#about halfway through we get a round of ‘wishes may bring problems such that you regret them better that though than to never get them’

[sassmill]

Did you know?

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo is actually just like Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

[eloquent-vowel]

I have had a few bucky x read fic ideas bouncing around in my head and i cant write! So here is one,

Sam find a person who stairs and doesnt talk a whole lot because they uses ✨telepathy ✨. So Sam think they would be a good fit for Bucky, but he doesn’t know they have that power he just thinks they are mute. Then there is a thing where the reader is telling Buck how it works and they if they have something to connect them together like an object *reader motions to dog tags* they can have an unbreakable mind link. Then they fall in love or something. This is dumb, thank you for coming to my TedTalk

Hey! Thank you so much for this request, it wasn't dumb at all. I really enjoyed writing this. I may have gotten a bit carried away, this may sit close to 4000 words but we vibe. I hope this is what you had in mind! Please enjoy! <3

Click here for my masterlist of other fics and check in my bio for requests if anyone wishes to ask!

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Bucky had been enjoying a moments peace, he loved working with Sam but sometimes all he wanted was to put his feet up, put on some vinyl and enjoy a good cup of coffee all while reading a brilliant book. He had been trying to get into Game of Thrones lately, on Sam’s insistence, and he had been enjoying it. With the crackles of Glenn Miller from the turntable he missed the clunky footsteps coming up the stairs.

The sight that greeted Sam needed to be photographed. Bucky was lounging back on his ‘old man armchair’ feet up, hair in a towel, in a bathrobe, coffee in hand and facemask on, this was definitely one for the family album.

At the sound of the phone shutter Bucky practically launched himself out of the chair.

“Oh, you are never gonna live this one down old boy, it’s going to haunt you.” Sam almost cackled evilly as he began to email the photo to himself- he had learnt the hard way that Bucky was very proficient at breaking phones.

“You better not upload that photo anywhere, Wilson, I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Pfft, reputation, that’s funny.”

Bucky scoffed as he stood up, placing his book carefully on the side table, “Big scary super soldier, people hardly run-in fear from a guy in a bathrobe.”

“I disagree, a man in a bathrobe is definitely something you should run from. AH NOPE!” Sam jumped backwards, on top of a nearby chair, as Bucky lunged for the phone, towel turban falling off in the process. “You are not breaking this phone as well.”

“Fine. But you gotta promise not to post that anywhere.” Bucky huffed.

“I won’t.”

“Good.”

“As long as- “

“Oh no, I’m not doing anything for you.”

“Think of it as payment for the last phone you broke and insurance for this picture.”

There was silence for a moment as the two friends eyed each other up. Sam raised his eyebrows, Bucky’s eyes narrowed. It was an intense staring match between a guy in a bathrobe and a precariously balanced man. A clock ticked.

“Fine.” Bucky conceded. “What do you want?”

“For you to come to a meeting.”

“The families of Veterans ones?”

“Yeah.” Sam slowly started climbing down from the chair. “And before you get your old man pants in a twist, I’m not trying to force you to talk or anything, kinda.”

“Kinda?” Suspicion laced through Bucky’s voice.

“You know sign language, right?”

“Which kind?”

“American? I think?”

“Yeah, I know ASL, might be a bit rusty but I’m sure it still holds up. Why do you ask?”

Sam shifted slightly on his feet, “There’s this person, they come in every week and listen. I tried to talk to them, but they communicate through sign language, and I don’t have anyone there to talk with them.” He cast his eyes to the floor, “I feel bad. They were brave enough to come to the group only to basically be ignored ‘because we didn’t plan well enough.”

Bucky smiled, face mask crinkling around his smile lines, “You could have just asked me to Sam. You didn’t have to blackmail me into this, of course I’ll help. When’s the next meeting?”

“This evening. You gonna be ready or do you need some more ‘me’ time.”

Bucky simply chuckled at Sam’s teasing tone, patted his shoulder making sure to squeeze just a bit too hard before retreating to his room.

“I’ll be there, Wilson, and I will look so much younger than you!”

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It was frustrating to you, going along to these meetings and not being able to communicate. You could always speak into someone’s mind but all that usually accomplished was a very paranoid person. But just listening to other’s stories really helped the grief from losing someone so close to you. You related to most of the people there and even though they didn’t understand you a lot of the time, you were always made to feel welcome- with friendly pats on the back and the odd tissue thrown your way.

You bustled into the familiar building with a new sense of excitement as Sam had promised to bring a translator for you this week. It was finally time to say your thanks to some of the people there and finally let the group know about your brother, so that it wasn’t only you that remembered him.

You all but ran through the hallways until you caught sight of a familiar smiling man. Sam was facing you, talking animatedly to another man, the strangers back was to you. He was tall, broad shouldered and dressed in a vintage looking leather jacket and rather well fitted trousers. Now the debate was: does the tailoring make the ass, or does the ass make the tailoring. You were halfway through the arguments on either side when Sam shouting your name disrupted the intense debating in your mind. You blushed at being caught, then blushed some more when you caught sight of the stranger’s face. Twinkling blue eyes under a deep-set brow should have made him intimidating, but he was smiling, and his face was dazzling. There was an immediate fluttering in your stomach.

“Hey, I’m Bucky.” Dear lord even his voice was nice, what made you smile even more was the fact that he signed as he spoke. Well, Sam certainly knew how to pick them well. “Sam introduced me; said you wanted an interpreter.”

You nodded as you signed back, “Nice to meet you, thank you for helping out.”

“No problem, Sam has told me a bit about you.”

“Good things I hope.”

“Okay I recognise my own name, you two better not be conspiring against me.” Sam piped up, to be honest you had forgotten about him for a moment.

Bucky laughed, and it sent a little thrill down you, he really was adorable.

“No worries, Wilson, just letting them know all your dirty little secrets.”

“Right, you two get in there, before you make me sleep with one eye open.”

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You and Bucky caught each other’s eye, his eyes were twinkling with mischief, and you couldn’t help the smile that overtook you. You had a feeling that the two of you would get on just fine.

The meeting passed easily. Bucky translated your signs and you finally felt like you could actually take part in these meetings. Everyone listened intently when you spoke of your brother and when you had thanked the whole group for being so open to you a couple of people shed a tear. By the end of the meeting though you were tired and very accepting of Bucky’s offer to walk you home.

It was a lot of side glances and hidden smiles and you walked side by side. Drawn to each other under the moonlit sky, it was nice to just be in the presence of someone who had such a kind aura. You spent the walk trying to work up the confidence to sign something, anything but nothing came to mind and Bucky seemed quite content to just walk in comfortable silence.

You soon reached your home, you turned to Bucky with a smile on your face and signed,

“Thanks for today, Bucky. You were really helpful.”

“No problem.” He signed back,

You hesitated slightly before signing, “Would you be happy to have a coffee with me, tomorrow?”

Bucky went a little red in the face, and chuckled, “I would love to, I know a nice place, real cosy. I’ll text you the details.”

“You know how to text?”

“Hey! I get enough stick from Sam, don’t need you getting on my case too. I’ll have you know that I am very adaptable.”

“Sure, Sure.” You smiled at his flustered tone. “I’ll wait for your text then, have a good evening.”

“You too.”

The two of you stared slightly awkwardly at each other, neither wanting to be the first to turn around. You shuffled your feet away slowing, smiling awkwardly once more at Bucky before turning. You heard his footsteps start to fade away as you walked towards your home. You were but three steps to the door when a large figure in a hoodie slammed into you, you raised your arms instinctively to block them when you noticed your shoulder was lighter. The bastard had stolen your bag.

You immediately took chase, chasing around the corner you just walked down but they were fast, faster then you at least. As you rounded the corner you caught sight of Bucky walking ahead. The thief wouldn’t stand a change against him. Without a second thought you cast your thoughts towards Bucky,

“Bucky! Thief! My Bag! Behind you!”

You saw Bucky flinch slightly then turn bewildered, his eyes widening when he saw you hurting towards him, chasing the hooded figure. He caught on and launched after the thief as well, with barely any effort he knocked the thief to the ground, grabbed your bag and whipped out his phone to call the cops.

Well, that was hot.

You took your bag back, immediately checking that you brother’s lucky coin was in the zippy pocket, to your relief it was still there. You looked up to see Bucky staring at you with a very puzzled look on his face. You sighed before casting your thoughts to his head once more,

“I’ll explain later.”

Bucky let out a strange, decompressed noise of shock, it made you giggle. The two of you waited in silence until the police came and took the thief away. The police car had barely driven away when he turned to you.

“Did you just, talk in my head? Or did my conscious just suddenly get really loud.”

“I did. Hi. Sorry about that.”

He waved his hands dismissively. “Believe it or not, not the weirdest thing I’ve encountered.”

“Well, that’s reassuring.”

There was an awkward silence.

“So,” You started, resorting back to sign language, it felt less invasive, “Still down for coffee?”

Bucky smiled, “One hundred percent. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Bye Bucky. Thanks for getting my bag back.”

“No problem, see ya.”

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The coffee shop that Bucky invited you to, was tucked away, it was the kind of place that you would stumble over on accident. With a simple door and a big window out the front, that lead soft orange light filter out onto the alley. There was the faint sound of jazz leaking out of the building, you smirked. It was such an old fashioned place, of course this was where Bucky frequented.

The bell tinkled slightly as you entered the café, where you were greeted with the smell of fresh coffee and baked goods. You caught sight of Bucky’s broad shoulders sitting in the corner, and you made your way over to him, smiling at the barista as you passed.

As if sensing you, Bucky turned to smile and wave. He was dressed in casual clothes like last time, but this time his hair was loose around his shoulders. You smiled back before settling into the seat opposite him.

His hands moved hesitantly as he signed, “What would you like? I can recommend their hot chocolate, its very warming/”

“Hot chocolate it is.”

You could tell he wanted to ask you a million questions but to his credit he walked slowly to get the drinks, he even took his time carefully carrying the tray of drinks back to your table. He placed a delicious looking hot chocolate in front of you. You watched as he took a sip.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1-

“So,” Here we go, “What is it you can do, you can speak in peoples’ heads, can you,” He lowered his voice and leaned in, “Can you read people’s minds?”

You giggled slightly, his eyes were basically sparkling, he was definitely nerding out about this.

You set the hot chocolate down before casting your thoughts to his head, “I can speak in peoples heads relatively easily, it’s how I talk most of the time to people I know. I guess you could call it Telepathy.”

Bucky’s eyes were as wide as saucers, “So you can’t read thoughts, only… speak them?”

“I like to call it casting, makes me feel like a sorcerer. I can read thoughts, but it takes a lot of energy. I used to be able to talk with my brother from across the house. That usually requires some kind of connection.”

“Oh, so like a blood or family connection? Do you have to know the person very well?”

“That certainly helps but it’s not always necessary. If I have a personal object that belongs to that person, something I can hold and connect to them it isn’t hard to make a two-way connection. Especially if that person is willing to open their mind.”

Bucky seemed to be caught in thought for a second. “So, if I were to give you something of mine, we could both talk in our… heads?”

“Well yes, but Bucky we have only just met. Letting me into your head is a lot. I try not to pry but sometimes I’ve found that thoughts just burst through. Let’s get to know each other a before that happens.”

Bucky smiled at you before speaking and signing, “You’re right. Let’s get to know one another. I find you fascinating.”

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It happened on the fifth date. Bucky was just walking you home after a lovely dinner at a small Italian that he claimed he went to back in the 40s. Just outside your door, under the glow of a lamppost he turned to you and took a deep breath before speaking.

“I know this may be a lot, but I wanted to give you these.” He reached around his neck and pulled off something silver. You gasped slightly as he held out his dog tags, immaculately preserved after all these years.

“Are you sure, Bucky? This is a lot.”

“I know and if you aren’t comfortable with it then just let me know but I want to give them to you.”

“You know what this means Bucky?”

“Yeah, I know, I just figured that you’re already in my head all the time anyways, just can’t seem to get you out of it.”

“You cheeseball.” You smirked at him before taking the dog tags and placing them around your neck. You gripped the cold metal for a moment, concentrating on the man in front of you. Taking everything, you knew about him and stretching out a connection, like a hand reaching out to clasp another.

“Testing, Testing, Testing, one two, one two, can my Telepathic partner hear me?”

You laughed, “Yes I can Bucky, you big dork.”

Bucky whooped out loud before sweeping you up in a big hug. The two of you laughing under the lamp light. His joy was infectious, and you couldn’t fight the smile off your face.

“Oh, we are going to have so much fun messing with Sam.”

“You’re evil.”

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Of course, the two of you made a pact not to tell Sam until he worked it out, which wouldn’t be anytime soon according to Bucky. It led to some very memorable moments and Sam refusing to play any form of card or board game with either of you because you always managed to win, somehow. Not to mention all the times you had spoken in eery unison around him.

“I swear, its like you two can read each other’s minds sometimes.” Sam threw his hands up in frustration at another lost game of charades.

You smirked at Bucky across the room, “Should you tell him, or shall I?”

“I think he’s been through enough, I got it.”

Bucky cleared his throat, “We can.”

Sam whipped around to face Bucky, a look of sheer disbelief on his face, “Seriously Bucky-boy, if you think I believe that after all-

“Hello Sam.” You cast your thoughts to him, in the creepiest old lady voice you could muster.

Sam yelped, before turning accusingly at you, “You better be joking around with me right now, I am not dealing with any kind of ghosts in this house.”

“Sorry! Surprise I’m telepathic!”

“You’re serious.”

You nodded.

Sam put his head in his hands and sighed, “Not the weirdest thing ever. Wait, does this mean you have been cheating this entire time.”

You both looked guiltily at one another.

“You owe me. That poker night, void.”

You both laughed, “We’ll have a fair rematch this time Sam.”

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It had been close to a year since you had made it official with Bucky and you were now much more comfortable around one another. He no longer just dropped you off at the lamppost but cam inside with you. You had spent many lovely mornings together sharing glances over steaming cups of coffee. Fighting each other for who got to spread their legs out on the couch, there wasn’t really a loser though as it usually ended up in sofa cuddles for both of you, while watching a film.

Life was pretty great, you thought, as you smiled down at the sleeping Bucky beside you. Finally reaching over to turn off the lamp and put your book down, you were finally reading the hobbit at Bucky’s insistence. As you clicked off the light beside you and settled down you noticed the faster than usual breathing coming from beside you.

“Bucky?”

You reached out, thinking he was awake but instead as you opened up your connection you caught flashes of night terrors. You were falling indefinitely, snow all around you, and in the distance, there were cries of pain, people pleading for their lives, there was gunfire and explosions. You gasped and took off the dog tags. You only gave yourself a moment to breathe before trying to shake Bucky awake. When it became clear that he wasn’t stirring you steadied yourself and settled your hands on his temples. You didn’t care you tired this would make you, you just wanted Bucky to stop suffering. You focused, offering out that hand of connection again, this time picturing it in the shape of a fist and, although it wasn’t subtle, you tried to shake Bucky’s brain awake. You forced your way into his dreams, punching through the dark fog that clouded his thoughts and almost screamed at him.

“Bucky! Bucky wake up! You’re dreaming my dear!”

Bucky woke up with a start. Tears flowing down his face, he stared at you blue eyes shining. No one spoke as he pulled you into his arms. You just breathed together for a moment, counting the breaths and the spaces in between. When he finally pulled back, you saw his eyes flicker with concern before lifting a hand to gently wipe under your nose, it came back red with blood.

“You, okay?”

You smiled sadly, reaching out to put the dog tags back on.

“I should be asking you that.”

“But you’re bleeding.”

“Occupational hazard.” You tried to subtly get rid of any of the extra blood. “That was pretty intense. Wanna talk?”

Bucky looked down to the sheets and shook his head. You smiled at him, tilting his head to yours.

“That’s fine, want me to go? Or would you like to cuddle for a bit?”

Bucky didn’t talk again, just pulled you gently down to the bed once more. Snuggling himself under your chin, resting his head on your chest. You felt his arms draw tightly against your waist. You pressed your lips into his hair.

“May I help you go to sleep? Keep the bad thoughts at bay for at least one night.”

You felt Bucky nod and let out a little sleepy hum of agreement. You closed your eyes, focused on your connection setting up a golden wall against the dark fog at the corners of his mind and settled into a deep sleep.

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You woke to the smell of fresh coffee and the clinking of cups.

“Morning.” You opened your eyes at Bucky’s voice and took the offered cup greedily. Your mind still felt hazy from the energy you used last night.

You felt the bed dip beside you as Bucky sat and sipped at his cup as well, hair a bit of a mess from bed. He had evidently only just woken up as well.

He took a breath, “I had some pretty interesting dreams, sweetheart.”

You stiffened, “Good ones I hope.”

“Don’t worry, they were good. If a little strange.”

“Strange?”

“I was watching myself most of the time.”

You snorted into the coffee, “Sounds creepy”

There was a slight chuckle, “Nah, I was watching myself build a home, a family- “

“Oh God Bucky.” You snapped your eyes to his, you knew what had happened. “I am so sorry my dreams must have stuck in your head.”

“Those were your dreams?”

“Yeah, its only happened once before but when the connection between two people is very strong, it can happen- I call it bleeding. Perhaps we should- “

“If the next words out of your mouth are take a break, I will spill your coffee.” You clutched your cup closer to your chest, “Truthfully, those were some of the beset dreams I have every had. I really loved them.”

You looked back up at him, hesitantly “You did?”

“And I love you.”

“Huh

There was silence as you stared at him in shock. His face as nothing but adoration as the sunlight filtered over his face.

“I love you, sweetheart.”

“I love you too.”

Coffee cups were cast aside as you both collided. Giggling and joking, radiating happiness as the two of you shared the sweetest kiss. Your feelings merging together, amplifying one another until they shone brighter than the sun.

[sunset-curve-fantom]

Don’t-  Bucky Barnes x Reader

A/N: I TRIED SOMETHING NEW, SO I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY!

WARNING- SMUT, 18+ MATERIAL. DO NOT READ UNDER THE AGE OF 18

This mission was different than most, only four of you had been chosen to dive into the world of Hydra and attempt to extract valuable information to take Hydra down. Steve and Buck were on the other side of the compound while Sam and yourself were on the other side attempting to breach the communication center to take over their eyes and ears.

Bullets whizzed past your head as you turned down a darkened hallway, the gasp that escaped your lips seemed deadly as you reloaded you weapon. You could hear the assailants getting closer to your corner as you continued to reload as fast as your human body could move. You may be assassin but you could only move so quickly.

As you went to make your move, aiming for their heads. Sam went to pull you back, in his eyes back to safety, in yours to be a pain in the ass.

“Let me go, now.” You gritted through your teeth as his grip loosened, you went to turn the corner again but only came face to face with Bucky and Steve. They had taken down every assailant before turning to you, taking in your annoyed expression.

The glare you were sending their way was fatal, they did this every single time. Every time they thought you wouldn’t be able to handle the heat on your own. So of course, this is nothing different, but this time you weren’t biting your tongue about it.

“I had it; you should have let me finish this damn mission.” You grunted, pushing past them before making your way to the Quinjet.

You sat in your seat, running your battered hands through your long hair. You could feel blood running down your cheeks, most likely from a cut on your forehead, as your hair kept sticking to it.

“Dammit” You said, throwing your gear across the Quinjet, the anger still radiating off of you as you heard the guys loading their stuff back onto the jet before heading back to Stark Tower.

“You good?” Sam asked as he took a seat next to you before Bucky and Steve loaded up.

You were holding back tears as you looked at him, “Honestly- no. I am so over feeling un-helpful when I know I’m good at my job. I know I can do this. But he thinks I can’t- The fucking Winter Solider, my own damn boyfriend thinks I can’t do my own job. And now I am too the point I want to leave.” You said, a single tear running down your cheek as you made eye contact with Sam.

He just gave you this look of sadness, “Don’t do that, you can’t leave.”

“Can’t leave what?” Bucky said trying to catch your eyes and you looked to the floorboards. He was trying to read your face, but you weren’t going to give anything away- not to him.

“None of your business, Barnes” You hissed at him as he sulked into his seat next to Steve as the Quinjet was being fired up.

You just closed your eyes trying not to focus on the events of today, you just wanted to be back at the tower and in your room away from everyone else.

Before you knew it the Quinjet was touching down again, the rough landing drew you from your slumber. You looked around checking your surroundings before gathering your things.

You quickly stepped out of the jet, making your way to your room. You were halfway off the helipad before someone grabbed your arm, spinning you towards them.

Of course, it was no other than Sargent James Buchanan Barnes, the man who you love when he doesn’t turn into a complete ass.

“What is the problem? I saved you ass back there” He said, glaring down at me.

“You- you are my fucking problem” You said, tearing your arm away from him and made your way back to your room in the tower.

You could not make it to your room faster, the door sliding behind you brought the blissful silence that you so deeply needed. A loud sigh escaped past your lips as you laid down your gear, carefully stripping off your uniform. Gasping as it slipped past a large bruise forming on your upper shoulder.

You made your way to your large bathroom, turning the shower on the steam quickly filling the large space. Looking in the mirror, you took in your appearance. An expansive cut was your forehead, dried blood stuck to your forehead and cheeks, even the evidence of a black eye forming.

A sigh escaped your lips as you stepped under the steaming water, the hot feeling good on your bruised and battered body. The water slowly turning a reddish-brown color due to the blood streaming off your body.

Closing your eyes, you just thought about the mission and how you wish it had gone differently. You knew you could handle the mission, but of course Buck thought you can’t do anything without breaking a nail or accidentally shooting yourself in the foot.

You just shook your head trying to focus on anything else but the mission and how you were being treated. The bubbles from your shampoo mixed with the steamy water, as you just tried to relax.

Could you really step away from the Avengers? Could you really just leave this new world? Could you step away from Bucky forever?

You left out a deep breath you didn’t know you were holding in as you turned the water off, your stomach growled as you dried yourself off. Trying to think about what tomorrow could bring, you threw on your pajamas, also meaning shorts and a large hoodie with fuzzy socks.

You tossed your wet hair over your shoulder as you made your way to the kitchen, just praying that everyone was still in their rooms or even better asleep. You could hear the peanut butter calling your name as you rounded the corner, only to come face to face with the one person you were trying to avoid.

“Hey Baby” He said, looking up from his files that were spread around the kitchen island, multiple pictures of former Hydra members scattered around with their own individual files.

You barely looked at him as you opened the kitchen cabinet, pulling out the crunchy peanut butter and a spoon. Leaning against the counter you just kept sparing him looks as his brow was scrunched together as he read more of his files.

“You want to stop looking at me or are you going to talk to me?” He grumbled at you, looking up from his files. The bruising on his face was noticeable, and so was the split lip he was sporting. Clearly you weren’t the only one who had some reminders of today’s mission.

You just smirked at him, you were annoyed with him and you weren’t going to engage in whatever he thought he was going to get away with saying to you.

Placing your spoon in the sink, you started to stroll back out of the kitchen just barely passing Bucky. You felt his metal hand wrap around your wrist, making you stop in place.

“I don’t want to talk to you” You said bluntly, trying to pull your already bruised wrist out of his cold hand.

“Well too bad- we need to talk about today. Cause you clearly have some kind of problem with me and how I do my job on missions” He said, turning towards you before standing to his feet causing you to step back as his height overtook your small frame.

“I don’t want to talk about this with you. I have absolutely nothing to say about today. I don’t want to talk to you, okay? Get that through your head please. I am so tired of people trying to protect me and keep me from doing my job. So please- leave me the hell alone Buck.” You said, standing your ground. It was a clear a fight was coming, and you didn’t have the energy to even try to defend yourself or your actions.

“I was trying to protect you! And everyone else on that mission, that is something we need to talk about. Not you ignore me because you’re mad at me cause I stepped in your way. You know I couldn’t live with myself if something was to happen to you.” He said, trying to step towards you more but you kept stepping back away from him.

“Are you kidding me? You think you are so high and mighty, and you aren’t Bucky. You aren’t as special as you think you are! I was perfectly fine until you stepped in my way! I know how to do my job, but I cannot do it when you are all over me.” You finally screamed at him, clearly frustrated by the man you had come to care and love.

“Maybe next time don’t try and get yourself killed! Then maybe I wouldn’t be so obligated to come save your stupid ass” He screamed back, watching the tears stream down your face.

You let out a deep breath, tears continuing to dampen your flustered cheeks, you turned towards the door attempting to walk away from this toxic situation.

You wanted nothing more than to escape this tower, escape from him and his ego. You were just so done.

Before you could pass through the doorway- his metal hand wrapped around your bruised wrist, spinning you close into his chest.

“Let me go Bucky” The anger evident in your voice and you attempted to pull your wrist away from him.

His eyes darkened as he looked at you, analyzing every feature of your face before speaking.

“That’s Sargent to you.” A smirk appearing on his face as he closed the distant between you, his lips on yours as the metallic taste of blood danced on your tongue from his split lip.

A slight moan escaped from your lips as the kiss continued to intensify, you gently pulled at his matted hair causing a guttural sound to escape his lips. His lips pulled away slowly looking for the sweet spot under your jaw that makes you go crazy.

“Oh Buck…” You moaned loudly, your voice bouncing off the kitchen walls. It would like your moan was in utter surround sound.

He pulled away, darkened eyes looking deep into your eyes before speaking in a low tone, “That’s not my name angel.”

You leaned in close, your hot breath hitting his ear, “Oh I’m sorry…. Sargent Barnes”

A shutter rippled through his body as he threw you over his shoulder, making his way over to Tony’s new and very expensive couch. Tossing you down, the armrest digging into your bruised back, only causing a moan to escape from you.

“Tony is going to kill us…” You moaned as he rutted his hips against yours, slowly grinding against your clothed heat. But that only added to the pleasure as you were already dripping wet.

“I don’t care” He silently moaned against your ear, as he found his way to your sweet spot under your jaw once again. Leaving a liter of hickey’s as he made his way down your body, slowly stripping you of your hoodie. Your nipples becoming hard as the cold air rushed onto your exposed skin.

A low moan escaped from you as he made his way down your neck before working his way to your breasts. He shot you a small glance as he took one of your nipples into his mouth, the contact sending your eyes to roll back into your head. The pleasure taking over your body, you were ready to give everything to this man.

You grinded your hips against his, your juices continuing to leak from you as you were a moaning mess under him. He made his way back up to your lips, kissing them so gently as he stripped off his shirt, and began to remove your shorts which barely covered anything.

You let out a shaky breath as he grazed your clit with his metal fingers, which only caused a ripple of pleasure to travel through you. He couldn’t help but smirk at the bucking of your hips.

“You’re leaking baby” He said, rubbing his thumb across your clit almost too slow for your liking. He knew exactly what he was doing as he continued to press his thumb into your clit, as he slowly enters two fingers into your leaking cunt. You couldn’t help yourself as your eyes rolled back into your head, the pleasure building inside of you.

Your legs began to tremble as your orgasm was quickly approaching, you could hear the wet sounds of your cunt as he continued to press his fingers deep inside of you, hitting your most sensitive spot.

“Please- I’m gonna…Sargent…” You began to pant out as your legs continue to tremble even more.

“Go.” Was all he had to say before you came undone under him, you became a mess of moans as you felt your cunt pulse around his fingers as he continued to pump in and out of you.

“I need you…” You said as you grinded your leaking cunt against his hand even more, he couldn’t help but groan as he fished his thick length out of his sweats. His tip was swollen, and red with precum started to leak.

He stroked himself a few times before guiding himself to your opening, stretching your cunt to accommodate his size. He gave you no time to adjust before he began thrusting into you at a fast speed.

The frantic pace was too much for your pleasure riddled body as you could feel your cunt started to pulse again, your orgasm was only seconds away. You arched your back as the orgasm began to overwhelm your body, sending your eyes straight back into your head.

He threw his head back as he felt his high approaching, he just took in the glorious appearance under him as you continued to fall apart under him.

“I’m close” He moaned as he continued to hit your sensitive spot with such force, only causing the pleasure to increase even more.  

“Fill me up....” Was all you worked out in-between your panting. He smiled down at you before snapping his hips one more time, spilling hit warm seed deep inside of you. Only causing you to pulse even more around his throbbing dick.

He collapsed on top of you, just taking in this moment and taking in you.

“I love you… only you” You said as you pushed his matted, sweaty hair out of his face. A smile appeared on his face, as he pressed his lips to yours, hard.

“I love you so much” He said, brushing your wet hair out of your face, taking in every feature as he continued to study you.

You opened your mouth to say something when a voice came over the loudspeaker, “Mr. Stark would like to inform you that you owe him a new couch And also to say that was more than disturbing”

You both couldn’t help but laugh as the loudspeaker cut out again. In a world where the Winter Solider used to be nothing but a killer. Here he is now, in all his glory as the one man who would do anything to keep your safe.

TAGLIST FOR MARVEL:

@ghostofreggie @imsydneywalker @thee-ava-mariee​ @dancethroughthethunder

[allsassnoclass]

Hazel! Can I submit ““i got you for secret santa so i got you this really expensive but sentimental gift that you’ve always wanted, hoping you’ll never find out it’s from me - and that i’ve been in love with you 1234567 years” for lashton??

as you wish my dear

Ficmas Day 2

Rating: teen and up

Read on AO3

Ashton knew he was screwed the moment he picked Luke’s name out of the hat for Secret Santa, but it doesn’t fully hit him until the night before the last day of school before break.  They’re going to exchange gifts once all of the students leave at the end of the day, and Ashton has to admit that he went a little overboard.

He’s supposed to wrap and bring one gift.  He has six.

“Hey, Calum,” he says once the other person picks up the phone.  “So.  I’m in a bit of a pickle.”

“Why?” Calum asks, voice tinny and almost overpowered by Michael’s very loud singing in the background.  He gasps.  “Ash, tell me you didn’t leave Luke’s present until right now.  There’s no way I can help you with less than 24 hours to go.”

“How do you know I have Luke?” Ashton frowns.  “Have you been snooping?”

“No, but I saw your face when you drew the name.”

Ashton sighs.  “Fuck, do you think he knows?”

“Well, he’d have to know that you’ve been in love with him since he started at the school, and we both know Luke is not self-aware enough for that.  You can’t drop hints with him, because he won’t pick them up.  Remember when we all went to eat and the waitress was tripping over herself to flirt with him?  He didn’t even notice.”

Ashton remembers that night well.  It hadn’t been the first time a stranger tried to chat up Luke, and just like every instance before Ashton had to tamp down his jealousy.  Luke is an attractive and appealing guy.  He can’t fault other people for noticing that too and shooting their shot.

“That doesn’t help my crisis.”

“Which is…?”

Ashton glances at the presents sitting on his floor with wrapping paper next to them.

“Can you come over?” he asks.

“You didn’t get him another dog, did you?” Calum asks dubiously.

“Of course not,” Ashton says.  “I’m not an idiot Calum.  Dogs aren’t surprise presents.  I just… still may have gone a bit overboard on this one.”

“Overboard how?”

“I have six presents and I need you to help me choose.”

Calum sighs.

“I’ll be there in five minutes, and I’m bringing Michael.”  He hangs up before Ashton can protest.  

Great.  Now instead of being subject to Calum’s quiet judgement, he’s going to have to deal with Michael laughing at him, too.

They find him sitting on the floor of his living room, wrapping paper tube in hand but no closer to figuring out what he’s doing.

“Hey,” Calum says, sitting down next to him.  Ashton grunts.  “Walk me through the presents.  Let’s see what we’re dealing with here.”

Michael flops down on the couch behind them.

“Well, I got him a cookbook, because I saw it at the store and know he wants to start cooking for himself more, plus it says they’re easy.  But cookbooks are so bleh, so I made a donation to the shelter he got Petunia from in his name, but I don’t want to show up and have him be the only person who doesn’t get to take something home with him at the end of the night, so then I started thinking about how he’s always late so I got him this personalized watch with his name and an engraving on the back, but I don’t want him to take it as something passive aggressive so I got him a framed artistic map of his hometown since I know he misses it, but then I thought that’s lame because he can get a map anywhere, so I called up his mom and there are these rings that you can get thumbprints engraved on so I worked with her and got one of those with her fingerprint because I know he misses her like crazy, but that’s way too much and I wasn’t sure if it would arrive on time so I got one of those books of affirmations and personalized a few for days when he feels bad.”

Calum gapes at him.  Michael pats him once on the head.

“I think you should just fuck him for Christmas.”

Ashton groans and buries his head in his hands.

“Shut up, Michael.  No one asked you.”

“I’m just saying!”

“Ashton,” Calum says slowly.  “We are teachers at a public school.  There was a $20 cap on the presents.  How much did you spend?”

“Um,” he says.  “If the cookbook was paperback it might have been less than $20.”

“Well,” Calum sighs, “at least you aren’t the economics teacher.”

“If you fuck him, it would be free.”

“Shut up, Michael!”

“Babe, stop antagonizing him.”

“But I’m right!”

Calum gives Michael a look that makes him sulk off to the kitchen, probably to eat all of Ashton’s ice cream.

“Okay,” Calum says.  “You can’t give him all of that in front of everyone.  He’ll definitely know you’re in love with him, and it’s not fair to everyone else getting smaller $20 gifts.  Wrap the cookbook and give him the rest later.”

Ashton grimaces.

“Luke deserves better than just a cookbook, though.  He’s…”

“He’s what?”

Ashton has known Luke for three years and is still no closer to figuring out how to describe him.  He’s an English teacher, yet all words fail when he thinks about the math teacher who’s classroom sits down the hall.  It makes him want to read more Shakespeare or Browning or EE Cummings to see if someone else can say it better than him.

Luke is a breath of fresh air when he’s been underground too long.  He’s flowers in bloom, meteors visible from Earth, and rain when the sun is still shining.  He’s incredibly grumpy in the mornings when he comes in to work, but always gives Ashton a smile.  He gives his students pop quizzes but doesn’t count them towards their grades, only uses them to see what concepts need clarifying.  He has his students complete logic puzzles for extra credit and brings snacks on Fridays.  He has stupid rhymes and songs to help people remember formulas and they actually work.  Ashton had never seen a group of students truly excited about math until Luke joined their staff.

“He deserves better than a stupid cookbook for his present.”

“Meet him later to give him the rest,” Calum says.  “Unless you want everyone else on staff to know you’re hopelessly in love with him, too?”

“You don’t,” Michael calls from the kitchen.  “If you think I’m bad, you have no idea what Sierra is capable of.  When she found out I like Calum, it was brutal.  Hey, do you have any chocolate sauce?”

“You were no help tonight.  You don’t deserve chocolate sauce,” he calls back.  Michael appears in the doorway with a bowl and spoon, distressed.

“I said you should fuck him.  If you need different advice, then do what Calum says.  He’s smart most of the time.”

“Aw, thanks,” Calum says.

“Most of the time,” Michael emphasizes, brandishing his spoon.  “You’re still stupid for liking the lesser science.”

“Please don’t start that again,” Ashton says.  “If you two start arguing about chemistry and physics I’m kicking you out.  I know it’s foreplay for you, and that makes it weird.”

“Well, Michael and I do have a lot of chemistry together.”

“Nice,” Michael says.  “We should use my lever to shift your center of mass.”

“I hate you both so much,” Ashton groans.

“You’d hate us less if you had a boyfriend of your own,” Michael says over his shoulder, already heading back to the kitchen.

“That’s not the point,” Ashton says.  “I’m not trying to get a boyfriend right now.  I just… I don’t know.  I want him to have nice things.”

Calum clasps his shoulder, giving him a small shake.

“You’re a nice thing, too.”

Ashton buries his head in his hands again.

“Hey.  He’ll love his cookbook, and if you give him the rest he’ll absolutely love that, too.”

Something crashes in the kitchen.

“I’m going to go check on him,” Calum says.  “Give Luke the cookbook.  Ask him to meet you later so you can give him the other presents.  I’ll be right back to help wrap them.”

Ashton nods miserably and unrolls the wrapping paper.

-/-

Ashton wakes up the next day with a headache already pressing against his skull.  Calum and Michael had stayed late the night before, helping wrap the presents and then poking at him until he agreed to play a few rounds of MarioKart with them.  Halfway through the first race he remembered that he still had papers to grade that he promised the students would be done before break, so he moved his grading to the living room and listened to Michael and Calum trash talk each other and the cheesy music of each course.  Nothing managed to fully distract him from the presents sitting in the corner, though, and even when he eventually went to bed he spent most of the night tossing and turning.

The kids are always squirly the day before a break, but the lack of sleep only makes his patience shorter.  The end of each class period brings a sigh of relief for everyone, and he relishes in the few minutes he gets where he can relax instead of teach as long as he doesn’t dwell on the impending gift exchange.

Not even seeing Luke this morning and having lunch with him had managed to ease some of the tension pressing against the base of his skull.  He can’t fully enjoy his company when he’s the source of his problem.

When the final bell rings, Ashton wishes he could rush out of the building with the students, but instead he puts his classroom back to rights, monitors the hall for a few minutes, then grabs his present and heads to the staff lounge.

“Hey,” Michael says, sliding up to him after he deposits his present on the middle table.  “How’s it going?”

“I’m shitting bricks,” Ashton says.  “And I slept like shit because you and Calum didn’t get out of my house until midnight.”

“Relax, dude.  It’s Luke.  What’s the worst that could happen?”

Ashton doesn’t say he could hate my present and then hate me or he might figure out that I’m hopelessly in love with him.  He shrugs.  Michael snorts, then promptly forgets about Ashton as soon as Calum walks in the door.  Luke walks in right behind him, so Ashton pretty much forgets about Michael, too, because Luke is wearing a red button up and black slacks and his hair is a big curly mess.  His math classes seem to be perpetually bursting with activity, and Ashton loves seeing the transition from grumpy and put-together to beaming and unkempt throughout the day.  Luke is the only person he knows who gains limitless energy from his students, always bouncing after the last class instead of exhausted by a full day of work.

Ashton doesn't have a chance to greet him before Principal Feldman walks in, promptly starting the gift exchange since "so many of us will be happy to go on break and there are a lot of us to get through."  He takes it upon himself to start passing out the presents.  Ashton joins along with everyone else "oooo-ing" and "ahhhh-ing" at each gift, but he's too distracted to try to help people guess who their particular Santa may be.

Michael gets a stapler and a gift card to an office supply store because he keeps misplacing his desk materials.  Calum gets a shirt with a chemistry pun from Anne in the office. Ashton ends up getting a small care package from Calum with some bath bombs, chapstick, and a scented candle because Calum says he needs to learn how to relax more.  Ashton is just happy it wasn't another mug with a book pun on it, because Calum likes sending him pictures of those whenever he runs across one but Ashton already has too many to fit in his cupboard.

Luke is one of the last people to open his gift.  He comments on the cute snowflake pattern on the wrapping paper then tears through it, flipping the book around to fully read the cover.

"It's a cookbook!" he enthuses.  "I need this.  Who knew I needed this?"  He looks around the room, lighting up once he locks eyes with Ashton.  "Ashton!  Is it you?"

"Yeah, that's from me," Ashton says.

"Thank you!" Luke beams.  Feldman quickly moves on to the next present and Luke opens the cookbook, pursuing the pages instead of paying attention.  By the time everyone has their present and starts to filter out of the lounge, Ashton has been doing breathing exercises to ensure he doesn't psych himself out.  Michael pats him on the back when he drags Calum out, which does less to encourage Ashton and more to ignite his nerves, but he's not about to let the other five presents he has go to waste.

"Hey, Luke," he calls.  Luke pauses in his tracks, stepping to the side to get out of the doorway and let the rest of their coworkers pass.  "Can you stop by my classroom?  There's another part of your present I need to give you."

"There's more?" Luke asks.  "Ash, the cookbook is already amazing, I don't need anything else."

"Don't you want to know what it is?" Ashton asks.

Curiosity wins out over any lingering politeness.  Luke eagerly follows Ashton out the door and through the halls to his classroom. It's tucked into a corner, which Ashton likes because it means he has a lot of windows, and he's been there for long enough that the walls are covered in posters, quotes, pictures, and some particularly striking student works.  Four boxes and an envelope sit wrapped on the desk in the same snowflake wrapping paper.

"Are all of those..."

"Yeah," Ashton says.  "I got a little carried away."

"Wow."

"Here."  Ashton hands him the envelope.  "Start here."

Luke tears open the flap as messily as he tore open the wrapping paper earlier, pulling out the donation receipt inside.

“This is the place I got Petunia,” he says.

“I know.”

“Thanks,” he says.  “I try to donate to them every year but… thank you.  They’ll be able to do some good with this.”

Ashton clears his throat.  “You’re welcome.  Here’s the next one.”

He unwraps the map next.

“I know you miss it,” Ashton says.  “There’s some star stickers in there, too, if you want to mark important places.”

Luke’s eyes glitter with memories as he looks over it.  He gasps and turns the frame towards Ashton.  “Here’s my house!  Right there.  And then over here was my school, and the movie theater…. Sorry.  You don’t want to listen to me go on about this.  What’s next?”

Ashton could listen to Luke tell him stories about his hometown all night, but he’s looking expectantly at him and there’s still three presents sitting on his desk.

He tosses him the watch next.  Luke fumbles when he catches it.  Ashton is extremely thankful that it’s packed in the box well and won’t break, especially when Luke shakes it.

He laughs when he sees what’s inside.

“I get it.  I won’t miss our lunch dates anymore.”

“Sure you won’t,” Ashton teases.  “There’s an inscription on it, too.”

Luke takes the watch out of the box and flips it over.

“‘Education is our passport to the future.’”

“‘Education is our passport to the future,” Ashton recites, “for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.’ Malcolm X.”

“Appropriate,” Luke says.  “Thanks.”

He puts the watch on, struggling a little with the clasp.  Ashton reaches out and helps, careful not to make it too tight or too loose.  Luke’s wrist is soft beneath his fingers, a patch of smooth pale skin covering his pulse.  When he finishes, neither of them move away.

“It’s wonderful, Ashton.  Thank you,” Luke says.  “I’m going to wear it every day.”

“It suits you.”

Luke gives him a smile that sends Ashton reaching for another present before he does something uncalled for like lean forward and try to kiss him.

“This one’s for bad days.  It’s not much, but I wanted you to have reminders of how amazing you are.”

Luke rips off the paper and softens like butter once he starts flipping through the book of affirmations.

“A lot of them are generic, but there are a few personalized ones in there, and all of them are true anyway.”

“Ashton, this is too much,” Luke says.  “This is insane.  You went above and beyond Secret Santa.”

“Well.”  Ashton scratches the back of his neck, the feeling of a blush prickling under his skin.  “I can’t exactly return them since they’re personalized.  I kept seeing things that made me think of you.”

“Thank you.  I don’t--” he laughs-- “I don’t know what to say.”

“Save it until you get your last gift.  Then you can judge them all.”

The last box is the smallest, but it’s heavy with a phantom weight.  Ashton went above and beyond for this one, going so far as to contact Liz when he’s only talked to her a few times before, and Luke is either going to think it’s sweet or creepy.

“It’s small,” Luke says, testing the feel of the box in his hands.  He glances up at Ashton before taking off the paper, then again when he sees that the box is a ring box.  Ashton holds his breath while he opens it, wanting to spare himself from seeing Luke’s reaction but not able to look away.

The silver ring glints in the light, a thick band pinched between Luke’s fingers so he can look at it closer.

“What…” he trails off.

“I talked to your mum,” Ashton says.  “The engraving on the outside is her fingerprint.  I know you miss her, and this way you can have a piece of her with you all the time.

“I can’t accept this,” Luke says.  “It’s too much.”

He tries to hand it to Ashton, but he closes Luke’s hand around the ring and pushes it back towards his chest.

“It’s personalized,” he says.  “It doesn’t mean anything to me, so you need to keep it.”

Luke briefly looks down at the ring again.  When he meets Ashton’s gaze, his eyes are glistening.

“You’re going to make me cry,” he laughs.  “Sorry.  Thank you.  So Much.”

He reaches for him, and Ashton’s thankful that Luke seems to fit perfectly in his arms.

“I can’t believe you got all this for a stupid Secret Santa,” he sniffs when he pulls away.

“You deserve it,” Ashton says earnestly.  “I kept seeing things I knew you would appreciate.  Guess I got a bit carried away.”

“A bit,” Luke teases.  Ashton smiles.  Luke’s teasing is a different kind, always giving the impression that it’s somehow an inside joke between them instead of Luke laughing at him.

“I have something for you, too,” Luke says.  “I know I wasn’t supposed to, but if you got me so much I feel better giving you this one thing.”

“Oh?”

Luke reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out a book.  Ashton can tell what it is even before Luke hands it to him.

“Leaves of Grass,” he says, running his hand over the vines and leaves adorning the hard cover behind the gold leaf of the title.

“You said you wanted another copy since your old one is full of annotations.”

“You didn’t have to do this,” he says, tracing the swirling script of Walt Whitman’s name.

“Okay, Mr. I-got-a-billion-presents-for-my-Secret-Santa.  I wanted to give you something nice.”

It’s a thought Ashton has had thousands of times during his own gift-buying process, and that’s what compels him to finally ask “Do you want to go on a date with me?  We could go to dinner or a movie, maybe ice skating or something more festive?”

“I thought you’d never ask!”

Ashton grins, smile threatening to split his face in two.

“Maybe not ice skating, though,” Luke says.  “I’m all legs and no coordination.”

“Dinner, then,” Ashton says.  “Do you like Italian?  I could pick you up next week.”

“I love Italian, and getting picked up.”

“Good,” Ashton says.  “Great!”

“Great!”

Ashton knows his smile is verging on dopey, but it’s okay because Luke has the same stupid-happy look on his face.  Luke’s phone rings and shatters the moment, but Ashton can’t even be that upset when Luke takes a few steps away to answer, glancing back with immense fondness and answering the person on the other line with vague and distracted noises.

“I’m so sorry,” Luke says when he hangs up.  “I have to go.  I promised Sierra I’d help her with some last-minute classroom things.”

“That’s okay,” Ashton says.  “I’ll call you.”

“Okay,” Luke smiles.  “Please do.  I mean--yeah.  I’d like that.’

“I will,” Ashton says.  Then, because someone has to be responsible and get Luke out the door instead of locked in a staring contest, he stacks Luke’s gifts and passes them off to him.

“Okay.  I’ll see you later!  On our date!”

“See you, Luke!”

Luke stumbles on his way out the door, too distracted trying to look back at Ashton.  He’s right: he really is all legs and no coordination.

Watching him leave with his new book in hand, Ashton thinks that he got the best gift of all this year.

[zrtranscripts]

Home Front, Mission 14: Sam’s Recipe for Success

Full of Beans

~

SAM YAO: Hello, listeners! Sam here, coming live from Abel's kitchens. We're going to kick off another workout in a minute, so while I'm talking, why not do a little warming up? Dance about, or jog on the spot, something light and fun. Now I'm not usually allowed in the kitchens because of a little... incident with some marmite shortbread which I thought was a brilliant idea but Janine said was a waste of resources, especially after it caught fire in the oven.

But anyway, as some of you may know, we've had a bit of luck with the giant super horde besieging the countryside. A landslide hit the horde's east flank, scattering a huge chunk of the zoms, so we've got a little window to send runners out with supplies. Dozens of small communities were cut off by the horde, and we're sending care packages to everyone. It's been all hands on deck in the kitchens prepping the deliveries, and we're almost ready to go.

[paper rustles]

So to celebrate, today's first exercise is one I've really started to like. The instructions call it dead bug walking, but I like to think of it as happy puppy flailing. Just lie on your back with your arms and legs in the air, then walk them up and down as fast as you can for one minute, like an excited Labradoodle on its back. Ready? And go! Okay, that's 15 seconds down. Keep those paws wiggling. And that's it, halfway done. Yeah, I-I really think this is a good sign. You know, the horde weakening. A few more natural disasters and it-it could be gone. That's 15 seconds left. Yeah, not-not that we want natural disasters, obviously. Just little disasters. You know, zom-only disasters. And that's it, you're done!

Feel that Labradoodle energy. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna scoot the last crate of eggs and flour down to our dispatch runners, then I'll come right back. Meantime, I'll play some music. You can relax or keep flailing. I've borrowed Runner Seventeen’s latest good times mix, so this song should be perfect for keeping up the good vibes.

~

SAM YAO: All right, that's the last load of supplies delivered to our runners. They'll be leaving any minute. Now I tell you what, Runner Forty-Three has been baking some great treats for each package. You should see the cupcakes! It's amazing what Forty-Three can do with an egg and some scavenged Nutella.

Actually, I've been using the lockdown to work on my own baking. Yeah, well, first it was crochet until we ran out of yarn. Then it was photography, but Maxine wanted the last camera. So Forty-Three has been helping me practice recipes instead, by miming them to avoid wasting supplies. Janine made me promise not to get in the way in the kitchens today though, so I've mostly been carrying cans and crates out to the runners, which gave me the idea for our next exercise, running with cans.

So find yourself two cans or any two objects about as heavy that you can grip, and take one in each hand. But if you're not absolutely sure you've got a solid grip, put each one in a strong bag with a good handle, hold them like that. Then run on the spot, swinging your arms to get your heart pumping, okay? Yeah, let's try one minute of that. And go! Now that's 15 seconds down. Okay, 30 seconds left. Like Forty-Three always says, practice makes perfect. 15 seconds left. Actually, Forty-Three tends to say, that's weird, practice usually makes perfect. Cooking lessons could be going better, to be honest. And you're done. 60 seconds.

Time to rest, unless you want to keep running through... [device beeps] Uh, hold on one sec. Oh... okay. Um, just got an urgent message from Janine. Better take this off the air. I'm gonna cut straight to the next music break, okay? Dance along or run some more, if you fancy it. I'll be right back after this.

~

SAM YAO: Um, hello folks. Uh, I've uh... I've got some bad news. You might want to keep can running to distract you. Really wish I didn't have to say this. Apparently, we're not the only ones who decided to take advantage of the weakened horde. There was this group of runners in New Canton, vigilantes going against orders. They figured this was the perfect time to fight the zoms, rounded up a bunch of people, charged at the horde's weakened flank with guns and bombs.

Only well, the zoms got scattered by a landslide, didn't they? So loads of them were buried under rocks, which this lot charged right over. Zom hands came reaching up from the ground, scratching and pulling. Some of the vigilantes went down, some bombs went off early. Zoms got freed from the rock while the rest of the horde honed in on the noise. Basically, it was a bloody mess. And now the horde's as strong as ever. So no supplies going anywhere today.

Well, I know you must be feeling frustrated, listeners, because I am. But, but I've got another exercise that might help channel that. Yeah, uh... [paper rustles] Ah, yeah. Well, this one's pretty simple. Bicep curls. You need weights. Take your cans or whatever you were running with and if you haven't already, put them into bags, one per bag, and make sure each bag has a good handle you can hold. For heavier weights, add more cans. Then press your elbows against your flanks with your hands by your sides and your palms facing up, one hand holding each weight. Bend your elbows to bring the weights up to your shoulders and then down again, okay? Yeah, we'll do 60 seconds of that.

Ready? And go! That's it, 15 seconds down. [laughs] You know, Runner Twelve, stuck in a pub with a pinball machine? He swears this exercise helped him to top the high score. Ah, unless he was tilting it. That's it, halfway done. Concentrate on those weights. It must have been that. That would help, actually. 15 seconds left. And done. Now I hope that gave you all something else to focus on for a bit. Uh, I'm gonna play some music now, do a few curls myself. Because honestly, I've got a lot of frustration that needs channeling here.

~

SAM YAO: Uh, welcome back everyone. Yep, I've just had final confirmation from Janine. No one's going out anytime soon. [sighs] I feel sorry for those vigilantes, I really do, but how could they be so stupid, charging a super horde like that? Now they've gone and made things worse for everyone, [sighs] because they couldn't stand staying in and feeling useless, I guess. I get it. Yeah, I mean, I-I want to be doing more too, but we can't go off half-cocked, not when the stakes are this high. It's like Maxine says, right? The Z-virus is a medical problem and medical problems need patience. [laughs] I know it's a really bad pun, but it's true.

Anyway, in case anyone out there wants to reinforce their barricades now that the horde's been strengthened, we're going to do an exercise that's good for lifting furniture: squats. I bet most of you know this already. Stand with your arms at your sides and your legs hip-distance apart, then squat down like you're sitting on an invisible chair. Make sure your knees don't come out further than your feet and your bum is sticking out. And we're going to go for one minute of those. And go!

15 seconds down. Imagine you're lifting a sofa. 30 seconds down. Get that barricade reinforced. 15 seconds left. Just a couple more cabinets to lift. And done. Good job, everyone. I'm gonna play some more music for anyone who wants to keep going, but remember, you need to look after yourselves as well as your barricades, so don't be afraid to stop and rest.

~

SAM YAO: You know what, listeners? I always try and look on the bright side, but the truth is this is, um, this is getting to me. Yeah. I really thought it was going to be a good day, and then you know, wham. Janine's checked with the settlements we were going to deliver to and they've all got enough supplies to last a while longer, so... so that's something, at least.

I've uh, I've actually been secretly baking something for Janine. Banana bread based on Runner Forty-Three’s lessons. It was going to be a surprise to celebrate the deliveries. Guess them being cancelled doesn't make a difference. Come out all burned and blackened anyway, like that shortbread.

Oh boy. Ah. I think I need some cheering up here, listeners. I'm um... spiraling a bit. Tell you what. Yeah, there's this one exercise, it always looks sort of silly picturing loads of people doing it at once. Well, it'd put a smile on my face. It's called doing high knees. Just march really fast on the spot for one minute, pumping your arms and bringing your knees all the way up to your waist with each step, like something out of the Ministry of Silly Walks from Monty Python. Ready? And go!

15 seconds gone. Keep those knees up. Halfway done. Honestly, I don't miss a lot of Monty Python, but did you hear Runner Thirty-Four's radio reenactment of Holy Grail last night? I's brilliant. It was brilliant. 45 seconds, almost done. And that's one minute! Okay. That, that did make me feel better, imagining you all doing that. I couldn't help joining in towards the end, I admit it. [timer dings] Oh, and uh, yeah. That's the oven timer. Right, I'm gonna get my blackened, burned mess, listeners, but it's okay. I'm feeling more like I can cope with it now. You guys rest or keep marching to the music until I get back.

~

SAM YAO: [laughs] Right, you're not gonna believe this, listeners! I mean, I don't believe it. The banana bread, it's-it's perfect! The top is all nice and brown, and the inside's soft and spongy, and it has that delicious banana-y smell, and it's-it's just... perfect. Possibly thanks to Runner Forty-Three, who left a note on the oven saying set to 180 degrees, not 300. Guess you caught my secret project, Forty-Three. Couldn't have done it without you.

Or you, listeners. You really helped me today. I know this lockdown's tough, but we have to keep reminding ourselves the one thing we can do without going off half-cocked is just... be there, even at a distance. Be willing to help each other past dark days. And we can share the little victories that help us through, like Maxine's photos or Thirty-Four’s radio plays, or banana bread. Because if one of us scores a win, and we're all in this together, it's a win for all of us, isn't it? No matter how small it seems.

Now I'm gonna take this banana bread to Janine. She won't admit it, but it will cheer her up. And I'll put the recipe on ROFFLEnet in case you want to try it! Well, if you don't, that's okay, because exercising is a little victory too, so you're already winning today. We'll get through this, everyone, I know it. And maybe after, we can have some banana bread together. Until then, stay safe. I'll be back on air soon and I promise I'll share all my little victories and I'll cheer for all of yours.

~

[pengychan]

[Good Omens] Winging It - Luke 24:38

Summary: Shockingly, attempting to destroy an angel without consulting God first comes with consequences. There is more than one way to fall, and a thousand more ways to inconvenience an angel and a demon who just wanted to be left in peace. Characters: Gabriel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Beelzebub, Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon Rating: T  

Prologue and all chapters are tagged as ‘winging it’ on my blog.

A/N: Getting relationship advice is kind of hard when you have to omit that the relationship in question is with a Prince of Hell.

***

“... And so, this friend of yours ghosted you?”

“Yes. I don’t think I did anything wrong - they were about to fall on their face and so I caught them, what else was I meant to do? I just tried to help, for Heaven’s sake!”

“Right.”

“It’s been a week and they haven’t showed up again. I don’t understand. They usually appear at my place every other day - or night - usually night--”

“Oh, you gave them the keys to your flat? Sounds serious, then.”

“What? No, they don’t need the ke-- I mean-- yes. Right.” Gabriel cleared this throat, still pacing back and forth, reminding himself that mortals would find it quite odd that this friend of his could, quite literally, appear in his bedroom in a burst of flames that would probably set off the fire alarm sooner or later.

If Beelzebub was ever going to appear again in a burst of flames or otherwise, of course. They may never do so again. And the notion grated him. “They… do have the keys,” he muttered. The problem with his human friends was that there was a lot he couldn’t tell them, but the notion of talking about this with the other archangels… well. It was awkward to put it mildly. “But the point is, they’re not showing up anymore and I think I am owed an explanation, don’t you think?”

“Hu-uh,” Fabrizio said through his mouthful of sandwich. 

Gabriel turned on his heel, starting another round across the break room just as Łukasz spoke. 

“All right, I have to ask - is grabbing them before they fell really all you did?” he asked, causing Gabriel to blink, looking up.

“What?”

“I don’t know, maybe your hand slipped, and it was. You know, inappropriate?”

Hey, get a room!, the boy had yelled, right before the wheels of his bike mysteriously caught fire and sent him crashing into the pond. Gabriel hadn’t paid it much attention, but it made it back to his mind now and he’d spent too much time on Earth not to have grasped what it meant, however dim his concept of carnal desire was - a thing he knew existed, but which had never been of his concern. It still was none of his concern. 

Right?

“What-- no!” Gabriel sputtered, face suddenly aflame. “If you’re suggesting I’d do anything inappropriate, I never--!”

“Whoa, all right, calm down! I told you, as an accident!” Łukasz held up his hands. “Are you really sure there isn’t anything else that happened? Because storming off for being caught before falling is kind of… well…”

“An overreaction,” Fabrizio said, once again through a mouthful of his lunch. Łukasz raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Yes, that. Bit rich coming from you, though. You announced I’m going to Hell for putting cream in carbonara, you dramatic ass.”

“He is right, actually, and you should stop,” Gabriel informed him, matter-of-factly, causing Łukasz to throw his hands in the air with an exasperated noise and Fabrizio to laugh hard enough he almost choked on a sundried tomato.

“You’re the worst and I wish Daniel were still here to agree with me,” Łukasz lamented. “Look, are you sure nothing else happened?”

“Well…” Gabriel stopped pacing, hesitating a moment. “... We did have a disagreement, I suppose. Over, uh. An old job.”

“What, you were colleagues?”

“A very long time ago. We were both very different people then. They were fired long before I was, and at the time I agreed with--” divine judgment “--the management.”

A scoff from Fabrizio. “And they fired you anyway. Typical. I have yet to work a job where the management knows the first thing about what they’re doing.”

“It’s… complicated. It’s more that they handed in their notice, only the terms they got were not favorable. But the management they’re under now is arguably worse.” A pause. “I pointed that out. They didn’t like that.”

This insult will not stand! You take it back right now!

“See? Maybe that was it, not just grabbing them.”

Unhand me right now!

“... They didn’t like me catching them, either.”

“What did they want you to do, let them fall?”

Why not? I did before.

The thought was a sudden stab of pain somewhere in his chest, and Gabriel chased away the thought. No, he hadn’t let them fall - he had tried to reach out. Both had tried to reach out for the other, neither had taken the other’s hand, and what had happened next was entirely out of Gabriel’s hands. In the end, he sighed. 

“I don’t know,” Gabriel muttered, just as the timer on his watch went off. Ah, there it was, the end of lunch break. As Fabrizio seemingly unhinged his jaw like a boa to swallow the rest of his frankly oversized sandwich, in a move Crowley would be proud to witness, Łukasz shrugged.

“Have you tried calling them?”

“Calling?”

“Or sending a message. You’ve got their number, no?”

He did, as a matter of fact, although he saw little point to it when he could quite literally call their name to see them materializing before him. That was an option, but at the same time it grated his nerves - the idea of calling out for them while they didn’t bother to get in touch at all. He frowned. “I am not desperate yet.”

“Yet?” Łukasz repeated innocently, causing Gabriel’s frown to deepen and Fabrizio to guwaff.

“Hah! Look, I tried to do the aloof thing with my girlfriend too, and you know how it went? I don’t have a girlfriend. Zero out of ten, would not recommend.”

“What…?” Gabriel blinked, taken aback, and stated at him like he’d just grown antlers. Wait, what was he thinking? “This is not-- they are not even remotely my girlfriend, it’s not like that--”

“Ah, right, sorry. Significant other, in this case,” he cut him off, entirely misunderstanding what Gabriel’s correction had been really about. “Anyway, call them.”

“No, they’re not my significant anything-- we-- it was them to storm off, I have no obligation--”

“Guys! Lunch break is over! Get your asses over here so I can have mine!”

Fabrizio shrugged, patting his shoulder. “All right, you do you. Just don’t complain once you’re single,” he said, and walked out, leaving Gabriel to stare at his retreating back, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. 

“... You all right?” Łukasz’s voice came from very far away. Gabriel recoiled, and shook his head. 

“Yes. I’m fine,” he muttered, and walked past him, doing his utmost to push that nonsense in the back of his mind and think no more of it.

He had about as much success as he’d had trying to talk the Antichrist into bringing forth the end of times.

***

For the eighteen-hundred and thirty-second time, the mug shattered in a hundred pieces on the stone floor. For the eighteen-hundred and thirty-second time the pieces came together again, leaving the mug unscathed. For the eighteen-hundred and thirty-second time Beelzebub, Prince of Hell and Lord of the Flies, picked it up and stared at it as though expecting to see some kind of great secret revealed on its surface.

On the side of the mug, the Titanic remained still, halfway into the water. After a few moments of silence, the mug was thrown on the floor to shatter for the eighteen-hundred and thirty-third time. For the eighteen-hundred and thirty-third time, it came back together and Beelzebub picked it up to stare some more at the ship printed on it.

At this point, Dagon had questions.

Questions were among the things that had landed them in not-really-metaphorical hot water a very long time ago, and truth be told they were not the safest thing to ask in Hell, either. She was, however, trusted enough by Lord Beelzebub to speak her mind. Most of her mind. Most of the time. “Is something the matter, Lord Beelzebub?”

The Lord of the Flies took their eyes off the mug to give her a look which let her know, in no uncertain terms, that they found the question amazingly stupid for how obvious it was that something was indeed the matter. She was not ordered to be silent, at any rate, which made her bold enough to speak again. “I couldn’t help but notice you seem displeased.”

“Mph,” was the reply as the mug was thrown to crash on the floor for the  eighteen-hundred and thirty-fourth time. “This stupid mug displeases me. The imbecile who gave it to me like it would be even remotely enough to win my favor displeases me.” The mug in question came back together for the eighteen-hundred and thirty-fourth time. 

Maybe Dagon should just stop counting.

“I assume you’re referring to your attempt at getting a hold of the soul of the former archangel? Surely it is a good sign that he has given you a, uh… mug. As a… token of his loyalty?” she faltered a little, not really knowing what else that mug was supposed to be. If Beelzebub’s snort as they picked up the mug once more was anything to go by, ‘token of loyalty’ was not it.

“This pathetic thing is no token and there is no loyalty involved. It is a gift of sorts.” 

Dagon blinked. “A gift?”

“Yes. And the imbecile probably even scored a good deed in getting it for me, to add insult to injury.” The Prince of Hell’s scowl deepened, and the mug crashed on the floor for the… upteenth time.

“... So it is some kind of plan from his part to thwart you?”

“The idiot cannot plan to save his miserable mortal life,” Beelzebub snapped, glaring down at the mug as it fixed itself once more. “He only ever followed one plan his entire existence, someone else’s. Now he has none - all he can do is spew out the most obnoxious nonsense!”

“I understand,” Dagon said, not understanding at all. She just watched as Beelzebub slammed the mug on the table beside their throne, this time without shattering it but still glaring death at it all the while. Finally, they stood. 

“I will have his soul. It is a matter of principle.”

“Of course.”

“He spent his existence serving someone who threw him out at the first failure - who does he think he is, to just start lecturing--” they trailed off with a scoff, waving a hand. “Neither of us could bring about the Apocalypse, neither of us could punish the traitor, but I am Prince of Hell still. My loyalty was recognized - and where has his loyalty landed him?”

“In Soho,” said Dagon, who was not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it came to figures of speech. Not that Beelzebub minded the rather literal nature of their reply. 

“Exactly! Some thanks he got for his eons of work, doing everything by the book - and now he thinks he can question Satan, of all beings!”

The notion of questioning Satan was unthinkable enough to make Dagon visibly shudder, clasping her hands behind her back. “If you win-- I mean, when you win his soul, he’d better learn his place quckly, or he will not last as a demon.”

“Of course he wouldn’t last! He thinks it was bad being cast out! Hah! There is no being cast out of Hell. Questioning Satan means destruction for any of us, and--” they trailed off, suddenly, and to Dagon’s confusion their expression went from frustration to astonishment, like something mind-blowing had just occurred to them. It wasn’t often they were so fazed and Dagon might have asked, if not for the fact the Lord of the Flies’ features twisted into fury once again the next moment. 

“He’ll learn better, or face the consequences,” they buzzed furiously. “You’re dismissed.”

“Huh. My Lord, I am here concerning the filing system upgrade you reque--”

“GET OUT!” Beelzebub’s shout was underlined by a burst of flames and furiously buzzing flies, which told Dagon in no uncertain terms that was the right moment to take her leave.

Questioning Satan was unthinkable, but questioning Beelzebub was not a very bright idea either.

***

“I certainly hope I have not taken you from important duties by calling you here - duties which I’d rather know as little about as possible,” Gabriel said. He managed a smile, passing the mug from one hand to the other. “You must have been busy. I must say, I have been busy myself. Time flew by. I just now realized we haven’t met in a couple of weeks.” 

A pause. 

“... Not that I was actively thinking of it, of course, but I just happened to pass by a store, and they had this mug on display. Since you seem to like mugs, I figured it would be right up your alley. I understand if not, I purchased it just in case - I could use a new mug myself, I could keep it. That was the idea, actually. That you might like it was more of an afterthought, but either wa-”

“Sir.” Gabriel’s little speech to the wall was cut off, and he turned to see a rather exhausted-looking clerk staring at him, and then down at the mug in his hands. 

“It’s closing time. Do you want to purchase either of those?” he asked. Witnessing a client talking to the wall for several minutes while holding mugs didn’t really seem to faze him.

Closing time already? He must have been standing there longer than he thought. About an hour longer than he thought. “Ah,” Gabriel said, and looked down at the mugs he’d picked up. One read ‘Boss From Hell’ printed in back letters and surrounded by flames, while the other read ‘Tears Of My Employees’. He tried to make himself pick one in the following five seconds, failed, and sighed. 

“I’ll buy both.”

“We have a discount, that would be ten pounds. Twelve if you buy a third.”

“Oh. In that case…” Gabriel turned and grabbed what had been his third choice, ‘Bitter As Hell’. “I’ll take this one as well.”

It didn’t occur to him that trying to claim he had just so happened to buy three mugs Beelzebub might like, entirely incidentally, might not be an easy lie to sell.

***

“Why rebel to the absolute authority of God to pass absolute the absolute authority of Satan,” he’d said. 

“It was God’s Great Plan you were fulfilling,” he’d said.

“I didn’t mean to grab you,” he’s said. 

There was absolutely not one aspect of their last conversation that did not make Beelzebub want to burn down a planet or two or twenty before returning to Earth to choke him with the very mug he had foolishly gifted them. First of all because he deserved it and, secondly, because he had a point and it was the single most infuriating thing Beelzebub had to admit to themselves in the past several millennia. 

There had been a similar conversation before, hadn’t there? Only that the roles were reversed, then.

“We do all the work, no? God has done nothing but give orders in eons,” Ba’al had said, a very long time ago.

The ruler keeping away, not really talking to anyone, giving instructions that are not always exactly clear or giving none.

“Don’t you dare say such a thing! None of us is above--” 

This insult will not stand!

Overall that seed of extremely uncomfortable doubt was the most worrying thing, and therefore Beelzebub made what seemed the most logical move: ignored it entirely hoping it’d die off like an unwatered plant, and focused on the other infuriating thing about their latest exchange. 

He’d picked them up. He had dared pick them up, just like that, presuming he was allowed to touch them - that was the infuriating part. The worrying part, though not as worrying as an attempt at questioning the very foundation of their existence, was that outrage hadn’t arrived immediately after the surprise faded. Something else had, which Ba’al may have felt once but not Beelzebub, not ever, not since the Fall that forged them into what they were now.

They’d ordered Gabriel to unhand him without knowing exactly what they would have done if he had not, and try as they might there was no denying a pang of something that felt suspiciously like disappointment when he had, indeed, unhanded them. And that stupid look on his face...

Hey, get a room!

Ridiculous suggestion, ridiculous idea. They were not even human, and were not among the demons who ever held any interest in carnal matters. Gabriel may be human now, but surely neither would he. And if he did-- no. No, it was ludicrous.  

Everything about this is ludicrous. I should have burned that mortal to a crisp. Should have burned Gabriel to a crisp when I found him, let his soul go wherever, and forgotten about it. 

But they hadn’t and now they were stuck, because getting his soul was a matter of pride and they really should go back on Earth to make sure he wasn’t behaving too well and earning himself access to Heaven. If he did, and returned there as a mortal soul in the lower spheres after death, it would mean defeat… and never seeing him again, because mortal souls couldn’t leave Heaven any more than demons could enter it. 

Either I win his soul, or the end of his laughable lifespan will be the last I see of him. And I am losing that fight.

“Well, good riddance,” Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies and Prince of Hell, told the empty room. Empty words. Empty lie. 

And keeping up willful ignorance was getting difficult, more and more unwise by the day.

***

“Uh, angel?”

“Yes?”

“Since when you have pornography books?”

“Oh, a good while now,” Aziraphale replied, as casually as he might have informed him that it was mildly breezy outside. “They’re all first editions.”

“Ah.” Crowley cleared his throat, skimming through it. It was illustrated, showing men in various interesting as well as rather indelicate positions. Some of which had to be bullshit, because there was no way a human being’s skeletal structure may allow for such flexibility. “Not very holy, I have to say,” he said, choosing not to comment on the fact it was right next to a first edition of the King James Bible.

“They’re collectibles. I acquired that one in a discreet gentlemen’s club, one of the patrons - a grandson of Queen Victoria, I believe - was selling it.”

“A discreet gentlemen’s club.”

"Yes, in the 1880s. The Hundred Guineas Club.”

“The-- wait, that club? In Portland Place?”

“Yes, you heard of it?”

He had and, considering it was the most exclusive gay club in London at the time, so had plenty others. His eyebrows went up almost to his hairline. Surely he had not… no, not Aziraphale, he couldn’t imagine it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. “... I heard it mentioned once or twice.”

“It was a nice place, I was quite put off when they shut down. I learned to dance the gavotte there."

“The gavotte.”

“You know, the dance?”

“You went to the Hundred Guineas Club and learned the gavotte.”

Still focused on the books he was cataloguing - apparently, moving books from one bookcase to the other was… more complicated than just grabbing them and moving into another bookcase - Aziraphale shrugged. “Well, it was more convenient than going all the way to France,” he said, like he had not taken a trip to France in the midst of the Revolution, dressed as a nobleman, to eat some crêpes. 

“... Fair,” Crowley muttered, putting the book down and stepping closer to the shelves. In the end, they had elected to only move some of Aziraphale’s most prized books in the cottage and leave the rest in the bookstore. After all, with a door now miraculously connecting them, it would be a simple matter of stepping through it. “How’d Gabriel even know you had this sort of book?”

“Oh, I don’t think he did. I have no idea what that was all about, in all honesty. It did cause some awkwardness when a customer present returned asking to see the books I have in the back of the store. I had to turn him down - they’re not for sale,” he added, stepping back from the bookcase to admire how the books looked in it. He seemed satisfied. 

“Heh. If Gabriel shows up again asking for pornography, you should show him this.”

“That would be most inappropriate,” Aziraphale replied, somehow managing a tone that said he disapproved as well as a look that hinted he was at least amused by the notion. “Which he is now aware of, thank God, so unless he loses his mind he is unlikely to come to me asking for pornography,” he added, and both of them forgot something rather important he should have learned long ago.

Unlikely was not impossible.

***

“What’s the meaning of this?”

“What-- there is no meaning. It’s just mugs.”

“You summoned me to show me mugs? Are you mocking me?”

“No! I just bought these for myself, and I figured you might… er…” Gabriel paused, unsure. It finally occurred to him that the claim was… a little less than believable, and he may be better off telling the Prince of Hell something a bit closer to the actual truth. “I bought them as… apology.”

Beelzebub turned to look at him, clearly taken aback for a moment before they narrowed their eyes. “And pray tell, what are you apologizing for?”

Gabriel shifted his weight from one foot to the other, a little taken aback by the question. “For-- grabbing you?”

“... Yes, I suppose I am owed an apology for that too.”

Ah. Right. “If it’s about what I said about you letting Satan have absolute power after rebelling against absolute power--”

“Yes. Apologize.”

Gabriel frowned a little. “You know I have a point.”

“You do not.”

“You wouldn’t be so cross about it if you didn’t know that I do,” Gabriel remarked. 

Beelzebub’s expression soured, but they didn’t try to argue that point. Instead, they turned to look at the mugs. “An appropriate payment for your insolence would be your soul, but for now, these will do just as well.”

As much as the statement should have relieved him, something about it rubbed him the wrong way. “Wait, is that what my soul is worth? Twelve pounds?”

“I said for now, mortal.”

“Oh. I mean, good. I was starting to feel insulted,” Gabriel managed to joke, smiling. Beelzebub raised an eyebrow at him.

“Also, while I am not an expert in human etiquette when it comes to… gifts, I am fairly sure you are not supposed to disclose the price paid for it to the recipient.

Gabriel’s smile went out like a burned-out lightbulb. “Ah. Fuck,” was the brilliant reply. For the briefest moment, the corners of Beelzebub’s lips seemed to quirk upwards before their gaze turned inquisitive. Which was… probably not a good sign. 

“You are a mortal now.”

“... I am aware?”

“And a great many mortals have desires. The carnal sort.”

Gabriel opened his mouth, sputtered, and felt his face catch fire. 

Hey, get a room!

“Yes, I-- I suppose-- they do,” he muttered. It had been simply a fact he had been vaguely aware of for a long time, of absolutely no relevance to him. He still was of no relevance to him, or so he had thought until very, very recently. 

When the Prince of Hell had suddenly been in his arms, the weight and warmth of them, the closeness, the grip on his shirt right over a fast-beating heart he couldn’t entirely blame on jogging. How right it had felt. How reluctant he was to let go. 

Beelzebub stared, expression unreadable; only the clearing of their throat revealed the barest trace of discomfort. “Well. Do you?” they asked, their gaze resting on just about everything in the room except Gabriel, who was beginning to wish God would smite him where he stood.

“No, I--” he paused, trying with very little success to recollect his thoughts. Not that he’d precisely had carnal desires - or at least he didn’t think he did - he knew very little of what those would entail. It was not something he’d looked into. Perhaps he should seek advice. “I don’t… think I do?”

Beelzebub turned away, too quick for Gabriel to gauge their expression, and grabbed the mugs. “I see,” they said, their voice entirely flat. “Well then. Your boon and apology are accepted.”

“Ah. Good.” Gabriel cleared his throat, trying to recover some semblance of control. “Well, if you are not busy this evening, I was wondering if you’d--” 

There was a burst of flames, louder and taller than usual, followed by the wail of the fire alarm that had, at long last, detected the presence of hellfire. Gabriel ignored it, just staring in silence at the spot where Beelzebub had stood only a moment earlier, feeling a lot like he had just failed a test he did not understand.

***

"And He said to them, 'Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts?'" -- Luke 24:38

***

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[swanqueeneverafter]

The Once & Future Queen Pt.5

Storybrooke. Present. (Xena and Gabrielle sit down with the Reporter ahead of their journey to the Isle of the Blessed.) Reporter: "Xena. Gabrielle. Thanks for sitting down with me today." Xena: "No problem." Gabrielle: "We're pleased to be here." Reporter: "Good. Xena, first to you. Why have you volunteered to go on this journey to the Isle of the Blessed?" Xena: "Well, if you'd seen the carnage left in the village of Howden, you'd understand." Reporter: "Yes, your history of heroics is well documented by none other than your constant companion, Gabrielle, of course." Xena: (Smiles:) "What can I say? She writes me well." Reporter: "Indeed, but is it not also true that this mission will have dire consequences for one of your group? There have been many volunteers for this journey, including the knights of Camelot and Lancelot himself. Why did you feel compelled to add your name to that list?" Xena: "Well I've already said-" Reporter: (Cutting in:) "Was the necessity of a blood sacrifice a deciding factor for you? After all, you do have a history of falling on your sword in the name of the Greater Good." Xena: "Now wait a minute-" Gabrielle: "Xena and I are well aware of the risks involved in this mission. The veil between two worlds has been ripped open. No one is safe from the Dorocha's attacks." Reporter: "So when the time comes and the opportunity to mend the veil presents itself?" Xena: "If that time comes then-" Gabrielle: "Xena will not be the one to sacrifice herself. (Xena looks back at her:) She and I will do whatever it takes to aid the knights quest to mend the veil, but the days of Xena sacrificing herself to rid our world of evil spirits are over." Xena: "Gabri-" Gabrielle: "Over my dead body, Xena. You got that?" (Xena looks into Gabrielle's eyes and knows that her soulmate is deathly serious.) Xena: (To the Reporter:) "You heard the lady."

Camelot. Agravaine’s Chambers. (Guinevere hands Agravaine a ring.) Guinevere: “You have to take this. It bears the royal seal. In my absence, responsibility to the kingdom rests with you.” Agravaine: “What about you. Surely Lancelot is capable of succeeding without you risking your own life?” Guinevere: “Should the moment come where there is no choice but to sacrifice himself, I wish to be with him. If neither of us return, you’re to assume the throne.” Agravaine: “Your Majesty-” Guinevere: “You’re the only person I can trust, Agravaine. You know Camelot and its people.” Agravaine: “I beg of you, for the sake of the kingdom, there must be another way.” (Agravaine presses the ring back into Guinevere’s hand.) Guinevere: “My mind’s made up. I’m just grateful you’re here.” (Guinevere leaves Agravaine with the ring.)

Storybrooke. Zelena's Farmhouse. (With a small bag over his shoulder and a bundle of clothes under his arm, Robin Hood sneaks out of the farmhouse and down the steps.) Woods. (Walking through the forest, Robin turns quickly around at the sound of a twig snapping behind him.) Will: "Well, this is a bit of a turnaround isn't it?" Robin Hood: "What are you talking about?" Will: (Slaps his forehead with his palm:) "There I go again you see. Confusing you with the other Robin." Robin Hood: (Scoffs:) "You appear to be the only one who makes that mistake." (Turns and continues walking.) Will: (Jogging to catch up:) "What I meant, you see, was that back in the day, the other Robin caught me sneaking away while everyone was sleeping." Robin Hood: (Uninterested:) "Did he really?" Will: "Yeah, cause he'd just caught me lying to him. I used him for my own personal agenda. I endangered his life and the lives of his merry men." Robin Hood: "It was probably something to do with getting back to your sister, no doubt?" Will: "Yes, actually." Robin Hood: "Well then, your motives were pure." Will: (Stops and considers this. Then catches up with Robin again:) "It's not as simple as that though." Robin Hood: "Seems perfectly simple to me. You got something you wanted and Robin got screwed. It's the way of the world." Will: "You're really not like the other Robin, are you?" Robin Hood: (Turns to face him, walking backwards:) "Finally he gets it." (Turns back around.) Will: "Yeah, well my point is I can't let you do this, mate." Robin Hood: "Let me do what?" Will: "Let you sneak off on some suicide mission. (Robin stops walking:) That is what you're planning to do, right?" Robin Hood: (Sighs:) "You don't understand, Will. Good or bad, you are who you are. There's only one Will Scarlett, but for me I will always be living in my counterpart's shadow." Will: "So you're going to prove to everyone you can be a hero, is that it?" Robin Hood: "Well it sure beats staying around here and seeing that disappointed look on everyone's face when they realise I'm not him." Will: "All right, I get that. But the thing is, mate, lately I've been on this kind of redemption kick. See, I did the other Robin wrong and never got to make it up to him. Somehow that doesn't sit right with me, so I'm going to do right by you." Robin Hood: "Will, what-" Will: "I'm coming with you to this Blessed Isle and if the opportunity comes up, I'm going to make things even between us." Robin Hood: "You mean between you and the other Robin?" Will: "Exactly." Robin Hood: (Shaking his head:) "I suppose there's some logic to that somewhere." Will: (Patting Robin on the back:) "Good lad. You know it makes sense." Enchanted Forest. Past. Bazaar. (Emma catches up with the others in the marketplace.) Emma: (Laughing, hugs Tinker Bell:) "Tink, that was amazing!" Tinker Bell: (Beams:) "Thanks." Emma: (Looking around:) "Wow, you even brought the whole bazaar here. I'm very impressed." Tinker Bell: "After you described what you wanted, I figured why do things halfway eh?" Tiger Lily: "Well, bringing the bazaar here is one thing, now can you send it back?"

(Before Tinker Bell can reply, a young man rushes past them as he is pursued by three guards.) Guard 1: "After him!" Guard 2: "Riff raff!" Guard 3: "Street rat!" Guards: "Scoundrel!" Mulan: "Was that...?" Emma: "Aladdin. Come on, let's go." (They follow after the guards, hoping to get to Aladdin before any harm can come to him.) Elsewhere. (A shopkeeper is eating his lunch when there is a knock at his door.) Farzeen: “Can I help you?” Jafar: “We shall soon find out. (The shopkeeper stands and opens the door:) You are Farzeen Shahmed? You work in the marketplace selling scarves.” Farzeen: “Yes. Uh would you like one?” Jafar: “May I? (Farzeen steps aside to allow him entry. Jafar surveys his surroundings:) Oh. You earn very little income, and yet your home is well- appointed.” Farzeen: “Thank you.” Jafar: “It was not a compliment, but an observation. You have a bounty of fresh vegetables in your garden, and I couldn't help noticing you have two camels outside. Few men in Agrabah can afford even one. And yet here you are with two.” Farzeen: “I have been very fortunate.” Jafar: “Indeed. It seems you have everything a man could possibly wish for. (Moves closer to Farzeen:) Perhaps you've met someone who could grant them. Wishes.” Farzeen: “I am not sure what you mean. (Walks away from him:) My good fortune is due to a family investment that has finally begun to pay off.” Jafar: “Is that so?” Farzeen: “Yes. I can explain further, if you'll allow me to turn off the stove.” Jafar: “Yes. Yes. We wouldn't want you to overcook water. Go on.” (Farzeen bows and enters the back room. Rushing to a cupboard, he pulls out a lamp and rubs it. A red cloud of smoke emerges along with an oddly dressed, bearded man.) Farzeen: (Whispered:) “Genie.” Genie: “Master mine, my will is thine.”

Morgana’s Hovel. Present. Night. (Still wearing her healing bracelet, Morgana has a prophetic dream. Red and black banners lie strewn on a battlefield with knight’s corpses. A raven sitting on a helmet takes flight. Merlin walks onto the field, looking down at Morgana.) Morgana: “Help me, Merlin. Please.” (Morgana’s hand reaches up to Merlin from her position on the ground.) Merlin: “Is this really what you wanted, Morgana?” Morgana: “Please…” (Morgana wakes in her bed. At first she seems afraid, then angry.) Morgana: “Merlin.” Enchanted Forest. Past. Continued. Farzeen: “He's here! The one you spoke of. The man with the serpent staff.” Genie: “Steady. It's not you he's after.” Farzeen: “My third wish! I want it now.” (Farzeen pushes the lamp into the Genie’s hands.) Genie: “Have patience. I can help you.” Farzeen: “I wish you gone!” Genie: “Don't!” Farzeen: “As far from Agrabah as the Earth from the Sun!” (Jafar bursts into the room and reaches for the lamp which swiftly disappears.) Jafar: “No! (Using his powers, he lifts Farzeen into the air:) Where did you send him?” Farzeen: “I don't know! Please!” Jafar: (Calmly:) “What is it you desire?” Farzeen: “Just mercy!” Jafar: “Well, then. It seems neither of us are going to get what we want today.” (Jafar closes his fist and Farzeen screams in agony. Standing outside, having stopped to rest, Aladdin hears the poor man’s screams before he takes off running.)

(Rounding the corner, he sees the guards charging towards him once more. Stepping on a stooped man's back, Aladdin propels himself up onto some overhead beams and maneuvers around them to evade capture. Unfortunately, four more guards appear where he lands.) Aladdin: (Hands raised:) "Let's not be too hasty, we can talk about this." Guard: "The time for talking is over." Mulan: (Standing behind the guards:) "I agree. (The men turn and stare at Mulan as she draws her sword. The four guards burst out laughing at the sight and Mulan gives them a pleasant smile, long used to this kind of reaction from men:) Are you finished? Then let's begin." (Twirling her sword, Mulan makes quick work of the four guards, disarming them and sending them flying into each other to land sprawled in a heap on the ground.) Emma: (Holding her hand out to Aladdin:) "There's sure to be more on the way, so it's up to you if you want to take your chances with them or come with us?" Aladdin: "Who are you?" Emma: "A friend." Aladdin: (Looks her up and down:) "A friend like you I'd remember." Emma: "Fella, you ain't never had a friend like me. Come on! (Aladdin hesitates a moment longer before taking Emma's hand:) Tink, now!" Tinker Bell: "Right!" (With a wave of her wand, Tink, Mulan, Tiger Lily, Emma and Aladdin are enveloped in a cloud of smoke.) Crumbling Fortress. Present. Dusk. (Guinevere, Lancelot, Xena, Gabrielle and the knights arrive amongst the ruins.) Xena: “Pair off. Find any wood you can. Get the fires burning.” (The knights collect firewood while carrying torches. One of the knights hears a man’s scream and drops his firewood. The knights gather together as screams start to surround them. A Dorocha launches at them and Xena wards it off with a torch.) Gabrielle: “Let’s go!” Sir Bedivere: “We haven’t got enough!” Xena: “Go!” (The knights are back at the fire pit with Guinvere and Lancelot. Lancelot attempts to use the flint to light the fire to no avail. Taking the flint from him, Xena strikes and the fire lights instantly. Lancelot looks at her. Xena shrugs. Gabrielle grins in amusement. The knights stand around the fire with torches. Bedivere looks at the fire, then at Lancelot.) Sir Bedivere: “It won’t get us through the night.” Lancelot: “It will keep the area safe for a while.” (Later, Gwaine throws a log on the fire.) Sir Gwaine: “The last one. Maybe we should draw lots, see who gets some more.” Guinevere: (Stands:) “I’ll go.” Lancelot: “You’ll need help. I’ll go with you. (At Guinevere’s look:) Well, since when have you known how to collect firewood?” Guinevere: (Smiles:) “I wasn’t always Queen, you know.” (The knights chuckle. Xena watches as they walk off.)

(Lancelot collects firewood while Guinevere stands guard with a torch. A Dorocha charges them from behind.) Guinevere: “Lancelot! (Guinevere drops the torch to tackle Lancelot out of the way:) Let’s go!” (They rush through some passages and close a door behind them. The Dorocha seems to lose them. The knights back at the fire pit shuffle around anxiously.) Xena: “They should’ve been back by now.” Gabrielle: “Someone needs to go and look for them.” Sir Bedivere: “We’ve only got one torch between us.” (Xena grabs the torch and starts walking off.) Gabrielle: “Who’s coming with us?” (Elyan follows, then the other knights. Gwaine grabs his sword belt and puts it on while following.) Enchanted Forest. Past. (Sitting around the campfire, Aladdin tries to understand what's going on.) Aladdin: "So you mean to tell me that I'm not in Agrabah anymore?" Mulan: "The lush green forest tipped you off, huh?" Tiger Lily: (Smiles:) "No, Aladdin, you're not in Agrabah, this is the Enchanted Forest. But we can drop you back home easily enough." Aladdin: "Oh, well that's all right then. I mean there's no rush, probably best to let things calm down back home first." Mulan: "Good idea." Aladdin: "And I should thank you ladies for saving my neck. (They all look at him expectantly:) Thank you." Mulan: "You're welcome." Aladdin: "I've never seen a woman fight as well as you." Mulan: "Luckily those palace guards hadn't either. Otherwise things might've been different." Aladdin: "Those guys? Nah, palace guards are notoriously easy to get by." Regina: (Stepping out of the shadows:) "I can certainly vouch for that." Emma: "Regina!" Regina: "That was you, wasn't it? The parade?" Emma: (Smiles:) "That depends. Did you like it?" Regina: "Like it? (Walking towards her:) That was the most wonderful birthday gift anyone has ever given me. I loved it."

Tinker Bell: (Beaming:) "You're welcome." Regina: "You're a terrific fairy, Tinker Bell. Don't ever let anyone tell you differently." (Tink blushes and flutters her wings.) Regina: (Looks to Emma and then back at Tink:) "Do you think you could arrange somewhere private where Emma and I could talk? (Now looking at Emma:) I'd like to thank her for my gift." Tinker Bell: "That shouldn't be a problem." (With a wave of Tink's wand, a small tent like structure appears on the small hill, a dozen yards or so away from camp.) Emma: "Regina... are you sure?" Regina: (Leans in and kisses her:) "I've never been more sure of anything." (Regina takes her hand and leads Emma towards the tent.) Emma: (To the others:) "Uh... don't wait up." Elsewhere. (Out in the woods Snow White wanders and scans the stars in the sky.) Snow White: “Is that the star? Or is it that one?” Blue Fairy: “Worry not, Snow White. I have found you.” Snow White: (Spins around:) “Blue.” Blue Fairy: "What's troubling you, Snow?" Snow White: "You're joking, right? You saw the parade today, didn't you?" Blue Fairy: "I heard about it." Snow White: "Clearly magic was involved. Powerful magic." Blue Fairy: "What are you implying?" Snow White: "I'm asking if you knew anything about it." Blue Fairy: "I'm sorry, but no I don't." Snow White: "Well find out! Someone is trying to seduce my step-mother while my father is visiting Midas' kingdom." Blue Fairy: (Smiles:) "How do you know your father wasn't behind the parade? Perhaps he arranged it knowing he'd be away for Regina's birthday?" Snow White: "No! I am telling you this was someone else and they had magical help." Blue Fairy: "I'm sorry, Snow, but you can't expect me to-" Snow White: "I expect Fairies to know their place in my father's kingdom! Need I remind you the King often visits Camelot, a place where all magic is prohibited. King Uther is always warning my father of the dangers magic can bring. It wouldn’t take much to convince him that Uther is right. Just think of what that would mean for your kind." Blue Fairy: "Of course. I-I will find out who was behind today's parade and make sure they are reprimanded." Snow White: (Stamping her feet:) "I want them stopped permanently! Incapable of performing magic ever again. Do I make myself clear?" Blue Fairy: (Taken aback:) "Y-yes, Snow White." Snow White: "Good. I would hate to make my father aware of this." (Snow turns and walks away.) Daelbeth. Present. Continued. (Guinevere and Lancelot hide behind a corner in one of the fortress rooms. Guinevere ties a cloth around Lancelot’s injured arm. Guinevere looks uncomfortable and Lancelot gives her a questioning look.) Guinevere: “It’s cold.” Lancelot: “Right.” Guinevere: “You’re not feeling it?” (Lancelot shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head.) Guinevere: “Men.” (Back in the passages, Xena leads the knights through the fortress, warding off Dorochas with the torch. Back in the hiding chamber, Guinevere and Lancelot listen to the screaming spirits.) Lancelot: “All the things I’ve faced…I never worried about dying.” Guinevere: “We will defeat the Dorocha. We will, Lancelot, together.” (In the passages, Xena, Gabrielle and the knights continue the search. Back in the hiding chamber, Guinevere and Lancelot wait.) Lancelot: “They say the darkest hour is just before the dawn.” Guinevere: “Feels pretty dark right now.” Lancelot: “Well, it can’t be long then. (The Dorocha finds them and sweeps through the door. Lancelot starts to rush out from around the corner, but Guinevere pulls him back and stands up herself, running straight for the Dorocha:) Guin, no!” (Bursting through the door, Robin Hood arrives out of nowhere.) Robin Hood: “Get down, Your Majesty!” (Robin stands in front of Guinevere, bracing himself for the worst when he too is knocked out of the way. Will stumbles and turns to face the Dorocha. It catches Will in the chest, and throws him back against the stone wall. Xena and the others enter, warding off the Dorocha with the torch. Xena then hands the torch to Gabrielle and turns to Robin.) Xena: “What happened?” (Robin goes to Will. Turning him over, Robin sees that Will is frozen, much like the corpses found in the village.)

[thundercuntvirgin]

One Call Away From A Bad Decision

Read on AO3

Steve is hosting a sleepover for the kids but it comes with a catch-Billy Hargrove has to stay the night. However, the boys find themselves bonding over red wine and childhood disappointment. It may even lead them into a new relationship.

Trigger Warning: homophobia, internalized homophobia, referenced child abuse, karen having a ‘crush’ on billy

*post season 2*

So it turned out Hargrove wasn’t that bad when he didn’t act like an entitled asshole. The party was having a New Years sleepover at Steve’s house, and the whole night was lined up.

Steve had rented a few VHS tapes, gotten a few pints of ice cream, and washed the guest room sheets so they weren’t musty. Then the doorbell rang a half hour ahead of schedule. Steve moved around the kitchen, silent save for the sound of plates and silverware as he set them out on the counter when he heard the doorbell. A grin split Steve’s face. He figured Dustin must be early which meant Mrs. Henderson would stay for a while to ‘keep Steve company’ until the other kids showed up. Dustin would beg her to leave, but Steve just lived for all of her questions, ‘How’s school?’ ‘Have you been eating breakfast?’ ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come over for dinner sometime this week?’

But opening the door wiped the grin off his face. Billy Hargrove leaned against the door frame casually watching Max dig through the trunk of the Camaro, piling her arms with a comforter, pillow, and her stuffed backpack.

“Umn, hey, Max.” Steve said as she bolted up to door, pushing past him to dump her stuff on the dining table. “You really didn’t have to bring all that,”

“You stay there,” she said to Billy, “you come with me,” she said as she took Steve’s hand and pulled him into the kitchen. She looked around; making sure no one else was going to hear. “Mom said Billy had to come if I was gonna be able to stay over tonight, it’s a whole thing with you being and teen boy or something, but he has to stay.”

“Oh, well, why can’t he hang out with his friends?” Steve asked, trying to rationalize it all in his mind. Max huffed as if to say ‘I wish.’

“She’s gonna call and wanna talk to him, only problem is that I don’t know when so he can’t leave or else she’ll know we duped her. So are we cool?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess?” Steve said slowly. Max nodded, walking back towards the front door where Billy still stood.

“Am I cleared for entry?” Billy asked, stubbing out a cigarette with the toe of his boot. He seemed tame compared to the last time Steve had seen him outside of school related necessity. At least Steve wouldn’t have broken nose this time, unlike the night at the Byers’ house.

“Yes, but you don’t get to antagonize anyone.” Max bit back.

“There’s an ashtray out back if you wanna smoke some more,” Steve said, not really to Billy, mostly just out into the room since he figured it would go ignored. Billy nodded when Steve pointed a finger through the kitchen.

Steve barely had time to think before another car was pulling up the driveway. Mrs. Wheeler’s station wagon pulled up behind the Camaro, Mike and Will pouring out of the backseat.

“Dustin and Lucas here yet?” Will called as they swung their backpacks over a shoulder.

“Not yet, just Max.” Steve said just as Mrs. Wheeler spoke up.

“Behave, Michael!” she said.

“You never tell Will to behave!” Mike bit back. Steve could see Will softly laughing beside Mike.

“Because I know he will, Mike.” Mrs. Wheeler said, edged with frustration. Mike huffed, turning away from his mother, dragging a grinning Will into the living room. “Oh, Steve, is,” Mrs. Wheeler looked around suspiciously, feigning some sort of innocence. “Is Billy here tonight?”

“Umn, yeah, Max’s mom wanted him to stay.” Steve said. It was so strange how Mrs. Wheeler acted about it. Like she had some high school crush.

*~*

Steve knew Dustin had shown up when the door opened without a knock.

“What the fuck is Hargrove doing here, man?” Dustin said, flinging his bag to the side and dropping to sit on the floor between Steve and Lucas. Will shot him a look as he shuffled cards on the opposite side of the coffee table. “This was supposed to be Party only, we even got El in on it!”

“Yeah, well you’re late, so you don’t get a vote,” Steve shot back playfully.

“Also, of course this is ‘party only’ none of us have any other friends.” Max bit back. Dustin moved to flip her off but Steve smacked his hand down.

“Hey, how about dinner!” Steve said, getting a round of ‘yes’ from around the coffee table. Lucas and Will raced to the kitchen, everyone else following.

“Figured in honor of El’s first sleepover, we should have breakfast for dinner.” Steve said, pulling a few boxes of eggos from the freezer. El’s eyes lit up at the sight of the yellow boxes. “I’ll leave these up to the professional,” he said handing the boxes to El, “And for Will to be in charge of eggs. Everyone else set the table and do as they say!”

The kitchen became a flurry of action, more than it had ever seen before, with Lucas whisking eggs from Will to fry , El showing Mike and Max the perfect way to cook an eggo, and Lucas and Dustin sword fighting with dull butter knives.

*~*

Just as the kids finished eating Steve realized he’d forgotten to offer a plate to Hargrove. Steve searched his mind to see if he could even remember seeing Hargrove eat, even at school. As far as Steve knew Hargrove spent his lunch period outside smoking.

“Okay, you guys start dishes, I’m gonna take a plate out back.” Steve said, Dustin rolling his eyes. Getting another clean plate from the cabinet, Steve loaded the last of the eggs and two leftover eggos onto it, grabbing a fork. He heard them bickering over who had to wash the silverware as he slid open the door to the back patio.

Of all the things Steve expected, what he saw wasn’t one of them. Hargrove had his leather jacket zipped all the way up, a worn looking flannel peeking out the bottom, laid out sleeping on a lounge chair. He looked like he had been scrunched up but fell asleep, spread out like a napping child.

Steve realized he didn’t know how to wake Hargrove without risking death. Steve shifted the plate and fork to his other hand to knock on the side of the house. Hargrove sat up suddenly, head whipping around to stare at Steve. His eyes were big and round, the surprise making him seem less scary, more human.

“I’ve got dinner for you, if you want.” Steve felt a tiny bit more confidant from how off guard Hargrove seemed. He held out the plate and fork for the other boy to grab. Hargrove scrambled out of the chair, walking over to Steve without any swagger, his eyes still a little sleepy looking.

“Thanks,” he said, quietly accepting the plate.

“You can leave it in the sink when you’re done.” Steve said, turning to go back into the house.

*~*

The girls were upstairs getting into bed, the boys fighting over who got to sleep on which part of the couches. Steve wasn’t going to get involved in their scuffle until Lucas smacked Dustin with a pillow and an all-out war was about to start.

Steve could hear the girls laughing from their perch on the stair as he grabbed the pillows and declaring Will king over who got to sleep where. While they bribed Will to let them have a better spot, Steve wandered into the kitchen to wipe the counters down and finish any dishes. The only problem was there was no last plate in the sink to wash. Hargrove hadn’t fucking brought his plate in. If Steve thought about it the plate was probably at the bottom of the pool.

He rolled his eyes, turning to go back outside. When Steve barged outside Hargrove’s head whipped around. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his jacket, knees pulled up towards to chest, cigarette caught between his lips, the cherry red end nearly about to fall off. He was still perched on the lounge chair.

“Where’s the plate?” Steve asked sharply. “I need to wash it.” he added when Hargrove’s shoulders went rigid.

“I already washed your fucking plate and fork so you can stop shoving lemon slices up your ass or whatever you do that makes you a bitch.” Hargrove bit back, dragging his right hand out of his jacket to knock the ash off his cigarette. He ended up stubbing it out in the ashtray on the ground next to the chair.

Steve didn’t bother replying. He felt stupid even though there was no reason to think Hargrove would’ve washed the plate. He turned back inside, sliding the door closed behind him and headed for his dad’s office. The living room had gotten quiet, so Steve was done with the kids for the night.

His Dad always had hard, expensive liquor in his office, but his Mom made sure there was nice wine for guests. Steve grabbed a bottle of wine. It didn’t matter which one cause his Mom and Dad didn’t matter, not tonight.

Walking back through the kitchen, switching lights off as he went, Steve grabbed two mugs and a nutcracker to open the bottle with. On second thought, he went to the living room, quietly grabbing two fluffy blankets before heading outside.

Hargrove side eyes him suspiciously as he walks around him to sit in the lounge chair to the left. Steve passed over a blanket, half expecting it to be thrown in his face. Hargrove just wrapped it around his shoulders, hunching in on himself to cover his knees.

“I don’t know why anyone chooses to live in Mr. Snow Miser’s asshole,” Hargrove said moodily.

“If I give you wine will you shut up about how shitty Hawkins is?” Steve halfheartedly snapped back, pulling the cork out with the nutcracker.

“Maybe she’s born with it, maybe its misery,” Hargrove retorted reaching for a mug. He held it as Steve filled it halfway with dark red wine.

Steve filled his own, gently tapping it against Hargrove’s as a shitty toast. They both sat back watching the steam rise off the pool. They sat and drank in silence until Billy sat up, reaching for the bottle.

“You gonna have any more?” he asked, raising the bottle.

“Yeah, just top me off.” Steve said, holding up his mug as Hargrove more in. He was feeling warm, mind buzzing already with strong wine.

Hargrove regarded the three quarters empty bottle for a minute before softly saying “fuck it” and taking a long pull from the bottle.

“Do you ever just wish you could scream?” Hargrove said suddenly. “And it didn’t matter who heard you or saw you. You just got to scream.”

“You’re crazy, Hargrove, but yeah.” Steve said, laughing a little at the absurdity of it.

“Don’t call me Hargrove. If we drink we’re using first names,” he retorted, pulling from the bottle again.

“Yeah, sure man,” Steve brushed off.

“Steve,” Billy said. Steve’s head rolled over to glare at Hargrove. “If you can admit that you wanna scream, I think you can manage to say my name. I’ll even accept legal first names if that butters your fancy disposition,”

“Legal? What the fuck is the difference, man?” Billy side eyed him for a second before sitting up properly.

“What do you think my name is?” he asked.

“Billy, duh, I’m not stupid.” Steve bitched back, a little sleepy from the wine. Billy started laughing a little, then a lot, until he fell over onto Steve’s outstretched legs. Steve just pushed his face away as if it was no big deal to be hanging out with Billy Hargrove.

“My first name is William you asshole!” Billy cackled, taking another swig. Steve’s eyes got wide and he leaned forwards.

“No! You’re fucking with me! That’s not how that works, if your name is William then people would call you Will, that’s how it works!” Steve said, voice pitching upwards.

“William turns into Billy, how have you never heard that!” Billy laughed out, still lying on Steve’s legs.

“I’ gonna call you Billiam!” Steve cackled. Billy’s eyes went wide.

“No you do not! Fuck you!” Billy gasped. He smacked Steve’s thigh, falling off his lounge chair.

“So Billiam, what brings you here tonight?” Steve asked in a fake posh voice.

“Insurmountable toil and grief,” Billy said dramatically. “And you good sir?”

Steve sobered a bit, falling back on his chair. “All the shit I can’t talk about. The shit that makes me wanna scream.” he said softly. Billy turned his head to look at Steve, cheek resting on Steve knee.

“I fucking hate that shit.” Billy said sadly, eyes staring at someplace far away.

“Well since I can’t talk about my shit,” Steve started, downing the last of his mug. “You wanna talk about yours?”

“Sure, I’m feeling lucky” Billy climbed back up in his lounge chair. “My dad has to know every fucking thing I do and nothing is ever good enough for him. Perfect isn’t perfect enough.” He punctuation by taking another swig of wine.

“Fuck,” Steve breathed out, grabbing the bottle from Billy and drinking.

“Welcome to my shitshow of a life, Steve Harrington.” Billy said, flipping off the sky. “He’d lose his shit if he knew I was hanging out with you,”

Steve’s eyebrows pinched together. He glanced at Billy. “Why the hell would he go off about me?”

Everything was silent for a while, the night sounds seeming increasingly loud.

“Because I have the habit of making bad decisions with pretty boys,” Billy whispered.

“I can’t imagine what counts as a ‘bad decision’ for you,” Steve giggled out. He could feel Billy’s eyes boring into him. He turned his head, their eyes meeting, Billy looking stricken.

“Why don’t you tell me if this is a bad decision,” Billy whispered, moving closer to Steve, hand braced next to Steve’s hip. Steve felt slow and sleepy but Billy’s face moving in closer to his was a crystal clear image.

Steve was actually surprised by how soft Billy’s lips were. And how gently he kissed. And how… how delicately he kissed. Billy pulled back first, eyes wide and vulnerable. Immediately his face changed. His eyes shined in a way Steve had never seen before.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” Billy whispered frantically. He pulled back, sitting in his chair again, chest heaving. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

Steve wasn’t sure why but it scared him how honest and raw Billy seemed. Steve watched as Billy picked the wine bottle up and drained what was left, falling back when he finished.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Steve, I fucked up. I’m so sorry.” he said, rubbing his eyes like he could bring himself to look as Steve.

“Why are you sorry?” Steve asked quietly, not daring to move.

“I fucked up, I shouldn’t have done that.” Billy whispered back. His voice sounded clogged and thick. Like he could barely force the words out.

“What if I didn’t hate it?” Steve asked softly. “What if I maybe wanted to do it again?”

“Your drunk, and not thinking right.” Billy said, voice still wavering.

“I’m tipsy, not stupid. But I would be stupid to lie and say I hated it, to say that I hate you.” Steve sat up to really look at Billy. His eyes were watery and tiny tears were stuck in his lashes. He was biting his lip so hard it was turning white, hands shaking as he wiped at his face.

“No,” Billy whispered. “No, you’re going to regret everything you’re saying in the morning.” it was strange, but Steve couldn’t stand seeing Billy so frantic. He reached out, taking one of Billy’s hands, and leaned forwards. Pressing his lips to Billy’s.

He felt Billy’s breathe stutter, but despite it all he leaned into Steve. All of a sudden Billy surged forwards pushing one hand deep into Steve’s hair and the other clutching at Steve’s shirt. They drug each other closer, lips moving together. Somewhere in the back of his mind Steve knew this was strange—was beyond strange to be making out with the guy who beat your face in. But oddly enough Steve craved it. And it seemed like Billy did too.

They weren’t even doing much, just kissing like middle schooler in a movie theater. Billy’s hand gently tracing through Steve’s hair. The kiss was soft like before, but persistent like they both needed it.

Steve heard the echo of the phone ringing in the kitchen. Billy pulled back. He scrambled off the chair, franticly slid open the door, running inside to answer. Steve followed. He slid the door closed as Billy answered the phone.

“Susan?” Billy asked softly. The person on the phone said something that made Billy flinch a tiny bit. “Yes sir, Max and the other girl are upstairs asleep, all the boys are in the living room.” a long pause filled with Billy staring at the floor, eyes shining again. “Yes sir.” he says again.

The commotion must have woken Dustin up because he sleepily walks into the kitchen rubbing his eyes, glancing between Steve and Billy. Steve just makes a motion for Dustin to go back to bed.

“Of course, no I’m not-I wouldn’t lie-” Billy is cut off by the person on the phone again. Dustin shrugs and turns back towards the living room. “I-yeah, yes sir.”

Billy seems to stare at the floor for a long time after the call is finished. He’s still holding the phone to his ear, the dial tone buzzing loud enough for Steve to hear. Billy’s hands shake as he puts the phone back on the wall, wiping his face. That’s when Steve sees how red his eyes are, tears threatening to leak out.

“Was that you’re dad?” Steve asks, stepping closer.

“Can we just go back outside?” Billy whispers.

“Wanna go to the den? It’ll be warm,” Steve says. Billy softly nods, wiping his face again. Steve takes his hand gently and leads him through dining room and down the hall to the den.

They fall onto the overstuffed couch. Steve’s mother hated the couch but couldn’t be bothered to get rid of it. They sat next to each other just holding hands.

“Are you going to be okay when you and Max go home?” Steve asks quietly.

“It’ll be fine,” is all Billy says. Steve really wants hug him like he would Nancy, but it doesn’t feel like Billy wants that.

“What do you want to do?” Steve asks, half expecting Billy to say he wants to drink or smoke.

“I wanna sit here and not be alone,” he says so quietly Steve thinks he miss heard him. “I just don’t want to be alone.”

Steve grips his hand harder, Billy glancing up to look at Steve.

“I’m almost always alone,” he says like it’s a secret. “There’s always people, but I’m still alone. People want me but they don’t want me, they want this person that they’ve made in their mind.” Steve felt a strange type of comradery bloom in his chest at Billy’s statement

“I kinda get that.” Steve says quietly. They meet eyes. Billy grips his hand back just as hard, intertwining their fingers. Billy glanced away, swallowing thickly, adam’s apple bobbing. He seemed to steady himself before speaking.

“I promise not to be an ass to you, no matter where we are.” he said so softly that Steve thought he imagined it. “I haven’t been fair to you. I was,” he stopped himself to think. “I am angry and mean and I hurt people.”

“I used to be an asshole. It just takes the right incentive sometimes, like people you care about. And I think you care more than you’d like to admit.” Steve said gently. He gently pushed Billy over so he was laying down on the couch. Billy laughed a little. “Now get some sleep, Billiam.”

“Nooo!” Billy whined at the shitty nickname. Steve just fell back onto the arm of the couch, snickering softly.

[swordedfool]

kisses w all the guys pls ill cry

kisses? sure !!

         ⌜ ☼ ⌟   ―――   𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼

the waves were particularly pristine that night. having visited the beach earlier that day, romeo was tired out. but it didn’t mean his heart wasn’t doing cartwheels in his chest because of the person walking beside him. she was totally oblivious to the way his eyes practically formed hearts in direction, aloof to how she looked under the moonlight, and clueless to how she made him feel in general. romeo’s advances on seren had always been met with a laugh or a shrug or a giggle, always taking it for a joke. at that point, he had grown rather used to it. but it didn’t stop him from wishing that she would take him seriously, that she would give him a chance. the problem he found was that his words often lose their meaning in the way he says it. maybe it was why he was particularly quiet tonight. and she noticed.

“ you’re awfully quiet. are you alright? ”.

her concern towards others always blew him away. and what rendered him quiet was the fact that she hardly asked him whether he was alright. but that was mostly because he pretended to be okay, brushed off an injury like a simple graze, smiled through any ache in his chest. hearing her ask that question she’s heard her ask the others a dozen times was not good for him. it just made his heart clench more.

romeo chuckled and nodded, “ sure. just a bit tired, that’s all. mind if go sit down for a bit? my legs are tired. ” receiving a nod, he led them to a nearby bench. it reminded him briefly of their first proper conversation in the school outdoor yard, sitting under a blue sky, talking about her plans to put together a team. it felt like a long time since then.

immediately after taking his seat, he noticed the girl beside him move to fix her bow. shifting over, he drew the distance between them smaller and immediately reached towards her hair and caressed it gently, moving her fingers away and fixing the bow himself. “ oh, thank you. i just can’t seem to get it to stay still lately ”, seren grumbled. he hummed and could only afford to admire her side profile, lingering in this proximity until she rose her gaze and smiled at him questioningly. “ what’s up? ”.

why must she assume something is always wrong? it was a detail about her romeo grew fond of over time, something that caused him to smile as he fixed her bow but did not retreat his hands, brushing his trembling fingers through her hair and risking a peek at her reaction. she continued to beam at him, never raising a brow, never questioning his next move. she was too innocent for him sometimes, hence why most his advances went over her head so quickly and so easily.

it felt criminal to suddenly lean in, but what was more criminal was her reaction, how the blush flooded to her cheeks in an instant and did unspeakable things to his heart. he dared to tuck one strand of hair behind her ear, tapping her chin with a minor chuckle. it felt inappropriate that his mind had gone blank, only the thought of kissing her became his priority. “ i really want to kiss you right now ”, he admitted with slight hesitation, far unlike the normal romeo who would go with the flow. he just didn’t want it to feel forceful.

“ oh ”, seren replied, he was starting to blush nearly as badly as her. “ i-i can’t promise i’ll be very good at it, i’m not exactly smooth when it comes to these things. so if it sucks i’m sorry-- .” he had to cut her off, cupping her cheek and locking his lips with hers, sealing a dream that he would only see in his sleep. on cue, both their eyes fluttered closed. he felt like she had taken his breath away, so he moved slowly, his kiss like a ghost against her lips, his hand still caressing her hair lovingly. his heart? well it never stopped racing, only when he had the courage to pull away and immediately found himself giggling. “ w-what? was it bad? hey, don’t laugh, i’ll get embarrassed! ”.

romeo smiled fondly at her, lips still tingling, heart ringing in his ears. he leaned in just once more and pecked her cheek, and then grasped her hand and pulled her to her feet. “ it was everything i have always dreamed of ”, he told her softly.

seren hummed with a frown, “ so you have dreamed of kissing me? ”. he didn’t bring himself to respond, only smiling at her and tugging her along.

        ⌜ ☆ ⌟   ―――   𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿

libraries are meant for studying, but there are some who may not see it that way. there are some who see libraries as a place to reminisce, to think, to reflect. for alexander, the library had been his safe space since he started studying at valhalla. but it had ended up being the place he took to admire art. and not the painting or drawing kind.

he has been glancing over at the silent seren beside him for a while, finding himself increasingly distracted by her presence. she was quiet, minding her own business, reading through a magic tome for a project. occasionally she would glance up, meet his gaze and smile, before going back to her reading, and every time, he found himself growing frustrated. there has been a feeling bubbling up in his stomach for a while, and it was caused by a mere glance at seren. he didn’t know the origin of it, but he could comprehend it. he really wanted to kiss her.

most dream of kissing their loved one and not many have the luck of such a thing occurring. he’s been fighting those thoughts back but they rush back in like a current by a shore. a feeling that would crash in and rattle every nerve in his body and retreat the moment he lets reality sink in.

alexander found his timing to be flawed when the girl cleared her throat and closed the tome, and rose from her chair. “ i’m finished for the day. i think i’ll be in my room. are you going to be okay alone? ”, she questioned with a hushed tone, despite the library being empty.

no, he wanted to say. every time she left him to go to her class or to return to her room, he found himself lonelier than ever, and missing her the moment she leaves. when she’s gone, he sees her in his dreams and imagines that he might be able to hold her hand and tell her he likes her, or caress her hair or hug her or even kiss her. but the moment he woke up and saw her the following morning, the courage evaporated into thin air. that was why he found himself questioning whether now was a good time. she’s standing there, book to her chest, gazing at him curiously.

“ there is one thing you can do for me ”, he began. when seren hummed and stepped forward to listen, alexander acted upon the courage that shook him to his core. he bit his lip and reached up, grasping her gently behind her neck and bringing her face forward towards him. the girl squeaked and he then found himself staring at two round, stunned eyes. she hadn’t moved away yet, so he went for it.

his initiation of the kiss was tender, sweet, because he was unsure himself. but once his eyes flutered closed and the adrenaline began to race, he deepened it, cupping both sides of her face and moving her closer to him. the position was awkward, he’d rather have her on his lap, if he was being honest. yet he cut it short, pulling away a few moments later with slight pants and red cheeks. pecking her lips one final time, alexander saw seren’s face painted a vermilion that suited her completely.

“ w-well ”, she stated nervously, gulping. “ t-that was nice. ” grasping the back of his chair, alexander leaned in once more and pecked her lips again. and then again. until she whined and moved back. “ alex~~ i really got get going now. w-we can continue this another time. ” he smiled and nodded and waved her off, sighing slightly as she paced away. this is why he likes coming to the library.

      ⌜ ❁ ⌟   ―――   𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲𝘂𝘀

there are just some days that should not be ruined. and with every stroke of good luck in one day alone, percy would find himself feeling unstoppable. just earlier today, he had gotten an a+ in his magical art project. then they had served his favorite meal for lunch. not to mention that afternoon lessons were cancelled so he spent two hours in his dorm painting. needless to say, there was a skip in step, insinuating just how happy he was. if he were to come across one of his friends, he would just hug them because he was so happy. no reason needed, he’s just overjoyed!

and he would be damned if something were to ruin it. percy had just come out of his room and was on his face to the lounge where evangelos wanted to play table tennis. out of his uniform and sketchbook in hand, his steps were rushed, but they came to a stop when he reached the stairwell leading up to the lounge. it was empty except for one person coming down, and suddenly, his heart was taking off. his happiness didn’t disappear, but rather, it paused. and then began to overflow all over again.

seren had stopped halfway down the stairs, hand brushing against the railing and smiled softly when she locked eyes with the artist. “ percy! evan is waiting for you. i would join you guys but i’m not in the best mood right now ”, she spoke with an uneasy laugh towards the end, and he began to walk up to meet her halfway.

to see the mild sadness on her face dared to break his heart in two. he had such a good day, and maybe it was that happiness that erupted in his chest when he saw her that gave him a sudden feeling of courage. if she was upset, he was more than willing to cheer her up. he climbed up until there was just one step separating them, and he smiled lightly, noticing she was a tiny bit taller than him now.

“ can i ask you something? ”, he asked, heart trembling when she nodded. it felt so unlike him to suggest this, usually being the one waiting for the romantic gesture rather than initiating it himself. but with seren, he took impulses, maybe in the fear that he will miss his chances and then never have them again. percy’s lips trembled to get the word out, cheeks flaming. “ c-can i kiss you? ”.

the courage to ask was used, and he immediately found his gaze grounded to the floor, unable to look at the girl in the eye, unable to fathom the idea of her either rejecting or accepting his request. he assumed she was going to laugh it off as she does when romeo flirts with her, but seren did take one final step down, now face to face with the nervous boy. only a few inches seperated them, yet when seren nodded, there was no reason for him to stay away.

percy had never kissed someone, so it was no wonder he hesitated. but his hands moved and cupped her cheeks adoringly, appreciating the view in front of him and then pecking her lips at first, unsure, nervous, like he was poking his feet in cold water. but he caved in and pressed his lips softly against hers, nearly melting when she grasped his shirt and held it tightly into her hands. he was painfully scared, they both were, so careful that it ended up being softer than he was anticipating. but he was not complaining, he was kissing her!

percy pulled away first, and his face met the crook of her neck, rushing to hide it. seren giggled and rubbed his shoulder tenderly, “ hey, it’s rude not to look at a girl after a kiss. ” muttering a small ‘sorry’ against her skin, seren only smiled and ended up hugging the male tightly. this had to be one of the best days in his life.

“ c-can i kiss you again? ”.

      ⌜ ♕ ⌟   ―――   𝗸𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻

what kailen has found in the months of liking the same girl, is that she’s very clumsy. the nurse’s room had become a second home to her, especially after dueling lessons. and when the nurse was not present, most likely refueling her cup of coffee, he would be the one looking for the first aid kit and treating whatever ‘boo-boo’ seren had. and it was clear that she felt guilty, through her pouts and mumbled ‘sorry’s, yet he never held it against her.

if anything, he loved taking care of her. because it would often be tender moments that they shared alone, and those happen rarely. it’s idiotic to wish harm upon someone, but kailen wasn’t doing that; he just didn’t mind it when she came running to him because of a bad paper cut or a sprained ankle. as of now, he was delicately cleaning the palms of her hands after she fell and badly scraped her hands.

“ i would tell you to be more careful but you won’t exactly listen ”, he stated with a minor chuckle. seren pouted but made no attempt at responding with something witty as she tended to do. being in a room alone with her did make him nervous, though. kailen hardly acted upon his thoughts and impulses in fear it would upset someone, but he ached to hug seren, or caress her hair.

the contact was limited to him only nursing her, though. yet he refused to be upset by that, cleaning her slightly bloodied palms and then proceeding to apply the plasters and bandages. once he finished, kailen let out a happy sigh and smiled at the girl sat on the nursing bed. “ is there anything you want me to do? do you need pills? ”, he questioned. and hummed when she reached her hands towards him.

“ can you kiss it better? ”, asked seren, almost in a child’s voice. and who was he to refuse to a demand when she said it so cutely?! chuckling, kailen bit back his nerves and took her hand gently into his, pressing a delicate peck to her bandaged palms, looking up at her to see if she was content. she looked rather happy. but after kissing her palms, kailen’s feelings began to haunt him once more.

she had asked him to kiss it better, and though she smiled, the pout remained. he wasn’t going to be able to stand that. he would usually run from this but now, he was so close. kailen moved in, setting his hand beside where she sat and drew their distance to a close. still holding her injured hand, he started off with a kiss against her cheek. when she turned her face to glance at him, he leaned and pecked her lips. to his surprise, she still didn’t pull away. so he kissed her properly, as best as he could. as gently as he could. as passively as he could.

it was the first time he had ever gotten this close to seren, and it was the first time he realised the whiff of her perfume and the warmth of her skin. he tightened his grip on her hand and broke the kiss in fear of pushing too far, cheeks burning, heart throbbing.

seren gulped, staring at him with wide eyes. he feared he’d totally scared her off and opened his mouth to apologise, but stopped. “ well ”, seren began and suddenly chuckled. “ i suddenly feel ten times better. ”

“ g-good! ”.

“ do it again. ”

“ huh?! ”.

      ⌜ ❆ ⌟   ―――   𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘀

evangelos gave good hugs, that was just a very known fact. despite being the most intimidating person on the face of the earth, his arms gave perhaps the warmest and most comforting embraces that you’d ever want. it was possibly why when his crush was upset, she would find herself in his arms within no time. the moment he saw that frown, he would know. and would open those arms wide for her.

he did it to cleo, he did it to percy. but his heart just trembled the most when it came to seren. you might understand why when you are hugged by the girl. whenever he looks down at her when her arms are wrapped around his slim waist, he just feels like dying. she was so cute, so warm, so cuddly, like a teddy bear he never had growing up.

today was like most days, but what he found particularly different was the lack of communication coming from the girl beside him. they’d been eating for a while, he would tune into the conversations between the others yet his gaze would quietly shift to seren. this happened many times until he realised that something was definitely wrong. especially with how close she was sitting to him.

that was armsend code for ‘i want hugs.’

it was why he ultimately led her outside. the courtyards were empty this time around, they appeared to be in luck and the moment he turned to seren, he opened his arms wide for her and watched her push through like a magnet, capturing his waist into a tight embrace which he returned. having him in his arms practically recharged his battery, even if it was short. “ what’s up this time, searing? ”, he questioned, receving a hum in response. “ what was that? ”.

“ not a good day ”, the girl echoed, closing her eyes and resting her head over his chest. would it be too bad if she heard his heart beating? it was going too fast for his own liking and he would most likely give himself away if he didn’t calm down. she glanced up suddenly and he felt like his world had been rocked upside down. “ i just needed a hug. ”

evangelos remained perfectly still, staring into tearful blue eyes and finding himself nervous, but he was really good at not showing it. the moment he leaned down and kissed her, though, he prayed that his cheeks wouldn’t give it away, that his heart was basically aching. it wasn’t fear that kept him from kissing her, rather, it was a form of hesitation that worried him. what if she didn’t like it, what if she doesn’t like me? thoughts that echoed on a daily.

he felt like dying, though, when she stood on her tip toes and wrapped her frail arms around his neck, sinking into a kiss he had contemplated for ages. he didn’t want to break it, deepening it slowly, his lips picking up a desperate pace. with the strength he had, arms locked around her waist, he did the most romantic thing he could think of and lifted her off her feet just ever so slightly, nervous at her giggles.

evangelos was a passionate person, but he wasn’t given enough time to show that. he pulled away when he put the girl back down, caressing her cheek lovingly. “ i just asked for a hug ”, she said breathlessly.

“ what, you didn’t like it? fine, i won’t give you anymore ”, he grumbled and bit back a gasp when she pulled him back in again for a second kiss, and this time, he melted.

evangelos gave good hugs, but he also gave the best kisses.

[fuwafuwamedb]

Singularity Subspecies V: The Holy Land: Jerusalem: Jerusalem of Holy Sin - Chapter 4: Deals And Alliances

Chapters: Prologue - Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

> ”Deals with a Pharaoh”

“SHE WAS HERE!”

What a delightful way to get up, Gudako thought blearily, opening her eyes to see a pair of hands holding her shoulders and shaking her into consciousness. The man holding her was absolutely out of control once more, looking around at the other two in the room.

“Where is she? Did she get hurt? Why aren’t one of you watching over her?!”

She had missed something obviously. The man was being absurdly vague on who the hell he was talking about.

“Ozy-“

“Where is my wife?”

Why would she know this?

They hadn’t been able to find her before. It was one of the reasons they were not with her currently. If they knew where that woman was, she’d probably be begging the pharaoh’s woman to please- please stop the pharaoh’s madness.

“The bloom ya got,” Cu explained, bringing light to the situation.

“Oh…. So the lady by the well was your wife?”

Ozymandias pulled back, releasing her. He looked to the other two. “Where is this well? How long was I asleep?”

“We moved locations because of a fight,” David explained. “It’s been hours and Cu and I didn’t get a look at her.”

“How would you miss seeing my wife?!”

The pharaoh was livid, rounding on the two as Gudako found herself able to finally have a moment of freedom from the pharaoh’s attention. She took a drink from David’s hands as the king argued with the pharaoh about the situation.

That was right. They’d run into the guards last night and needed to move. There had been a little boy that had called Ozymandias’ wife an angel of Solomon’s. If that was true, then perhaps the king was still in Jerusalem. She doubted that the boy would mention Solomon otherwise.

If that were the case though…

She could have Solomon around.

True, it would be before he became Romani or fought in any wars, but he’d be there.

New memories and opportunities could be created. She could have everything back in some manner.

“I cannot stay here when my wife is out there somewhere looking for me!”

“Fine,” David waved a hand. “Do not assist Gudako in trying to help figure out the problems with this singularity.”

Oh no.

“Wait!”

Gudako hurried after the pharaoh, hurrying outside.

The man was already heading down the way, his golden armor and jewels gathering the attention of every damn person out on the street. She needed to get him hidden and possibly changed into something less conspicuous immediately.

“Ozymandias!”

The pharaoh didn’t turn. She ran as fast as she could to reach him.

“Rider!” She held his arm, finding him glaring her way.

“I will not entertain you-“

“I want to help you!”

The man paused a moment before huffing.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and nodded. “Then let us search with one another-“

“We need to do it with Cu Chulainn and David.”

“They are hindering-“

“They found us a hiding place! Twice!”

“And we have not found what we are looking for, have we?” Those golden eyes looked down at her. “This is not the time for hiding like mice. We must locate-“

“If Moses is against you, then he might be against Nefertari.” That was her name, right?

The man glared at her. “He would never-“

“We don’t know for sure,” Gudako warned. “Let’s be smart. I’m all for blowing our way through the city, but damn. I heard Solomon may be here.”

“Him again?” The pharaoh narrowed his gaze.

He remembered the fight against Goetia.

“…Do you think he may be influencing Moses?”

Why did he sound so hopeful?

“He might,” Gudako relented.

“Then we should think…” He sighed. “I shall allow you to assist me, Chaldean. For now. Be grateful for my willingness for viziers.”

Thank goodness. Gudako smiled a little.

“Then let’s get back and think a little more.”

They were halfway back when they heard the group speaking quietly on a doorstep.

“Did you see them?”

“No, but the men wouldn’t stop praising them and praying to God. The entire area is acting like they’re drunk.”

“What should we do?”

“We will need to tell the guards.”

The citizens glanced their way a moment before a couple men pulled out weapons.

Gudako glanced to Ozymandias and nodded.

They’d have to fight and then run.

“Watch a pharaoh and be astounded, my advisor!”

>> ”When Angels Meet”

The woman dropped from the heavens above, making her pause.

It wasn’t what she had wanted. She had wanted to simply pass through the area and find out if the fighting area was where her brother by law was. She needed to find Moses. Finding herself here, summoned by an elder who was ruthlessly killed for his magic, she had found herself alone and scared for only a short time.

Then she had heard that Moses was here.

Moses would help her. Each day she grew weaker and weaker.

Helping people here and there was okay, since it meant that she helped make people see that, even as a caster, she was a person with kindness and well meaning intentions in her heart. She was a pharaoh who cared for others and would do right by them.

Always had, always would.

The woman before her though moved to stand up.

At first glance, she almost thought the woman looked like her, but the pale complexion and the dark eyes said otherwise. The bored expression and the golden fabrics draped across her person were also very different from her own.

“You’re a servant.”

Oh, she’s got a cute voice, Nefertari thought. She nodded.

“I am a caster.”

Those dark eyes narrowed a bit, a selection of portals appearing behind her.

“Do you wish to surrender or would you care to fight?”

“Can I defer?”

The woman blinked, frowning. “Excuse me?”

Nefertari nodded, opening her own portals and pouring forth a thick mead that was one of her former pharaoh’s favorites when he had been alive. She held the cup she had brought forth out.

“…I am here to kill anyone who is interfering in this time… I was put together for that purpose.”

“Drink with me. Let us speak as sisters.”

A handful of great wooden boards slammed into the earth behind her. She could feel the air around them becoming thicker. She could almost taste the intoxicating drink in the air.

“I,” the woman spoke slowly, “am not a goddess to take being insulted with meager swill lightly.”

“Nor am I, but I’m willing to relent that another may make drink just as fine.”

She was Hathor in spirit, the sweet goddess of admiring and of fine drink. She would not allow someone to belittle her, but the woman before her seemed off.

This woman felt entirely different.

Not a goddess…

Humans were leaving their homes around them, moving to watch as the strange woman moved closer to her.

Her entire body was glinting a bit, like she had sprung forth from a spring rather than walked and climbed around through this dusty city. Her jewelry jingled on her person as she looked down at the cup still being offered to her.

Holding her hands, the woman lifted the cup.

Nefertari drank the first few sips.

The woman drank the next few sips.

“…You truly do not intend to do anything to this city?”

Nefertari shook her head. “My master was an elder in this place. He spoke of fond memories and a loving king named Solomon.”

“Where is he?”

“Gone. He was slaughtered for practicing mystic arts.”

The woman scoffed, glancing to the humans nearby. More of the mist rose. Nefertari could see the people tripping over themselves, clinging to one another.

“You’re intoxicating them,” Nefertari accused.

“My master draws near. I need to figure out what has happened to me… I feel… different.”

“Ah! So you aren’t a goddess!”

Those brown eyes flashed gold. Pure, melted gold!

So beautiful!

Nefertari let the cup from her hands vanish back into the portal from whence it had come, her hands cupping the woman’s cheeks.

“You’re beautiful!”

“Ah- I am plain.”

“No no! I like this! Join me!”

“What?”

Yes, she would have this beautiful stranger help her to reach her brother by law. They could help fix all that had gone wrong with this place. This woman could be at her side and help her to fix all that had gone wrong in this city.

“I am a master… but I am not a master… I’m a goddess…” the woman told her. Her eyes returned to that brown color from before. “…I can’t remember what happened before, but this goddess in my head says that I cannot trust anyone.”

“Stay with me then!”

Those brown eyes opened again.

“My brother and my master would have called you an angel,” she told the woman. “You gift happiness, even if you give too much! I will help you sort out the truth of who you are if you help me find my family and repair this city.”

“This city has darkness in it.”

It did. Nefertari nodded at that.

She wasn’t afraid of that though. If anything, it made her smile more. With this pretty woman’s face in her hands and her power all around them, she had no doubts.

They would be an unstoppable pair, two sisters in liquor-making and in war.

“Please help me find my brother, Moses!”

The woman glanced behind them, at the portals forming in the air not far from where they were, maybe a street over.

She could feel the woman hoist her up into her arms.

“I am Ninkasi… I think,” the woman told her.

“I am Nefertari,” she told Ninkasi in response. “May I call you by your class name? I assume you are a servant too.”

“Ruler.”

“Ruler.” Nefertari nodded. She felt herself hugged to the woman’s side and watched as a set of portals were opened. A great flood of liquor was poured into the streets, flooding the ground all around them.

The people were leaving their homes, running into the night streets to drink to their heart’s content.

But they were gone.

She hugged her new friend close.

Ninkasi.

The woman was an angel for sure.

She was like a pharaoh herself.

[a-crimson-lion]

Parallels, Parallels, Parallels

[We got a double hitter, fellas. For the sake of courtesy, you may want to leave if you don't like Bakugo bashing. Just a fair warning.]

Part 1: Kacchan and Deku

Like it or not, Horikoshi made it his mission to make sure that his protagonist Izuku and Katsuki had heaps of parallels.

For the most part, it's really prominent.

Katsuki acts as a foil for Izuku. He was born with a powerful quirk, Izuku was quirkless. He's loudmouthed and abrasive, Izuku's softspoken and understanding. He has no inate will to help people by default, Izuku will leap to the defense of an innocent person before he can think. The list goes on.

The best way it's highlighted is during the U.A. Entrance Exam: Katsuki gets in on only Villain Points. Izuku gets in on only Rescue Points.

On another note, Izuku and Katsuki both represent various aspects of luck and work. All Might once said something along the lines of "There are those who gain power through luck, and those who work to earn power. Know the difference." This fits some of the more prominent characteristics of Izuku and Katsuki.

Katsuki's Explosion quirk is essentially a very big play of luck. That's not to say he doesn't work hard, but the work he does accomplish is more for maintaining his high position, and less about going further beyond. Izuku is different. Getting One for All was incredibly lucky, but the work Izuku had to put in to obtain and control the quirk was definitely not just luck. He cleaned and entire beach just to get the quirk, and as of now, he only recently learned to control 8% of OFA, as well as 20% in short bursts and 100% without reprocussions when a small child is connected to him and actively reversing the damage. And said small child's quirk is a freak mutation, so someone has to stop her quirk to make sure Izuku isn't erased from existance when he isn't actively on the bone hurting juice.

Which brings me to my next point: going beyond.

There are only three major instances where we see Katsuki seriously push his limits (no, Howitzer Impact doesn't count because:

It's a super move.

By itself, it doesn't really result in major reprocussions.)

The first time we ever see something close to Katsuki reaching his limit is during the infamous Katsuki vs Ochako fight at the Sports Festival. Katsuki manages to pull off a gigantic explosion seemingly out of his ass, defeating Ochako and her well thought out plan at the cost of his arms starting to experience strain. The second instance is during the final exams, where Katsuki is trying (and failing) to take down All Might, even blasting past his gauntlets' safety precautions and going so far as to try and bite All Might's hand when he's out of stamina. The third notable occasion is at I-Island, where he pushes past his already reached limits in order to help take down the powered up Wolfram.

With the potential exception of the third example, there's nothing all that special about him pushing past his limits.

His motivation is just that he wants to win, end of story. He wanted to beat Ochako? BOOM, big explosion. He wanted to beat All Might? BOOM, big explosions, but he still fails (remember that the only reason he passed is because Izuku is selfless and came back for his sorry behind). I-Island is more of the same, but in that instance he's working towards a team goal, AND he's rooting for All Might, so admittably the circumstances are different.

So how does Izuku going beyond differ from Katsuki?

Well, unlike most shonen anime, when Izuku goes beyond, there are actual consequences. Izuku tries to save Katsuki from the sludge villain? Izuku gets scolded for being reckless (even though the Pros were just standing there, using quirks as an excuse while Katsuki was going trigger happy trying to free himself, and yet he gets praise). Izuku saves Ochako from the Zero Pointer? He breaks his legs and an arm, though he thankfully avoids being turned into a bloody pulp. Izuku tries to save Shoto from himself? He ends up permanently disfiguring his hand after he decides to go all out against Shoto, and eventually gets the incentive to learn what would later become Full Cowl. He wants to save Kota from Muscular? He screws his arms up so bad that he can no longer use them at full power unless he wants them to stop working altogether. The thing about Izuku going beyond is, aside from gaining consequences, he also gains something from the experience.

He got All Might's attention during the Sludge Villain Incident. Ochako saved him after saving her from the Zero Pointer, allowing both of them to pass and eventually leading up to Ochako becoming a close friend of Izuku. Shoto accepted his fire side, and Izuku eventually learned Full Cowl in order to stop breaking his bones as frequently. Kota stops hating heroes, and Izuku eventually teaches himself Shoot Style.

What does Katsuki get from his experiences? "Be stronger."

Which is terrible advice for someone in his position; the proper advice would be to "Be smarter." He should have lost his fight with Ochako and realized that big explosions won't always fix his problems. He should have fought All Might and realized halfway that defeating him would have been impossible, and thus (even reluctantly) decide to cooperate with Izuku. The I-Island incident is the only exception I'll give him, simply because his reasons for going beyond were slightly more noble than normal. And before you bring up Katsuki's quirk's limitations, remember that we didn't see those again until he was fighting ALL MIGHT, WITH HIS GEAR ON. He would have been toast sooner if he didn't have his gauntlets.

But hey, that's my personal opinion. What do I know?

Part 2: King Explosion Murder and Endeavor

Stop me if you've heard this one before: If Izuku equals All Might, then Katsuki equals Endeavor.

Unfortunately, that comparison isn't too far off.

Both of them are egotistical manics looking to surpass All Might (and in Katsuki's case, also Izuku) with powerful quirks and prominent positions of power. They also both have a tendency to use people to meet their own ends. Katsuki didn't give a crap about his fellow teammates during the Cavalry Battle, going off on his own multiple times and not even bothering to recall their names. In the manga, Mina even stated that Katsuki only picked her to counter Shoto's ice when the Cavalry Battle is over, and its been stated that Eijiro only got aboard Katsuki's team because he brought up "taking down Midoriya." This sounds awfully similar to Endeavor (or Enji Todoroki) using his wife Rei in order to "create" a perfect heir (Shoto) in order to surpass All Might.

They're also both sore winners. Shoto lost to Katsuki in the final round of the Sports Festival, and Katsuki has to be chained up because he refuses to accept the victory. Meanwhile, later in the series, Endeavor rages when he's given the position of Number One Hero because he's seen All Might's true form, and suddenly everything he's worked for is for naught, at least in his eyes. Katsuki and Enjialso tendend to be assholes to certain people in particular. Katsuki was (and still is) an asshole to Izuku because he was quirkless and therefore useless (and maybe to some extent, Katsuki feared Izuku's innate heroic nature, so he tried knocking him down to avoid future competition, even if, by Katsuki's words, Izuku wouldn't be competition because he didn't even have a crappy quirk). Endeavor was an asshole to Shoto, sending him through brutal training that no four year old should be subjected to, isolating him from the rest of his family, and driving his mother to insanity, leading to his iconic burn mark on his left side.

What really gets me infuriated about the both of them is how Horikoshi tries to parallel them with actually decent human beings, usually through their redemption arcs.

Katsuki has been compared to Izuku by All Might himself, stating that the two of them are both sides to the same coin: the saving hero, and the winning hero. This comparison would be fair IF Izuku wasn't already learning to be a winning hero (and being a saving hero by default) while Katsuki has yet to show a desire to save beyond his desire to win.

Meanwhile, Endeavor gets parallels to Shoto. "Earlyroki," as Shoto was often referred to by his peers after he opened up, was an ironic reflection of his father, only relying on his ice power in a nearly condescending manner, and also adopting his father's lone wolf attitude. Then there's the whole deal with Endeavor getting a scar on his left side to match Shoto. There's no being subtle with the symbolism.

Although, and this is an unpopular opinion, I do like some aspects of Katsuki and Enji's redemption arcs. For Enji, we're shown that even if he's seemingly willing to change his ways, not every person has to accept his attempt at reconnection. A bad person can turn a new leaf and people are allowed to still not trust them. We don't see this in Katsuki's redemption arc, since everyone is somehow in unanimous agreement that Katsuki didn't do anything seriously wrong. Even though he did. And that's infuriating, specifically for me. What Katsuki's arc IS doing right, is that he actually has the potential to change. He may have abused Izuku for well over a decade, but he's still a kid; he still has time to change, and the changes are starting to form, however subtle they may be. I wish they were less flip floppy in progress and that people in the fandom and in the series weren't exaggerating it so much, but we can't have everything. At least he's better than episode one Katsuki by a notable margin. Meanwhile, Endeavor's been stuck in his ways since he married Rei. He can still change, but his habits will be harder to remove since he didn't learn early on enough that his actions weren't exactly moral.

Well, that's my two cents. If you read it, hope you enjoyed.

-Crimson Lion (13 August 2019)

[iamdeadlocked]

When I arrived at Aunt May’s funeral it was a regular, normal arrangement.

Some people chatted quietly with one another, others sat quietly in the seats provided, and a few people went up to the body for one final goodbye.

Some people I recognized as her friends would come up to me and give me the usual spew about how sorry they were and how they were going to miss her, how they haven’t seen each other in X amount of years, how much he’s grown, how she’d be so proud of him, and other things that he didn’t want to hear at that moment.

I guess they all forgot about the falling out Aunt May and I had.

I didn’t.

Neither did she. It’s the reason why we haven’t spoken in almost a decade. It’s the reason she died alone.

It was nice gesture for them to invite me to the funeral and to try to include me in the conversations but I honestly just wanted to be left alone. I wanted to say good bye to the “dearly” departed and be on my way. I had a nice fast food made burger and fries sitting at home in my refrigerator calling my name.

I suppose I should feel some type of empathy and be a little bit upset that my aunt is no longer alive. We weren’t as close as we used to be mostly because of Uncle Ben’s death but I just can’t find it in me to feel more than a spoonful of bitter sadness. I suppose when the one person you thought you could trust and love tells you that “you are nothing to me and that a robbery gone wrong is your fault and that you should have been the one to die, not my Ben.” You lose all sorts of kinship and respect for them, who knew?

Anyway... everything was fine, the last of the guests arrived and the pastor begin a slideshow of Aunt May while retelling her life beginning to end. I settled in and got comfy because the bitch -oops! I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead- the lovely lady lived a good 79 years.

As her life unfolded on the screen and through the words, a few people would laugh here and there and and an occasional person would wipe away tears every few minutes. One person blew their nose loudly into a napkin causing me to wrinkle my nose in disgust.

About halfway through the pastor’s talk, he went quiet. I didn’t notice at first to caught up in daydreaming about the food at home.

When I noticed I looked around the room to see if anyone else had notice the weird behavior.

Apparently not seeing as they all were completely still much like the pastor.

It was like they all were frozen.

Everyone but me.

I looked around trying to see what the problem was but as far as I could tell nothing in the room was causing this strange occurrence. The video on the screen goes from Aunt Mays tenth birthday party to a black screen with a man in a red and black mask sitting in a spotlight right in front of a piano. His hands carcasses the keys as if they were his lover. He softly patted the lid of the piano as if it was his pet. Even stranger than that he leaned down and kissed the piano. When he sits back up he cracks his knuckles breaking the silence with the loud painful cracks startling me a bit. I look round the room and the people are still frozen. The only difference is their eyes are on the screen with the man in the mask.

The man rolls his shoulders first the left one, then the right.

Once,

Twice,

Three times.

He sets his fingers which I just noticed are covered with black gloves on the keys and begins to play.

I wish I could name the song but I’m not one for classical music. Even if I was something inside of me says that this man created this piece.

The song is beautiful.

It’s hauntingly beautiful.

I know this doesn’t make sense but I think this type of song is something you would hear only in your nightmares.

As of in a trance the people in the room all stand up simultaneously. That honestly would have been fine and I would have just accepted that everyone was a robot in this moment but there were at least three men and two ladies who were wheelchair bound that stood up and walked with the rest of them. I would call it a miracle but I’m pretty sure whatever is happening here is not a god given miracle.

The women work together to move the chairs out of the way while the men work to push the old, dull, hasn’t worked in thirty years piano to the center of the room in front of the screen.

Sweat began to form at the top of my forehead.

This is weird. I know this is weird. I should go but something keeps me rooted to my own seat in the corner.

After they finish getting everything situated the people pair up and begin to dance to the dramatic, powerful and eery melody. As they dance Pretty a strange fog started pouring in from the cracks of the windows and under the doors. It moved as if it had a mind of its own, swirling this way and that in attempts to cover the whole floor. Slowly it works it’s way to the middle of the room, covering the feet of the elders dancing around the piano.

The piano begins to play the same creepy music from the screen.

https://youtu.be/VagES3pxttQ

There was absolutely no one sitting on the bench, so once again that shouldn’t be possible but what do I know?

The smoke lifts up and over the seat of the piano bench and settles on top of it. A spotlight appears on the piano. (Funeral home doesn’t have a spot light but whatever.) The man from the screen slowly fades out as the fog takes shape of a man. His fingers gliding over the keys matching the same song as on the screen perfectly until the spotlight on the screen goes out and the video player shuts off. Now it’s just the man giving a live performance.

He sways with the music.

I finally find some sense and decide now would be a good time to just nope the fuck out of here and take the what the hell train to fuckthatville.

I slowly stand as to avoid any attention. I quietly and slowly make my way to the end of the aisle. I take care to look where I am going. I don’t want to be that person in the movies that trips and falls causing a loud disturbance and getting killed because of their stupidity.

The best thing I can hope for is that’s there’s nothing on the ground because this stupid fog is thick and covering everything up to my ankles.

As quiet as a mouse sneaking around a sleeping cat I tip toe my way to the end of the aisle.

Success!

I quietly walk to the back of the room praying to a god I don’t believe in that I make it to the door. I kept one on the mysterious figure and the dancing old people surrounded and the other eye on the fog. It was able to make a man appear out of thin air so I wasn’t above thinking it could make a man disappear as well. I walk backwards as I eye up the supernatural one man concert playing before me.

Not one person turned to look at me. No one even noticed I was the only one not in a trances. I guess I need to send a thank you note to Flash for helping me perfect my silent walk and being the perfect invisible man.

I only stop walking when I harshly bump into the door causing a soft thud to resonate loudly though the room.

The beautiful notes the man is hitting quickly goes sour as he slams his hands down onto the keys.

The air goes several degrees cooler causing a deep shiver to race through my body.

My blood freezes and my fear spikes.

My mind says to just quickly open the door and run. Bolt out of here and into the dying night. Everything will be fine if you run. You’ll be fine when you run.

My body will not listen to the sound advice of my brain. Instead it takes a step forward and away from the door.

I tried to fight what ever was controlling my body, since I need to blame something I blame the fog.

I fight with all my might pleading, begging, demanding and bribing my body to stop moving all in vain.

I take another step forward,

And another

And another

And another

And another.

I get closer and closer to a place I really would not like to be. Closer and closer to the man I don’t know. Closer and closer to the no longer dancing old folks.

My nose begins to bleed as I fight the otherworldly pull on my body. I bring my hand up wipe away the blood.... ain’t that a bitch. I have free lotion over my hands by not my legs. This definitely means the fog is controlling me. I should have played the floor is lava. That might have saved my life.

I lose the fight with my legs mostly because I’m not even strong physically let alone mentally.

I close my eyes as my body finally comes to a stop directly next to the piano man.

I hear shuffles as if people are moving to surround me. I hear a loud freak in the silent room as the masked man stands or at least I assume he stands. I refuse to let my curiosity get me killed.

I flinch hard to my left as I feel breathing into my right ear and a warm body standing directly behind me. A gentle hand steadies me by grabbing ahold of my hips.

The man whispers into my ear.

“Open your eyes little one.”

The voice sounded like sandpaper feels. Rough and dry as if the person hadn’t spoken in a very long time or as if they hadn’t had any water in months and their throat was dry. Yet somehow the voice sounded seductive and sweet. It was like he wanted to scare you but only a little. I don’t know how to explain it.

All I can say for sure was that it was a dark voice.

It was scary.

It was dangerous.

It was inhuman.

I didn’t hate it. Kind of want more of it.

Ignoring all red flags, flashing lights, and loud abort mission sounds my eyes open one at a time. Dirt the right one then the left.

My eyes opened and the first thing I saw was that I was in fact surrounded by my aunts friends.

The funeral guests all were standing in a half circle around me and the piano. Their eyes were black. I blinked a few times and wiped my eyes just to make sure I was actually seeing what I thought I was seeing.

I was.

There are were straight up black. I’ll admit I was extremely scared and damn near close to wetting myself from fear but nothing was worse than looking into the small crowd of wrinkled skin and liver spots to see her. By her I mean my aunt.

The same aunt who was and should be as dead as a door knob (that metaphor literally makes no sense... focus!) was standing there behind owner of the funeral home Mr. Stan Lee. She was standing and staring directly into my pure-ish soul.

How is she standing there? She’s been dead for two weeks. (No one knew she died in her home for a week and a half. How messed up is that...Peter focus!)

Was she alive again? I can’t see her chest moving but also no one else’s but mine is sooo is everyone dead like her?

Why do they all look so angry? Well I’d be angry to if my dancing music was shut off.

Despair and hopelessness take ahold of my body, pulsing through it with each beat of my heart.

I slowly decide to turn my head and look behind me at the man.

The first thing I notice is that his mask is gone. The second thing I noticed was that he wasn’t going to win any beauty contests... and omg this man is horrible to look at. I’ll be honest he’s lucky I was raised previously with live and had manners because otherwise the chances of me throwing up on this mans shirt and feet would have been a lot higher. Be that as it may I was so I swallow the bile in my throat and gulp.

Words couldn’t describe the horror of how horrific the man looked. He face was riddled with scars. The only places that didn’t have acres were completely missing. Chunks of flesh look rotted in some places, missing in others, and scarred on the rest. His eyes were pretty to look at and he smelled nice which sent me into a very conflicting state of fear and arousal.

His hands are still on my hips soothing me causing my fear to lesson just a bit. Maybe his wouldn’t be so bad? Perhaps I was just judging a book by its cover and this may not be as scary as it seems. He smiles at me as if he can hear my thoughts. It’s a gruesome and terrible sight but I find myself hesitantly smiling back. He brings up his hand, which is in the same terrible mangled mess as his face, from my hips to my face and strokes it with just a hint of pressure. It felt as if a feather was being running over my face. I place my hand on top of his and just feel his skin. Despite it being a horror fest it wasn’t that bad when you got used to it.

Suddenly he stops smiling and his eyes somewhat pretty eyes flash red. His grip on my jaw turns harsh and bruising. I can feel it begin to break as he allies more and more pressure. The hand on my hip pulls me hard into the front of his body and wraps around my mid section tightly as I begin to struggle. He pulls me tighter and tighter into him causing my bones to feel like they were point two seconds away from snapping as well.

His strength is out of this world although I already knew that. I look from him to the people in front of us. I plead with my eyes for help hoping that one of them comes to their senses and tries something.

I hear the demon laugh as if once again he can hear my thoughts... who knows maybe he does here them.

Everyone smiles at me. Ms. Al smiled so wide her dentures fell out.

The man leans down as he is quite literally breaking my bones and whispers into my ear,

”There’s a price to pay for breaking the sound of silence.”

Next thing I know my hip bones and my jaw are both shattered.

I scream the best I can with a broken jaw as the man releases me. My body drops to the ground like a broken doll. I see him place his mask back over his head and places his gloves back on his hands. He sits back down at the seat, hiding his upper body from my sight. I can see his feet and legs and I hear him begin his chilling song again.

The people around my broken body get closer and closer stooping down as the reach for my body.

I close my eyes as they draw nearer.

[theawkwardterrier]

Stitch Together

Summary: Peggy and Steve can't leave a particular competition behind in the twentieth century.

It’s Steggy Secret Santa tiiiiime!! This one is for @roboticonography, with best wishes for a very, very merry Christmas! I hope you enjoy!!

AO3 link here.

As with so many things, perhaps the trouble would never have started without Tony’s big mouth.

“Are you knitting over there, Cap?” he asked, too loudly, breaking the quiet that had settled over the jet as they flew back from Australia. Even Peggy and Clint, the furthest away, turned around from the pilot’s controls. “If you wanted upgrades on your suit, you could’ve just asked.”

“It was going to be a Christmas present for you,” Steve said, fingers continuing their consistent movement. “But if that’s your attitude, maybe I should reconsider.”

Tony held up his hands. “Carry on. Should never have stepped in. I’m sure it’s going to be the best…?”

“Sweater,” Steve inserted.

“The best sweater I’ve ever worn.”

Steve said dryly, “Considering that you own a sweater that cost a thousand dollars because it was made from rare yak wool, I wasn’t too worried about the competition,” Tony snapped his gum consideringly, and that would have been that. Except that Peggy had heard the words “best sweater” and her eyes had narrowed.

So it might have been more accurate to say that, as with so many things, perhaps the trouble would never have started if Peggy could pass up a challenge.

Despite his best efforts not to think about it at all, Steve had spent every visit with Peggy wondering if it would be their last. So he could be forgiven for staring, stunned, for several minutes when she walked into the office he kept at the Tower looking exactly as he remembered her during the war.

“I know that I told you recently that you were always dramatic,” she said, amused, “but you needn’t have taken it as an order.” Then, seeing the way that he leaned back against his desk, his breath catching, she came over and placed a soft hand on his arm.

“It’s alright,” she said, and without making him ask, told him the whole story.

That Peggy wasn’t truly mentally competent at the time to have made the decision to enter the Stark Industries reverse aging trial was something that he would later take up with Tony. Just because she had signed up for it a decade earlier, it didn’t make it alright to go ahead once her cognitive decline had begun. But even as he had marshalled his reasoning for why it was inappropriate, almost unacceptable, he knew that he was, deep down, too illicitly glad to argue well. That Peggy was one of very few candidates to come through at all and the only one to have such a perfect outcome didn’t surprise him exactly (he had known from the first day he’d seen her that she was made of sterner stuff), but it did make him feel luckier.

They ended up talking on the cramped couch in the corner of his office for hours. He had Tony around to occasionally bring up incidents carefully mummified by Howard, or passed down by his Aunt Peggy, but to truly talk to Peggy herself about these things, to have his own memories reflected back by that familiar, consistent sharpness, felt like nearly too much.

When sunset and twilight had long since passed, he finally mentioned, “There’s food downstairs.” She gave him a knowing, fond look that he translated so easily that he wondered if he would cry. “Well, sure, there’s food here too, but it’s not as good.”

“It can’t be worse than what you used to have around,” she said. That was true; keeping extra rations might have been necessary to support his accelerated metabolism, but the serum was certainly the only reason he hadn’t gotten a medical discharge from eating too much of Hitler's secret weapon. But instead of standing to go searching with him, she yawned and reached for the soft handmade afghan he kept on the back of the sofa. “Though I think I might need a bit of a rest before we go scavenging.”

She spread the blanket over herself (“This is nice. I assume that you still consider yourself the superior at knitting?” “That makes it sound like an opinion.”), and a little corner over him, and fell asleep leaning on his shoulder. He stared straight ahead and thought about how she had lived a whole life, that she had had a husband who wasn’t him, raised children, that she’d built SHIELD and run it admirably for decades. It was ridiculous to think that she would even consider a romantic relationship with a barely employed ex-SHIELD contractor who she had kissed once seventy years ago, and it would only make things awkward to ask. He had Peggy, miraculously back with him, and that was all he needed.

That Christmas Eve, Natasha glanced at the presents under the tree and stopped halfway through her second piece of the chocolate gingerbread cake with which Thor had cheerfully presented everyone. (“Bakery,” Darcy had mouthed from behind him, then, giving up pretense, said, “Do you really think I’d let either of them use a mixer? Jane hasn’t made unburned toast in the entire time I’ve known her. Neither of them could pull off something this good.”)

“Smart of you to avoid tomorrow morning,” Nat said quietly to Sam as he got his bag together to head down to spend Christmas Day at his grandmother’s big house in Maryland.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll know,” she told him, and swallowed the last of her cake. (You never knew the next time you’d get cake.)

But Sam didn’t know, not yet. Because when Tony opened his presents the next day, the gray-violet hooded Aran pullover he received from Steve got only the expected compliments. Steve had given handmade gifts to nearly everyone (a painting for Pepper to hang in the empty space in the guest bedroom that always bothered her, a pair of new throwing knives that he and Thor had worked on together for Natasha) and they had known about the sweater for months. Even when Tony opened his package from Peggy to find a cable knit sweater in navy and light blue with large buttons, it was seen simply as another lovely gift and the overlap chalked up to coincidence or some obscure 1940s tradition.

Only Natasha saw the narrow-eyed glance Steve gave Peggy, and the small, decisive nod.

Even for Nat, it was difficult to tell that anything had changed over the next few months. Steve and Peggy laughed and sparred with each other, recounted old war stories to everyone in the jet or around the Tower, bent their heads together as they planned operations, and noticeably did not knit in public. It was only in May, after their first week of consistently warm weather, that the sound of raised voices drew everyone to the glass-fronted office which Peggy had claimed as her own, where they found Steve saying through clenched teeth, “It was rigged!”

“In what way,” Peggy asked him politely, “do you think I could influence Tony’s wardrobe choices?”

“He wore yours more because he’s scared of you and he knows that you notice everything.”

Peggy turned toward the doorway. “Tony, are you afraid of me?”

“Course I am,” Tony told her promptly. “I used to tell kids on the playground not to mess with me or I’d call my aunt Peg.”

“Flattering as that is, it has no bearing on the question at hand.” She turned back to Steve, her fingertips pressing gently but deliberately into the desktop as she leaned forward. “It’s clear to me, given that my sweater was worn on six more occasions than yours, that Tony considered mine to be more attractive, more comfortable, and of better quality.”

“That doesn’t—” Steve started, but Bruce cut him off.

“Can someone explain what the hell is going on here?” He looked between the two of them. “Are you two really having the first fight I’ve ever seen from you over sweaters?”

Peggy and Steve glanced at each other, then turned toward Bruce with mutually crossed arms. “Sweaters,” Peggy said dangerously, “are very important.”

It hadn’t been the plan for Steve to go on the mission at all. Marcus Harrington - Harry - a more experienced SSR field agent who Peggy had worked with before, had been tapped to join her again. But then Harry had broken a leg during a foot chase, Steve happened to be in London for three days of leave while the Commandos rested up between assignments, and the operation simply couldn’t wait.

Steve and Peggy had rescued the captive SSR operative fairly easily - he was still being dragged by a small group of soldiers through the woods back toward an established Nazi base when they found him - but returning him to where he needed to be proved more difficult. Finland was never exactly hot, but they had picked a particularly terrible week to be outdoors. Steve would often sit with his broad back facing into the cutting breeze in an attempt to act as a windbreak. But finally they managed to get him to the safehouse, enduring with embarrassment the effusive thanks of the two sisters and multiple Resistance friends already there.

“Let us give you something to thank you!” someone said, and Steve and Peggy accepted, hoping that this could serve as an appropriate endpoint to the conversation in the way that their protestations that it really was only their job had not.

Food supplies being what they were, it took a bit of time to find something deemed suitable as a gift. Finally a skein of cream yarn and a pair of knitting needles were handed to them, a final round of thanks was exchanged, and Steve and Peggy set back on their way to their pickup point.

The driving snow that cut them off miles from where they were meant to be was a problem. The small and broken shed they found to shelter in was an absolute miracle. Except that, after several hours of forgetting propriety - Steve leaning toward Peggy, or she leaning toward him, to share his warmth - and then abruptly remembering it again, they were both absolutely, incredibly bored.

Steve hadn’t remembered the yarn, exactly, but when he encountered it after sticking a hand in his pocket, it was a relief.

“I can show you a couple of stitches,” he offered Peggy idly, and she looked at him and asked, “What makes you think that I don’t know your ‘couple of stitches,’ and more than you do besides?”

“You’re already a codebreaker and a crack shot,” Steve pointed out. “Where would you find the time to learn to knit too?”

As she soon showed him, she made the time. But Steve, who had gained his own skills during long winters (and autumns, and summers) in bed, guided by the few knitting books available from the public library, was for once determined to hold his own. In anything else he accepted Peggy’s superiority as a matter of course, but in this he refused to yield.

When the pilot asked how they had passed the time waiting for the storm to clear, they both answered, without looking at each other, “Talked.” But a personal battle had been declared, and neither party was willing to back down.

Although Tony congratulated them on their attempt at experimental design, he had to admit that “proximity to hand as he reached into closet” was too significant a factor in his getting dressed to have made it a fair competition between them. New parameters would have to be set.

“Your criteria were a problem. Best sweater is too broad and too subjective, and you didn’t take weather or occasion into account,” Pepper told them. “The sweater you want to wear for a cozy day in the house isn’t necessarily the sweater you want to wear shoveling the driveway, or to work, and it’s practically impossible to make a sweater that fits all of those needs.”

It became quickly apparent that there were too many facets to consider. Half the room was stewing in stumped silence, while the other half talked over each other with suggestions. Finally it was Clint, who had walked in midway through the argument, who said through the slice of pizza he’d crammed into his mouth, “Ugliest.”

The new competition now took shape. The guidelines would not be which was the most attractive or most comfortable, which showed the most advanced technique or held up best in the wash, but instead who could make the ugliest sweater.

“It has to be wearable,” Natasha ticked off. “And the deadline is this Christmas morning.”

Those were the only rules.

That Peggy and Steve retreat to opposite corners and refuse to speak for the six months of competition seemed the next logical step. But they had been happily at war with each other for six months already, and saw no need to let the renewal of hostilities interfere with their relationship now.

If anything, they grew closer. Now that Steve had no reason to base himself out of DC, he had decided to find himself another, less depressing New York apartment, and masochistically asked if Peggy would like to be his roommate. (If he could see Peggy fixing the garbage disposal, or accusing him of eating all of her favorite breakfast cereal, or with disheveled hair finding something to watch on TV, he swore to himself that now it would be enough.) Peggy recognized with some sadness that after nearly dying, acclimating to all the losses of an entirely new century, and spending time with her elderly self, Steve was too battered for a relationship and certainly could not view her in a romantic light. She was also past ready to move out of the Tower. She accepted.

They were good roommates. Their parents would have been scandalized. A schedule was devised for making sure the bathroom was kept clean, and they agreed that if one was making food, they would always make enough for both of them. (This quickly turned into a promise to order in enough for both of them, as their stove remained mostly unused.) Peggy snuck a pair of nicely fitted jeans into Steve’s wardrobe. He bought her a gun safe that matched the red accents of her cream-painted bedroom. They mutually agreed to cancel the History Channel on their television package, but found themselves sharing the sofa often at the end of the day, flipping through the options and bickering over what self-indulgent program to choose.

And in the evenings, they would part, each to their separate bedroom to work on their creations.

Darcy passed Peggy’s office one afternoon when Steve was away and poked her head inside. “If you’re in the apartment anyway, why don’t you just, like, burn his yarn supply? Or at least sneak a peek at what he’s working on?” she asked.

“Well, that would hardly be sporting,” said Peggy, letting the screen scroll through some documents in front of her as her hands kept up her stitching. “And it’s certainly unnecessary. I will beat him, as always, through pure talent.”

Steve was equally confident. “You don’t spend a few years making your own clothes by taking apart charity castoffs and not gain some useful skills,” he told Sam as they headed back on another flight, this one commercial, following a lead in one of the HYDRA files. His needles clicked as he spoke; somehow Steve was never questioned about them at security.

“Considering what you’re competing for, I don’t know if those skills are something to brag about,” Sam commented, and Steve shut up and stewed.

Though the cordiality - which was by this point their hallmark - remained through their shared Thanksgiving and into the beginning of December, there were some cracks starting to show. They shared an open glare during a conversation about strategy which certainly did not merit such anger, and their training sessions in the Avengers gym, which typically had a graceful, mythic quality, were taking on a vicious angle. Yet somehow, even as they shopped for gifts and put on their finishing touches, their time together at the end of the day remained sacrosanct. Neither was willing to give it up. The possibility was never even mentioned.

Sam arranged to do Christmas Eve in the city and then leave again for Christmas itself with his family. As he put it, he was too smart to keep himself in the line of fire.

“It’s like my mother always said,” he told Pepper as they all stood around the Tower drinking eggnog and pretending not to look with trepidation at the gifts beneath the tree. “‘It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye,’ and I plan to get to New Years with the same two I was born with.”

The point was astute. Most of the fun to the competition had slowly worn away, and it somehow seemed to be standing in for proof of something more serious yet unnamed. Still, everyone opened their gifts on the next morning with passable glee, poking at new gadgets and passing thanks around.

No one got further knitwear, which helped.

Finally, the two packages were brought forward. Peggy and Steve took politeness to another level, each insisting that the other go first for so long that - after Tony realized he didn’t exactly carry change - Darcy took out a quarter and flipped it.

The pride Steve had in his creation was understandable. He had clearly been exploring fashions of the 1980s at some point recently, which were recreated in the shape of the...garment (calling it a sweater seemed dangerous and insulting). The shoulders of it were so enormously padded as to be nearly square, and the base color - a vivid and horrible metallic red, with accompanying sequins - was easy to imagine tossed by the skein into the bargain bin. The stripes of silver and green glittery fur yarn gave the entire thing the impression of either a tinsel-covered candy cane or some of the more disturbing types of mold. But it was in the notions department that Steve had truly outdone himself, choosing beads in the shapes of Christmas bells, buttons molded to look like holly berries and leaves, and bows in all sizes, colors, and textures to spangle across his creation without pattern or logic.

There was a moment of silence as he unveiled it. The true hideousness of it needed to be mourned upon sight.

“Okay, maybe it is a real contest,” Tony said, a little awed. He dared only look at Peggy from the corner of his eye; he had enough memories of her steaming when she had been upset with his father, and he didn’t need new ones.

But Peggy, when she brought her own box forward, was calm. If Steve had gone for the more traditional route of unattractiveness through overwhelming the eye, Peggy had decided on a subtler, more simple strategy. The sweater in itself had something of an ersatz quality to it - it was made too wide, so that it somewhat resembled a poncho or a sweater cape, and the snowflakes decorating the hem were lopsided and angular - but it was as the eye drew upward that the true knockout came.

Jane, who was a little tipsy, began to giggle. So did Pepper, who wasn’t.

“Oh,” said Bruce. “Oh, wow. Oh no.”

And he might have summed it up the best. For what Peggy had attached to the front of her entry were two mock reindeer faces: plush, tan appendages stuffed presumably with batting, little red noses on the ends and antlers above the tops. She had even included tiny stitched smiles on the lower curves, and sewn on button eyes.

They were placed directly on the chest so as to mimic two nude, decorated breasts.

“Comment cards can be found on the table for easy tallying,” she said generously.

For a moment nobody moved, struck not by an enemy but by the terrible, impossible choice before them. Then, into the silence, Natasha said, “There’s something else under the tree.”

And she reached for a final time beneath the tree, pulling something from the hidden back branches. She set the box in her lap, and slowly lifted the lid...

As they walked home, Steve kept glancing at Peggy when they passed under streetlights. He was enchanted by the color the cold was bringing to her face, a blush in her cheeks and a rosy tip to her nose.

“I had no idea that Father Christmas could be so frightening,” she was saying, and he forced himself back into the conversation and agreed.

“It was bad even with those little lights in his eyes off, but when she turned them on...” He gave a shudder.

Seeing the third, and most disturbing, take on the contest prompt, a draw had been declared, and the afternoon had progressed with food, classic Christmas movies, and the traditional British crackers which Jarvis had ordered specially for Peggy. Only when it had darkened did everyone begin to drift out, including Peggy and Steve, getting a chance to speak on their own for the first time since the morning.

“We both put up a good fight,” Steve said as they reached their block. “Truce?” He put out his hand. Peggy took it and shook easily.

“It really was marvelous fun, and you were a worthy competitor.” They took a moment to wave to their neighbor, Mr. Travellini, as he put his cat out. “I’m only sorry that I was so caught up in the whole affair that I neglected to get you a gift.”

Steve was already shaking his head. “Not like I got one for you, either. And besides, I have all the gifts I need.”

She had climbed one step to their building before she had turned back to look at him. In the warm beam of the streetlights as snow began to drift down around them, his scarf draped indifferently around his neck and his eyes glowed up at her, just like the boy she remembered.

Oh, she thought, as she always had when faced with that gaze. Oh, my.

She wondered if he had become better at hiding the look, or if she had just been too caught up in her own logic, her own assumptions, to see it.

“Steve,” she asked, placing a careful hand on his shoulder. “Steve, are you ever going to kiss me?”

His mouth parted just a bit, an amazed kind of confusion on his face. “I thought—” He swallowed. “I thought you wouldn’t want me to.”

“Well,” she said practically, “I absolutely do. And you’ve just said that you owe me a gift.” With her on the step, they were of a height. All it would take was the tiniest lean forward...

Steve might have been more practiced at knitting than he was at kissing, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t give a perfectly lovely present.

[lord-tathamet]

Flowers - A short D&D Interlude

This is a short interlude originally written for my main D&D Group, centering around a bunch of NPCs the Party managed to save and recruit as retainers to their new Castle. Why am I Posting it here?

Fuck if I know.

“Ye got any flowers ye fancy much?”

Ssethos raised his eyes from the weathered pages of his book and levelled them at the bush of stringy, chestnut locks  that had squeezed through the crack of the door.

“What is the purpose of the question?“ he asked, watching as the teal eyes of the wood elf darted through the corners of his small chamber, scrutinizing its every inch.

“Ye room's so gloomy, A thought ye could need something t'cheer it up a wee bit. Do ye like jasmines?”

“It is the dead of winter. Life withers, fades. It would be impractical to go search for any,” the yuan-ti said matter-of-factly, and turned a page in his book.

“They're coloured bright and yellow like ye peepers. Oh! Or mibbe camellias!” Thesra opened the door further to better lean in the room. “Tho' they need sunlight. Not much off that in'ere. Don't yer eyes hurt readin' in the dark like this?”  She began to teeter back and forth on her toes.

Ssethos blinked, but his face remained otherwise motionless. “No.” And then he asked: “Why is my room important to you?”

“Isnae to me! But ye've barely been leaving ye room an I got wee worried,” the wood elf said quickly and stopped bobbing up and down on her spot. “Yer not sick, are ye?”

“I do not get sick,” was the terse answer.

“Oh, that's good then. So, jasmines? I think jasmines.” Thesra grinned. “Wanna help me search fo'em?”

“No, thank you. It is not necessary for you to do this.”

“Ye, but I wanna.” Thesra sighed and gave a wide shrug. “Where's Kreekar?”

“Resting, still. I saw to her half an hour ago. Her state of malnourishment has diminished significantly.”

“Smashin'!” Thesra was already halfway out the room when she suddenly pedalled back. “Ye sure y'dinnae wanna come?”

“The cold and I do not agree with each other,” Ssethos deadpanned, and with that the conversation was over for him. He turned back to his book. A few moments passed. Then a rustle of leafs and feathers and not even a second later, the oracle could feel Thesra's pointy chin stabbing into his shoulder.

“What'cha readin'?”

“Alchemical formulas,” he lied, without the twitch of an eye. “Were you not going to look for Kreekar?”

“Buh,” the elf made, and pulled away reluctantly, then she scurried back to the door. In the frame, she turned around one final tme.  “I'll be back wit'em Jasmines then! Dinnae run!”

A gust of wind picked up from within the cold chamber and the door snapped shut in front of her nose. Thesra scrunched up her nose, then sighed, pulled her tongue at the yuan-ti's door and went on to search for Owain.

The size of the castle was still something she had to get used to. Back home, in the wet forest swamp of the Wretchgroves she had made do with a small hovel of twigs, mud and fur. It wasn't a bad hovel. It was in fact a very nice hovel, with a small fireplace, and dried flowers that she strung up and hung from her ceiling, and round polished stones and empty snail houses and discarded feathers from the large crows, owls and hawks that inhabited the treetops of the groves. And the bird nests she had placed near, for the smaller ones to raise their fledglings in, and the small chest she had found in the woods one day and had never managed to open, no matter what sylvan incantations or druidic spells she'd try.  

Not to say the castle was bad. It had so much space, so many rooms, so many corridors, all lined with old statues and ancient armours, and dragons and knights and monsters etched into the walls flowing down the halls spewing flame and swinging blades. And the people living here were very nice as well, if so formal. They'd bow and stutter even though Thesra didn't wear a crown on her head nor was she one of the brave people that rescued Ssethos, Kreekar, Kiesel and her. Orwain was the only one who seemed to treat her like normal though. He didn't mind her running around barefoot in the castle either, or bringing pressed and dried flowers from outside and hang about the rooms. It must be because he was so old, she had decided. He was like one of the old oaks back in her forest – old and bark-y and not surprised with any of the young animals that scurried over its roots and just accepting. And just as silent when walking.

Finding him was a real trial, at least until Thesra had noticed that Orwain used a rather heavy smellwater that had pungent note to it that could linger for hours in certain parts of the castle. So, she let her nose lead through the corridors and down sets of stairs, past the dining chamber...

“You were looking for me, Miss Thesra?”

The druid yelled out in surprise and jumped around, facing the ever-sneaky chamberlain with a grin on her face. “How'd ye do tha'? Yer sneakier than a fox and blind as a mole without yer glasses, how'd ye keep doin' it?”

“Four and a half centuries of service in these halls grants you insight into every nook and corner, every crank and every creaking floorboard.” His eyes glinted behind the tinted glasses. “What need do you have of me?”

“Three things, if ye dinnae mind.”

“Not at all, my dear.”

“Have ye seen Kiesel anywhere? I've been lookin' fer him all day, I had a thing o'two t'discuss with'em. Also, how's Kreekrar doin', ah got some herbs ah found th'other day innae creek in the woods 'n ah think they'll help'er grow'er feathers back wee faster, and do ye know where ah could find any Jasmines?”

“Last time I saw the young man, I believe Mister Fairless caught him up to the elbow in the jar of fresh biscuits he had prepared at the young Lady Maurina's request and then chased him around the kitchen with a frying pan in the one and fresh a bouquet of burdock in the other. I wisely chose to abscond when the frying pan was switched out for a fire iron.”

“Och, thassa shame. Ah hoped t'speak with'em about a bit regardin' the Fairwoods.”

“On the matter of Miss Kreekrar, I thought it best to allow her some fresh air and some moving the legs outside at the wall of the Outer Courtyard. She's been trapped in her room for so long, I thought it would do her some good. On the matter of jasmines...,” He furrowed his brow in thought. “I can't be certain but I believe I remember them growing in larger clusters near the road to Corth, just down south of the Castle and near the outreaches of the Fairwoods. May I inquire what their purpose is?”

“Fo' Ssethos. Cause he's all gloomy 'n dark 'n I thought it mae cheer'em up a wee bit,” Thesra muttered and twiddled her thumbs and caught a sudden interest at the polished window-boards.

“...I see. Then I wish you good luck in your endeavour,” Owain smiled. A loud jumbling noise of stomping footsteps, angry yells and iron hitting iron and chortled childish chuckling from upstairs caused both to look up in unison, and Owain to sigh. “I believe Mister Fairless has found Kiesel. If you'll excuse me, I will try to administer some quickly needed damage reduction.” Said and turned around and hurried down the hallway, still somehow managing to keep an upright, ever-posh posture with his arms folded behind his back and the head held upright.

“Good luck!” Thesra yelled after him, then opened a window, jumped up the window board and slipped outside into the cold winter noon.

Kreekrar was looking a lot better than the last time Thesra visited her in her room – grey feather fuzz had begun to grow back in patches across the vulture-like neck and her eyes had lost the grey film that had plagued the aarakocra ever since her imprisonment and torture by the dragon cult . She greeted the wood elf with a series of happy, if still a bit raspy chirps and gladly and curiously accepted the small bundle of dried herbs Thesra had gathered for her.

“Ah used to give'em to the little ravens and owls back in me hut in the Wretchgroves when they wouldn't mould right

'n had problems growin' their feathers, so ah think it mebbe works with ye to!” Thesra chattered happily, and pranced through the snow side-by-side with the Kreekrar, wiggling her bare toes in the snow and kicking up flakes and watching them fall through the air. Kreekrar chirped softly, then tilted her head to the side and looked worried down at the reddening skin of the wood elf's feet. Thesra noticed her look and laughed. “'tis fine, see, ahm used t'the cold 'n junk!”

And as if to prove her point, she dug her left foot up to her ankle beneath the snow, “Yeet!” then yanked it upward and sending a clump the size of a fist flying in a high arc over the wall and down the slope of the Trollhead Hill.

Kreekrar's shoulders twitched up in a shrug.

The two sat down on a clean patch of the wall and watched over the landscape opening up below them: the freshly reaped crop fields and the small farm houses adjacent to them, the sheep herds herded up the hills by freezing shepherds and their barking dogs, a procession of carts filled with chopped down tree logs and branches exiting the eastern patch of the Fairwoods and carting them to Taubach by the Sylvantear Creek.

“This place is nice. Quiet, comely, 'n many fey and spirits and the like live in the forest, “Thesra said after a while and pulled up her knees up under her chin, until only her toes wiggled out from under the many layers of her various pelts and skirts. “Though I do miss me home, 'n the bird nests, 'n the quiet. Do you miss ye home?”

Kreekrar chirped sadly and nodded. Then she raised her arms helplessly, and let them fall again. No idea how to get back.

“Someday,” she croaked, still struggling with forming complex sentences in the common tongue. “I maybe return. When a way found. But now, I am here. We are here. The people are good here. No large loss.”

“'s true. They're very good, 'n very nice, even if the hat-bard's a bit grouchy and Mister Tozavur a bit stiff'n such. They're very nice.” Thesra eyed Kreekrar. “Do ye got someone home waitin' for ye?”

Kreekrar shook her head. Stopped to think, then wiggled her head from one side to the other. “Complicated. Two sisters. Never got along.”

“Och, sisters, never knew what's that like. Whatsit like?”

“Very annoying often,” Kreekrar snarked and the ruff of feathers around her neck shook and poofed up. “But we stuck. Worked together. Not good, but we worked.”

“Ye wanna see'em again?”

“No rush.”

“Aye,” Thesra stood up on the wall and raised a hand over her eyes and squinted at the road south, squiggling through the snowfields far below. “Welp, ahmma go'n pluck some flowers. Be back inna jiffy!”

The aaracokra chirped a good-bye behind her, then Thesra had already slid down the wall and tumbled down the slope of the hill and to the road below.

About four hours later, the sun already halfway vanished behind the treetops, Thesra was back in front of Ssethos' door, shaking and shivering and bits of frostbite forming on her cheeks and her fingers and her toes, but with a whole armful of bright yellow and orange-centred, jasmine trumpets gathered in her cloak, the inch-long flowers strung up with their vines and broad green leaves in long garlands and twisted into circles. Thesra's palms and lower arms still itched from where the plant's weak toxin had irritated her skin.

“Ey, Ssethos, ah'm back! Ah brought ye some flowers! Sorry it took so long, but there were some sprites 'n they bit with their tiny spears and 'twas annoyin' as shite. Ah made some nice garlands though!” She knocked on the door, and waited patiently. No answer. Her shoulders dropped, and disappointment pooled in her stomach. But she still forced a smile back on her face. “'s okay!Ah'll just drop'em in front of yer door, 'n ye can take'em in when yer back! Or whatever!”

She dropped down and arranged the wild assortment of yellow flowers next to the door, so that they'd be easily seen but not immediately stepped upon by someone exiting the room. Gave a satisfied nod, then she turned around and skipped down the hallway. “Ah'll see ye at dinner! Mister Fairless is makin' ragout!”

The echoe of her footsteps lingered on for a while after the wood elf had vanished around the corner before fleeting entirely. The hallway was silent and empty again. Then the door creaked open slowly. Moments later, the flower bed arranged before the door was gone, and the door closed again.

[agustdomain]

Running Circles Through My Mind

Synopsis: You weren’t sure when he started to become a regular thought in your mind. It was subtle, yet inevitable. The only problem was perhaps the feeling wasn’t mutual after all.

Word Count: 12.7 k 

Genre: Best Friend!au, Angst, Fluff

Warnings: Language

Member: Jaemin, ft. the other Dream boys

“Hey! Hey you! I know you hear me calling you.”

You huffed underneath your breath, opting to raise the volume on your headphones instead. However, ignoring this particular friend never ended well, because he was the most persistent of them all. He proceeded to rip your headphones out of your ear, your annoyed glance meeting his equally frustrated one.

“Can I help you?” You groaned, reaching for them but with no success as he gave you an unimpressed look. You and Renjun were good enough friends to have learned how to communicate through facial looks, but more often than not you often found yourselves bickering for seemingly unimportant reasons.

“Why do you have to be so anti-social? You saw me walking over here. Who puts their headphones in when someone is approaching them?”

“I do.”

“Maybe that’s why you don’t have that many friends,” He grumbled, giving up by placing your headphones down and taking the seat across from you at the table. It was early morning, the air slightly brisk and the sun hidden somewhere in the clouds. You were midway through first hour, but luckily it was your senior year and you had miraculously managed to score a free first hour. Renjun happened to be one of the smartest guys you know, and had the smallest schedule possible, getting to leave campus around 2:10 in comparison to your 4:00.

“What do you want? You’re usually on your way to school at this time,” You mindlessly throw out there, sliding one headphone in your ear and leaving the other out to be courteous. You nibbled on an apple slice as you eyed your friend across from you.

You and Renjun had known each other most of your high school career. When you were tiny freshmen, you had a couple classes together, and rode the bus to and from school together. Your friendship really hadn’t sparked up until halfway through junior year, when you heard Renjun singing one of your favorite songs on the bus ride home. You don’t know where your spark of courage had come from, but at some red light you joined him at his seat- remembering his startled face still made you chuckle to this day- and said, “Seems to me like you might have some good music taste.” To figure out if that was true, you guys had spent the rest of the ride to his stop comparing artists you like. The rest was history.

Though you only had one class with him this year, you spent a chunk of the day missing him. You would never admit it to his face. But he was one hell of a friend.

“I want some acknowledgment once in a while. A text. A ‘How are you, Ren?’ I’m doing well, in case you were wondering.”

You just blinked at him, his antics not at all unfamiliar. After all, he was well known for his dramatic attitude, and it didn’t at all surprise you how he used to that to his advantage in the one class you guys had together: Theatre.

“No, but seriously. You never come this early. What’s up?”

He just sighed, looking around at the slightly vacant campus before slyly commenting, “I’m hanging out with some people this Friday and I was wondering if you wanted to join.”

“Ren, are you talking about that pizza place we were all thinking about hitting up?”

“You know about that?” He was genuinely surprised.

“I’m in the same group chat as you. And last time I remembered, we have the same group of friends.”

He rubbed his neck sheepishly before throwing out there, “You’re the least active person in the group chat. Don’t blame me for wondering whether or not you knew.”

“I have things to do. I can’t spam the group like Chenle and Hyuck half the time.”

“Okay. What do you have to do? Watch dog videos and talk on the phone with Lisa?”

“I don’t judge you so you don’t judge me, got it?” You pointed an apple slice at him, his hands raising up in surrender before losing your attention to your notebook. “So, why did you feel it was so important to come see me before school starts and tell me about this get-together.”

You glance up, not failing to see his little grin before letting himself hide it. He proceeded to announce in a funny voice, “I may or may not know that a certain someone will be joining us for the special occasion.”

“Spit it out. Come on.”

Renjun cleared his throat, pausing once more for dramatic effect. Just as you were about to reach across the table and grab him to shake some sense into him, he exclaimed, “A very tall and broodingly handsome guy who goes by the name Hyunjin told a little birdy he might be down to try a new pizza spot.”

Your eyes grew as wide as saucers. You spluttered, trying to form a sentence, but your mouth failing to work properly. Renjun stood up briskly, bowing as if he were performing before motioning as if he were quieting down an audience. “I know, I know. No need to thank me. In fact, I don’t even know how I did it. He’s usually so quiet in our math class. Kid barely smiles. Yet, when I see him with his friends he literally smiles like it’s a job. Anyways, he heard Mark and I talking about it in class and asked if he could come. Strange, right?”

“Are you messing with me now?”

“Nope.”

“You promise?”

“Geez. Ask Mark if you don’t believe me. You know he can’t lie for shit.”

“Ren,” You reached over, grabbing onto his arm aggressively. He gave you an annoyed look but didn’t say anything, “What do I do? I’m so embarrassing when I’m around him! I can’t go with you guys anymore!”

“Dude, relax. It’s not that serious. Just act like he’s one of us. Besides, I thought you said you were over your crush on him.”

You threw your head back, groaning in frustration. “Renjun! You’re so dense sometimes for being an actual genius! I had no choice. I approached him and literally embarrassed myself! He rejected me, remember?”

Renjun raised a finger in the air for his next point. “Technically he didn’t reject you.”

“He indirectly did.”

“No. He just told Mark, “Are you trying to set me up with one of your friends? Because if you are, don’t.”

“That’s telling me that I approached him for no reason and he let me down nice and easy before I decided to approach him a second time.”

“Okay. So what’s your point?” Checking the time on your phone, you just shook your head, feeling unnecessarily stressed about the entire situation. You could recognize that there was sense behind Renjun’s words. But you just couldn’t get your embarrassment out of your head. This was Hyunjin.

Hyunjin was a guy you hardly came across at school at all. In fact, it was your senior year and you only found out about his existence this year. He was cute, funny, and seemed quiet. Hence, why a pep talk from Donghyuck and Mark a few months ago had inspired you to approach him and ask him if he wanted to get to know each other better. He had agreed, and advised you to get his number from one of your mutual friends- which was Mark since they often did sports together- but much to your horror, only a couple days later, Mark had approached you and told you that Hyunjin had instructed him to stop trying to set him up with people he didn’t know. You were mortified, to say the least. A few months into the future, and here you were now, trying to avoid any interaction with Hyunjin at all costs.

Taking note of the bell ringing in under five minutes, you started packing up your stuff. Your silence seemed to tick Renjun off, and he childishly crossed his arms across the table. “So you’re telling me you’re going to handle this like a child and not come to hang out with your friends simply because you feel embarrassed?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” You stood up, feeling satisfied with that being the end of the conversation. Just as you waved at him and started to walk off to your class, you heard Renjun call, “We’ll see about that.”

Lunch rolled around that day, and you began to feel like this was the longest Monday you had ever experienced in your life. However, the last classes of your day were the most laid back- one of them being theatre- so you had hope that it would be more fun than draining.

“-And then I proceeded to whoop his ass in the next three rounds,” Donghyuck’s proud voice travelled over to your ears as you approached your signature lunch table. The way your high school was set up, half of the lunch seating area was in the cafeteria and the other half was situated outside under ramadas. Since freshman year, your group of friends opted to sit outside, no matter how hot or cold the weather could become.

“Dude, how are you going to sit there and lie to my face? You did not win those rounds in Mario Kart. First of all, who the hell plays with Koopa Troopa?”

“Me, asshole. And guess what? I kicked your ass with him!”

“Oh, shut up! I want a rematch as soon as possible-”

“Bring it on, wannabe wario-”

“Y/N! I’m so glad you’re here,” Lisa announced, drawing the attention of the others. She got up to hug you briefly before whispering, “I’m so tired of their arguments. They’re so ridiculous.”

“We can hear you, you know. We’re right next to you,” Donghyuck deadpanned, staring at her as he sipped on his chocolate milk.

She just rolled her eyes before patting the seat next to her. “It’s days like these that I wish we had classes together. Today is so long,” She complained.

You definitely agreed, reaching over and ruffling Jisung’s hair who grumbled and kept his attention on the game he was playing on his phone. “I bet this will be recorded as the longest Monday in the book of world records.”

“Hey Y/N. Where’s Ren? I need to borrow a dollar.”

“He’s working on a project in the library. He’s not eating lunch today.”

“Hyuck, you need to stop mooching off all of us. We’re not going to be around forever. Learn how to save money,” Mark pointed out, spreading ketchup across his burger. Donghyuck began scarfing down his fries, mulling over Mark’s words.

“I have money. I just leave it at home so I’m not tempted to spend it.”

“Then proceed to spend our money?” Mark amusingly said, shaking his head.

“It’s not like you guys tell me no.”

“He’s right,” Lisa said, shrugging her shoulders. Mark opened his mouth to speak, but decided against it. You just shook your head, slipping your headphones in and turning on one of your favorite playlists. You bobbed your head to the music, your thoughts trailing to other things, like a movie you recently watched and the cute boy you saw at the grocery store the other day. Your thoughts halted when you heard Lisa mutter, “Here comes lover boy and his princess.” The last word, she said bitterly, because as much as she pretended to be bothered by Jeno and his girlfriend, she actually found them adorable and just felt sad about her last relationship failing.

“Hey guys,” Chaeyoung said softly, waiting for Jeno to place his stuff down at the table before following suit.

“Hey Chaeyoung. How’s our boy doing? Is he being a pain in the ass like usual?” Donghyuck asked casually, smiling in the face of Jeno’s glare.

“You’re so annoying,” Mark commented loudly, his smile a contradiction to his words.

Chaeyoung looked genuinely confused, her eyes trailing to Jeno before looking back at Donghyuck. “No. He’s always kind and sweet to me.”

“That’s new.” Jisung speaks up for the first time, his gaze glancing up shyly over his glasses before returning to his game. Jisung was the youngest out of your group of friends, only a sophomore. It made you sad that he was going to be left here for two more years while the majority of your friends, including you, would be starting the next chapter of your lives in the upcoming months. At least he had Chenle for another year though, since he was a junior.

“Don’t listen to them. They just like to tease.” Jeno smiled at her sweetly, before shooting everyone a glare.

Lunch went on for a few moments in quiet chatter, everyone finishing up slowly and one by one. Jeno and Chaeyoung were lost in their own little worlds, Jeno taking the time to shower her in affection and spending almost every moment making her laugh. Donghyuck and Mark had their heads bowed together, looking at who knows what on Donghyuck’s phone and snickering here and there. Lisa would walk away from the table to go talk to other people then come back and talk to you for a little before heading to the vending machine and disappearing for longer than necessary. Jisung opted to read a book after getting bored of his game. This was your guys’ typical lunch routine.

“Where’s Chenle? And Jaemin?”

At the mention of Jaemin, your ears perked up, actually wondering the same as Mark about where he was at. You hadn’t seen or heard from him all weekend and was looking forward to seeing him.

“Chenle wanted to play soccer so he’s at the field right now,” Jisung quietly said, flipping a page from his book.

“I don’t know where Jaemin is. Y/N, do you know?” Jeno inquired. You two were the closest to Jaemin, so naturally one of you would typically know the answer to the question. However, you didn’t know either so you just shrugged. “He’ll show up eventually. That’s how he is,” Jeno said with finality before turning to Chaeyoung.

“Jaemin owes me a candy bar. He lost that bet on Friday, and I am expecting my damn candy bar-”

“Is there ever a moment where you’re not demanding something?” Mark said exasperatedly.

Suddenly, two hands covered your vision, and you reached up to feel them. They were soft and familiar, and you felt an uncontrollable smile grow on your lips. “Guess who,” a voice sang as you recognized it immediately. Even though he was trying to mask it by using some ridiculous high-pitched voice, you could recognize him anywhere.

“Nana! We missed you!” Donghyuck hollered, Jaemin’s presence instantly disappearing and you swiveled your head to catch him pushing Donghyuck’s arms off of him.

“Thanks, Hyuck. I missed you guys too even though I saw you this morning.” He looked down at you then, gracing you with a soft smile as he reached down and tugged your ear. That was his thing- or both your things. You don’t know when or where it started, but it was his way of saying he was happy to see you. It was never hard, only gentle, but it always made you happy when he tugged on your ear.

“Good to see your face. Today has been painfully long,” He muttered, taking the seat beside you.

“Aye. That’s Lisa’s seat.”

“You mean ‘Ghost Lisa’? Because I don’t see her sitting here now.” Jaemin silenced Donghyuck immediately, causing Mark to laugh at his priceless facial expression. You watched as Jeno and Jaemin did a handshake as a greeting, the latter flashing a friendly smile at Chaeyoung before turning to you. He raised his eyebrows at you before inquiring, “Why so quiet? You’re usually talking Mark’s ear off. Actually, I take that back. These days you’re as quiet as Mouse over here,” he gestured to Jisung by hooking his thumb towards him.

Jisung sent him an unamused look before returning his attention to his book.

You just shrugged. “Guess I’m not in the mood these days to talk.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, chewing the bite he just took of his burger before swallowing and saying, “What have you done to Y/N? You’re not her.”

You just tsked, pushing his head slightly before causing him to chuckle and shake his head. You guys sat in silence for a while, enjoying each other’s presence. Lisa came back, greeted Jaemin, then grabbed her stuff and went off who knows where. Since Jaemin was there, you didn’t really feel like listening to music anymore so you put your phone and headphones away, yet you still sat in silence.

You had known Jaemin the longest. You met him freshman year, and became friends within the three weeks you first met. He was so easy to get along with, at least you thought so. He was witty, but not in a rude way. He loved to make you laugh, and vice versa- and you two constantly laughed about the same things since you had a similar sense of humor. He was shy once in a while, but vocal about his opinions when the situation called for it. He had a way of being attentive that it felt intimate, like there was no one around but you when you were talking. He was amazing in every sense of the word, and just like Renjun, you missed him like crazy when he wasn’t around. Without him, these last four years would have been one hundred times worse.

“What are you thinking about?” He asked, his eyes flickering to you before returning to his yogurt he was currently eating.

“You,” you calmly voiced, his eyes widening at the one word. You watched as his face flushed, as he spluttered, trying to gather his words coherently. You relayed it back to how you must have acted this morning when Renjun had told you Hyunjin was joining your friends on Friday to go eat.

You reached out and squeezed Jaemin’s forearm gently before adding, “Relax. I was just thinking about what you said the other day. When you mentioned going on a small trip with your family. Like camping, right? Is that still happening?”

Jaemin had taken the time you were speaking to pull himself together, returning to his normal self. You oddly found it super adorable how randomly flustered he had gotten. He was the most composed guy you knew, at least majority of the time. “Yeah, that’s still happening. I’m leaving school early on Friday to hit the road. I sort of don’t want to go, but oh well. I’ll be back by Tuesday.”

“You’ll have fun. Don’t be bummed out.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Jaemin scraped at his yogurt cup, his thoughts overtaking his mind, it seemed, before he checked his phone and cursed. “I need to go see my counselor. I’ll see you in class, okay?”

He gathered his stuff quickly before saying goodbye to everyone and leaving. It was just like him to see his counselor every waking moment he got, and you envied how dedicated he was to the task. College was nearing in the future quicker than you would like to admit, and though you were practically jumping with excitement for graduation, you still felt the inevitable goodbyes starting to weigh on your chest. But you had almost an entire semester left, and you were going to cherish what little time you had with your friends until you went your separate ways.

“Hey, so who’s going on Friday?” Jeno said, glancing around the table. “If anyone needs it, I’ll pick you up.”

“Aren’t we going straight after school?” Donghyuck asked, confused.

“I don’t know. Who planned this?”

“Chenle.”

“And of course he’s not here. Okay, so who’s riding with me to the pizza place?”

“I will,” Donghyuck said, then added, “Lisa probably will too. Jisung, what about you?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” He quietly said, turning to you, “Are you coming, Y/N?”

“Um,” You said, looking for the words as everyone’s gaze turned to you.

“What do you mean, ‘Um’?” Donghyuck sassily asked, raising his eyebrow as if he were your mother accusing you of lying.

“I don’t think I am.”

Mark immediately looked concerned, knowing you never liked to miss out on hanging out- when pizza was involved, it was most definitely a yes from you. “Is it about money? I got you covered if it is.”

“No! It’s not that… I’m just… not feeling it?”

Everyone grew quiet, gazes being exchanged between everyone.

“What?” You asked, looking around and feeling as if you missed something.

“You? Not feeling pizza?” Jeno offered, with no emotion laced into the words.

“You’re lying. Tell us the truth,” Mark announced.

“Is Mark pissing you off these days? Is he annoying you? Because I understand then if that’s the reason you’re not going- Ow! Mark, that hurt!”

“It was meant to hurt, dumbass! Cut it out! You’re not even funny! Y/N loves me! Right, Y/N?” He said the last part, sounding hopeful and a little self-conscious.

You shook your head and said, “It’s nothing like that. And of course I love you, Mark. I just... Got a lot going on. I’m tired and I want to take the weekend to de-stress.” You’re not necessarily sure why you didn’t tell them it was because you were embarrassed that Hyunjin was coming, because you knew Mark would more or less understand and Jisung supported mostly everything you did. And you knew Jeno would probably brush it off, leaving Donghyuk to make fun of you. But you just couldn’t bring yourself to explain the situation. And the only ones who technically knew about it were Renjun, Mark, and Jaemin.

“Well, if you change your mind, let me know,” Mark said seriously before smiling and proudly saying, “Besides, we all know it’s going to be lit in my car if it’s just Chenle and me.”

“Excuse me while I go barf,” Jeno said. Mark threw a carrot at him, causing you to laugh and allow your thoughts of your embarrassment fade away.

It was your final class of the day, and you had to admit, it indeed was the longest Monday you had ever had. Of course, you were being dramatic, but now you were tired and grumpy and your last class happened to be math, your least favorite subject. However, the upside was one of your favorite people happened to be in this class.

See, you had depended on Renjun to make your class right after lunch fun, but he spent  whatever chance he got to pester you about coming on Friday, which in turn made you snap at him and cause him to give you attitude back. Eighth hour dragged on too, and here you were at your last class. Your class with Jaemin.

“Hey,” Jaemin’s bright smile directly contrasted with the tone of the day, his eyebrows raising at your grumble in response. You slid into the desk next to his, your head finding its way to the cool desktop. “You’re looking rough.”

“Because I am. Today sucked. And we have four more to go until the weekend.”

“Think of it as three. Friday never really feels like much work, does it?” You moved your head to rest your cheek on the desktop, so you could view Jaemin instead. He was looking right back at you, his pretty features quite literally knocking the breath out of you. You couldn’t fathom sometimes just how beautiful this guy actually was, and whenever you pointed it out he would just brush it off. Watching you silently for a moment, he proceeded to make a silly face and cause you to laugh, adorning a smile to brighten up his facial features.

“Attagirl. That’s better. What’s got you so down?” He asked genuinely, leaning on his hand and turning on that attentive charm that secretly you were a sucker for; you didn’t know how he did it, but he was another shade of what it means to be a friend. A beautiful friend.

“I don’t know. First off, it’s a Monday. Mondays tend to suck,” Jaemin simply hummed in agreement, “And school’s been kinda rough in general anyways. I just keep having this sinking feeling that somehow I am going to mess everything up, fail every class, my college retracts my enrollment, and then I drop out and get a job where I miserably work for the rest of my life,” You took in a deep breath after that statement, feeling oddly relieved for expressing what sounded like a ridiculous worry.

Jaemin took in your words for a moment, the minute bell ringing signalling there’s one minute left until class begins. He reached over then, gently caressing the side of your head before patting it and saying, “Y/N, I know how you are. You tend to get caught up in irrational worries. I know you’re struggling with classes right now, and I see how much your stress is taking a toll on you. You probably think no one notices, but I do. We all do, but everyone else probably won’t say something until it’s too noticeable. I’m not like everyone else though.”

He leaned closer then, your heart suddenly stopping as you unconsciously held your breath, not expecting his close proximity. His head was tilted at an angle to match your resting head atop the desk, his facial expression more serious than you’re typically used to, and his eyes immediately drew you in- not that you weren’t listening before.

“You’re one of the most resilient people I know. Don’t forget I’ve known you for four years, seen you when you’re struggling with stress and schoolwork. And you always pull through. This time isn’t any different. Keep your head up and keep it on straight,” He proceeded to tug on your ear and flash you a gentle smile, your throat suddenly feeling dry at his actions, “We’re almost at the finish line. Before you know it, we’re going to be graduating and moving on. And I know you can’t wait, because I can’t either.”

The bell rang then, seeming to signal the end of the conversation and begin your teacher’s lesson. You raised your head and directed your gaze to the teacher at the front of the classroom, your attention nowhere near the math she was writing on the board. Because for whatever reason, you couldn’t describe why your heart was racing and your throat felt so dry.

“I must be going crazy,” You whispered, feeling uneasy at the thoughts surrounding Jaemin, and why your heart reacted to that. In the end, you just decided to ignore it.

After the bell rang, Jaemin walked you down the stairs and to Chenle’s locker, waiting for the latter to meet you there and walk to the bus with you guys. You guys stood in silence, but it was comfortable as he looked around at the people walking by and you scrolled through social media on your phone.

“I heard from Ren that you’re not going to eat pizza on Friday. That’s not like you,” Jaemin said with innocence. You stopped scrolling, not feeling the annoyance that came with Renjun’s pestering. You blamed it on Jaemin’s tone and the way he executed his sentence, not because it was Jaemin himself. Definitely not because it was just Jaemin.

“It is like me. Because I plan to binge-watch some criminal show and eat ice cream for dinner.”

Jaemin tilted his head, looking at you curiously before retorting, “Yeah. I suppose you’re right. You want to tell me the reason you don’t want to go?”

You sighed. “You already know why. You don’t have to play innocent.”

“I’m not playing innocent. I don’t know your reason why. Yeah, I heard what Ren thinks is the reason. But I want to hear it straight from your mouth. And you know how he is when it comes to explaining things that upset him. It’s more complaining than about the actual situation.”

You leaned your head back on the locker you were standing in front of, cursing Chenle for walking so slow and probably chatting up Jisung about some show they’re both watching.

“Do I have to?”

He looked away from you, quiet for a moment before saying gently, “Of course not. But I think there’s more to your side of the story. And maybe you’re not as dramatic as the situation is painting you to be.”

You had to admit the situation did seem dramatic, and Jaemin wasn’t one to sugarcoat how he looked at a situation. So you decided maybe it was a good idea to confide in him and see if he thought you were overreacting. “I’m sure you know that Hyunjin is tagging along,” You waited for his nod before continuing, “Which, I mean, is totally fine. I have nothing against him personally. It is a little weird to me considering Ren and Mark don’t know him too well and just decided, ‘Hey. Let’s invite a stranger to hang out with our friends.’ But I mean, I guess Mark does know him because they played basketball and baseball together. Whatever. Point is, I have nothing against the guy. He seems cool, I guess. I just…”

“I’m assuming this is about what happened a few months ago?”

Your phone dinged, and you looked down to see a message from Chenle letting you know he was riding with Jeno today to run some errands. You let Jaemin know and you guys began your walk to the buses, replaying his question in your head before answering. “Yes. I guess that’s really it. Look, I know it might sound like I am being a big baby about it. I’m choosing my embarrassment over hanging out with my friends. But if I could control my emotions, I would. Before I approached Hyunjin in the past, I used to never see him around. And now it’s like life is messing with my head. Because I see him everywhere around school now. And he seems to recognize me too, but I just ignore him and try and get far as quick as possible. The embarrassment is unreal.”

Jaemin nodded as you talked, and you took his silence as a comfort, causing you to feel comfortable enough to continue. “I could go out with them on Friday. But I would just feel self-conscious, and worried Hyunjin would bring it up and then embarrass me more. Then Donghyuck would find out and never let go of it and I just- I don’t want to deal with it.”

You let yourself end there, because you didn’t know what to say anymore. It was quiet for a while, the bus stop nearing as you wondered what Jaemin was thinking. You peaked at him, his dark brown hair resting on his hair in fluffy strands, looking particularly bed-headish today. You took note of his slightly tired face, and wondered how he could be so lively on days where he was tired.

“May I tell you what I think is actually the problem? And you can correct me if I’m wrong.”

His words caught you off guard, not sure where he was going with this, because after all you didn’t feel any other way about it. At least, you thought. You motioned for him to continue, him proceeding to nod and collect his thoughts before continuing.

“I think… You might still like Hyunjin. Or, have a crush on him is probably a better phrase,” You gave him an incredulous look but he held a hand up as if to to signal for you to wait, “And that’s probably why you feel so passionate about not going. I know how you are. If a situation affects you emotionally, you will retract yourself from said situation. Simple as that. If you didn’t care about it, then you wouldn’t go to the extremes of being so adamant about not going.”

You immediately shook your head. “But it’s not because I’m still crushing on him. It’s because I’m-”

“Embarrassed. Yeah, I get that. But you have been embarrassed all the time around us and that has never stopped you from hanging out with us.”

“I don’t personally know this guy though. What if he brings it up in front of everyone?”

“What if he does? It’s not like you made a fool of yourself. You told him if you wanted to get to know each other. He said yes. Then he went back on his word and told Mark to not set him up with anyone. That’s on him. Why are you letting a stranger hold you back from hanging out with your friends?”

“And why is everyone pestering me about going? It’s not that serious.”

“Exactly.” He poked your temple, causing you to swat his hand away and that familiar smile to creep on his face. As you reached the bus stop, you turned to him and met his gaze, his eyebrows raising as if to ask you a silent question. He broke the silence instead, letting you know what questioning thought was plaguing him. “So you don’t like him then?”

“No.” In your head, it had sounded firm, but it sounded unsure coming out of your mouth. His face became serious, and it weirded you out, because he was usually smiling. It gave you an odd feeling in your stomach.

“If you do, there’s nothing wrong with it. It would make more sense, because then the embarrassment would be justified. And if that’s the case, then you should explain that to Ren so he stops being so annoying. You should also consider maybe going and showing this Hyunjin guy what he decided to miss out on. You’re pretty amazing, after all.” His words were nonchalant, but his face stern. That feeling that crept up on you earlier in class started to come back again, and it almost felt similar to being sick in a weird way. Your stomach flipped, watching Jaemin drone on about the situation, his words hardly registering in your mind anymore. Your throat felt dry again, your eyes traveling the expanse of his straight nose, following his dark and very slightly curved eyebrows. His hair was a bit on the messy side today, which was unlike him, but you disregarded that. He was truly beautiful. “Y/N? Are you listening to me?”

You blinked, the feeling fading away as quickly as it came.

“I hear what you were saying,” It wasn’t a complete lie. “And I guess you’re sort of right.”

“So you do like him,” He tilted his head, his eyes trailing to the pavement beneath your guys’ feet. His words sent a panic fleeting through, jumping to deny it.

“No, Jaemin- I can’t like him. I don’t even know the guy. Gosh, this is so frustrating. Why do I have to keep having this conversation? I thought you were the person that understood me the most. Don’t you think I would tell you if I actually liked him? If it’s so important for everyone that I show up on Friday, I will.”

As if on cue, the bus turned the corner and slowly made its approach.

Jaemin opened his mouth to speak, but you held your hand up, wanting the conversation to end. “It’s okay, Jaemin. You and Ren are right. It’s not that big of a deal. I’ll just pretend that nothing happened and I’ll pretend I’ve never talked to Hyunjin before Friday. It’ll be a fresh start.”

He just shook his head, a sigh of exasperation slipping past his lips. “You’re missing the point here. Of course.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? The vibe I’m getting from you is that I’m being dramatic and I should get over it and just go on Friday.” The bus rolled up then, and you were never more grateful than now. Just as you turned to climb into the bus, you caught Jaemin motioning by waving his hand over his head and uttering, “Went right over your head, of course. Unbelievable.”

And as you boarded the bus, and took your seat, watching through the window as he stalked off in the direction of his house, you couldn’t shake the nasty feeling that was left behind by the conversation you just had. And on your ride home, it was Jaemin on your mind. Unbeknownst to you, it was not the first time he was plaguing your thoughts. You couldn’t shake whatever it was you were feeling, all you knew is you didn’t like how you and Jaemin had ended off the conversation. Because that wasn’t how you guys were at all. And you hoped it wouldn’t start being like that. You were proud of your dynamic with Jaemin, and it wasn’t like you guys to end a conversation on a sour note. But maybe you were overthinking it. Maybe you were always overthinking about Jaemin, and you just didn’t know it.

It was around 11:30 that night when you received a text from Jaemin. He was saved under Minnie Mouse, because you thought you were clever as a Freshman and you never changed it considering you enjoyed how it made Jaemin cringe.

Minnie Mouse:

Hey. You up?

You:

You know I am. I’m watching a show on my phone. But I am surprisingly getting sleepy. It’s so early tho…

He didn’t respond for a few minutes. You shook the feeling off, and tried to focus on your show, but you immediately clicked the notification when he responded almost fifteen minutes later.

Minnie Mouse:

I’m sorry about earlier. I was being really intrusive, which isn’t like me. I stand by some of what I said, but the way I worded it was bad. If you don’t want to go, don’t go. Don’t listen to Ren, and don’t listen to me. I understand what you meant by everything you said, and if it were me, I’m sure I wouldn’t want to put myself in that situation either. Remember not to put your life on pause though based on your embarrassments. If that is the only thing keeping you from going, then think about it a little more before outright rejecting the idea. But you’re one of my best friends, and I don’t want you to be miserable on Friday. Again, I’m sorry.

You read it over a few times, feeling anxious for some reason. Your eyes skimmed it, continued to re-skim it before trying to type out a response. However, everything you tried to write didn’t sound right or it was awkward, so it took some time to eventually be semi-satisfied with what was written. You sent it and tossed your phone to the side, wondering why you kept replaying that moment with Jaemin earlier. Seeing his frustration. Being the cause of his frustration. You didn’t like it at all. You liked making him smile, making him laugh. You even liked seeing him flustered during lunch. You didn’t ever want to be the reason behind him being upset. You reached for your phone slowly upon hearing it vibrate.

You:

You don’t have to apologize, Jaemin. You were being yourself. You were curious about why I was being so dramatic. And everything you said made sense. Though I don’t agree with everything you said, you had a point. I did a lot of thinking since our conversation earlier. And I’ll go on Friday. I think even without talking to you, I might’ve reached this conclusion myself. Maybe I wouldn’t have… you tend to be my voice of reason when mine isn’t working. I think I just needed to take a moment and get over my embarrassment.

You:

Honestly, it was months ago. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember. And if he does, it’s not a big deal. And I do want to have pizza. I want to hang out with my best friends. I’ll just treat him like one of you guys. Be friendly. And there’s no reason for me to halt my chances of having fun just because of a cringey moment in my past. Thanks, Nana. Sometimes the sense you knock into me is one of a kind <3 Ren definitely would’ve just made it worse haha

Minnie Mouse:

It’s what I’m here for, to knock some sense into you.

Minnie Mouse:

But honestly, don’t force yourself to go if you don’t want to. What you want and what makes you happy is the main priority.

You:

This will make me happy.

Minnie Mouse:

Good. I want you to be happy.

You stared down at his text, your fingers hovering over the screen. You licked your lips in thought, wondering why you felt stuck at his words. In fact, you hardly ever had a conversation with Jaemin where you didn’t know what to say. Conversation always flowed naturally with him. Today really must have been an off day for you.

You:

Likewise, Nana. I think I’m going to get some shuteye now. Goodnight. Sweet dreams.

Minnie Mouse:

Sweet dreams, Y/N.

You prepped for bed, replaying the conversation in your head. You thought back to today in class, when Jaemin heard what you thought were ridiculous worries, but made you feel sensible. He comforted you about worries you never voiced aloud. He said what you needed to hear, and he was always good at that. He smiled his dazzling smile at you, granting you a stress reliever by the simple tug of your ear. He was incredible in every sense of the word, and you were so grateful to have him.

As you laid in bed, the last thing on your mind was Jaemin. You were too tired to notice, or perhaps it was something you never bothered to notice at all.

A couple days later, it was Wednesday and it was the dead middle of the week. A day that your friends sometimes like to utilize as an excuse for desserts after school.

“Hump day!” Chenle hollered, pumping his fist into the air as you all walked towards the parking lot.

“Hell yeah! I’ve been craving a banana split all week,” Donghyuck groaned, dragging his feet.

“You’re a banana split,” Chenle called back to him.

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Okay, who’s riding with who?”

“I’m going with Mark!” Chenle declared, dashing over to the passenger side of Mark’s small little white car.  Jisung silently followed him.

“Ride with me and Jeno?” Jaemin asked you quietly, his arm falling across your shoulders. You froze, instantly stiffening up at the gesture. You gazed up at him, a small smile curving his lips and his eyes as attentive as usual.

Your throat felt constricted for a moment, before you felt your body relax and a smile grace your own. “Of course. Is that even a question?” Something strange happened then. Jaemin’s small smile faded, his face taking on an odd look. You didn’t realize your close proximity, but his face was closer than you expected. You waited for something, anything from him, but only watched as he wiped the odd look off his face and turned his attention to Jeno, shouting at him to hurry up and kiss Chaeyoung goodbye already. His arm was still slung around your shoulders. And you found yourself too lazy to look away from his face. At least that’s what you thought.

“Hey. I’ll ride with Jeno too. So go with Mark, Ren.”

“No! I was already here!” Renjun said sassily, leaning back on the car to make a point. Lisa stepped toward him and crossed her arms. That didn’t faze him, however, and he only proceeded to straighten himself out. Their height difference was very slight, but Ren still managed to make himself seem taller as he looked down at her over his nose.

“I don’t care if you were here already. I want to ride with Y/N.”

“No one’s stopping you.”

“It would be crowded with you in here. So ride with them.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were my boss.”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose, sighing in frustration. “Why do you have to be so annoying all the time?”

He grinned. “The feeling’s mutual.”

Jaemin shook his head and stepped in, placing a hand on Ren’s shoulder. “Dude, just ride with Mark. Before you kill the vibe for everyone.”

“What?! How am I- Whatever. I don’t have the time for this,” He strode over to Mark’s car without another word, sliding into the backseat. Both you and Jaemin watched as Mark pulled the car out, Chenle rolling the window down and blasting the music, shouting, “Y/N! This is my jam! This is the song I was telling you about! I- Stop, Ren! Anyways-” By that time, Mark was pulling out the parking lot and he couldn’t shout at you anymore.

You smiled fondly, shaking your head and glancing at Jaemin who was watching you with an emotionless look. You just brushed it off, wondering where Jeno was. Lisa must’ve been wondering the same thing because she continuously kept on calling him, with no luck in him answering.

“Literally all the guys we hang out with are so frustrating! If it’s so hard for him and Chaeyoung to stop sucking faces, then bring her along!”

Jaemin responded with, “I’m not frustrating. I’m the coolest guy you’ll ever meet.”

“Sure. Keep dreaming, sweetheart,” She said.

“Wonder what’s bothering her,” Jaemin uttered near your ear, his breath fanning over your ear and over a sliver of your neck that your sweater left exposed. You looked up at him, watching him as he watched Lisa with curiosity. You started to notice just how much you stared at Jaemin these days, and you didn’t know what to make of it. You just wrote it off on being attentive to him constantly talking.

“There you are! Let’s go! I want a burger.”

Jeno jogged over, whistling and smiling like the giddy lover boy he was.

“I’m surprised your lips aren’t back with Chaeyoung,” Jaemin commented, causing you to laugh. He shot you a smile, but Jeno wasn’t too happy with the comment, leaving Jaemin locked outside the passenger seat for longer than necessary.

The ride there was relatively quick, but Jaemin kept stealing glances at you, a smile on his lips every single time. Lisa and Jeno filled the silence with their chatter and endless banter, but it was like you and Jaemin continued to have a silent conversation of your own. Whenever Jeno would say something that could have a double meaning, Jaemin would glance back at you with wide eyes, as if to say, “Did you catch that?” and you would shake your head and smile as if to say, “I did. And it was hilarious.” And if Lisa would say something weird or more than unnecessary, he would send you a, “Did she really just say that?” by raised eyebrows or a pointed look. And you would either shrug, shake your head, or just rub the side of your head in mild annoyance. But none of those moments were your favorite, no. It was the brief quiet moments. With soft music playing low on the speakers and floating in the air of the car. And the A/C blowing softly, to keep it cold enough that you weren’t freezing in your sweater. And there wasn’t any reason for Jaemin to look over his shoulder at you, but he would anyways. He would just send you a soft smile, his eyes light and carefree. The last time he looked back, when you were nearing the diner where you were to get your desserts, his lips weren’t curved with a smile. His expression wasn’t serious, but it was attentive as usual. However, it wasn’t like it usually is. He eyebrows were slightly drawn together in thought, his lips a bit pursed. His eyes scanned your face, before his lips parted and his expression relaxed. When his eyes came to rest on your own, he was shameless about his staring, and for some reason you weren’t bothered nor embarrassed. You boldly met his own gaze, holding it and letting the music travel to your ears.

No one spoke in the car. Nothing was heard but the soft music and the soft blow of the A/C. And you and Jaemin were having a conversation in a language you couldn’t decipher, but couldn’t get enough of as you let the moment wash over you. None of you couldn’t find it in you to look away, and it felt more intimate than any other time you guys held each other’s gaze. You didn’t know what it meant, but you knew that whatever it was, you wanted more of it.

Jeno spoke to Jaemin, and Jaemin answered him, glancing at him briefly before looking back at you. His eyebrows drew together again, his face more on the stern side, which was unlike him. You wondered what you looked like to him. Jeno continued talking to him, and Jaemin had no choice but to look away. And when he did, it was like you could breathe again. All you could think was, you didn’t know why you were feeling this way for Jaemin, and you didn’t know what you were going to do.

Thursday night. It was around midnight this time when you got a text from him. Lucky for him, you were wide awake. And you didn’t want to admit to yourself that it was because he was plaguing your thoughts.

Minnie Mouse:

You awake?

You:

Of course. What’s up?

Minnie Mouse:

Wondering why I procrastinate like an idiot. I’m nowhere near finished packing for my trip tomorrow.

You:

Sucks to suck.

Minnie Mouse:

Haha. Real funny. Want to keep me company?

You stared down at the text, confused. Another text came in from him though, and it made more sense, a smile uncontrollably reaching your lips.

Minnie Mouse:

By video call, I mean.

You:

Warning, I look pretty rough. After 11, I start resembling a hot mess, instead of the solid 11 that I am.

Instead of responding, you figured he signed into his account on his computer, so you followed suit. Sure enough, after you logged in you saw the little verification that showed he was online. You called him, waiting for him to answer, which didn’t take long whatsoever.

You waited for the call the connect, your heart rate picking up for seemingly no good reason. You glanced at yourself, seeing how tired and messy you looked. But this was Jaemin, and he had seen you at both your best and worst. When the call connected, you first noticed how his room was lit up by the light being on. His computer was set on top of his desk, which basically let you see a poster-clad wall that also had award plaques and shelves with books, trophies, and other things lined at the top of the wall. You could see a slit of his bed to the left and a small percentage of his walk-in closet that was cracked open with the light on in the back right corner. You always adored seeing his dark blue walls, longing for the same color to be for your room. Instead your room was a boring and dull brown.

The second thing you noticed was how even though it was late, Jaemin looked good. His hair was swept up and off his forehead, sticking up here and there in odd places but mostly in order. He was adorned in a slightly baggy black t-shirt and some gray sweats. He was leaned down in view of the camera. He smiled upon seeing you and waved, then started to move around his room, carrying things from out of view towards his bed.

“I see you at least started the process of packing,” You said, carrying your computer to your bed and treading over to your lights, hitting them, before walking back to your bed. You sat on top of your comforter, watching him move in and out of view. You spent some time in the dark using the computer screen’s light to study your nails. You altered between watching Jaemin and letting your thoughts occupy your attention. A chunk of your video call was just spent in a comfortable silence, with an occasional comment from Jaemin here and there. You enjoyed this, and you liked this time with Jaemin. As selfish as it sounded, it wasn’t often that you got to spend time alone with him. So you were going to drink it in as much as possible. It was because you enjoyed your talks with him, not because you were into him. That’s what you were telling yourself.

You glanced down at your pajamas, pulling your black hoodie sleeves over your hands

to keep them warm. You started getting sleepy, but blinked it away. You wanted to keep Jaemin company through the tedious process of packing. So you moved around on the bed, switching positions. You eventually decided on drawing your knees into your torso and wrapping your arms around your legs. You laid your head on top of your knees, slowly falling asleep.

“Y/N,” Jaemin sang, your head slowly raising and spotting his facial features close to the computer. You didn’t understand how he looked so rejuvenated as his face brightened at the sight of your face. “If you’re sleepy, you should get some rest.”

“I want to keep you company, Nana.”

He looked down in what you thought was shyness, a shy chuckle falling past his lips. He ran his hand through his hair, puzzling you immediately at how good he looked this late at night and how you never noticed that this hairstyle fit him so well.

“As much as I want you to be here with me, I don’t want to be the reason you’re falling asleep in class tomorrow.”

Your breath felt like it disappeared into thin air at his words, but you shook it off and blamed it on sleepiness. “No, I’m good. I promise.”

He just took a moment to look at you, before resting his head on his hand and puckering his lips slightly in thought. “Let’s talk then. If you’re going to stay up with me, I don’t want you to be miserable as you fight off sleep. I want to make your night.”

He said things so innocently, yet they held such strange meaning to you that you just knew would replay over and over in your mind long after the conversation ended. Something about Jaemin was changing the way you looked at things, that way you looked at him. Or maybe you always did look at him this way, it just took a bit of time for your mind to catch up to your heart. Whatever it was, you knew you were going to keep it to yourself.

“Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

Jaemin simply smiled again and the continued his packing, calling out, “So are you looking forward to tomorrow?”

“What about tomorrow?”

“The new pizza place. Hanging out with everyone.”

“Oh. That.” You actually hadn’t thought about it much, and looking back on it, you were only a little nervous to say the least. You would’ve felt way better if Jaemin was going to be there, but you would live. You figured you would just spend your time talking with everyone. “It would be better if you were going to be there. But I’ll survive. I hope the pizza’s good.”

“I heard it was,” Jaemin was quiet for a moment, and you just figured he was distracted but upon speaking again, you figured it was because he was probably thinking of how to word his next question, “So you’re feeling okay about Hyunjin being there?”

You rubbed your hands in thought, massaging them as if they held the answer to your question. Your heart jumped as you heard Jaemin zip up his suitcase then move it to the floor. You waited for him, letting him finish things before turning out his lights and getting into bed like you.

His surroundings were shrouded in darkness, his face lit up by the computer screen. You couldn’t decide if it made him look angelice or eerie, but when he graced you with another smile, you decided it was definitely angelic. He was on his side, his head in his hand. And you realized you indeed were screwed, and you were definitely crushing hard on your friend Na Jaemin.

“So. Hyunjin?”

“Right. I mean, I guess it feels just like it did right before I first approached him the first time.”

“Oh. Really?” Jaemin asked quietly, his face serious.

“Of course, it’s a little different. Considering I’m not showing him my interest in him. It just feels a little nerve-wracking.”

“I would feel the same. It’s not everyday your closest friends invite someone who you used to have feelings for.”

“That’s true.”

You basked in silence for a moment, both you and Jaemin looking at each other through the computer screens. Although you guys were a distance away from each other, in different houses and merely seeing each other through the use of technology, the moment felt as intimate as the one in the car. Maybe even more so now that Jeno and Lisa weren’t around.

“You know,” Jaemin’s voice got quieter, and you may have imagined it being a little more deeper than usual, “You run through my mind. A lot.”

Your heart rate picked up, gauging his facial expression for any signs of joking. Your mind was racing, trying to decode his words, figure out his angle, read his intentions. But it was late at night, it felt wrong to kill the moment by overthinking, so even though you may regret in the future, you decided to let the late night tired buzz take over and let you speak your mind without holding back.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one.”

He hummed, his eyes getting sleepy and his words becoming more like a lull. “It’s hard not to think about someone like you.”

You felt like your appearance directly mirrored his, but you wanted to soak in his peaceful features, so through your sleepy daze, your eyes did its usual sweep of his facial features. You thought to yourself how could you possibly not be head over heels for this guy.

“Who wouldn’t be crazy over you?”

His eyes were closed now, his breaths deep and slow. You thought he fell asleep, so you slowly moved your mouse to hover over the end call button. Just as you were going to click, you heard his soft and sleepy voice mutter, “Wait for me, Y/N.”

“What do you mean?” But he was out like a light. And you were too tired to demand an answer. So you ended the call and went to sleep.

You didn’t know what was so different about this particular Friday, but the feeling in the air was vastly different from how you felt on Monday. This day, you felt warm, filled up, and every smile felt effortless. You were dressed nicer than you normally would be at school- nothing too fancy, just a white shirt, black jeans, and your favorite boots with a jean jacket to complete the ensemble. You were wearing a necklace Renjun bought you back at the beginning of the year and your hair was up, which was unusual for you. You even had some light makeup. Your friends would probably assume it was for Hyunjin when he would come out to eat with you guys. It wasn’t for him though. It wasn’t even for Jaemin. It was for yourself.

You felt wide awake when you woke up in the morning, a feeling so foreign to you. A smile graced your lips as you picked out your outfit, as you proceeded to get ready. You were in a good mood on the way to school, when you got there, and when you sat to eat breakfast. You were happy through your morning classes all the way to lunch. And maybe it was a little because of Jaemin, but it was mostly because it felt like some weight that was previously on your chest had disappeared. Or so you thought.

“Woah, someone’s looking fancy today,” Chenle commented when you walked up with your lunch.

“Are you dolled up for someone?” Mark inquired, his curiosity imminent as he glanced up from his applesauce.

“No. Just in a good mood. That’s all.”

“Is that so? That’s weird. You’re the grumpiest person on this Earth.” Donghyuck said, earning a punch from Jisung. You smiled at Jisung before shooting a glare at Donghyuck who only muttered under his breath,

“Hey. When does Jaemin leave for his trip?” Chenle asked the table. “We have class before lunch together and he was still here.”

“He’s getting picked up right now during lunch. I’m sure he’s going to say bye then leave,” Mark informed the table. And he was right- to an extent.

Shortly afterward, Jeno and Jaemin approached the table, both their faces oddly serious. It was so strange to see not only Jaemin, someone who genuinely smiles a lot, but Jeno, the prince of smiling, with no emotions flitted across their face. Jeno had food in his hand, but you assumed Mark’s assumptions were right because Jaemin was empty-handed.

“We were just talking about you! Are you leaving now?” Chenle asked, getting up and hugging Jaemin as a form of greeting.

“Yeah, actually, I am. I just came over here to say goodbye.” You were hoping he would do his usual routine of smiling over at you and tugging your ear, but you immediately knew something was wrong when he avoided looking anywhere in the direction of where you sat at the table.

He looked painfully gorgeous today. His hair was swept up and off his forehead once again. He was wearing a button up striped shirt, the sleeves rolled up like he didn’t know the air had a chilly bite to it. It slightly confused you that he was dressed like that when he was going to camp, but you dismissed it as his outfit for school.

Everyone simultaneously stood up and began saying their goodbyes, you hanging back a little bit to be the last one to say goodbye. You were worried about the way he didn’t look at you when he approached the table, but you figured it was because his mind was on the trip, not you. You watched as he had a little chat with Mark and they clasped each other’s hands, doing a one-handed hug. Mark said something to make him laugh, but you didn’t catch what he said.

Jeno was the last one to go before you, Jaemin’s expression becoming serious again. Their voices were low, and their conversation was brief, but they still hugged. You let Jeno move to sit before you took a step in Jaemin’s direction. Hiis eyes found yours for a brief moment, his lips pursed, before he began walking backwards in the direction of the office. You froze in your tracks, your mind going blank as you realized he was leaving without saying goodbye to you. He waved slightly at you guys, hollering, “See you guys Tuesday!”

Your eyes stared in the direction he left, still staring long after he was out of view. Your friends were quiet, obviously noticing what had just occurred. You found it difficult to turn to face your friends. You told your throat to stop feeling so tight, your eyes to stop being so sensitive, and you pushed it all down. Your friends know you a little too well. As you turned to them, Mark immediately said, “I’m sure he was just in a rush, Y/N. He wouldn’t do that on purpose. Especially to you.”

But you knew better. You knew Jaemin. It was what he didn’t do that mattered. And you knew that it was completely intentional.

The moment had come, the day you had been dreading and looking forward to all at the same time. Since lunch time, you hadn’t really felt like yourself, but you pushed it all to the back of your mind and anticipated going home later that night and crashing.

Like Friday, you were walking toward the parking lot for Jeno’s car. You were accompanied by Ren and Chenle, and they were chattering about something that happened in class earlier on, but you weren’t paying attention. You couldn’t help it, but whenever your mind trailed, your brain decided to torture you and replay what happened with Jaemin during lunch.

It was so painfully obvious what it meant, and how it conveniently happened the day after what you guys had said sleepily on the video call. Not only did it hurt, it made you angry that this was the way he was addressing what you both said. You deserved more, and if he truly decided to be rude about it, then so be it. You weren’t going to let it bring you down.

Reaching the parking lot, your heart uncontrollably jumped at the sight of Hyunjin standing at Mark’s car. His stoic gaze traveled over to you and the guys, and thankfully there was no sign of recognition in his gaze. Chenle bounded over, thrusting his hand out to greet Hyunjin. You watched their exchange, and watched as Hyunjin laughed over something Chenle said. He looked nice when he laughed. You shook off the thought before getting into Jeno’s car and waiting for the rest of the night to unravel, a certain boy running through your mind.

Through the car ride, you noted how Jeno was unusually quiet, and not his usual smiley self. You connected how he was acting with the way he was during lunch and made a note to ask if was okay later, before letting your mind wander elsewhere.

Eventually you reached your destination. The pizza place, not cleverly, was called Peek-a-Pizza, and was not necessarily impressive in appearance. It was small and didn’t look busy at all, which was weird since it was relatively new, but none of that fazed you or your friends as you entered.

You quickly found a booth, your heart literally jumping to your throat when you were second to last to slide into the booth and it left Hyunjin to be the one on the outside, right next to you. You had to admit, he looked as handsome as you remembered. His hair was as dark as ink and laid across his forehead in a oddly neat way for appearing a little messy. His face was quite intimidating when he had no facial expression, and past you would have been fawning about how potentially hot he looked. He was dressed in a baggy black long sleeve and ripped black jeans. You watched through the corner of your eye as he fiddled with the shaker that held Parmesan cheese. He twisted it in his hands, his eyes trailing around the small establishment. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, his eyes found the side of your face, no expression hidden in his features whatsoever. You tried calming down your racing heart, thankful that your expression was fixed and calm. Your eyes met his, just as silent as him and waiting for his reaction.

He just snickered before looking away, leaving you perplexed and turning away. As you waited for your pizza, you chatted with Lisa and Chenle who sat across from you. Hyunjin and Mark talked mostly to each other while Jisung sat on the other side of you, which caused you to naturally strike up conversation with him.

Everything was running smoothly so far. The food arrived, and it didn’t disappoint as you all dug in, feeling hungry and satisfied with every bite. Conversation only sparked up again after people started not feeling hungry anymore. As you were grabbing another slice, your ears perked at the mention of Jaemin’s name from Donghyuck’s mouth. You hadn’t caught the beginning of the conversation, but you froze in the middle of biting your pizza when you heard what they were actually talking about.

“No, me too. I’m surprised too.” Donhyuck exclaimed, quieter than usual.

“Especially Jaemin. You know how he is. His focus is school or Y/N,” Renjun said casually. You made it seem like you weren’t listening, your head facing Lisa and Chenle, but listening on the other boys’.

“I think it’s good for him. He needs to get out there and experience life already. We’re about to graduate, and honestly I’m all for it. Dahyun is a pretty girl. And she’s funny. I think she’s perfect for him.”

“I just didn’t see this coming. I thought he told you just last week that he wasn’t interested in dating Dahyun,” Donghyuck asked, a tinge of disbelief in his tone.

“Well, his feelings must’ve changed. I’m telling you what he told me, okay? I just gave him her number and he went on his merry way. He didn’t really give me details. He just said, ‘I thought about what you said. I think I’ll go on a date with Dahyun.’”

“What about…” Renjun didn’t finish his sentence, but you felt like you were going to throw up when you saw him flicker his eyes towards you to indicate who he was talking about. Immediately their voices lowered, as if you weren’t sitting at the same table as them. You felt like you were going to cry, and you felt pathetic, but you just sat there and tried to pull it together.

“What about her?” Jeno asked.

“Come on, dude, it’s obvious. Even I see it, and I’m me,” Donghyuck offered up.

“I don’t think it’s what he wants. And her either. They’ve been close this long and nothing’s happened. He can’t wait on her forever, and the same goes for her. Maybe they’re just meant to be friends.”

You heart felt like it was ripped out of your chest by Na Jaemin, and you willed yourself not to cry like some heartbroken fool in front of all your friends. You were stuck, frozen, as you tried so hard to think about something else and not let one single tear fall. The sound of Hyunjin’s voice called your attention.

“Why did you never reach out?”

“Huh?” If he noticed your red eyes and slightly quivering lips, he didn’t say anything, and you silently thanked him as he regarded you with an emotionless look.

“You asked me if I wanted to get to know you. I agreed. And I told you to get my number from Mark. But I never got a text.”

You were blown away, absolutely astonished that he had the audacity to play oblivious. And you were already not in a good head space, so you couldn’t prevent your face and tone from hardening. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

“Does it look like I’m joking?”

“You told Mark you didn’t want him meddling in your life.” “I did.”

“So there’s your answer.”

“I didn’t tell him to not give you my number though.”

You blinked, not realizing your voice slowly began to raise, “I’m sorry, but you don’t get to play dumb in the situation. Whatever game you’re playing at, I’m not interested.”

You realized that the rest of the table had fallen silent, but you didn’t care. You opened your mouth to speak, but Hyunjin smoothly exclaimed, “Let’s talk outside.”

“Why should-”

“Because I think you need it,” He said it low enough for only you to hear. And you realized that he was indeed saving you from embarrassing yourself even further, maybe possibly even crying and making your friends upset. So before you knew it, you were stood outside with Hyunjin of all people.

You were facing the side of his body, your tears immediately falling without a foreseeable end as he kept his gaze trained ahead. He was quiet, letting you cry it out until you felt like you could calm down and stop crying. Your crying eventually turned into sniffling and then silence. It was only until there was complete silence that he spoke.

“Feel better?” He looked over at you, his face as emotionless as ever. He stood stock still, which would’ve been unsettling if it was anybody but him. It was so fitting for him. He was definitely an enigma in terms of his physical appearance.

“No.”

“Crying is usually a hit or miss when regarding your emotions.”

“Why did you help me back there?”

“I could see you were trying hard not to cry. I assumed it was because you didn’t want your friends to know. So I thought of what I could say that could get you to come ‘talk to me.’ Bingo, bringing up the big elephant between us was the answer.”

You don’t know how you managed, but you laughed at his words. He stared at you, a small quirk at the side of his lips before his deep voice filled the slowly darkening sky. The sunset glow naturally fit his facial features, but did not suit the persona he was putting up.

“You don’t have to force a laugh if you’re not happy.”

You nodded, turning your body to face the same direction as his body. You both looked out at the mostly vacant street. It was peaceful, and it was odd that out of all moments throughout the day, the moment you felt at most ease was standing with Hyunjin alone in some parking lot.

“This is odd. But not bad.”

Hyunjin quirked his head and had a grin on his lips, showing his amusement. “That’s definitely how I would describe myself.” You laughed again, glancing over at him and catching a small smile before it disappeared. Without looking at you, he said, “Whenever you’re ready, we’ll go back.”

“Okay.”

You don’t know what spurred you on; maybe it was standing with Hyunjin and being surprised that he isn’t who you expected him to be, or it was the conflicting emotions that filled you to the brim, but you impulsively pulled out your phone and typed a text that you knew Jaemin would only get when he would have service on Tuesday.

You:

Falling for you was my mistake. It’s best we forget what was said last night.

His response came sooner than you had expected- two days earlier to be exact. You came to the conclusion that he came back a day earlier, which meant that he saw your message earlier than you anticipated. On Sunday night, when you were laying in bed and heard your phone buzz, a part of you knew it was him. There was no one else who would reach out to you this late but him. You collected your thoughts as you stared into the darkness of your room, ignored your racing heart, and reached for your phone. Your assumption was right, the name Minnie Mouse lighting up your screen. Wordlessly, you clicked on the notification and read the message.

Minnie Mouse:

I’m sorry you feel that way. Thursday was… something else. But I agree It’s for the best that we forget Thursday night.

You shook your head, a painful laugh falling from your lips. You choked back your tears, wondering why you were so sad and getting angry because of it. You felt childish as you changed his name to Jaemin in your contacts, the first time in four years that it was touched. As you laid in the darkness, you couldn’t help but feel as if something had shifted between you and Jaemin. And it wasn’t good, it was the exact opposite of what you wanted. It felt like a piece of you had run off, and all you could do was sit there and put a brave face on for the spiraling situation. You were angry, because you were sure he was calm and over at his house, falling asleep without you in mind. And the saddest part was, even after what was said and done, and even though you were upset at the one person you didn’t want to ever feel this way towards, he was still running through your mind.

Falling for him was your mistake. A mistake you would secretly have to live with as he brushed it off like it was nothing.

>>> Next part <<<

[buddhasfanficdictatorship]

Fanfic Progress Update: Light at the End of the Tunnel and Going Forward (Part 2 of 2)

Part 1: Here

Sorry this took awhile get out, my lying ass said “a few days” last time, but a month is about the same amount of time... right? I’ve been busy trying to finish up a fic I wrote for a very helpful friend as a Christmas gift, which obviously isn’t late as crap now. Besides that, some unavoidable stuff came up (including having my phone containing writing notes totally crap out on me, internet issues, oh and almost becoming homeless because my landlord jacked up rent a bunch without notice, forcing me to try to sell my plasma and to scramble for money. That was fun. But that’s a whole other story).

I hope you’ll understand that real life troubles have to take priority. I know, it’s always excuses with me, sorry. I wish I could control my life and not have all this shit constantly come up too.

Okay, now that my customary pathetic excuses are out of the way let’s get down to business! First up? Fic progress updates! But PREPARE FOR AN ONSLAUGHT OF WORDS! (as if that’s anything new).

The Bonds That Never Break: The last piece of the “Birthday” chapters (which were originally supposed to be one but got split because all these issues) has had some progress (maybe 1/4 of the way) and won’t be a difficult undertaking finishing it up since I know what I want to do, but... Honestly I've hit a major roadblock with the fic beyond this point. My ideas for original stuff are coming up empty and simply rewriting the entire plot isn’t my plan (even now I think the ratio is too far skewed for canon content without enough additions of my own).

The problem as I said in my Author’s Notes of the most recent chapter is the format keeps me tied to the canon, which limits my options. I love the idea, but I can’t deny doing a faithful canon rewrite is a pain sometimes. And in the coming chapters my new ideas are pretty much nil beyond a few scattered chunks from the Konoha Crush arc to about halfway through Shippuden.

Side Note: I planned on skipping canon rewriting most of Shippuden. The fights with Akatsuki and such don’t really play into Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship and I’m not interested in doing that much extra legwork beyond the main focus of this fic. I only care about the dorks and their story and elements of the anime that deal with it. So beyond that, we’ll jump a bunch of that and go directly to the end, a new ending where they get together eventually, where everything will be new.

So me being stuck being the case, I MAY skip forward a ways to something more solidly planned and thought out, and come back later to fill in the gap. Maybe to the point after the ending where everything is my own creation so we can see the dorks repairing their relationship and just making out like they SHOULD have done from the start. We’ll see what happens. I’d be very interested in hearing reader’s opinions, maybe I’ll set up a poll to see what you you think.

I REALLY think I need to put this on hold for a while and watch the anime start to finish, to help inspire me and bring back my passion. I love these guys but over the last year and a half my interest has faded. I need to get back into the ship and reignite those feelings I first had when I started the show so I can channel that into better chapters.

The Horny Canine Boys of the Hidden Leaf Village: Having trouble with this one too. To put it in semi-simple terms, I know what I want in chapter A and chapter C, but connecting them together with chapter B is causing me issues. Haven’t started the next chapter yet (technically the conclusion to the most recent one, since I broke that up because I wasn’t finished and had gone so long without updates) but I do know what it will involve and have plenty of notes so it shouldn’t take TOO long. That being said, from there I’m not sure what to do. I might skip forward and do chapters later on in the story first since I have a clearer idea of what I want them to be. This fic is mostly porn without plot so it’s not like skipping around would matter that much, but it’s still pretty frustrating. Probably going to make a poll for this one too, to get reader’s opinions regarding to skip or not.

Dogs Keep it in the Family: Some progress on finishing up the update I cut short, mainly need to assemble all the parts and ideas together into a cohesive whole. So not too much work. The problem with this one is mainly issues of quality I have with it, content not meeting my expectations. I have plenty of notes and a few more chapters plotted out, it’s mainly just finding the occasions where I can get some good writing done. That aside there’s also a lot of questions beyond the first couple chapters of what I want to include that I’m not sure about. I need to think more about this one.

The Unorthodox Journey of a Pokemon Breeder Boy: The next chapter of the Charizard segment is roughly half way done. But I pushed this out way too soon mainly because I was so sick of it being constantly on my “To-do list” in an in-progress state during months and months of interruptions. Going forward though I’m not really sure what I want to do with it; I simultaneously have this grand vision, but an abnormal lack of concrete ideas for new chapters. I’ve had some little sparks of inspiration and prompts, but beyond that I’m just not feeling it flow into a greater idea.

Here’s my planned schedule for this round of updates. Thing’s could change, but I’ll make a notice if they do.

1. Untitled Inuyasha fic; Koga/Ginta/Hakkaku threesome. This is a gift for a friend I’ve been trying to finish for weeks now

2. The Bonds that Never Break. Last segment of the Birthday chapter

3. The Horny Canine Boys of the Hidden Leaf Village. Next half of the Dogs Will Play chapter. This one has the least recent update (and is by far my most read fic) so I might push it ahead.

4. Dogs Keep it in the Family. Last chunk of the Mother’s Stern Hand chapter

5. The Unorthodox Journey of a Pokemon Breeder Boy. Second half of the Charizard segment

Next are details of my plans going forward. It’s lengthy (it’s ME after all) but important so I’d recommend checking it out. Long story short: After updating each of my current fics, I’m temporarily switching over from the large projects above to one-shots for a time.

But I’ll still be writing and I’m not dropping any of those big fics! I just need a break from the intensive work they require.

On to other matters. If you’ve read my other insanely long updates (if you have you’re a trooper) you’ll know I haven’t been having a great time for a long while. If not, check Part 1 or older Progress Updates for more info. Long story short, I’m completely worn out from endless months and months of bullshit. Even though its FINALLY quieted down now, I still need a break.

You might say, “But you’ve been on hiatus for months!” That was because I could never get a night without fist fights or drunk parties or literal death threats being screamed all hours. That hiatus was because I couldn’t focus, because I was in a stressful situation and had no real alternative.

Now I’m saying I need some mental health time, a break from scrambling between fics that went without updates or had half finished chapters as compensation for that utter nonsense, trying to catch up and failing to get back to normal because of it. I went straight from that atmosphere into rapidly trying to get everything back up to speed, never taking a breather and celebrating my freedom. I need to take a few steps back and gather myself, actually breathe easy without fears of drunk assholes trying to break in to people’s apartments, before I jump back into things.

Because of all that crap, I had to make do with putting out lazy and poorly constructed work. It made me feel like a shitty writer and that I was letting readers down. I can’t express how awesome people who stuck by patiently waiting for updates, understanding I wasn’t in a great place, really are. But not doing my best made me feel like I wasn’t meeting expectations of people who had been so nice. Yes it’s just fanfiction, maybe I’m getting dramatic, but still.

I’m so sick of putting out half-assed or incomplete chapters and fics. Rushing from one to another, scrambling to make updates that aren’t complete or as polished as I would like, leaving this trail of disappointment behind me. I look at what I’ve produced lately and I’m just so deeply unhappy with the quality. Most of that was the horrible situation I was in, but now it’s my haste, like I’m trying to do 5 things at once to catch up now that things are okay and none end up great. I appreciate dearly readers supporting me and being understanding all this time. But when you KNOW you can do better and aren’t meeting your own expectations it’s very frustrating. I take my writing, even if it IS only fanfiction, seriously. I feel a commitment to making the best chapters for people who enjoy what I do.

These big projects are so exhausting, so much work tweaking them just right. All the effort and time I spend has just worn me out. It’s gotten to the point that I’m starting to resent working on them, it feels like an obligation. I rush through stuff trying to make everyone happy and in the end my work suffers. It’s tough to make good stuff when it feels like a chore. And that’s never a good mentality to have when writing. I’m not doing my best work when it’s not fun.

Add to that the fact that my notes are an ABSOLUTE CLUSTER FUCKING MESS. Bits and pieces of stories saved in Google Docs, on my phone, and written in spirals, scattered everywhere. There are things for both Canine Boys and Bonds that I didn’t write down when I was breezing through work that I have now forgotten in my haste to churn out dwindling chapters and struggle with all the bullshit that had overwhelmed my life. That’s a big problem.

For example. In Canine Boys I know what I want to do with chapters 5 and 7, but my notes on 6 are paltry and I have since forgotten what I wanted to do. Problematic, even if it is just porn.

And there are pieces to the planned ending of Bonds that are hazy and difficult to remember because of the time that has passed, mental stress, and lack of organization. I need to get things in order first thing.

No joke, when I look at all my future plans and mess of notes, sometimes I get micro-panic attacks. Because there’s just SO MUCH to do, SO MUCH I need to plan and write, and oh god what did I forget this time, ugh I can’t figure out how to move on and do the next chapter, I can’t remember what good thing I planned for this and I’m disappointing my readers!!! ect. It’s truly overhauling sometimes. And it’s not pleasant or an effective way of writing. I need to get this mess sorted out, lay back and have some brainstorming to fix all those plot and continuity issues.

As if that wasn’t enough, my phone had loads of good things saved on it, ideas for both Bonds and Canine Boys that were GREAT and necessary to moving the stories forward. Well a few days ago it totally crapped out and I can’t access it. Losing the notes saved on my phone has left me pretty bummed. It’s like a knife in the heart. Because I had SO. MANY. GOOD. IDEAS. ON. THERE. And the thought of them just gone makes me just want to give up because I worry I won’t ever come up with something to match and replace all that was lost.

So yeah, I need to take a step away from these big works. All that being said, I’m not on hiatus anymore. More like semi-hiatus. I’m taking a break from “serious” writing, from these huge projects (all 4 current fics would count) and switching over to some smaller one shots in the meantime. I need time to recoup and rest and actually celebrate my newfound peace and quiet without deadlines. I want to work for a while with worrying about timely updates or letting readers down with quality issues. I’m going to take a breather, regain my confidence, organize my disaster notes, and come back strong, RATHER than keep limping along as I have been.

SO, once I make one more update to each of those 4 fics, I’ll be putting them off to the side for a while and focusing on simpler one shots. Hopefully people will check those out too, it’s still me and my style, just smaller (and a friend joked that I don’t do small projects. A one shot for me is like 10-20k words).

After these updates, which in all honesty won’t be my greatest work, not that I’ve been excelling for a while, I am DONE doing shoddy unfinished work. No more.

Once these chapters are out I’ll be shifting to one shots for a temporary cool down so I can gather my thoughts and organize my ideas. This should mean when I come back to these the quality is better, my inspiration is restarted, and I can get back on track writing fluidly instead of struggling.

I have no idea how long this period of smaller works could last. I would estimate anywhere between 3-9 months, since I want a more long term period of separation. Too much focus and worrying has made dealing with them tedious, I just don’t want to have to worry about them for a bit.

As you can see from teh Future Ideas section of my Masterlist I have LOOOTS of ideas. A good number of WIPs were recently inspired by my friend Ren and his beautiful, dirty mind. No I am not working on all those works in the Future Ideas at the same time, this is just a list of ideas that have popped into my head over time. Some may eventually be dropped if I can’t work them properly, but I do have a good chunk of progress already done on a number of those, while others have a few paragraphs written, and some are pretty much a premise and a few sentences.

Do not expect all those to be finished soon. This is a VERY VERY long term look at my plans. Like, over the few years or more probably, knowing how slow I write and how annoyingly perfectionist I am. I will likely shift priorities around between all these as new ideas inspire me or old fics require attention, but from now on I plan on trying to focus the bulk of my attention on 2 or 3 projects at once. Sort of like an assembly plant; one fic in pre-production, one in the process of being built, and one getting the final touches. That way I can churn things out more efficiently. I think that's a much better way to balance all my fics than rushing to and fro manically.

DO NOT WORRY! Just because I have all these future plans doesn’t mean I’m abandoning any of my current fics; Bonds that Never Break, Canine Boys, Dogs Keep it in the Family, and Journey of a Pokemon Breeder Boy will still get attention and I have plenty of thoughts, notes, and plans for those going forward. This list of fic ideas is just a glimpse into my thought process and future plans, in addition to somewhere I can keep readers updated with my priorities (I’ll make updates here as well).

I know what you’re probably thinking. “Oh great, more fics you won’t update on time.” Or “Perfect, the one I like is being pushed aside by this new stuff.” Remember this semi-hiatus is only temporary. Most of the ideas I have in mind are one shots. And they aren’t as intensive as my current works, they’re a much needed break so I can refocus and collect ideas for the major projects. I’m not abandoning ANYTHING, NONE of my fics are getting dropped. I’m just taking a more long term view of things so I can stay in shape.

I’m deeply sorry if some people don’t want to deal with that and jump ship, I completely understand your frustration. I fully expect to lose some readers, much as that pains me. But most importantly I need to do what’s right for me.

There’s a saying, “The candle that that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” I’m at that point. I don’t want to burn bright with a few good chapters and end up burning myself out before really finishing anything.