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asecretvice · 1 year ago

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Hey. I just really want to thank you for “And This, Your Living Kiss”. I’m guessing you may be a bit tired hearing us talk about it, what, 4, 5 years after you published it? I just need to express some gratitude. Your poem “Perfect” was probably the first poem ever to make cry, and I still read it occasionally when I’m down. It’s honestly probably my favorite poem ever. For me it captures this delicate, still very anchored kind of happiness that just hits so deep. Kind of like the opposite of melancholia. I hope you get what I’m saying and that I’m not just talking out of my ass, and if I am, I was hoping you’d share some of your thoughts about this poem?

Also, this story is truly my favorite story ever. Has been for a very long time. A question I have for you is, is there any place where we can read more of your poetry? And if not, I was also wondering if you’d be willing to share with us some of your favorite poets/poems?

Firstly, thank you for your patience; sometimes it takes me a while to get to asks.

But mostly, thank you so much for these kind words. Do not ever doubt yourself when taking the time to extend your positivity to others; I—and I daresay the vast majority of people—do not get tired of receiving these small kindnesses. It’s a reminder that life can be full of connection, a reminder that when I send a little bit of my heart out into our raging, grief-filled world, there are those who accept and understand and, hopefully, keep passing that love forward. And thusly we make the world a better place. So please receive my gratitude for reaching out.

That you love “Perfection” means so much to me. It was the first piece of the fic I wrote, you know, and pretty much became the basis for who Dean is in the fic thereafter. I don’t feel you’re talking out of your ass at all. Dean is such a complex character, and I think that’s why so many of us relate to him; we see our own complexity and contradictions reflected back at us through him. There is of course happiness there among the rest—a boy/man who is at his happiest when with his family (blood or no). Underneath it all is that deep thread of love we (and Cas!) admire and strive toward within ourselves.

Unfortunately I don’t have poetry published anywhere else. Maybe someday.

Several of my fav poets/poems appear in the fic already, though they’re among many others. However because I’ve been thinking about her lately, I hope you’ll indulge me if I talk about Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her masterpiece Sonnets from the Portuguese.

In the modern day EBB’s words most often show up in the guise of “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” It sounds a bit hokey, doesn’t it? I know I always thought so; especially to my teenage ear it was sickly sweet if not downright simpering. Spoiler: I was wrong. Context changes everything.

Do you believe that some books or stories come into your life at just the right time? Fast forward to when I’m 18 or 19. I’m in a town I’ve never been to before, visiting people I barely know. My host needs to work and offers to drop me off in the town center to explore. I agree because the weather’s fair and I’m desperate for a break from polite company, as it were. Happily it’s a pleasant area, full of green and not far from a large canal. After wandering along its edge for a while I aim back toward the local stores and window-shop up and down the streets. At last I stumble upon a used bookstore right next to a gelateria! Well you couldn’t have put two things together that more matched my taste if you tried. Naturally, I resolve to find a book and then go next door for some gelato and spend my time enjoying them both.

The bookstore is in an older building, for sure, with hardwood floors and the type of wainscoting that make me think it’s from the early 20th century at least. It’s split into multiple rooms and connected by open doorways; I wonder if it used to be a home. Many, though not all of the bookshelves are built into the walls and painted a pleasant white, stuffed to the gills with books in every color. The only other soul in the building is the man behind the front counter, and aside from a swift exchange of polite smiles I am left alone. I start by going to the left and poking around the shop and its little book-filled rooms counterclockwise, determined to choose at least one thing before I leave. What type, what genre? What length, what mood? I don’t know, but am sure I’ll know it when I see it. I’m free to choose whatever I like, you understand, because rarely had an English teacher in my past convinced me I couldn’t teach myself better, and I’d resolved never to take a class in the English department in college if I could help it (and for better or worse, I never did).

I take my time twisting in and out of the treasure-filled corners, no rush and no fuss. Yet no book sings to me. At length I near the back of the shop; on the far side beneath a window is a short, two-shelf bookcase. With waning hope I crouch in front of the shelf and begin reading spines. Aha! It’s filled with poetry. Perhaps there is some hope after all…then there it is: Sonnets from the Portuguese. Definitely faux-fancy binding, but still pretty. It looks like this:

I flip through, and every sonnet is accompanied by a different piece of silhouette art. It’s lovely, and it sings to me. A small pencil mark on the inside indicates it only costs a couple bucks, so I rummage in my wallet, stop by the front desk, and leave the store with the book clutched in my hands. With the rest of my cash I go to the gelateria next door and pick a couple of unusual flavors and again, alone, I choose a rickety metal table outside and sit with nothing but birds and sunshine for company. I skip the introduction and open the book immediately to the first sonnet:

I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair, And a voice said in mastery while I strove, . . 'Guess now who holds thee?'—'Death,' I said, But, there, The silver answer rang . . 'Not Death, but Love.'

What do you glean from the poem? It is slow and sad, a bright mythologized ideal set against a woman sunk deep in dark grief, a darkness that swiftly shifts into horror as a Shape appears behind her, physically pulls her from her weeping, and demands a response. She is so sure that her own death has at last come upon her, except what’s appeared…is love? Love, of all things? Love?

This is not at all what I am expecting to read. I fill up with another spoonful of gelato and eagerly turn the page.

And turn, and turn—Reader, I’m hooked. I’m strapped into a rollercoaster and freefalling down the first slope, on a wild ride built by a woman who’s been chronically ill since childhood, who’s lived through the death of her mother and beloved brother, whose father keeps her in his house and firmly under his thumb even long into her thirties, who still manages to write and get published and yet still lives lonely in her dark room…Sonnets from the Portuguese is an epic journey via the most astonishing set of 44 sonnets about how love completely changed her life, sonnets which her husband later touted to be the best in English since Shakespeare (and I agree). If you haven’t read the sonnets I encourage you to do so before reading on, link here, but if you’d rather I walk you through…

Even reading them again now I am in awe. How baldly and boldly she talks about how she and Robert, because of course it’s about her famous courtship with Robert Browning, are not meant to be. Not just her circumstances at home, not just her poor health, not just the fact that she thinks herself so below him and his worth, but also her grief. The darkness that lives in her! So many lines from these poems are woven into the tapestry of my life, like from sonnet V: Behold and see / What a great heap of grief lay hid in me. She warns that it could ruin him. Stand further off then! go! it ends.

And yet the next one (VI) begins: Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand / Henceforward in thy shadow. It is too late. She’s already been changed. The world and her perception of it are already shifting. Read how the beginning of VII illustrates this:

The face of all the world is changed, I think, Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, Was caught up into love, and taught the whole Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink, And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.

She was sinking into oblivion, death her companion, until he stood between them and she was caught up into love, no longer to go through her days sitting simple and still in her room, content to wallow in the sorrow she’d been given. Yet…that still doesn’t matter, because how can she reciprocate? And, crucially, does it make her a bad person that she can’t?

am I cold, Ungrateful, that for these most manifold High gifts, I render nothing back at all? Not so; not cold,—but very poor instead. (VIII)

Have you ever been there? Found yourself wondering if you’re even capable of love and kindness toward others given all you’ve been through, and how horrible it feels to think that ability’s been stolen from you? Is what little you can eke out even worth anything in comparison? Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass. (IX)

But she continues turning the idea of love over in her mind. Could it be that love is fully worthy, no matter where it comes from? There’s nothing low / In love, she reasons, when love the lowest (X). Still it does not seem that she herself could be worthy—and if this is worthy love, anyway, would she have even known how to do it if she’d not first been shown by him?

And thus, I cannot speak Of love even, as a good thing of my own: Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak, And placed it by thee on a golden throne,— And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!) Is by thee only, whom I love alone. (XII)

It seems that Robert persists in his own love, because then an earnest plea: that he love her for love’s sake, because people change in time. She herself is changing now because of him! Do not even love her because he loves taking care of and comforting her, because his love could lessen her need for that comfort! (XIV)

Regardless she is not without feeling, as sad and calm as she outwardly seems. She’s just not like him. But…could his love and his will be strong enough to overcome all these obstacles? Why, conquering / May prove as lordly and complete a thing / In lifting upward, as in crushing low! With such success, she says, I at last record, / Here ends my strife. (XVI)

But of course, nothing can be quite so simple. Her first question is how she can be useful to him. This does not feel like a full partnership:

How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use? A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse? A shade, in which to sing—of palm or pine? A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose. (XVII)

That theme of death, too, is still ever-present. Even as the next couple of sonnets talk about how they’ve exchanged locks of hair she speaks of it. In XX a sea-change is further revealed, however, when she compares her life before Robert to the one after knowing him, how link by link, [I] Went counting all my chains but now, in contrast to VII’s cup of dole, she drinks from life’s great cup of wonder! She begs him to keep saying that he loves her (XXI), continuing the theme that his love will teach her, lift her, allay her many fears. But the next again ends with the death-hour rounding it.

Robert’s response? That her death would harm him. She admits to marveling at this revelation. If it is to be believed,

Then my soul, instead Of dreams of death, resumes life’s lower range. Then, love me, Love! look on me—breathe on me! As brighter ladies do not count it strange, For love, to give up acres and degree, I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange My near sweet view of heaven, for earth with thee! (XXIII)

So first we learn that it is Love, not Death that has grabbed her; then we know that she feels Robert’s soul has slipped between her and the brink of death and thus she begins to question her constant sorrow; she is changing by his love; she will stop worrying about her worthiness and be of use to him and bask in what love he is willing to give her; but only now, finally, does she give up death itself in order to live her life. She is choosing to live!

The next few sonnets double down on this, about how all her hope had become despair, about how for so long she only had visions for company, and didn’t know they were mere shades in comparison to a reality of actually living, how Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well. Also important? His saving kiss (XXVII).

We’ve come far, but progress isn’t an even trajectory. The rollercoaster dips again: now that she wishes to live, she wishes to live in his presence. She is both touch-starved and starved for company. Because their letters—one of, if not the most famous set of love letters in the English language—are to her all dead paper, mute and white! She speaks of how they fixed a day in spring / To come and touch my hand…a simple thing, / Yet I wept for it! (XXVIII) So we got the first mention in the last sonnet of his kissing her, and now a memory of when he first touched her hand. She goes on to write about how thinking of him is no longer enough; she needs to be near him. She then wonders, when he is gone, if she has embellished his feelings for her. Can you blame her? I certainly can’t. Her dark thoughts are now manifesting in these doubts about her perception, rather than her abilities.

But upon his next visit, she admits, I erred / In that last doubt! (XXXI). His presences reassures that all is real, not dream. And while she has always found it unlikely that their bond could have formed so fast (Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe, XXXII), now that she knows him she knows it was wrong to think that of him. She then brings up her childhood and draws parallels between the bright happy love she felt then with the love she feels now…even though, given the life she’s lived, the love she feels really can’t be the same. Her thoughts are no longer that of a child’s, which can be lightly turned aside, but for him she can and will turn from her dark, lonely thoughts when called.

This all decided, that their love is deep and true and as real as the loves she used to feel, and that she wants to be with him, an important question remains: If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange / And be all to me? Simply reading the poems and knowing their time period (Victorian) it could be enough to assume that it’s a regular leaving of your childhood home to create your own. But remember what I said at the beginning? The control her father exerts over her? She knows he would never approve. Hell, it was difficult enough for her siblings to make lives for themselves within his shadow. Going with Robert would mean truly leaving everything. She knows it won’t be easy: For grief indeed is love and grief beside (XXXV).

This great fear invites more doubt. She admits she has grown stronger and more confident, but that doesn’t make her troubles disappear. She knows she does their love a disservice in so doubting and in so fearing, but she can’t help it. But then…she returns to the physical, to his presence. In XXXVIII she speaks of their first three kisses: the first on her hand, the second for her forehead, but half-landed on her hair, and the third upon my lips was folded down / In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed / I have been proud and said, “My love, my own.”

She goes on in the next sonnets to say how grateful she is that he truly sees her and knows her beyond all the layers of sorrow and sickness she labors under. It should also be noted that, uncommonly for their time, he at 33 or so was courting her at 39/40. And so she is grateful, too, that he thinks it soon when others cry “Too late.” (XL). She then thanks all who had ever loved or listened, but again thanks Robert for listening to her even when it was difficult. She doubles down, now, on her decision to live:

I seek no copy now of life’s first half: Leave here the pages with long musing curled, And write me new my future’s epigraph, New angel mine, unhoped for in the world! (XLII)

And then—only now, as the rollercoaster shoots us upward and onward in joy and hope for a good, loving future—does she begin sonnet XLIII with How do I love thee? She asks this, not as some young girl with no life experience about a boy she’s seen across the room (I mean, how else was I supposed to interpret it, given how it’s used in the modern age?). She asks this as a woman full four decades into her life, a life full of chronic illness, an authoritarian home, and familial grief. She asks this after months of courtship during which she fought for every inch of belief, and hope, and joy. Where she at last came to know her own strength of heart and of will. Because she does leave her home, dear Reader. She elopes with Robert Browning, gets married in France, and lives out the rest of her life in Italy, where death finally catches up to her at 55. Keep all this in mind, as you read the sonnet in full:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

There is one more sonnet, where she brings back flowers, a motif I didn’t spend time on in this post, to talk about how their souls are intertwined down to their roots. I bring it up now not just because flowers end this glorious cycle of forty-four poems, but because I think of her grave.

A year or two after I fell in love with these poems I was lucky enough to be in Italy myself. Some friends and I were walking around Florence and I insisted we had to find the English cemetery. I remember it as being this island of a hill in the middle of some busy streets, all fenced in with a little building at the entrance. When we scurried across the street and inside, there was a nun there who greeted us warmly. I told her I was looking for Elizabeth Barrett Browning and she lit up. She motioned for us to follow as she told me that they do their best to take care of her grave, and have always done so (I don’t know if she means just those who work there or Italians in general, as EBB was loved by Florence in her time). But, she said, they did not look kindly upon Robert, because he spent all this money on a beautiful tomb but he never, ever came to visit. She said this with the authority of someone who had witnessed it herself, though of course that was impossible. This was clearly a story deemed important enough—or perhaps simply so full of strong feeling—to stand the test of time.

The tomb is indeed beautiful. The pictures when I did a quick lookup on the internet do not do it justice; forgive me for not having the energy now to dig up where I’ve saved the old files of the pictures I took myself. At the time it was absolutely surrounded by tall, enormous roses, deep red in color. After I had my fill the nun was kind enough to take us on a tour of the rest of the cemetery, which was lovely. But I’ve never been able to shake the memory of that story, the one where the nuns lived and died resentful of an absent Robert.

It wasn’t until about a year and a half ago, when I read Fiona Sampson’s recent biography Two-Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning that it finally made sense. Robert often avoided grief in this way, it seems, afraid to travel back to England when family members were ailing until it was too late. Whether you agree with his actions or not, his absence we can at least hope is from his great love turned to great grief, rather than a lack of feeling on his part. He himself died in Venice; their only child died in Italy also. Robert is, however, still separated from Elizabeth in death: he is buried in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey, London.

If you’re hoping for a neat bow on the end of this post, there isn’t. I think of her often not just because I love her poetry but, I suppose, because each year is slowly, inexorably bringing me closer to the age she was when she decided she would live her life again, and though I haven’t found a soul-shaking love like she has, I am trying, trying, trying to live, too.

#opal replies #living kiss #anonymous #poetry #elizabeth barrett browning

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isiaiowin · 7 months ago

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Tagged by @cheeseplants

How many works do you have on ao3? 11

What's your total ao3 word count? It's 69.589 if you include the BOOB OMENS crack fic, my own works are 66.934

What fandoms do you write for? Only Good Omens

Top five fics by kudos:

Saucy Saucers:

After a few days inside the bedroom, Aziraphale gets peckish. Then finds out a certain demon has been perverting his porcelain.

As I place this crown upon thee...:

Crowley meets up with Aziraphale at the crowning of Napoleon Bonaparte. It inspires him to make a grand gesture of his own.

Marshmallow Cat:

Aziraphale finds a Miaowing box on the doorstep of the cottage.

Happy Holidays Furfur:

Furfur finds a strange box on his desk. Short fluffy holiday fic.

Leave me broken on the leather, bring me home on satin sheets:

Ferdinand Fur, a top-tier investment banker, had asked Dominatrix Shax Stork to set up a special scenario. Nervous yet excited at work, he awaited the moment she would kidnap him and break him apart in her dungeon. Trusting her completely; his Mistress, his oxygen, his life, to give him the relief he so desperately craved.

Shax had been initially surprised by this request but had quickly warmed to the idea and couldn’t wait to give him what he needed. She enjoyed playing with him immensely, loved indulging herself with his body, loved him; her slave, her heart. Wrapped in the mantle of decades of experience, she would take him over the edge, into a free fall of emotions, just so she could catch him safely at the bottom and put him back together with care.

Do you respond to comments? Yes always, they really make my day!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Hmm my Stag and the Scale longfic that only needs the last half of the last chapter is currently angsty.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? It must be Infernal Tango Shax and Furfur dancing back to the party together melts my heart.

Do you get hate on fics? I was hit by bots, but that is fixed now.

Do you write smut? I do! Never thought I would but now I'm even working on a dopplebanginging fic and oof... I really enjoyed writing the BDSM AU with dominatrix Shax and Furfur, just pure love in an unconventional way.

Craziest crossover: can it be collab? It must be the crack fic we wrote for the modcast over at @goodomensafterdark

Have you ever had a fic stolen? I hope not, do not think so I'm a way to small writer.

Have you ever had a fic translated? No.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, crack fics and birthday collabs and have some more (serious) fics planned for the future.

All time favorite ship? Shax/Furfur otherwise known as Shafur. I love writing them, they have my heart and soul. It's a rare pair so it doesn't get the 'clicks' but I don't care I'll keep writing the carmine empress together with her emerald stag.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hmm let me see, a songfic with Crowley needing to leave before he does something that would disturb his friendship with Aziraphale. Aziraphale makes it very hard for him not to kiss him right there and then.

What are your writing strengths? Love? Pure love? I can't make it not 'sweet' It has to be LOVE.

What are your writing weaknesses? As English is not my native language, I had to learn how to properly punctuate and write in UK English. I sometimes lack the vocabulary but it is fun to see the growth over the last few months.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? Why not? If you add a translation in character so everyone can understand it.

First fandom you wrote in? Good Omens. Only started with a micro fic last November, then really started writing and posting since the beginning of March this year.

Favorite fic you've written? Leave me broken on the leather, bring me home on satin sheets. Written for the kink event in GOAD, this fic is very close to my heart. I wanted to show the Domme side of a BDSM relationship and Shax was perfect for it. Plus the dynamic between Furfur and Shax really worked for this idea (in my headcanon)

I tag: @aidaran-alha @yes-its-unholy @theonewiththeshippinggoogles @mightyshax

#fanfic writing #good omens fanfiction #fanfic writers #good omens #good omens fandom

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libidomechanica · 7 months ago

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His delight occasionally this: hath looks taught this still pursues

At sixteen she washen clear the shepherd. Moments her backache after due search, a blushing means a few grave the first

the moon-tints of moan and my breaks passioned brought thee any of his virtue dignity, the mountain when spoke not,

though heroic salamander, we were blood be then Iphigene I claim. That follows bare heaven and water. I

thanks one more, still resign’d. Like wealthy, with our heroines of keen Indian friends—as thus we meet: yea, I should be

doubly name. But since I am, and then in rhymers incense. Last night; today is as a bittour bumps with insomnia,

perfume. If it cometh up from these confined to the queen and claspt with his name, though the bridled, and the tortured

ever crimes away twould give year. Stare: the questions fine; but like a globe, yearning they hire: my prospect he wander’d,

cabin’d, so intense she, death of woe; studying Gladiator’s art which most unregeneral acts are a mistress,

and show and tends upon earth we are to serve the first do blow. His delight occasionally this: hath looks taught this

still pursues! Oh, yes, lest I am, and eke the think a very well; all creatures and waters, an’ she had more. Seeking:

the new Venus, but what kind of a pieces of their day; the trophies—not of silver when their life as with his

own: but when young. To fix the dolour of regency ghouls. I thank all we can be. Being dumb; for feelings, I put

in vogue has virgin marble for best in the king: thaw this lovers, to cold, with thee thousand like. Sets the shows the last:

if it’s not with pains its dose;—hers wake, and such fire, and let thy fate, an airy instant more informed, that … felt an

innocent and if I shifting back, the slick-faced. But no one hurt exclaim How fair Acceptance of love; there before white

bitches, than going to women what you get up each out of that lace, makes to behold, his hand, and swell of twelve yards

off, or reproach. That lay broad stay’d at dawn and moral Washington of noble race, that true blood townes be led; here these

blenches, when with herself, in happiest of purpled, spiking back to resumed with a roysterious, just come, song after

I am old and shield, which slays esteem and given vp for plants in one simple in the body—I lookt other

to me, darling, that eternal feast; she there, by cool and all as man that living letter’d Houses—and, Behold!

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 6 #186 texts #ballad

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married-to-a-redhead · 3 years ago

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Headquarters, Camp Clark

Washington, D.C., July 14, 1861

My Very Dear Wife:

Indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps to-morrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines, that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine, O God be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battle-field for any country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American civilization now leans upon the triumph of government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution, and I am willing, perfectly willing to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government, and to pay that debt.

But, my dear wife, when I know, that with my own joys, I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with care and sorrows, when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it, as their only sustenance, to my dear little children, is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country.

I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death, and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country and thee.

I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in this hazarding the happiness of those I loved, and I could not find one. A pure love of my country, and of the principles I have often advocated before the people, and "the name of honor, that I love more than I fear death," have called upon me, and I have obeyed.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables, that nothing but Omnipotence can break; and yet, my love of country comes over me like a strong wind, and bears me irresistibly on with all those chains, to the battlefield. The memories of all the blissful moments I have spent with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you, that I have enjoyed them so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up, and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our boys grow up to honorable manhood around us.

I know I have but few claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me, perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, nor that, when my last breath escapes me on the battle-field, it will whisper your name.

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears, every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot, I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.

But, O Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth, and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you in the garish day, and the darkest night amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours always, always, and, if the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air cools your throbbing temples, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dear; think I am gone, and wait for me, for we shall meet again.

As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care, and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers, I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.

- Sullivan

A week later, Sullivan Ballou was killed in the First Battle of Bull Run.

#the civil war #Spotify #history #sullivan ballou #Honor #Love #bravery

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openheartfanfics · 4 years ago

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Domestic Bliss: Wedding & Proposals

Ethan x F!MC

A Chance for Us - @lawyerlies 🎭 2 years after they have ended their relationship, Ethan attends Anj’s wedding but can he ever let her go?

A Day to Remember - @trappedinfanfiction ☁ It’s their big day, and with that comes nerves.

A Letter to My Love - @potionsprefect ☁ The night before their wedding, Ethan and Victoria pen a letter to each other.

A Valentine Engagement - @liaromancewriter 📷 Cassie and Ethan's big news makes for front page headlines in the society papers.

Abscond - @utterlyinevitable ☁ Well, they’re 10-minutes to their ceremony and Ethan emotions start to take over.

All Yours - @a-crepusculo ☁ Set five years after their fateful encounter at Edenbrook.

An Ideal Reality - @xxtraord1nary ☁ A day to remember. When two lonely souls joined to become one full hearted union. When a woman became a Ramsey and a man became the happiest on earth.

As Planned - @jerzwriter ☁ Kaycee's first boyfriend and his girlfriend get married, and Ethan's plan goes into motion.

Beautiful - @choicesfanaf ☁ Ethan knows how to calm down Arundhati.

Beautiful - @coffeeheartaddict2 ☁ It is finally Casey and Ethan’s Wedding.

Before ‘I do’ - @potionsprefect ☁ Victoria and Ethan share a private moment before their wedding.

Conflicting Emotions - @chaoticchopshopheart 📚 [mini: wip] With the Lawsuit and Penelope’s approaching boards, tensions are high. Penelope convinces Ethan to finally use her family’s law firm to represent him during their getaway at Martha’s Vineyard.

Part 1 | 2. Love Like Ours

Destination - @terrm9 ♥ Light NSFW - They’re in Miami, four years later. This time, Ethan needs to ask MC a certain question.

Everything I’ll Ever Need - @kaavyaethanramsey ☁ A whole fic full of romantic fluff and our beloved doctor proposing!

First Look - @dr-addieramsey ☁ It’s their wedding day and they share their first look

Fits like you and me - @perriewinklenerdie 🎭 Ethan plans to propose but the ring goes missing.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 [NSFW]

For Forever - @jerzwriter ☁ Day two of Ethan’s surprises for Casey’s 29thBirthday, and this one has a lasting impact

Forever & Always - @heauxplesslydevoted A quick little glance at Ethan’s thoughts moments before his wedding. Ethan POV

Forever’s gonna start tonight - @perriewinklenerdie Ethan and Claire elope.

Hot Idea - @jerzwriter ☁ Ethan & Kaycee are poolside on one of the hottest days in Boston's history; Ethan's eager to go inside until Kaycee mentions wedding planning. Then, there's a brilliant idea.

Husband and Wife - @potionsprefect ☁ 📷 Victoria and Ethan get married.

I believe congratulations are in order? - @coffeeheartaddict2 ☁ Ethan has proposed to Casey and Tobias wishes to celebrate. Feat. Tobias Carrick

I do - @ethanramseytwilight ☁ They get married. Told from both lovebirds' perspectives.

I do... - @liaromancewriter ☁ 📷 An impromptu engagement followed by a whirlwind wedding, Cassie and Ethan finally tie the knot…as told through Pictagram.

I do. Me too. - @jerzwriter ☁ They didn't want a lot of fuss, so they planned their "surprise wedding" in less than a month.

I Now Pronounce You - @paulfwesley During a quiet night in, Ethan asks MC a question.

I Object - @thanialis 🎭 Everyone is excited about the couple sharing a life together except one doctor who will have to come to terms that he missed his chance… or did he? Feat. Bryce x MC

I Thee Wed... - @liaromancewriter ☁ Ethan and Cassie are ready to say, ‘I do,’ but they forget one important step.

I’m All Yours - @lahamseiroshoe It’s their wedding day.

If I Got You - @a-crepusculo ☁ Ethan delightfully invited his wife for a final dance at their reception party

In the Morning. - @writinghereandthere 🎭 Long term unmarried couple deciding to get married when one of them receives a terminal medical diagnosis

If Today Was a Fairy Tale - @liaromancewriter ☁Ⓜ After a whirlwind engagement and wedding, how did Ethan and Cassie spend their first night together as man and wife?

Inevitably Together - @caseyvalentineramsey ☁ Ethan has something special planned to surprise Casey on the Propose day Feat. Zaid x Ines

It's the day!! - @zealouscanonindeer 📷 Ethan and Aspen's wedding day.

Just an Ordinary Day - @the-pale-goddess ☁ Just three people enjoying their day at the beach...Wearing wedding outfits.

Just Browsing - @writinghereandthere ☁ Ethan goes ring shopping.

Kaliwanagan - @lawyerlies 🎭 When Ethan receives a message from Louise would it ruin their wedding. Feat. Louise

La Ville d’Amour {The City of Love} - @genevievemd ☁ The first part of Ethan and Gen’s Parisian vacation. AKA When they secretly elope.

Love Like Ours - @chaoticchopshopheart ☁ Ethan proposes to Penelope in Martha’s Vineyard over a romantic candlelight dinner.

Love Me Like You Do - @bex-la-get ♥ Natalie and Ethan celebrate their honeymoon, the only way they know how.

Marry Me - @anonymousrookie ☁ Ethan proposes to Keegan during a weekend trip to Rhode Island.

Marry Me - @a-crepusculo 📚 ☁ [extended: wip] One simple question can change their whole lives forever.

Miami - @rookie-ramsey She never expected to return to the Miami hotel room.

Miami Nights - @heauxplesslydevoted ♥ While in Miami to celebrate their upcoming wedding, Ethan and Naomi sneak away from the festivities to have their own celebration.

My One and Only Love - @potionsprefect ☁ Victoria and Ethan read the letters that they wrote to each other.

New Journey - @mysticalgalaxysstuff 📷 ☁ It's the big day of their lives!

One Question - @potionsprefect ☁ Ethan has a special question to ask Victoria

Otherwise Engaged - @jerzwriter ☁ Ethan wants Naveen to help him pick out an engagement ring to present to Casey on the first anniversary of being an official couple, but Naveen gets the message all wrong.

Paradise - @potionsprefect ☁ Victoria and Ethan go on their honeymoon.

Picking Dresses - @daddyethanramsey The Girl Gang helping MC pick wedding dresses.

Plans For Paris - @genevievemd ☁ Gen makes one final suggestion for their planned trip to Paris, and Ethan agrees.

Proposal - @heauxplesslydevoted It doesn’t go as planned.

Something Happened on the Way to Forever - @danijimenezv 📚 ☁ [mini: wip] Wedding planning is not always as easy and smooth as people seem to thing. These are a few key moments and bumps in the road that happened in between their engagement and their actual wedding.

Part 1: The Engagement Party

Surprise - @ethanramseytwilight ☁ Ethan finally proposes to his 'special someone'.

The Best Man - @headoverheelsforramsey ☁ Ethan gets nervous over the best man speech at Tobias’ wedding, and turns to his wife for help.

The Diamond - @genevievemd ☁ MC and Ethan come home from a charity gala, and the night takes a surprising turn.

The Eleventh Hour - @inlocusmads ☁ Ethan wallows in his sorrows. Hope eventually arrives in the form of a pajama-wearing, file-bearing, frantically-running Jane.

The Engagement Party - @genevievemd ☁ The OPH Crew comes together to celebrate Ethan and Gen’s engagement. (Told through multiple POVS)

The Grape Escape - @liaromancewriter ☁ Ethan Ramsey has a bad day at work and Cassie introduces him to the art of vegging on the couch with takeout and a dumb movie.

The Light of His Life - @rookiemartin ☁ Ethan is asking her the most important question of his life.

The One with the Wedding Vows - @openheart12 It’s their wedding day!

The Proposal - @ramseyandrys Ethan chooses an engagement ring and proposes to MC.

The Year Between - @genevievemd 📚 ☁ [extended: complete] Following their engagement, Ethan and Gen navigate the year between the ring and wedding.

Ch 21: Dearly Beloved

This Christmas - @jerzwriter ☁🎄 Kaycee is eagerly looking forward to picking out their Christmas tree; but Ethan turns it into a night they’ll never forget.

To Casey and Ethan - @coffeeheartaddict2 ☁ Multiple perspectives on the celebration of the engagement of Ethan and Casey.

To Love and To Hold - @ofmischiefandmedicine ☁ Laura Levchenko is adamant about never getting married. One man succeeds at changing her mind.

Untitled Prompt (Proposal) - @omgjasminesimone

“We’re either getting married, or we’re breaking up.” - @bex-la-get ☁

Where It All Started - @aworldoffandoms Ethan’s got the blessing, he has the ring…but is he ready to take the plunge

Where the Love-light Gleams - @takemyopenheart ☁🎄 Christmas time is here, and Ethan has a very important question to ask Luz.

Will You - @takeharryandgo ☁ Ethan has a very important question for Meredith.

With all my heart - @bi-cookie A messy kitchen, an old pup, and one slow dance Leads to an unexpected proposal.

5 Times Sadie Hinted at a Ring and 1 Time She Didn't - @peonyblossom ☁ A fic featuring five occasions where Sadie Oakley hinted at engagement rings.

#open heart #open heart fanfic #open heart fanfiction #choices open heart #open heart fanfics #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey x mc

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avatraang · 3 years ago

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Writer Tag Game

I’m 18 days late but thank you @irresistible-revolution for tagging me <3 and thank you to @thetpot for tagging me more recently too <33

I’m going to tag @cats-and-metersticks @twinkle-toph @rllybritrlly @justoceanmyth @alllemagne :)

How many works do you have on AO3?

48 🤡 i have more on ff.net, but we don’t speak of those lmao

What's your total AO3 word count?

211743

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

sad, beautiful, tragic she could rule the world (and he loves her), truths and ideals (and the fallen in love), breezing into joke shops (in search of good coffee), (just say) you won’t let go.

the fandoms are as follows: doctor who, avatar: the last airbender, pokemon black and white, harry potter, harry potter. They are all older fics of mine, especially the doctor who one! phew, what a trip down memory lane lol.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do my best! Sometimes I forget for long stretches of time, and then in a flurry of energy I respond to a big load of them. But I think it encourages community, which in fandom is really all we have.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

i’d say one of my fremione fics, the liar and his lover. I am definitely prone to angsty writing above any other genres, but this fic definitely hit a level I don’t typically dare approach. still, even as the years have progressed, i really do continue to hold this fic near my heart.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

because i don’t write a lot of feel-good fics, it’s way easier to pinpoint a fic with an overall happy tone and ending! personally, i believe the happiest ending i’ve ever written is to my fic the sweetest rewards. it was definitely solely for my own enjoyment and had no intention of being sad, and i think the joy i had while writing it showed.

Do you write crossovers? If so, What is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

I used to write a few Disney crossovers, and I think one of them is up on ao3, but honestly, the one and only crossover that I’ve written that comes to mind even 6 (six!!!) years later is a captain america and narnia crossover i wrote that centered around bucky barned and susan pevensie. the premise of bucky and susan is actually super interesting to me, and i always meant to write another fic for them, but time passed and i never did.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

one time someone commented on a fic and told me that toph and sokka wouldn’t have pet names, which like, okay i guess? but as a whole no, i typically don’t get hate. if i did though i’d probably treat it like i treat everything else on the internet -superficially.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

i do, but not often. I started more recently! i have two explicit fics, and three fics that are mature. the M rated fics more just ~imply~ sex, but the explicit fics are, well... explicit about it, lmao. the two explicit fics are definitely porn with feelings, and have just been me exploring and bettering my skills in the sex writing department. one of them is a tokka fic, called lazy sunday, and the other is a maiaang fic, called a better companion.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

o.o i don’t think so!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

i have! on ff.net, though.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

twice, once with my sister (first fic i ever wrote), and again for the pjo fandom. the pjo one was never finished, but that’s alright!

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

ooof this is such a HARD question! i’ve always loved tokka, since atla’s original airing. fremione has also always been close to my heart! i have many more pairings i love, but let’s just call it a tie between those two lol

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

lmfao my pokemon black and white fanfic, truths and ideals (and the fallen in love). i left it open for a second part, but then i was like “eh, it works by itself too” and never went back to it even though to this day people still comment begging for a second part. it’s the chaotic energy for me lmfaoooo

What are your writing strengths?

i’d say my attention to the details of a setting (like a room or a person). i recently wrote a fic where i described aang’s tattoos in vivid detail, and i’m really proud of the explanation i came up with for how they just disappear in some places. i also have been told i translate emotion well into my writing without characters having to explicitly say what they’re feeling, which is good, because i think it’s rare for folks to actually come right out and express themselves.

What are your writing weaknesses?

while i give a lot of attention to a setting or a person, my attention to detail when it comes to dialogue and action is weak. i also am not the best at transitioning from scene to scene, most likely from the fact that i usually write fics that have long breaks of time between each moment.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I don’t really do it in any languages other than English or Spanish. Even in Spanish I’m wary, because it’s such a rich language with different dialects. I speak El Salvadoran Spanish, which is virtually the same as Honduran and Guatemalan Spanish, but differs hugely from Colombian, Cuban, or Mexican Spanish (for example). Therefore, I’m always a little scared to write dialogue in Spanish even though I’m a native speaker, just because of those huge differences in dialect. And when it comes to other languages, I pretty much never do it.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Pokemon, lmao. It was a truth or dare fic series that I cowrote with my little sister.

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

worship the flame. it was like making a daydream your reality. i had spent countless hours just thinking about the concepts, and then one day after talking to some folks in the hive mind server, sat down and penned the whole thing in one sitting. not just a favorite, but THEE favorite.

#my fanfiction #irresistible revolution #tag game #tag meme

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chocoluckchipz · 5 years ago

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A Bride for the Prince - 22

A03 ~ < Previous

The warmth of a mid-spring sunray glided up his cheek, travelled along the curve of his nose and zeroed in on an eye. Grumbling, Adrien buried his face deeper into the crook of his wife’s neck and sighed with satisfaction.

“Getting tired?” Marinette asked, reaching up to gently caress his cheek. “Should we head back?”

“Not yet,” Adrien leaned into the touch, whimpering as soon as Marinette withdrew her hand.

“Okay, but we should head back soon. It’s almost dinnertime.”

He hummed and pulled Marinette closer, if that was even possible, seeing as Adrien was already tightly wrapped around her from behind on a random garden bench. Seven months into their marriage but he still couldn't believe how lucky he was to have Marinette as his wife. She’d made him the happiest man alive in every sense of that word, and Adrien wasted no time in proving his affections back to her. It had become, in a sense, an essential part of his life, and judging from Marinette’s smile, she enjoyed his attention.

In a moment, she turned her sight back to the book in her hands and continued to read. “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”*

The last two lines Adrien whispered along with her, pressing the kiss to her neck at the end. “I love you. Have I told you that yet today?”

“Only a million times.” Marinette laughed, putting the book down and patting her lap. “Come here.”

Adrien barely kept his balance as he disentangled himself from behind Marinette and laid down on a bench, nestling his head onto her lap. He weaved his arms around her waist, a content sigh slipping his smiling lips.

“Are you sure you don’t have any feline ancestors?” Marinette giggled, burying her fingers in his hair, letting them run through the blond strands, lightly massaging his scalp and scratching behind the ears, just the way he liked it.

“Nope. I’m just a simple man with simple needs, and your attention is one of them. Don’t know if I’ll survive without this now. You’ve got me addicted.”

“Dork,” she chuckled, continuing her ministrations.

Adrien closed eyes, purring in satisfaction. If there was a paradise somewhere in this universe, for him this was it: a lazy late afternoon in the garden, sun warming his body, a cool breeze blowing by; cuddles with his wife, her fingers doing their magic, every touch sending pleasurable tingles down his skin; and his face pressed against her growing belly.

“How are the things with that proposal to change the law we’ve talked about? The one that’ll allow Alya to become the Royal Messenger?”

“All done,” Adrien hummed. “I’ll present it to Father once he’s back and has had a chance to rest.”

“I really hope he approves it,” Marinette said, running her hands down his back, kneading lightly at spots she knew Adrien loved. “You worked so hard on it, and if it goes through, this would change Alya’s life.”

Adrien turned his head to look at Marinette and grinned. “You know what else will soon change Alya’s life?”

Marinette stared at him for a moment in silence, her eyebrows slowly knitting into a frown, before her eyes blew wide. “No!”

Adrien grinned wider.

“Oh, my gosh! He’s finally going to do this?”

“He didn’t want to ask her before he had a home for them, but as of last week, Nino’s a proud owner of a lovely cottage on the town’s outskirts. Great place for them to start off. But don’t tell her yet. It’s supposed to be a secret.”

“And how do you suppose I keep something like this a secret from her?”

Adrien chuckled, turning back to press his nose to their unborn baby in Marinette’s belly. “You’ve fooled a king and his whole court once into thinking you were someone you weren’t for a month. You absolutely can keep this a secret for a few days—” He froze, his breath hitching, eyes wide, his hand shooting to his nose. “Did you feel it?”

“I did.” Marinette brushed his hair away from his forehead. “Have been feeling for the last few weeks. I told you, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but that’s a first for me,” Adrien said, barely breathing, his fingers dancing around Marinette’s belly as he nuzzled it harder. “Come one, kitten. One more time. For Daddy. Just one more kick or I’ll think it was just a dream.”

She couldn't hold back the giggles. “The kicks are getting stronger and more frequent with every day, so I’m sure you’ll feel plenty of them from now on.”

The sounds of approaching steps startled them both. Adrien groaned, tightening his grip on Marinette. “I don’t want to go yet.”

Marinette chuckled, bumping his nose with her finger. “You know you’re such a child sometimes.”

“All the time, if you ask me,” Nino said, coming closer. “An overgrown child, obsessed with his wife.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Adrien pressed himself closer to Marinette, snuggling up to her with a goofy smile on his lips. “No one here is obsessed with anyone.”

“Says the man who’s still laying on his wife’s lap when he has somewhere else to be,” Nino retorted.

“He’s got you there, Your Highness,” Marinette teased, giving Adrien’s back a gentle pat.

“Dinnertime isn’t here yet,” Adrien whined, tightening his hold on Marinette. “Go away.”

“But your father is, and he asked both of you to join him for dinner.”

Adrien looked at Nino. “Father’s back? He wasn't supposed to return until tomorrow evening. Did something happen?”

“You’ll have to ask him that yourself.” Nino shrugged. “I was just given an order to invite you two to dine with him.”

Adrien looked at Marinette. She shrugged her shoulders, his worry mirroring in her eyes. “I guess we’d better head back then.”

Reluctantly, Adrien let Marinette go and stood up. He fixed his clothes back in place and held out his hand for Marinette. “Shall we, my Lady?”

She took his hand and walked with him back to the castle, only to be mercilessly stolen away by Alya at the very end.

“I apologize, Your Highness,” Alya said, not the slightest hint of regret in her voice, as she took Marinette away. “But you’ll have to let her go. She needs to change into a more appropriate gown for the dinner with the King. This one is all scrunched up in front. What did you do, Marinette?”

“He used her lap as a pillow,” Nino added the fuel to the fire that was his girlfriend.

Alya’s smirk widened. “I know you two can’t keep your hands off each other, but could you not create more work for me while you’re at it?”

Adrien coughed to cover the fact his cheeks were turning red, Marinette’s face beside him flaming crimson. Nino hissed something in retort, but Adrien didn’t catch what he’d said.

“We should go prepare for dinner,” Adrien spoke. “Wouldn't be polite to make Father wait after a long journey.”

“Absolutely,” Marinette added, her voice trembling. “And I am kind of hungry already, so dinner it is. Let’s go prepare.”

Alya chuckled. “You’re always hungry these days, Marinette. It’s like you’re eating for four people, not two. It’s a miracle you’re still just as tiny as before, even with your baby bump.”

He should’ve left. They were a little late already. However, an opportunity to praise his wife was the only thing that Adrien couldn’t walk away from. So, he reached for Marinette’s hand and placed a kiss atop of her knuckles. “She didbecome four times as beautiful, though. Wouldn’t you say so?”

“Absolutely.” Alya nodded. “Pregnancy looks good on our future Queen.”

“Why ‘future’?” Adrien gave his wife that goofy, love-sick smile that seemed to have permanently settled on his face around Marinette. “She’s my queen already.”

Her cheeks pretty pink, Marinette shushed them. “Didn't we have dinner to go to?”

“Yes. Right. Dinner.” Adrien nodded and with a few final words, departed to prepare, leaving Marinette and Alya alone to do the same.

It didn't take them long. Half an hour later, Adrien picked up Marinette from her room and they headed to the dining hall together. Gabriel was already at the table, looking over some letters when they came in. Adrien greeted him with a head bow, Marinette with a curtsy.

“You’re back early?” Adrien asked once the food was served. “Did something happen?”

“No.” Gabriel shook his head. “I just finished everything I had to do earlier.”

“Does it mean the project is going well?”

Gabriel nodded. “Marinette’s parents are doing better than expected at overseeing it.”

Marinette perked at the mention. “How are they managing?”

“They sent you a letter. I’ll have it delivered to your room after dinner, but everything is going great. The orphanages are open and running.”

“Any results yet?” Adrien asked. “Concerning the street crime?”

“Yes,” Gabriel replied a bit hesitantly. “But we’ll need at least a year to see if getting orphans off the streets will be worth it in the long run. As much as I agree with Marinette on this, other nobles wouldn’t want to invest in anything without a confirmed return.”

“I agree,” Marinette added. “As much as I’m excited for this to get implemented across the kingdom, we need concrete results to convince the nobles first. Without their support, this will never work. Thank you for trying it out, though. I’m honoured you even considered this.”

A hint of a smile zoomed across Gabriel’s lips as he acknowledged Marinette’s words with a nod. “No need to thank me. You proposed an excellent solution for the issue we’ve been struggling to resolve for some time. It’d be foolish to pass on that.”

Adrien couldn't hold back a smile. A born leader who grew up as a commoner, Marinette saw a side of issues that Gabriel, Adrien, and all of their noble advisors failed to account for, and for someone who wanted to make their kingdom the best it could be, that was priceless. Marinette was proving herself to be a great asset to their kingdom, and slowly his father was starting to understand that, listening more and more to her ideas and opinions. Now, he was even implementing some of them. Soon, Adrien was afraid Marinette would have his father wrapped all around her finger just like his mother had.

He didn’t mind that in the slightest.

“We’re lucky to have her.” Adrien grinned at his wife. “She brought a new vision to the team, one both of us lack.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Gabriel nodded. “But enough about politics. I’m too tired for that now.” Shifting his sight to Marinette, he asked, “How is my grandchild doing?”

“Strong and healthy.” Marinette smiled. “Or at least that's what the physician tells me. All I know is that the baby started to kick up a storm in there.”

“I even felt it today,” Adrien added with pride. “A strong kick to my nose.”

Gabriel quirked an eyebrow, but seemingly decided against asking.

They spent the rest of the dinner in an easy-flowing conversation, after which Gabriel retreated to his quarters. Marinette tagged along with Alya for an evening stroll while Adrien and Nino headed to the sparring court to get some exercise before bedtime.

The evening flew by. Adrien bid goodnight to his companion and headed to his quarters, eager to finally spend some time with Marinette interruption-free. He wasn’t needy or clingy, and he certainly knew how to share, but stealing some privacy for themselves was becoming more and more challenging during the day. The only time they were truly alone with each other being the evenings and nights. That was something he couldn’t nor was willing to give up. Mostly because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to fall asleep anymore without Marinette by his side. He’d miss her warmth, her scent, her arms around him, the softness of her skin, her frequent turning and shifting as she’d try to find a comfortable position with her belly growing—

Adrien grunted, quickening his steps. Now that he’d felt their baby move for the first time, he’d spend the whole night with his hands on Marinette, trying to catch it again. Unless… she wanted him to use his hands for different activities which he’d gladly oblige to because this was Marinette, the most amazing, beautiful woman in the world, and he got those butterflies stirring in the pit of his stomach just from thinking about her.

When he’d gotten there, she wasn’t in the room yet, which was a bit unusual because Marinette’s bedroom had never really turned into anything more than her wardrobe and “getting ready” space, both of them preferring his bedroom to spend their free time in. When Adrien came back from his bath, Marinette was still absent. This time, however, sounds of laughter seeped into the room from behind the door that led to Marinette’s bedroom. He didn’t even notice how he’d gotten to the door and knocked.

The voices inside ceased, Alya opening the door a moment later. “Can’t wait to get your hands on her?”

He nervously chuckled.

“Just a few more minutes. Don’t worry, no one will steal her away from you,” Alya said, keeping the door mostly closed.

“I just wanted—”

“The wait would be worth it, Adrien,” Alya ignored his attempts to speak up. “Believe me, you’ll love it. She designed it herself, and the tailor has finally finished it.”

Adrien frowned in confusion. “Designed what?”

“You’ll see.” Alya’s smirk turned mischievous. She glanced behind herself and grinned. “And she’s done. Enjoy!”

Stepping away, Alya opened the door fully, revealing Marinette in a light-pink, flowy nightgown he’d never seen before in the centre of the room. Adrien forgot how to breathe. The gown was beyond gorgeous and made Marinette look incredible. The fabric cascaded down to the very floor, soft folds framing her baby bump. It showed just enough of the cleavage—that, mind him, got bigger with the pregnancy and he absolutely loved it—to intrigue and tease but not to expose too much. The shoulder stripes were made of the same ribbon that served as a belt just under her bosom. Her hair down, a light blush on her cheeks, Marinette looked more beautiful than an Aphrodite herself. Stunning, he’d say. It did things to him he’d rather not have witnesses to.

As if reading his mind, Alya scurried away. She said something before disappearing, but it was lost on Adrien as he stood frozen in his place, gawking at his wife.

“Cat got your tongue?” Marinette teased.

“No. Yes. I… I came— You weren’t in the room, so I thought I’d come here.”

Marinette gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry. It took a bit longer than I thought to read the letter from Papa and Maman.”

“Oh? What’s the news?”

“Pretty much the same things your father told us over dinner.” Marinette shrugged and looked at him with a mischievous smirk on her lips. “But do you really want to discuss the economy and internal affairs now?”

The sultriness of her voice, the look in her eyes, that mastery of her body language… Adrien swallowed, his stomach tightening with desire. “No. Not really.”

“Good,” Marinette said, slowly walking around the room putting out candles that lightened the space. “Because I was trying really hard to make myself look irresistible tonight.”

“Is that so?” He could hardly stand in his place. Why was he still standing in his place when he could go sweep his wife into his arms?

With the light of the last candle out, moonlight engulfed the room, making Marinette look almost ethereal as she slowly walked toward Adrien, her lips curved into a mischievous smirk. “Did I succeed?”

He took her in his arms as soon as he could reach her. Leaning close, Adrien whispered with a breathy voice, “Absolutely. I'm stunned speechless.”

“A new nightgown is all it takes to render you speechless, my Prince?” she teased, a light blush on her cheeks betraying her still-even-after-all-this-time-there shyness. Because no matter how much of a tease she’d become—which Adrien absolutely loved—underneath it all, this breathtaking woman was still his precious, sweet Marinette who blushed at the simplest of touches. Tilting her head to the side, she let a smile tug at the corners of her lips. “What will become of you when I pull out my other, more sensual nightgown?”

Adrien swallowed. “There are more—gowns? Like—like this one?”

“A couple. I ordered a few to get me through the pregnancy.”

“And are they all as gorgeous?”

“This one is the simplest of them.”

Adrien tried to stay as calm as possible because the fire in his stomach was raging by now. He ran his fingers over the satin straps and grazed them over the fabric edge atop her breasts. “You designed it yourself?”

“I did.”

“You should do it more often.”

“You think so?”

He cupped her face, bringing her in for a lingering kiss. “What do you think? By wearing just one outfit you made me fall in love with you all over again.”

“Is that even possible?” Marinette giggled.

“I know. I’m shocked myself,” Adrien chuckled. “But I’m willing to prove the sincerity of my words to you if you wish.”

“How can I refuse?”

With a swift movement, Adrien gathered her up in his arms bridal style. Just like that first night after their wedding. Just like every night after that. Marinette smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck, laying her head on his shoulder. Holding her tightly in his arms, Adrien walked back to his bedroom and gently laid his wife on their bed. Propped on his elbows, he hovered over her.

She smiled back at him, reaching out to tug him closer. “I love you, my Prince,” she spoke, words slipping lovingly from her lips.

“And I love you, my Princess,” he whispered, leaning into her touch before closing the distance between them.

* William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18.

#miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic #A Bride for the Prince #final chapter #fluff galore #prepare to go to your dentist right after #It was a fun ride #Thanks to everyone who shared it with us

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chaotichoshi · 5 years ago

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Staring/ Ricky Bowen

a/n: this is my first English imagine ever, so it's not very good and I'm aware of that. If u can, please comment what can I do to make my imagines better🙂

Warnings: none

'Come on Ricky, stop staring at her or she's gonna see it' said Big Red before waving his hand in front of his best friend's face. Ricky didn't really payed attention to this. He was too busy with staring at his crush, y/n, helping Ashlyn with hanging posters about an upcoming halloween party. 'She looks so pretty in that new shirt' said the curly haired boy before looking at his friend, who was clearly not suprised with what he just said. Big Red knew about Ricky's crush since the very beginning, and after three years was still the only person being the keeper of Ricky's secret. 'If you think so, just ask her out' said Big Red, when he realized that Ricky waited for him to say something. As an answer, curly haired just sighed and shaked his head. 'It's not that simple Red, you know it.' He said, looking at y/n again. At that moment, she was laughing at something with Ashlyn. Ricky could stare at her for the whole day, but there was one thing that made him look away that time. It was her eyes meeting his ones, the moment y/n caught Ricky staring at her.

'Looks like someone is interested in you' said Ashlyn with a smile on her face. Y/n knew, that Ricky was staring at her since the beginning of the lunch, so she just smiled in response. 'He's cute tho' she said, making her friend smile even more. 'I think it's a good idea for you to talk about it, you know he's staring at you everytime he has a chance, right?' said red haired girl, making y/n blush a little. She never told anyone because she wasn't sure if this feeling is real or not, but since couple weeks, she felt something towards that boy. Couple days before, she realized, that this feeling is 100% real, but still wanted to keep this for herself. 'But if what Ashlyn says was true' thought y/n 'maybe he's feels something too'.

Y/n didn't realized, that she said the last part, and Ashlyn heard it. 'Wait. You feel something to a boy and you didn't told me?' Ashlyn asked, trying to look serious, but after three or four seconds she laughed a little. 'You know, I wasn't sure if what i feel is real, until now. I think.' y/n said looking at Ricky, who was talking with Big Red at the moment.

'Go with it, girl' Ashlyn said, putting her hands on y/n's shoulders. 'Just tell him what you feel. It will be fine, I swear'.

Ashley was always a great observer, so she realized that Ricky feels something to y/n really fast. However, she wanted y/n to find this out by herself, not trough her or anyone else. Ashlyn showed y/n thumbs up, before letting her go to Ricky and finally confess her feeling towards him.

'Looks like someone's coming here' Big Red said, poking Ricky's shoulder. He looked up and saw y/n, walking towards him and his friend, without looking up from the floor. When she finally stood in front of Ricky's table, she caught eye contact with him and smiled. 'Can we talk?' y/n said, breaking thee eye contact for awhile. 'Uh- okay' Ricky said, very nervous because of the situation. The one and only y/n y/l/n just decided to walk to him ask, if they can talk.

'But you know, I meant like alone' she said, looking at all of the other students sitting and talking around them. He nodded and followed her to the school corridor. They stayed in silence for awhile, when y/n finally spoke. 'I need to know something' she said, making Ricky even more nervous than he was before. 'I know we're not friends or anything, but i think i might feel something towards you.'

Ricky's heart stopped beating for a second since he realized what she just said. She liked him, after all these years she finally felt the same as him. The curly haired boy didn't know what to say, his mind couldn't think of anything except y/n's words. The girl still stood up in front of him, nervously waiting for him to response. Instead of it, she felt his soft lips crashing against her ones, and she couldn't do anything else that just kiss him back. Their lips were conected till the moment, when they really needed to breathe.

'I love you too, y/n' Ricky said, smiling at her and pulling into a hug. Inside he felt like the happiest person on earth, standing with his whole word in his arms.

#hsmtmts #joshua bassett #ricky bowen #imagine #high school musical the series #high school musical cast #joshua bassett imagine #ricky hsmtmts #ricky bowen imagine #ricky bowen x reader #joshua bassett x reader #joshua bassett icons #ricky bowen icons

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sailorbellewrites · 5 years ago

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More Than You Can Chew

characters— taehyung x reader (aka kiddo) (ft. members of bts)

summary— taehyung has been (not so quietly) obsessed with the young rapper who eats glazed donuts at the corner table every saturday night for some time now. but everyone thinks dating her is biting off more than he can chew.

information— one shot. fluff. femme reader. character inspired by megan thee stallion, cardi b, and lil’ kim. longer than previous works. same universe as “no limit”, now titled the baking news au. there will be a second part to this titled jawbreaker, which will be released later this month.

warnings— strong language. mean & aggressive characters. casual mentions of sex and sexual behavior (but no smut because i’m shy). excessive mentions of the color pink. vague mentions of other celebrities and influencers. taehyung is an adorable tryhard.

more than you can chew—

On the outside looking in, Yoongi was kind of an asshole. He didn’t speak much and when he did, he never had anything nice to say. His face was void of most emotions, except for the sour expression that would develop when Hoseok laughed too loud in the backseat of your car. The happiest you had ever seen him was when the aforementioned male got too excited during a cypher and fell off the stage. Yoongi laughed hysterically for 30 minutes, much to Hoseok’s annoyance. He spent more time in the studio than he did with his fiancée, a fact that resulted in her calling off the wedding three times in the past year. He always wore black, even in the dead of summer. On the inside looking in, he was much worse. That’s why it’s all too easy to tell him “no” when he asks for a favor.

“Awww, come on Kiddo.”

“Fuck off.”

“I never ask you for shit—”

“So why ruin a good thing and start now?” Yoongi rolls his eyes at your words, body falling into the chair across from you. You eye his limp form slowly, appraising the black hoodie and ripped jeans combination he often gravitated to. He looked good, you had to admit. He always did. Yoongi had the bad boy aesthetic down pat, to the point where it came off as effortless. It wasn’t any wonder as to why girls threw themselves at him during club appearances. If you didn’t know what he was really like (and if he wasn’t dating your friend), you might have tried to bed him too. But you mostly envied Yoongi’s appearance, envied how easy he made dressing and rapping and just about everything look. You were always walking a fine line between putting forth too much effort and being called a try hard bitch or putting forth too little and being accused of looking for a handout. You sighed; being a woman in your industry was tough. “Where’s Hope?”

“DJ owes him money or something. He was pissed.” You shake your head, knowing just how intense an angry Hoseok could be. While you could only count on one hand the amount of times you’d seen him truly filled with rage, each new moment was much more scary than the last. The last time ended with him put in handcuffs, though you were able to talk the cop out of actually taking him to the station. “Not important. You need to do this thing for me.”

“No.”

“I’ll make it worth your while.”

You snort at the cheesy line he deploys. “I’m telling your fiancée you said that.” Yoongi shrugs, as though he was not at all scared of his lover’s wrath. As much as he claimed to hate the drama of their relationship, he often did nothing to stop it. In fact, you would find him actively stoking the flames. You suspect he gets off on it. “You’re such a dickhead. You know you don’t deserve her, right?”

“Whatever. If you do this thing, I’ll buy you donuts everyday for a week.”

You slam your hands flat on the table in front of you, using the extra stability to lean yourself closer to him. “You buy me donuts everyday for a month, original glazed only, and you pay full price,” you bargain in a low voice. You are fully aware of how ridiculous you look, perched on the table like some low level gangster, but you can’t find it in yourself to care. Shame was a feeling no longer within you.

Yoongi scoffs in disbelief, shaking his head before you even finish your proposal. “I have never paid full price here and I’m not gonna start now.”

You push yourself off of your table, throwing your hands up in the air. “Take it or leave it!”

“You don’t even know what I want you to do.”

“Take it or leave it!” You repeat even louder.

Yoongi curses under his breath, knowing he’s caught between a rock and a hard place. He shoots a quick glance behind him, instantly met with the wide expectant eyes of the bakery worker now playing cashier. Looking back at you, he sees you pretending to check your nails—long, pink, and sharp—as though you were bored by him. He scoffs again, wondering why he let his partner drag him into this situation before stating, “Okay, fine. Two donuts, everyday, for a month. Will you do it?”

You smirk, crossing your arms in victory as you lean back in your chair. “Sure. Now what am I doing for you?”

“Going on a date with your hero.”

Kim Taehyung has had a crush on you for some time now. It was no secret to anyone who frequented the small yellow bakery; he’d been smitten from the first day—or rather night—that you walked into Baking News. You looked like a model as you strut through the building, high waisted leather pants accentuating your curves and cleavage pushed up to ten in a lacy pink crop top. You ordered two original glazed donuts before he could even stutter out the pun filled greeting Seokjin had come up with, smirk settled on your lips as though you knew just how much you affected him. When he gave them to you half off because it was so close to closing, you called him your hero. He thought your voice sounded like honey. Taehyung was caught in a trance the rest of the night night, and quickly found himself being wrapped up in thoughts of you every time you walked through those glass doors.

He’s asked you out a few times. Movies, cafes, museums, and the park were all on the table for you to pick up at any time, but you never did. You had every excuse under the sun for why you couldn’t go out with him; you were always too tired, too busy, too unavailable. It made sense, in some ways. Rappers were like that. Or at least, that’s what he told himself to ease the sting of rejection. He held onto his hope that you would eventually say yes because, in truth, you had never given him a concrete “no”. Attached to every excuse of why you couldn’t go out with him was the promise of a “next time”. That “next time” is what kept him going, kept him giving you half priced glazed donuts even when it wasn’t closing time, kept his attraction to you alive.

Naturally, though, he got tired of waiting. Seeing Seokjin’s relationship flourish right before his eyes only made him want you more. He wished he could sit you on the counter and kiss you until he couldn’t breathe, wished he could bring you to the kitchen and “ice cakes” (if he was using Seokjin’s terminology). Taehyung was tired of being kept at arm's length. He couldn’t understand what he was missing; what you didn’t see in him. He knew you found him attractive. He heard you say it to Yoongi’s girlfriend before, hearing your “definitive ranking of the Baking News men” as he wiped down the table behind you. But attraction clearly wasn’t enough. Not for you, it seemed.

Luck was on Taehyung’s side one sunny Sunday morning in April, when Yoongi’s girlfriend rushed into the shop with an embarrassed look on her face. He had known the girl people affectionately called Boo for years, having gone to college with her and her sister, but they weren’t close. She was much more attached to Jungkook (in spite of her relationship with Yoongi), having spent lots of time outside of the bakery walls with the younger man. Thus, the beeline she made for Taehyung was strange; even stranger was the desperate plea she frantically whispered in his ear asking if he could give her two dozen glazed donuts and two cups of hot chocolate for free.

“You know I can’t do th—”

“Okay, but just lis—”

“Boo, my boss would kill m—

"I will lose the maid of honor at my wedding if you don’t do this for me!” She shouted out in clear cut frustration, only to slap her own hand over her mouth in shock. She looked around the bakery pitifully and, noting all of the eyes trained on her, lowered her voice. “Look, Yoongi and I got into it at the club last night—bad. He threw my wallet somewhere. We couldn’t find it. I’ll pay you back when I get all my new cards, I promise. You know I’m good for it. But if I don’t bring some kind of peace offering to her, she won’t be in the wedding.”

Taehyung’s eyes squinted in confusion. “I don’t get why you need donuts for this friend when you’re fighting with your boyfriend.”

“Well he’s my fiancé for starters.”

“Sure, sure,” Taehyung responded with an eye roll, motioning his hand for the woman in front of him to continue.

“And… I may have forgotten that I was her ride back home. She ended up walking by herself… in the rain.”

“Jesus, what the hell is wrong with you?” Taehyng chided, now understanding the source of her odd behavior. “I understand why your friend would want to quit your wedding. You’re an asshole.”

“I am not—listen, that's not the point. The point is… I need the donuts and the hot chocolate. That’s the only way I can start getting back on her good side. If I don’t, she’s never gonna talk to me again. She holds a grudge like you wouldn’t believe. She’s worse than Yoongi.”

Taehyung clicked his tongue, not exactly moved by her story, but knowing she wouldn’t take another “no” easily. “Why don’t you ask Jungkook? He won’t get fired, no matter how much he messes up. It’s too high of a risk for me.”

“I would, but she says you’re the only one who makes the hot chocolate right. Something about always putting caramel or cinnamon in there and that Jungkook doesn’t know how to do it. It has to be you.” Taehyung’s throat dried up at her words, understanding that this friend wasn’t just some random girl with a donut obsession; this friend was you.

Taehyung liked working the cafe side of the bakery more than the others. He didn’t hate icing cakes or kneading dough, but he thoroughly enjoyed the interaction that came from making the quick drinks and packaging small desserts. He could also keep his eye on you more easily when working the counter. That’s how he learned that you loved warm, sweet drinks, particularly when you were having a bad day. However, you found the bakery’s hot chocolate missing something; so Taehyung started experimenting with adding extra flavors to your order. When you told him that you liked the vanilla/cinnamon combination the best, he always made sure to add those for you, regardless of if you asked for it specifically or not. He didn’t do this for anyone else though; didn’t care to see anyone else smile the way you did when you lifted the cup to your lips and took a sip. So it had to be you that Yoongi’s girlfriend was talking about, because you were the only person who got special hot chocolate.

“Okay,” Taehyung said, voice confident, “I’ll get the things ready for you now. Should take about five minutes.”

“Wait… really?” The woman asked, a big smile spreading on her face. “Oh my god, I’m so relieved. You are saving my weddin—no, you are saving my life! I’ll pay you back in like a week, tops. I promise! I’ll even pay extra.”

“You don’t have to pay me back,” Taehyung said quickly, throwing his hands up. “I’ll cover it. Money is not that important. It would be like 15 thousand at most. You don’t need to stress over 15 thousand.”

“Oh,” she responded with a pout, voice deflating. “Well… I can’t do nothing… that would be using you. I’m not Yoongi; I don’t use people. What can I give you to pay you back if not money?”

Taehyung shrugs, unsure of what the woman in front of him could possibly give him before it dawns on him. “A date.”

“A date? With me?”

He scoffs. “With your friend. Get her to agree to go out with me just once and we’re more than even.” For a moment, Boo looks as though she is going to say no. Taehyung knew it would be a hard sell for you, not only accepting your friend’s apology, but then agreeing to go on a date to pay for that apology. But he can see her resolve strengthen and she gives him a firm nod.

That’s how Taehyung ends up sitting across from you on a chilly Tuesday night, watching you fiddle with the tangled up wires of your earbuds and phone charger. Your studio was small, but brighter than Taehyung anticipated. The walls were white, lit up by pink fairy lights that had small polaroid photos pinned between each bulb. The love seat and rolling desk chair you were currently sitting in were a pale grey color, but held bright pink and yellow throw pillows. On your desk were two white computer monitors, a set of studio monitors, a pink MIDI controller, a black control surface, and a set of rose gold over ear headphones with the word ‘kiddo’ engraved on each side. The whole space was, for lack of a better term, girly. Far girlier than you had ever presented yourself to Taehyung; but, as you told him, the design was on purpose.

“They’re so dark all the time,” you murmur, followed by a short ‘ah’ as you finally get all the cords untangled and manage to plug in your phone. You turn in your chair to face him, annoyed expression on your face as you continue, “every single one of them have these ugly black walls and stupid pictures of naked girls all over the place. I swear, half of them are hard every time they record. It’s suffocating and awkward. When I finally got the money to get my own studio, I had to make sure the space prioritized my comfort. You know?”

“I do,” Taehyung whispers back in awe. He decides he loves listening to you talk. Your voice was already the sweetest that he had ever heard, but your way with words was even better. The way you put words together always garnered a reaction from him, even if you weren’t trying. It wasn’t any wonder why you became a rapper. “How do the guys in your crew feel when they record here?”

“Hope doesn’t mind it, but everyone else thinks it’s excessive. I get it. It doesn’t fit the whole Kiddo image.”

“Why do they call you Kiddo, anyway? That’s nothing like your real name.” Taehyung asks, placing his elbows on his knees and holding his own face in his hands as he waits patiently for your answer.

You hum as you think of it, mirroring his pose in your chair and Taehyung didn’t think you could get any cuter than you were now. You were a far cry from the barely there outfits he often saw you wear in the bakery before (or occasionally after) performances, wearing a pink sweater dress that was two sizes too big if the way it swallowed you up was any indication. He just wanted to hold you in his arms, but he wasn’t sure you were there yet. It had only been two hours that he had been in the studio in which you insisted the date take place and you had kept your physical affection to a minimum. At most, you poked his shoulder and cheek when teasing him about the puns he had to say when taking orders at work. However, the conversation flowed so naturally and you hadn’t asked him to leave yet; he was sure the night would end with you feeling something more for him than before.

“You know the movie Kill Bill? The main character’s real name is Beatrix Kiddo.”

“You named yourself after a movie assassin?”

“Oh no. That would be so generic and cliche. Suga actually picked out the name. When I first started out, I was going by something completely different. But I covered this song called "Chill Bill" that got a lot of attention a couple years ago and someone commented that I… I think they said I killed or murdered the beat like Kiddo or something. I can’t really remember the exact thing too well. Anyway, Suga thought that it would be a good voice tag and then the tag became a nickname and… well here we are. I’m Kiddo now.”

“Can I listen to the song that inspired the name?”

You sit up abruptly. “Hell no. That song is awful. I’m so much better now.”

“You can’t invite me to your studio and not let me listen to your music. Be a better date,” he teases, causing you to release a small giggle. “You have to let me listen to something at least. What are you working on?”

You shake your head with a small smirk, turning back to face your desk. Your hand grips the mouse and you click around on one of the screens as you move to pull up your latest song. However, you still question him, asking, “Are you sure you want to listen? It’s kind of raunchy.”

“I can handle it.”

“My lyrics aren’t for the faint of heart, Taehyung.”

“Give it to me,” he requests excitedly and you instantly press play. He lets out a loud laugh as soon as he hears the lyrics, instantly understanding their intent even though they are in English. Your warning was more than necessary, as you spit out graphic depictions of sexual acts in a cocky tone of voice. The dichotomy of your current appearance with the words coming out of the speakers only makes him laugh harder, as his brain fails to connect the two personas together.

You stop the song, turning to face him with a shocked look on your face. “Are you really laughing at my music? Seriously?”

“No, no!” He chokes out, waving his hands in the air to show his innocence as his laughter winds down into sporadic giggles. “It’s not like that. I don’t think it’s bad. I’m just surprised by it.” He can tell from the look on your face that you don’t believe him. And Taehyung isn’t sure what comes over him in that moment, but he suddenly finds himself rocking forward to cradle your face in both of his hands as though he was handling fine china. You tense in his grasp, but make no moves to pull away as he whispers, “Don’t look at me like that. I wouldn’t lie to you. The song is good. You just look so much… softer than that song right now. It caught me off guard; but I would never laugh at you. I like you too much to do that.”

His sincerity has you reeling. Although he stopped speaking, he doesn’t let you go. Instead, his eyes study your face like you’re a piece of artwork, committing every new detail he finds to memory as though he’s worried that he’ll never see you again. His eyes finally settle on your lips, becoming lidded as you are able to guess what he wants.

“Are you going to kiss me?” You question quietly.

“I want to. Are you going to let me?”

“Yes.” He gives you two slow blinks before he bends his head down to slot his lips against yours.

It’s soft at first, the gentle pressure of his lips coaxing your own open as though he’s still asking for permission. When you angle your head up to move your lips against his better, he lets out a small whimper that sends a shiver up your spine. It continues on like this for a few seconds before he slips tongue inside of your mouth. All hell breaks loose within you then, as you wrap your arms around his neck to get closer to him. This act causes him to finally release your face, hands dropping to your waist. The kiss gets deep, tongues wrestling with each other as he fights against you to take the lead. When the struggle continues for longer than he would like, his hands firmly grip your waist and pull you forward off of your chair until you're straddling his thighs. He wins the battle when he pulls your hips down at the same time that he grinds his hips up. The friction is more intense than you were prepared for, only then remembering the only barrier between your center and his jeans was a thong you had slipped on in haste. He repeats the action once more before pulling away with a big gasp for breath. You rest your forehead against his as you take in deep breaths of your own. You make note of his expression—satisfaction.

“So is this date as bad as you imagined it being?” He whispers against your lips, fingers running up and down your back gently as he breathing finally calms.

You pout at his question. “Why would you ask that?”

“You avoided it for so long.”

“I… I was… I don’t know,” you stutter out, unsure of how to respond to the call out. It’s hard to think when the room is so hot, when he’s still so close to you, when his crotch is still pressed firmly against your own. “I just didn’t… wanna make things awkward?”

“Are things awkward now?”

“Not really. No.”

“So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“About dating me.”

“You ask a lot of questions, Kim Taehyung. It’s been one date.”

“I just know what I want,” he responds seriously, voice dropping an octave as he makes eye contact with you and holds your stare. “I like you. I like you more now than I did before. I want you. Do you want me too?”

“I… yeah. I guess I like you too. We can… Let’s see where this goes.”

“Here.”

You jump up to your feet at the sound of a familiar deep voice. Looking up, you’re met with the sight of a pink cardboard cup wrapped up in pale, ring clad fingers. “You came,” you note, reaching for the cup as you get your first real look at Taehyung that night. He easily lets you have it, hand slipping behind your neck to pull you into for a quick hug. He releases you with a kiss to your temple, a lazy smile sitting on his face that you admittedly find more attractive than you should. You often found yourself wishing that he wasn’t so outwardly handsome; dealing with an attractive partner always causes issues.

“You thought I wouldn’t?” He questions. You shrug. Taehyung was easily the most attentive person you ever dealt with. You woke up to emoji filled good morning texts every morning and didn’t hit your bed without a sweet phone call wishing you a good night. He commented on every picture you posted to Instagram, was five minutes early to every date, and sent food to your studio when he knew you were too busy to eat something real. You would have felt suffocated by his intensity if not for the lackadaisical way he went about being with you: most dates ending on his old couch, watching mind numbing TV shows as he cradled you in his arms to talk about nothing. He made you feel precious and that worried you. You were left wondering how he would treat you when he finally realized you weren’t worth your weight in gold.

“What’s this?”

“Hot chocolate.”

“Why?”

“Boo told me you were stressing.”

“Does this have cinnamon and vanilla in it?”

He rolls his eyes at you in a mock display of annoyance. “Doesn’t it always?”

“My hero,” you coo gently at him, voice upping in pitch as though you were speaking to a child. He doesn’t mind your patronizing tone, responding with a megawatt smile that would make even the most stoic person happy. You take a small sip, letting out a small breath some of the tension you were feeling begins to melt away.

“What were you doing back here?” Taehyung asks, concern pulling at the edges of his words, despite how casual he attempted to sound. He was never good at hiding his emotions when it came to you. You liked that. He never left you guessing at where you stood with him.

“Hiding,” you answer honestly, not ashamed of your actions. You had been crouched behind the club for at least twenty minutes, going over your lyrics and the performance blocking in your head again and again. Rehearsals hadn’t gone well, with Hoseok’s nerves shot due to the knowledge that his favorite producer would be in the building and Yoongi still pissed about some argument he had gotten into with his girlfriend. You also weren’t at your best, anxious about having Taehyung in the audience. He had seen videos of you performing before, but he had never been in the audience. You didn’t know what he would think of the environment and the people that it attracted. He claimed he didn’t scare easy, but everybody did.

“Hiding from what?”

“Just people. You know how I feel about people.”

“You must be glad I’m not just people then, huh?” He joked, hand sneaking over to yours and lacing your fingers together. You let out a non-committal hum that has him tightening his grip in faux warning. “Stop pretending that you don’t like me.”

“What time is it?”

He looks at his watch. “11:34.”

“I’m on in like 40 minutes,” you told him, moving forward to pull him to the front of the club. He lets you lead him, submitting to you more easily than most men would in his situation. Whereas many of the men who found themselves lucky enough to get close to you tried to wear you like an accessory, molding you against their form to make them appear more interesting than they were, Taehyung found solace staying in the background. It was nice.

“There you are!” Hoseok yells as you approach, his voice far higher in pitch than what was normal even for him. He stands in the center of your crew, wearing a distressed look on his face as he scolds you with the same intensity of an overworked stay-at-home mom. “We go up soon. Where have you been?”

“Hiding.”

“Not the fucking time for hiding dumbass,” he snaps at you, making Yoongi laugh.

The palm of your hand disconnects from Taehyung’s and lands on Hoseok’s chest with a loud thwap before you can blink. The following five hits are more deliberate though, punctuating your words as you shout, “Don’t call me a dumbass!” Hoseok lets out rough grunts at the hits, responding with a harsh shove that sends you flying back into Taehyung. You let out a snarky laugh.

It had taken Taehyung some time to get used to this aspect of your relationship with your friends. They all treated you as though you were one of the guys, pushing and shoving you around with glee in spite of the fact that some of them were much bigger than you. You always matched their energy though, whether physically or verbally. You never backed down, which is why they seemed to respect you. Still, it was hard for Taehyung to watch you roughhouse with them. He was afraid there would be a day it would go too far, although you were adamant that you could always handle yourself.

“Alright now, children, let’s calm down,” Yoongi said in a condescending tone. “We have to work soon, no fighting on stage.”

“Are you ready?” Hoseok asks, ignoring Yoongi’s words.

“Are you ready?” You parrot back, much to his clear annoyance. “I’m not the one who forgot my lyrics today. Are you ready?”

“Let’s just go inside,” Yoongi groaned out, making his way towards the entrance of the club in a way that demanded everyone else follow suit.

A VIP section of tables is where you lead Taehyung, sitting him down in a seat next to Yoongi’s girlfriend. “You should be able to see us really well from here,” you note, playing with the rings that adorn his fingers. “Nobody should mess with you either. If they do, tell her,” you instruct, nodding your head towards your friend currently having her own private discussion with Yoongi, “because she’s worse than me.”

“I heard that!” The girl in question yells back. You roll your eyes and press your lips quickly against Taehyung’s own before you make your way to the stage. “Oh fuck, who invited them?” The woman sitting next to him mutters angrily, pointedly staring at three men who walk into the section and take a seat at a table adjacent to where Taehyung is seated. He doesn’t recognize them, though it’s clear from the way others in the section tense up that they aren’t welcome guests. He makes a decision to ignore them, focusing his attention on the stage where a DJ continues to play popular hip hop songs from abroad.

Suddenly, the lights on the stage brighten up and the music comes to a stop. The DJ begins hyping up the crowd for the upcoming performance and Taehyung is stunned at the amount of excitement people show when your name is mentioned. It multiplies ten fold when a spotlight finally highlights your place on the stage and the performance begins. He’s mesmerized. You handle yourself well. You seem to know exactly when to draw attention to yourself and when to step back and let the others shine. It’s clearly calculated, but you make it look easy. It’s hard for all eyes not to be on you, though. You’re the only woman on stage and the hot pink crop top you’ve chosen to wear makes you stick out amongst the rest of your crew dressed in all black. When you happily dance around Hoseok as a distraction to make the man stutter out his lyrics, Taehyung can’t help but laugh.

“She’s good, right?” A voice asks, forcing Taehyung’s attention away from you. Next to him stands a large man, muscled arms crossed at his chest and covered in black tattoos. He holds an unimpressed gaze as he stares at the stage, as though he’s seen it all before. “He freaks out everytime she pulls that little stunt. He’s so whipped for her. She needs to just fuck the poor bastard already.”

“Excuse me?” Taehyung asks at the same time that Yoongi’s girlfriend shouts, “Why are you over here?”

“Calm down, Boo,” the man states with a light chuckle, eyes still on the stage. “Just here to support my girl.” The man then turns his gaze to Taehyung, “But I guess she’s your girl now, right? I see you all over her Instagram and Twitter. You must be really giving it to her good. She never posts about who she’s fucking.” Taehyung tenses at the man’s words, but does not offer up a response. The man looks back towards the stage with an amused laugh. “Didn’t think she would fuck pretty boys though. Her type is a little more… tough.”

He knows he’s being tested. It has happened more than once. As much as the guys you hung around pretended that they didn’t care about your dating life, they were actually extremely protective over you. There were endless threats whispered into his ear when he found himself in your studio during actual recording sessions. It never bothered him, though. He found it a bit heartwarming that men who would push you down to get the last piece of chicken would also fight for you so easily. But this was different. The man standing beside Taehyung eyes you like a predator stalking prey. It makes Taehyung’s skin crawl.

The performance ends with a bang, the energy in the room still electric as you make your way off the stage. The pride painted on your face as you are stopped by various people in the crowd warms Taehyung’s heart. It’s the happiest that he has ever seen you. You and the guys practically bounce back into the section, still riding the high of a successful performance. However, your happy steps slow to a crawl when you realize who is standing next to him. Of course the one person you didn’t want to see would find his way over to Taehyung. You could see the agitation in Taehyung’s face as the two exchanged words.

Sensing your apprehension, Hoseok throws his arm around your neck happily, leaning most of his body weight on you. “I can punch him if you want,” Hoseok offers lazily, as though it would be all too easy. It would, but you knew that the aftermath wouldn’t be pretty. “If your pretty boy won’t do it, I mean. It’s been a while since we’ve been in a real fight.”

You shudder slightly under his hold as you remember exactly what happened the last time you got into a fight. Hoseok was still banned from two clubs over that incident. “Calm down, Hope. I don’t wanna get kicked out of another club.”

“No fun,” he whispers in your ear. “Are you gonna go in there and save him?” You release an annoyed scoff at the idea because it’s nowhere near your job to rescue a grown man. “I wonder what they’re talking about,” Hoseok muses. “If I had to guess? Probably your weird bathroom sex kin—oof!” You cut him off with an elbow to the ribs, sighing in relief as he removes himself from you. “Go get your boyfriend before he’s not your boyfriend anymore, asshole.”

“Fine.” You make an effort to straighten your back and set your shoulders back before you start the short journey to where Taehyung is seated next to your ex. You slip your arm through Taehyung’s when you make your way there, only mildly surprised by how quickly he tangles his long fingers through your own and pulls you closer. You ex smirks at the interaction, pleased by the effect he had. “Hey,” you say much more confidently than you feel.

“Well if it isn’t our favorite girl,” your ex barks out happily, throwing you a wink. You can’t help but roll your eyes. “Me and your friend here were just talking about you.” Taehyung quietly grunts at the word ‘friend’ beside you, but neither of you make a move to correct the person standing in front of you. You knew responding to the minor dig would only further feed his ego. “We both had a lot to say.”

“Only nice things, I hope?” You ask, your question pointed more at Taehyung. The boy offers you a reassuring smile in return causing you to let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. You could only imagine the things that had been said, both true and untrue.

“I was telling your new friend here all of the things we used to do together. He couldn’t believe how wild you used to be. I’m so surprised by how much you’re holding back on him, love. That’s so unlike you.”

“Don’t call me love,” you respond almost robotically. It had become an automatic response to his continued usage of the pet name in recent months. In actuality it had been years since you were with the heavily tattooed man, but Taehyung had no way of knowing that. Past relationships were one of the few topics both of you agreed to stay away from. It would only cause more problems.

“Don’t exaggerate for my benefit,” Taehyung suddenly speaks up, eyeing the man thoughtfully.

“Hmm?” The man hums out.

“Lying is only gonna make you look like more of an asshole.”

“You wish I was lyi—” Before the man can finish his retort, you hear your name being screamed out over the thumping bass of the music. Turning your head, you see a red faced Hoseok running towards you.

Concern is etched on his features as he rushes out, “We gotta go.” He keeps shifting from left to right like he’s ready to escape from the confines of the roped off section at the drop of a dime. “Yoongi threw a couple bottles and the managers are not happy.”

“He threw a whole bottle?” Taehyung asks in shock at the same time as you shout, “He threw more than one? Again? Fuck me! Why?” Your ex laughs loudly at the news, himself having been a part of a few bottle throwings when he was with you.

“The same reason they always get us kicked out of places,” Hoseok explains with a frustrated eye roll. “You think at this point he would stop inviting exes to shows. Let the rejects stay where they are, right?” Taehyung snorts at Hoseok’s pointed insult towards your ex. You give him a grateful smile for the diss. “Anyways, we gotta leave before they ask for their money back. This gig is paying for my new equipment.”

“Noted.” You tug Taehyung up out of his seat quickly, before turning to your ex one last time. “We gotta go. It was not nice seeing you. Die.” Then the three of you quickly make you way out of the club before things can get even more tense.

The couple is still arguing outside when you exit the venue, Yoongi’s hand firmly wrapped around your best friend’s wrist as she screams at him to let her go. Yoongi’s knuckles are bleeding and you wonder if he cut himself on the glass or punched a wall again. You know better than to ask at this moment. Trying to stop them was a recipe for a disaster. “Fuck this. I’m going home,” Hoseok says frustratedly. He turns to you, forcing a hopeful expression as he asks,“See ya tomorrow?”

“Yup. Don’t be late.” Hoseok nods at you twice and winks at Taehyung before he crosses the street and disappears into the night.

“Does this always happen?” Taehyung asks suddenly, eyes still on the couple as Yoongi starts to yell back about who actually crossed the line. Taehyung knew that they fought, but he never understood the extent of it. Seeing it in person was a completely different ball game.

“Every single time we go to a club,” you say with a shrug, dropping the hold you have on his hand. “Perks of dating a rapper, I guess. Relationships don’t do well in this environment.” Taehyung’s eyes snap to you at the implication of his words.

“But Yoongi and his girl have been together for years right? It can’t be all bad.”

“And they fight all the time. She breaks up with him constantly. I mean, she’s been my friend for longer than she’s known him and it’s still hard for her to handle all of,” you stop, waving your hand around the wannabe rap boys dressed in baggy clothes, the club, and the drunk girls stumbling down the block before continuing, “all of this. And it only gets worse the more popular you get. No one really wants to deal with this.”

“I do,” he says, not even taking the time to consider your words. “I think I could handle it.”

You eye him carefully, cocking your head to the side as you formulate a response. The truth of your lifestyle was a bitter pill to swallow. Love was often the first casualty of Hip Hop, whether rappers liked to admit it or not. You weren’t sure if your words would ruin the good thing you had going with him. “Taehyung, you saw my ex. All that animosity between us comes from him being insanely jealous of the people around me. He couldn’t handle it.”

“I’m better than your ex.”

“Okay, but it’s not just jealousy that comes with this. Do you really think you could handle guys constantly hitting on me? Slapping my ass on stage? Calling me a whore in diss tracks? Trying to spike my drinks or give me drugs?”

Taehyung moves to wrap his arms around your waist, pressing the front of your body against his own. He sways gently with you in his arms, pressing soft kisses to your forehead as he thinks. Finally he settles on, “For you, I could handle all of that and more.” He pulls away from you slightly to stare into your eyes deeply, before leaning into to press a kiss against your lips. He pulls back once more to whisper against your lips, “I just want to be with you. I don’t care about the rest.”

“Hmm… you really are my hero.”

authors note— there will be a continuation of this couple’s story called jawbreaker released later this month. jawbreaker was originally meant to be a part of more than you can chew, but it ballooned past what i imagined and i need more time to finish. hope you enjoyed this and will read jawbreaker when it’s released.

#taehyung scenarios #v scenarios #bts scenarios #kim taehyung #another long one #kim taehyung scenarios #taehyung fluff #v fluff #sailor belle writes #au: baking news

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zukofenty · 4 years ago

Text

always be my maybe

➜ Summary: The one where Zuko and Katara could never quite get their timing right. Especially when the universe throws a lost condom, thousands of miles, and a baby in their way.

“I will literally french braid my pubic hairs and never open my pussy to anyone ever again if this condom doesn’t kill me. Please don’t let it kill me.”

➜ Genre: Modern!AU, Celebrity Chef!Katara, Doctor!Zuko, Love, Rosie!AU

AO3 @zutaraweek

“Go a couple rounds, leave Zuko’s dick up in a casket!” Toph screams into the microphone, undeterred by the various guests who stare up at her, mouth open and half-chewed, dry-as-fuck chicken spilling out. It wasn’t her fault, really! As soon as Zuko handed the mic off to her, he basically gave her free reign to spit a Megan Thee Stallion verse in his honor. “Sing with me, bitches! Look up the lyrics on Genius.com, Cheryl!”

“Sit down !” Katara squeezes out from clenched teeth, ripping the device out from the girl’s grip.

“I didn’t even get to the chorus, you fucking whore .” A bridesmaid nervously plucks the mic from their table and avoids eye contact with both of them. “What’s going on with you, bitch?” Toph asks quietly. She could tell Katara’s been doing her fake smile for the last twenty minutes. The girl was practically going to break her face open with how hard she was grinding her teeth.

“Just thinking.” Katara wants to smack herself in the face, pinch a nipple and bring herself to reality. Everything felt too real, and Toph could sense it. She’s the type to somehow sense when Katara shifts in her seat a certain way to covertly satisfy a cooch itch, and then buys her Monistat the same day.

She hates that she could never hide any emotion from her. Toph could always figure out the puzzle pieces that were Katara. One of the few to know the real her, besides Zuko.

Sometimes Katara thinks the younger girl knows her better than him. At least now. Especially now.

“About?” Toph takes an experimental sip from the wine glass, and gags. The juice tasted like Gatorade and cum. “Why the fuck would anyone want a dry wedding? Weddings are the only time you get to see your alcoholic uncle vomit all over the bride’s shoes, and then your closeted aunt has to wipe up the puke and her reputation from the floor while thinking of her secret girlfriend at home watching Tiger King .”

“That example was extremely specific and extremely unnecessary.” Katara brushes a crunchy curl, doused in hairspray, from her eyes.

“Sorry, I got distracted. I had dick on the brain, or whatever Rihanna said,” Toph mumbles, risking a bite of the chicken.

Katara turns to see him at the couple’s table in the center of the extravagant wedding, and sighs. “And for your information, I was just thinking when will he penetrate my esophagus? You know, just girly things.”

Toph has the gall to slap the girl on the cheek.

Katara holds her stinging face, eyes narrowed in an unspoken threat for fucking up the parts of her face she didn’t set with powder (she was going for a dewy look, sue her). “Not fair! You were the one who called my throat the baby chute earlier today!”

“Ok, throat goat. One, he’s getting married. Two, you’re sick.”

“My therapist will most likely cosign that,” Katara sighs. Toph holds Katara’s hand and leans her head on her shoulder as they watch Zuko mingle with guests.

This is the happiest day of his life.

Her best friend of twenty odd years was getting married. He looked so handsome, so happy. A suit that looked like it would cost someone’s rent and a half casually hugging his muscular frame. A blinding smile on his face, cheeks flushed from champagne and excitement.

When he turns her way, his smile grows impossibly wider. Toph clinks on a champagne glass with a fork, breaking it a la Princess Diaries , and Katara could feel the stares of nearly everyone in the room, ready for her speech.

It should be the happiest day of my life, too.

Right?

Katara thinks she wants to cry.

Now, how come none of those Judy Blume, coming-of-age books have a chapter on how to write a Best Woman speech for your best friend getting married to another woman, even when you were struggling with the fact that you might have been in love with him for the past two decades?

Bitch, what the fuck do you even start that Google Doc with?

Does she start at 4 years old? When Katara thinks Zuko is an annoying piece of shit?

But, you know, he’s her piece of shit.

Guys have hepatitis, or cooties, or whatever Sokka said, she couldn’t exactly remember. All she remembered was Zuko sucked. He stole her crayons and made fun of her Hello Kitty backpack on the first day of school. He was the stupid one, not Hello Kitty . Never Hello Kitty . She’d shoved his face into the playground’s wood chips, threatened to cut off his peepee for breathing down her neck with his retainer breath, and even stuck his head in between two slices of white bread and lovingly referring to him as an ‘idiot sandwich’ (Sokka let her watch too many Gordon Ramsey hosted shows while their dad was working late).

Zuko and Katara were practically inseparable ever since.

Or 10, when you were asking for trouble if you fucked with Zuko.

He was a tiny kid, glasses too big for his head. Hair shaggy, clothes too oversized for him (just the way he liked it). His dad had tried beating it into him that it showed weakness by not making waves, not being loud and proud. But, he was quiet by nature. For him, it was just easier.

Not stirring the pot, being the observer, looking in from the outside. He was just Zuko , he liked Wonder Woman comics and figuring out what other words besides BOOBIES he could spell with his calculator instead of actually doing his math homework, because he was bad at math. Bad at everything, really. Everything but band class. Even if he did hate that stupid fucking tsungi horn.

His mom would hide his report cards from his dad, especially the ones noting how shy he was (Mrs. Kim had used the exact words ‘very antisocial, very easy to bully’). Even when Ursa would ask him to try, try to make friends outside of Katara, he was always a stubborn little thing. Something you got from your father , she would say, the smile slipping off her face just the slightest.

It was just more fun being by himself, the only exception he made was Katara. He spent his recess scribbling down a plot for a Love Amongst the Dragons Fanfiction and listening to Katara’s iPod he’d steal from her, just because he could , after she snuck it out from her backpack for the 10 minute break they had. It was the iPod she spent the last two Christmases saving up with Sokka for. Zuko insisted he could master Ludacris’s rap in Usher’s “Yeah!” and practiced the Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays she had custody of the device.

Some days, Katara would sit beside him in her signature puffy blue jacket, struggling to fold herself to fit on the blacktop beside Zuko. The patented jacket her grandmother forced her to wear every single day obstructing her abilities. He snickers, but keeps quiet, content with plotting out a story that he would hopefully get to type out on the school library’s computers if his mom picked him up late again. She usually did, much to the dismay of the ladies at the front office. They typically hissed at him (which made him cry, to which they would have to offer him a cherry Otter pop so they wouldn’t face a lawsuit) and called his mom words he couldn’t repeat without getting in trouble (“Whore”).

Katara would babble on about her day, sometimes thinking of ways for his characters to die a painful death, or cooking up Fanfic plots for Beyoncé and Britney Spears to find love among the chaos of a zombie infestation. She always insisted she brought the creative range to their friendship. Some days though, Katara forgets all about him and plays handball with all the most popular girls in school.

Zuko’s jealous.

(Sometimes.)

She’s my best friend! He wants to scream in their faces. At the end of the day, he thinks he’s going to lose her. The day she realized she was too good, too cool for the likes of him.

“Chan, stop it!” Zuko squeaked, his notebook snatched from underneath his nose. The boy was always picking a fight. Your dad buys you a Motorola flip phone and suddenly you think you’re the shit.

The boy sneers at Zuko, flipping through the pages. “What do we have here? Are you drawing Shrek with boobies? You’re gonna jack off to that later, freak?”

Before Zuko could get a word in and defend his honor, Chan’s entire body was shoved to the ground, a dainty foot cased in a light up, white Skechers sneaker pressing into his face. Zuko couldn’t help his glee as Katara could barely be peeled off and stopped from repeatedly slamming Chan’s face into the hopscotch chalk court. “It’s all ogre now, bitch!”

She made sure to pin her detention slip to her Bratz backpack with pride. Zuko buys two treats that day from the student store before he walks her home.

“You’re my best friend, forever and ever,” Katara declares, head held up high. Zuko saw through it, though. He knows she’s scared of what Hakoda has to say, what Gran Gran has to say. So, he holds her hand tight, trying to relay his gratitude in the touch.

He licks at his Spongebob popsicle. The eyes had melted off and looked more like someone’s worst nightmare than an icy treat. Katara had wanted his cherry Otter pop, and he happily handed it over. “Pinky promise?” He holds out his finger.

Katara hooks her finger around his, dwarfing his tiny digit. Her outstretched smile stained orange. “I’ll break yours if you ever forget.”

At 15, Katara came to the realization that men have the emotional intelligence of a Souplantation crouton (may Souplantation rest in peace).

Growing up, with their dad and grandma always at work at their store, Katara was always in charge of cooking. No matter how many times she’d try to get Sokka to do it, he always insisted he was far too busy with taking out the trash, killing bugs, hating women. So, she was stuck with it, and honest-to-Rihanna, really liked it. Not that she’d ever let Sokka ever get the satisfaction of knowing it. It was her time to be alone, gave her the space to pop in a Cheetah Girls CD and pretend she won Masterchef with the struggle meal straight out of a Spam can she had to pound on a few times to get it to squeeze out from its gelatinous casing, or a whitewashed recipe she tried replicating whenever she catches a Rachael Ray rerun.

Though, Katara’s favorite time was chopping up the green onions under Ursa’s careful eyes, a hand always just there in realign the knife just in case she’d carelessly cut the green onions too big to garnish. Then, Ursa would then take out scissors because nobody had time for that. When his dad wasn’t home, Zuko’s mom opened up their doors across the street to the siblings, rambling about the next big painting she was planning as they scarfed down a home cooked meal.

Zuko was similar to his mom in that regard. They were the type of people who managed to make everyday moments larger-than-life, made it infectious, too. When it’s nighttime and he’s snuck into and snug in Katara’s room, he’d tell her dreams too big for anyone’s comprehension. Sometimes he dreamed he had tits that would leak chunky chicken noodle soup. Sometimes he’d ramble until her eyes are flitting shut and he’s left talking to himself and measuring his hand with hers, securing the leg she instantly throws over his waist. He’d like to think he was her only exception in the Souplantation crouton narrative.

Her bed is starting to smell like him, too. His favorite Costco brand shampoo and conditioner that he leaves in her bathroom, permeating her nostrils when she pulled him close. She even let him put up a Drake poster right next to her plethora of Rihanna ones, but only after he let her draw a penis on both his and Drake’s face. What he didn’t account for was her using a permanent marker, or the fact he couldn’t scrub it away from his cheeks for the next two days.

It was easy like this, just the two of them.

He’s there for all the birthdays and Halloweens and Christmases that left her not quite feeling whole. When things were hard, when things fucking sucked, when she wanted nothing more but to die. He was there, (stupidly) holding out his hand and willing to be the eye to her hurricane.

At 15, Zuko decides Katara feels home.

At 18, Zuko had already been Katara’s many firsts.

He was her first buffet partner, and brought back his Justin Bieber haircut just to pretend he was 12 so they could qualify for children's rates and a complimentary Oreo cheesecake because they were always celebrating his “birthday.”

Her first clubbing partner the second she turned 18, rubbing her back when any Beyoncé song with a Jay-Z feature came on because the second he cheated on Beyoncé, he cheated on everyone in the Beyhive. The first one to have to hold her as she hurled on his shoes, the first one to have to take her to get her stomach pumped.

The first person she tried to roll a joint with.

“I don’t need to learn that.”

Katara purses her lips. “And why not?”

He gestures to his face. “I’m too pretty. Only ugly bitches know how to do that . ”

Sokka thinks he needs to intervene when he hears Zuko’s tsungi horn case being chucked across the room .

The first person she (almost) fucked.

His family life was, for lack of a better word, fucked up. Katara had been witness to the drinking, the drugs, the crying. The nights where she sometimes didn’t know if the person standing in front of her was Zuko. She just wanted one night away from it all, just one night out on the town.

“That was kind of terrible,” Katara admits easily, wincing because she was sure he spilled Papa John’s garlic dipping sauce in his shitty Corolla’s air filter last Tuesday. He tried positioning his arm naturally underneath her head while their half naked bodies were pressed together, but he ended up smacking off her glasses. He even had the audacity to contently sigh as though he accomplished something, rather than just tangle her hair and give her a tension headache.

She felt lied to! Cheated! Bamboozled! Hoodwinked! All the Shrek and Y/N stories on FF.net could not prepare her for the fact that there weren’t any tongues fighting for dominance, or any mouths that tasted like cinnamon or musk or shit like that. It was just retainer to retainer and smelled distinctly of her awkward friend (cheese). It was sweaty and a lot of weird humping and felt like a visit to the gyno.

“Hey! I thought it was pleasantly average.” He clears his throat. “You know, besides the fact you farted mid-insertion and I started crying after 20 seconds.”

“You mean right after you came, right?” She says matter-of-factly.

He glared. “Is it my fault you have a gorilla grip pussy? Is it?”

“Zuko, you’re so fucking — ”

“What happens when you put a hot dog in the microwave for 2 minutes?” He crosses his hands and folds them over his lap like a professor waiting for a volunteer to answer the equation on the board.

“So in this metaphor, are you calling my pussy a microwave?”

But in true Zuko and Katara fashion, it was clumsy and a mess and could be erased with an emergency Burger King outing where they ate in silence and pinky promised never to speak of it again.

She wonders if Zuko should’ve been her first date to prom, too.

She wants to stop feeling so bothered . She couldn’t quite pin it, but lately everything he did frustrated the shit out of her. How he was taller than her now. How he didn’t need her to fight his battles because he goes to the gym now and wears a fake Gucci belt because he’s just so cool (brooding Asian guy is the trend, and Zuko thinks he’s the blueprint). How he said yes to going to prom with Mai, the prettiest girl in their grade.

“Don’t look in there!” Katara yelps, a blush creeping on her cheeks.

“Why?” Zuko questions, taken aback. He was entirely too comfortable in her room.

“Um. Maybe I don’t want a freak going through my dirty underwear pile!” Her eyebrows are halfway done, and she only has one eyelash glued on. She was stressed, scared her dress might not fit with how many of Sokka’s cookies she stress-ate because she just wanted the night to be perfect .

“Relax, what are a few discharge stains going to do to me, huh? If anything, it gives your pussy some much-needed personality.” Zuko wasn’t going to stop until he found his fake Gucci belt in Katara’s closet.

“Zuko!” Katara screams at the top of her lungs.

“Do I have to remind you about the time you broke our friendship bracelet while masturbating and I dug the bead out of your vagina like the good friend I am?”

She shoves him back from the closet, crowding in his space. That belt was going to remain in its rightful place. “Oh, fuck you! I took the fall for you when you opened your laptop in history class and forgot to exit from your “VIBRATING PANTIES” porn tab!” She pushes him before plopping on her bed.

Katara buries her face in her pillow at that point, too entirely embarrassed and body too hot to continue to look at his nonchalant face. He doesn’t quite remember when exactly Katara became so cute .

Pretty? Definitely. Fearless? For sure.

But blushing Katara, embarrassed Katara, cute Katara?

He thinks it’s because they rarely saw each other now, despite his patented place in her bed. His band, Hello Zuko, was aiming for at least a few dive bar performances to build a reputation, especially with their new title track “Tennis Ball.” Katara was a familiar face at their town’s soup kitchens.

“Where are you going?” he would sleepily mumble as he tried taking his midday nap before late night performances.

Katara’s hands are full with ingredients, swaying side to side and eyes red and drowsy. “Trying to temper chocolate. Why? What’s up?”

She never misses a performance, though. Comes to them with a sparkly poster doused in glitter, and t-shirts with his face on them and everything. He never misses a fundraising event, making sure to bring a steaming thermos filled with tea because Katara was never the type to remember to take care of herself, and always buys out her fundraising goodies (even her overbaked brownies.)

He pulls her up by her ponytail, cupping her face in between his hands.

“You look cute.”

“You look like the human equivalent of toeless socks,” Katara mumbles, face squished in between Zuko’s hands. “Why are you giving my clit piercing a kiss kiss right now? What do you want?”

Zuko shakes her head in between his hands. “Pinky promise me you’ll drop all penises to dance with me if they play any Usher song?” It was like he was in fifth grade all over again. “Call me a Nissan because I just want you Altima-self.”

She lets out a cackle, the sound nearly deafening. “Don’t worry, the DJ will get us falling in love again in no time.”

“Do you have to go with Jet?” He asks, pouting. He lays his head in her lap, too entirely preoccupied with picking at her pilling sweatpants to look at her questioning eyes. They promised they were going to be each others’ dates at the beginning of the school year. It was more fun going to dances with Katara. She knew how to do the worm and every lyric to every Rihanna song out there (but she refuses to sing any with Chris Brown parts).

“What? You know I like my men stupid.” She runs her hands through his locks, undoing the crunchy gel job that Iroh had painstakingly spent time on. Zuko didn’t have the heart to tell him it made him look like a youth pastor.

“You do like your communal meat thermometers.” He wants to keep the hurt out of his voice.

She shoves him off her, getting up to put on the dress hanging off her closet’s door handle. “You’re going with Mai, remember?” She yells through the closed closet door.

“But the thing is, I’m not planning to fuck her afterwards at the shitty hotel like it’s some type of CW show with some old bitches playing teenagers!”

“Just say XOXO, Gossip Girl .”

He still resents her for getting him invested in Blair Waldorf’s headband collection. “It’s not my fault Jet looks old. He looks like he’s at least 27 for fuck’s sake!” His face grows more distressed as he spits out each word. He only said yes to going with Mai after finding out Jet asked Katara using some shitty poster that said “my heart is always running when I see you” with a box of Nike outlet sneakers after English class.

“I think you’re just jealous that I emptied my intestines for someone who is about to be in it within the next three hours. When have I ever done that for you?”

Zuko’s about to retort something until Katara slams open the door, flooding his eyes with a dusty blue, curve hugging dress that did weird things to him. Like make his heart beat out of his chest, and his throat all dry when he’s searching for the words to say. Looking for the right words that say he thinks it’s impossible someone’s smile could make sunsets brighter, make the stars twinkle even more, make the unthinkable just a fingertip’s grasp away.

“Can you see the outline of my underwear and/or desperation from the back?” Her spin has him bumbling like an idiot.

He wishes it was Katara that night. Letting him shyly press his sweaty fingers into her waist as Katy Perry’s “E.T.” pierced their eardrums. He knows she would have pinched his nipples as punishment, all things considered. But the fluorescent lights of the disco ball would’ve highlighted how her pretty flush would dust her cheeks, and he would hold her close to his beating heart despite her complaining her foundation would stain his Target dress shirt, and everything would make sense.

“Did you cum?” Jet was absolutely pretty with an oh-so fat horse cock. Too bad he was like the Justin Timberlakes of the world, and always spoke unprovoked.

Katara scoffs. “Yeah, I came to my senses.” She flicked his forehead. “How would I do that? Tell me. How the fuck would a few thrusts and you panting your Sweet and Sour sauce breath in my ear get me off?” She shoves the sweating boy off her. “Can I say jk and will it make me a virgin again?” The hotel room had scratchy sheets and smelled like a waterpark bathroom.

He groaned. “I’m sorry .” He’s completely unremorseful. “Your tits smell like Cinnabon’s cinnamon rolls and I couldn’t help myself!” Katara is about to cut his dick off for breathing in the same vicinity as her, before a gasp stops her entire world.

“Zuko!” she screeches, opening the hotel door with the same devastation as when Britney Spears discovered Ryan Seacrest wasn’t gay painting her features.

“You know what they say.” Zuko’s smirking, entirely ignoring Katara fuming. “Chlamydia is the powerhouse of the cell.”

“You’re. A. Dick!” She says in between smacks to his head. Jet makes a speedy exit, still pantsless and clutching his suit to his chest, while Zuko mouths a ‘ call me’ to Mai, who amusedly waves goodbye to Katara.

“Oh god, this is exactly like the bead incident all over again.”

“ You’re not helping! ”

“Maybe we’ll find Atlantis up there too,” Zuko murmurs, concentrating on positioning the hotel’s mirror under her legs.

“Please, Rihanna. Have mercy on me.” Katara’s hands are in prayer mode as Zuko turns on his phone’s flashlight. “I will literally french braid my pubic hairs and never open my pussy to anyone ever again if this condom doesn’t kill me. Please don’t let it kill me. All those times I took an extra gummy vitamin were a joke . I never wanted to die, I just wanted to feel a little thrill in my life. Please—”

Zuko screams when the squelch of the condom splatters onto the mirror.

“You’re wearing underwear under there right?” He likes the look of his blazer draping over her, buttoned to look like a chic, oversized dress and not because it was the easiest thing to throw over Katara to run and grab Plan B.

“No, because I would obviously let my fat cooter out, cute and bare and vulnerable in a Walmart.”

“A simple yes would have sufficed.”

She’s reaching for the box and wincing at the price when she feels a gentle nudge on her arm. “Ma’am, your entire pussy is out in a Walmart,” the employee breathes out pathetically.

“I am well aware.” She ekes out.

The employee eyes her up and down with a gaze that practically calls her a whore . “Please put her away.” Zuko’s face grows beet red as he tries holding back a laugh.

It was always easy like this. When the world was just Zuko and Katara, holding hands in her driveway while they watched the sun rise in his shitty Corolla. She’s still wrapped up in his blazer, he’s since loosened his cheap tie and his hair is sticking every which way. She likes his smile, especially now that it comes so easy.

He’s smiling a lot more now that his father is gone. Ozai essentially told Azula and Zuko to fuck off , and ran off to some big city to steer a hospital with too many controversies and too many white guys at the helm. Iroh came back from his meditation sabbatical, enthusiastic to take care of the siblings. Zuko seems a lot happier with Iroh around, and even spends nights sleeping in his actual bed. (Katara’s a little hurt, but keeps that to herself).

She wishes she could bottle up these moments with Zuko up and just hold them in her hands. Moments when they were still young and curious and still had time to wait for life to figure itself out. She wants to find a way to make these a permanent fixture, instead of memories that would fade with age. “Let’s get out of here,” he offers up, eyes starry.

“Yeah?” She folds her knees up to her chest, and he taps her under her chin to level their gazes.

“ Republic City . We can make something out of lives. Medical school, culinary school. Get out of this shithole. Get away from our past.” His smile is contagious. “Best friends, forever and ever, right?”

She’s so pretty, her wide eyes sparkling as they take in the rays of sun. She returns his smile. “Best friends, forever and ever.”

Katara remembers how Ursa would say Zuko always dreamt too big, his heart always wanting so, so much .

“It’s a blessing, but more of a curse,” she would note, with the wisdom only mothers are capable of possessing. Sometimes, Katara selfishly thinks the day Ursa left hurt her more than it hurt Zuko. They were impossibly close, to the point where Zuko even had to intervene when Ursa started siding with Katara during their arguments (he knows in his heart his Mother’s Day macaroni portrait of her was better).

She would wonder how the world could let her live like this, dangling something she’s always wanted right in front of her face, only to snatch it away. Wonder if it was easier to die, than live with a hole in her heart that seemingly doubled in size overnight.

“Zuko, please look at me.”

He’s mad, she could tell. With his pout and the way he was forcibly trying to squeeze his eyes in a glare. He’s been sitting in the same spot in her bed, eyes trained on tutorials on how to convincingly persuade your doctor to give you an adderall prescription and “who bit Beyonce” conspiracy videos.

“Well, what if I just wanted you to respect my privacy! For the first time in 15 years! Maybe I needed space!” She yelps after twenty minutes of the silent treatment.

Zuko sends her a look that has her freezing up on the spot. “Katara, you had a whole baby .”

She felt thoroughly scolded, but she was stubborn. “And? What about it?”

“You had an entire one, and didn’t even bother to tell the godfather? When was I supposed to find out?”

Katara didn’t think that one through, to be honest. It was easy to forget, in between diapers that smelled like a fish sauce and an expired Vagisil smoothie, and balancing work. She lays down beside him, thoroughly exhausted after putting her little girl, Yue, down for a nap. “One, who made you the godfather? And two, I guess we’re just not close like that.”

“Look, I literally have your social security number memorized, and have practically given you a Pap smear. You really want to say ‘ we’re not close like that ?” He sends her a look that has her resolve faltering the slightest. “You did your pregnancy announcement like a Sailor Moon transformation sequence with before and after pictures of you being pregnant, and you didn’t think to fucking tell me?”

Katara gasps. “I had you blocked !”

“Azula’s a snitch!” He also got a glimpse of the photo of Katara in her hoe time dress that barely fit over her belly with the caption: how the mighty have fallen . He pauses, sucking in a breath of air for strength. The hurt flashes in his eyes and the only thing she could think to do was wrap him up in a familiar embrace.

At 19, Katara is so incredibly lost, and just wants her best friend by her side.

He’s busy, the summer before everything Republic City. Everytime she tries their house, Azula answers, rolling her eyes while clad in a Harry Styles shirt, because it’s a girl’s rite of passage to go through a One Direction phase and wear badly made merchandise from Hot Topic. He’s usually busy packing, or fucking Mai until she sounds like a car alarm during Fourth of July fireworks.

“Azula, no . You cannot kidnap Mai’s younger brother and trade him in for concert tickets to send a message.”

“Not even for floor ones?” Katara’s glare summed up her answer. “I used to look up to you,” Azula retorts, returning to her stan Twitter.

She waits, waits, waits. The moans keep coming and she just rolls her eyes. Her stomach churns, mainly because she thinks Mai called Zuko’s dick The Pussy Penetrator every time he hit her g spot (you know what, good for her). But also because her scholarship to the university was less than she expected, and Hakoda didn’t want to cosign on a loan. She just wanted her best friend to be there for her.

She feels sick, sick enough to vomit in one of Iroh’s plants, while Azula rubs small circles into her back.

“You should’ve swallowed,” Toph reminds, bundling Katara’s thick hair into a ponytail as the girl hurled up her California roll. She’s so exhausted, she even leans her head against the Walmart toilet bowl, five positive pregnancy tests tossed carelessly beside her.

“Think it’s too late for that,” Katara grits out. “What are you doing?”

The last thing she expected was Toph’s hands gathering together in prayer formation. “Praying to Rihanna your period comes.”

Like many people her age, having a mental breakdown during a pregnancy scare and praying for a miracle in a public restroom was normal. But for the first time in her life, besides the time Rihanna willingly twerked on Drake at the 2011 Grammys, Ms. Robyn Fenty herself failed her.

“Fetus deletus that bitch! Fuck them kids !” She brings herself eye-level to Katara’s stomach. “Read the womb, bitch!”

“Did you just call my unborn baby a bitch?” Katara’s eyes are bleary from the smell of vomit and her future going down the drain.

“You should’ve kept that bitch-baby in the drafts,” Toph sweeps the stray hairs from Katara’s watery eyes. “My cousin saved up for her abortion by running a pyramid scheme. I can get you her number.”

Katara wanted to die. “I think I’m just going to crawl in this toilet and die. Call my brother if I don’t get flushed down all the way.”

“Again, I’m just a Walmart employee,” Toph snickers, helping the girl up. She’s rarely left her side since then. Their friendship just works, a pair of fuckups. The girl with the accident baby, and the Walmart security guard trying to figure out her own shit after running away from home.

“I should’ve been there!” Zuko reminds, tone heavy with betrayal.

Katara remembered the few moments before he boarded the plane to Republic City. She wanted to be selfish. She wanted to tell him to not get on the flight, to keep holding her like he did at the entrance of the gate. She had a kiss ready on her lips that he wasn’t ready to give, backing away when their faces were too close, when she was too close. He just couldn’t bear the thought of leaving with regrets.

“I should’ve been there holding your hand, letting you call me names, and fighting nurses if they breathed too close to this precious angel,” Yue holds his pinky with her little fingers, almost as though it was a natural reaction. His heart simply seizes up at the gesture, and he holds her tighter to his body. She was wailing after waking from her nap, colic crackling her throat for the last three months and causing her middle of the night wakeups to be painful and frequent. But with Zuko, she’s all calm and perfect and polite and beautiful and angelic.

“Didn’t know you liked kids this much,” Katara shrugs. She leans in, and Zuko throws his free arm around her.

“I’ll have you know I am the resident expert in telling children’s stories,” Zuko insists.

“Like?” Katara quirks up her brow.

“Like Rumpleforeskin, the mythical man who can weave majestic golden fleece from the ends of his pubic hair.”

She smacks him upside the head. “You’re disgusting .” She curls in deeper into his embrace. He had that twinkle in his eye that could mean he was going to masturbate to this moment in the shower later, or he was in love. It renders her breathless every time

She hopes when he looks at her he doesn’t see the eye bags, or the titty milk leaking everywhere, or the permanent crease in her brow. She hopes he could still see her, underneath it all. When she was just Katara .

“I guess, not telling you was just my way of keeping our dream alive.” She pauses, stroking Yue’s barely there hair. “I keep thinking that one day I could find the time to go to Republic City, and I don’t know. Get a chance to just be me .”

“Do you regret it?” Zuko’s rubbing circles into her back until she gets sleepy and her heart feels too full.

“I don’t know.” She tries, quiet, almost ashamed. “I don’t know.”

At 21, Katara feels like she’s at the top of the world.

Not only did she get promoted from girl wearing a dumpling costume outside handing out 15% off coupons that only worked if you left a Yelp review, to a server in a shitty dim sum restaurant, she was also accepted in the culinary program at the local university. It wasn’t Republic City per say, but Yue could attend the nearby preschool and go to the university-run childcare program afterwards while Katara was working.

She even got a hold of Jet, who refused to disclose his location or job. But judging by the copious child support mandated by some judge who hated men as much as Katara did, he was doing well. He sometimes Venmos Katara a few extra dollars on Yue’s birthdays.

Sokka and Hakoda, while hesitant to the little girl’s presence early on, spoil her absolutely rotten. When they think Katara’s passed out after her 14 hour days, they’re red in the face, screaming at Zuko over the phone about who was going to get Yue the Peppa Pig Playhouse (complete with flashing lights) she always talks about.

Hakoda even tries at therapy, wanting to be there for the apple of his eye. Sometimes, Katara’s hurt he never tried for her, tried in her childhood. She’s happy for him, nonetheless.

(Mostly) everything was working out.

“How are both my girls doing?” Zuko would always sing-song during his nightly Facetime calls. Yue would scream and snatch the phone from Katara’s hands, delighted at the sound of her one and only Uncle Zuzu. He’s an extravagant gift giver, regularly sending Yue glittery Hello Kitty and Wonder Woman backpacks. He even buys her a whole iPad for her fourth birthday, already coming with child safe settings on and YouTube loaded with her favorites (namely, Barbie: Fairytopia ). He’s guilty he couldn’t come home, but then again, he rarely ever did. Too consumed with work, grad school applications.

Katara can’t help but feel her heart pulse the slightest bit faster during those calls, even if she shuts it down as quickly as it comes.

He’s so good to her .

She used to cherish those moments he used to tell her secrets, dreams, everything in those hours early in the morning before high school would start. With approximately 3,209 miles between the two of them, she wakes up to texts instead.

Zuko: I dreamed that I was being held at gunpoint by one of those thicc caterpillars from A Bug’s Life , and if I didn’t finish the MCAT in approximately 20 minutes, they would shoot me in the face. The dump truck ass of those ants were the bullets

Katara: Please block my number

Zuko: No. <3

He’s all gentle smiles and eyes squeezing into little half moons just like Yue’s after he plays a game of Facetime patty cake and messes up on the beat just to hear the little girl laugh.

The next month, Zuko had decided enough was enough . He missed his girl.

His hospital, for the first time in a year, was letting him have the weekend off. So he books Katara a ticket straight away, because he thinks he’s going to die if he has to be around people who don’t know who Megan Thee Stallion is.

“Boys only speak two languages. English and emotional manipulation,” Toph reprimands, hugging Katara so tight she could barely get in a word. “Please remember that.”

It was her first time leaving her hometown in her life, her first time on an airplane for God’s sake. She’s jittery though, the cushioned seats Toph somehow upgraded her ticket to (after covertly whispering with the gate attendant) doing nothing to alleviate her nerves.

When she jumps in his arms in baggage claim, he breathes in deep. Her hugs have always warmed his insides, and he didn’t realize how much he craved it until he was greedy, pressing into her and refusing to let go despite her many protests.

“Come here often?” he mumbles, smiling into her shoulder.

Her cheeks grew hot at his touch. “Occasionally.” She whispers back.

He decided there and then in front of Gate 3 they needed to make up for lost time as quickly as possible.

The college party is entirely too sticky, entirely too messy for a proper (extremely) late 21st birthday celebration. Her crop top and big earrings and glittery eyeshadow and endless curves has Zuko wondering how much he’s missed in the last few years. When she hugs him close to her and screams out Nicki Minaj lyrics, he doesn’t remember her being so soft and even prettier. Beautiful. Breathtaking, knocking the wind out his lungs if she as so much blinked.

She looks like any 21 year old, without a care in the world, just figuring out their life. He wonders what this version of Zuko and Katara was.

Maybe they got to go to Republic City together. Maybe they work in the same building, and are just letting steam off from work. Maybe they loved each other. It was dangerous though. He feels as though she’s caging him in, that grip on his heart sparking up again without his permission. Her fake lashes he saw her glue on in the airport bathroom flutter about, hands coming up to accentuate her words every time she tries to scream something in his ear over the pulsating music. He just grips her waist harder between his hands, holding her tight.

In a perfect world, all she saw was him. She wishes it was him. She sometimes thinks she sees Zuko’s eyes in Yue. She sees his smile. She sees his heart.

While they’d spent the entire night stumbling through the city, his girlfriend was home. Barefoot, pregnant. Looking like the cover of some women’s lifestyle magazine, stray curls escaping her bun to frame her face in all its angelic glory. Glowy and flawless and every bit beautiful. Different from the girl Katara caught crying in the kitchen. “You can hate me all you want, you can talk shit about me all you want. But I love him,” Jin insists. “I’m his girlfriend , for fuck’s sake.

Katara has to stop herself from recoiling. She had a specific vision of their future. One that included doing taxes together and matching sweaters and teaching him her new macaroon recipe and Yue balanced on his lap.

But one look at Jin, and it becomes glaringly obvious how little she fit in with his new life.

“I don’t hate you, Jin.” It’s every bit sincere, but the girl doesn’t look convinced.

Jin rolls her eyes. A pointed look freezing Katara in her place.

“Ok, I might’ve complained once or twice about your VSCO filter choice.”

“Yeah, Zuko sent a screenshot of your texts to me instead of you by accident.”

“God, you know he always fucking does that? To be fair though, M05 is too orange and is not a good look on anyone. You can do better, I know you can.” The two girls laugh. It was devoid of any genuine emotion, just meant as an attempt to fill the empty space between them. “If I had known. Fuck, if I had just known, I’m sorry, Jin.” She had no idea Zuko had a kid on the way, that they were still living together and determined to co-parent while their relationship was in a weird limbo. If she was Jin, she would’ve kicked someone’s pussy and made a scene and set something on fire. But Jin wasn’t that type of girl. Jin was soft and pretty and looked like she smelled like an interior designer's perfectly bleached asshole.

“Do you love him?” Jin seemed to shrink into herself, small enough Katara might miss her in a blink of an eye.

Katara couldn’t quite decipher the meaning behind the question. She thinks she’s too scared to.

Katara doesn’t know how to respond. She didn’t trust herself to speak. This Zuko wasn’t the Zuko she knew. She loved the Zuko who would steal people’s Netflix passwords off of 4chan, and cosplay as Todoroki at Anime Con to make a few bucks. Not the one who can afford sky rises in the big city.

He didn’t even tell her that his big internship in the city was for his father’s hospital, and he was next in line to running it. “You’re a lawyer with health insurance and your own Netflix account! You’re good for him, Jin.” Katara falters the slightest. “I just want to see Zuko happy.”

“Me too.” Jin says quietly.

“Whatever, fuck Zuko !” She tries at extending the olive branch. “I can’t believe you’re preggers!” She puts a gentle hand on Jin's belly, and her vagina immediately winces. “You know, your vag will never look the same, and you might grow a third boob in your armpit.”

“You’re lying .”

“Yeah, a lump of breast milk can form there, too!” Katara is about to scroll to the photo in her phone when Jin laughter breaks through the night.

“I hope your dick gets bitten off mid-blowjob!” She whisper-screams, struggling with her suitcase until it smacks all at nearly every corner and edge. She was just making noise for the sake of making noise, but it made her feel better.

He didn’t expect waking up to a charge on his card for a flight booked in the last ten minutes, or Katara shoving his good mixer in her suitcase.

“You hate it don’t you?” He always loved it when Katara went into Hulk mode anytime a bully dared test her protective nature. While it was never entirely directed at him, he now understands exactly why Chan peed his pants. Katara was terrifying .

“What?” Zuko’s confused, rubbing an eye booger away.

“You loved it when I’m crying over Jet, crying over something, fucking something up in my life. Being mad at the world. You hate that I’m better, and making something of myself now!” She’s angry and grasping at straws.

Zuko furrows his brows, not sure where to progress from here. “Ok, run that by me again?”

The air vanishes when her stare cools over to absolutely icy. “There’s nothing else I can give. So what the fuck do you want from me?”

He laughs, all hollow and almost mocking . “You know, I was afraid of you coming here.” He lies.

She stops in her tracks. “What the hell do you mean?”

“I thought...I thought you wouldn’t get this new me, because it’s different!” He protests. “See, this is exactly the reason why! You’re mad I can afford real Gucci !”

Katara recoils, looking embarrassed for him. God, were men so fucking stupid, and so proud of it, too. “Are you fucking serious.”

Zuko’s frustrated, running his hands through his hair. “What the fuck are we doing, Katara?”

“You tell me!” She demands. “I’m not that kind of girl, Zuko! I’m not that kind of girl that is going to break up a fucking engagement, or whatever the fuck you weirdos are doing!”

He throws up his hands. “I’m not happy! We’re not happy.”

“What? You think now that you’ve sold your soul to your piece of shit dad and you can buy jewelry that won’t turn your fingers green that I’m going to fuck you?”

“No! I’m not saying that—”

Katara scoffs. “Then what the fuck are you saying? Grow up, Zuko. Grow the fuck up and just leave me the fuck alone .”

“You’re still Katara.” He throws his hands up in the air, trying to stop her. Even if he felt like his entire world was falling apart, there was one thing he would always be certain about. “I’m still Zuko. The same Zuko who loves you .”

Katara turns her head, not willing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her upset. “The thing is, this isn’t you, Zuko.” Katara says with finality. “It isn’t you .”

When she gets home, she spots it right away. On their dining table, white paper folded neatly, Yue was the type of little girl who looked to both sides of the street before crossing, repeating it two more times to be safe. She always took extra care to make everything even, never a wrinkle in sight on her homework.

The Crayola family portrait that brought to life everything she’d imagined and more. Katara doesn’t have the heart to look for longer than a second.

At 27, Katara’s pretending that it’s the happiest day of her life.

She didn’t think he would listen to her, you know, men rarely did anything right. Zuko, though, heeds her warning and only calls exactly two hours before Yue’s bedtime like clockwork. There weren’t any surprise texts to wake up to anymore, no more evidence of Zuko in her life. She doesn’t even find out about Jin’s affair with one of those Axe commercial guys until months later.

When she goes to unblock his number and text him, to try and talk to him, she gasps. She sees those grey iMessage bubbles, and she’s ashamed her heart splutters, awakening a feeling she thought she’s dampened. She puts her phone down for milliseconds, before checking it again and again and again. She finally threw the damn thing across the room when a week passed.

She thinks it’s for the better, especially when she was sure she finally got things right with Jet.

“ We’ll make this shit work together.” Jet reassures, gathering her close to him she could see every little detail of him. “Like Kanye said, ‘you’re a MILF, and I’m a mother-fucker.”

She covers her ears, pushing him into the restaurant’s glass door. “No thank you. No more non consensual reciting of Kanye verses.”

“Yeezy, breezy, beautiful, baby. Get into it.” Jet winks, and Katara feels herself gagging again.

Then again, Katara always had a thing for stupid. And for three easy payments of $Penis.99, he had an all access experience to her pussy and her trauma.

“And he bought me those carrot cake cupcakes I always look at when we go to the supermarket but I never want to chance it because it could have raisins instead of nuts and I think I hate raisins more than I hate white men named Nathaniel.”

Toph jabs Katara in the forehead. “Wow, he spared $5 on some dry pastries, and your pussy was suddenly screaming pick me, pick me !”

“They were gluten free, too,” she points out. “Plus, my pussy doesn’t scream!”

“Oh right, my bad! It whispers!”

“ Toph !”

“Last night I heard it go wash me! Wash me!”

It felt good with him, though. It felt good to see him help Yue with math homework, making dinner in their little kitchen, pressing kisses to her in the morning despite her breath smelling like Khloe Kardashian’s earring backing pussy. Someone to come home to.

“Piece of shit, I’ll fucking kill you!” She was punching him over and over again until her knuckles were ripped raw, sitting straight on his throat. Beating him stupid in the middle of her shift. He thought he could get away with it. With Katara now stuck in the kitchen as one of the head cooks, and the fact he had a reservation in one of the private rooms for him and his secretary to go over...numbers, he didn’t think much of it.

Too bad Toph was too invested, and had a friends-to-lovers storyline to live vicariously through.

“Scram, fuglies!” Toph screamed to other customers who had already started chanting “WorldStar!”

Katara lost her job, lost her mans, lost a section of her eyebrow because Toph accidentally tried helping and swung the wrong direction.

“Catch me outside, how ‘bout that!” She yelps triumphantly, despite the fact Katara was cradling her own bloodied face.

And here she was, about to lose her best friend, too.

She accidentally Facetimed his old number, and spent the last hour mulling over her feelings with an executive of a porn studio who picked up mid-shoot. “Just tell him you love him!” The balding man is exhausted.

“What do I even say? Do I tell him, ‘I think I’ve always loved you?’ Is that too cheesy? You know that feeling when your heart just—Oh my fucking god! Is that Sandy Cheeks from Spongebob ?!” She screams, slamming her hands over her eyes. The squirrel’s melons-for-tits would never be erased from her memory.

He only has fear in his eyes when he looks at her. “You didn’t see anything.” Robert bites out, promptly hanging up.

In her post-Jet purge, she realized she wasn’t the type of ex dead set on destroying his things. After all, she was selling his light-up keyboard to pay for Toph’s birthday boob job. Her residual anger was instead, spent hacking away at the drawer he always kept locked. Until she found it.

A letter from him.

“ I’ve always been afraid that our friendship would’ve spilled over until all I could do is categorize it with four simple letters .” Katara whispers, eyes frantically scanning the paper. “And I’m done being afraid .”

“The four letters he’s talking about is D-U-M-B B-I-C-T-H . Dumb bitch. The ‘bitch’ is silent.” Toph insists. “I can’t believe you let a balding bum, whose credit score tanked because he invested his entire savings in Shake Weight Milkshake making machines, knock you up instead of Zuko.”

“It was innovative at the time,” she whispers.

“Fill the void in your heart, not your pussy.”

She's whipping out her shitty MacBook Air, and praying his email still worked. But when she calls all she sees is her.

“You told me to come to Republic City and find him!” Mai exclaims, holding up her hand where a big ring blinding the fuck out of her.

She feels her heart crumble at the same time she crushes the letter in her hand.

“I did do that, didn’t I?” Katara winces. The time the model stopped by in their hometown, Katara was still happy and getting her pussy pounded regularly and let that shit get to her head. She thought it would be a blessing in disguise, and wanted to help Zuko out, too.

"Fuck."

Their wedding looked ripped out of a 2014 Basic Bitch Pinterest board, and she’s definitely sure she couldn’t be happier.

“Why is her name spelled like ‘Mai’ and pronounced ‘May?’ Like, shouldn’t it be spelled like ‘Mei?’”

“Katara, you’re just being a bitch,” Toph reminds while Katara stares at the sign with their wedding hashtag in front of the photobooth with all the ‘YOLO’ signs and 2013 mustaches.

“I am well aware!” She asserts, chin jutting out.

Mai’s New York Fashion Week ready body was gorgeous, perfect in Zuko’s hold.

Katara wished life was like a rom-com. Where she could burst through the doors, declare her love, piss on him in her ugly, big bridesmaid dress and mark her territory once and for all.

But life wasn’t a movie. Life was just this shitty piece of dumpster fire shit and was always fucking her over like the Target self-checkout line camera.

What could she do? Deliver some long-winded speech about how she would go to realign the stars in the heavens if it meant a chance to rewrite their fate? That she hoped she visits his dreams before his mind could settle into reality, the same way he visited hers and overstayed his welcome every single time? Make everyone uncomfortable and wonder if they boned?

Then again, she was never going to be the one to block her best friend’s blessings. Not on the happiest day of his life.

“I think this is the happiest day of my life.” Katara says seamlessly.

Zuko sees it though, sees right through her and has to stop himself from reaching out to her.

“It wasn’t ever easy being Zuko’s best friend. I mean look at him now, getting married to someone perfect . He’s not even in the same ballpark, league, or hell, stadium porta potty as her!”

Zuko ducks his head with a brief pout that breaks Katara’s heart. Everyone laughs in spite of him, until he joins in, too. “You know, it’s easy to pretend that finding love is easy. You could find love in all the little things in your life. All the people, all the details. It’s easy to say you always, completely, truly love someone. Because that’s what we want love to be, right? At the surface, sure.” She folds the flimsy paper she had on hand, nothing was written on it anyways. “You want it to be perfect.”

“But the love everyone works so hard to get, is the love that’s hard . It’s the love that isn’t safe. The love that challenges, excites you, the love that will never have limits. The love that’s messy and beautiful all at the same time.” She looks at him, truly looks at him for the first time in years and all she could do was smile.

“It’s easy to find love, but it’s near impossible to find a soulmate.” She raises her glass. “Join me in a toast to the bride and groom. I wish you a lifetime of happiness.”

And while everyone is gathered out on the dance floor, she’s sobbing pathetically and smearing the winged eyeliner she worked so hard to perfect on the car ride there. Trying to stop any of the pain from consuming her.

She’s out on the rooftop of the venue, the cold air whipping her face as she tries lighting up a blunt.

“Are you getting high at my wedding !” Zuko is incredulous, and shocks Katara enough to drop the joint off the roof.

“On all things Fenty Beauty, bitch what the fuck?” Katara wipes the tears from the corner of her eyes.

“The flower girl wanted to see her mommy.” But Katara sees right through Yue’s little act. Pretending to sleep so she could be held by Zuko (me too, girl. Me too).

It felt dangerous, the way she could toy with his heart, his own personal defibrillator shocking it back to life. She’s pretty even with red-rimmed eyes, with the fake smiles he knew was trying to appease him to leave her alone. If anything, all it does is make him want to kiss her until her troubles are gone.

He wanted to do a lot of things at that moment. He wanted to feel the warmth of her skin, tell her that above all else, he missed his girl the most. But, he had everything on his plate and then some.

“The chicken was dry as fuck.” He blurts, wiping the sweat from his face. Only Katara could send him back a few decades. “I wish you could’ve catered it.”

“Yeah?” She laughs and wants to call him out for stalking her company’s Facebook page. “Remember you tried my new recipe and you vomited all over the front row at your fourth ever Hello Zuko performance?” She misses his messy hair, when he didn’t look so clean cut and rich bitchy.

“I didn’t know you weren’t done cooking it!”

She shoves his head, and he joins her, dangling his feet precariously off the roof.

When she’s here with him, when he has her in his hold for the first time in years, he sees his whole life with just a glimpse in her eyes. And all he wants to do is build a machine and reverse all the time that’s passed them by.

“I made a mistake.” Zuko breathes out, eyes nervously darting around.

As sure as he was that Nicki Minaj deserved a Grammy, he was sure he loved her.

“W-What?” Katara blinks at him.

“I made a mistake, Katara.” He laughs nervously, scratching the back of his neck, carding his hand through his hair. Looking every bit devastatingly handsome. “I realized something. After the speech, after just, everything.”

“I realized I just can’t have my cake and eat it, too.”

Just like that, just with the way he built her up, it comes tumbling down.

“So what are you saying?” Her heart was on the verge of cracking in half and he didn’t even know it. Because all he could pin her with a look she couldn’t read, and she thinks if he was a smarter man he would’ve at least pretended that it hurt him to hurt her.

But it did.

It broke him, ripped him in half to see her face turn to steel right before his eyes.

“What I’m saying is, after all these years.” He doesn’t have it in him to face her. “I think I have to finally let you go, Katara.”

#Zutara #Zuko #Katara #Zutara Week #atla #zutara fanfiction #avatar the last airbender #zutara week 2020

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libidomechanica · 2 years ago

Text

Small pose was smooth

A ballad sequence

Words to Betty’s stand, baba and has been and wait. Her and loud clapping lately fickle Nelly Gray! But those trunks? Features,

until their host; at length, to still I quite in volleying history. Still that he should, if it bent toward me by night, tis

eight years, white hand on thy fair hair. Of clay, but her come upon stone wanted;—I write the flash’d as the pair; a things which

on the will never alone. The town, was o’er thing others, wrapping of Lope, so than when he’s happiest among the

marriage vow, or turning children nearly hours, I thought her care of two disturb your sudden silent have hermit, every

of flower and sooth’d the charming, with any saint, halloo’d, but here thee; but a fool depth beloved! Next owner

for effusions, and talk with dancing them not do that she was the rope that not, because they reach’d the fatal flesh! Not

for man of those them through the heart, my lassie o’ my head of Madam, wondered to Juan knew not what t was bonie Jean.

The Turks at myriads oft I have done its tower’d Camelot. Dire was sent me tossing among the pull and wither,

and plate been; besides such highest place, and pea! Johnson, and love, and to make glad exclaim, How thy lips do the

catalogues—which is politics, and o’er thought you sung the first of pictur’d the charm if these treason: they might chances therefore

the spring; at other is tooth! Shakes to announces last and deaf, that should understand orbed brow; there shall fool

me through clear rills float my high soul within its while the earliest scrape, a tender haunches: who can traced him whom I

tried to proceeding year i’d window-panes; the song his horse with the torrent dance: no woods were once too, which, with a

sight. Till never beauty moue; whose simple olives, the school play upon the East the King of the young person fair co-

heiress, of the Nil Admirari. Juan was print age, as if once it was not my widow to fresh foliage and

good-bye and begg’d herself being coverture from strife, let his coyness I will she must now doth express, to alight

love may find, am urged by an accident be absence exiled from the fence things; such the deep pace; their old Susan

she. A rose-fence, his strange of that shall sing for very miserable man, frozen in the works well mighty silver lives

out on its misery care to teach, indeed, or fresh budding, which chokes an attract it give up a thorough reformation

leaves upon me, company! In every body in the hillocks small iron shuts, a certain of garner’d.

At poor beasts and mouth, mounting people are despot’s declined the Rightly me, and we adore, I adore! Days be

overwhelming time your rank, who chosen a constant vale; the Herald though his tear-drops, already, but certes by this

sad picture might be forgiveness than flesh-colours, sketches, when up his motley mantle of all thirty years of his

days be overwhelming quick for ne’er has told the sixth of German as you’d never known those of time all the more plunder

than energetic beyond there’s not what health had never being bathed in the met with cunning out, under

of St. Where juries between the skipping to nonsuit, and the way, she was spark. That was a jest alike in German

as on without your meant to shut— at least no shadows, she scrip, with ripen’d wind write poet’s husbands as well his quickly

up, for a heart’s and do not to see that sweet joy! The charms, and bid my world arraigne parted up the outline’s blue,

can’t fare worst of curiosity, like one could not punish’d eagle in him once fell. Around my heard me for leaps

of my wings when five, and their midnight of Jove did not empty craw, they read this, and look to die, or where your meadows?

I would hold is damning upon immediate reference, a pretty gentlemen in her guide. Of any such as

sad as he rustled: him up to be awake? Who chose to make her husband’s tempest-tost, and love. Out flew out into

pieces small men proud rather former! The last the last her gold beneath so subtle snakes left my life with what slain to

call you leaves with this father’s night offensive few who had been from beneath had passion roots of variety, and

valley. Some odd traveler, look one of your old Susan Gale. That he shore. Tasting, willing my sable scars of the joy

of your head, they grope among the facts, to take the hour, as carried—high, yet I make a line in Spain, for of the blooming

low, point to slake Thy thing, the joy of youth. Where novice. Sing: for claims he undergrounds, then receipt of which makes men

known the devil’s-game! The owlet in a dream. I got thee with lily leave a wish it brought seem’d bough orange in young

Endymion. Unwed, or my sigh? Its among his frailties proud, at midnight—who cannot takes, to versify, I rattles,

stuck hard: she flame. Sister for her secret grieved, could not see a monk of the breeze in the aft has not, cause and the

rose a sleep. He turn’d aught else, you know not how, with Hannibal, and at once to your heart broken bought. Yet there was so

far relinquish’d by the world must have its produce, not resistances besides the silence, this lips a-glow! What pine

more virgins may be wooed and their feet as signal for very high certainty, raw-cold debts in at six a charm less.

Happens even in age’s pen and physician. Had been tender hand whisper’d, reached out between you may deep lost in

close. His penny pelf, and a sweet; but Heavens, and catch hints into their preserved or doomed to. But Juan more, Peona! Still

and piety, for white Tables were a word to emigration might me: I shall open the who thus evince his

suffocated glance of your own on Neptune’s religion of their clean. Ah, gentle girl and past. That their eyes were

their fishy smell of difference betwixt mine! Had not worth: the germ. What fear your story is to him, and fearfully quite.

Grow tired, and love what you have supt, I shapes, and you will striking; but then my eye doth not like a changes, sustains,

the affection; which such blood. Glow than said, as well might the room, and of those me, if I could refuse till she cast, and

shall be one who could be done goes all the wet scenes like Wordsworth, so pursue. And to the balm was that sun dual natured?

“Breathe his dam from a bulletin. A Russian officer, what we walk with tower’d by the new-bough, and there stood upon

each other variety the second white, has tantalized me throne apart. That dreamt of flesh intense eyes most

my face to where were the old eyes, when the nerves it struct those again, would not contrived by a downward from me, where seems

at five hundred years of all slime from where ensured enough of conqueror—a match the bitter in the pass over;

and colour oozed, in heart with those, high Muses! The rain, nor thousand through when depart. To roll it have spar’d with an awkward

show’d which make this savage minstrel, abbot on another least come;—but I am never and still at eight of

such deform’d a distance—gentlemen in my breast, as granted to admire, to keep them this is the power before

that’s the sun peels from the sun and a chorus cousin, ’ which like those on board and the rein to fashion, and never be

the eloquences for jealous pilgrimage to the teeth stuck in her sulphury revel? He moth he, my dead; or

on a pinch of thine orby power, the whisper’d longing all this is a page of flying, and wound with seaweed red

and two: she had made the reeking either girdle, as through a things nothing her den, whose color. Grows dim and fruits. And

hospitable: his speeches, and say,—paint all night. As briskly as true, sprang alone, seeing also risk’d again, and

Thou arterials for the name let’s gently mingled; Antonia’s gondolier, leander, of lover, helpless; as this

tangles, just two mourning sad sickening poured twenty scorning forms of May, those. Just with orgies another that were many

a hundreds breast in my hearken, sweet or corn bows all is most man; and he camp of life, and Ireland strange and twigs,

might, I shall not smother I would not so very much as lies into ashes alone, she cries. Foxes to a giant

doom but what might be soporific;— without the grass than I consider ever: our time can spoil my lichen.

Would follows and country seat, when sea and I was—they’re overgrown, she sang: Thus concede quarter, a world, baring out reluctance lifeless. And roar’d, uplifting up her resign this door, the ground himself therefore thyself and mine execution.

The Lady of Shalott. Sometimes, when many brother station a good old-gentleness this, the with the Florentines, and to comes he met with an accident beak over it,—so your whole, of different be a black into

the doors of love? Think you’re not night winds, with sometimes lone sets through the sweet up the new and see you ignored in the poor girl; t is said or square, because nor sit nor managed hawk, or arms. But did when the garden, till we shalt not glide o’er,

and woof from stumbling palely, and gloves his own parting in the thickest sky foretell my heart; for loftier rays or month sends whom all allow; but so bland the hear with full of the helpless butterflies for the body—I look’d, push’d

with symbol-essence; till that sparkling child of zest. And this life—he was blithe anchored on this doors of him grew upon the moon that she was a confess with all the sylvan tribes that he throne smoothest bird a- wing …. For life, to see me.

We may be much to eat, and dogs had not had words she was growing coat, and read your church up fine into swear on the

devil a noise of deeds reproduce tender and forest- house! Thought means I am Love, and then their nature wept. Things

she goes, and all inrail’d with pangs of all of ache, how full in wives’ eyes upon the slave bright as much rigour: beside

of aged back of yellow smoke … no, it’s harp—the very sense I bow full detain moment silly youth’ wait death, produced

when I wanted too late: and this though liftedst age at last in the corner of Babel, or my heart, but for miles

of others lay such echoes that till didst the Turk’s restoring complain. And the Reason; Lust that ye were transcends

to hold it! Pool I will be training, unless continuation difficult, I was alone: and, having fetters!

” Poor Betty with a raucous trill. Unsullied nation the conceit of claret is first stay till five.—She took a little rabbit with their tasks. Small gnat, a bee sucking loue, dispute with feelings pure delicate amber-fretted straight may

have to fill at you pattern of living but where I will endure, no harm, warned lava. Youthful wight smiling in, we cross the outline of June, and Campbell’s pastime warm in heaved, but just names with any summer on to hideousness and

do see, his heart was now at Susan will flings are soon be a lion in the good senses which Donna Inez were at length seem Angel to know what old tricks his partake it is not apt, like whate’er meant it have no notion, little

fasten to dress who wore than she loom; and their nomenclature as puff of delightingale, and a pond they happy may looks;—that initial-scarred tape&to the grey-hair’d creatures, your propinquity thick mist they? Come again, whate’er

set out? Have I slept, and mind you have I brought the dale, accord, at six a charm’d the boate foe— he never one of that the chewed there will be the same market girls. A lullaby to the should, howe’er to do live, to sit upon, wondered

to upbraid: still was her eye is me! Ever: our humbly screen with Ho! Be on the town so loudly sweet he shore, something reverse. He had mann’d harvests cling, all was would go to be packed into the down them; else their gaze ripe for thousand

pity;—I shuffle side of Humber mounted spot in vain? This may say, are variety: with wondering whale’s teeth steal things he was rich is made her heart would ill command; for if you are you hadst the tail—a taking made it all! Till

Miss’s complete,—I trusted of his travelling them true believed him; life! When man’s bride! Labour mountains grotesque, new trees, a fierce agony to their eyes match around the removed! It was woven in th’eclipser of an old her man inside,

ladie? In ponder’d off each beaked promontory, a glass, in pursued the chancery subjects to no men, had slain spot, what write, indeed! Ye geck at me borrow’d obeisance and then in afternoon, the right; no less as milky way

good seem’d that it is stuck hard; and years to the hope we step, makes one who dared not sleep, with sauces, or call’d up and had these brought into sleep, drowsy wings, and glad love, althoughts decay, cald it falls it, but you ask the town she dight, We

following Juan was rising voices cooingly by its blackleg, broiling a whole solemn troops landing, ding; sweeter for ever: its lone glen o’ womankind! While they lived to practice upon her honour. ’Er the street of good as God had such

excesses; but this friend or for Zinghis inwards; and that by the gadding the redden’d like grasp, as if also hear, and at table-cloth, in open- air, on Sunium or Hymettus, like a way. ’Er discretion ran away. They gaz’d

upon the sounds,—all vertues equal to me and cloudy night, and fruit and have been quick for no transparents also his eyes did once set my brief years, still ease my parted by a boy, ’ rejoice! Upon a tuft of seamen’s last to really

love and foul conceit of children cutting in the porcelain man, and get new, not to mosquitoes. Leading things when they blest virtues shone there’s natural history; but pursue the inoculation her: she knew them into thy

continue purest maze. And then, in the same blood, having hotness, to see how someone eludes to competent fair Lesley, as she wrong the only son, and white as quiet, and our economic Your traced him vilely?

Because of those laid you view as Venus, be sure, my old song, and some smooth’d as if each others by her, for Juan, muttered weed. No voices. It goads men wears; but all the mark a gleams of flowers in searching and the proud, yet refrain came

back to meet the bleed, young many; all instead I’ve some mountains grotesques illumined; and still, after the hand, then how to persons. I’m not sink his Roman, Greek I sing, hey displaying bandage rather one and leaves room for his hand.

Is man, enters who can those Æols you is God’s daughter: ’ if he must leave, scoop’d up fancies delay across there go, where

not tease on, motions of Fortune was, until their measure, hope, but t is forgotten. Pleasure who o’er-darkening, not

knowingly; as doth shall her more, that sad mischief; they who in figure, such utmost we call the Giant’s loss, with shows

but a case our souls, and can devise some of love, or we should our dreary death no sort of half its love; what he has

feels his figure, she was scarcely through the issues for imperial halls, particularly among faithfull palace,

and ruth was in November, into plant thing sweeter the air; a thing in a different flow’d on her to what the

wave; there’s anatomy. The sets apart, or with dimpled with whole together one sideways with a stretch’d out being

embers quite free! Used to cinders are him young head, who stood glaring it abroad. For she deer-herd bent, sacred first

in any said: Brothers love, and a colouring, shewing less robbery hand—had graceful ha’, his, angels alone,

love, and moss and mony a sparkling out thought that all—arms them with your harvests bent, the cast and see feed our

idle tongue into rhyme; but at the cap; in fact remembers quite enough, tough strife to ushers in this mother she

learn! And hospitable to each a quarter noon, that spoke as if they lived till she did not, kind of the merely anchor

dropped, help control. Into this think you for you, you may, and never been grieved with every sorry that great deep, a

film of his name, and dewy starry cluster’d steppes … I wonders; sweetest Lesbia, let’s gentle for leaps of my lord that

need no more quick to your brain, her bliss, a film of hope beyond all the guess her old Susan had refuse, whose red

begonia puzzled the nails are equall’d by divorce, because t were all cut off with shape of thin its round his lips lie

folded arms! Sofas t was nothing broth of sense of Betty shed in times within the roses nobody could

returning shed shaft, and all Seville, a pretty care; but sooth’d her too, blasphemed as well for the canvass what were off!

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 6 #178 texts #ballad sequence

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twit-moonstar · 5 years ago

Text

Up for a long time - Brian May x Reader

A/N: This was for a hosted Valentine’s day secret santa but I couldn’t finished it in time bc life. I am really sorry I’m posting this so late

Please consider reblogging and commenting what do you think about the fic

Warnings: none (just a note: this is situated on 1977/1978)

Words: 2K+

Summary: Y/N was invited by Brian May to accompany him during the Sheer Heart Attack tour and as its ending gets closer, she expresses her sadness over having to say him goodbye soon, unless… maybe she doesn’t have to.

A blissful sigh left Brian’s lips as you cuddle against his side, his long fingers petting your hair lazily.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could stay here forever, just the two of us? I’m gonna miss this,” you say with melancholy, as if you parting ways was a matter of fact—because, well, it was. What were the chances that he would want to keep seeing you? He was a guitarist in a rising band that was getting more and more famous. You were beginning to feel sad at the thought of missing him even if you were still by his side. It was strange to you how at ease he makes you feel even though you meet barely two months ago. It’s not an everyday occurrence that a cute musician invites you to come along on tour with his band to America but you weren’t stupid enough to miss on this chance. Besides, he had a certain charm that you couldn’t quite put your finger on, like he wasn’t even trying. Just like that, he could smile, and you would do anything he asked. A few minutes passed, in which he didn’t replied, and you started to think about what you had said. Did you cross a line there? Was that inappropriate? But being with him felt so right… and you were sure he felt the same way about you. Well, you were until now. Finally, he spoke. “What if you didn’t have to?” You smiled, feeling relief that he wasn’t weirded out by your comment. “What? What do you mean?” “What if - if we got married?” His words were shaky, his voice soft and quiet in the dim room. You look up at him. “Are you joking? Because, let me you tell you, it’s not funny,” you state. He shakes his head no. “I’m not.“ You get away from him, sitting up on the bed to look at him. It’s hard to describe the look on his eyes, it’s very serious but also a little dreamy, like he has his head on the clouds. And you might be the very reason why. “Really?” You say softly as if you were expecting him to laugh and declare it was indeed a joke but you know him well; he would never be so cruel. Your mother once told you that you must see a man getting happy, tired, sad and, above all, angry and stressed before you got married. She believed that if you saw him in such states, you would know if you were ready to handle sharing your life with him. Despite knowing him for so little time, you had already seen how he acted when he wasn’t feeling well and it never seemed like something that you couldn’t soothe. “Yeah,” he nodded. “Well, then,” you smiled, “ask me properly.” “Y/N Y/L/N, would to make me the honour of being my wife?” “Yes!” you exclaimed, throwing yourself to him and embracing him on a tight hug. He took your face between his hands and kissed you, smiling when you broke apart. “Well, then, we’re engaged now.”

“When– when do you want to do it, though?” You asked. You wouldn’t lie, you weren’t able to contain your excitement. You were going to get married! It felt like a dream, like you would wake up in any moment in an empty bed on the hotel. “Tomorrow maybe?” Brian suggested. “It’s my day off before we get going to the next city.” “Okay,” you accepted. “While you’re at rehearsal, I’ll make sure we have what we need to do it.” He kissed you again. “Alright but first, let’s get breakfast.”

Standing in front of a little mirror on the reception, you check your lipstick, even though Brian said he wouldn’t pay for any photographs here—both of you were afraid they would be leaked and all over the magazines. Despite all the paparazzi constantly following the band, Brian had done his best effort to protect your privacy as much as he could and you weren’t quite ready to give up your anonymity just yet. Besides, you were aware that a secret wedding with a woman Brian met just three months ago wouldn’t do wonders for his reputation. A pair of hands sneaked up on your waist, hugging you softly. “Are you ready?” He whispered on your ear. You turned around, your arms surrounding his neck. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” you assure him and his lips curve up into a smile. A blonde woman came up to you—her name was Marie, according to the tag on her blazer— and cleared her throat. “Excuse me, the venue is ready. Follow me, please,” she said and started walking you guide you. She opened the door and a wedding march started to sound as you entered the room and walked towards the altar, Brian holding your hand the entire time. The Victorian Venue was beautiful, so beautiful you almost regretted eloping—though both Roger and Freddie weren’t at the hotel and Deacy and Veronica were with their kids—. It was a large room, simply decorated with cascading silk drapes and a pair of pillars with candelabras as the wedding altar. It was all very white, and you were glad you had chosen to wear a light blue dress that contrasted with the room. The officiant, a middle aged men, looked as you stand in front of each other. Brian had a smile plastered across his face, reaching his hazel eyes and illuminating his beautiful features. “Brian May and Y/N Y/L/N, today you enter as individuals, but you will leave here as husband and wife, blending your lives, expanding your family ties, and embarking upon the grandest adventure of human interaction,” the officiant said. “Brian and Y/N, remember to treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together. Take responsibility for making the other feel safe and give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves. Please, repeat after me–” “Actually, I’d like to have the word,” you interrupt him, shyly, and Brian looks at you with surprise. You hadn’t discussed having your own vows and he clearly didn’t expected it but you had been thinking about them since last night. “Of course.” “I - I know that for anyone outside us this will look rushed after only a few weeks but in that time you have made me the happiest I’ve ever been. I’ve seen you in the most intimate situations and I know I’m ready to spend my life with you. It might not be easy– but nothing every really is and I’m ready to whatever is coming at us.” Brian’s smile and eyes were warm, full of fondness. His hands squeezed yours briefly, a silent ‘I love you.’ “Y/N, meeting you wasn’t on my plans. I’d have never guessed that I’d fall so hard, so fast for you but your sweet ways, your genuine excitement for life and new experiences, your energy and the passion you put on everything you do made me feel like a fifteen years old boy falling in love for the first time. I am enchanted by you, and I’m so happy I get the chance to try to make you as happy as you make me.” You feel your smile getting bigger, so wide it almost hurted but you didn’t cared. It was a nice kind of pain, it meant you couldn’t contain the happiness you were feeling inside you and for a moment you thought about how you wanted to proclaim to the entire world that you were married to the lofe of your life. You squeezed his hands for a second. You both let go of your hands to get the rings. His was one he already had but rarely used and yours was one you had bought on a market on one of your solo adventures exploring the city while he was working. They weren’t permanent rings; “I promise I’ll get you a proper ring once we’re on London again,” he had said, and you assured him you were okay with these as of now. Despite the band’s success, you knew he wasn’t really getting much money and didn’t care he didn’t buy an expensive ring. “Brian May, please repeat after me as you place the ring on Y/N Y/L’s ring. With this ring, I thee wed and pledge you my love, now and forever.” “With this ring, I thee wed and pledge you my love, now and forever,” he recited softly as he put the ring on you finger. After you repeat it, you both sign the marriage certificate and the officiant finally says the words that linked your lives for the rest of it. “By the authority vested in my by the State of San Francisco, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride!” Brian did as told, reaching down to kiss you softly, taking his time to show you how much he loved you on his gentle movements. “I love you, Mrs. May,,” he said once you broke apart. You giggle. “I love you too, Mr May.”

“Honey, I’m home!” Brian exclaimed, and you hear the closing door. You smile as he enters the room and leaves the box with Chinese food on the little table in front of the couch. You sit properly and take a look at what he brought. “My hero! I was starving,” you say and he smiles. After a week of living on Brian’s apartment using his clothes, you had finally gotten around to your old apartment and got your stuff. It was mostly books, clothes and some decorative ornaments; you didn’t have any furniture except for your bookshelf—and a mattress that you had already sold. Brian was helping you to put everything in place, but you were hungry and send him to get food—your treat. “They didn’t have fried rice, but I brought you Chow Mei,” he says, opening the box for you to see. The smell is delicious, and your stomach seems to rush you to eat when it growls. “That’s fine,” you say and take your noodles. “Do you need help?” Brian chuckles as you struggle with the chopsticks. You pout and nod. He takes his own stick. “The trick is to just move the top stick, the other has to stay still,” Brian shows you as he takes a piece of tofu with ease. You imitate him ans after a few tries, you finally succeed. “It’s way more difficult when you’re eating noodles,” you say before Brian’s amused gaze. “Do you want to try?” He asks, holding a piece of his tofu to you. You lean, doubtful, and take a bite. It tastes spicy and hot, so you swallow it and drink a little soda. “What does it have?” “Lots of pepper,” he replies. “It’s good, but I wouldn’t eat too much,” you say honestly and he smiles as he eats. “It’s an acquired taste, I guess.” “I want to go back to college,” you comment after a while and he smiles at you, interested. “To study Law again?” “No, that’s… that’s what my parents pushed me to do. I’ll like to study something related to Theatre, maybe. I don’t know, but I need to do something. I don’t like just being lying around,” you say softly. The week living with Brian, having no responsibilities was nice but you needed to do something. Besides, you wouldn’t let Brian pay for all the bills. You were a team now, and you needed (and wanted) to do your part. “I was also thinking maybe I could give some piano or bass lessons, to get some money,” “That’s a great idea,” he nods with a smile and you can’t help but smile too. “I can help you with some posters to promote your classes.” “That would be very nice,” you reply, leaning towards him and giving him a quick peck on the lips. “Hey, I have a surprise for you!” Brian suddenly says and gets up quickly, walking into the room and coming back after finding whatever he was looking for. He sits next to you and takes your hand, looking briefly at the ring you used to get married before looking at you. “Remember when we stayed at my parents’ house for the weekend?” You smile. “Of course I do. I was nervous as hell the whole drive. And during dinner. Basically all three days.” “Well, you had nothing to worry about because my mother loved you and actually gave me this for you.” He shows you a ring. It was made from gold and had one single tiny round diamond. Your mouth hangs open as Brian takes off your old ring and puts the golden on your finger. “Do you like it?” He sounds anxious as you simply stare at the ring and the way it shines beautifully with the natural light coming from the windows. “It’s beautiful,” you say, moving your hand so the light reflects off the ring. You finally look at him. “Did you say your mother gave you this?” He nods. “I can’t accept this,” you say, starting to take it off but he takes your hands to stop you. “Why not?” “Because it’s real, Bri! This diamond is real and probably worth good money, who knows how much your parents spent on it?” “It was my grandmother’s and she isn’t… she’s dead.” “Oh.” You look at the ring. “Still, why would your mother give me this? She barely knows me.” “Because she liked you and sees why I married you,” he said, cupping your cheek with his hand and caressing your skin with his thumb. “Besides, she saw you didn’t have a ring and said it was unacceptable. This is actually an engagement one but let’s ignore that.” You smile. “Alright, I’m going to keep it as long as you love me.” “Well, get used to it because you’re up for a long time,” Brian says and brings you to his lap to give you a soft kiss.

#brian may x reader #brian may x you #brian may x y/n #brian may x female reader #brian may fanfic #brian may fanfiction

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