#VOICED BY WOMEN. BUT CLOUDS WAS LITERALLY LIKE. IF YOU TOLD ME IT WAS A GIRL TALKING I WOULD BELIEVE YOU NO QUESTIONS ASKED

[infizero]

i was so confident in transfem cloud before but now realizing he had long hair and a conspiciously high-pitched/androgynous voice as a kid.... i call a truce with the transmasc cloud believers. i get it

[sapphire-weapon]

and something that you always gotta keep in mind about me is

i grew up in a completely different era of the internet and of fandom than you all did.

when i was up and coming in fandom, the internet was mostly young men and boys. not just in fandom -- but everywhere on the internet. i very much grew up in a man's world in a way that gen z did not.

my earliest fandoms were DBZ, FF7, warcraft, RE, and DMC -- all of which were controlled exclusively by men and men's voices. even the feminine pockets of fandom -- the shipping parts of fandom -- were dominated by male discourse. clerith vs cloti ship wars back in the day used to take the form of proving which of the girls was more of a slut and a damsel-in-distress (and therefore worthless) -- who was more deserving to be with cloud.

so, from a very young age, i had to cultivate a very masculine presence online. i had to meet those guys where they were at -- i couldn't expect them to cater or conform to me.

it was actually very relieving for me when that presence had reached a point where people reflexively referred to me as "he." i never corrected them; i didn't dare to. because being a woman in those male-dominated spaces meant that those guys threw everything you said out the window and you got sexually harassed until you shut up and went away.

i mean i even went all the way through college refusing to get on voice chat in public game lobbies because i knew i'd get kicked the second someone heard a feminine voice. people who have known me for years like @godtier and @theggning and @friedesgreatscythe and @feelboss can confirm this.

you guys grew up in an era where slash ships are the majority, queer fans and women are the majority, "problematic ships" are a thing people are concerned about, and no one bats an eye at trans headcanons.

i grew up in an era where the N-word was commonplace, women in fandom spaces were told to get back in the kitchen, queer fans were damn near driven to suicide, and ship wars literally had discourse in them like (and i quote) "yuffie dresses that way.... to piss off her dad. tifa dresses that way.... because she's a slut."

so what i am today is the culmination of decades of existing in a space where i had to mirror and mimic millennial and gen x dudebros in their attitude, demeanor, and vernacular -- just to be heard. just to have a fucking conversation with people without it spiraling into "so do you do anal?"

i still have my deeply held very liberal, very feminist, very progressive values.

but i'm just never going to be the all-welcoming Customer Service internet personality that gen z is.

i'm gonna be that guy who comes off as arrogant sometimes and tells anon i sucked their dad's cock last night. because that's who i've always had to be. and part of me doesn't even really want to change, because it's a part of who i am, it's a mark of what i've been through, and maybe i can use it to help you guys navigate through an old fandom that grew up exactly as i did.

[the-crystal-one]

Nicest Kids in Town!

~Baltimore 1960~

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, MotorMouth Maybelle was in her kitchen whipping up breakfast for the three lights of her life: Seaweed, Inez, and Sandra.

"Now I know y'all ain't still sleepin' , we got a big day ahead of us!" Maybelle called out as she began to set the table. Footsteps came from the backroom, all different patterns. The first being heavy but smooth, Seaweed appeared as dapper as usual and kissed his mother on the cheek. "Aw come on now mama, you know you can't rush perfection."

"Which is why she told you to hurry up." A higher voice came up behind him, Inez, the youngest. Seaweed turned his head to mock her and crouched, threatening to chase her.

"Now you two cut it out, Mama is tryin' to cook for y'all, sit down somewhere." A soft, musical voice came into the jumble of the kitchen. Sandra Stubbs, the oldest of the three sat in her usual spot while she watched her siblings follow suit. Maybelle sauntered over to her eldest and placed a kiss on her forehead. "Good mornin' suga, you gon' leave ya hair like that for the day?" She motioned to the robust head of hair, shaped into a puff that sat wide and proud on her daughter's shoulders. Sandra shook her head, sipping the previously placed water, "No ma'am. Don't you worry, I'll have it nice and laid down for you all nice for the show." You see, Sandra knew what to say to ease her mother's mind, but she was also at the age where she could express herself the way she wanted. She would leave her hair up and out for school, then quickly slick it back in an "acceptable" manner in time for their debut.

"Well, as long as you're sure, now you three eat up, the bus will be here in a little." Maybelle laid the plate of bacon, waffles and brown sugar oatmeal on the table.

~A couple of minutes later~

"And don't forget, the show starts at-" Maybelle started as her children entered the not so sturdy looking bus, "We know ma'!" The three exclaimed back as the doors closed. Upon entering, Seaweed was greeted by other boys with loud exclamations, slaps on the palm and pats on the back. Inez was greeted by other girls with squeals of excitement and heavy waves. Sandra was greeted by both females and males with the same phrase, "Hey Saucy!" or "Oh here comes Ms.Saucy!"

Sandra scoffed at them and waved them off, offering some waves here and there, knowing that they were all just having fun. "Saucy? Why Saucy?" Well, Sandra is one of the smoothest singers on the South side of Baltimore. Women and men alike could sit around her for hours on end, listening to her melodic voice hypnotize their troubles away. Her voice came out so smooth is was like silk- no, Sauce. Hence the name, Saucy.

Once they had finally arrived to school, each and every child filed out of the bus, entering the building from the backdoor. Sandra's mood went from Cloud Nine to rock bottom. She hated how they were all treated, just because of their skin. There wasn't much she could do but grin and bear it, as she did so she walked to class. But it wouldn't be in true Stubbs' fashion to walk into the dull place of learning without trying to liven up the moods of her literal and metaphorical brothers and sister. So what did she do?

"I've got sunshiiiiine, on a cloudy day~," She started as she practically floated down the hallway, "When it's cold outside,I've got the month of May,~" Seaweed turned his head away from his friends to see his sister, in her usual chipper mood, "Girl you betta stop." She grabbed the hand of her brother and began to dance with him, "Come on baby brother, sing witcha sister." She looked into his eyes and smiled widely. "Wh-...fine Fine! WeEELL! I guess you'd say What can make me feel this way?" He spun his sister in a circle and seemingly everyone's mood lifted up, but not higher than Sandra's.

"MY GIIIIIRL MY GIRL, MY GIRL!! TALKIN BOUT MYYYYY GIIIIIIRL." The hallway erupted with voices, on and off key, high and low.

Sandra did a small riff before hearing the school bell ring and released her brother, hip bumping him, "3:00 little brother." She stepped into a classroom only to be met with one of her teachers, "Ms.Stubbs, you are late, that is a detention." He began to write her a slip. "Oh Mr.Ichbad, I was just outside with my brother, we did have to walk all the way around to get to our door on account of-" He didn't speak another word, but he did manage to shove that slip into her hand. She had just started her day, not even sitting in her seat yet, and received a detention.

'Well...that's a way to start a Monday.' she thought to herself as she strolled back into the hallway, making her way to the detention room.

(ALLLL RIGHTY, TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!!!) ~Chapter 2~

[hgranger93493]

Content: Part 1.

Summary: You are getting ready to be married in a week. Everything will go smoothly, right?

Warnings: Angst, slight fluff, language.

Pairings: OC x reader; Sam x Jess; Dean x reader(eventually)

Wordcount: 5470

A/N: This will be a mini-series set in AU. Hopefully you'll like it.

------

You slide the door open to your balcony and stepped outside to get some fresh air. After today, you needed a couple of drinks with the fresh air. You sighed deeply and looked towards the dark sky as the clouds moved around the full moon. You kept playing with the pack of cigarettes in your hand and flicking the lighter off and on. You haven’t smoked since college. The last semester was stressful to you and picked up this habit for a few months. Not that it helped much, but you were on the verge of needing some relief today. You were startled when you heard a deep voice to your left.

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

“Holy shit! You scared me.” You squeaked with your hand on your chest.

A deep chuckle left this person’s throat and the moonlight shined on their face at the same time.

“Dean? What are you doing here?”

Dean slowly got up from the patio chair and walked towards you. Dean visits his brother Sam once every month. You met him a few times since Sam moved next door a year ago. You, Sam, and Jess were friends from college. Although you all weren’t thick as thieves, you enjoyed their company from time to time. Having your both balconies side by side was fun. You hang out with them and have cookouts during summer and exchange dishes whenever possible. The main reason you didn’t hang out much with them was because of Matthew. Your fiancé. You met Matt during your freshman year and you both have been dating since sophomore year. Matt never liked Sam and Jess as they weren’t up to his “standards”, whatever that meant. So, all of you never ran in the same circles, but you hung out with Jess whenever possible.

Dean leaned on the short wall separating the balconies and smiled up at you.

“Just visiting Sam. Missed my little brother”

“Pssh! He ain’t little Dean.”

Dean laughed a little and eyed the cigarettes box in your hand as if asking the same question again.

“Yeah, I don’t smoke. Just needed something to relieve the stress.”

“Are you okay?”

It has been a while since someone asked that question. You really didn’t want to talk, but you didn’t want to be rude to Dean. He was always sweet and kind.

You sighed a little and replied “Just the stress of planning the wedding is getting to me.”

Dean cleared his throat and asked “Wanna talk about it?”

“Thanks Dean, but I don’t want to bother ya.”

“You are not a bother, sweetheart. I’m hear to listen if you need to vent.”

You put the cigarettes and the lighter aside and took a step towards him.

“Not sure where to start, but the ‘small’ wedding we were supposed to have turned out into a full-blown production.”

“Yessh, that does sound stressful. Anybody helping you with it?”

“Well, my fiancé was supposed to help me, but his mother took over the reigns for him and she wants nothing and everything in the wedding. Today we were at the cake tasting and she insisted on having a 5-tier cake and her favorite flavor. Who needs five tiers of cake? We went back and forth and she finally got her way like she always does.” You sighed a little after your vent. “Maybe it is something small, maybe I am over reacting”

“No, you are not, it is your wedding and you and your fiancé should have a final say. Not the monster-in-law to be.”

You chuckled a little at his jab at Matt’s mom. You never said it out loud, but she was indeed a monster. She sat you down after the engagement and brought you up to speed on how women in their family must keep their husbands first and told you the literal “rules” about having some traditions at the wedding. Since Matt was their only son, she wanted an extravagant wedding. You told her that you didn’t believe in spending all your life savings on one party. You wanted to save money as much as you can so you can use it for down payment on your future home. But she put her foot down and told you as a bride, your family and you need to do everything to make the wedding the best day of her son’s life. She knows your parents passed away when you were sixteen and she tries to make me feel like an orphan when an opportunity strikes. I mean who does that?

You were lost in thoughts when you heard Dean call you again.

“Y/N?”

“Hmm”

“You, okay?”

“Yeah, sorry I have a lot on my mind. With the wedding planning and budgeting”

“You don’t have to apologize Y/N. Just wanted to make sure you are ok.”

“Thanks Dean. Maybe I need a hot shower and a good night’s sleep.”

“Yeah, you should get some rest.”

“Alright, thanks for talking me out of smoking. I really was debating.” You laughed a little.

“Well, I’m glad to be of help. Good night sweetheart.”

You smiled a little and waved Dean good night and walked back inside your apartment.

Dean took a deep breath and went back in to Sam’s apartment.

Sam was in the kitchen getting dinner ready. He looked up when he heard the door to his patio open and close.

“Were you talking to someone?”

“Yeah, Y/N.”

“Oh, how is she doing? I barely see her here since she got engaged to that douche.”

“Douche?” Dean raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, not sure what Y/N sees in Matt, but Jess and I never liked him. He was a total d-bag in college. He once asked what our dad was ‘worth’ to determine if we could be friends.”

“What? That is weird.”

“Yeah, he only wanted to be friends with guys who were loaded and could spend daddy’s money.”

“Oh boy, what is Y/N doing with an ass like that?”

“I don’t know Dean. She always kept to herself in freshman year. Jess and I met her in calculus class and never had many classes together since we were all in different majors. She is pretty smart, I tell you.”

Dean smiled and replied “Yeah, that she seems to be.” He kept thinking how beautiful she is too. She had a pretty smile.

Sam sensed something and said “She is engaged Dean. Don’t even think about it.”

“Seriously Sam? You think that low of me that I would hit on an engaged woman?”

“Just warning ya.”

“Yeah, whatever bitch.”

“Jerk.”

Jess walked in the front door at caught the end of their conversation.

“Don’t start you too. I want to have a nice and pleasant dinner.”

“He started it!” both said and the same time pointing to each other.

Jess rolled her eyes and walked over to Dean to give him a hug and went over to Sam and pecked his cheek as a greeting.

“So, what were you guys talking about?”

“Y/N” Sam replied.

“Oh, what about her? Is she ok?”

“Oh yeah. Just caught her on one of her bad days, I guess. She is stressed about the wedding planning.” Dean replied.

“Oh” Jess replied a little lost in thought.

“Everything okay babe?”

Jess jerked back from her thoughts and replied “Yeah…yeah” and she smiled at her boyfriend. Sam knew she was hiding something, but didn’t bring it up.

“So, are you guys invited to the wedding?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, Y/N sent us both the invite and unfortunately, we had to decline since the wedding falls during mom and dad’s anniversary weekend. With the planning and everything, it would be a tight squeeze to attend the wedding and drive to Lawrence.”

“Oh yeah, that reminds me. We need to finalize the seating tomorrow so I can let Ellen know.” Dean reminded Sam.

“We can take a look at it tomorrow morning after breakfast?” Sam asked.

“Sounds good to me.”

The three finished their dinner ended the night with some light laughs and heavy liquor.

That night Sam and Jess were getting ready for bed and Sam decided to bring up what Jess was thinking about when they were talking about Y/N.

“Hey babe, what were you thinking when we were talking about Y/N’s wedding”

“Oh, it is nothing. Maybe I didn’t see it correctly and imagining things.”

“You didn’t see what correctly?” Sam asked curiously.

Jess sighed a little and replied “The other day I think I saw Matt with someone else when I was hanging out with Melissa and getting drinks at the club.”

“What?” Sam asked bewildered.

“Yeah, maybe it wasn’t him.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, because this person was heavily making out with the woman who he was with.”

“It could have been Y/N.”

“I thought so too, but that night when I returned to the apartment I ran into Y/N while she was taking out trash and she was telling how she was stuck at home all day working on a deadline.”

“Oh” Sam said. “Maybe it wasn’t Matt. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was, but for Y/N’s sake let’s hope it was someone else.”

“Yeah, me too babe. It was a dark club and loud. Maybe I am wrong. But in all honesty, she deserves someone else. I never liked Matt.” Jess said scrunching up her nose.

“Yeah, me neither.”

“See that is why I like you.” Jess replied with a grin.

“Geez, I thought you like me for other things too” Sam wiggled his eyebrows and pounced on Jess making her giggle loudly.

Sam and Jess were interrupted when they heard three bangs from the adjacent room.

“Hey! The walls are pretty thin around here. You are scarring me for life” Dean yelled.

Sam and Jess giggle quietly and yelled “Sorry” at the same time.

Dean huffed a little and closed his eyes to try and sleep. For whatever reason his mind kept going back to Y/N and how he wanted to hug her and take her worries away after seeing her today. He cannot get the image of her face that was lit up with the soft moonlight earlier.

“Stop it, Dean. Stop it. She is getting married.” He murmured to himself and started counting backwards to fall asleep. Some how he fell asleep and let the darkness consume him soon.

------

Next morning you woke up well rested. You are lucky you worked from home. You had a few things to take care at work and then work on wedding stuff. Your manager was very understanding that you needed cut back a few hours everyday to go meet vendors and stuff during weekdays to finalize the stuff for the wedding.

You took a quick shower and made a small breakfast for yourself and texted Matt reminding him again about meeting the florist today at 11:30 and to come pick you up at 11:00. He didn’t reply, but you assumed he saw the message. After working for a few hours, you were about to take an early lunch. You put on some jeans and a simple t-shirt to get ready to go to the florist. It was 11:00 and your phone rang. It was Matt.

“Hey babe. You downstairs?”

He groggily replied “Hey. I just woke up and saw your message. I don’t think I can make it to the appointment. Can you go by yourself? I mean it is flowers, what would I do there anyways?”

To you say you were furious was an understatement. Who even wakes up at 11AM on a weekday? Especially when you are planning your wedding?

“Seriously Matt? We both were supposed to go to the florist and finalize the flowers and center pieces. It is not just my wedding it is our wedding.”

“You are making mountains out of mole hills Y/N. It is just stupid flowers, who cares?”

“Who cares? Are you kidding Matt? Don’t you care about this wedding? I mean I wanted a small wedding, but your mom insisted on making extravagant.”

“Don’t bring my mom into this Y/N.” He replied with a tone that was almost scary.

“Well, she chose the cake yesterday. Maybe she should just choose the flowers as well.” You replied snidely.

“You are lucky you have my mom helping you. You have no friends and no family. Be grateful”

That hurt. You were on the verge of tears and you cleared your throat.

“I didn’t mean to be ungrateful; I just would like you to participate in this wedding planning. This is how we make memories. We only have a week left.”

“Well now I am not in the mood to come anyways, I’ll ask mom to join you.”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll take care of it. You don’t have to bother her.”

“She’ll come. Drive yourself there.” Matt replied and cut the call.

Those tears finally spilled. You were always alone after you lost your mom and dad. They were the biggest support system in your life and loosing that was horrible. You always thought meeting Matt was a blessing. He kept you active socially basically dragging you to every party and event around college. Over the years his friends became your friends, his life became your life and now his family was going to be yours. You were skeptical towards him and his motives, but didn’t want to question too much about it. You were getting a family again, so you bent anyway Matt molded you.

You picked yourself up and drove to the florist. Matt’s mom Martha was already there and she had a sour face. You sighed deeply and walked towards her.

“Matt told me about the conversation you both had earlier.” No hi or hello.

“Umm, what do you mean?”

“You shouldn’t force Matt to do things he doesn’t like. That is not OK” she hissed.

“Martha, I didn’t say anything. I just wanted him to join us to choose flowers since this is our wedding.”

“Well, you got me. So, let’s get to it.” She replied and got to work.

Peonies. She picked peonies. I mean they are beautiful flowers, but you wanted to have sunflowers in your bouquet. They were your mom’s favorite. You wanted her to be with you in some way on your special day. It is not traditional, but you thought you could at least win this fight. But you had no strength left in you to argue, so you let Martha pick everything.

After the appointment you drove back to your apartment. Glad that you and Matt don’t share a place. Otherwise, you would have seen his mom all the time. You need a break this evening. Get your mind off the planning so you decided to call you maid of honor, Lisa. Matt introduced you to Lisa in college. Matt and her dated the freshman year, but they both didn’t “click”. They remained friends and hung out all the time. Lisa became your impromptu best friend.

You rang Lisa. After a few rings she picked up the phone. She almost sounded as if she ran half a mile.

“Hey Lisa. How is it going?”

“Hey Y/N. What’s up?”

“Oh, I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out this evening. Maybe grab a few drinks and get a bite?”

“Um no, I can’t. My sister is visiting. She just broke up with her boyfriend and is upset and she needs me.”

“I am so sorry to hear that. How is doing now?”

“Huh...yeah yeah..she is fine.” Lisa replied hastily.

“Okay, hope she feels better. Maybe we can get together later this week. Go over some details about the bridesmaid dresses and set an appointment for a final fitting?”

“Yeah..yeah that sounds fine. Listen Y/N, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.” She cut the call even before you could say bye.

You looked at the phone puzzled and got back to your work.

At 4, you promptly shut off the laptop to cook something. You didn’t eat lunch since you lost your appetite after meeting you mother-in-law to be. You decided to cook something and were in the kitchen ready to start your prep when you heard a knock at your door.

You were hoping Matt cooled down and stopped by. When you opened the door, you were met with Jess’s big smile. You always loved hanging out with Jess. She had such an infectious smile and attitude. She was a caring person in general.

“Hey Y/N! Is this a bad time?”

“No, no not at all. Come in.” You invited her in.

She gave you a tight hug and you wrapped your arms around here and squeezed her. You needed this after the whole florist fiasco. She broke the hug, and you both walked to your couch to sit down and have a chat. A few niceties were exchanged.

“Sam and I were wondering if you are free this evening?”

“Oh? Why?”

“We feel bad for not being able to attend your wedding and we were wondering if we can take you out for dinner and drinks this evening. Maybe your fiancé can join us too?”

What a relief. You need some company this evening and Jess is a literal angel at this point.

“Sure! Let me call Matt and check with him.”

“Okay, let’s say 7? We can get an early start on the drinks.” Jess laughed.

“You read my mind sister. 7 sounds good.”

Jess got up to leave the apartment and turned around. “Oh! Dean is also going to join us. Is that okay?”

You smiled a little wider hearing Dean’s name. Jess didn’t miss that.

“Of course! The more the merrier, right?”

“Yup! Alright, see you then.”

“See ya.” Your spirits were lifted. You called Matt to tell him about the plan. Praying that his mood is set after the call you had earlier today.

“Yeah?” He answered his call.

“Hey Matt, are you busy?”

“Not really, what’s up?”

“Um, you remember Sam and Jess, right? My neighbors. We went to college with them.”

“Yeah, what about them?”

“They wanted to hangout this evening. Get some drinks together. They feel bad that they can’t attend the wedding. They invited us both. They want to leave at 7. Want to come over to my place?”

Matt sighed “Listen Y/N. I never really liked that Sam guy. He is thinks he is above everyone because of his brains. I don’t want to hang out with them. You shouldn’t either.”

You were taken back a little. Sam was the most down to earth guy you ever met. Even in college. Not sure why Matt thinks that way.

“But Matt, they want to take us both out for drinks and dinner. They are nice people. You should give them a chance.”

“Y/N, I said what I said. I don’t want to go. Also, I made plans with my ma. I will let you hang out with them. Just this one time.”

Seriously? You never asked his permission.

“I don’t need your permission to hang out with them Matt. They are kind enough to invite us for dinner and this is how you talk?”

“Do I need to remind you of our talk from this morning?” He asked gruffly.

“Whatever.” You said and cut the call. You weren’t going to apologize when you have done nothing wrong. You were looking forward to this evening with Jess and Sam. And you were not going to lie that you were looking forward to spending some time with Dean as well. He always seemed nice and caring.

---

General POV:

Jess walked into their apartment and found Sam and Dean on the couch going over some details about their parent’s anniversary party.

“Y/N is free this evening. She will join us for drinks and dinner. I told her we will leave at 7.”

Dean perked up hearing this. And Jess didn’t miss that. She smirked a little walking to the fridge to get a drink.

“Matt is also going to join us.”

Sam groaned. “I hate that guy.” He muttered.

“Tough luck, you better behave this evening, Samuel.” Jess scolded him.

“Yeah yeah. I will if he will.”

“Sam, we invited them, so play nice. It is just one evening.”

“Yes ma’am” Sam replied.

Around 6:45, Y/N heard a knock at her door. She was expecting Jess, but when she opened the door, she saw Dean. He was wearing a simple flannel and jeans and boy, did he look good. She wiped those thoughts away and smiled at Dean.

“Hey Dean! I am almost ready. Need a few more minutes. Come in.”

“Hey. No rush. Just wanted to talk to you before we left.”

Y/N looked a little puzzled.

“Oh? What do you want to talk about?” Y/N was putting on her ear ring using the mirror in the foyer. Her back to Dean.

“Um, wanted to see if it was okay with you and Matt for me to join. I can drop if you guys feel uncomfortable.”

Y/N turned back to face him. She didn’t understand where this was coming from.

“Dean, that is totally fine. Thanks for checking with me. It will be fun. Also, Matt is not joining us this evening. He is otherwise occupied” Y/N said as she rolled her eyes and turned around to put on her other ear ring.

Dean was relived to know that Matt wouldn’t join. After what Sam told him, he didn’t really care much about that douchebag either. He didn’t ask her more about why Matt couldn’t join them.

“Ok, I am ready. Ready to head out?”

Dean took a few seconds to admire her. She dressed simple, but she made her outfit look amazing.

“Yeah, let’s go see if Sam and Jess and ready too.”

---

The evening started out great. All four of them hit a few bars and drank and danced their worries away. Especially Y/N. She let loose. Jess challenged Y/N to drink to every drink she had. And that turned into a friendly competition and both women were very tipsy by the time they hit their third or fourth bar. Sam and Dean soon realized that it was time to get some food to soak up the alcohol.

Jess and Y/N were giggling all night and just having fun. Dean was amused every time he looked at Y/N. He wished he met Y/N sooner because he would have asked her out. No doubt. But we can’t always get what we want, right?

They wanted to make their way to a restaurant to end their night and eat something. Y/N and Jess wanted to drink a little more and dance and kept calling the men party poopers.

“Ladies, you both need to eat. We had been drinking for 3 hours now.” Sam scolded.

“Booo!” Jess yelled.

Y/N parroted her and yelled “Yeah, Booooo!” towards Dean and broke into a fit of giggles.

Sam and Dean both sighed and somehow convinced them. Y/N understood and reasoned with Jess.

“Girl, we need food. I am hungry. I am sure they serve wine there.” She winked.

“Aww, I don’t want the night to end. I never get to hangout with you. Which is weird. We were friends in college and now we are neighbors and we never did this before.”

Y/n felt bad. Matt always made plans for her and never let her hangout with Sam and Jess. Sensing this Jess straightened up.

“Sorry, that was uncalled for.” Jess replied groggily.

“No no, don’t apologize. We will do this again. I promise” Y/N told Jess and gave her a hug.

This conversation warmed Sam and Dean. Dean especially. He knew it was Matt that held her back, but he was glad Y/N was letting some steam out and spending time with Jess. It looked like she needed this.

At the restaurant, they got a booth. Sam and Jess sat on one side and Y/N and Dean on the other. Y/N felt the warmth coming off Dean. They reminisced over the night’s events and were having fun. During the conversation Dean rested his arm behind Y/N. She could smell the cologne coming off Dean. Not thinking she turned a little to face Dean and smiled.

“You smell so good Dean.” She said almost giddily.

Dean had a smug look on his face and with a grin replied “Thank you, darling.”

Sam cleared his throat as if warning Dean again.

Dean immediately realized the closeness and took his arm off the seat and moved a little away from her.

Jess got up to go use the restroom while you three were finishing your food. She got back to the table a few minutes later very sober and a little flustered.

“We need to go home. Now” she said to the table.

“Babe, what is the hurry? We still haven’t gotten dessert” Sam replied confused. You and Dean were confused as well. Jess looked at Sam and subtly pointed at something behind her with her eyes. Sam followed her eyesight to where it was pointed. Sam tightened his jaw.

“Yeah, let’s go.” Sam replied.

Dean and Y/N were confused, but obliged. Sam and Dean went to the front desk to settle the check. Y/N felt the need to use the bathroom.

“Guys, I will be right back. I need to use the restroom.”

“No Y/N wait..” Jess stopped her, but it was too late.

Y/N turned around and immediately got a glimpse of Matt at one of the booths. Y/N was not sure, but she squinted her eyes and he wasn’t alone. He was with Lisa. Your maid of honor. They both were cozied up in the booth facing her and even before she could realize what was happening, they started making out heavily.

The air got knocked out of Y/N. The blood drained from her face. Jess immediately came to her side to hold her. Sam and Dean saw what was happening and walked over to the girls. Dean was worried to see Y/N in such state. He looked at what she was looking. He saw two people playing tonsil tennis with each other. He looked at Sam for an explanation.

“That’s Matt.” That was all he needed to hear. He went to Y/N’s side and tried to get her to talk. She was honestly scaring him. She was in shock.

“Sweetheart, hey! Look at me. Let’s get out of here. Okay?” He was trying to get to her.

-----

Y/N’s POV:

Your blood was boiling. Internally you were screaming and you wanted to pounce on Matt and Lisa. But you were unable to move. You weren’t blinking, trying to make sure you were seeing things right. Dean’s voice broke you out of your trance. You looked at Dean.

“You…you guys got my back?” She asked shakingly.

Sam and Jess looked at each other not understanding what you were asking. But Dean immediately understood.

“Absolutely” replied Dean. That is all you needed to hear.

You straightened your stance pulled the engagement ring from your left hand and marched over to their table like a woman on a mission. Dean, Jess and Sam followed you. You made eye contact with Matt and Lisa.

“You two. Outside. Now!” You said in a calm voice and slammed the ring on the table and turned to walk away.

Dean was right beside you and opened the door for you. You didn’t want to make a scene inside the restaurant. A lot of people were having a good time and it wasn’t fair to them.

Once the cool air hit your face, you took a deep breath and closed your eyes. Sam and Jess immediately came to your side and Dean never leaving your side.

“Are you ok Y/N?” Jess asked. Honestly your calmness was scaring her.

You smiled at her and shook your head yes.

Matt and Lisa showed up a few minutes later walking towards you. Lisa cowering behind Matt. When they were close enough. You looked at Matt.

“How long?” was all you asked calmly.

“Y/N…” Matt started to say.

“HOW LONG?!” you yelled at this point.

Matt flinched at your tone. Honestly everyone around you flinched, but you didn’t care.

Matt put his head down and mumbled something.

“What?” you asked as you couldn’t hear.

“Over a year” Matt said a little louder. You felt like someone slapped you. You were mad at him for doing this, but you were even more mad at him for how he manipulated you and gaslighted you even after he started the affair. The nerve on this guy. He was fucking someone else behind your back. Your maid of honor no less.

“Then why did you propose to me?” You yelled.

Matt put his head down unable to answer. And that answered your question.

“Oh god, it was proposal out of guilt isn’t it?” you questioned. When he didn’t answer you yelled “Isn’t it?”

Matt shook his head and lifted his head to look at you.

You took a deep breath and pointed at him.

“I want you to come get your shit from my apartment tomorrow. They might be in the hallway, or near the dumpster. I don’t know yet.” You told him. Spitting venom.

“And you” you pointed to Lisa. “I trusted you. You could have done the right thing and told me. But you didn’t. And you even lied to me. You volunteered to be my maid of honor. I never want to see your face ever again. Understood?”

Lisa nodded her head and cowered even further behind Matt.

“Heh, I should have realized what a manipulative bastard you are Matt. But I always gave you the benefit of the doubt. Ignored all the red flags. But that one is on me, isn’t it?” Your voice waivered at the end.

Dean got beside you and placed a hand on your lower back. Telling you silently he got you. Jess placed he hand on your shoulder and Sam was right behind you and Dean. They got your back and you didn’t want to spill any more tears for this son of a bitch! Literally.

You turned to Dean.

“I want to go home Dean.” You said quietly.

“Of course, sweetheart.” Dean gave Matt a dirty look and guided you out of there. Jess and Sam silently followed.

You were walking slowly and started to shiver a little. Dean put his arm around your shoulder. You were glad he was there. You slowly brought your hand around Dean’s torso from the behind and snuggled into him. For warmth, for comfort, for support. And it felt good. Dean did not complain one bit.

“I got you Y/N. I got you.” Dean reassured and kissed your temple.

How you got home was a mystery. You got into your apartment and sat on the couch silently. Dean sat beside you holding you. Sam went to get some water for you. Jess crouched to your eye level. A sad smile on her face.

“How are you feeling?” Jess asked you.

“I want to be alone.” You replied. Jess looked at Dean and then Sam. Sam shook his head a no, not comfortable leaving you alone in this mental state.

“Y/N I don’t think it is good for you to be alone at this time.” Jess tried to assure you.

You shook your head no and said “Please I just want to be alone. With my thoughts. Please” you pleaded with her.

“But…” she was about to put her foot down when Dean stepped in.

“How about I stay with you Y/N?”

You turned your head to him “You don’t have to Dean. It’s ok. I won’t do anything irrational, if that is what you all are worried about.”

Dean felt bad. “We don’t want you to be alone in case Matt comes back. Doesn’t he have a key?”

You nodded your head yes. “See, just for your safety I’ll stay here. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

For some reason you felt better knowing someone will be close by. “Okay” you replied silently.

Jess smiled and said “Good.” She squeezed your knee as an assurance. “That’s settled. When you wake up tomorrow come straight to our place for breakfast.” That was an order. You nodded your head yes.

“Heads up, this guy snores like a bear.” Jess said pointing her thumb at Dean.

“Hey! I don’t snore.” Dean defended.

You chuckled a little. Thankful for them trying to cheer you up. You took Dean’s hand in your hand and looked up and Jess and Sam. “Thanks for having my back today. That wasn’t a pleasant situation to be around.”

“We always got your back Y/N.” Sam assured you with a smile. Dean squeezed your hand and said “I got you. Always.” Silently.

[vampzxi]

music recs?

omg. kisses whoever asked me this. i have a bunch of music so just walk with me here. i'll sort it because i have so many recs um. im very passionate about this hollon (kpop is at the bottom bc i know not everyone listens to it...im not a kpoppie guys i swea)

hip hop

count me out - kendrick lamar (literally my most listened to artist, i saw him live a few months ago. i love that man) (when i saw letitia post herself to this song i literally exploded im not even playing)

anything by SMINO (none of my friends listen to him but he is truly my fav hip hop/r&b artist)

ringleader man - t pain (he can sing his ass off, okay.)

vent -baby keem

three man weave - injury reserve

PRIDE. - kendrick lamar

swimming pools - kendrick lamar

litterally ANYTHING by ice spice (i am a munch.)

CORSO - tyler, the creator

collard greens - schoolboy Q (my mom would play this every day when she dropped me off at school in 3rd grade,,,its ingrained in me)

???? - bktherula (yes that is the song name) (that woman is so fucking fine.)

cold - rico nasty

realer - megan thee stallion (wife.)

ftn - hook (hook is an amazing artist, no skips)

super bass - nicki minaj (listen...this used to be my shit)

r&b/soul (fav category)

how many drinks? - miguel (i was gonna write a shuriri fic on this)

moonlight - kali uchis (i love love love kali uchis like you're gonna have to pry her from my cold dead hands.)

i want war (but i need peace) - kali uchis

fue mejor - kali uchis and SZA

terrified - childish gambino

sure thing - miguel

he's mine - mokenstef (i was also gonna write a shuriri fic on this...)

distraction - kehlani (despite not listening to her much this song always gets stuck in my head when i'm on the phone with @letitias-fav LMAO)

wild irish roses - SMINO (my boy...)

ALL MINE. - brent faiyaz (comphet crush...)

the sweetest taboo - sade (throwback but her voice is beautiful)

clouded - brent faiyaz

candy - doja cat

come on - jhene aiko (my first fic was to this song)

SZA's entire Ctrl album (a masterpiece)

anything by The Internet!! (please listen to them. they deserve more recognition)

PRBLMS - 6LACK

blame it - jamie foxx (listen....)

just a stranger - kali uchis

after the storm - kali uchis

girls need love - summer walker

like a tattoo - sade

to zion - lauryn hill (my mom named me after this song :3)

4 page letter - aaliyah

alternative

liquid smooth - mitski (literally about how women in society have an "expiration date", referring to beauty standards, and she's begging someone to take her before she "expires". i love this woman)

brand new city - mitski

carnage - jazmin bean (her and mitski shouldnt be in the same category but wtv...)

security! - ekko2k (kind of a joke because i jokingly told my friend i like men moaning in my ear and he gave me this song LMFAOOO)

feel good inc. -gorillaz

come home - willow smith (her music is beautiful)

the louvre - lorde (i love lorde)

akasaka sad - rina sawayama

caraphernelia - pierce the veil (i was going thru a lot when i was 12 ok.)

money machine - 100 gecs (i like how disorganized their music is...and i know this is from 2020 leave me alone)

ringtone - 100 gecs feat. charli XCX

kpop

disclaimer! i am not heavily involved in kpop communities because some of you niggas are CRAZY!! please don't jump me for my taste, i love my life. i am a casual listener.

heart attack - chuu (i love chuu)

love cherry motion - choerry

nxde (G)I-DLE

naughty - red velvet (LOONA and red velvet are my top 2)

kingdom come - red velvet (beautiful vocals)

russian roulette - red velvet

birthday - red velvet

BYE BYE - red velvet

feel my rhytm - red velvet

beg for me - red velvet

28 reasons - seulgi

tinnitus (wanna be a rock) - TXT (its afrobeats okay..)

i have SOOOOOO much more so if anyone wants a playlist just say the word. i didnt even include my afrobeats in here bc i didnt want it to be too long HAHAHA. but i LOVEE music. please let me know if you listen to any of these! and PLEASEEE give me more music to listen to! i'm always looking for recs <3

[the-queerview]

Churails (2020)

by Asim Abbasi

Churails is a pakistani drama web series directed by Asim Abbasi for the indian entertainment channel Zindagi.

The series deals with four maincharacters, Zubaida, who is a college student and a secret boxer, who lives with her muslim, conservative family.Sara, who is a rich housewife of a politcian and an ex lawyer, Jugnu, an elite wedding planner and Batool, who just currently was released out of prison for killing her husband with an iron. Those four women connect trough different circumstances after Sara finds out her husband Jamil was cheating on her. She starts a burka store called halal designs, which runs undercover a cheating husband exposing bizniz. They find a time of other women for their bizniz and together they deal with their intense cases, one including a cannibal housewife. Together they are Churails, which means witches in urdu. چڑیل

The pace of the series is very fast. Many unexpected and expected stories happen under the churails. I haven't seen a show in a while with such intense story telling. Within short time as an audience you develop a good base of the character development. There is trans representation within the show and even LESBIANS.

Besides the complex society and class rules within their life and the personal dramas intertwined, the series is also dealing with colonial past, lgbtqia* issues, misogyny and racism within pakistani society ( I assume? I never been to Pakistan, so I can't tell actually, but within this show all those struggles are addressed) Abbasi said about including baby doll : "The fact that she’s transgender is not addressed on the show and that is deliberate. It’s not that I was overlooking her identity or ashamed of it. It was to show the women coming to the agency were all equal.” The title of the show literally translates to mean witches, but is more commonly used as an insult for rebellious women. “The associations of women who don’t conform with witchcraft is a global phenomenon, but in Pakistan specifically, any woman who is sexually and emotionally liberated, who has the ability to be aggressive when threatened is called a churail. We are taking it as a badge of honour.”

I love this show a lot, since besides those awful and heartbreaking stories, the main reason to watch this show are the amazing female characters, the friendship between those women and their will to fight injustice. They are kind of superheros I would say. Also I was very surprised by a positive depicition of men, who are part of the churails and help them to solve their cases, to do something right. I think it's important to show solidarity between gender depictions within a tv show for a possible utopia? Like call me out if I'm wrong but usually its women* playing supportive roles in a all men cast, we saw it many many times. But here the guys are the enemies, but as well there are supportive characters? So show a different path to follow.

Unfortunately the show was banned in Pakistan and many celebrities voices their anger about the canceling of the show.

Considering writing about this show, since it's not made by a queer of female director I had my issues. After researching deeper into the revolutionary cloud of this show, i find out its the first lesbian on screen show ever in Pakistan. in an interview with the guardian Abbasi said: “While we aren’t where we should be in terms of diversity, we have to start somewhere and adaptations are culturally rich,” said Abbasi. “You could say that Churails should have been made by a woman, but those opportunities aren’t there for women in Pakistan yet so I want to be an ally so their stories can be told.”

So I hope you guys forgive me, but I feel like it's worth to see all those actresses and this amazing story and yeah we are all in this together. <3 Cuz at the end of the day, i love the power of image making. I learn trough visual language about language ( literally speaking three languages daily I need to see a picture in my head if you talk to me).

Also I promise for my next review to write about a kazakhstani film, since i feel like many things in the show I couldn't understand out of lack of cultural knowledge, so it's time to write about something that I might be able to understand. And still I think it's very important to show my chapeau for this show. What a ride. Literally i was crying like many times. The actresses and actors were out of league. Like I was actually waiting daily from my moneyjobs to come home to see what the churails are fighting next.

ok by

cheery,

the queeeerview heheheh

[robogart]

I feel like my thoughts are rude, but like I didn't even realize how deeply wired my brain was to define hairy women as masculine, and when I realized that, I also realized thats why I never feel like I can really come across femme.

Like I'm a woman, but I'm hairy, and Idk

I just

I wanna say I love your art, and thank you for flicking on the presence of mind switch in my brain,

and giving me hope that I might be regarded as a hot lady like the ones you draw some day

Okay, first off! Babe you hold those hopes because they are REAL and they WILL HAPPEN AND ARE HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!!! 👏💖💖💖💖 I completely feel all these thoughts, it's something that is so ingrained in us since we were children! And I have days where they creep back and cloud my feelings/perception of myself too! But it is absolutely, like you said, just WIRED into our self impressions, and it just is slowly unlearning them and shedding off such a narrow mindset! Those rude thoughts are just echoes of someone else's voice that told you once that you can't be beautiful if X, or you can't be beautiful if Y, Z or Q. And it's bullshit!!

Unlearning harmful mindsets that were instilled in us from a young age is a struggle! And it DOES get easier, but there will still be those rude thoughts that might come echoing back at you some days. But it's tending and supporting and growing your OWN inner voice to be louder and more vibrant than that echo in the back!

There are days that I go out and where a skirt and have my hairy legs on display - and do I get comments or stares? Whispers behind me in line? Absolutely. But I know that it is because they are ignorant, and they literally have never EVER pushed outside their box before. They haven't seen a lot of people live outside the box they were given. Staring doesn't bother me much - they look because they've never seen it. You double take on something that you weren't expecting. But for those that criticize or dare to speak to me - it's because they haven't ever had an original thought for themselves. Which is sad. Your mere gorgeous presence is a challenge to them and their tiny small brains, and they are too weak to withstand it. Frankly, it's embarrassing.

And if they do comment at you, you just give a short answer, even just an "oh okay, cool" and you move on. Because they are not a part of your story. Don't give them tickets. They don't get a place on your stage. You don't even get past the front door. Be the main character that you are babe! You are gorgeous and beautiful and you ARE the hot ladies that I draw. Know that all the hot babes I draw are here just as reminders that you ARE A HOT BABE AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT!!!! I WON'T LET YOU!!!!! 👏👏👏💖💖💖💖💖💖

[letarasstuff]

Can I stay with you?

(A/N): This is based on this, this and this post. I really hope you are ready for the feels, because they are there and they are heavy-

Summary: Following the events of Emily's death, how will Spencer and his daughter cope with it?

Warnings: Angst and lots of it, mentions of drug use, contemplations of drug use, mentions of needles, we also got some bittersweet fluff

Wordcount: 2.5k

✨Masterlist✨ _______________________________

A hospital is not a place where a child should be, Spencer knows that much. But he picked (Y/N) up on his way for two reasons:

The first one being the simple occurence that the babysitter is not able to keep her any longer, because she has classes in the next morning. The second one is selfish and the father knows that, but he needs her presence, the comfort she brings to him.

“Daddy”, the child breaks the silence in the waiting room, “Is Auntie Emily going to be ok?” She sits in his lap reading a book before looking up at him. Her eyes hold something he wishes to never see again: Fear. The fear of losing someone she loves dearly.

“I hope, Baby. But let’s not forget one important fact: Your Auntie Emily is one of the strongest women I know.” Spencer gives her a kiss on the top of her head and cuddles her closer to him, seeing (Y/N)’s eyes dropping. The rest of the team watches the interaction with aching hearts.

The girl is asleep for half an hour when JJ enters the room. Everybody gets up crowding her. Spencer is careful to not disturb his daughter as he moves her head to his shoulder and hooks his arm under her legs.

“She never made it off the table.” These words echo in the genius’ mind, seemingly being the only things he can think about. “I-I never had the chance to say goodbye.” JJ hugs him, trying to give some sort of comfort. In this process (Y/N) wakes up. As soon as she spots her father’s tears, she knows not to ask a question. Instead she loops her arms around his neck.

“It’s fine. It’s gonna be alright, Daddy”, the toddler recalls the words he says to her whenever she is upset in hopes to cheer him up.

The next couple days are hard on the whole team. They try to grieve together, especially while the funeral takes place. (Y/N) notices that the color black is fitting, since her Auntie really liked to wear it. She likes that they do the same to pay their respects that way.

“Auntie Penny, is she watching?” The blonde woman carries her while the casket is walked down the aisle. Since her death, (Y/N) doesn’t dare to say Emily’s name. She thinks if she avoids it, she is going to inflict less pain when she is talked about.

“Of course. Emily is in heaven and watches this beautiful beautiful ceremony we hold for her. So wipe that frown off and put on that smile she loved so much. Alright?” Confusing to her, the adults want (Y/N) to smile all the time. But they are frowning and crying more often than not.

“Can she hear us? Because I want to say I love her. I forgot to say it the last time I saw her.” Trying to distract herself from seeing the casket lowering into the grave, the girl plays with Penlope’s hair. She in turn has to fight tears back. Only now she realizes the impact the whole thing has on her.

“I’m sure she does. What about when the majority is gone, we go to her grave and talk to Emily? Do we have a deal?” (Y/N) nods.

As soon as the ceremony is over, Spencer takes his daughter, cradling her close to him. As if she senses his sadness, the girl is petting his back in a comforting way. He squeezes her closer to him, leaving her not much room to breathe.

“Daddy, I wanna talk to her. I need to get down.” (Y/N) wiggles in his grasp after she whispers this into his ear. Reluctantly Spencer lets her down and she toddles over to the freshly made grave. A little plastic card sticks out of the grass in place of a headstone.

The adults try to give her as much space as possible, they have to let grieve on her own.

“Hey, Auntie Emily. I-I wanted to say I love you, and I forgot to tell you this the last time so I say it a second time. I love you. And I miss you. I think Daddy misses you too. He is sad since you are gone. I’m too. I think it’s because we miss you. But I hope you like Heaven. Maybe you see my Mommy. When you do, can you say I love her?

“I’ll try to see you soon, Auntie. Goodbye!” (Y/N) goes back to her father and makes grabby hands towards him. Gladly Spencer picks her up again, putting a kiss on her head. “Wanna go home, Daddy.” The child mumbles, exhausted by all the stress and emotions from the day.

The father is relieved to have an excuse to skip the meal with the team. He is scared that the evening at the little restaurant is clouded by sadness and angst. Spencer doesn’t need that right now, a nice sit in with his daughter sounds way better.

After saying their goodbyes the little family sits in the car on their way to the apartment. As soon as Spencer starts the car, (Y/N) is fast asleep. He looks at her through the rear view mirror, happy to see her at peace. It gives the father time to sort through his own thoughts. Since Emily’s death (Y/N) tries to be around him constantly, which he is thankful for, because she keeps the darkness away.

Her last hours play again and again before his eyes. The different ways he could have stopped all of this. Why didn’t he say more when she began biting her nails? When she said “Laura Reynolds is dead”? Maybe all of this is his fault?

His forearm begins to itch. Exactly where Tobias Hankel injected the needle same as he did several times. Maybe, maybe it would make everything better? Just this one tim-

“Daddy? When are we home?” The small voice cuts off his train of thought. Spencer needs a few seconds to clear his mind. Did he really think that? Taking dilaudid while the reason he fought his addiction literally sits right behind him? “Just a few minutes, Sweetheart. Do you want to go to bed after dinner?”

As if she knows that the father can’t be left alone in this state, (Y/N) answers: “No, I wanna watch a movie with you. Can we watch Alvin and the chipmunks? I love Simon so much!” This places a smile on his face, the excitement in her eyes scare his dark thoughts away. “Sure, Peanut. We can watch whatever you want.”

It's the fourth evening in a row that the girl sleeps in her father’s bed. She either falls asleep there or climbs next to him in the middle of the night, so he figures he lets her sleep there right away.

“Good night, Sweetheart”, he tells her as they lay down. Even though it’s quite early for Spencer to go to bed it’s (Y/N)’s time. “Good night, Daddy”, she tells him while snuggling closer, “I love you. Soooooo much.”

The young doctor decides to take the next few days off from work in order to work through the events. The first one he spends coloring in books with her the whole day. While she works on her own books gifted by various members of the BAU, Spencer has his own extra made for adults. He can’t deny the soothing effect it has on him. The repeating moves calms the storm of thoughts inside his head.

The next day the two of them sit the whole day on the small couch in the living room, (Y/N) on his lap, and read. Sometimes they read for themselves, others the father reads outloud from his own or (Y/N) from her own. It’s kind of therapeutic to hear his child doing something he enjoyed his whole life.

“Daddy, do you think she feels lonely in heaven? There is nobody she knows, she has to wait for us to follow her, doesn’t she?” Not prepared for such a deep question, Spencer is caught off guard.

He clears his throat before answering. “Uh, Auntie Emily isn’t that lonely up there, you know. You can’t remember him, but Uncle Gideon, a friend from work and someone I looked up to, is there. He surely greeted her with open arms, happy to see her. And your Mommy is also there, she certainly asked lots of questions about you.” “A-are you sure? I told her to say Mommy ‘I love you’ when she sees her.” (Y/N) looks up to her father with big eyes.

He is not sure if he is lying right now to her, but he sees that his daughter needs the reassurance. “Yes, I’m sure.” To lighten the mood he begins to tickle her, which ends in a tickle fight which in turn ends in tiring the girl out and falling asleep while watching a Disney movie.

The next day is by far the worst since it all happened. Both (Y/N) and Spencer haven’t slept much due to nightmares from both sides (him comforting her as she tears him from his own), which results in a grumpy toddler and a non stop coffee drinking adult.

“Sweetheart, you need to put that shirt on. Auntie JJ is expecting us in ten minutes. Please, stop fighting me”, he begs, but she continues to cry. As Spencer tries for a third time to put it on her (Y/N) throws herself to the other side of the bed.

“I don’t want that, Daddy!” She finally gets out through her sobs. Spencer halts in his movements. “Why? That’s your favorite, Baby.” While (Y/N) begins to cry louder, he leaves the clothing article on the bed and gathers her in his arm, rocking her back and forth additionally to whispering sweet reassurances in her ear.

“She gave it to me. I don’t wanna make it dirty or ruin it”, the toddler says between shaky breaths. For what feels like the trillionth time, the young agent’s heart breaks over this statement. He has a bigger vocabulary than the average English speaking person, but at this moment Spencer is at a loss of words.

“Sweetheart, I apologize for not acknowledging this right away. I’ll get another shirt out for you, ok? Thank you so much for telling and helping me.” Just a few minutes later the little family is on their way to the next metro stop. It’s then that Spencer realizes his day won’t be any easier.

“(Y/N) you can sit in the seat next to me like you always do. Why do you have to sit in my lap today?” Normally he isn’t someone who denies his child physical contact, but the seating chart has a logical purpose. Being on a train with a child means you have some kind of luggage with you, which leads to occupying a four seats compartment. In order to prevent somebody taking the seat next to him, Spencer places his daughter there. It’s a win win situation for everybody, really.

Unfortunately for him (Y/N) is extra clingy today and won’t stop crawling onto his lap. With a sigh he accepts his defeat and tries not to think about the amount of germs that fly around.

Another problem that torments the father: Over the last few days his cravings grew. Especially today the feeling, the need, for another shot and another high is undeniable for him. As if sensing this (Y/N) sticks by his side throughout the whole time, keeping his mind off of the drug that changes him.

While they are at the Jareau’s and Lamontagne’s household, his daughter refuses to play with Henry. “I wanna stay with you”, she murmurs into his shoulder. Again Spencer accepts his defeat and sits down on the couch next to his best friend.

“Sweetheart, you need to let me go. I have to go to the bathroom, you can’t come with me.” This is followed by a tsunami of tears. While JJ tries to console her, he slips out of the room discreetly.

Due to (Y/N)’s current grumpiness and Spencer’s fatigue they quickly call it a night, even though he could use some more comfort from his friends.

“Good night, Sweetheart. Sleep tight and dream nice. I love you”, he says after tucking his child in and giving her a kiss on the forehead. “Night night, Daddy. I love you, too”, her small voice echoes back to him and makes him smile softly.

Spencer finds his way back to the living room and sits down with a book in his lap. As expected he doesn’t get much reading done, too distracted by his own thoughts. The events of the night of his colleague’s, his friend’s, death replay themselves over and over again.

What if he made his conclusions faster? He is supposed to be the smart one, the one the team relies on for making important connections. But he failed once so who knows what happens when he fails again? Next time it could be the whole team dying. He could die. He would leave (Y/N) alone with the team gone. His mother isn’t capable of caring for her and his father doesn’t even know she exists. She will go into foster care, into a home with too many kids. She will be looked over, too small to be seen. Her potential will go to waste and she will never achieve anything she is capable of. And all that because he hasn’t made a conclusion fast enough.

Spencer’s scars on his forearm itch worse than ever. One shot. Only one shot to make the thoughts go away. To make the guilt go away, the bad feelings. He needs it. He needs to cure himself from the symptoms of being a human.

Before the young doctor even registers what he is doing he already put his jacket on and looks for his wallet when a voice startles him.

“Daddy, i can't sleep. Can I stay with you again?” (Y/N) stands in the doorway, clutching her stuffed animal and her blanket, shielding her eyes from the light, oblivious to what her father was about to do.

“Oh Darling, of course. Do you want me to read to you? Or we drink hot chocolate and watch a movie?” He suggests, ready to distract himself from anything that’s going on in his mind. A few minutes later his daughter cuddles into his side while watching once again Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Spencer is just happy to have his light in his life all the time and is ready to tackle any task to keep her there, may it be once again the weekly visits for anonymous narcotics or time off from work to process the events together in therapy.

Taglist:

All works:

@agentshortstacc

Criminal Minds:

@averyhotchner @mggsprettygirl

Spencer Reid x child!reader:

@ilovetaquitosmmmm

[homoose]

Love Has a Learning Curve: Part III (x reader)

Summary: Spencer has to face Anita and Sam— and learns a little about reader’s past. Reader and Spencer babysit for Michael and Henry. 

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Category: fluff, a tiny smidge of hurt/comfort

Warnings/Includes: implied smut, drinking/alcohol, vague mentions of previous emotional/mental abuse (Owen)

Word count: 4.2k

a/n: This picks up right after the end of the tmsidk epilogue! I also worked two requests in here.

Series Masterlist

———

Spencer stacked the last of the tiny chairs in the center of the room, stepping back and dusting his palms on his trousers. He looked over to see Y/N playing a sort of container tetris with the bins of supplies in her closet. He smiled a little to himself, his head still in the metaphorical clouds with her confession of love. 

She maneuvered the bins to her satisfaction and shut the closet doors, pushing against them to squeeze everything in until the latch clicked. She turned to see him watching her and wiped imaginary sweat from her brow. She gave him a wink and a grin, and he was falling all over again. 

She perched on the corner of her desk with a tired sigh, and he made his way across the room to her. She reached for him as soon as he was within arms length, wrapping her arms around his middle. She snuggled into his chest, and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Let’s go to dinner to celebrate.”

She laughed and looked up at him. “Celebrate what?”

He shrugged. “You. Summer.” He brought his arms around her shoulders. “Love.”

She smiled and scrunched her nose at him. “You just want me to say it again.”

His lips twitched. “Maybe.”

Her hands came to rest on his hips, her fingers squeezing lightly. “I love you.”

“I love you,” he answered immediately and rather dreamily. 

“Yo, Y/L/N!” 

The call of her name from the hallway startled them both. Anita began to step over the threshold, continuing, “You ready to get absolutely crunk tonight or— oh.” She stopped dead in her tracks, eyes tracking Spencer’s frame. “Dr. Reid.”

Spencer stepped back from Y/N, smiling a little awkwardly at the formality and giving a wave. “Mrs. Lopez. It’s, um— it’s nice to see you again.”

Anita hummed noncommittally, and Spencer shoved his hands in his pockets. She turned her attention back to Y/N. “So, are we going out or what?”

Y/N groaned. “Anita, I’m exhausted. Can we keep it low key? Oh!” Her eyes lit up with an idea, and Spencer could already see where this was going. “Spence and I were gonna get dinner to celebrate, um— summer. Call Sam; we’ll all just go together.”

Anita spared a glance in Spencer’s direction before sighing heavily. “Fine. But I’m drinking.” With that, she turned on her heel and disappeared back into the hallway.

Y/N chuckled. “I swear she’s not actually an alcoholic.” Her eyes landed on Spencer’s face, and she smiled gently. “I know you weren’t expecting a Meet the Friends night, but it’ll be fun.”

“She hates me,” Spencer surmised.

“She does not hate you.” Y/N stood from the desk, pressed a reassuring peck to his lips. “She’s just… protective. That’s all.”

…

Y/N was entirely wrong. Anita Lopez hated him. That was the only explanation for her absolutely icy demeanor. 

They’d met up with her and Sam at a Mexican restaurant in Tenleytown. Sam was wonderfully kind and funny, even apologizing for having “flipped him the bird” the last time she saw him. And it was a good thing Sam was being friendly, because Anita was decidedly… less so. 

Spencer understood completely of course. He’d broken Y/N’s heart. Penelope had been ready to hunt her down at the mere thought of him being hurt. As Y/N’s best friend, Anita had every right to be wary of him. She had every right to hate him. He’d just... hoped that she wouldn’t. 

Thankfully, Y/N and Sam were more than happy to carry the conversation— he and Anita chiming in here and there. He learned that Sam worked as an attorney at a firm specializing in family law. She and Anita had two kids, Riley and Sidney— one in 2nd grade and the other in preschool. 

“Y/N is still Riley’s favorite teacher ever,” Sam told him. “I mean, it helps when she’s also your aunt, I guess.”

“He didn’t get any special treatment,” Y/N insisted. At Sam’s raised eyebrow, she laughed. “Okay, maybe a little special treatment. But you raised a good kid! And I can’t help it that he was the most trustworthy of the bunch.”

“Oh my god, the field trip,” Sam groaned, rubbing a hand over her face. 

“The field trip!” Y/N turned to Spencer. “My group of kiddos from two years ago— they were kind of a tough group.”

“Kind of?” Anita squeaked. “Let me just tell you, I can hear them through the floor. The entire middle school is literally dreading the day they make it upstairs.”

Sam piped in, “I chaperoned on said field trip to the zoo. And I vowed that I will never, ever go on another field trip. Ever.”

“What happened?” Spencer asked incredulously. 

“So many things,” Sam baited. 

Y/N covered her mouth to stifle a cackle, leaning a bit into Spencer’s shoulder. He couldn’t help but smile, looking around at the three women. Even Anita was chuckling, and she’d barely cracked a smile all evening. 

“Okay, so many things happened,” Y/N started, “but the worst was—”

“The poop!” Sam wheezed. “The poop was the worst part of that day. The smell alone, oh my god.”

Y/N composed herself as best she could, gesturing over the table. “So after this nightmare of a day, we get on the bus, and there’s this— smell.”

“The absolute worst smell you’ve ever smelled, Spencer,” Sam assured. 

“It’s awful. It’s so bad,” Y/N agreed. “And I’m literally going seat to seat, checking to make sure no one has shit themselves.”

“You could not pay me enough,” Anita chimed in. 

“And I get to the seat that is very clearly where the smell is coming from. And I can’t, like— hold my nose, right? I don’t want to embarrass him!” Y/N turned to Spencer with flushed cheeks. “So I ask, ‘Sweetheart, did you have a bathroom accident?’”

Spencer let out a nervous laugh. “Oh no.” 

“But oh, it wasn’t a bathroom accident,” Y/N clarified, waving her hand. “No, no— that would be too easy. This child had somehow managed to obtain copious amounts of poop from one of the zoo animals and packed it into his lunchbox to take home.”

Spencer could feel his jaw drop. “Oh my god.”

“So, he unzips his lunchbox and it’s just— overflowing with shit.” Y/N dropped her head into her hands, overcome with giggles. 

“And don’t forget the worst part: his mom was on the field trip!” Sam lamented, throwing her hands up. “I will never understand.”

Y/N lifted her head with an exasperated grin, and he wasn’t sure if it was the story or the fact that she loved him, but Spencer felt like he could float away into outer space. 

“I told you I had a lot of poop stories,” Y/N reminded him, drawing another round of laughs. As they composed themselves, the waiter came by their table to clear some of their plates and refill their water.

“God, I said we were keeping it low key, and then I drank half a pitcher,” Y/N complained, pushing back from the table. “I’m just gonna go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” 

She gave Spencer a reassuring smile, and he tried not to panic as she stood and left him with Sam and Anita. And because the universe was toying with him, at that exact moment, Sam’s phone began to ring. She pulled it from her pocket with a sigh. 

“Shit— I’ve been waiting on this call all day.” She kissed Anita’s cheek and stood from the table. “So sorry; I’ll just be five minutes, I promise.”

With that, it was just the two of them, staring intently at their water glasses. Spencer was certain he should say something, but he wasn’t sure what. Anita broke the silence first. 

“You know what’s annoying?”

Spencer wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Considering that the issues one might classify as an annoyance vary for each individual person, there are over seven billion potential answers to that question.”

Anita tilted her head with an unimpressed purse of her lips. Spencer hedged, “And I understand now that it was probably rhetorical.”

“I actually kind of like you.” She leaned across the table with an irritated sigh. “I wanted to hate you, but I don’t.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, I’m, um— I’m glad to hear that.”

“You’re good for her. Smart, humble, kind. Enamored with her, as you should be,” she deadpanned. She dropped her chin into her hand. “Almost as hot as she is.”

He laughed a little at that. “Thank you?”

“You’re welcome.” She dropped her hand back to the table. She still didn’t crack a smile, and her gaze bore into him. “I don’t know how much you know about Owen, and she’d probably kill me for saying anything. But he was a real piece of shit.”

This was not the direction he thought this conversation would take. He didn’t know anything about Owen; he’d tried not to think too much about anyone Y/N might have been with before him. 

“It didn’t start out that way.” She drew her brows together. “Well, I don’t know— maybe he was always an asshole, and he was just good at hiding it.”

She shook her head and leaned back in her chair. “The point is, I didn’t know he was treating her like garbage until it was too late. He was already all…” She gestured wildly around her head. “In her head, telling her lies about herself, fucking her up, isolating her. For years he did that. And then it took her years to get him out of her head. To— unlearn all the lies. To build herself back up.” 

He could see her grinding her teeth, trying to calm down. He was intensely grateful to not be on the receiving end of Anita’s wrath. He was also immensely glad that Y/N had a friend like that. And his blood absolutely boiled at the thought of her ever feeling anything less than adored. 

“You’re a fed or whatever, so I shouldn’t be telling you this,” she continued, “but I would love nothing more than to put that fucker six feet under.” She ran her hand through her hair, and when she continued her voice was the quietest he’d ever heard it. “All that to say, I… I wasn’t there for her when Owen was destroying her from the inside out. And I will never let that happen again.” 

Anita locked eyes with him and her voice was resolved. “I like you, Spencer. And I want to keep it that way. So, just— don’t give me a reason not to.”

She didn’t drop her gaze, and he couldn’t quite think of the appropriate response. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again. His brain was still fixated on the idea that anyone had ever hurt the loveliest and kindest woman he’d ever met.

“Where’s Sam?” Spencer turned just as Y/N slid back into the chair beside him, a comforting hand coming to rest on his knee. 

“Some bullshit from the office that her idiot partner can’t handle.” Anita raised her eyebrows at Spencer, and he nodded minutely. She shifted her gaze back to Y/N with a grin. “Don’t worry. I didn’t scare him too much.”

…

“Easy.” Spencer steadied Y/N with a hand on her waist as they made the way up the stairs to his apartment. 

“Jesus, I’m so sorry. I just— really can’t drink like I used to.” She clutched a little at the railing, and he held his breath until they were at the top of the stairs. 

He slipped an arm back around her waist as they crossed to his apartment door, fumbling with his keys and fighting back a shiver as she snuggled close and ran her hand low over his tummy. 

“Can’t believe I’m tipsy from a couple margaritas.”

“To be fair, you had four,” he chuckled, turning the key and pushing open the door. 

“Okay, okay,” she relented. “But I used to be able to have a whole pitcher and be totally fine.”

“A pitcher?” Spencer laughed as he locked the door and turned to face her. “I can’t even have one without being completely incapacitated.”

She ran her hands up from his waistband, over his chest, and wrapped them around his neck. “Mmm, so you’re a lightweight.”

“Very much so,” he confirmed, bringing his hands to her hips. 

“Just one more sweet thing to love about you, sugar.” 

He couldn’t stop the smile from stretching across his face at the endearment, the way that North Carolina dripped syrupy and thick over every syllable. She pulled him down to meet her in a sweet kiss, quickly deepening it as he dug his fingers into the softness of her hips. Her hands wound into his hair, tugging lightly and holding him close. 

He broke away to rest his forehead against hers and catch his breath. She laced their fingers together and leaned on him while she kicked off her shoes. He toed his own off and then allowed her to lead him toward his bedroom. 

She sat him down on the edge of the bed and straddled his lap, bringing her hands up to tangle in his curls once again. 

Before she could lean in for another kiss, he murmured, “I’ve been thinking.”

“Sounds dangerous,” she teased, ghosting her lips over his.

“Ha, ha.” Part of him wanted to bring up Owen, but she was so happy and warm and comfortable in this moment. He didn’t want to ruin this night of celebration. He didn’t want to ruin this day that had been so full of love. They had plenty of time to discuss Owen. 

He wrapped his arms around her middle. “You’ve met Penelope. I’ve met Anita. Now that the school year is over… we could tell Michael.”

She pulled back, and the smile she gave him could only be described as radiant, and he knew he made the right decision. “He’s gonna lose his mind.”

…

A week later, the pair of them were strolling up the sidewalk to the LaMontagne house. Will and JJ were long overdue for a date night, and Spencer had jumped at the opportunity for the two of them to babysit. When they reached the door, Spencer rang the bell and Y/N waited slightly behind him. 

They could hear the joy from behind the door before it even opened, Michael’s high pitched giggle and Will’s booming laugh. Spencer was already leaning down in preparation, and Michael absolutely launched into his arms as soon as the door swung open. Spencer clocked the moment that Michael spotted her, purely because he practically squealed and squirmed right out of Spencer’s grip. 

“I knew it!” Michael cried. 

He wrapped himself around Y/N’s legs and squeezed tightly, and she rubbed a hand over his hair with a bewildered smile. Michael broke away to turn back to Will with a grin. “I told you.”

“You did, buddy.” Will gave Spencer a lopsided smile as Michael tugged Y/N forward by the hand. “Michael had an… inklin’ that uncle Spencer might be friends with Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Not friends, Daddy,” Michael said exasperatedly. “He’s her boyfriend.”

“Oh, excuse me, sorry.” Will held his hands up in apology as he stepped aside to let them all in the door. “Michael had a feelin’ that uncle Spencer might be Ms. Y/L/N’s boyfriend.”

Y/N’s cheeks had turned a very pretty shade of pink. “What— um, what made you think that?” 

Michael waited patiently for her to take off her shoes. “Well firstly, he started picking me up all the time, which was nice but weird. And then he wouldn’t stop asking about you. It was kind of annoying.” Spencer made a choking sound, and Will stifled a laugh. 

“You guys wear the same shoes, and you both love Halloween and tea and reading. I knew you’d like him if he could be a guest reader.” As he led her into the living room, Michael continued, “Oh, and you wore his purple scarf. He doesn’t let anyone wear the purple scarf.”

Spencer vividly remembered that morning— she’d slept over after a midweek date night in April. The temperatures in DC had plummeted overnight, and the outfit she’d brought left her woefully under-dressed for the chilly spring day. He’d wrapped her up in the soft, purple scarf without a second thought. 

She caught his eye with a shrug, and Will tried not to look too smug. Spencer watched her be dragged further into the house, turning to Will with a sheepish smile.

“Well, guess I can’t take all the credit,” Will decided. “Who knew we had a mini matchmaker this whole time?”

Spencer huffed out a laugh as Michael pulled Y/N into the playroom. “This is the best,” Michael sighed. “Now we can play restaurant forever.”

…

Spencer pulled his legs up in the tiny chair, resting his elbows on his knees and taking a moment to watch the scene in front of him unfold. Usually on nights like this, Michael ran him ragged with demands for magic tricks, story time, and playing pretend. Tonight, he’d actually been able to catch up with middle school (middle school!) Henry, because Michael was totally and completely enthralled by Y/N. 

She was helping with the last of the setup for the “restaurant,” organizing Michael’s menus and straightening his clip-on tie. Of course he’d seen her with kids before. But something about being in this playroom— one that he’d spent so many hours in, watching two of his favorite kids grow up— had him feeling warm from head to toe. 

Henry had bounded down the stairs at the news that uncle Spencer was dating his former kindergarten teacher. He hadn’t realized that she’d taught Henry, too, although with the timeline of her teaching career he should have put two and two together. The generally reserved middle schooler had positively beamed when she gasped out, “Gosh, I always forget how tall you’ve gotten!”

And now three of his absolute favorite humans were in one room, and he couldn’t stop smiling. 

“Hen!” Michael called. 

Henry turned from his spot in the chair across from Spencer. “What?”

“You’re the chef,” Michael informed him. 

Y/N tilted her head. “I thought I was the chef?”

“No, no, no.” Michael pushed her toward the kid-sized table. “You and uncle Spencer are on a fancy date.”

Henry rolled his eyes playfully and stood from the chair, pulling it out for her like a perfect gentleman. She beamed at him and gave him a wink. “Thank you, sir.”

She dropped lightly into the chair across from Spencer and laughed a little at his folded limbs. “You look very comfortable.” 

He laughed and stretched his legs out straight. “The picture of comfort, really. These chairs were clearly designed with six foot men in mind.”

“I’m sorry I’m so under-dressed for our fancy dinner date,” she teased, dropping her chin into her hand. 

“You look stunning, as always.” He gestured to the messy braid Michael had folded her hair into. “I especially love what you’re doing with your hair.”

She sucked in a dramatic breath, bringing up her hand to pat lightly at her hair. “You’re making me blush, doctor.” She peeked behind her and then lowered her voice. “I’m probably going to cry when I try to brush the rats out.” 

He looked at her sympathetically. “I know the feeling. I think I’ve got a wide tooth comb, and I can help. I’ve gotten pretty good at detangling Michael’s handiwork.”

Before she could respond, Michael made his way to the table, holding a dish towel over his arm. “Good evening, sir, madam.” 

“Good evening,” they chorused, with barely suppressed grins. 

“Compliments of the chef.” Michael held out his hand to reveal two slightly smushed strawberries.

“Oh, wow,” Y/N said, eyes wide and gesturing to Spencer. “Honey, do you want to—”

Spencer waved his hand, eyeing the berries warily. “No, no, please, help yourself.”

Y/N held back a smile and accepted the strawberries, holding them carefully in her hand and turning her attention back to Michael. “Thank you so much. What a wonderful appetizer. Could we hear the specials?”

That helped Michael remember the menus, and he pulled them from his pocket and cleared his throat. He handed them the construction paper menus. “Our specials tonight are roasted octopus and a steak tartar.”

From the kitchen, Henry mumbled, “Tartare.” 

“Tartare. Steak tartare is our special,” Michael corrected. 

“Hmm, I don’t know if I’m that adventurous. Maybe my boyfriend is though,” Y/N told a grinning Michael. “What do you recommend for a picky eater?”

“My favorite is the chicken nuggets.”

“Well then, sign me up. One order of chicken nuggets.” Y/N handed him the menu. 

Spencer was still perusing the menu for Le Chateau LaMontagne. He smiled at Michael’s handwriting, but particularly at the places where he could tell Y/N had helped. “Everything looks delicious,” he finally decided, “but, you know... I think I’m also going to have the nuggets.”

…

When the boys were finally in bed, Spencer and Y/N settled down in the living room to untangle the mess of her hair. She sat on the floor in between his legs as he gently pulled each braid strand free. He smiled at the way she arched up into his touch, shivering when his fingers brushed over her neck. 

“You’re lucky,” he remarked, laying the last braid strand back into its original place. “Michael seems to have gotten a little better at braiding.”

She leaned her head back into his hands. “You detangled the whole thing?”

“Mmhm.” He leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead, then her nose, then her mouth. She brought her hands up to hold him against her, trying to deepen the kiss before laughing at the awkward angle and giving up. 

He sat up as she stood and moved to the couch, snuggling up close to him and tucking herself under his arm. “I’m very lucky,” she agreed. “For many reasons.”

Her hand drifted to rest on his tummy, her fingers immediately tracing little shapes over the fabric of his shirt. He pressed a kiss into her hair. “And tired, too.”

“Hmm?” 

He leaned his cheek against her head. “When you get tired, you, um— you start drawing on my stomach.” 

Her finger paused. “Do I?”

“Yeah.” She shifted to raise her head to look at him, and he shrugged. “I don’t mind. I’ve just— noticed.”

She smiled a little sleepily. “You know I love all of you. But I— well, I don’t know, really. I just like your tummy.” She gave it a quick squeeze. “It’s just— nice and comfy and perfect for resting on.” 

He covered her hand with his own and leaned forward to press their mouths together. She drew his bottom lip in between her own, sucking a little and then giving it a quick peck before pulling back and stifling a yawn into his chest. “Man, I am tired.” She snuggled back into him and resumed her tummy tracing. “What, um— what else have you noticed?”

He rubbed his hand down her arm and pulled her impossibly closer. “You like to play with my hair.”

“Mmmm, guilty as charged.”

He smiled at the sleep creeping into her voice. “I like it, too.” He ran his fingers up to her shoulder, and then back down to the crook of her arm, soothing her closer to sleep. “Hmmmm. You always have at least one point of contact on my body at all times. It’s usually your hands, but sometimes it’s your head or even your toes— like when you tuck them under my leg.”

“Ugh— I’m sorry. Clingy and putting my feet on you,” she mumbled.

She might have been joking, but Anita’s words were replaying in his head. He couldn’t change what had happened in the past. He couldn’t go back and prevent her from being hurt by someone else. But he could be different in every way. He could be open and honest and vulnerable with her like he’d promised. 

“I’m not sorry. I love all of you,” he murmured, pulling her in closer and repeating her words back to her. 

“Even my feet?” 

He could also show her that there was absolutely nothing that he didn’t love about her. “Especially your feet.”

She huffed a sigh into his chest. “Y’got a foot thing I don’t know about?”

He laughed a little at that. “Only for yours. They’re very cute feet.”

“You’re weird,” she muttered, but she hugged him tighter when she said it.

“You love it.”

Her fingers on his tummy had come to rest comfortably just above his waistband, and he knew she was on the very edge of sleep. “Mmhm. Love you.”

He thought of all the little moments over the past few months.

Doesn’t live up to expectations? Sorry for overstepping. Are we dating? Sorry for being clingy. Sorry for taking so long to tell you. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

“I love you, too,” he murmured. “So much.”

———

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[roger-that-cap]

meet me in the gardens

summary: being the widow of a decently wealthy lord and sitting on a large plot of land automatically meant that you were a candidate for the program that you couldn’t say not to; the hosting. you had to sponsor a knight and keep them in your home for an entire year, which was troublesome enough on its own. but you never expected your knight to be a woman, and you certainly didn’t expect to have a full on illegal love affair with her, either. 

warnings: lots of emotions, feelings, slightly cynical and bitter reader- she’s honestly just being a realist, we are chugging forward, did not check for typos, format could be fucked up bc i’m posting from my phone quite literally minutes before i clock in- PATHETIC LMAO

word count: 2.7k

this is a short chapter by my standards, but it felt long to me because of the things in it??? this is part five! all other parts can be found on my masterlist, it’s my pinned post!

“What’s got you smiling like that?” Wanda asked while she tied your corset, not even needing to ask whether it was too tight or loose. You looked up in your vanity and immediately tried to wipe your smile away, but it was too late. She knew you better than anyone, and she had yet to see a thoughtful smile on your face, ever. Pietro, who had caught you going back inside the previous night, caught on to the fact that you looked more carefree, and that you just seemed to look like you were carrying around less. 

“Nothing.” 

“Hmm,” Wanda hummed, an entertained look on her face. Something told you that she already had an idea of what was going on, even though there was no way she could have. Besides, you hardly even knew what was going on. “I’ll ask again later.” She looked you in the eyes through the mirror, a slightly mischievous smile on her face. “Maybe then you’ll tell the truth,” she said, flicking you on the side of the head, and then letting it rest.

§§

Natasha was out in the village doing whatever it was the knights did one night, and she was planning on spending the night at a bed and breakfast before coming back in the morning. As disheartened as you were about not being able to see her for your stargazing, you were partly glad for it. You missed being with the twins. 

You had dinner with them alone, sitting and laughing about old memories and scheduling times to make new ones together. You loved the way you could be with them. Your laughter was allowed to go over the volume of a giggle without them looking at you like you had grown seven heads, your silverware were allowed to take a tumble onto your plate with a clatter without a second glance, and you were allowed to use whatever language you pleased. You missed the comfort that you felt with them, the comfort that your brain and the part of you that would always be the farm girl felt with them. 

“And Pietro chased him all the way off, you should have seen how terrified he was,” Wanda recapped, and you couldn't help but grin at Pietro, who was sipping wine with his charming grin. “That boy will never lift another skirt, I can assure you of that.” 

“I’m glad,” you mused, shooting Pietro a look that made him laugh. 

“Enough about me,” he said after swallowing a sip of his wine that was much more like a gulp. “We’re not going to talk about how you’ve been walking on the clouds for weeks now?” 

You nearly dropped your fork again. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve both realized,” Pietro said, motioning with his buttered knife towards his sister, who had a soft smile on her face as she observed your reaction. “That you have been significantly happier. Even with the circumstances-”

“Pietro,” Wanda hissed, but you just snorted and shook your head. 

“It’s like you found your own little pocket of happiness. We were worried about you, but, you’re doing alright.” Ever the blatant one out of the three of you, he leaned forward with his trademark smirk, eyes full of curiosity. “What do you know that we don't?” 

You hesitated for a second, mouth opening and closing twice as you grappled for anything to say, even a lie. And then, you settled on just shrugging your shoulders with a grin, shaking your head. “Honestly, Pietro, I know nothing. I don’t know anything.”

§§

Your heart was beating faster than normal as you looked at the woman next to you, your hand subconsciously itching closer to hers as you sat on the ground, ass on the blanket that you had brought out.  “I would like to… show you something.” 

It was probably the twentieth time that you and Natasha had met with each other, and still, you were entranced by her and everything that she did.  And you were entranced while you stared at her and waited for her answer, just a little nervous as to what she would say. 

As if she would ever say no to something you said. 

“Show me anything you’d like me to see,” Natasha urged on, and you fought back a smile. You stood up, and she did the same, and then you were picking up the blanket and walking side by side with her. It was quiet the entire way there as you walked in step with her, hand brushing against her every few steps and sending tingles down your arm every time it happened. 

The feeling that you got when she touched you made you feel both alive and scared to death. You weren’t stupid. You knew what you were steadily collecting more than friendly feelings for her, and that she may have been on the same page you were on. The game you were playing was a dangerous one, the risk threatening to swallow up the reward more and more by the day. 

You had known that being with her by yourself was bad judgement, ever since the first time you did it. Hell, the look you gave her the first time you met her was far from appropriate. Every single conversation that you had with her was a risk, and both of you knew it. And now that your soon-to-be husband was approaching, it was even more scandalous. No one knew and you hoped no one would ever find out, but hiding forever wasn’t a choice. But what would you be hiding if there were no true feelings? 

You hated yourself for falling for her and her pretty words. 

“I used to come here to escape,” you started, pulling yourself out of your thoughts, voice low as you passed the tree line to get into the thick of the woods. You narrowly missed stepping in a particularly muddy spot on the ground. “This was my spot, before I got the garden of course.”

“The woods?” 

“No, Nat,” you said, slightly amused as you stepped over a fallen branch. You smiled a bit when the sound of running water hit your ears.  “The stream.” 

You knew the exact second that she saw it, because her eyes widened and her breath hitched.  “That’s not a stream, that’s a river.”

“It’s the forgotten part of the main river,” you explained. “It’s much skinnier and more shallow, and it doesn't have nearly as much fish coming through, so people forget about it.” You looked towards her and saw how intrigued she was by it, so you judged her armor free body with a slight smirk. “What? Never seen running water?”

“I lived in the capital, all they had was the ocean. And even then I was never allowed on the harbor if I wasn’t selling clams, and I didn’t sell clams much.”

You felt silence start to grow between the two of you, so you said the first thing that you thought of. “You don’t look like a clam seller.” 

He looked away from the river and to you, a slight grin on her face even as she talked again. “And you don’t look like a petal kisser, blossom, but look where we are today.”

Your heart raced in your chest. “Blossom? Is that what you’re calling me now?” 

“It’s only payback for calling me ‘cherry’,” she said, and you stifled a laugh at the retired name, glancing up at the red hair that you had gotten inspiration from.  

“You didn’t actually mind it,” you said, looking off into the distance, only looking back at her when a warm hand slotted over yours. You blinked and looked down at your hands, which she had intertwined, and then back up at her again, only to see that she was staring straight ahead in the dark at the way the moonlight hit the water. 

“How could I?” She asked softly, a subtle breeze picking up.”You were the one saying it.” She looked at you, and in the dim lighting, you could have sworn that her eyes were saying, you can call me anything in the book, and I will own it proudly. And then, the look changed to something else, something less devoting, and something more passionate. It took you a few seconds to understand what the look meant, and before you could fully register it, she was leaning forward. 

A few seconds came and went where you could feel your heartbeat all over, and you tried to look somewhere other than in her eyes. You couldn't. “Don’t look at me like that.” When all Natasha did was tilt her head to the side and give you an even more intense version of the look, you let out a small sigh. “Please.”

“Why not?” 

She knew why. She knew why probably better than you did after living in the capital. She saw what happened firsthand to people who committed crimes, and those who committed second degree adultery. If you two did what you were wanting to do with your entire heart, you would fall right into that category. “I know where this is going,” you said softly, “and this won’t end well.” 

“Why not?” She asked again, and you turned your head to the side, shaking it slightly and closing your eyes. 

“Because, I’m about to get married,” you hissed, and though you didn’t mean to sound so angry, you did. Natasha was hardly affected. 

She lifted her arms and let them fall against her clothing with a soft slap that still echoed in the night. “You’re not married right now.” 

“But I will be, Natasha,” you said, gripping her hands and squeezing  them softly, begging for her to understand you. “What’s going to happen when I get married to a man who already has a streak for murdering his wives, and he finds out that I have feelings for you? He’ll kill me. He’ll kill you. And if he doesn’t, we’ll both be hung for adultery, after being put into torture camps for being… together as women.” 

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, Y/N, you know that.” The fervency in her tone nearly shocked you as she took a bold step forward, nearly surrounding you in her scent and energy. “I would never let anything happen to you.” 

“You’re too important for me to condemn to death and dishonor just because I have feelings for you. It was selfish of me to meet with you in the first place, but I can’t let myself do this. It’s a bad idea,” You said, voice hushed even though no one would have followed you. You were trembling, hand shaking more than anything else as you tried to understand how fast everything was moving; forward and backwards, sewing together and ripping apart all the same. If you were any more attentive to her expression, you would have seen the grin that lit up her face as your confession. “We were just about to cross a line. We’ve crossed quite a few dotted ones, but this one? It is bold and blaring.” 

“Blossom,” Natasha started, and you just shook your head and kept going. 

“And-and what we were just about to do? That crosses the line. We cannot.” 

“Do you really think my feelings for you are going to change depending on whether or not we kiss?” She asked, her voice slightly deeper than usual, almost sounding insulted. “You’re telling me to close my heart off from you, not to not kiss you. And you know that.”  

“What if I am?” You asked, eyes starting to burn with tears. “I’m doing it for the right reasons, Nat. I’m trying to save us from a world of hurt when reality finally sinks in.”

“That isn’t today.” She took another step forward and this time, you couldn't find the strength in you to step back. “And it isn’t tomorrow, and not even within the fortnight. You and I have something, and I know that you know it’s different. It’s special. We would be so stupid to ignore it, so stupid.” 

“I know, I know,” you said, voice tapering off into a whine as you slowly felt your resolve come apart, even though you thought it was stronger. “I’m sorry.”

 “You don’t have to apologize,” Natasha said after a few minutes of pure silence, and you found yourself exhaling. “I just wish things were different.” 

  “I know,” she said, and you turned to look up at the sky, tears threatening to come down on your cheeks. The stars seemed to twinkle and wink at you, talking amongst themselves about a future you had no idea about just yet. 

“Guess they’re never gonna line up,” you murmured to yourself, and then you heard Natasha grumble something from your side, and then she was coming closer, a barreling energy force full of passion and intent, and you knew exactly what she was coming for. For less than a split second, you thought about it. And then you turned your head and met her halfway. 

You would have been surprised by the passion in it if you weren’t just as desperate for the contact. You twisted in her arms, already wrapped around you as she drew you in close, closer than you had ever been with her, and the tears that were welling up before were now escaping for a different reason. Your lips were pressing into hers, moving fluidly and with an air of fervor that she matched equally. You felt wanted, and needed, and you felt loved. You felt the tenderness of the moment with every brush of her fingers on the back of your neck and with every rub of your back over the thin material of your night dress. 

Your legs were shaking, and she noticed before you did that you were getting weak in the knees. She held you up and pulled back slightly, just enough for you to feel her lips brush against yours while she asked if you were okay, like she wasn’t willing to take herself from you just yet. And honestly, you weren’t ready for her to leave you, either. You nodded, and she leaned in again, much slower, and then you had time to think. 

Her eyes weren’t the same shade they were when the sun hit them, they were almost an eerie pale blue, but they were still just as gorgeous to you, especially now that they were slanted with desire. Her hair wasn’t perfect like she somehow always managed or it to be, and you realized that it was because you had gotten a hand to run through it despite the way that she had previously held you like a lifeline. Her lashes were long, and you swore that she was close enough that you could count them. Her cheekbones were accentuated in the lighting, making her look like something straight out of a fairy tale, like a floating fae creature that led people to safety. In that moment, you could have sworn that she was the answer to every prayer you had ever whispered, to every question you had ever asked your etiquette teachers. In that moment, and in every moment to come, she was your ending and beginning, your creation and destruction, your sunrise and sunset. She was Natasha Romanoff, and in that moment, no wedding or murderous man even held a candle to the way you felt about her.

  What a beautiful person. 

“Now you’re looking at me strangely,” Natasha said, her voice quieter than you had ever heard it as the both of you treated over the moment carefully, trying not to break it and leave it in shambles. “What are you thinking about?” 

“How I’m going to have to pretend like this never happened in a few weeks,” you said softly, and part of you hated yourself for bringing up the bad part of the future so soon after you both had just lost all ties to reality. 

“You don’t have to,” she said, stroking your hair. “We can just keep doing what we’re doing, sneaking off in the night and coming back in the morning before anyone realizes. Nothing really has to change, I just want you to know that I… that we can be whatever you want us to be.” 

“As long as we’re in the confines of the garden walls.” 

“And now the woods,” Natasha said, and you couldn’t help but laugh in her arms. 

“And now the woods."

****

this is short, but i couldn’t see anything being tacked on to this. we’re at an important part, and from here it’s gonna be fun!! thank y’all for reading; if you liked it please drop a like and a reblog bc it makes my day!! comments also make me ascend y’all

tags!! : tags! : @teenwonder @saamwilscn @procrastinatingsapphictrash @fayhar @8plasma @slut-for-nat @dontmindmejustreading @swords-are-cool @200605chaeng @thescottishavenger @antidaytime @jenny-song @madamevirgo @natasha-danvers @blackxwidowsxwife​ @shycucumbersandwich @dailyavengering @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @ima-gi--na-tion @chickenhavewisdom

so sorry if i forgot anyone!!!!!

[robininthelabyrinth]

Now I want the story where NMJ is half war god and NHS is half fox spirit, thank you so much xD

based on this tumblr post and Lao Nie’s decision to refer to WRH as A-Han in this one ficlet

on ao3

Nie Zonghui had long ago suspected that his Sect Leader was a madman, but he didn’t really know it for certain until the first time he lost the man while on a bodyguarding mission – his first, and a great honor. 

Supposedly.

“It’s all right,” his father said, looking long-suffering, when he reported back in distress. “He’s an adult, our sect leader, and this is a small city with no major threats in the middle of some idiosyncratic festival celebration for some goddess or another. How much damage can he really do before he sobers up?”

Nie Zonghui stared at his father, then turned to his mother, who was also staring at her husband with an expression of sincere incredulity.

“Lots,” she supplied. “Lots and lots and lots, and that’s assuming he doesn’t get himself killed in the meantime. Why would you even say that?”

“He’s our sect leader, have some respect.”

“I respect the boss bull of the herd, too, but it doesn’t mean I let it go wandering around the fields wherever it pleases!” She shook her head, snorting in a manner not entirely unlike a bull herself. “Well, if we’re very lucky, maybe our cousin will knock up a cow while he’s out and about rather than just breaking things. We could use a direct heir already; he’s not getting any younger.”

“We could use him being properly married is what we could use. I don’t understand why he’s so resistant – ah, Zonghui, you’re still here? Go gather some cultivators and go look for him, but don’t kick up any fuss, and worry too much if you can’t find him at once. He’ll be back to business soon enough.”

He was, if by “soon enough” one meant “after nearly ten days” and by “back to business” one meant “still drunk off his ass and waxing rhapsodic about some girl he met and possibly married”.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure the sun shines out of her ass,” Nie Zonghui’s father said, his face stormy. “You still could’ve told us where you went. Look what you did to poor Zonghui, he’s been wearing down his heels pacing in worry over you!”

“Oh, heels, yes, did I mention that my gorgeous goddess had amazing legs, too?” their sect leader asked with a soppy smile and stars in his eyes, totally uninterested in any of their petty complaints. “She could kill a man with them – oh, but I would die a happy man between those thighs…!”

“Zonghui, go guard the outside door,” his mother told him. “Also, tell his younger sister that she might need to be sect leader sooner than she’d hoped, because I’m going to murder this fucking –”

-

Nie Zonghui was there, too, when ten months later his new little baby cousin was (metaphorically) ditched on their doorstep.

The entire thing was entirely too dramatic for his taste, and yes, he was aware that as a person who chose to dual wield sabers he had very little room to criticize others for being overly dramatic, however correct he might be.

They had been fighting bandits – barely disguised mercenaries, really, probably paid off by the Wen sect to harass them – in what had turned into a particularly bad situation. Three separate regiments had joined together to take advantage of a terrible thunderstorm and ambush them at all once and them with their backs against a raging river, swollen with rain to the precipice of flooding, with no way to retreat except by fleeing on their sabers, abandoning the common people they were protecting and losing all face. 

The sect leader had been raging on the battlefield, saber in hand, but even he had seen that they would need to shortly choose between death and dishonor; Nie Zonghui, close by his side, had seen how his face was split with a terrible scowl as he wracked his brain for more options.

Then there had been a terrible roar of thunder, and then a flash of light that had blinded them all.

Nie Zonghui had immediately noted the anomality of it, thunder first and lightning second, and wondered it if it was some sort of array working against them, especially when the light had not faded away but grown brighter, causing searing pain in his eyes that made him fall and clutch at his face. But he was a good soldier, loyal and true, and he forced his eyes open to squint into the night, looking to see he did not know what.

Through his sun-blindness, he vaguely thought he could see a silhouette not unlike that of a woman, ten feet tall and radiant as the sun, wearing a dress of nine colors and carrying a guandao in her hand that seemed to reach the clouds, but when he blinked again he saw nothing at all.

Or, well, he did see something: all of their enemies were headless, no matter where on the battlefield they were, their bodies dropping like a loosened string of coins where they had been standing and splattering anyone they were fighting with blood as they gawped at the sudden corpses.

Also, the sect leader was suddenly holding something in his arms when he hadn’t been before.

“What’s that?” Nie Zonghui asked, and the sect leader turned towards him. Nie Zonghui squinted, and suddenly wondered if this entire battle had been a very bad dream. “…is that a baby?”

“Yes,” the sect leader said, grinning broadly. “He’s my son!”

“He’s your what,” Nie Zonghui said.

“My son! I didn’t know about him, of course – apparently he came as something of a surprise to her as well – but anyway she thought that it would be more appropriate for me to raise him, all things considered. A baby doesn’t quite fit her lifestyle. What do you think of ‘Mingjue’ as a courtesy name? Good, yes?”

Nie Zonghui suddenly understood why his parents were always cursing all the time.

-

“I don’t see why I need another wife,” the sect leader said. “I already have a son.”

“Don’t you want to give said son a mother?” Nie Zonghui’s mother asked, her arms crossed. “One that isn’t the Dark Lady of the Nine Heavens, the war goddess you somehow managed to knock up without getting killed?”

“She never specified that she was –”

“Someone needs to be Nie-furen,” the sect leader’s younger sister interrupted, “because I am sick and tired of doing the job, and it’s a little difficult to ask a goddess to do it. So you are going to find yourself another one that’s a little closer to the ground this time, you understand me?”

The sect leader nodded and agreed, which was universally agreed upon to be the only appropriate reaction when his beloved meimei said something in that particular tone of voice.

(He did, after a suitable period of time, state that he wanted to make clear that there was no actual evidence that he had knocked up Jiutian Xuannü and that it was quite plausible that the mother of his heir was nothing more than a rogue cultivator of particular strength and possibility even immortality. If Baosan Sanren had managed it, why not someone else?)

At any rate, they brought him several pictures of women that might fit the bill and who would not be too offended at being asked to be a secondary wife – their sect leader swore up and down that he had performed bows with the mother of his first son, rendering him legitimate, and anyway no one was in the mood to see if the maybe-a-goddess would take offense to someone calling her child a bastard – but none seemed to catch their sect leader’s interest.

“Consider visiting a few brothels,” Nie Zonghui’s great-uncle suggested. “Anything to get you back in the habit of thinking about women of a less divine nature – though of course we’d prefer that she be literate.”

The sect leader scowled and stalked off to go night-hunting instead.

“I don’t like brothels,” he said to Nie Zonghui as they made their way through an especially deserted mountain valley in search of something that had murdered all the local mensfolk in the surrounding villages with especial viciousness. “Surely there’s an option in between.”

Nie Zonghui preferred his sabers to either men or women, but he obediently wracked his brain to think of where people in stories and famous songs found their wives. “Innkeeper’s daughters?” he finally suggested.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the sect leader scoffed, but the very next day, he decided to break his usual habit of staying out in the wild no matter the weather in favor of taking shelter from the encroaching storm in a small inn right at the base of an especially lonesome and nasty-looking cliff.

“We’re always happy to have guests,” the innkeeper said with a somewhat sinister smile – he was pale as a ghost in the guttering candlelight, and his lips looked very red. “My daughter will show you to your rooms.”

The daughter in question was inhumanly beautiful: small and graceful, with a fox’s face and dark hair that fell to her knees.

“Wow,” the sect leader said, staring at her. “You know, I think you could kill me with those nails of yours.”

Nie Zonghui took a look and agreed with the sentiment, seeing that her nails were as long as claws and looked just as sharp, but apparently he and the sect leader had somewhat different interpretations of this sequence of events and plans on how to address it.

Namely, Nie Zonghui pointed out that the lady was obviously some sort of yao or maybe a gui and that she was probably the one seducing the local mensfolk, draining their yang energy and then slaughtering them, and therefore that it was undoubtedly their duty as cultivators – and cultivators of the Nie sect in particular – to put an end to her vile deeds through the swift application of their sabers. Furthermore, he explained, they should take care never to allow themselves to be alone with her in the process, lest she seek to entrance them with her seductive magics and lure them to their undoubtedly violent deaths.

The sect leader’s rebuttal to this line of logic was limited to “I’m the sect leader and if I want to bang the probably-a-ghost, I’m going to bang the ghost and there’s nothing you can do to stop me”.

Amazingly enough, the sect leader did not end up dead the next day – the innkeeper looked just as surprised as Nie Zonghui felt – and instead announced, very happily, that he was planning on marrying her.

“You what,” the innkeeper said, staring at his very smug-looking ‘daughter’. In light of dawn, she was wearing a dress of many colors with a foxfur ruff, and her beauty was almost painful to behold.

“You why,” Nie Zonghui moaned.

“You shut up,” the sect leader told him. “I’ll have you know that my lady here is very clever, literate and well-learned, and she doesn’t at all mind being the second wife. Weren’t you one of the ones on my case about getting a Nie-furen to help managing things back home?”

“I didn’t think we needed to specify that the person in question didn’t murder a lot of people!”

“Isn’t his first wife supposedly a war goddess?” the lady inquired, her clever eyes dancing in amusement.

“Well…yes…”

“Also, all those men deserved it,” she said. After a brief pause, she added, “In my opinion as a totally unrelated observer, of course.”

“See?” the sect leader said, putting his arm around her waist. “No problem. Anyway, she’ll stick to killing bad people from now on, it’s fine.”

The lady smiled. There were many teeth in that smile, and they were very sharp.

“If she doesn’t, I’ll have my first wife discipline her,” the sect leader added and her smile abruptly disappeared.

Nie Zonghui coughed into his hand, but reluctantly admitted that maybe this wouldn’t turn out to be as bad as all that.

-

“Huaisang is a lovely name,” Nie Zonghui’s mother said, being the best of them at diplomacy when she put her mind to it, although admittedly it was something she did only very rarely. “I think we were just expecting something a little different, that’s all.”

“Possibly something a little more fox related,” Nie Zonghui’s father said.

“Please,” the sect leader’s second wife said. “That would be gauche.”

They looked at her.

“…all of my suggestions along those lines got rejected,” she admitted, and glared at the small shrine in the corner as if it had personally wronged her. In this context, it very well might have.

“Is there anything we should keep an eye out for?” Nie Zonghui said, watching his little cousin carry around his even littler cousin under his arm as if he were a sack of potatoes and not a baby that hadn’t yet had its first month celebration. He would have interfered but for the fact that little Nie Huaisang seemed to be notably more in control of his various limbs than the usual infant. “A tail, for instance?”

“Oh, no,” the second lady said. “Nothing like that.”

“Great,” Nie Zonghui said. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“It’s very rare for fox children to achieve a grand plot worthy of a tail in their first lifetime.” A pause. “From what I understand, that is.”

“Great,” Nie Zonghui said. “…great.”

“You’ll take good care of him when I’m gone, won’t you?” she asked, and when they all looked at her, smiled. “Not for another year or two, don’t worry, but I really can’t stay here that long. Sometimes, a girl’s got urges she has to take care of.”

“The sort of urges where we’d need to hunt down a mysteriously appearing fox yao for having murdered a lot of people?”

“I already promised to stop killing people,” she said sulkily. “Although I do think I made some plausible arguments in favor of a little bit of entirely justified murder in connection with the Jin sect and maybe the Lan sect and, oh, the Jiang sect –”

“Please don’t.”

“It’s not my fault your Great Sects are all headed by men who wrong women.”

“You’re not wrong,” Nie Zonghui’s mother said, and Nie Zonghui’s father looked alarmed. “But still, don’t.”

“You’re such spoilsports. But no, as it happens, it’s getting to that time when I need to return home for a while to pay my respects to the older generation.”

“How often does that happen?” Nie Zonghui’s father asked. “Once a century?”

“A gentleman shouldn’t ask a lady her age,” she sniffed. “At any rate, my family home is rather far away and they’re fairly insular, so I’ll probably be gone for at least a decade or so. I’d take the baby with me, but, well, you know, long travel and all. He’s better off sticking with his father.”

“All right,” Nie Zonghui’s mother said. “We understand, and we’ll help take care of him as best we can.”

“I’m glad.”

“We have only one thing to ask of you in return.”

Their second lady arched her delicate eyebrows.

Nie Zonghui’s mother smiled. “You be the one to tell your sister-in-law that you’re leaving your post.”

“…you know, on second thought, maybe I can push my departure out a few more years…”

-

“Before you say anything, I want to be clear right now that I don’t need a third wife,” their sect leader said. “I’m fine.”

“Sect Leader,” Nie Zonghui’s mother said, not unaffectionately. “You’re not allowed a third wife.”

“And therefore – wait, really?” he asked, a little skeptically. “You’re not concerned about me?”

“Oh, we’re very concerned about you,” Nie Zonghui’s father said. “But not in that specific respect. Some celibacy would probably be good for you, at least in terms of increasing your life expectancy.”

“…my sister is lying in wait with a cleaver to make sure she doesn’t have to take on the duties of Nie-furen again, isn’t she.”

“I’m not discounting that possibility, but don’t worry about it, it’s fine, we’ll talk to her. The Lan sect haven’t had a proper hostess in years either, we can just say we’re following their example.”

The sect leader eyed his cousins beadily. “They haven’t had a proper sect leader in years, either.”

“No, you don’t say,” Nie Zonghui’s mother said dryly. “What a coincidence -”

“You have two fine sons,” Nie Zonghui’s father said hastily. “That seems like enough, really.”

“You don’t think they need a mother…?”

“Sect Leader,” Nie Zonghui interjected politely. “While we admit that it may be within your capabilities to be able to find a mother willing to deal with one step-son who has been waiving around a saber taller than he is since he learned to walk and has a penchant for the unyielding, unmerciful and very violent application of the norms of divine justice –”

Nie Mingjue’s presence bolstered the spirit of good men, while his gaze seemed to make evildoers itch. He was the most earnestly good person Nie Zonghui had ever met, and also one of the most stiff and unbending in respect to what he believed should and should not be done.

Unfortunate that his standards didn’t seem to match up to the needs of either human law or diplomacy…

“– as well as another who can scheme circles around anyone and persuade them of anything as long as he puts his mind to it and only doesn’t because he’s too busy lazing around in the sun to bother –”

Nie Huaisang liked to file his nails down to something that looked quite normal, but they grew sharp quickly enough if he wasn’t paying attention, and he had a penchant for pranks. There was nothing quite as unnerving as running into a sudden and unexpected ambush and then suddenly hearing the shrill peal of a fox’s laughter, hidden behind a scholarly fan.

“– but all things considered, we’d really rather you - didn’t.”

His mother and father nodded fervently.

“Good,” the sect leader said, though he still looked suspiciously at them as if he thought they were hiding something. “Good. As long as we’re agreed.”

-

Nie Zonghui walked in on his sect leader pinning the Wen sect leader to a wall, murmuring something in a low voice with a very particular smile on his face, and then he turned around and walked right back out again.

The sect leader of the Wen sect might appear beautiful and young, but he was at least a generation older than the Nie sect leader. Not that that had stopped the latter from relying on their respective positions to refer to him in startlingly intimate terms – my dear A-Han, the sect leader would say with a touch of wickedness that reminded one of his second son and the tiger gall bravery of his first – and while at first the Wen sect leader had taken it as a challenge to his authority, an act of brash insolence, it appeared that they had progressed beyond that.

That the Wen sect leader already had three wives and two concubines apparently didn’t present any obstacles either – except perhaps in what those poor women might have to endure from their husband when he returned from the wretched teasing he was enduring. Nie Zonghui felt a bit of pity for them.

Shortly thereafter, he felt a bit of pity for himself. The Wen sect had long dreamed of dominating the cultivation world and sought to increase their influence with the other sects through underhanded means, with the Nie sect opposing them at every turn. Even if war was not on the immediate horizon, the wise could smell its distant approach in the air - the best estimates said that it would take another decade or two to arrive, unless the Nie sect leader took an especially hard stance.

It appeared, however, that the Nie sect leader had chosen to take a different sort of…hard stance.

Ugh.

Maybe Nie Zonghui could conspire to throw his sect leader into a cage with a live tiger in heat next time he felt in the mood. It’d probably be less dangerous.

Nie Zonghui had assumed that the first person to talk to him about what he had seen would be his sect leader, even if it was only to remind him of the general rule that the sect leader had ultimate power and therefore could exercise his own bad judgment in deciding to fuck whoever he wished, but instead it was the Wen sect leader that found him later that afternoon.

A flush had yet to fully fade from his cheeks, and Nie Zonghui raised his eyes to the ceiling to avoid looking directly at the man in front of him. 

He did not want to know. Others might, given that no one had ever complained about the looks of either party, but he himself had realized long ago that he had no interest in matters of the flesh under any circumstances; he was very content with that conclusion.

“Is there some service this one can provide to Sect Leader Wen?” he asked politely, and it was only when the sect leader flushed again that he realized belatedly that his words could be misconstrued. After all, his own sect leader had probably already made a similar offer regarding the provision of services…

“Your sect leader has a sister, doesn’t he?” the other man asked, his voice tight and his hands in even tighter fists. “I’m not misremembering that?”

“He does,” Nie Zonghui responded honestly, and not without sympathy for the Wen sect leader’s position. He was given to understand that making certain belated discoveries regarding one’s own preferences could be highly disconcerting, particularly later in life. “But she’s rather different in kind than what you may be thinking, so it won’t work out that way. It wouldn’t work even if she wasn’t already married, which she is.”

After a moment of thought, he added, “Also, consider your predecessors.”

The Wen sect leader’s eyes narrowed.

-

Really, it was the sect leader’s own damn fault that he got himself murdered.

[animereaderinsertwriter]

Cupbearer (Eren/Reader)

Part II

Part I (complete)

Part III (complete)

Part IV (in progress)

Warnings: MINORS DO NOT INTERACT (im watching you, if you see this, begone!), vampire!eren, hunter!reader, fem!reader, smut, some amount of predator/prey dynamics but only kinda?? there is also a significant age difference but only cos eren is immortal and all that jazz. we're all adults here. there will eventually be smut.... and do i really need to say that there's gonna be blood in a vampire fic?

Description: A story of falling in love in 4 parts.

Eren is a bad man (well, a bad Creature) who has done bad things. When he meets the great-great-great granddaughter of one of his former friends in his favorite blood bar, however, he thinks it might not matter so much what happened in the past, so long as he can make the future something worth living to see.

Ao3 link here

Making deals with a vampire was one thing, (Y/N) supposed, but fulfilling such a deal was quite another.

When Zeke— who held the contradictory position of the regional Commander of the Hunters as well as the alpha of a local werewolf pack— had approached her with the idea of infiltrating Eren Jaeger's inner circle, she had jumped at the chance; her great-to-however-many-degrees grandfather really had been Jean Kirschtein, and she had read his old journal, and her curiosity about the Old Ways was always bubbling just beneath her skin. Zeke, she thought, must have known of her curiosity, because his offer had been everything she was searching for.

You'll have your answers, he told her, And we'll have ours. One way or another, the problem of Eren Jaeger will be solved through your efforts. There is no possible way to lose.

If only she had known how wrong Zeke had been.

At first, things with Eren were simple— well, as simple as things could be with such a delicate arrangement. It had been beyond easy to bait him into approaching her at the Creature bar on 76th Street, and aside from the first time, allowing time for Eren to feed was almost nothing. Even the process of feeding itself wasn't much of an ordeal— there was hardly any pain since he drew from her wrist after a warm soak, and the whole thing took less than five minutes— but around the second time, when the visions began, things began to be… different.

Little snippets of Eren's past began to come as the two of them interacted more and increased the amount of regular feedings. Sometimes it was as little as a feeling, a memory of a face that (Y/N) had never seen before; other times, it was like (Y/N) was truly there centuries ago, in a land that would one day become her home. Now, almost every time she let Eren drink from her, she was thrust back into a world where humanity was (literally) with it's back against the wall, fighting demons and mindless monsters just to survive; and, sometimes, the visions were so intense that she would come back from them terrified, shaking, and incapable of cogent thought. It was during those times that Eren held her, silent, resigned, and yet somehow caring until she was herself again.

It was strange; in the visions, Eren was often passionate to a fault. He was wild, like an animal, but kind, too. During times like these, when he cradled her in his arms as she was trembling with the force of a particularly poignant memory, (Y/N) wondered if the centuries had truly changed him, or if he hid that passion beneath the jaded indifference she had come to expect.

"You think too much," he told her as she buried her face into the crook of his neck. "Your heart is racing."

Of course it was— the terror of watching hundreds of people be consumed by the very wrath of hell itself would do that to a person— but (Y/N) had no rebuttal. She did think too much, and the end result was muddled reports sent back to Zeke and a clouded heart.

"You loved her."

It was a statement, not a question. Mikasa— the brave, beautiful woman that Jean Kirschtein had once loved— may not have always known it, but Eren truly had felt very deeply for her.

"More than life," Eren replied.

(Y/N) thought back to the memory— the sheer panic Eren had felt at the thought of losing his comrades, the desperation with which he strove to save them— and she amended her statement.

"You loved them all."

Eren hummed.

"More than the wide, wide world."

And (Y/N) thought that, perhaps, he truly meant it.

"What did you see this time?" he asked, his voice soft.

(Y/N) pulled back so that she and Eren were face to face, her legs straddling him. His eyes were glowing-green, and she shivered beneath their scrutiny.

"I saw a field full of demons," she told him, unable to meet his gaze. "You and Mikasa were defenseless, yourself having been pushed to your limit, and Mikasa's blades having been broken. There was nowhere to run, and you— you screamed, and—"

A large, warm hand caressed her cheek, and it occurred to (Y/N) that it was her own blood within Eren that gave him such warmth with which to comfort. She placed her smaller hand atop his, and the world seemed to freeze for a moment to allow this brief, intimate interlude.

"Do you understand now?" he asked as he did almost every time she had a vision. "Do you see why I did what I did?"

As always, (Y/N) shook her head, moving his hand from her face.

"No, I don't."

The response was never met with anger or frustration; Eren was only ever resigned to it. Before, (Y/N) might have felt scorn for such a man who cared so little, but now that she had seen who Eren had been, what he'd been through… perhaps he was simply tired of caring so much.

"You're beautiful when you're thinking."

The words caught (Y/N) off guard. She had known that Eren had thought she was attractive— his emotional feedback told her that much— but she had never thought that he would voice such a thought. The compliment heated her cheeks, and (Y/N) had to fight the urge to bury her face in her hands.

"I've always thought," said Eren, speaking slowly, choosing his words carefully, "That one can never truly appreciate the beauty of a blush until one could see it with the eyes of a vampire, or smell it as it rises on the cheek."

Eren placed a hand on her face, tilting it until their eyes were level.

"And as a vampire who has seen many beautiful blushes on many beautiful women, yours is the most bewitching of all."

(Y/N) swallowed thickly.

"Why are you saying this?"

Eren cocked his head to the side, studying her. It was a long moment before he spoke, but when he did, he gave an answer that (Y/N) was not expecting.

"Because it's true, and because I would very much like to kiss you."

(Y/N)'s heart leapt into her throat, but she didn't dare move one way or the other. She just stared at Eren, slack-jawed, as he stared patiently back.

"Why?" she asked when she had collected herself.

Eren shrugged. "Does that matter?"

(Y/N) supposed very much that it did matter, but she didn't feel the need to say so. She studied Eren closely— the latent hunger in his eyes, the set of his jaw, the stain of her blood on his lips— and she thought of how gentle he had been with her, how patient. She had no doubt that he would prove to be equally so in other matters, and she wanted him— but something stopped her.

It would be wrong of me to allow this, she thought, letting her eyes wander to Eren's lips. I'm his enemy, a spy for the Hunters. Allowing him and myself the potential of intimacy is too deep a betrayal, even for me.

Even so, she didn't stop him as he shifted her closer; even so, when his lips brushed hers, she kissed him back, tasting her own blood on his tongue.

"This is a bad idea," she whispered against his lips, shifting in his lap.

"How young you are," he said in return. "There is no such thing as a bad idea, only poor timing and execution. Take it from someone who has centuries of experience; rarely ever is the regret for having done something greater than the regret of not having done it."

So saying, he kissed her again, and (Y/N) threaded her hands in his hair as he reached beneath her shirt. His hands— warm, now, with the heat of her own blood— reached beneath the cup of her bra to cradle her breasts, and she exhaled a hiss as his fingertips found her nipples. She arched into him, pressing her flesh into his hands and parting their lips; he chuckled, dark and low, and she shivered at the sound.

"How many other Creatures have you tricked like this?" he asked, pressing kisses against her neck. "Tell me, pretty girl— just how many have fallen prey to your charms so that you can run back to your little doggy master with their deepest, darkest secrets?"

(Y/N) froze, stuck somewhere between fear, dread, and ecstasy. Eren knew— somehow, he knew— and yet he continued to touch her, kiss her, caress her as though nothing were amiss. Her whole body went still with shock, but Eren never stopped even for a moment.

"Come now, you can't think I didn't know." His lips were just below her ear now, and he closed his teeth around the lobe, teasing her with the sensation. "I can smell him on the papers in your bag; I can hear the clicking of the letters as you type your memos after I've pieced you back together for an evening. Most of all, I can hear the way your heart pumps a little faster when I feed you the information you want. I can taste your guilt in the very blood I take from you. You can hide nothing from me."

"Eren," she said as fear— rancid and terrible— began crawling up the back of her throat, "Eren, please, I haven't told him about the important things, I'm trying to make a case for you—"

He pulled away then, and when his piercing green eyes locked with her own, she stilled like a sparrow caught in the gaze of a cobra.

"I don't care," he replied simply. "You are what you are, and at your core, you cannot change that. It is the same with me. I'm not afraid of my half-mutt half-brother no matter what you tell him, and as long as you want what I have to offer, there's no reason not to take it for your own."

(Y/N)'s mind was reeling.

"Half-brother?"

Eren chuckled at her confusion.

"Oh yes, pretty one. Zeke Jaeger is my older brother, and I suspect he sent you to me just to you with the both of us." With a carnivorous grin, he added, "But little does he know that I play for keeps, and you're not the good little Huntress he must assume you are— that is to say, he must have no clue at all how hungry you are for vampire cock, hm?"

(Y/N) would be lying if she hadn't pictured Eren in… less than appropriate situations, but for fuck's sake, she wasnt blind. The man— vampire, Creature, whatever— was fucking gorgeous, and he damn well knew it, but that didn't mean she was gagging for it.

Did it?

"We can't do this," she said, pushing at Eren's chest, though he didn't budge an inch. "We shouldn't do this."

Eren cracked a grin, toothy with fangs that glistened.

"Says who?" he asked, his large, strong hands coming around to grab her by the ass. "You were perfectly fine with letting me kiss and touch when you thought I was in the dark— is it no longer any fun now that you don't feel like you're taking advantage of me?"

(Y/N) couldn't take it.

"Eren, be serious—"

"I am serious."

When she looked in his eyes and reached out with her own heart, (Y/N) knew that he was telling the truth. He wanted her regardless of anything, regardless of everything.

He simply wanted her.

Could that be so bad?

***

Eren didn't think that this would happen even in his wildest dreams, but when he saw (Y/N) splayed out on his gold silk sheets, he knew it wasn't the madness that Armin accused him of lying to himself about. No mind, well and whole or not, could ever conjure up such a vision. The woman who lay before him— naked and gorgeous— was beyond imagining. She was something from another world entirely.

"What are you doing?" she asked, puzzled as Eren stood over her, watching the rise and fall of her breasts. "Come hold me."

And how lovely was that? His natural enemy, his perfect prey, asking him to come hold her, as though his skin on hers was blessed assurance that he was there and wanting.

Maybe Eren was mad— or, perhaps he was dreaming. If he was, he hoped he never came back to himself. A world without this was not a world he ever wanted to return to.

"Yes," she hissed as he crawled atop her, his mouth suckling at her breast. No other creature that walked the earth could ever taste as sweet as her— having tasted many, many before, Eren would know— but even were that to be disproved, Eren wasn't sure he would much care. This woman would be his undoing.

"Touch me," she demanded, canting her hips up to him. "I want to feel you."

How could Eren ever deny her? He brought a hand down to her sex, caressing her there before parting her folds to quest for her clit. Having found it, he drew small, teasing circles, and she whined.

"Am I still a monster to you?" he asked into the hollow of her throat, placing biting kisses there as his hand kept busy with its work. "Still something to hate and abhor?"

"You're still a monster," she replied, so startlingly honest even now, "But I never once hated you. Oh Eren, please, I want you inside me, I—"

Her wish was his command; Eren plunged two fingers into her depths, and (Y/N) gasped at the intrusion. She was so wet already, and so tempting as she squeezed down on those fingers, rocking her hips as he withdrew them just to the tip and repeated the motion. The way she felt around his digits shouldn't have turned him on as much as it did, but as Eren slid in a third finger, he had to keep himself from letting out a groan.

"You're so beautiful," he told her as she writhed beneath him. "You truly, truly are."

Distantly, Eren wondered what Jean would think if he were alive to know who was finger-fucking his great-granddaughter, but when Eren remembered the nasty right hooks the taller man used to give him when he was being a shit, he figured that he would rather not know. Still, as he watched (Y/N) come undone on the tip of his fingers, he couldn't help but think that perhaps it was something of Jean's spirit— the part that even Eren had to admit was better, kinder, more human than most— that drew him to her.

"I want you," he said, withdrawing his hands and licking his fingers clean of her juices. "Do you feel ready enough?"

And then, as though to prove his point, (Y/N) sat straight up with the cutest little Jean-like scowl he had ever seen and pushed at his chest with no small amount of force. He went with the motion, and he found himself being mounted by her as she said,

"I'm not made of glass— if you can't wrap your head around that, I'll have to show you just what I'm capable of."

She did— and how! Powerful thighs— the thighs of a Hunter— levered her up and down on his cock, squeezing him until he thought he might die from it. He thought she was never going to stop impaling herself again and again, and by the time she did eventually tire, Eren was sort of hoping she never would. He was in ecstasy with her, and like the selfish bastard he was, he wanted it to last forever.

"Such fire," he said, reaching up to press kisses into the skin just between her breasts. "You've made your point, now let me take over."

Let me take care of you.

"Yes, yes, yes," she chanted as he thrust up into her, the head of his cock buried so deeply within her that he marveled at how she didn't seem to be feeling any discomfort. "Oh fuck, right there, please don't stop—"

Eren didn't stop; he couldn't. He was beyond restraint.

"May I?" He asked, tapping the wrist that was trapped in his right hand. "I won't take much, but I want to show you something."

Delirious, drunk with lust, (Y/N) nodded, and Eren pierced her skin with a single fang, letting a drop of blood fall onto his tongue. In that moment, as they connected physically, her blood connected them spiritually, and Eren groaned as he physically felt how close she was through the link he had created.

It wouldn't be long now.

"Oh, fuck!" she cried, and Eren buried himself as deeply as he could within her as he came. "Oh, oh, oh—"

And then (Y/N) was following him, shaking and gasping as her orgasm overtook her. It seemed that the world had stopped existing for a moment, and Eren found it hard to breathe even though he had no particular need to do so at all.

In the afterglow, they clung to each other like the survivors of a shipwreck; when the world began to exist again, it felt new, and as Eren closed his eyes to sleep, he knew that this changed everything.

I must keep her, he thought as sleep overtook him. I don't know if I could feel like this ever again for anyone else.

[dennou-translations]

Violet Evergarden Ever After: Chapter 1

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Stories end one day once they begin. With that in mind, one might deem clinging to themselves, to other people or to anything else in the world as a little foolish. Same for how fiercely their heart was burning. Or how it cried for these things. It would all disappear like a dream eventually. One could think that even just putting in some effort was meaningless. Yet it had started.

Born through some sort of cue, anyone would breathe. Open their eyes. Learn to let out their voice. Figure how to walk. Come to understand what love was. Receive affection. Find out that it was a sickness, and either stop or give continuity to it. Nobody was taught how to cure it. There were also those who never even once accepted it from anyone.

Whatever the case, no one was allowed to stop for as long as they were part of this story, of this world. While living, people would be continuously be involved with death. But if morning came, night would also follow. Hunger would abate and sleep would invite one to the floor. Even after losing love, people craved for it. With its eyes cast down to forfeit, the world gradually emitted a new shine. Manifestation of beauty and hideous collapses were in progress at the same time. There was no eternity, but things went on. The story would continue. The world would go round. Even if it would meet its end one day.

Even without you there, morning would come.

   Blue eyes opened.

Purple flower petals fluttered gently in front of her eyes and passed her. They touched her as if to cause tickles, and then disappeared. The illusions of the past that had been surfacing dissipated slowly.

Her wild beast self and her named self. All of the past dissolved into reality, dragged back into the present. Here, there was neither a beast nor the man that it used to call “Major”.

The boat lethargically moved through a large river, an Auto-Memories Doll on it. The rowing of the boater, who wore a big hat, was quite something. For it to cause a chance meeting between her and her past, that had to be a good boater.

The girl, Violet – Violet Evergarden – was looking for someone.

Whenever she opened her eyes, she would wind up doing it. Looking for the person who had given her as much as he could give and then vanished. Looking for the person that she had hurt as much as she could hurt and not managed to protect.

Of course, he was nowhere in sight. There was no way he would be in such a place. She knew it. However, she would end up searching. Her most beloved lord had supposedly died long ago, yet she would find herself searching for him. Even an apparition would do; she only wanted to see him at least one more time.

The world he was gone from had livened up anew and its colors were vibrant. Violet had to live in said world. She had to live in this fresh hell. She could no longer receive orders. Neither could she chase after his back. There were limits to what she could do.

It was easy for people to tell her to move on. However, that was a great difficulty for her. Violet had been told to live. Just as ordered, without attempting to die, she was living while burdened with this difficulty.

“Miss, what is it you’re looking for?”

At that time, Violet was still not a full-fledged human.

   The Rose and the Auto-Memories Doll

   “Wait,” I prayed.

The dark red ribbons tying her golden hair. The pleats on her white ribbon-tie dress. The light blue umbrella. As if playing around, all of these things fluttered in the wind.

——Wait for me.

It was hard to breathe. Flowers from the jacaranda trees were blocking my field of vision. Their beauty erased everything that could be seen. Yet they were nothing but a hindrance now. What I yearned for wasn’t them.

——Please, wait for me.

Tears welled up. I didn’t know whether they were tears of sadness, relief or frustration.

I didn’t understand anything anymore. What was I doing? I didn’t know. Surely, I had never known. I didn’t even know that I was hurting.

——Wait.

If there was one thing I knew, it was that I wanted her to take me away from here.

“Violet, wait.”

That was all.

——So please, wait up; don’t leave me behind.

   It was spring. When it came to the four seasons, spring was surely the best one.

I first met her at a time when lilac blossoms were in bloom. Lightly, nimbly, they fluttered down. It was a season where purple flower petals danced in the sky. Spring. A season of sprouting.

What color came to people’s minds when they talked about spring, I wondered. It was probably a different one depending on where each of them lived. Pink cheery blossoms were scattered around higher lands. I had heard that bougainvillea flowers dyed a certain region in pure white. Apparently, the sight of green stems stretching out from within the snow thaw was the face of spring in some places. As for me, when the topic was spring, it had to be jacaranda trees.

The Jacaranda River was located among the mountains of the d’Arthur Region at southwest of the continent. It was a large river surrounded by steep mountains that rose like giants. Bearing the same name, jacaranda trees were planted along said river as if to enclose it, and during the flowering seasons, the color of the water surface would turn violet.

Ordinary trees had their branches, fruits and leaves pointed downward, but jacaranda flowers grew pointing upward, almost like a hand holding a bouquet. Just one of those flowering trees was already a feast to the eyes, so it was simply magnificent when there were many of them together. The sky was blue; the earth was a cloud of purple. Even God would easily let out a sigh when looking down at this scene from the heavens.

There were countless small communities in the vicinities of the Jacaranda River, and in order to go from the outside to a piece of land that had a settlement on it, one basically had to move by boat. Hence why it was so easy for the people who lived in this neighborhood to become sailors as a job. The pay, in contrast, was not so rewarding, but not to the point of making anyone go hungry. People coming from other places would gather into crowds to see the jacaranda trees during springtime and there was demand from the locals even outside of the busy seasons. So I would continue on my job here forever and never lose it.

In this world, inside this little story of mine, I had an encounter with her.

“Excuse me; I heard that there is a village beyond this point. Is it possible to cross the river?”

A foreign object appeared in that tiny world of mine.

“Hello. Yes, I go there often. This is how much it costs and the payment is in advance.”

Her name would eventually roar throughout the business, but at this time, she was a ghostwriter girl who had barely started to travel the world.

“I do not mind. It will be my pleasure.”

“We usually put the names of the customers on an account book. May I have your name?”

That was how she and I met.

“It is Violet Evergarden.”

To be honest, she was the kind of person who could cause people’s time to stop in fascination for a brief moment. This ferry port was crowded in spring. There were many other people around, so of course, I could spot several beautiful men and women who showed up for sightseeing, but she was unlike any of them. No matter what background was behind her, she would only be a strange object in it. Be it rainy or sunny days, winter or spring days. Regardless of whatever the world was clad in, one would find their eyes going towards her. Beauty was not the only reason for it. Her scent was different from that of other living things.

——It’s similar to the feeling I got... when seeing a deer in the mountains for the first time.

Right, a wild beast. She was like a beautiful wild beast. If such a stunning beast appeared in front of anyone’s eyes all of a sudden, they would surely stare fixatedly at it. This one had blue eyes and its mane was golden.

“Please treat me well.”

“Ah, yes.”

Her voice was clear, her gestures elegant.

“Is there anything wrong with my appearance?”

“No, no; not at all. Nothing at all.”

She was full of mysteries that other people would not be allowed to touch so easily.

Her outfit might also be at fault. She was well-dressed in a way that one wouldn’t see around this area. A Prussian-blue jacket, a white ribbon-tie dress and cocoa-brown boots that could be deemed as brand-new. An emerald brooch shone radiantly over the ribbon tie. I had but one toy similar to her when I was a child. That young woman was literally just like a doll. On top of it, even the name I asked for matched her lovely looks, to the point I felt like humming without thinking.

“Ms. ‘Violet Evergarden’. All... right. Now, if you please.”

It was a good name. Like an actor’s. I had never watched a play or anything of the sort, though.

“Thank you very much for your patronage today. I am the safest operator around here. Boater Valentine.”

Once the name was written down and the fare was received, my work began.

The customers would be hesitant when getting on the boat regardless of whether they were men or women, but Violet differed from them. She got on it without a sound, quickly sat down and postured herself in waiting for me to start rowing.

Whatever thoughts she was engrossed in, she quietly closed her eyes after taking a glance at the scattering jacaranda flowers. It was a day of warm sunlight and pleasant wind, so she might have become sleepy. The comfortable silence continued for a while. I thought about leaving her alone, but perhaps because the petals that rode on the wind and flew about had tickled her cheeks, she opened her blue eyes. The scenery of earlier was not supposed to be any different, yet she looked left and right as if searching for someone.

“Miss, what is it you’re looking for?”

As I asked so, Violet moved her neck with a twitch like a small animal and looked my way. After a short moment, the answer came in a low voice with an “it is nothing”. She seemed a bit dispirited.

She looked like an uncommunicative person, so I did think she might not go along with a boater’s talk, but wanting a change in mood, I kept on speaking, “Miss, you are in luck. Now is the best time to view them. The jacarandas.”

“Is that so?”

She was kind of a weird girl. Her manner of speech was weak in emotion.

“For me, this is the time to make money. When this period passes, people stop coming to this remote region. This is my main occupation, but many people do boat rowing as a side-job too. When spring is over, they do farming. Miss... it does not seem that you are here for sightseeing. Is it for work?”

“Yes.”

“Is it a job related to boats?”

“No.”

“My, wrong guess. You don’t get scared of the swaying, so I thought you were used to it.”

“Is that how it looks?”

After we spoke that much, Violet finally stopped searching and moved her gaze towards me.

“You do. It feels like you have no fears.”

Silence drifted about. Rather than ignoring me, she seemed to be having difficulty choosing her words.

Until this mysterious beauty spoke up, I was smoothly cutting the surface of the water with the oar. Maybe due to her baggage being heavy, the propelling was slower than I had predicted. She was a slim young woman no matter how I looked at her, so her luggage was probably the one to blame for the rowing’s bad flow. Come to think of it, a low screeching sound ensued whenever she moved. She might have some sort of manufactured item on her.

“You are right. I have been with the navy before, so...”

Oops, the conversation was back.

“Is your family from the military?”

“No, just me. My military service record was ultimately the army. But before the army... the person that I served was a navy officer.”

The reply was covered in enigmas. Her profile was cold. The way she talked was perfectly fitting of a mysterious beauty.

I thought this strange client was a little scary, but let out my curiosity just a bit more. I had never gone outside of these lands, so I loved chatting with the customers.

“I can’t believe it. To think that someone like you used to be a soldier...”

She had no idea what the description “like you” represented. This impression showed through just slightly in her facial expression.

I rode with many people, so I sort of had my own theories about them. I felt like students from renowned schools would make this into a laughingstock if I were to call it a “philosophy”, but... people communicated the actual state of their emotions through the blinking of their eyes, the way they opened their mouths, the highs and lows of their voices and other such things.

They were extremely scarce in this girl, but I could perceive them. Seriously. I was an expert at “observing” others.

“Do you get troubled when people coax you or something like that?”

As I asked out of curiosity, Violet once again had a question mark over her face, but after a while, she blinked as if to say, “I have arrived to an answer for the inquiry” and gave me an unexpected reply. “In my travels, I am sometimes invited by people to become their bodyguard after saving them. I am an Auto-Memories Doll, so I decline them politely,” she said.

I was asking in a romantic sense, so that could not be considered an answer to my question.

What a strange doll. What an odd girl.

——My life would be wonderful if I were born with these looks.

On first meetings, one’s eyes would go to people’s physical appearance first and foremost. Everyone had a preferred type of face, right? I accidentally ended up comparing hers to mine.

Perhaps as I was always wearing a big straw hat so that my skin wouldn’t be damaged by sunburns, my hair was squashed. Even if I took off the hat, the platinum-blond color could get me mistaken for a grizzly old man. Other girls of the same age as me sparkled so much, and yet, just what was I? Being in the same space as them was embarrassing... No, let’s leave what the eyes could see aside. I should serve the customer; serve the customer.

“Beautiful here, isn’t it? These are jacaranda flowers.”

“‘Jacaranda’...”

“Ah, they sell fruits on that boat over there. Want to buy any?”

“No.”

“Do I talk too much? Ah, look! That bird is very rare. Can you tell it has the color of emeralds? It’s called ‘gemstone bird’. The feathers they drop are my treasures.”

“It is beautiful.”

“I think so too! I might get along well with you. What do you usually do to pass the time?”

During my and Violet’s short boat-riding trip, she told me the following:

She worked for a certain postal company from a military nation in the far south named Leidenschaftlich.

She was a newbie Auto-Memories Doll there.

Through her current commission, it was her first time coming to these lands.

Before arriving here, she drove two groups of bandits away.

She was told by her boss to bring him local specialties of this area as souvenir.

That was it. She had many stories about her boss.

“So the president and employees are close in your company, huh.”

“Is that so... No, you are right. Our company has just barely been built and there are few employees. If the number of unit members is small, the distance between them and the commander naturally grows shorter. Yes, to someone like me, whose origins are unknown, he is a compassionate person.”

“You don’t have to talk like that about yourself...”

“It is true. I am an orphan and do not know where I was born.”

I added “orphan” to the information about Violet that I had inside me. The things that had happened to this person dictated the air about her, I thought. Was that the reason why she seemed somewhat lonely?

“But now I have people who look after me.”

“Your boss.”

“Yes. And a kind elderly couple as well.”

“Aah, good for you. Being alone is sad. If you have someone to be with, that’s better. So you used to be in the military but you’re not a soldier anymore now that the war ended. You got yourself a new job and family, is what you’re saying.”

“Yes.”

“You’re sailing smoothly!”

“No.”

Even though I expressly tried to conclude it with good vibes, it was denied.

“I have many problems.” There was a slight creasing between Violet’s eyebrows. “I don’t yet know if I have the aptitude to be an Auto-Memories Doll... I was given a lady’s education and I have studied languages and other such things, but it is hard to say whether or not I can make effective use of that. I have retained the fighting power... but I am in a state where I do not know how to use it.” The tone of her voice faded a little at the end.

“How are you working like that now?” I asked purely out of concern. After all, she was an Auto-Memories Doll.

I came across all sorts of clients, but she was my first Auto-Memories Doll one. It was a job in which people used ghostwriting as their weapon and rushed around the world. I heard there were many women in that occupation, but I never thought a girl as old as me would be doing it. She could very well be writing for a princess from some other country while I was here, rowing a boat.

“Letters have standard sentences. In most cases, if we add the desired content to those standard sentences that we have memorized, they will take form.”

“Hm, hm, I see.”

“However, it cannot be said that letter you wished to write so much to the point of requesting an Auto-Memories Doll was achieved with this. If we cannot correspond to the expectations, we are failures as tools. Therefore, we are once entrusted with the request’s contents, suggest a few types of details, choose the best ones and accept additional demands, should there be any... then repeat. There are also times when my abilities are not enough...”

“You mean contents you can’t write?”

“Any sort of letter can be shaped to a certain extent as long as there is time. It is a combination, after all. However, I am not well-versed in the art of conversation that entertains people. I am told that I am ‘boring’ or ‘unfriendly’ and am often dismissed by the clients.”

She somewhat convinced me. I was terribly sorry for that. But it might indeed be difficult for someone to feel like composing a letter in a fun way with her. If they were hiring her for serious contents, that was a different story.

“Moreover, we normally have to understand the circumstances that our clients are in... Let’s see; it is similar to, for example, approaching someone who is injured. I am supposed to write such letters, but I do not yet understand what a good letter is. It is hard for me to say that I can manage it... In the end, I do not know if I have aptitude to be an Auto-Memories Doll. I am always asking myself whether or not it is all right for me to work in these conditions.”

Perhaps due to thinking a tad too hard, Violet said something incomprehensible – that “it would be much more efficient if our company’s president became an Auto-Memories Doll”. Wasn’t a president supposed to take care of the management?

But, surely... for Violet to be saying something like that about him, he had to be the kind of person who excelled at being considerate.

With the flow of the conversation, I tried asking what I was most interested in, “W-What do you do about love letters and the like?”

“Love letters?”

“Yes.”

It was a field of great concern for someone who had never had any sort of relation with it since birth.

“That is also a combination. You throw in verses from famous poems or songs... Classic romance novels are valuable reference materials as have quite a lot of rhetoric.”

As I received an answer much more direct than I had imagined, almost like boiled vegetables with no taste but their own, my shoulders dropped. I had expected her to reply that she used her own love experiences as reference, but Violet was an extremely serious bookworm. I was a bit ashamed of myself.

I then started the conversation over, “Must be hard that your first job is kind of all about stuff you’re not good at.”

As I said so, Violet dropped her gaze and spoke, “No, we have a bright female Auto-Memories Doll who is the complete opposite of me, so she is put in charge of cases like the ones I just mentioned. In contrast, a large number of transcription cases that are not letters but instead invoices and contract documents, or that require fast writing, come to me. Describing exactly what I see is my field of expertise.”

“I see; it’s a matter of having the right person in the right place. Your boss’s administration is good. So you’ve been managing it one way or another until now.”

“Yes. But this is my first business trip for ghostwriting.”

“F-First!” I accidentally let out a loud voice.

“Yes, my first.”

This girl was on her first ghostwriting business trip. I was sending her on a boat for that. It somewhat felt like I was involved with an awfully grandiose story, which made my heart race.

“Gets you nervous, doesn’t it?” I sought for agreement, but the one feeling nervous was me. “Will you be okay?”

But Violet did not seem to be okay.

“On ghostwriting business trips, the task is to finish it on the spot, and you must respond immediately. I cannot use the means that I have been using until now, such as taking time to write or securing time by cutting sleep and eating short.”

That may have been the reason for her aspect of weariness. Still, I was shocked. When we, boaters, did not want to take our boats out, we would refuse rides even if there were clients. It was a job where we had to have customers, but we decided the discretion on our own. I did not let the ones with a bad attitude on my boat ever again even if they asked. Above all, not eating was impossible. No one could row a boat if they were hungry or sleepy.

“You have to eat... Isn’t that the most important? And you have to sleep too!”

“The most important is accomplishing my missions.”

I could somewhat understand why this girl’s boss was so concerned about her. Since she was an ex-soldier, she was unable to get used to a peaceful life, and the job she had earned required a variety of emotions that did not fit her, so she was competing with knowledge and effort to make up for it. Talk about dangerous.

“But taking care of your health is also part of work.”

Violet cast down her golden eyelashes. What I said probably made her think.

“As I thought, I was better off as a soldier,” she whispered this bit by bit, out of the blue. As she caressed her emerald brooch, she fixed on it a stare that seemed to be burning.

“How come?”

“When I was in the military... all I had to do was chase after one person and protect him. I was always searching for an adult to follow.”

How was I supposed to describe this girl?

“I found myself the best master of all and used to live my life serving him.”

Rather than sincere, she was too candid. Almost like, yes, a child who knew nothing.

“It would have been great if it were like that forever.”

That was why, most likely...

“So he was someone important to you.”

...she honestly thought as much.

“More than anything.”

Her words probably held no lies.

“That’s good.”

She truly was currently apart from someone important to her and losing heart.

“But the war ended and everything changed. Things are different now. I have been separated from my master, and I must journey around the world all by myself with words and pens as my weapons.”

My country was a prosperous land that had not involved itself with the Continental War. Ever since I was born, I had never once enlisted. I had nothing to respond to her statements. That even though I had nosily asked so many questions – what a person I was.

“Erm... hum, can I say something?”

I wanted to cheer her up. But I had no idea how.

As I faltered, Violet shook her head. “I am sorry...”

She started apologizing for some reason, making me even more confused.

“I spoke too much. Forgive me for... tainting your ears.”

“Why? You didn’t do that at all.”

“I am told not to talk in too much detail about my history.”

“I-Isn’t it okay, though?”

“I must do as told.”

“But—”

“My deepest apologies. I said things that could disrupt you while you are in the middle of work.”

“B-But—”

“My deepest apologies.”

“Isn’t it okay?! You and I are just a customer and boater who can’t see each other anywhere but here!” again, I spoke loudly on accident.

I became a bit flustered. After all, she was apologizing. Even though she was just answering my insistent questions. Even though she was burdened with so much that she wound up unintentionally spilling it to a stranger like me.

“After you get out of this boat, we have no way of knowing what will happen to each other. So please never mind it.”

It was because I asked so persistently that the things she had been holding overflowed.

“It’s all good.”

There was something I could say exactly because I was a boater of a remote region.

“It’s all right,” I affirmed strongly, wanting to do something about those wavering eyes and her aspect of uncertainty. I might have been huffing fiercely too.

Violet looked at me with a gaze that looked like she had just woken up from a dream. And then she nodded with a meek face. “Yes.” Even though she had just nodded once, after a few tens of seconds later, she nodded again while saying, “Yes.”

After that, we eventually reached the shore without talking much.

From what I had heard, Violet’s patron was Mr. Lockhart, an elderly man famous for being rich even within his community. He was already quite old, so it was said that he did not have long.

“You go straight down the road. You should be able to see the village after a while, and Mr. Lockhart’s mansion is the one on highest ground. It has a white roof. The neighbor houses are all extravagant too, so don’t mistake it.”

“All right.”

“On the way back! If you also feel like going back together, look for me!”

“Yes, Mr. Valentine.”

   Perhaps because I had asked for it, Violet actually did look for and called out to me as her ride for the way back. Maybe as I had listened to her life story, it kind of did not feel like we were strangers anymore.

After I intimidated and dispersed the other boatmen trying to take her as their customer, I asked, “How was the job? Did it go well?”

“I do not know.”

Silence.

“At first, he yelled at me, then crumpled the letters I wrote into balls one after another and tossed them away.”

“That’s horrible.”

“But once I presented improvement suggestions twenty-three times, he said he had ‘been defeated by my persistence’ and accepted the ghostwriting.”

“Ms. Violet, you actually have a strong competitive spirit, don’t you?”

Later on, according to what I had heard from people of his neighborhood, Mr. Lockhart was a mean geezer who, apparently high-strung from fighting against a disease, would hire people in order to bully them into quitting. My goodness. He was the type of person whom I would not want to associate myself with even once, so I guessed the fact that Violet would not have to deal with him anymore after just this one time was a blessing in disguise.

However, a few months thereafter...

   “I will be ghostwriting a letter to Mr. Lockhart’s grandchild for a few months.”

...she showed up again holding a travel bag in one hand and reunited with me. Our interactions continued from that point onward.

I did not know what to name my involvement with Violet. We were not friends. We only ever met due to occupational matters and I never saw Violet other than when she came over for work.

“How did things go after that? Is business going well? We’re in the off season now, so I’m pretty free.”

“It seems that people of the postal industry are seeking not to take work away from those of the same line of business. We, Auto-Memories Dolls, usually receive work from the area surrounding our companies, but the number of business trips is increasing. However, it is hard to say if we are on track. Our president looks over his account book every day.”

As we were both from the hospitality businesses, we had worries in common. So I was also happy.

“My wallet gets really empty in the off season too. Well, I can live just fine with the amount I save up in spring... but I have to find a different job when I want something pricey.”

“A different job. Mr. Valentine, for how many years have you been a boater?”

I reminded myself of my ordinary life’s number of years and work history inside my head.

“Erm, I’ve been rowing for two years. But before that, I was something like a handyman, working in an orchard, taking care of other people’s babies, doing cleaning and washing, running errands and being an apprentice at a restaurant’s kitchen.”

“That is a wide variety.”

“My family’s poor. Dad and Mom are gambling addicts too... We’re so poor that we can’t survive without all of us working. I was eight when they told me I had to get a job because our finances weren’t going well.”

“That is commendable for someone so young.”

“No, Ms. Violet, you’re probably as old as me, right? Eh, how old are you?”

   Perhaps she and I really did have a karmic connection, as I was always working whenever she came to these lands.

“Ms. Violet! If it isn’t Ms. Violet...!”

“Mr. Valentine. I was looking for you.”

“M-Me?”

“Yes. You told me to ask for you the first time we rode. I did this last time as well. Will you take out your boat today?”

“Of course! C-Can I ask again? You were looking for me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m so happy! Same for me! I wonder every day if you’re coming anytime soon... Now, now, customer! Please get onto the boat! Go ahead, go ahead. I have tons of things I want to tell you! I see~! So you were looking for me~!”

“Yes, I was.”

   The air about her was like that of a tensely stretched thread, yet as time went by, she became able to show different facial expressions.

“You can’t smile?”

“No. I cannot say I have complaints about it, but... I receive such opinions from the clients quite frequently. For now, I am making physical attempts on it. Mr. Lockhart often lifts my cheeks. He tells me to practice. Yet... it does not work very well.”

“That old man is teaching you weird stuff... It’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone pick their cheeks up to form a smile.”

“Mr. Valentine... you excel at smiling. Do you have any trick for it?”

“Eh~, I’m just being carefree.”

“That is difficult for me.”

“Hm~, but that’s a secret of success.”

“‘Secret of success’...”

“This place is a dock, after all. For a kid like me to be working among men, I at least have to be good at acting friendly, or else I can’t survive.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. That’s why this is something I’ve ingrained in me. Ms. Violet, you’re an ex-soldier, aren’t you? You couldn’t be carefree in the battlefield, so there is no helping that, right?”

“But... that has nothing to do with my clients.”

“Hm~, trying to be better is never too much, but from my standpoint as someone who is also in the hospitality business, I don’t think that is completely indispensable. We give the clients what they seek and they pay the fee. It is essentially this kind of equal relationship. You do not have to abase yourself more than necessary. Customers naturally come to people that do a fine job even if they are unsociable.”

“Is that so...?”

“It is. Someone who instead is friendly but can’t do the job at all is a problem. The fact that you became Mr. Lockhart’s purveyor means you write good letters. It seems he is very particular about his own matters. Y’know, you’re fit for people like that.”

“If so, that is good.”

“Don’t make that face. Shall I lift your cheeks?”

   The things we had to talk about with each other whenever we met increased exactly because we were far apart from one another.

“Speaking of which, you are looking for someone, right? Did you find any clues?”

Our respective circumstances slipped in and out of sight.

“No...”

“But Auto-Memories Dolls have to go to all sorts of places, so there is still hope.”

“Yes. I also think that is the good point of being an Auto-Memories Doll.”

“That so...? Ms. Violet, did you choose to be an Auto-Memories Doll to search for someone?”

“No, perhaps I should say it is wishful thinking. I do not truly believe that I can find him. However...”

By that time, I had realized what the brooch was.

“...I can keep on living while thinking ‘what if’. That is the kind of job it is.”

That it was something related to the important person she had mentioned.

“Is that so...?” while speaking with a laidback voice, I incidentally thought about what that would be in my case.

What was I attached to enough that I would be this obsessed over it?

“You’re the opposite of me. I’m waiting for my family here.”

——If I do have any of that, it’d be the boat my dad used to ride.

“Do you live far away from each other?”

——The house that we all lived in together.

“Huuum... How should I put it? I was sent out to a different town for domestic service when I was eight... and I was completely convinced that my parents and older brother were living here.”

None of what I was attached to was things that could remain in my grasp. It was this land itself.

“When I came back, there was only our house. My family wasn’t in it.”

It was not something I could walk around with.

“They might’ve moved somewhere else... because they hated life here.”

Violet did not frown or make a puzzled face. She just quietly lent me an ear.

“I ran away from the place where I was doing domestic service, so I guess I missed their notice. I think they are troubled now. That they are looking for me. I also want them to come pick me up, but they never do...”

I myself understood. I knew I was saying odd stuff. Weird, wasn’t it? I was aware. If she called me crazy, it would be just the expected.

“Mr. Valentine, should you not be looking for them?”

That question gouged out just a little bit of the weakest part of my heart. Yes, just a little. It pierced me exactly because the person who asked it had stood up from her suffering and was running onward.

“If I leave this place, it’d be a problem...”

But Violet did not say I was wrong at all.

“It be a problem if, by any chance, my brother – no, either Dad or Mom decided to come back...”

She merely whispered a single sentence: “understood”.

   Before I realized, I had started looking for her at the dock.

——Is she coming today? Not yet? She might come tomorrow.

   “It’s been a while...! Has anything changed? We got to meet again because Mr. Lockhart is still alive, huh.”

“It has. Just that the personnel at my workplace increased again. Mr. Lockhart’s voice is so lively when he is angry that one would not imagine he has a disease. Mr. Valentine, what about you...?”

“Y’see, I’ve been going to study lately! I was influenced by you. I can read easy words, but I never went to school, so I’m bad at writing.”

“I could not write either. However, it should be all right as long as you practice.”

“I don’t have enough paper to practice writing, so I’ve been writing on the ground with a stick these days.”

“If you wish, please use these.”

“Eh, what are those? T-They look expensive. I can’t.”

“I also received paper and pens from someone just like this and began my studies. You can.”

“N-No can do! I can’t get something like that from my customer...!”

“You can.”

   As the seasons passed, as the days and months went by, her aspect of anxiousness from when we first met diminished. She steadily built up a record of accomplishments as an Auto-Memories Doll.

“That umbrella is cute. It looks good with your clothes.”

“It is a gift. I also... find it adorable.”

“Is that a passionate request for a relationship from your client?”

“No, that is not it. This is a display of gratitude for my work from Mr. Oscar, the novelist...”

Much faster than I had imagined, yet surely, she was elegantly climbing up that brilliant stairway.

“Heeh, a novelist. I don’t know much about him, but that’s amazing. You might be working at some royal palace one of these days!”

“I have.”

“Eh?”

“I have. I wrote love letters on behalf of a princess from a country named Drossel.”

   She became someone well-known around the neighborhood in no time.

How should I describe her vigor? Was “forceful enough to knock down birds in flight” too weird? She was an irresistible force that people were drawn to en masse. Somehow or other, she made a great leap in a blink of life.

Her popularity attracted more popularity, and it was amazing that her work had developed so much. There were such people at the dock too, but this could not be achieved without effort. But it did not look like there were ambitions or dreams to Violet’s efforts. Dream chasers had different eyes than ordinary people. She... her blue eyes were as quiet as a midwinter sea no matter in what season I peeked into them.

Her gaze made it seem like she was looking at me from a different world. As if she were staring up at everything from the bottom of the ocean. Yes, it was that kind of look.

She was there, yet was not. Her blue eyes were mirrors that made me feel like I was looking at myself before realizing it, when I was supposed to be looking at her. She herself was also this sort of person, with an attitude as if her mind was elsewhere.

Her fame... if I were to use a metaphor, she was a broken doll who got praised as a result of single-mindedly working on repeat. That was how it seemed in my eyes. Awful way of saying it, huh? But the Violet Evergarden I had first met had been hurt. She was just a hurt girl.

So I was honestly surprised. Because, at first, she didn’t look at all like a girl who would rush up into Auto-Memories Doll stardom from that point. Yes, she did not.

That might be due to the way we met. If I had met the current Violet instead, I would surely have thought, “Such a full-fledged Auto-Memories Doll”. But although she was indeed an eccentric girl, she did not look like that to me. To me... To me, she looked like nothing but a girl from the same generation as myself, stagnated in a world that she was tossed into. An uneasy girl, who had just started working. The type that definitely could be found anywhere all around the world.

One that was also similar to me. From that day, at that time.

“Dad, Mom, Big Bro, where are you?”

She was like me back when I was at a loss as I decided to live by myself.

With the passing years, Violet Evergarden had bloomed to the world into a marvelous lady before I even knew. Just as her name suggested, she was a girl who had blossomed beautifully.

No matter what, I ended up comparing her with myself... Even though we were reuniting after a long while, even though I was happy, I felt too sad for some reason and wound up saying lots of lame things.

“Ms. Violet... you kind of became an unreachable person all of a sudden, huh.”

It was because, even though I had supposedly lived just like her in the same four seasons and the same time that she had rushed through, I was still an insignificant boater.

“My company is still based in Leidenschaftlich, just as before.”

“No, I wasn’t talking in terms of physical distance. It’s... a spiritual thing.”

Silence.

“You really are admirable. You know, when I think that you’re doing such an amazing job while I’m here, boating without a care in the world... it’s like...”

“Mr. Valentine, you are also working every day.”

“It’s not like boating is a bad job or anything.”

I also didn’t think there was high or low when it came to occupations. Yet I would end up comparing them.

“I quite enjoy it. Rowing the boat, that is. But somehow... like... when I look at you, Ms. Violet... I think of myself. I wonder if I’m okay like this. Because surely, there should be something else I want to do.”

Silence.

“If only I could change myself too...”

“Mr. Valentine.”

“Yes?”

“I felt that we have become closer than back when we first met.”

“Eh?”

I was in shock. Because I thought she wasn’t the kind of person to say something like that.

What did people call this?

“It became a habit for me to look for you immediately around here.”

Those words that were almost as if someone was nestling close to you.

“As you have let me on countless times, you have been recorded within me.”

No, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t that she didn’t say those things – she couldn’t say them. After all, Violet had told me when we first met. That she couldn’t write letters that felt like approaching someone who was injured.

“I see.”

She had been worried that she should leave it to someone else; that she wasn’t qualified.

“Have we become far apart?”

Yet she had become able to do it. By practicing a lot. Involving herself with people.

“Mr. Valentine, you always find me as well. Whenever I arrive here, instantly.”

This girl had become able to do what she was worst at.

“Yep.”

But even now, it didn’t change that she would touch her emerald brooch when she was uncertain.

“Have we...”

“We haven’t...! Sorry. I’m sure I could spot you even if we passed each other in a different city... Sorry, it’s just... wrong. I was wrong...”

Violet had grown up.

“Sorry...”

That day, when we first met, she had been fretting about being able to write letters that could draw close to someone. Having nurtured her heart through many people and a lot of time, she was now even able to say these kinds of things. This girl was properly fighting against the fate that she had been granted.

Aah, I wanted to be like Violet Evergarden.

I wanted to be like this girl. I really did.

I was still young. I could start over anywhere else. But I did not do that. I couldn’t throw away my family. I couldn’t. Ever thought about throwing your family away?

I... I had never.

Because it was family. People I shared my blood with. We were supposed to be together, right? Parents protecting their children and children yearning for their parents – that was the norm, wasn’t it? When I looked around me, that was what people were doing. Was it all lies?

Why, why didn’t my family manage to be normal? Why was normal so difficult for me? Because I was stupid?

I had gone to a stranger’s place when I was eight years old because my parents had told me to. I went with them as my parents said, “Go with this person to help them out; you’ll get payment for it”. I had the feeling that my parents had been smiling. My brother was the only one who had a serious look – no, he was making a face like he was about to cry as he pulled the sleeve of my clothes over and over. He used to be such a scary brother who was quick to hit me on the head and scold me, but only at that time did he exhaust himself from crying.

“You can’t, okay? Listen to what your Big Bro says. You can’t go to that place,” he had told me.

I remember being extremely perplexed. I only had the impression that my brother was always angry and hungry. He never behaved like he cherished me or anything of the sort. Honestly, I used to hate him.

“But they’ll be angry if I don’t do as they say.”

So I had shaken off the hands that were grasping my sleeve. The expression my brother had back then – those eyes looked like everything in front of him had transformed into rubble.

My brother had said one last time with a tearful voice, “Hey, you can’t; please... don’t go. I won’t hit you anymore, ‘kay? ‘Kay?”

Even so, I had not agreed. Because I was afraid that my parents would get mad.

I hadn’t seen my brother since. Thinking back on it now, he might have actually had affection for me.

As for my parents, had that been something they couldn’t avoid? I still didn’t know. But to put it bluntly, they had sold me.

It was not something so unusual. This area was remote, rural and still rooted in such customs. That might still be my case even now. I was living in a land I had once left, disguised so that no one would know it was me. It would be terrible if I were sold by someone again. So I had made myself up. An unknown boy who had showed up out of nowhere. An outsider who had arrived before anyone knew it. That was me.

I was a huge moron who couldn’t throw away her family even though they had thrown me away.

I ran away from the place I had been sold to after not even three days and, starting out as a beggar, I had saved up a sum in order to go back home. I did anything, from working at an orchard to taking care of other people’s babies, doing cleaning and washing, running errands and being an apprentice at a restaurant’s kitchen. Anything, as long as I could earn money.

I had been sold off to a pretty far-away place, so it took me a year to come back. I was making merry when returned home. About things being back to how they were before. About how my life had twisted a bit but it was back to how it used to be. My mother would surely be happy. She’d tell me I did a good job coming back home.

So, that was why... I even now vividly remembered the feeling of astonishment I had when I opened the door and the house was deserted.

“Dad, Mom, Big Bro,” I had whispered intermittently into the empty house.

There was no reply.

——Aah, so homes that people no longer live in also die, I thought.

I was the child from that day even now, standing stock-still.

   “The hijacking case of the transcontinental train... The one on this picture looks like that girl, but she isn’t, right?”

While reading the newspaper that the customers had left behind as usual, I was relaxing at the dock.

The seasons had passed once again and autumn was about to end. Although the years were growing farther from the spring in which I had first met Violet, yet not a single thing had changed.

“Excuse me, are you doing boat rides?”

“Ah, yes. Thank you very much for your patronage today. I am the safest operator around here. Boater Valentine.”

Today, too, I was rowing a boat. That was all.

I would just wake up in the morning, eat, get the boat out, let the customers onto it, do my job, go back home and sleep. A repetition of that. Without anything special happening, without any wonderful encounters or opportunities, I was merely earning enough to eat and protecting my home. Sometimes, I would find myself thinking that I was the only one living this kind of daily life. I had been working since I was little, so I didn’t know how to play very well, and I had no one who was close to me other than Violet.

Even though Violet wasn’t my friend.

“Mr. Boater. Is there anywhere around here where I can have a meal?”

“There is, once you get on land. It might be unlike anything that someone from the big city such as yourself would eat, though... Now, then, be careful.”

Right. Just as she had once said, our relationship was of a boater and her customer, and we would not meet unless she came here for ghostwriting. She was an amazing person who roamed all around the globe and lived in a world completely different from mine.

While returning to the former shore after sending off the customer, I was thinking to myself. Was my life okay like this? I was here today yet again, without attempting to go to where the person that I wanted to be close to was. Even if I used the entirety of the notebook that Violet had given me, I could not report this to her. Because I couldn’t leave my hometown.

   “Mr. Valentine. Hello; it has been a while.”

It was a very beautiful morning that day. Illuminated by the Sun as it emerged from the clouds, drops of the rain that had fallen on the previous night were emitting a transparent shine. The person who had appeared in that stunning world was still a foreign body.

Fall just before winter approached. Violet Evergarden was not wearing her usual doll outfit, instead dressed in black. Black hat, black cape over a black dress, and while the suitcase, umbrella and emerald brooch were the same as ever, everything was pitch-black other than them. She was a black-clad Auto-Memories Doll.

As the wind blew, her clothes seemed to flutter in an unnatural manner on her left arm. The arm was gone. Only one of her arms was missing. She had told me somewhere along the way that they were prosthetics, but when seeing her figure without one of them like this, I felt the loss of it even though it was unrelated to me.

“He-llo... Uh, what’s up with... hum, your arm, your clothes and all that?”

It was almost like that kind of thing.

“You came just a while ago, right? The intervals are really close...”

Almost like someone’s funeral. I had never been to one, but I had observed it from the outside before.

Apparently, my questions had her at loss for a bit. After showing a thinkative countenance as from where to start explaining, Violet put her baggage on the ground and pointed at her left arm with her right hand.

“My arm broke. It is being repaired.”

Her artificial doll-like gestures that I had grown fond of before I realized and her clear voice were now turning into the main causes that made my heart restless.

“I can use the right one without any issues. It is inconvenient, but this will be solved eventually.”

I asked the reason behind it and if she had been involved in some sort of accident. Violet did not tell me the details of her situation. She gave a rare, faint smile, looking troubled.

“In the meantime we had not seen each other, truly, many things happened... However, today is not about me but about someone else. I was told he was famous around here, but have you not heard? He has passed away.”

There was only one person whose funeral Violet would be coming to this land for, dressed in mourning clothes. Her ghostwriting patron, Mr. Lockhart. That old man who people said was going to die, yet had always stayed alive.

“I... I don’t have much interaction with the townspeople... We’ve had heavy rain the past few days... and when I pushed myself to get the boat out, I caught a cold... so I shut myself at home... and didn’t see any of my boatmen friends...”

I came up with reasons one after another as if to give an excuse. Even though I hadn’t done anything bad.

“It seems the funeral is already over. The people from that household contacted me, so I came in a hurry.”

“To visit his... grave?”

“That as well, but I also ghostwrote his will on his own request... and it seems there was a dispute among his relatives when the will was opened. They said they want me to confirm if there was really no mistake in the contents...”

I wondered what in the will had aroused the general criticism. Violet did not tell me, as she could not reveal the contents of her contractor’s letters, but when it came to problems that happened after a wealthy elder died, it had to be the inheritance.

“It simply means that the will is just like Mr. Lockhart. This is all I can say.”

So the mean geezer was mean until the end and then left.

“S-So, Ms. Violet, you’re about to get yourself involved in that big quarrel?”

“Yes.”

“Could it be it’s your last ride on this boat...?”

“Mr. Valentine, if you are still here by then, I shall go back with you as well.”

“I-I’ll be. I won’t take any other customers today and I’ll be waiting for you on the other side of the river!”

“I think I will take very long.”

“That’s okay... I mean—!”

——I won’t get to see you anymore, right?

There was a knot in my throat because of the sadness, so I could not say these words. But I believed they had reached Violet. She said “all right” after a pause.

And so, I sent Violet to the household’s side of the shore. As I had declared, I did not take on other customers, only waited for Violet.

She did say that a lot had happened to her, but if the essence of what she had experienced, which she could only express with that much, was enough for her to lose an arm, then surely there should still be a commotion around her right now. Poor Violet. Honestly, Mr. Lockhart was a client who gave Violet trouble from start to finish.

Still, if it weren’t for that troublesome client, Violet and I wouldn’t have met. We also wouldn’t have had that accumulation of interaction time as the seasons passed.

“You should’ve lived longer,” I whispered selfishly. My pathetic voice was mixed with whining.

I was a horrible person.

To think I would complain about the time that someone I didn’t even know so well should die. But now, my heart felt like it would break. My composure was gone. That was why my tongue was so nasty.

I did predict that we would become unable to see each other one day like this. I did, yet I had thought it would be a gentler end. More different, more...

Yes, one day. One day, just as I had suddenly become unable to see my parents and brother, Violet would stop coming here. But I couldn’t leave this place, so I would keep standing at the dock, thinking that there might be a day where she would come by.

From the viewpoint of other people, they may think this was sad, but to me, it was an ending that still had salvation and hope to it...

I hadn’t imagined that she herself would tell me this was probably the last time. Besides, to think that my chest would feel so tight just because I was no longer going to see a customer that I only saw every now and then.

I was an idiot.

Yes, I wasn’t good in the head. I was sensitive to the subtleties of other people’s emotions despite not bringing them to life in me. Yet I was insensitive when it came to myself, so I was only able to notice things when they started hurting like this.

“I-I...”

Surely, I was all on my own because I was this much of a fool.

“I’m gonna be alone...” the words overflowed from be in a natural manner.

——Be quiet. Don’t cry. It’s like the way you’d cry as a kid.

“Ugh... fu-uh...”

I was happy. That Violet had hired me and would come to ride on my boat.

“I don’t want that... Again... I’ll be...”

I was waiting here. For someone to remember me and come see me. For them to look for me. I was living by expecting nothing but that.

Same for Violet. She was someone from my generation, who had been tossed into the world all of a sudden. She wanted to search for her important person, for him to find her – she was that kind of girl. But she was doing her best to live. She really did her best, without losing to the unreasonableness of life.

As she grew, I saw her shining as an Auto-Memories Doll almost as if it were happening to a different version of myself. The fact she was doing her best was an encouragement. I thought of her as a comrade. Even though we weren’t friends, it felt like we were.

“Big Bro... when are you coming back...”

I was by myself here. So, before I noticed, my encounter with that girl had become salvation in my life. Because we were the same. Because we were both waiting for people who wouldn’t return.

It was okay even if it were just a few times per year. She had remembered and looked for me. To me, just that fact was, aah, so very...

   “I am terribly sorry for being so late.”

I had departed with the boat in the morning, and it was past evening when the black-clad Auto-Memories Doll came back. She did not seem tired, but her voice was on the husky side, so she probably had to talk a lot.

“Good job... How did it go?”

I wanted to make it so that she wouldn’t find out that I had been crying, yet my voice was nasal and clearly an after-cry one. Amidst the sunset, Violet looked straight at me.

“Everything is well. Mr. Valentine, are you all right?”

I did not know, so I fell silent.

——I’ll let you on the boat now. And then, it’ll be the end. You won’t come see me anymore. I don’t know if that’s okay, or if I’m okay with it.

“Give me your hand; come on carefully. This is the time when the sunset and the evening are mixed, after all.”

As if to gloss over it, I conducted myself as merely a professional. Violet’s sense of balance was a bit off, perhaps because she only had her right arm. I helped her until she was seated, and then started rowing.

“It is my first time seeing the landscape at this hour.”

I nodded at Violet’s muttering.

Evening at the Jacaranda River was a sight that looked like a scarlet Sun had jumped onto the water surface. Both the sky and the river would paint themselves red, dyed in darkness before one could take notice. The birds cried as if to announce that it was already time to go home, the boatmen pulling out of work and returning to their houses. It was that kind of hour, that kind of scene.

As winter was about to come around, the trees were bare and most of the fallen leaves over the water had even their colors rusting away as well. There was nothing more fitting of a farewell day than such loneliness.

“Mr. Valentine, thank you very much for being here for me until today.”

Violet’s voice sounded softer than usual. Come to think of it, I felt that the air around her had somewhat changed. I had thought it was because of the mourning attire, but looking at her again like this now, I figured that was not it. Would it be an exaggeration to say that it was as if an evil spirit had been removed from her? She was different from before.

“From the start, for now, for always... thank you very much.”

Yes, back then, when we first met, Violet Evergarden was a beautiful wild beast that had been tossed into the world. She was nervous, wary of everything, unstable and acted kind of cold.

“It might be strange of me to be saying this to someone I only ever see here. But to me, Mr. Valentine, the fact that you let me ride on your boat whenever I come by...”

Yet, within a long time, she had gained warmth and transformed from a beast-like girl into an exquisite young woman.

“I... surely, yes, was ‘happy’ about it. I can now finally say so. Even if it is something trivial for you. I... can only meet you here, so when you said that I could talk to you, I was ‘happy’.”

——It’s over.

The scenery was too solitary. My chest tightened at the words she spoke within it.

“I was definitely not suited to be an Auto-Memories Doll. I did not have the gentleness to speak my mind without thinking as you do. However, you affirmed that someone like me had her good points.”

——It’s really over.

“In a world full of denial, it is difficult to affirm anything.”

——This is the end.

“That is what I think. There is much denial in this world. Affirming is difficult. But you did it for me.”

——Please, don’t say any more of these goodbye-like words.

“Thank you very much.”

——Don’t.

“I have one more thing I want to tell you.”

——I don’t want to hear them anymore.

“Mr. Valentine, I found the person I was looking for.”

——Stop.

“I found him. I discovered that there are many people in the world who are looking for someone they can no longer see.”

——My time with you is going on as you speak.

“I was told by many that it was foolish of me to wait for him.”

——My time with you is melting away.

“However, I followed my heart, which I did not even know I had.”

——It’s melting away like the foam on the surface of the water.

“Mr. Valentine, I support you always waiting here for someone from here onwards as well. Even if, by any chance, you decide to stop waiting and venture out of here, I will support this too.”

——I liked this purity of yours, as if you’re reflecting the other person.

“I assert your kindness. Because you asserted mine.”

——By sustaining you, I was able to sustain myself.

I let out a scream. Yes, I was bawling. For me to be crying while rowing, I was disqualified as a boater. But Violet did not judge me.

After wiping my tears with the sleeves of my clothes several times, I began rowing again. I had only ever done anything while crying when I was a child.

“Dad, Mom, Big Bro.”

The time when I went searching, calling each of them, in my hometown by the Jacaranda River felt like it had been just a few days ago.

“Violet, don’t forget me,” I said as I cried, looking like an idiot.

“Yes. Mr. Valentine, you said this would be the last time, but I will pay a visit if I receive any jobs to do nearby.”

“That’s a lie...! Countless of my customers have said that... but nobody... nobody... nobody cares about...”

“I support you. This is no lie.”

“It is... It’s just flattery... I-I was... happy that you never forgot about me... but you soon will...”

The boat arrived at the dock almost as if colliding with it. The impact caused the tears to fall from my eyes like rain.

“Sorry; just go.”

I crouched on top of the boat. Aah, I had to help Violet get down. Night was coming. I should not be stalling in a place like this.

I was just a boater and this girl was just my customer. We would end here. It was over.

“I learned that having someone to accept you is important.”

I had to wipe my tears and see her off.

“Even if you cannot see them all the time. Mr. Valentine, if I was a bother to you, please know this.”

I felt the sensation of the only arm that Violet now had touching my back. I turned away from it.

We had met each other in this severe world. A world that I hated. I also hated my life.

But, aah, my God. Even when such cruel sorrow attacked me like that...

“There is an Auto-Memories Doll somewhere in the world who accepts you. Please be aware of this.”

——...the world is beautiful.

As she added a “that is not a lie”, I felt like I would end up waiting for her who knows how many years with just that sentence, so I found myself smiling. My foolishness and Violet’s kindness – those two things made me both cry and laugh.

At the end, we joined hands like little kids. I helped her out of the boat and did not let go after that.

   “So it’s not a lie? You won’t forget me?”

“It is not. I will not. I have good memory.”

“Some-Someday...”

“Yes.”

“If I become someone capable of going to see you someday, will you accept me? Wouldn’t I be a bother? I... Y-Y’know, I... actually wanted to be friends with you. Not just a boater and her customer...”

“Yes, I will.”

“But I can’t right away. I have a family... I don’t, but I do.”

“Yes.”

“But, one day... one day...”

“Yes, one day.”

“Surely, on a really nice day for us to reunite...”

“Yes, it will definitely be a good day.”

“Let’s meet again one day, Violet Evergarden.”

   After that, just as Violet had somehow changed, so did I. Just as snow covered the autumn lands, the silver make-up melted down before anyone realized and young leaves sprouted from it, I also changed.

It was during spring that this was decisive. As expected, for one to start something, it had to be in spring.

Purple flower petals scattered down on the Jacaranda River. I was simply looking at the scenery in a daze. The harbor was crowded with customers. Even though I was a boater and there were several customers wanting a ride, I was using the boat only for myself, not letting anyone hop in. Without paying any attention to my fellow boatmen, who stared at me with strange looks, I merely observed the entirety of this landscape, so as to sear it into my eyes.

My beautiful hometown. A hometown of which I only had memories sad enough to pierce through my chest. A hometown where no one would look for me anymore. A hometown that surely none of them would ever come back to.

The fact that Violet would not come this year gave me a sensation akin to waking up from a dream. As if my hazy head was clearing up, such change came to me.

——Let’s throw it away.

It was then that I thought at last.

——I’ll throw my family away.

That was what I thought.

The reason why I was clinging to this place was that my family might come back someday. I had to return, I had to stay here, or else I was sure they would be troubled if any of them came home. Because it had troubled me. It had made me cry. So I should be here, I thought.

Even though they didn’t give me love, I loved my family.

——But I’ll throw it away.

I was finally able to think like that. As I did so, tears poured down.

I had taken a long time to arrive to this decision, which was a merciless one, and I was a horrible person who surely wouldn’t die a peaceful death and would, as expected, keep on living like this, without being loved by anybody.

But I was going to do it. I was going to throw my family away.

After all, even if the people who were supposed to love me did not, she existed in my world. Somewhere in this world, there was an Auto-Memories Doll who accepted me. So instead of waiting for someone who would never come home, I should take a leap. Because I wasn’t an eight-year-old kid anymore and could go anywhere.

I rowed my boat. Not for anyone else. For the sake of going out into my new journey.

What should I do? When I thought about what to do first, as expected, that girl surfaced in the depths of my mind. The girl I had seen off while praying, “Wait for me”.

The dark red ribbons tying her golden hair. The pleats on her white ribbon-tie dress. The light blue umbrella. As if playing around, all of these things fluttered in the wind.

It was okay for me to go looking for them from now. It was okay.

——Wait for me.

My chest was quivering. Starting life anew was common place, but now that it was my turn, I was shaking. It was hard to breathe from the fear and expectations. Flowers from jacaranda trees were blocking my field of vision, and although their beauty erased everything that could be seen, they were nothing but a hindrance now. What I yearned for wasn’t them.

What I wished to see – the purple I wanted to meet once again – was no longer this one.

——Please, wait for me.

Tears welled up. I didn’t know whether they were tears of sadness, relief or frustration. I didn’t know anything anymore. The feeling I had wasted so much of my life and the feeling that I had finally gotten to this point were in conflict.

I didn’t want to abandon my family. I didn’t.

But the truth is that I’d always wanted to. Aah, I was such an idiot, such a confusing one.

That was fine. I didn’t understand myself very well either. I didn’t. I didn’t understand anything anymore. What was I doing? I didn’t know. Surely, I had never known. I didn’t even know that I was hurting.

But there was just one thing.

——Wait.

One thing I knew. When it came to things I knew, there was but one.

That I felt so refreshed I shouted to the world without minding anyone, “Violet, wait for me!”

I was going to see her, so I wished she wouldn’t forget me. That was it.

That was all.

   Blue eyes opened.

The train had arrived in the city. While the passengers got off in a hurry, a blue-eyed girl was neatly smoothing down the wrinkles on her ribbon-tie dress before gracefully descending to the platform.

She did not act as if looking for someone or show any signs of losing her way. Her figure as she simply walked straight to her destination was almost like that of a mechanical doll. Surely, she would not do things such as be surprised by something or run towards someone upon finding them. That was how she looked.

The perfectly lady-like girl, however, went completely still in the middle of the crowded platform all of a sudden. Her blue eyes had detected something. Upon finding that person, she blinked as if surprised, and then bolted into a run. The hem of her skirt spread out in disarray. The ribbons keeping her golden hair in place swayed.

As she had started running, the other person also pushed through the crowd and came closer. Three, five, ten steps. She, who had broken into a dash, halted exactly in front of him, yet the other did not.

“Violet, welcome home.”

He held her in his arms and buried his face into her shoulder. Her beloved one, whom she had not seen in a while, tickled her with his nose as he sniffed the scent of her hair. He must have been at the platform for a long time. His cold clothes and his body heat conveyed his desire to see her.

“Major, I am back. I did not know you would come pick me up.”

Having changed from a beast into a person, from a person into a girl and then into someone’s biggest love, Violet accepted the embrace of the other person without resistance.

“I am happy.”

Something gradually rushed through her body. It was the sensation that “joy”, “love” and other such feelings had turned into light and were running from the tips of her toenails to the top of her head.

The young woman who used not to know emotions was now in love.

One could spot other charming lovers here and there. Therefore, even as the Army Colonel of this country, Leidenschaftlich, and an Auto-Memories Doll were hugging each other, no one paid them any mind. The intimate figures of both those two and the other lovers were a common sight. If one were to unravel their history, this was a strange pair born through twists and turns, but in everyday life, it was just a part of the scenery.

“Violet. Sorry, I couldn’t hear you. Did you say anything?”

Due to Gilbert hugging her tightly, Violet’s remark was processed simply as an incomprehensible something, but she did not care.

“No, it was nothing much. I have returned, Major.”

“Sorry. Yeah, welcome back, Violet... Did I tell you I wanted to see you?”

“Yes, just now.”

“I heard from Hodgins about when you were scheduled to come back... Tired, are you? I have a carriage waiting so that we can hurry home.”

“Major, what about work...?”

“I came after finishing it. I had to force myself but I have no plans more important than you.”

“Then, can we be together for a little bit as the carriage rides?”

“If you’re okay with it, I can send you to the Evergarden house after we have a meal.”

Gilbert took Violet’s eyes going round as a sign of acceptance. He took Violet’s bag in her stead and, in a natural manner, found himself grasping the hand that had become empty. As he held her hand, Violet moved her gaze fleetingly. She started blinking again upon looking at the two joined hands.

“Major, Major.”

Subsequent to their reunion during the hijacking case of the transcontinental train, the two had confirmed their feelings after the CH Postal Company attack incident and started a new, albeit awkward, relationship.

“What is it?”

“I almost look like a child.”

She indeed was like a child in love.

“Because we’re holding hands?”

“Yes; I would never get lost here, in Leidenschaftlich. You did use to hold my hand before, but... now...”

It was a bit lacking for an army colonel who was past his thirties, but if one were to say that it was fitting of modest people such as these two, it indeed was.

“I’d like you to keep in mind that lovers also hold hands, Violet.”

“Is that so...? Indeed, looking around, there are many people doing this.”

“You had told me you understood... so I perceived us as lovers; was I wrong?”

“N-Not at all.”

“Then, in order to strengthen that perception... let’s change the way we’re holding hands.”

Just by the hold changing into one in which their fingers intertwined, Violet went from just a girl being taken away to a lady being escorted. Violet blinked again. Ever since their romance had come to fruition, each of Violet’s reactions entertained Gilbert, to which he let show a smile that he could not hold back.

“I’ll be happy if, one day, you take my hand without saying anything when I hold out my arm.”

“I need training, Major.”

“Kukuh... That so? Then let’s do it, Violet.”

As the novice couple left the platform, yet another train arrived.

While Violet and Gilbert walked amidst the crowd, a different pair passed right by their side. The young woman was quite a lustrous, beautiful person, whom one could tell was of noble birth. The individual walking with a hand rested on her shoulder as if to protect her from the crowd was an androgynous beauty with unusual silver hair.

Cut short, his platinum-blond hair bore the kind of exquisiteness that looked like it would make chiming sounds as he walked. His jacket, shirt and pants were finely tailored ones. He no longer resembled at all the navigator who used to row a boat in the past.

Feeling as if an old acquaintance had passed by, Valentine halted for a moment.

“What is the matter, Rose?”

Upon being called, Valentine immediately resumed walking with a “nothing”. It was not permissible to stop in the general area of a packed entrance.

“Madam... I had this feeling that the girl I am looking for was here.”

Looking for someone all by themselves. Those two had this point in common.

“Violet Evergarden? That’s right; you will be living as an Auto-Memories Doll in the same city as her. It would not be strange if she did pass by. You will meet that girl someday. And one day – one day, you might also get to see the older brother that you told me about. After all, miracles happen every day.”

However, they had still not realized that the gears of their fates were not yet aligned.

Rose Valentine gave a smile with a “yes, Madam”. “To me, Madam, you are the miracle.”

“Why, my rose does not say such things.”

Rose’s flank was hit rather strongly, but although it actually hurt, the smile did not falter. This was also one of his secrets to success.

“Speaking of which, the Auto-Memories Doll school was truly difficult. I am grateful to Madam for sending me to it, though...”

“Oh, but you have come back as a gentleman who has become able to escort me naturally like this, so it has brought results.”

Rose’s amber eyes widened beneath silver lashes. They reflected his madam’s mischievous facial expression. Rose’s smile collapsed a little and turned into a strained laugh.

“Madam, I managed to deceive people in the past because I used to wear a hat to hide my face, but... can I really do this? Also, does this not mean that I will have to deceive all the other employees and customers?”

There was something he had not told Violet Evergarden. Violet Evergarden was a mysterious girl to him as well, but there was not that great a difference between her and himself.

“I left my hometown in order to start my own life for real, and yet...”

He – no, she was going to begin a new life in this city starting from today. Not just as “Valentine” but as “Rose Valentine”.

The madam of the S.W. (Scarlet Winter) Letter-Specialized Shop, which would later make a name for itself as a unique postal company that mostly employed male Auto-Memories Dolls, replied with an alluring smile.

If there were goodbyes, there had to be encounters. And if there were ends, there had to be beginnings.

“We will not deceive them. You will properly sell yourself as Rose Valentine, the crossdressing beauty, from the very start. We sell a hundred different types of letters, stationery, envelopes. And also the caring customer service from charming young men who have some sort of sparkle to them. There is no mistaking that this will be as addicting as high-grade drinks. It’s exactly because this business is full of women that a shop full of men will shine. Is this discrimination? Are you discriminating against me, Rose?!”

Good endings and bad endings – life went on with both included.

“Haah... But I’m a woman. No, I might be almost a man since I’ve lived most of my life tricking people about my gender...”

“That’s what’s good about it!”

“Haah...”

It looked like an eternity but was not, yet on it went.

“Your boyish side and your original girl side. I recruited you taking them into account. Be at ease. You can sell. You can. After all, there is no other such Auto-Memories Doll.”

“Haah...”

“Don’t ‘haah’ me. Geez... my lovely rose. Worry not. Have I ever lied to you?”

The story would go on. Cruel as the world might be, beautiful moments would come by again.

“It has still not been that long since I first met you... so, I would not know, Madam.”

Morning would come as long as you were there. Such was how stories were made.

[its-me-im-coraline]

Best Years // Thomas Raggi // Playlist

words // 1109

warnings // angst as hell, why am i writing so much angst? I dont know

pairing // Thomas Raggi x GN!Reader

author's note // if you want to be on the tag list let me know. sorry I did not post yesterday, i was not feeling really inspired at all so yeah, but thankfully that's changed today so here. WHO LET ME WRITE SO MUCH ANGST SOMEONE STOP ME OMG. Unless you like the angst, then don't stop me 😉 Also please forgive me for making Thomas the bad guy on this fic, i literally randomly picked the songs for these fics at first without thinking of the lyrics so now I'm stuck with the consequences of angst

request // nope

summary // Thomas and reader have been having an on and off relationship. One moment they are together, the next they are entertaining other people; but in the end they only ever think of each other.

“Don’t you just feel great, here, like that, with me holding you?” The man was lying on the bed of his hotel room, his partner in his arms, simply basking in the afterglow of what went down a few minutes ago.

Y/N just smiled at him, eyes closed and head resting on his shoulder. “Mhm,” they simply mumbled, drifting off to sleep.

By the time morning came around Thomas had already gotten up, leaving his partner alone in the bed before abandoning the room heading for the dinning area for breakfast. When he got to it his bandmates were already there, sitting at a table and eating, only giving him a disappointed look.

“You didn’t tell them. Again.” Victoria glared at her friend while poking her eggs with her fork maybe a little to violently

“There is nothing to say Vic. We are together again, what happened when we were not does not concern them.”

“Thomas! This has already happened so many times. You break up, you go with someone else, you get back together and act like nothing happened!” He was their friend, that is for sure, but Thomas’ bandmates pride themselves in their honesty and in their effort to be respectful. It did not seem to be the case for the younger man.

He wasn’t a bad person, no, but his mind was clouded by the options, the excitement of the moment, that rush. He loved Y/N - not that he knew that - but he had a terribly difficult time being consistent. He was young, spontaneous, had not had much time to explore his options, and while it was entirely wrong, he did so now at the expense of his lover. The words he heard put him in deep thought, and at this time deep thought ment deep drinking for him.

As the night rolled around Thomas found himself occupying the hotel bar. Considering emotions, problems and choices is a hard thing and though he had to do so he was not even remotely ready for that. The comfort of the drink and the existence of beautiful women was enough for a journey of the mind and a mistake of the body. By the time he was done he found himself sitting outside of his hotel room, where Y/N was just inside.

His back was on the wall and his eyes were closed, almost falling asleep right there, so he failed to hear them open the door. “Thomas, dio mio, I was just coming to look for you! Are you okay?” They were concerned to say the least, an obvious observation really. Their eyebrows were furrowed, lips separated and hand on their chest, holding the little pendant Thomas had given them - it was a thing they tended to do whenever they were nervous, hold the charm of the pendant, take a deep breath and it helped calm them down.

“No need, amore, as you can see I’m right here,” he slurred, stumbling across words, missing letters… He was very far gone and anyone could see that.

Y/N simply took a deep breath, bracing themselves for the upcoming night and morning. It was always the same cycle. He did something he should not, he would drink, do more things he should not and come back to Y/N. It was never fun but they did not have the heart to just leave him there.

“Come on, Thom, help me a little bit! You need to get up.” The man groaned but did as told before getting inside the room with his… partner.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as Y/N sat him in the bathtub, trying to rid him of his drunken state even a little bit.

“I know you are.”

“No, no, no, you don’t understand! I really am sorry. I want to change…”

How many times? Just how many times has he said the same things, same excuses and same empty promises. It never changed and it had certainly gotten tiring. That was precisely the reason they could not believe that Thomas this time would be different, he had given them a million reasons to hesitate.

Maybe it was the on and off that became tiring, both parties figuring out different excuses that simply did not make sense, but always being enough to cause the temporary break ups. A lot of the time, especially if on tour, Thomas would find someone to ‘comfort’ him for a few nights, wasting his time with people that simply were not his. They never were Y/N, no matter how hard he tried to not think about that, he’d wake up the next morning with an unfamiliar person but a familiar discomfort in his stomach.

“It will not be the same, amore, I promise,” he said this time, “you’ll see! I’m willing to try.”

To be completely honest, Y/N did not seem to believe much of the man’s words. They had heard them time and time again, it had become difficult to put trust in them again. “I am not sure, Thomas,” they said, leaning behind them on the counter, “how can I possibly say that it’s ok, how can we be together, again?” The exasperation was obvious, not being able to be contained, after all the pain and the strain in their heart.

“I know, I know. I’ve been terrible… But I really am willing to change. Make it up for all the times I screwed up. I’ll make up for all of your tears.”

Y/N stayed quiet. They did not want to continue this conversation, especially while Thomas was drunk, this state making it even harder to believe him.

“I did not do it,” he breathed out after the silence had gotten too much, “I didn’t do it this time…”

“What didn’t you do?” asked Y/N, curiosity lacing their voice, puzzled at his words.

“I didn’t go with anyone. Not when we were apart this time, not while I got drunk. Everyone thinks I did so I let them believe it, but I didn’t,” he explained looking down, “I couldn’t.”

“Why?” They knew it was not the question they should be asking but before thinking the word had already come out.

“Because I realized something,” he responded, putting his palm on Y/N’s face after they came back to the side of the tub.

The only hummed back at him, prompting him to continue. “I want to be with you, for good. No more fighting, no more drinking, no more tears, baby. Nothing. I want to be full on this, please. I’ll give you the best years and nothing else will matter anymore.”

tag list: @bieberhoodforever @tabi-toast @ginny-lily @moriro-da-regina @the-killer-queenie @makapaka11

playlist tag list: @cheese-toastie-11

[imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl]

Unexpected Places (Pt. 04 of 11)

Pairing: Ivar the Boneless X Reader/Bjorn X Reader

Word count: 3 K

Summary: As a princess, you've lived in a golden cage all your life, always a piece on someone else's game. But everything changed when the Norsemen came crushing down on Wessex, like waves in a violent storm. Their king spared your life and decided to take you with him to his kingdom, in what felt more like a rescue than a kidnapping. There, you were not only confronted with a completely different culture and lifestyle, but also with two of his sons. The oldest one has his eyes set on you, but it's the youngest one, Ivar, who gets who claimed your attention since the first sight. And he seems to have an unnamed interest in you. Of course you hoped whatever that was would pass, but when unexpected feelings start to flow a different way, things begin to change.

<- Previous part (03)

Next part (05) ->

{Vikings Masterlist}

×

Fit For a Princess

You're listening to the chattering between Aslaug and Helga, looking at pieces of jewelry at the market place. You say something every now and then, but you can't shake away Ivar's stare. On the last days, two weeks or so, he's right there, sitting across from you on every meal, eyes burning through you. Hvitserk said he's studying you, still expecting you to snap, to decide you had enough of all this and want to go back home. To Wessex, where your older brother now rules. And Ragnar already said he'd take you back if you wanted, so there's that.

But leaving Kattegat hasn't even crossed your mind, not before and not now. How could you trade all you have here, and slide back into the invisible chains you had on? It wouldn't be just stupid, it would be the death of you. You're finally understanding who you are, the things you like, the kind of people you like. In England, you had to play a specific role, because everything was political. Here, you're just who you are. And you do what you want to do. This is true freedom.

“I really like this one,” Helga says, as your eyes wander through the many rings, earrings, and necklaces. “I'd like those two as well.” She continues as you pace around, further away from both women, turning the corner and then walking to another store. The pieces they have here are all made of metal, delicately bent into beautiful shapes. You caress a bracelet with the tip of your fingers, wondering if it'd look good on you.

“Don't waste your time with these cheap things.” The voice, that you now recognize immediately, makes you turn around. Ivar comes from among the people, only stopping when he's standing next to you.

But despite his attention being on the jewelry, your eyes are on him. “You're tall.” It comes out suddenly, because he never stood beside you like this, so you couldn't have noticed.

“Well, you're tiny.” Ivar glances at you, playing with one of the rings. “Anyway, you shouldn't be looking at these things. They won't suit you very well.”

Giving the old man an apologetic look, you randomly pick a bracelet. You don't get why Ivar is being rude, but, judging by what Hvitserk had told you, his brother isn't one to hold back. He says what he thinks, it doesn't matter how mean it may sound to others. You're still trying to figure out if this level of brutal honesty is good or bad. “I really like this one.” Searching on the small bag attached to your dress, you take four coins, way more than what the bracelet is worth, handing it over to the man and putting the bracelet on. The silver color is beautiful, and the drawings carved on it remind you of the pattern you saw on one of the boats that brought you here.

Ivar rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, sighing. “You are such a kind princess.” Dropping the ring, he starts walking side by side with you when you set in motion through the market. You weren't expecting that.

“King Ecbert was king of Wessex. This isn't Wessex.”

“(Y/N)! Wait for us.” Aslaug calls and you stop, giving her a look and a nod before turning to face Ivar, who towers over you.

“Therefore, I'm not a princess anymore.” Shrugging your shoulders, you give him a small smile.

“That's a shame, isn't it?” He lowers his voice, leaning closer.

“Not really.” Shrugging your shoulders, you give a little step back, putting a strand of hair behind your ears before giving him a little wave, walking back to where both women are.

After they're done shopping, as you walk back home, the clouds push themselves apart just enough for the sunlight to appear. That makes you stop, taking in the warmth on your skin, but it soon disappears.

“Hey, (Y/N),” Hvitserk calls, coming from the beach with his father, Ubbe and Bjorn, who's walking behind them. “We're going to meet some traders. Wanna come?”

“Why not?” You mumble, elbowing Hvitserk when he's close enough.

“Go put on some pants then. We're riding there.”

“Oh.” It's so absurd it's stupid, how you can't seem to do the simple things people know by heart here. “I'm not very good at riding.” Whispering, you tell him, not wanting anyone else to listen.

“I'll help you out.” He nods, tilting his head to where Bjorn is. “Without cracking your head open in the process.”

Smiling you nod before heading inside to change out of the dress. You're just about to head out when Aslaug tells you to grab a cloak in case it rains later, so you have to make another trip to your room. But soon enough you meet Hvitserk and the others again, reading the horses.

“Which one is mine?”

“Over here.” Hviserk guides to a beautiful white horse. “Give me your leg.” He says, and for a moment you furrow your eyebrows, but soon enough you understand what he means. Raising your leg, Hvitserk grabs your calf and you push yourself up, successfully mounting on the horse with his help. It feels funny to be this tall. You have ridden before, but most of the time you used a carriage. There was no need for a princess to ride on the back of a horse at Wessex. It's wild though, and you've grown to love wild things. “Keep your feet like this on the stirrups at all times. Don't put of your feet all the way in or it might get stuck if you fall. If you touch her with your ankles, she'll move forward. Pull the halters and she'll stop. The same thing goes to pull her left or right, but since we'll ride together she'll just follow the other horses.”

“Got it.”

“Your ass might hurt at the end of the day, so be prepared.” He warns before jumping to the back of his horse. “If it'll help you feel more steady, you can hold on the saddle, but trust me, you'll get the hang of it once you lose the fear of falling.”

“Have you ever fallen from a horse before?” As you speak, the small group starts moving, and your mare does the same, keeping their pace, slow at first until everyone starts galloping, and all air leaves your lungs. You hold tightly to the saddle, scared at first, but you remember what Hvitserk just told you. If you let the fear of falling win, you'll never learn to ride properly, and you'll never enjoy it. Slowly, you let go of the saddle, holding only on the halters, making sure it's loose so she'll feel free to run.

And the sensation is amazing. The wind makes your hair whip your face over and over, and you lightly shake your head to get rid of it. Glancing at Hvitserk, you mirror his position, a smile creeping over your lips. The landscape, green, blue, and gray, passes by in a blur, and you try to take it all in. It's beautiful, breathtaking. Almost literally, because when you finally stop, you're struggling to catch your breath.

“You ok?”

“Yeah.” You answer, and Hvitserk nods before moving to stand next to his father and brother. You see a small troop approaching, riding up the hill.

“You're quite good at this,” Bjorn says, guiding his horse away from his siblings and near you. “A few more lessons you'll be riding like a true Viking.”

“I really like it. Its... Thrilling.” You're finally calming down, and your thighs ache a little bit.

“Wanna see the traders coming?” Turning his horse around, he gestures at a cliff, not too many miles away. “We could go up there, it'll give us a nice view.”

“Isn't it a little high?”

“The horses are used to it. C'mon.” Without waiting for your answer, he starts galloping away.

Glancing at Hvitserk, you hold the halter tightly to keep the mare from moving. “You think I should?”

“Sure, it has a nice view. But if you feel like the trail there is too much you come back here, alright? The horses are used to it but you're not.”

“Alright.” Touching the mare with your ankles, you loose the halter and she immediately moves, following Bjorn's horse. It doesn't take much until you're deep inside the woods, the horses now trotting. Bjorn keeps silent, giving you a few glances since you're slightly behind him.

“That way.” He says, and you just let your ride follow his. The smooth ground soon starts changing, with more rocks, and becomes unravel. When you see a steep slope, with apparently nothing to hold on to, you pull the halters, making the mare stop.

“I think it's too craggy.” You speak up, getting Bjorn's attention. “I don't want to fall on my first try.”

“She's used to this kind of inclination. You'll be fine.”

Considering it and also what Hvitserk said, you decide to leave the cliff viewing for another day, when you feel more secure on the horse. “I think I'll pass, Bjorn. Maybe another cliff where I can go on foot.”

“Don't be a pussy. It's not that craggy.” Then, he kicks his horse hard and it sets in motion. It doesn't surprise you, but when the mare moves as well, following him, you're startled, and in the sudden change, you let the halter fall.

Holding on the sell, you can only watch as Bjorn's horse easily climbs the slope, at a fast pace, and yours do the same. But when it suddenly turns left, around a huge rock, you lose your balance, and since there's nothing to hold on to, both your feet escape the stirrups, and you're pulled to the ground hard. Losing your breath, a sting on your ankle makes you yelp as you roll down the slope, only stopping once the ground is flat again. Rolling on your back, you take deep breaths, trying not to move the left leg since the pain is spreading through your foot and calf. “Damn it!” You exclaim, removing the hair from your face.

“(Y/N)!” It takes only a few seconds until you see Bjorn kneeling by your side. “Are you alright?”

“I just fell from a horse and rolled down a hill!” You speak fast, the pain on your back making itself aware. “Of course I'm not fine!”

“Let me take you–” He says as he starts to pull you up.

“No.” You cut him off, slapping his hands away. Bjorn has done enough for today. If he wasn't trying to be a freaking show-off, this wouldn't have happened. “Go get–”

“(Y/N)?” You hear his voice and breathes out relief. “I heard a yell.”

“Over here. Lying on the ground.” Annoyed, you cover your eyes with both hands. “Can you please see if my ankle is broken?”

“What happened?” He asks in a low voice, and you uncover your eyes to see him jumping to the ground, kneeling next to your stretched out leg.

“Bjorn made his horse bolt up the slope and mine followed.” You explain, giving him a hard glance, groaning when Hvitserk lifts your leg to remove your boot. “Easy there!”

“Sorry.” He mumbles. “But calm down, it's not broken, just sprained.”

“Shit.” Taking a deep breath, you sit up taking off the other boot as well and throwing it at Bjorn. “You can't keep yourself from getting me hurt, can you?”

“Me? Everything you had to do was hold on. The horse–”

“I'm not a Viking!” Bursting out, you look up at him. “I'm not some shieldmaiden, I'm still trying to fit in here and learn things. You can't expect me to follow your pace.”

“I just–”

“Bjorn, you should get back. Help father with the traders, I'll take her back to Kattegat.” Hvitserk interrupts him, and Bjorn leaves after a grunt, saying something you couldn't understand.

“And he thinks he has the right to be pissed!” Lying back down, you groan. “I think this is a sign to stay away from him. Every time he's in the situation, I get hurt.”

“Alright, c'mon.” Hvitserk pulls your arm until you're seated again. “You need to put some ice on this ankle, let's go.” Hvitserk takes your mare first, tying her up with his horse before mounting and pulling you up to ride with him.

Despite the slow pace he keeps, your back still hurts. Resting your head on his back, you sigh. “Why are you so quiet?” You ask after a while.

“I'm thinking about the right words to tell this to mother. She won't be happy.” He answers, a hand resting on his thigh as the other holds the halter. “She's not very fond of Bjorn already.”

“It was partially my fault too, I think. I let the halter slip and had nothing to hold on to.”

“You're know Bjorn likes you, right?” Hvitserk suddenly says, and you pinch your eyebrows together. This thought hasn't crossed your mind. “That's probably why he did that. That's how he... Gets a woman's attention.”

“Would you do the kindness of telling him it's not working?” Muttering, you rest both your arms on his back folding them as if his shoulders were a table. “Actually, I've been meaning to tell you... I met Ivar at the market place today.”

“...And?” He asks after a few seconds of silence.

“Nothing, just... It was nothing, really.” It's hard to understand exactly what you want to tell Hvitserk. You just can't seem to put your feelings or thoughts together. “I was looking at these things and he said they wouldn't suit me.” Stretching out your arm, you show him the bracelet. “I bought this there.”

“That's nice. But cheap.” Rolling your eyes, you remember Ivar said pretty much the same thing.

“He also said I'm kind. But that was probably in a mocking tone, so...” You get into Kattegat, and Hvitserk greets some people. “I don't know.”

“I believe it's safe to assume Ivar doesn't hate you.” Hvitserk slows down the horse when a group of kids run by. “If he did, he wouldn't put himself on your way like that... Or look at you the way he does.”

“And how does he look at me?” The words come out slowly because you're not sure if you want to know.

“The only thing I can say for sure is that he never looked at a woman like that.” You finally get to Ragnar's house, and Hvitserk asks a man to help you down. Once you're safe on the ground, he jumps off, telling the man to take the horses. “And I mean it in a good way.”

He puts a hand around your waist, helping as you jump on the right foot until the table in the main hall. “Do you think he–”

“What happened this time?” Aslaug asks, her voice already giving out that she's not happy.

“Twisted ankle. She fell from the horse.”

“Take her to her room, Hvitserk.” The Queen mutters, saying something to the girls who were following her. “And carry her this time if that isn't too much to ask.”

“Alright.” He replies, picking you up with a hand on the small of your back and another under your legs, quickly finding the way to your chambers.

Giggling, you give him a look “I love when your mother–”

“Careful with the teasing this time. I might just drop you to the floor and I don't care if your a princess who fell off a horse.” The fake angry tone makes you laugh again.

“My bad, Prince Hvitserk.” You snap back, rolling your eyes.

Aslaug has her maids help you bathe first, cleaning the dirt that is attached to your face and hair before lying you on the bed again and applying a piece of fabric with cold water on your ankle, keeping it elevated with some pillows. She isn't happy to know the whole story, despite you assuring her it's alright now. You could've died, she said, breaking your neck. But it's useless to worry about what could've happened. The best thing to do now is to focus on the ankle, which she said will be better in a few days, and let the whole incident go.

Later that night, you give little jumps to the main hall to eat something. It's just Ubbe and Bjorn, seated on a table at the corner. Nodding at them, not wanting to chat with Bjorn at the moment, you sit at the edge of the table in the middle, your back turned at both men, taking the jar and pouring yourself something to drink.

“How's your ankle?” Ubbe asks, and you look over your shoulder.

“It's fine. I'll be able to walk normally in a few days. But my back still hurts.” Completely ignoring Bjorn's existence, you turn away from them again.

Drumming your fingers on the table, you wait for the Queen's maids to bring your meal. When you feel someone moving behind your back, you assume it's them, and place your cup further away to open some space. But instead of the bowl with rabbit stew, a necklace is put down before you. And it's absolutely beautiful, with three blue stones surrounded by a golden metal, delicately molded around it. It's different from anything you've ever seen in Wessex. Taking it in your hands, you see Ivar dropping to the seat next to you, and you turn to look at him.

“What is it?” You ask, unable to hide the smile that comes to your lips.

“A necklace.” He simply says, and you roll your eyes at his tone. What a way to ruin the mood.

“Yeah, I noticed.” The smile slowly drops as your eyes go back to the piece, fingertips caressing one of the stones.

“This was made for a princess. Not those cheap things.” He gestures at your bracelet, and you giggle.

“Well, this is absolutely beautiful.” Glancing at him, you find he was already staring. “Is it for me?” You inquire in a lower voice, not wanting to make any assumptions that might embarrass you.

Ivar nods, lightly pushing your shoulder. “Turn around. Let me put it on.”

Doing as he says, you turn your back at him. Ivar takes the necklace and places it around your neck, and you hold your hair up so he can close it on the back. Once he's done, you let the hair fall before turning to face him, folding your left leg and carefully laying the wounded ankle on the bench between you and Ivar. “How does it look?”

You wait for an answer, but it doesn't come. Ivar's eyes were fixed on the necklace, but slowly, they come to meet yours. Tilting your head to the side a little, you feel heat spreading through your cheeks.

Shaking your head lightly and looking down, you take a deep breath. “Have you heard that I fell from a horse this afternoon?” You're glad you got your brain to function, changing the subject. “Twisted my ankle.”

Ivar's stare falls to your bare feet on the bench, the skirt of your dress pulled up to your knee. “Mother told me it was someone else's doing.” As he speaks, Ivar gives an angry stare at where his two brothers are, and it's obvious who he's looking at. “But I think you'll survive.” You feel his fingers caressing your skin, from your knee and down through your calf, so softly you wonder if he's really touching you.

“I will.” You assure him, biting back a smile.

“Ivar,” Ragnar calls, and it does take a while until you both look at where he's standing, near the thrones. “Your mother wants to speak with you.”

“What now?” He asks, annoyed.

“I don't know. Go ask her.” And he disappears.

“Guess I'll have to go.” He glances at you, grabbing the clutch.

But before he can push himself up, you grab his arm. Perhaps you shouldn't do it. Perhaps this whole thing is just some kind of joke he's pulling on you, but still, the necklace is beautiful and he was... Kind. So you lean closer to him, placing a soft kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for the gift. It's very beautiful.”

Ivar is frozen, even after you let go of his arm. He stands there, blue eyes locked on yours. Slowly, painfully slow, a smile comes to his lips. And it feels different. True, genuine. “You're welcome, princess.” He whispers before pushing himself up to his feet and walking away.

You're still a little dazed when the rabbit stew comes, and you can do nothing but play with the spoon. But heavy footsteps get your attention, and when you look at your side, you catch a glimpse of a very angry Bjorn disappearing inside.

He saw everything. And it takes you by surprise to notice that, the moment you laid eyes on Ivar, you immediately forgot Bjorn and Ubbe were here. Everything just... Faded away, and there was nothing else, just you and him. And this is not the first time it happens.

×

@multific @revolution-starter @crackhead1-800 @youbloodymadgenius @clown-boyyy @kitten0394 @castielsangelx-blog @goldlion07 @midnightmystic @readsalot73 @xvxcarolinexvx @momowhoo @fangfoxy @msrawog @walkingonshunshine @alytavzla @anotherfan07

[andromedasstarship]

in the stars - chapter 5

pairing - aaron hotchner x reader 

warnings - canon-typical criminal minds violence, stalking, unhealthy coping mechanisms, drinking, angst

summary -  “Please,” he said, staring you straight in the eyes. “Don’t go.” 

a/n - i really love this chapter! cant wait to hear what yall think :DD also for reference i aged jack down just a year so hes 3 when haley passes away, about to turn 5 when reader & aaron get together. i dont claim any dialogue straight from Emma as mine! (emma dialogue is in italics) 

masterlist / series masterlist / read it on ao3 

chapter 4 / chapter 6 

-----

You were hyper-aware of the new way the team was looking at you as you entered the conference room. You shot a very anxious glance up towards Aaron, grateful for the very brief- but soft- glance he gave you before the business side of him took over again. You could feel the ghost of his hand hovering over that protective spot on your back again as he led you up towards the table. 

It felt like your eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets, upon seeing the seemingly endless piles of photos in front of you. Your brain was struggling to process everything that was laid out in front of you and you felt your heart rate start to pick up; seeing it in person was worse than anything your mind had created in the drive here. 

“Y/N.” 

Your eyes shot up to meet the voice and you saw Spencer looking down at you with a look that was just on the edge of pity. “We tried to sort the pictures into piles of time relativity. Would you be able to go through them and help us create a firmer timeline?” 

You nodded at that, vaguely aware of Aaron pulling a chair out behind you. You gladly slid down into it. Seeing Emily start to pick up one pile and push them towards you made you nervously laugh, the stress of the moment and how uncomfortable you felt forcing it out. When the entire team gave you a weird look you said, “Sorry, it just reminded me of last time.” 

You gently picked up the stack of photos, trying to hold them as lightly as possible. The knowledge that the unsub had packaged these himself sent a shiver down your spine. You knew it was silly, but you somehow felt that by touching the photos you were somehow also touching the remnants of the unsub. 

The first stack you easily dated as around four years ago, just from your hair; you’d drastically changed it for a role. You thumbed through the photos and could feel the knots in your stomach growing even tighter. Most of the photos were blurry and relatively distant from you, as if the unsub was still getting comfortable with what he was doing. 

“This was four years ago, I had to change my hair for a role and I’ve never had it like that before or again.” You said quietly, pushing the pile back to Emily. 

She nodded, giving you a gracious smile before pushing the next pile towards you. Your face fell immediately; something the team equated to how much more personal these set of photos seemed to be. You fanned the stack out in front of you. There weren’t many, as if even the unsub could recognize the inappropriate- ha!- nature of capturing you like this. In all of them you looked worn down, as if a cloud was following you everywhere you went. 

“This was about two years ago.” You said flatly. It took a moment, but you could see everyone connect the dots in their head and suddenly the room felt very small. 

Thankfully, the next pile was rather average and you guessed that this was just an ‘extra’ pile of photos that didn’t really seem to fit into a cohesive timeframe. As you scanned over them, one caught your eye and you pulled it a bit closer to you. You pointed a finger at the sign behind you. 

“This is an exclusive club house, it’s difficult to get into. Security’s intense and everyone that enters has to sign in.” You informed the team. JJ reached out and grabbed the photo, putting it to the side for later.

You turned your attention back to the pile, making sure to give each photo a proper amount of attention, desperate to notice something useful. 

“This one,” you said, pulling a blurry photo of yourself out of the pile. You were moving too fast for the camera to properly capture you, but you recognized the outfit. “I was wearing this the day Officer Reynolds told me you all were coming, isn’t this the outside of the station?” You said quietly.

JJ moved that photo to the ‘save for later’ pile as well. You gently re-stacked the pile and passed it towards Emily, waiting for the next one. 

You watched as Emily seemed to be literally holding her tongue as she pushed the next pile towards you, a certain playful glint in her eyes. Once you were able to look at it, you couldn’t help but snort. You could feel Aaron tense up besides you, but you could find the humor in it. The ‘Aaron’ pile. 

You fanned the stack out like you had done with the others, giving special attention to the details behind you. These were much more difficult to place and a much smaller pile, considering how careful the two of you had been. 

“These must’ve been in DC?” You questioned, not really expecting an answer. You looked up towards Aaron, raising an eyebrow as if to give him the opportunity to share his thoughts. “Whenever he came to LA, I had an iron grip on our security but it was a whole different field in DC-” 

Your sentence fell flat as your eyes went wide, nearly surging out of your seat up towards Aaron. He gave you a worried look, unable to place the sudden anxiety that had taken over you. “What about Jack?” You asked worriedly, “if he knows about you he must’ve found out about Ja-”

Aaron stopped you, putting a very gentle hand on the top of your shoulder, “He’s okay, I promise.” He said, using his hand to lightly push you back into a seated position. You nodded at that, eyes still wide, but your body seemed to deflate, the tension slowly leaving you. 

The rest of the team was quiet, recognizing the personal nature of the interaction. But it was impossible for them not to notice the way your bodies reacted to each other. The way your body’s natural response to a stressor had been to move closer to him and the way he angled himself in a protective stance around you near simultaneously. 

Emily pushed the final pile in front of you and you couldn’t help the corners of your lips pull up in a soft smile. You fanned out the stack of photos, taking a good look at all of them. They all seemed to either be promo photos or film photos of your time filming Mamma Mia in Greece. 

“This is definitely from Greece. But some of these are definitely promo photos, it’s why I’m ‘posing’ in a few of them.” You said, pushing out one that visually made your point. 

“What about this one? It feels a lot more intimate than a promotional piece.” Emily asked, pulling one out from the stack. In it, you were standing on the dock, face close to the camera. You had a big smile on your face and your thumbs up. 

“On set, we had a handful of little disposable cameras that everyone could use.” 

“Do you have any memory of who owned the cameras?” 

“I…,” you paused, eyebrows scrunched tightly in thought, “I don’t know. The studio distributed all the photos after the movie came out. They’re pretty public at this point, it was five years ago.” You said weakly, feeling really disappointed in your lack of help. “I’m sorry.” You added. 

Morgan stepped up closer to the table. “Don’t be okay? Now we know that the unsub has connections in Hollywood and we know he must be wealthy enough to fly to DC on a whim if he thought you were there. That helps narrow things down.” He assured you. 

“Are there any specific photographers that you’ve noticed? Or any guy you feel like you’ve seen too many times and it’s no longer a coincidence?” Spencer asked. 

You shook your head quickly. “I’m really used to cameras flashing in my face.” You said impishly. “I can remember a lot of fans that I meet, but if it’s just someone behind a camera I don’t think I’d really notice it at all.” 

You felt Aaron move away from you and towards the computer at the end of the table. He clicked a few buttons and suddenly a woman's face popped up on the screen. You recognized her immediately from all the stories and photos you’d seen. Penelope. 

Aaron brought the computer closer to where you were and her mouth dropped open for the second time today. 

“Oh my god! Hi! Wow! I am, I am such a fan. I just-, you’re always so-” 

“Garcia.” Aaron interjected but you raised your hand at him, giving him a ‘shoo’ gesture. The rest of the team had to stifle their laughter. 

“Hi, Penelope right? I’ve heard so much about you.” You said sweetly, leaning a bit closer to the camera. 

“Wow! Okay, I can’t believe this is-” 

“Garcia, I need you to pull up visitor logs from a clubhouse that Y/N used to visit. I want you to cross reference it with other visitor logs of recent film sets she’s been on and her housing development. She’ll be able to give you a more comprehensive list.” Aaron interjected, and this time you let him. 

You turned back to the screen, giving Garcia another smile. “The clubhouse is called Royal Blue, the picture couldn’t have been more than…, I think three years ago? But I’m not sure.” 

“Alright…, okay the visitor logs seem to be locked tight, but never too tight for me. What are some of those movie sets?” 

“The earliest photo is what? Five years ago?” You asked, looking around at the agents for approval. “Yeah, five years. So Mamma Mia, to start, Little Women. I’m working on Emma right now.” You droned, listing various movie sets you’d worked on in the past five years. 

“Oh my god! I have so many questions about Mamma Mia. Like what was it-,” Garcia’s question trailed off as she caught sight of Hotch giving her a firm stare from behind you. “Right sorry, alright. I will break into the clubhouse and cross reference all of these lists to see if anyone comes up more than once. It was so nice meeting you, I hope we get to-. Alright, hanging up now!” Garcia said in a rushed voice. You watched her click a button on her end and the screen went black. 

You leaned back into your chair, staring up at the rest of the team . “So…,” you said, drawing out the word, “what now?” 

-----

“What are you doing?” Aaron’s asked, voice coming out from behind you. 

You comically froze, hand just short of picking your keys up from the table. You slowly turned to face him, straightening your tote bag over your shoulder. “Oh! There you are, I was just on my way to come find you.” You said lightly, trying to diffuse some of the tension in the room. Aaron didn’t say anything, waiting for you to go on. “Johnny and I have plans tonight.” You said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world  

On your part, you’d already forgotten about the whole ‘I’m on a date’ aspect on your earlier phone call with Aaron. In your mind, there wasn’t anything inherently suspicious about you going to spend time with him in the evening.

Aaron was viewing the entire situation in a very different light. When he had first come around the corner, he noticed how nice you looked. When the two of you had finally returned to your place you immediately went up to your room, disappearing for quite some time. He had originally thought maybe you were upset, the cognitive interview hadn’t revealed anything and even though he knew you didn’t really believe in their accuracy, he also knew how badly you wanted to be of ‘use’ for the case. 

In your time upstairs, you had changed your outfit and styled your hair just enough to give it that ‘unstyled-styled’ look. It’s not like you were glammed out or anything, the only reason you’d put on a nice outfit was on the off chance you were photographed- hopefully not by the unsub-, on your way into Johnny’s apartment. 

“And what is it that you’re supposed to be doing?” Aaron asked, trying to keep his voice as nonchalant as possible. 

“Um, nothing much,” You said with an awkward laugh, when he was still looking at you expectantly you tilted your head. “I’m supposed to go to his place and we’re gonna run lines for the scenes we’re filming this week.” You explained. 

“I can’t endorse you going out at night. Especially to someone’s home that we don’t have eyes on.” Aaron said firmly. 

You rolled your eyes at that, picking up your keys. “Johnny’s fine, he’s been in the same place as me when nearly all the bodies were discovered.” You argued, putting one hand on your hip. 

“With the recent development in the cases, I can’t let you do this.”

You started to walk towards him, intending to go around him. “Aaron-” 

His hand shot out and gently grabbed you by the arm, stopping you from getting past him. 

“Hey!-” 

“Please,” he said, staring you straight in the eyes. “Don’t go.” 

Your mouth fell open slightly in a mild form of shock. ‘We’re just running lines, I really need-” 

“I’ll do it with you.” Aaron interjected hurriedly. “We’ve done it before, I’m not too bad at it, huh?” He said teasingly. 

You pondered that for a minute. You and Aaron had run lines together plenty of times in the past, it was always something you got a kick out of, seeing Aaron try and morph into whatever character he was reading for. And while it wouldn’t be as productive as running them with your actual co-star, you reasoned it’d still be good enough. And as much as you hated to admit it, Aaron probably had a point about you not going out, especially in the evening.  

“Fine. I just need to go call Johnny and tell him something came up.” You huffed, pretending to be more annoyed than you were. 

“Here,” you said, reaching into your bag and pulling out your script, “I already have most of my lines memorized, I’ll just need you to fill in if I miss any. I have a pink sticky note denoting the scene we were going to start with. You’re reading as Knightely. I’ll meet you in the living room, alright?” You said, pushing the script into his hands as you walked around him towards the kitchen, pulling your phone out at the same time. 

----

“No, I’m just saying I think it’d be more believable or whatever if we did a few more like nonchalant meals before like, running errands together or something, ya know?” You said lazily into the phone, holding it between your ear and shoulder as you used your hands to mix up a drink for yourself. Out of the corner of your eye you caught sight of the Dalmore. You reached out with one hand and carefully pulled it down, still remembering exactly how Aaron liked to take a drink. 

“What meal really screams ‘we’re dating’? Dinner? That’s like the longest meal of the day, that’s gotta show some sort of commitment.” Johnny asked. 

“Hm…,” you droned, “well we just had a lunch. If we want to kick it into high gear, we should do breakfast. Perfect ‘just spent the night’ remedy.” You said with a snort. 

Aaron cleared his throat behind you and the sound made you jump. You pulled the phone away from your ear and saw you’d been blabbering for nearly half an hour. 

‘Oh. Sorry.’ You mouthed to Aaron, before pulling the phone back to your ear. “Hey Johnny gotta go, but we’ll figure it out later! Yeah…, for sure, bye!” You hung up and placed your phone on the counter. Then you grabbed the drink you had poured for him, holding it out. 

“It’s Dalmore.” You said plainly. 

“I’m working.” He responded. 

You rolled your eyes at that and held it out more aggressively. “Take it.” 

You watched happily as he begrudgingly took it out of your hand, though you knew it wasn’t too difficult for him. You picked up your own glass and tucked your phone into the waistband of your pants. “Ready? Sorry, got carried away.” 

While the two of you walked back into your living room, it was obvious something was bothering Aaron. You briefly wondered if something had developed in the case that he wasn’t telling you. 

‘What is it?” You asked. 

He looked down at you, confused. “What is what?” 

“Don’t play dumb, you have a tell.”  You explained, stopping to look up at him.  

“I do not have a tell.” Hotch replied annoyedly. 

“Yes you do.” 

“No, I don’t.” 

“If you want to be a baby about it, fine you don’t have a tell. Tell me what’s wrong anyway.” 

“I’m trying to understand why you lied about not having a boyfriend nor seeing anyone recently. We’ll need to fully vet Johnny and look into his files, even if you don’t see it becoming serious.” Aaron near spat.

You snorted. “What do you mean lied?” 

“You very clearly told me you weren’t seeing anyone, yet today has proven those claims to be false.” 

“I know that sometimes, I like to be a huge pain but I’m serious, what are you talking about? I’m not seeing anyone.” 

“Your co-star, Johnny? You told me you were on a date with him today. I just heard you on the phone make plans to stay with him overnight. I saw the pictures of-” 

“Stop! Oh my god, I can’t believe you actually believed that.” You said, unable to hold back the laughter that bubbled out of you. 

“Believed it? You’re the only who told me!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have assumed you read through the lines. Johnny and I have been going on publicity dates. We’re just friends.” 

“What were you supposed to be doing tonight then?” 

“We were legitimately going to run lines. Maybe get ice cream, we’re trying to determine the best ice cream in LA.” 

That’d explain the outfit, Aaron thought. 

“And the phone call I just heard?” 

“We were debating which meal screams ‘dating’. He thinks it’s dinner. I think it’s breakfast, ya know, cause it implies you spent the night.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me that, before.” 

“Don’t you remember when I had kinda the same thing with Timothee during Little Women? They made us hang out a bunch so the tabloids could just do their thing. I just assumed you’d fill in the blanks.” 

Aaron was staring at you as if you had two heads. It was almost like you could see the gears turning in that head of his. Internally, he was more than embarrassed for how upset he’d gotten over the idea of you with someone else. 

When it seemed that Aaron had nothing else to say, you started to walk again, not stopping until you were both back in your living room. You plopped down in ‘your spot’ on the couch, playfully patting the space a few cushions down that Aaron typically sat in. 

“Crack open that script, I hope you looked through it. If you’re making me stay home, you better be useful!” You said pleasantly, trying to change the atmosphere into something more playful. 

Aaron awkwardly sat himself down on the couch next to you, picking the script back up. As you watched him flip the script open and further acquaint himself with the lines you couldn’t help but feel a sharp pang in your chest. It was such an unavoidable reminder of the way the two of you used to run lines together when you were still dating. You had learned early on that Aaron best showed his affection through acts of service and he actually wasn’t that bad at delivering a line. Since the two of you were rarely together in person- it’s not like you’d let him waste a visit with you building a shelf or running an errand-, running lines with you was the easiest way for him to feel useful. 

-----

Four Years Ago

“Okay Jack, you ready?” You asked, smiling down at the young boy standing across from you. He was dressed up in his winter clothes, despite the blazing heat of the summer. You and Aaron had tried to talk him out of it, but he demanded it’d be the only way for him to fully get into character. And who were you two to deny him? The sweet boy nodded, barely being able to contain his excitement as he bounced up and down on his feet. 

“Alright, places everyone!” You yelled out, holding the diy paper clapperboard Jack had made for you. You held it out from your body and did a very exaggerated clapping motion. “Action!” You said, quickly throwing the clapperboard to the couch. 

“Carrots!” Jack said, his voice more than enthusiastic for the role. 

“Huh?” You said, heavily overselling your voice and reaction. Even with the one simple word, Jack was already in giggles, struggling to keep it together. 

He leaned in closer to you, standing up on his tiptoes. “Behind you!” 

“Oh! Right, excuse me.” You said, stepping to the side and gesturing to the ‘carrots’ behind you. 

You made your voice really low to play the next part. “Woh, a real howler in July, yea? Where ever could it be coming from?” You asked, placing your chin in between your thumb and pointer finger. 

Jack kept giggling at your ‘deep’ voice, he held his ‘script’ up to his face to read his next line. “The North Mountain.” 

You jokingly ran a hand in front of your face, signaling a character switch. “North Mountain.” You stage whispered. You ran your hand in front of your face again, going serious. “That’ll be forty.” You said, holding your hand out with a ‘gimme’ gesture. 

Jack smacked your hand gently to ‘give you’ the money. But after his face fell ever so slightly. “Can we skip to when Daddy gets to come in??” He asked, giving you those big eyes you couldn’t possibly say no to. 

You stood back, putting your weight on your back leg with one hand on your hip. “Hmm.., I think that could be arranged.” You reached over to grab the clapperboard. “Alright everyone! Back to places, but let’s start at ‘Hi everyone’, okay?” 

Jack nodded excitingly and turned back to where he knew Aaron was standing, partially hidden by the hallway. “Places daddy!” He urged, pointing to where he should come stand. 

Aaron came out from around the corner and you quickly covered your mouth with your hand, trying to hold in the laughter. Aaron had a big white hat on his head and had let Jack put a small orange dot on his nose. You and Jack had definitely double teamed poor Aaron, dragging him into your little ‘movie game’ as Jack liked to call it. The three of you had started doing this a few months ago, Jack loved ‘running lines’ with you and you were more than happy to oblige him. It had started when a sleepy Jack had stumbled into the living room one night when he couldn’t sleep and he saw you and Aaron running lines for one of your other movies. Jack had taken to it so much you ended up ‘hiring’ him to help you with your more child friendly roles. 

“Alright, alright. Quiet on set!” You said, making a big deal of you bringing your index finger up to your lips in a ‘shush’ motion. “Action!” 

“Hi everyone. I’m Olaf. And I like warm hugs.” Aaron recited robotically , very clear that he was reading directly from the paper. You smacked your hand back over your mouth, unable to control the giggles. Once you started laughing, Jack fell into his own fit of laughter; both of you fueled off the others amusement. 

Of course, when you finally pulled yourself back together, a quick look at the way Aaron was standing with fake annoyance across his face and his arms crossed tightly against his chest sent you back into fits of laughter. 

“Are you two done?” Aaron asked, no true malice in his voice. 

It was rare that the three of you all got to spend time together. He’d been wary of introducing you to Jack. It wasn’t really a ‘you’ thing, but it was more of how Jack would be able to deal with it. There were the typical worries, what if you and Jack didn’t get along? Or what if you two did get along really well but then you and Aaron broke up and it hurt him even further? While you never intended to try and replace his ‘mom’, you still worried that your chaotic schedule would somehow hurt him, skewing his perception of yet another ‘parental’ figure. Not to mention the issues with him being able to keep your identity and presence in his life a secret; he wouldn’t even be able to tell people like Uncle Rossi that his dad was seeing someone. 

But now, you’d been with Aaron for over two years. And Jack had known about you for about a year now. And everything had been going perfect. Jack was a stellar secret keeper, the unfortunate events of his childhood maturing him faster than any child deserved and he was able to fully understand the importance of the situation. The two of you had taken to each other quite quickly and every night the three of you would have a ‘bedtime’ call; even on the nights when Aaron was busy with a case you’d still call Jack on your own. You loved spoiling him with whatever hot new toy was popular among kids his age or getting him special early copies of movies before they came out. Aaron used to get on you about it, saying it wasn’t necessary, but you argued it was the most necessary thing in the world. 

And now here the three of you were. Nestled away in Aaron’s apartment in DC. You had just flown in after wrapping up a shoot abroad and were just in time for the start of summer. Even though your career was at a seemingly new high, you had managed to secure a relatively empty summer. After long consideration and planning you and Aaron decided it’d be a nice treat for Jack to go spend a month or so with you in LA. You’d consulted heavily with many of your friends who kept their children completely hidden from the spotlight and had hired an airtight security team to assist you the entire time. Aaron was supposed to come out when he could, but you were all aware of how turbulent his poor schedule could be. Schedule permitting, you all would spend the next three days at Aaron’s apartment before you and Jack took off. 

“Daddy! You sound like a robot.” Jack said, scolding Aaron. His voice brought you out of your thoughts and you looked down at him with a big smile. 

“Daddy’s just no good at this huh?” You asked, shaking your head. “He’s no match for our talent, Jack!” 

“This is really hot.” Jack said, holding up his arms. He must’ve been sweating his butt off in all those winter layers. 

“You’re kidding me! I wonder who could’ve seen that coming.” You said sarcastically, reaching over to pull off his big hat and zip down the first of multiple jackets he put on. “I’ve heard that ice cream cools you down…,” 

“Ice cream!’ Jack exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. He didn’t even look to his father for ‘permission’, knowing by now you had the most sway in the house. 

“Go put on some normal clothes okay? Wouldn’t be fun if you passed out in your ice cream bowl, huh?” You told him, ruffling his hair before he dipped under your arm, making a mad dash for his room. 

“He hasn’t even had lunch yet, you know that right?” Aaron asked, giving you a fake stern look as he walked over to where you were standing. 

You rolled your eyes at that, reaching up to snatch the white hat off his head, letting your arms fall loosely around his neck. “Does it upset you that I’m always the cool one?” You asked teasingly, reaching up on your tiptoes to press the gentlest kiss on his lips. 

He gave you one of his small smiles, reaching down to press a second kiss to your lips. “How was your flight in?” He asked, one of his hands wrapping protectively around your waist as the other one found its way by your hair, gently stroking down it the way you liked. 

You let your head relax against his touch and pretended to think for a moment. Instead of answering you reached up again, pressing your lips against his, pressing yourself closer to him. You both thought you could stay this way forever; it being the first time you saw each other, in person, in nearly two months. 

“Gross!” Jack’s voice seemingly cut through the two of you. Aaron was the one to pull away first, quietly laughing so only you could hear. 

“Later.” He promised in a whisper. 

You loosened your grip on him, turning to face Jack. “Oh Jack! Funny seeing you here, ice cream, right?” 

----- 

Present Day.

“Page 103, right?” He asked, skipping to the bright pink sticky note you had used as a place marker. 

You jolted out of your memories, feeling the heat rise up your neck as you prayed it wasn’t too obvious you had just completely zoned out. 

“Yep!” You squeaked out, “page 103, line 19, you start.” You said, waving your hands. 

“And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my enemy, you will not ask me why, you are, you are determined, I see, to have no curiosity but I cannot be wise-” He started, keeping his eyes near glued to the page. 

You frowned, shaking your head a bit. “Stand up.” You ordered, already getting to your feet. 

“Excuse me?” Aaron asked. 

“Stand up,” you repeated, motioning upwards with your palms. “This,” you said, motioning between the two of you, “doesn’t feel right if we’re seated, we’re supposed to move around in this scene, it’s supposed to be painful.” You explained. 

He slowly stood up, looking at you for permission to start again. 

“From where you left off, please.” 

“I must tell you, Emma, what you will not ask! Though I may wish it unsaid the next moment-” 

“So do not speak it.” You cut in. “If you wish to speak to me, as a friend or to ask my opinion as a friend I will hear whatever you like.”

“As a friend, Emma. That I fear is a word, tell me Emma. Have I no chance of ever succeeding?” He asked, looking up at you for further approval, you nodded and he continued. “My dearest Emma, my dearest, you will always be my dearest most beloved Emma, tell me at once. I cannot make speeches, if I, if I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more-” 

“Let’s do a different part, yeah?” You interrupted, voice incredibly tight. You ducked from his gaze, reaching to bring your glass to your lips. 

“Isn’t this the scene you have to practice?” Aaron asked, raising his brow at you. 

“It doesn’t matter,” you replied, taking a long sip, “any practice as the character will be helpful.” 

“If this is the one that’s troubling you, we should go over it.” He pressed. 

“Page 56, start at line 9.” You ordered, throwing back the rest of your glass. “Read it over, I’ll be back.” 

Before you could fully turn to go and refill your glass, Aaron lunged forward and grabbed your arm, pulling you towards him. The sudden movement caused you to stumble, throwing your hands out to steady yourself against his chest. 

“You’ve been drinking a lot.” He stated, repositioning his grip on your arm. 

“Am I not allowed to have a drink or two in my own home?” You challenged. 

“What are you running away from?” Aaron asked, his voice so gentle it made your knees weak. 

“You.” You whispered, after a long pause. You looked up at him with sad eyes and only found confusion in his. “I can’t, I-, don’t you see how funny it is? Your character is desperate for mine to be with and my character is the one to deny yours.” 

Your confession pulled sharply on his heart. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything, not sure there were any words to appropriately apologize for how he had treated you. 

“Why didn’t you ever call?” You asked, voice so quiet he almost didn’t hear you. 

“I, I-” He stuttered, unable to think of an answer fast enough. 

“I waited for weeks,” you said, looking up at him with a look that nearly brought him to his knees. “I waited so long and you never called.” 

He brushed the hair out of your face, letting his hand fall gently against your cheek. His thumb caught a stray tear that had started to fall, softly brushing it away. “I don’t know.” He responded, his voice as quiet as your. “I don’t know, you didn’t deserve that.” 

You pressed your face into his hand, closing your eyes as you felt more tears managing to sneak past you. He was finally admitting words you had dreamed of hearing for years, but yet you were unable to find any joy in them. 

“You didn’t deserve that.” He repeated, sliding his hand towards the back of your head, pulling you firmly against his chest, while his other arm wrapped tightly around your waist. You let your body relax into his, slowly bringing your own arms up loosely around his neck. 

You felt him gently press the faintest of kisses to the top of your head. “I’m so sorry angel.” He mumbled into your hair. 

You pulled your head out from under him, looking up at him with big eyes. The two of you were silent, basking in each other's presence. Your eyes flickered down to his lips multiple times; something he duly picked up on. Just as you began to push up on your toes, nearly pressing your lips to his, eyes half closed in anticipation, his phone rang out. 

You froze, falling back onto your heels with a small sigh. “Answer it, I’m getting a refill.” You said, pulling yourself out of his grasp. He gave you an uncertain look, as if he wanted to pull you back in and ignore the call completely. 

You wagged a finger in front of him, shaking your head. In on fluid movement, you grabbed your glass and nearly ran out of the room

-----

It took you ten minutes to calm yourself down and another five to hype yourself up to return to your living room. And that was after you had made yourself a new drink. 

When you entered the living room, Aaron’s back was to you; still locked on the phone. The tension was clear in his shoulders and your eyes drifted down to his free hand that you knew would be clenched in a fist. It was. 

“Thank you Garcia, tell the team we’ll be there soon.” He said, pulling the phone away from his ear and hanging up. 

“Aaron?” You asked. 

He rolled his shoulders back, trying to loosen some of the tension from his shoulders for your benefit. He slowly turned back towards you, his face pulled in frustration. 

“LAPD just reported another body.”

-------

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no permission is given to copy or republish my writing on any other platform or account. if you see this story outside of my blog or my ao3 it is stolen work. i do not own nor claim to own criminal minds or any of the character involved in it.