#I’m partial to him being a violin player too

[welcome-to-green-hills]

Outside of movies, Keanu Reeves is a bassist, so apply this information to Shadow accordingly

ASDFGHJKL! I forgot about him being a part of a band. Shadow would totally be a rocker.

[bangtansmau]

midnight memories

pairing: kim taehyung x you

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summary: you moved in to a new apartment because you couldn't live another day with a noisy neighbor. to your luck, your balcony faced another apartment's balcony from the building next door and he also is infamous for making sounds. however, you can't seem to care when the noise is actually from a nice violin and the player himself is also nice-looking.

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track 2: story of my life + written part

to make your friends believe you were, indeed, sleeping, you shut off your phone and placed it down because they somehow always knew when you would be online. your eyes wandered around your tiny bedroom before deciding to make some breakfast and something to drink so you could energize to finish your paper. the trek from your room to the kitchen was short as it was just right across the hall since the 1-bedroom apartment was compacted to the smallest size possible.

it would make sense why rent was so cheap.

during your walk, you noticed out of your balcony’s french door’s windows that your neighbor- er, was it tae? taehyung? taeyong? -was leaning against the railing but this time, no violin. his eyebrows were scrunched together as if deeply in-thought and there was a frown resting on his lips that usually held an adorable grin. something must be happening. at first you wanted to just go over there and talk to him but you decided to just make your food and tea then go over to talk over breakfast.

taehyung noticed you walking towards your doors with a plate of cookies and a teacup in-hand. his eyes naturally followed you and his mood brightened up slightly, seeing his new friend make her way for him to talk to her and be distracted from the stress of his life. you were juggling a newspaper under your arm while your two hands carried your breakfast but you somehow made it, even being able to twist the doorknob to open towards the balcony.

tae’s smile made you instantly look at him and you quickly put down your things to walk to the railing so you could talk to him.

“hey”

he greeted and you tilted your head with a smile.

“hey, yourself”

you both shared a split-second of silence but it was comfortable enough to break into chuckles after. you settled on one of the chairs of your little table and once you were comfortable enough, you finally asked the question.

“what’s wrong, tae?”

you asked and he flinched, recalling showing you any face of stress in the 3 seconds you were out.

“huh?”

“i noticed from inside that you looked stressed. is it school?”

your question was answered with no words but with how he sighed and closed his eyes.

“setting aside how you guessed right, yea, school’s just kicking my ass right now”

you nodded in understanding.

“is there,, anything i can help you with? you mentioned being in photography but i’m not exactly great at,,, well,,,, taking photos”

sheepishly smiling, you ducked your head but tae felt warm that you even wanted to help him.

“it’s a project my professor assigned. i guess you could say it’s our end of the semester project. i have the equipment but,,, i just don’t have a theme”

a theme?

well, you couldn’t exactly come up with anything either without sounding too cheesy or corny.

“i would’ve said something about nature but that’s too basic, right?”

tae’s eyes lit up and he gasped out loud.

“exactly! my friends thought i was crazy for not wanting to do that! they just don’t get it”

he huffed and you laughed.

“as students of the arts, we have to make ourselves known somehow”

god, tae wanted to just drag you off and meet jungkook because he felt like his argument was finally valid.

“what if you make your project,, based on memories? taking pictures of everyday life and see the lens out of someone else’s eye”

your suggestion wasn’t the most original one but tae thought hard.

“hmm, that sounds good. maybe the life of a college student? or,,, something joyous to contrast the dark and stress of our lives? i don’t know, i’m not good at suggestions”

at this point, he was kind of desperate for any suggestions that sounded better than basic so he nodded slowly then began thinking about who and what would be in the pictures.

“i thought of using my dog as my model but he’s at my parents’ house and he’s not very cooperative. maybe my friends but they would charge me somehow”

you felt bad for him because you’ve been at a place where you’ve had a blockage in your project. to think this was the most important and highest graded one of his course was definitely more nerve-wracking than your simple ‘What are the symbolisms in Gatsby?’ back in middle school.

then you thought of an idea.

“well,,, i may not be an experienced model but i can be a stand-in? my friend uses me in his cooking videos a lot so i’m not too shy of a camera”

tae stared at you.

“are you sure? you would do that?”

you shrugged and sipped your tea.

“i mean, why not? it’s not too hard, right?”

his grin spread across his face and he excitedly leaned over the railing.

“seriously?! what can i do in return?”

“i don’t have anything right now but i’ll tell you when we’re done, okay?”

he couldn’t believe you were willing to help a stranger like him but his fondness of you even grew.

“wow, what luck! you’re really the best, y/n!”

you nodded smugly.

“i know”

tae scrambled to find his camera which he spotted inside so he rushed to get it while you watched, amused. the padding of his socks announced his arrival and his camera was held delicately in his hands.

“can i,, take one right now?”

you blanched.

“right now?”

he quickly noticed your surprise so he hurriedly waved his hands.

“it’s fine if you don’t want to!”

the excitement in his eyes was too adorable for you to pass up so you chuckled before picking up the newspaper to open it and partially hide your face.

“here. i don’t have any makeup on so try not to get my face but everything else is fine”

tae nodded. a smirk made its way up to your lips and you leaned.

“how do you want me, director?”

the tips of his ears began to burn at the way you looked up at him but he coughed before he shrugged.

“i-uh,, well, however you’re comfortable”

you noticed his nervousness and nodded. you angled yourself in a way that it looked like you were reading the newspaper with one hand which was folded and raised high enough that the only thing peaking from your face was your large spectacles and eyes. the other hand held the tea high and the way you posed looked natural enough for him to take that snapshot.

you continued reading and stopped when he pulled the camera away from his face to review the way the picture came out. of course, you were curious as to how it turned out so you placed your things down and called out to him.

“hm?”

his eyes were wide and you laughed.

“did it turn out good?”

you asked and taehyung eagerly agreed.

“i mean, i need to pull it up in my laptop but this is perfect. when i finish, you want me to send it to you?”

tae was hoping that his excuse sounded convincing enough to get your number but you quickly caught it before nodding and getting up to get a pen.

he watched you return and give him a notepad that held your digits and a small smiley face that he couldn’t help but mirror.

today was a good day.

not only did he finally figure out his project, he also got the cute girl’s number too.

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fun fact:

- jin has a cooking/eating channel called ‘EATJIN’ where he mainly makes cooking videos and eating but sometimes he has daily vlogs where you and the boys show up all the time

- tae’s previous muse was someone from his hometown but something happened o.o

- jungkook is looking for an apartment but he doesn’t want to live with jimin since his cat loves to take socks and underwear and he doesn’t want to repeat the same experience from back then where he accidentally wore jimin’s briefs

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//masterlist//

← track 1 // track 3 →

[onslaughtsixdotcom]

Scaling Up Dragon Heist

Around April or May of 2019, I started to run Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, one of the official WotC 5e hardcovers. I’m still not done with it, although that is largely the fault of COVID and my own extensions to the campaign. 

I think Dragon Heist is one of the better 5e modules by WotC. I think it’s got a strong playground for the characters, and Waterdeep has 30+ years of publication history to draw on. The release of the module also heralded in a HUGE amount of third party extension content, including the famous Alexandrian Remix. I hadn’t heard of this before I started running my campaign and having ideas about how to do it, so it didn’t influence me--although I’m sure we came to a lot of similar conclusions and ideas, based on common perceptions of what the actual flaws are of the module.

Still, despite those flaws, I think they help the module rather than hinder it. It gives the DM a shitload of room to improvise and draw in the margins, rather than some other 5e adventures which feel like they can’t be fucked with in the least.

Here’s the kicker: I started my adventure at level 4. We had a pre-existing party that I had run through the classic N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God. (Fun fact: A map that I drew is the 3rd Google Images result for that. Woah.)

The party spent a few real-world weeks traveling across about 7 days of overland travel where I ran some drop in one shots; including Mike Krahulik’s Dusk (a Twilight parody) and a really fun 2 hour diversion where the players saw an ancient blue dragon take off the roof of a church during a wedding. Then they arrived in my city: Dawnharbour.

I don’t run the Forgotten Realms. I find it not to my taste. Most of the names suck. The lore is invariably boring or weird, and not the fun kind of weird. I was going to run Dragon Heist, and I was going to put it in my own city. I gave the players some justification previously for why they would want to go there: The cleric’s sister had been kidnapped by the Cult of the Reptile God and turned into a Yuanti; a snake person. The bard had stolen a golden statue of the Reptile God and wanted to melt it down and plate his violin with it. I told the cleric that they would need a high level magic user and someone in Dawnharbour could probably help them; ditto the bard needing a highly skilled magical blacksmith. The third player didn’t really care where they went since he was on the run from his home country. So, off to Dawnharbour. They reached level 4 when they got to the city.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the details of my city or everything I changed for the campaign. Instead, I’ll talk up some hard and fast ways to make the adventure work for a higher level party. Most of them revolve around the encounters. I’m assuming the party will start around level 4 or 5.

Chapter 1

The book opens with the players in the Yawning Portal, a famous tavern with a big ass well to a megadungeon underneath. (More on this later.) They’re hanging out doing whatever when a troll and some stirges pop out of the well. The book says that the players get attacked by the stirges while the owner of the bar, a typical Forgotten Realms 15th level Fighter running a fucking bar for a living deals with the troll.

A troll is CR 5. They can handle a troll. If they can’t, you have a bigger problem.

Next up the book leads them to a Zhentarim warehouse. When they get there it’s abandoned and there are (ugh) 3 Kenku. Kenku are like tengu if they sucked. They’re bird people who can only speak in mimickry, like parrots. They can only repeat words they’ve heard before. This is stupid as fuck (especially when a player wants to be one) but more importantly, they are incredibly weak. I think the kenku are just hanging out or they got captured by the Zhentarim who left them there after they bail or something like that. Whatever.

I put the Zhentarim there instead. I put like 20 Zhentarim. I used the Spy statblock; they don’t have a lot of CR and at level 4 or 5, the players are real slice and dicey about killing them. They can basically carve through two of these dudes in a turn. It was *really* fun to just have the players mow down these mooks. They used the 2nd floor to their advantage, casting Grease on the stairs and creating a bottleneck and then picking them off with ranged attacks and spells. I think I might have given the Zhents 1hp and treated them as minions (see 4e). 

I think I had the police show up after they were all dead; someone heard the commotion and called the cops. I think I also put an NPC there; I shuffled around a bunch of the NPCs the module uses. (They got their quest to save Volo from Bigby in the Yawning Portal; instead of finding Volo here, I think they found my equivalent of Renaer Neverremember.) There was a day’s break between this and them going into the sewers in the next part.

The sewer introduces the Xanathar’s minions. I believe a Duergar is actually there and I took this as a sign--I made most of Xanathar’s mooks Duergar, and then decided--this dude is a Beholder and he has a Mindflayer for a lieutenant. The Xanathar’s forces should ALL be classic D&D dungeon monsters, like rust monsters and umber hulks and ropers. This gives you a wide variety of weird shit you can throw at your players at different CR levels, and the idea of a gangster Beholder who thinks hiring a bunch of umber hulks to go shake down a local deli is fucking hilarious. But, it doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Throw some umber hulks or something in this lair. Go nuts--the weirder, the better. Xanathar’s crew should have no qualm about hanging out with a gibbering mouther or a carrion crawler.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is the least developed chapter in the book. It also revolved around a bunch of Forgotten Realms faction nonsense that I wanted nothing to do with. I used this time instead to formally introduce the Xanathar, the Cassalanters and Jarlaxle. After they foiled his plans to rig a goldfish competition (think a dog show but for fish), the Xanathar became convinced the players worked for the Zhentarim and invited them to have a sit down about their intentions; if they worked for the Zhents he wanted to formally declare war. The players hated the Zhents--they killed an NPC they liked back during N1, partially to set this all up. Xanny was cool with that.

The Cassalanters were a way to introduce a new player. They call up the Blackstaff to say, hey we have a magic item, can you send a guy here to deliver it? (Magic item possession is illegal on the streets in my setting, but if someone important hires you to transport it, then you can do it. This makes being a courier a very lucrative job; lots of people are just carrying around other people’s stuff for a living.) They almost immediately knock out the new player sent to pick up the item, and replace him with their dofflegagher. The idea was that the dofflegagher player would then infiltrate the Blackstaff’s organization.

Blackstaff is no dumbass and hired a random dude off the street--my new player. Then, Blackstaff hired the rest of the party to go rescue him--mostly as a ruse to snuff out the Cassalanters and get evidence that they were shitty.

When they encountered the Cassalanters, I used a Cambion; one of their servants turned into him. This guy slowly became a recurring lieutenant; he was basically the Goldar for the Cassalanter’s Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa. At the time, I hadn’t read any lore for Cambions; I’m not particularly concerned with monster lore the way the guys who make the game write it. I literally thumbed through my deck of monsters, saw this winged devil horn dude, and said, “Right on, he looks like he’ll work.” A Cambion is CR5, more than suitable for the encounters the party will have with him over the next few levels. The Fiendish Charm ability is fun and can really fuck with the players; I ruled, of course, that anyone under its affect would obviously be free if the Cambion was killed. Even after it was killed, he just kept on coming back, because he’s from Hell and killing him on this plane doesn’t really do anything.

As the players continue to face the Cassalanters, a go-to seems to be spined devils. This is fine but not very powerful for a level 4, 5, 6 party. Therefore I suggest supplanting it with barbed devils. They’re CR5. Adding one or two of those to an encounter with spined devils can make this a real fun encounter that isn’t too horribly overwhelming, especially if at least one of your martial characters has a magic weapon (which they fucking should; they’re level 5!)

IMO you can also introduce Jarlaxle in this chapter; a fun way is through his Zardoz Zord persona. It could simply be that Jarlaxle knows Volo (or any other NPC the players know) and wants to invite them to a free meal to get to know them. In my game, Jarlaxle operates openly as himself (I found it would just complicate things if he was someone else) and invited the players to his yacht shortly after they met the Xanathar, to formally tell them all about the Vault of Dragons, the Stone, and how everyone they have met in the city is after it.

Chapter 3

I am not the biggest fan of this part of the module. I think nimblewrights and similar creatures are really dumb and don’t fit my D&D world. A lot of the stuff in this chapter is investigation stuff, and you can play that out however you like. It doesn’t drastically need scaling up, though you may have to account for something like Zone of Truth that they might not normally have access to. It also helps if you do the opposite of the book, and make the police a bunch of shitheads who don’t care about the city--this way the players are actually motivated to help. I’ve seen a LOT of posts that open with “the fireball happened and my players shrugged and said they would let the police handle it.” Horrible! The police should either be incompetent, apathetic, or (best case) both. They don’t care who did this and if they did, they wouldn’t be able to catch them. Now it’s completely on the players.

IMO it also helps if you do the leg work to make the NPC someone they actually care about. In the book it’s an NPC they’ve never met but they have a mutual acquaintance through--it would be nice if they get invited to a dinner with this NPC or something similar prior to this. Or, change it to be any NPC they like who you don’t mind killing. Hell, they’re level 5 or 6 at this point--if they got a cleric, they can even cast Revivify and wake the dude up. They could even cast Speak With Dead and immediately find out who blew him up or what he was doing here!

Moving on, there’s the Gralland Villa. I retooled the name to actually sound like a good name; sue me. 

The book has a bunch of Zhents hanging out here. A simple way to make this dramatic and hard is to pull the trigger and make the players fight their way in. The stone is right here at the villa and they need to steal it. Sounds simple enough.

Things got complicated for my party when a recurring NPC appeared. She was an ex girlfriend of the bard in our party; they were both Tieflings. She now worked for the Zhentarim and was basically their second in command. And she was here to steal the stone, come Hell or high water. The bard, still in love with her, was perfectly content to let her steal it and even cover her getaway. The rest of the players, not so much, but when the chaos was ensuing and she was literally running past them with the stone in hand, made the decision that it was smarter to try and help her escape and then figure out how to get the stone from her later, than try and get it from her now.

This led literally directly to chapter 4.

Chapter 4

By now it’s obvious: I used all 4 bad guys.

I ran through the chapter and picked the coolest maps and best encounter ideas, including the rooftop chase, the theater, the sewer and the courthouse. I weaved them together carefully, and all the changes I had made to the groups paid off when they entered the theater, chased by barbed devils and our Cambion friend, only to have an Umber Hulk with the Xanathar’s logo painted on his face crash through the stage, flanked by two Duergar. Add in some Drow gunslingers and it was a fucking party.

(the large hexagon is where somebody cast Darkness; the big scuffed circle is a grody spot on my grid tiles. I still need new ones...)

The courthouse had a great scene where the Cassalanter dofflegagher impersonated the chief of police, interrogating the players for the code word to activate the stone (I added one; who cares?) until the real chief of police showed up! The players had to do an entire encounter with this guy while handcuffed; thank god for verbal only spells, right? 

From here the stone ended up with the players, and then it ended up with Jarlaxle who they are working for. Jarlaxle attuned to it and told them the Vault of Dragons is inside Undermountain; 3, 5 levels deep? Who knows? And it requires 3 keys: The Crown of Asmodeus, the Ring of Winter, and the Robe of the Archmagi.

I gave these 3 magic items to the Cassalanters, the Xanathar and Manshoon. This is a pretty common hack and it means the lairs in the book actually get used. I made up one of the magic items (Crown of Asmodeus) and stole another from a module I don’t intend to run as written (the Ring of Winter is, I believe, in either Tomb of Annihilation or Storm King’s Thunder). They’re fun!

So the rest of the campaign has been the players bouncing between going deep into Undermountain, the megadungeon underneath the Yawning Portal, and going to the 3 different villain factions to steal their shit. 

The villain lairs are NOT statted for level 5 players AT ALL. The players have no hope of actually killing ANY of the villains at level 5; to fight the Xanathar is a pure TPK at level 5. But at level 8, like where my players are now? One of them died and then got Revivified; the others all survived or made their saves when they were hit by death or disintegration. (In the spirit of the Xanathar, I rolled every eye beam randomly, rerolling if I had used that ray in the last round.) That’s about the best you can hope for with a Beholder IMO! 

The rest of the lairs you can mostly run as-is. Any very low CR mooks, basically anything lower than 1 or 2 CR, I would probably replace with a higher CR variant. We’ve already discussed what you can replace them with above, and if you’ve made it this far into the module, you should have a pretty good sense of what your players can handle.

[bleusimpstash]

Oh boy, I’m nervous sharing this but reading a bunch of Kraken!Sans musings from @aka-indulgence got me inspired enough for me to write a thing about it! I’ve got more ideas for this scenario, but since I’m not used to writing longer things (or just getting the courage to do so pfft) I’ll stick to this for now.

READER-INSERT STUFF, so if that ain’t your gig it’ll be under the read more!

As a quick summary, this is HT Kraken boi meeting Reader for the first time! They’re work in a mysterious underwater laboratory, and after singing a little for fun they come to realize that a massive aquarium isn’t as empty as it looked... >:)

~ SIREN SONG ~

You should have known better than to trust that a massive aquarium would be empty, despite how dark and lifeless it appeared to be through the large hallway windows. With it being your first night in this underwater laboratory, and as a janitor no less, how could you have known that something would watch and listen to your every move through the pristine glass?

If you’d known this, you wouldn’t have been singing as you mopped the metal floors, dancing and swaying to the rhythm of the song as you worked. Music was your secret passion, your outlet of emotions often times in a job that allowed you few creative freedoms, and there wasn’t any better time to sing than during your night shift, when everyone was sound asleep in the community dorms! With no one to bother you or critique your voice, it wasn’t long before you’d completely absorbed yourself in your chosen playlist, letting your cadence ring through the halls with no restraint.

However, your voice wasn’t only reaching through the many empty halls and labs of the underwater facility, it also echoed through the glass and into the darkened waters of the containment aquarium… attracting the attention of an ancient, primal horror. A hellish red pupil flickered to life at the bottom of the containment aquarium, drawn up towards the dim lights which glowed through the hallways that lined the enormous cage…

Oblivious you took no notice of the dangerous attention you’d garnered, as your favorite bit of the song came around your voice grew in volume as well, passionately singing along with the words. The scene the music inspires dances out in your mind as you daydream yourself far away from the dark, dank underwater laboratory you worked in, closing your eyes briefly to immerse yourself more in your escapism. Because of this, you weren’t able to notice the massive red light that slowly lifts itself into view through the window, the glowing orb illuminating a partial skull that was too large to fully see through the window, cropped to just above his mangled jawline and below the monstrous crack in his skull. Upon seeing a tiny human singing and dancing about, the sea behemoth freezes in place to closely observe your movements, drawn in by your voice.

Of course, the moment you open your own eyes, you notice the unusual red tint that covers the hallway around you. Puzzled by this you look around to see if perhaps an emergency light had somehow turned on, only to be greeted by something far more worrying when you turn to face the aquarium window.

You stood frozen in view of the massive eye, bathed in its glowing red light that now illuminated the dim hallway. The music was still playing in your ears, but now you may as well be deaf to everything around you, awed by the sheer size of the creature staring at you, and also internally panicking. What was this thing?! Why hadn’t anyone told you this giant aquarium was containing some sort of sea monster, and how had you not seen it earlier when you peered through the hallway’s glass window?

These questions were trivial now, as the red eye (that alone was taller than you were-) appeared to constrict slightly, as if the creature were watching your reaction with great intensity. Your next move was out of pure instinct alone, as you waved your hand shyly at it as if trying to shoo the enormous eye away. “M-move along, there’s nothing to see here…” You tell it shakily, gripping the handle of your mop as if your life depended on it. You weren’t even sure if the thing could understand you, or hear you through the glass, but there was some sort of reaction in how the eye suddenly shrank, making you jump out of fear of having angered this nightmarish being somehow. “No really! I’m no one interesting, just-just cleaning stuff for the night! I won’t bother you, I promise!”

A rumble comes as your response, a sound which gently vibrates through your body before the low pitch reached your ear. Your body shudders in response to the unnatural sensation, before you legitimately began to tremble when a massive clawed hand suddenly pressed itself against the glass, so big that you can only partially see the palm through the window frame! At this point you were all too certain this sea monster was trying to break the glass to eat you and were just about to flee down the hall, when another type of sound suddenly came from the beast…

… a strangely melodic hum, if you could call it that, where through the rumble you could pick up the different pitches and notes the monster was creating. The more you listened to the slow noise, the more you caught on to the fact that these notes were strikingly similar to the song you had just been singing before the massive eye caught you off guard!

Was this thing… trying to sing with you?

Your eyes widened with surprise at this realization, a new emotion blooming in your chest as you gingerly placed the mop against the wall, your full attention now on the red eye as it dilated and grew in size, seemingly having noticed the fear leaving your expression.

“Are you… singing?” You dare to ask, hesitantly approaching the window with newfound curiosity, despite caution screaming at you to run away instead of approach the much larger creature. The hum which shook your entire being ebbed away as you spoke, leaving a moment of silence between the two of you as you stared at one another, though the quiet did not feel so heavy or threatening as it had before. A light squeak from the glass drew your attention as the pale white hand (was that bone?) moved slightly, curling into a fist and allowing you to spot the sharpened claws at the end of this creature’s fingers. And yet… this didn’t feel like a threatening gesture. You focus again on the eye, as it bobbed very slightly up and down. The sea monster nodded.

“...You… heard me singing then, didn’t you?” You dumbly stated, pointing a finger at yourself as you took in the fact that this inhuman looking giant actually understood you and was capable of responding. Another slight nod of the eye comes at your response. “And it… didn’t bother you?”

Instead of moving up and down, the eye and the white socket around it (oh goodness that was bone-) shifted from side to side, a shake of the monster’s massive head. It was responding, giving yes and no answers, this was crazy-!

It was crazy, and yet for some reason you felt so giddy inside. You couldn’t help the wide smile that was suddenly on your face, the dimples you felt on your cheeks almost feeling foreign as you reached up to cover your mouth. When was the last time you’d felt this excited?

“Wow, guess you’re a musician too then, huh?” You muse softly, quiet enough that you wouldn’t think the creature would hear you and yet a brief rumbling… purr, proved you wrong. You labeled this sound a purr, mainly because of the glimmer you could suddenly see swimming about in the giant eye, a glimmer that you interpreted as amusement. A small laugh leaves you before you pick up your music player from the coat’s pocket, browsing through your song selection to pick another one to play.

“Well, I do need to keep working, but if you’d like I can pick something a little slower. Maybe you could... sing along?” You asked as you settled for a familiar folk song, slow but easy to hum along to. “This one’s not too hard, just repeat after me.”

While you weren’t certain how well this would work, you took your mop in hand again and began to sing the folk song of your choice, the notes far more melodic and gradual in pace. The old love song was one of your favorites, and you hardly needed to listen to the recording to know what words to sing, lost instead in the somber violins and rolling tones of the song. Once you had finished the first verse of the tune, already swaying to the rhythm as you mopped, the rumbling of the massive monster soon shook your body once more, reminding you of his presence as you peek subtly in the glass window’s direction, continuing to sing still as a low pitched wail joined you.

He matched you pitch by pitch, perhaps a little off key but still hauntingly beautiful with his own singing. Unlike your soprano cadence that allowed you to reach high notes with ease and confidence, the giant skeletal monster’s voice reached your core before your ears, vibrating with a primal energy that blended seamlessly with his song. Deep, otherworldly, and a stark contrast to your human vocals. You would have stopped in your own melody, feeling unworthy of singing alongside him, but from the equally enraptured glow of that surprisingly expressive eye… You couldn’t help but have the impression that he was listening very closely to your own voice as well.

And so your unusual duet with a friendly sea monster continued, as you slowly moved your way up the darkened hallways, keeping to the routes that stayed alongside the giant creature’s aquarium and allowed him to very gradually follow you from window to window. Once you finished the first folk song, the two of you easily continued onto the next melody, and just as quickly to the one after that. Song after song passed on your playlist, each one giving you and the sea creature a chance to hear one another and become lost in the music the two of you created together. It was… surreal to your own mind, you almost couldn’t believe this was actually happening, and yet every time you would glance to the monster’s enormous face to find him following your every move with a wide, dilated red eye, reality would prove you wrong.

But soon enough, you had to move onto the other sections of the laboratory. You’d get chewed out for a botched job if you didn’t clean the entire facility by the end of the night, and yet somehow that looming threat didn’t bother you as much as it normally would, finishing the last song with a heavy sigh as you placed the mop in the wheeled bucket. The sea monster appeared to catch onto the turn of your emotions, as his rumbling moans soon tapered off into a heavy silence, the red light illuminating the hallway growing more intense as he leaned closer to the glass. Leaning closer to you.

While you knew by now that he was friendly, being under that much scrutiny from a massive entity was still quite intimidating, and you couldn’t help but take a step back in surprise. You were quick to realize that this was likely him trying to figure out what was wrong though, so with a saddened smile you pointed a thumb down the turning hallway, which ventured away from his aquarium and into dim darkness. “Sorry big guy, this is where we part ways. I’ve got to mop up the rest of this place by the end of the night.” You explained with a disappointed tone, turning your focus towards your phone briefly and missing the drastic shrink of the monster’s glowing pupil. “It was nice singing with you though, you have a beautiful voi-”

You were nearly shaken off balance by the force of his clawed hand bashing against the window suddenly, followed swiftly by a deep guttural growl that tore through the air around you. A sharp gasp leaves you as you quickly turn to the sea beast, to see both his hands now pressed against the glass in front of you, his skull now in full view at the distance he was at and his anger all too clear through his beastly expression. It was barely human, his giant teeth were in full view and each one was razor sharp. His socket with the glowing pupil was practically searing the water around it, nearly a pinprick of light now glared at you while his other socket was a hollow black and narrowed. But most alarmingly of all, a detail that had been hidden by how close he’d been to the window before, was how an enormous portion of his skull was just gone, leaving nothing but a cracked husk in the top right half of the monster’s head. As drawn as your eyes were to the gruesome injury, with the beast snarling in your direction and pressing into the glass, you had more important things to worry about.

Such as the cracks you could suddenly hear from the window-

“W-wait! Stop, what’s wrong? Why are you so angry?” You yelped frantically, unwisely approaching the hands pressed against the windows with your own hands stretched out, as if hoping to push him away from breaking the precious barrier. If he broke the glass windows, the whole laboratory could be flooded, and everyone (mainly you-) would drown! “Please, be gentle with the glass, I can’t breathe in water like you if it breaks!”

Surprisingly enough the sea monster appeared to hear you through the ear-splitting growls he was making, and while he still radiated a hot fury from his sockets and far-too wide grin, the clawed phalanges are slowly lowered from the windows. You sigh with relief as the cracks you’d heard go silent, but still faced with an enraged giant you press your own hand against the glass, watching his expression desperately and trying to make out what had upset him. He’d started making a fuss when you said you had to leave…

“Do you… want me to stay?” You hesitantly asked, your eyes widening as his clawed hand returned to mirror your own hand on the glass, practically engulfing you in it’s shadow as his palm loomed over you, each of his fingers far taller than you alone. His face drew closer yet again, hiding his head injury to watch you when his hand had hidden you from his sight. The growls at last quiet down some, and grew more high pitched in tone. It almost sounded like a… pitying whine now, to your ears. You took this as a yes, he wanted you to stay.

“I’m… I’m sorry, I wish I could, but I can’t.” You said honestly, drawing your eyes away from his towering hand and towards his eye with a morose expression of your own. “I’ll get in trouble if I don’t clean the labs by the time everyone wakes up. I’m… I’m the janitor, after all, this is what they expect me to do.” You state the last sentence bitterly, clearly not wanting to be a janitor, but it was all you could do here without having the qualifications to be a scientist in these labs.

Showing your frustration to an already irate sea beast wasn’t the wisest choice however, as his cries went silent all together and a heavy silence fell all around you. His pupil was shrinking even further… Thankfully this time you caught onto his souring mood and tried to turn the tides as much as you could, offering him a hopeful grin instead through the glass and making your tone more cheerful.

“But, once I’m done I can come back! I do want to see you again, it’s not everyday you find a music partner after all!” You said as confidently as you could, watching the behemoth carefully for his reaction. “I promise I’ll be quick, you’ll hardly notice that I’m gone. So don’t be mad, kay?”

From the slight narrowing of his sockets you got the impression he was suspicious of you, but of what you couldn’t say. Perhaps picking up on the pleading tone of your voice though, the sea monster at last appears to relent and lowered his gargantuan hand from the glass, swimming to put distance between himself and the windows while his single red pupil remained intensely focused on you. A silent truce, allowing you to leave despite appearing hesitant about it still.

A wave of relief hit you at this point, though you did your best not to show this and instead gave the giant skeleton a happy grin and wave of goodbye, before beginning to scoot your mop bucket down the branching hallway and further into the depths of the lab. You didn’t stop until you felt the burning sensation on your back leave you, knowing that if you turned to see him watching you leave like a lost puppy you likely wouldn’t have the heart to go through with your janitorial duties. But you had a job to do, and you seriously needed the money, so you’d turn down your own wants for the next few hours until you were done.

After that, you’d be free to visit your bizarre, terrifying, yet exciting new companion.

[werewolfpropaganda]

Sébastien - Male Werewolf x Male Reader

not sfw. 4886 words. you meet and fall in love with werewolf and busker, sébastien.

You missed seeing the stars. 

You missed seeing the stars deeply — a horribly indescribable feeling you felt deep in your core everytime you looked up at the night sky — because Manhattan had no stars. It hadn’t had stars for a long time, and it probably never would. 

Growing up in rural suburbia had few pluses, but at the very least there was space. Between the lack of restaurants, idealistic white picket fences, and families with two-and-a-half children, there were glimpses of beauty: picturesque forests, a wide open sky, and the stars. You used to go stargazing just about every week with your father well into adolescence (and partly into adulthood), until he died and left you with this mess. You moved to the city, and, well, here you are.

You looked out onto your balcony. It would have been a good spot for stargazing. Only 22 and you were living the American Dream: renting an apartment with an okay view of the adjacent building and a shittily constructed fire escape. You felt like it could collapse at any moment and you would get to recreate “Fire on Marlborough Street.” Truly the American Dream.

It was time for your daily walk. Despite the fact that you lived in Manhattan, you never left your apartment except for work and this walk. You had no real friends and Upper Manhattan was basically just banks and pharmacies, anyway. 

You lived within walking distance of the park, so your routine was partially through there. You put on a jacket and left, not completely sure that you locked the door. 

There was a guy playing the violin about six feet from where you were sitting, and he looked to be about your age. He was really good at what he did, playing a song that sounded nothing like the Suzuki viola books you played from as a child. You never learned the names of any classical composers so you guessed. Debussy? Bach? Vivaldi? Who knows?

He had an open case next to his boots, with about 20 dollars in various amounts. There was also a small card linking to his social media. You pulled up his Instagram, and, well, you hated to admit it, but he was really attractive. In all the pictures, his hair was styled into a wavy bun, although in real life his hair was down. He was currently wearing a bomber jacket and black jeans, and he was fit. Not fit enough to be gross, but in a casual way where you pretend to not care about how you look but you really do.

You dropped five bucks into his case. He looked at you and smiled a cute smile. You smiled back, and then tried to hide it by speaking. “That’s so beautiful. How long have you been playing the violin?” you asked.

“This is a viola,” He stated back, ceasing the music and holding his viola out. He ran his hand down the back of it like that meant anything to you.

“Shit,” You recalled when you played viola as a teenager. Anger was the only emotion you could feel when people called the instrument the wrong name, even though it was a pretty benign mistake. For a split second, you considered telling this to him, but doing that felt like it would make the situation about you and, subsequently, worse. You decided on a simple: “I’m sorry. Fuck.”

“Hey hey hey, you’re fine, darling,” He responded warmly. No one had called you a pet name in a long time. “Most people don’t apologize. Some people argue with me, as if, no, Sébastien, you’ve lost it and you’re actually playing a violin,” You laughed. “I’m Sébastien, by the way.”

French. That was a gross first thought you had, but he was indeed French. You told him your name.

“Oh, I love that. I’m going to apologize for snapping.”

“Sébastien, it’s so totally fine. I know the feeling of people assuming the instrument you play,” Apparently you were going to tell him. Okay. 

“I must say, it’s always violinists,” Sébastien said. 

“Oh my god, I so fucking know!” You unconsciously stamped your feet into the dirt to let out the emotion you were feeling.

“I hate violinists.”

“Hate ‘em. So stuck up.”

“I know. I actually used to play the violin religiously, but then my teacher told me I would have better luck finding a job if I played viola because there were so many violinists. Guess what, I can’t get an orchestral job anyway,” You both laughed. “I do think viola jokes are funny though.”

“Wait,” You said with a bit too much excitement. “What's the difference between a viola and a coffin?”

You could tell Sébastien knew the joke about halfway through, because he smiled and tried to hide it. “The coffin has the dead person on the inside. I love that one.” He laughed. 

You talked for what felt like an hour — about your musical experiences and upbringings and hobbies and pretty much everything — although it was realistically a lot longer. Sébastien was born in France and moved here when he was young, and has been trying to do music ever since. It was still midday when you went out to walk and it was dark now. You stared at him illuminated by a streetlight that didn’t particularly flatter his face, but he still looked good. 

“Would you…” Sébastien hesitated and spoke quietly. “Would you want to get coffee with me?” 

You smiled. “Hell yes, dude!” Your mind flooded with first date spots. “There’s this really cute place by my apartment we can stop by now and then we could probably go starga-” You abruptly stopped and looked at him. Sébastien’s lips were pursed. Fuck. There aren’t any stars in Manhattan. 

“Sure, darling!” He got down and put the money from his case into his bag. He started to put his viola away. “I’ve been busking for a while now and believe it or not fingerless gloves don’t warm you up all that much.” Sébastien paused. “Although maybe no stargazing.”

You felt the smile on your face start to lower. You hadn’t even noticed you were smiling until now. “Not even for the fuck of looking at an empty night sky except for the moon and the beeps of a satellite?”

“It’s like a metaphor.” He picked the case up and looked up at the sky for slightly too long. “Alright, I’m just gonna say it.” He’s a murderer. He’s already murdered you and you’re a ghost. This is the afterlife: talking to a conventionally attractive viola player.

“Yeah?” you asked.

“I’m a werewolf.” He didn’t necessarily look ashamed but you could tell he wasn’t exactly confident in what he was saying.

You had never actually met a werewolf, because the suburbs had no diversity and you never left your apartment. You actually did quite like werewolf porn, but admitting that you had both never seen a werewolf in real life and fetishized their existence would make you look really weird. “Nice.” You were excited. 

You had been seeing Sébastien for about a week now, and were about to go through with your promise of coffee and shitty stargazing. The coffee place had been closed the first time because it was too late, so you tried again earlier. You deliberately planned this for the full moon, and, although you told yourself you wanted to feel guilty about setting up the date for werewolf sex, you didn’t. You could feel guilty after he pumped his jizz into you for the first time.

“Hey, Yasmeen,” you said. “I love your new hijab.” You really did. Yasmeen’s hijab was eggshell white with small gold stars. 

“Thanks, love. You’re paying for it. Literally. You’re buying my coffee and thus paying my salary.” She chuckled and motioned to Sébastien. “Who’s the piece of ass?”

“Aren’t you in a relationship? And gay?”

“I’m like an illiterate nun, love.”

“Right…?”

“I can look at the menu, I just can’t order.” 

“God, Yasmeen.” She laughed at herself again. “Anyway, I’ll have a black coffee and one of those stupid little sandwiches, and Sébastien’s gonna have a pumpkin spice latte.”

“Sébastien? French.”

“I know, right?” You said this a little bit louder than you should have.

“He has some audacity asking for a pumpkin spice latte in early January, especially since this isn’t a Starbucks.”

“Just make it for him.”

“Alright, love.” She put her hands up to indicate innocence. “You’re not normally this snappy.”

“He’s hot. And interesting.”

“Fair enough.” Yasmeen got to work making your drinks, and you sat down across from Sébastien. It was a communal style table, which felt strange for such a small place, and the lighting was slightly too yellow to be flattering. You and Sébastien were probably the last customers. He was typing into a document when you sat down, and promptly put his phone away. 

“Do you know them?” Sébastien asked. 

“Yeah, actually,” you responded. “Yasmeen used to live in the apartment above me and we met like it was La Bohème. I actually used to call her Mimi until she eventually told me she didn’t like it.”

“Huh. Did she need to light a candle?”

“You know it.”

Sébastien gazed down to your chest for a second, before reinstating eye contact. “Wait, am I just being used as cannon fodder to boost the popularity of your friend’s cafe? Do you take men and force them to pay 10 dollars for coffee and a sandwich? Daily? Shame, darling, shame.”

“You aren’t the first man to realize that, Sébastien, although you are the first man to realize that on the third date.”

“And you just tell them when they find out? You must get a lot of wrong numbers.” He laughed a gross laugh — hearty, somehow accented with French, and you felt the vibrations of it just by touching the table — but you enjoyed it nonetheless. 

Yasmeen walked over. “Here is your black coffee,” She said, placing the drinks down. “And here’s your pumpkin latte, love. The sandwich will be out in a bit.” Sébastien looked at you with an empty, but seemingly loving stare, his lips pursed, before turning and thanking Yasmeen. Yasmeen walked away mouthing something to you. You assumed this was her approval, but assuming doesn’t get anyone anywhere. 

“Thank you so much for ordering the coffee, darling,” he said with a smile. The way he said “darling” felt less like a filler pet name tacked on at the end of the sentence and more like a deliberate choice. 

“Hell yeah, dude! It’s payback for the photos you sent me. Also because I love you.” Sébastien had sent you a few pictures of him in his werewolf form before your date with the attached message “I love you!!” That was the first love confession you had received in a while. He used more exclamation marks then you expected, but it was really cute. 

The first thing you noticed when you opened the picture was his sense of aesthetic — sensible, if not a bit too minimalist. The second thing you noticed were his eyes, which were far more yellow than his human form. His fangs protruded out far further than most of the werewolves you’ve seen, his fur was mostly gray except for his white chest and tummy, and he was fluffy as shit. The only thing he didn’t show you was his cock, which you asked him to save for today.

“I love you too,” he said in a soft and light tone, which made you feel one too many emotions. 

“I swear,” You said with a whisper and a lack of inhibition. “When I got to the last photo, the mirror selfie, I literally had to put my phone down because I was just like… that’s so hot.” He was wearing a pair of black boxer-briefs that didn’t do a great job of hiding his erection in the photo. “I saw your bed in the background and it shocked me how huge you were compared to it.”

“I’m not actually that tall in werewolf form, despite being 6 foot in real life. Most werewolves are, say, a foot larger.”

“Really?”

“I… I feel like that’s kinda common knowledge.”

You took a sip of your coffee. It was disgusting. You erred on the side of caution as you said: “What do you mean?”

“Have… have you never seen a werewolf before?”

You laughed, not because anything was particularly funny, or awkward, or even to relieve anxiety. You just laughed to have the noise out there. “Um..”

“Oh, God.”

“No.”

“WHAT.” Sébastien laughed, not deliriously or angrily but in pity. That isn’t what you were expecting. “How have you not… you did go to a shitty public school, huh?”

You were drinking coffee just to do something, and took a large gulp before speaking again. “I will not blame my upbringing on my ignorance, but yes.”

“Question, when do werewolves come out?”

“The full moon.”

“Really, darling?” He pitied you. “Were you born in the 1800s? How much funding did your health class get?”

“I didn’t have a health class.”

“Okay…” He rubbed his temples light-heartedly, you hoped. “Do you know what a period is?”

“Like… blood?”

“No, a werewolf period.”

“Explain.”

“This is common knowledge. This is what you learn when the kid you’re babysitting turns into a werewolf and you don’t realize so you call the hospital.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s my duty to explain this to you. Your information about what werewolves are is really wrong. You’re getting it from, like… fringe articles about the Dendera light bulb. People become werewolves for a few days a month.”

“Okay…?”

“Like a period cycle.”

You smiled, because you found a way to turn your anti-werewolf slight into horrible flirting. “I don’t think I understand. I might need hands-on experience. With a werewolf.”

Sébastien raised one eyebrow. “...Oh, thank fucking god, you’re just flirting.”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

“Yeah, of course I’ll show you, darling. I’ll do anything if you don’t scare me like that again.”

The full moon was going to come out, but it’s not like that mattered, because apparently werewolves aren’t controlled by the moon. Okay. Whatever. The sky had nothing else to offer you, anyway.

Sébastien put his viola case at the base of your bed and sat down. “I love your place, by the way,” he said. “You have a fire escape?”

“Those things are death traps,” you responded, laughing and putting your black coffee in the fridge. You would never end up drinking it and only through it out 2 months later to make place for Thai food. “I’m way too anxious about it to step on it.”

“You’re not that high up,” Sébastien said with an abrupt pause. He pursed his lips. “Not suggesting you risk your safety if you don’t want to. Just-”

“Nah, I get you.” You sat down next to him and took his hand. “God, I love you.”

“I love you too.” He breathed in a breath deeper than necessary, and stared at the ground. Uh-oh. “...Are we a thing, darling?”

“We’re multiple things: Human beings. Lovers. A French violist werewolf and a poor 1893 poet.” Sébastien glanced at you with an empty stare. “Hell yeah!”

“Nice.”

“Just gotta consummate it first,” you said.

“You’re a loser, darling.” 

“Are we not gonna consummate it?”

“No, we will, you’re just a loser that’s bad at flirting.”

“I’ll take it.”

“That’s not the only thing you’ll take.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

Sébastien fell backwards onto the bed with his wonderful, beautiful, gross laugh, feet slightly dangled off. His tank top rose slightly and exposed his navel. “Alright, let me get these off and you can climb on, darling.” Sébastien put his thumbs into the hem of his sweatpants and pulled them to his feet. You were sad to see them go because they did particularly flatter him, but this sadness was replaced with a fluster when you saw his thighs. 

His hips protruded out from his midriff with a strong curve, and his thighs were massive. Sébastien’s thigh and calf muscles were defined in a natural way, from time spent outside and on his feet. Almost his entire thigh was exposed by the short, black briefs he was wearing, and he had a nice amount of hair which grew in thickness as it got closer to the inner of his thigh. You could imagine the feeling of running your hands against it, and it was pure bliss. His bulge was nice and hefty and you just wanted to shove your face into it.

“Alright!” He said. You moved and adjusted yourself to be sitting on his thighs. This was the highest above him you had actually ever been, and you briefly pondered what you looked like from his perspective. 

You reached to grab his hand, but before you could he had already taken your hand and placed it underneath his bulge. You lifted your hand and felt his balls as if trying to determine the weight of a bag of fruit, which was a weird comparison but was also the only thought in your head the entire time, besides: “fuck me.” 

“You like that, huh?”

“It’s like I’m at a farmer’s market,” you said without thinking. He laughed.

“Oh, shut up. You are SUCH a loser.”

He placed his right hand onto the small of your back. You could feel his cock harden in your hand, the tip underneath his balls and lying against your palm. His cock began to stretch out the fabric of his underwear. He began to grind his dick against your hand and it grew even more, to what you estimated to be about eight inches. “Good. Good, good boy,” he said with a gruff voice.

Sébastien fixated his eyes onto yours and used his free hand to pull your head closer to his. “Wait,” he said. You felt Sébastien’s body stiffen and his grinding stop. “Oh, god, this is such a stereotype.” 

You snorted. “What’s happening, dude?”

“I’m transforming.” He looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “I swear to God, darling, most werewolves don’t transform on the full moon. My cycle just happened to line up with it.” “I trust you, dude,” you responded back.

Sébastien smiled and pulled you in for a kiss. You closed your eyes and let him do his job. He pushed you down into the bed and climbed on top of you, maintaining a kiss the whole time. You put your hand down the back of his tank top and stroked, feeling the fur of a wolf grow in at a rapid pace. Your heart fluttered and you were almost too in awe of what you were feeling to do anything. It was soft and lovely to touch.

You felt the lips you were kissing become more furry and his tongue longer. His fangs grew in and pushed against the meat of your mouth, which was a foreign, but not painful experience. It became less kissing and more him licking at your mouth and face with a strong passion. You couldn’t even begin to imagine how it felt for him right now. A mixture of both of your spits ran down your face, and you could feel a cock far different from the one you felt before hitting against your midriff. 

Opening your eyes, you saw a werewolf before you. He was much, much larger than you expected, and you didn’t just want to be fucked by this creature, but rather straddled and used as his personal cum dump. Sébastien pulled away from the kiss and you caught a glimpse of his dick, bright red and huge. Just one sight of his knot made you want to scream. 

“How am I?” he said with a gross amount of confidence.

“Sébastien, fuck me.”

He was moving his ass left and right and his cock followed, the tip running against your midriff. His tail was straight in the air, although from where you were you could only see the tip of it. He took his hand, or rather, at this point, paw, and began to unbuckle your belt, careful to not destroy any fabric with his claws. He took your jeans and underwear off with one motion.

You could see his intentions without thought. The tip of his cock was leaking a clear fluid and already at the base of your asshole, just begging to push in and destroy you.

“Ready?” he asked.

“You did NOT lube me up, dude.”

“I- Well.” He stuck his tongue out, and it reached far further down than you expected. “Fine.” He bent down and licked your hole vigorously, lapping in and out as if he were drinking water from a bowl. Sébastien made a mess of spit down there, and you were ready.

The noise you made as he pushed his cock into you was both disgusting and ungodly.

“Are you-”

“Shut up and fuck me.”

He barked, and somehow there was a tinge of French in it. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Or what?”

Sébastien responded by pushing his cock a few inches further into you, stretching you out even further and rendering you unable to speak. He licked your nose and woofed. “Good boy.”

Sébastien went at you for the next few minutes, grunting the whole time. He held you down into the bed with his paws and pushed his doggy cock in and out of you, in and out, in and out. You could feel his knot slam against the base of your asshole, and you knew you wouldn’t be able to take it.

His pace quickened and his grunts started to turn into whimpers — desperate whimpers. He needed to dump his load into you and it needed to happen now. Your entire body had turned to nothing and you wouldn’t be able to move for the next several days, but you tried gripping the bed sheets anyway. It didn’t work. 

You heard him howl and you felt his cum enter you. The neighbors would not like that. 

He knotted you and you saw stars. Not in a positive sense, though. You didn’t see the literal stars you saw stargazing growing up, the stars that Manhattan didn’t have and that you so desperately wanted to see. You didn’t see Sirius, or Proxima Centauri, or the Pisces constellation. What you did see was your vision clouding from the pleasure of feeling his jizz fill you, the pain of his knot, and every other emotion humanly imaginable before you passed out. 

You woke up to a tap from a claw and the horrible sensation of Sébastien pulling himself out of you. “Dklfhsdkfshj,” Sébastien said.

“What?” you responded.

“DKLFHSDKFSHJ.” Sure. Whatever. You were barely awake and didn’t care, and somehow managed to take a pillow and bury your face in it. You could feel a wetness on the inner parts of your thighs and the bedsheets below you, as well as your own on your stomach. 

Sébastien took a fabric you were decently sure was his tank top and wiped up the seed he had left on you. It felt good, being pampered. Just the sensation of the touch of a human, or werewolf for that matter, could send you into a frenzy, so you were living the dream right now. 

Sébastien reached over and took the pillow off of your face. “Oh, you did such a good job, darling. You’re such a good boy.”

You groggily smiled. The sun was just about to set and the lighting was actually beautiful for once in your life. An orange and pink glow emanated from Sébastien’s fur. He was still naked, although substantially less horny. The fur on his chest was so thick and furry that you just wanted to shove your face into it. 

More of his nut left your body and he quickly wiped it up. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s not going to be fun.”

“How… how much did you...” you tried to ask.

“I’ve been pent up, alright?”

“I can tell.”

“Do you happen to have some spare… like… everything in my size?”

“You don’t prepare for changing size as a werewolf?”

“I wear elastic clothing before I become a werewolf, because I’m not a loser. Like you.”

“Hey.”

“I mean like underwear. And a tank top.”

“You just came so much, huh?”

“Do you want to have to wear clothes covered in massive amounts of dried wolf nut?”

“Fair point.”

You moved your hands to prop your body up, and while you expected to have a difficult time getting up you didn’t expect to yell from the pain.

“Sorry.” Sébastien pretended to be humble.

“You’re proud of this.”

“Yeah,” he snorted. “I know.”

Sébastien wrapped the blanket around you and adjusted you upright. You touched your hand to the bottom of his muzzle, pulled him in, and kissed him.

“I’m going to reheat my coffee from earlier. You want yours, darling?”

“No thanks.”

Sébastien bent over to take his coffee from the fridge, and the one benefit of living in a studio apartment was that you could see his ass as he did it. You couldn’t tell if he was deliberately moving in a promiscuous manner, but the sight of the lighter fur below his tail was wonderful. He put the coffee in the microwave and leaned against the counter, and for the first time you saw just how big he was. Sébastien crossed his arms and stared wistfully at you.

After a moment with only the sound of the microwave, he spoke. “Y’know what, darling, let’s go sit on the fire escape.”

“It’s almost dark. And it’s cold.”

“We can watch the moon come out, and I’m a giant fluffy werewolf if you don’t remember. We can take the blanket out if you want.”

“Oh, god, Sébastien, that would be so nice.”

Sébastien took his coffee out the microwave and picked you up, the blanket wrapped around you, and carried you over to the window. You were surprised by how easy this was for him, considering he was holding a hot coffee as well. 

“You’re not even gonna cover your ass?” you asked. 

“You’ll be covering up anything I can’t show to the public.”

“What if the people below us decide to have a nice, romantic evening on their fire escape, and they look up and see giant wolf butt?”

“If anything, that would be even more romantic.” You both laughed. “Fine.” He took the blanket and wrapped it around himself.

Sébastien opened the window and you felt a cold rush of air on your face. He climbed out, carrying both you and his coffee, and sat down on the ledge. You sat on his lap and could feel his soft member against you, although you definitely were not in the mood to take it. You told yourself you wouldn’t be able to take anybody ever again, although you knew that was a lie. Sébastien wrapped his arms around you, and you felt warmth everywhere except for your face. He put his paw onto the top of your head and started to pet.

“Are you cold, darling?” he asked. You could feel his bottom jaw hit the top of your head as he spoke.

“Nope!” You marveled at the sky in front of you. It was vast and empty except for the tops of buildings, and the sun was just about to go down. You sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, taking in the environment and general feeling of love.

Sébastien moved his paw from your head to your thigh, and continued petting. You broke the silence. 

“Teach me some French.”

“In school, you’d start with the pronouns, so, I guess, ‘Je’ means ‘I.’ ‘Je.’” He said ‘Je’ with such a strong intent. 

“No,” You laughed. “I mean like romantic things.” 

“You don’t know ‘I love you’ already? ‘Je t’aime’?

“Je t’aime.” You spoke. You somehow couldn’t pronounce it correctly. “Je t’aime.”

“I love you too, darling, but the vowel in ‘Je’ is a schwa.” He demonstrated. You tried again and still pronounced it wrong. “You’ll get the hang of it eventually.”

You laughed and stroked your hand against his thigh, just to get to feel his fur even more. You felt him press his chest into your back.

Sébastien woofed a small woof and then you returned to your comfortable silence, watching the sun fall beneath the horizon. You realized you wouldn’t actually be able to see the moon rise if you were currently watching the sun set, but you didn’t want to say this out loud and break the atmosphere.

“I just realized we’re not gonna be able to see the moon.” Thank god Sébastien said it before you did. 

“Hm.” You pushed your head back to be closer to Sébastien. He wrapped his arms around your chest.

“We can still look at the sky, even if it isn’t stargazing, per se.” He adjusted you slightly. “Like, look at the beep of the light on top of that tower. It’s beautiful in it’s own way.” “Yeah.” It really was. You smiled, overwhelmed by everything that was happening. “I love you.” “I love you too, darling.”

[thejollyroger-writer]

Heart and Soul - Part 1 - A CS Concert Series Fic

SUMMARY: Private music teacher Killian Jones wakes one morning to the sound of his ten year old neighbor playing the bane of his existence: the recorder. In order to keep his sanity, he offers to teach Henry to play any other instrument -- though partially because it means he gets to spend more time with Henry's mother, Emma Swan. 

TW: mentions of alcoholism, abusive parents, backstory that goes a little deeper than necessary 

a/n: This fic was inspired by waking up one morning over the summer to hear my neighbor playing the trumpet -- though, thankfully, Sam is a much better musician than a beginner recorder-player. I complained about it on discord, and bam! this story appeared, a joint effort between myself and Meredith (@captainsjedi​) . Even though she was unable to help me finish it because of her busy work schedule, her ideas are riddled through the story, not to mention the incredible art she made for it. 

Thanks to @csconcertseries​ and @clockadile​, who gave me a reason to finish this story! 

-- -- -- -- -- -- 

There aren’t many unusual things Killian truly hates.

Sure, he hates things like seeing horrific stories on the news, bigots, and people on the road who don’t utilize their turn signals. But those all seemed fairly normal within the realm of things that are passionately disliked.

The one standout thing he despises, however, is the recorder. 

His animosity toward the instrument — if one can even call it an instrument — feels like a betrayal to his career at times. He spends his weekdays teaching both children and adults to play music, helping them discover hidden talents and find as much comfort and happiness within the notes as he does. The piano and the guitar are his most popular contenders among students. But he’s also had a bit of experience teaching violin and harmonica, along with one memorable incident with the drum set in his basement that resulted in several complaints from the neighbors. 

Recorders? He intentionally keeps a fair distance from those.

If he’s being honest, it’s probably hindered his career a bit over the past few years. Since he moved to Storybrooke and word got out across the small town that he was a music teacher, he’s had countless parents approach him whose children had brought home recorders from school, asking him to give them lessons to improve their playing and put the rest of the family out of their misery. 

Killian has always declined. He’ll offer to help by teaching the child another instrument instead, but recorders are out of the question. It’s simply not worth his time, not when there are so many better options available. 

Needless to say, he’s less than pleased when he’s woken up before seven one morning by the sound of “Hot Cross Buns” being played on the dreaded instrument. 

Something’s not right. He has to be hearing things, isn’t he? The house to the left of his is vacant, and the one to the right is the home of his neighbor and her son, the latter of whom should be resting as much as he can before the beginning of his school year. 

What reason would he have to be playing the recorder this early in the— bloody hell, he thinks to himself. Yesterday was the first school day for the year. He should have remembered considering the extensive adjustments he's had to make to his schedule from lessons over the summer. 

Killian doesn't know all that much about Henry Swan and his mother. They'd moved into the house next door last fall and the lad had introduced himself not long after. He knows that Henry is about nine or ten years old, is a student at Storybrooke Elementary School, and is a Star Wars fan, judging by the number of printed t-shirts he's seen him wearing when they come across each other arriving to and leaving their respective houses.

He knows just as much, if not even less, about Emma Swan. Only that she works as a sheriff's deputy for her older brother, and favors beanies and leather jackets during the fall and winter months. Killian assumes that she’s single considering she and Henry are the only two occupants of the house, and he’s never seen any visitors there aside from her family.

Which is a relief, because he's also infatuated with her. 

Perhaps that’s a bit of a stretch considering the few interactions they’ve shared. Killian is aware that he doesn’t exactly know her well enough for any type of infatuation to really exist. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s managed to make him feel like an awkward schoolboy who can’t maintain some sense of dignity around a girl. 

Their most recent interaction had taken place the Monday prior; he was getting ready for his morning run when Emma returned from what he assumed was the night shift at the sheriff’s station. She’d given him a brief smile and waved as she unlocked her front door. He was so surprised that he tripped and almost fell over his shoelace that he’d forgotten to tie thanks to the unexpected gesture.

(It was hard to tell whether she noticed. He’s hoping the answer is no.)

All of this to say, he likes the Swans. But he’s not sure just how long he’ll be able to tolerate what has to be Henry and his recorder, especially this early in the bloody morning.

Of all the songs in the world, what would bring him to choose “Hot Cross Buns” anyway?

 Killian gets his answer a few weeks later. Every afternoon since the end of the school year save one or two (plus a few choice mornings), he’s been treated to the sound of Henry attempting to play a number of different songs, each one a tad more annoying than the last. There’s been “Yankee Doodle,” “Skip to My Lou,” and, oddly enough, “Jingle Bells.”

Something has to be done before Henry tries to learn “Baby Shark.”

He knows he should act his age and learn to embrace his young neighbor’s new hobby. (Or buy a good pair of earplugs.) After all, Henry’s a child, and Killian is glad he’s chosen to dedicate part of his free time to learning music.

But he really needs to choose a different instrument.

It’s what leads him to knock on the Swan’s front door on a Saturday morning a month into the school year. Emma and Henry are both home judging by the yellow Volkswagen Beetle parked in the driveway and the squeaky recorder notes coming from an open window on the second floor.

Emma answers the door. Her blonde hair is tied into a messy knot on the top of her head, and she’s sipping coffee from a bright red mug and wearing running shorts and a faded t-shirt that he’s willing to bet are her pajamas. 

He’s never felt more attracted to her. But that’s not the reason he came by.

“Oh, hi, Killian,” she greets him, eyebrows shooting to her hairline. Her reaction makes him consider if he should have given some kind of notice before coming over. 

“Good morning, Swan. I’m sorry to bother you this early, but I heard the lad playing and assumed you were both up.”

“Yeah. He’s been at it for a while.” Emma bites her lower lip and glances back and forth from him to the staircase he can just make out behind her. “I’m really sorry if he’s been annoying you with the music recently. I’ve suggested he only play later in the afternoon, especially since I've been trying to have the windows open more often so we don't have to keep running the air conditioning, but he always makes some comment about liking to start his day off with music, and I hate to discourage him when he’s finally found a hobby he’s enjoying.” 

Hearing these words causes Killian to feel guilty for being irritated with Henry’s playing, but it also makes the reason he came by seem even more appropriate. “Think nothing of it. I’m quite happy to hear the lad has taken an interest in music. But if you don’t mind my input, lass, I think he could do well with a more versatile instrument that allows him to explore his capabilities even further.” It’s the nicest way he can think of to discourage her son from ever touching a recorder again.

Emma is quiet for a moment, brow furrowing as she contemplates his suggestion. “I don’t think I understand— oh!” A look of realization crosses her face. “That’s right. You’re a musician, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, and he’s great!” The face of Henry Swan pops up behind his mother; he’s already almost as tall as she is. “Hi, Mr. Jones,” he says. Killian smiles at him before he turns back to Emma. “Remember, Mom? He played with some other parents at the last school fundraiser. You were there.”

Killian remembers the night in question vividly. He and a handful of other parents who played music had been asked to perform a selection of songs at Storybrooke Elementary’s annual spring event. (Emma had worn a tight red dress and heels. He was playing the piano and had come close to butchering the opening of their first song when he’d noticed her.)

She remembers the event, too, if the blush on her cheeks is anything to go by. “Yeah, kid, I remember. I just...haven’t had enough caffeine yet this morning.” She takes a long sip from the mug she’s holding as if to prove a point. 

“Aye. Well.” Killian pauses, the shift in conversation having made him briefly forget the purpose for his visit. “I was just telling your mother, Henry, that I’m quite glad that you’re interested in playing music. I didn’t know how you felt about possibly trying other instruments as well? Guitar, piano, saxophone, triangle…” he trails off. 

He knows the bare minimum about saxophones and doesn’t think Henry would actually want to play the triangle. But he’ll offer to give him harmonica lessons so long as he never touches a recorder again.

Henry considers his suggestion. “I hadn’t really thought about it. Miss Greene just gave us the recorders to take home so we could practice.” (Killian knows of the Miss Greene he is referring to, and resists the urge to message Tink and suggest she not guide her fourth graders in that direction ever again.) “I guess it would be cool to play something else though.” He smiles up at Killian. “Do you think if I tried to play the piano that I could be as good as you someday?”

Killian’s heart swells with pride at the boy’s admiration. Truth be told, he’s been complimented for his talent on numerous occasions by all kinds of people from different walks of life. But something about hearing his abilities praised from a ten year old with excitement in his eyes means more to him than any recognition has in quite some time. 

“Perhaps,” he tells Henry. “If you utilize as much practice and dedication as you seem to be doing for that recorder, I’m sure you’ll be a seasoned pianist in no time.”

Killian is so thrilled by the smile that spreads across the lad’s face that he almost misses the wince that crosses his mother’s. 

Almost. 

“Henry…” she starts, her eyes turned down to the ground, and Killian’s eyes are drawn to her hands wringing in front of her. 

“What, mom? Mr. Jones wants to teach me how to play the piano, please let me learn how to play the piano!” 

The shadow of a smile crosses over her face, but it doesn’t stay. “It’s not—” she pulls her bottom lip up between her teeth, gently sucking on it for a moment before releasing it and finally raising her eyes to meet Killian’s. “We don’t have a piano, and, well… I don’t think we can afford to get one for him to practice on.” 

Henry’s expression, his shoulders, his excitement, physically fall. “But mom, don’t—” 

Killian doesn’t even let the boy pose his argument, because he already has the solution — hopefully a solution that works for all three of them. “That’s really not a problem, love,” he says, his smile growing when her bright green eyes start to sparkle with the hope he is giving her son. “As it happens, I just bought a new piano for the studio, so I have one that I’m hoping to get rid of. If you want it, it’s yours.” 

It’s not quite the truth: he has his baby grand in his living room, the one that he practices on himself; and he has the two uprights in his studio, one much newer than the other, and as much as he has wanted to replace the older one with an updated model, he hasn’t gotten around to it. Getting rid of one of them wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, and it would certainly clear up some space in the basement, though it would keep some of his students from practicing while he’s in another lesson.

But with the smile that grows across Henry’s face, and Emma’s to match it, the little white lie seems like the worst of his problems. Because, gods above, he has it bad for this woman. 

Moving the old upright piano from his basement to the Swan’s living room the following Saturday proves much more difficult than lying to them about it. It’s an adventure that requires his brother, Emma’s brother, and Emma — and not, he doesn't fall to notice, the man who he assumes to be Henry’s father, who shows up with the boy right as they’re struggling to get through the front door. 

Killian hates him before he even opens his mouth to speak, seemingly the only one to notice his run-down dark green pick-up truck parked by the curb while he stands in Emma’s entryway, trying to keep the piano from tipping over. The only one to notice him, sitting in the driver’s seat and making no motion to get out, even as Henry jumps down from the passenger seat and begins collecting his soccer gear from the back seat. 

“This thing really doesn’t look like it would be this hard to move,” Emma’s brother — David — grunts, trying his hardest to help ease the piano up over Emma’s front step. 

“Oh, come on, Nolan,” they all hear from behind them, everyone else finally noticing. “You having a little trouble with that?” 

“You know, Cassidy,” David calls out, and Killian notices a vein in his forehead popping out as they try to lift it from the bottom and up the single step. “You could always get your ass over here and be helpful.” 

Emma laughs from the other side of the piano. “Yeah, right.” 

The guy in the truck laughs louder, turning his head in a way that makes Killian sure that he’s staring at Emma. His words make him even more sure: “I prefer the view from where I am, actually.” 

“Asshole,” David says, either a bit louder than he meant or exactly as loud as he meant; Killian has a feeling it’s the second. 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Henry asks, dropping his soccer stuff on the porch behind Emma. At least the lad has manners, Killian tells himself, finally guiding the piano into the entryway. He gets them from his mother. 

“Just stay out of the way, bud,” David tells him between gritted teeth, the three of them pushing the piano the rest of the way through the door. 

“Are you the lucky lad who gets to play this piano?” Liam asks once they’ve all made it into the entryway, Killian tossing one last glare towards Henry’s father pulling away from the curb as he closes the front door. When he turns to Henry, he’s beaming. 

“Yep! Killian offered to teach me so he could stop hearing me practice the recorder every morning!” 

The bluntness of Henry’s statement pulls a laugh from all of them.

 Henry takes to the piano like a fish to water, which doesn't surprise Killian in the least. The lad is bright, Killian has learned that just from talking with him during their time as neighbors, but when he is able to play most of his scales and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" by their second lesson, he knows he has stumbled upon true talent. 

And spending time with his mother certainly doesn't hurt, either. 

(The way her laughter carries through the open windows when Henry plays through a song brightens up his days in ways he didn't think was possible anymore, as well, but that's a secret he plans to keep to himself for a while.) 

But by the end of September, four o'clock on Tuesday comes by slowly, especially since his and Emma's schedules have apparently shifted so they're never coming or going at the same time, but when she answers his knock on her door, he immediately feels a calm wash over him. Sure, he feels his heart in his throat, and when she smiles at him and takes a step back to let him in the house, he can swear that he has never seen a more beautiful sight in his life. 

Shit, he's in deep. 

"Hello, love," he says, returning her smile as he steps through the doorway. 

"Hey, Killian," she says back, leaning back against the door to push it shut. "I, uh, thought I already said something to you, but Henry's not here right now." 

"Oh." He tries not to let his upset show on his face. This time that he spends with Henry Swan and his mother has become the highlight of his week, but since Henry isn't here, he assumes that means he should go home. 

But neither of them move. 

He can feel his heart pounding in his chest, as it does every time he's found himself in this gorgeous woman's presence, and he counts the moments that pass through his heartbeats: one, two, three, four. 

"Where is the lad, if you don't mind me asking?" 

She shrugs, still physically blocking him from leaving. "He's with his dad." 

"On a Tuesday night?"

She looks down at the floor, holding out her hands out into her line of vision. "We’re going away next weekend with David and Mary Margaret, so it’s to make up for the time he’s missing. But believe me, he would much rather be here with you." 

“I’ve only ever heard him say good things about his father.” 

“Do you really think that he would tell a stranger about the bad things?” she snaps, and he reels back immediately, regretting ever bringing it up in the first place. Biting the tip of his tongue between his teeth, he tries to push memories of doing the same thing from his mind, tries not to think of all the times he wanted to tell someone other than his brother of the way he was being treated — and he, of course, remembers the embarrassment that came whenever someone tried to bring it up. 

Killian thinks back to the only time he’s met Henry’s father, after helping move the piano into their living room, and he begs once again that this man is nothing like Brennan Jones. 

“Of course,” he says finally, his voice soft with regret and the memory of his own father’s drunken escapades, and he swallows the memories down like bile. 

A beat passes between them, long enough to make Killian sure that he should simply excuse himself and go home, but it’s the last thing he wants to do. 

“Do you want to come in for lunch?” she blurts, her eyes quickly flitting away from his when he tries to find them. 

“Pardon?” He’s not thrown off by the question, really, as much as he is the sentiment. 

“I just — I feel bad that I forgot to tell you that Henry’s with Neal, and now you don’t have anything to do for the next hour, and I was already reheating some of Marg's soup and making sandwiches, so I can — you know what, just… forget it, forget that I asked—” 

“I would love to.”

The look on her face when she finally brings her eyes to meet him makes him sure that his acceptance is the last thing she expects. 

Her kitchen is much more welcoming than his, bright and colorful with the fitting smell of chicken soup wafting from it. "Grilled cheese alright?" she asks, moving past him towards the fridge after gesturing for him to take a seat at the table. 

"Is it ever not?" 

The twinkling laugh she lets out actually seems to brighten the kitchen even further, which he would not have thought possible. 

"I knew I liked you for a reason." 

If the words affect her nearly as much as they do him, she hides it well, moving daintily through the kitchen to gather the rest of the supplies for the sandwiches. He is thankful for the moment of silence that passes between them, noticing for the first time the soft music coming from a small speaker on top of the fridge — he half-recognizes the song, he thinks from Harry Potter? — as he regains his composure, settles the pounding of his heart in his chest. 

"What made you start playing music?" 

And just like that, the pounding comes back. It's an innocent question, one that he gets asked a lot, and one he usually brushes over with a mention of his mother and her affinity for the piano. But, in the welcoming warmth of Emma Swan’s kitchen, he finds himself wanting to tell her everything, wanting to tell the whole story for the first time in a very long time, all the broken bottles and broken promises and broken wrists, the happy songs and the sad songs and one too many damn funeral marches, the drunken spat with the drunken man that almost made him lose his hand, and the life of sobriety that he swore himself into, exchanging his hatred for one parent with his love for another. 

And then he hears the words coming from his mouth, a poisonous story uninvited into this space, into this wonderful woman's life, but it becomes the edited and abridged version as quickly as he can save it: "My father wasn't the nicest man, though he treated my mum the worst of all of us, and in order to find some semblance of peace in the world, she taught herself how to play the piano. And she taught me, too. Tried to teach Liam, but he was never very good at it. So it became a stress relief for me, and I just kept finding new instruments and learning how to play those to keep myself from spiraling, and when it came time for me to figure out my place in the world, music was the obvious answer." 

She hums from her place at the stove, slowly stirring the small pot of soup with a wooden spoon. The movement of her nodding head is small, almost enough that Killian wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t watching her so intently. Somehow, he can tell that she wants to say something, maybe has a story like his own that she’s trying to piece together into a semblance of something normal, and he doesn’t push her. 

“I get that,” she says finally, still not turning her attention away from the stove. He doesn’t mind; he’s not sure that he’s ready for that level of intimacy, for looking at each other while sharing their backstories — quite the jump from the casual neighborly hello’s and short conversations they have shared by this point. “That’s why I run, even though sometimes it makes me want to die. It was the only time I had alone when I was in—younger, and it’s still the only time I can do something and not be drowning in my own thoughts the whole time.” 

He wonders about her slip of the tongue, the eloquent way she caught herself —  and the way she straightened her back slightly as she corrected herself. 

But the last thing he wants is for her to question anything that he said, so he’s certainly not going to say anything, only watch her as she reaches into a cabinet to pull out two bowls, pouring some soup in each of them. 

“That’s how I am with the piano. When I sit down in front of it, it’s like my whole brain shuts down and there’s nothing except the music. My mum told me she was the same way when I got a bit older, and it explained why I would wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and hear her downstairs on the old upright the church donated to us. And Liam says the same thing about being behind the wheel of anything.” 

When she finally turns towards him, a bowl of soup in each hand and a smile on her face, he knows that he has finally found someone to understand. 

And he could not be more ecstatic that it is Emma Swan.

-- Part Two will post as soon as I finish it! --

tags: @let-it-raines​ @shireness-says​ @wellhellotragic​ @ultraluckycatnd​ @stahlop​ @kmomof4​ @teamhook​ @profdanglaisstuff​ @thisonesatellite​ @superchocovian​ @carpedzem​ @darkcolinodonorgasm​ @resident-of-storybrooke​ -- if you want to be tagged in part two, let me know; if you no longer want to be tagged in my works, just send me a message! 

[austrohungarianwriteblr]

Follower Celebration/WIP Excerpt: The Night We Met

60 followers? On my simple country blog? Amazing! Here, enjoy a snippet from the part of the tale where Our Heroes meet and it’s awkward for everyone. (which can alternately be summarized as “Marta, quit being horny on main, you’re scaring the hoes”). 

WIP Tag List (As usual, please give me a shout if you’d like to be added) :  @carumens, @galsinspace, @writingonesdreams, @booksnotbookies, @ren-c-leyn, @kiesinger, @ella-writes-words, @fields-of-ink, @halleiswriting

(Side note: If you follow my main blog you may have seen a version of this before. Please forgive me for airing a rerun).

At least partially to avoid Ludwig’s unsettlingly earnest gaze, Marta glanced over his shoulder at the small orchestra, whose members seemed thoroughly professional and focused despite not being in the Court Opera. The violinist closest to her was certainly entirely absorbed by the music; Marta’s gaze lingered on him for a moment, absentmindedly admiring his slightly-too-long dark red hair and long, elegant fingers. She didn’t know much about the Odysseum Opera Company, but they certainly seemed to be turning out nice-looking musicians… Then the violinist lifted his head, just slightly, and glanced in her direction. Good heavens. Now that was unfair. If Marta ever met God, she decided, she would have to have a very stern talk with Him about allowing mortal men to have eyes like that. Eyes that particular shade of blue-green, and of that intensity to the point where they seemed to be lit from within, belonged on pagan gods from the old Celtic folktales Marta’s English governess had told her—the sort who did interesting things like turning into foxes and kidnapping mortal girls to be their wives. Eyes like that had absolutely no business belonging to violin players in birthday-party orchestras. Was he looking at her? He had to be looking at her, or Marta thought she might scream, or do something equally ridiculous to get his attention. She eagerly leaned forward, hoping to catch his eye, her heart pounding in anticipation. “Marta? Are you all right?” Marta came back to herself with a start, suddenly aware that Ludwig was looking at her with concern in his pale blue eyes. With a twinge of embarrassment, she realized that while she had been staring at the violinist she had completely stopped moving her feet, leaving Ludwig to shift her about awkwardly. “Are you all right?” Ludwig asked again. “You’re looking a bit…feverish. Are you feeling ill?” “No, I’m really…” Marta put a hand to her cheek and realized, with surprise, that her face was quite warm. Probably bright red, too. How funny. “Do you know what, Ludwig, I think I am feeling a bit poorly. I must be tired from all the dancing. Would you excuse me for a moment? I believe I’ll sit down and have a glass of punch.” “Well, if you’re sure,” Ludwig said with a frown. “Would you like me to come with you?” “Oh, no, that’s quite all right. The dance is nearly over anyway, and I’m sure Sophie would be delighted to dance the next one with you. Don’t let me keep you.” Before Ludwig could object, Marta ducked out of his grasp and hurried to one of the benches set along the walls, dropping into a seat from which she could watch the handsome violinist to her heart’s content.

----

It was an agonizing twenty minutes before supper was announced and the orchestra was finally permitted to take a break. As groups of guests found partners to escort them to the dining room Marta hopped up from her seat, determined to find her violinist before the musicians disappeared down to the kitchens or wherever the help went during these breaks. She wasn’t entirely sure what she would say to him (a wordless scream of admiration, while representative of her feelings, was likely to be startling), but she could learn his name, at least. And congratulate him on how lovely the music had been. And stare at him some more. Thank God, it took her less than two minutes to find him. He was in the corner where the orchestra had been set up, engaged in an intense conversation with the Baron von Braumark, and was nodding valiantly as the Baron gestured wildly. Marta paused for a moment, inspecting his clothes with a connoisseur’s eye: his black suit was elegant, if threadbare, and she could not help but notice that his trousers were perhaps an inch too short for his long legs. Strangely enough, the air of shabbiness around him only made him more attractive, in a tragic way. “Ah, the lady of the hour!” Baron Ulrich boomed, seeing Marta approach them. “Mr. Király, I don’t believe you have made the acquaintance of Countess Marta von Holstadt, the very reason we are gathered here tonight. Countess, my dear, allow me to introduce Andras Király, one of the orchestra’s finest new violinists, fresh out of the Academy.” Andras turned those glowing turquoise eyes towards Marta, regarding her so intently it made her breath catch in her throat. Of course he was even more beautiful close up, Marta thought, her heart pounding. His cheekbones had to be sharp enough to cut glass, and his eyelashes were the longest Marta had ever seen on a man. Even his nose—which was on the long side, and had a bump in the middle—was utterly charming. And what a name he had. Andras Király. It sounded thoroughly heroic. He had to be Hungarian, with a name like that. “Countess,” Andras said politely, dipping into a graceful bow. He had a lovely voice, low and seductive, with a hint of a husky accent; Hungarian, just as she’d thought. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Marta managed just the slightest of curtsies—if she bent any deeper, she thought, her slightly shaking knees were certain to give out. “Likewise, Mr. Király. And you must let me congratulate you…the music tonight has been absolutely lovely.” Andras looked down at her—quite significantly down, he had to be at least eight inches taller than her—and offered her a small but sincere smile. “That’s very kind of you to say, Countess. I won’t say I entirely agree with you, but then it’s not easy to be satisfied with one’s own performance, as I am sure you’ll know if you have ever played music yourself.” “Oh, yes, you’re quite right. I spent ten years taking piano lessons and I was always terrified of being asked to play at a party because if I made even the smallest mistake I’d be furious at myself all night. I remember once at Christmas when I was eleven I forgot what came next halfway through Silent Night and I wound up just playing the same line five times in a row…” Realizing she was starting to babble, Marta quickly bit off the end of her sentence. “I beg your pardon. What I mean to say is, you and the rest of the orchestra have been excellent, and we’re awfully grateful you’re here. The orchestra is lucky to have you, I think.” “On the contrary, I think I am the lucky one. It’s quite an honor to be able to work here in Vienna…” Andras’ jaw tightened as though he was suppressing a yawn, and for the first time Marta noticed the pale violet circles under his eyes, as though it had been a few days since he’d gotten a good night’s sleep. “…Though,” he added, looking away absentmindedly, “my father might disagree with me about that…” “Would he?” Marta leaned forward eagerly, sensing a hint of intrigue. “Why is that?” Andras blinked, as if only just remembering she and Baron Ulrich were there. “Nothing important,” he said quickly. “Forgive me for keeping you, Countess, Baron, I expect they’ll need you to lead everyone in to supper. Allow me to wish you a very happy birthday, Countess.” He bowed again, this time kissing the back of her hand—merely brushing his lips against her gloved fingers, but even that was enough to make Marta feel her skin had burst into flame. With this he departed, leaving Marta to admire the lean, graceful lines of his body as he walked away. “A very pleasant young man, that,” Baron Ulrich remarked. “Far too many of these artistic types, especially the Hungarians, have no sense of how to speak to their betters.” “Mmm,” said Marta vaguely. “He works for the Odysseum Opera Company, didn’t you say, Baron?” “Quite so. Not a bad little troupe, even if their theatre is a bit run-down. I believe their next production will be Don Giovanni; your family will have to accompany us to one of the performances.” “Oh, yes,” Marta agreed ardently. “I can’t think of anything I would like more.”

[champagnesuperhoeva]

All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun...And Hyperanalyze Red Dead Redemption 2

pull on your boots and load up your saddles, it’s time for another round of

Analyze That Scene!

I love these characters. I love how they come to life in every single scene, no matter what they’re doing. There could be an entire spin-off series called ‘The Van Der Linde Gang Fucks Around On A Sunday Doing Fuck All’ and I’d never miss a single episode. Go ahead. Steal my idea and pitch it as a Netflix Original. I wanna watch it!!!!!

We here at ACA, or Appreciating Cowboys Anonymous not to be confused with the loftier fantasy of the Affordable Care Act love the drama. We love the thrills, we love the humor, but as with any good course we need a solid appetizer. We build up to one of the game’s iconic, exciting train robberies with some good, old-fashioned character development. 

The scene we’re about to nitpick starts off with Sean doing what Sean does best:

being bad at things

Arthur walks up asking what in the ring dang do he’s doing when there’s rich folk to traumatize and horses to ride. While grabbing his belt, of course, because he has to. It’s cowboy code!

Beneath the playful jibes and posturing there’s a wonderful camaraderie between them. Even Arthur growling at Sean to back down and stop being a little shit never comes off as truly angry, grouchy and tired at best. Sean’s poking and prodding, too, smacks more of a student desperate for the final exam than a shitty punk with no sense. It’s a bit of a task pushing past Mr. Morgan’s barriers, but there’s usually a few points in trying.

he tries to get arthur to rise to the bait and fails, tries to get arthur to confess to being an englishman and fails, but he does succeed in being shown up

well the fuck done

John immediately throwing his weight around as Sir Not As High Up As Arthur Or Dutch On The Social Pyramid But Sure As Fuck Not As Low As You is already an interesting display of gang dynamics, but Sean’s split-second reaction is heartbreaking.

Look at this poor fucker. He’s crushed. This guy wants to please so badly his otherwise foolproof arrogant facade cracks like an egg. Damn if that isn’t some subtle acting. If I could snort a line of microemotions off my kitchen counter I’d be a certified addict 

john’s sour little glance to arthur -- and arthur not telling him off like he usually does, just mildly shrugging -- is a rare display of compromise between the two

meanwhile charles stands and quietly waits for the van der linde shenanigans to wrap up

Can I really write a dissertation on The Boys™ mucking their way down a muddy trail? You bet your tanned ass I can!!! Red Dead Redemption 2 is such a blast partially because, somehow, they make this massive, sprawling, actual sandbox of a game entertaining at every corner. It was present in the first game, this...intense devotion to making the journey just as interesting as the destination. Honestly, some of my favorite bits in both games were just listening to two or three characters chatter while on the open road.

Even when you fuck up a dialogue string? The physics engine is so damn good you can’t help but love it anyway.

case in point

I love the cheeky little detail about John’s pride over his scars. It’s not the first time this is brought up, either: Arthur can tease him about it during an antagonize option and Bill gives him a little shit about it over the fire. 

"one more word and I’m nosediving off this wagon”

then another running gag about sean holding people hostage with stories about his da; john and charles’ reaction should be sent to Funniest Western Videos 

also it’s pretty sad how the only way sean can keep his father alive is through little tales and he's shot down at nearly every turn FeelsBadMan MikeHogu

This game’s direction makes me horny. 

Not a single shot out of place. A slow-yet-sour violin timed to perfection. If we’re ever lucky enough to get a (good) Red Dead Redemption film or series, I hope to goodness they get some of the same people working on it. Even the way the camera pans over The Boys™ as they square up to go metaphorically devour the rich whole is fucking awesome:

we got sean here looking badass framed between shrubbery and backlight

john’s confident little affirmation to arthur and reaffirming for me why I've loved this man since 2010

and charles remembering at the last second to reload  

All while Arthur faces down a moving train on top of a near literal bomb, reminding those of us in the back why his middle name is Hugeus Testiculus 

we can see a little of Dutch’s influence in John here

how do you do ladies and gentlefolk, I Am Here To Mug You

Going from a quiet, ominous stroll through the train cars to a tense shoot-out, this mission is the very definition of a full-course meal. As the action plays out the player is given equal parts powerful agency and snippets of real, nail-biting danger. The highlight is when Sean gets caught off guard by one of the workers, not just dealing with a near-death experience, but the mortifying knowledge that he just became a liability to the very people he’s trying to prove himself to. 

Come on. We’ve all been in at least one situation where death felt preferable to embarrassment. 

And herein lies one of Sean’s most likeable traits: his sincerity. 

This guy honestly feels terrible about being rescued and it hits the player, all over again, just how out of his league he is. This guy’s a right skilled stick-up man, sure, and he’s seen his fair share of shit...but he’s still the proverbial Squirtle to Arthur, Charles and John’s Charizard

did that metaphor even work

quip quip quip yeehaw guards show up, arthur steps up to the plate to gather everyone together and get them out alive gosh I can’t wait to marry this husband of a man, showing sean in real time how a real outlaw gets shit done

and then he blows it 

It’s the little things.

it’s been one week since you looked at me, cocked your head to the side and said I’m angry, five days since you laughed at me, said ‘get back together, come back and see me’, three days since the living room, I realized it’s all my fault but couldn’t tell you

[wwounu]

One week; seven days; 168 hours until the concert.

It was probably best to take the day off after that midnight call from Mingyu, which you did, with it resulting totally how you didn’t want to.

Not when you see Mingyu trailing after his friends, laughing at something someone said before instantly spotting you from afar.

He briefly stares at his friends, lips moving as a sign to tell them something, then proceeding to jog in your direction.

“There you are,”

“Who, me?”

Mingyu nods, chest raising up and down. “I might as well owe you from earlier on.”

“Come on, I told you it‘s nothing-“ He interrupts you with a loud, whiny sigh. You sigh too to mirror his whininess, “You never give up do you?”

With a bit more mimicking from one another, you mutually agree to ice cream — the day was clear, sun high in the sky.

“Are you feeling better?” You ask Mingyu. He thinks to himself, pulling some facial expressions as he does so.

“I’m a little better now. Probably one of those in the moment things.”

“You didn’t have to leave your friends for me y’know. I thought you’d be sick of seeing me after spending everyday with me.”

“I wanted to, as crazy as it sounds. They were going to leave me, so you’re plan B.”

You tut, “Thanks for that info I guess.”

“Sorry,” he shrugs, thinking something through before he quickly turns to you, “hey, why don’t you find somewhere for us to sit while I get us something?”

“I’ll be nearby. Call me when you’re out.”

“Mint chocolate chip, right?”

Your lips curl a little, smiling the moment you see Mingyu’s delighted face when he was right. “Take care,”

Mingyu and you separate, walking in your own directions. The male pulls out his wallet, finding any remaining money inside — although his main goal is to find ice cream, he had other things in plan first.

He enters a shop, looking through the glass and its contents, drumming his fingers on the surface.

Finding what he’s looking for, he rushes to one of the shop assistants, pointing at an object enthusiastically yet nervously, eyes following every move the clerk very closely.

He’s asked if he wants silver or gold and Mingyu thinks — gold is overrated, silver will be fine — ultimately replying with, “Silver.” Whilst nodding with confidence.

Now at the counter, he pays, waiting for the assistant to put the small object in the bag, not missing the way she smiles at it.

“This is really pretty,” she comments and Mingyu nonchalantly nods, “for your girlfriend, sir?”

“Yeah kinda.” Again, Mingyu says without thinking but avoids the girl’s stare.

“Must be lucky, hm?”

Mingyu thanks the girl, taking the bag with him as he heads to the ice cream parlour to finish last task before he calls you.

“Hello? Y/N?”

“You took long, something wrong?”

“Not really. Just... Held back a bit.”

“Ah it’s okay. I’m at the park — it’s really busy — but I found a place to sit.”

“Alright, where?”

“About that...”

“Y/N.” Mingyu calls, stopping in his steps. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Hey, what did we say? It never happened!” Your voice quietens. “... Sorry Mingyu.”

“Don’t feel bad, I’ll feel bad for telling you off then. I’ll be there in ten.”

Mingyu hangs up first, holding in a breath as he directs himself to where you were, knowing the location of the fountain, the male’s heart dropping heavily.

And nothing has changed even with the children running unsupervised as their parents fan themselves in the hot weather. Most children are by the heart of the location, watching the water spit into the air and fall back down again before coins filled with wishes are tossed in, hoping the fountain can give them what their childish hearts desire.

More leaves have grown since the last time and people crowd around the vending machines, collecting their cold drinks and families sharing it amongst them.

And you — you were sat on that spot. The spot where it all happened. Whether it was intentional or not, Mingyu didn’t know, but Mingyu knew that maybe he wasn’t ready to let go of what really happened, knowing fully well that you wanted to.

Pathetic, Mingyu scoffs to himself, I’m getting ahead of myself.

He sits next to you without a word handing you the partially-melted delight. “Ah, you angel!” You cheer, stopping the mint ice cream to your lips. Using your spoon, you point at the tiny white paper bag. “What’s that you got?”

“It’s for you… I owe you after all.” He hands you the bag, motioning you to open it. Placing your ice cream to the side, carefully you pick up the item inside, opening a box matching the bag.

“Holy shit,” you slip the curse, “this is what I didn’t expect-“

It was a simple, single-banded bracelet that slipped onto your wrist snug, and dangling down was a charm of a silver violin between a quaver and semi-quaver, chiming together when you shook your hand.

“Dumbass — this must’ve been worth more than our food dates — what the heck Mingyu!”

Mingyu laughs at your reaction, pushing you a little. “Consider it as something for good luck.”

“I can’t believe my fated enemy is giving me something for good luck. Does this mean I win?”

“It means I’m more mature than you,” Mingyu retaliates and you groan at his reply.

“That doesn’t sound mature to me!” When you go quiet, back to staring at the children running and not thinking about every memory of the location, the late night, the kiss, everything, another question forms in your mind. “We’ve really disliked each other for this long, huh.”

Mingyu hears you, sitting closer as his eyebrows furrow.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. You and I, always fighting, never knowing why we ever did it.”

“I thought you did it for fun,” Mingyu answers too casually, your heart feeling like it’s being shot, “it’s… Our thing, isn’t it?”

“‘For fun’? When you call me names and pick on my playing, calling me the worst player ever and I should never touch a violin again, was all for fun, Mingyu?”

Rather than sad, you sounded more angry — hurt — feeling worse the more Mingyu carried on.

“You really took it to heart?”

“How else would I look at it?”

“Well you had every other time to stop me, but you only fought back.”

“You could’ve stopped Mingyu. I had to avoid you in November because I was so tired dealing with you.”

“I’m not a mind reader Y/N,” Mingyu sounds harsher, “half of the time I can’t understand you-“

Mingyu then goes mute, biting his tongue as he blinks at you.

“Sorry. It must’ve been a lot from your side.”

You nod, not wanting to look at the drummer when you put pressure under your eyes, hoping a tear won’t come through. “It’s… It’s fine.”

“Do you wanna know something?” Though silent, the other takes it as a yes anyway. “I’ll admit it, you’re a really good player. The best I’ve heard in years — at all.” He’s stammering, you don’t know why, but you suppress the urge to laugh. “Ysaye? Paganini? I don’t think they come close to you…”

“I’m surprised you know your violinists, but… All this time you’ve just been saying insulting things and it hurts, it’s hard to trust you sometimes.”

“Force of habit, sorry…” Mingyu apologises once more — him having to apologise felt worse than you expected — “It’s hard to forget things over night, I just hope you know that I didn’t mean any of it.”

“I understand.” Says you, although you wanted to say more. “Let’s confirm that we’ll stop this enemy business and become friends.”

“Enemy business, stopped. Friends? I’ll have to come back to that sometime.” You laugh at Mingyu, pouting at him. “Don’t do that, you look weird. Oh, and the teasing stays too.”

“Gosh, whatever you say.”

Even after finishing your ice creams you decide to stay, asking stupid questions and answering them with equally-stupid replies.

“Most embarrassing moment?” It was your turn to ask Mingyu, who’s eyes are rolled back and staring at the sky to form an answer.

His eyes perk up, turning to you with a playful smile, “The kiss—“

You cover his lips before he finishes his sentence, staring up at him with disappointed eyes as his breath hits your palm when he laughs. “That’s so boring! Been there, done that, I thought we’re past that!”

“Okay, I guess I have no choice but to say something else-“ Chokes Mingyu, pulling your hand away from his lips.

He looks down, staring at his fingertips or the fountain, never at you.

“Embarrassing? I think it was a concert during high school — a spring something, I can’t remember — but I was supposed to go up for a solo after my high school’s high school bland played. Then one thing or another, I tripped and walked straight into one of the orchestra drums and knocked almost every stand on stage… Everyone in the audience began laughing and the whole concert band just stared at me — and that’s when I went oh shit, I messed up, and in the end I couldn’t bring myself to play. I ran somewhere else.”

“I’m shocked the notorious Kim Mingyu did something that stupid.”

“And you’re the only one that knows about it.”

“Really?!”

“Yeah.” Mingyu stays silent for a beat. “Most embarrassing crush?”

And you’ve never heard Mingyu laugh so loud — real tears and rolling on the concrete, having to stop himself from almost bumping into a child walking down the steps.

“You’re telling me you had a fucking crush on Max? As in Goofy’s son?”

“Like you’re any better!” You knock your head into Mingyu’s when he sits up, fanning himself to calm his breaths. “You’re a big goof,” you scowl as he pats your head.

“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

“Whatever.”

You break a smile at the sound of Mingyu’s breathy giggle, going off on a tangent about his friends, going from complaining about his friend’s shit (Mingyu calls it) being left at his dorm because his friend forgets it all the time to another friend who apparently brings a child to his dorm every Saturday (but he doesn’t mind, he’s in love with the child).

And you watch him chat away, his hands moving and voice changing in different pitches whenever he needs to exaggerate a point, sunshine glowing on him.

Can moments be like this all the time? You say to yourself, having the slightest wish that the narcissistic drummer would agree if you asked.

OPPOSITES ATTRACT PART FOURTEEN — Drummer!Mingyu x Violinist!Reader

(sorta important note:) i’d like to say that theres going to be no teaser for seungcheol’s au due to my messy schedule since i’ll be away on the 18th/19th, but hopefully i can queue posts and more-hopefully you made my dream requests~ if i calculate correctly, opposites attract might be taking a break until the end of august :( but dont fear! i’ll do my best to get through everyone until the end even if i die (ok maybe not to thAT extent.... but if you’ve seen that ymmdream cheol request, maybe you have an idea what’s gonna go down heheh)

(tl;dr - opposites attract hiatus possibly until end-august after mingyu’s au ends, fingers crossed ymmdream will be updated regularly)

one • two • three • four • five • six • seven • eight • eight ½ • nine • ten • ten ½ • eleven • eleven ½ • twelve • thirteen • thirteen ½ • fourteen • fifteen

masterlist

[daegurp-blog]

WELCOME TO DAEGU !!

loading dossier on AHN MIRAE —— please be sure to take a look at the checklist before venturing around town.

BASIC STUFF.

FACECLAIM: kim chungha. MUSE’S NAME: ahn mirae. PRONOUNS: she/her. GENDER: cisgender female. AGE: twenty three.

PERSONALITY.

POSITIVE TRAITS: creative, ambitious, outgoing. NEGATIVE TRAITS: stubborn, reticent, perfectionist. MUSE AESTHETICS: the sound of the violin string as it hits its crescendo, cherry red lipstick upon plump lips, the soft patter of rain as it hits the concrete, the light of a full moon, and the sound of a bottle of champagne popping off. QUOTE: i still remember you as a little girl who overwaters plants because she doesn’t know when to stop giving.

BACKGROUND.

music was woven into every part of mirae’s childhood. her father was a prominent violin and cello player and her mother was mysteriously out of the picture by the time she gained her first memories in childhood. in truth, mirae’s mother had been a woman that her father had once had an affair with, an assistant of a sort but was unwilling to marry her or having anything to do with her after the birth of his daughter. with the sum of money he already had, he paid the woman off for her silence and the idea that she would never become involved in her daughter’s life. and for the longest time the woman would stick to that agreement.

mirae grew up attending a lot of her father’s orchestra practices and sometimes his shows, whenever he couldn’t be bothered to hire a babysitter or if she had one and forced them to let her watch and bask in the performance. she couldn’t help herself if she began to idolize her father back then. she wanted to be just like him, she wanted to play and perform and rise in the ranks of first chair just as he had. even as he became a partial owner of the orchestra and found his status and wealth rise in doing so. it meant that mirae was living the good life, wealth and luxury but with her kind nature and outgoing personality she refused to let it spoil her and let her think of anyone who wasn’t as affluent as anything less.

she begged her father to learn how to play and after school she had various lessons and tutoring in violin, piano, and singing. she practiced hard and long, oftentimes doing so outside of her lessons, she was always the girl who brought her violin to school, to after school activities, even to times hanging out with her friends because a part of her didn’t feel complete without it. mirae was active in choir and orchestra in her private school and she made sure to keep her academics up because anything less than perfection wasn’t something that her father would accept. that put a bit of a perfectionist streak in her growing up and it pushed her and pushed her and at times that meant her friendships and relationships failed or waned because she knew she had to be the best.

( trigger warning: mental illness ) it paved the way for an inevitable breakdown after her graduation from school. she had been pushing herself too hard in her final year, trying to secure scholarships with the best universities, taking classes for college credit even before leaving regular school. it forced her to take a gap year between private school and university. a year where she distanced herself from her music, her violin hidden away in her closet, the piano collecting dust and her father unsure what to do for her. he gave her doctors and medication and she was diagnosed with depression and partial anxiety. it would take her the full year to deal with it and find a way past it. but she realized she couldn’t let this defeat her, especially when she had dreams.

after that year, mirae pushed herself and applied to university, she was accepted into yeungnam university on a scholarship that gave her a full ride. she decided to major in musical theory and performance and she finally picked her violin back up and found herself again. since then she has made it to her final year of undergrad, and though he isn’t paying for her education at the moment, he is still supporting her through her living situation and expenses. he pays for her apartment and the like, which is definitely on a more affluent side of daegu. she’s been trying to distance herself from her father but it’s not easy when he still pays for things in her life.

she has a part-time at a music store that sells everything from old records to modern day cds from kpop groups and the like. she is trying to support herself, so that when she tries for master’s or doctorate in the musical arts. to be an even better violinist and part of an orchestra, maybe even travel the world with one. she wants to be more than the prodigy daughter of a renowned violinist in south korea, she wants to be known around the world if possible. she still deals with her mental health issues, but she tries to see a therapist when it gets bad. and as of recently, a woman has been trying to get in contact with her, whom she believes might just be her mother.

INTERVIEW.

1. what do you do for a living??

“i am currently a student at yeungnam university studying musical theory and performance. i play the violin, the piano, as well as sing. i also work part-time in a music store in daegu.”

2. how and where do you see yourself being in 5 years??

“in five years? i hope to have graduated from yeungnam with my master’s and maybe even a doctorate of musical arts. after that i want to be signed with a major performing orchestra in south korea if possible, just like my father.”

3. where do you fall on daegu’s societal hierarchy spectrum??

“considering my upbringing, i would consider myself upper class. my father still supports me even though i am working while in university, though i am going to a private university. i’ve tried not to look down on others because of my status and my father’s wealth as a result.”

4. how do you feel about where you personally fit in the social hierarchy of the town and what are your intentions because of this??

“i don’t think i’ve ever been one for politics of any kind. i know that my life was a bit easier because of my father, but i’ve tried to make something of myself. i want to one day be able to stand on my own and the like and i know i will have to do that by working hard. i know that the hierarchy may seem unfair but i don’t think anything could actually change that.”

5. what are your goals and aspirations for the future??

“like i said earlier, my goals revolve around finishing my time in university and setting a place for myself to be truly independent. i want to become part of a prominent orchestra if possible and maybe even surpass that of my father. i want to travel and play and do what i enjoy in life. and maybe one day once i’m known, i could spread music to kids, to encourage them to engage in it.”

[you-get-to-exhale-now-cyrus]

Prompt- tj comes out to his parents and they kick him out so he stays with Cyrus and they end up confessing feelings for each other

((*cries* I know that this is supposed to be a sad hc, but I’m so excited to write this! Lots of angst, obviously, but I’ll spare y’all the worst of it all. Maybe. Probably. Probably not.

WARNING: use of some slurs (probably once or twice) and cursing))

Did TJ call Cyrus before showing up at his door with bags full of clothes and other items? No. Because how do you go about telling your best friend slash crush that your parents kicked you out for being gay? A quick FaceTime with “oh by the way, I need a place to stay at for, like, ever-ish?”. Not really the ideal.

After the massive fight at home, which consisted of screaming, crying, name-calling, and blaming, TJ found himself wandering to Cyrus’ house. Not on his own, obviously. If he could’ve, he would’ve just stayed at home and ignored the homophobic comments his parents made.

Mustering up all the courage he could, he rang the doorbell and waited for the dainty footsteps to grow louder and louder. Peering into the driveway, he didn’t see a car; Cyrus was home alone. Great. Now the poor boy would have to explain to his parents why a strange boy was in their house.

“TJ! To what do I owe the pleasure on this Friday night?” Cyrus greeted warmly, taking into account TJ’s luggage, “wait, are we having a sleepover? Did I forget again? I’m so sorry, I-”

“No, it’s not that, Underdog,” TJ sighed, his voice breaking like the strings on a violin, “can I come in?”

“Of course,” the smaller boy’s voice was laced with concern, his mind whirring with all sorts of scenarios as to why TJ Kippen, basketball player extraordinaire and also total heartthrob, was standing on his porch at night.

“Are you okay?” he asked lamely. Of course TJ wasn’t okay; he was moping around on a Friday night with Cyrus, rather than playing video games or going out with friends.

The taller boy shook his head, his gelled hair standing stiff while, conversely, his hands trembled with anxiety. “I-I didn’t know where else to go, after what they said, and I was really hoping that you might let me stay here for a little while because they won’t let me-”

“Take a breath,” Cyrus cut in coolly, nodding up the stairs as TJ followed, “take a deep breath, compose your thoughts. You don’t have to spit out all that happened, which I’m going to go ahead and assume isn’t good,” he hesitated, leading the boy into his room.

“Sorry I’m just springing this on you,” he laughed dryly, his eyes glazed over with fresh tears, as he bit his lip to keep from crying. The boys took a seat in Cyrus’ beanbag and remained in silence for a moment. As if to coax TJ into talking, Cyrus put his hand on the older boy’s shoulder.

“I told my parents I’m gay,”

There was a millisecond of a pause after TJ spoke, but Cyrus immediately wrapped his arms around his friend (more than a friend, if you asked him, but you didn’t).

“If they were anything other than completely supportive, I’m so sorry,” he offered. This was something that unfortunately, Cyrus couldn’t fix. He couldn’t grab his toolbox equipped with such tools as “a long talk” or “buy them a milkshake” to help TJ.

“They,” he blubbered, the tears falling with each blink, “they called me a-a fag,” he grimaced, the very word making him whimper, “th-that I’m nothing but a disappointment. They said that, once I’m out of this ‘phase’,” he airquoted, swiping at his tears, “then maybe they would consider taking me back,” he whimpered, taking in oxygen through shaky breaths.

Cyrus though he himself was going to cry, his eyes already burning with tears and animosity. “They…they kicked you out?” he squeaked, his eyes traveling across TJ’s face, studying him intently.

The boy nodded, putting his head between his knees and crying, his body shaking. It was all too much to handle all at once. Disappointment, he could deal with. A bit of a strained relationship, he could deal with. Getting kicked out and having pretty much no contact with his family? He couldn’t deal with.

“TJ, I’m so sorry,” was all Cyrus managed to say, his voice a blend of sympathy with a hint of anger towards the boy’s parents. How dare they say that, to their son of all people? What kind of close-minded bigots did this poor kid live with?

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but do you think it’s okay if I stayed here for a while?” TJ pleaded, his empty blue eyes staring meeting Cyrus’ warm brown ones, “n-not for that long, just until I can connect with family and make arrangements,”

“Of course you can stay here, that’s not even a question,” Cyrus promised, alleviating some of his stress, “I’ll go get your bags for you. Just…stay here for a moment. I’ll be right back,” he lingered a moment longer for TJ’s approval, and dashed down the stairs.

Twenty minutes and one water break later, Cyrus had piled all of TJ’s stuff into his room. The boys had changed into pajamas, and were sitting in Cyrus’ bed. TJ was clutching a pillow to his chest, his knuckles turning whiter and whiter.

“How did the topic come up?” Cyrus broke the silence with a direct question, “if you don’t mind me asking,”

The question almost brought a smile to TJ’s face. Almost. “They were asking me if I was going to ask someone to the Spring Formal, specifically a girl,” he snorted, “heteronormativity, am I right?” to which Cyrus chuckled, his cheeks heating up. TJ was so adorable, always making jokes even in times of distress

“Anyways, I said that I didn’t like any of the girls, and they were like ‘what, are you gay or something?’. And I was like ‘yeah, actually. Not how I planned to come out, but yeah, I’m gay’,” he stated simply, feeling a lump rise in his throat. He tried to push it down; he didn’t want to cry again, not in from of Cyrus.

The smaller boy’s heart broke for his friend, absentmindedly taking TJ’s hand in his. “And then they spewed hateful, bigoted comments and kicked you out,” he seethed, steam practically coming out of his ears.

If TJ’s face wasn’t red from crying, his mad blushing would have shown; partially, he was grateful for that. He tried to convince himself that it meant nothing, but his emotions were on high right now and that wasn’t possible.

“It’s not your problem,” TJ shrugged, his fingers delicately grazing over the back of Cyrus’ hand, “I mean, I’m really grateful that you care, like so insanely happy, but you don’t need to get all worked up about this,”

Cyrus shot him a look of pure shock. “Not my problem?” he repeated incredulously, “I care about you so much, TJ, that it hurts. It hurts when you’re in pain or when you’re upset. Physically I feel like I’m breaking inside,” he admitted, a few loose tears trickling down his face, “don’t you get it? Don’t you get why I care so much?”

His words hung in the air, the atmosphere filled with tensions so thick that you  could cut it with a knife.

“After my parents found out, they asked a million questions, but the only one that I can remember is ‘Have you ever liked a boy?’,” he explained, his free hand toying with the strap of one of his bags, “and I said ‘yeah, I like this boy,’“

“And then?” Cyrus piped up.

“This boy that I like, he’s so supportive. Like, literally will do anything for me,” he smiled, the tips of his ears a deep red.

Cyrus gently squeezed TJ’s hand, feeling his pulse with the soft touch. “I-I like a boy too,” he admitted, shifting so that their knees were touching, “he’s pretty tall, and works really hard at things. He doesn’t think very highly of himself, but he’s actually really smart,” he whispered, “and cute,”

TJ smirked, his seagreen eyes meeting Cyrus’ gold-flecked ones. “Seems like we have a bit of a dilemma,” he whispered softly, his nose a few inches from Cyrus. Although the light was dim, he could still make out Cyrus’ features in the milky moonlight.

“I’m not an expert problem solver, but I think I have an idea,” Cyrus squeaked, pushing the covers to the side and facing this heartthrob of a boy. Somehow, he looked even more handsome in the moonlight, and it was almost unfair.

Neither boy was sure who made the first move, but it didn’t matter. Once their lips connected, it felt like the events of the day melted away for a split second, before they pulled back barely an inch for a breath. Cyrus was grinning like a dork, and TJ was blushing like mad. Thank goodness for low light, right?

“You’re sure your parents won’t mind me staying here?” TJ asked after a few moments, settling down under the covers.

“Not at all. They’re actually pretty fond of you,” he chuckled, taking off his socks and pulling the covers up to his chin, “They think you’re a good influence on me, what with me attempting to do things that I haven’t been able to,” he replied, yawning.

“Thanks,” TJ smiled, “I’m pretty fond of you too,” he joked, pressing a quick kiss to the boy’s cheek. “Good night, Cyrus,”

“Night, TJ,”

Neither one of the boys fell asleep for a while. Each one stayed awake for a while, dopey grins on both of their faces. Life was getting better.

tag list: @shortstackofpeaches @seanna313 @geekingbeautytx @heavenlybyers @ghostswasp @wlwandimack @giocondasstuff @lemonboytyrus @adorejrizzle

[knightknightfriendo]

Merry Christmas to @nighttyger! I’m your Rhythm Thief Secret Santa, and I hope you like what I wrote for you!

The first time Raphael met Charlie, Private Eye and never a constable, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to think of him. It was hard to be intimidated by someone shorter than himself that wielded a soccer ball as if it was an ultimate weapon, really.

The ball came flying out of nowhere, and it was pure instinct that kept Raphael from receiving a nasty hit to the face. As it was, the flip was probably unnecessary, but if he was going to dodge an unexpected projectile then he was going to do it with style. At first he suspected a game of sorts being played by someone nearby, but a quick scan of the area revealed no players.

“Was that on purpose?” He murmured, finally spotting a figure moving out from behind the tree. The boy that had appeared was shorter than Raphael- well, Phantom R at the moment- with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a confident walk that drove him right up to Raphael.

“You’ve got guts, Phantom R!” Were the first words out of his mouth, accusing tone so similar to that of the constables, and Raphael couldn’t interject with the witty remark he would’ve liked before the boy picked up the soccer ball and began to speak again.

“Trespassing in Constabulary HQ? I will apprehend you now, and prove my worth in the process.”

They were a solid few feet away from each other, and while the boy’s words amused him, he knew better than to underestimate an opponent. As logical as that sounded, however, he could hardly help throwing on something of a smirk.

“What’re you talking about? You don’t look like a constable to me.” And he really didn’t- the constables had their hats and blue uniforms, and this boy was dressed more stylishly, with a matching brown hat and coat- not to mention that Raphael was fairly sure constables had to be older than this. Granted, the boy didn’t seem far from Raphael’s age, but one didn’t exactly need to be a certain age to be a thief and dancer.

This seemed to be exactly the right thing to say for all the wrong reasons, because the boy scoffed and looked like Raphael had just told him the earth was flatter than a pancake.

“I would never be a constable!” And just a moment after, his expression was serious once more. “I am Charlie, Private eye. So, you come quietly, or do you require a penalty kick to the head?” The boy’s words- Charlie, Raphael would remember- were sharper now, and while he should have found it intimidating, Charlie’s words felt like a challenge. Phantom R’s eyes narrowed, and his response was deliberately delayed, gaze rising to meet Charlie’s eyes. Fondue only added to his effect, growling at the boy as if prepared for a fight.

“Is neither an option?”

Charlie’s response was almost as delayed, but with the full confidence from earlier.

“No! So I will choose for you!”

Charlie immediately rushed at him, soccer ball in on hand ready to be thrown, and Raphael found himself flipping through the air to avoid being tackled to the ground. His current rival reacted quickly though, and with seemingly no hesitance spun on his heel and flung the ball at Phantom R’s still flying form. Raphael couldn’t mask his surprise at his opponent’s  and it took instinct once more to twist his form out of the soccer ball’s way. That was when he grinned- this was going to be fun!

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         The second time Raphael met Charlie, Private eye and always prepared, he did so with the knowledge that Charlie was Vergier’s son, and that bit of news couldn’t have made the second encounter more interesting if it tried. Then again, the next conversation also included a hang glider. It was all sorts of interesting already.

He’d just successfully acquired the Queen’s Pendant and escaped the constables through the roof of the Paris Opera house this time around. Gazing at the city below, he’d already begun a trademark grin- at least a little celebration of success was in order, wasn’t it?- when he heard a shout from above. But that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? He was already on the roof-

“I’ve been waiting for you, Phantom R!”

No- Raphael knew that voice! Both he and Fondue looked up, and he could hardly contain his surprise at the sight- high above and closing in fast on a hang glider was Charlie, who he now knew to be Charlie Vergier, son of the Inspector! The new news of his lineage might’ve been more of a shock upon seeing the boy again if it hadn’t been for the hang glider, really. The two hardly looked alike.

When Charlie jumped and flipped his way onto the ground, though, Phantom R pushed down any surprise or shock in favor of wit. That had seemed to work well so far, and he could hardly help a little sarcasm here and there. Still, Charlie won first words once more.

“With all the constables below,  I thought you might head for fresh air.”

His usual menacing look was in place, even with such an incredible view around them? Raphael could only feel slight pity, there. Some people just needed to stop and smell the roses once in a while, take a break! Those were just as important as catching famous art thieves. Actually, why dedicate so much time to catching art thieves if one didn’t stop to appreciate the art they were trying to save?

“And you had a hang glider ready? Are you always so well prepared?”

After the slightest pause, Phantom R just had to add a little more icing to the cake.

“On second thought, maybe you’re just obsessed with catching me, like your dad.”

The words had exactly the desired effect, with Charlie’s face taking on that same fiery expression from before, when Raphael had compared him to a constable.

“You leave my father out of this!”

But Raphael barely gave Charlie a chance to reply again, simply giving him another grin and tilt of his hat before speaking once more. I hate writers block

“Like to fly solo, eh? Too bad, because you’ll need an army to catch me!”

Charlie glowered at him, seemingly irritated by his arrogance. Was it really arrogance if it had already been proven often enough by the constabulary was the question, here. He was sure Fondue would agree.

“You won’t be talking so tough when you’re behind bars, mate.”

And with that, the battle begun once more.

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The third time Charlotte Vergier saw Phantom R, escape artist extraordinaire, was in a significantly more tame location and with significantly less robbery involved, though she almost spilled her tea. That would’ve been a disaster- she was wearing one of her few dresses, and she really did need those for off days and school days.

She’d had a terrible day already, actually. Failing to apprehend Phantom R the day before, at the Paris Opera, was already a blow to her pride. She’d been perfectly prepared, and he bested her yet again- and saved her right after, to boot! His arrogance would be his downfall someday, she was certain! After that, a fight with her father, and a half-day of storming through the streets of Paris until she reached the cafe.

Charlotte was about to take a sip from her tea, finally feeling relaxed, when a boy that seemed oddly familiar walked up to her table. He walked with an irritatingly recognizable confidence that, for some reason, did not remind her of anyone in particular. His face was partially hidden by a blue hat with a red stripe- again, familiar- and when he spoke it was familiar as well.

“Bonjour, Charlie. Is this seat taken?”

Charlie finally took that sip of tea, eyes still scanning him to figure out where she knew him from. It wasn’t until she focused on his face that she recognized him, and the shock threw her from her chair, knocking it back when she yelled.

“You! Y-Y-You’re Phantom R!”

Phantom R seemed delighted for just a moment by her revelation, before casually taking a seat as if nothing had happened. People had begun to stare, which prompted his ever present grin- she hated that thing!  One day he would be captured, and that pompous expression would disappear faster than he could say that line he always shouted to his dog- cheese it, Fondue, wasn’t it?

“Now, now- we wouldn’t want to disturb the other customers.”

Unfortunately, he had a point, and with a scowl she put down her tea to fix her chair. He spoke as she did so, chattering away like he had all the time in the world.

“I’m just as surprised as you are! I never thought that you’d look so good in a dress!”

Just like him to comment on the unimportant details. Charlotte nearly scoffed when she finally sat down.

“So, the truth’s out. This is how I look when I go to school.” With that, she gave him a piercing look.

“What do you want?”

Phantom R tilted his hat once more- why he felt the need to do so, she had no idea. It was as irritating as the rest of what he did.

“I’ve come to ask for your help.

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The fourth time Charlie Vergier saw Phantom R, she wished she could punch his lights out and be done with this entire mess. How an art thief had gotten himself involved in a plot involving resurrection and magic violins, she hadn’t the slightest of ideas. But still, she could grudgingly admit that currently, he was doing the right thing. Saving the blonde girl, Marie, and stopping whatever these… undead soldiers were doing was crucial to keeping Paris safe, and if she could help her father realize that he didn’t have to shoulder that burden alone while she was at it, then Charlie would tolerate the red-headed menace for now.

Charlie’s role in this plan was fairly simple- act as a distraction on her hang glider and activate the trick in the fake dragon crown remotely so Phantom R could get Marie out of the Eiffel tower and away from Napoleon. Which she was still trying to wrap her head around. Honestly, what was that Phantom even thinking?

The plan was going perfectly, too- Napoleon had fallen for the thief’s desperate act, demanding the crown be given before Marie was handed back to him. The moment the smoke screen went up, Charlie soared in- dressed as that dancing pest, so as to cause confusion, and exactly as planned, the undead emperor and his legion of clawed knights was looking up at her and lost sight of the real Phantom R. She continued to distract from above as R took down the knights below until he got to Marie, dragging her out of their hold and towards the planned exit point.

Of course, that was when things went wrong. The moment Charlie was out of sight- and by extension, unable to see what was happening- she heard a gunshot.

Making the u-turn in the air from where she was really was no easy task, and figuring out what angle she had to dive in at to get the Phantom out of whatever mess he’d landed in was something that she wished didn’t take her so much time. Along the way, she also discarded the Phony R suit- it would only get in the way if she kept it on.

And Charlie arrived just in time to grab his hand and pull him up into the air, away from the new man with the weirdly purple hair who had a gun pointed at his head, where R had stood ready to protect Marie anyways-

Ugh, that insufferably noble Phantom R was going to be the death of her.

[cassandraooc]

Quick sketch of my Changing Moon lunar Jaxith. He was the first exalted character I made and I’ve been wanting to draw him again, and still plan to have a more finished piece (and maybe some of the story from the campaign, which lasted over a decade overall.) But this one I did in preparation for an exalted secret santa, because it’s fun! :3

Anyway, he physically switches genders fairly frequently, between male, female and agender mostly. He rarely changes pronouns but also doesn’t have much preference for what pronouns are used for him.

For whomever is drawing him for the secret santa, feel free to draw Jaxith whatever gender you want. :3 Outfit design is also pretty unimportant so feel free to do whatever is easiest/most fun for you. :3 (I’m also pretty inconsistant about his Moonsilver Tattoos and was pretty lazy about them here.)

I am completely unsure of what else might be handy for this without just... spewing a bunch of information?

Which I might add later, but I gotta get drawing on some other projects too. :o So, if you need more info, maybe just ask @shiftingpath to ask me and I’ll edit the post. :3

Edit: #3 second character and expansion on Jaxith posted below. :3

The game Jaxith was from had gone on for several years before I entered, and continued several years after and through two editions. (First and Second) It was a campaign that borrowed from a lot of other games and settings and changed dramatically over the course in a way only possible when you have a large cast of exalted PCs. At some point I want to go into detail about the campaign itself.

Jaxith himself was a complete pacifist, never killing anyone, approaching every problem and potential enemy with empathy, and often used storytelling, song and metaphor to convert others to his points of view. (He could fight, too, but as a master of Crane Style and Dreaming Pearl Courtesan style, his focus again was on subduing not killing)

He’s passionate, idealistic and determined. His compassion burned him before, and he was betrayed and even tortured throughout the campaign in some pretty brutal ways, but luckily lunars are above all else, amazing survivors, and he ended up making friends of a lot of his would-be enemies. :3

Physically, he’s got silvery hair with a purple section of his bangs because... I liked the colors, honestly? Look this was a long time ago. ;P He’s also got golden catlike eyes, and pearlescent scaled tail and wings. (The wings are partially feathered at the upper parts) In the back, his hair is usually kept in silver beading, but he’ll loosen it sometimes too.

His usual outfits very between dancing outfits and a set of light Moonsilver armor.

Jaxith’s totem animal is basically a Western Dragon. (long story, but worked within the setting of that particular campaign. :P) Because of that and his personality, the other players nicknamed him “Jesus Dragon”.

After second edition came out, our Storyteller took a break from the main campaign to run an abyssal game in the same world, though taking place on what was basically a copy of Morrowind. (I won’t get too into it but he turned Dagoth into a fascinating, multifaceted character that was our Death Lord and made me want to play the game and I was so dissapointed by the “real” Dagoth when I finally played it. But I digress)

The character I played in that second game was Lotus.

(I should not costume design is my weakest thing, and I haven’t drawn him for literally years. It’s really late and I’m doing this right before bed so I decided against spending a lot of time on outfit design. Sorry! >.< He usually wears really fancy, slightly western styled clothing, or dark armor. Clothes not super important.)

For the campaign, we were clearly going to be the villains, and there was a lot of interesting characters and backstories I’m not going to get into here but will probably write about later in a different post.

I’m drawn to high compassion characters, which manifested in a very different way in Lotus than Jaxith. After having to deal with a lot of awful shit (again, nother post) as well as some more personal fuckery on behalf of the Neverborn themselves. As a result, he saw the death he brought to those around as a gift, the destruction of Creation the only way to end suffering. He was a loyal person who had suffered repeated abuse and betrayal, and overall completely hopeless.

The abyssal campaign went on for a couple years where the party basically started a new hyper destructive zombie plague and spread it across Creation and almost brought down the world... at wihch point our storyteller ended it and we went back to playing the good guys again and struggling to undue the vast destruction we had caused, and fight our incredibly pwoerful other characters. (It worked out really well, not sure I’m making that clear.)

Anyway, Jaxith had the background that gave him memories of his last exaltation, whereas Lotus had unbidden oracle and would be randomly haunted by visions of the future. My storyteller decided to make Lotus Jaxith’s Lunar Mate, and through a lot of shenanigans, Jaxith was able to redeem Lotus. (Again, a story I’ll tell another post at some point but it’s like 4am and I’m so tired right now)

Lotus can be drawn either as a Midnight Caste Abyssal as he was at the beginning of his campaign, or a Zenith Caste Solar as he became when eventually redeemed.

 He has a sapient Scythe of Moonsilver and Soulsteel (which also gets transformed into an orichalcum and moonsilver scythe when he becomes a solar through shenanigons. ) that can transform into any string instrument (His preferance being a violin.)

He also has a ghost tiger familiar that stays with him both before and after his redemption.

And thirdly is a strange teddy bear wearing an outfit that’s a mockery of his own, including holding its own tiny Scythe. This is a “gift” given to his entire abyssal circle, and the voices of the Neverborn whispers through it, and can even animate it. This one wouldn’t be there post his redemption.

[littlelonghairedoutlawllho]

Ficwritersweek Day 2

Day 2: The Muses - Fan art? Edits? Playlists? Draw some inspiration from the fics you love and share some new content with the fandom!

I don’t really have a whole lot in the way of bonus material for any fics, or at least, not any that I can talk about yet! I’m full of headcanons and thoughts for stuff that comes afterwards, but alas, that it is a few weeks in the future yet (at least).

So, for now, I’m going to talk a little bit about my main Wraiths OCs!

Erik Konstantin “Konstin” Daaé

(son of Christine and Erik)

Tall. High cheekbones and a strong jaw. Gold-hazel eyes, dark hair with a tendency to curl when it grows too long. Lean, and his hands are delicate with long fingers. An excellent piano player and a good singer, but he has always preferred the violin, partially because it is so portable. Credits his being so musically talented to the fact that from the time he was two he sat on Christine’s knee reading scores, and learned notes before he learned to actually read. A man who can and will forget to eat. Loves stories of any kind, and has read enough about medicine to be competent at giving first aid. Could have had a career in music, and enjoys composing, but decided to become an officer because, being illegitimate and never having known his father, felt it was the one way to ensure he had some sort of name instead of simply being “that child that the opera singer had with her mysterious lover and is probably actually the Vicomte De Chagny’s unacknowledged son.” (He is far from Raoul’s unacknowledged son.) Fluent in Persian, with some knowledge of English, Russian, and Italian. Highly anxious, though he tries to hide it. Sketches at every opportunity he gets.

Hella bi and in a relationship with Antoine for sixteen years.

Antoine Henri De Chagny

(son of Sorelli and Philippe, twin brother of Guillaume)

Reasonably tall by anyone’s standards, but only up to Konstin’s ear. A straight nose that he can be quite vain about. Chiselled features. Dark brown eyes, and blond hair that looks strawberry blond in certain lights. Has never been much good at music, though he had lessons when he was younger. Much more of a poet, especially when drunk, and loves to spend hours reading. As fluent as Konstin in Persian, but better than him at Italian and Russian. Was supposed to join the Navy, but insisted on joining Konstin in Saint-Cyr to become an officer. Has a taste for cigars and expensive brandies. Very, very stubborn, and will throw himself into danger.

Probably gay, and loves Konstin with all of his heart. 

Marguerite Eugénie De Chagny

(daughter of Sorelli and Philippe, younger sister of Antoine and Guillaume)

Delicate, but stronger than she looks. Blonde hair that she likes to keep plaited so it is out of her way, and blue eyes. Became a nurse because she felt, as the daughter of a Comte, that it was the one thing she could do that would not be frowned on. Can be a dreamer, and would be an artist if it were considered respectable enough. Loves painting. Not at all squeamish, and generally enjoys assisting with surgeries. Also highly-organised, and keeps all her letters neatly ordered by date and sender. Often longs to run away and have adventures.

Anja Thérèse De Chagny

(daughter of Christine and Raoul, younger half-sister of Konstin)

Small, but probably tougher than you are. Her blonde hair is golden, and she loves the way it waves. Dark blue eyes, and a quick smile. Loves baking and knitting but despises crochet and embroidery. An excellent dancer. Easily frustrated when it comes to reading music, and always desperate to hear stories of far-off places though she has absolutely zero plans to travel. A romantic, and would someday like to keep her own garden. Fascinated by flowers. Loves curling up by the fire and napping. Nursing is something she accidentally discovered she is good at.

Émile Raoul De Chagny

(son of Christine and Raoul, younger half-brother of Konstin)

Only in his mid-teens and still growing, but will be tall. Dark blond hair, bordering on sandy brown. Blue eyes, and almost constantly smiling. At least, before the war. Still looks delicate, but getting broad. Obsessed with medicine and illness, and wants to be a doctor. Still too young to the serve in the war and works as an orderly at the hospital, but is in the process of becoming a pacifist. Hopes the war will be over before he can be conscripted. Loves Latin, and Konstin has bought him several medical books that he sketches diagrams out of. Too caught up in science to care about any of the pretty girls that glance at him. 

Guillaume Philippe De Chagny

(son of Sorelli and Philippe, twin of Antoine)

(a man who has not yet actually appeared, but who has certainly made his presence known)

Tall, and of a very slightly darker complexion than Antoine, something which he inherited from Sorelli, along with his dark hair. The blue eyes are very much a Chagny trait, and in many ways he takes after his father, particularly with regard to his dry humour. He uses snark to cover up his feelings, and is prone to being particularly snarky and dry when he is worried and anxious. He is the elder twin, being a solid fifteen minutes older than Antoine. He is very, very straight, but he has never had any long-lasting relationship, mostly because he would rather be sailing. The Navy is his true mistress, and in view of the war he considers that it would be irresponsible to become involved with a woman, just in case something happened. His cold facade hides the fact that he does care very deeply, and he is particularly close to his younger cousin Anja.

[faithfulnews]

Work, Play, Poetry

Work, Play, Poetry

By Anthony Domestico

March 4, 2020

The life of the late novelist Robert Stone was filled with improbabilities. As Madison Smartt Bell puts it in his new biography, Stone, whose globe-spanning novels took on American history and the American soul, had “a taste for marijuana and alcohol (and for quaaludes and opiates).” In the 1960s, Stone was friends with Ken Kesey; you can imagine how much imbibing that entailed. While in Vietnam on a reporting trip, he experimented with heroin. (He “snorted, smoked, [and] possibly drank it on one occasion,” Bell writes.) Yet Stone lived to the ripe age of seventy-seven, writing a strong novel, Death of the Black-Haired Girl, two years before he died in 2015. “A connoisseur of women of all varieties,” Bell writes, perhaps a little too forgivingly, “Bob was far from above the occasional fling.” He had an open marriage—so open that he had a child with a family friend in the 1960s and a tempestuous affair with a younger writer three decades later. Yet he stayed with his wife Janice for fifty-five years. By Bell’s reckoning, and it seems accurate, theirs was a happy marriage.

But the most pleasant surprise, for me at least, was the decades-long friendship Stone had with Marilynne Robinson. What a literary odd couple they make: Robinson the proud Calvinist and Stone the lapsed Catholic; Robinson known best for her quiet, lovely novels about mid-century Iowa and Stone known best for his wild, prophetic novels—A Hall of Mirrors (1967), A Flag for Sunrise (1981), and others—all probing the manic brain and corrupted heart of American empire. What must the two writers have talked about? The nature of God, I’m sure. (Stone in an interview: “As a result of having been a Catholic, I’m acutely aware of the difference between a world in which there’s a God and a world in which there isn’t.”) The nature of craft, I imagine. (Stone taught at Johns Hopkins and Yale, among other places.)

Bell was friends with Stone, and his affection for his subject comes through. Writing in the first person, Bell recreates trips the two took to Haiti and conversations they had about fiction’s moral purpose. Despite this love, though, Bell doesn’t hold back, especially when it comes to the suffering brought on by Stone’s addictions. The last hundred or so pages are difficult to read, an onslaught of car crashes—Stone was a terrible driver, even when sober—narcotic dependence, increasingly frequent falls, and an attempted suicide. Stone was charismatic, everyone agrees. He was also destructive, to others occasionally and to himself consistently.

Bell is an accomplished novelist in his own right, and Child of Light, like a good work of fiction, lives through its details. Stone “huffed as much oxygen as possible in a back room of Politics and Prose” before giving a reading. David Milch, the producer of Deadwood, put Stone on the payroll at his production company to give him something to do, and some money, after a stint in rehab. Annie Dillard and Joy Williams vacationed with Stone in the 1990s. (Dillard and Stone went white-water tubing in Missoula and saw a brown bear.)

Stone’s writing offers an imaginative record of America’s political and spiritual dimensions: “That is my subject,” Stone wrote, “America and Americans.” Bell reads this wild life and lasting achievement with grace and sympathy.

Child of Light: A Biography of Robert Stone Madison Smartt Bell Doubleday, $35, 608 pp.

  Baseball here is a business, and Nemens gives it to us from all angles

Robert Coover’s The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. is the best baseball novel ever written, and I won’t hear otherwise. But The Cactus League, the first novel by Paris Review editor Emily Nemens, is also very good.

If Nemens’s debut is not quite in the same league as The Universal Baseball Association, that’s partly because it’s playing a different game. Coover’s is a postmodern novel about the postmodernism of America’s pastime. (We often care less about the game itself than about its statistical representations—batting averages and win shares.) Nemens’s is a work of straightforward realism. Baseball here is a business, and Nemens gives it to us from all angles: superstar outfielders losing fortunes at the gambling table; groupies hanging out by the bullpen; agents hushing up scandals; elderly stadium organists whose stiff hands can’t hit the keys they once could.

The Cactus League takes place in Arizona during spring training. Each chapter, nine in all, follows a different figure associated with the imaginary Los Angeles Lions franchise. Most of the particulars are right. Nemens knows that Notre Dame’s baseball team is in the ACC, and she nicely skewers the increasing encroachment of hot tubs and goofy sound effects in new ballparks. A lovely small detail: Jason Goodyear, the book’s self-sabotaging superstar, gets a signature sneaker—“the first time they’d named a shoe after a ballplayer since Griffey.”

Not everything works. No fan would call a pitcher a “fastballer,” as one character does. (At least it’s not “speedballer,” à la Bruce Springsteen.) No partial owner could demand that a prominent outfielder be traded because of sexual jealousy—and then have it happen within days. (Partial owners don’t have that much power; star players don’t get traded overnight, especially when their replacement has only played college ball.) Such details wouldn’t much matter in a postmodernist romp. They do here.

But the pacing is good and the prose generally strong. Nemens refuses to engage in the romanticizing many fall into when spring comes around. Bartlett Giamatti famously and poetically said that baseball “is designed to break your heart.” After all, Giamatti rhapsodizes, “the game begins in spring…blossoms in the summer…[and] leaves you to face the fall alone.” Fair enough. But Nemens shows how baseball also breaks your heart for more prosaic reasons: because rotator cuffs fray, because spring-training towns are depressing, and because billion-dollar franchises don’t give a fig about poetry.

The Cactus League Emily Nemens Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27, 288 pp.

  In baseball, there can come a point when you’ve so often been described as underrated that you cease to be underrated. Trot Nixon, for example: a decent right fielder in the early 2000s who Red Sox fans so often dubbed underrated that he became overrated. Charles Portis, the Arkansas-born novelist who was famous for being underrated and who died on February 17, never suffered this fate. There’s a certain kind of greatness that, no matter how many times we remark upon it, will always be underrecognized.

People who know Portis, whose out-of-print novels were reissued in the 1990s, probably know him as the author of True Grit. It’s a great novel, and it’s been made into two great movies. But every shaggy-dog story he wrote, every picaresque comedy of American naiveté and dreaminess, was great. His sentences display a funny, poetic, loose yet disciplined, absolutely American prose style. Since his death, fans have been passing around some of their favorite passages. Here are a few of my own. From The Dogs of the South: “I don’t believe we’ve ever had a President, unless it was tiny James Madison with his short arms, who couldn’t have handled Dupree in a fair fight.” From Masters of Atlantis: “It’s not healthy, locking yourself away in here so you can eat pies and read all these monstrous books with f’s for s’s.”

Rest in peace, Charles Portis.

The Dogs of the South and Masters of Atlantis

  For decades, the poet and critic Paul Mariani has been a shining light for those interested in the Catholic imagination. We can hear Gerard Manley Hopkins, that great poet of the dark night, when Mariani laments no longer being able to see the “greengold grass, / glistening the bright skin of the copper beeches.” And we can hear Hopkins again, that great poet of the shining day, when Mariani describes “know[ing] that somewhere, now as then, the wind keeps whispering still”—the Holy Spirit moving and transfiguring always, even when we can’t sense it.

Mariani’s new work of criticism, The Mystery of It All, is a twilight book. Its epigraph, addressed to his wife of more than fifty years, begins, “Moon, old moon, dear moon, I beg you / answer when I call out to you.” Its final sentences read, “‘In His Will Is Our Peace.’ The very words I have etched into our gravestone.” In recent years, the eighty-year-old Mariani has been diagnosed and treated for brain cancer. This gives his epilogue, titled “On the Work Still to Be Done,” particular force.

Yet what is most striking about this book is how buoyant it is, how joyful is its account of a life of reading and writing. Hopkins, Stevens, Berryman, O’Connor: they’re all here, and Mariani attends both to their smallest formal decisions and their most expansive metaphysical concerns. “I have read and taught Stevens for over fifty years,” he remarks. “He is someone who never ceases to delight.” Great critics are able to turn the readerly delight they experience transitive: to explain it, yes, but also to pass it on to the reader. By this and many other standards, Mariani is a strong critic.

Here he is on Hopkins’s darkness: “All is unselved, untuned, and, just as violin or catgut strings go slack, all clear voweling lost, so do we, the words themselves as if swallowed, until ‘all is enormous dark / Drowned.’” And here he is on Hopkins’s sacramental, perceptual joy: “Look at the Welsh farmers with their horses in the countryside about him, breaking up the moist clods of earth: how the light shines upon them, catching the quartz glints, in an instant turning them into diamondlike shards of light—‘sheer plod’ itself doing this, allowing the plow and the sillion both to shine in God’s light.”

Even and especially in twilight, Mariani shows us the light.

The Mystery of It All Paul Mariani Paraclete Press, $25, 240 pp.

  Even and especially in twilight, Mariani shows us the light.

Hopkins, who broke and remade form in almost everything he wrote, would have loved the poet Jericho Brown. The Tradition is Brown’s third collection of poetry. It’s also his best—the most interesting in form, the most wide-ranging in reference, the most daring in its wedding of the private and public, the spiritual and the sexual.

Brown has talked about reading T. S. Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent” obsessively while working on this book. Eliot’s influence can be felt in this collection’s sense of tradition speaking to, and being changed by, the present. Eliot’s ghost is here. So too are the ghosts of James Baldwin, Lucille Clifton, and Essex Hemphill.

Brown writes several poems in a new form he calls the duplex: a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues. “Though I may not be, I do feel like a bit of a mutt in the world,” Brown has said. Queer, black, and Southern, he wanted to create a form that felt as unlikely as himself. These duplexes work by repetition and reconfiguration. Here’s a snippet:

                        My first love drove a burgundy car.                         He was fast and awful, tall as my father.

Steadfast and awful, my tall father             Hit hard as a hailstorm. He’d leave marks.

Light rain hits easy but leaves its own mark Like the sound of a mother weeping again.

As seen here, Brown often writes about trauma: the trauma of being a hurt child or a hurt lover; the trauma of being black in America (“I promise if you hear / Of me dead anywhere near / A cop, then that cop killed me”) and the trauma of being queer in America (“My man swears his HIV is better than mine”).

But The Tradition also gives witness to joy—in sex and language, in the traditions of black art and the black church. Brown was raised Baptist, and you can hear this legacy in his imagery and music:

                        Forgive me, I do not wish to sing                         Like Tramaine Hawkins, but Lord if I could                         Become the note she belts halfway into                         The fifth minute of “The Potter’s House”

                        When black vocabulary heralds home-                         Made belief: For any kind of havoc, there is                         Deliverance!

That duplex I quoted from above begins and ends with the same line: “A poem is a gesture toward home.” Brown finds a temporary home, a form of deliverance, in and through tradition in its many forms.

The Tradition Jericho Brown Copper Canyon Press, $17, 110 pp.

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[thejollyroger-writer]

Heart and Soul - Part 2

SUMMARY: Private music teacher Killian Jones wakes one morning to the sound of his ten year old neighbor playing the bane of his existence: the recorder. In order to keep his sanity, he offers to teach Henry to play any other instrument – though partially because it means he gets to spend more time with Henry’s mother, Emma Swan.

READ PART ONE: ao3 // tumblr // // PART TWO ON AO3

TW: mentions of alcoholism, abusive parents, backstory that goes a little deeper than necessary -- you know, the things I do best, apparently.

a/n: This fic was inspired by waking up one morning over the summer to hear my neighbor playing the trumpet – though, thankfully, Sam is a much better musician than a beginner recorder-player. I complained about it on discord, and bam! this story appeared, a joint effort between myself and Meredith (@captainsjedi​) . Even though she was unable to help me finish it because of her busy work schedule, her ideas are riddled through the story, not to mention the incredible art she made for it.

Thanks to @csconcertseries​ and @clockadile​, who gave me a reason to finish this story! It feels really good to actually finish something that I’ve been working on in the midst of the chaos of the world right now, so even though the event was a month ago, I’m still super thankful for the opportunity. 

-- -- --

Waking up to a message from Tink Greene on an October Thursday morning is one of the last things he expected, not having spoken to her besides the friendly neighborhood hellos since he broke off their dalliance the previous spring. 

The contents of the message are even more of a surprise: 

I've been hearing Henry Swan play in one of the practice rooms, and I think he would make a great addition to our student showcase for the Winter concert. He told me you've been teaching him, which explains a lot. Do you think you and he could work together on something by the beginning of December for him to play? 

Of course, the first thing he wants to do is share the news with Emma. He should probably shower first. And maybe actually answer Tink. 

I think that’s a grand idea. Henry has shown more growth than some of my adult students. Could you get me a song in the next week or so? 

Her response comes rather quickly, given the original message was from two hours before, but he imagines there’s not much for the elementary music teacher to do all day. I’m thinking either First Noel or Hark the Herald Angels. It depends on which the recorder students are better at. He also may play it with a beginner violin student, Violet, who’s doing exceptionally well. I think he knows her. 

He wonders if this is the same Violet from his soccer team, the one the boy has brought up a few times in conversation — but Tink doesn’t need to know that. Hell, he probably shouldn’t even know that, though he’s thankful that Henry trusts him enough to update him on his life during their lessons or some of the nights Killian finds himself staying for dinner. 

But he still needs a response. Thanks again for those recorder students, by the way. I turned down a whole dozen of them within the first two weeks of school, the infernal instrument. 

When Tink only responds with a few emojis — he tosses his phone back on the bed and pulls himself up, wondering if he is too late to meet Emma for her morning run. 

So he texts her. Because that’s something they’re doing now, after her inviting him to some of Henry’s games and his joining them for dinner most nights after Henry’s lessons. It wouldn’t even be the first time she has allowed him to join her on her morning run, invited him into her place of safety and security. 

(He would like to think of himself as a relatively fit human, but even he will admit that three miles, Emma’s regular distance, is a little much for him to start with, though he has been working on it more and more.) 

Is it too late for me to join in on the day’s physical activities?  

Even he is surprised by the pounding of his heart in his chest as he rummages through his drawers to try to find his athletic shorts, waiting for her answer, hoping for a positive. 

The soft ding of her response almost causes him to jump out of his skin. Just getting ready to go, actually. I’ll meet you outside? 

Perfect, is all he needs to say, splashing some cold water in his face as he stares at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t even realize the strong grip he has on the edge of the sink until he lets go to reach for his toothbrush. 

“Christ, Killian,” he mumbles to himself, shaking his head as he runs his toothbrush under the water. It’s only a run.

But his nerves don’t disappear. If anything, they only grow exponentially, and by the time he meets her on the sidewalk outside her house, he is almost shaking from the adrenaline. 

Good thing they’re going for a run, exerting this pent-up energy. He may even be able to keep up with her the whole time. 

He spends the first block trying to figure out how to bring up his exciting news. And the second. But when she starts to slow down, asks him how his week has gone, he can’t keep it in any longer. 

“Henry’s music teacher asked me this morning if I thought he should perform in the winter showcase.” 

He can sense her excitement almost immediately, even before she slows to a stop, wiping the smooth sheen of sweat off her forehead with the bottom of her t-shirt before turning to him, the smile on her face making the physical exertion worth it. “And?”

“Of course I agreed. I know I’ve told you before, love, but your son is a very talented musician.” 

She is still for a moment, looking somewhere over his shoulder, before she nods, gesturing for them to continue. “So, what, would it be a solo? Or would he be playing something with you?” 

“Actually, Tink mentioned asking one of the girls in his class to play with him. A violinist, I think.” 

“I wonder if it’s the same girl from his soccer team. He told me they met in orchestra, and I think that’s what she plays.”

“Violet, right? That’s what Tink said”

“Yeah, I think so. He’s got a bit of a crush, if you ask me, but don’t say anything to him about it.” 

“I wouldn’t dream of it, love.” 

“That’s so exciting, though. The kid deserves some excitement, with all the shit his dad is putting him through.”

At first, Killian isn’t sure that Emma even meant to say it, if they’re at that point in their friendship where she shares things like this with him. 

“You know he’s trying to move away? Something about his dad giving him a job in the city, a corner highrise apartment, a position as a big shot in his company, when Neal can’t even manage to get his child support in on time every month.” 

Now he really doesn’t know what to say — but she continues anyway. 

“I try not to say anything bad about him around Henry, but my god, he just makes it so fucking difficult.” 

Killian can’t help the chuckle that pushes through his lips. “I would assume my mum would have said the same about my father, if she ever had the chance.” 

A moment too late, he realizes that it’s only the second time he’s mentioned his father, the only other being the first time they really talked when they shared lunch in her kitchen. 

She doesn’t answer. He counts the time ticking away by their footsteps on the pavement, by the pounding of his heart in his chest. 

She says nothing. They go almost a full block, slowing only to make sure they’re safe to cross the street. 

He doesn’t know what he did. He doesn’t know what to do. So he just focuses on the pounding of his shoes against the pavement. Left, right, left, right. 

“Sorry, I…” she says finally, the words going nowhere, but he feels the warmth of her fingers around his wrist, pulling him to a stop. “Can we go get lunch? Maybe that little place on Main Street? I know that’s not our regular route, it’s a little far out of the way, but—” 

“Sure, love,” he says, not even needing to hear the rest of what she’s trying to say. Whatever it is, he will give her the time she needs to tell him — but there are more appropriate places for these sorts of conversations than on the sidewalk. 

She asks the waitress for a table in the back, further away from the door and the line of regulars sitting at the bar, spending what feels like hours looking over the menu before the waitress returns with their drinks and to take their order. All she orders is a bowl of soup, Killian strangely in the mood for one of their salads, but the silence between them only returns when the waitress leaves their table. 

Killian doesn’t mind, really. She decided that she wanted to tell him something, unlock some of the secrets of her past, which is more than he could have asked for. 

“I was, uh, found outside an orphanage when I was just a few days old.” 

Okay, it’s certainly not what he expected. It’s far more personal than he expected — but she’s telling him, and that’s the important part. 

“I have no idea who my parents are, anything about my family, only that they wanted to name me Emma.” 

Pausing, she takes a deep breath. A sip of her water. Her eyes don’t leave the spot on the table that they’re glued to. 

He doesn’t mind. 

“I was in and out of fosters for most of my childhood, and that’s how I met David. His mother was my last-ditch effort when I was seventeen, and if she didn’t work, I was going to be on my own. But, thankfully, she was an angel on this earth, and I spent a good few years with her, even after I aged out and as I went to college. I still think that’s why I kept coming back to Storybrooke, because it was the only place that felt like home, especially after everything that happened with Neal, except now he wants to leave Henry even more, move hours away to the city and see his own son even less than he does now.” 

Still, Killian stays silent. If he’s honest with himself, he really doesn’t know what to say in the first place, and he gets the feeling that there aren’t very many people who just let Emma talk. 

He will gladly be the one as often as she gives him the opportunity. 

“Does Henry know that he’s trying to leave yet?” 

She scoffs, looking up at him for a moment. Just a moment. 

“I told him he had to be the one to tell Henry, to answer all of his questions. That he wasn’t allowed to just up and leave. But that doesn’t mean he’s not going to do it anyway.” 

“I know it might not be want you want to hear, love, but sometimes it’s better for the parent to just up and leave if that’s what they need to do. He’ll still have to get you child support, no matter where he is.” 

“Are you speaking from experience?” 

He doesn’t even know how to read her voice. She doesn’t sound upset, per say, but there’s definitely something much deeper than just curiosity. 

“It’s just what my mother used to say, that we’d probably be better off without him than with him. But I can only hope that Neal is nowhere near the terror that Brennan Jones was.” 

She nods, the very corner of her lips ticking up for just a moment. Says nothing. 

And then it hits him: “Though, I suppose having a terrible dad around is something compared to having no one, no matter how much you may wish he wasn’t there.” 

“Jackpot,” she mumbles. “But as hard as it is to admit, Neal really isn’t a terrible person. He can even be a good dad, when he tries to be, and Henry really looks up to him, which I don’t think he realizes. I just don’t understand how he can choose a job over his own son.” 

“Granted, I don’t have the pleasure of offspring yet, but I would like to believe that I would feel the same as you do.” 

Finally, she smiles. Actually makes eye contact with him. Warms his heart a few degrees. Just as the waitress brings their food. 

Henry practically perfects the song — The First Noel — before Thanksgiving break, a whole three weeks before the concert. Killian even reaches out to Violet’s parents to offer to have them practice together in his studio instead of after hours at the school — or at either of their houses, which is a move that both Emma and Violet’s parents appreciate. 

(Plus, with Henry taking the lead on their rehearsals, it gives him more time to sit in the corner of the studio, talking with Emma.) 

They’ve built up a fine friendship since the first day of school, adding more weekly dinners as a trio, with Killian even joining Emma’s gym to work out with her with the weather getting colder. 

Killian would even go so far as to say Emma and her lad have become a regular part of her life, though he still didn’t expect the day when she asked him out, sitting across the table from her brother and next to her at the Thanksgiving dinner table. 

(What was different about this time? He had been to dinners with them, had spent time alone with Emma, but there was something about this that was different. He would be willing to bet it was the setting, the pressure of the situation.) 

“So, Henry, your mom told me about your solo in the winter concert!” Mary Margaret says excitedly, trying to find a subject that Henry can take part in, since most of Emma and David’s conversation has centered around work. 

Killian turns to the boy, seated at the far end of the table, just in time to watch his face light up in a smile. “Technically, it’s a duet, me and this one girl in my class, Violet —” 

“The one from your soccer team? With the purple streaks in her hair?” David asks, the rest of the table watching Henry’s face turn bright red. 

"Oh!" Mary Margaret practically squeals, which makes every eye at the table turn towards her, which Killian is sure Henry is thankful for — until she continues. “Do you have a crush on her?” 

Henry sighs, his eyes falling back to his plate as his cheeks continue to turn as red as his shirt. Instead of answering Mary Margaret’s question, he says, “You know, I never understood why that’s what they call it.” His voice is small, incredibly embarrassed, as he swirls his fork around his pile of mashed potatoes. “Why is it a crush?” 

Emma laughs, gently setting her hand on her son’s shoulder. “Aw, come on, you don’t have to embarrass him,” she jokes. 

“Well, then,” David says, setting his fork down on his plate so he can cross his arms across his chest. “Should we talk about your little crush instead?” 

“David!” both Mary Margaret and Emma say at the same time, and Killian can’t keep the heat from rushing to his face. 

Why are you embarrassed, you idiot? he asks himself, trying his best to keep his thoughts off his face. They’re not even talking about you. 

Unless… they are. 

He almost doesn’t allow himself to even think it. Because it’s insane to even assume it. 

And then Emma rolls her eyes. 

Looks at him. 

Pulls her bottom lip up between her teeth. 

Blushes deeper. 

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. 

He tries to act like he missed her look, turns his attention down to his plate of food, but he’s sure it doesn’t work. 

“Why can we bring up Henry’s and embarrass the poor boy, but I can’t do the same to my sister?” David asks, a wide grin spread across his face. Without even meaning to, Killian’s gaze rises, meeting David’s from across the table. 

David winks. 

Shit. 

“You’re at least going to his concert together, right?” David asks, the same smirk still covering his features. 

“I mean, we hadn’t really discussed it, but—” Emma starts, but Henry cuts her off: 

“You mean, like a date?”

“No,” both Killian and Emma try at the same time, but it doesn’t work. 

Mary Margaret’s poker face falters, turning into a grin that seems to brighten her already-shining aura. David somehow looks even more smug, though Killian wouldn’t have thought it possible. 

And Emma, whose gaze Killian is very purposefully avoiding, is turning redder by the moment. 

He’s sure he is, too. 

(Because he desperately wants it to be a date.) 

The next three weeks pass in a bit of a blur, between the holiday drunks that Emma has to deal with at the station and the last-minute lessons before recitals and concerts. It feels like the blink of an eye between their conversation at Mary Margaret and David’s thanksgiving dinner and Killian knocking on the door of the Swan’s house, making sure his light blue shirt is tucked into his dark jeans as he waits for someone to let him in. The waistcoat may have been a little more than necessary for an elementary school concert, sure, but there was talk before of Neal taking Henry and some of his friends for ice cream, giving Emma and Killian a chance to go out for dinner together. 

Maybe even like a date, he allows himself to think. 

It’s Emma that opens the door, and when he sees the same red dress that he remembers from last year’s concert, he’s glad he decided to go with the waistcoat — he would have been undoubtedly under-dressed without it. 

Because, damn is she perfect, her golden hair falling softly over her shoulders and her lips a shade of red almost as vibrant as her dress. He tries his best to hide it, but his breath gets trapped in his chest.

She smiles. “Hey.” 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, Killian, speak. He clears his throat. “Uh, hi. Is the lad almost ready?” 

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Henry yells from just out of Killian’s sight, most likely from around the corner in the living room. 

“How are you feeling, Henry?” Killian asks just as he comes around the corner, the bowtie of his suit unbuttoned but otherwise looking incredibly dapper from his gelled-back hair to the tips of his polished dress shoes. 

He shrugs. “A little nervous, I guess, but that’s normal, right?” 

Killian smiles. “Aye. Completely normal. But I know you’re going to be exceptional.” 

At this, Henry smiles, slipping past Killian and out the front door. “Thanks. Now let’s go!” 

 Emma fiddles with her nails when she’s nervous. This is something Killian learns very quickly, sitting beside her in one of the front rows of the auditorium, especially after having noticed it in the car on the way here. It doesn’t distract him, per se; instead, it gives him something to focus on instead of his own nerves, the shaking of his leg, chewing on his bottom lip. 

“He’s going to do great,” Mary Margaret says from the other side of Emma, probably sensing her nervousness the same way. 

“Oh, I’m sure he is,” Emma says, never taking her eyes off of the index finger she is focused on. “I just—” she lets out her breath through pursed lips, turning to look over her shoulder to where Neal is sitting at the end of the row behind them. Killian follows her gaze there, only to watch his attention turn from the cell phone in his hand to the watch on his wrist. “He wants to tell Henry tonight, that he’s accepted his father’s job offer. He leaves at the end of the month, but I told him he wasn’t allowed to ruin Henry’s concert by telling him before it. I can’t really even argue with it, he at least listened to what I told him.” 

“Oh, Emma,” Mary Margaret mutters, setting one of her hands on top of Emma’s, which halts her ability to pick at the skin around her index finger. 

“I’ve always been surprised he stuck around this long in the first place,” David— helpfully— adds, arms crossed over his chest. 

Killian can feel the daggers that Mary Margaret shoots at her husband when she turns to him. 

Emma manages to let out a single, breathy laugh, shaking her head. “You’re right, though, David. I never expected him to stay around after we broke up, so the fact that he’s waited this long is a bit of a miracle.” 

“That’s not going to make it any easier for Henry, though,” Mary Margaret comments. 

Emma just shrugs, but when she goes to respond, the house lights quickly dim to black, the spotlight shining on Belle French, the school librarian and interim principal, standing at the podium. In moments, the entire room is hushed. 

“Thank you all for coming out tonight,” she says, the gooseneck mic only catching the last few words, the auditorium humming with low feedback. “As you all know, we here in Storybrooke love to do all we can to ensure students have the opportunities to practice the arts they choose, and music is at the core of this. Every year, we are proud to hold this showcase for our elementary students, giving them the opportunity to show off their talents to the community, as well as our elementary band and orchestra groups, who have all been practicing regularly since at least the beginning of the year. To open our concert for tonight, we have the elementary orchestra group, led by our music teacher, Miss Tink Greene.” 

The auditorium fills with applause as the spotlight fades away and the curtains open to reveal a stage full of musicians, smiling out at their families and friends in the audience. When Emma turns her attention to Killian out of the corner of her eye, the smile spread across his face conjures one of her own. He looks so proud, with many of the students on the stage students of his own. 

Halfway through the second song, Mary Margaret leans towards Emma, setting her hand on her arm. “I always forget just how awful elementary orchestra concerts are,” she whispers. 

Emma lets out a light laugh, nodding. “Like, I’m glad Henry found something he enjoys doing, don’t get me wrong, but listening to him play a botched song on a piano and listening to a bunch of them play half-tuned violins are two different worlds.” 

“Swan,” Killian whispers, his eyes never leaving the stage, even as he reaches over to set his hand on her arm. “Shush.” 

Even as she rolls her eyes, Emma can’t help but smile at him. But she also can’t help herself from leaning closer to Mary Margaret and whispering, “Killian wants us to stop talking.” 

He doesn’t even try to hide his sigh, but he doesn’t move to respond to her. 

He leaves his hand on her arm, though. 

Neither of them seem to care. Neither of them make a move. 

The second song comes to an end, and they quickly begin the third — the final song, Emma is relieved to hear. 

They’re followed by a blonde girl in a bright red shirt and black slacks, who plays “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” on her cello; a small group of students introduced as the “elementary jazz band” who play a somewhat-recognizable jazzy rendition of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”; and a trio that plays “I Saw Three Ships” in a round on their flute, clarinet, and violin. 

Killian, of course, knows many of them, whispering things like, “Her mother tried to ask me out during one of our lessons,” and “They have the cutest little dog that really likes to lick my legs when they bring it with to pick him up,” when they are introduced. 

(Emma wonders what Killian would say about her if he were whispering to someone else.) 

And then next up is Henry. When the curtain opens, she doesn’t realize that she has changed her grip to holding Killian’s hand in her own — or, at least, one of them moved to hold the hand of the other — until she feels the way he straightens his shoulders, sucks in a breath between his teeth. But when she turns to him, taking her eyes away from her son, getting ready to perform, for just a moment, he meets her eyes. 

Smiles. 

Winks. 

(The bastard.) 

And turns back to the stage. 

She’s glad they’re in a darkened auditorium, because she feels the way her face warms at the realization, hopes that Mary Margaret can’t hear the pounding in her chest that is only silenced when Henry starts to play, Violet playing along with him. 

It’s much better than the sound of the full orchestra, Emma notices almost immediately, or any of the other groups that have played. It at least doesn’t sound like a bunch of screaming, dying animals. 

Just sitting there watching him, she is overwhelmed by a sense of pride, something that washes over her like a wave as his fingers move perfectly across the piano keys. (Sure, it might not be completely perfect, maybe a handful of notes a little off between the two of them, but Emma doesn’t care.) 

Killian turns to her, just slightly, if only because he knows just how bright the smile spread across her face has to be. 

(He’s right.) 

It warms him. It makes his heart pound in his chest, just how happy her happiness makes him. Of course, that’s not the point of taking on dedicated students like Henry, but if one of the perks of being able to share the joy of music with the lad is spending time with (falling absolutely head over heels for) his mother, he will certainly be the last to complain. 

But, in looking over at her, he also happens to glance over her shoulder, where Neal is still sitting at the end of the aisle behind them. 

Not even looking at the stage, his cell phone still in his hand. 

Over the shoulders of Emma and Mary Margaret, David makes eye contact with him, raising one of his eyebrows in question, which Killian only responds to by nodding in Neal’s direction. David turns around, and Killian can tell by the rise and fall of his shoulders that he sighs. When he turns towards Killian again, he rolls his eyes. 

The last group to play is the elementary band, who proves to be much easier on the ears than the orchestra. It’s not very large, just a dozen or so students spread across the three rows of chairs, with three percussionists standing in front of various instruments at the back of the stage. 

And then, after the first song, out come the recorders. 

It appears Emma spoke (thought?) too soon, trying her best not to wince through their rendition of “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas,” thankfully aided by some of the other band members to make it somewhat less terrible — but by a very small margin. 

(Killian, however, does not have the same self-control, and every scrunch of his face is paired with the tightening of his hand, which still happens to be wrapped around Emma’s — though neither of them are complaining.) 

The first words out of Neal’s mouth, while everyone else praises his performance, are, “You ready to get out of here, kid?” 

The question is met with a glare from the rest of the group, all except Henry who just looks confused. 

“Aren’t we taking some of my friends? We have to wait for them.” 

Neal sighs, looking at his watch. “Well, can you rally them together? I have to be up early tomorrow so I don’t want to be out too late.” 

“If you want us to, David and I would be willing to take Henry instead,” Mary Margaret says, her grip on David’s hand tightening to stop him from reacting. 

Henry doesn’t answer, just turns his attention up at Neal, as if waiting to see how he responds. 

He grinds his teeth together. “No, of course I’ll take him, I just — it’s been a long week and I’m a little exhausted.” 

“I’m gonna go find Avery and Violet,” Henry says, obviously a little let down by Neal’s response, before walking away from the group — and, now that he’s gone, Emma allows herself to finally respond to him. 

“I can’t believe you!” 

Neal just rolls his eyes. Killian feels his jaw tighten, and David crosses his arms across his chest. 

“God, Emma, just stop overreacting. You all knew this was going to happen someday, even Henry.” 

“That doesn’t mean you have to tell him today. He just had his first performance, his first solo, and all he wants from you is for you to be proud of him, not to hear that you’re moving away.” 

“Listen, you told me I had to wait until after the concert. The concert is over.” 

“You know damn well this isn’t what I meant!” Emma moves to lunge towards him, but Killian catches her arm, holding her back. 

“Not here, love,” he whispers. For a moment, Emma’s eyes are wide with anger, but when they meet his, they soften, and she nods. 

Neal scoffs. “You want to call me out for being inappropriate, yet here you are, dating Henry’s music teacher.” 

Mary Margaret rolls her eyes. 

We’re not dating. Killian feels the words on the tip of his tongue, but he bites them back — this is neither the time nor the place, and besides—

“That’s none of your damn business, first of all,” Emma bites. "I will kiss and date and sleep with whoever the hell I want to, you have no say in it anymore." 

"You slept with him?!" 

"Again, it's none of your business whether I did or not, Neal. That's the point. God, I don’t have the patience to deal with you right now. Just make sure Henry gets to soccer practice on time tomorrow, please.”

“Now you’re going to tell me how to be his dad? Like I haven’t been doing it for ten years?” 

Killian has a feeling that if his hand weren’t still wrapped around Emma’s wrist, she would have lunged again. 

“Come on, Emma, let’s go,” David says, stepping between them. “He’s not worth it,” he whispers. 

Still, Emma doesn’t move. 

Killian tugs on her hand. “Come on, love.” 

She takes a breath, apparent by the rise and fall of her shoulders, before she nods, finally turning back to face him. 

“Yeah. Okay.” 

They find Henry in the music room behind the auditorium, gathering his belongings. “Hey, kid,” Emma calls, walking towards him. “We’re gonna head out, okay?” 

He whips around, stopping in the middle of his conversation with Avery. “Okay!” He rushes across the music room to wrap his arms around Emma’s middle. “Thanks again for coming!” 

“Of course we came, lad,” Killian says, mussing his hair with a smile. 

“We wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Mary Margaret chirps from behind them. 

“But you have fun with your dad, alright?” Emma says. “Want me to take your dress shoes home?” 

“I don’t want to stay at dad’s tonight, I want to come home with you.” 

“Henry, come on, we talked about this already. Your dad asked for you to stay there tonight even though it’s not his night, and you have practice in the morning anyway. Please?” 

Suddenly, his eyes light up. “Why? Are you two going on a date?” 

David scoffs. Mary Margaret laughs, quickly covering her mouth with her hand. Killian is useless against the drop of his jaw. But it’s Emma’s answer that Henry laughs at: “What? No, come on, we’re—we’re—” she stutters. 

Henry puts his hands on his hips, his eyebrows high on his forehead. Killian recognizes the look immediately; he’s gotten the exact look from Emma before, on quite a few occasions. 

“I can assure you, lad, I’m just taking your mother home.” 

This time, it’s David who laughs, just a single bark — but it’s all Killian needs to really hear what he has just said, and he quickly feels as heat rises to the tips of his ears. 

But Henry doesn’t hear it that way, thankfully, and instead flashes a large smile at them. “Then you can just take me home, too.” 

“Henry, please,” Emma says, crossing her arms over her chest. Henry’s smile disappears, and he nods even as his gaze falls to the ground. 

“Okay, mom.” 

He goes to turn away from them, but Emma reaches out to put her arm on his shoulder. “Hey,” she whispers, waiting for him to look back up at her before she smiles. ‘C’mere,” she whispers, leaning down as she holds her arms out to him. 

Henry complies, even managing to crack a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow after practice, alright?”

“You’ll pick me up?” 

“Sure. I’ll be there.” 

“Thanks, mom.” 

After quickly hugging Mary Margaret and high-fiving David and Killian, the four of them make their way out of the building to their cars. 

“So, are you guys going on a date?” The question practically explodes out of Mary Margaret, and David is useless against the smile that spreads across his face. 

“No,” Emma says, but Killian takes a chance and shrugs. 

“What do you say, Swan? Want to get something to eat?”

No one looks more surprised by this turn of events than Emma herself. Killian’s glad they’re out from under the harsh phosphorescence of the school lights so the redness of his face is (hopefully) less obvious. 

David’s eyebrows fly up his forehead. “Do I have to give you guys the talk?” 

Killian doesn’t know how to respond, truthfully; instead, Emma hits his arm with the back of her hand. “Oh my god, David.” 

Mary Margaret giggles — honest-to-God giggles. 

“We’re leaving now,” Emma says, and Killian certainly doesn’t argue. 

“So, do you want to eat, or not?” Killian asks, finally breaking the silence in the car as they pull out of the parking lot. 

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Emma mumbles, failing to hide the way she fiddles with her nails. “Wherever you want to go.” 

He smiles. “I know just the place.” 

Much to Emma’s surprise, he takes them home. To his house, more specifically, though for a moment she fears that he will drop her off at her front door and disappear forever. Instead, he holds open his front door for her, as nervous as she is. 

“Can I get you something to drink?” he asks, helping her shrug out of her coat, which he then drapes over the back of a dining room chair. “Water? Wine? I probably have some whiskey somewhere around here, if you’re looking for something harder.” 

Emma smiles, finding his obvious nerves charming. “Wine would be great.” 

He hums, pulling a bottle of white out of the fridge. Of course, with the way his nerves have been acting up, he’s surprised he hasn’t already started rambling, so he’s not surprised when he opens his mouth and is unable to stop words from falling from his lips. “Liam always told me that the best way to impress a lady is to cook for her, but I was probably not supposed to divulge that information on a first date.” He hands her the glass of wine, then pours one for himself. “I was half-hoping this is where we ended up, you know. That’s why I prepared a little bit, why I thawed this piece of salmon and made sure I had what I needed for my mother’s favorite pasta recipe.” Quickly, he turns to face her, unable to stop his hand from scratching the spot behind his ear. “I hope that’s okay, now that I’m thinking about it, I never even asked—” 

Emma holds her hand out, resting it against his hand on the counter. “Killian,” she says softly, and between that and her smile, he snaps his mouth shut. “Whatever you have planned, I’m sure it will be perfect.” 

He wants to dive across the kitchen counter and kiss her right there, the salmon be damned. But that’s not what he does, holding himself back. Instead, he just smiles at her. 

“You have too much faith in me, love,” he says, forcing himself to move to begin readying dinner. 

“Maybe I’ve just gotten to know you enough to be sure that I can trust you.” 

God, I love this woman, he thinks to himself, only allowing himself to pause for a moment as the realization hits him, knowing that more will draw her attention for sure. And if he called her out, asked what he was thinking about, he’s not sure he would be able to stop himself from telling her. 

Because it’s true, he realizes — there’s no use hiding from it anymore. It’s true that he has fallen absolutely in love with Emma Swan, and there’s no going back now. 

But the silence of the kitchen — of the whole house — gets to him before the oven is even preheated, and he has to find something to talk about before he absolutely loses his mind. 

“Your lad did a great job tonight, you know,” he says, daring to glance at her over his shoulder, if only to catch the smile that he knows is on her face. 

“Well, he had an incredible teacher,” she says. 

“That may be true, love, but he had real talent when he started.” 

“Which really is a surprise.” Emma tells him, not for the first time. “I know neither Neal or I have any musical ability, or Neal’s dad. Mary Margaret used to play the flute, but she’s not actually family, and probably hasn’t picked one up since college.” 

“I know you never knew them, but maybe it’s from one of your parents.” This time, when he glances over his shoulder, she has her thumbnail between her front teeth, so he adds, “Or maybe it’s just him. It’s not unheard of.” 

She attempts to smile, but it doesn’t stick. He doesn’t know what else to say, so he turns back to the counter, adding the last few sprigs of rosemary to the pan with the salmon before sticking it in the oven. 

“That’ll take a little while longer than the pasta, so I’m going to wait a bit before I start that,” he starts, but when he turns back to her, she’s gone. 

Shit. 

“Okay,” she calls from the living room, which slows the terrified pounding of his heart almost immediately. Even after months of friendship with Emma Swan, he still somehow thought she would have walked out on him. 

“So we, uh, have a little bit of time,” he says, finding his own glass of wine before following her voice into the living room. Much to his surprise, she’s sitting on the piano bench, her long, thin fingers moving gently across the keys, but not making a sound. 

“You know,” she says, turning towards him as he fills the space between them. “I do know how to play one thing on the piano.” With a shy smile, she moves over on the bench to give him room to sit with her, patting it gently when he doesn’t move to join her. 

But he’s useless against her, and can fight it no longer, so he does, trying to focus on something other than the warmth of her leg pressed against his. “Oh yeah? What is that?” 

He's afraid to hear the answer, knows what she's about to play down deep in his soul, but he still cringes when he hears the first few notes: “Heart and Soul.” 

"Anything but that, love. Literally anything."

“I don’t know about you, Killian Jones,” Emma says, letting him slip her jacket back over her arms before he leads her to the door. “But I don’t think I’ve ever had a better first date.” Even in the low light of the entryway, Killian knows that Emma can see the blush rising to his cheeks. “And I know I said it before, but that pasta was incredible. Really, one of the best things I’ve ever tasted.” 

“Well, thank you, Swan,” he says, ducking his head to avoid her bright eyes. “I’m glad you think so. Both about the pasta and the date.” 

“I may even let you walk me home.” 

He’s at a loss for words — and even questions his own ability to speak when she follows up by running her tongue across her bottom lip. 

“It would be my pleasure.” 

“You’re a true gentleman, Killian Jones.” 

“Always.” He even feels brave enough to wink at her, holding open the front door to let her through. 

Their walk across the street is silent, save the light chuckle Killian allows when Emma threads her arm through his. 

“This is my stop,” she says, turning to face him on her front porch. But instead of moving to open the door, she reaches out to take one of his hands in hers. Then the other. 

“Yeah, I should, uh, let you get home,” he says, realizing that it is, in fact, the very last thing he wants to do. 

She looks up at him, her green eyes bright in the front lights. “Yeah,” she whispers, barely audible. Swipes her tongue across her bottom lip again. And then leans forward, letting go of one of his hands only to wrap hers around his neck, and presses her lips against his. It’s soft, it’s gentle, it’s — 

Perfect. Everything he imagined kissing Emma Swan would be. 

And that’s why he loses himself in it, in her, for just a moment, living for the swipe of her tongue against his, before backing away. She takes a deep breath before opening her eyes, a soft smile spread across her lips. 

“I don’t usually do this on a first date, love,” he whispers, leaning closer to her so he can rest his forehead against hers. 

“Me neither,” she says back, her smile growing. “So take me out again tomorrow night and we can do it again.” 

“Deal.” 

She kisses him again, a single peck on the lips, and turns away.

tags: @let-it-raines​ @shireness-says​ @wellhellotragic​ @ultraluckycatnd​ @stahlop​ @kmomof4​ @teamhook​ @profdanglaisstuff​ @thisonesatellite​ @superchocovian​ @carpedzem​ @darkcolinodonorgasm​ @resident-of-storybrooke​ @lfh1226-linda​ @singersdd @tiganasummertree​ @alexannam16​ @therealstartraveller776​ @spartanguard​ @jennjenn615​ @pepperspotts​