much exposition as I could, it became quickly apparent that I was needing to create my own au (this scene eventually became chapter 34 of To Become a Man). A short prequel seemed like a good idea, to quickly hash out the ‘prior’ events that I needed to go through so all the readers could be on the same page. While plotting out prequel points, I realized Sam and Dean were going to have drastically different experiences during the same time period, and I was trying to figure out who’s pov would be better for which scenes, and how to keep momentum when they’re going through such radically different types of changes. Ultimately I decided to split their povs, which I also thought would be a fun project! And I naively assumed each pov would take about 2 chapters each, rounding out to maybe 15k total.

I had my ending points: Dean n Cas soul-merged and (basically) married, Cas on the lam from heaven and a complete anomaly, and Sam juiced up full of powers and a weird mix of archangel and antichrist but still 100% human and ready to fight God. 

Now I needed to add weight to these changes, so I wrote 200k of build-up.

Am I proud of these fics?

OF COURSE I AM!!! These are the longest fics I’ve ever written AND finished AND in the fastest freakin turnaround ever (both were finished writing, barring edits, in like 6 months holy shit)

I didn’t write a single scene that I “didn’t” want to write. If I had trouble writing it, as in it was fighting me, I scrapped it. Most obviously was the scene in Dean’s pov where he and Sam were intended to meet some other hunters and Dean declines working with them because he’s nervous about being outed as queer. It was meant to be a good scene! I wanted to introduce some new characters! But it just wasn’t working so I said ‘thank you, next!’. 

But it means this story was an absolute joy to write. Because for a while all I was doing was ‘if I wanted to write one scene into supernatural, what would I write?’ and then just DID that!! It’s why there’s a lot of ‘Salmondean do dumb shit or have really dumb heartfelt conversations’ scenes.

Would I change anything?

If I’d been less eager to start sharing, I might have planned out the story beats a little tighter so there were less ‘soft’ chapters and a draw/pull for people to come back and keep reading. I felt Dean’s story specifically lagged at points and could have used some tighter editing (there was a noticeable lull in directed movement between Dean n Cas getting together, until Sam corrupts Amy).

I also probably would have held Sam’s story until I’d finished Dean’s so I could make the two line up better! Probably could have inserted more scenes into Sam’s fic that way, and made sure things were a little more consistent. In an ideal world one concept I had was to release 1 chapter from each pov every week that would correspond to the same time frame so we’d be getting real-time SalmonDean pov narrative. Unfortunately that didn’t work!

The biggest takeaway overall is for me to focus more on what moves the plot, and to make my scenes do more than 1 thing so I can cut down on wordcount and increase my efficiency. 

Of course every writer will find things they want to fix in anything they’ve ever written, so these are minor “mistakes” at best. I’m so dang proud of these fics. 

Onto more interesting things!

How Did I Put These Fics Together (because it’s different than anything I’ve ever done before)

Normally when I write a story, I plan out the beats I need to hit, see where I need to insert any kind of foreshadowing/buildup, and then write from A to B to C and so on and so forth. Hence, this is why I can normally post things as I complete chapters, because it’s all a linear progression. 

For these two stories, rather than linear plot/a normal story structure, I just sat and free-wrote any and every scene that came to mind and then pieced them into a kinda-linear form like putting a quilt together. You’ll note that this is why there’s not a lot of internal callback or a feeling of sense of time flowing within the fic (save for points where I went back and specifically edited it in). How long does the story take place over? Hard to say! Your author has the barest grasp on linear time even on a good day (how many times did I say ‘see you on [wrong day]’ at the end of chapters lmaaoooo)

This also meant EXTENSIVE editing on the back end once I decided in what order I wanted my ‘quilt pieces’ to be. Hard to say if this is a bonus or a negative!

But I did want to try and capture the vibe of the lives they lead, as a bit of a ‘slice of life’-style story, when the slice of life is the profound weirdness of the Winchester roaming life, and how things are status quo- until everyone almost dies oh shit!! And then they have to keep living because no therapy we die/undie like Winchesters. Do I think I captured this effectively? Hmm. Good question. 

Dem where the FUCK did the inspiration for a lot of the magic and creature weirdness even come from?

Honestly? Music, primarily. And completely mishearing lyrics!

Nightwish ‘Ever Dream’: the line is ‘my song can but borrow you grace’ and because my brain is scrambled eggs on a good day, I heard ‘grace’ ‘song’ and ‘borrow’ in that order and have had, for YEARS, the mental image of Cas borrowing Dean’s soul to power himself up for battle.

From there I’ve always been enamored with the ‘wavelength of celestial intent’ descriptor that Cas drops in s6 for “what he is”. 

I also really like ocean metaphors mostly because I’ve been obsessed with the ocean and things in it since I was like… 5??? So really this was me just rolling with what I know lmao. I love using (somewhat) accurate scientific metaphors for very intangible things!

I was also finishing my degree in biology/ecology while writing these fics and I think it shows

Stars ‘The Night Starts Here’ gives us the series title and the fic titles. Except for ‘To Exist Again’. TEA was almost titled ‘The Upwards Fall’ because I wanted all 3 of the Main Stories to have titles from this song, but I couldn’t make anything else work in tandem with the series name ‘The Love It Takes’ while also working for Sam’s personal story. So Sam, as always, is the rebel <3

Stars ‘Up In Our Bedroom, After The War’ is basically the vibes of the whole story. TFW has been, literally, to hell and back!!! There’s a bit of melancholy and sadness, a lingering dark, but the chance of a bright new tomorrow and a soft start.

Let’s Talk About Themes in The Story! What were you looking to accomplish? 

My earliest notes for TFW are, as follows:

Dean’s journey of self-discovery (who am I when I’m not trying to be Dad?)

Dean wants to settle down! He wants a big family! He wants to be domestic!

Basically: Dean doesn’t want to have a short life of hunting. He wants to live!

Dean’s journey of realizing he’s bi, and him accepting that

Dean’s relationship to Sam is both older brother/parent 

And continuing Dean balancing these roles while also letting Sam be an adult 

Dean’s Big Issues/Fears about never being good enough for people to want to stay with him (these are effectively highlighted in that Cas thinks he’s not useful enough to be wanted)

Sub Plot:

Castiel’s autonomy

Cas’ fall from grace, to trying to restore Heaven, to wrecking it further

He’s majorly depressed by the end of s7 (before purgatory)

Wants to stay in Purgatory but doesn’t tell Dean

Remains depressed after leaving, but resolved to keep living on because he’s clearly meant for something

After the seraphim reveal: does he have free will?! How does he grapple with this? How does he live in a way he can be proud of?

And lastly

Sam gets his powers back CAUSE THATS HOT

where tf did they go????

he got them from Lucifer?????

sleeper agent??????

Sam is The Chosen One

Accepts that he is More Than Human and to celebrate all parts of him

Lucifer and Sam friends?? Work together????

Sam needs autonomy in his choices/his life

If you compare these to the overall arc of TFW within the two stories, I think I got a lot of them! But you’ll also note a lot of these things aren’t concrete goals that are easily measurable (ex: Dean wants to learn to bake pie. In chapter 1 he starts a fire in the kitchen. By the end of the story he finally makes A Good Pie.) part of the lack of concrete milestones was why I felt it was important to tell Dean (and Cas’) story by going back to the point they meet, in s4! Dean’s gradual change towards his feelings for Cas, his relationship to Sam (heavily influenced by the s7 events of this fic) and then his own relationship with himself were such slow burns that I felt it would be a disservice to try and cram a change like that into a timeline like “1 year”.

I felt like these subtle changes and adjustments actually felt a lot truer to life-- people often change in very small, gradual ways over time, even without realizing it and often times not consistently! If only we could all gain skills like the sims, where we can easily level up and remain at that high level of performance! 

So the Guy Who Ate Satan, A Celestial Nuke that Developed Sentience, and Dean walk into a bar…

Sam’s story in Spn The Show has always been a ‘chosen one’ kind of narrative. Sam is living with one foot in the realm of the monsters, and I wanted to bring that back full force! It really makes sense for him that he should only continue to grow in power, might, and magic!! As the story progresses.

Cas also got a power up! I do desperately love in the show that he was kind of a grunt/nothing angel, and so even when he defected to TFW he was a huge help for them, but in the scale of things he was an annoying fly to most other angels. It really worked for the underdog story of s4/5. In this I wanted to give him a power up, and originally it was actually going to be close contact with Sam that eventually changed Cas into something unknown (you can still see traces of this in ch34 of TBAM, where Death remarks ‘Castiel could be [Sam’s] first creation’. But for a combo of reasons: how Sam’s magic needed to have intent, the entire concept of free will and consent, and how much I wanted Dean and Cas to have their effect on each other, I decided to go with the route that Cas has actually always been something angel-adjacent rather than becoming something new. TFW/Supernatural has always been about free will and making your own story, so I amplified that with Cas.

Dean has always been A Normal Guy, which is part of the appeal of him and Sam (2 normal dudes!) taking on the Very Not Normal. As explained above, Sam’s story is ‘normal guy finds out he’s the chosen one’ and so, in a story about very large concepts and huge monsters and acts of magic, I felt it was very important to keep Dean as normal as possible. To the point it became a running gag to me, personally, in that ‘no matter what cool shit happens around him, Dean has to stay as Just A Guy’. And it’s a very humanizing role that allows the story to have the scale it does!

What were the most important themes in your story?

Sam’s Autonomy

I wasn’t even going to include the plot about Lucifer’s death in this story— that was going to come up in a later story, actually! And rather than Sam having ate Lucifer, the original idea was that they’d become a SamandLucifer entity (this harkens back to a concept I wanted to write when Swan Song first aired). 

That storyline would have involved a lot of mental ‘Sam and Lucifer discuss what it means to live, which one of them is more worthy of life and if they do deserve to destroy the world for the pain they’ve been forced to go through, just to create the dichotomy of good and evil for everyone else’ discussions. There would be a lot of talk about how Sam hates and fears Lucifer for the pain Lucifer put on Sam, how Lucifer hates Sam because he and Sam are the same but Sam’s brother loves him anyways, etc. 

Ultimately that was scrapped because Sam’s entire story in the show is always about how the world and everyone around him manipulates him and that he never actually gets to make choices about his own life or body that aren’t influenced or part of someone elses’ design. And that always bothered me that Sam was never allowed to be himself without having to be ashamed of it, and I wanted to make sure that Sam’s triumph of being proud of himself/proudly choosing to exist (again) was evident in his story

In the end I needed Sam to have this visceral win over his tormentor. As the story shows, in this case Lucifer was abused and put into a position where he was incapable of empathy and could only express himself in violence. Sam even understands this! But it doesn’t change the fact that Lucifer tortured Sam in unimaginable ways for thousands of years. 

With that in mind I didn’t like the idea of Lucifer and Sam having “co-ownership” of their new identity, so I made the choice that Sam had to be the survivor. This tied in well with Sam’s new crusade to restore free will to the universe, because he’s breaking the narrative of his own story!

While Castiel wasn’t a pov character, his own autonomy and free will was equally as important. You’ll note that many, many paragraphs and conversations revolved around that theme and that in the end Cas followed himself (and love!) which ensured his freedom of self <3

The Brothers are WEIRD PEOPLE!!!! And Codependent to a Worrying Degree, but It’s Also How They Survive

It’s very hard to show “unusual” relationships when you’re writing from the pov of the two people who don’t think there’s anything weird about their relationship. Sure, they say ‘yeah it’s probably weird that we still share a bed’ but that’s kinda more in line with ‘I had a nightmare and I want to be close to the person who makes me feel safe’. Hashtag normalize co-sleeping when you need it!!!

From there I did try to point out how the boys have a weird perception of lifestyle in the little things they did. 

From thrifting everything from clothes to appliances to books (thrifting is a valid lifestyle! It’s incredibly handy when you’re on a budget.) 

To never actually having condiments or knowing how to use a dishwasher cause they’ve lived in a car, a motel room, or squatted in old houses their whole life.

I tried to have them wear each others’ clothes or casually swap things as much as possible. They live out of each others’ pockets!

Also the brothers are just weird people!! It’s hard to show from their pov, cause they don’t know how far off from normal they are, but like…

Everything about Sam and Amelia was NOT right like holy shit those two were wilding in their grief. They are very lucky things worked out for them and that they got to be hashtag Weird Girls together

Dean explicitly, in the story, gets horny after killing stuff!! Violence has done a number on his psyche and he’s gotten some wires crossed that maybe shouldn’t have been, or maybe could be worked out in a safe space but… uh… how likely do we think Dean is gonna go find a safe space to deal with any of his shit???

LOVE!!! Love is truly what this whole story is all about

If you’ve read the stories, you know how much emphasis I put on love. Love is the strongest force in the Spn Universe! It’s what averted the apocalypse and saved the world (Swan Song), it’s what created free will (Cas’ entire arc!) I love love!!!!

I went out of my way to not put any definitions on platonic love vs romantic love because I think love is love is love and how you express that is the difference. Neither is more powerful than the other because LOVE is powerful!! Sam and Cas are the most important people in Dean’s life and he loves them equally! He shows this by giving Cas kisses and stealing Sam’s socks.

It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when I have to hear explanations like ‘I love you, like a brother’ or ‘I love you, but like, as a friend because I’m a lesbian and you’re a man’ etc etc in media. If you have to continuously define how your characters love each other, then I don’t think you’re doing a good job of portraying their relationship. So you’ll see that I never put those parameters in any conversation. Dean DOES muse that he loves Cas differently than he loves Sam or Bobby, specifically because there is a romantic and sexual tone that his feelings for Cas takes, but not because he loves Cas more or less than he loves Sam or Bobby.

Which means, if you haven’t realized it yet, the Series + Fic Titles are meant to be a complete sentence because the power of love IS the thesis of this series:

The Love It Takes To Exist Again (Sam’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Become a Man (Dean’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Destroy a Man (TBA)

And now for fun stuff. Behind the scenes!!

What’s Something People Probably Don’t Know?

The demonic fungal/hydrothermal vent growth on Sam’s arm was thrown in literally as I was posting the chapter because I had just finished a 48 hour cram session of writing a report on tube worms for an ecology class (I was chanting my tube worm song as I wrote it) and it ended up being a HUGE hit with both readers and myself. But it was so last minute I had trouble fitting it in more throughout the rest of Sam’s story!

Cas’ orders? That may or may not have bound him to Dean and removed his free will? Were written into Sam’s story and I went ‘oh SHIT that’s compelling’ and then left them there as a ‘guess I’ll figure that out when I get to Dean’s story lol’

Originally Dean and Cas were supposed to get together after having their souls bonded, and have been in a UST limbo the entire time before that. Mostly because I think the entire concept of ‘we just got married of the soul I guess we should try dating?’ is very funny. CLEARLY the two of them were way more eager to fall in love than I anticipated (thank you Cas for your honesty) but you can still see shades of this original idea here and there (especially in ch35 of TBAM)

I never intended Dean and Benny to connect so well!! Benny was going to reunite with Andrea, she was going to live, and they were going to go off into the world and leave the story. And, uh, here we are. I’m still debating if I need to adjust the relationship tag or not haha. Polyamory is fun, especially when I was planning for Sam to be the polyamorous brother...

Speaking of, I can’t believe I forgot about Sam and his sexuality! If I rewrote TEA I would have had Sam contemplate more on his lack of sexual appetite due to trauma, up until he meets Benny and he gets to rediscover how he wants to be a sexual person

Many of Sam and Dean’s absolutely stupid sibling conversations were lifted near-verbatim from conversations I’ve had with my siblings

And lastly...

Dem where’s Kevin????????????? Where is our sweet baby boy????????

He’s SAFE!! He’s in the Hunter pipeline somewhere cause Sam handed him off to Bobby’s people. He and his mom are safe and at some point they probably got rib sigils like SalmonDean did against angels, but for demons. I didn’t have room in this story for him!!! But my baby boy is SAFE and I want to get him back to university because it’s WHAT HE DESERVES!!!!

To that point: god there were/are SO many characters that I just didn’t include in the story so far because I didn’t feel comfortable including them without stalling the story for them. To that point: pretty much everyone who is alive/dead in s8 is that way in this story, except Bobby who gets to live.

[Check Out Part 2 for reader questions!]

[mythicalsecretsanta]

12 Days of Christmas... Almost (E)

This gift is for: Cal (AKA @mythicalamity) Surprise! Keeping this secret from you for the last month wasn’t easy! Thank you for being the kindest, most loving friend I’ve ever had in this fandom and for being a pretty spectacular person in the real world as well. Merry Christmas, Cal! From your Secret Santa, @fanbabble​

Link to AO3, or read below:

The Holiday season was in full swing at Mythical, as much as it could be at least. The virus had put quite a damper on festive activities across the world and Myth Ent was no exception. There were lights strung up and a Christmas tree, but there would be no company Christmas party this year, no cookie exchange, no getting together at each other’s homes for dinner parties or gift swaps. The mood in the office was a little low and Link found himself looking for ways to encourage positivity and the good feelings of the season. That’s why when Stevie suggested a secret santa gift exchange, Link took the idea and ran with it. Employees would play secret santa leaving their secret giftee presents for the 12 days leading up to Christmas. Not only would this game bring a bit of fun into the office, but it could also be done safely as social distancing was a literal part of the rules. You couldn’t reveal your identity to your giftee until the final day of the exchange. It was perfect!

Rhett was less than excited about the prospect. He complained to Link about not wanting to participate. He was nervous he wouldn’t know what to get the person he chose or how to keep the secret. Rhett’s enneagram three-ness was getting in the way of him enjoying himself again. He was worrying too much about impressing the person he got, rather than letting himself relax and have fun with the idea. Link finally convinced his friend to participate. 

“How would it look if one of the owners of the company didn’t play along?”

“Fine. But if my gifts turn out to be duds and ruin someone’s Christmas it’s your fault!” Rhett said as he stood to join Link and walk down the hall to the Mythical kitchen for the name exchange.

Chase mixed the names of everyone in a Santa hat. The in-office folks would be in one drawing and the staff who were working virtually would draw amongst themselves. In all there were about 15 names in the hat that Chase held shut in his grasp. The group took turns reaching their hands in to pick a slip of paper with their giftees name written on it. The PAs went first, followed by the camera men, then the directors, followed by Chase, Stevie, and finally Rhett and Link. 

Rhett stuck his hand into the Santa hat. His gaze was trained on the little opening. 

“No peekin’!!” Link smacked his arm and scolded him. 

“I’m not! Besides There’s literally only one name left in the hat, Link.” 

The kitchen filled with the crew’s laughter. 

“Can’t exactly pick and choose who I want, man.”

Rhett glanced at his friend and then looked at the little slip of paper. The apples of his cheeks became more obvious as a small smile spread across his face. He grasped the paper close to his chest and then tucked it into the pocket of his jeans. 

Everyone in the kitchen celebrated the exchange with a cupcake whipped up by the Mythical Kitchen and then retreated back to their personal space to finish up the day’s work. 

Before the office door was even fully shut Link was in Rhett’s space. 

“Who’d ya get?”

“What?! I’m not telling you. It’s not fair.” Rhett sat down in his office chair and opened his laptop.

“Come on, Bo. Tell me. I got…”

“STOP” Rhett put his hands up to his ears as if to block out what Link was about to reveal. “I don’t wanna hear it. Let’s do this right. Keep it a secret.” 

“Since when do you care about keeping this kinda stuff secret? You usually can’t wait to tell me everything and anything,” Link was teetering on the fine edge between annoyed and amused.  

“Well this year is different. If this is one of the only ways the company gets to celebrate then I wanna do it right.”

“Fine,” Link huffed. He flopped down on the leather couch and draped his arm over his eyes. “You don’t want to tell me, that’s your business, but don’t come begging for gift ideas when you come up dry.” And with that healthy dose of snark the smaller man settled in for an afternoon nap. 

The next day Link walked into their office and threw his jacket over the back of the gray chair that sat by the door. He put his backpack on the floor by his desk and was just about to head to the office kitchen for a cup of coffee when he noticed a box sitting by his desk lamp. He picked it up and examined it. 

“Dang, my santa must get here early.”

It was only 7 AM and Link had just arrived to an empty building. The box was wrapped in shiny green paper and tied with an elegant red bow. He turned it over in his hands looking for some kind of tag or label. When he found nothing, Link slipped the ribbon from the package and pulled off the lid. Inside was a perfect golden pear tucked into a pillow of soft fabric. Link wasn’t sure what to do with the gift so he sniffed it to confirm it was a real piece of fruit. He lifted the pear out of the box and saw that a small note was hidden underneath. He held the pear in one hand and opened the slip of paper with the other. 

“On the first day of Christmas,

My true love gave to me,

A partridge in a pear tree”

-You may be a “sweet peach” but I think we’d make a great “pear”  Love, Your secret admirer

Link read over the note three times before he could totally comprehend what it said. He turned it over to look for any kind of identifying mark or signature. There was nothing to be found. He blushed hard and tucked the note into his pocket. It had been a long time since he had had anyone in his life, much less a Love, but he knew no one at Mythical felt that way about him and even if they did it would be totally unethical to pursue anything. Link was sure it was just some kind of joke by one of the writers and tucked the green box into his backpack before heading off to get his coffee.

When Rhett came in half an hour later, he was all nervous energy and talking 90 miles a minute. He said it was because he had almost gotten into a car accident on the way in. He had found his Secret Santa gift sitting on the back of the toilet in the bathroom and showed it to Link. 

“It’s gotta be Jordan, man,” Rhett said as he held out the bag for Link to inspect, “Who else would give me a bag of cotton candy?” 

Link peeked inside the gift bag and said, “Seems kinda obvious, but it’s possible.” He couldn’t help but let his thoughts wander back to the little green box he had received and the love note that it contained. 

“Earth to Link,” Rhett took the bag back and set it on his desk. “You alright man?”

Link shook his head to clear his mind and refocus on the man before him. “Oh yeah, sorry. Must need more coffee.” He held up his empty mug and headed toward the office door. 

As he reached for the doorknob, Rhett asked quietly, “Did you get your first gift yet?”

Link paused and laughed without looking back, “Yeah, pair of socks. Womp womp,” then he headed out the door.

Over the course of the next few days, Link continued to receive themed gifts from his Secret Santa that left him giddy and baffled at the same time. The first two were silly, Turtle and Dove chocolates for Day 2 and three fried chicken legs for Day 3. They were both accompanied by notes that talked about how much the gifter liked Link and they were both signed “Love, Your secret admirer.” Link still wasn’t sure what to make of the declarations, but he played along and let himself feel special for the moment. Even if he was still convinced it was all a joke. Until Day 4 that is. 

On Day 4 Link walked into the office late to find a small book tied up with a ribbon. “Native birds of the National Parks” The gift was incredibly thoughtful and one that he would definitely use on future adventures. A folded piece of paper was tucked inside the chapter about Denali National Park. It read,

“On the fourth day of Christmas,

My true love gave to me,

Four calling birds”

- Bird calls are beautiful, but the idea of calling you mine is even better.  Love, Your secret admirer

Link opened the book again to the page about the birds of Denali. There was only one person he had ever told about wanting to visit the park covered in glaciers and snow. Rhett. Could his secret admirer be Rhett? Link’s head swam with the possibility. 

He had been in love with his best friend for most of his life, but he had kept it hidden away out of fear of losing the one person in the world who was most important to him. Surely, Rhett was not the person who was his Secret Santa. Link felt a burst of warmth spread across his chest as he let himself entertain the idea for a moment. What would it be like to finally feel those arms around his body? To finally kiss Rhett’s lips? To own his heart as well as his friendship?

As he stood there lost in his own thoughts, the man in question came barreling into the office. Link stuffed the book into his desk drawer and turned quickly to face his friend. 

“Hey, Rhett, how’s it going?” 

Link did his best to maintain his cool. He watched his friend as he moved about the office getting settled for the day. He assessed his behavior for any clues or signs that he might be the “Secret Santa Secret Admirer.” 

“Pretty good. I added some new reps to my workout and now my abs are killing me.” Rhett rubbed his hand across his stomach. His t-shirt pulled taught and drew Link’s eye to the spot. Link felt his breath catch from the promise of what was underneath. His eyes roamed over the broad chest and thick arms. The way the shirt sleeves hugged Rhett’s biceps was criminal. Link knew he would have to control his thirst better if he hoped to get any hints about what role Rhett actually played in all of this. He cleared his throat and got a hold of himself. 

“What time did you get here this morning?” Link asked as casually as he could. He fiddled with the monitor on his computer to appear slightly uninterested in Rhett’s response. 

“What? Just now. You saw me walk in.”

“I thought maybe you came in and left again.”

Rhett turned and opened his laptop. He busied himself with things on his desk while it booted up. 

“Nope. Just rolled in.”

“Oh cool,” Link paused before adding, “How’s your secret santa going?” 

Rhett reached for a pen and knocked his coffee mug off balance spilling yesterday’s brown stuff over his desk and onto his lap.

“Shit!”

Link jumped up and grabbed the roll of paper towels he kept by his desk. He pulled off a handful and held them out to Rhett. 

“Can you clean this up for me, Buddyroll? I have to go over to wardrobe and find some different pants to wear or I’ll smell like an old coffee pot all day.” Rhett grabbed the towels and dabbed at the wet spot that stretched across his thighs. 

“Yeah, go ahead. I got this.” Link began to mop up the spilled coffee as Rhett headed out the door. His interrogation would have to wait for another day.

Days 5 and 6 were once again oddly funny gifts. If Rhett was the secret admirer it would make sense because he was the funniest person Link knew. A lifetime of laughter with Rhett had been the tradeoff for hiding the fact that he loved the man immensely. The idea that his love might be returned was more than Link had ever let himself hope for. 

The notes included with the gifts were just as tender as the previous ones. Day 5’s onion rings were accompanied by a slip that described Link as “more valuable than a golden ring” and day 6’s half dozen eggs had a note that read “You are a good egg, who makes my heart happy.”

Link enjoyed the sentiment, but nothing struck him as particularly suspicious. Day 7 was, however, a game changer.

That morning as Link walked past the dark studio a glimmer caught his eye. He set his backpack and Jade down and walked onto the GMM set where he found a string of origami paper birds strung together on a piece of gold silk ribbon. The swans were hanging across the back of the set from wall to wall. There must have been at least 50. Each bird’s wings was dipped in silver glitter and twinkled in the low light giving the set a magical air. Link stood back and took in the beauty. 

When he looked closer he saw each swan was made of sheet music. Link held one small bird in his fingers gently and examined it. He would recognize those chords anywhere. It was Merle. These paper swans were made with sheet music of Merle Haggard’s song, “Always Wanting You.”

“This has to be a gift,” Link whispered to himself. 

Link held his breath, afraid if he moved he would scare away the one idea he wanted to be true most in the world. That his secret santa was not only Rhett, but that the man was in love with him as well. 

A larger piece of paper flapped at the end of the string of birds. Link grabbed it and saw that his name was indeed on the front of the folded slip. He opened it and read:

“On the seventh day of Christmas

My true love gave to me

Seven swams a swimming”

- Like Merle said, “Always wanting you, but never having you makes it hard to face tomorrow.”   Love, Your Secret Admirer

Link couldn’t believe what he was reading. This had to be confirmation that Rhett was his secret admirer and secret santa. Jade sniffed at his shoes as if she were looking for the answer to a question he didn’t know. Link gently took the chain of birds down, gathered his things, and headed back to his office. 

When he opened the door, he was surprised to see the big man sitting at his desk already. He was speaking loudly on the phone about a new project they were working on. 

“No, damn it. I don’t want to cut that part! I purposely included it to help the flow of the story.” 

Rhett’s voice bounced off the brick walls. His tone was harsh. Link thought better of questioning him right now and tucked the birds into his backpack. He sat back on the couch and opened his laptop for the day. Jade snuggled into Link’s side and he petted her head mindlessly. His thoughts were only of Rhett. As he waited for his computer to boot up, Link watched Rhett. 

“It has to be him. Who else would use Merle?” Link thought to himself, “Oh you’re being an idiot. Everyone knows you love Merle Haggard, dummy. It could be anybody.” 

Link sunk down into the leather cushions and sulked. Not knowing for certain was exhausting. Only 5 more days to figure out this mystery. He glanced down at the paper swans one more time and smiled softly. 

Day 8 brought a bottle of chocolate milk and a note that read, “You’re the milk to my cookie” 

Link drank it in front of Rhett at lunch to see if he would get a reaction. Nothing. Well, with the exception of the way those green eyes sparkled when he belly laughed at a joke or the way Rhett put his hand on Link’s back as they left the office to head to record an episode of Ear Biscuits. Link noticed those things, but he couldn’t be sure if they were a reaction to the milk or to being close to Link in general. 

Link had caught Rhett in a lingering gaze more than once since the Seven Swans gift. And when they were alone together it felt like a spark was fizzing between the two of them. Something was going on, Link was sure of it. He just needed a little more proof before he could confront Rhett. His friendship was entirely too valuable to risk on an assumption.

On day 9, Link climbed into the driver’s seat of his car. He reached down to grab his sunglasses and was surprised to find something extra resting on the console. It was an old school cassette tape. Just like the kind he and Rhett used to exchange in high school. They would spend hours making the tapes and then driving down the back roads listening to their creations and singing at the top of their lungs. If he was honest, those times were when he first fell in love with Rhett. 

Link flipped the cassette over in his palm. On the outside of the case where the album art would usually be, was his name. Link immediately recognized it as Rhett’s handwriting. He opened the case and found a piece of paper folded in fourths tucked inside. It read:

“On the ninth day of Christmas

My true love gave to me

Nine ladies dancing.”

- I kept trying to find a funny pun for this day, but all I could focus on was singing these songs with you as we drove down the highway in North Carolina. I’ve tried to hold out to the end of the 12 days, but this secret is an old one and I don’t want to keep quiet anymore. If you feel the same, find me in the office at work and tell me. If not just toss this cassette in the trash and pretend it never happened.  Love, Your Secret Admirer 

Link was quiet for a moment and then, “Rhett! It’s Rhett! He loves me!” Link yelled at nobody in particular. Just saying the words out loud made him feel less like it was all a dream and more like it was real life. He threw his things into the passenger’s seat. In his flustered state he tried to check the time on his sunglasses and put his phone on his nose. He shifted into reverse and sped down the block. 

Link’s heart was pounding in his chest. He was breaking every speed limit on the way into Burbank, but he did not care. Let a cop try and stop him now, nothing could keep him from getting to Rhett. Link pulled into the parking lot in record time and he bolted out of his car and through the studio doors. He was running at full speed back to the office he shared with Rhett. His Rhett. Link took a deep breath and pushed the door open. 

The office was empty. Where was he? Link knew he didn’t pass him on the way through the building. He stood still for a moment and wrung his hands trying to think of what to do next. Just when he was starting to worry that Rhett had panicked and ran, he heard footsteps coming down the stairs of their loft. 

Link watched as Rhett appeared slowly, first feet, then legs, torso, and finally that glorious head of hair. 

“Link…” 

Rhett barely got the word out before the smaller man was launching himself across the office and into his arms. He melted into the embrace and pulled Link tighter against him. They took just a moment to look into each other’s eyes before their lips met. The kiss was strong and full of promise. Link opened his mouth to deepen the kiss and the passion kicked in. Rhett lifted Link up with his hands under the smaller man’s thighs and carried him to the couch. 

They pressed heated kisses into skin and hair. Marking their love on the other’s body wherever they could find purchase. Hands roamed pulling hair and grabbing biceps. And when Rhett laid Link down on their couch and pressed his body to the cradle of Link’s hips there was no denying that both men were hard with desire already. 

Link gasped with the sensation of being so close to Rhett. The feeling of his hard cock pressed against Rhett’s made his head swim and he pulled back to catch a breath. Rhett took the opportunity to say something he’d been holding in for decades.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” 

Each declaration was punctuated with a kiss. Link’s collar bones, his neck, his temple.

Link pulled Rhett close and whispered into his ear, “I’ve loved you my whole life.”

It was all the permission Rhett needed. He worshiped Link’s body and rocked against him until they were both finishing in their jeans like teenagers. Sticky and satisfied the pair laid together on the couch exchanging lazy kisses and gentle touches. Trying to make up for all the lost time they denied themselves. 

Link was half asleep and half in awe of the way Rhett looked. He laid silently and listened to Rhett as he said, “I can’t believe it worked. I thought for sure you’d throw the cassette away.” 

Link ran his fingers through Rhett’s curls gently. 

“You doubted me? Haven’t you figured it out yet, Bo? All you have to do is be the brave one and I’ll follow your lead.” He placed a kiss on Rhett’s tshirt right about his heart. “Thanks for being the brave one.” Rhett kissed the top of Link’s head and grunted in affirmation.

Link snuggled into Rhett’s chest and closed his eyes. Just as he was about to doze off the smaller man popped up and looked Rhett in the eye. 

“Don’t think just because you love me, you’re getting out of giving me gifts. I have three days left and I want my secret presents.” Link flashed his crooked grin and poked at Rhett’s side. 

Rhett let out a booming ho-ho-ho laugh before pulling Link back down against his chest.

“You can have anything you want, Link. Diamonds, rubies. I don’t need any presents though because I’ve already got the most valuable gift of the season… you.”

[taeswurld]

Ace VI [Shitshow]

pairing: bakugo x fem!reader 

genre: humor, romance 

TW: violence, cursing, angst, fluff

Summary:

 Shifting into My Hero was a total mistake, all those tiktoks you watched on a daily about shifting somehow convinced your brain to take part. Now the question is how to wake up, and most importantly, DON’T GET ATTACHED TO STUPID DRAWINGS!

A/N: 

HI! New chapter! Kinda late! Sorry! Let me know if you wanna be mentioned in the taglist! Here’s Shitshow!

{ACE MASTERLIST}

After that shitshow, you took a nap. 

It’s not that you passed out, no no. 

You definitely did not pass out in Bakugou’s arms. Nope. 

You simply took a nap. A three hour nap. You just so happened to fall asleep while he was holding you. End of story. 

To be fair, you had a really tiring day, and it was only 4 in the afternoon. 

You woke up in an alternate dimension with no clue what was going on whatsoever, and then realized you had superpowers. In fact, a power so super, it was difficult to control. 

Once you came to, you realized you weren't in Gym Gamma anymore, but instead in someone’s room. 

Hmm. Smells like cinnamon. 

As you looked around, you found Midoriya and Todoroki holding ice to their heads and Bakugou cleaning up the dried blood down his ears, grumbling about how this ‘always fucking happens’ and ‘why do I even fucking bother’. While you were lied down on a bed, Bakugou was looking at the hanging mirror and Midoriya and Todoroki were sitting on some beanbag chairs. 

When you made a quick move to rub your eyes, Midoriya stood up and walked over to you. 

“Y/N! You woke up! Are you feeling better?” Midoriya asked. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Where’s Hiro? And where are we?” You asked as you moved to sit up. 

“Whoa, slow down there, Y/N.” Todoroki moved to push you back down. “Hiro’s taking a nap under the bed. His tail’s hanging out.”

At the sound of his name, he crawled out from under the bed to check up on you. Moving your hand to pet his fur, he sat on Todoroki feet. 

“I think your wolf is sick. He’s acting quite odd. Earlier he kept rubbing up against me.” Todoroki told you with a deadpan expression. 

“No, Todo, I think he just wanted a few pets. And he’s a husky, not a wolf. I don’t think I have enough talent to train a wolf.” You quirked an eyebrow at his comment. Jesus how dense is this guy? 

“Where are we anyways, it looks familiar but I can’t straight out recognize this room.” You ask, checking out the room. 

There was a few posters hung up, a couple of model airplanes on a shelf, along with school books. A desk was at the corner of the wall, piled with papers, a laptop, and a couple comic books. There was a couple of shoes on the floor, and some clothes sprawled out. And it smelled strongly of men’s cologne, but it wasn't cheap or tacky, it was for sure expensive, like the type a celebrity would wear. And caramel. Your nose was filled to the brim with the smell of caramel. 

“We’re in my room dumbass,” Bakugou says as he turns around, finally getting all the dried blood out. “After training, the four of us usually end up here for whatever goddamn reason. Even though I’ve said more than once that you fucktards aren't allowed here.” He said rolling his eyes complaining. 

“Okay Mr. Attitude, I didn’t order an extra side of sarcasm with your stupid ass answer. But thanks for taking care of me, I guess.” You said giving him a small smile of appreciation. “I like your room by the way. It’s very, Bakugou of you.” You said as your smiled widened to a full grin. 

“I’m sorry, just how the fuck did you use my name?” He said giving you a small, but semi playful glare.

“Moving on,” Midoriya said pressing his lips together, trying his best to prevent a smirk from showing up. “Y/N, your control is has gotten a little worse.”

“You’re control has gone batshit crazy.” Todorki butts in with a small smile. 

“Well, I mean, I wouldn't put it that way,” he says giving him a slight glare. 

Todorki’s smile grows wider, giving Midoriya a small shrug. 

Turning back to you, Midoriya begins going on about how you had an amazing control for a quirk so powerful. “It was insane. You could be the angriest person in the room, angrier than even Kacchan-” 

“Highly impossible, this man is a chihuahua incarnate.” You said, giving a small smirk, finally moving to sit up so you can semi-look them in the eye. 

“Okay princess, you’re lucky you’re injured and I’m feeling nice, because if it were up to me, your attitude would've been given a check a long ass time ago.” He says turning to you to give a small scowl. 

“Anyways,” Midoriya cuts in, giving both of you an annoyed look. “You’re emotions could be overflowing, but you always managed to keep your quirk in check. However, in the last couple of days, I’ve noticed you become slightly more agitated, up to the incident that happened last night, and then this morning, waking up to a pounding headache and in what you call an alternate dimension.” He says crouching down a little to be at head-level with you. 

“Yeah, I don't really understand that.” Todorki says, furrowing his eyebrows. “You were completely fine yesterday, other than being a little bit quieter and more snappy than usual. How the hell did your conscience manage to switch you out to a different dimension where you believe this is all fake?” He turns giving you a confused look. 

“Look, in all honesty, I don't know. All I know is that you guys were like, in this T.V. show I watched a lot, and then I woke up IN the T.V. show. Like literally yesterday I was attending my online classes, I scrolled through my phone a little and then I took a nap. Next thing I know, I wake up here, no memories of this place, or any of you. Shit, I know what memories you guys claim to have with me, but frankly those are all experiences I’ve read in like fan fictions” You say.

“What the shit is a fan fiction?” Bakugou asks, giving you a very much confused, yet judgmental stare. 

 “Not important,” you claim, blushing. These guys do not need to know that you’ve literally read about them fucking your brains out, especially Bakugou. God knows you’ll never hear the end of it. 

“And everyone keeps talking about this incident that happened last night. But nobody has filled me in. You mind telling me what's going on?” You ask, giving each of them a questioning stare. 

“Last night you went out to train your quirk.” Midoriya says. 

“You’ve said you’ve been feeling off for days. When I tried to talk to you about it, your bitchass got all pissy and then stomped off.” Bakugou says looking away, a little pissed off at the way past-you pushed him away. 

“When we went to go check on you, your were losing control of your power, your hands covered in this blinding light before it took over your entire body. Aizawa had to come out to stop you because you were screaming in pain really loud. Once he turned off your power, you had blood oozing out of your ears and  you were passed out.” Todorki says, not giving much attention to you, as he was too busy giving out stiff pets to Hiro. 

“We called out to Recovery Girl, but she said the only thing we could do is make sure you get a good nights sleep and hope you wake up better in the morning.” Midoriya says giving you a soft stare. 

“Jesus christ that sounds like a shitshow.” You say, rubbing your temples in hoping to relieve some of your stress. 

“You can bet your ass it was. You weren't even supposed to go to train today, but Tweedle Stupid and Tweedle Stupider,” Bakugou says giving Todoroki and Midoriya a harsh glare. “decided to test out your control again. Apparently the fact that you may not be okay didn’t cross their pea-sized minds.” He growls. 

“Hey! You know just as much as I do how important it is for her to maintain her control. We’ve gotta see where she is. After all, she’s got one of the strongest quirks in the class.” Midoriya says defending his actions. 

“Dude, she’s literally the only person who could keep up with our crazy training schedules. And,” Todorki says giving him a glare right back, “you forget that she was also a target at the training camp. Only difference is I managed to grab her out of the League’s hands. Her quirk is literally wanted everywhere. If she doesn’t get her shit together soon, she can end up in danger real quick.” He states. 

Sheesh, what a fucking reality check. 

Well, as ‘reality’ as this dimension gets. 

taglist : lanaxians-2

[angelicmichael]

Imminient Annihilation Sounds so Dope, Chapter Four

Michael Langdon x Reader

Summary: Micheal reflects on how he’s been feeling the past couple days since he’s switched. Includes a little angst at the end so prepare yourself! ALSO Madison’s character is revealed in this chapter! I feel like I’m kinda taking a risk with her character in this soo please leave feedback!! BEFORE READING PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL FIRST PERSON REFERS TO MICHEALS POV IN THIS CHAPTER!! Thank you :)

Words: 4.7k+

A/N: Here’s another chapter reposted! I started a little tag list, so don’t be shy if you would like to be added to it!! Reblogs and likes always welcome <3

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter

*MICHEALS POV.

After you switched and you woke up in your own bed, you knew you were in deep shit. You switched and it wasn’t with your girlfriend, Madison Montgomery. Even worse, you weren’t expecting to switch at all. Madison had told you that switching happens on the first 21st birthday of the pair of soulmates but it’s not like you exactly were keeping track of how old you were or when your birthday was. You were the antichrist, you didn’t have time for such trivial things and it also didn’t help that you never celebrated your birthday growing up.

Thankfully you were in your penthouse away from Madison when you switched, so that Madison and your soulmate wouldn’t have to interact with eachother. Madison lived in a nice apartment pretty close to yours, and you spent most of your time there. The only real reason you kept this penthouse the cooperative gave you was for a little privacy when you did your rituals to speak to your father. Your sure Madison would probably get off seeing you like that but you preferred privacy. Being in that state and having contact with your father felt so holy and spiritual to you, it felt wrong to have another person witness it. Even if it was your favorite person (besides Ms. Mead of course) in the world.

You spent the last couple of days away from Madison, ignoring her now hundreds of texts and calls and keeping busy. Busy with getting the cooperative back in order and everything else.

After the day you had switched with.. that witch.. and you were back into your own body, it was almost too easy to see the damage that your soulmate had left.

It seemed fine at first, nothing was moved or seemed to be missing in the room. Your phone was shifted a little bit from its previous place on the nightstand, and your laptop moved from being across the room on a table to being on your nightstand. A little odd but it seemed innocent enough.

It was when you decided to get out bed to look for more clues, was when you noticed a small pile of black clothes on the ground that wasn’t there previsouly. That meant she changed, which meant she left the penthouse even when you specifically tell her not too.. fuck.

It all quickly went downhill from there when you found out that your phone and laptop were both completly wiped from having any information. You wanted to see if she had tried to text or contact Madison but now that was impossible to tell. You really didn’t know how to approach Madison about all of this, at all. It’s not like you had anyone to get advice or help from on this since Ms. Mead passed. That was most of the reason why you’ve been avoiding Madison like the plague the last couple of days.

Nonetheless, you also realized your soulmate had canceled all of your big plans, even including the god damn cooperative. You found out that she even had the nerve to talk to Jeff and Mutt about Ms. Mead.

The date for the nuclear bombs to go off was only set two days back, which wasn’t too bad. You had held a emergency meeting yesterday with the cooperative and formally apologized to everyone, after getting everyone’s contact information for the SECOND time.

After the emergency meeting you had held with the cooperative yesterday, you met with Jeff and Mutt to discuss what exactly to do with Ms. Mead. The problem was that the witch you had switched with now knew that some kind of a project was being done on Ms. Mead, so now the issue was that she could easily warn the coven about her. That meant that you really couldn’t use Mead as a weapon against the coven anymore.

Production on Ms. Meads body was almost finished so, you figured to just let the coke heads finish making her. Even though your beloved Ms. Mead couldn’t be used as a weapon anymore, you could always find a spot for her in one of the outposts.

And to be honest, you really fucking missed her. All you wanted was to see her again, and to have someone who was on your side besides Madison. And after you found out that you now have a soulmate that isn’t her, who knows if Madison will want anything to do with you.

Ms. Mead genuinely cared about you and your well being. Her love for you wasn’t built off of you just being the antichrist, which you knew was the only reason why the people at the satanic temple or the cooperative gave a shit about you. You just really missed Ms. Mead.

You needed her now more than ever so that she could help point you in the right direction of what to do with this whole soulmate mess. Up until you met Madison, you knew absolutely nothing about soulmates. When you lived with your grandma, barely anyone talked to you, let alone about soulmates. And at Hawthorne, you were so busy on focusing on magic that you really didn’t have time to talk about much of anything else. Yet, when you met Madison, it was quite the opposite. That was all she practically talked about.

It was maybe a month ago when you first met Madison Montegomery, and she was never supposed to be your friend, let alone your girlfriend. You first met her when you brought her out of her own personal hell. The whole purpose of that was to show Cordelia the power you have. To prove that you could do what she couldn’t.

But when you and Madison met, it was undeniable how you two hit it off. Within seconds of knowing her she was already hitting on you, but at first you were just friends. You brought her to Hawthorne to show Cordelia she was still alive and you assumed after that you two wouldn’t be in much contact with each other after that. However.. that wasn’t really the case.

You two kept in contact and grew to be really close, and you have to admit, it was really nice to have a good friend. A true friend. Madison was the only friend you’ve ever had in your entire life. After you passed the seven wonders test with flying colors, suspicisions started to rise about you. After the death of Ms. Mead which happened about roughly two weeks ago, the coven left, likely to return back to Louisiana since that was where they resided now. You thought for sure that Madison would go back with them - as much you didn’t want her to go, you weren’t stupid. She was a part of the council, one of the original coven members. Even though not everyone in the coven got along exactly, you knew they still missed her and wanted her to come back with them.

But she didn’t. She stayed in Los Angeles with you. Sure you definetly persuaded her a little, ok maybe a lot, but for the most part she chose to stay on her own free will. Espically after Ms. Meads death, everyone who ever meant something to you in your life has left. You couldn’t imagine Madison leaving too, and it wasn’t like Madison was miserable away from her coven because it wasn’t like that at all.

She confined in you that being in the coven really wasn’t what she wanted to do, in L.A she could pursue her acting career and be able to live right next to her best friend - you.

That’s all you were at first, best friends and that’s all you really desired to be. With your big plans of the apocalypse drawing closer and closer you didn’t think you would have any time for a significant other but it just kind of happened. Before you knew it you kissed, and then it happened again, again and again. And then she was calling you her boyfriend, so boom. You were dating. And that was that. You knew dating before switching was something extremely taboo and even controversial but Madison was always countered these arguements by saying that you two would just switch when you turned 21, or when she did since you didn’t know when your birthday was.

It was hard for you to pinpoint whether you had actual romantic feelings for Madison. You knew you cherished her as a friend and she was the most important person in your life besides Ms. Mead.. You just honestly didn’t know whether you were capable of harboring romantic feelings for someone. You were built for death and destruction, not romance.

You were scared how your relationship would fare after Madison found out your true purpose. That you were the antichrist, but she actually didn’t care.

It was about a week before Ms. Mead was murdered when she actually confronted about your life’s purpose. You two were seated outside of a Panda Express in sunny Los Angeles. It was one of those tables that was made out of stone that had two benches attached that seemed extremely cheaply made. You sat there, content, basking in the sun and eating your chow mein when you heard Madison speak.

“If you ever start to question how much I love you, just remember I would never be caught dead in a Panda Express alone”.

She stated, smiling. She sat with a Panda Express cup in front of her, filled with sprite.

“So this is your charitable act of the month? Going with me to get fast food”?

You mused, smiling as you spoke.

“Exactly. You know me so well”.

She took another sip of her sprite and then kept talking.

“So.. I heard something about you today”.

She spoke slowly, pursing her lips as she did whenever she got nervous. Her eyes studied you, trying to read your body language. It almost appeared like she was glaring at you. You continued to look into her eyes until her thoughts became apparent to you. The power of being able to mind read was one of your favorite gifts you possessed. It made it extremely convienet in finding new victims to conduct rituals on. Mind reading allowed you to choose between someone who was vulnerable and who would actually try to put up a fight.

You two sat there in a tense awkward silence, staring at eachother until you looked back at your food and started to pick at it with your fork.

“So you know”.

You made sure to say it as a statement, not a question. You knew Madison didn’t know you couldn’t mind read or knew exactly how powerful your powers were. She knew you passed the seven wonders though.

“What just happened”?

She asked in a shaky voice, you looked back up at her slowly.

“Did you- you can read minds, Micheal”?

She asked, startled.

You nodded quickly, waiting for her next move. To see how she would react.

“Ok.. so, what was I going to say then”?

She cocked her head to the side ever so slightly, as if she was challenging you. Knowing Madison though, you knew she was just being playful and meant no real harm. You let out a deep breath and shifted your eyes to around the room, pretending to be annoyed.

“You were going to say..”

You started but then you quickly turned in your seat to make sure that no one was nearby. Last thing you needed was someone hearing your conversation, but by the mind reading comment that Madison said ealier, they would probably just think you two were insane. The coast was clear though. No one else was nearby and the front door of the store was a safe distance away.

“You were going to say that I am the antichrist”.

You finished. you finally stuck your fork into your noodles and rested your elbows up on the table, clasping your hands together.

“I was.. yeah”.

Madison said, her voice was light and airy - she almost acted as if she was scared of what you were going to say next. You shifted around in your seat, not knowing what to do with how uncomfterable you felt.

“Madison, I don’t want you to be scared of me”.

You swallowed hard, once again looking into her eyes. You normally would never show any signs of vulnerability like this to someone, or even humor the idea to care of what other people think but Madison was different. Besides Ms. Mead, she was the only person you really gave a damn about. You were basically on the edge of your seat as you saw her ready to speak. you couldn’t lose her, You knew you wouldn’t be able to handle it.

“Micheal, the only thing that’s scary about you is the fact that you eat fast food. Even though your technically supreme now, I know I could kick your ass anytime I wanted”.

She said with another soft smile. She reached her hand over the table to take your hand in hers. As much as what she said was sweet, you didn’t trust how much truth it held.

“But the coven-“

You started but she rolled her eyes and quickly cut you off.

“I don’t need them Micheal. It’s not like any of them are going to miss me anyway, and I’d rather be here in L.A with you... Here I can work on my acting career and actually have a life!! It was fun to catch up with everyone but there’s no purpose for me to go back since I’m not supreme”.

Madison said. You knew she wasn’t lying, all you had to do was look into her eyes and read her thoughts to make sure. If it wasn’t for your ability to read minds, you would almost think that Madison might be spying on you for the coven but you knew that wasn’t the case.. right? But, why would she even want to continue to be your girlfriend if she knew that you were planning on destroying the world and everything in it? Including the coven.

“I want you to stay Madison.. I really do but it doesn’t make sense”.

You made sure to lower your voice before continuing any further, in case of any ongoers decided o eavesdrop.

“You know that I’m the antichrist. I’m going to end the world, I don’t know exactly how yet but I’m going too. With or without you. I’m going to destroy the coven and all 7 billion people that live in this world and I need to make sure that you know that”.

Your voice was cold and stern as you spoke. It was essential that she took you serisouly and actually understood what exactly your plans were before she just agreed to stay with you.

She looked at the table,blinked quickly a couple of times and shifted on her bench. But when she looked back up at you, there was nothing but serenity and a sense of truth in her eyes as she spoke again.

“Micheal, Before I died I was nearly supreme. I took the seven wonders and the only reason I wasn’t supreme was because I couldn’t pass fucking divination. Maybe I can’t mindread like you can but I can definetly help you fuck this planet up.. And, it’s not just that Micheal. I love you. I’ve felt so numb and depressed and you make me actually feel something, there’s no way I’m leaving you anytime soon”.

She said. She popped the lid off her sprite and chugged the rest. You sat there puzzled.

“Do you even know what your agreeing too”?

You asked.

“ ‘Course I do. I’m agreeing to spending the rest of eternity with my hot boyfriend.. as long as you decide to spare me when the world ends”.

She said cheerfully. The light and airiness of her voice from ealier had fully left now. She sounded like herself, confident and bitchy.

“I really don’t have any plans yet, but I promise that you will not be harmed when the end times come. I could never hurt you”.

You said. Madison fully smiled and hopped from her bench and over to yours to hug you. You hugged her back and felt her kiss your cheek. You just hoped you could keep your promise.

But that was several weeks ago. So much has happened since then it almost felt like it happened in a completly different lifetime. Since then, you found the cooperative and came up with a proper plan for the apocalypse, Ms. Mead died and you also happened to switch with your soulmate... which wasn’t fucking Madison.

It’s been a couple days since you switched though, and besides running around - trying desperately to put your life plans back together - you haven’t done much besides that. You’ve been avoiding Madison desperately, there was a total of about 48 missed calls that were all from her number, along with hundreds of text messages that were questioning why the hell you wouldn’t answer her. You felt guilty, you really did but she couldn’t see you like this. And, you honestly couldn’t bear to break the news to her that she wasn’t your soulmate. Doing that would ultimately be breaking up with her and that was not what you wanted to do. On the other hand, it was easy to face the cooperative and just pretend to be the person they needed you to be but with Madison it was different. She could see right through you. Even if you did try to go see her and pretend like everything was normal and nothing happened, you knew she would see right through you.

Over the past few days, you felt numb mostly, amongst other small feelings. Atleast trying to fix the situation with the cooperative gave you a distraction from how you were actually feeling. But above all, you felt really fucking confused. Confused on why you had a fucking soulmate in the first place. You’ve been too busy to try to contact your father in all this chaos but you can only assume that it was a accident that you had a soulmate.. I mean it had to be, right? It made zero sense that your other half and the person that was made for you was a god damn witch that wasn’t Madison. That wasn’t on your side. It couldn’t be right. You refused to believe it for a second. You knew soulmates weren’t real, they were just something to make people feel like they had some kind of a purpose in this life.. To keep people busy, but that scheme wouldn’t work on you. You had bigger plans.

You cursed yourself for being so fucking stupid and not doing anything when you actually had the chance. You were at Robichaux’s, you had the perfect opportunity to take out all the witches yet you let it pass and meanwhile she tried to destroy everything you had built for yourself. You supposed you didn’t do anything because of Madison. Even though she said she didn’t give a damn about the coven it felt wrong to take them all out without atleast warning Madison first.

Anyways, It was your own fault for being so naive and thinking that something in your life would go actually go right for once. Everyone else in your life had abanded you, left or straight up rejected you so it was only right your soulmate would automatically do the same. Go figure. It was just a matter of time before Madison left.

Today was odd. It was odd because it was first free day you’ve had since you’ve switched. You couldn’t lie how nice it felt though to finally have a day where you weren’t barking orders at the cooperative or having to deal with Jeff and Mutts dumb asses and resist obliterating their souls. Today was yours.

You celebrated by sleeping in far past noon, and then going to the satanic church for a meeting after dusk but in between those two events was nothingness. Being the antichrist, you foolishly thought that you were above having depression or anything wrong with you. I mean why wouldn’t your father create you to be perfect?

To the best of your knowledge he did. You were beautiful, you could preform any supernatural power imaginable and you were going to be the creator of a new world. But, even Satan couldn’t control the family that you were born into. You supposed depression and mental illness were just symptoms of being human, even if you were ‘perfect’.

Even though you were insanely busy lately you felt numb. It hung over you, no matter what you did. The numbness today seemed to creep into your soul, to a point where even though today was yours and you could’ve done whatever you wanted, you sat on your bed. It was embarrassing to admit it, but you stayed glued to your bed for about 9 hours. Reflecting and thinking. You only got up once and that was to snatch your laptop off your table to put on some dumb TV show from Netflix so that you could atleast pretend to be doing something.

That’s why you decided to attend the church service that was being held that night. You knew on Wednesday’s at 11pm there was always a human sacrifice. Always, it was like clockwork. With the date of the apocalypse drawing closer and closer, you didn’t have much time to go to the church anymore but tonight you needed it. Participating in human sacrifice, killing someone would make you feel something again. It would shake away this numbness you knew it would.

After Ms. Mead died, it shook away the numbness. Why wouldn’t it work now?? You felt so mad at yourself that you even cared about your soulmate enough to let it affect you like this. You didn’t even know her for fucks sake and you sure didn’t want too. And If you wanted to kill her, you would have to stop feeling fucking numb first.

But it didn’t work. The satanic cult church service came and went and you didn’t fucking feel a thing. Well at first you did. After slitting the throat of some random doctor, for a couple of seconds you felt alive. You felt the exhilaration of taking another humans life, but that feeling left nearly as fast as it came and left you feeling numb and maybe even worse than before.

Since your penthouse was in such close proximity to the satanists, you were able to walk there and back in a somewhat timely manner. You just walked into the lobby of the building that your penthouse was contained in, It was coming up on 1 am atleast.

You were exhausted, and so fucking done. Done with today, and the whole fucking world. You couldn’t wait till tommorow when you could continue to distract yourself with apocalypse plans and wait this numbness out before seeing Madison or killing your soulmate.

During human sacrifice nights you always made sure to make the deaths as clean as possible so your clothes wouldn’t be ruined since you always walk back home. Your clothes were fairly clean, a little frumpled and dirty yes, but clean of any blood. This certainly didn’t stop the main hostess who stood behind the main desk at the complex you lived at giving you a questionable look as you made your way through the lobby.

The elevator ride and the walk down the hall to your room seemed treacherously longer than normal, your feet were aching and your eyes seemed incredibly heavy. You finally reached your door and after unlocking the door, you barely pushed it open to find that the light was on..

You knew you fucking turned the lights off.

Instantly you were on high alert. You felt your heart beat faster in your chest as you stood with the door barely even cracked open - not knowing what the fuck to do. Suddenly your feelings of being tired and hazy were quickly gone and replaced with addreline and panic.

What if it was her? Your soulmate?

You automatically cringed at yourself for even having that thought. That didn’t even make sense, how would she know that you had left for a meeting and after everything she did why would she even want to see you? The real question was why did you want to see her?

You shook your head, dismissing your thoughts and opening the door fully and walking into the room. 100% ready to destroy the soul of whoever dared to break into your home. You had enough going on in your life as it was. You literally didn’t have time for this.

As you took each step farther into the room, you quickly scanned for any changes in the room.. and then you saw it. It only took you about 3 full steps to realize the what the hell had happened... Everything was fucking on fire.

You sharply inhaled and brought your hands up and stopped the fire. lucky for you it looked like the fire had just started, so it’s not like the entire room was actually on fire. Just your bed, all tabletop surfaces and the curtains which were currently drawn were lit ablaze.

Your blankets and the entire bed was charred and would need replaced.. Hell you were going to need a whole new room after this.. Not to mention how all the windows were smashed and open.. even though the curtains were drawn they were ripped and partially shredded from the glass and fire, and were lightly blowing in the wind. Shards of glass lay scattered near where the windows used to be but with another quick swipe of your hand it was gone.

You now stood there, in the walkway of your penthouse, in shock and slightly angry but not numb anymore. You knew that you didn’t light any candles before you left, this wasn’t you that caused this...

By looking at the table you could easily see that the peice of paper that was on one of the tables with your soulmates number on it was gone too.. Tears started to form at your eyes, you know who did this. Your breath was hitched in your throat, even though you no longer felt numb you felt frozen. Frozen physically, not emotionally.

Everything started to feel like it was in slow motion. You grabbed for your phone that was kept in your back pocket, and instead of reading her hundreds of messages and voice mails that she left - you figured it would be more efficient to just call her. The phone barely ran once and She answered immeaditly.

“What the fuck did you do? Where are you”?

You didn’t even mean to sound that harsh, you just opened your mouth and the words seemed to find themselves.

“Where do you think I am, bitch”?

Madison replied smoothly.

“Madison-“

“I didn’t even know you were gone Micheal. You’ve been ignoring me for so long I thought something was wrong so I broke in and, I saw that number on your desk”.

She paused, you could hear her voice slightly cracking.

“I talked to her and.. She’s your soulmate. You switched and you didn’t bother to fucking tell me. Fuck you Micheal”.

You could fully hear her crying now and your chest actually hurt when your heard this. You felt overwhelmly sad and hopeless, all you could do now was try to find Madison and make things up.

“I’m so sorry”.

You said, your voice low and cracking as well.

“Well being sorry doesn’t solve anything so, I’m on my way to Louisiana and I figured the only way to fix this is to take that bitch out. I know who she is, I know her name and as long as she’s alive you two share a bond. Things won’t be normal again between you and me until she’s dead”.

You took a breath.

“Okay, well I’m not letting you do this alone”.

You now noticed that Madison stopped crying about a minuete away, you couldn’t hear her sniffling or breathing so heavily anymore.

“No. I’m fucking mad at you Micheal, I need to do this alone. You’ll only get in the way, you won’t be able to kill your own soulmate”.

“Tough shit”.

You hung up the phone and left your room, not bothering to shut the door. Your next destination: Louisiana.

Tag list: @mindlesschicca

[chick-from-nz]

Paper, Scissors, Rank  (Ch: 7)

CHARACTER/PAIRING: Modern!Carrillo x Army!OC (eventually) 

WARNINGS: maybe some swearing, military slang, more military talk,  spelling and grammatical errors. Flippy floppy points of view and tenses. Could be very OOC/AU for some. Carrillo may not be narcos accurate as this is an AU. Some OC x OC 

AUTHORS NOTE: ok so idk how good this is, kinda just word vomited onto the page, tryna generate some emotion in there but lets see how it goes, thanks for reading peeps. I know I said I wasn't gonna post but middle of the night inspiration stuck so imma keep writing this 

WORD COUNT: 3.2k

CHAPTER: 7 OF ?

TAG LIST(OPEN): @girlpornparadise @1zashreena1 @xxidontwikeitxx @nicke0115 @allalngthewtchtower @lettherebrelight

The drive to the teams new base of operations was by no means short. While still being on defence land they were nearly three hours away from the main base, located in a flat valley in the hills and surrounded by greenery and training equipment. Ash had been here once before during a cadets course many years ago with her father, but it was vastly different now. The house had changed drastically from what used to be multiple cabins to what was now a single stand alone one story place. However while the accommodation had changed the grounds had stayed the same. There was an assault course set up that flowed into the trees to the south of the house and there was a pool to the west of the house, all in all, it was nothing to complain about. 

The house itself was relatively modern, having been rebuilt within the last few years or so. The entrance was sealed by heavy wooden doors that required a pin in order to access. Upon entry Ash took in the place, it was actually really nice. It was open plan living, the kitchen was directly to the right as you came in the doors, nice wooden benchtops and crisp new appliances. Directly in front of the breakfast bar sat the living room. Three nice couches surrounded a rather large square coffee table, laden with maps. The fireplace that the couches faced was made of a slate grey stone and sat underneath the rather large tv.  To the right of the fireplace was a door that she had been informed led to the only bathroom in the house that held a shower, while to the left of the fireplace was the door to Ash’s room.

Across the small hallway was the Colonels room, which was attached to his office that was on the far end of the house. At the end of the small hallway was an open archway that, from what she could see, led to a gym. Stepping further into the house and left from the kitchen Ash noticed another two sets of doors. One that led to the boys room, containing four single military style pits and separate draws for each of them, while the second door opened up onto the workspace for them all, which had a door in the back right corner that opened up onto Carrillo’s office. All in all, Ash couldn’t find a single fault to the house, okay perhaps one bathroom to share was gonna be a little tough.

She was startled from her thoughts and exploring when Carrillo called out to her while making his way to his office. “There's some food in the fridge and everything is pretty easy to find so make yourself at home, the boys should arrive in around about five weeks. You’ve got the single room closest to the bathroom”  Ash nodded in thanks and watched as he disappeared into the teams workroom, no doubt going to his office to work through the enlistment papers for the rest of the team. Ash didn’t waste much time going to her room, she could eat later when hunger eventually struck her, she was miles too tired from the drive here and sore from moving about so much. Her room was nice. A large double bed sat in the middle of the room encompassed by grey side tables, each sporting a small lamp. In front of the bed sat a tall set of drawers and a small bookcase. Very homely indeed, thankfully, cause god only knows how long the team would be confined to the house doing research and/or planning and training for future raids.

Ash barely gave herself any time to get changed, haphazardly pulling on an oversized shirt and a pair of comfortable gym shorts, before she all but launched herself onto her new bed, grunting in pain when her left side made contact with the bed a little too harshly . She moved onto her back sinking deep into the comfort of the mattress. The bed was like heaven for her after sleeping on either a creaky army pit or the ground for the last twenty some weeks. If this is what she had to look forward to everyday her enthusiasm for work was about to increase ten fold.  The moment her head touched the pillow she was out like a light. Thankful for her own space and a bed big enough to move around on and toss and turn how she used to.

                                                            -------

As much as Carrillo enjoyed the rank he was and the respect that followed his name, the paperwork at this level was a nightmare. Especially due to the complaints Sinclair had lodged against him due to the incident  at the base hospital. Having to describe in detail the events that occurred between that despicable man and the young officer a mere few rooms over made his blood boil, yet again. He was starting to understand the warnings that came with being posted here, apparently work affairs between ranks wasn’t a condemnable act like it was back home in Columbia. An odd world indeed. Still, within his team he would not tolerate any kind of fraternization, hence his decision to cram the boys into one room together and give Greyson her own room, partly for her own privacy but also for his peace of mind.

Pushing the paperwork to the side of his desk, he sighed. That damn soldier might well be the best thing for the team but she sure came with some complications. He’d done extensive research into his team members upon his arrival to the base, most came from non-military backgrounds, a solid high school education or higher, and most but not all had been serving for at least four years and had seen some kind of fire fight. Then there was Greyson. Military background with files upon files that had been redacted and unable to be accessed by anyone in the force, no matter how hard he’d tried. Only the most basic of information could be found about the young soldier; graduated school with honors and received many scholarship proposals but turned them down, participated in many extracurricular activities before and after her education, applied to join the army as both a regular soldier and an enlisted officer as her father had served but yet again, any information surrounding him and his career or rank had been redacted. A Lot of mystery surrounded this soldier, a mystery the Colonel found himself wanting to solve, even if it did go against his own rule.

                                                          ------

When Ash awoke the room was bathed in light from the full moon outside, the sounds of the bush were a welcome homely feeling for her, nature was her comfort. She went to sit but was struck with immense pain. Both her stab wound and head injuries were sending waves of pain throughout her body, making her vision temporarily blurry. The need to puke was high but Ash pushed it down as far as she could. She was hungry, in pain and now cranky, she just hoped her medication would be easy to find in the kitchen. Stumbling like a newborn deer she tried to shake the dizzy feeling from her head, this concussion was a pain in her ass, but the medics did say the symptoms should be gone within the next few weeks, until then Ash would have to put up with feeling sick and dizzy sometimes.  Celebrating when she finally made it to the kitchen without falling on her ass, she then struggled to find the lightswitch, now that was one thing she really should have paid attention too when scouting the house when they arrived.

Having located the switch and turning on the lights she winced, they were just that tad bit too bright for a tired concussed brain. It was when she turned to grab a glass of water to quench her thirst that she noticed a glass already laid out on the bench, with what looked like her meds already measured out beside it and a note beneath the glass. Either she was hallucinating or the stoic Colonel had laid this out for her. Gripping the bench as tight as she could as another wave of nausea overtook her sense she moved closer to the glass, there were her meds. Perfectly placed atop a piece of paper that was covered in a rather elegant script. Each pill had the name and the purpose written next to it and at the bottom of the note were the words “Dinner is in the fridge, eat first. That's an order”  

Ash scoffed a little at the note, of course he’d write that, seemed the man was more by the book than she thought. She was silently thankful for his detailed note explaining her meds, if she had to pick them from the bottle she wouldn’t have known what to take. Opening the fridge and grabbing out the only covered plate she was surprised to find that the meal looked home cooked, Did this man really cook dinner? . It was safe to say she was shocked by the thought but proceeded to microwave her dinner anyway, leaning against the bench to keep herself upright, lest the Colonel come into the kitchen later in the day and find her sprawled out on the floor.

Ash all but devoured the food when it was ready, not waiting for anything to cool down, she was far too hungry. She couldn’t remember the last time she ate, or the last time she ate this good. She never would have guessed that Carrillo was this good at cooking, like sure she’d guess he cooked, but this was some next level stuff. Finishing her meal and cleaning up any mess she’d made was an effort at best, the dizzy feeling was getting worse every time she moved. Quickly she gathered the pills from the bench and downed them in one gulp, chasing them down with water, she hoped at least one of them would help with the horrible dizziness and the nausea that accompanied it. The need to sleep was beginning to overtake her again, something she figured would be common while she was recovering, as much as that might annoy her she’d be thankful for the rest.

Like clockwork she yawned, stretching her arms above her head in an attempt to shake the sleep from her body, only to regret the motion a few seconds later. The stitches in her side had pulled impossibly tight at being stretched, her side felt like it was on fire. She reached down to grab her side in pain and pulled her hand away at the warm feeling. Glancing down she noted the rapidly growing red spot seeping into the gauze pad. Of course she had ripped her stitches, she'd been warned by not only the medics but also Carrillo to not move around too much due to her side. Seems she really hadn’t been listening to the warnings. Deciding that she was entirely too tired to deal with the result of her stretching Ash just walked as calmly as she could back to her room and clambered into bed. There was always tomorrow to fix this. And with that, Ash was quick to fall back to sleep, her medication no doubt aiding her plight.

                                                    ------

It was the smell of freshly made coffee that had Ash climbing from her bed and shaking off sleep the next morning. Her medication had definitely kicked in, she could feel no pain from anywhere in her body and the nausea had disappeared finally. To her surprise, Carrillo was standing in the kitchen, dressed in a pair of grey sweatpants and simple white t-shirt that was entirely too tight, not the Ash was complaining cause the view from her vantage point was amazing. If Ash believed in a higher power she woulda thought that the gods had gifted her with the man standing in the kitchen. No man had the right to look so sinfully delicious in a simple white shirt like that. It was so tight that it clung to his sculpted upper body and left very little to the imagination The thin shirt was stretched thin across his chest, pecs struggling to stay contained. The fabric was stretched tight across his broad bulky shoulders, his biceps straining against the confines of the sleeves that were sure to tear if he were to flex just the right way. He reclined against the bench facing her but was wrapped up with whatever was on the tv. Ash was obvious in her gawking so it was only a matter of time before his eyes fell to her. When they did, his eyes widened comically in shock. Ash wasn’t sure why until his eyes travelled down her frame and landed on her side before a look of realisation overcame his face.  

He took a few quick paces towards her before turning to his right and disappearing into the bathroom with a look of determination on his face. Ash paid him no mind and made her way to the kitchen counter to pour herself a coffee before taking a long pleasant sip. It was a mere minute later that Carrillo was standing in front of her, a med kit laid out on the bench and an expectant look on his face. She looked at him long and hard before realising he was speaking, she gave him a questioning look, tilting her head to the side, before she heard him huff and repeat what he said.

“Greyson, I asked you to take of your shirt”  

It was Ash’s turn to gape at him, the audacity of this man, why would the most by the book man she’d ever met be so unprofessional. “Excuse me?” the disbelief in her words made him roll his eyes, if she wasn’t so confused right now she probably would’ve gone off at him for that.

“I don’t know what activities you got up too last night, but you’ve obviously torn through your stitches, despite the warning from both the medics and myself” He said with a small amount of annoyance while pointing at her side. Now that Ash looked down she realised he was right. Blood had well and truly soaked through her bandage and through the shirt she wore to bed, She was unsure how she didn’t notice this sooner because now that she was seeing it with her own two eyes, it was pretty obvious.

Begrudgingly she pulled the shirt over her head, unsure as to why she had to take it off completely before coming to the conclusion that the shirt probably should be washed. She had a second to drop her shirt before Carrillo was standing a mere few inches in front of her, slowly peeling the bandage from her skin before inspecting her wound, Since when was he a medic?, that thought had her laughing silently, or so she thought. Being this close meant that he heard her laugh so she was met with a raised eyebrow and a bored expression on his face, that surely ended her laughter. She was silent while he worked, wincing occasionally when he prodded a little too hard to see her reaction.

“You’ll be fine if you rest for the next few days, you tore the bottom few stitches. Don’t do anything stupid and the wound will be healed on time” His tone was definitive and the order was clear.

Ash groaned and rolled her eyes, a brave thing to do this close to the man.  He handed her a bandage then turned around to pack away the supplies from the kit. She quickly fixed the bandage and took off toward her room, coffee abandoned on the bench, she was well and truly awake now. New shirt now acquired and covering herself she returned to the main room, Carrillo now vacant from the space and probably in his office working. She snatched up the tv remote and flicked through the channels, settling on an old war movie before curling onto her side to relax.

She woke hours later, the movie long since ended and the daylight now darkness. A blanket had been draped over her in her sleep and her dinner was sitting on the coffee table with a glass of water and her medication beside it. She would forever be grateful for the subtle ways the Colonel looked after her, even if he would never admit to it. She at least knew he cared enough for his team that he’d go out of his way to make her feel comfortable and like she belonged, even if she was new to the force.

                                                                                                                                                                                          -------

Aside from the incident in the kitchen the rest of the week went pretty smooth. They’d developed some semblance of a rhythm. Both woke early, whoever made it to the kitchen first put the pot of coffee on and poured a cup for the both of them, conveniently they preferred their coffee the same way. Black with no milk or sugar. Then they usually sat at the kitchen counter to eat breakfast, cereal for Ash and whatever Carrillo cooked himself for breakfast, Ash really wasn’t one for a big meal in the mornings. After breakfast the Colonel usually disappeared into his office to work and the younger officer would clean up their dishes and then hog the shower for as long as possible, soaking in the opportunity to have a warm shower all to herself without limits. Ash would spend most of the day watching tv or reading one of the many military inspired books that occupied the wall mounted shelves on either side of the tv.

Carrillo would emerge from his office around sixteen hundred hours each day, and proceed to cook dinner for the both of them. Ash had tried once but burnt the steak and been deemed too inexperienced and untrustworthy in the kitchen, something she was silently glad for cause the Colonel was a better cook than she ever could’ve hoped. Again Ash did the clean up, a fair trade off for not cooking, while Carrillo once again disappeared, this time to the gym or for a run around the perimeter of the property along the treeline, a sight Ash loved to enjoy. Only twice  he had stayed to converse or silently watch the news beside her. Then like clockwork they would bid each other goodnight and retire to their rooms.

Everything was going perfect, the routine now something established and easy to work through, even if Ash did complain about being on couch/bed rest until either the medics cleared her or the Colonel deemed her fit enough to begin easing her way into training. It wasn’t until the Wednesday of their second week together that something changed between them, something Ash looked back on with a smile on her face and made Carrillo have conflicted feelings and wish he had just stuck to their schedule they had so easily adapted to around each other.

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

If There’s a Place I Could Be - Chapter Fifty

If There’s a Place I Could Be Tag

December 26th, 1991

Emile smiled, albeit a little sadly, when he saw his younger cousins playing with some of his toys that he had started to outgrow and lose interest in. “It was very generous of you to give them your toys, Emile,” his mother said.

“I figured they could get more use out of them than I could,” Emile said. “And I’m a little sad to give them away, but they’ll be enjoyed more by my cousins, anyway.”

His mother shook her head. “Still, most kids your age don’t share that easily. I’m proud of you.”

Emile ducked his head in mild embarrassment, but looked up at his mom after a moment and grinned. “Thanks, Mom.”

  December 13th, 2001

It was Theo’s senior year, and as such, he had decided to invite everyone over to his and his friends’ house for a proper Christmas party the day that finals had ended. He was giving his e-mail out to anybody who would take it, saying that he wanted to keep in contact and he didn’t want to risk missing people over the course of the spring semester. Emile found it incredibly endearing, and Remy was just poking fun at Theo as he went around, passing out his e-mail and collecting the others’. Theo was laughing at it, though, so Emile suspected he didn’t mind.

“So, how did Thanksgiving go?” Clara asked, flopping down next to Emile on the couch. “You never actually told us what it was like, bringing your boyfriend back home to meet the family.”

“It was okay,” Emile said. “Remy and I were in the metaphorical closet around my grandfather, though. He doesn’t know and I don’t want him to know, not yet. I want to see if he can be more understanding before I drop that bombshell on him.”

Clara winced. “Ouch. He’s one of those ‘fire and brimstone’ types?”

“Not usually,” Emile said. “But on this particular topic...he just...doesn’t understand.”

Clara sighed, shaking her head. “Most people that old don’t. Which is sad, and discouraging.”

“Tell me about it,” Emile laughed hollowly. “One day, there will be people who understand of all ages, but so far, I have yet to meet someone who survived the eighties who’s that old, and therefore I haven’t met anyone in favor of the LGBT community that age, either.”

Clara leaned her head back into the couch. “How telling is it that we only ever expect other people in the community to understand?”

Emile blew out a breath. “I imagine more telling than we’d like,” he said, turning to look at Clara with a sad smile. “At least there are people in the community who understand, though.”

Clara nodded. “And most colleges are accepting in general, these days.”

Remy walked over with his arms crossed. “You two aren’t smiling,” he accused.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Rem, I wasn’t aware we had to smile all the time in order to please you,” Emile said with an eye-roll.

“Not what I meant,” Remy said. “You guys seem sad. What’s up?”

“My grandfather,” Emile sighed.

“Stressing over Christmas again?” Remy asked. “I thought we both had plans in place for if the cat got out of the bag.”

“We do. I’m stressing over the fact that we need those plans in the first place,” Emile said.

“Oh,” Remy said softly, sitting on Emile’s other side. “Yeah, that is a bit of a bummer.”

“No kidding?” Emile asked, looking over at Remy with a tired expression.

“Hey, it’ll be okay, mio amore,” Remy said, putting his hand on Emile’s shoulder.

“I know that,” Emile said, putting his hand over Remy’s. “It just hurts in the meantime.”

“Could be worse, you could have had my parents and your grandfather to contend with,” Remy laughed.

Emile considered that. The nosiness of Remy’s mother, mixed with the snide comments his grandfather made, that would not end well. “Someone would probably wind up dead,” Emile said.

Remy laughed. “Oh, yeah. And now, because I cut off my parents, we don’t have to bury any corpses.”

Emile snorted. “Some silver lining,” he said, running a hand down his face. “I don’t want to hide being with you, Remy. I’m super proud to call you my boyfriend. It sucks that we can’t tell anyone outside my parents because we can’t trust them to keep quiet over the course of Christmas.”

Remy took Emile’s hand and when Emile looked over to Remy, he was surprised to find Remy grinning like the cat who got the cream. “What?” Emile asked.

“I’ve never heard you say you’re proud to be with me, before,” Remy said. “And, like, I know that you love me, but the fact that you’re proud of that...I don’t know. It’s...nice.”

“And gay,” Clara piped up.

Emile and Remy laughed. “You better believe it, Clara!” Remy exclaimed. “I’m gay for this man and he’s gay for me back and the entire world deserves to know!”

“Okay, okay,” Emile said, holding up his free hand. “I’ll try to not be so down. I know it’s a time to celebrate, especially considering that most of us won’t be seeing each other for the better part of a month.”

“Yeah, c’mon, Emile, we have some last minute partying to do,” Remy teased.

Emile rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m not here for the partying so much as I’m here for conversation. I’m boring, I know, but I just like to talk with people.”

Remy rolled his eyes and pushed Emile to his feet. “Yeah? Well, Theo’s just about ready to break out the white elephant gifts, so you’d better grab something to drink now or risk losing a prime seat near the presents.”

“I’m not thirsty, though,” Emile said, frowning.

“But I know you, love, and you will be within the hour. Grab a bottle of water or something, I don’t care. But grab something so I don’t have to hear you complain,” Remy said with a smirk.

“Fine,” Emile said, and as soon as he moved Remy snatched up his spot next to Clara. “You’re a traitor, you realize,” he casually mentioned as he walked away.

“Hey, my lap can be a pretty cosy place to sit!” Remy called after him.

Emile flushed red in embarrassment and grabbed a bottle of water quickly, before electing to sit on the armrest of the couch Remy and Clara were now occupying, resolutely not looking Remy in the eyes. Theo came over with the stack of presents, and everyone sat in a circle as he set them up and grabbed a hat full of paper numbers. “Let’s get started, everyone,” Theo said. “Pick a paper, and get your order number!”

He went around the room and everyone grabbed a number, and he took the last slip remaining in the hat. “What’d you get?” Remy asked.

“Ten,” Emile said.

Remy laughed. “Lucky. I have three.”

Emile winced in sympathy. “Only two presents to steal,” he said. “You’d probably have better luck opening a present.”

“Yeah,” Remy sighed. “Ah, well. Such is the luck of the draw. And this could still be fun.”

“Yeah, if you got a super popular present you might wind up getting to steal later in the game,” Emile said.

The game started with a girl that Emile didn’t know the name of opening a present and laughing at what was inside. Apparently, it was a small statue of a literal white elephant.

Xavier went next, and he opted to open a present, which was a calendar filled with Garfield comics. “Oh, that’s a nice one,” Emile laughed.

“Garfield isn’t exactly the epitome of comics, but a calendar is nice,” Remy agreed. He hummed. “Eh, screw it, I’ll open one.”

He grabbed a tall, thin box and opened it, before laughing hysterically. He let the last of the wrapping paper fall and revealed a lava lamp. “What?! No way!” Theo exclaimed. “Who found a lava lamp for fifteen bucks?!”

“You’d be surprised,” another senior boy said with a smirk. “Thrift shops are wonderful places. Oh, and I tested it before I brought it, and it still works.”

Remy laughed. “Man, I always wanted one of these as a kid,” he said. “My parents never let me have one.”

The game continued, and a girl stole the white elephant statue, so the first girl stole Remy’s lava lamp, and Remy reluctantly opened another present. He sniffed a laugh at the tiny bottle which featured a tinier ship.

“Sick, man!” Theo exclaimed, immediately stealing it for his turn.

Remy stole back the lava lamp with a grin and the girl opened another present, a pack of number two pencils with a note that read: For next semester’s finals. Everyone groaned at the reminder, except for Remy, who giggled maniacally.

They continued the game until it was Emile’s turn, and he decided he wasn’t going to steal the lava lamp from Remy, much as he might like to. Remy had stolen it back every chance he got and everyone knew that he was not going home without it, so they backed off him. He instead picked up a lumpy present that everyone had been ignoring, and he opened it, laughing at the stuffed dog that was inside. “Aw, this is adorable!” he cooed.

Remy had a conflicted expression on his face as the game moved on to player number eleven. Emile quietly asked, “You okay?”

“That’s...” Remy swallowed. “That’s the exact style of stuffed animal that my stuffed dog Bones was,” he whispered.

“Oh,” Emile said, looking down at the dog in his hands with a new sort of respect.

Player number twelve stole the elephant, the Garfield comic calendar was stolen, and the next to last gift was opened: a book filled with random trivia facts that was calling itself The Ultimate Toilet Entertainer, for some reason Emile couldn’t fathom.

Finally, the first girl got her chance to steal something, and she grabbed the white elephant statue with a shrug. “I kinda like it, it’s cute,” she defended.

The person it was stolen from sighed. “Well, I don’t really like anything else here, so I guess I’m opening the last present.”

And when they did, they saw what Emile had brought to the white elephant, which was an old VCR tape that had to be from the early nineties, featuring Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. “Oh, that’s not bad, actually,” they said, and Emile grinned.

The party continued somewhat after that, but slowly people had to leave to get packed for the winter break. When Emile and Remy said goodbye to their friends and got to Emile’s car, Emile looked at the stuffed dog he was still holding, spying some initials on the tag. Some very familiar initials. “Hey, Rem,” he said.

“Yeah?” Remy asked.

“Do you know what happened? After Toby rescued Bones from your parents?” Emile asked.

“He let me play with Bones in his room for a while, but eventually either our parents found out or a family friend’s kid found him, because he disappeared and neither Toby nor I could find him,” Remy sighed. “Why?”

“Well, this dog has a little tag on it,” Emile said, inspecting it closely. “And it has initials on it.”

“My parents would label toys sometimes once I was around to make it clear whose stuff was whose,” Remy said. “But why’s that important?”

“Well, the initials are RSP,” Emile said. “And I’ve never seen your parents handwriting, but that seems like a hell of a coincidence.”

“What? No way,” Remy said. They got inside the car and Emile passed the dog over to Remy. Remy’s eyes widened looking at the tag. “What...? That’s...that’s my mom’s handwriting...Oh, my God. I knew that one of the people at the party knew my family, because we had talked briefly and they mentioned in passing that my last name sounded familiar and we figured out that’s where we had heard about each other, and she had a younger sister who had been obsessed with stuffed animals for a while, but...” he took a closer look at the dog’s ear. “That’s where I got paint on the fur that never came out. It’s the same dog. Oh my God!”

Emile offered Remy a smile. “You should keep him.”

Remy looked up at Emile with wide eyes. “You mean that? I don’t want to take your gift from the white elephant, do you want the lava lamp in return?”

“No, Remy, it’s okay,” Emile said, starting the drive home. “You can keep both things. I really don’t mind.”

Remy was quietly crying at this news, and Emile didn’t mention it. He didn’t fail to notice that night, however, when Remy was setting up the lava lamp in his room, Bones was sitting on his bed’s pillow. And when Emile checked on Remy before he went to bed himself, he saw Remy snuggled up to Bones in his sleep, the lava lamp emitting a soft blue glow with green lava making shapes in it.

Emile shook his head softly and went to bed himself. Maybe he was obsessed with something as childish as cartoons, but Remy never got the chance to naturally grow out of his childhood. It was sad to think about, but Emile was glad Remy could live out his childhood dreams now that he was here.

[rwbyremnants]

CHAPTER WARNINGS: Hard convos and fluff (and awkward almost-incesty feelings)

Getting pretty close to the end! Also I started writing a new project - I know I know, I'm not even done posting this and Princess And The Dragons! Believe me there's just a ton of fics I could keep posting for all eternity, but they're all a complete mess (except the 2 I'm working on posting now). I might hit the fuck it point and post a few of them without doing any editing or rereading to make sure they make any sense. Yay for all that information nobody asked for!

=Chapter 10

A few months passed. Ruby had no further contact with Winter after she drove away from her, apart from one message she asked Penny to send, establishing that she no longer wanted to continue their arrangement. No more sessions, no more visits to the club, nothing. Even the casual texts had stopped, or the occasional silly snaps back and forth of each other's day; it was like they had never met. Strangers.

Then came an occasion she was dreading. There were other family gatherings she had managed to bow out of – anything to avoid awkward contact again out of fear of embarrassing herself; but this wasn't one she could squirm her way out of so easily. Weiss's birthday. She would never want to avoid her idol's celebration, especially not when she was specially invited! Dodging that one would also raise suspicion, and make it far more obvious that she was avoiding something to the other guests.

Plus, she didn't want to hurt her any more than she already had. Her guilt was too heavy. Time to bite the bullet and say hello.

All she could do was mentally prepare while she was out shopping with Yang, looking for an ideal present with her wife. She had promised that she would look after whatever she bought so Weiss didn't find it; at least that was a promise she could keep without anyone getting hurt.

"Hey, how about a cute little pony?"

When Ruby looked over, she saw Yang was holding up some kind of rainbow-painted porcelain horse tchotchke. She practically welcomed the distraction, no matter how mundane. Raising an eyebrow, she laughed, "Oh God, are you gonna turn her into one of those kooky nerds who has a billion of those?"

"Well… no…" Putting it back, Yang sighed and looked around. "But I'm totally drawing a blank this year. You know she's the one who's good at picking out gifts, and I just… suck ass."

Still trying to distract herself, Ruby smirked back toward her, walking a couple of steps backward to keep their pace in the store. "She told me enough times she liked what you got her last year. You know… the 'banana'?" If she wasn't going to be able to distract herself with small goods, she could by embarrassing her favourite sister. "She tells me everything when she gets drunk, unfortunately."

Ducking her blonde head, her big sister groaned and muttered, "God, Weiss… why can't you handle your booze?" She cleared her throat and spoke up to say, "But I don't wanna get her another 'toy' this time. I want it to be something sweet. Y'know, romantic and shit."

"Oooh…" That didn't give Ruby all too much to work with. While Yang and Weiss were definitely happy together, even she knew romance wasn't Yang's strong point. Aside from throwing herself in the path of an explosion that time a few years ago, the closest she had gotten was buying flowers on one occasion; only to get rid of them when they discovered Weiss was allergic. That was a story she wouldn't let her live down.

"Well, what kinds of things has she been into lately? Anything she mentions in passing or something?"

"Um… music? Frilly dresses and expensive perfume? Marrying the worst girlfriend in the world?" Sighing, she leaned back against a shelving unit full of lawn gnomes and hung her head. "I'll just get her another Victoria's Secret gift card."

"Doesn't that kinda count as a present for yourself? Just saying…" But Yang's phrasing didn't sit well in Ruby's own mind. Sure, she didn't know what sorts of presents were romantic and usually ended up with a cop-out gift, but at least she wasn't hurting anyone in the process of that. The worst girlfriend award for sure went to Ruby Rose. "And we both know she has the better of the Xiao Long-Rose sisters, so don't say you're the worst, dork."

"Does not! You're the real prize, and Penny is so lucky! Geeze, if you weren't with her, I'd be beating guys and girls off you with a stick!"

Even if it was meant positively, Ruby wasn't particularly in the mood to play along. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders reluctantly as she wandered out of the store, walking aimlessly in the direction of a jeweller’s. "Nah, I'm lucky to even have Penny. Don't even know how she puts up with me sometimes."

After a moment, Yang followed. She took so long to respond that by then, Ruby assumed she had forgotten the topic. Then…

"Okay, spill. What's been up with you the past couple months?"

"H-huh?" Even if it was a question she should have expected, she was taken aback, instantly finding herself on the defensive. "N-nothing! I was just saying that Penny's good for putting up with me, that's all!"

"Yeah, but you and Penny never fight. She hasn't seemed unhappy being with you or anything like that, at all." Folding her arms over her ample chest, she demanded, "So what's up, Rubes? Spill – unless you want me to tickle it out of you."

No getting out of that not-so-idle threat, no matter how much she tried. And even if Yang didn’t tickle her, she would be like a dog with a bone. Sighing, she looked downward sadly, still idly pacing around in the hope either of them would see something of interest for Weiss.

"It's not Penny and me that have had issues. We're fine. Our relationship's been pretty solid for a while…" When she stopped in front of the bracelets, she debated where to begin, whether or not to tell the story. In the end… "But… I’m, uh…"

Sensing this was big, Yang slid an arm around Ruby's shoulders. "You can tell me anything. If you could handle me coming out and transitioning, I can handle whatever's bugging you."

In the end, that tilted the scales. Yang deserved to know, since she had always been so open with her. At the same time, she didn't need to know who it was. The thought of that conversation coming to light certainly wasn't a good one given Yang's past with Winter.

"You know Penny and I don't… y'know, that often. So, um, Penny let me go out and see someone else, purely for sex. It worked out so great at first, me and this other girl had an amazing connection… but I had to go and ruin it."

For a moment, all Yang could do was blink in surprise. "Whoa, really? Never thought of you as a 'side chick' kinda girl." She hastily added, "But that's cool! I mean, if you have needs and Penny's okay with it, why the hell not?"

"Yeah, heh… I guess." Scratching the back of her head nervously, she couldn't look Yang in the eye anymore. The situation was too sensitive. "But it got deeper than that. Penny and I talked about it as well, and… and we realised that I was falling for this other girl the same way as Penny. Which she felt, too. But then… then I said some really stupid stuff and made a huge mess."

"Falling for both of them?" But of course, Yang had mostly been saying that to confirm it to herself. Blinking a few more times, she then asked, "What kinda stuff? Like, maybe it wasn't as bad as you thought."

"L-like…" There was the awkward part; she didn't know how to word what was happening without possibly outing either Winter or Qrow. Sighing in frustration, she looked back up. "Okay imagine if, I mean just imagine here – you're about to confess your feelings to Weiss for the first time, but then when you're just about to, you find out she's been sleeping with… with Dad or someone as close as that. Y-you'd be shocked, right? Shocked enough to really hurt her feelings on accident?"

For a long moment, Yang just tried to process the very idea being put across to her. Then she burst out, "Dad's been banging your side-chick?!"

"No!!!" Quickly slapping a hand to her forehead, she groaned out in frustration; one that had a couple of people turning to look at them. "I said 'someone as close as', not Dad himself! But that's not the point, anyway!" Looking around some more of the various watches and charm bracelets, Ruby sighed again. "I was yelling at her how if she cared she would have told me, because that was happening before I started hooking up with her, and during. And like, she knew this person was close to me! And I ended up… ended up learning I'd hurt her on other occasions without meaning to. Bad."

This time, Yang took even longer to respond. They both went back to looking over the things in the displays, picking them up and putting them down. Neither really paying much attention to what they were seeing.

"This, um…" Yang held up a tennis bracelet with a musical note dangling from it. "Is this dumb? I… think she could like it, but I, um…"

Again, Ruby welcomed the distraction. As much as she needed advice for what to do next, she much preferred to ignore the subject and keep burying her head in the sand. "That is super cute, actually. Maybe you can get another little snowflake charm for it too?"

"Ooh, that's a good idea… let me know if you find anything like that. Or maybe a star, because…" Her voice got quieter as she added, "She's my star."

Despite Yang having meant it genuinely, Ruby only saw her usual attitude of pun making and groaned again. "That was sooooo bad, international superstar. But stars and snowflakes, got it."

"Y-yeah," Yang replied with a feigned laugh. Clearly she had thought that was really romantic and it fell flat.

They both dug through the display for a little while longer, and Yang did eventually find a snowflake. Ruby was still hunting for a star when she walked back over. Clearly her mind was preoccupied.

"Um… hey Ruby?"

"Hmm?" Noticing that Yang had found what she wanted, she turned back to the display a moment to look longer. "Still can't find a star… Do you mind if it's a typical one? Or do you want a more… what? Something wrong?"

"The typical one is fine, we dug through most of 'em." Then she cleared her throat and tried to sound unconcerned as she asked, "So, were you, uh, maybe, kinda… sleeping with Blake?"

That'd made Ruby drop the small charm she had picked up, which bounced and rolled under one of the displays before she could catch it. At least it was one of the cheapest ones. "Oh, shoot! Noooo!"

“Those things are dime a dozen. C’mon, I asked you a serious question.”

She looked back around to her sister reluctantly. "No, not Blake. I mean, she said she thinks I'm cute before, but also said she would never want to because of your past. Kinda... crossing the streams, or whatever."

"Okay," she sighed in relief. "Whew! Just… you know, I noticed you guys were kinda hanging out sometimes, and… like, I never for sure thought you were, but that’s the only obvious guess I have."

Breathing with relief, Ruby laughed nervously with her. "T-that's fine! Nah, she and Sun seem to be exclusive to each other, from what I know, at least."

Under her breath, Yang muttered, "She's said that one before…" Then she cleared her throat and said, "Okay, Ruby. Whatever went on between you and whoever… it sounds like you were going past just bumping uglies and into really caring about each other. Weren't you?"

"H-hey, it wasn't like-!" But as much as she wanted to deny it, Yang was right; that was the simplest way to put it. Looking downward, she mumbled, "Yeah… we were."

"But… she's also doing stuff with someone really close to you, and it kinda gives you the 'this room is too crowded' vibe?" When Ruby didn't answer, she sighed and ran a hand through her bangs. "Whoo. That's rough."

"She’s also roommates with this person," Ruby added. It seemed like a major detail to leave in given the situation. Pacing to the other displays, she explained in more detail. "I'm not really mad about that anymore, I guess… I'm more mad that I hurt her. Not just by yelling at her about that, but that I left before talking it though. And that I hurt her before all this ugliness and didn't even know I did."

"God… and you were just gonna walk around with all this weighing you down?" Reaching over, she tousled Ruby's hair until it was a messy brown-and-red mop. It was one of the few things she had done when she was Ying that still lingered, even with how much she had changed before Ruby's eyes as they both grew up.

"Sis, I can only work with the facts I got. From where I'm standing… it sounds like this, um, person is worth it to you to go out on a limb for. I’ve been watching you moping around the past few months, and it's like… like something's missing inside you. And maybe your hookup isn't what you need, or maybe she- they are, and… I think you owe it to both of you to try. Just… I don't know, talk to ‘em again. Be chill and see where it goes."

"How?" she asked desperately with a little shrug. "How can I be 'chill' about it when I more or less said 'fuck you and what you've been through' to her face? Like… okay, it wasn't those exact words, sure; but the message was the same."

Though Yang did wince at the implication of saying something like that to someone, she gripped Ruby's shoulder. Unfortunately, due to her ignorance of the topic, her phrasing was less than ideal. "Hey, so you messed up in a… not small way. Sometimes to get what you want, you gotta eat a little crow."

Which was rather noticeable, given that she immediately shut her eyes tightly at the remark. "GOD I'd rather not hear 'Crow' and 'Eat' in the same sentence, you have no idea…"

But whether Ruby liked it or not, her sister was completely right. The problem wasn't going to be solved by hiding from each other; they needed to talk. To apologise, say their piece, and learn. Even if they ended up still avoiding each other after, the least they could do was try.

Apparently, Yang had been trying to talk to her all along, because she finally said, "Yooo, you in there, little Ruby? Big sis calling!" Then a fist was knocking on the top of her head, albeit lightly.

"GAH!" Flinching as soon as her head was touched, she nearly managed to knock the bracelet from Yang's hand! But right away she composed herself again, scratching her head. "S-sorry… I spaced. What were you saying?"

"I was saying that we should probably check out," Yang laughed easily, beaming her usual confident smile down at Ruby. "This bracelet's kinda lame, but it's literally the only idea I've had all day that doesn't make me wanna hurl myself into a volcano."

Ruby could only smile back, handing over the small star charm she had unearthed. "I actually think it's really cute, she'll love it."

But just after they'd finished checking out and re-entered the mall complex, Ruby was attempting to get some information of her own. She had been wanting to for a while, but didn't know how without raising suspicion. As naturally she could, she asked, "So… who's coming to the party? Me, Penny… who else?"

"Oh, well you know. Family people. Plus FNKI is supposed to be there, and Blake and Sun." Pointing, she asked, "Smoothies? My treat, for helping me out with this."

"Yeah, I guess smoothies wouldn’t break the bank," Ruby laughed, following her big sis. "Family people… so Dad, Jacques… Winter…?"

With a slow drawl, Yang answered, "Riiiight. That's who family is. Oh, I don't know if Uncle Qrow RSVP'd yet or not; he was invited. But Dad's gonna be there for sure." Then she looked suspiciously at Ruby. "Unless there's a problem with Dad being there…?"

"Why would I have a problem with Da-" But given the rather serious look, Ruby rolled her eyes. "Look, Dad was an example. This friend isn't actually sleeping with Dad. If she was, he would be living in the house with them, cause they are roommates with the person, remember? And no, it’s not Penny, and it’s really not me."

"Well yeah, I guess. Just double-checking, okay?" When Ruby still seemed irritated, she sighed and said, "Okay, I won't ask who's who again. I get it, this is sensitive. But… I do hope you get whatever's going on squared away. And promise me you won't sit on it until too much time went by, and now you feel like you can't speak up. Please?"

Eyebrows furrowing, Ruby looked up to her sister anxiously. She was genuinely worried about her… and had good reason to be, given what she had to deal with a few years ago; of course now that a somewhat similar situation presented itself, even if only affecting her sister, she would be on edge. But not wanting to let on how truly she was bothered by this, Ruby instead looked at the smoothie menu.

"Get me a banana and blueberry smoothie and it's a deal."

But all Yang groaned in response was, "Do you have to pick 'banana'? I'm already embarrassed enough about that as it is!"

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

"…but she’s been saying she wants to eat more organic, so I figured, buying some vegetable plant seeds could be an idea; something to do with little Fèn once she gets older, also. Not such a boring present, is it?"

Winter’s father had offered to drive her to her sister’s birthday party to both spare her sobriety and cab fare. He insisted strongly, despite her reluctance to be in his company. In recent days, that seemed to be worryingly common; for her to be alone or seem a little more uptight and serious than usual. Even if he had never mentioned it, her father certainly noticed.

And when noticing she still wasn't particularly listening on this occasion, he cleared his throat. "S-so… Amber couldn't come. She had something with her own family she couldn't miss, so you and Weiss will have to meet her properly another time."

"Hmm? Oh, yes… that's wonderful, Father." It was a stock answer. Winter would normally have offered up something a lot more in-depth and pointed, but it seemed she still wasn't up to the task.

In fact, she had spent most of the past months avoiding any time alone with her father. Not that he would know why. Not that they never talked, but their discussions had been fewer and further between ever since he told her about Amber. Poor Jacques. The only cause he could think of was the possibility that Winter didn't like his flowering relationship. And no wonder; no one would like to hear their parent had moved on, much less such details.

While they were at a red light, he looked around to her, asking, "You… aren't mad at me for dating again, are you?"

"What?" she asked, roused from her reverie. "No, not at all… oh, Father, I'm sorry. My mind is just elsewhere." Frowning over at him, she told him as earnestly as she could, "I didn't mean to make you think I disapprove of Amber."

There was a wave of relief, and right away he swept the sweat from his brow. "Phew! You had me worried there! Last thing I wanted to do was make you or Weiss feel uncomfortable." As the light turned green, his attention returned to the road, but he didn't drop the subject. "Then what is wrong, dear? You've seemed off for a long time now."

"Have I?" she asked, trying to sound as convincing as she could. She shifted in her seat, trying to find a more comfortable position. "Sorry about that. I didn't mean to worry you."

"Well, you have been a little," he admitted. "So, if it's not Amber… what is it? Is there something I should be concerned about? Have I done anything to upset you?"

"No, nothing," she answered immediately. There was no way she could ever tell him why she was so uncomfortable in his presence now - especially since it was getting easier to manage a little at a time. So she had to distract him, and she could only find one topic that would adequately excuse her standoffishness without making her poor father feel worse. "Just… I was beginning to think I might have found an 'Amber' of my own. But the relationship fell through before I could figure that part out."

"Oooohh… so, it's relationship trouble." While it was a better assumption than the whole truth, it was still awkward for old Jacques Schnee. He wasn't used to talking to his daughters in such circumstances until a couple of years ago, so the advice was always rusty. Still, he tried. "There's always more fish in the sea, even if you have to swim a little further out, I suppose. I know you get out more than I do, I'm sure you'll find a nice… girl, to settle down with someday."

Laughing weakly, Winter crossed her legs in the opposite direction, hoping against hope that it would abate her discomfort. No such luck. "Doubtful. I just don't feel that kind of connection with people. Not until…" Did she dare confirm? "Until she came along."

"I see… the one that got away, hmm?" Given the silence, that was also confirmed. While it wasn't as easy for him as it would be talking to a son about this sort of thing, he tried his best to treat her in the same way he would a son, and cleared his throat. "Girls are very mysterious. One minute you think you have them figured out, the next, you're back to square one. Or in your case, square zero. Of course, you know that, being a woman yourself." Scratching his head nervously, he tried to continue, "But what I'm saying is, don't bet all your money on one horse. If it's not meant to be, it won't happen. If it is, things will… well, they'll find a way to work."

"But I wasn't putting money on any horse," she sighed. "My feelings came as a complete surprise to me; I wasn't even looking! And then…" There had to be a way to discuss this without going into specifics. "We had an argument. About our relationship, and how we hadn't been entirely honest about our situations. It should have been something we could work through, but…"

"Ah, of course. Nobody likes complications." They weren't too far from the house, but rather than pull right up to the drive, he pulled the car over onto the shoulder a moment. "Listen, I'm not very good at this, you can tell; but it sounds like you both left everything up in the air rather than talking through the issue properly."

Winter could feel her anxiety rising. They were so close! She hadn't been mentally prepared to be alone with him for any longer than the drive there. But she also didn't want to squander this chance to have a non-superficial conversation with her father; they were so rare, and if she avoided this one she might not get another for a while. Or might even lead him to believe she hated him. That wouldn’t do.

"I wanted to try again. But she let me know we were done. That… she didn't want to see me anymore. She was so upset, I… how can I approach her if she hates me?"

Leaning back in his seat, Jacques sighed deeply, drumming his fingers against the top of the steering wheel as some form of distraction. "How indeed. Then again, your mother and I used to have our fair share of arguments before we got serious; sometimes, shit happens." It was unusual for her father to swear, even more so when he was calm. Still, it meant they were possibly getting somewhere. "Perhaps arrange to meet under more neutral circumstances?"

"Perhaps so." Her eyes flicked toward her sister’s house and the promise of safety, and she sighed. "We'll see. It feels so hopeless, but… I should at least apologise for my part of our misunderstanding. Then it would be up to her, right?"

"Exactly." He smiled toward her. "The ball will be in her court, as it were. If she wants to play, she will. If not… well, you can say you did everything you possibly could. It's disappointing if it does come to that, but in the end, it's far more satisfying to say you tried than to give up without trying."

Nodding glumly, she tried to let herself believe him. It was so hard! But she knew it was the truth; yes, Ruby was well within her right to end their arrangement, even without what went on with Qrow. Even so, that didn't mean she and her sister-in-law couldn't patch up their friendship, and discuss what went wrong like mature adults.

"You're right, of course. It's… I'll think about it. Thank you."

Nodding happily, he put his hands back on the wheel again to drive the last few seconds of the journey. Already, there were a few cars and bikes on the drive from the various guests. One of which included the small red car that Winter recognised so much: Ruby's.

Oblivious to that, Jacques was already taking off his seatbelt and opening the door. "In the meantime, just enjoy the party today. I'm sure Weiss will let you hold Fèn for longer than a couple of minutes this time!"

"Don't count on it," she laughed as they exited the car and began walking up towards the lakehouse. Despite their difficulties and Winter's private discomfort, she really did appreciate the talk more than she could say.

Once they got inside, they could see most of the guests had arrived. Yang and a few members of FNKI were loitering in the spacious entryway. One or two other children from Fenléng's daycare were toddling back and forth in the living room, their mothers likely nearby. Winter thought it was nice that she had a few little friends to play with.

"I'll be back in a bit, guys," Yang reassured both Flynt and Inu upon noticing the new guests. Suspecting they hadn't seen Weiss yet, she thought it best to greet the newcomers herself, managing to scoot past them to welcome her inlaws with open arms. "There you two are! Figured you got lost, again."

Jacques chuckled to himself, accepting a quick hug from her with a pat on the back. "That was just one time. Where is my other pride and joy, anyway?"

"Out in the garden with Ruby! I think they wanted to catch up a little bit before we gave Weiss her presents and stuff. You can head through, if you want?"

Raising a small bag and the box from Jacques, Winter said, "Where shall I put these?"

"Oh, I'll take 'em while we go through, it's on the way. Weiss's been waiting for you guys to turn up!"

With a brief wave goodbye to the two guests, Yang journeyed through the living room with both of Weiss’s relations following behind. She detoured to the kitchen with the two gifts, adding them to the pile, then leading Winter and Jacques to the rear conservatory doors. And there in plain sight were Ruby and Weiss, sat together on the bench.

The circumstances couldn't be any worse. Both Jacques and Weiss were completely unaware of the tension between Winter and Ruby. It gave no time for either of them to prepare mentally, especially not when Jacques was already walking outside toward them both, calling out to get their attention. "There she is! Twenty-two years young."

Turning, Weiss smirked at him as she said, "You got it right this year, Father. I'm impressed." Then her smile widened and she said, "Hey, sister of mine!"

"Happy birthday," Winter said, smiling gently. For the moment, she could forget about the girl sitting next to her sister. Ruby was definitely very important to her, but this wasn't her day, and it wasn't Winter's. "How does it feel to be another year wiser?"

"About the same," she laughed back with a little shrug. "Yang and I were just talking about that this morning; every year is just an encore, isn't it?"

"Once you're past twenty-one, it is pretty much the same,” Jacques chuckled. “Still, gives us an excuse to have a drink or two."

While he was making small talk with his daughter, Ruby continued to sit still with a drink in hand, staring toward the ground nervously. She knew Winter was there, but was far too scared to even make eye contact with her. Clearly, she had been just as cut up as Winter was in the first place. At least that was one small good sign; the pseudo-breakup wasn’t already an irrelevant event for the girl.

"So, how many others are on their way?" Winter asked, hands in the small of her back.

"Well, there's Blake and Sun," Weiss began to list off as she embraced sister. "Taiyang is on his way with Qrow. That might be everyone, right, honey?"

"Blake just messaged and said she's on the way," spoke up Yang from behind them, who had just finished putting the gifts away and was now coming to a stop by her wife’s side. "Aaaand Dad's on the way but a little held up because he went to get Penny from the airport. That’ll be a while, so… should we do presents?"

"You guys go ahead," Ruby said from her seat. At least now she raised her head a little, and looked outward to the large lake rather than at the floor like she was before. "I'm just gonna… chill here for a minute. Crazy week."

"Sorry to hear that," Winter said almost automatically. Then she cleared her throat and hastily turned to Weiss. "Are you ready for presents, or would you rather wait for Blake and Sun?"

"We can wait. In fact, now that I've stopped breastfeeding, I'm ready to have a drink. Can I get you something?"

Smiling demurely, she responded, "Oh, come on; this is your day. I can make drinks for both of us. What will everyone have?"

"Maybe Weiss already has the drinks I…" Though before she could finish that quip, Yang realised just who was in their company. They might well be on good terms, but an adult breastfeeding joke might be a bit too much for the subject’s father and sister to take. Winding back, she cleared her throat again. "Yeah, but I'll get them though, seriously. I know Weiss wants a strawberry daiquiri, and I’m still on the dry list. You two…?"

"I'm driving, so just sparkling water for me. What about you, Winter?" Jacques asked, although he was about ready to head inside.

Her eyes flicked to Yang, but then she said, "Martini, dry, single olive. That is, if it's no trouble."

"Nope, not at all!."

Weiss and Jacques headed inside first, with him asking about how she was and how Fènleng had been. It was always the subject whenever he came over now. But before Winter could step inside, Yang's hand landed on her shoulder, pulling her slightly around.

"Hey… you got a minute?"

That was quite startling for the elder of the Schnee sisters. Glancing both between the door inside and Ruby on the bench, she asked, "Of course, what's up?"

Glancing back at her little sister for a quick moment herself, she leant in closer toward Winter, talking in a hushed tone. "Okay, this is gonna be a weird request, but could you talk to her? This past few months she's had a bad case of the blues about, um, this situation she’s in. I know it's weird asking since she barely knows you, but… I'm kinda at a roadblock."

"Me?" Gulping, she glanced back at Ruby, then again at Yang. The woman she had treated so badly once upon a time. "I… don't have the greatest track record with helping people. Mentally. I'm honestly very surprised you'd ask me."

"Well, I'm stuck… Weiss is stuck, Penny's stuck… we're out of options. Not that you're a bad option, that's not what I'm saying at all! I mean, I know it's not gonna be the same as when you talked me into leaving and-" Sensing she was rambling, however, she looked down when the quizzical gaze of Winter met her own. "Bad start… bad start. But, yeah… if it's okay with you, could you? She may open up more if it's with somebody who doesn’t know her as well as us."

"Yang… you have me all wrong. I'm honoured you trust me to help her, and I'll definitely do my very best. Just… surprised." Swallowing hard, she whispered, "I've been hoping to… make things up to you; I know I can't, but anything I can do to try…"

"Oh pssshhh, I wasn't even thinking about that!" Yang quickly assured her, even laughing a little just to prove it. But in a short moment she squeezed her shoulder, just enough to convey she was serious. "I'm asking as a sister-in-law. Not as a 'you owe me'. Please?"

That prompted Winter to sigh in mild relief as she patted the hand on her shoulder. "That means the world to me. And yes, of course; I just apologise in advance if the talk doesn't do as much good as we both hope."

"Least we can say we tried. I'll have your drink ready in a second."

Finally releasing the shoulder, she headed back in the house behind Weiss and Jacques, leaving the two girls outside alone. Ruby, who was still trying to look to one side with her beverage to do anything to avoid looking her way; and Winter, who was awkward enough thinking about what needed to be done. It was pretty obvious Ruby wouldn't be the one starting.

There was so much she wanted to say, but in the end all she did was pace up behind the bench, come to a stop, and ask, "So… how have you been?"

Nervously shrugging her shoulders, Ruby kept watching the lake while she took a sip of her drink. Damn Yang… she didn't know anything about the situation, yet had somehow managed to convince Winter to do the very thing they needed to - despite her wanting to run a mile from it!

"G-good," she murmured after the sip, resting the hand back on her knee again. "J-just, um, doing so-so. And you?"

"I've been better… but I've been worse. So… I guess the same as you." She looked down towards her hands, white-knuckling on the back of the bench, and tried to relax. It wasn't working. "How are… you and Penny?"

Yet again, she shrugged her shoulders. However this time she at least made some form of effort to acknowledge her needs, by scooting to one side of the bench. "Not too bad, I guess. She has a new job, but she's been kinda stressed because I've been super tired a lot of the time."

Realising it would look strange if she kept standing there when there was an empty seat, she rounded it, sitting down as far away as she could from Ruby. Hopefully, she wouldn't feel crowded. "Why so tired? If it's not too much to ask about. Feel free to tell me it's none of my business, I…" But she didn't finish her thought.

"O-oh, it's nothing. J-just… uh…" Seemed it was more than nothing, especially when it came to the person she was admitting this to. But trying her best, she eventually shrugged her shoulders after another drink. "Just… felt a little off, that's all. I-it's like that sometimes."

"You should talk to your sister about that. She would know more about that, since she's… already on medication. No thanks to me," she added in a bitter undertone.

Closing her eyes, Ruby sighed deeply as she placed her glass on the ground and out the way. "That wasn't your fault entirely, you know. There were a lot of issues at the time with her, hiding under the surface. And besides, I'm pretty sure it’s not genetic; my parents weren’t diagnosed with stuff like that. So if it’s anybody, it’s Yang’s mom, I guess."

"Still, you… should work on what's troubling you." This was getting harder to dance around, and when she thought about doing so, she found she was unable to. "Because despite… how things played out, I still want what's best for you, Ruby. There's just no sense in you suffering if you can talk to someone, sort things out. Medication or no medication."

"I'm not depressed," she corrected. Although from the way she kept staring toward the ground, she wasn't exactly doing anything to prove that comment wrong. In the end, she placed her hands on the bottom of her small skirt, grasping the hem anxiously. But in the end, she thought to herself; what good would it do to keep distracting and leaving things unsaid? "I've just… been upset. Not Depression, not anything else; I'm just sad, okay? It… it was my own stupid fault in the first place."

"What was?" When Ruby didn't answer immediately, she followed up with, "I don't want to assume anything. That isn't my right. But maybe whatever has upset you wasn't your fault alone, and… and then you wouldn't have to punish yourself so harshly. Right?"

For a long while, there was silence between them. Ruby continued to look downward, still unable to yet look up at someone she once couldn't get enough of. It was almost tragic how far they had drifted thanks to a single argument. But the silence was lifted by a small, but rather desperate whisper.

"I miss you."

Winter's head raised, eyes wide. Her mouth worked as if she would respond right away, but she forced herself to stop, to consider her words more carefully. Then she stated, "And I have missed you. So much."

Tucking a stray strand of hair out of her own face, she eventually settled to holding her hands together on her lap, idly crossing her legs to appear casual. Just on the off-chance anyone inside was looking. But already, she could feel everything she had bottled up coming loose, feel her heart thudding with fear, eyes welling up.

"I just got so mad," she began to confess. “S-so mad and so jealous… and I had n-no right to be. That wasn't fair. Not when I-I'd done things just as bad to you."

"You didn't realize what you had done was so…" Winter paused, having to breathe deeply. This wasn't something she made a habit of discussing, so even now, months later, it was difficult. "We both crossed a line that we didn't think as important to the other person as it turned out to be. Is… that fair to say?"

It was accurate. All Ruby had wanted to do was show Winter that she was brave enough to do more daring things, while Winter simply wanted to keep the two most important people in her life happy without awkward encounters. It was certainly a fair assessment. Nodding in agreement, she stared out toward the lake again in a somewhat more contented silence.

"…How's Qrow?"

"Oh, he's been alright. They promoted him to assistant manager of the bar; said he was doing a great job with the work but was a little rude to the customers, so he was better placed being rude to the bartenders."

"So he gets to sit at a desk behind the bar and drink? Sounds like an ideal job for him."

Winter smiled down at the hands in her lap. "You… probably don't want to know any more details than that, do you?"

Though that last comment didn't make Ruby laugh. Unfortunately, she was still rather awkward about that situation. "N-no… not really. I wanna hear if he's okay but not like, those details."

"Of course, of course," she replied hastily. "I have no problem with that. As long as you agree not to tease me about… about the other thing. We can bring it up from time to time, but don't tease. It just…" She looked away, biting her lip to keep from showing a reaction too severe.

"I know… I stepped over the line." Nervously she shuffled in her seat again, looking downward toward the floor. A look of pure shame. "The truth is… I just thought that maybe… if I used my intuition and showed that I could be daring enough to try something big like that, you'd be pleased with my progress. But now I know, t-that was completely wrong. That you can't ‘guess’ with this stuff."

The corner of her mouth ticked up as she conceded, "Well, to be fair, you were right with everything except the third person who happened to be in the room. But your performance was… I still have to fan myself thinking about how good you were."

"It… was pretty hot." Unsure if that was crossing the line or not, she shrugged her shoulders nervously. "That doesn't count as teasing, right? To admit that it was really… really thrilling?"

"No, not at all. I… could tell you how I really felt about it, if you promise not to pass judgment. A-and if you promise not to think it means I dislike you; just because I was angry and upset didn't mean I wanted you out of my life! I regret so much that I made it seem that way…"

"I wouldn't blame you if you did… I crossed the line," she admitted again. She knew she deserved more than that. She expected fury, rage even, but Winter had something else to say. "…g-go on?"

"What I said during play… that it really turned me on… I wasn't lying. It did. But admitting that means admitting that…" Winter's cheeks were pink already due to how long they had been talking about their last session, but she bravely forged ahead.

"On the car ride up here, I spent the entire time trying to ignore how wet I was getting. Because I was in the same car as my father. You were so good, and gave me such a powerful climax, that now… now I associate that with speaking to him, being in the same place as him. Which I'm so ashamed of; it's… not as if he had anything to do with it directly, or as if I want to sleep with him! GOD, no! But the two things are connected in my brain pretty strongly now." Now that the older woman had said her peace, she closed her eyes and waited for the reaction. However bad it might turn out to be.

"Ohhh…" Surprisingly, it was far easier for Ruby to take in than expected. While it was good to learn that she had given Winter an extremely powerful orgasm, and Winter was proud of her as a sub… learning that Winter now associated her own father with their escapades wasn't so good. In fact, when she thought about it…

It was the same association she now had with Qrow once learning who he was. Finding out that Qrow was another of Winter’s partners made such thoughts hard to totally block out. A sexual context for her own uncle. They were both dealing with those awful tricks of their minds. Only difference was, Ruby knew she would never accidentally be picturing her uncle during the act the same way Winter might with her father.

"Shit… I really screwed up…"

"Not so badly. I mean, it's almost fun, when I'm not disgusted with myself." A few seconds later, she added in a weak murmur, "That was supposed to be humourous, but after saying it, I realized it didn't come out that way…"

Still blinking, she finally looked more in Winter's direction than the floor at last. Not eye contact yet, but it was better than what it was. "Geeze, I just wanted to do something… adventurous. To be bold or whatever. I didn't want to ruin an entire person for you, let alone your own father!"

With another gentle, nervous smile, she turned back to face forward. "You don't have that much power, Ruby. He's not ruined, exactly… just… this is something I'll have to work through. But it does help to have a specific cause; you fucking me under the desk, instead of just 'Surprise, you're turned on in your father's presence'. Keeps me from thinking I'm even more of a deviant than I already am."

There was a small chuckle coming from her. "That would be the worst version of the Daddy kink."

"Ugh," Winter groaned, ducking her head. "Do you know how long I mentally dissected me moaning 'Daddy' when I’m being fucked?! I haven't called him that in over a decade, and I still had to worry about it!"

"Oh my god, I was kidding - I didn't know you had one!" The laugh was beginning to increase in volume. In fact, it would be the loudest anyone would have heard her laugh in weeks, even if it was a slight form of teasing. Their talk was working.

So Winter kept it going. Yes, she was uncomfortable with the subject matter, but it was also a relief to be able to get it out and discuss it instead of bottling everything up. "Well, I do, but it never had anything to do with my actual daddy until that night. Not as far as I knew, anyway." Shifting in her seat, she muttered, "You know what they say about all little girls wanting to marry their fathers…"

"Not me; never ever been interested in men. Even me being kinda weird about sex aside…" Finally, she felt her muscles relaxing as she grew more at ease; even began to smile. Maybe things were going to work out for them still being friends, after all. In the end, that's what they wanted, to be in one another's lives, regardless of feelings.

But Ruby didn't want to leave it there. Talking about where things went wrong with their arrangement was one thing, but with their feelings was another. They had come too far, said too much to leave it there without talking it through fully. If only she could take that first step.

Though Winter beat her to it. "If you're sure you want to keep these secrets, and aren't already disgusted by me…" Her eyes flicked up to Ruby's face, then away again, waiting. Bursting to speak, but afraid that she had already gone too far.

"I could never be disgusted with you." At long last, she looked up, and right at Winter's face. It was like she was seeing her for the first time all over again. She could already feel the bottled up feelings reemerging, the compulsive need to grab Winter and kiss her as hard as she could. But they had to talk it out first. "Even after all my thinking, all this time with these dumb thoughts… I can't be disgusted with you. I can't even dislike you. And I don't want to. Because all this time has passed and I… I-I… still…"

Almost as if to head her off, Winter went on, "G-good. Because it's been getting worse, even if I've been getting better at processing it; understanding it's a kink, and it doesn't make me bad for having a kink if I don't indulge it. That's not as bad, right?" Her eyes held Ruby's for just a moment, hopeful, drinking in the desire she saw reflected there, before she turned away.

"As you heard, my father has begun dating this Amber woman. I've seen her, and she really is attractive." More fidgeting from the elder Schnee sister. "S-so… I may have had a stray fantasy about walking in on them…"

"Well… I-I guess… um…" Truly speechless after that confession of hers, Ruby looked to one side wide eyed, scratching the back of her head nervously. Managing to force a chuckle of her own, she admitted, "I guess these things don't hurt. Fantasies and all that, different strokes for different folks."

"You know, I could tell he was flustered by that sketch of yours - which I framed, by the way, I hope I can show you how it looks framed. That… is part of what made it harder to forget this whole thing. He didn't know it, but he was finding me attractive." Then she cleared her throat, waving that away as best she could. "Which only makes sense; he's always told me I'm a lot like Mother was. Weiss is the one who looks so distinctly different, even though there's a family resemblance, of course."

"Weirdly? She looks like your dad, if he was a girl… if that makes sense?" She could only hope that would be enough to make her chuckle along with her. The strange thing was, at the start of this arrangement, she was so obsessed with Winter's likeness to Weiss. Now, she could completely separate them. When with Winter, it was like Weiss was never even a factor.

"She does!" Winter admitted with a giggle of her own, raising a hand to her mouth to hide it. Then she sighed and said, "Anyway, enough about my budding Electra complex before I develop a thing for Weiss, too." Turning more fully, she looked straight at Ruby with a sober gaze. "I'm so happy that we can talk again. It might not be easy, but I can't tell you how much I've missed this!"

Laughing right back with her, Ruby picked her drink back up from the ground. The smile on her face evolved into a grin. "Me too! This was one of the things I missed. I mean, Weiss and Blake are great to talk to, but you sorta get fed up with them bringing up their other halves like, all the time."

Nodding, Winter crossed her legs in a lot less discomfited gesture - though she still shivered slightly at the action. "Indeed, they do go on about each other. But it's a positive thing, that they're in such stable relationships." Glancing over at Ruby, she asked in a careful tone, "You and Blake didn't ever…?"

Drinking the final swig of her drink, Ruby shook her head lightly, drawing the glass away. "Nah. We agreed that'd be too weird with how she was with Yang and all. Plus, as much as she knows she's bisexual…" Shuffling up closer to Winter a moment, she quickly checked the area to make sure no one was in sight. Thankfully, they were all too distracted by the presents to even notice those two outside. Finally, she leaned into her ear, whispering, "She is definitely all about dicks."

Giggling, Winter whispered back, "I know. I offered to Dom her a few times, or to let her Dom me, and she said she 'wouldn't mind' but didn't seem all that excited about getting around to it. I saw that as the gentle kiss-off that it was, and never pushed for an answer."

"Yeah… She won't admit it, but she is a cockslut," Ruby whispered back. And yet even when she was done whispering, she didn't move away. Not yet. She had become content with sitting right at Winter's side, even leaning in slightly toward her. So close… even after months, it was becoming like those few romantic sessions all over again. Except there were no characters, no practice. This was Winter Schnee and Ruby Rose.

"Do you still…" But as soon as the words began to form, she held a hand up, shaking her head. "Nah, forget it, I'm being dumb."

"I still miss more than just our sessions," Winter told her firmly, offering it when Ruby hadn't finished her question. "I miss YOU, all of you."

Ruby found no more words to say. Usually a chatterbox who let her mouth run, and she was completely speechless. All she could do was keep their close proximity, feel her cheeks beginning to heat up once more as Winter stared back at her. She always managed to make her blush… and this was no exception. After a brief check to make sure no one was around, she found her eyes wandering elsewhere. To Winter's eyes, her lips…

"Kiss me."

"Are you sure?" she breathed gently, allowing her index finger to brush down along Ruby's arm. "Someone might see. Or do you want them to see?" Quirking her lips, she whispered as she drifted closer, "Not that I would fault you if that was secretly what you wanted."

"I-I want…" She wanted everything to go the way it was meant to go when she first confessed her feelings for Winter. She wanted for them to be more, so much more. "I want you… I want to feel how you feel about me. Even after this long. I-if you still do."

At the more insistent wording, the lessening of ambiguity, Winter's eyes began to shimmer. Her throat tightened, and she leaned in yet closer. With only another second of hesitation, her lips took the younger woman's, hungrily and with great relish.

And she poured every last ounce of desire into her mouth as she kissed her back, as her hand slid up to rest upon her neck. For the first time, one of their kisses wasn't merely full of confidence, sensuality, desire. This time, there was so much affection - on a level closer to Penny's, though different in its own right. Open and earnest.

In the same way, Ruby felt her eyes closing in bliss. Her hand crept up and into Winter's hair, bringing her in closer. Her other hand was holding her glass as best she could, but even that was a struggle. In the movement and effort Winter displayed when she opened her lips slightly further, when she eased her tongue forward to brush against her own, she could feel it. This kiss was so completely different to what she had felt from her before, yet entirely familiar. Winter Schnee loved her, and she could tell from that single, honest kiss between them. And already she could feel tears welling up in her eyes all over again.

Though Winter continued to pour more and more of her affection into the contact, eventually it grew to be too powerful. She had to break away to whisper, "I thought I lost you forever!" before she threw her arms around Ruby, pushing her face into her neck and trembling all over as she tried not to break down entirely.

Although hesitant at first, Ruby eventually found the strength to hug right back, pulling her in tightly as she grasped the cardigan she was wearing. Everything was back, her scent, her touch; her. And she wouldn't have it any other way. What a fool she was to let it all go, to let such a thing slip away because of a pathetic argume-

"Guys, we're starting to open the presents!"

Yang happened to call as she stood by the conservatory door. Why did that have to happen now?! Thankfully, there was no awkwardness about the embrace; it simply looked like what Yang had intended for them, for Winter to have helped Ruby with her sadness. And that brought a smile to her face. "Awww, come on you nerds, get in here!"

Pulling back with a sniffle, she was sure not to do what she would have done - kiss Ruby again - and instead turned immediately to call, "Coming!" When addressing Ruby again, she whispered, "Are you going to be alright? I mean, I think I can dry it up, but we can linger a moment if you need to."

Moving the hand from the back of her head to her shoulder instead, she nodded. She desperately wanted to do the same, quickly lunge forward and kiss Winter. But that would have to wait until another time. "Y-yeah, we'd better. Yang's been worried about me."

"Yeah, she said. Your sister really cares for you; I'm glad you're so close." Biting her lip as she stroked Ruby's arm, down out of sight due to the bench, she whispered, "Maybe… she can be one of the first ones we tell, when we're ready. She and Weiss. I think they're the ones who might feel the most strange about us being anything other than sisters-in-law."

"Yeah… Yeah that's true. It would be a good idea." But it seemed at first, Ruby hadn't quite realised what that implied. Until she started to really think about it. And her eyes widened once she began to think on it more and more, before finally gasping, "You… want that with me? Like, to be completely out in the open? Really?"

"Possibly," she answered with a shy smile as she finally began to stand up, pulling Ruby to her feet alongside. "Depending on other factors. Mainly, you and Penny; if we did that, she would be part of a polyamorous relationship, even if she has no feelings for me. I don't want to put her in that position if she's not comfortable with it. And then we'll have to decide how we feel about each of the other people in our lives knowing about it in turn."

"Yeah, of course. If we don't handle this right, people would accuse me of being a cheater. And I don't want that – she doesn’t deserve to have people thinking that, either. Don't worry, I'll be talking to her about it soon."

Winter nodded, then couldn’t help grinning down at the little puppy. Now all hers – or at least, more hers than she had been expecting. "I can’t wait."

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

Love Isn’t Always On Time Part Twenty Three

Previous Part | Next Part | Masterlist Notes: These next few chapters are gonna be kinda Steve-heavy due to the nature of the MCU Not beta-read Warnings: Uuuuh none Summary: 

Steve caught on to modern technology quickly; I wasn't surprised, Steve was a clever man at the best of times. The attack on New York had thrust him back into the spotlight, the likes of which he hadn't known since he'd first gotten the serum and been put on the bond tours. 

I knew my novelty would wear off eventually. Steve and I were two different people in the first place - the difference was further felt in our time. Steve caught on to modern technology quickly; I wasn't surprised, Steve was a clever man at the best of times. The attack on New York had thrust him back into the spotlight, the likes of which he hadn't known since he'd first gotten the serum and been put on the bond tours. There were interview requests, tabloid papers speculating about his relationship with Tony Stark, Instagram accounts dedicated to Steve sightings (@CaptainRogersGetsCoffee was my favorite; it was literally just pictures of Steve walking down various blocks holding a variety of coffee cups and travel mugs). Between the bar work I wound up getting and the missions Fury started sending him on, Steve and I began to just miss each other. The time we spent together was more about 'the good old days' than it was about out time together now. We weren't as touchy, we weren't close. We didn't stay at one another's apartments. We were like friendly ex's, and while it stung at times, I knew that Steve needed to find who he was in that time.

That first year, Steve and I had a small Christmas celebration with the Avengers. Tony gave me a car after hearing me complain about the subway one too many times.  That second year in New York, I brought Steve home for Christmas. It turned out my grandfather had served in the 107th and I had had several narrow run-ins with him in my time in past; in mess-halls, meetings. My family still didn't know what I did for a living, so I was spared of questions, but they spent the night badgering Steve with questions about the war, about growing up. "They're nice people," He told me later as we sat on the stoop of my parents' Brooklyn brownstone. I nodded. "They are. I'm a fan." Steve snorted, taking a swig of the beer he'd been offered, even though the alcohol did nothing for him. I tightened my unzipped coat around myself a breeze blew by. "They like you," I added lightly, "My mom offered you a second slice of pie, that means she wants you to stick around." "...Wish I could stay, make her happy." I turned to Steve slowly, frowning. "What do you mean?" I asked quietly. -- "What's wrong?" I personally felt like it was a stupid question, but I knew that he was trying to draw me out. I’d been fairly tight-lipped since he’d dropped the news on me. I eyed Steve's suitcases for a few moments from my perch in the middle of his large bed, my knees to my chest, like I could fold myself up and tuck myself in with his shorts. "...I don't know. Last time I saw your things all packed up, you left as a 5'4 asthmatic and came back a 6'2 super-soldier. Next time, I see you you'll probably be, I don't know... 7 foot even and able to fly." That made Steve smile a little, at least. "I can't stay here," Steve said softly. I nodded. "I know. But the knowing doesn't make this easier." Fury's offer to work with S.H.I.E.L.D in DC was exactly what Steve needed. "I have no purpose here." "Not true. The Avengers need you. That whole... Thing with Tony that happened last year, that was intense," I pointed out. "Stark isn't the kind to ask for help," Steve argued. "Neither are you. That doesn't mean he doesn't need it. You needed help now and again-- Remember when we met? And you were--" "Getting the shit kicked out of me, yeah yeah. I had him on the ropes," Steve argued. I rolled my eyes, resting my chin on my knees. Steve sat on the bed, flopping down beside me. "It's what I need," He said softly, "To be...useful." I sighed, reaching out and running my hand through his hair. "You need a break, Steve. Sleeping for 60 years isn't it. You need a chance to just be you for a little while. No battles." "Battles are all I know." I couldn't meet his eye. "It won't always be like that," I said quietly. I hesitated before I leaned down, kissing Steve gently. "Take care of yourself," I added. Steve gripped my arm as I made to pull away. "Will you stay tonight?" He asked. I bit my lip, knowing it would keep my lip from wobbling as I steeled myself. "You can't stay here," I said softly, "And neither can I." I kissed him one more time before I pushed myself off of the bed. I didn't let myself cry until I was in the elevator and out of sight. Tag List: @gloryevans @redryderdesigns @winter-scolder @aactuaaltraash @secretagentben @staplerrrr @moli1497 @adayinmymeadow  @allonszassbutt @mannls @witch-of-letters  @niallssweetheart22 @uneniffler  @rinthehufflepuff @panic-angel3314  @firstangeldragonranch @kaetastic @mcuwillbethedeathofme @skeletoresinthebasement @i-dont-know-what-im-doing-yay​ @kkaos15 @iiamnotoverlyfondofwhatfollows  @bassclarinety @tomshelbystits @rvgrsbrns

[letstalkaboutsebbaby]

Something Kinda Funny - Chapter 1

In a night at work you meet the one guy you always thought only existed in movies. The handsome and troubled Frank would end up being way more than you expected.

Pairing: Frank x Female Reader Author: Deb @letstalkaboutsebbaby / @letswriteaboutsebbaby Rating: Mature Warnings: smut, mentions of drug use and prostitution. Adult situations, cheating and probably a lot of bad language.

This is certainly not that point in life when you have the job of your dreams. Yet. You remember yourself the “yet” is very meaningful. The routine is the same each night: the bar is always full till around 2 am, and then everyone goes away and you’re consumed by that feeling one gets when friends leave. Even though they’re not your friends - they’re the customers; a bunch of guys, mostly middle-aged married fellas pretending life is a joy. Well, what would someone expect from a small and old strip club? 

Looking up at the red clock you see that it’s 1:57AM. That’s the time when you have almost nothing to do so you serve the few men left, organize the shelves, talk with your friend and coworker Rafe and make stupid bets. Often when the shows are over and the music is not loud you like to put on a song at the jukebox at the other side of the room and dance your way back to the bar. That always earns you some extra dollars. Tonight on your way back to your position you see him, the low light annoying the hell out of you now cause you can’t point out the color of his eyes. Although he’s so handsome your body betrays you and stops dancing for a moment, your back getting rigid and a deep inhale of air surprising you; he looks troubled and you always had a soft spot for the stray dogs. As Rafe gives him a bottle of beer you resume your dance winking at the frequent clients while going back to the bar counter and sitting at the stool by the handsome man's side.

“Hi, you” you give your best flirty smile and wait for him to look at you. 

“Hey” by his sloppy answer the guy doesn’t seem eager to talk but it won’t hurt to push a little bit.

“You’re new” leaning a bit closer, you try to sniff his perfume. One factor you learned working at a club like this one is that you give a lot of importance to how a man smells - and he didn’t disappoint, he smells amazing! Woody with a hint of spicy. 

“I just need to put some beer inside of me” he responds tilting his beer towards you. Blue - he has dazzling icy blue eyes.

“Would that help with whatever is making you suffer?”

“Suffer..” he mumbles looking down “I just need to drink, seriously, sweetie. You’re cute but, I’m only here to get wasted”

“Oh, glad you think I’m cute. I’m not a hooker, though, I’m a bartender” you clarify walking back behind the counter. He looks a bit embarrassed and it’s about to say something but you look at him as if telling him to shut up, going to the opposite end of the bar to collect your tips.

The buzz you sense when you notice him staring while you pour drinks and shake cocktails is unfamiliar; on the other hand you can’t allege you weren’t exaggerating your moves and trying to act sexy. You can put on an act when you want to and you truly feel like torturing him for a bit. Not that you commonly hit on clients, but they’re not usually this handsome either. The owner of those lovely blue eyes stays there for about twenty minutes before collecting enough courage to talk to you again.

“I’m sorry...I didn’t mean to…”

“I work in a strip club, I’m not offended that you assumed things. Even though you should know even the strippers are not always hookers; Anyway..” Telling him your name, you reach out to shake his hand.

“Frank”

“Frank...You don’t look like a Frank.”

“No? What do I look like?” he stares at you with an intrigued look.

“A James, maybe...or I’m just projecting my James Dean dream all over you”

“Aren’t you too young to have James Dean dreams?”

“I’m not your usual 24 year old I guess”

“That’s nice. I like that. What’s the most interesting detail about you?”

“That’s too deep for a first talk, don’t you think?”

“You wanted to talk...”

“True...well, besides my shaking skills? I can read your future”

“For real?”

“Give me your hand, Frank, let’s see what’s in your path”

He stretches his hand towards you and you hold it, softly running your thumb on his palm. “That’s awfully curious. I see a woman” You feel like his eyes were searching for some answer, poor boy. So it was a woman. Isn’t it always a woman when guys cute as him end up in a bar like this? You don’t want to play with his feelings though so you just jest your way out of confusion. “A beautiful woman holding your hand and whispering you some bullshit just to draw you closer”.

He laughs. Your job is done.

“I’m an engineer” unwillingly you let go of his hand and turn around to pick yourself a shot. You’ll need it if he’s staying in front of you for a minute longer.

“Really?”

“Just finishing uni. It’s my last semester.”

“Congratulations. That’s why you work here?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Big tips at least. Hopefully, I’ll be renovating old buildings in 6 months”

“You should give a look at the place I live in” he murmured.

“Is that an invitation?” you try to act coy but in reality you would never ever want anything with a compromised man.

“Nope” he smiles and you lose him for a moment. His eyes traveling all over your body as if considering the possibility. You know your clothes are provocative, it’s part of the plan to increase the tips. “And I’m not even believing myself, but I really can’t”

“Great, cause I can’t either and I would never be able to resist you. A shot to celebrate our strength?”

“Yep, let’s do this”

Pouring two shots, you offer him one. He stares at you with an intensity you’re not used to but you return the action just as strongly before taking the burning liquid down your throat. You have a feeling this is not the last time you’ll see Frank.

[pandawritespoorly]

With Time: Chapter 16 - Wrong Person

Author’s Note: Happy Thanksgiving! Or just happy normal Thursday if you don't celebrate! Either way you get a bonus update!

Warning for strong language! (I don't know how necessary it is for me to add these warnings every time, but I feel like someone might appreciate it, so why not). This chapter contains: 'asshole', 'bitch' twice, 'fuck' twice, 'cunt', and 'fucking'. Also, Alya's texts are pretty clear bullying, so tread carefully if that might upset you.

Chapter Summary: Marinette feels guilty about telling Alya she won't be Rena Rouge anymore on the day before her birthday. Alya lets her exactly know how she feels about her former best friend now.

First | Previous | Next

Marinette is in a terrible mood. Her day had started badly. She couldn’t find her phone for a bit, and barely found it in time - stuffed in the back of a drawer. She has no idea how it got there. That really isn’t the biggest contributor to her mood though, it’s yesterday’s events.

She just feels so guilty. She’s supposed to be a good person and what she did…

Poor Nino. Poor Alya.

Alya… wait.

Today is her birthday! Marinette broke her heart on the day before her birthday.

What an asshole.

She can’t worry her friends though. They put up with her enough that if they found out what she’d done it’d probably be the final straw. 

Maybe she can cover up her misery with her sleepiness. It is pretty cold today. Paris is having a colder winter than usual this year it would seem.

“Are you quite alright, Marinette?” Felix and her are on their way to the library for the morning. 

So much for that, seeing as Felix already noticed, “Jus’ tired.” 

He looks unconvinced by her lie, so it would seem she deceived him for no reason. Stupid girl, can’t follow her own rules correctly. 

As they approach the table, Marinette hears one of them mention the Ladyblog.

“What?” Did Alya post something? Do they finally know what she’s done? Is this the last time she can hang out with them?

“Did you hear? The Ladyblog is gone. That Alya girl took it down!” Claude sounds shocked.

“She was pretty proud of it, from what I understand.” Allan adds.

“I never really used it anyways. I don’t really like her anyways…” Allegra’s voice sounds cold. Marinette didn’t know she knew Alya.

“Really? I think Alya’s pretty nice.” She should stick up for her ex-best friend, especially after what she pulled last night. It takes all her concentration to speak normally. They shouldn’t all have to deal with her slurred and mumbled tired nonsense.

The other four turn to her, slight confusion evident on their faces. What did she do this time? Allan speaks up, “We weren’t sure you knew her.” 

Marinette gets the feeling there’s something he’s leaving out, but she gets it. She shouldn’t be trusted with most things. Besides, they don’t know all her secrets anyways - it’s only fair.

Of course, now she’s dug herself a hole. In her effort to defend Alya, she’s removed all the distance she tried to put between her old classmates and her new friends.

“Uh, well, ummm, I use’ t’ read the Ladyblog a lot…” Her nervousness makes her stumble over the words slightly. She’s supposed to be pretending to be fine! Get it together! 

Allegra frowns, “I met her after that akuma attack here. She didn’t make a great first impression.”

Oh. Right. That’s when they met.

They’d also met her then…

The group notices the way she stares intensely at the table. 

Claude puts an arm around her, “Anyways, you seem pretty awake today Mari! Find some way to fight the winter?”

“No, um, I’m just trying to seem kinda’ awake today…”

Allan frowns, seemingly picking up on what exactly she meant by that, “‘Nette if you’re tired you can rest.”

She shrugs. It’s tiring to pretend she’s fine, especially considering that she’s still dwelling on the events of yesterday evening. She can’t bother her new friends though. She’s been lax in being better to them. She should never have let her guard down - who knows what could have happened. 

Her water bottle is handed to her, “At least drink some water then.”

She does as she’s told. She’d forgotten how great water is. 

Their short time before class starts passes quickly to the stressed and tired girl. As they’re standing to go, Allegra turns to the boys, “Oh, I might be a little late to lunch today. I’m practicing extra for Concours d'arts musicaux.”

“Alright.”

The two girls head to class. They sit in their seats as the teacher walks in, Marinette is barely paying attention, too focused on staying awake and thinking about how terrible she is. She misses Allegra’s occasional concerned glances. 

---

Allan and Felix had left to get their lunches from their lockers, and Claude is in line for his lunch, so Marinette is at the table alone. Claude had mentioned that they had one of Allegra’s favorite foods today,

She unlocks her phone and taps the first ‘Al’ she sees, sending a quick text to let her know. Her phone dings immediately.

 Alya: you have some nerve texting me bitch

Alya: i know what you’ve done you worthless human trash

Alya: you disgust me

 What? Marinette is so confused. She hasn’t done anything to Alya as Marinette recently. She knows that she’s awful, but why is Alya so mad at Marinette still?

Had she really been that bad of a friend?

 Alya: you left and you’re still messing everything up

Alya: bullying? really? 

Alya: were you planning on ever revealing just how sickenly cruel you are

Alya: lila told us what you did to Ladybug

Alya: im horrified i ever called someone like her my hero. She’s just like you

 Marinette doesn’t even consider how Alya’s contact got on her phone. It’s like when people stare at something horrifying. She can’t look away, and her grip on her phone tightens.

The difference for Marinette is that this is the confirmation she’s been expecting. It’s everything she’s thought of herself, and it’s straight from someone she cares about.

She had really been right all along. It hurts and she tears up. 

All her rules were for nothing.

Marinette really is a terrible person.

---

Claude had finally gotten out of the line. Of all the days for the line to move slowly, it had to be today. The rest of the group had noticed too - Marinette seemed extra off today. They were pretty sure it had something to do with the Ladyblog, but there’s little they can do, other than be there.

He’s been trying to be extra cheery today, hoping it could make at least a slight difference. 

He approaches the table and before he can even open his mouth he notices something is very wrong.

Marinette is staring at her phone silently and there are tears streaming down her face.

He has only her cry once before, and she’d stopped herself quickly. There hadn’t even been that many tears - but now? They just keep coming.

He sets his tray down and rushes to her side, “Marinette? Is something wrong?”

She doesn’t say anything, clearly having an attack and not at all paying attention to what’s around her. She’s hyperventilating and he really wishes he knew what happened. She flinches as her phone dings again, he reads the message with her and it becomes clear what’s going on.

 Alya: you conceited cunt you left and things are still going wrong and it’s all your fault

Alya: i hate you so much

 What.

The.

Fuck.

He had figured that Alya and Marinette knew each other, but why were they texting? 

Is this Marinette’s idea of a ‘nice person’?

Everytime the phone dings she flinches, but she reads the message anyways. He puts a hand on her shoulder and she doesn’t even notice.

“Marinette? Can you hear me?”  He speaks softly, and she continues staring at her screen like a lifeline. He tries to take it out of her hands, but she has a stronger grip than he would have expected.

People are starting to glance over at her, and he figures that being in crowded cafeteria isn’t helping matters.

“Marinette, do you want to leave?” She remains silent, only whimpering as the phone dings again.

He makes a command decision, scooping Marinette up. Her small frame makes her very light. She doesn’t even seem to notice. He leaves their bags behind, no one will touch them.

As he’s exiting the cafeteria, he sees Felix and Allan as they’re entering. The two notice him and the short girl immediately and rush to him. 

“What happened?”

“Is Marinette okay?”

“I’m not sure about that, but she’s definitely not okay. I’m bringing her to the library - it should be quieter there. Can you grab our stuff?” They nod, hurrying to grab the bags and food. As he’s entering the library he sees Allegra who notices the little procession and hurriedly follows, the other two fill her in as best they can as Claude sets Marinette down on the couch.

The phone dings for the upteenth time

“Oh fuck.” The others look at him in surprise.

“Just what exactly is going on?” Allegra asks.

“Try and get her phone away from her - you’ll see. I’m going to text Adrien to see if can get that bully to stop texting her.” They turn to the girl as he pulls out his phone and send a quick text to the model. He looks up just as Allegra reads the ongoing texts.

“That fucking bitch!”

“Oh Marinette…” 

Felix stays concerningly quiet, but his anger is clear.

Claude steps closer, watching as Allan continues to try to pry the device from Marinette’s hands. Now that he’s had a chance to look at it properly, Claude has realized that the phone in her hands isn’t hers - or not her usual one.

The case certainly looks like something she would choose, but it’s not the one he’s familiar with, and he’s willing to bet that her backgrounds are different too. 

It’s been a moment and the notifications have died down. It would seem Adrien had been successful. The phone turns off and Marinette continues to stare at the blank screen.

“Marinette? Sweetie, can you look at me?” Allan continues to try and draw her out of her daze. The girl has yet to respond to any of them, focused entirely on that phone, which is now dotted with her tears. Her breathing hasn’t evened and Claude’s beginning to worry she’ll faint. The group is sitting around her, trying to give her space while still watching her in concern.

Now that the texts are finished, Claude decides to try once more to pry the phone from her once more. He succeeds and tries to unlock it, to see just what was sent to the poor girl.

Marinette’s usual password works, letting him in. He scrolls back to the beginning of it, Marinette sent a simple text clearly meant for Allegra, and the response had been immediate. Reading the texts he feels tears prick at his eyes. He knew that they’d guessed Marinette had been bullied, but this? It was all so hateful. 

He’s willing to bet that this is the source of Marinette’s low self-esteem.

“Claude? Is everything alright?” Felix notices his distress, looking at him in concern.

Claude hands him the phone, “Just- read it. I-” He cuts himself off, shaking his head and turning his attention back to the pigtailed girl who hasn’t spoken yet.

Allan is tapping a steady rhythm on her hand gently, trying to help her steady her breathing. After a moment she seems to come back to herself.

She glances around at them in a terrified manner, unsure of how she got to the library and fearful of the consequences she’s sure she’s about to receive. They’re going to hate her now. Look what she’d done. She’s definitely broken several rules now. 

Alya confirmed for her that they’re useless, but Marinette’s considered them a safe constant in her life. She can’t help but cling to them.

 Rule #1: Don’t cry

Rule #2: Smile

Rule #3: Be nice to people

Rule #11: Adrien, Claude, Allegra, Allan, and Felix have been nice enough to put up with you, don’t make them regret it.

Rule #12: Don’t do anything that could attract an akuma to you

 That’s five rules in one go. Stupid. 

“I’m sorry.”

She says it once, then twice, then speeds up, repeating it over and over again.

“I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry…”

“Mari, there’s nothing to apologize for. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Allan interrupts her and she looks at him in bafflement.

She did do something wrong though. She broke five rules. In one incident. The only thing she could do is follow the other rules as best she can.

 Rule #4: Apologize when you mess up (again)

 “Marinette, really. He’s right. You did nothing wrong.” Allegra moves closer to the girl on the couch, “That Alya-girl was spewing a bunch of nonsense. You’re amazing.”

Marinette looks unconvinced, hugging her arms to herself tightly.

“‘Nette, really. We don’t know what happened, but it wasn’t your fault.”

“It is. I messed up.”

Felix finally puts the phone down, “I highly doubt that.”

Marinette looks down and doesn’t respond.

“Mari. Really. You’re a great person. She’s wrong.” Claude rests a hand on her shoulder. 

Marinette only covers her face and curls into herself further.

“Oh, ‘Nettie…” Allan squeezes her hand consolingly. 

She doesn’t speak, just remaining like that as they sit nearby, unsure of how to what to say.

They sit for a some time with her. Eventually, she slumps to the side and Allegra puts an arm around her. The girl is exhausted, both from the cold and from the events of the day. 

“You can go home early, Mari…” Claude tells her.

She stiffens, and shakes her head. It’s understandable, considering how close her old school is to her home.

Allegra hugs her tighter. They talk quietly while Marinette rests. Eventually lunch ends, but they don’t plan on leaving. They can miss a few classes.

Marinette has other plans, stirring as she mumbles something about going to class.

“‘Nette you don’t need to go to class. You’ve had a long day.”

She shakes her head, standing unsteadily, and making her way away from them.

They hurry to catch up with her, “Are you sure you want to go to class? You don’t have to.”

“It’s what I’m supposed to do.” Stupid girl. Worthless trash. She can’t just keep doing whatever she pleases, there are people depending on her- a whole city’s worth. 

“It might not be what you should be doing.”

The group arrives at the classroom and Felix and Allegra say goodbye, the latter giving Marinette another quick, tight hug before going on her way.

Allan and Claude walk with her to their usual seats. Claude forgoing the rules to sit with them three to a bench. 

Marinette shuts herself down. It hurts too much to think about how much of a failure she is. 

Soon enough, she gives into the cold, falling asleep sitting up. Claude shifts her to rest against him so that she doesn’t fall. The two sit with her in concern. Allan hasn’t seen all of the texts, but still has a good enough idea of what happened.

At least she’s resting now.

When class is over they walk her to her next one. She’s silent, seemingly within her own head. 

“I could just skip… it’s only a work day today and the teacher likes me…” Claude’s speaking to both, but Marinette doesn’t react. He’s worried and doesn’t exactly want to leave her alone for an hour. He’s still on edge, wondering if an akuma will come her way.

Surprisingly, Allan doesn’t try to talk his friend out of it, just shrugging, “If that’s what you want to do, I won’t stop you. I’ve got to get to class though. Bye Claude. Take care of yourself Marinette.”

She only blinks.

Claude stays with her during the next hour, the girl doesn’t speak, and he isn’t entirely sure she’s paying attention.

He passes her off to Felix for the last hour of school before heading to his own class.

---

The day has ended and the group is heading out together. Marinette is still quiet. They hear someone running up to them. Adrien appears at their side.

“Hey.” He glances at Marinette, taking in her blank stare and too-steady breathing, “Again? Oh Mari…” 

Allegra turns to him, “‘Again’?”

He hesitates, eventually settling on just saying,”Last time, she kind of… shut down.”

“‘Last time’?” Allegra is seething.

“What exactly happened?” He turns to the group questioningly.

“She’s got the wrong phone.” Claude hands Adrien the phone in question, “She texted that girl and…” He unlocks the phone and spins it toward him.

Adrien reads through the messages, and it sounds like he growls. Allegra and Allan read it next.

Allegra seems to be practically buzzing in anger now, and the rest of the group is similarly upset. Marinette remains still.

They walk to Marinette’s house, sticking close to her. As they climb into her room, Adrien is standing beside Marinette. As he’s directing her up the stairs, she blinks and turns to him, speaking quietly, “I want to tell them.”

He smiles at her softly, “That’s a good idea, Mari.”

It’s time to finally tell the others why she transferred.

---

Author’s Note: Yay! She's finally going to tell them!

This event was actually one of the first things I thought up for this story. It was originally wasn't going to happen until February and was going to lead to a reveal, but it got moved around timeline-wise, so that got scrapped. Then it got moved back, but by then I had a new reveal scenario that I liked better, so you'll have to keep waiting for that.

Next chapter will be Saturday as usual! It's a bit of a reprieve from everything I've been putting Marinette through. We get to see plenty of cute interactions between the Quantics and their new friends. It doesn't even have a strong language warning! Imagine that!

Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any thoughts, theories, constructive criticism, or anything really in my ask box or through reblogs. I love seeing what you think!

First | Previous | Next

[pessimisticlatte]

Glass Roses ~ Chapter 22

Adrienette/Adrinette ~ Marichat ~ Nathalie x Happiness ~ Gabriel x Ceasing Existing ~ Me x crying because my baby is finally done and I can start working on other fics

THIS IS THE FINAL CHAPTER OF GLASS ROSES, GUYS!!! I’m currently writing the prologue because I feel like a prologue is needed to tie up some loose ends (cough, comatose Emilie, cough). All chapters will be uploaded to AO3 for on demand viewing. If you’ve been reading since chapter 1, thank you so much for your support and I seriously hope you’ll read my next fic (it’s already in the works because I couldn’t help myself)! Anyway, on with the show...

“Hello, I’m Nadja Chamack with today’s news. The supervillain known as Hawkmoth was apprehended today after Ladybug and Chat Noir provided evidence to the police on his identity and his direct involvement to the ‘akumatisation’ of Parisians. Gabriel Agreste, renowned fashion designer and head of the Agreste brand, was revealed to be behind Hawkmoth’s mask, his son, Adrien, newly 18 has taken over as CEO of the Agreste Brand with Ms Nathalie Sancouer, Gabriel Agreste’s former assistant, acting as his proxy. Ms Sancouer has also confirmed that she has, in fact, adopted Adrien Agreste and that she has made the decision to remove Adrien from the public eye for the time being. Police Captain Raincomprix has set up police units surrounding the Agreste mansion to ensure that Mr Agreste and Ms Sancouer’s privacy is respected. 

“This devastating discovery comes a week after Adrien’s 18th birthday, which was held at the Chateau de Agreste in Alsace last Friday, where Ladybug, Chat Noir and the rest of their superhero team were said to have been in attendance. One of our interns was lucky enough to be at the celebration itself and capture footage of one of the superheroes, known as Queen Bee, saved a civilian as they took a fall from a balcony. It’s confirmed that this civilian is okay and taking some much needed rest at home with their family. Gabriel Agreste is currently being held at La Sante prison without bail and heavy restrictions regarding visitors; the date for his trial has not yet been set but the Ministere Public has released a statement saying that it will begin soon and will not be open to public viewing as a normal case would be.

“That’s all for tonight, I’m Nadja Chamack, don’t be bemused, it’s just the news!”

Leaning against the doorframe, Adrien watched Nathalie switch the tv off and stand, slightly shakily, before she turned to face him with a sad smile.

“Are you okay?” Moving around the couch, Nathalie gently placed her hands on Adrien’s shoulders and looked up at him with worried eyes. He was stressed and not taking his father’s arrest well, though Nathalie had seen first hand that Marinette was more stressed about Gabriel’s arrest than Adrien was and she had to wonder if Adrien was worried for his father at all or if the haggard, reserved look on his face came from worry for someone else entirely.

“I’m fine but I don’t think you should be the one asking that. How’s your head?” Looking at the bandage afixed to Nathalie’s temple, Adrien checked that no blood was spotting the white linen as a tell tale sign of her having torn her stitches again. After her fall from the balcony, Nathalie had needed 8 stitches and had been prescribed medicine for her blood pressure, once news had gotten out about Gabriel being Hawkmoth, her doctor’s demeanor had changed to become one more understanding of the situation the poor woman was in. 

“It’s alright, Adrien, I haven’t torn them again,” The night after Nathalie had come home from the hospital, she’d had a severe panic attack as she stepped through the doors of the Agreste mansion. The attack ending with her having torn 6 of her stitches and requiring the Agreste family’s preferred doctor to come to the mansion to stitch her up again. “I sent an email to all the news stations this morning asking that they respect our privacy. I doubt they will but at least Nadja Chamack has the dignity to say that we want it.”

“You need to worry less, Mum,” Hooking Nathalie’s arm into the crook of his elbow, Adrien led her to the dining room and helped her into her chair, right across the table from him. “Sabine and Mari dropped over a lasagna a few hours ago, I just took it out of the oven so I’ll be right back, okay?” Adrien dropped a kiss to the top of Nathalie’s forehead before disappearing through the salon doors leading into the kitchen.

After the whole Hawkmoth debacle, Nathalie and Adrien had decided to cut down on the amount of staff within the mansion. They’d made sure to hand write letters of recommendation for each of the staff members they’d let go, making sure to sign with both their names to ensure that Gabriel’s now tarnished reputation wouldn’t hinder them in getting new employment. The mansion felt even bigger and more empty without them but Nathalie had to admit that it felt even more like a home now that it was just her, Adrien and, occasionally, Jean-Luc Gorrille. She’d begun to look at smaller places for them to live, Adrien having caught her looking at some and having lit up so brightly at the idea of living somewhere smaller, quieter, easier to turn from just a house and into a home. She’d never been happier.

Emerging from the kitchen with two steaming plates of lasaga, a set of cutlery held in his mouth as another hung precariously between his fingers beneath one of the plates, Adrien tried to announce himself with a muffled ‘ta-da’ before he placed Nathalie’s plate down in front of her carefully and handed her the cutlery he’d been holding beneath the plate. Taking his set out of his mouth, Adrien moved around the table and took his seat.

“You know, it’s actually kinda sad,” Using his fork to cut away a small chunk of the lasagna, Adrien looked up at Nathalie with a wry smile.

“What’s kinda sad?”

“That neither of us can cook and yet we’re the ones preparing our meals,” 

“I hope you mean ‘preparing’ very loosely because all you did was heat this up, Sabine and Marinette made it,”

“Damnit, Mum, why’ve you got to go ruining everything?” Laughing, Adrien spoke with joking accusation in his voice as he pointed his fork at Nathalie.

“Language, young man!” Kicking the joke right back to Adrien, Nathalie’s laughed joined his. “Or I’ll have to wash your mouth out with soap and send you off to your room!”

“Remember when you actually had to wash my mouth out with soap?” 

“Yes! How could I forget?”

Sitting at the table together, reminiscing about happy memories of the past, both Nathalie and Adrien were given the very rare chance to forget about what was happening beyond the walls of the mansion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leaning against the railing bordering her balcony, wind ruffling her dark hair as it lifted off the seine, Marinette looked out across the city toward the Agreste mansion.

“Hey Princess,” Dropping down behind her on light feet, Chat Noir walked up to his girlfriend and wrapped his black clad arms around her waist, pressing a kiss to her shoulder as she leant back into his warmth

“Hey Chaton,” Nuzzling her head up under his chin, she felt him squeeze her more tightly against him. “How’re you feeling?”

“I’m alright, I think I did my grieving for him a long time ago,”

“I feel guilty...it feels like I took him away from you,”

Pressing a firm kiss to the crown of her head, Chat gently rubbed his thumb across Mari’s stomach. “You can’t take away something that wasn’t there in the first place, Mari,”

“But what if he could’ve changed?” It sounded as if she was pleading with him. Shaking his head, rubbing his chin against the top of her head as he did, Chat refrained from telling Marinette that his father wasn’t worthy of her remorse or guilt because he knew that it wouldn’t change anything, it wouldn’t change her mind or take away how she was feeling. “What if he could’ve changed, Adrien, and I took that chance away from him?”

“We’ll never know, Princess, and sometimes it’s better not knowing,”

“Ignorance is bliss, isn’t it?”

“To some people, maybe, but for us, I’d like to think that ignorance is happiness. If we stop asking ‘what if’ then we won’t have to feel the same pain twice,”

“Sometimes you say the smartest things and I have seriously no idea where it comes from,”

“It only happens when Nino lets me use the braincell,”

“Nino lets you use the braincell?” Mari let out a deep, rich laugh. “Which one of you broke it then because it almost never seems to work.”

“No comment,”

“Saying ‘no comment’ is still commenting,”

“You’re too smart for your own good,”

“Well, Chaton, one of us has to be otherwise god knows what would’ve happened to Paris by now,”

Pointing out toward the Eiffel Tower with a claw tipped finger, a grin hidden in her hair, Chat drew Mari’s attention to the colours dancing upon it. “Well, there would be a big statue of me right over there, big enough for you to see from here and swoon over,”

“What about a statue of me?”

“Hmmm,” He pretended to think for a moment, drawing giggles out of the girl in his arms. “I think I’d put a statue of you right outside my window so I could look at it all the time.”

“That’s kinda creepy,”

“Then, instead of a statue, how about you just stand outside my window forever?”

“Oh my god, no,” Thinking of the snowfall of Paris winters and the stifling gummy heat of French summers, Mari shuddered. “No, no thank you.”

“How about a compromise then?”

“What compromise do you suggest?”

“I get to look at you all the time ‘cause you live with me,” 

Mari paused, her heart thundering in time with Chat’s against her back. “Let me finish university and then we’ll see,”

“You got accepted?” Pulling away from her, Chat turned her around slightly to look Marinette in the eye, gently pressing her back against the cold iron railing behind her.

“Yeah, I got accepted for a fashion and design degree,” 

“Oh my god, I’m so proud of you,” Gripping the backs of Mari’s thighs, Chat lifted her up onto the railing and held her securely, more wary of balconies and such since Nathalie’s fall on his birthday, before pressing his lips to hers firmly. “I don’t know if there’s a time when I’m ever not proud of you.”

“Sometimes, you make no sense at all,” Wrapping her arms around his neck, Marinette pulled Chat Noir back into their kiss, the two of them illuminated by the lights of Paris and of the silvery moon beyond. This was a new world, a world without Hawkmoth, and there wasn’t a way in hell that either of them were going to let it slip through their fingers.

~~~~~~TAGLINE~~~~~~~ @lady-charinette @mochegato @maniic-pixie-dream-girl @aussie-lesbian @imgaydontshoot @hnbutt @katieykat513 @itwasmydog @camelliaflwr @beauty-and-her-books @a-star-with-a-human-name @severalverysmallmangoesinabasket

[hunnywrites]

We Fell In Love In October: Part One

Summary: Billy and Teddi celebrate Halloween in 1986.

A/N: This is probably just going to be one or two chapters. I was inspired by this gif set to write it honestly. There’s technically a spoiler for the end of Arcade Dreams in this series, but unless you really, really look for it you won’t get spoiled. Also, if you’re wondering about Tina’s Halloween party, I wrote about it in the Chasing Yesterday series. Enjoy!

“Listen, kid, it’s not my problem that you came in two days before Halloween looking for Friday the 13th. We don’t have it. I don’t care if you’re being Jason for Halloween.” Steve Harrington was leaning across the counter of Hawkins Family Video, glaring down at a ten year old that had come in demanding the first three Friday the 13th movies. 

Teddi was hovering awkwardly by the register. Technically her shift had ended three minutes ago. She was waiting for Billy to come pick her up. But it was a little hard to watch Steve go toe to toe with the kid. “Uh, Steve? You need some help?” she asked carefully.

Steve held his hand up. “No, Teddi. I got this. Look kid, either you pick something else out, or you can go home and watch Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin with your mom. I don’t really care! Now. Would you like to see our selection of horror movies?” he asked, looking down at the boy with an expectant look. Teddi tried her best not to laugh as the kid followed Steve to the back of the store, glowering up at the back of his head. Having Steve and Robin working with her at the video store and the arcade had definitely made things more entertaining. 

The familiar rumble of the Camaro’s engine filled the parking lot outside. Teddi turned to the door, watching Billy saunter across the lot and inside. His usual, casual smirk appeared on his lips when he spotted Teddi. He leaned in to kiss her, running his fingers through her hair and pulling out a piece of cobweb. He looked at it with a raised eyebrow. “Been grave robbing, Weird Girl?” he asked.

Teddi smiled sheepishly. “Nothing that glamourous,” she joked. “I was decorating the store and over at the arcade.” she pointed at the front windows. Teddi had strung up spiderwebs, paper mache ghosts and some purple blinking lights in the video store’s windows. There were little light up pumpkins scattered throughout the store, and little shiny, plastic bats hanging from the ceiling tiles. Next to the register there was a giant cauldron filled with candy. “Can you believe I get paid to do this stuff?” 

“Not at all,” he teased. “You ready to get out of here?” 

“And start the Halloween festivities?” Teddi asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet and grinning widely. She had the next two days off, and she had made Billy promise that they would try and fit in as much Hallloween fun as possible. It had been surprisingly easy to get him to agree, but then Halloween had always been their favorite holiday. 

“Yeah, yeah. Halloween festivities. Are you sure you’re set on everything?” he asked, wincing a little. Teddi only looked at him. “...That’s what I figured,” he sighed. “So what’s first then?” 

Teddi thought for a moment, quickly running through the list of things she wanted to accomplish. “Apple cider,” she finally decided. “Come on,” she squeaked, taking Billy by the hand. “Bye, Steve!” she called over her shoulder.

“Later, Harrington!” Billy threw up his hand in a short wave. Steve was still in the horror movie section with the angry ten year old. He gave them both a sarcastic smile, flipping them off as they hurried out of the video store. Teddi hurried past the Camaro and down the sidewalk. “Hey, wait my car-” Billy complained.

“It’s right there, Billy. You can walk.” Teddi argued, nearly dragging him across the street and to the small coffee shop that was on Hawkins’ main street. Hawkins was decorated for Halloween as well. There was a scarecrow sitting in the large lawn that sat in front of Town Hall. He was surrounded by bales of hay and uncarved pumpkins. The lamp posts had bright orange flags hanging off of them with a happy jack-o-lantern telling the people of Hawkins to come to the big Halloween bash in two days. The store fronts were decorated much like Teddi had decorated the video store and arcade. Paper ghosts, pumpkins, bats and Frankensteins greeted customers that walked past. There was a cold bite to the air, but just enough that Teddi could stand. The orange and red leaves crunched under her boots with each step. She loved the fall. 

Teddi’s fingers linked with Billy’s as they headed inside the coffee shop and ordered them each a hot apple cider. “Jesus, I haven’t had this stuff since I was a kid.” he mumbled after taking a slow sip. 

Teddi blew on her own to help cool it off and pulled a face. “How is that even possible?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. My mom used to take me to these farmer’s markets when I was a kid. Can you really picture Neil going to get apple cider and picking out pumpkins?” he let out a chuckle at the idea. Teddi definitely couldn’t imagine anything like that. Teddi couldn’t imagine Neil doing anything fun. 

Billy had started to speak about his mom more and more ever since the incident at the Starcourt mall over a year ago. Teddi appreciated him being open, but she knew it was hard for him. “...Are you gonna be okay with all this? We can always just go home and watch some scary movies.” she said carefully. 

They made it back to the Camaro, and the pair slipped inside. “I’m fine...just no corn mazes. I draw the line at corn mazes.” he leaned across Teddi and popped the glove compartment open. He grabbed a small, metal flask and poured some of the contents into his apple cider.

“...Are you spiking your apple cider? Right in front of me?” Teddi asked with raised eyebrows.

Billy paused for a moment, looking at her unsurely before slowly handing his flask over. Teddi poured some of the whiskey into her own cup with a pleased look. “So what’s on the agenda now?” he asked.

“We’re gonna go pick out some pumpkins, pick up a pizza and have a movie marathon.” she grinned. “I’ve carefully curated a stack of movies back at home.” 

“You ever think of just going with the flow?” Billy asked with a teasing grin.

“Excuse me,” Teddi scoffed. “I go with the flow all the time. We are going to casually watch the stack of movies I’ve picked out and casually carve pumpkins and we’re casually gonna have loads of fun.”

Billy only laughed and shook his head. “Whatever you say, Weird Girl,”

There was a pumpkin patch just on the edge of town. On the drive over Teddi traded her Family Video shirt for a fuzzy, light blue sweater. She shot Billy a stern look every time she caught him looking at her and not the road while she changed. Once they made it to the pumpkin patch, Billy groaned when he saw the amount of people milling around looking for their pumpkins to carve. Teddi of course didn’t seem to mind. Billy followed along behind her, lighting a cigarette before shoving his hands into the pockets of his jean jacket. “...What exactly is it we’re looking for?” he asked carefully. Teddi bent over at nearly every pumpkin, giving them a small knock on the side before turning it to see the whole pumpkin.

“We need big ones. And they have to be thick. Otherwise it can break easily when you’re carving.” she explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 

“And when did you become such a pumpkin carving expert?”

She paused a little, like she was deciding if she wanted to give an honest answer. “...Back in New York, my friends and I would carve pumpkins and then go smash them on people’s porches.” she mumbled. Just when he thought Teddi couldn’t surprise him again, she’d pull out a story like that.

“Jesus, Larsson. You were a delinquent.” he laughed.

Teddi stuck her tongue out at him and picked up a pumpkin. “At least I never set a cat corpse on fire.” she said cooly, knocking on the pumpkin. 

Billy scoffed, the toe of his boot kicking at the grass. He blew out a puff of smoke in her direction. “That was one time. And I’m gonna kill Max for telling you that story. How come we didn’t bring her along for this anyways? Don’t kids like this kinda stuff?” 

Teddi set her pumpkin down and shrugged. “I asked. She said carving pumpkins isn’t cool apparently. And I think she’d rather spend time with Lucas,” she said with a small laugh. 

Billy groaned. Teddi had helped hide Max and Lucas’ relationship from him for nearly a year. Billy had walked in on the two of them kissing and he’d nearly had an aneurysm. Lucas hadn’t been allowed over for about two weeks after until Teddi talked Billy out of it. 

“This one!” she exclaimed, holding up a large, round pumpkin. “I’m picking this one. Now we have to find one for you. See any you like?”

Billy blew out an irritated puff of smoke and surveyed the pumpkins around him. He jabbed his finger at freakishly large, lumpy pumkin. “How ‘bout that one?” Teddi only blinked at him. Billy let out a sigh, clamping his cigarette between his lips and picking the pumpkin up. He knocked on it three times. “How’s that sound?” he asked with an expectant look.

Teddi surveyed the pumpkin. “...I know you’re just doing this so we can get out of here, but that’s like a perfect pumpkin. I mean, it’s way too heavy to throw onto someone’s porch, but perfect for carving.” 

While Teddi paid for their pumpkins, Billy dutifully carried them back to the car and set them in the back seat. While this definitely wasn’t how he would spend their two days off, Billy supposed he was willing to put up with it all once he saw how happy it made Teddi. He even agreed to get pineapple on half of their pizza like she liked. Now they were home. Teddi had run out to their shed and grabbed some tools to carve the pumpkins while Billy laid out some old newspapers on the livingroom floor. 

Teddi walked back in, tossing a pack of thumb tacks and two pencils onto the newspapers along with the other tools. Billy raised his eyebrows. “The hell’s this for?” he asked.

She shot him a look as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The pencils are so we can draw out our design first. And then you use the thumb tack to poke these little holes along the outline so it’s easier to carve.” she explained.

Billy watched her as she crawled over to their tv, picking up a copy of Halloween and sticking the tape into the vcr player. “...Where did you learn all of this?” he asked. Teddi turned to him with a frown. “I mean, smashing them on people’s porches, yeah. But where did you learn all of this?” he asked, motioning to all of her pumpkin carving supplies.

Teddi had an almost guilty look as she began drawing a face on her pumpkin. “...My dad,” she finally confessed. Billy didn’t say anything. He was a little too surprised to think of how to respond. “It was after he got his new fancy job, back in New York. Things were bad before, but when he got his promotion he was...nice. I mean, for him. For awhile. They never wanted to take me trick or treating or anything like that, but he taught me how to carve pumpkins when I was little...I don’t know,” she shrugged. “It’s like...the one happy memory I have of him I guess.”

Billy realized how utterly depressing it was that they both loved Halloween so much. It had just been a way for them to cling to the few happy memories from their childhoods. And it was obvious that she felt guilty for having any happy memories with her complete asshole of a father. Now he felt like a dick for not being more enthusiastic about the whole thing. Billy didn’t say anything. He just picked up his pencil and started to draw what he thought looked like a scary face. “...You want me to take you trick or treating?” he asked.

Teddi cracked a smile. “Thanks, but I think I’m a little too old now.” she joked. They fell into a comfortable silence while they scooped the insides of their pumpkins out and emptied them out into a bowl. Billy took his eyes momentarily off of the movie and looked over to Teddi. She was off in her own world, absently playing with the pumpkin guts.

Billy stopped carving his pumpkin and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “...You okay there, Ted?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah....I was just thinking of the life of a pumpkin. Grow up in the sun, happily entwined with others...and then someone comes along, cuts you open, and rips your guts out.” she sighed. 

Billy only blinked at her. Great. Now Teddi was depressed. “You uh...you’re kinda bumming me out here, Weird Girl.” he said carefully. 

As if he had said some magic words to snap her out of her stupor, Teddi shook her head wildly. “Whoa. Sorry.” she let out an embarrassed laugh. 

“I thought the whole point of all this was to have fun?” Billy said, carving one of the eyes out of his pumpkin and discarding it in the bowl. “Y’know, think of all the fun stuff about Halloween? Remember when we got wasted at Tina’s Halloween party a few years back? You thought my name was Bobby?” he grinned over at Teddi, who’s cheeks had turned a lovely shade of pink at the memory. “You still have that Alice costume?”

Teddi flicked a pumpkin seed at him. “Ass.” she scrunched up her nose, unable to hide her smile as Billy let out a laugh. He was right. All of this was so that they could make new, happy memories together. Not sit around and mope over pumpkins. 

Billy surveyed his jack-o-lantern, turning it towards Teddi with a proud look. “What do ya think? Scary enough for trick or treaters?” he asked. His jack-o-lantern had big, angry slanted eyes and a row of countless pointed, fang like teeth. Somehow it was exactly what Teddi had expected from him. 

“Very scary,” she agreed with a nod. Hers was a bit more of the traditional jack-o-lantern. With its happy, triangle shaped eyes, matching triangle nose and crooked, square teeth. She sat hers next to Billy’s and let out a small laugh. “They make quite the pair, huh?”

Teddi hopped up to her feet and disappeared into the kitchen before shortly returning with two tea light candles and a lighter. “Come on, come on. Let’s take them to the porch.” she scooped up her pumpkin and hurried out into the brisk fall night. Billy and Teddi sat their pumpkins side by side, Teddi dropping a candle down into each of them and lighting them. Teddi took Billy’s hand in hers, walking down a little ways down their driveway before stopping.

“What do you think?” she asked quietly. Like if she spoke too loudly it might ruin the moment. 

“...Spooky.” Billy said with a teasing grin. Teddi let out a soft snort and rested her head on his shoulder. They stood there in a comfortable silence, looking up at the porch of their little house, lit up with an eerie, orange glow from their jack-o-lanterns. Two years ago Billy hadn’t even known who Teddi was (unless you count the incident at Tina’s Halloween party). Then a year later they had purchased their first home after learning about the horrors of the Upside Down and defeating the Mind Flayer. Billy had always loved Halloween because of the horror movies, scaring trick or treaters and seeing girls in their tiny little costumes. Now he realized he loved it for different reasons. 

Billy placed a small kiss on the top of Teddi’s head. “What’s next on the carefully curated playlist, Larsson?” 

“Evil Dead,” she replied simply. “I was thinking we could go see Sorority House Massacre tomorrow.”

Billy smirked. “Sorority?” he asked. “Count me in.”

Teddi shoved him playfully. “Just get back in the house, perv,” she let out a loud squeal when Billy picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. She couldn’t hold in her laughter as she tried to squirm out of his grip. “Put me down you asshole.” she laughed. 

“Not until you stop calling me names.” he playfully scolded. 

“I don’t know if that’s possi- ow!” she fell into a fit of giggles after Billy reached up and smacked her firmly on the ass. “Okay, okay! I’ll be nice,” she surrendered. Billy set her down once they made it back to the porch and she gave him another playful shove. “How about you go put the next movie in and I’ll make us some spiked hot chocolate?” she wriggled her eyebrows. 

“Are you trying to get me drunk, Larsson?”

“Maybe. Maybe I can go put on that alice costume and we can have a replay of Tina’s party?” she leaned in the doorway, smirking up at Billy. 

Billy let out a groan and followed her inside. “I gotta agree with pumpkin carving more often.”

[badwolf-in-the-impala]

~The Edge of Heaven~

|| Chapter One || Chapter Two ||

Edited to add new chapter/Moodboard/Faceclaim swap

So I did a new thing lol I know like I don’t have enough of those already BUT, I got this wild Gatsby themed idea while listening to some Lana Del Rey and then I got the idea for the moodboard and it just kinda snowballed from there. ANYWHO, I’ll keep this short. I hope you guys enjoy, and if you would like to be tagged, please let me know! 

Word Count: 5,184

Pairings: Thomas Shelby x OC 

Face-claims: Emily Rudd as Aurora - Paul Wesley  Luke Evans as James))

Moodboard Credit: Myself @badwolf-in-the-impala

Rating: Mature/18+

General Warnings: Spousal abuse, verbal abuse, violence, general Peaky related things...I’ll trying and tag appropriately as I go! 

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

Arrow House - Warwickshire, England - 1925.

Many years had come to pass since Aurora had been back to England; namely, the small industrial district of Small Heath. It was the place that she had called home for the first fifteen years of her life, until the untimely death of her father prior to the start of the War; by four years. But despite the fact they didn’t having much money and despite his drinking habits, her father did his best to be always be part of her life. Teaching her how to love the life she had been given, no matter how desperately her mother tried to teach her how to hate it.

And when he had finally managed at last to drink himself into an early grave; that was when her Mother took her chance. Scraping together every last bit of money she had managed to save over the years and making the decision to move them to America in hopes of giving them both a better life. But at the stubborn young age of fifteen years old, Aurora had fought tooth and nail in protest of her Mother’s idea, even going as far to try running away in an attempt to stay behind. Not wanting to leave her life or her friends. She spent three days hidden away in Ada Shelby’s room at the Shelby family home before finally being discovered and taken back to her Mother.

A sad smile tugged at the corners of her mouth at the thought of the memory.

The Shelby’s had been like a second family from the time she was no more than a mere babe; her father having been a dear friend to the family. She remembered spending all her time as a child and young teen, running the streets of Small Heath with the Shelby siblings. Aurora, Ada, and John -- being closest in age -- were always getting up to some kind of mischief, but once Thomas was thrown into the mix? Well, let’s just say it was a miracle that Small Heath was even still standing!

Aurora and Thomas were a lot alike in many ways, especially when it came to being hardheaded. Factor in the five year age difference between the pair and suddenly everything their group did was a instant competition to see who could do it better. There were many times over the years that Arthur would joke about not knowing who was more stubborn out of the two; especially when it came to the argument of who came up with the better plans. Aurora arguing the point that it be her, given that she was a girl and her plans and ideas were always more detailed and precise than any Thomas came up with. But in the end, Arthur would just laugh and call it a draw to make things fair. Knowing it would only add more fuel to the fires of competitiveness between the two.

But one thing was always for certain back then; no one messed with the Shelby’s, nor did they mess with the Calahan girl who ran with them. All else aside, they were thick as thieves back in those days. Back when times were simpler and their biggest worry was explaining to Aunt Pol how they got picked up for fighting that time some older boy punched John when they were ten. Aurora leaping in too defend him before Thomas or Arthur even had the chance to blink. That had always been something that they admired about her; Thomas especially.

And despite how much they butted heads and bickered over the most ridiculous things on a regular basis growing up, Aurora and Thomas had always been more fond of each other than either of them would ever admit to...especially when it came time for her to leave England. Not knowing when or if she would ever return.

Aurora had been heartbroken to say the least when she had been unable to convince her mother into letting her stay behind. Especially to be leaving behind Ada who was like the sister she never had. She could still remember how much she cried as she hugged each of the siblings as they said their goodbyes; but Thomas had been the one who held onto her the longest as she cried. Their last conversation still fresh in her memories like it had happened only yesterday.

~

“I don’t want to say goodbye.” Her voice was muffled as she sobbing quietly against Tommy’s chest as the Conductor made his final announcement for the departure of her train. Her mother clearing her throat impatiently a few feet away, causing Tommy to tighten his grip on Aurora reflexively.

“Aye...then you don’t have to.” Tommy had replied softly as he pulled her away from his chest slightly to look down at her. “It’s not really goodbye anyways.” He reassured her whilst brushing a few dark curls behind her ear and away from her face. “Not forever a’least.”

“Aurora, we’re goin’ to miss our train.” Her mother sighed, tapping her foot loudly against the platform as she waited on her daughter. Making them the last two people to board before departure.

Aurora choked back on her sobs as she hugged Tommy tightly for the last time before pulling away and drying her tears. Her emerald green eyes filled with a sadness that he had never seen in her before, during all the years he had known her. A little piece of his own heart breaking as she forced a smile before addressing the siblings as a whole; though her gaze never left his.

“Till next time then…” Her voice wavered as she gave her final farewell before boarding the train alongside her mother and taking their seats. Tommy’s gaze never leaving hers, even as he held onto an inconsolable Ada as the train began to roll out of the station.

“Till next time…”

~

Aurora had kept in contact with the Shelby siblings for several years following her move to America. Faithfully writing each of the siblings letters as often as she could find the time; especially once she learned of the boys’ departure to War. She heard from Ada the most obviously, and would also receive the occasional letter from Aunt Pol. It was rare that she heard from John, or Arthur, but they tried their best. Thomas however would always write back, even while was away at War, he always made the point to write her whenever he had an available chance...and there were days where those letters she sent were all he had to hold on and look forward too.

Letters were few and far between after that as the years passed and eventually as their lives started to move in different directions; they soon ceased entirely. Though there wasn’t a day that went by that Aurora didn’t think about the Shelby family. Tommy especially. And now here she was nearly Fifteen years later, Thirty years old and married to a wealthy American businessman, about to enter the home of none other than Thomas Shelby himself.

Aurora and her husband, James, had been in England for only a few days when she finally got the chance to venture out and make a trip up into Small Heath. Visiting all her old favorite sites, her home, and checking out what was new and what had changed. She had been in the Library when she had the unexpected pleasure of running into Ada, and after a very emotional reunion, they sat and talked over tea for several hours. Catching up on what they had missed out on in each others lives since the last time they saw one another.

It was during this time that Ada invited Aurora and her husband to attend a party that was to be had that weekend in celebration of Arthur and his wife Linda’s anniversary. And while Aurora was insistent on not wanting to impose, Ada wouldn’t take no for an answer. Insisting that everyone would be more than excited to see her after all these years and reassuring that she was still more than welcome among the Shelby clan no matter the occasion.

It took a great deal of convincing on Aurora’s end of things, but she finally managed to talk her husband into attending. Insisting that it would be more than beneficial to his business dealings to befriend and get to know them. He had been less than willing to agree but eventually caved -- a rare occurrence -- when he realized she wasn’t going to give up on the subject.

“I still don’t understand what exactly so special about this family.” James griped as they pulled into the drive. Thomas’ house where the party was being held only a few miles away from their own.

“They all but run Birmingham, James.” Aurora gave a sigh as he helped her out their 1925 Bentley 3 - Liter. “If ye wan’ to make friends with anyone over ‘ere, it’s the Shelby family.”

“For your sake, Aurora, I hope that what you’re telling me is the truth.” He replied as he closed the car door behind her, grip tightening on her upper arm hard enough as he pulled her close that she knew for certain it would bruise. His breath was hot on her ear as he spoke to her in a low, menacing, tone. Making sure that his point was made clear.

“And if these people are as important as you say they are, than I expect for you to be on your best behavior tonight. Do not embarrass me. Am I Understood?” James added.

Aurora nodded stiffly in reply, breathing a quiet sigh of relief as he loosened his grip finally, allowing her to take his arm properly as they neared the main entrance to the house. Their pace slowing behind another group of couples who were entering the same time they were.

“Aurora fookin’ Calahan!”

A small squeak escaped her lips as she was suddenly swept up into a bone crushing embrace upon entering through the door, and despite not having even a second to glimpse who this person hugging her was; she would recognize that voice anywhere.

“It’s Turner now, actually.” Aurora chuckled softly as she was placed back on her feet, looking up to greet the eldest of the Shelby siblings. “And it’s very nice to see you too, Arthur.”

“My apologies.” Arthur gave a sheepish grin as he held her out at arms length, taking her in carefully with a shake of his head. “Christ, ye’ve ‘ardly changed one bit!” He added giving her one more hug before releasing her back to her husband. “This is my wife, Linda.” He proudly introduced the lovely Blonde woman standing beside him, Aurora greeting her with a warm smile.

“A pleasure to meet you.” Linda returned the gesture, giving a warm smile of her own as she shook both Aurora and her husband's hands in greeting. “I’ve heard many stories, and I’m so glad you an’ y’er husband were able to make it!”

“The pleasure is all ours.” Aurora turned to look up at her husband, who stood  beside her, waiting a little patiently for her to introduce him with a tight lipped smile. “This is my husband, James Turner. James, this is Arthur Shelby, oldest of the Shelby siblings, an’--”

“A pleasure, truly.” James cut her off as he stepped forward to shake Arthur’s hand. Arthur studying him carefully, gaze briefly falling to Aurora before speaking.

“American bloke, eh?” Arthur started to inquire, wincing as Linda jabbed him in the ribs sharply with her elbow before shooting him, ‘Don’t be rude’ look. Grinning as she caught Aurora stifling a laugh. “Wha’? I’s jus’ askin’.” Arthur grumbled.

“It’s quite alright.” James replied, his eyes dark and his tone just a little to friendly. “Any questions you have, I’m an open book.” He assured.

“Aye, see?!” Arthur gestured to him as he turned to his wife who simply rolled her eyes before apologizing for her husband's behavior, but they were soon interrupted as Aurora was suddenly blindsided by an enthusiastic Ada.

“You made it!” She exclaimed as she hugged Aurora tightly before taking a step back to look up at James. “And this must be your husband!”

“Yes, this is James.” Aurora introduced as he reached out shake Ada’s hand.

“Ada Thorne!” She introduced herself as she shook his hand with a smile. “Do you mind if I steal your wife for a few minutes?

“Oh, well, actually we were  jus’--”

“Of course not.” Aurora looked up, slightly taken aback as her husband cut her off and agreed to willingly let her go with Ada. The gesture causing a knot of anxiety to form in the pit of her stomach, but she smiled nevertheless as she reached up and kissed him quickly in return before turning to Arthur.

“Well, since tha’s settled,” She gave a soft chuckle as Ada looped her arm together with her own. “Arthur, would you mind keepin’ him company for a bit? Maybe introduce him to some people?” Aurora asked hopefully as Ada began tugging her into the crowd of people just a few feet away.

“O‘course!” Arthur hollard back as he clapped a hand on James’ back, giving Aurora a reassuring wink before he and Linda ushered him off in the opposite direction. Though Aurora could still feel her husbands stern gaze boring into her back; watching as she disappeared into the crowd alongside her friend.

~

After finding themselves each a few drinks, the two woman continued to make their way through the throng of party goers who mingled about the large home. And though it did little to quell the anxiety that twisted and tied her stomach up in knots, the Whiskey in her hand was welcome distraction as they moved towards an unknown destination that Ada was dead set on getting them too.

“Where exactly are we goin’?” Aurora questioned as they pushed through another set of doors and into yet another room that was slightly less crowded. Her question soon answered as she spotted Polly at the far end, standing alongside two youngman she didn’t recognize but was fairly confident she knew who they were.

“Christ, is tha’-- is tha’ Michael an’ Finn?!” Aurora asked in disbelief as they grew closer, Polly’s face lighting up as she turned and caught sight of her and Ada.

“Aye!” Ada nodded quickly in response before all but throwing her into Aunt Poll’s waiting embracing. The boys beside her exchanging a brief confused look amidst all the excitement of the long awaited reunion.

“God, look at you!” Polly beamed as she took Aurora’s face gently between her hands, taking her in. “Even more beautiful than the las’ time I saw you.” Aurora hugged her tightly, trying her best not to cry and ruin her makeup. “Oh how we’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too, Poll.”

“Well, don’ just stand there!” Polly turned around and waved the boys over. “Not tha’ you probably remember her, but, say hello--”

“Bloody hell, is tha’ our Rora?!”

Suddenly Aurora was being crushed into yet another bone crushing hug by one of the Shelby men as John came bursting through the crowd, all but shoving his sister and Aunt out of the way as he scooped her up and twirled her.

“I thought Ada was makin’ up shite stories -- Ow!” John yelped as Polly’s hand connected with the back of his skull, knocking his hat off in the process.

“Y’er overwhelmin’ the poor girl!” Polly scolded as she pointed her finger at John. “An’ don’t be rude, introduce your wife!” Aurora gave a laugh as she watched John turn red out of embarrassment, grumbling under his breath at Aunt Poll as he picked up his hat, putting it back on before turning and bringing a young dark haired woman forward in front of him.

“Esme, this is Aurora.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Aurora greeted and shook the hand that Esme offered. “An’ I am terribly sorry this is the one they made you marry.” She joked, earning an amused laugh from Esme and a very confused look from John as everyone else quickly dissolved into laughter along with them.

“Wha’s so fuckin’ funny?!” John demanded, still not getting the dig Aurora had just taken at him.

“Nothin’ love.” Esme chuckled as she began ushering John off in the other direction for more drinks, ignoring his protests. “Lovely ta’meet you!” She called over her shoulder to Aurora before disappearing.

“Still as dense as he was when we were children.” Aurora sighed thoughtfully with a shake of her head before turning back to the other two boys as Polly introduced them to her before allowing them to be dismissed finally.

“Some things never change.” Ada joked playfully in response. “‘Ave you seen Karl?” She asked Polly, who in returned pointed towards one of the other doors as she took a sip of her own Whiskey.

“Playin’ with the other children still, I assume.” Polly replied with a shrug, catching Aurora by the arm gently before Ada could drag her away entirely. “Come an’ find me again when she’s done draggin’ you aroun’?”

“Of course, Poll.” Aurora smiled, giving her one more hug.

“Good, we’ve got a lot to catch up on!” Polly called after her as Ada began dragging her from the room in search of her son, Karl, so she could introduce them; giving up after ten minutes of searching and coming up empty handed.

“They’re probably mucking abou’ the stables.” Ada gave a frustrated sigh as they checked the backyard, finding it absent of children. “I should go check, I’ll be right back?”

“Take y’er time!” Aurora called after her, letting out a relieved sigh once Ada was out of ear shot. Taking a moment to lean against the pillar beside her, closing her eyes and drawing in a deep breath as she relished in blissful silence for a moment. The knot in her stomach that had gone ignored after a few drinks, quickly returning as she realized how dark it had gotten and just how much time must have passed since their arrival. Remembering that her husband was still milling about inside somewhere, likely drunk by now and searching for her.

The thought alone was enough to make her dread going back into the party...she hadn’t meant to stay with Ada for so long, but they had gotten so wrapped up in this little reunion of sorts and conversation that she had lost all track of time. And while he would never show it in public, she knew James would be furious, especially if she didn’t go find him, and soon.

With that thought in mind, Aurora downed what was left of her Whiskey before turning to head back inside in search of her husband; her mission interrupted as she ran straight into someone else who had just come through the door behind her, causing her foot to slip off the top step. But instead of falling to the ground as she had anticipated, she was pulled backwards and away from the steps into a strong embrace that was quick to steady her.

“I am so sorry!” Aurora apologized profusely as she knelt down to pick up her clutch and the remnants of her whiskey glass that now lie shattered on the steps, but the other person beat her to it as their hand grabbed her clutch before she could. Aurora was about to apologize again as she gathered up the shards of glass when his voice stopped her.

“You’ve no need to apologize. Entirely my fault, not yours.”

Her green eyes quickly snapped up to meet his in an instant as she stood, nearly losing her balance again as she did so. The glass shards clattering back to the ground as she all but leapt into his arms, her excitement getting the better of her. A deep laugh rumbled through his chest as he hugged her back.

“It’s good to see you too, Rora.” Thomas added.

“Oh Christ, I’m sorry!” She quickly apologized for a second time as she realized just how ridiculous she was being, taking a step back and smoothing her hands over the front of her dress as she tried to compose herself. Failing, miserably, as she ended up hugging him again a second time, just a little more gently. “It’s just so wonderful to see you, Tommy.”

“You needn't worry ‘bout tha’, eh?” He assured her as he pulled away, giving her that signature half smile of his as he stared down at her, taking her appearance in carefully. Her dark curls were pinned up neatly, and she was clad in a long, elegant blue and black beaded evening gown. “I’m happy to see you too...was beginnin’ to think you were avoidin’ me, actually.” He teased.

“Of course not.” Aurora replied sheepishly. “Ada’s jus’ been a little...excited.”

“I know. I’m jus’ givin’ ye a hard time.” Thomas assured her before handing her back the clutch he realized he was still holding onto. “But speaking of our dear Ada, where’s she gone off too?”

“Out to the stables--”

“Lemme guess, lookin’ for the boys.” Thomas finished for her as he let out a sigh. Clearly this was somewhat of a regular occurance. “Suppose I should go help her…” He started down the steps, pausing when he reached the bottom and noticed she wasn’t following. “Care to join me?”

Aurora was more than reluctant at first, weighing her options as she turned to look over her shoulder at the party that was still going  full swing inside. On one hand, she really needed to be getting back to husband, but on the other she very much so wanted to spend a little time catching up with Thomas, and at most, this would only take a few minutes; returning to the party afterwards. Her lack of better judgement won out in the end as she gave him a smile and descended the steps, taking his arm as he offered it to her. Leading them down the path to the stables.

“So, how was America?” Thomas inquired curiously a few minutes into their walk, watching her closely out of the corner of his eye.

“Well…” Aurora drew in a deep breath through her nose before letting it rush out in a sigh past her lips. “Aside from Prohibition? It’s not entirely horrible…’least not all the time. It has it’s perks, jus’ like any other place.”

“Yeah? Like wha’?” Thomas teased.

“Like it doesn’ fuckin’ rain all the time.” She snorted sarcastically, earning a laugh from Thomas as he nodded at her answer.

“Mm. Suppose y’er probably right.” He chuckled as he patted her hand gently.

“Course I am. I’m always righ’.” Aurora teased back in a serious tone. “Or did ye forget tha’ while I was away?”

“Aye, well I haven’ had anyone to argue with on the subject in abou’, oh, fifteen years? So it’s quite possible.” He mused as they approached the stables, noting the dramatic eye roll she thought he hadn’t seen. “Still as stubborn as the day ye left.” Thomas shook his head lightly.

“An’ y’er still an arse...how’s tha’?” Aurora retorted as she turned up her nose, pretending to be offended by his comment.

“I’d say y’er not wrong.” He replied truthfully with a shrug of his shoulders, Aurora about to make another sarcastic comment when they heard Ada’s voice coming from inside the stables. And from the sound of it, she was fighting a losing battle. They picked up their pace a little and rounded the corner into the open archway, spotting Ada and small group of rambunctious boys who were hellbent on not listening to a word she was saying.

“Aye!” The boys stopped instantly at the sound of his voice, two in particular turning to face Thomas and whatever punishment was to be received. “Listen’ta Ada, ‘fore she tans tha’ lot of ya!” There was a chorus of ‘Yes Sir’s’ before a few of the boys started back toward the house, one boy staying behind with Ada, while another -- not much older than three or four -- came running up to Thomas with his little arms outstretched to be picked up.

“Stop givin’ y’er Aunty Ada such a hard time, eh?” Thomas stated firmly as he pressed his forehead against the little boys’, making him giggle as he nodded.

“Yes, Da.” The little boy replied quietly, the sound of his small voice making Aurora’s heart clench in her chest tightly, even though a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she watched the interaction between the two. The boys curious little blue eyes soon fixed to hers as he rested his cheek against Thomas’ shoulder. “Who’s tha’?”

“That,” Thomas turned so that they were facing her. “Is my friend. Ms. Aurora.” He introduced, the little boy picking his head up to study her closely as she smiled warmly at him. “An’ this, is Charlie. My son.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Charlie.” Aurora greeted softly, smiling as the little boy looked away shyly for a moment; burying his face in the crook of Thomas’ neck.

“She’s pwetty.” Charlie mumbled quietly before stifling a yawn and closing his little eyes, making Aurora chuckle softly.

“Aye, tha’ she is.” Thomas gave a soft laugh as she shifted the boy in his arms. “But more importantly, innit past y’er bedtime?”

“It’s past both their bedtimes.” Ada chimed in with sigh as she ushered her son forward, introducing him to Aurora before suggesting they start back for the house and get the boys up to bed. Charlie struggling to keep his little eyes open as they walked along the path, pausing when they came across Linda.

“There you all are, I’ve been lookin’ everywhere!” She breathed out a sigh of relief, hand pressed to chest. “Speeches.” She pointed between Thomas and Ada before turning to take off before stopping again as she remembered something else. “Oh! An’ Aurora, y’er husband has been lookin’ for you.” Linda smiled before taking off down the path ahead of them where she disappeared from sight.

“Husband, eh?” Thomas quirked an eyebrow as he looked over at her, watching her cheeks turn pink as she nodded, fidgeting with the ring on her left hand -- that he hadn’t noticed until now --  but remained silent on the subject. Suddenly absorbed in the throws of internal worry once more as they drew closer to re-entering the house, spotting James as they rounded the corner, standing near the entrance chatting with Arthur while they had a cigar.

“He a businessman, from America.” Ada piped up in answer with an excited smile. “Seems like a nice fellow. Haven’ gotten to talk to him much yet--” She droned on, going mostly unheard as Aurora remained lost in thought and Thomas watched her closely; noting that something seemed off, all of the sudden.

“There she is!” Arthur exclaimed drunkenly, shoving James lightly as they watched the group approach the stairs. Aurora forcing a smile as she climbed the stairs quickly to take her place beside her husband, avoiding his dark gaze that hadn’t wavered from her for a second, about to kiss him when he stepped past her and approached Thomas. Aurora felt like her heart was about to leap straight out of her chest, not knowing what James’ intentions were. But she did her best to keep her composer as to not give anything away.

“You must be the infamous Thomas Shelby I’ve heard so much about.” James extended his hand out in greeting as Thomas came up the steps, shifting a now sleeping Charlie around in his arms before shaking his hand. Blue eyes drifting briefly to Aurora who was breathing a sigh of relief.

“Aye, an’ you are?” Thomas answered dryly, eyebrow raised in an unimpressed manner as he looked James up and down, taking in the almost too perfect appearance of the man that stood before him; discreetly sizing him up as Thomas turned to pass Charlie off to Ada so she could take the boys inside.

“James Turner. Aurora’s husband.” He gave a tight smile and he took a step back, snaking an arm around her waist as he pulled her possessively into his side. “Isn’t that right, Darling?” Aurora nodded with a small smile, trying to contain her embarrassment as Thomas slipped her a skeptical look, but did his best to remain civil as they talked.

“Pleasure to meet you.” Thomas replied.

“Please, the pleasure is all mine. It’s nice to finally put a face to the man my lovely wife spends so much of her time talking about.” James insisted with a grin, his grip tightening ever so slightly as he turned his attention to look down at Aurora. “It is getting rather late though. We should probably get going.” Aurora gave an obedient nod, knowing that protesting would be an unwise choice as she caught the strong whiff of the alcohol on his breath as he spoke to her.

“Of course.” She replied softly, turning to thank Thomas for his hospitality as Arthur and Ada had already disappeared back inside. “Thank you so much for having us.”

“Any time.” Thomas gave her a smile. “In fact, the two of you should come over sometime. We’ve a lot to catch up on,” His eyes fell to Aurora briefly before locking onto James. “An’ I would be very interested to ‘ear abou’ y’er business ventures over in America.” Aurora could feel James tense beside her, jaw clenching as he forced another tight lipped grin and shook Thomas’ hand one last time.

“I’ll be in touch.” James assured, not waiting for a reply as he started down the steps. “Come along, Darling.”

“Goodnight, Thomas.” Aurora spoke softly as she looked up at him, giving him one final warm smile -- the one he remembered from their childhood -- before starting down the steps after her husband, not wanting to keep him waiting any longer, though she gave one final pause. “It really was wonderful to see you again.”

Thomas watched with a heavy heart as she hurried off into the night behind her husband. Gone just a quickly as she had arrived. Fifteen years he had waited, hoping that he would see her once more; and while a lot had happened in her absence, it didn’t change the feelings that seeing her again had suddenly brought rushing back...along with good dose of jealousy at the thought of her being married to that pompous prick he had just had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting.

Letting out an irritated sigh, Thomas pulled his cigarette case from the inner pocket of his Tux and placed a cigarette between his lips. Lighting it before tucking the small tin back into its rightful place as he took a long drag, leaning his shoulder against the pillar beside him as he exhaled; watching the smoke as it trailed past his lips into the darkness of the night.

Disappearing; just like Aurora.

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

Tagging anyone I think might be interested from my other Tommy Shelby fic ((which I’m hoping to get up soon...my ass is struggling.)) 

TAGLIST: @jacksonroth @liiv0urlifee @londoncharlotte88 @theworld-is-ahead @zazasblogxx @readsalot73 @ly--canthrope @harjumus @theskinofmyemotions @sympathyfortheblinderdevil @juuliaa-gooliaa @feyrearcheron44