#Thank you person who reblogged a post who (when I read through your blog) led me to a post made by someone who doesn’t like 1984

[greengay]

I used to be on tumblr in the Green Day fandom back in 2011-2016. I lived through the 21st Century Breakdwon release, the iHeart Radio meltdown, rehab, Rock n Roll Hall of Fame induction. I made some great friends that I still keep contact with to this day. I used to make edits and gifs and write fics…. I just stumbled on your blog by accident and you made me feel all the things I felt back then. Thank you. I’m 30 now and my 20s are long gone, but you made me feel 20 again.

Oh, wow, we just missed each other! I got into Green Day in 2017 after seeing them on their club tour at the end of 2016!

(Villain origin story: I had never really been into Green Day, but my dad was always really into punk rock and liked Green Day. I remember him telling me that it was lame that the East Bay Punk scene turned their backs on GD for wanting to be successful. I'm from New Jersey and my favorite venue in the whole state, Starland Ballroom, posted on their FB or IG or something that Green Day tickets were going on sale in a few hours and I was like, oh, huh, maybe that can be a birthday present for my dad! So la di da I easily got tickets, stress-free (AS OPPOSED TO NOW, WHERE IF GD CLUB TOUR TICKETS WENT ON SALE I WOULD BE SHITTING MY PANTS AND WORRYING FOR DAYS ABOUT GETTING ONE) and my dad and I went and it rocked my absolute socks off... and here I am lol)

I've made soooo many great friends through GD fandom also! Omg, you seem to have done a lot, I wonder who you are??? Haha. I've probably read your fic and reblogged your gifs/edits.

I'm glad I was able to trigger some nostalgia! Although, I would say, I don't think there's an age cap to fandom. Like, you don't just stop having interests and hobbies once you hit 30. I know there's a lot of 30+ people in tumblr GD fandom, and I have a lot of 30+ friends I've met irl from going to GD shows!

So I hope you drifted away from fandom because of your waning interest in Green Day/fandom, and not because you felt "too old" to be tumblrina, haha.

I'll admit, I haven't been throwing myself into tumblr GD fandom like I used to the past couple of years, but the pandemic was whack, and any sort of social media made me really anxious lol. Like I used to overshare a LOT on here, and maybe I'll go back to that, but I realized... that I sacrifice some of my "real" life to be online. Like, I'm personally not able to maintain my irl friendships and hobbies etc. while I'm obsessing over GD and posting about it online. HOWEVER, I don't think I would ever delete this blog unless I got famous or something lol... I would keep it up as an archive, cos I know I've always been really sad when online friends would delete ;-(

ALSO... idk if you've heard about the J**y situation... you can prob find my posts about it, but I think it led to BJA being less active on social media, which weakens the parasocial relationships which affects the Obsession™... Uhg, 2017/2018 was peak Bibbie.

Lastly... idk if you're still into GD fanfic, but the last couple of years have been a RENNAISSANCE... so go on AO3 lol

But anyways! Thank you for this anon, it was really sweet ;-;;;

[my-writings-and-musings]

How do you get the confidence to post your writing, and how do you get so many great ideas? I've been a writer since I was younger, and a friend of mine recommended I post my one-shots here. I post on Wattpad, but that place is slowly dying and is mostly only minors who don't know many of the universes.

Do you have any advice or recommendations for posting or writing?

Thank you!

Oh gosh, great ideas, me!? Asdfghjkl I am always surprised people enjoy my incredibly silly content so THANK YOU that is so touching to read!! As for your questions, let me try to answer them the best I can!

When it comes to posting confidence, I'm still working on that myself, as I'd say 98% of my ideas don't feel "good enough" to post. What I've learned is that the best way to have confidence in what you post is to accept the reaction it gets doesn't indicate its quality. I think a lot of people give up on art or writing because their first attempts at posting don't get much of a response, but that's actually super normal! I think a lot of people are also scared of criticism, which is very understandable as the internet is a nasty place, but I've had very few nasty experiences thank goodness! The hardest thing was starting up my blog and pushing through even when I wasn't getting asks or notes, and sticking with it led to my confidence increasing over time. I hope that makes sense!

As for ideas... I just write what makes me happy! I find I'm rather formulaic which really helps with writing self inserts, but I think a lot of my ideas arrive rather spontaneously, and I try to let real world inspiration help me whenever possible. You've probably noticed I'll mention when something inspires me on a story, like writing hurt/comfort after I've been sick or something similar!

I don't really know anything about wattpad, but I have had decent success here on Tumblr and AO3, but we are indeed in a complicated time for social media, so I don't have much advice on that front.

For my own suggestions; I have summarized a few below!

1. Write a lot, even if you don't get much of a response and feel some of it isn't up to par. Proving that you're here to stay can entice people to check you out more than the most well written piece, and I often find the most successful people on this site aren't the best writers, but the most consistent.

2. Support other writers, and every other type of creative! I think this one might be the hardest for me personally as I'm so shy, but you'll have a lot more fun creating if you support people the way you want them to support you. Reblog their work, leave comments, all that good stuff!

3. Try to have a system of organization! My fellow ADHD peeps can relate that this is HARD, but properly and consistently tagging your work goes a long way! It doesn't matter how good your work is if no one can find it.

[sluttish-armchair]

yeah I’m gonna edit the script a little (not now); I woobified Winston too much

[simpforroses]

1 Year Blog Anniversary

—Law’s hat addition on my persona recommended by another lovely artist/writer @starrybrujita 💖 (it actually suits the Lady of Heart anniversary dress I designed lol)

It’s surreal how it’s been a year! Thank you to all 163 of you for taking a look at my small art corner on here and leaving a follow, along with all the positive and substantial feedback for miscellaneous creations I make too ❤️ It makes me happy to see that I can inspire some emotion and make someone’s day through my works or surprises that I sometimes do on a whim, as I take pride and genuine time in everything I make, since most of what I create here is from scratch and from the heart, whether it be art, writing, graphics, ideation, etc. As some may notice, I’m not as active as I used to be last August-March due to work and other reasons, but it was an experience being on the content-creating & active side of things, after years of only using this platform as a passive viewer for hobbies and fandoms ☺️ Once again, I can’t believe I made it this long and I am grateful for your support! 🌹

‼️Important Notes (please read)‼️:

-> I’ll continue posting art here & try for a rebound, but will go back to square 1 with making art for its own sake, without tagging people on my main account’s artwork—for now—to see how this blog continues organically (unless someone asks for a taglist or to be tagged. If so, please feel free to let me know which characters/content-type 😊). At the beginning & when I was most active, I usually was the one taking the 1st step towards people, bending over backwards, and speaking up for others, even if it did not directly affect me or could be shown on the surface-level of this blog, because in my mind, taking initiative was, and is, the right thing to do, even if it meant being ignored, burned, or blacklisted…it’s been a ride with ups & downs, but now it’s time I take a step for me.

->After some positive surprises on here during this week, I chose to set refresh instead of going with my other consideration to leave, so this blog can re-gear into the direction that I wanted it to be when I 1st started: a place that is artistic, fun, & unapologetically me, that still remains honest in integrity, actions, confidence, and eloquence of expression. I’ve tried quietly fading out from here, but wind up being pulled back in, in some way, so I may as well come back with a new approach. There are many things I can and wanted say about what led to these reflections. But, I won’t. After all, this is a small space that likes to make humble personalized tokens of happinesses, with big ideas, a big knowledge cache, and a bookish girl who only has 2 hands & voice that speaks more than what is seen or heard. Plus I’m going for a refresh, so I only look forward to what I can create from now on. I named this blog a “Shop of Embroidered Hearts” for a reason, after all ❤️ Though, I’ll also start being more active on Instagram by the same usernames:

@/simpforroses for general main art | @/scalpelandrose for OC/self-ship | @/michelle.hong is my personal account for general interests, memes, and hobbies. —I feel that who I am as an individual does not suit or ‘fit’ into what the Tumblr fandom environment is or has evolved into. After months of half-resolutions & holding out, I want to test my options with both platforms to see what happens (the ‘/‘ are there so there aren’t any pings)

I will be opening a digital commissions option sometime soon, as I now have a good workflow & am more confident in my skills 🎨

Writings & focused OC/self-ship content will still be on my sideblog or on my Blogger site once I fully set that up (for more personal freedom of content when it comes to naughty graphics) 🌹

I’ll still be around in the background per usual when I can ❤️ Occasionally for a few inbox drops, reblogs, or writing events when invited.

Thank you -M. 🌹

[cloudmancy]

you guys sent in SO MANY asks and I physically cannot respond to all of them so I’ll post (most) of them at once. I am like a little messaging service an anonymous ruehob confessions blog of a sort... you are welcome... discussion goes in the reblogs/comments

[ID: anon ask reading “ruehob isnt really a like concept of acutal partners to me its just an exploration of regency tropes and dynamics... like i dont understand making like fluff post-canon stuff for them because it feels like the relationship is intentionally pretty shallow because its more about the narrative tension than either of them as Real People in a Real Relationship. theyre here to check the boxes of a dramatic regency romance and that is very fun like i love it but its also not really ABOUT if theyre gonna have a good life after the show”]

[ID: anon ask reading “personally i like ruehob but its true its literally because people hate women and wuvvy deserves so so so much better... i was kinda sad that aabria didn't address wuvvy's side in the AP and just made it out to be like a "ooh fun and drama" thing but maybe it's bc she didn't want to dive deep into it yet and i REALLY hope wuvvy will like. get to make a statement to rue or smth because she deserves FAR better at this point. i know the wuvvy neglect from rue's side might be because the player's have way too many interactions to go through but LORD!!!!!!! its not even supporting womens wrongs at this point bc like wuvvy DESERVES to do at least that much if she's been treated like this :| anyway people will stay hating women and prioritising ~ romance ~ over all else its maddening to see”]

[ID: anon ask reading “could be my years of reading fanfiction but the miscommunication trope are the reason that ruehob are acting like middle schoolers with a crush who they have only talked to twice and saying "they love them" is why they feel like an unfulfilling ship”]

[ID: anon ask reading “not to join the crowd but thank you for putting words to my inarticulate dissatisfaction w ruehob 😭😭 it felt very sudden and maneuvered into place and narratively dissatisfying, like they were trying to hit tropes rather than craft a satisfying romance into the story. there was no buildup!! there was one scene that led to contrived drama for several episodes and now they love each other. it could have been a really fun narrative about an infatuation between two powerful fey and the hearts they trample on in the process, but it's not being framed like that (or, y'know, they could've given their characters a history together). you're right about wuvvy/binx though, i'm a simple lesbian ready to get deeply invested in this”]

[ID: anon ask reading “i gotta thank you homie, after scrolling through your blog it's helped me put my finger on why i'm not as about ruehobb as everyone else seems to be and also that wuvvy can destroy folks, as a treat tbh”]

[ID: anon ask reading “insane take maybe but the ruehob of it all isn't about the long-term relationship- it's about the experience of one person making you reconsider everything. rue and hob do fall fast and hard and their relationship is a catalyst for self-growth more than it is sustainable, which I kind of like tbh and find relevant to at least my queer experience. we don't know what hob (and rue to an extent) would actually be Like because he doesn't know that, because he's never given himself the chance. wuvvy is stable and confident in her identity in a way that rue and hob aren't, and so their dumpster fire mess of longing and repression looks insane and unappealing to her, but I do think it's compelling to watch from our perspective. the issue comes in when every fan acts like they are soulmates who are going to be together 4ever and it's like. we don't know! these people haven't been themselves ever, really, we don't know! I think in AP7 brennan said that he intentionally put a seed of growth in hob that he needed to confront his relationship with his court and duty, etc, and rue just happened to slot perfectly in. it's not about it being rue specifically, it's about the self-discovery of realizing you can be loved, that there is something deeper than orders, as he says. same goes for rue: it's not about the specifics of hob, it's about wanting something and Not putting cordiality and safety and appearances first”]

[ID: anon ask reading “remember when hob was like rue doesn’t actually love me i was just there at a good time. i was sitting here thinking man…i WISH, that’d be way more interesting. anyway to each their own but ruewuvvy rights”]

[marvelouslycaptivating]

At First Sight

Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven

Pairing: Loki Laufeyson X Reader

Summary: The God of Mischief discovers love at first sight.

Author’s Note: Here’s a little something I wrote for the God of Mischief, another favorite character of mine. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. There will be more Loki stories to come as I grow my blog. I also plan to write for a few of my other favorite characters and actors….so stay tuned. Don’t forget to like, leave your feedback in the comments, and REBLOG so that others can enjoy the story as well. Thank you all so much for your continued support. All my love. Xx

Odin was known far and wide for the celebrations he hosted on Asgard. He threw large, elaborate parties at least twice every quarter of the year. He often had delicacies of other lands shipped in. He had the sweetest wines selected from the cellar to keep his glass filled, and he always hired the best entertainment to keep his guests dancing late into the night. The king would sit upon his throne and overlook the large ballroom, a wide smile on his withered face as he basked in the joy of the moment.

Loki wasn’t particularly fond of these celebrations. He loathed dressing in his most uncomfortable, regal attire for hours on end. He detested the boring conversations he would have to hold with Kings and Generals from other lands. Most of all he despised the way the young women would feign interest in him in a desperate attempt to get close to Thor.

He didn’t attend these asinine events to please Odin, but more so to please his mother. Frigga was the person closest to him. She loved him for who he was, and he would forever be grateful for the affection she’d showered him with for the entirety of his life. She had crafted him into the great magician he was today. He would do anything to bring her joy, even if it meant attending a thousand dreadful balls.

So the God of Mischief found himself winding through the halls of the palace, a solemn look on his face as he headed toward the ballroom. Guards were posted at every corner. As he approached the ballroom the sound of laughter and music poured into the abandoned hallway. The party had only just begun, he hadn’t even stepped foot inside, and yet he was already exhausted.

He took a deep breath and smoothed his hands over his deep emerald suit before stepping away from the shadows and approaching the grand golden doors.

“Open the doors.” He ordered the guards posted on each side, running a hand through his raven curls.

They complied immediately, pulling the heavy doors open so that their Prince could enter the celebration. Loki stepped over the threshold and took a moment to glance around the room.

The tall ceilings were draped with glittering gold silks and beautiful white flowers. Lanterns were scattered around the room, bathing the space in a warm glow. In the center of the room was a large dance floor, beside it an orchestra of Asgard’s greatest musicians. A large banquet table filled with food was off to the side of the room, by the doors that led out into the courtyard.

The servants carried vases of wine and trays of delightful desserts, all of them dressed in elegant gold and white robes. Throngs of people were scattered about the room, lost in conversation. Laughter flitted through the air. A large group of guests floated around the dance floor as the orchestra played an energetic tune. At the back of the room on top of an elevated platform Odin sat on his golden throne overlooking his celebration.

Frigga stood dutifully by his side, the perfect picture of elegance and grace. The most wondrous Queen Asgard had ever known. She sipped a glass of wine leisurely and watched as Thor twirled Lady Sif around on the dance floor before them. A wide smile graced her face.

Loki swiped a glass of wine from a passing servant and began to head in the direction of his mother. He’d just turned and taken a step when his body collided with another, toppling the glass in his hands and spilling wine down the front of his suit.

“Watch where you’re going!” He boomed, anger immediately washing over him like a hurricane. He inspected the damage done to his jacket carefully. He used magic to dry the fabric in an instant.

“Watch where I’m going? It was you who ran into me!” You spat, bending down to retrieve the golden goblet from the marble floor.

“I beg your pardon? Do you know who I am?” He seethed, looking up from his suit. His eyes caught yours as you stood, goblet clutched in your delicate fingers.

It felt as though his heart had ceased beating that very moment. He was completely captivated by the stunning creature standing before him. The woman who had dared to speak to him in such a venomous tone. An outspoken, brave, bold woman.

Your skin glistened beneath the soft glow of the lantern filled ballroom, the shadows illuminating your sharp features perfectly. Your pastel pink dress swam elegantly over each delicious curve of your body. Your round cheeks were dusted with little gold flakes. Your brows furrowed in annoyance, lips pressed into a firm line.

He felt the anger leave him just as quickly as it had accumulated, receding like the tide. He was enraptured by the fire that blazed in your eyes. He was rendered breathless, and he was at a complete loss for words….which never happened.

“Of course I know who you are. You’re Loki, pompous Prince of Asgard.” You broke him from his trance. He blinked rapidly, unsure he’d heard you correctly.

“You’re just as rude as everyone deems you to be.” You spoke, lifting your chin triumphantly. You handed the empty goblet to a passing servant, thanking them politely before turning your attention back to Loki.

The anger Loki had felt moments ago was replaced by glimmering amusement. His signature smirk formed on his chapped lips, and his bright green eyes danced with mischief as he drank in every inch of you.

Women usually swooned over him. They clung to every word that tumbled from his lips. They spewed compliments his way, and never pointed out his arrogant behavior but you were different. You were quick to point out his attitude, and clearly didn’t put up with bullshit. It was refreshing.

“Pompous? If you aim to offend me you’re going to have to do better than that, my dear.” He smiled, taking a step closer to you. He ached to touch you, to pull you closer.

You rolled your eyes and scoffed, “Trust me, if my goal was to offend you I certainly would.” You took a step back, trying to ignore the magnetic pull you felt between the two of you.

He stepped forward again. Your chests were brushing as he gazed down at you in the crowded ballroom. You tilted your head to look up into his Jade eyes. Intrigue swam just beneath the surface of his irises. He gazed at you as if you were the first woman he’d ever encountered in his life.

Your breathing quickened as he splayed his hand across your lower back, his touch searing your skin through the thin fabric of your dress. He crushed you into his chest. You could feel his heart drumming against his rib cage, the rhythm matching the erratic beating of your own.

“You’re a brave soul speaking to your Prince in such a manner.” He whispered, leaning close. His lips brushed the shell of your ear as he spoke causing a bolt of electricity to run down your spine in the most satisfying way.

You closed your eyes for a moment, basking in the warmth of his touch. Imagining what spending an evening with this bewitching man would be like. You let your brain wander for a few seconds before snapping your eyes open and looking up at his face. He was smirking, knowing the effect he was having on you. It was an act, a game. He just wanted you to comply.

“You’re not my Prince.” You spoke, voice laced with venom. You were from another land, but he didn’t know that. You placed your hands on his chest and shoved him away from you.

His brows furrowed and his jaw clenched as you turned and stormed away from him, not sparing him a second glance. He ran a hand through his hair, fighting the urge to follow you through the crowd of guests.

He took a moment to regain his composure. He took deep, steady breaths and tried to think of anything but the way your body felt pressed against his own.

His mind raced with thoughts. Who were you? Why were you so beguiling?? Why did he find himself longing to know every detail about you??? He didn’t even know your name.

He ran his hands over his face, and slipped on his best smile before heading over to his mother. He climbed the golden staircase that led to the platform and waltzed right over to Frigga.

“Mother, lovely decorations. You’ve out done yourself once again.” He complimented, shooting her a dazzling smile.

“Thank you my darling. You finally managed to make your way over to join us?” She questioned, opening her arms to embrace Loki.

“Yes, well I got a bit caught up.” He explained, as he took a seat beside his mother. Which wasn’t a lie. He was caught up thinking about a vexing woman who had ignited something peculiar deep within his soul.

Was this what love at first sight was like?? He’d heard stories about people who fell in love immediately, but he had always deemed it to be complete nonsense. He hadn’t even thought himself capable of love, but he couldn’t shake you from his mind.

He found himself scanning the room as Frigga rattled on about the party, looking for you amongst the swarms of guests. He wanted to speak with you again. He thought about asking you to dance or speaking with you in the courtyard. He thought about holding you in his arms and bringing his lips to yours in a gentle, passionate kiss.

He felt his heart clench painfully in his chest as his eyes combed over the ballroom for the fifth time. You were nowhere to be seen. He would never get to know you. He would never get to hear your laugh or hold your hand in his own. He felt disappointed to say the least, but he decided at that moment that what had transpired that evening had to be fate.

The God of Mischief had experienced a myth. Something so real that he would dream of it for years to come, and he knew that he had to find you. You were the woman he was meant to love, he was sure of it. He would search the realms far and wide until you were in his arms.

Maybe Odin’s celebrations weren’t so bad after all.

[sonybees]

mutuals appreciation post!

i seriously CANNOT at all process this

literally i do not know how this even happened but i am so inexplicably grateful for every single one of you! i love all of you so so much!

i was maybe thinking about making a sleepover but school has been kicking my ass lately so i just decided on making a little mutuals appreciation post! to all my other mutuals, i love all of you so much and i literally want to smother all of you with hugs and kisses. i am so grateful for all of you. thank you.

this might be a little long so it’s under the cut! there might be a lot of mistakes snsjd

@lunaleonorah leo!!! you are an absolute blessing. i love your kindness and the amount of affection you give me literally makes me wanna break down and scream. in a good way of course sjjs. i love our conversations where we just talk about our days and all that. i wish we could always be friends and you can tell me anything you’d like. i love our friendship because we can talk to each other whenever we’d like and will always bring comfort to each other. i always look forward to having conversations with you everyday. ilysm and you deserve the world <3 all the love, pluto.

@gredmforge rory, my wife! i love talking to you about nonsense, it always makes my day and your fun and carefree personality always makes me smile. no doubt that we will be great friends in real life. the little asks you send in my inbox always make me laugh and i’m very excited for whatever future works you have. you always seemed so nice and sweet ever since i first interacted with you and i am so happy that i asked you where you got your memes because look what that got us to! shsjdjd. no but seriously, i love talking to you about our obsessions and just saying hello to each other. ilysm and i hope you always remember that! :) <3

@crookedhag my lovely eliz, i’m too lazy to make another one of those fancy scrolls that i did earlier but that doesn’t stop me from showin gmy appreciation for you. you are such a sweet and amazing person. you are also so talented and i am always so happy to see your name pop up on my notifications. you were always the first one to send me an ask for ask games and you always check in on me and i love you for that. i wish the very best in everything you do. you have great taste in music and i’m starting to think that you’re in every single fandom i don’t know jsjsj. but i love talking to you and ily! mwah! ◡̈

@oldschoolkiddo hero! the first time you ever interacted with me, i already knew that i would love having you around. you are such a fun person and all the tag games that you make and tag me in are always so fun! you are an independent person and i love that so much. you speak your mind and that is so powerful. you are so very sweet and your personality is so fun. i hope that you have many great days in the future and you can always talk to me whenever you need to. let me know if you want a distraction from anything or if you just want to rant, i will be here. ily!

@krasivayadarling my lovely ant! i am so very glad that i built up the courage to say hi to you when you made that post saying you wanted to be friends with new people. you are one of the best people i’ve ever met and you are so sweet, kind, talented, funny, and supportive. i am also so grateful for your support in my fics. you were my first ever supporter and i was really nervous for someone to read my works but you were so nice about it and i love that. i wish you all the best. ily, ant! sincerely, soap.

@whatthefuckimbisexual the loveliest persephone, you are such a bad bitch. JSJS NO BUT SRSLY ILYSM. you are such a fun person and i love how we can relate to each other a lot. i mean, staying up til 3 am and fuck aral pan yk? ejekdj. i really wish you the best in everything and i hope that we can interact more! you are truly one of the most fun and energetic people i’ve ever met and you are so very sweet and funny. thank you for being a great person! all the love <3

@falconxbarnes maddie! you add such a sweet and great person and when you reblog and like my posts, my heart fills with joy! your blog brings me so much comfort and i love our short little conversations. you remind me of going out at 5 am when the sun is almost out. the joy is always evident when that happens just like how i feel when i talk to you! i wish to eat pancit canton with you one day! i really wish you the best in everything and you deserve so many good things. mwah!

@amourtentiaa liane! you are literally so talented and it amazes me every time i read your works. you are so fun and chill and seeing your name always makes me happy! your blog page is filled with so much comfort in my opinion and our first conversation ever was so fun and you are so polite. you also really remind me of the night. i can’t explain why but like i said, you are chill and brings me a lot of comfort! i really love the way you interact with others as you are so kind. i hope you are doing well and always will feel well. ily, yannie!

@puntuations oh my gosh, ysa! you followed me first and i didn’t exactly understand why because you seemed too cool and mature for me djdj. but i am so glad you did and i am so grateful that you’re my friend. thank you for tagging me in dps related things! i really love that and it brings me so much joy. you were always so kind to me no matter what and you are so respectful. i appreciate you and your blog always makes me smile. thank you for being an amazing friend. ilysm, ysa. mwah!

@tofeeltaller joy! you bring me so much joy! sjdndjdn sorry, i had to. you are so so sweet and kind. i was always so scared to interact with dps blogs because they seemed intimidating but so nice at the same time (idk why i’m sorrydhjd), i thought y’all were too cool for me and i didn’t know how to approach you guys but after i got the courage to talk to you, i felt a lot more comfortable. you are so sweet and kind and you deserve so much more blessings. you truly are an amazing person and i hope that your days will get better and better. giving you so many warm hugs and kisses, mwah!

@lolremuslupin dkndkx omg you are so sweet! i don’t interact with you much but we do talk sometimes. i am also very glad that i decided to pm you to try and make new friends and you were so kind about it. you are such an amazing person and i love staying up at 3 am talking to you about random crap. i wish that your life will go well and that you are always safe! warm hugs!

@punkrific soaf, my twin! i really love talking to you and your energy is always so great. you are an amazing and fun person and having a twin like you always makes me feel like the luckiest ever. i am so so grateful to have you as a friend and your dashing personality always gets me. ilysm and i wish you the best! love, the ugly sofia <3

@freddieweasleyswife sweets! i’ve never met someone as sweet and kind as you are. you’re an amazing person and you deserve so much and you are so talented. i wish to write like you one day. my day is always better when I see your name in my notifications being friends with someone as amazing as you are is so great and i wosh to interact with you more. i miss talking to you and you’re always so kind and ready to comfort anyone. ilysm and you deserve the world. sincerely, sweetpea. <3

@sam-winchester-is-my-bitch rae! i love talking to you and seeing your pets! you are so kind, sweet and understanding and you really know how to make me smile. whenever i talk to you, it’s always so wholesome and nice and you give off so much good vibes. you really are like the color yellow to me, sunny, nice, but can be serious at times. but is always ready to cheer someone up. i wish you the best in everything and i hope that we can talk more! all the love <3

@daltonacademia kendi! i know you’re on a short hiatus at the moment but i just had to add you in here. i really hope that you are doing well and i hope you know that your writing is literally one of the best that i’ve ever read. you are so sweet and kind and you always have that little fun and sunny personality and i love talking to you so much. you are so respectful and you deserve so much. i’m sending you all the love and comfort. you are amazing and i hope you know that. stay safe, kendi! i really love that nicknamejsjs

@thatswhywilliamagedlikesourmilk dear! i am so glad that you followed my page and i am so so grateful that i’m friends with you. you are one of the best people ever and you are so so sweet. the most adorable person ever! talking to you feels like hugging a teddy bear and i am aware that that doesn’t make much sense but it just feels so comfy and brings me joy. i really hope that you’re doing well because you also deserve everything! sending you so many hugs <3 mwah!

@fredweasleyismyloverman alex, my dear! you are so kind and nice! i’m really glad i followed you. just a little fun fact, i actually found you through ant or @krasivayadarling . i was reading through some people who she gave ships to and i saw yours and i was like “oh my gosh, this person and i are literally the same.” and i went crazy because it looked almost exactly the same as my description hdjdjd. i’m actually not that sure if it went like that but that’s how i recalled it so i just always remember thatsbns. i literally relate to you so much and your shitposts give me life. you are so wise and amazing and i would love to talk to you more! ily, dear! mwah <3

@daisyyy2516 daze, dear! i am so happy that sab led ke to your page! literally, you are so damn talented and i just cannot i am always so amazed every time you show your works. you are so kind and sweet and such an icon. you bring me so much joy and everything you’ve ever said to me has always been something sweet and funny. ilysm and you deserve the world. i’d like if you dm’ed me once you’ve gotten your work displayed at some huge art exhibition. you are so amazing and i want you to know that. everything will be better. i appreciate you and i am so glad that you are in this world. i love you sm, daze. frd weasley loves you too. all the love and joy, soaf.

@sirlorelai lorie!! you are so nice and kind and sweet. i’m very glad that you weren’t angry at me spam reblogging your postsjsjd. i love our conversations and i wish we could talk more! you are such a kind and funny person and everything you’ve ever done has put a smile to my face. you are so fun and energetic and i love that. i hope that life is going well over there and that everything will be better if it isn’t at the moment. you deserve so much and ilysm, mwah!

@quadrupledeckertaco lorelei, dear! i miss talking to you! i really love our conversations and your soft but fierce personality is so great and it brings me so much joy. your writing is literally so amazing and like i said, i aspire to write like you one day. i miss you so much and i really hope that everything’s well. i wish you the best and sending you so much love, sofia. <3

and to all my other mutuals! thank you! i love all of you so much and interacting with all of you brings me so much joy. thank you for everything. have a great day everyone!

[bluesky-thewebcomic]

Final thoughts from Elvenwhovian

So here we are at the end. The last panel. There were a lot of times that I thought I wouldn’t make it to this point. It’s been an incredible and long journey, and finishing a project like this is satisfying beyond words. I know that many of you were not here from the start, so I just wanted to share the story of how this 930 panel monster of a project came to be and thank a few people who helped along the way.

Really it all started in March of 2014. My roommate had taken a trip to New Zealand to visit family and I was having a pity party at home alone (It’s always been a dream of mine to go to New Zealand). I was window shopping online on Thinkgeek (RIP Thinkgeek) and I was seeing all this merch for a game called Portal. This led me to Steam, which led to finishing the first Portal in about a day, then Portal2 in about 2 weeks. 

Of course this led me to begin looking up fan art which led me to discover the fanfiction “Blue Sky”. I read the whole thing in about 4 days. I was so engrossed in the story, I ate, slept, went to work, and read Blue Sky and nothing else. I vividly remember sitting at my kitchen table, ipad in hand, as I read the last lines of the story. I sat back, let out a long breath and said, “Wow. That was one of the best stories I’ve ever read.” 

The fan art came next. Being relatively new to tumblr, I was used to getting 3-6 notes on a post. Suddenly, people were coming out of the woodwork liking and reblogging. My mind was blown and it made me want to make more fan art. Then I met @starry-nightengale who became one of my best friends on this site. We fangirled over “Blue Sky” and Portal over the next year which led to us co-writing “The Trial of the Bow” trilogy, a medieval/fairytale retelling of Portal, Portal 2, Blue Sky, and Portal Stories: Mel. 

It was on Labor day weekend of 2015 when my internet went down inexplicably. My roommate who had the internet in her name was out of town yet again and I conceded that I would have to wait until she got back to get the issue resolved. The Trial of the Bow Trilogy was finished and I had just co-written with @the-royal-sketchbook a Half-life Medival/fairytale fanfic “The Legend of the Freeman.” However, my passion for Half-life was not as strong as it was for Blue Sky and I longed to do something else involving Wheatley, Chell, and the citizens of Eaden. 

Most of the people that I encouraged to read Blue Sky did not have the time to invest into a novel length book. I longed to create something more accessible. A comic book/graphic novel of the story had been in the back of my mind for a long time, but when the desire rose up in me, the thought of “but you would have to do backgrounds and you suck at backgrounds” reared its ugly head. 

But on that Labor day weekend, a thought occurred to me. “What if I did it as a comic? Very loose and simple. Something that I could do for fun without any heavy commitment.” So that weekend, I did a quick pencil drawing of the scene when Wheatley and Chell argue from Chapter 5. I threw some color on it and put it on tumblr and it got a great response. Then I did the scene when Chell transfers Wheatley into the hardlight avatar from Chapter 3. Another great response. It was simple and loose but people seemed to like it. I asked Starry what she thought about doing the whole story in such a way. If memory serves, she was for it but warned me not to get too far ahead of myself. If I did this, it would be a huge project and would take a lot of planning and forethought. BTW, good advice Starry ;)

After completing all of Chapter 1, I made the announcement, created the page, and the Blue Sky Web comic was born.

One of the things that helps me to recharge each week is drawing/working on art on Sunday afternoons. In the past, I had struggled to find things to work on, but no more. Sunday was now Blue Sky Comic day. I would post 2 panels and create 4 more. If I had extra time on holidays or days off I would get extra done. This system allowed me to consistently add to the project without feeling rushed or overwhelmed. I was able to get ahead so that I could take breaks for holidays, trips, computer problems, and eventually planning my wedding and getting married. The Blue Sky Web Comic became a constant in my life. Whenever I needed to decompress and just draw or color in panels, it was there. 

In late summer of 2019, my Father was diagnosed with cancer. If any of you have walked through cancer with someone, you know how difficult and painful it can be. My husband and I took a trip to see my parents about once a month for the next 8 months. The drive was fairly long and was the perfect opportunity to work on what I called “pencil work” for the comic (sketching out the layout of each panel, a process that took the most concentration and time). Working on the comic helped to keep my mind off of things. Each time we visited my Dad his condition declined and being able to focus on something like the “pencil work” helped to make the trips better.

In spring of 2020, right before the COVID-19 lockdown, my Father passed away. It was right before that final trip that I finished the “Pencil work”. By then I had also made a lot of headway on the comic itself, with only a few chapters left to ink and color. I remember reading stories and blogs about how people made it through difficult times by focusing on a hobby, tv show, book, or music; not living in denial of the bad things, but just having something to help them take a break from it all. That was what the Blue Sky Comic was for me in those final days and I will always cherish how it was one of the things that helped me to make it through that difficult period in my life.

With the COVID-19 lockdown, I had some extra time to work on the comic and by late spring of 2020, I finished the last panel. It still kind of blows my mind. From 2015 to 2020 was how long it took to complete.

____________

To the 2000+ followers and those who replied, liked, reblogged, and sent messages, your words helped me to keep going when I wondered if it was worth it. Your kind thoughts helped me to know that this story is still enjoyed by people and Portal fans alike.

To @starry-nightengale, thank you for your advice at the beginning and your support and friendship along the way. Here’s to many more ^w^

And to @wafflebloggies, thank you for writing Blue Sky. It may seem overdramatic, but when I found this fic back in 2014, I was in a dark place and your story helped me hold onto the light. Even years later when faced with new trials, it helped me to focus on what was ahead. I truly believe that this story resonates with so many people because it taps into the most simple and profound truth: the most powerful love is selfless. And selfless love can conquer any difficulty. Also your support of the comic over the years made me smile with delight. I’m so glad you liked it :)

So that’s the story. I plan to do more audiobooks of the rest of the Trial of the Bow trilogy, but after that I’m going to be taking a nice long break from Blue Sky and Portal.  I have a personal passion project that I am in the initial stages on. It's another web comic that I actually couldn’t have even considered doing if not for the experience I gained over the past 5 years. I’ll have updates on my personal tumblr for that project and the audiobooks, but for this page, The Blue Sky Web comic, this will be one of my final posts (aside from responding to any messages from you guys). Thank you all again for following. What an incredible journey this has been! This fandom is so amazing and I love you all. Take care and God bless. - Elvy

[altaroracleguidance]

Hello dear, how are you?

May I have a free reading?

My initials: DP. Taurus

I want to know about my future spouse details and how much he love me?

Have a wonderful day!

Thank you sweety ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

Hi DP!

Thank you for your request, here is your reading:

The Hermit - This card suggests that your future spouse will be quite shy at first. When you first meet him, it will take him a while to come out of his shell and be confident expressing his feelings and affections towards you. He may have been abused or hurt in the past, which has led him to become quite emotionally closed off - he has to spend time earning someone's trust before he feels comfortable committing to them. But your outgoing and compassionate personality will help him feel open around you and eventually ready to take the next romantic steps with you.

King of Cups - This card suggests that your future spouse will be extremely kind and loving. After a while of being able to trust you and open up to you, he will show his true, beautiful personality. He will be extremely sensitive to your needs, and endeavour to treat you right at all times. He will do anything for you, and will support you through everything. He will be gentle and kind, and want to always protect you. He truly will love you, and you will also bring out the best in him.

Embrace - This card again is a sentiment to just how much you and your future spouse will love each other. You've both been through a lot of trauma and failed relationships, and you both will be in need of healing and comfort from a partner. And you will definitely be able to give that to eachother, as you support each other and help mend each others traumas and broken hearts. It will be beautiful relationship, whether you are both able to sympathise with each other, and bring out the best in each other.

I hope this reading was insightful for you lovely! As an energy exchange, I would really appreciate it if you could leave me feedback either in the comments of this post, or in the comments of my pinned post. If you don't feel comfortable doing so, as a last resort feel free to private message me to leave me some feedback. And don't forget to follow my blog, and reblog my pinned post to help me reach more people! 💕

If you're interested in a more indepth paid reading at any time, I accept donations of any amount. Feel free to private message me to book 🌟

For those who may have stumbled across this post and are drawn, i offer free and paid readings! Please see my pinned post for details 🔮

Thank you so much for your support 🦋

- Alexandra ❤️

[bbrandy2002]

Fools Rush In

Part 4

Series: The Royal Romance

Pairing: Liam x OC (Riley)

Previous chapters can be found here.

Series Premise: With two weeks until Liam is to marry Madeleine, the guys throw him a bachelor party in Vegas. As a drunken night, he finds himself with way more than he bargained for.

MC did not exist in Liam’s social season. OC Riley Brooks lives in Las Vegas.

A/N: No wacky drabble for this one. Went a wee bit over and couldn’t cut. Oh well...there’s always next time. This is an 18+ series.

A/N: The lyrics to the song Maxwell sings comes from a Tik Tok video that was shared with me and the idea to include it in this is not my own hahahaha I will post the link to the video in comments to give the maker proper credit and just in case anyone wants to actually watch it. I thought it was funny..

Thanks @burnsoslow for beta reading and all of my lovely pre-readers.

Warning: Mention of STD’s

Permanent Tags: @emceesynonymroll @romanticatheart-posts @burnsoslow @dcbbw @ao719 @jessiembruno @hopefulmoonobject @texaskitten30 @drakesensworld @janezillow @merridithsmiscellany-blog @mskaneko @loveellamae @queenjilian @sirbeepsalot @pedudley @caroldxnvxrs @jovialyouthmusic @forthebrokenheartedthings @desireepow-1986 @bebepac @kingliam2019 @lovablegranny @cordoniaqueensworld @amandablink @blueaster-blog1 @liamxs-world @choiceskatie @iaminlovewithtrr @hopelessromanticmonie @charlotteg234 @twinkleallnight @annekebbphotography @txemrn

@princessleac1 @cordonia-continued @sanchita012 @shz256 @cordonia-gothqueen @narrytheworld @graceful-leah @mom2000aggie @queenwalton @tinkie1973 @muchkoolermk @captain-kingliamsqueen @gabesmommie1130 @cordonianprincess @cinnamonspongecake

Be Kind: Hit the heart button, leave a comment or reblog. It makes a writer so so happy.

____________

All Riley wanted to do was go home, take a hot shower, snuggle up in a blanket on the couch with a Lifetime movie, and carry on with the rest of her life. 

She'd had this crazy but exciting night out with a fantastic guy. They had a little too much to drink and woke up the next morning to find they were married to each other.  

And she wasn't just married to anyone. No, it had to be the King of a small European country she'd never heard of before. 

That's not something that just happened to everyone. 

Depending on how one viewed her circumstances she was either the luckiest or unluckiest woman in all of Vegas. 

If she were a betting person, she'd place money on the latter.

Riley stood at the penthouse door, engaged in a stare down with the blonde-haired obstacle blocking the exit. 

In front of her was a woman wearing a black and white fur coat, a strand of pearls that hung loosely around her neck, and an impudent scowl. 

If evil were a lady, Riley surmised she was looking at her.

Madeleine's green eyes bore agitation and scorn as she studied the petite figure she recognized from the dozens of photos that bombarded her text messages. 

"You must be the bimbo who thinks she will steal my crown and title."

"Excuse me?" Riley's eyes narrowed, not knowing who she was speaking to, but could already tell she didn’t care to know.

Leo stepped up protectively behind Riley and growled at the countess. "Go away, Madeleine! How many times do we have to tell you the dalmatians aren't for sale?"

"You wish I were here for dalmatians," Madeleine sneered. "Now, out of my way, heathens." 

She pushed her way past the two and stalked inside while Mara shuffled behind. She removed her cashmere gloves and took notice of her fiance with his back pressed against the bar top, one legs crossed over the other, and sipping casually on his scotch.

Liam tipped the glass to his lips as if he didn't have a care in the world and swallowed. "Can I offer you a glass of wine, dear? Or a cronut? Perhaps a ride to the middle of the desert to be left for dead?"

"That's quite alright," Madeleine quipped as she ripped the glass out of Liam's hand and slammed it down on the bar. "But maybe you'd like to first explain why I have been inundated with one message after the next telling me you were married to this ..." She motioned her hand toward Riley with derision. "This ... bitch?"

Liam paused as if he were thinking about it, then shook his head. "No. Not really." She's not a bitch ... she's amazing. He wondered why he couldn't say that out loud.

Stunned, Riley looked up at Leo in disbelief. "Did she really just call me a bitch? She doesn't even know me."

Leo nodded with a compassionate smile on his face, then pulled her further inside and shut the door. 

He wasn't about to let her go now.

Liam grabbed his drink, pushed himself off the bar, and strolled to the center of the room. He could feel Madeleine's icy glare following his every movement. The King hoped his flippant attitude was enough to penetrate deep into her frozen exterior and piss her off even more. "I thought you were in New York, Mads. 8 million people in that city for you to torment, and you still make time to hop on your broomstick and find me. I have to say … I'm touched."

Madeleine shot him a dirty look. "Do you have any idea what I've been through because of what you did last night?"

He shrugged. "Nope, and I don't care."

"Well, you're going to care when I tell you everything that happened." She disregarded the audible groan and eye roll from him as she began her diatribe of offenses. "I had just settled in for the night when I get a message from that simpleton, Penelope, telling me what you did. I tried to call you, but apparently, you and the rest of your entourage of losers blocked my number. So I had this incompetent boob of a guard you hired for me book the first flight out here.

“When I got to JFK, I was detained and strip-searched because someone falsely alerted authorities claiming I was a Colombian drug lord, only in the U.S. to sell cocaine and hypodermic needles to children --"

Leo snorted. 

Liam curled his lips into a devilish grin, knowing exactly who did it. He glanced subtly to Mara, who winked back at him.

"Are you even listening to me, Liam? As if that nightmare wasn't horrid enough, I find out Mara booked coach class … COACH! Coach is so beneath someone like me. There were babies and old people and sodas. But the worst was when we finally arrived here; they strip-searched me again. I had to get my own baggage and ride in one of those god-awful smelly shuttle vans to this hotel. And do you know why I had to do all of that? Because you're a complete moron, Liam. The people of Cordonia are laughing at you; you know that, right? I always knew you would be a total embarrassment and fuck up, but this is beyond anything I imagined."

A downcast expression was plastered on Liam's face as he stared down at the drink in his shaky hand. Those words stung -- “a total embarrassment and fuck up.” In his mind, he felt she was right. He had let down even his own expectation of himself and the reputation of the monarchy.

There was nothing to do but stand there and stew in silence.

But Riley wouldn’t.

She shrugged Leo's hand from her shoulder and spun Madeleine around by the arm to face her. "Is this what you do? You go around insulting everyone and being a first-class bitch? I will have you know, Liam is not any of those things. He's the kindest, sweetest man I've ever met. And it's no wonder he looked so miserable last night at the club. I couldn't understand why at first, but now ... now it all makes sense. Did you ever stop to think that maybe if you weren't such a fucking cunt, he wouldn't have been drinking so much and been so willing to accept the company of another woman?"

Liam felt his heart twinge. Riley had every right to be upset with him, and he felt guilty for putting her in this situation. But there she was, defending him. God, she was hot.

Madeleine guffawed. "How cute. You've got your little whore taking up for you now."

"That's enough!" Liam's eyes landed sharply on her. Before he could stop himself, the next few words sprang from his lips as naturally as his breath. "You will not speak to my wife -- your Queen -- like that again, or so help me I will charge you where you stand for treason against the Crown. Do I make myself clear?"

Riley's eyes rounded, unsure of what to say or do at that moment.

Leo loudly cheered and pumped his fist in the air. 

Liam stood his ground as he glowered back at his slack-jawed, now ex-fiancee.

Madeleine couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You can't be serious? We are getting married in two weeks. I'm going to be the Queen!" Her tone was one of anger and desperation.

He laughed wryly in her face. "Not anymore." 

He looked past a stunned Madeleine to the heedless guard smirking behind her. "Mara, please see to it that the countess returns to the airport and doesn't disturb us again."

She agreed and led a vociferously-protesting Madeleine toward the doorway.

"You'll regret this, Liam. You'll both pay for this travesty!" 

"Use the taser on her, Mara!" Leo bounced with excitement as he followed them and opened the door. He handed the guard a $100 bill as she walked by and whispered, "Make sure they strip search her again. A bonus if they need double gloves and lube."

"You got it, boss."

Leo slammed the door and clapped. "Ding-dong, the witch is gone! So. Do you need help packing, sis? We still have a couple of hours before we go back to Cordonia. That should be enough time to gather some things."

Riley stammered, looking between the two men, completely dumbfounded by what just took place.

Liam noticed. He knew what he said to Madeleine about her being his wife and Queen was most likely awkward for her. 

They didn't know each other; it was a fact, he continued to remind himself.

Liam rubbed the back of his neck, unsure of what to say. "Uh, Riley ... I just want you to know ... I only said that stuff because of Madeleine ..."

"Oh, yes. Of course. I knew that." She chuckled nervously and waved her hand. "But what about your engagement?"

"Yeah, Liam. You gotta have a queen." Leo clapped the back of one hand against the palm of the other and exclaimed, "Dem's da rules."

Liam shook his head and carried his empty glass to the open kitchen. "I know that, Leo. But I will not ask Riley to give up her life here just to help me clean up my mess. She deserves better than that."

Riley crossed her arms on the counter that looked into the kitchen, watching Liam get a bottled water from the fridge. "What happens if you don't have a Queen?"

Liam twisted the cap and gave a half-shrug. "I don't have a choice. I'll have to marry Madeleine." The words stung his lips.

"But she's so pissed at you right now."

He chuckled. "That won't stop her. She wants the crown, and that's it."

Riley could see the sadness in his eyes, the same sadness she saw last night in the club where they first met. "You'll be miserable with her, though," she muttered wistfully.

He nodded, regret written on his face. "Yeah."

Riley stood silent; she weighed the pros and cons of such a massive uprooting.  Her life had been slightly stalled and bland for the last few years. Las Vegas was her getaway to a new life from New York, where she left behind both regrets and failed relationships. And yet ... this new place wasn't everything she told herself it would be.

She looked at Liam and felt her heart break. She understood him more than he realized. 

But ... to be a Queen?

Riley inhaled deeply and prepared to speak up when Liam's phone rang.

He placed the cap on his water, sat it on the counter, and lifted his phone from the pocket of his shorts. "It's Maxwell," he called out.

Leo rushed to him. "Put it on speaker, Li!"

"Maxwell, I have you on speaker. Leo and Riley are with me. How's Drake?"

"He's in the pharmacy, and I'm standing outside getting air. It's going to take a while to amass all the medication and creams he needs."

The brothers looked at each other with wide eyes. Riley covered her mouth to prevent the chuckle that threatened to escape. "I think I'll give you guys some privacy. I'll just be in the bathroom."

Liam nodded and turned his attention back to the call. "Is it really that bad, Max? I mean, I think we know what he has."

"Dudes, I don't think you can even begin to guess half the shit Drake's got."

"You gotta tell us what the Drakester has, Max."

"I'm not really supposed to say." 

They could hear the hesitation in his voice. It was almost like he wanted to tell them, but needed a little more coaxing.

"Maxwell," Liam spoke. "If Drake doesn't want us to know, then you should probably keep it to yourself ... for now."

"I did kind of write a song about everything he was diagnosed with for a TikTok video. Drake only said not to tell anyone. He never said I couldn't sing about it."

Leo nodded his head. "Agreed. Sing that song, Beaumont."

They could hear Maxwell shuffle further away from what sounded like a crowded street. 

"Okay, the coast is clear," Maxwell said as he took a deep breath. The boys hugged their ears against Liam's cell phone. 

"Drake just left the clinic, and I'm afraid its bad news. 

So now I'm singing this song about it hoping it gets views. 

Don't know how he's still alive. 

Or how he survived. 

The doctor said he's got five ... nasty STIs. 

He's got some in his balls … got some in his ass.

And what's worse is his curly pubes are crawling with crabs. 

He's got herpes! From a booty call! 

He's got syphilis …now his dick is raw.

He's got chlamydia … And it's so sore.

And he doesn't even know where he got genital warts." 

Liam pressed two fingers into both sides of his temples while he stared blankly at his phone. "Un - believable."

Leo swiped the tears from his eyes and made no attempts to hide the giant smile curling his lips or his overwhelming giddiness. "I've never been more proud of the Drakester than I am at this moment. He actually beat me out on this one. Gotta say ... I don't mind losing to him this time."

“Liam. Leo. I gotta go; Drake’s on his way out. See ya back at the hotel.”

Leo went to the refrigerator to search for a snack, pulling out a leftover pizza. “Ya know, we should probably warn the maid she may need to get a haz-mat team before cleaning Drake’s room.”

Riley rounded the corner. “I hope everything is okay with your friend.”

Liam smiled. “That’s very kind of you say. He’ll be fine … I think.”

She fidgeted with her bracelet and glanced over at Leo placing a slice of cold pizza on top of another slice and taking a large bite. “Leo, I hate to ask while you’re eating … again. But would you mind if I spoke to your brother for a moment? Privately.”

Leo chewed quickly while shaking his head. He swallowed hard. “Sure. I needed to use the shitter, anyway. Pinquee Kittee’s casserole isn’t sitting too well in the Leo tummy.” He grabbed the pizza box and headed for the bathroom.

Liam looked curiously at Riley, not able to read her expression or have any clue what she would want to talk about. “You needed to speak with me?”

She nodded. “Yeah. About our marriage ...”

[drsteggy]

Hey Stegg! I’m going around to some of my writer mutuals/favorite fic writers and asking about their favorite works! Just to spread a little fic writer hype :) Tell us about the best fic you’ve written and why it’s kickass! This could include anything, from developmental fun facts, to character stuff, to your writing process, to thematic-weaving coolness. Have at it! :D

I still think of myself as fairly new in this space, and while I try to write and post regularly, I definitely don’t have a big body of work just yet. I also don’t know if I’m a good judge of my own work. I did have a crappy relationship with my stats last summer, but I’ve mostly gotten over it and I really do try to write things that I want to write, so most of my stuff is pretty self indulgent.

Like. I did creative writing in high school, and undergrad, but it got set aside hard for a long time as I turned skills I had to written debates on blog posts and forums. I came to fic writing without much clue what to do-my studies were sciences and a lot of them, and whatever English classes I took were pretty much minimal. I did love to read, and I read a lot, but if you asked me how stories worked I really could not tell you very well. I still can’t. I recognize that I probably soaked up how I liked story arcs to go, and I knew when I felt cheated or baited and switched (looking at you, LOST and Game of Thrones) but I definitely feel like the dumb kid when I’m somewhere watching people talk about the nuts and bolts of things. So we are gonna go on about my favorite thing I’ve written, because it’s also almost all I’ve written.

So my favorite thing I’ve written is still Uneasy Lies the Chosen of Farore. When I started to really fixate on the Legend of Zelda, I first sought out fan art, and there’s so much gorgeous art. Art led to fic. I hadn’t read fanfic since the 90s when I was obsessing over The X Files.

I particularly liked how flexible canon seemed to be in the fandom. The story goes that the hero and the incarnation of Hylia reincarnate repeatedly, and not all of them got to be a game, right? That idea was so exciting. Surely, at some point, they were adults, maybe older adults, maybe characters I could relate to a bit better than teenagers. So I looked, and the best I could do was finding them in their early, maybe mid 20s. This was frustrating to me and I spent a lot of time wondering if I would be worthy, should I stumble upon a sword with a blue hilt and a strangely flipped cross guard and I decided that I was a lot more worthy than I would have been at sixteen or twenty-five and from there it was a pretty short journey to imagining what it would be like to take that hilt, and that’s pretty much the first chapter.

I’ve written about how the rest of the story came to be before, so I’ll try to not retread that ground. At the time this was going on, I was still sorting out a pretty turbulent and awful period of my own life, and while I was mostly on the other side, I was also still trying to fit it into the rest of my life and I dealt with a lot of it through that story. I half joke sometimes that this version of Link is very much a self insert. I feel like a lot of readers pick up on the parent stuff. But there’s other stuff too, because when I decided to turn my thousand word scene into an 88k fic, I decided to use the overall arc of the previous four or five years as a scaffold to hang stuff on.

I’m not gonna delve into personal stuff for me other than broad strokes. I think I generally made better choices in my life, for example, than Link does, but it did take a therapist to help me see why I made some choices the way I did. The Great Deku Tree and Impa both say things to Link that were said to me. Zelda does as well at some point. Each time that happens he does take a minute to think on it and changes a little bit, so that by the time he is at the end of the story, the guy he was at the beginning might not recognize him.

People often comment that they find this Link and Zelda very relatable and I’m glad they do. In the games, Link is supposed to be the slate your write your experience on as you go. He is supposed to just be an extension of the player, maybe more so in Breath of the Wild which was my intro to the franchise. I really love the journey he goes on from realizing he is a pretty hot mess, and how much his shit is not as together as he assumed, though he needed a big event to change things out of his control to see it, to where is much more emotionally grown up and has found a soft place to land with people he loves who love him back on equal footing.

I recognize my little AU seems a little weird at first, but I’ve enjoyed playing in it enough that I also ended up writing a series of side fics for it, and I still think about what might have happened before and after the sword, that I suspect there will probably be more. It’s definitely a work I’m really proud of, and it also helped bring me into a community of people I really like, too.

The art I commissioned for this fic is making rounds on Tumblr again today, for some reason. Someone reblogged it and a bunch of other people saw it for the first time. I like to think when someone reblog sit out of the blue it means than maybe they went and had a read, and I like having that thought. I’m glad I brought this thing into the world. 2020 sucked pretty hard but this fic probably would not exist if it hadn’t.

Thank you, @kittmoon for the ask. I really do like to talk about that fic.

[swiftiephobe]

thoughts on edit discourse, aka “you all realise this is meant to be fun?”

okay so buckle up swifties because i have some THOUGHTS about the whole edit discourse, the idea of needing to support editors by reblogging their posts and where i think some of you are a bit... misguided in how you approach sharing content on tumblr.com. this is a long post (i have put it under a cut because it is that long) because i am incapable of saying things concisely and i cannot think of another way to get my points across without having them misrepresented. i know a lot of people might ignore this because it’s a long ass essay, and that is valid <3 i just wanna get these thoughts out there. i do appreciate anyone who chooses to read this and try and understand my point of view. i love editors and the content they create. i do not love the idea that people have to run their blogs and engage with content on this website in a very specific way in order to be acceptable to the community.

also this isn’t directed at any one person in particular. the attitudes i am talking about are pervasive in a large portion of the fandom, and i’ve seen them building for quite a while now. i’m happy to have a respectful discussion about many of the points i’ve made here, as i know a lot of you will disagree with them. the purpose of this post isn’t to “attack” people, it’s to provide a different perspective.

i wanna preface this by talking about when i first started posting edits. i don’t do it a lot now mostly because i’m busy and don’t often feel like it but back in 2017/2018 i really got into editing. i remember when i first taught myself how to make gifs in photoshop, and i made my first gifset, and i was so excited to post it because i was so proud of myself for having created something. so i posted it, and then i kept making and posting gifsets. most of them didn’t get many notes, and frankly a lot of them were not very good because i was still learning, but i still posted them because it was nice to have created something. 

one day i posted a gifset and tagged it with some appropriate tags, including tagging some big source blogs. well, one of those big source blogs actually reblogged my gifset! and i was so excited by that. i even went and sent that blog an ask profusely thanking them for reblogging my edit. it’s a bit embarrassing to think about having done that now, but the point is i was so excited to have a blog that i considered “important” reblog my stuff, and of course that led to more notes on the gifset which made me happy. that gifset ended up getting about 150 notes, which still isn’t a lot but it made me happy at the time.

why am i telling this story, you might ask? because i want to put it out there that I GET IT. getting that reblog on that gifset made me, a baby editor, very very happy. ecstatic, even. the fact that i can still remember it now shows how much it meant to me. i was already proud of myself for having created something that i thought was good, but getting that extra bit of external validation to tell me that what i had created was actually good felt special. so i understand why editors want people to reblog their work. it makes us feel good to see that others are enjoying what we’ve made enough to want to share it with others.

so i kept making edits, some of them got a lot of notes while others really didn’t. i continued to learn new things about editing, i played around in photoshop and got excited every time i realised a new thing i could do with one of the tools. some of the edits i made were a lot of work, and i was very proud of them, and i still am very proud of them. a lot of those edits that hold a special place in my heart did not get many notes. one edit that i made (which was a url graphic for another person) took hours and a lot of hard work trying to figure out how to make my idea happen, and i think now it has less than ten notes.

sometimes i look back through my edit tag and i see edits like that one, that i loved making and thought turned out very well, but have relatively very few notes. and honestly? when i look at them, i don’t feel sad about the number of notes they have. sure, i think “well, it would’ve been nice if more people had seen this”, but for the most part i still feel damn proud of myself for having made it. i feel happy looking at them because they remind me of when i was making them and how much i enjoyed the process. 

at the end of the day, editing isn’t something i do as a job, for the sake of meeting a quota or reaching a benchmark of external achievement. it’s a hobby, something i do because i enjoy the process of creating something. i post my edits here so that they can be hosted publicly on my blog, and yes while getting notes is very very nice, it’s not my primary motivation. this year i’ve mostly been making edits for albums that i have enjoyed, some of which have practically no audience on tumblr and so don’t get many notes. and that’s fine. i don’t make them for other people.

which i suppose brings me to a point that i feel like will upset some people, but... the way some of you talk about editing, sometimes it seems like you don’t even enjoy it? i know that’s ridiculous because you all do, and many of you are crazy talented, but when i read people posting about how getting less than 100 notes on an edit makes them want to give up and never post an edit ever again, i frankly have to wonder if you even enjoyed making the edit in the first place, and if not, why did you do it? it just seems like a lot of you have a warped idea that the end goal of making an edit is notes, when in my opinion it really should be for fun. we’re in the taylor swift tumblr fandom. this is meant to be fun, remember? it’s okay to be upset when something you thought was great doesn’t receive as enthusiastic a reception as you were hoping for, but it happens to everyone and it doesn’t mean you, or others, are doing something wrong. if you enjoyed creating something, and you are proud of it, that’s what really matters in the end.

something else i’ve noticed is the extreme policing of how people interact with edits, mostly the notion that you HAVE to reblog edits and anything else is offensive and unacceptable. and sorry, but no. everyone runs their blogs in a different way. some people use their likes as bookmarks for things they want to reblog or queue for later. some people have a specific aesthetic they want to keep for their blog so don’t reblog every single thing, but they still want to acknowledge that they saw your edit and liked it. people have a million reasons why they don’t want to reblog something, and since it is their blog and their space, all of them are valid. 

when you post something to a public social media website, you have to accept that people are going to interact with it in the way that suits them most (this is of course excluding hate or stealing, those are not acceptable). if you are seeing a like on your edit and somehow extrapolating it into some “this isn’t good enough” statement, you are reading way too much into it. if people are liking your edit, it’s because they like your edit. is it nice when people reblog your stuff? yes. but people aren’t obligated to do so.

this also applies to the idea of keeping comments in the tags. i agree that commenting in the tags on edits is proper etiquette, and it’s something i always do. but the absolutely vitriol i have seen directed towards people who comment on their reblogs is not okay. i’ve seen people talk about blocking people who comment on their edits. it’s not nice. if you see someone say “i love this!” about your edit and your first thought isn’t “that’s so nice!” but instead “this person said this in the wrong place so i hate it”, please get your priorities straight.

i think most of the discussion surrounding edits starts off in a good place. it’s good to remind people that reblogging edits is the best way to support them, and that it will make people happy. i think that message has been made clear time and time again, but now it’s turning into something more aggressive. you all say that the fandom is “dying” because people don’t interact with edits (as a side note, edits aren’t the only valid form of content in the fandom. funny text posts, theories, discussions and ask games all contribute to the feeling of the fandom being alive just as much as edits do), but all that these rules you’re trying to implement do is scare people away. people will become more and more afraid to interact with anything, for fear of not interacting enough, not interacting in the right way, or not interacting with the right people. and that, ultimately, will do a lot more harm to the fandom than people liking your edits.

[zorasdomain]

apology regarding 2018

This post is in regards to a callout from 2018, in case you have not read it.

This is going to be lengthy, as I have a lot to apologize for and reflect on after so long, so it will be under a cut. I thank you all for your patience and your time in reading it.

Hello, it’s been awhile; I post this not to beg forgiveness, but to apologize in a more proper way. Both for my sake, and for the sake of the hearts I undoubtedly wounded during the event.

I want to sincerely apologize for how I handled things in the past. In 2018, I was going through an early transition into new beliefs, and I lost myself to my interest in politics and my arrogant stance that “I knew better”. A lot of my beliefs have changed. I’ve gone through extremes since leaving Tumblr on every side, trying to feel my way through the spectrum. Ultimately, I have decided people are always more important than politics. Always. And as much as I spoke about caring in that big, obnoxiously long and drawn-out piece as a page on my blog, it essentially boiled down to “why can’t we agree to disagree?”, and about being unwilling to change my mind for the sake of others. For the sake of a community of friends I had built over years, who had supported me through everything, and who I KNEW wouldn’t agree with my beliefs (for understandable reasons). I hid them because I knew that, I think. It wasn’t clear to me at the time, as I truly thought it wasn’t important, but politics do reveal things about a person and what their values are. I will say I have never lied about the care I had for all of you. I understand it hard to see, given my past actions (which are unquestionably inexcusable), but I was blind to the internal contradiction that it was. I cared, but disconnected the people in my life from my politics because I “didn’t think it should matter”. It does, as I have come to learn. I apologize for the way I handled that, which was (understandably) as a liar and a manipulator. I hadn’t been intentionally doing it, but I acknowledge now that it was what had happened, and that certainly hurt many.

There have been hurtful things said about me, but I understand where they came from; Hell, the tweets I posted were targeting hundreds of people I had following me, and thousands in larger communities. Those tweets were heinous (and still are; my opinions are drastically different now) and I know they were not easy to stomach. I do not excuse them in any way, and I have since learned from them. I apologize to any victims who had been triggered by the tweets. They were harsh and insensitive, and certainly not true. I, in no way, excuse what was said then; your experience is valid, and any reaction you had to my tweets was as well. This also goes for the POC who I hurt with my tweets. It was disgusting of me to post such a thing and to harbor the opinion. I have since learned and come to understand the problems inherent in our system, and I apologize for the pain I caused.

I had been approached a few times about my beliefs; once prior to the callout, asking about my opinions on Kavanaugh, which I went off about on a snap to someone; if said person is reading this, I apologize for the shock of that moment and for my immature handling of it. A second time after, on instagram, regarding my political opinions. I went off in a wretched way. I debated from some place of “moral superiority” (that was certainly not true, though) and said things I know were hurtful to not only that person, but to so, so many connections from this website, and countless others. People who meant something to me. Not citations or studies, not some stupid subjective political opinion, but people.

Deeply, more than anything, I am sorry for the pain I caused this community. I feel like I tore something in everyone’s heart. Not to say I think so highly of myself as being that influential, but because I was someone who projected only positivity, and to have that image ripped apart when reading the disgusting tweets on my twitter no doubt caused harm. I suppressed that then because that’s what I tend to do, but I’ve been reflecting, maturing, and acknowledging what I did and I knew I had to properly apologize. Not type something up about ~uuu why can’t we agree to disagree~~ to post before abandoning the site, but something real. That is what I hope this can be for all of you. It does not change the hurt that it caused at the time, or the person I was then. However, I hope I may be able to demonstrate that I am not that same person with ill in my heart and ignorance of political opinions and their place in the lives of others, especially LGBT and POC.

Also, just to clear the air, I know there was confusion about if I was in the LGBT community or not, or if I was lying. I can clarify I was not, and never have, lied about that. What I identified as at a given life stage was truly a part of my person at the time and what was right for me then. In 2018 when the callout was written, I was growing more comfortable in being feminine, but I still connected heavily with masculine energies and pronouns. The same stands for today. Feel free to ask about this if you have specific questions.

All that said, my political alignment today and since November 2019, not really lies with either party. I have not been a Trump supporter for some time, and view him critically today, especially with much of his harmful rhetoric and actions. My father view(ed/s) him very positively, and part of my reasons for backing him so unquestionably in 2018 was due to his influence. I’ve fallen out of the political scene and I believe it’s especially important now, more than ever, to care for those in our lives and our community. We cannot look to the establishment or any in power. You’ve all kept that in mind from the beginning, and I applaud you for that. I lost myself to politics, and it took me nearly two years to find my way back to something that should be simple to understand.

Thank you all for helping me grow when I needed to. Thank you for the friends I had made, the community I had established, and for the memories. I will not immediately disappear after posting this; I won’t be reblogging anything of course, but I will be checking my inbox and any DMs (they should be open, but please let me know if they’re not!). Anon will be off, as I feel it would be better.

Thank you!

Also, please don’t call me by the name in the callout. That made me really uncomfortable to have my birthname there when I was merely testing it out at the time to see if I could return to it. It did not feel right & it was merely a period of re-experimentation before settling on my identity once more. Please call me Silver. Thank you.

EDIT: I am a nb boy (he/him) & have returned to being comfortable in this identity since 2019/20. I will be transitioning soon. I’d appreciate respect in that regard. Since Summer 2019, I have been seeing a therapist and working through deep rooted trauma which led to the discovery of an incredibly fractured sense of self, which partially manifested in my political views and the hypocrisy and contradiction present in the self that I was on Tumblr in 2018 (happy, accepting, “do-no-evil” vibes) VS the self I portrayed on the twitter rightraichu (judgemental, argumentative, self-absorbed). This is, by NO means, justification for how I acted. Recognizing that I have several conflicting selves within me has helped me to be more attentive to contradictions in who I am, and how manipulative I can be. I recognize and have been working through the false faces I wear when I, in truth, have rather low emotional (not cognitive) empathy. Again, not an excuse, but an explanation I hope might help you understand me. I am, by no means, a healthy or whole person. I have a lot of demons I’m working though. And that is my burden to bear. I am so sorry that I didn’t recognize things sooner and seek help so that I could prevent from ever reaching the point that I did in 2018. But, the past is in the past and all I can do now is recognize that I am figuring myself out. I wish you all the best. Things have been rough lately. I hope everyone has been coping alright. Take care.

[commander-rahrah]

RESIDENCY: SECOND CHANCES (AN OPEN HEART FIC II): PART ONE

Pairing: MC (Jordynne Holland) X Ethan Ramsey X Bryce Lahela; MC X Bryce; MC X Ethan. Please note that both pairings are present in this fan fiction — off & on, at the same times, and the relationships do ebb & flow. Please keep this in mind. Thank you.

Masterlist: Click Here

Chapter Rating: T 

Word Count: 4100+

Description: What happens between the end of Book One, and the start of Book Two.  Picking up from the ending of Open Heart Book 1 and the last chapter of Residency (masterlist posted above)

Disclaimer: Characters, storyline, and parts of the dialogue are taken from Pixelberry’s Choices. They fully own the characters, dialogue, backgrounds, etc. MC Jordynne’s background is my own creation, based loosely off of MC in-game’s personality and provided with more details.

Author’s Note: Annnnnnd we are back with Residency Part Two! Second Chances! I really wanted to explore what led to Ethan leaving for South America… For Two Months… Your girl hates a time jump and she hates even more when there are missed opportunities for angst and drama!!

As always any likes, reblogs, and comments are very appreciated. If you would like to be added/removed from the tag list please just let me know!

Taglist: @drakewalkerfantasy @owleyes374 @lahelable @mayar-mahdy @paisleylovergirl @nicquix @emilymay100 @octobereighth @llamasgrl @timmagicktoad @lilyofchoices @msjpuddleduck @mfackenthal @paulfwesley @ccolz88-blog @mindlessdreaminxo @jooous @lapisreviewsstuff @choicesarehard @themingdynasty @omgjasminesimone @hopelessly-shipper  @binny1985  @perriewinklenerdie  @jens-diamondchoices  @indiacater  @chasingrobbie  @writingsbymissy  @dimitriwife  @tacohead13  @amy-choices  @violinet

Previous Updates: Residency — Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight Part Nine Part Ten Part Eleven Part Twelve Part Thirteen Part Fourteen Part Fifteen Part Sixteen Part Seventeen Part Eighteen Part Nineteen Part Twenty

Previous Update

PART ONE:

Light trickled in through the office window — casting everything in a yellow light. The leather books lining the walls — some of the spines worn from years of referencing them. Framed diplomas and awards on the walls — not put up by him, but by the adamant advice of the board. They wanted to show off their decorated diagnostician.

Ethan Ramsey was leaning back in his desk chair, surveying the space around him carefully. Re-familiarizing himself with the space after his time away.

But now he was back.

His decision to come back was his own. But he was blindsided by everything else — Harper stepping down and Naveen replacing her was a shock. He was conflicted thinking of Naveen as administration now — hopeful that perhaps he had someone on his side now, but strained in wondering if it was really what the old man wanted.

And then there was Jordynne.

No — Doctor Holland, he corrected himself.

As he thought of her, images immediately began to play in his head like a slideshow. The previous night and how they had gotten lost in each other. The intimacy and passion and pleasure they shared in her tiny bedroom.

How intriguing it had been to see her personality and life displayed to him throughout her bedroom. The framed photos of her family on the walls, her perfectly organized, color coded bookshelf but her chaotic closet spilling at the seams. Ethan never thought he could be that excited at seeing someone else’s stacks of books on a nightstand — but with her he was.

And then their conversation. It wasn’t really a conversation — more of a quiet understanding. They both knew what it meant with him coming back to the hospital. But as he had opened his mouth to speak about it, Jordynne had silenced him with a kiss.

“Just be here with me — right now. Okay?” She had whispered through the kisses.

So that’s what he did.

But now — back in his pressed pants and lab coat, sitting in his office — his head was swimming. Going back to the way things were — he wasn’t sure how to do that. It was a lot harder now. A lot more complicated.

Ethan Ramsey had always been a man of conviction. Rules and regulations. Usually, they were his own rules, that were made with the official ones in mind that he would bend and twist as needed. So he had made a line for him and Jordynne — that wasn’t to be crossed. But they did — time and time again.

Now that she was going to be on the Diagnostics team, that line seemed more complicated than ever. He was her boss now — her direct report, not just her attending. But that also meant that they would be spending more time together than ever.

Why did Naveen put them in this situation?

Standing up abruptly, the chair behind him moved backward from being knocked by the backs of his knees.

Marching down the hallway, Ethan headed towards the elevator. He had a few glances at him in it — other staff whispering about him being back. But he had kept his arms crossed over his torso, keeping his guard up as to not initiate any conversations.

His leather dress shoes clicked down the hall as he made his way to the Chief of Medicine’s office. The door was already open.

“Ahh, Ethan. It took you longer than I anticipated to come see me up here.” Naveen spoke as he stepped away from hanging up a frame on the wall. He stepped back, putting his hands on his hips and looked at Ethan with a smile.

“I needed to process.” He stepped into the room, his hand hovering on the doorknob.

Naveen noticed, “Close the door.” The pair shuffled towards his desk and sat on opposite sides of it.

Ethan glanced over to see the frame he had been hanging — it was the pair of them, accepting an award. The same photo that was hanging on his living room wall.

“So, my friend, what is it your processing?”

“Why you’re in that chair.”

“Because,” He thought for a moment — his finger moving over his moustache, “Because we need to make sure that Edenbrook can continue to do good things. Harper’s heart wasn’t in it, anyone could see that. So, we needed to make sure that someone who knew how good this place is took this chair.”

“I— I just never thought you would be administration.”

Naveen let out a low belly laugh, “Me neither. But a few days ago, I had also accepted my fate that I was going to be a cadaver. You just never know.”

“Hmm,” Ethan grunted.

“That’s not what’s really bothering you.” His mentor had always known how to read him — he should have known better.

He let out a sigh — hesitating before finally speaking, “I really wish you considered it more before you decided to put Dr. Holland on the diagnostics team.”

Naveen’s eyebrows rose, “You think I didn’t think it through? Is there another resident you would rather have on your team?”

“No — I, of course not.” He shook his head, scoffing, “I don’t want to work with any of those imbeciles.”

“So Dr. Holland is the correct decision.”

“Yes. No. It’s—“

“Complicated?” Naveen offered with a smirk.

Ethan let out another heavy sigh, “Yes.”

“Ethan — I thought it would be less complicated for you by making the final decision. I selected her — not you. And I have my own reasons for doing so.” He leaned back in his chair, studying him, “She’s damn good.”

“She is.” He didn’t miss a beat.

“So you agree. Perfect.”

Ethan stumbled on his words, “I— she — we,”

A chuckle escaped Naveen, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so flustered before.”  

For a moment, he dropped the act. “I just thought that with me coming back — it would be different. You are healthy again, so there isn’t a secret case. She’s a resident now, not an intern. But now — she’s on my team, she’s my direct report. Distancing myself from her — how is that going to work now?”

His thick eyebrows furrowed with worry, “You want to distance yourself from her? Do you really think that will work?”

No.

He answered in his head. When he saw her down the hallway that morning it had made his heart flutter. The smallest of things, even on the off chances of seeing her — the way she tightened her ponytail, when he got a whiff of her perfume, her quick jabs back when he got sarcastic, the way the corner of her eyes stretched when she laughed.

“Maybe.” He said out loud.

_______________________________________________________________________

“Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease...”

A dark-haired man was sitting stunned on a chair in the sterile hallway — his hands folded carefully onto his lap as he processed.

Jordynne stood in front of him, a clipboard clutched to her chest as she looked between him and through the room’s window at the woman she had just diagnosed. She had been observing her and doing tests for the majority of the morning.

“Can — can it be cured?” He stuttered.

“No,” she said simply — a sad smile spreading across her face. “But it can managed and treated.”

He looked up at her, his eyebrows furrowing a little less. “I — I have no idea what to do. My dad dealt with all this stuff for her and now—,”

Jordynne slid into the chair next to him, her body angled towards him a little. “I know it's a lot to take in. But we can discuss treatment options, pain management.”

A grateful smile spread across his face, “That — that would help. Thank you.”

“How about we get you a coffee, and I’ll get paged once your mother wakes up?” She offered.

With a nod, the pair stood up and made their way to the cafeteria. Jordynne grabbed a coffee for the man, and a green tea for herself — she knew better by now than to drink the cafeteria’s attempt at caffeine.

They settled into a table near the window — and they took a moment to watch the pedestrians strolling by.

“So, what can we do? For my mom?” He broke the silence after taking a long sip of his coffee.

Jordynne wrapped her fingers around her own cup — warming up her fingers. “Honestly, one of the best things she can do is quit smoking. But we can start her with an inhaler — a combination of steroids and bronchodilators. If it progresses, she may need oxygen therapy… or surgery.”

Her patient’s son’s eyes went wide as he listened to the information, “Could it lead to cancer?”

“She has a higher risk of developing lung cancer.” She stated simply, her eyes studying him.

“That’s how we lost Dad…” He looked out of the window — suddenly looking lost.

“I’m sorry, Justin.”  She chewed on the inside of her cheek.

“Don’t be. You’ve nothing to be sorry for.” His mouth spread into a smile — it was nice. “Besides, I would be completely clueless about all of this if it weren’t for you. You’re very intelligent.”

“Oh, thank you,” Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the compliment. “I’m just doing my job.”

“Well, you are very good at it. I couldn’t imagine, doing something like this.” He pointed up, indicating to the many floors of patients above them.

“What do you do?”

“I work at a marketing firm.”

“That sounds exciting.”

“Ha,” He let out a dry laugh, “It’s different than this for sure. I sit in a cubicle and stare at a computer all day.”

Jordynne crinkled her brows, “But you like it, right?”

He thought for a moment before nodding, “Yeah, yeah I do.”

“Then that’s what matters...” But her voice trailed off as she watched Ethan step up to the coffee station nearby. She could hear the mutter of Justin’s voice in front of her — but couldn’t make out any of the words.

Should she say something to him? Would it be more weird if she didn’t say anything at all?

“Dr. Ramsey, hi?” Her voice was uncertain as she watched him nervously pour creamer into his travel mug.

“Dr. Holland!” He jumped at the sound of her voice — his open mug spilling onto his dress shirt. “Ow!” He winced as the hot coffee split on him.

“Ohmygosh,” She got up quickly and crossed over to him. Without thinking about it, she grabbed a handful of napkins and started plotting his blue dress shirt.

Ethan watched her for a moment before he stepped back with a cough, “It’s quite alright, Dr. Holland. I can take it from here.”

She stepped back embarrassed — realizing what she was doing. Looking over her shoulder she remembered where she was. “Dr. Ramsey, this is Justin Ramirez — Mrs. Ramirez’s son, my patient in 515.”

He finished wiping his hands on a napkin before crossing over and putting his hand out to shake. “Sorry to meet you in these circumstances,” They shook hands for a moment, “I can assure you that your mother is in great care with Dr. Holland.”

“Thanks, I’ve seen that.”

Her face went pink at the compliment as she stood awkwardly near the table — unsure if she should sit or stand. She wasn’t really sure how to act right now. “We’re just reviewing treatment plans.” She blurted out.  

“Right...,” He looked between the two of them, his blues eyes scrutinizing, “Well make sure you save the time to explain it to the patient too, Dr. Holland.” With a nod, he tightened the hold on his travel mug before turning on his heel and heading out the cafeteria door.

“Sorry about that — I,”

“No worries, I—“ But Justin trailed off, looking over her shoulder.

Jordynne jumped in her chair a little as she felt someone grab onto her shoulder. Straining her neck, she looked up the see Bryce — his mouth upturned in his usual wide smile. “Hey gorge—,” But he stopped himself as he realized she wasn’t alone. “I’m sorry, I thought you were alone, Dr. Holland.”

Moving his hand off of her shoulder, he stretched it across the table, “I’m Dr. Lahela.”

“Hi, Justin Ramirez.” He said, shaking yet another hand in the hospital cafeteria.

“Mrs. Ramirez’s son? In room 515? I’ll be going up there later this afternoon to discuss surgery options.”

“Right.”

“Well, I will see you up there later then. Dr. Holland — we’re still ok for lunch?” His caramel eyes caught hers, the edges crinkling as he smiled down at her.

She gulped, “Yeah, I’ll see you then.”

Did her voice sound squeaky? It sounded squeaky.

“You’re a popular doctor.” Justin said after Bryce had walked away.

“Or it’s just a small cafeteria.” She let out a sigh of relief as her pager went off, “Looks like your Mom woke up.”

“Yeah? Good, let’s go.”

Jordynne lingered at the table for a moment longer — letting him get a few paces ahead of her. Swallowing, she resolved herself a bit before following in behind him.

_______________________________________________________________________

“Two months.”

Ethan was back in Naveen’s office — his feet planted in front of his desk. He was staring down at the old man, watching him read the application he had sat down in front of him.

“Two months?” Naveen repeated, finally looking up at Ethan. His eyebrows were furrowed, deep lines forming in his forehead.

He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, “In South America.” He said it as neutral as possible.

Naveen reread over the page, flipping it back and forth. His mouth turned into a frown, “When you said distance yourself I didn’t think you meant flying to a different continent.”

Neither had Ethan. But it had fallen onto his lap. An unopened email he had long forgotten about in the chaos of the last few days.

He had forgotten he had even thrown his name into the ring — reaching out to the World Health Organization to volunteer. For literally anything. Anywhere.

It had been a way to get away from Edenbrook and Boston. A way to forget about his failure. Failures. Multiple.

But now — it could just be for a break. A reset.

To distance himself.

“Sign it.”

“No.” The Chief of Medicine barked, putting the papers back down and pushing them towards Ethan.

“Naveen—“

He straightened up — setting his jawline as he stared at him. “Not until you tell me why.”

“I can’t,” Ethan let out with a sigh. “I— I need more time. I’m not ready.”

“Ready for what?” Naveen raised a brow, “You’ve been running the diagnostics team since I left.”

“To act like I don’t...,” He trailed off, “To act like I don’t care for her. The way I do. The way a boss shouldn’t. I’m not ready.”

“Fine.” The old man signed the form, placing it carefully on the edge of his table for Ethan to take, “When this doesn’t work — don’t come crying to me. I warned you.”

_______________________________________________________________________

The next day came by in a blur. Jordynne had missed all this — her suspension had proved how much she loved being a doctor.

She hadn’t missed giving people life-changing diagnoses — but that was apart of the job description. She was leaning against Danny’s nurse station, watching Justin saying goodbye to his mother through the window to her room.

He had come in to check on her before going to work. They had decided to hold her for another day of observation, but he couldn’t take any more time off.

Watching the son and mother hug made her heartache. Her homesickness had never been worse.

Blinking back to reality, she watched as Justin approached her — a sad smile on his face.

She pushed herself off of the nurse’s station and headed towards him, “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just wish I could stay longer.”

“Well, I assure you that your mother is in the best care. Danny is the charge nurse for this shift, and honestly, he could probably run this whole building.” She assured him.

“Oh yeah, that reminds me,” He dug into his back pocket and pulled out a folded paper, “Here, I wanted to give you my number...”

Her green eyes widened in shock, “Oh! I’m flattered but—“

But he quickly stopped her, “For my mom’s file. In case something happens.”

“Right. I’m an idiot.” Jordynne felt her entire face turn hot with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, I don’t—“

“No! You’re really not.” It was his turn to reassure her now, “I thought about it actually,” He lowered his voice a little, “I was gonna ask you out.”

“Oh?” She blinked in surprise.

“I mean — you’re incredibly smart and hot and like, just the right amount of intimidating.” He laughed nervously, “But I got the sense that you were already seeing someone. When that doctor came over and introduced himself yesterday in the cafeteria?”

Which one?

Jordynne thought to herself. God, she seriously was the worst person.

“It’s probably not a good idea to date my mom’s doctor anyways.”

She nodded with pursed lips — taking the sticky note he had offered and placing carefully onto her clipboard.  She hugged it to her chest, “If there are any updates throughout the day, we’ll give you a call.”

She forced a smile on her face — trying to hide the winding gears going off in her mind.

_______________________________________________________________________

At the end of her shift, Jordynne was wrapping up the rest of her paperwork. She and her friends were hovering around the nurse’s station — itching to get out on time for once so they could head down to Donahue’s and get a good spot for once.

Just as she slid the last of her patient’s charts over to the charge nurse, the intercom buzzed.

“Dr. Holland to Chief of Medicine’s office. Dr. Holland to Chief of Medicine’s office.”

“What’s that about?” Sienna quickly asked — her eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“Yeah — I thought everything was good?” Elijah piped in.

“It is.” She raised her hands up, trying to calm them down, “Seriously.”

“It’s only day two of her being back. What’s the Chief of Medicine’s going to want anyway?” Jackie piped in, shrugging her shoulders as she finished up her own paperwork.

“Yeah, plus she did save the dude’s life.” Bryce offered, leaning casually onto the station. He was right next to Jordynne — she swore she could feel the heat radiating off of him.

“Right...,” Sienna and Elijah said in sync.

“Seriously, I’ll be okay. I’ll meet you guys at Donahue’s.” She started to turn on her heel, but fingers grabbing onto her elbow stopped her.

It was Bryce. “I’ll save you a seat.” He said simply, before flashing her a brilliant smile and letting go of her arm.

“Thanks,” She breathed in, feeling a little winded all of the sudden. Turning on her heel, she blinked back to reality and started heading towards the elevator.

She knocked gently on Naveen’s office door — before a soft voice told her to come in. Stepping inside, her eyes were immediately drawn to the old man sitting behind the desk — a warm smile was spread across his face.

“Hi, Dr. Banerji,” Jordynne said as she closed the door softly behind her.

“Now,” He got up to greet her, moving around from behind the desk, “How many times do I have to tell you — it’s Naveen, my girl.”

“You’re the Chief of Medicine. I can’t call you that.”

“And you’re the young doctor who saved my life.” He motioned for her to take a seat, before doing the same, “And besides, we are friends and we respect each other. So it’s Naveen.”

“Okay. Naveen.” Her mouth has turned upward — a warm sensation of pride filling her chest.

“So, how does it feel to be back?”

“I’m... ecstatic. And grateful.” She paused for a moment, before continuing, “Everything that I went through — the trial, and suspension — it just really showed me how this is what I’m meant to do.”

“I couldn’t agree more. And how do you feel about the fellowship?”

“Excited.” She said quickly — but chewing the inside of her lip gave her away, “But nervous at the same time. It will be —“

“Different?” He offered.

“Mhmm.” She hummed.

“Well, it will start in about two months' time. Once the new wing is completed, the diagnostics team will have a brand new office and your fellowship will commence.” Naveen hesitated before licking his lips, “It will also coincide with Ethan’s return.”

Jordynne furrowed her brows in confusion, “What do you mean? He’s already back.”  

“Ah — so I see he has left that part for me.” He avoided her stare for a moment.

“I don’t— what are you talking about?”

“Ethan has accepted a team lead position for a project with the World Health Organization. They are going to be stationed in the Amazon.”

Her mouth fell open, “The Amazon? Rainforest? In South America?”

“For two months.”

“Two... Two months?” She couldn’t help but repeat everything back she was hearing. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“I’m sorry he didn’t tell you himself.”

She could tell by Naveen’s tone that he did not approve of Ethan’s decisions.

“I— I don’t understand. He just got back.”

“What I’m thinking is, his world just got turned upside down. He doesn’t do change very well. Perhaps this will let him straighten things out.” He said it like it was a practiced line.

“By living in the rainforest for 2 months? How will that get him back to normal?” She asked, completely exasperated.

“No idea!” He let out a dry laugh, “You should tell him that.”

“When does he leave?”

“Tomorrow morning. He actually just wrapped up for the day — so he can prepare.”

Her shoulders sank — he left. Without telling her any of this. Without a goodbye. Was she supposed to just walk past his office and figure it out? Get an out of office email notification back?

“You can still catch him. Go to the parkade.” He winked a brown eye at her, waving his hands to shoo her out of the door.

Jumping out of her seat, she started speed walking down the hallway — weaving past the few administration staff lingering in them. Some of them flashed her some odd looks, but a doctor speeding through a hallway wasn’t the weirdest thing to see in a hospital.

When she got to the parkade door, she took a big breath, tucked some of the hair falling out of her ponytail behind her ear, and pushed through the door.

Her green eyes searched for his familiar black car, walking as she looked. She stopped in her tracks as she noticed him — his hand lingering on his open door as he went to go sit in his car.

So he really was going to just leave without saying anything.

“Were you even gonna say goodbye?” She asked — her voice echoing a little in the concrete parkade.

His head whipped around to her voice, his eyes wide as he stared at her. Closing the door to his Mercedes, he took a few long strides until he was a few feet away from her.

“I — Who told you?” He avoided meeting her stare.

“Naveen.”

He let out a sigh, “Of course.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” She said, her jaw set into a hard line.

“I — I wasn’t not going to say goodbye.” He put his hands in his jacket pocket — clearly nervous. “Things just happened so fast.”

“Right.” She didn’t look like she believed him, “So South America?”

“Mostly Peru and Brazil.”

“Malaria?”

He nodded in reply.

Confusion spread across her face, causing a line to form in between her brows, “Why are you doing this?”

“What?”

“Why are you really going, Ethan?”

“People are suffering and I can help them.” He stated simply.

“The same thing is happening here in Boston.” She countered, crossing her arms of her chest.

“Well, I made a commitment to the organization. So I’m going.”

She let out an involuntary sigh, “I thought we were going to try and be normal about all of this, Ethan.”

“This is normal. I’m a highly qualified diagnostician and doctor who is traveling to a region in desperate need of quality medical assistance and advancement.”

She shook her head at him, “That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, that’s the reason.” His tone was flat and final.

“Fine.” She bit down on her bottom lip, “Safe travels.”

He nodded in thanks. The pair standing in awkward silence for a moment — finally meeting one another’s eye. She searched his blue eyes — looking for even just the smallest glint of something. But she couldn’t find it — his well-practiced mask was already on and it seemed it wasn’t going to be coming off.

Jordynne let out a sigh that echoed through the parkade, before turning on her heel and marching away. The heavy metal door let out a large bang as it closed behind her.

Part Two

[aenwoedbeannaa]

Stone Hearts | Geralt x Reader | Parts I - III

Summary: A/U(ish). When fate landed you at Kaer Morhen, you were mostly just happy to have meals to eat and a place to sleep. But, as it turns out, fate may have led you to much, much more. (Basically, you and Geralt are students at Kaer Morhen together. These stories chronicle your lives together.)  

Word Count: 7k+

Warnings: Violence, smut, the usual.

A/N: I originally planned on posting this as a series of short stories all at once, but as it is such a long story, I decided I’d split it up into groups of stories instead. So, this one is Part I, II, and III. Let me know what you think – and thank you, as always, for taking time to read my work 😊.

Thank you so much to @jesseswartzwelder​ for the request/amazing idea!

If you enjoy my work, consider reblogging this post following me for more Witcher fics here and on my personal/original writing blog here. You can also check out my masterlist! 

Part I

The sun is hot, bearing down on the crowded courtyard and making you sweat through your leathers even more than you usually do. Still, you refuse to give any inkling of the fact that your blood is absolutely boiling, like your body is burning itself away. You know that it is more than the hot sun—you’ve started taking a new elixir, and ever since, you’ve been aching with fever. One moment, you are burning out of your skin, the next, you are shivering and sweating at the same time.

Your feet move of their own accord, purely out of instinct, as you dodge and parry, pirouette and deflect. You try as hard as you possibly can to breathe deeply and slowly, so as not to exert yourself even more. And yet, the sharp sound of dulled iron striking dulled iron reverberates you your head, loud enough to make you want to flinch.

But flinching is not an option. Not with Geralt, anyways. You don’t like losing, especially to your de facto partner. As usual, the two of you are the last pair left sparring, the others standing around drinking deeply from waterskins or laying on unclaimed ground nursing whatever wounds they incurred over the course of the day. You wish you were one of them, but only a little. If you are honest, you love being the center of attention; you love being one of Kaer Morhen’s Golden Children. You thrive one it.

“Getting tired, Witcher?” you quip, avoiding a slash of his blade with a rolling dodge, landing on your feet in a flash and only just missing him with your next attack.

“Not a chance, Witcher Girl,” he responds with a parry leading to an attack of his own. You manage to block him with the flat of your blade, but you can tell that you are off – not enough for an ordinary eye to see, but Geralt does not have the eyes of an ordinary man.

He’s got you backed up nearly to the wall, leaving you less room than you’d like, and distracting you enough with his smile, a dangerous flash of white, that you nearly lose your footing. But after another turn and other quick flurry of attacks and counterattacks, you do lose your footing – but it has nothing to do with Geralt’s smile and everything to do with a sudden blinding pain that seems to start in your head and travel down your body at lighting speed. You crumple to the ground.

Geralt drops his sword before you even hit the dirt, rushing to you side and placing a calloused hand gently on your shoulder, speaking urgently, “Y/N,” he says as he gently pushes against your shoulder to turn you over, “Are you alright? What happened?” What has him so worried is not that you fell – the two of you never went easy on one another, and each took your share of tumbles. No, he is worried because you had been steady on two feet one moment and wincing, dropping your sword, and thudding to the ground after it the next.

You have, of course, told him nothing about the extra elixir. You’d tried so many at this point that you’d grown into a sense of security, like something that couldn’t possibly harm you. After all, the really deadly shit was saved for the Trial of the Grasses – but even then, the strong ones usually made it, and you are one of the strong ones. But, no matter how many times you tell him not to worry – he always, always does. The same way that you worry about him every time you learn they’re giving him new mysterious concoctions to try.

He is you closest friend, and he has been since the moment you walked onto the grounds of Kaer Morhen and he punched Eskel in the face for lobbing an ill-timed joke at the very timid new arrival and making you cry.

Vizimir was not happy with any of you, and all three of you managed to earn yourselves extra cleaning duties that week. Geralt for punching Eskel, Eskel for making ‘unnecessary remarks,’ and you for crying. Coincidentally, that week was also the week that the three of you began a friendship that spanned even to this day.

You blink up at him, unable to speak, though you want to. Something is wrong, you want to say, Get Vizimir. But, try as you might, you aren’t able to make your mouth form the words. Instead, you just stare up at him with wide eyes. His brown curls are stuck to his brow with sweat, and his eyes are searching your eyes for an answer you can’t give him. You are also vaguely aware of other students abandoning their carefully staked out plots of grass to come and see what the fuss is about.

The only other girl, Estra of Ard Caraigh, chews her lip nervously as she looks on, though you can’t see her. The two of you aren’t particularly close, mostly because she is two years older, so you are surprised when you hear her voice from the growing crowd of onlookers, “They gave you that elixir, didn’t they? The one that’s to make sure you can train every day of the month?”

In your bleary half-consciousness, you see a flash of long auburn hair as she rushes to your side, pressing a hand to your forehead. Her face blanches and she turns back to shout to no one in particular, “Get Vizimir, NOW.”

You try once more to make some sort of sound, but all that comes out is a choked sob. You had not cried since your first day here, and the fact that tears were streaming down your face seemingly of their own accord was mortifying. The only thing that kept your from screaming in pain was Geralt as he took your hand in his own and held on tightly, leaning down to whisper that it was all going to be ok in a voice surprisingly calm given the red-hot fire burning in his eyes and his tightly clenched jaw.

Part II

Your fingers tap the glass impatiently as you peer out the window, checking for signs of life on the road that winds from the gate of the Keep out into the forests surrounding Kaer Morhen, twisting its way through the wilderness surrounding the Snow Pine Mountains. If you’ve calculated correctly, Geralt should be returning today. He left nearly two weeks before with one of the Witchers to help with a contract on a Drowner infestation plaguing a nearby town on the banks of some manmade lake.

Leave it to Kaedwen. Perhaps the people of Kaedwen had grown too comfortable. With Witchers nearby, there wasn’t much to fear from monsters, was there?

This particular excursion was his reward for being the first to return from the Trial of the Medallion – the chance to muck around in the swamps for a few days, cutting down drowners at thirty crowns a head.

Thirty crowns a head.

You still remember a time when thirty crowns seemed an unobtainable amount of money; money that could have lasted your family near a month if it had to. To think that once this was all over, you would be able to fulfill contracts earning multiples of that for each monster slain. Being considered at once a poor victim of a stolen childhood and a mutant freak who had no place existing was a small price to pay for such a steady income.

“Show me a lake, and I’ll show you the drowners,” as Vizimir would say.

Pulling yourself back from the objectively horrifying daydreams of hacking drowners to shreds in return for a sack full of coin, you resume your vigilance.

Accounting for the four days ride from Kaer Morhen, maybe five if any monsters appeared on The Path, and then three days at most to deal with the drowners, and then another four to five days ride back accounting for the supplies they’d be carrying back from the village, he should be arriving back today. Unless of course… No. You cannot allow yourself to even consider the possibility that anything had gone wrong.

You tell yourself you that the nervous energy that has you buzzing is simply born of boredom, or maybe out of frustration that you’d have to spar with Eskel today. After nearly two weeks pouring over books, Vizimir had finally determined that it was time to get back to swordsmanship and, most importantly, sparring. It was about the only thing that broke the general dullness of school.

And without Geralt, you tell yourself, sparring will be just as dull as the bloody books. You determine that this is at least a half-truth. Geralt was the only sparring partner quite at your level. So, it went without saying that sparring with anyone else was dull, mostly a waste of time. In your opinion, fighting an easy fight is not fun. And that’s not even your ego talking; it is purely factual.

And a bit of ego.

And then there is the separate issue; the fact that you hadn’t exactly realized – or had at least pretended not to realize – just how much time you spent with Geralt until he was gone. You’d been happy for him when he won the Trial of the Medallion, of course, but you hadn’t been quite as thrilled when you learned what the prize was. Sure – it was a chance for him to escape form the stone fortress for two weeks, a chance to get out and see the world. But drowners, no matter how easy to kill, could always be dangerous. Or maybe you were just upset that the second place winner – that just so happened to be you – didn’t get to go along as well. You’d finished only second behind him; it seemed unfair.  

Despite its unfairness, it was reality. So, instead of out hunting monsters, you were stuck here while time dragged on at an excruciating crawl.

You’ve got other students with whom to pass the time, but to be honest, exploring the grounds of Kaer Morhen Of course, you still have your other fellow students to pass the time with – which you do – but it’s not the same. There is a bond between the two of you that far surpasses your bond with anyone else. No matter how adamantly you try to ignore it, there’s just no way around it.

You sigh in frustration and turn away from the window; you have too many things to do, regardless of how absolutely tedious everything is. Studying with Vizimir, of course. And you’ve got to spar today. At least that is somewhat interesting – even if none of the other students can quite match you; with the exception of Geralt. It is a convenient way for you to explain away any feelings. Perhaps sparring with people who cannot keep up is just boring. As much as you enjoy winning, there’s no excitement winning against people you could probably best in your sleep.

You pull on your last bits of armor – a belt with a small sheath for your dagger, and of course your leather jerkin. Your dulled iron and silver are slung over your back. You won’t receive your silver – a real silver sword – until you pass the trial of the grasses. It would, of course, be a waste to supply every one of Kaer Morhen’s students with new silver swords, considering the unfortunate reality that a majority would never need one.

Gods, you hope you need one.

You move silently through the ancient hallways, bracing yourself for the certain boredom that will greet you in the keep’s library. It is a large room full of old books, most of which are yellowed with age and feel as if they might fall apart beneath your fingertips. Vizimir explains that new books are not necessary, because monsters never change.

“Wonderful of you to finally join us, Little Vampire,” Vizimir says as you push open the wooden door to see several students sitting at the old tables all in various states of half-sleep. You just shrug in response and make your way to an empty chair. You earned the nickname Little Vampire after, during the week you spent delirious with fever, you apparently bit Vizimir’s hand hard enough to leave a scar when he tried to force a potion down your throat.

“Probably off waiting for Geralt,” you hear Stefan say under his breath to Eskel, who is sitting in the chair next to him. You pretend not to hear him; you’ve given up on trying to explain your relationship with Geralt to your peers. And anyway, it would be impossible to explain even if you tried – you cannot even explain it to yourself.

But then, you hear Eskel mutter, even quieter – “He probably won’t be back until tomorrow. Off spending that hard-earned coin the right way.” You know that it shouldn’t bother you; Geralt can do whatever he’d like. And what you’d learned from hearing Eskel and the others when they spoke about their time outside of Kaer Morhen, there was a very specific way they tended to celebrate. It wasn’t your place to be upset about it. And, yet, here you were.

Whatever, you tell yourself. He’s only following the Code. That fucking Code.

* * *

“Fucking hell,” Eskel spits, pushing himself up from the ground, heavily favoring his left ankle. You smirk, sheathing the blunted blade. You don’t need to say anything – knocking him out of the fight as quickly as you had spoke volumes.

“And all this time, we thought Geralt was just letting her win, eh, Eskel?”

You turn and narrow your eyes at Stefan, their dark amber burning like coals as you bore into him. You aren’t daft – you are fully aware of this particular rumor, as ridiculous of a rumor as it is.

“Would have been quite the charade to have been pulling off all these years.”

You have a hard time suppressing your smile at the familiar baritone, but you turn around with witcherlike reflexes regardless. And Code be damned, for all the elixirs they’d given you, emotion flooded you. You refuse to call it love; to be a Witcher and admit to such a feeling would be laughable. But you will call it joy – joy at seeing your absolute closest friend in the world after all this time.

A whole two weeks.

Not wanting to make yourself, and Geralt by extension, the butt of jokes for the next month, you stop yourself from barreling toward him and throwing your arms around his neck like you want to, you settle for smiling instead.

“Finally,” you drawl, “A real challenge.”

Your friend smirks, arms crossing over his chest.

“I’ve just returned, and the first thing you want to do is cross swords?” he fakes offense.

“Of course,” you retort, “This is Kaer Morhen, after all.”

“Damn,” Geralt responds, “Thought it was Ban Aard.”

Several others who had abandoned their activities to listen laughed at that one – you included. Fucking mages and their fancy schools, preaching about the importance of magic Witchers’ reliance on it. Ban Aard and Aretuza were the butt of a good number of jokes at Kaer Morhen, like Kaer Morhen certainly was to them.

“Enough standing around and talking,” you goad, “Grab your sword, Witcher.”

You ignore the hushed conversations around you as Geralt replaces the silver sword slung over his back with a dull iron one.  The usual nonsense – something about the two of you thriving on attention and showing off and something else about the two of you needing to “just fuck already.”

He seems to be ignoring the group just as you are, reading himself as you do the same.

“Alright, Witcher,” you smile dangerously, “Let’s see if those Drowners sharpened your skills."

Part III

“It just doesn’t feel real,” you muse, turning over your shoulder to glance at Geralt who sits with his back flush against yours, “Only two days until the Trials.”

“Mhm,” he answers from deep in his chest. While you have chosen to cover up your panic and fear with excitement and fierce pride, Geralt has turned to philosophizing – existentialism and cynicism being his philosophies of choice.

“Geralt…” you mutter, wishing that you could get more than a syllable or two out of him. “It’s going to be ok.”

You are trying to convince yourself just as much as you are trying to convince him. And, given your tendency to turn everything into a game of logic – very useful in calculating opponents next moves – chances are high that you are correct.

“We’ve both responded well to all of the elixirs they’ve given us, hardly any negative reactions at all,” you expound, but Geralt scoffs, making your mouth snap shut.

“Yes, except that one time two years back when you almost died.” His voice is laced with worry, and though you are facing opposite directions, you know exactly what his expression by his tone alone. His eyebrows are knitted together, and his amber eyes are narrowed such that from a distance, someone might not notice that he was undergoing mutations at all. His lips are pressed into a tight line, and his curls fall into his face. That, combined with his bulky form, would make anyone stay away. Anyone except for you.

“That was one time,” you press, “One elixir out of hundreds. It’s a better record than most people.” Kaer Morhen was your home and you truly wanted to become a Witcher. If you’d been left alone in Crookback Bog, you would have died years ago. And if you’d grown up in some backwater village or in the poor district of a city, plague or pox could’ve taken you. For you, the potions and elixirs and the mutations they induced were just the inevitable tradeoffs to life here. If you couldn’t survive the trials, you couldn’t be a Witcher, and if you couldn’t become a Witcher, you’d be on your own with no skills to speak of, no way to make a living. At least Kaer Morhen gave you something akin to a family – it had given you Geralt.

“I don’t care to remember any details of that week,” he mutters, looking at the ground and shaking his head, “But I… I can’t stop thinking about it. About you laying there burning with fever, calling out in your sleep.”

You are stunned. Geralt, while not as closed off as the other students and Witchers liked to say, was not apt to speak with such emotion. You can’t remember the last time you heard him stumble over his words like that – or if you ever had, for that matter. You open your mouth to speak, about how that was quite a regular occurrence for Kaer Morhen’s students as they underwent mutations, but he is already speaking again before you can get a word out.

“You kept saying that you were on fire, your bones were on fire,” you pick at the grass as he continues, “And the elixirs to help the pain only made it worse.”

Truth be told, you don’t have much memory of that week of your life. You were delirious with fever, and only remember brief moments that you could not definitively place in the “real” category or mark them off as hallucinations. But, as he speaks, some memories do pop into your mind. One in particular where it took three grown men to hold you down and force one of the elixir’s down your throat. Vizimir started calling you Little Vampire after that, thanks to the fact that your perfectly average canines managed to dig so deep into his hand that he still had a scar. Now, you supposed, you understood why Geralt didn’t like that one.

“I just… I can’t…” as Geralt stumbles over his words, you cannot tell if you are hearing his heart hammering or yours. You follow your immediate urge and turn around to sit next to him, both of you now looking out towards the grounds of Kaer Morhen through the trees. You’ve had this secret meeting place for years – a place where the two of you would go to talk or just to sit. A peaceful place, away from the constant chaos behind the castle walls.

“Geralt,” you say, placing a hand on his shoulder and shifting so that he is facing you, “You’re the strongest of all of us. Even Vizimir said…well, you remember!” You are referring to a conversation you overheard one evening when you were prowling around places you shouldn’t be. He was talking to one of the other instructors, the two of them comparing notes.

“Geralt, Y/N, and Eskel will be this year’s Three, mark my words.”

“There’s no need to be scared,” you add after a moment, voice quiet. You hadn’t known he was so scared to undergo the mutations. He was always the best in your training exercises, always the strongest, the fastest, the one getting all the special elixirs. You hadn’t even thought that he might still be worried.

Quite suddenly, he turns, placing his hand over the one of yours that is resting in your lap, “I’m not worried for myself. I just… I can’t… It makes me so angry to think of them putting you through that again.”

You look down, staring at his hand on top of yours, which is suddenly the only thing that you can focus on. Relationships at Kaer Morhen aren’t forbidden, but they aren’t common. There had been a handful of moments like these – none of them that went farther than stolen glances and they always left you feeling somehow empty, aching for what you couldn’t have.

Silence stretches between you. The only sound either of you make are the thundering of our hearts and carefully controlled breathing. Though, you notice, each time Geralt breathes in, there is a slight unsteadiness to it, a shakiness, as if he is trying as hard as you are to keep your breathing in check.

Finally, you draw a breath that would be noticeably shaky, even for a person who hadn’t undergone all of the mutations that the two of you had. You tear your eyes from your hand to look up at him and say, “I’m an adult, Geralt. I’m going through the trials willingly.”

Geralt doesn’t respond, just clenches his jaw and lets out a huff, so you continue, “We’ve always known about the Trials, I agreed to it when I came here, and I’ve continued to agree to it every time that I’ve taken any of their elixirs. I’ve...We’ve been training for this for our whole lives. Without Vizimir I would have died without getting a chance to experience real life.”

“I know the speech,” Geralt shoots back almost immediately, pulling his hand away and leaving you feeling hurt.

“Geralt.” You are struggling to keep your voice steady. You can’t decide if you feel like screaming or crying, so you keep to the Code and shove both of those urges down as deep as is possible given the situation. “It’s not my fault we have to undergo the mutations, so don’t fucking snap at me.”

“Fuck,” Geralt says, shaking his head and burying it in his hands, “Y/N, I’m sorry. I know.”

He is silent for another moment before he finally lowers his hands and looks up at you. You realize in that moment how close you are, your faces only inches apart. You can see the gold flecks in his amber eyes and the stubble on his cheeks and have to fight to ignore the urge to reach out and see how his skin feels beneath your hands, and what his eyes would look like if you did.

But then, he reaches out with one hand, hesitantly and ever so gently, to cup your face. You shiver as the pad of his thumb brushes just beneath your lower lip and the very corner of your mouth. Time feels suspended, as if the two of you are floating on some separate plane where the day of the Trials will never come and the two of you can just stay right here, just as you are, forever.

“I hate the idea of you undergoing the Trial because I can’t stomach the thought of losing you, Y/N.” The words are like a punch to the stomach that is somehow pleasant, knocking all the breath out of your lungs.

He leans even closer, until your foreheads are touching. “I know the Code, and I know I’m not supposed to, but I love you.”

You breathe in, memorizing the smell of him. You’ve only ever been this close during sparring exercises. You decide you like this a lot better.

“When I had the fever… The one thing that kept me, you know, here was you, you know,” you breathe. You’ve never told him because you know that no matter how much he had pretended to hate it as of late, he sticks to the Code. The Code, which doesn’t look highly on Witchers being in relationships – especially with one another. “And that’s why—and you’re the reason I know that I’ll survive the Trial.” Your eyes have drifted down, unable to meet his as you confess this – the secret you have been hiding from him for so long.

He is silent for a moment, frozen there with his deliciously warm hand on your face before finally letting his and slip lower, resting under your chin and gently tilting your head up so that he can meet your eyes. “Fuck the Code,” he says, eyes flashing before pressing his lips to yours.

It is your first kiss, and it is pure bliss. Your lips fit together like pieces of a puzzle and the sensation has you drunk with pleasure before he even deepens the kiss. And, when he does, you are ready. You part your lips for him, and he greedily explores your mouth. You keep thinking that it can’t get any better, but yet it does. You moan involuntarily as his hand slips from your chin, ghosting along the curve of your neck and coming to rest on your shoulder, calloused thumb sweeping across your collar bone.

His touch is electric, leaving your skin feeling hot and charged, and longing for more. Your arms wrap around his neck, pulling yourself flush against him. He responds with an appreciative grunt, moving his hands to explore your body, starting by sweeping down your sides, just barely grazing the sides of your breasts in the process.

With his hands now firmly wrapped around your sides, he breaks the kiss, leaving you in a huff of frustration and disappointment – you hadn’t had nearly enough of him. But before you can get too out of sorts, his lips touch your neck and you moan, tipping your head back to grant him complete access. You don’t even have time to worry about the fact that you have no idea what you’re doing – that you have never done this before – because Geralt is so thorough, so in control of the situation. It’s like he knows all the right places to touch, and exactly what to do with his mouth to have you breathing heavily, small sounds of pleasure slipping through your lips.

Tentatively, you begin exploring his body with your hands. You love the way that his muscled form feels beneath your fingers, and it makes you want to explore every inch. As your hands move down his chest, you find yourself tugging at his shirt. You don’t know if it is an involuntary reaction to his teeth grazing your neck as his lips continue down to your collarbone or whether it is simply a feeble attempt to pull the fabric away because you would very much like to know what his sculpted abdomen feels like beneath your fingers without the offending material in the way.

Geralt’s hands, on the other hand, have gripped your white linen shirt, identical to his own, and already began pulling it over your head. You raise your arms to make it easier for him, and the moment it is off, you greedily reach for his own tugging the material up and over his head. For a moment, you just stare at him, drinking in the sight of him shirtless before you. It wasn’t as if you had never seen him this way – but you had always done your best not to look too long, afraid that he would notice as question why.

However, he interrupts your moment of slightly embarrassing admiration when he wraps his arms around you, hands grazing your hyper-sensitive skin. You sigh, content to let him touch every inch of you. Encouraged by this, his hands wander up to unlace your bra and you bite your lip in anticipation. You cannot wait to feel his hands on them, arching your back, willing him to make faster work of it.

He grins as he slips the material off your shoulders, grin turning into more of a smirk as he sees you staring back at him with wide, expectant eyes. He slides one hand up your back, easing you down so you are laying beneath him, eyes drinking in the sight of you naked form and making your feel suddenly exposed. But, given the way his pupils dilate, he likes what he sees as much as you do.

He leans over you, lowering himself so that he can bring his lips to yours once more. You greedily bite his lower lip, hands back to their game of exploring as much of his body as you can reach. And then all of a sudden, you feel his stubbled cheek graze against yours as he leans to growl in your ear, “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this to you, Witcheress.”

His words add fuel to the fire burning in your core, and you whimper as his fingers brush your nipple. It feels so delicious it is almost painful. You’ve never even allowed yourself to fantasize about this scenario, as much as you may have wanted to. You never thought it would happen – and you weren’t one to dream of impossible things. And yet, here you both were.

“Geralt,” you breathe, completely lost I the feeling as he kneads and pinches your breasts. And then… his lips. The feeling of them against your breast and his tongue flattening against your nipple is warm and soft and better than you could have ever imagined it feeling. Your eyes roll up into your head as he makes use of his free hand to gently twist and pinch the bud not currently receiving the attention of his tongue.

Heat pools in your core, twisting and tightening and aching for his touch, and, oh gods, for his tongue. Any nerves you thought you would have doing this for the first time have evaporated. There is no room in your pleasure-drunk mind for nervous thoughts.

Once again, seemingly able to read your thoughts, he slips a hand between the two of you, unfastening your belt and unlacing your trousers. For a brief moment, your mind blinks to a thought of just how practiced his hands are – but you don’t dwell on it for more than a split second. You are burning with need, and you could care less how many women Geralt has had before you – if the stories of the young man’s exploits on those rare occasions when Kaer Morhen’s young Witchers in training were given leave to take on smaller contracts here and there under supervision of elders – it doesn’t matter to you right now.

It matters even less when his hand slips into your waistband, expert fingers finding their way to where you need him most. His finger dips between your folds, gathering the wet heat pooled there for him, humming appreciatively against your chest as he lets his finger trail back up to the little bundle of nerves. His touch is perfect parts gentle and firm as he circles the small bud, making you cry out into the open air.

“You like that, Witcheress?” he asks gruffly, swirling his finger again and making you buck your hips against his hand. Making yourself form words is pretty much hopeless at this point, with his finger dancing over the hard little nub that no one save yourself has ever touched before, but your pleasured cries are more than enough answer for him.

He loves watching you like this – writhing beneath him, hips moving of their own accord, eyes blinking open and closed again. He especially loves your little gasps; the way your pretty mouth stays open in a constant ‘oh’ as he works you with his fingers. Your ragged breathing turns him on even more; your breasts rising and falling at uneven intervals as he increases his pace and pressure. And, oh gods, he loves the groan that escapes your lips when he does.

“Gods,” you say with a great deal of effort, “That feels… G-geralt!”

He watches you as your body tenses for a moment, amber eyes fixed on you as he watches you fall apart, already committing this image to memory; the first time you’d come for him. You are still twitching as the aftershocks of your orgasm wrack your body when he grabs your waistband and tugs your pants off roughly, breathing in your scent and greedily taking in the sight of you.

Your thighs tremble as he presses his lips to the inside of your calf, peppering the soft skin with kisses as he moves his way up your leg. You are still reeling from your orgasm, but already you need more. His hands follow his lips, massaging the seemingly always sore muscles of your legs and making you sigh with pleasure.

You reach down to run a hand through his hair, and he lifts his amber eyes to meet yours as he moves to your other leg, pressing kisses across ever inch of your skin. His tongue traces the crease between your thigh and your most intimate area, and your hips thrust towards his face of their own accord. But then a thought enters your mind, and you tug at his hair, “Geralt.”

“Yes, Witcheress?” he says, locking you in his intense gaze.

“I should… Shouldn’t I? You know…?” You can feel his bulge through his pants, and you are eager to touch him, to feel his hardness with your fingers, your tongue, and inside of you. But for now, Geralt clearly has other plans.

“Shh, Witcheress,” he says, nipping gently at your inner thigh with his teeth, “I’m not done with you yet.” His words send your mind into a whirl as his hands slip under your thighs to your ass, letting his shoulders hold your already quivering legs apart so that you are completely exposed to him. You whimper as he blows cool air on your heat, making you shiver.

“I’m going to fuck you,” he says gruffly, eyes locked on yours once again, “But first I want to taste you.” He lets his tongue just barely graze your clit, and you whimper again, on the verge of begging. “I think you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Y/N?”

You can only whimper in response, your need for him an almost painful ache in your core.

“Hmm?” he rumbles, looking up at you with an impish grin, “Didn’t hear you.” You cannot think of a more beautiful sight than Geralt – the boy who was your first friend and the man who you fell in love with little by little until you were mad with it – looking up at you as if you are the only person in the world.

“Y-yes,” you whimper, voice laced with need.

“Mhm,” he growls, finally running his tongue from your opening to the little bundle of nerves. The feeling of his tongue touching you there has you seeing stars. It feels even better than his fingers as he explores you, paying particular attention to the places that make you gasp and tighten your grip on his hair.

He takes his time, savoring the way you taste, better even then he imagined – which he often had despite his efforts not to think of you that way. He’d tried to stick to the Code, he’d tried everything to keep his mind busy – every time he made a trip out of Kaer Morhen, he’d tried to distract himself, but now, as he explores you with his tongue, breathes your scent, feels your soft skin beneath his fingertips, and hears your soft gasps and moans, all he can think is that he has abided by the Code for way too fucking long.

You are absolutely lost in the feeling of his mouth on you. And, when his lips close around your clit, sucking it into his mouth and attacking it with his tongue, you cry out so loud you are almost convinced everyone back in the Keep can hear you, not that you care. He moans against you, delicious vibrations making you cry out again.

His hand has been traveling closer and closer to your entrance, and you find yourself desperately moving your hips, urging him on. This time, he obliges without teasing, seeming as if he couldn’t pull away from you if he wanted to.

He groans along with you as he slips a finger inside of you, stretching you gently. He takes his time here, too, slowly pumping his finger in and out, committing to memory every place that makes you gasp and writhe until he finds that spot. He adds another finger, focusing on the sensitive place inside of you. Your eyes screw shut as he curls his fingers in time with his tongue; he has turned you into a senseless mess.

The pleasure is too much. Every muscle in your body tenses before finally, you release. Your back arches as you cry out, thighs trapping Geralt in place as you ride out wave after wave of pleasure until finally your body goes slack and you fall back against the grass, breathing heavily.

For a moment, Geralt doesn’t move, yellow eyes drinking in the sight of you lying there slowly coming back to your senses. When your breathing has somewhat returned to normal, he slowly kisses up your body until he reaches your lips, capturing you in a kiss that seems to last forever, but still not long enough. You can taste yourself on his tongue and it drives you mad.

You are already reaching down, desperately and clumsily attempting to yank off his pants, wanting there to be nothing between the two of you. He helps you with the task, kicking off his boots and tossing his remaining clothing to the side. You watch him, eyes committing every muscle and every scar to memory, and finally you allow yourself to look lower.

It takes you a moment to realize that you’re staring, eyes wide as you consider the size of him. Not that you have anything to compare it to, but he is huge, and, considering the only thing that had been inside you before this day are your own fingers, you shiver at the thought of it. He lowers himself back onto his elbows, eyes finding yours as he brushes stray strands of hair from your sweat-soaked forehead as you blink up at him through your lashes, chewing your lower lip, feeling equal parts nervous and impatient.

As your heart hammers in your chest, he leans down to press his lips against the sensitive spot at the crook of your neck, positioning himself between your legs. You whimper as he teases you with the head of his large cock, sliding it from your entrance to your clit and back again, pausing there when all you wanted was for him to push himself inside you.

And all at once, he does. You draw in a sharp breath at the mix of pain and pleasure. He holds still for a moment, letting you adjust to the size of him. You hadn’t thought it’d feel this good. You’d not had much in the way of women to tell you about things like this here at Kaer Morhen. Most of what you learned, you learned from the boys – and you’d learn to take anything you heard from them with a grain of salt. But this – gods. It felt like pure bliss.

Finally, he slowly drew out and thrust back in again, groaning into the space between your neck and shoulder. By his third thrust, you were already raising your hips to meet his, wanting more, faster, harder. But Geralt was taking his time, despite your fingers raking his back, leaving red marks that could be mistaken for claw marks, in all honesty.

“Geralt,” his name spills from your lips in something between a sigh and a moan. He responds by kissing your neck, then moving up to kiss your lips, the two of you lying there, drinking each other in, hips moving harder and faster as he fills you up over and over again, somehow hitting every single spot inside of you, making you whimper beneath him.

You are both sweating, breathing heavily, and clawing at each other as if your lives depend on exploring every part of one another. His thrusts are even, though. A perfect rhythm that has you repeating his name over and over like a prayer. Each time, he hits that spot, and you feel that tightening in your belly, like a coil. And then, all of a sudden, it snaps, and you are lost in a sea of pleasure.

He finishes almost immediately after you, thrusts growing more and more sporadic as he finishes inside you.

The two of you lay there, half-clothed but unworried. No one will stumble upon you out here. Code be damned, you are in love. And for tonight, you are just that – not two people about to undergo the Trials, not a future Witcher and Witcheress – just two young lovers, all tangled up together, staring up at a sky fully of stars, watching the moon rise over the Snow Pine Mountains.  

Taglist: @fairytale07, @geeksareunique, @jesseswartzwelder, @haru-ririchiyo, @unnamedmaincharacter, @lazilyscentedwerewolf, @stretchkingblog97, @curlyhairedandconfused, @valkyriepuff, @comicbeginning, @alwayshave-faith, @hp-hogwartsexpress, @angelic-kisses13, @holyhumorliteraturelight, @nogitsunelichen​

(Let me know if you’d like to be added!)

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Dishonorable Discharge

Series Summary: After the events of Civil War, Steve and his team are stuck in their compound. Following a mission, you disagree with your stalwart leader but he does not take kindly to your defiance.

Sequel to Insubordination, Pulling Rank, Misconduct, Furlough, and Take Cover

Chapter Description: The reader must make a decision; fight or flight.

Warnings: non-con/explicit sex, violence, mentions of birth control/contraceptives. Obviously 18+ (like this whole blog)

Note: Okay so we’ve come to the end of this series. (read the post script). A lot had happened and now we must accept what has come of it all. I hope you all enjoy this finale. Love you ❤

Thanks for reading. Feel free to send an ask, reblog, or reply of your thoughts:)

Your heartbeat rang in your ears as your footfalls filled the rhythm. Your entire being buzzed as you twisted and turned through the dim corridors of the Wakandan palace. Your knuckles still stung from the strike across Steve's jaw and your nerves flurried with the reality of what you had done. What did you do now? Where could you go?

You slid to a halt, out of breath as you almost fell against Wanda's door. You leaned on the wood heavily and tapped softly but frantically as you hissed. "Wanda, Wanda, please. Let me in. Wan--"

The door opened and you toppled over as it did. You grasped your chest as you tried to catch your breath. "I'm sorry but--but I did something. I--" Your voice cracked in your throat.

"Come on," Wanda gently touched your elbow and beckoned you inside. She closed the door, the lock clicked before she turned back to you. She put a hand on your back and led you to the love seat which faced an artificial hearth. "Tell me what happened?"

You sat and chewed your lip. Your hands shook and Wanda reached out to caress your raw and swollen knuckles. "You hurt him?"

"I think," You rasped, "I was so afraid, I didn't...I don't know why I did it." She turned your hand over and twined her fingers through yours. "He's going to kill me."

"No, he won't." She promised, "Not so long as I'm here."

She stroked your hand before she released it and stood. She left you for a moment and disappeared into the adjoined bathroom. She returned with a small box and sat beside you. The glow of the lamp on your other side limned her features remarkably. She opened the metal kit and set it between you. She daubed the split between your first and second knuckle with a cotton swab, the blood drying out quickly. Your entire hand throbbed.

“You should sleep,” She said quietly.

“No, what if--What if he comes looking for me?” You watched as she closed the box and tossed the used swab into the small bin beside the carved desk. “I couldn’t live with myself if he hurt you, too.”

“He can try,” She spoke in venomous tone as she neared again. “Now, you must rest.” Her hands cradled your face as she tilted your head to look you in the eye, “I promise, you will be safe.”

Her thumbs rested on your temples and a warmth seeped along your skull. Your eyelids sagged and your body went limp across the love seat. You fell into a deep slumber without another thought of Steve and your impending doom; Wanda’s gentle grip was the last thing you felt.

-

When you awoke, a pillow had been placed under your head and your legs were bent beneath a thin fleece blanket atop the short love seat. Despite its size, you were rather comfortable and for the first time in months, you did not awake more tired than the night before. The curtains were closed and the fireplace glimmered with artificial flames. Your vision slowly cleared as you looked around the room and memories of the night before flashed before you.

You sat up with a jolt and glanced around the room. Only early morning shadows and emptiness. You pushed the blanket off and stood. You checked in the adjoined washroom to find it just as vacant. You backed away and searched for any sign of Wanda. The small clock glowed in bright blue numbers; 10:34. It was later than you thought. Rarely did you sleep past six or seven,

The door handle turned and you turned to watch it open. Wanda entered with a smile, a covered plate in her hands. “You’re awake,” She greeted, “I brought you some food.”

“I...thank you,” You were confused. She acted as if all was well. As if you weren’t hiding from an enraged psychopath. She set the plate on the desk and waved to the chair.

“You should eat. You must be hungry,” She swept across the room and gently touched your elbow, “It’s very good. Some Wakandan spices I’ve never tasted before.”

“Wanda…” Your breath was barely a wisp.

“It is okay, Y/N,” She squeezed your elbow before releasing it, “He is hurt, that is certain. But he has done nothing.”

“Nothing?” You echoed.

“Please, sit, eat,” She urged, “Once you are finished, I will tell you.”

You sighed and reluctantly sat at the desk. You uncovered the plate of warm hash and a generous serving of scrambled eggs. There were some dark herbs and green veggies mixed in and the fluffy eggs were rich. You ate carefully at first but your appetite soon had you scraping the plate clean. Wanda offered you a glass of water as you chewed and you happily accepted. When at last you were done, she spoke.

“He did not make it so far as your room last night. Not even his own,” She explained, “They found him just outside the pool room. A servant discovered him in the corridor. He has a nasty bump and gash right along here,” She drew a line along her hair line. “And his lip is a bit swollen but he is otherwise intact.” A small grin curled her lips, “Everyone thinks he slipped on the tile...and he has not told them otherwise.”

You blinked at her in shock. “He didn’t...but...you know he will come for me.”

“He will not get you,” She vowed, “Not again. Not ever.”

“You don’t get it, Wanda, there is no place left for me. Not here, not back in the compound.” You brought your hands up to brace your neck as you felt the fire along your spine. “You can’t protect me.”

“I can and I will. This is not the man I swore my fealty to. I promised to fight for those who need it and I can do so without the noble Captain America,” She spat.

“No, I won’t have you throw it away. Not for me.” You pleaded, “This is my problem. Let me deal with it my way.”

“You’d ask me to stand back and watch him do this to you?” She asked, “I cannot do that.”

“No, I am asking you to let me make my own decision.” You countered, “It’s over, Wanda, I promise. I only ask that you let me end it myself.”

Her blue eyes sparkled as she looked you over. You stood and neared, taking her hands in yours. You flinched at the pang in your knuckles. She gave a sad smile. “Okay,” She relented, “I will let you do it your way...Take care of yourself.”

“I’ll do my best,” She drew you into and embrace and you welcomed it. It was the first ounce of love you had felt in months. The first time you had been touched without malice; resent; anger. “Thank you, Wanda.”

-

Shuri had offered her help. Thus you felt better when you ventured down to her lab and pulled her aside. Still, you felt as if you were leaning too heavily on her hospitality. Steve was your problem, not hers. You should deal with him yourself but how had that worked out for you so far? On your way down to the lab, you had dreaded running into him and dodged behind several statues thinking you heard another coming your way. Your paranoia was near crippling. You couldn’t live like this any longer.

You hadn’t offered her details. You hadn’t said much really. You had only asked that she procure you a jet for midnight. It would be enough time for you to prepare but not for Steve to catch on. Your chest filled with butterflies as you shook her hand and left her just as you found her. There was a wisdom in her young eyes. She may not know the situation exactly but she could see desperation as plain as day.

You walked along the curved path which led from one part of the lab to the next. Bucky was sat at a table tinkering with a gun as a wrinkle deepened along his brow. He looked up and you waved to him. The less time you spent here, the better.  He waved back and smiled. You left him to his work and quickly found your way out to the hall; anxious to pack for your midnight escape.

You didn’t make it to the first corner. The last person you wanted to see appeared as he so often did. Steve’s left brow was swollen, a large purplish bruise from his hairline to the top of his eye. There was a gash along the the top of his forehead, fresh stitches woven through his flesh. You blanched and came to a sudden halt. He stopped and stared you down; his jaw tensed as he looked back at you.

You broke the standoff as you stepped back and spun around on your heel. You didn’t get more than a couple feet before he was on you. He grabbed your arm and shoved you against the wall, barely missing the nearby statue of a sleek wildcat which stood guard along the corridor. You wriggled and tried to free yourself from his grip, your fist was caught before you could meet with his injured face. He was ready this time.

“Not so fast, soldier,” He snarled, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Fuck you,” You spat, “Get off of me.”

“You think you’re going to get off that easy?” He hissed as he forced your wrists against the wall beside your head. “You think you can just run away from me? Hooo, girl, you’ve got a lot to learn. You don’t even know the kind of shit you’ve just rained down on yourself.”

“I’ll scream,” You threatened, “And then I’ll tell everyone how you really got that little bruise of yours.”

“I dare you too,” His lip curled dangerously. “Go on, scream.”

You held his eyes as he called your bluff. You sighed and tugged on your wrists but he did not budge. “So what are you going to do? Bend me over right here in the hall?” He chuckled and released your wrists. He stayed close, looming over you so that you could not brush past him.

“My room, twenty-one hundred hours. Sharp,” He growled, “If you manage to get there on time, I may not leave you worse than you left me.”

“I’m going to kill you one day,” You whispered. At first you didn’t think he’d heard you but slowly his brows raised, a wince of pain as the stitches strained against his flesh. “You know that? I’m going to.”

He tilted his head, his jaw twitching as his pupils dilated with anger. “Not if I kill you first, you insolent little--”

“Steve?” Bucky’s voice scared you as he stood just outside the lab. “Hey.”

Steve backed away suddenly as if he hadn’t just been promising your death. He smiled, the shadow that had come over him dissipated in the air. He smiled at Bucky, “Hey, I was just on my way to see the king but I’ll be by the lab shortly.” His old friend seemed unfazed by the scene he had come upon, “Y/N was just asking about all this.” He laughed as he gestured to his face.

“I’d say it’s an improvement” Bucky joked, “And no rush. I’m still trying to figure out this stupid rifle.” He pointed over his shoulder through the lab door. “Take your time.”

“I won’t be long, Buck,” You watched as Steve patted Bucky’s shoulder and sidestepped him.

Silence pervaded the hallway as you watched the blonde super soldier march away. You were still against the wall. It was your only support. You were certain you would have crumpled to the floor without it. Finally, you glanced at Bucky who was staring at you in concern. The smile he had worn for his old comrade had faded.

“You okay?” He asked as he neared you. “What was that about?”

“Just wondering what happened to him,” You lied grimly as you turned to him. “Quite a number he did on himself.”

“Yeah, must’ve been a hell of a fall,” He remarked, “Managed to land completely on his head. No scrapes or bruises on his arms or legs. Just…” He ran a finger along his forehead, “The head.”

You stared at him. He knew it wasn’t a fall. It had been easy enough to guess. You shook your head and looked away in shame. “Yeah, it must’ve been.”

“I don’t think I’m worth it.” He said quietly. “Everything you’ve sacrificed. All of you...him.” You looked back to him as he hung his head, “I’m sorry. It’s my fault, all of it. I don’t deserve any of this. You don’t--Whatever he’s done to you, it must be horrible.”

Were you so transparent? Your heart seized and your lip trembled. 

“Bucky…It’s not you, it’s him. He’s different now, I--I don’t know you as well as I should, but I know you were worth it. You deserve your life; happiness, if you can find it. You seem to have found that here...I just need to find mine.”

“You’re leaving.” He said plainly.

“I have to,” You replied in a small voice.

“I know you do, I just...wish it didn’t have to be like this. I was hoping--” He shrugged and sighed. “I’ll help you. I owe you that at least. I’ll keep him from stopping you.”

“You don’t have to--”

“Let me help, please. Just once, I wanna help.” His eyes wandered to your hand as you played with the hem of your shirt, “You must pack quite the right hook.”

“Not really. Good leverage,” You answered with a gulp. “Can I ask one more favour?”

“Anything,” He smiled. It was bittersweet. Forlorn, even. Things could’ve been different. You could’ve been friends. More than just fugitives in the same sinking ship.

“Help him. Help him find himself again.” You said, “I know he’s still there. The man I swore to follow. If he can help you remember, you can help him. I know it.”

“I hope he’s still there,” Bucky frowned, “I...Take care of yourself, Y/N.” He held out his hand and you accepted it. “I’ll tell Shuri to get the jet ready as soon as possible. He won’t wait till midnight.”

You let go of his hand and nodded. You made to turn back down the hall but stopped yourself halfway. “Does everyone know?”

“Just me,” Bucky assured, “I can tell when someone’s trapped. I’ve been there.”

“Please, don’t tell anyone.” You whispered.

“Your secret’s safe,” He tucked his hand into his pocket and looked over his shoulder at the lab door, “Now, you get out of here. I’ll keep him busy as long as I can. I’d say twenty minutes before he’s down with T’Challa, I can distract him for maybe an hour more.”

“Thank you, Bucky,” You felt the tears pooling along your eyelids as you turned and headed down the hall. They spilled as you turned the corner and a weight lifted from your chest. Even if it wasn’t truly freedom, you were free...almost.

-

You didn’t bother packing. You didn’t have the time or the necessity. The others were exploring the city and you were thankful that there were none to witness you sprint through the halls. The only thing you took were your passport and a hoodie. Everything else could be thrown away; phone, clothes, a single book you had brought for the flight. This life was over. You were growing used to leaving everything behind.

You checked your watch and said one last silent goodbye to the team. You stopped outside Wanda’s door and bowed your head. She was strong. She’d take care of everyone. They were all stronger than you. You exhaled and carried on. You kept to the halls on the opposite side of the palace until you found the staircase. You followed the steps until they stopped.

As you came up to the jet pad, the ship was fueling up. Shuri awaited you. You approached her as you waited for your cue.

“Five minutes, at most,” She said, “They don’t know, do they?”

“No,” You shook your head, “But I have to go.”

“Just know, there is always a place for you in Wakanda. Even without them.” She smiled kindly and touched your shoulder. “You don’t have to do this.”

You stared at her. She knew exactly where you were going. She didn’t need to ask. To be so wise at her age. Perhaps you’d never had ended up here. “Thank you, but I do.”

“The soldier will miss you.” She commented and you winced. “Not the Captain, the Sergeant. He...was happy to see you again.”

“If I’m lucky, it won’t be forever,” The jet door slowly began to descend and you glanced over in unison with the princess. “I don’t think the sentence for treason is that medieval these days.”

“I hope one day to see you again,” She looked back to you, “In happier times.”

“I hope so too, Princess.” You bent your head before you stepped away from her.

“Shuri,” She corrected you as you walked away. “Goodbye, Y/N.”

You walked up the ramp of the jet and took the seat closest to the pilot. It would be a long flight but you would not sleep. You knew that. You would rather watch the clouds as you enjoyed your last moments of liberation. As you fastened your belt, the pilot peeked back at you, his hands working expertly at the controls.

“Where to, Miss?” He asked, his accent made the words a melody.

“New York,” The words fluttered from your tongue and floated in the air before you.

-

You stared down at your worn passport. Your real one, not the fake one Shuri had forged for you. You examined the photo of you, though it was hard to believe it was you looking back. You felt older now; different. Everything had changed and you had not been immune to the passing of time. The girl in the picture had been young; hopeful. She had just been enlisted to work for the Captain America.

And now this fractured woman was running from him. You lifted your eyes to the looming giant. Stark Tower was as you remembered it. As lively as ever even if it had lost several of its former regulars. You inhaled the urban stench of the city and sighed. You listened to the sounds of traffic, the endless stampede of pedestrians, the whoops and out-of-tune music of panhandler. You put one foot up on the bottom steps and snapped closed your passport.

You pushed back your shoulders and urged yourself up the stairs. You slipped through the revolving door and past those rushing like ants around the lobby. You crossed to the elevator and a cloud of deja vu came over you. You remembered the first day you had ascended these heights. The first time you had stepped off on the very top floor. You almost felt the same twinkle of glee, though this one was far less bright.

As the doors opened, you were blinded by the fluorescent hues. You let out the breath you had been holding and forced yourself out of the elevator. You approached the round desk where the receptionist sat and you laid your passport before her.

“My name is Y/N and I have come to turn myself in for crimes of insubordination.” You declared. A shadow appeared in the corner of your eye and you turned to a familiar red-head in the doorway just to your left. James Rhodes appeared at Pepper Potts’ shoulder, the two of them in visible shock. Your lips curved just slightly before you spoke again, “Is Tony in?”

the end (for now)

Post script: For this series, I have opted to divided it into two overarching plots. In this first ‘book’ we will call it, we have watched the descent of both our reader and Steve Rogers following the fall out of Civil War. I feel comfortable in leaving this first installment as it stands as I focus on other fics in the meantime. I am content that we have a beginning, a middle, and an end which will allow us to put this down for the time being.

This first ‘book’ will be known as Insubordination and the second, which will not be complete for some time, is yet to be titled and will likely not be seen before the end of 2019. But I can say that it will take place during the events of Infinity War and Endgame and will bring us to our eventual and final end. I thank everyone for their time and patience. You have been wonderful!

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