#I was in the woods so I kept thinking about that one episode

[ivyinforests]

”That’s why I— that’s why you’re you” and “You don’t know how much I love— that” is my favorite category of lines.

[rcmclachlan]

On this week's episode of Things I Think About While Driving, I was having myself a grand ol' time thinking about all the different times and ways Buck could've met Tommy earlier, and the one I kept coming back to was S4xE5.

Like, right after Buck walks out of Maddie's apartment having learned about Daniel...

He drives.

He drives and drives and drives with no actual destination in mind, operating completely on autopilot, for hours. No music, no podcasts, just the rush of wind through all the open windows of the Jeep and the echoing refrain in his head of so they made one.

It would've been an allogeneic transplant. He'd looked it up once when he was watching a 60 Minutes special on Myelodysplastic Syndrome. They would've taken the stem cells from his umbilical cord if the timing was right. Unless they tried it a little bit later, maybe waited a few months before they scraped Daniel's homegrown defense system right out of Buck's bones. He would've been too young to remember the pain and discomfort that came after. He wonders if he cried as a baby more than he would've if he'd been wanted for anything other than the hellfire missiles in his marrow.

And then it didn't work. Defective, right out of the gate. No wonder they've always treated him like a massive disappointment—he is one. He had one job and he couldn't even manage to do that much.

So he drives. He drives and he's furious. He drives and he's inconsolable. He drives and he's sorry. With every street he turns down at random, he moves onto another emotion, and by the time the gas gauge is nudging close to empty and the evening is giving way to night, the only thing he's capable of feeling is tired.

And hunger. He'd only had an apple before he went over to Maddie's.

So he circles back to Glendale Boulevard and decides on the place with a red lion on their sign solely because it doesn't look busy for 8:30pm on a Tuesday. There's even a free space in the little lot next to the building. Thanks, COVID.

It's pretty quiet inside, with a substantial bar set against old wood paneling on the walls, making it feel like an old tavern. He takes a seat at the far end of the bar where the lighting's kind of dim.

Turns out it's a German bar, so he orders a glass of Warsteiner, which he's never had before, and it's got a strong, malty backbone for a lager. The bartender tells him there's a Biergarten in the back if he wants to take his drink outside. 

Buck doesn't want to move from his little corner. It feels safe here, even with his mask off. At least two of the one hundred thousand knots in his back muscles have relaxed since he sat down. He quietly declines the offer, but he does order himself the sausage plate and a glass of Augustiner Maximator once he's done with the Warsteiner, which goes down so good he can't believe it's got an ABV of 7.5%. He orders a second.

He's in the middle of robotically eating a smoked bockwurst he can't taste, thinking so they made one, when the door to the biergarten opens up. A guy walks over to the bar and Buck throws him a cursory glance. Then he looks again. 

The guy is exactly who you'd find on the cover of the LAFD charity calendar: big and beefy, with the kind of high cheekbones that belong on a runway in Milan. Effortlessly handsome. Buck wants to tip his beer toward him, because, respect. He also wants to poke his biceps and ask what his regiment is, if he P90X's or something. Buck isn't a small man by any stretch of the imagination, but this guy looks like he could throw Buck around like a grizzly bear. 

Buck lets himself be distracted by watching the guy lightly tap his fingers against the bar to the beat of whatever 80s song is playing softly over the speakers. He's always loved people watching; it's a great way to get out of his head after tough calls. This guy is a particularly fascinating specimen. There's just something magnetic about him. Buck's known people like that: they draw the eye even if they're not doing anything to warrant attention. Without even being called, the bartender wanders over to the guy, no doubt drawn to whatever invisible light is coming off him. Buck can't hear what they're saying, but then the bartender turns and points right at Buck, who freezes, caught. 

The guy flashes Buck a thumbs up and asks just loud enough to be heard through his face mask, "How was the Warsteiner?"

Swallowing, Buck lifts the empty glass and says, "Uh, g-good. Full-bodied." 

With a thoughtful nod, the guy turns back to the bartender and says something too quiet for Buck to hear, but he figures it out when the bartender goes and comes back with a glass of what is clearly Warsteiner. The guy takes a sip, pauses, and then moves toward Buck, stopping before he gets too close. "Thanks for the recommendation. Hey, Jay, put his next one on my tab."

The bartender—Jay—gives him a thumbs up and goes to the register. Buck, mortified at the thought of being a charity case, of this guy pitying him enough to buy him a beer, opens his mouth to tell Jay he can pay for his own beers, thanks, when the guy holds up a hand to forestall the protest.

"German beer's not usually my thing. I'm more of a craft beer kind of guy, so really, I appreciate the assist. If it makes you feel better, pay it forward." His cheeks curve up, and in the bar lighting Buck can see there are long legs attached to the guy's crow's feet. He clearly has spent his life smiling. Buck would bet this man has never once curled up in the dark on his birthday knowing for a fact his parents weren't going to even text him and was still disappointed when the clock ticked past midnight and he had nothing to show for it. This guy's parents probably had a golden statue of him erected in their front yard.

Buck musters up a smile that feels like one of the little, weak waves that just sort of roll over the shoreline without any fanfare before dissolving back into the sea, and the guy tilts his head.

"Rough day?"

"Rough life," Buck says, utterly pathetic, and feels like he's betrayed all his friends for even saying it. "No, that's—that was incredibly ungrateful. My life isn't—I-I have a good life. I just learned something today about my parents that, uh, clarified a few things for me about our relationship. It... wasn't great."

The guy taps his finger against the bottle of Warsteiner in his hand, staring at Buck with deep consideration, flaying Buck from head to toe without a word. Then he gives a nod that smacks of commiseration and walks around the bar until he's only two chairs away. When the guy opens his mouth and inhales, Buck can already hear what's coming: surely it's not that bad. You should talk it out with them. You're being too hard on them. C'mon, they're your parents, they love you. 

"That sucks," the guy says, simple as anything.

Out of nowhere, heat starts prickling in Buck's nose and the corners of his eyes, and he looks at this guy and the calm, earnest expression on his face, and... yeah. Yeah. It does suck. It sucks so hard and it has for so long, and all his life he's wanted someone to tell him that, to hear him list every injustice and offer a crumb of support without any pretense or judgment. Buck gasps a laugh that sounds more like he's been stabbed, and he opens his mouth to thank the guy for telling him exactly what he needed to hear, but instead what comes out is... everything. The whole story comes out of him like an unraveling firehose, pulling longer and longer the more he talks, stretching from the day he crashed his bike—"But it wasn't my bike, it was his."—to sitting in Maddie's living room and finally learning the truth: that he hadn't been crazy, that something had been wrong his entire life and the something was him.

"They'd made a box for her—full of all these memories and little trinkets and pictures—and I bet you he had one with baseball cards and his first, like, pacifier, and Skittles, and whatever, but when I asked them where mine was, they looked at me like I had three heads, because human junkyards full of scrap metal and defective blood cells don't get baby boxes," he finishes on a shout. Panting like he just sprinted to Santa Monica and back, he finds himself deflating into his folded arms on top of the bar now that he isn't filled to the brim with 29 years worth of bottled-up grievances. This must be what bulldozed graveyards feel like: scraped clean and ready to be filled up again. Buck is surrounded by five empty glasses, a little mountain of twisted-up napkins, and a complete stranger who hasn't said a word since Buck began, and it's as a good place to start again as any.

Buck closes his eyes and stews in embarrassment for about thirty seconds, then turns his head to look at his audience of one. At some point, the guy had gravitated into the chair right next to him and took his mask off, revealing a stupidly handsome face, and his wide-eyed, slack-jawed stare makes Buck want to throw up a little. It may have been the cleansing Buck'd needed, but the poor guy didn't ask to be part of any of it. Buck doesn't know why he told him in the first place. This is the kind of thing he'd hesitate to blurt out to Eddie, never mind a complete stranger, but there had been something so oddly steady and compassionate in the guy's gaze that Buck had felt like he could trust him with anything. It had been so easy to just... talk. And to his credit, the guy had listened to Buck's entire rant—stopping Buck only twice to ask a quiet, clarifying question—without making a face, snorting, rolling his eyes, or getting up and just leaving.

Face warm, Buck shifts in his seat to try and get feeling back into his left ass cheek, then he opens his mouth to apologize for dumping all that on the him instead of at his next session with his fucking therapist.

But the guy just blinks out of his stupor and flags down Jay, who wanders over sedately. He taps the bar counter twice and says, "Yeah, can you just put the rest of his bill on my tab?"

When Buck sits up with an outraged squawk, the world spins a little, and the guy places a gentle but firm hand on his shoulder to steady him. He doesn't take it back right away and Buck doesn't shrug it off. The weight feels good.

"N-No, that wasn't—you can't do that, man," Buck mumbles, face hot. His mouth feels a bit gummy.

"I can and I did," the guy says. "Someone should treat you to dinner for putting up with all that shit for all this time. I don't know your parents from a hole in the ground, but I would happily drop 3,000 pounds of water on their house. Jesus Christ, and I thought my issues with my parents were bad."

"I never should've—"

But the guy shakes his head and tightens his hand on Buck's shoulder. "You absolutely should've, actually. If that had built up any longer, I probably would've seen you literally explode on the 6 o'clock news."

Buck snorts a laugh, rubbing his disbelieving smile against his sleeve. "Believe me, it wouldn't be the first time you saw me on the 6 o'clock news."

The guy gives Buck a curious tilt of his head, so Buck clarifies, "Do you remember a few years back when that kid was mailing bombs to people and he rigged that fire engine to explode? And it fell on that firefighter?" At the guy's slow, wary nod, he continues, "I was the, uh, firefighter."

At that, the guy sits up and his gaze goes so sharp that Buck wants to call Jay over and have him slice up some bratwurst on it. "You're with the 118."

Buck blinks, and then the guy introduces himself... as LAFD firefighter pilot Tommy Kinard, who'd gotten his start at Buck's own damn station. Who knew both Chimney and Hen when they were probies, and who watched Bobby walk in and turn the place into a house Tommy could be proud to be part of. Who had been their air support during the Doheny Park gas leak incident.

"That was you?" Buck glances down at the bar counter to make sure it hadn't cracked when his jaw hit it. "Chimney told us afterwards he'd called in a favor from an old friend."

Tommy grins and jauntily points to himself with his glass. "Except Howie was cashing in on a favor I owed him, which means I only owe him like 973 more now."

Over a round of drinks—another Maximator for Buck and a seltzer with lime for Tommy—Buck tells Tommy about who's at the 118 now and confirms which of "the most batshit insane stories I've heard about you guys" are true. He tells Tommy about the rollercoaster ride that was his recovery from the explosion, and then follows that up with being caught in the tsunami and being struck by lightning. In return, Tommy regales him with army stories, including the time he landed a burning helicopter under enemy fire, and his favorite calls from his time with the 118—the fucking rooster has Buck practically crying laughing into his arms. He also tells Buck about Hen's fearlessness in standing up to their asshole captain who was voted the LAFD's Most Likely To Have Been At The White House On January 6th, and how Chimney saved Tommy's literal life. He tells Buck that without Bobby showing up and making them into a family of sorts, without him being in their corner even when they didn't trust him not to abandon them like all their other captains, Tommy never would've found his way back to the sky.

Then Tommy gleefully drops a pipe bomb into the scant space between them with, "And you never would've joined the 118."

Buck squeezes his eyes shut to try and make his brain stop feeling so swimmy. "W-What? What does that mean?" His tongue is too big for his mouth. His words taste a bit funny, like they're mushy. He hopes Tommy hasn't noticed.

"You said you joined in 2017. That's when I left," Tommy says, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm pretty sure you were the one who took my spot."

Buck untucks one of his arms so he can reach up to touch the hills and valleys running down Tommy's cheeks, then realizes that probably would be rude and tries to play it off like he was going to scratch the back of his own head. All he does is knock over one of his empty glasses. It takes a few clumsy tries before he successfully stands it back up.

"We missed each other," Buck mumbles. He thinks of what it might have been like walking into the station that day, seeing Tommy sitting between Hen and Chimney, smiling wide as he dished up more spaghetti. Maybe he would've turned that warm light on Buck as he passed him the tongs. Maybe Tommy would've shown him the ropes, got him through his first shifts, and even stopped him from stealing the engine for a booty call. Maybe they'd have met up for drinks just like this after their shifts were over, or as a way to distract themselves from bad calls the way Tommy's distracted Buck all night. Maybe they'd have been a two-man unit, and then when Eddie showed up they'd be a tri...something. Buck can't remember what it's called, but it means 'three'. Maybe Tommy would've been every bit as important to Buck as Eddie, Hen, and Chim.

He's hit with the realization that if he doesn't tell Tommy this, he might die, so he garbles out, "You're important. W-Wait, no. I mean, you could've... you were important... I—y'get the gist."

And Tommy must, because Tommy's smart and quick witted and a good listener, and he's looking at Buck fondly, like he might've done if he'd stayed at the 118 and they'd come through fire together, but he's also rolling his lips inward and his cheeks are trembling.

Buck whines, aggravated, because, "Y-You're laughing at me."

Tommy ducks his head and does, in fact, start laughing.

"'s so rude. Don't laugh at me, 's not my fault I'm defective." Buck buries his face in his arms in embarrassment. The cradle of it is so warm and comfortable he just stays there.

"You're not defective, Evan." Even though it sounds like Tommy's suddenly on the other side of the room, Buck can hear the matter-of-factness in the words. He says it like he'd said that sucks. "But you are drunk."

He's not. He's just really tired and his arms make for a great pillow. He also feels heavy and tight, which isn't good for a firefighter. What if he's called onto a massive scene? What if City Hall's on fire and he can't pull the mayor out because he's slow and weirdly full? What if his career as a firefighter is over?

"That's just bloat from all the beer and sausage," Tommy says from even farther away than he'd been a second ago. "Jay, can I settle up? I'm so sorry we kept you this late. You're getting a helluva tip, I promise."

His name's not Jay. It's Buck. But he'd introduced himself as Evan and... forgot to tell Tommy he goes by something else. But he likes that Tommy doesn't know that, because when Tommy says 'Evan' it sounds like how 'Buck' feels. He wants Tommy to keep 'Evan' in the warmth of his mouth, like how some alligators carry their young. For them, it's the safest place to be.

Buck wants to tell Tommy about the alligators, because they are super cool and only exist in two places in the whole world. He blinks his eyes open and finds his face pressed to something hard and cool. The bar stool feels a lot softer than it did a second ago. And it's vibrating.

There's a weight on his knee, shaking it gently.

He must've fallen asleep while watching Celebrity Death Match in the TV room again. Mom's going to kill him when she finds out. "Mads, five m're min's."

"Evan, you need to give me a building number."

"Hmmm...?"

"Your apartment building. I've been driving up and down South Spring for ten minutes. You gotta help me out here. What's your building number?"

"Mmm..." Buck rolls his forehead to chase the coolness. It feels so nice against his skin. He could just sink right into it.

"Evan, c'mon. You can do it. Tell me where you live."

"27 P'plar Road," he mumbles. He blinks his eyes open and catches sight of the rush of lights and road ahead, which blend together like they're about to jump into hyperspace. He's not in Hershey. He knows this road. Sighing, he closes his eyes again. "Oh. 's rowing. 409 at th' rowing."

He blinks awake when he suddenly trips over nothing, and he tries to stop himself from falling but there's nothing except the gaping maw of open space. But he doesn't actually go anywhere. Someone's got an arm around his waist. There's a name for that kind of rude awakening. He can't remember it.

"Two more stairs," the person with him mutters in his ear. "I'm begging you, lift up your feet before we both end up in the ER."

That's fine. He has his own bed there.

"Yeah, let's try to get you into the bed you have here first."

Strong hands lower him onto something soft, and he buries his face in sheets that are cool and smell familiar, his entire body smoothing out like the surface of a lake. Something tugs at his foot, and he rolls onto his back and tries to lift his leg to help, but he's comfy and cocooned in the dark. His sneakers get taken off anyway.

"Evan." Tommy's voice hangs in the air, soft and warm and invisible, and his name sounds like it's precious where it sits in Tommy's mouth. He read somewhere that alligators do that. "I'm going to get you some water and then head out. Do you need anything else?"

In the dark, he somehow lost his body, and he can barely see the outline of Tommy, but he can hear him step closer when Buck reaches out for him. When Buck's hand is caught, he's suddenly so aware of himself, of his blood and bones and every nerve trapped under his skin, and arches a little into the feeling with a quiet moan of relief.

Tommy knows about him. He knows Buck's cells are defective and he still bought Buck dinner and spent the night making him feel like he was made correctly from the start.

"D'nt go," he whispers. He's starting to float away, and he tugs on the hand holding his, trying to bring that steadfast presence on top of him, use it to keep him here. "Stay."

"I absolutely can't do that," Tommy murmurs. His thumb strokes over Buck's palm and it feels like he's dragging his tongue along the length of a nerve. Buck gasps. Something pulls tight and sweet between his legs, and he tilts his head back on the pillow, lips parting so he can suck in air desperately. So he's ready.

"Kiss me," he breathes.

He wants it so bad he almost gags. He wants all that weight and strength to hang over him like a bough, keeping him together, feeding his body what it's screaming for. He inhales deeply and the smell of indelible man fills his nose and the back of his throat, along with the faint hint of smoke and something sharp like snow. He wants a mouth on his. He wants strong, sure hands to run over his ribs. He wants to say I'm full of broken cells and I need you to fill me up with something better, but he's breathing too hard and the words keep blowing out of order. His legs slide open and the sound of them moving on the sheets is deafening. He's so hot, and so hungry. He thinks he's hard. He thinks he's dying.

The hand in his squeezes gently, but then it lets go.

Without it, Buck's going to dissolve. He's going to disappear. He squeezes his burning, wet eyes shut and pulls in a breath that is all wheeze, every part of him a live wire, unsteady and shivering and thwarted. So they made one.

"No. No," Buck sobs. "Y're just like them. You don't want me—no one... why. 's not fair."

The bed suddenly dips right next to Buck's thigh, right on the edge, and the hot press of a thumb against his chin stops him from howling his sorrow and disappointment. When it slides up and just barely brushes against his bottom lip, his mouth falls open. Yes. Yes.

"I'll tell you what." It's whispered so closely that Buck thinks he can feel the wash of breath over his tongue. "You remember any of this tomorrow? Call me, and I'll kiss you as much as you want. I'll kiss the idea you're unwanted right out of you."

Buck exhales in utter relief and sinks into the comfort of the bed as the weight next to him lifts away. He's going to do that. He's going to call and then let Tommy kiss him until he forgets he was ever unloved. But persistence pays off, so he tries one more time, even though he's suddenly so tired he can barely get the word out. "Stay."

"Sleep well, Evan."

+

When Buck wakes up, he immediately wants to crawl into a hole and die. His mouth tastes like there's roadkill in it and there's an egg beater trying to escape his skull by way of his left eye. Whimpering, he tries to bury his face into the pillow but half of it is wet with drool, so he reaches up and throws the stupid thing on the floor. His mattress is comfy. He can just plant his face there and suffocate, no problem.

He has no idea how he got home last night, which is terrifying. Everything after the third Augustiner is a bit hazy. He was talking to some guy who made him laugh, he knows that much. His mind conjures bits and pieces of his mysterious drinking companion: a wide, white grin; large hands; a voice he can hear the cadence and depth of but can't remember a single word it said. After that, he's got nothing.

It takes a few tries to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth and he rolls onto his side to put his back to where the sun is starting to filter through the curtains. The move puts the nightstand right in his line of sight, and when his vision focuses, he pauses.

There's a glass with water on top of it, but it's not the cup he usually chooses. It's one of the textured acrylic ones he picked out when he moved in that he absolutely hates using. Even though they're impossible to break, he feels like he's ten years old when he's forced to drink out of one. All that's missing is a sippy-cup lid.

Although he has to hand it to himself: the acrylic cup was a pretty solid idea, considering he might've knocked a real glass onto the floor sometime in the night and then cut himself when it shattered. Chimney forced Buck to watch Die Hard last year and it was a fun movie, but Buck has no desire to recreate the "shoot the glass" scene.

He slides his face a little closer to the edge of the bed so he can find his phone. It's sitting on the top of the nightstand, plugged in, which is almost as surprising as the acrylic cup. He never remembers to plug his phone in when he's sober, but there it is, charging away. His wallet and keys are also laying next to it. It's such a neat and tidy tableau that, for a second, he thinks he's still asleep and this is one of those dreams where only one or two things is out of place and he spends the entire dream wondering if he's dreaming.

If he were dreaming, though, he wouldn't feel like hard-boiled ass, so someone else had been here and got him squared away. Maybe he called Eddie for a ride home? Buck reaches for his phone and his fingers brush up against the edge of a piece of paper. A receipt? Maybe he took a taxi instead.

Buck squints at it, and he has every intention of grabbing it to look for clues, but he ends up dozing for almost two hours. By the time he wakes up, the sun has invaded every part of the loft, but he doesn't feel so much like he's about to slip this mortal coil. He'll take the wins where he can.

It only takes a minute or two of psyching himself up before he's able to roll into something resembling sitting, and after that he gives himself five minutes to drop his head into his hands and regret his life choices. Once he promises God, the Devil, Zeus, and the purple laser ghost of Prince that he will never drink to such excess again as long as he lives, he finally looks over at the nightstand where his phone is.

It's been set to Do Not Disturb, which is nice. It's not something he ever does, because he's afraid he'll miss something important, and when he turns it off the screen fills with dozens of missed calls and texts from Maddie and Chimney. He takes great pleasure in dismissing all of them. Nothing from his parents, of course. There's also one from Eddie asking if everything's okay because "Chim called me asking if I'd heard from you and he sounds like he's about to start climbing the walls using only his teeth."

It's followed by a text that reads "Bobby says to take your time coming in. What happened?"

He taps open the message to reply when he glances up and sees the receipt on the nightstand. Abandoning his phone in favor of learning just how much he spent on a DD, he learns it wasn't a taxi at all. It's a note written in an unfamiliar hand on a small piece of drafting paper.

Your car is parked at the Red Lion. Jay said it was OK to leave it there because you weren't in any shape to drive.

Underneath that is a phone number, and underneath that is a single line: Remember—as much as you want. But only if you want.

It's signed "TK".

Baffled, Buck brings a fist to his mouth, because he's not sure what else to do, and when his thumbnail presses against his bottom lip, something hot and shivery pops low in his belly. It's how he realizes he's got to pee so bad he's going to wet the bed if he waits any longer.

After he pisses for what feels like an eternity, downs four Advil, showers the sweat and shame off, he stumbles back up the stairs feeling wrung out but definitely more human. Once he's in a pair of clean boxers, he surveys the room.

There was a stranger here last night, but it doesn't look like anything's missing. He checks his wallet, but all his cards and cash are still there. His sneakers were neatly placed against the wall, out of the way where he wouldn't trip on them if he got up during the night. And there's of course his phone, fully charged for once, and the note.

He sits on the edge of his bed and reads the note four more times. Then he looks up the Red Lion's operating hours, but it doesn't open for two more hours.

Which leaves him with the number and As much as you want. But only if you want.

His mind immediately takes a swan dive into the gutter. It's probably not meant to be as sexual as it reads, but... he's not sure how else he's supposed to take it. TK's blocky penmanship reveals nothing.

Maybe after he was done talking to the guy at the bar he met some woman? Maybe she was the one to take him home, although considering how drunk he must've been, it couldn't have been an easy feat. That she didn't help herself to his money and was thoughtful enough to plug his phone in and get him a glass of water really warrants a thank you.

He looks down at the phone number.

He grabs his phone—100%, what an absolutely wild concept—and taps in the number, double checking it like four times while his finger hovers over the CALL button like an anvil.

What the hell. He's got nothing left to lose.

He taps CALL and brings the phone to his ear. It takes two rings before someone picks up.

"Hello?"

Not a woman. Buck sits up so straight they could use his spine as an I-beam level.

"Uh, h-hey," he stutters, looking around his room, trying to divine any lingering atoms this person might've left behind. "Um, I think you—I have a note with this number on it and—"

Thankfully, the mysterious "TK" stops Buck before he gets a good ramble going, his voice friendly as he breaks in with, "Evan! Hey. Glad to hear the Maximator couldn't keep you down for long. How're you feeling this morning?"

Buck's entire body goes warm as it relaxes from its ramrod-straight pose. "I, uh, a little confused. I don't remember getting home, but I guess I have you to thank for that." Buck pauses. "So, thank you."

"Well, you didn't make it easy." TK laughs, and it shivers down the line right into Buck's ear canal. "It took me a lot longer to figure out you were saying 'Rowan' and not 'rowing' than I care to admit, but we got there in the end. Your place is insane. Did you get a signing bonus when you joined the 118 or something?"

Buck blinks. An image of Bobby winning a fight against a rooster comes winging out of the back of his mind. "That—that's right. You're a firefighter. Uh, do you really fly with Harbor One or am I making that up?"

"You made me promise four times to give you lessons," TK says warmly. "I had to stop you from slicing your palm open so we could shake on it."

Ducking his head with a helpless chuckle, Buck nods, even though TK can't see him. "Yeah, that, uh, sounds like something I'd do. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. I'd love to take you up."

He doesn't know how he got lucky enough that the person he made a fool out of himself in front of was one of the chosen few who are able to handle The Full Buck without too much of a fuss, but he's so grateful for it. They're a rare breed.

"Anytime you want, just tell me when."

Buck's gaze immediately shoots to the piece of paper he's still clutching in his other hand, and for no reason he can think of his heart rate picks up. His cheeks start tingling with blossoming warmth.

He curls a little into himself, cupping the phone closer to his mouth. "I-Is that what you meant in your note?"

There's a little pause on the line, and then when TK's voice comes back, it's softer. "No. That's not what I meant."

Buck swallows a mouthful of saliva and asks, just as softly, "What does 'TK' stand for?"

"Tommy Kinard."

Exhaling a shaky breath, Buck's eyes fall closed. He thinks of cool sheets under him, and feeling heavy and safe in the dark. His belly clenches with something like hunger. He bites his bottom lip and then licks it.

"... Evan? You still there?"

He doesn't know why his body feels like it's being pulled in a million different directions, or why the first thing he thought of when Tommy said "Evan" was baby alligators, but he does know this: on the worst day of Buck's life, Tommy Kinard made it easier to bear. He kept Buck company, kept him distracted, and then kept him safe.

I told you not to go, he thinks out of nowhere.

"Look, Evan, it's completely fine, and I promise I won't be offended if you don't want—"

Evan Buckley was born to fix someone else. He has defective cells and has never once been enough for anyone, and that sucks. But he's still here and this life is his whether it was meant to be or not, and he does want.

Buck opens his eyes.

"Hey, so, what are you doing Saturday?"

[vervainandspritz]

could you do a smut where it takes place after season 4, episode one when Tommy murders that butcher, so right after that he’s extremely pissed off and frustrated so he goes to the bedroom where reader is sleeping in the dark and he wants to let out his stress so he fucks reader roughly while still covered in all that blood it turns reader on a lot and Tommy’s very degrading with his words:)?

WHAT YOU'RE MADE FOR

Tommy Shelby x Reader

Warnings: death, angst, violence, angry sex, degradation, smut

A/N: Y'all better start sending requests istg

~~

It felt almost deranged, as Thomas stared in the almost dead man's eyes. Life leaving his irises, lungs choking on blood while trying to take a breath. One so desperately needed. His mouth wide open, pathetically attempting to inhale some oxygen which was already impossible. Last blinks, last moves before he fell to the floor, dirtying everything around and... Leaving the meat raw on the table.

Thomas looked around, only now noticing the state he was in. Covered in blood, almost head to toe. His expensive vest and suit pants absolutely drenched, not to mention the shirt. Letting out a sharp breath, he dropped the sharp tool to the floor, making his way out of the kitchen.

He had so much to do before Christmas. Since the cook died, he needed a new one. Tommy had to call around, find someone last minute and pay extra for cleaning and keeping silent about whereabouts in the Arrow house. So much to do, yet he could barely think with the adrenaline pumping through his veins, making his heart thump and his hands shake.

Normally he would take opium to make it better, but Thomas was well too aware of his wife's reaction to the drug. She hated when he was under influence.

Huffing angrily under his nose he thought of an alternative, and frustration grew as he thought about how difficult Y/N has to make it by arguing. Always arguing. Forcing him to eat better, to take care of himself. So damn loud and opinionated. Throwing back a glass of whiskey, his eyes landed on the staircase and the idea suddenly appeared in his head.

Without missing a beat he made his way up the stairs, leaving bloody marks on the handrail and expensive wood. Quickly walking through the corridor he barged through the door, his precious wife laying on the bed, beautiful as ever. Her white gown hunched up slightly higher than usual, revealing her creamy thighs and reminding him of the lack of underwear.

Standing there, simply staring Thomas felt his pants becoming tighter, all blood going south, exactly where he needed it. Quickly unbuckling his belt and pants he walked over, leaning forward he cooed quietly seeing her peaceful face.

His hand traced her cheek lightly, leaving a bloody mark that made his teeth clench. Deep, crimson red colour in such a stark contrast with the innocent face and white gown of hers. Without waking her up, he quickly pulled her to the edge of the bed by her legs, startling her awake.

"T–Tommy?" She mumbled, eyes barely open as he flipped her on her stomach with a growl. Adrenaline buzzed in his ears as he pawed on her skin, leaving mark after mark from the blood he had on. After a moment she lifted her head, looking back and seeing him completely red, which caused her to squeak in fear. "Thomas, wh–" but he cut her off, pulling his cock out and shoving her legs apart, spitting on her pussy to use as a lube.

"Shut up!" He hissed, climbing onto the bed and straddling her thighs. "I kept you safe. I've fulfilled my duty, and kept you safe!" He hissed into her ear, grabbing a handful of hair, nudging her entrance with the tip of his cock.

A loud moan caused by the sudden stretch and pain filled the air as he slammed himself to the hilt, not able to wait any longer. His hand immediately covered her mouth, two fingers shoved into her mouth to keep her quiet. "The least you can do is fucking take it" He growled into her ear, thrusting impatiently into her tight heat, feeling the wetness pooling from her entrance at his rough manhandling. "That's what you're fucking made for!" She moaned loudly, feeling the bitter metallic taste on his fingers, filling her mouth and making it hard to breathe which made her keep squirming.

Thomas laid himself over her, fucking her from the back, putting his complete weight on top of her.

"You feel it? The fucking taste?" He growled, pulling her hair with another hand. "It's a taste of your safety." His voice was different, clearly because of the chaotic situation he's been through just a couple minutes earlier. Y/N had no idea what was turning her on so much, whether it was the danger to this whole situation, or maybe him fucking her so roughly. "Answer me!" He roared, plunging even deeper than before, his tip kissing her cervix really hard, causing her to nod frantically. "Some cock and you're already too fucking dumb to speak, eh? Good thing your cunt 's always wet then" He added, cruelly almost, knowing how much she loved being degraded. "Nothing more needed to be my precious little fuckhole" He purred, picking up his pace, fucking her faster and harder. Whimper after whimper leaving her lips before he pulled his fingers out of her mouth and wrapped them around her throat.

"Shhhh" He cooed, "You don't want to wake up the kids, do you?" He emphasized the last two words with painful deep thrusts, making her feel like he was already in her belly.

"Tommy" She managed to stutter out, holding onto his hand which was squeezing her pretty hard, cutting off the blood flow and causing her eyesight to go blurry.

"I feel you squeezing my fucking cock. You like that, eh? Being fucked, covered in blood and treated like a cheap whore." He groaned by her ear, the free hand reaching underneath to pinch her clit and rub brutal circles, causing her to cry out weakly. "Nasty fucking cunt" He purred as she came around him so hard, before completely going limp on top of her. Pressing her into the mattress as his thrusts grew frantic, deeper and slower while her cunt milked him for all he had.

Only then did he let go of her throat, slowly threading his fingers through her hair, as they both tried to catch their breaths.

Tommy lifted his head up, seeing her so beautifully fucked out and smiled. Kissing the side of her face, he murmured.

"We need a cleaning service in the kitchen... and a new cook."

[too-much-tma-stuff]

Beach Episode (Part 19)

Previous | Masterpost | Next

Danny and Jason talked out their issues and dealt with it. Jason didn’t think he’d fuck up again, he’d felt so fucking bad, but Danny didn’t trust that. Which was fair, even if it hurt, he was going to have to prove that he meant it and could hold to it even when he was angry. He needed to get into therapy too, he’d been putting it off because he was scared, and protective of his identity, so much of the shit he’d seen and done was so hard to explain in a civilian situation.

But now that he was on slightly better terms with the JL he could prevail himself of one of their therapists. That ended up being the favour that Danny demanded from them was providing Jason with a therapist, one that wouldn’t be too judgmental of his… ‘methods’. They asked for Wonder Woman’s advice on that, which she was very happy to provide, relieved that Jason was facing up to his bad behaviour and taking steps to make it right. She’d been worried she was going to have to physically knock some sense into him.

The other favour that Danny asked for, not of the JL but from Jason, was not to complain about the family vacation that was being planned between Dick, Tim, Danny, and Alfred. Jason still didn’t love the idea but Danny gave him puppy dog eyes and insisted that it was needed to make him forgive Jason for his slip up. Necessary to make things right with his family and moving on, so he accepted it.

It took a lot of arranging and planning to get the family on vacation. They had to find a time everyone was available, find people they trusted to cover their patrols or cities, and of course agree on a destination. That was harder than you would expect, especially when Bruce got involved and tried to insist it should be in the deep woods somewhere and be a training exercise more than anything.

In the end he was shouted down and it was decided that they were going to go to a beach somewhere warm and sunny. Far enough away from any of their usual haunts that they wouldn’t feel the urge to work as long as there weren’t any natural disasters and Tim was kept off his ipad. Since it was a family vacation Danny invited Ellie and Dan too, though he wasn’t sure that Dan would come. Half of him hoped he wouldn’t because having Dan there was bound to be complicated, but they had decided to be family so Danny was going to put his money where his mouth was. 

Dan had been doing well anyway, he hadn’t missed any check ins and hadn’t caused any chaos in space. So he at least deserved an invite, whether he wanted to come or not. They had a check in two weeks before the trip so Danny brought it up with him then.

“A family vacation huh?” Dan asked, they were ‘sitting’ on a broken satellite which was still orbiting earth through inertia.

“Ya, God knows the Wayne's need it. And honestly so do I. Ellie will be coming too, and you're welcome too if you want to,” Danny said with a little shrug.

“And draw more attention from the GIW onto both of you?” Dan asked skeptically.

“Ya, but they already know Phantom is back and working with the Justice League now. I really don't think they're brave enough to touch us now. And if they try to, with all three of us together with the bats? Frankly I'd like to see them try. Maybe it would give the Justice League the push they need to really give them the smack down.” 

Dan snorted a little at Danny, he still didn't expect that ferocity from his younger self. “Ya I guess so,” he agreed with a crooked little smile.

“But if that was an excuse and you just don't want to come, that's fine. I don't want to push you, I just don't want you to feel left out since we decided we're family now,” Danny explained.

“Nah, I want to come. I want to meet my future brother in law,” Dan said with an absolutely feral smile.

“Oh dear,” Danny said faintly. ���That doesn't sound good. Is it too late to uninvite you?” 

“Oh absolutely,” Dan cackled wickedly. “If you're going to be my little brother I should get to vet your boyfriend,” he teased, reaching over to ruffle Danny's hair and laughing when Danny smacked his hand away.

“Fine, you'll be a better judge than some people since I'm assuming we have the same opinions about violence?” He asked, glancing at Dan.

“I think I'm probably even more down for it then you are, but ya. Why?”

“Batman tried to stage an intervention about Jason hitting me. Trying to explain to them that I was totally fine with it and kinda liked it suuucked,” Danny groaned, flopping back dramatically as Dan laughed at him.

“Poor you,” Dan said, entirely unsympathetic. Danny flipped him off. “I'll probably give him shit about it.”

“Just don't scare him off. I really like this guy. If you pull anything I swear I'll spend the rest of our eternity making sure you never get a date!” 

“Sheesh, that's a serious threat kid! As long as he's not a wimp I won't scare him off. If I do scare him off he wasn’t a good fit for you in the first place,” Dan pointed out reasonably.

“Fine, I'll be keeping an eye on you though,” Danny warned.

“Of course you will, I'd expect nothing less after everything I've done,” Dan agreed dryly. “I'm surprised you're letting me be around your new found family at all.”

“Ya, well, you're one of my new found family as well.”

“Shit.”

“If you didn't want to be part of my found family you should have killed me when you had the chance!” 

“IS THAT A FUCKING MEME?!”

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

All the Wayne’s could have asked their respective flying friends to give them a lift to the resort, but it had been decided no kryptonians were invited. They were trying to keep things to their family, though Dick was bringing Kori, that was fine they had been together off and on for years and were well settled together this time. She might as well be an in-law already. So she would be flying Dick in from Bludhaven, and everyone else was going to fly out from Gotham in the Waynes’ private jet. Well, the Waynes and Babs and Steph, who had taken a little more convincing to come, getting past their insistence they weren’t actually family being the trick. Thankfully the fact that the phantom siblings were coming too helped them see it wasn’t only a trip for the Waynes, and with different heroes and allies found to cover protecting Gotham they were bundled onto the private jet as well. 

 Which Danny and Ellie teased Bruce and Tim relentlessly about owning, Jason snickering in the background and egging on the two ghostly siblings in their teasing. They deserved it, no matter how much Bruce tried to defend that it was expected of him to have a private jet and he needed it for business! 

Teasing didn’t stop them from enjoying it though, Ellie chasing Tim around the isles, with Alfred chiding but not actually trying to stop them from having their fun and being kids for once.  Danny spent half the time exploring and stealing any snacks he found, and half the time murmuring in Jason’s ear about how they should steal the jet to join the mile high club. It was sweet torture and Jason did not want it to stop even as he shifted awkwardly and tried desperately to think unsexy thoughts so he wouldn’t get a boner surrounded by his family! Thank fuck Dick wasn’t here, the knowing smirks he’d be shooting the two of them would be too much.

It was a 16 hour flight, and once Ellie and Tim tired themselves out and fell asleep Bruce pulled out a sleep mask and settled in. Danny gave them this, it was much more comfortable to sleep in, and Jason and Danny slept soundly, at least until Ellie got bored and pounced on Danny. They phased out through the wall of the plane to go for a fly, racing the jet and flying loops around it until Ellie got tired and Danny had to help her back into the jet when she started to fall behind. 

Everyone else had started to wake up while they were gone, so by the time they got back it was just in time to have a family breakfast, and talk about what they were going to do once they landed. They had booked the entire top floor of the resort for privacy, which Danny thought was kind of overkill, but these were The Bats, they were incredibly security minded people, so he didn’t argue about it. Danny was mostly excited about swimming, this was a beach vacation after all!

Finally they landed, and grabbed as much of their stuff as they could from the plane before the bellhops could get them, as if all the staff hadn’t already been vetted by Babs. They were only staying for a week so they didn’t have so much they couldn’t reasonably carry it, and Danny suspected at least Tim had some stuff in his bags he would not want anyone else to see. He was going to keep an eye on the younger man to make sure that he hadn’t smuggled any work with him on vacation. 

They piled out of the plane, chattering excitedly about the vacation, Dick coming onto the plane to help Babs on the slightly too steep ramp from the plane. Kori was waiting for them on the tarmac with a warm smile, taking a couple of the heavier bag.

“We already picked out her room on the left side. I suspect Jason and Danny will want to be on the right, and the… single, and younger members of the family should be in the middle so we all have some place,” Kori suggested. 

“Kori!” Dick chided, though he clearly wasn’t actually shocked. Actually those who’d known the two of them for a while knew that was far more delicately put then she might have said it a couple years ago.

“What?” She said, blinking her bright green eyes innocently at Dick. “This is a romantic destination, and we love each other, we are only doing what is surely expected of a loving romantic union. I doubt your father wants to hear-”

“YES thank you Kori you’re right. We’ll make sure you and Dick, and Jason and Danny have your privacy,” Bruce promised.

Before the conversation could continue Ellie shrieked and dropped her bags, taking off running away from the group. It startled everyone, but hackles smoothed immediately when they spotted Dan, strolling across the lot to meet her at a more casual pace. He rolled his eyes but there was a smile on his face as he bent down to scoop Ellie up before she could headbutt him in the gut at full sprint. He was wearing regular clothes, a black shirt and pants with white stripes down the side, and his fiery hair had been gathered into a low ponytail. He still looked obviously inhuman with his grey-green skin and red eyes, but there were all sorts of meta-humans around and he didn’t look like a supervillain at least. 

Ellie scrambled from in his arms to onto his shoulders as he grumbled at her without any real heat behind it. He shrugged his shoulders, making her squeak and hold on tight as he strolled over to the rest of the group.

“I’m glad you could make it,” Danny said, approaching Dan and patting his arm.

“Hey I told you I would,” Dan said ruffling Danny’s hair and ignoring the way the humans around them shifted nervously. Danny was either ignoring it as well or hadn’t noticed the nerves.

“I don’t believe we’ve met!” Kori said cheerfully, holding out her hand to shake. 

“Hey, I’m Dan. I’m these two’s big brother, by technicality,” Dan joked, gesturing to Danny and Ellie with his free hand, shaking her hand and squeezing too hard. He looked impressed when her smile only brightened and she squeezed back just as hard. “And who might you be?”

“I’m Kori, I’m Dick’s partner,” She said brightly. “You seem strong, we should spar some time soon.”

“I’d like that,” Dan agreed with a shark's grin. Grunting and dropping the smile when Danny elbowed him in the side. 

“Behave,” Danny grumbled at him, getting a growl and an eye roll in return, before his gaze landed on Jason. 

���And you must be Danny’s boyfriend huh?” He asked, letting go of Kori’s hand and offering it to Jason.

“Ya, I am. It’s nice to meet you. He warned me about you,” Jason said, standing up straight and shaking Dan’s hand firmly, trying not to wince when he squeezed it far too tightly. 

“I’m sure he did. I warned me about messing with you too,” Dan cackled, letting go of Jason’s hand before it could crack and shoving his hands in his pockets. 

“Right, well now that everyone’s met each other let’s head inside hm?” Bruce interrupted trying to shoo them all towards the door. They were starting to attract attention standing out in the open like this. “We should pick out our rooms and get comfortable.”

“Ellie, how do you feel about sharing a room with Dan?” Danny asked, glancing up at his young clone, still perched on Dan’s broad shoulders. 

“I don’t need a babysitter!” Both Dan, and Ellie said at the same time before looking at each other, startled as Danny laughed.

“You’d both be absolutely terrible babysitters,” He said fondly. He expected them to get into a good deal of chaos together, but he did think that Ellie would keep Dan from killing anyone, or get Danny if things got completely out of control. 

“Fine, we’ll share,” Dan sighed, and Ellie nodded. 

“Thanks guys,” Danny said, smiling at his siblings before grabbing Jason’s hand and tugging him towards the door. “Come on, let’s go find the most extravagant room we can!”

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

There was a bit of a scramble for rooms, not that there weren’t plenty of rooms, but Step, Dick, and Tim were petty and silly and argued over the ‘best’ rooms. And of course once they started Ellie had to get in on the action. Danny and Jason left the younger ones (and Dick) to their squabbling and went to pick out their own room as far away from the rest as they could manage. They found a lovely one with an airy, beachy theme and a window seat looking out onto the ocean.

“It’s beautiful here,” Danny said, sitting down on the padded bench in front of the window and making grabby hands at Jason.

“Is it,” Jason chuckled, going to sit with Danny, who practically dived into Jason’s arms. “I wouldn’t want to live in a place like this, but it is very nice to visit.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, you're a Gothemite and a bat! If it’s not a little close, dark, or gloomy you stand out like a sore thumb,” Danny teased, nuzzling against the underside of Jason’s jaw, who laughed along. “I like our home and our nest though, it’s cozy,” Danny added before Jason could get insecure about it.

“Me too, do you want to unpack first or go exploring?” Jason asked softly.

“As much as I want to go exploring, I think we had better unpack before anyone tries to kick us out of our room by throwing out our bags,” Danny said with a put upon sigh, going nearly boneless against Jason’s chest. 

“You know you’re going to have to get up for us to unpack, right?”

“Noooo!”

-----------

The resort really was beautiful, and since they’d rented an entire floor it wasn’t as crowded as they were sure it usually was. Danny had never been to a place like this and he intended to make the most of it, all of it! The beach, the spa, and the incredibly fucking fancy restaurant and bar where he and Jason could actually drink since the Maldieves actually had a reasonable drinking age! 

Over the course of the week they got couples messages, got so drunk they had to lean on each other to get back to their room, and ordered far too much room service. But undoubtedly the beach was absolutely the main attraction. They spent a lot of time there, to the point Danny got a tan, and Jason was very glad he didn’t burn like Bruce did, who spent most of the second day laying on his stomach in bed with Alfred scolding him about not refreshing his sunscreen after swimming. On the second day Danny remembered he didn’t strictly have to breathe! And Jason spent the rest of the day sitting on the beach while Danny (and Ellie or Dan in turns) disappeared into the water for hours and came back to tell him about everything they saw.

On the third day Jason rented some scuba equipment so he could go down with his boyfriend and see all the wonders he’d been so excited about. At least the ones in shallower waters, he couldn’t follow Danny deeper where the pressure got too much, when Danny realized that he stuck to the shallower areas. By the time they got back to shore Jason was exhausted and very ready for supper, which was a family affair every night of the trip. It was really nice, since Alfred didn’t have to cook he could actually join them and he kept it from being too rowdy. 

They had to push tables together to accommodate the whole family, but the Waynes had more than enough money to get away with it and establish an extra long table for themselves for the entire week of their stay. They tended to eat late, which worked too because there were fewer people for them to disturb with their chatter and chaos, and the eleven of them were usually more than enough for the kitchen to contend with since most of them were big eaters. The dinners were really nice, it didn’t have the baggage of being at the manor, and though they’d met up in smaller groups all of them (minus Kate who had opted out) had never been in the same place. 

It was the perfect opportunity for… something, something that Dick unfortunately beat Jason too on the third night, during dessert when he got up from the table, and got down on one knee in front of Kori. Silence fell over the entire restaurant as Jason bit back a groan and quickly readjusted his expectations to be happy for his brother. 

“Koriand'r, you and I have been together for a long time, and we’ve been through a lot of shit. But never have I not been happy you were there with me for it. You’ve made all of it easier by letting me be by your side, and I hope you’ll let me stick by you for the rest of our lives. Will you marry me?” 

“Yes!” Kori yelped, holding out her hand and letting him put the ring on her finger before she grabbed his wrist and his collar and hauled him in for a passionate kiss as the family cheered and everyone around clapped politely. “You’ll have to come with me to pick out a ring for you as well My Love,” Kori told him warmly while Dick grinned like an idiot. 

“Congratulations!” Steph cheered, practically leaping over the table to tackle both of them as Bruce ordered a few bottles of the best champagne the resort could offer and everyone else lined up to congratulate them as well. Besides Dan, who was being ignored as he grumbled in the corner about how ostentatious and cliche the whole thing was. 

Hey, maybe if Danny secretly shared some of those thoughts Jason had dodged a bullet not being able to propose on this trip. He’d come up with a new plan, one Danny might even like better.

[thebestofoneshots]

Gilded Constellations | (wolfstar x reader)

Series Masterlist | Previous episode

Pairing: Wolfstar x Reader Word Count: 8.3 K Warnings: Angst (like pretty much every chapter now lol). Prompt: Another night with the pack. This IS a Wolfstar x reader fic, but it's incredibly slow burn. They won't start all dating each other until we're very deep into the story, but I promise the long wait will be worth it

Friday, January 7th, 1977 - Full Moon

The next few hours had gone by faster than you expected. James got a letter from Lily stating that she’d make it to his party on Sunday and he was absolutely thrilled about it. The rest of the Gryffindor gang has also been invited, of course. But James, as per usual, just wouldn’t shut up about it from the moment the owl knocked at the window.

You were all lounging on a small kiosk near the woods that the Potters had charmed to always be warm and that you and Sirius had lathered with pillows and blankets to make Remus’ transformation more comfortable. The sun was setting and the moon was about an hour away. Sirius was drawing on his old notepad, but he was playing around with the watercolours you had given him. You noticed he kept looking at Remus who was reading a book, and you assumed he was drawing him again. 

James snapped his fingers, bringing you back onto the game of exploding snap you had been playing with him. He took the cards and you looked at him with a frown. 

“Not my fault you’re ogling your boyfriend,” he said with a shrug. You quickly eyed Remus, who seemed to have no reaction to James’ words, he was engrossed in his book. It was one of the books you’d given him for Christmas: Frankenstein. 

He placed a card on the floor, and you placed another one, you snapped your fingers and took both of them. “Not my fault you can’t stop thinking about Lils,” you sassed back. He shook his head, diverted and fixed his eyes on the deck at the centre, taking one from the top and placing it on the table. Then the two of you started placing your cards so fast on the table that both of you missed the mark and all the cards exploded before any of you managed to snap their fingers. 

“Look what you’ve done,” He complained. 

“You started!” you retorted with a scoff. 

“Hey Pads, what does this mean?” Remus asked aloud, leaning closer to Sirius who lazily looked up from his sketchbook and to the book. 

“Jeune fils, apprends-moi toujours à être just?” Sirius asked in french as he read. 

“Jeune fils is young son, right?” Remus had his hand over the line and was biting his lip with a small frown etched on his features as he turned to Sirius. 

“Oui, bien sûr!” Sirius responded with a thumbs up and looked at the book again. “Apprends-moi toujours à être just is like ‘always teach me to be’, uhh– Étoile, what’s just in English?“

You turned to him, only now noticing how close they were to each other, “It’s, um… like fair?” 

“Yeah! That’s it. Merci, Étoile.” 

You were still looking at how close they were to each other when James snapped his fingers and took all the cards on the table. You threw him a dirty look for doing it while you were distracted, he just shrugged in return. 

You sighed and turned back to the boys, Sirius was translating something else to Remus from the book, alternating between English and French as seamlessly as he often did. And you saw his gaze linger on Remus as he explained, Remus focused almost solely on the book. You gulped, as you stared, and then James snapped his fingers right in front of your face. “He’s not going to steal your boyfriend, you know that?” 

“What?” you faltered as you turned to James.

“You’ve been looking at the two of them with such attention. I mean I get Sirius is pretty to you, but you have barely focused on the game.” 

“Right,” you staggered. “Right, sorry. Maybe it’s the potion you gave in the morning.” 

The potion he gave you in the morning had no such effects, he had taken it plenty of times, but just like earlier, James didn’t want to bring about what’d happened on Christmas so he just nodded and played along with you. He turned to his watch. 

“We’ve got like 20 minutes left,” he said. “How are you feeling, Moons?” 

“Still good,” he replied. Sirius was no longer translating anything, but he hadn’t leaned back and Remus didn’t seem to mind the closeness at all. They were both resting their backs on the little kiosk’s railing, surrounded by pillows. Their shoulders were comfortably crashing against each other.

You threw yourself backwards, allowing your head to fall onto one of the pillows as you looked up at the vaulted ceiling. It was really pretty, with some shining orbs of light that danced around like a baby’s mobile. You took a deep breath, trying to focus on the bright lights and leaving your disturbing thoughts as far as physically possible. It didn’t matter much though, they kept coming back, they always did. 

You wanted to walk over to Sirius and peer over his shoulder and see what he was drawing, you knew he wouldn’t mind, but you also didn’t want to overdo the PDA, not after the balcony scene you’d made, and Moony had witnessed. The small, almost imperceptible falter of his features, the heartache before the fake smile was so hard to forget, it kept playing over and over in your head. And then his words. Take all myself, he’d…

“What do you think, Étoile, do you like it?” Sirius asked as he passed his notebook over to you. He could easily tell you were troubled, but just like James, he assumed it had to do with Christmas. Nobody knew what you’d seen last night, and nobody would know. You couldn’t tell James without outing Remus and of-bIoody-course, you could not tell Sirius you’d seen Moony moaning his name. 

You took the notebook from his hands, his fingers lingered over yours as if he too was craving the contact. But he let it go and you checked. On one side there was a sketch of you and James playing exploding snap. You had a small frown and James was grinning like a fool, one of his hands was over the bunch of cards he had just won. It was slightly cartoonish, but the way he had added more sketches with different expressions on your face, made it adorable. 

On the other page though, there was a more detailed drawing. It was Remus reading, similar to the first drawing he’d shown you, but this time, he’d added colour. He’d carefully traced Remus’s scars and the golden brown of his eyes. As golden as they looked then, with the moon being so close. Sirius had also drawn his jumper and the details of the cover of the book. The background had been left colourless, but the pillows surrounding Remus made him look like a careless prince, looking at his book with nothing but the plot troubling his mind. 

Beautiful, Remus looked beyond beautiful. But that’s when you started to pay closer attention, Sirius’ sketches of James and Peter (you had seen them before) were more on the rougher side like he wanted to practise the lines on their faces and get them just right. Yours and Remus’, however? They were always more detailed, more intricate. There were softer strokes behind the ones he’d added in the end, like he wanted to have both of your features not only simulated but also photocopied from reality. 

There wasn’t a single drawing of Remus you’d seen that wasn’t like that. Where he didn’t look stunning, where it wasn’t a perfect mirror of the Remus only a few people seemed to be able to witness. Perhaps that only the few who knew why he had all those scars had seen. The same scars that you thought added to his beauty rather than took away from it. 

All of that, always present in the way Sirius drew him. “It’s stunning, Pups,” you said honestly. “Rem would love it.” 

“Me, why?” The boy asked as he looked up from his book.

“It’s you,” you said as you passed the notebook over to him, James tried to lean over to see the drawing but got only a glimpse before Remus took it from your hands. Once he’d taken it away you turned over and used your elbows to prompt yourself up and be able to see his reaction. 

He stared at the drawing, the light blush tinting his neck and ears was so obvious now that you knew about his crush, that you wondered how you hadn’t seen it before. How you hadn’t seen the nervous glance Sirius was throwing at him, as if he craved his approval. The way he looked at Remus’ lips, and how they pursed, even if it was just slightly. 

“You’ve gotten used to the watercolours,” Remus said. “It’s incredible, Pads.” 

The smile on Sirius’ lips when he said that, so big and unabashed. Like he couldn’t help but be thrilled by it. You loved seeing it, you loved seeing how happy they were both, how happy they would make each other, but that didn’t stop the slight pang in your heart. 

Were you in the middle? Was it possible that Sirius was as in love with Remus as Remus was with him? 

“You really captured the way his eyes look today. Just the right shade, more gold than brown with how close the moon is.” 

Remus, who was aware of the fact that his eyes changed often, but didn’t pay much attention to it since he was barely a witness of it, looked at you with interest. 

“Oh right, that happens to Moony,” James said almost as an afterthought as he took the notebook from his hands and placed it next to Remus’ face. “Vix is right, the colouring is on point, mate.” 

It’s not that James hadn’t seen Moony’s eyes change, he’d pissed him off enough to know how they would turn almost golden when he was furious, but unlike you and Sirius, he wasn’t always paying attention to his eyes.

But Sirius does, you thought. Sirius knows what the subtle changes in Moony’s eyes mean, he’s paid enough attention. Or perhaps too much of it.

“I was reading about colouring eyes in the book you got me for Christmas earlier. I thought I could practise with Moony’s since they’re always interesting.” 

You wondered if Sirius also considered your eyes interesting, and then felt silly for being jealous over it, you also thought Remus’ eyes were extremely interesting, not to mention soothing and warm. Eyes that said 'You're safe’, even when it was Moony’s eyes, the ones you were looking at. Perhaps it was all part of the wolf, giving him soothing eyes so he could catch the foolish, impressionable prey. You had almost been bitten because of them, you would know. 

“Won’t you try with my eyes,” James said with a pout. “My eyes are interesting too!” 

“Nah,” Sirius said with a small smirk, knowing it would get a rise out of James.

 He scoffed and leaned close to Remus, “Moony don’t you think my eyes are interesting too? At least as pretty as Vixen’s!” 

They were not as pretty as Vixen’s. Only Sirius’ eyes were. At least to Remus. “Well, I suppose…”

“They’re not,” Sirius said, just to piss James further.

“You’re such an ass!” James complained as he pushed Sirius lightly, causing him to dramatically fall on Remus’ lap. 

“I’ve been hurt for being honest, Pauvre de moi!”

“Is that poor me?” Remus asked, a lace of scepticism in his tone as he leaned his head over Sirius who looked at him smirked and then winked as an answer. 

You took pity on James’ little pout, “I believe Lily thinks you have the prettiest eyes,” you said casually. James turned to you with unparalleled excitement, completely contrasting with his previous stance.

“Really? She does?” 

“She said she likes the specks of brown mixed with the honey tones,” you added with a shrug. Both Sirius and Remus eyed you after that, as if you were not allowed to think of James’ eyes as pretty.

“Vixen, you’re becoming my favourite marauder,” James declared as he placed his hand over your shoulder. 

“I know,” you said with a sly smile. You were about to say something else when Remus grunted.

The three of you turned to him, his eyes were even more golden than before, and he was clenching his jaw so hard you could see the muscles flexing. You were quick to rise from your laying stance and into a sitting position, dragging yourself closer to Remus with a concerned gaze.

“He’s coming,” Remus said, voice strained. 

From the large arches of the kiosk, you could see the moon appearing through the clouds. It was already quite dark, and the air became chiller, even with the warming spells of the kiosk, it was as if the cold air slipped through the cracks of whatever disturbance the powerful lycanthropy course was causing.

Sirius had risen from Moony’s lap but was as close to him as you, James, or rather, Prongs, was already outside and looking at the three of you while he made sure –by smelling– that there was nobody around. Sirius and you had somehow travelled to either side of Remus, your scents overwhelming his senses and making his stomach churn, he wasn’t sure if that was him or the wolf. 

Remus shut his eyes and dug his head in between his legs, he handed you the book he was reading, “On the chest,” he said. “I don’t want Moony to break it!” 

Moony had, on previous occasions already broken things Remus liked, as if he found joy in making Remus suffer, and Remus was sure he had done it on purpose so he didn’t take risks anymore. If there was anything Moony would want to destroy, then he made sure to keep it as far away from his claws and jaws as possible. 

“Take my wand too,” he said. You were quick to dig through his coat pockets to try and find it and then decided to pull the whole thing entirely. Sirius was next to help him with his shirt and threw it your way. You caught it with ease and placed it on the chest, still searching for the wand while Remus pulled the rest of his clothes off. Sirius threw them your way once he managed to pry them off Remus’ legs. 

Remus really tried not to think of the fact that both you and Sirius had just undressed him completely, but he had been thinking of such lewd things in the past few hours that he couldn’t help but flush. “Cold?” Sirius asked when he noticed.

“Mhm,” Remus said as he tried to hide his head on his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Sirius said and leaned closer, embracing him and rubbing his hands all over Remus’ arms and back. Then he pulled to look at his best friend again. “Better?” 

That’s when you found the wand and shut the chest along with Remus’ clothes, book, the cards you’d been playing with James and Sirius’s sketchbook. You made sure to use a powerful locking spell, courtesy of Remus’ wand and then turned. You saw skin breaking, and his eyes locked on Sirius while your boyfriend held him in the most reassuring manner possible. 

Just like he had held you after that November Moon, his eyes looked on Remus’. The blush, which Remus had attributed to cold, was still there, and you knew it wasn’t because of the chilly atmosphere. But there was something else, the way Sirius looked at Remus? He had never looked at James like that. 

You were so lost in your thoughts, that you didn’t react to everything that was going on until Remus shrieked your name. You flinched, your eyes focusing back on the situation. Remus was pretty much leaning onto Sirius, hiding most of his body in the other boy as he looked at you with a horrified expression. He didn’t have to say it, you instantly knew what he meant with that. In a matter of seconds, you turned into Vixen.

“Si–Siri.” 

“Shut it Moony, I know when to turn,” the other boy responded casually. Remus groaned in response. You could see the skin of his back ripping and giving way to fur. You walked closer to him and Sirius, and leaned your head to his bare leg, rubbing it much like a cat would. 

Not you too, Remus thought as he saw how close you were to him now. He didn’t speak though, he was trying to hold back his sobs. He hated being weak in front of the two of you. He hated you having to see him so raw and vulnerable, but he also loved having you there. He loved the way Vixen wouldn’t leave his side and how Sirius held him as close as physically possible. 

How he was completely enraptured by the two of you, and how both refused to move no matter how much he screamed for you to do it. He hated being vulnerable, but he loved what that vulnerability brought along with it. If he hadn’t been a werewolf, perhaps he would have never gotten an excuse to be as close to you as he was now. And even if he considered it a curse, even if he wished he was normal most of the time, it was on days like that one that he didn’t wish for any of it. Instead, he embraced it. 

Seconds later, Remus was gone, his eyes had grown bigger, his scarred skin had turned into fur and his nails had grown and sharpened into claws. Sirius had turned almost at the same time, one second he hugged Remus and on the next he was Padfoot. Moony jumped on top of him playfully when he realised he was free. 

Padfoot complained with a bark, although he was just being his dramatic self. Moony knew him well enough to bark in return. You watched the two of them being playful with each other for a while. If Moony knew you were there, he didn’t care to let you know. Prongs clashed his hooves against the ground as if telling the two boys to let him join the fun, but neither of them seemed to listen as they barked and jumped all over each other. 

You watched the exchange with curiosity for a while. It was as if Remus and Sirius could be as close to each other as they wanted while they were animals. The more you thought about it, the more you realised how blind you’d been. Prongs clashed his hooves again, digging them deep enough to let the wet soil smell waft through the air as they dug past the snow and into it. You turned to look at him, skipped through one of the balusters and landed on the snow, your paws sinking deep enough for you to get stuck. 

You had to move around for a bit until you managed to roll out of the snowy trap you had ended up on, and by the time you managed Prongs was gently pushing you to the side. You barked an «I can do it by myself» that James obviously didn’t understand, but was enough to get the two other dogs to turn and look at you. 

You peeked through the balusters of the railing when you noticed they had stopped barking at each other. They were both looking at you, wolf and dog, eyes locked on your much smaller frame, you instantly knew what game they were playing, you waved your tail behind you, looking at the way their eyes chased your every movement.

A deerhound and a wolf, both hunters by nature, both known to hunt foxes, and both ready to chase you to the ends of the earth, quite literally. You tilted your head to the side just a little, clearly teasing them both, Padfoot barked something about not being too cocky. You rolled over your back and took off running. 

You sped through the thinnest and softest snow as fast as you could. Since you were less heavy, you could walk over it without sinking too much, but Prongs’ hooves, and Moony and Padfoot’s paws fell deep, which made them lag, even if it was just seconds as they tried to follow behind you. Prongs, being the tallest, and somehow most able to skip through the snow, was trailing behind you while Moony and Pads kept trying to get past the deep snow. 

You kept running, pleased that you had managed to outrun them long enough when you heard a wail, and then the cries of a wolf. You turned around concerned, Moony was wailing behind. Sirius barked at you, but you didn’t pay attention to what he said and walked straight to Moony. He wailed again, howling lowly like a scared dog and you ran faster. 

When you reached the area, you figured one of his paws had dug into the snow and started digging to try and find the root of the problem, too busy with that to pay attention to the way his wails had stopped or to see the way he looked at his small friend fox before he jumped out of the snow and trapped you between his paws.

 «Treacherous Wolf,» you barked.

 «Gullible little fox,» he retorted, then he leaned closer. «I won!»

 «You cheated!»

«I still won,» he barked, this time slower, as if he wanted you to understand him. 

If that’s how we’re going to play, you thought and leaned your head to the side, enough to sharply bite onto one of his paws. He wailed at that, and you took off running, the coppery taste of bIood remained on your tongue as you darted to the side, perhaps you had bitten too sharply. 

«You bit me?» Moony barked, he sounded impressed as he inspected his wound, giving it a lick and confirming you’d drawn bIood. It hurt, but not enough to have him stagger. 

«Well, since cheating is allowed,» you replied as you kept running. Prongs eyed Moony carefully, they had seen him when he was on edge, there was nothing of the gentle wolf from the last full moon, and absolutely everything from the angry one from November. But Moony didn’t look mad, if anything he looked entertained, amused. Prongs jumped towards him, leaning his head down in some sort of salute Moony had already learned to understand, but he skipped past him and went straight behind you. 

You had already been caught by Padfoot, though. He was rolling all around you, blocking your path to continue running, and leaning closer to push you around with his snout when Moony reached the two of you. 

«Stop!» he barked loudly. 

Neither you nor Sirius listened, you were too caught up in trying to escape his grasp, and he was too entertained with teasing his little fox girlfriend to bother with whatever Moony was trying to say.

«I said stop!» Moony barked again, and for a second time, was completely ignored. He didn’t like being ignored. And while Remus had enough forbearance to tolerate the two of you being all over each other, Moony did not. Moony was possessive, his Vixen and his Padfoot had no business being all over each other from his perspective. 

He tried one more time, but all he got in return was some soft, cooing-like barks from Sirius and something akin to a laugh from you. He’d had enough, he waited, and when he had the chance, he bit the fluffy end of Vixen’s tail and pulled you back a couple of steps. 

«Moony?» you barked confused, and then saw him step past you and between you and Padfoot.  

«Moony?» Pads asked as well. 

«Don’t play with her?» Moony said sternly.  

You instantly figured out what’d happened and cursed yourself for being such an idiot. Moony cocked his head to the side and you stepped further back and then took off running. Sirius barked, but you ignored it entirely and when Padfoot tried to step behind you, Moony got in the way. 

«Are you upset because she bit you?» Padfoot asked, trying to see past Moony’s larger frame, you were already near the edge of the forest. 

«No.»

«You’ve upset her.»

«She bit me.»

«So you don’t care?»

Moony growled at that. Of course, he fucking cared, there was something very deep inside of him clawing out and telling him to go after you, telling him he had to comfort you, telling him it was his duty to take care of the fox, but the other side the wild side of him, the jealous beast, it said that you shouldn’t have been playing with one another. That for some reason it had upset him, and Moony was only around for a little while, he did not like feeling down. 

«She was upset before you came, you know?»

Before I came? Moony wondered. They were together before I came? That was maddening. He hated the idea of you existing together outside of the little to no time he had with you. Remus’ feelings were buried deep down, and only Moony, a terribly jealous Moony remained.

«I don’t care!» he barked. 

Padfoot seemed upset by that, which only made him angrier. 

«She bit me, yet you defend her!»

«She was playing.»

«You defend her!»

You approached the two of them fast enough to step in between Moony’s legs and barked «Catch me if you can!»

«Vixen…» Padfoot warned he knew Moony was in a mood. 

«Don’t meddle,» you barked back and looked at Moony defiantly, you’d bitten him, he was mad at you, not at Padfoot, not at Sirius. You were the one who had taken his crush away, if anyone deserved the wolf’s wrath, then it was you. 

You taunted the wolf one more time and then took off running. Moony was behind you in a split second and when Padfoot tried to run too, he was stopped by a warning growl from Moony. He peeled his lips at the black dog, showing his sharp-as-knife claws and continued running behind you. 

Pads was ready to ignore the warning and follow the two of you but Prongs stepped right in front of him, and with all his regalness shook his head. Whatever it was, it was a Moony and Vixen issue, not a Padfoot and Moony issue, so he should let you solve them. Moony was often volatile, and he’d had similar quarrels with Pads in the past, he’d just never seen one because he was always immersed in them. 

Prongs didn’t quite understand what it was all about, but he assumed it was a canine thing and decided not to dwell on it too much. In the end, Moony never did anything to actually hurt Pads, and he was certain he wouldn’t dare to hurt Vix either. Especially not after seeing the two of you play on the previous moon. It had taken minutes for Moony to warm up to you, for Pads, Prongs and Wormy, it hadn’t been nearly as fast.

You ran straight into the forest, outrunning Moony on the snow was not going to be a successful endeavour for too long, especially not when you passed the soft snow area and reached one that wouldn’t cause him to lag, but inside the forest, where you could use your reflexes to skip through branches and through run roots, it would be much easier. 

You could hear his loud puffing behind you, the thump of his paws against the snow, making a rather hollow sound. Your running was somehow still controlled, even if slightly frantic. You were playing, and you knew there was no way Moony would hurt you, but the adrenaline was still there, and it helped you run through James’ forest as if it was a maze you knew by memory, even if you ran nowhere in particular. 

You were about to jump through a small creak when a pair of strong jaws sized you by the neck. Moony huffed as he stopped and dropped you not so gently into the floor. He huffed again as he stared at you rolling around and standing your ground. 

«Don’t play with him like that!» he barked.

You wanted to tell him you could play with him however you wanted, but you understood that you were hurting Moony as much as you were hurting Remus whenever you were so close to him, so against your very nature, kept your mouth shut. 

«You can only play with me like that,» he barked next. 

What?!? You wondered as you stared at him, surprised at his words. 

«Understood?»

You narrowed your eyes at Moony, he seemed very determined over what he said, over you only being able to play with him like that. Sometimes when you thought you understood the wolf, he did something like that and scrambled your mind altogether. You would have sworn he was jealous of you playing with Pads, not of Pads playing with you. You would have never imagined what actually went through the wolf’s head –he was jealous of both. 

The wolf huffed again, clearly expecting an answer. «Fine,» you barked.

You would have sworn you saw the wolf smile. He leaned down and pushed you with his snout lightly. You barked at him as a reply, and he pushed you again, this time to the other side. He wants to play, you realised. The next time he leaned to push you, you dodged and walked through his paws until you were on the other side. 

He barked and turned around, in an instant, looking for you again as you dodged and jumped around the much larger dog. You had to be a lot faster to try and beat his reflexes that were for some reason much sharper than Padfoot’s.

Eventually, you took off running again. You suspected Moony gave you some advantage, since you lost him in the woods at some point, even if you could still hear his howlings all around. You skipped and jumped around branches until you tried to find your way back into the snowy fields from the beginning. That’s when he appeared, stepping right in your path and howling in triumph. 

«Found you» 

«You always do,» you retorted. It was true, both Moony and Remus were exceptionally good at finding you. 

«I do?» he asked as he walked by your side, slowing down his steps to match yours. 

«Must be your sixth sense or something»

He huffed in return, still trying to make sense of the situation. By the time the two of you made it out of the forest, the sky was starting to brighten. He looked up with a mix of tiredness and melancholy. 

«You’ll come again, right?» he asked. 

You howled, Padfoot ran towards the two of you the minute he spotted you on the edge of the woods, although he stayed on Moony’s side instead of yours. 

«Always!» 

«Always!» Pads barked right after you. «We’re a team, Moony» 

«Team?» Moony asked as if he didn’t understand the meaning.

«A pack,» you corrected. «We’re a pack»

«A pack,» Moony agreed, and then he yawned, shaking his head to try and fight the sleep away. 

«Let’s sleep» Pads barked.

«We must play»

«You’re falling asleep,» Pads said as he pushed Moony lightly, but he was leaning on the leg you’d bitten and he ended up toppling over to the other side and pushing you into the snow. You wailed in surprise and Moony stumbled up quickly. 

You shook some snow off your head as you peeked from the hole you’d ended up in, you narrowed your eyes at the two dogs. Moony leaned closer and licked some of the snow off your head, and then, just to tease you, gave a small bite to your ear. You complained with a bark. 

«It’s payback for my leg,» he said simply. You shook your head again and he pulled back as you scrambled your way outside of the small hole. It had comically gotten the shape of a fox, and it made you think of some of those muggle cartoons you sometimes saw playing on the TVs they had in cafés and supermarkets. 

Eventually, you all went back to the kiosk, you found your way on one side of Moony and Pads on the other. Prongs tried to get in too, but he was too tall, and his antlers kept crashing onto the top of the kiosk, so he had to accommodate himself just outside. 

Moony fell asleep before the moon disappeared, and this time you were awake as you saw him shrink into Remus. The process didn’t look as painful for him, but when Remus was back, his body was still covered by the opened wounds where the fox had ripped through his skin to come out. He was hugging Padfoot by the time you scurried towards the side and peeked your head through the balusters to bark at Prongs, so he too noticed Moony was gone. He turned back and walked inside with a yawn. 

“You haven’t slept?” he said after he saw you turn. 

“Are my eyebags that big?” you joked in a quiet tone as you pulled Remus’ wand from your pocket and opened the chest to take his coat, you didn’t want to wake them. You tried not to think of what’d happened with the coat when you placed it over him and threw a cover on top for good measure since it was rather cold.

“A little,” James said as he let himself down and accommodated some of the pillows to lay on them, “you should sleep,” he added just after yawning. 

“Just want to leave his clothes ready,” you said as you dug through the chest, trying to find the rest of the bunched-up clothes you’d thrown in there.

“We slept” –he yawned again– “we slept while he was playing with you,” he explained. 

“Sounds nice,” you said as you pulled out the clothes and leaned closer to Remus, pulling the covers from him just enough to expose about half of his back, and performing a simple numbing spell all over his gashes. You knew magic didn’t play well with Werewolf-caused injuries, and while you wouldn’t be able to heal them, at least you could help him feel at ease. 

You saw the way his small frown dissolved about at the same time his jaw muscles untensed. It worked, you thought with a simple smile. James, half asleep, was looking at you taking care of Remus and he also smiled. He loved the fact that he could entrust his two best friends to you and drift asleep without having to worry too much about either of them. 

“Sleep,” he said again. “Play nurse later.” 

“Not playing nurse,” you said as you made sure Remus’ coat was covering him from the cold. Rem had been there for you at your worst, you wanted to be able to do the same for him. You wanted to be the reassuring presence in his life; especially since it was because of you that he was partially miserable. 

You threw yourself close to the railing and fell asleep shortly after. Effie and Monty came home and helped transport a still-sleepy Remus back to James’ room. Monty gave him some potions, and Effie lathered him with a royal blue paste that would help the wound close faster, prevent infections, and a bunch of other stuff that you barely heard from how sleepy you were.  

You were still sleeping in the kiosk when you felt something tickle your ear. “Étoile,” Sirius said. “Aren’t you planning to wake up today?” 

You groaned in response and placed one of the pillows on top of your head to block the light, but Sirius took it off and leaned closer to you, his hair was tickling your face as you tentatively opened one eye. “How’s Rem?” 

“Still asleep. The Potters are waiting for you to have breakfast.” 

“For me?”

“Effie and Monty both brought their favourite bread and they want us to choose who made the best. James and I picked the opposite so you’ll be the tiebreaker.” 

“Couldn’t I be the tiebreaker in a few hours?” 

“’M afraid not Starshine, the bread will get cold and it won’t taste the same. Come,” he said as he pulled you into a sitting position, your head landed on his shoulder and you groaned because of the sudden movement.  “Want me to carry you?” 

“Want you to sleep with me,” you retorted, your lips brushing against Sirius’ bare neck and making him blush from the memory of the fae pond. 

“We can definitely arrange that later,” he teased. You weren’t so sleepy that you didn’t notice the double meaning of his words.

“I meant to sleep, as in close your eyes and dream, you perv,” you laughed, finally getting some of that sleepiness to shrug off. You pulled back to look at him, he was so pretty as he looked at you. The softness of his gaze, the small smile that was almost a smirk but still wasn’t the one he’d pull for teachers or people he’d prank. But rather, an honest sort of smirk, one that he paired with those loving eyes of his. Loving eyes that you had only ever seen him use on you.

And then, almost as a whisper from the back of your mind came a voice, And Remus.  

Breakfast with the Potters was like it had been the previous days, except with higher stakes in the competition. Effie’s bread was the clear winner for you, and Sirius completely agreed while both James and Monty gave you a dumbfounded, betrayed sort of look that was so genuine you almost felt bad for picking Effie. But then you saw her big smile and the way she did a small successful dance that the feeling disappeared. 

Effie and Monty both cut up their bread into slices and the elves helped by bringing over some toppings, from jam, butter, cream cheese and hazelnut spread, to more exotic things like manticore cheese, mermaid jam (actually just sweet seaweed jam) –that was apparently James’ favourite–, and even pixie dust cream that made people float if they had too much.

You had already tried the jam and cheese, but the pixie dust cream was completely new to you, your father had always steered away from anything fae-related, just in case. Hadn’t been worth much in the end, had it? 

Effie stood up after everyone had eaten, “Isn’t it time for Remus’ potion?” She asked as she looked at the clock, and then at Monty. 

“Seems like it is,” he replied after adjusting his glasses and checking on the clock himself.

“Did he eat?”  

“Said he didn’t want to,” James said as he gave another bite of his bread with mermaid jam.

“I’ll bring him some,” you said. “Can take the potion too.” 

“Such a darling,” Monty said, and stood up, grabbing a potion from the cupboard and serving a bit in a small shot glass as you prepared buttered some bread and added some of the spreads, a different one to each slice.

“Want me to come?” Sirius asked as you took the plate in one hand and the potion in the other. 

You shrugged in response, “I’m gonna find some clothes to change afterwards, so it might take a while.” 

Sirius wanted to say that maybe he really should come along then, but decided to shut his mouth when he remembered both Effie and Monty were still in the room. “See you in a bit then,” he said as he pressed a kiss to your cheek. Then he took a few pieces of cheese and placed them on the plate with Remus’ food. “It’s his favourite,” he said, and then pulled a chocolate from his pockets and placed it there too. 

You gave him a small smile and walked upstairs, it didn’t escape your mind how thoughtful Sirius was with Rem after the moon. Of course, you had always encouraged it, since you knew Remus needed it, but the uneasy feeling that was still gnawing at the back of your mind became more present. Was it so obvious, and had you just been too blind to see it before? 

“Hey, Rem,” you said as you opened the door. He was on the bed, still shirtless and with bandages all over his torso. Monty had wrapped him earlier when they brought him up. He was looking at the window and turned to look at you as he heard the door. Your hair was loose, you had his jumper on, and he thought there wouldn’t be a more comforting thing than that. 

“Hey, Little Witch.”

You walked towards him and sat on the bed, placing the plate on the table before leaning in a bit closer with the potion glass Monty had given you in your hand. 

“Open up,” you said with a smile.

“I can move my hands,” he replied.

“I didn’t ask if you could,” you retorted and leaned closer, sneaking your hand to the nape of his neck and pushing his head forward. He raised one of his eyebrows at you but opened his mouth as you leaned your hand with the potion towards his mouth. He drank the potion and tried not to laugh at your satisfied smile. “How are you feeling?” 

“I should be asking you that, wasn’t Moony too rough last night?” 

You shrugged, “We’re still getting used to each other. It’s a bit hard letting him win.” 

“Oh,” he said with a teasing smile, “So you let him win?” 

“He likes to think he’s got the power,” you responded and handed over the plate.

“Godric forbid little Vixen surrenders any of her power to him,” he retorted. And you pulled your tongue out in reproach, which caused him to laugh. “All this for me?” 

“Mhm,” you responded. “Sirius said you really like this one,” you added as you pointed towards the cheese. “I didn’t know.” 

“They don’t serve it at Hogwarts,” he said and took a piece. It was when he dragged his hand to his mouth that you realised the sharp bite mark he had on his wrist. Two holes on one side and two on the other, a slight purplish tone surrounding them both. You swallowed, that’s exactly what your arm looked like after you bit it at the Christmas party. 

“Vixen did that?” you said taking his hand and dragging it towards you. “Shit, Rem, I’m sorry,” you said as you stared at his wrist, carefully sliding your fingers over the marks your fangs had created and wincing at how his soft skin was now marked. 

“I heal fast,” he said with a shrug. “I really don’t mind it, Sweetheart. I mean if anything, it’s nothing compared to what Moony–” 

“I didn’t bite you because of that!” you said. “I mean she didn’t– you know what I mean.” 

“I know,” he said with a smile. “Moony was being a prick.” 

You smiled, “Have you tried a healing spell?” 

“Monty gave me some ointment for it,” he said as he pointed to the table. “Said Vix has a mean bite.” 

You pouted at that and pulled the ointment from the table and picked some up before carefully placing it on top of his wounds. “Now it looks like a vampire bit you.” 

“It’ll go away in a couple of days,” he said with a shrug, looking at the way your fingers carefully danced over his wrist. Remus would have allowed Vixen to bite him all the time as long as he got this treatment from you afterwards. Heck, he was even considering cornering her into it just for the aftercare. Of course, he couldn’t exactly get Moony to do any of those things, but that didn’t mean he didn’t think about it. 

“Thank you,” he muttered when you finished. 

“‘Least I can do,” you said as you turned to him. He missed the apprehensive look you gave him, thinking of how much pain you were causing him, and not just the physical one. 

 “Eat,” you said as you pointed at the food, taking a piece of cheese and plopping it in your mouth before standing from the bed and walking towards your suitcase. 

He took a piece of bread and gave it a bite to it. He’d picked the one with hazelnut spread, “Did you combine this with cream cheese?” he asked, mouth slightly full.

“I’ve seen you do it a couple of times,” you said with a shrug. “You think we’ll be out much today?” 

“I certainly won’t,” he said as he nodded towards his bandaged self. “Monty said if I rest all day, tomorrow I’ll be able to at least, have fun at the party. He prepared a really potent painkiller potion for it.” 

“Maybe I can convince the boys to just come back here and we can play Monopoly or something.” 

“Without me? Is that so you win?” 

“I could win even if you were playing,” you retorted, still digging through your suitcase. You took a pair of denim overalls out –you’d bought them with Tom and Beth– and then a band shirt (that was actually yours and not stolen from Sirius). It was an extremely muggle outfit, but you didn’t really care. 

Remus saw you sitting in the corner, rummaging through your clothes and he couldn’t help but be reminded of that one scene on Peter Pan. He wondered if you would play along with him like you had with Sirius on the balcony.

“Girl, why are you crying?”  

You frowned, jumping to him with your clothes still in your hands. Remus might have been perceptive as hell, and he would have probably figured out if you were actually crying, but you weren’t. Not at that time. “I’m not–” 

“Remus John Lupin, What’s yours?” he pressed on. 

You frowned and tilted your head to the side. “Vixen?” 

“Is that all?” 

Finally, you smiled, knowing exactly what Remus was doing, “Yes.” 

“Where do you live?” 

“Second star to the right and straight on till the morning.” 

“What a funny address,” he said with a bit of a mocking smile. 

You walked towards him and sat with him on the bed. “It is not.” 

“Why were you crying?” 

“I wasn’t crying,” you deflected again. “Come with me! To Neverland!” 

“To Neverland?” Remus asked, “sounds far away.”

“We could really use a werewolf,” you teased. 

Remus laughed, “I shall give you a kiss.” You extended your hand to him in the same way Peter Pan would have done. “Don’t you know what a kiss is?” 

“I shall know it when you give it to me.” 

Remus couldn’t stand up, and he really didn’t have anything even remotely close to a thimble around, so he took a piece of cheese and deposited it in your hand, you couldn’t help but break into a laugh, letting yourself fall over his legs as he looked at you bemused. 

“Why do you make fun of me so?” 

“I’m not, I’m not,” you added, “sorry”. And then sat back on the bed, trying to stifle your laughter. When you finally did, you bit your lip and tilted your head to the side, “Remus, you’re worth more than twenty boys.” 

Remus was almost taken aback by your words, not because he didn’t know they were on the play –which was by now a completely scrambled version of Peter Pan, but because of the sincerity you said it with. Remus was good at figuring it out when you were lying, playing or bluffing, and this time, he couldn’t see any of that, you were being sincere, and it was startling. Remus could almost see the love you held for him behind your eyes, he could tell how much you cared and it pained him, it pained him to know just how close you were and yet how–

“What are you up to, mischievous creatures?” Sirius asked as he burst the door open and took a diverted look at the two of you on the bed.

And yet how far… 

“Just playing,” you replied with a smile, the spell that had been cast over the two dissolving like the soap bubbles of oblivion that the two of you had created when you were alone at their parent’s cottage. “Take care of him, will you, I’ll change.” 

“Why not here?” Sirius teased with a smile, and Remus threw him a look. He would have so not been able to see that with a casual stance. And knowing you, if Sirius decided to make it some sort of dare, you might have done it. 

Thankfully, instead of indulging Sirius, you took off Moony’s jumper and launched it at his face, “Wouldn’t you like that? You perv,” you teased, and walked towards the bathroom with the clothes you’d change to in between your hands. 

“How are you feeling?” Sirius asked, turning to Remus with a kind and soft smile.

“Much better,” Remus admitted. “Vix seems to know how to lift my spirits.”

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed. And then took a deep breath. “She’s still avoiding the subject.” 

“I doubt she’ll stop anytime soon,” Remus said, quite aware of it himself.

“It worries me,” Sirius said. “What if she keeps it all in and then she blows up?” 

Remus sighed, he knew what Sirius meant, he too was worried about it. All the pressure in your shoulders was something that neither of them could control nor alleviate, and it was eating both of them up from the inside. “You just have to be there for her then.” 

Series Masterlist | Next Chapter

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A/N: Well now we know, but what shall we do with said knowledge? Suffer, of course.

Read more Marauders Fiction

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Are You Sure?! - Episode 1 Observations

Who said it during the Bon Vogaye S3 interviews? "We click". Was it Jimin or Jungkook? Either way, it's clearly mutual and and we've heard iterations of that throughout the years in other contexts, particularly in terms of work ethic.

The first night they spent in Connecticut at that cabin in the woods showed us a different facet, in a more domestic realm. The delegation of each role during cooking pointing out what the other one likes, knowing exactly how to prepare something based on a word. It was like a well-oiled machine that has been functioning for ages. It also gave us a taste of what was to come the next evening when Jungkook cooked pasta, an entire scene worthy to dissect.

But what stood out to me more was what happened next. I know we've all joked and talked about poor Jimin and his stomach bug. A very unexpected topic, but here we are. The level of candidness might have felt surprising (at least for me initially), but they are also guys and perhaps coming from a place socially and culturally in which it's not unusual.

But it did contribute to that element of authenticity I mentioned in my first post about the series. I want to digress a bit here because the entire situation reminded me of a conversation I had perhaps more than a decade ago. I was talking to an acquitance about elements that are usually kept out of films, part of the mundane. What is left out of the story due to its lack of relevancy. And he said that scenes of people urinating are common in films, but we don't see/hear people taking a shit, or even talking about it. Yes, the language was that crude. (And no, Salo doesn't count). Shortly after, Godard's Adieu au langage was released and if my memory serves right, it had that exact scene that my acquitance was talking about. I don't think it was a matter of authenticity, the film was a lot more complex than that in its experimentation, but it did go as far as to show somehow the hidden parts of human behavior on screen, now suddenly at a forefront.

What's the purpose of that in a travel show? What does it say about the choice to show it and about the people? In variety content including surviror type, travel or even food show, issues connected to the body are not something foreign or unusual. But in AYS, it's about the length and how it became a way to show the care a person has for the other and consequently becoming another example of that authenticity.

Both Jungkook and Jimin kept a light tone over Jimin's progressive state of sickness, but in no circumstances has Jungkook ever treated it like he needs to keep his distance. The man was sitting in bed, telling Jimin it's alright, while he was fighting for his life in the bathroom.

Despite keeping a light tone, in Jungkook's case it's often about his actions. His own way of showing that he cares more than what appears to. He might laugh and joke that Jimin is dying, all the while being the one to give him the medicine. He keeps on making jokes as he goes outside, only to immediately decide to build a stone temple so Jimin can get better.

I found it all very moving. I know it might also seem trivial, but I choose to see some gestures for what they appear to be a sign of: complete comfortability, with no uneasyness or shame or lack of aknowledgement. It's a result of seeing that person going through everything and knowing that person intimately, at whatever level any of us choose to interpret it.

To be continued...

[coffee-with-mint-syrup]

The case of live-action atla zutara.

First of all, the scarf scene. I won't be repeating myself, here are some main points - there was absolutely no reason for Zuko to act the way he did and for the scene to be shot this dramatically. Even if they did the shipbaiting in this scene - it means there's a ship which is much more than live-action kataang has at this point. Also I don't really think these guys are shipbaiting type but that's just the impression I got.

Then - the second obvious one - Oma and Shu's visuals. We have star-crossed lovers from two towns at war, basically the local equivalent of Romeo and Juliet (as in legendary lovers who are known above all for their love) wearing coincidentally colors that are primarily associated with two of our characters (who shared this dramatically shot scene in the previous episode).

And I know, it may seem so insignificant - but but but but! - you have to think about this. Of course there are creators, writers and showrunners that are unaware of some non-canon ships or don't care about them. But it's not the case for atla. No, creators of atla were so aware of zutara - they wrote a parody scene in a in-world trashy play to mock this fan pairing and it still proved absolutely nothing and just gave zutara more content. The creators and writers of this adaptation clearly had the discussion "what we should do with kataang" - because there is no trace of kataang in the 1st season. So it was a conscious decision to omit that - but where would the romantic subplot go? Well, I don't know, but they are showrunners, they most certainly discussed options. They are clearly very, very, very much aware of zutara. And they still do this? They still show us Oma and Shu wearing red and blue? All they had to do is to give at least one of them any different color. Any. But they didn't. (for fuck sake, it is the Earth Kingdom - yellow and green would do it)

There were zero, no, nada Kataang interactions, implications or those scenes that are filmed just a little bit too dramatically like the scarf one. I don't know, there's still a chance that they will wait for season 3 to make Aang's crush on Katara happen. I'm also not so sure what will happen to Aang failing to open seventh chakra, I mean - his love for Katara has a huge purpose in series, so it still doesn't look very good. But you can't even imagine how glad I am that they didn't do this secret tunnel thing. It was very uncomfortable.

So it was the more fact-based part of my case, let's get to the irrational, almost delusional part, tin foil hat probably needed.

Almost all the scenes Zuko and Katara shared in the first season kept reminding me of another famous enemies-to-lovers ship that actually became canon in the infamous final episode - Reylo, the way it was filmed in The Force Awakens. I mean - the first fight in the woods where she looses, the intensity of him staring at her, the final fight in snowy location where she kicks his ass and shows her mastering this superpower, him trying to talk to her during this fight and mentioning her learning/having to learn...Zuko calling Katara a peasant reminded me of this "Rey is no one" discourse. I don't know man, I haven't thought about The Force Awakens reylo for a very long time and it just kept popping in my head.

All of this - it's like a blueprint for enemies to lovers.

Also I actually think that the look they shared in the 2nd episode was also shot kinda weirdly and dramatically. It's not to the extent of the scarf scene but I do remember thinking that "why did they film it they way? it's too intense".

In the conclusion I'd like to say that as much as I like all the season 1 zutara stuff they left out in the adaptation - necklace subplot and implications, pirates and the famous "You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun" - I think I actually prefer the scarf scene. Yes, it would be so great to see those things in adaptation but in the end of the day they would still be just the things they kept from the original and probably noting more. Like the cabbages or the secret tunnel song or anything else, just things from the source material that implicate nothing. While the scarf scene, the Oma and Shu's clothes - it means they made a conscious decision to make it that way. It means they put some thought into that and some meaning. And this gives me hope there's a chance for Zutara in this adaptation.

P.S. I told about this my sister who hasn't watch the series yet and she said "I think people who made this show are just shipping zutara in secret". I do not necessarily imply she might be right - but creators of animated series (the very same people that made kataang canon, not zutara) DID leave because of some creative differences and because they couldn't control creative decision. Might as well be THAT kind of decision.

[anxiousxowl]

Omgomgomg! Episode 59 was so good! 😭

Spoilers ahead!

This chapter really helped me understand our girl Julia and how her interactions with others influenced and still influence her decisions.

1. Kamille and Julia’s friendship. I really like that Kamille is opening up to Julia, and being sincere about everything. Now it all makes so much sense. Why Kamille wasn’t as thrilled to have Julia there in the circus, as well as why Kamille kept ignoring Julia or didn’t seem to care about Julia’s feelings. Of course, i’m not excusing Kamille, but i can better understand her. Julia did abandon her friend and dismissed Kamille’s feelings growing up. I can see how Kamille would feel abandoned and why she would ultimately prefer to leave everything behind, because not even her friend (Julia) seemed to care.

2. Julia’s “goody-two-shoes” act isn’t out of character. This is someone she became (albeit unwillingly) for the sake of her father. It came from a place of guilt. Which brings me to Sahed and Tonny’s influence on Julia.

3. Sahed brought back the old Julia. Let’s start with Sahed. There is no denying now that Julia was truly who she’s meant to be with Sahed. She was her true self. She was curious, inquisitive, and adventurous. She also thought for herself and cane to her own conclusions. All the things she used to be before she got lost in the woods. But we know this changed, and while i was confused as to why she completely chose to ignore Sahed, now i understand why.

4. It was because of an ah’kon that she got lost and her father worried about her. Miriam is so amazing for this, how she connected all the little dots. Of course she doubted Sahed when she first met him, how could she not when she has such a traumatic experience with an Ah’kon. But even then, she chose to trust Sahed, but we all know how that went. Once again, because of an ah’kon she did something wrong and, once again feelings of guilt resurface, so what does she do? She goes back to doing everything by the book.

5. Sahed and Tonny bring out two different Julia. Sahed brings out her best version, her true curious and adventurous self; however, Tonny brings out the uptight person she forced herself to become. That doesn’t mean that one is better than the other, this is also not about shipping, but about character development. Tonny wants Julia that sticks to rules and leave everything to him without questioning anything, much like the society in which she lived (Kalgratt). Sahed wants her to explore, to question things, and encourages her to think for herself. He definitely messed up, but his intentions weren’t entirely selfish. We see him helping her understand Kalgratt for what it truly is. If Julia could balance the two, and stop going to one extreme, i’m sure her life would be less complicated.

I have so much more to say, but i’m gonna shut up for now lol. This is only my opinion of course. I’m sorry if this was too long or if i rambled too much, but wow this chapter was so GOOD, i had to!

[simp2537]

Once again, you wrote that request super quick! I was hoping for yandere again cause that’s kinda my forte, but I can honestly say that I did enjoy that fic and thought it was pretty good (as all your fics seem to be :) ). Your fics are really short but sweet, and I thoroughly enjoy them. Also, I have another request already, but obviously don’t feel like you need to do it or anything, and especially not right away— I’m just sending requests cause you said we could, and I keep getting ideas & whatnot; I just watched the most recent Percy Jackson episode from the show and saw young Percy asking his mom “why are you trying so hard to get rid of me? I would never do this to you,” and it made me imagine a scenario. Basically, the reader (once again, gender neutral or male, and preferably a child of Apollo, but whatever works) either tries to break up with Percy— and maybe Annabeth too if you find a way to fit her into it with the idea I have in mind— or tries to run away or fight him, just something that makes Percy feel hurt & upset— and probably angry & whatnot cause I’m imagining another yandere scenario with this— to where he says something similar to what young Percy said in the show.

It’s just a neat concept I think, and I’m really interested to see what your take would be on it; thanks again for taking the time out of your day to write my requests, and have a great day :)

-🪑

Runaway

a/n sorry this one took a me longer I finally caught up on all the episodes. Any none canon events are fic magic and enjoy.

Warnings : Yandere! Percy, stalking and stalker behaviors, possessive behaviors, blood, and gore mentions.

Anon - 🪑

All Characters are aged up to 18 plus

Percy Jackson x Gender Neutral! Reader

Percy glared at the forest ahead of him. His lovely Sunni had disappeared into the wood surrounding camp. Y/n was hysterical and was tense all over. Their eyes weld with tears as they kept on going on and on about how they couldn’t do this anymore.

As Percy ventured into the woods tracking Y/n’s footprints he thought in their words. How their words cut into his soul like a knife.

“Everything is temporary, this is me of those things.”

Y/n spoke as they held in the tears that threatened to spill. Percy tried to reason with her of course. He tried to explain that he was the only person for them. He cried telling, begging them not to leave. Y/n merely took a step back, took in a breathe and stared at him.

“You aren’t a good guy Percy, you tried to kill my friend because he gave me a hug.”

“He was staring at you with a love sick look! He was asking for me to beat him up.”

Y/n don’t say much after that, they just walked away. Now as Percy tracked them he heard their soft sniffling. His poor Sunni didn’t know what to do with themselves now that he was gone.

He stared at them from an opposite tree as they sat firmly in the ground. Their first clenched the grass and muddy under them. He slowly stalked to them, his movements silent.

He grasped into them wrapping his arms around them tightly. Before they could scream a hand was clasped against them. They thrashed in his grip but it was no use. Their nose was covered and they couldn’t breathe.

Panic set in as they tried fiercely to get away. The managed to grab a dagger and slice at Percy’s arm in a weak attempt. Percy winced as Y/n dropped the dagger and went limp.

“Don’t worry, you can’t leave me, I’m the only permanent thing for you. Just like you’re the only permanent thing for me.”

[melrosing]

MBO Robert's Rebellion: Season 2 Episode 2

what the fuck is this: it's me drafting a fake robert's rebellion tv show through a series of bullet points. there will be two seasons of ten episodes each

i figured actually this one is basically done so im posting it. the rest should come prettyyyy quickly now, it's just a couple story strains where i'm making the last few edits to get everything in across the ten eps. anyway this 'season' is probably a wholeass exercise for me in trying to make sense of Rhaegar Targaryen so welcome, pls come along for the ride.

SEASON ONE: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 9, Episode 10

SEASON TWO: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3

title for this one: rhaegar breaks everything

Lyanna wakes in her tent to the sound a baby’s desperate screams. Perplexed, she dresses hurriedly and saddles her horse, riding off at pace to where she thinks they seem to come from. She grows more frustrated the further she rides, never seeming to get any closer. Suddenly, she hears a voice scream her name - it’s Ned’s. She sends her horse to a gallop, and reaches a familiar clearing: she met Rhaegar here a year ago, during the tourney of Harrenhal. Distracted, Lyanna regards the place a moment in silence, then reaches inside her cloak to find the flower crown Rhaegar gave her back then. It’s dried out now. A voice whispers ‘Lyanna’ more quietly, and Lyanna, alarmed, turns to see Rhaegar, leading a horse of his own. She asks if he heard a child; Rhaegar says he didn’t. Lyanna says she’d thought she’d heard Ned too, but he’s in the Vale. She supposes she must’ve been dreaming. Rhaegar asks if she dreams often, Lyanna says she dreams sometimes. Rhaegar asks of what, Lyanna says of this place, of blue roses, and of - she looks at him, stops. But Rhaegar knows already. He says, ‘I dream, too.’

Opening creds

Brandon riding for the Stark camp with Edmure, who chatters beside him about how he’s never ridden this far before. They meet Benjen at the outpost, who looks anxious; Brandon asks what the matter is, Benjen tells him it’s Lyanna. Together, they ride hard for camp

Ned and Robert at the Eyrie. Robert is bouncing a toddler in his lap, whilst Ned looks miserable. Robert makes reference to Brandon’s wedding, says Ned might have gone; Ned replies that he doubts Brandon will miss him. Rickard neither for that matter - Ned suspects he had always favoured his brothers. Robert laughs at that, assuring Ned that he’s the best of them - but for a man unbetrothed he could afford to have a little more fun. Ned says sceptically that betrothal has never kept Robert from fun, and Robert laughs, making the toddler (Mya) in his lap laugh too. Robert laughs the harder

Brandon and Edmure meet Rickard in the woods, searching for Lyanna. Rickard tells them that he and Lyanna had fought, and he suspects Lyanna may be sulking somewhere - but these woods are too dangerous for that, and she must be found. The rumours are already abound, too, that she is wild and loose, and he fears for their betrothal if Robert were to find out about this. He rides off, vexed 

Benjen asks Brandon if everything will be alright; Brandon isn’t sure, says he suspects Rickard is more worried than he’s letting on  

Jaime guarding Rhaella in the godswood; he has seen little of her since he took up his post, and notices bruises about her neck - the only part of her uncovered. Rhaella tells Jaime she remembers his mother, talks fondly about her as though talking to herself. She was such a child: giggled a lot, had plenty of daydreams, a sweet girl in her way, before she became lofty Lady Lannister. Jaime isn’t really listening, distracted by her injuries - he asks if she’s alright. Rhaella’s face clouds over; she tells Jaime it’s nothing, and speaks no more

Cut to Aerys in the throne room. Where is his goddamn son??? Rhaegar has not been seen for several nights. Aerys airs the suspicion that Rhaegar rides for Casterly Rock to plot against him with Tywin Lannister. Varys says he shudders to think… but it is said that Rhaegar did not take the Goldroad. Aerys wonders if Jaime Lannister knows something. Gerold Hightower says he’s sure the boy knows nothing. Varys says they can’t know that. Either way - Hightower changing the subject - for all his strength, Rhaegar is vulnerable when riding alone, and should be found. He says he will send two of his own men to find the Prince. Arthur Dayne knows him well, and will doubtless find him in good time 

Elia alone in her rooms, with her children playing at her feet. Rhaenys asks where father is; Elia, feeling too tired to comfort her daughter, simply tells her she doesn’t know. Rhaenys, weepy now, asks if he’s coming back. Elia says she doesn’t know that either. Rhaenys starts to cry, and Elia, looking dead inside, does nothing for several moments before reaching down to pick her up and comfort her. She tells Rhaenys about Dorne, says if father can run away then so can they. They’ll go to the Water Gardens, and Rhaenys can play with her cousin Arianne. Rhaenys asks if father will be sad if they go. Elia says no, she doesn’t think he’d be sad at all

Arthur Dayne in the WST, packing bags. Jaime watches on, asks where he is going. Arthur says to find the Prince. Jaime says he’ll go with him, Arthur says no. Jaime tries to argue, Arthur remains steadfast. Upset, Jaime says that he knows Arthur regrets knighting him, thinks it was a mistake to ever place him in the KG to begin with. Arthur says that isn’t so, it is simply that the King needs him here. For what?? Jaime says the King hates him. Arthur does not deny it, but states simply that there will come a time when the King will have great need of him. Jaime stares at him, perplexed. Ser Gerold Hightower walks in, and says he has an errand for Arthur, yet is startled to see Arthur is packing already. Jaime even more perplexed 

Ned running errands for Jon Arryn in a small town in the Vale. In a tavern, he attracts the notice of a black-haired girl, who flirts with him. Ned is uncomfortable, buts feels some attraction himself. She says she’s noticed him before with his friend, but she’s always liked Ned better. Ned feels himself being drawn in, doesn’t altogether like it - but likes it a little. The girl suggests they go somewhere quieter, and Ned tentatively agrees. As he follows her to the back rooms, she kisses him. Ned is shocked despite himself, and just as they reach the door he declines after all and turns back, embarrassed

Searching the woods for Lyanna. Benjen finds her dried flower crown on the forest floor where she had been the night previous, and runs to deliver it to his father and brother. Rickard and Brandon look at it horrified, till a local arrives with guards to tell them what he saw: Rhaegar rode past their village last night, and he had a girl with him. Rickard in crisis mode: he orders Benjen to return North to hold Winterfell. Benjen tells his father he doesn’t want to leave; he wants to find his sister. Brandon tells him there must always be a Stark in Winterfell (doesn’t explain why there wasn’t one this whole time but I digress), and Rickard tells him that they will return in good time - but not without Lyanna

Cat and Lysa waiting on the parapets for Brandon. Cat wonders why Lysa seems in such a good mood today, and asks her - but Lysa won’t reveal, hums smugly to herself

Suddenly they see Edmure on the horizon, but there’s no sign of Brandon??? The sisters race to the gates and find their father is there already. Edmure, both panicked and confused, tells their father that Brandon has ridden for KL - wtf???

Ned returns to the Eyrie, is told Jon Arryn wants him urgently. Ned bizarrely feels like he’s in trouble, enters Jon Arryn’s solar nervously - finds Robert pacing in rage, and Jon looking sorrowful. There’s been raven etc

Rhaegar and Lyanna riding together. Rhaegar is very quiet, and Lyanna doesn’t quite know where she’s following him to - but follows nonetheless. She asks lots of questions, doesn’t get many clear answers, till Rhaegar reveals he believes they were meant to meet that day at Harrenhal. Had she felt it, too? Lyanna frowns, intrigued, but a little frightened, too. Perhaps she had felt that, too. Rhaegar looks at her, knowingly

[nataliescatorccioapologist]

I visited the WGA library to read Yellowjackets scripts and wanted to share some of my findings! (Pt. 2)

Here are my notes for 1x03! Quotation marks indicate direct lines from the script, whereas everything else is me paraphrasing.

1x03 “The Dollhouse”

•The script starts with a scene of a panicked adult Travis bursting out of his secluded house (shack?) with a “wild glint in his eyes” “as if desperate to find the source of something and also terrfied he will find it.”

•Then it flashes back to the 1996 teen timeline and Travis hears a whisper late at night in the woods. He is “inexplicably drawn” to the plane wreckage. “The breeze rustles the tree branches, and again he hears a soft, hushed sound, as if the wilderness is calling his name.”

Travis is interrupted by Javi, who approaches him saying he had a bad dream.

As Travis is walking back to their camp with Javi, “The breeze picks back up. We hear a low and sinister exhalation, as if the woods are whispering for Travis to stay and preparing to make him stay.”

Both of these scenes were obviously cut, but I do think it’s really interesting that Travis was originally made out to be, arguably, just as connected to the Wilderness entity as Lottie is. Travis is one of the first people to be “contacted” by the Wilderness and it seems to take a particular interest in him. Also that line about making him stay is eery as hell.

•When the group is voting on whether to go to the lake or stay at the plane wreckage, the script makes sure to point out how hesitant some of the girls are to go against Jackie. Some of them even vote to stay at the wreckage just to avoid pissing her off. This shows her influence over the girls at the time, even though it eventually fades as they become more adapted to their new way of life.

•While the group is hiking to the lake, Taissa sees the man with no eyes for the first time, crouching in the bushes staring at her blankly. It understandably freaks her the fuck out and she’s shaken by it for the rest of the episode.

In the final product Tai doesn’t see the man with no eyes until later on, but this scene sounds creepy as fuck in the script.

•When Nat is looking through Travis’s house and finds the photo of the two of them together on his dresser, we get this line:

“We realize Natalie’s not only seen Travis recently, but they were close. Intimate. Natalie glances up from the photo, and suddenly sees adult Travis in the mirror. He’s standing behind Natalie, and his eyes seem to be judging her.”

Just thought it was interesting, particularly the “judging her” line. Judging her for what? Maybe judging her for looking for him? For not keeping herself safely away from all this?

•When the girls are swimming at the lake and Jackie is sitting with Mari trying to make Shauna jealous, there’s a line about Jackie being “clearly tired of Mari’s yapping” but trying to hide it, which I found funny. Mari is a canonical yapper.

•The girls also play chicken at the lake, with Nat on Van’s shoulders and Laura Lee on Shauna’s shoulders. This is so cute and I’ll take whatever scraps of VanNat friendship I can get. I wish they kept it in the episode.

•And another deleted part from the lake scene, Lottie is standing on top of a rock above the lake preparing to jump in and she does the cabbage patch dance on top of it while everyone cheers her on (if you don’t know what the cabbage patch dance is you should definitely look it up). Then she sees the cabin in the distance and stops.

But I love a little hint at silly goofy Lottie! Before all of the visions, just a silly goose.

•While Nat and Misty are in the jail cell and Nat asks Misty about her messing with her Porsche, Nat and Misty stare each other down and the script then says this:

“So much history between these two.”

A little sneak peek at a lot more happening between these two in the Wilderness that we don’t know about yet.

•While Nat is on the phone with Tai trying to get her to bail her out of jail, this line:

“We realize these two are closer than we thought.”

Tainat friendship acknowledged!🙏

•Also on that phone call with Tai, the script says that “Natalie is struggling to even speak his name,” referring to Travis. This again shows just how painful and complicated Nat’s feelings are towards Travis.

•When Nat and Misty are bailed out, there’s a cut scene of Misty going through a plastic bag full of all of the things that were in her purse at the time of her arrest. Here are the items in Misty’s purse: peanut butter, condoms, Travis’s notebook that she stole, and a small plastic toy cat.

God, I love that woman.

•After Jackie spills the nasty canned food all over the floor and complains that they should have stayed at the wreckage, Van snaps at her “How is this helping?”, and the rest of the girls roll their eyes at Jackie. Jackie storms outside and we get this line:

“Suddenly, she stops, overwhelmed by her emotions—how scared she is, how alone she feels, how much she hates the wilderness, and the shame she feels for showing it.”

A great look into Jackie’s mental state and very representative of Jackie’s gradual loss of influence and power in this new environment. She’s used to being sure of herself and having this magnetism that everyone naturally follows. In society, Jackie is influential and powerful. But here in the wilderness, she cannot adapt and cannot lead the group like she once did. And the other girls can see that, hence the rolling eyes and snapping at her.

•After Nat and Misty find Travis’s body and they are driving away, there is a line that was cut from the final product in which Nat admits to Misty:

“We were together, on and off. We started up again about ten years ago.”

So this would mean that Nat and Travis started up their relationship again around 2011 and have been on and off for ten years. Does this mean they were not together after they got rescued but rekindled things about 12 years later? Or did they stay together for a little while after the rescue, broke up for years, and then got back together and that’s what Nat is referring to? I don’t know, maybe this line was cut for a reason and it’s definitely not canon yet so we’ll see. But the timeline of Nat and Travis’s relationship is confusing to me and I want to know more.

My theory is that Nat and Travis have broken up after Javi’s death and don’t get back together in a romantic capacity until 2011.

[asvterias]

𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟥: 𝖮𝗎𝗋 𝖥𝖺𝗍𝖺𝗅 𝖥𝗅𝖺𝗐𝗌

the cast // series masterlist

chap. 1 || chap. 2 || chap. 3 || chap. 4 || chap. 5 || chap. 6 || chap. 7 || chap. 8

‼️ DISCLAIMERS FOR THIS CHAPTER ‼️

Main Characters Deaths, Just An Overall Sad Chapter & Angsty Ending

word count: 4.5k+

tag list: @s0r0ws @starvviss @kjisbae17 @lov3rgiiirl @starless-nightz @random-girls-loves

author’s note: anyways, i hope you liked this chapter! please don’t be a silent reader and interact within the chapter. also, i hoped you cried immensely because that was the ideal intention of this chapter; to make it as depressing as it could possibly get (for now 😉)

🌊 🐚 ✘ 🔥🗡️

CHAPTER 3, EPISODE ONE

Everyone’s huddled up in the car with your parents in the front seats and the children in the back. You hated the middle seat so you told Grover to get comfortable there, for the greater good, and you sat on the left side, right behind your mother.

Right now, Grover is updating you and Percy about everything demigod-related.

“My job has been to guide you to this moment. It’s always an emotional rollercoaster for young demigods, so providing a support system is really–“

“Who are you?” Percy interrupts him.

Grover stared blankly at your brother, “I’m Grover. I’m your best friend and–“

“What are you?” The blonde recorrects.

“That is a very good question,” You chirped up, “I would like to revisit my previous question.”

“No, Y/N, let it go!”

“I’m asking the important questions here!”

“Irrelevant questions!”

“To answer your question, Y/N, no, I was born like this,”

“You sure? You know parents tend to lie a lot too,”

“I’m fully aware of adult tendencies to lie frequently, but I was born like this. I’m serious.”

He removes his tam, revealing two small goat horns. “I’m a satyr, and I’m your protector, both of you.”

“You’re our protector?” Your brother asked rhetorically.

“If I hadn’t gotten you kicked out of school, you’d never have survived the night. And what’s chasing us now would have found you there easily.”

“Oh, because that’s so comforting to hear.” You cross your arms.

Percy turns his head to the car window and Grover looks dejected at the action.

“I’m sorry.” Grover breathes out, sincerity laced in his tone, “Usually, I can sense danger coming a mile away, but this time…Well none of us saw Dodds’ coming.

“So you knew about that…creature?” You inquired, gaining Percy’s attention back onto his friend.

“That thing that Dodds turned into, you saw it happen? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I saw some of it.”

“What part did you see? Where she flung me across the sky or when she attacked Percy?”

“Well, yes and no. The Mist kept her hidden even from us until it was too late.”

“I think I have a concussion from that,” You wince at the memory, holding the back of your head. “Besides, what the hell is Mist?!”

“The Mist is a veil that hides the magical world from the human world. My legs, Dodds’ wings, Even Dodds’ absence, but it isn’t supposed to hide things from me. That never happens. Something more powerful is at work here.”

“Maybe we’re the power sources.” You shrugged.

“Yeah, right,” Percy scoffs.

“The sooner we get you two to camp, the better off you’re–“

“Camp?! Who’s going to camp?!” You backtracked.

With a baffled expression, Grover turned to your parents, completely unimpressed by their timing, “You told them about camp, right?”

“We were getting there!” Your parents shouted simultaneously at Grover.

Grover nods his head, leaning back into the seat.

“Camp is a sanctuary for half-bloods. A safe space where you can learn who you are and what the world is like on the other side of the Mist.”

“Wait, hold up this an actual summer camp with mosquitoes and other dangerous animals lurking in the woods?!” You deadpanned. “Nah, you can keep that, I’m not going.”

“You don’t have a choice.” Your mom states.

“Uh, it’s not far, actually, just a little way past the bend up there.” Grover directs your mother.

“Mom, what else haven’t we talked about?” Your mother, Sally stayed quiet, anxiously glimpsing at her son. “What else haven’t you told us?”

“There are more secrets?!”

“Oh, there’s more like you wouldn’t believe, sweetie.” Jessica grins.

“Jess, that’s not helping whatsoever!” Sally exclaims.

“Sorry, it just slipped out of my mouth.”

“And you wonder why Y/N is a mini you.”

A flash of blinding light appears from mid-sky and disposes of a creature, which instantly starts running on all fours, chasing after the speeding car.

“Is that the Minotaur?!”

“Holy shit!” You and your mom said simultaneously in bewilderment.

“Once the attacks start, they never let up. Okay? Dodds was just the beginning.”

“Then who’s the freaking ending?! Because I’m ready to slain as many monsters as necessary.”

“He is next. He- he is brutal, he is relentless–“

“He’s still wearing underpants.”

“Out of all things, you could have noticed, Percy, you chose that?! Us trying not to die should be your main priority, not if the Minotaur is playing goddamn dress up!”

Percy and Grover kept their eyes on the large bulky monster.

“It’s gone!” Percy shouts, astonished.

“Gone?! Gone where?! I hoped it vanished back to wherever it came from!”

“Like it’s ever that easy!”

Then, the Minotaur’s loud footsteps and rough grunts halted and it almost calmed everyone’s racing heart rates.

“I think it’s gone for good now.”

Until it reappeared, now gaining up on the speeding car, The Minotaur ran up closer to the car front, beside Sally’s car door, aiming for severe damage.

“You just had to say something, didn’t you?!”

“How was I supposed to know that would happen?!”

“Because you jinxed us!”

“Don’t blame me because I’m stating the obvious!”

“I will push you out of this car!”

“Do it! I dare you!”

“Little Blondie, don’t tempt me with a good time!”

“Who are you calling Little?!”

“Someone who hasn’t had their growth spurt yet.”

“Hey, I’m still developing!” Percy gasps.

“Yeah, just very, very slowly.”

“Can we sacrifice Y/N to The Minotaur?”

“Oh please, you don’t have the balls to do it anyways,” You scoffed, “Besides, you need me. I’m always saving your dumbass, you can’t get rid of me!”

“Stop! Nobody is going to push anyone out of this car!”

“He started it–“

“No, I didn’t you, liar–“

“That’s it! Don’t make me come back there! I don’t care who started it, just know that it's ending!”

“Is there any more insight you’d like to add, Grover?” Sally calmly questions, acting like her children and wife didn’t have a screaming match a few seconds ago. Your family was truly a chaotic mess whenever they wanted, dismissing the matter as if impending death wasn’t lingering over their shoulders.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then, go right ahead,”

“The Mythomagic cards were training. Everything has been training for what’s still ahead of you.”

“What’s ahead of us?!”

“Kids…”

“I’m actually 24,” Grover confesses quickly, causing two heads to turn in unexpectancy.

You and Percy shared the same shocked expression, “Wait? What?”

“Hold on, please.”

The Minotaur roars loudly.

“Moonlight…listen to me.” your mom looks at you through the mirror as your gaze hesitantly meets hers. “You and Percy are forbidden children, monsters are going to attack you every day, this camp can protect you both.”

“Why can’t you and Sally come with us then?” you bargained with her, tears forming in your eyes. You couldn’t imagine, much less experience your life without your mother and Sally. The same women who nurtured you since you were babies and taught you everything you knew. You refused to give up on them, everything they did was to protect and love you, and now it was your turn.

Sally starts to talk, eyes stuck on the road, “We humans are not allowed there. Only demigods like you two.”

“But we don’t wanna leave you two.” Percy persisted.

“You’re our moms.”

“You’re gonna have to, that Minotaur isn’t gonna stop until he kills both of you.”

All of a sudden, a collision hit the car with enough brute force to send the car off the road and everything went black. It was all so quick, the collision, the swiveling of the car and landing on the side of the road, far from bypassers to rescue.

The rain pattering against the car turned into a heavy rainpour as everyone in the car, hanging upside down with the seat belt anchoring them, remained still, all unconscious.

After a while, the dulling pain in your head sharply woke you up, being the first to recover from the crash. Holding your head in pain as you slowly opened your eyes, feeling the blood trickle from your head, surveying your surroundings as you saw Percy and Grover still unconscious. Quickly unbuckling your seatbelt, you got out of your seat, repeating the same action to your younger brothers.

One by one, you carefully got everyone from the car as they began to wake up. A growl from the distance urges you to move faster as you help your other mother, Sally, get out of the damaged car.

Sally, Percy, and Grover were recovering, standing on their feet, checking for any injuries and your mom was the last one who needed rescuing.

“Mom…” you shake her but her body is motionless as the tears well up in your eyes.

You felt Sally’s arm pushing you back, sending you into Percy’s and Grover’s embrace as you nervously observed.

“Come on, come on, Jess…” Sally murmurs, kneeling down, searching for a pulse. “You gotta survive, we have children together, we can’t lose you right now.”

“Is she okay?” Percy chirps up, deciding to speak for you.

You found everything incomprehensible around you, your senses became deafening and a high-pitched ringing in your head matched the loud heart beating in your chest.

When Sally stayed silent, it only worsened your anxiety, “Mom, is she okay?!” Percy speaks again, adding some base in his voice yet his tone slightly wavers.

“She has a fading pulse…” Sally whispers, sparing a sad glance at you and quickly turning back to Jessica, “It’s decreasing rapidly,”

Dropping to the muddy slippery ground on your knees, tears quickly filling the brim of your eyes, threatening to fall as you moved closer to her.

“Mommy…” you cradle her face into your chest, saddened by her face, eyes closed as blood trickles down her forehead.

“We can revive her, right!” Your voice cracks, whipping your head to Sally, “Tell me we can revive her!”

“Y/N…” Sally sighs deeply, trying to contain her tears. You turn around, looking down at your mother, resting on your lap, body motionless yet her face looks peaceful.

“No! We- I can save her. We can do heart-to-heart compressions,” you shake your head, starting to do heart-to-heart compressions. “Why isn’t she waking up? Mommy, this isn’t funny anymore now, you have to wake up and help us. Please I can’t do this without you, I can’t do this whole new demigod thing without you.” your voice was dry, as you leaned down, blowing air into her mouth, hoping for a miracle to occur.

You didn’t truly believe in miracles, but for your mother, you’d start believing it. Right now, you would do whatever it took to bring her back even if it meant wishing on the impossible.

“We didn’t do plenty of things yet, I wanted you and Sally to meet my first girlfriend, attend my graduation, be there when I move out and eventually get married, and get grandkids from Percy because we both know I’m not going through that torture.”

Your senses became intensely heightened, catching onto Grover’s whisper to Sally, ignoring him as you spoke up.

“I refuse to leave her alone, she isn’t dead, just having some problems waking up and getting a pulse back.” You were in extreme denial, “Come on, mum, you focus on her face, giving her air and I’ll do her chest,” you beckoned Sally forward.

“Sweetheart…she’s already….gone.”

“She’s my mom and Percy’s mom, your wife. She wasn’t supposed to die this early. If all you’re gonna do is stand there and be useless, don’t bother talking to me.” It wasn’t intentional to snap at your other mother, but your emotions were driving you crazy and brazen.

“You’re the sun to my moon, Mommy, I can’t shine when you’re not there with me. Y-you promised me, you pinky promised that we were all going to survive, but you lied. Why did you lie to me?” You sobbed. Despite being physically exhausted, you weren’t giving up on trying to revive your mom, she would have never given up on you so you would stop trying until you had something, anything; a pulse, a gasp, her eyes shooting up. “Remember…” You weakly asked, holding onto the moon-shaped necklace on your neck, staring at your mom’s sun-shaped necklace.

The sky crackled with slight thunder as the rain poured down heavier. Finally understanding the meaning of your nickname, you sobbed desperately until the broken cracks of your voice gave out.

There was no sunshine without her moonlight, always them being in a pair, nothing without the other. Sadly, you lost your sunshine, darkening your moonlight to its deepest depths, harvesting it into something vengeful and heartless. Something that even scared you to a certain extent, like this was another new side flourishing because of the horrible circumstances.

You rested your mom on the ground, ignoring the cold rainpour.

“She’s gone…” Sally cries, grabbing your arm and pushing you into her body for a hug. You cried into the hug, tightening your grip as your wails echoed throughout the forest. Maybe this was all a nightmare, where you’d wake up and relax in reality. This was the time that your mom needed to wake you up and reassure you that she was right there, staying with you and protecting you.

Your chest clenched against your rib cage, devastation wracked throughout your entire body as the tears relentlessly spilled out.

“But she- she can’t be gone!” You hiccup, eyes glossing over with fresh tears, feeling another arm snuggle around your side.

“I know, sweetheart. I’m so sorry,” she caressed your face.

“What kind of demigod I am, if I was blessed with all these supernatural powers, can’t even save my Mom from death? What kind of daughter am I to just stand by and watch her own mother die? I don’t want this demigod life anymore, please take it all away if it means my mother is coming back, to me, to home. I’m so fucking tired and I just wanna go home! Home is wherever the four of us are!”

“Don’t you ever say that again, you did everything you could, your perseverance is one of your strongest qualities that Jessica adored very much. She wouldn’t want you to doubt yourself like this nor would I,” Sally reassures you, resting a thumb on your cheek, “Our beautiful daughter, she’s so proud of you, I want you to know that.”

Your eyes were puffy and red from tears as you listened to your mother’s words of encouragement and reassurance.

Much to your dismay, another loud roar broke the semi-family grievance, reminding them of the harsh reality.

“We have to go now!” Grover hastily urges.

“I’m not leaving my mom here like this,” you point to her still figure on the ground.

“We won’t, I promise you, sweetie. I’ll give her a proper burial, but right now we have to go!” Her tone was urgent as she quickly scanned the dark forest with the illumination from the car light.

You hurriedly rushed towards your mother’s still figure on the muddy ground, leaning down.

“Goodbye, Mom,” you whisper hoarsely, kissing her forehead for the last time. You stared down at her neck, gazing at the sunlight necklace she wore yanked it off, and shoved the meaningful jewelry into your back pocket. Your heart broke again, realizing she can’t respond, despite being in extreme denial.

Percy struggled to plant you on your feet as Sally walked over to Grover.

“Grover, I am entrusting you to protect my children, my only son and only daughter.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Jackson, Percy, and Y/N will be totally safe at camp–“

“Swear it.” She commands.

“What’s happening?”

“Swear it, Grover! Keep my children safe from anyone or anything that comes for them, that wants to harm them, that looks at them in the wrong way. Do you understand me?”

“I swear!” Grover persists, with determination and sincerity in his voice.

Sally nods at the boy, venturing over to you and Percy.

“I gotta go now,”

“Go? What do you mean go? Y/N stop her from going on this suicide mission,” He stares at you, waiting for a response. The first time you didn’t respond to your brother’s words caught him off guard, knowing you’ll always be his first defender.

The boy winces seeing your shaken body and red puffy eyes. It didn’t take a genius to know that you were still traumatized from witnessing your mom’s death. Seeing this sad broken-hearted face of yours, devastated Percy beyond any words to ease the pain. All those times, you’d reassured and defended him countless times, and yet he was speechless about how to comfort you right now. He felt like such a horrible brother to you.

“Your sister isn’t in charge, I am and what I say goes!”

“But–“

“This is no buts! You’re gonna be brave now. Remember what I taught you, remember the stories I told you. Especially the stories, they will tell–“

“No way! Mom, I’m not leaving you, not like how we left Mother stranded and alone to die.”

“Perseus!” She snapped, tired of his persistent attempts, cupping his face, “Listen to me! You…are not broken. You are singular. You’re a miracle and you are my son. Hold fast, brave the storm.”

“And Y/N,” She caresses your face, her saddened expression increasing at your blank eyes, “You are not neglected in this family, you’re just as important. You are one of a kind, my beautiful baby girl. You are my daughter and I don’t ever want you to forget that.”

Those words melted in your heart and words rambled from you without hesitation, the guilt of everything came crashing down.

“I’m so sorry, mother, for not being able to protect any of us. I failed at what I was best at.”

“You’re a kid, be a kid, stop worrying if you’re not going to save everyone. That’s too much of a heavy burden on yourself, it’s not good for your mentality. Live life, get a girlfriend and don’t force yourself to grow up too fast because you'll regret it. Let me tell you something unfair; you can’t save everyone all the time. I love you two so much,”

“We love you too.”

Just like that, The Minotaur had the worst timing of moments erupting with a loud search roar.

“We need to move!”

“Give me your coat.”

“Why?” Percy asks but removes his coat anyway, “What are you gonna do?”

“He smells half-blood, that’s what he’s tracking, yeah?”

“That’s right.”

Sally grabs the coat from her blonde son, “So if he smells you in two directions at once, maybe I can confuse him, buy us both a little time to get away.”

“Mom, please don’t…we can’t afford to lose another parent on the same night.” Percy pleads, stepping forward, gesturing to you, “Y/N is one of the strongest people I know, and a few hours into this demigod madness, she’s broken, possibly going to recover from trauma at the camp where we’re supposed to rediscover our true potential for a man who wasn’t even here our whole lives.” He whispers, a string of desperation in his voice, “You can’t do this to us…please don’t do this to us. You’re all we have left.”

“Hey! It’ll be okay.” She reassures the blonde boy with a weak smile, “Y/N bounces back, she always does. For the first time, she needs you more than you need her right now, so be her anchor for right now, and don’t ever let go.”

Another yell echoes throughout the forest and trees falling down a few feet away meant the Minotaur was getting unbelievably closer. Your heart raced in your chest, once you saw the bulky overgrown monster, standing on its hind feet, intimidating everyone who bore witness.

Sally wastes no time, giving Percy a forehead kiss and then moving over to repeat the same action with you.

“Go now!” She shoves you away into Percy’s and Grover’s arms, now facing the Minotaur as the trio escapes into the rainy forest night.

Her plan for using Percy’s coat as bait to seemingly distract him and draw him away from the two demigods was successfully executed.

After maintaining some far distance from your mother, Sally, and the Minotaur, the trio still kept on running, nobody turning back. Until a loud roar reverberated across the forest broke your concentration on getting to safety and intensified your worries for your mother. You stopped running, turning around as your heart hammered inside your chest, the adrenaline pumping.

Despite being miles away, you and Percy viewed the fight, flinching when the monster knocked your mother down with its horns.

The Minotaur held in its hand, lifting up something in the air…someone more life-like…that’s someone who was your mother, Sally! You gasped and shoved at the revelation, wondering about your mother’s fate and you continued to watch the heartbreaking scene. Your body wasn’t acting upon cooperation with your mind, telling you to run away before it gets you next or attempting to save your mother. Having already lost one parent was devastating as it is, and losing your other parent would cause a lifetime of trauma for you.

Your heart clenched in fear as Sally struggles to escape from his grasp.

You felt Percy’s scared face hide into the fabric of your cotton shirt, clenching onto the shirt as he squeezed his eyes as tightly as possible.

For the last time, your mother, Sally looked over at you, stretching out a hand, guiding you out to safety, content you’ll be fine. Just like that, she closed her eyes, slowly disintegrating into gold ashes. Huh, that was weird. Humans don’t shrivel up and fade into ashes like that. That definitely was magic.

It was quiet, the rain pattering over you was now a background noise as you struggled to process the incident.

You gulped down the harsh lump in your throat. “It’s…mother’s gone, too…” You informed Percy, tone hoarse as he slowly pulled away from your body.

He looked ahead again, seeing nothing, Sally wasn’t there and the Minotaur was staring into nothing, seemingly distracted.

“Where did she go? What happened to her?”

“…She disappeared into gold ashes.” You whispered slowly, trying to comprehend your mother’s demise in your mind. Once again, your vision becomes blurry and the tears start to form at the loss of yet another parent. “It looked so unrealistic,”

After that Percy began to speak, but your focus wasn’t even directed on him, but rather at that charging furious Minotaur, hungry for more blood.

The pain and suffering became a dangerous mix of anger and hatred directed at the Minotaur.

Grover’s statements fall on deaf ears, partially drowned out by the heavy rainfall. “Y/N and Percy come on, we’re almost there.” you glance at your blonde brother who holds the same on his face.

‘So what happens when the protector is unable to protect? Do they give up instant hope and cower in shame? Or do they fight back, willingly seeking a second chance to redeem themselves? Whether you make a change or just be a bystander like others? This time the answer to that is simple, mourn your losses later and avenge them now. For all you can do right now is fight on the battlefield, because this is no place to cry and admit defeat.

No, you refused to give up hope and you weren’t going down without a fight. This monster had already taken your worlds away, so you had nobody else to lose.

Grabbing the pen from your pocket, holding it out, and witnessing it transform into a golden sword at will. The fight with the Minotaur was brutal and intense, alongside the heavy downpour of rain that attempted to slow down the intensity of this fight. Despite double-teaming the monster, he resisted surrender, determined to win and kill you both. Surprisingly, you gained the agility to climb onto his back while Percy distracted him.

Somehow, you gained the ultimate advantage with the lighting sword in your hand and stabbed the monster in its eye, ignoring his roar of pain. If anything, its pain only further encouraged you to continue.

Too full of adrenaline, you grab his two horns, gripping them and pulling them out with your utmost strength. A new sudden strength you just obtained. Gasping in shock was quickly outlived when your sword slipped out of your hand and dropped onto the muddy ground, disappearing from your eyesight. Stumbling onto his feet, inflicted by the pain, you groaned, gripping the monster by his rough skin as he attempted to shake you off.

“Percy the sword!” You yelled at him. Your brother throws the sword upwards as you catch the weapon.

You stab the monster in the neck, wincing at his loud screeches, but continue to stab his neck. Once the monster was deemed weak enough, you sliced the sword right through his neck, seizing the opportunity of successfully killing it. To be certain of killing that wretched monster, you deactached its horn from its head with your uppermost strength, then using it to pierce its own eye, another terrifying wail leaves its mouth.

This was all this stupid monster’s fault. If it hadn’t chased after you or slammed itself into the car, your mom would be alive. If it didn’t have such a bloodthirst for demigods, Sally, your mother would still be alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. You just wished your moms were alive, to see you mature into such a courageous daughter to avenge their deaths.

Soon enough, the monster staggered on its feet and its body began to disintegrate into black dust before your eyes.

“Y/N!” The voice becomes disoriented as you stumble on the ground, two arms catching you as you faint, everything fading away into a black abyss.

“Is she okay?”

“Did she do it alone?”

“Is the blonde boy, okay too?

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, he’s okay.”

Grasping onto your fading eyesight, there were four shadowy figures above you, all their voices sounded childish except the girl’s voice which sounded very mature.

“They must be the ones.”

“Hush, Annabeth.”

“They’re waking. Everyone give them some space, please.”

Obeying the command, the four unknown kids gave the siblings some space, revealing a half-man with the…bottom of a horse. Okay, it’s finally official, you’ve completely lost it!

“Welcome to camp, Percy Jackson and Y/N Matthews. We’ve been expecting you two.”

Oh my god! Who are these people?! What in the absolute fuck is going on?! This demigod shit is not cut out for me.

likes, comments, and reblogs are highly appreciated!

© asvterias, 2024. please do not copy, repost, or translate any of my works onto any other platforms without my permission.

[echobi]

You Belong with Me

Synopsis: When a cynical good-for-nothing, Jimin, sees the girl he was in love with a year after he'd quit gardening for "Bright Horizons", the luxurious development she resides in, all his feelings come rushing back, along with the harrowing memories of what had happened in that gated community last summer; all the while he meets a mysterious man who claims he sees the potential for show-business within him.

Pairing: Jimin x Reader

Genre: Romance + Drama + Angst + Smut + Fluff

Word Count: 3.6k

|| Episode 01 of ? ||

i.

Tonight he saw you. Yoongi and he were pushing out of the cinema in a current of people when he saw you in a blue coat, mincing through the crowd. That stupid hot tremor mantled his cheeks, his chest and stomach; always new and horrifying no matter how many times he felt it. He called your name so quickly his voice ended a squeak, and the pedestrians around him became dense as statues as he charged through them until finally a pinch of your coat was in his fingers and you turned to look at him, the shimmer around your eyes sparkling under the pale streetlamp. He was bilious with panic. Beneath your skirted coat, your legs were naked and bristled with goose bumps, and he barely recognized you with your face made up.

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said. “Y/N. Call me, write to me.”

You smiled at him, a bit like you from last summer, nodded stiffly, and you were gone with a bang of the yellow cab door. He stood on the curb for what felt a long time, hands sweating in his pockets and the oppressive, sweltering desire gutting him as he thought of your slight eyelashes and voice and lissome fingers on his shoulder, until that prick Yoongi came and slapped him on the head, telling him to get a move on and not to be so fucking pathetic, and Jimin slapped him too, and the prick laughed in his creepy, gravelly voice and fished a cigarette out of his pocket and shoved it into Jimin’s hand and told him to come on, that he’ll buy him a drink, and to wipe off that pussy ass face and stop being a fucking idiot.

He took him downtown, to Jack Rabbit, a sorry little alleyway pub made of wood panels and suffering from cramped space and fusty cigarette air, and they sat at the bar across the bearded codger that tended it on uncomfortable oak stools; Jimin couldn’t understand why he insisted on coming there, because, honestly, the draft beer was too bitter and flat and the ancient pop music from the jukebox prickled his ears and the codger always spewed some pseudo-philosophical bullshit and bored him to death with his dull life spent in poverty and gloom—and, really, it was a bit humiliating to frequent such a dump. It was a mystery how it stayed running with barely any guests. Still, Yoongi dragged him there routinely and downed the beer as if he enjoyed it and entertained that annoying old man with sagging jowls and a pig gut. If the prick weren’t the one paying, Jimin would have fucked right off out of there.

They drank for hours, until both of them were red in the face and slumped over the bar; the hung glasses and shelved alcohol bottles spun violently, Jimin’s foot kept slipping off the footrest, and Yoongi shook him until he was nauseas. You’re a moron, he kept telling him. A fuckin’ dunce. Face it: she’s never going to be with a good-for-nothing like you. You think she’s gonna pick you over all the rich motherfuckers chasing her? Don’t be a damn idiot, Chimmy, save yourself the fucking time.

But Jimin knew all this and still he didn’t believe it. The problem was not that he mowed your lawn the previous summer or that he went to a shithole like Jack Rabbit because he had no money to buy himself a beer. The problem was he, that fuck-face, that disgusting richling and his sick obsession with you.

It was all Kim Taehyung’s fault, that���s what he wanted to tell Yoongi. Jimin’s only sin was not killing the fucker. Richling was crazy about you, and Jimin saw firsthand how for weeks the bastard spoke about nothing but screwing you, making you his, whatever it took; I’ll fuck her like this, he’d drawl, the same shit over and over again, eyes bloodshot from the alcohol, I’ll fuck her like this then I’ll flip her on her knees and I’ll bang her like this, and he would wipe the whiskey off his mouth with the flat of his hand and laugh like a psychopath. Then he would clamber to his feet at the edge of the pier and pull out his cock and piss in the river as he blabbered on about how he was going to ram into you, teach you a lesson, and then he would shove it back into his swimming trunks, sit back down, and roll a blunt with those same filthy hands that touched his penis, all the while Jimin laughed faintly and made the most of Taehyung turning his back on him to swig from the bottle and take another cigarette, puffing smoke at the relentless mosquitos that wouldn’t stop latching onto his arm.

It was all that bastard’s idea of a joke, just banter, drunk talk, or at least that’s what Jimin thought in the beginning during their first carousals down by the river, in the shadiest part of the small wooden platform, where the gnarled branches of the fig tree kept them hidden from the eyes of the watchmen and other residents of the complex, and most crucially Taehyung’s grandparents that would, in his own words, suffer a stroke if they saw their “little boy” drinking alcohol and smoking pot and who knows what other crap, and that with none other than a member of “the help.” A gardener, no less.

That would be an absolute scandal, a breach of trust that would undoubtedly send Jimin across the river never to come back to Bright Horizons again, which in all truth wouldn’t really bother him, to stop slaving away for the bourgeois, except this was his first real job, his first signed contract and a steady paycheck, and even if it weren’t for the money, he would agonize endlessly over having lost the opportunity to see you, a privilege he wouldn’t have outside of that picket fence community, and for that he would withstand all Taehyung’s yapping and twisted fantasies, no matter how sick he was of his obsession with you, whom the bastard had fallen for the same day Jimin had, that afternoon in late June when your family drove to the Horizons to pick up the keys to your new home, you sprawled barefoot over the backseat of your grand white jeep with a book in hand.

Jimin remembered that day well; he had gawped at the Patek Philippe glimmering gold on your father’s wrist, lolled outside the window as the man gestured around explaining who you were and what you were doing there, a firm, grave glare fixing Jimin over the rim of his horn-wire spectacles, and your mother sat gracious beside him with a wary mascaraed eye, your run-of-the-mill lady, identical to all the other women living in the Horizon’s white villas, with her lips painted red and a hand fan in her lacquered fingers.

For a moment, you had looked up from the book, a finger pressing into the page, eyes naked and lustrous and in that moment staring into his with an air of bright, girlish interest; and even when he had opened the gate and the jeep drove in with a powerful whir, he saw you peek through the rear glass, mouth twisting into a demure smile once you had caught his eye.

Later, when he had first sat with the richling by the river, Jimin listened to an excruciating torrent of bullshit about how you had come out to the veranda barefoot that day, in your whorish white dress, and sat with your book and an apple, crossing your legs and biting into the fruit as if you had meant to taunt him who was watching you from the window, and whom you had smiled at too once he strutted into your front lawn with a plate of his granny’s lemon pie.

“I knew I would fuck her the moment I saw her,” Taehyung had told him, speaking of this as if it were some grand catharsis, only to then cluck with laughter like a damn hen and say, “But the slut is harder than I thought.”

That was the pioneer of all the times Jimin fantasized of wrapping his fingers around the bastard’s thick, tan neck until it blued and the fucker finally croaked; the first time his hands tingled at the thought of punching him. He wanted to push his head into the river, yank his arm out of the socket, beat him bloody for the whole Horizons to see and make him eat dog shit and garbage off his own lawn. And that’s what he should have done before leaving, instead of fearing what the rich boy might do to him; then he wouldn’t have had this terrible lingering fury that made him break out a sweat every time he thought of his idiotic face.

Around midnight, when Jimin was already so pie-eyed he could scarcely follow Yoongi’s monologue, a small group of men, all with gelled hair and their shirts crisp with starch, ludicrously wandered into Jack Rabbit, buzzing with talk and decorous har-de-har, their eyes meandering over the joint and its only two patrons with an air of cool, curious solicitude. The one who had opened the door, a tall, long-faced fellow with a rounded jaw, grinned widely, black coat billowing behind him as he approached the bar.

While he sat beside Jimin, a cologne of birch tar and lavender whipping him over the face, he wished the codger a good evening, his three cohorts sidling after him while giving each other the eye.

“Hello to you too,” said the codger and plucked the cigarette from his mouth, smile so big Jimin could hardly believe his cracked lips could stretch that far. He leaned over the bar. “Been a while since I saw you here, son.”

The man spoke again, and this time Jimin was perplexed at how deep and scratchy his voice was, and still less irritating than Yoongi’s. “I was busy with work,” he had said, or something along those lines; Yoongi clicked his scrawny fingers and distracted him from eavesdropping.

“Are you even listening?” he said, and Jimin could barely make out what was his voice and what the screech of the stools.

“No,” he told him, unsure if he had heard right, too shit-faced on those rums Yoongi had made him chug to think about it too much.

“Asshole.” He grabbed his bottle by the neck; draft beer had become too warm for him, he claimed.

The group had settled at the bar but everyone aside from the cheery man squirmed on the rock-hard oak, warily taking off their shawls and coats, the stubby one seated at the end trying to hook his own on the rack. One of them, the man who seemed youngest, was typing something on his phone while glancing at the codger at intervals.

“What are the gentlemen drinking tonight?”

The man took off his coat and elbowed Jimin in the ribs; the large tag inside read “Max Mara,” beneath it a bold, flashy text: Made in Italy. “Give me a Tom Collins,” he said, and shoved his coat into the man beside so abruptly the phone nearly fell out of his hand.

Jimin scoffed. “You make cocktails, old man?”

“For you, I don’t,” he said, and Yoongi laughed with his mouth still on the bottle. The man chuckled politely too, fingers laced and propped on his elbows. His sleeves were neatly rolled up, leather wristwatch taunting Jimin with its shine. The fool held himself so high and mighty all the while he sat in the same dunghill Jimin did.

Then, and for the rest of the time spent in that hovel, Jimin watched the man out the corner of his eye, contempt sprouting furiously at his lifeless, impersonal laughter, spiraling when he opened a fat cigar case and lit one of those dark, wiener-like abominations. Pungent whirls of tobacco drifted through the small space, thick and inescapable, crashing into Jimin’s cigarette smoke. The man nudged the pack toward the codger, who begrudgingly took one and smelled it, grumbling about its staleness while he hungrily drew on it.

Jimin didn’t have to speak to him to know the type. Entitled, obtrusive, rich. The kind who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Former presidents of the Student Council in college, which they breezed through in a whirl of toga parties and drinking contests, always secure and unafraid because a chair at daddy’s marketing firm was being kept warm for them. Those were the sort who grew up to be glitzy businessmen oblivious to their extravagance—the cigars, tailored suits, those bland, overpriced Max Mara coats. They were all Kim Taehyung in a few years, once he buys a few blazers and decides he wants to play grown-ups.

Those pricks seemed to haunt him, follow him even to a dump like the Rabbit. What did they want of him? Why did they swat at him like flies to shit?

“That’s the problem with rich bastards,” he was telling Yoongi later, as they walked through narrow Ahyeon-dong streets with their last cigarettes in mouth, steep alleys with webbed cables, too narrow for cars. “They’re all the same. Thinking they can just walk in anywhere and be treated like kings. Fucking pricks.” He was slurring frenziedly, tongue immobile and heavy in his mouth.

An icy breeze blew past, and all the blood surged into his cheeks, pumping, until he was so hot under the collar he thought he might go insane.

Cloud of smoke Yoongi had blown out hopped over his head and disappeared. “Stop your whining,” he said. “The world isn’t gonna stop spinning just because it hurts your feelings, Chimmy boy.”

Jimin could barely walk without vertigo and as they stumbled up the slope, then climbed the chipped rock stairs hanging onto the railing brown with rust, up till their street, he couldn’t strangle the words coming out his mouth to a halt; curses, profanities, calling Yoongi a pansy and a coward, sending him to hell, drooling like a cur, blustering with such famine and delirium until in the end he revolted himself, yet Yoongi’s apathy to the whole ordeal annoyingly persisted.

Before he went into the house, he gave Jimin a friendly slap on the cheek and told him to go to sleep, and to that Jimin stood in front of his house shouting until the man stuck out his middle finger and he was left on alone on the street and could go nowhere but his own home where, once he had closed the door, the silence was deep and thunderous.

The few hours until dawn were a painful slog. It was surreal: he wanted to fall asleep or at least do something, anything to keep the blare of quietude from piercing his ears, but instead he stared at the wall, turned over his bed like a worm, tiptoed from his room to the kitchen with his head full of nothing. He couldn’t tell what he thought about even if someone asked. Fatigue was weighing on him and the first hints of sun trespassed into the house in slits, cut up by the metal bars on the window, the sorry semi-basement rectangle. Outside of it swayed the rose shrub madam from upstairs planted; the tall brick gate it leaned on hid the street.

Jimin took a roll-up from the coffee table over his mother’s sleeping body, and it was a bad one, stale tobacco the color of hay jutting out the tip, and he sat on his bed listless, the only thing that could sedate him the thought of you. If he concentrated hard enough he could almost believe you were beside him, finger pressed into a book, window light catching onto the slight curly hairs that turreted into your scalp.

He fantasized about your skin, your big, honest eyes looking over him, the smile you gave him tonight, all those times last summer when you sat by the pool as he cleaned it, pushing a glass of lemonade into his hands, telling him it must be so hot and so hard and to come sit with you under the shade of the garden parasol for a moment. Then, as these thoughts usually went, those hands of yours, soft with all the creams smelling of pink peonies and peach, were gliding down his arm and you were thanking him for all his hard work, but he couldn’t hear you anymore because you hung on his elbow and the soft flesh of your breasts spilled over the neckline and touched his skin. He could die in that moment, if he wanted to. And although this image in particular usually led him to a cozy fairytale land, wherein he would be so muzzy and warm fighting sleep seemed tiresome—the joy of speaking with you in tongues and hands too grand to leave—tonight even those thoughts went awry.

The longer you were on his mind, the colder your smile from tonight felt, more distant, until it seemed so cruel he was certain his memory must have warped it.

What had that smile meant? Why had you said nothing to him? Would he, if he were someone like Kim Taehyung or the peacock from the bar, live to see you shun him so frigidly?

Sometime when the sun broke wholly over the sky and the rushed footsteps of the landlord’s children going to school trundled past his window, Jimin dozed off into a heavy, dreamless slumber, the stuffed ashtray beside his shoulder spilling when he rolled to the side.

The stench of cigarettes was unbearable when he awoke that noon, mother’s hands joggling him until he felt queasy. Look at what you’ve done, she was yelling, get up, get up right now, you idiot, but Jimin’s eyes felt so sunken and heavy it was a labor to open them, and he kept swatting her hands away, saying he will, saying just another moment, until she struck him so fatally on the back he jolted right up. She snatched the linen smeared with ash, singing a tired monologue of how he never listened, how she’d told him so many times not to smoke in the house, until it soared to the most common conclusion in their household: he was the same as his father. It all made his head ache and a faint taste of rum was on his tongue. Today, he felt so miserable he couldn’t find it in him to talk back to her.

At the side of the house, in the claustrophobic, dark cubicle of a bathroom, smelling of toothpaste and cleaning supplies, Jimin bent over the washbowl in unthinking ritual, scrubbing the filth off his face with soap, but no matter how many times he kneaded the bubbly foam into his cheek or spat out the gum-bloodied paste, he could not rid himself of the crud and grime anchored in his skin, as if he wore the raveled coat of a street mongrel.

Begrudgingly, he let the bathtub fill, and in the meantime sat on the fractured toilet seat that swayed to the side whenever he moved, lighting a cigarette he had swiped off the table. Now that his body had sobered, it seemed his mind followed, and in the place of last night’s ire and hurt came the routine gloom. He felt so full with nothing he thought he might implode. Everything he did last night, everything he said, even his every thought now seemed so juvenile and worthless, seemed so humiliating shame could have swallowed him whole. Why had he let any hope of you linger when all it ever did was fatigue him? He looked at the purling bathtub, the yellow rust inside it and the enamel steel chipping at the sides, and was sick with laughter. Even in a world where you wanted him, what came after that, bringing you to his house? Letting you bathe in there? See where he slept? He would rather bite his tongue off than ask that of you.

Never mind how better he wanted to make himself think he was than those banal fools swatting you, it was, in the end, a fact: he was twenty, jobless, and living with his mom in a half-basement. Of course you would shun him. Yoongi was right: he couldn’t compete with all the rich motherfuckers chasing you.

Still it was a pleasure to fantasize. As Jimin poured some little wash gel in the tub and soaked himself in the scent of camellia, the bad habit persisted, pictures of your sundress and hair tousling in the wind and all those times you touched him, where you for a moment became a creature of flesh and blood and not a figment of his imagination stalking barefoot across the lawn, sprawled furiously before his eyes, every one of them another punch in the gut.

It always was very hard for him to think of you without romanticizing you, but today all the love and worship in these dreams and memories, which had mushed together in a confused, giddy dollop, seemed cruel and masochistic to indulge in, and still he sought them and the pain they brought.

He must have enjoyed suffering if he longed for it that much.

Jimin sank his head in the water until it swallowed everything beneath his eyes, and at once, absurdly, felt entirely peaceful.

Until the water cooled and his mother began yelling for him to get out, Jimin kept punishing himself by thinking of you and holding his breath under water, and by the time he had dried himself, he was serene, almost rechristened. Nothing had changed, and he barely felt any better, but now he had accepted you were only ever meant to be in his head.

Author's Note: Hello, lovelies!! Thanks for reading all the way through to the end, I can't explain how grateful I am you took the time to consume my story! You are wonderful!

Aside from expressing my gratitude, I wanted to throw out some fun facts about this particular story for anyone who's interested. This entire written chapter had been sitting in my drafts for almost two years now, and it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I went trash-diving through my laptop and found this. At the time I'd first written this, I was very discouraged because I felt this was not good enough, and it took me many morning commutes to work to finally talk myself into posting this.

What I really wanted to gain from sharing this fic here on Tumblr, though, was an honest opinion of someone outside of my head. Is this actually any good? Is this oh-my-god-throw-it-in-the-trash bad? Is there any aspect of this I could improve? That is what I wanted to ask you. So, if there is anything at all you wish to say to me about my writing (even if that's: Uhm, you misspelled this word here, dumbass...) you are very welcome to do so!

If you're too shy or simply think this was so bad you want to forget it as soon as you scroll past this post, that's okay too! Thank you for reading and I hope you have a very nice day ahead of you.

XO, Echobi -`♡´-

[darkonekrisrewrite]

Ever notice that villains are held to higher standards than the heroes both in the series and often the fandom?

Where if someone is labelled a villain they must be a saint who has never so much as raised their voice at anyone, or they'll be treated like an irredeemable monster.

But if they get the hero label, they can constantly threaten murder and assaulting people for the pettiest shit (aka Bakugou), endanger people and cause mass property damage (Bakugou again, and Endeavor, he literally didn't care if he killed a vigilante in the sister series Vigilantes) or break the law for shits and giggles (Miriko, Vigilantes, repeatedly going to fight clubs as a student just for fun, which at least back then her opponents were somewhat consenting).

The heroes are excessively violent often being worse than the actual 'villains' Does anyone remember the double assault of that purse snatcher in the first episode? Including Mt. Lady violently attacking them, a purse snatcher, after they had already been apprehended (And literally contained) by Kamui Woods.

Deku violently attacks Gentle Criminal and La Brava, who he knows are non-violent, and very appearance-based in their crimes, cause of oh no the school festival for the school that has been continuously failing to protect their students might get cancelled. He never made any attempt to tell them what will happen if they crash it, just immediately jumped to 'I better break their bones'

Hawks doesn't even pause his conversation with Endeavor when once again violently apprehending a streaker (in the general public, this wasn't targetting individuals or children). He could of easily just kept the trench coat closed and questioned them, but the heroes ALWAYS jump to violence and escalation.

I didn't even need to use the League/Front or comb through the chapters to get three blantant examples in the main series alone

And as with cops in the real world (and a large part of why I take this so seriously), they are the ones who have received training to deal with conflict. They are the ones that should be expected to be better, as they have supposedly been trained

---

Recently in my A Moral Scapegoat For Who? I got in a bit of a debate, where the other person immediately was going in with 'well the villains aren't actually deep' I never said in that post that the villains were blameless or deep, I was literally talking about using AFO as a scapegoat for them, my point about the villains was they are right (and I thought the following thought was obvious enough that I didn't have to say it but "and they shouldn't be, so what are you going to do?". Second, while later in the debate they say they also think the heroes were shallowly written, they only held the villains in my pretty neutral (all things considered) rant accountable in their first reblog. But we had 1 volume focusing on the villains, and 30+ focusing on the heroes. So even if we agree with them on they are equally shallow/deep (for sake of arguement) the villains (specifically the League) got the same amount done, with only one volume and small tidbits fragmented across the rest of this very long series, that the heroes took over 30 to do. One would typically expect the protagonists to have more characterization than the villains.

In the actively antagonistic, we constantly see "Oh but their suffering doesn't justify their actions! OwO" Which once again as I have said before What the fuck are/were they supposed to do? Second, care to hold the heroes to even a fraction of that standard? Endeavor openly doesn't care if he kills a known and well liked Vigilante if he (the Crawler) gets in the way of killing the villain he's going after, he did not hesitant to kill during the nomu attack, and his high-end battle, where the nomu was fully capable of speech. That is just some of his shit, on the job, I haven't in this whole thing even touched on his dispicable off-duty activities.

The villains are taking their actions from a place of being disadvantage, the heroes a place of extreme power.

Part of why I like the villains is that they are exaggerating how bad they are, so they are either delivering on what they've said, or they are doing better. The heroes are lying about how good they are and expecting constant praise, even if they aren't demanding the praise be personal they are demanding praise. Deku seeing the UA press conference after they literally just had a student kidnapped, multiple injured, at least one child from fucking elementary school almost killed, is shocked and disturbed that the media would dare critise them.

I have noticed that, all the time.

All of this is very true and very well written.

So much so that I don't think there's anything I can, or need to, add to it.

👍👍 ♾️

[missadangel]

Little Bird in a Cage (Javier Peña x Reader)

Part 17: El Fin (The End) Warning, a short smut part

----------- All episodes here --------------

At Steve and Connie’s house.

"Godfather? Do I look like Marlon fucking Brando?" Steve laughed.

Javi rolled his eyes, "Yeah, the mafia's been looking for you everywhere, man," he chuckled.

"They must have heard you're a good dad," Connie touched his shoulder smiling.

"The best man, we mean," you explained. "Come on, we need you, Steve."

"Okay okay, let's do it."

"Thanks, man," Javi said patting his shoulder. "Put a tick on it baby," he blinks at you.

"Yeah, just the wedding to go," you said with a sigh.

Later on, you met Olivia, Steve and Connie's daughter, when she got home from school.

Javi had already filled you in on her background, and you were eager to meet her because she was Colombian like you. She was a very clever little girl. She kept asking her parents why they were blonde and she was brunette.

"We'll have to tell her soon," Connie said, looking at you as you talk in the kitchen after dinner. Javi and Steve were sitting on the porch, enjoying a beer and chatting.

"I'm sure she'll understand," you said with a smile. "She's so smart."

"Yeah, she's changed our lives, she's our everything," she said, looking at his daughter sleeping on the couch and then back at you. "So are you excited to be a mom?"

You huffed, the word "mom" was still very new to you. "I mean yes, I'm very excited and nervous, I'm afraid I won't be a good mom."

"There's no need to be afraid. I had a tough time at first too, but it's the best feeling in the world, I promise," she said, touching your shoulder. "I'm not sure about Javi, though. I wonder what kind of father he'll be," she said, laughing.

"I think he'll make a great dad. He's got a really loving heart," you said quietly.

Connie smiled. "I'm happy to see this change in him. It seems Colombia has changed his life and ours." It's given us Olivia, and it's given Javi you."

"Thanks, Connie. It's great to meet you. I hope we'll be good neighbors from now on."

"Of course," she said, giving you a friendly rub on the shoulder with a smile. You gave her a hug, feeling as if you'd known her for a while. Connie opened the fridge to get the desserts. "Is your flight tomorrow morning?" she asked.

"Yes," you said with a sigh. The wedding was only two days away.

"Then the next time we see each other will be at the wedding."

"At the wedding," you repeated.

----

In the car.

"Javi, please," you moaned, realizing that having sex in the back of the car was a great idea.

"Baby, you need to slide down a little," he grabbed your hips and slid you over the seat towards him. It was dark, so he looked for the right position to enter you while you caressed his chest with your hands. When he finally entered you, you gasped at the sensation of him inside you, grasping the edge of the seat you were lying on, breathing faster as he began with gentle, shallow thrusts, eager to move faster.

You tried to keep your moans down, after all, you were outside.

Javi had parked the car in a wooded area, which was pretty dark. The idea of having sex in such a different place must have heightened the sexual tension in both of you as Javi picked up the pace. You tightened your legs around his waist, wanting him to go deeper, not wanting but needing.

It was incredible. Your legs started to shake, and you called out his name repeatedly. In response, he grabbed your ass, closing the gap between you, and the car started to shake and creak.

"I'm close," you moaned.

His voice grew louder and louder until he let out a howl of pleasure as he thrust himself deep inside you, his hips moving in an erratic rhythm.

"Javi," you were on the verge of climaxing.

"I know, baby," he whispers in our ear, rocking his hips one last time to come at the same time as you. He empties himself inside of you, then eases himself down to lie on top of you, catching his breath. He kisses you, resting his head on your belly and kissing you in between. He listens to your heartbeat and enjoys feeling your bare skin. You're out of breath from your own orgasm, but since you're pregnant, it takes you longer to come down.

You stayed like that for a few minutes and then got ready to head to the hotel before it was too late.

"It was quite an experience," you said with a laugh as you put on your shoes.

"It was incredible, baby," Javi said, buttoning his shirt.

Javi brushed his hair with his hands, then pushed your hair behind your ears with gentle strokes.

"My hair is a bit of a mess," you said, pursing your lips.

Javi smiled and gave you a kiss. “You look beautiful as always, baby. Let's head to the hotel now, if you're ready. I'm worried he'll notice.”

You laughed, "You mean the famous agent Javier Peña is afraid of his fiancée's father?"

He shrugged, "I suppose I am."

"Someone alert the media," you joked.

"If you tell anyone about this," he said, pointing his index finger at you.

"What would you do?"

"I'll tickle you," he said, and began to tickle you under your chin and then down your neck.

"Javi, stop," you laughed, the car filled with your laughter.

He stopped and locked his eyes with yours. "Laugh like that for the rest of our lives, okay? I'll do anything to make you happy, cariño. Both of you," he put his hand on your belly and stroked it gently.

“I know Javi, we'll be so happy together and never let anything tear us apart. Promise?”

‘Te lo prometo (I promise), mi amor,’ he says and kisses you one last time.

----

The Wedding Day.

"You look great, so beautiful," Caroline said, wiping her tears with her fingers.

You looked at her in the mirror and said, "Oh, please don't cry, Caz.,” you hugged her. "I'm really trying not to cry."

"Come on, ladies, you're making me cry too," Dolores said, her eyes filling with tears.

"Señoritas, pull yourselves together, everyone is waiting for the bride," your father said, entering the room with two jewelry boxes in his hand.

"What are these, dad?" you asked, curious.

"For my lovely daughter," he opened the larger one. There was a pearl necklace inside that sparkling under the lights.

"This was your mother's," he said, his voice trembling.

"It's beautiful," you said, turning your back to him to put it on. You tried very hard not to cry.

Your father looked at you in the mirror and smiled. "It looks good on you, honey," he said, kissing the top of your head. He handed you the other box.

"What about this?" you asked, and he opened it. Inside was a pair of heart-shaped gold earrings studded with small pearls.

"Chucho gave them to me yesterday. He said Javi's mother wore them when she got married, and now he wants you to wear them."

You took earrings to look closer.

"I'm so lucky, I'm so happy to have you all in my life," you said, with tears in your eyes. Caroline came over and gave you a tissue.

"Honey, come on, pull yourself together. It's almost time," she said, fixing your makeup.

As your father helped you put on your earrings, you noticed tears in his eyes, but she tried to hide them.

The door opened suddenly, and Connie walked in. "They've announced the bride," she said, coming over. "Oh my God, you look amazing," she said, giving you a hug.

"Thanks, Connie. I'm ready now," you said, taking a deep breath.

Your father held out his arm to you. "It's time, honey."

You nodded and took another deep breath.

All left the room and took their seats. Caroline picked up her bouquet and walked down the aisle in front of you. Everyone was on their feet, and you could feel your heart racing with excitement.

You hadn't seen Javi since yesterday, so you were really missing him and you were curious to see how he looked. You looked around at the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of Javi. As you made your way down the aisle, you saw the priest first, then Steve, and finally him. He looked great in his black suit, smiling at you with a gorgeous smile that was even more radiant than usual. You couldn't take your eyes off each other. When your father gives you to him, Javi nodded and smiled back. When he took your arm, you couldn't take your eyes off his brown ones. He was so handsome.

Then you turned to the priest and the lasso ceremony was performed after the exchange of vows.

A lasso or rope is placed over the couple's shoulders by los padrinos, symbolizing their eternal union and status as one in the eyes of the Lord.

“Will you, Javier F. Peña, take Y/N Botero Llano to be your wife, to live with her, to respect her, and to love her as God intends, with the promise of fidelity, tenderness, and helpfulness as long as you both shall live?”

‘I will,' he answers, then 'I will,' you answer, holding hands meanwhile.

‘As you are now bound together, so are your lives and spirits bound together in a union of everlasting love and trust. Above you are the stars and below you is the earth. Like the stars, let your love be a constant source of light, and like the earth, a firm foundation from which to grow. Now you may kiss the bride.’

He kissed you softly and smiled.

After the kiss, you and your wedding party will lead the way out of the ceremony site, with the rest of the guests following. The reception took place in Laredo, Javi's hometown. It included traditional music like cumbia, merengue, salsa, and even a mariachi band, which Chucho loves.

But when you saw your father dancing, you burst out laughing. He and Chucho were dancing like they were in a race.

Everyone was having a blast. Steve and Connie with their daughter Olivia, you winked when you saw Caroline and Juan together. There was definitely something between them. Dolores, Javi's aunt, the women who had questioned you earlier, Andre, the townspeople, everyone was there, even Lorraine.

And Javi, you still couldn't believe this beautiful man had become your husband just hours ago. And he was having the best day of his life, no doubt about it. Everything was perfect.

When you were ready for a break from dancing, you sat down to catch your breath, and Javi joined you. He wiped the sweat from your forehead with a tissue and fed you meals.

As he wiped the sweat from your neck he whispered in your ear, ‘I can't wait to be alone with you, my beautiful bride,’ he giggled.

‘Me too, but I'm so tired I might fall asleep,’ you said, faking a yawn with your hand.

‘Don't worry, I'll keep you awake all night,’ you blushed as you felt his hot breath on your neck.

---

When it was time to head off on your honeymoon, you gave everyone a hug and said your goodbyes, with a few tears and a lot of laughter.

As you and Javi were getting in the car to head to the airport, Steve came over to you.

"Don't worry, guys. As your godfather, I've got this covered. I've got the journalists busy so they'll never make it to the airport." He flashed a cocky smile.

"You're the best godfather ever," you said, laughing.

Connie came up behind him with Olivia in her arms. "Have a great honeymoon, guys. We'll be waiting to greet you when you get back," she said the looked at Olivia. 'Won't we honey?

'Yeeey!' She gave a little clap that made everyone laugh.

You gave Olivia a quick kiss on the cheek and got into the car.

Javi started the engine and you rolled down the window and waved to them. Once they were out of sight, you closed the window and looked at Javi. He looked at you, took your hand, and kissed it, still holding the steering wheel. You leaned over and rested your head on his shoulder, playing with the ring on his finger, smiling the whole time as the car drove to the airport.

----

You picked Miami for your honeymoon, Steve had lived there before, so he knew the area well, and they got you a hotel room as a wedding gift. You went for a swim in the sea almost every day. The beach was huge, and the people around you were having fun just like you were.

One day, Javi suggested, "Let's go for a swim in the sea tonight." You had just gotten out of the shower. "You won't be cold here, and don't you want to see the night sky?"

As newlyweds, you two were so busy at night, so you were surprised when he asked that, but you agreed. After sunset, you swam for a while and then lay down on the sand on the shore.

Javi got out a blanket from the bag, and you lay down on it to watch the stars. It was a great view.

"Javi, look, a shooting star," you said, pointing to the sky with your finger.

When he didn't answer, you looked at him. He took something out of the bag—it looked like a box.

"Happy birthday, mi amor," he said while handing it to you.

You weren't expecting it.

"Oh, today?" "How did I forget?" you said, laughing. "You're the best husband in the world," you said, with a smile.

"As someone who's lucky enough to have the best wife, I should be," he said, kissing you on the lips. You chuckled.

"Go on, open it," he said, pointing at the box.

You took the pink gelatin out of the box with your fingers and put it on the cover. It was a square glass box with red roses inside.

"Javi, these roses," you said, suddenly remembering where you'd seen them.

Your eyes filled with tears as the memory came back to you. The roses on the military base where he first kidnapped you. You sat by them every day, wondering when you'd be free. Then Javi gave you one of those roses.

“Just hang in there little bird, you'll be free soon,’

Javi said the same thing he said then and gave a little smile.

"When they took you away from me, I mean Miguel's men, I looked at these red roses and promised I'd get you back, and I did, right?" He smirked.

You reached up and gave him a kiss. "I'm glad you did."

Then you noticed a silver pendant with a small bird figure hidden among the roses. You picked it up and took a closer look.

“El Pajarito, (Little Bird) ” he murmured.

"Javi, this is amazing. It's the best birthday present I've ever gotten. Thank you. I love you so much," You kissed him on the cheek.

"I love you too, my little bird," he replied.

Then he kissed you. You put your arms around his neck, certain that this moment would last forever, but you knew that better days awaited you.

-----

*Tears*

Thank you for reading and support you all, see you another fanfictions of mine

I’m planning to write about Marcus Acacius, will share soon!

kissesss

[puzzled-pegasus]

Christina Posabule thoughts (tiny little female christ is eating my brain today/pos)

This is mostly me working out some parallels between her and Orel's families but there's some cute hcs for her and Orel in here too :3

Her mom Poppit is influential to her as a parallel to the way that Clay affects Orel. Poppit is selfish, drunk, bitter, and very two-faced parent just like Clay is, who just like him, confidently gives awful advice and takes advantage of Christina's trusting nature.

Art is less involved with Christina and loses interest in conversation with her as soon as anything remotely associated with femininity comes up and he's just like ew gross go talk to your mom. the most positive attention he gives her is about her appearance and how cute or pretty she looks. He likes to constantly condescendingly tell her that any given thing she's interested or asking advice about in the moment is for boys or "a little girl like you doesn't need to worry about that :)" and it drives Christina nuts so she goes and talks to her mom anyway

Similarly to Clay and Orel, Poppit decided to take Christina on a picnic in the woods and they get lost, and Christina gets permanently injured due to her mother's carelessness, though I haven't yet figured out how. (Man, I just realized that if that happened after the events of Nature and Orel found out, he would probably be out for Poppit's BLOOD on behalf of his puppy crush sweetheart)

Idk whose post I read but I'll add the credit in later, but I read earlier the idea that as a parallel to Orel's masochism episode Christina has an arc where she turns sadist and I thought that was fuckin hilarious so yeah I need that to be a thing. I wonder what would set that off though. Maybe instead of taking to heart the idea that suffering is good for her, she might be like "wait friends I don't want you to go to hell for being happy" and beats them up...or smth i dont know. And also as parallel to Orel's dreams of God in that episode she could be like. Beating the shiz out of Satan. Lol. anyway,

I have this feeling that she and Orel have like the sappiest pet names for each other but like you cant even be mad about it cause they're so sincere lol. like they meet up for a date and Orel's casually like "there's my bright little daisy" and Christina is like "oh hello my sweet pudding pie" and then they hold hands and walk to the park or whatever tf

This is a smaller hc but if you remember that moment before the Puppingtons found out the Posabules were Catholic when Clay noticed Orel making 😍 eyes at Christina and he asked Orel if he thinks she was cute,,, I think it would be nice if Poppit and Christina were doing the same thing at that moment like Poppit was like "oh he's a doll isn't he?" And Christina's like "yes, ma'am, and so polite too!" and Poppit says something cheeky about how Christina better not start bringing boys around Art because he'll shoot them or whatever (you know like how dads threaten their daughters' boyfriends for no reason because of weird possession issues) and then they giggle together

Since Orel's been shot Christina worries over him a lot and especially in the first few months of their relationship she kept asking him how much it hurt and and even into adulthood she checks with him every day to make sure he's not exerting himself too much

Christina had a cat briefly and her parents killed it because they thought it was bad luck or smth

instead of "meet me in my study" Poppit's the more involved parent when it comes to discipline so she's just like "go see your father" cus he's the one with the belt